Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 4th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I'm sure this discussion is going to be picked up. If there is anything that is missed, and if we don't hear it come back again, you can certainly submit more written information to our committee.

Thank you for that.

[Merlyn Recinos]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I now invite Chief Joseph to go ahead for six minutes.

Chief Roberta Joseph, welcome.

[Chief Roberta Joseph, Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation]

Good day.

I would like to thank you all for the opportunity to present on behalf of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in to today's committee on food security in northern communities, as this is a key priority for Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in.

Food security is a growing concern in our northern community. Having access at all times to fresh nutritious food is crucial to the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in culture and physical well-being. Our elders have advised us about the importance of ensuring adequate food supply and the possibility of future scarcity.

Yukon first nations have taken steps to address these concerns, including the establishment of community gardens and farms. The Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in general assembly provided direction to its council to address issues associated with food security, including the development of sustainable local food production and ensuring that aboriginal rights to traditional foods are respected and maintained.

Nearly all of the food sold in Dawson stores, including perishable items, are shipped to our community by transport truck. The lengthy drive to Dawson City from major distribution centres in the south, often 35 or more hours away, adds a considerable cost to groceries. The increased prices for food are often a hardship for our first nation citizens, especially those living in marginal circumstances. The guarantee of supply is also tenuous, as illustrated by a highway washout in 2012 that severed supply routes to the Yukon. Fresh produce was not available in stores within hours of the highway closure, as people stocked up in anticipation of lengthy supply disruptions.

Less appreciated is a diminishing supply of traditional foods and impacts on the first nations way of life. Food security in Canada is also defined through a western lens and measured using economic indicators. More specifically, one's ability to purchase food is the sole determinant of food security. This measure, however, does not account for the importance of traditional foods and medicines. The diet of first nations people in the Yukon relies on the access to healthy populations of fish, caribou, moose and birds. Harvesting this wildlife involves traditional practices integral to our sense of self and maintenance of culture.

While our people have had access to abundant numbers of wildlife for millennia, that supply is no longer guaranteed. Recently, plummeting chinook salmon stocks have meant several years of voluntarily forgoing harvest of traditional food, and chinook are now listed as a species of concern. Not harvesting salmon has meant the abrupt termination of a cultural practice that survived untold generations.

Climate change and encroaching development is also impacting migration patterns of wildlife, including caribou, which has led to disconnect between Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in citizens and traditional harvesting practices. Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in council has lent its voice to efforts aimed at limiting development in both Alaska and the Yukon that would impact those migratory patterns.

At the direction of our citizens, the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in established a working and learning farm to ensure food security for our citizens and the greater Klondike community. We built the farm with financial assistance from the Canadian government and developed culturally sensitive agriculture training with Yukon College. The initial cohort of students included 18 Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in citizens, including a significant number of youth and vulnerable individuals.

Our efforts were also recognized with substantial investment from the Arctic Inspiration Prize that was used for the construction of a three-season greenhouse. The farm is steadily increasing its capacity to supply local produce and meats. Feeding our community is a great source of pride for our first nation. We are hopeful this farm will become as integral a part of our culture as fishing and hunting game has been since time immemorial.

In conclusion, the rivers and the forests of hundreds of kilometres in either direction of Dawson City have sustained the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in for millennia, but a changing world and quite literally a changing landscape have meant adapting to ensure adequate food supply.

There are still many questions about what the future might bring, including how food will be transported to our community as petroleum-fired vehicles are phased out. Ongoing federal financial assistance for our farm and other similar first nations operations is crucial, as is a commitment from Canada to honour its national and international obligations with respect to first nations right to access, use and benefit from a safe and healthy food environment.

I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity today, and I appreciate all of the presentations that have been provided.

Mahsi cho.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

It's our pleasure to hear presentations such as you just made, Chief Joseph, and from our Arctic Fresh guests as well.

Now it's time for committee questions. I have Mr. Schmale, Mr. Battiste, Madam Bérubé and Mr. Cannings.

Jamie, are you okay to go?

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I am.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our witnesses.

Chief Joseph, maybe I can start with you. You talked about the changing landscape. It seems in some cases that we're looking at transportation as a major issue. Is there any discussion in your community or even in the territorial government about deepwater ports to help with shipping access?

[Chief Roberta Joseph]

Unfortunately, we don't have availability for deepwater ports. We have the Yukon River, which freezes up every winter. The Yukon River is a lengthy river, the longest in northern Canada. It goes through Alaska and into the Bering Sea, so it's quite extensive.

The other port that's near the Yukon is Skagway, Alaska. I guess it makes it more complicated to ship from another country. We haven't had discussions about that with the Yukon government. We've had discussions with regard to transportation and ensuring there are emergency measures in place should something disrupt the transportation process into the Yukon. There are times when emergency measures can't be taken quickly enough. That's something we'll have to take into greater consideration within the emergency measures process.

Thanks.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you very much, Chief Joseph. I appreciate that.

Perhaps I'll quickly jump over to the Arctic Fresh group.

I want to continue the conversation about keeping money inside the community and providing that economic opportunity to citizens. Can you talk a bit about what you were just closing on, the work you're doing with the Canadian Space Agency to help with food access?

[Merlyn Recinos]

Thank you.

We are working with this [Technical difficulty—Editor]. We started with a program in Cambridge Bay, where we're building capacity for individuals, with the arctic research station in Cambridge Bay, for the growth of vegetables. We have actually developed it further. As you know, they have launched what is called the “Deep Space Food Challenge”, which is about how we use technology to innovate food production in harsh climates. It's potentially to be done in space, but the testing is done on earth so it can have a significant impact as well on our human population.

