Haawa. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My Haida name is Gaagwiis. I'm Jason Alsop, president of the Haida Nation. Thank you for the invitation to speak to the committee today.
As president of the Haida Nation, I speak from our experience with COVID-19 on Haida Gwaii, and want to share a bit of our experiences and some recommendations in response to the second wave.
First and foremost, what is really important in our response is that when we're responding to the health and well-being of our people and all the people in our territory, there is a recognition of the inherent title and rights in the whole territory that we're responsible for looking after, as well as everybody who lives within it.
One of the most important things identified by the BC Centre for Disease Control on its website is the need for intergovernmental co-operation and coordination. In our experience, we found this to be effective and something that needs greater support in order to support the individuals who have to carry out this work of bringing together all the different jurisdictions.
We have our territorial governance, our band council governance and our municipal neighbours. Many of us share resources and travel between each other's communities. There is provincial jurisdiction, health authority jurisdiction, as well as federal jurisdiction. That underscores the need for co-operation and greater support for those who are bringing people together and reducing the risks by cutting out gaps.
With that, we should include emergency response training for everybody to ensure there's capacity to share the workload and prevent burnout. Many in the small communities wear many hats, and are asked to do a lot. This includes communication efforts. It takes a lot of work and effort to align and share communications for the business community and organizations in order to work together to better respond and better support one another. All of this takes great energy.
There's also the need for personal supports to households and individuals to make sure they can access Internet and connectivity, as some may not be connected. It's an additional cost in order to provide support for accessing Internet and cellular data, as well as the ability to have laptops and computers, which many don't have in our communities.
It's really important to find a way to approach the pandemic on a territorial basis, not just at a community level, and not have our communities feel locked up and put on a reserve. We're able to work federally, provincially, with our indigenous jurisdictions and with our neighbours with whom we share communities and resources.
In terms of opening in a safe way, we need to look after our elders and most vulnerable and provide as much support as we can to ensure they can still be active members of the community. We need to support local and regional measures that indigenous governments, working with others, can implement.
Here on Haida Gwaii, we put in a 14-day isolation requirement for those coming to the archipelago, and that requires great support and coordination. We think it's important to have permits, registration systems and travel declarations that allow people to provide consent for those who wish to enter the territory in a safe way and set the expectations. There's a lot of interest in rapid testing, so we need to work together on having that available if there's a willingness to open in a safe way.
For resiliency in equitable and sustainable recovery plans, it's important to find ways to reduce our dependence on outside sources, and continue to create self-sufficiency for indigenous nations and communities. This includes food security supports for growing food, and continuing to support traditional harvesting, hunting and fishing opportunities, as well as processing, bulk buying and purchasing power to reduce the cost.
In our remote island setting, through our essential work permitting process, we have realized the amount of reliance there is on outside professionals, essential workers, nurses and trades. If we can implement training programs and ways to stop those gaps and that leakage, we can become more self-sufficient. As well, we can invest in housing and infrastructure, clean water, trail networks and other opportunities for people to get outside and be active in a safe way and balance their mental and physical health. We can continue to look forward to our future opportunities to come out of this pandemic and adapt and evolve in this new world and new reality.
I have much more to share, but I think in terms of my first six minutes I'll stop there.
Haawa.