We are working with them to see how we can utilize technology from around the world—because the challenge is open to the world—and incorporate it into what we already have here. We hope to be able to return that food autonomy to our communities so they can grow, harvest and process their food and create jobs as they're doing it. If you bring a vegetable or meat from the south, it creates jobs in those places, but the jobs it creates here are low-paying ones.

How do we create better jobs within our community? That's about building capacity and utilizing the systems and innovations to be able to create it.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

What about the processing capacity? Obviously it's quite low, but you're right about the jobs down south. Are too many rules, regulations and red tape stopping somebody—even a co-op or whatever structure you want—from opening up a processing plant, whether it be for meat or otherwise, in the north?

[Merlyn Recinos]

No. As I said, we have developed the feasibility as well as the business plan for it. The biggest thing was to get a health-certified processing place. It has to be certified for us to be able to process the food. What we have done is look at modules. The self-container storage module is really as much as we need. If the community is big, you would potentially have two processing modules. If the community is small, you would potentially have one processing module.

One of the biggest issues is infrastructure. Infrastructure is costly in the north. For someone to invest in this, they would require a very strong commitment. We need them to make that commitment, though, if our end goal is to be able to fight food insecurity. Now we're doing it in two ways: We're creating local food at a reduced cost, and we are also creating jobs within the community.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Is there any look towards—and probably your group is already looking at this—large-scale greenhouses or something like that, to grow vegetables year-round and try to help stabilize that market?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Very briefly, go ahead.

[Merlyn Recinos]

Thank you.

Yes, we have looked at it. To be honest with you, the large-scale greenhouses don't make too much sense because our community is small and the cost of transportation to other communities is too high. What we have looked at as well is a modular greenhouse that would allow us to expand it or retract it as the community needs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Battiste is next for six minutes.

Jaime.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to start off with Arctic Fresh. One thing you mentioned was that there are not a lot of solutions being mentioned, but you did have a unique idea, which I heard. You mentioned the importance of establishing an economy through micro-businesses.

Can you tell me how that is different from the way co-ops work, and why this is a best practice that the government should consider?

[Merlyn Recinos]

The co-ops work in a system where the whole thing is to create revenue for the community, for the owners, at the end of the day. Most of this system is not managed or run by the owners. They purchase, they pay and then at the end of the day they receive a patronage if the system is well run.

The difference between that and a small economy is that you, as an individual, your livelihood, is invested into this micro-business, so you want it to be successful. Not only that, but you have the autonomy to make decisions in regard to how and what you want to do within your business.

We're building capacity right now. We've helped 15 small businesses to open across Baffin Island, and we're doing this by teaching them how to properly run a business on the ground. We're supporting them with logistics. We're supporting them with everything else. Now they're running their own businesses, and it's about their investments into them. The biggest thing they talk about is how they want to make something for their community, but also for their kids. The investment is bigger and they take ownership of it and pride in it, versus a system where it's tailored and layered out so that they purchase and they get patronage, but they have very little in between.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Can you expand on that a bit and tell me if you believe that it's just a matter of communities supporting each others' economies that would help the food security, or is there more to this solution? Feel free to elaborate on it, because I find it interesting.

[Merlyn Recinos]

I'll give you a quick example.

Right now, let's say that you have $100, and you want to go and buy a coffee cup at the co-op. You go and buy that coffee cup at the co-op and you pay the $100. The co-op, let's say, makes $20 on the coffee cup. The remaining of that is shipped down south. Now, what the co-op does is reinvest that and hire a few people here and there.

With the micro-businesses, let's say, you have that $100 and you go and buy it from a micro-business. You give that person $100. They're going to need clothing. They're going to go to the clothing micro-store to buy it. Now you have rotated that money and you have created an economy.

As many times as you can get that $100 to go around the community, you're creating that economy. You're giving them an opportunity to really gain that employment. They're in control of it, so they're the ones who are deciding.

It plays at how we get people into the paying system or the wage economy—but on their own terms.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Do you think that would remedy the fact that there are a lot of inequalities in how much things cost up north? You're still dealing with higher rates and higher prices, but you're still, I understand, spreading it out.

Does that mean it solves the challenges facing food security?

[Merlyn Recinos]

It does, in a way.

When we look at food security, a lot of times we look at food. We don't think about everything else that is part of food security. When we dive deep into the acknowledgement of food security, it's not just about the food. It's about the wages, the employment.

I'll give you a quick example. Housing is very expensive in the north. Why is that? It's because most of the people who are building those houses in the north are coming from outside our territory, which then increases flights, accommodations and meals for all of the people who are here. You take the housing, which potentially would cost you, let's say, $150,000, to about $250,000 because now you're paying for flights, you're paying for accommodations and you're paying for meals.

By doing this locally and creating those local economies, you're then able to lower that cost of housing, but also keep as much money as you can within your community. By doing that, you have created more employment and you have created more wages that are able to be spread around the community.

Like I said, going back to food security, it's a really complex term. When we look at it, we have to look at it with a complex view.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Given the unique market you operate in, are there specific areas in which government policies could be put in place that would support your work?

[Merlyn Recinos]

There are many things. We talked about the nutrition north program. We struggled very heavily with nutrition north at the beginning. In the way it was done, nutrition north is really created for large retailers. It's not really created for the people. It's not created for the small retailers. It's created for the large retailers.

Also, there's opportunity for funding more harvesting support programs that are able to bring more economy into the communities. As for infrastructure, most of the previous people have talked about it, so I don't want to repeat, but that investment goes into the community and its people—not so much the retailers and their people, but the community itself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

Madam Bérubé, you have six minutes. Please go ahead.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions are for the representatives from Arctic Fresh.

Earlier, you said that you were fighting food insecurity and that you had an online store. You also talked about the different levels of food insecurity.

Could you elaborate on that?