Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 26th, 2020

[Herbert Lehr]

Sure I can.

We had entered into a long-term agreement with the province to create some of the sustainability, but the real agreement with the province had to be around creating some businesses and trying to ensure that we were more economically viable and making the money ourselves versus going to the province. A lot of our settlements got into oil and gas ventures, and of course, as you all know, the oil industry dried up in Alberta and the majority of these companies have now gone bankrupt.

With the province there was an agreement we had that we were supposed to talk about the co-management agreement and we were supposed to look at increasing revenues from that component. We never got to that part of the agreement with the province, not yet. We've asked for them to put it back on the table, but the moratorium on oil and gas right now doesn't help. They were concerned about other countries coming in and buying up all the reserves, so they put a moratorium on it.

As for other businesses, we had logging in some of our communities. All these types of ventures have dried up, and we're in a real pickle. Of course, with Alberta leading the way with the number of people with COVID, it's a very scary situation.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Yes. It's COVID, on top of an economic meltdown that we've been facing in Alberta long before COVID showed up.

For some of the new committee members, could you explain what's unique about the Métis settlements—how many there are, and where they're located?

[Herbert Lehr]

Thank you very much. Three of those settlements happen to be in your riding, so you're quite familiar with them. We're spread across Alberta, mostly in northern Alberta. We have four in the western part of it and four more in the eastern component of it.

There were 12 Métis settlements. They took back four of them, and we ended up with eight communities. These communities are similar to reserves. The vast difference between us is that we're taxpayers. We've always been taxpayers, but the land is held under fee simple title, the same way that the first nations land is held under fee simple title, so your net worth doesn't go up on any improvements you make to the land. The members are way more culturally attuned than, I would suggest, a lot of other Métis because we have to live that way of life. We choose to live that way of life. Our peoples speak quite fluent Cree in different dialects, depending on where they're from, and there has been more retention of the language in our communities historically. Lately we're showing more loss of the language.

These communities—for the most part, the majority of them—have very poor cell and Internet reception, similar to other remote places. The community I'm from, Fishing Lake Métis Settlement, is about 45 minutes from any town. It doesn't matter which way we go; in three different directions, it's about 45 minutes to an hour to get to a town. For the most part, we've been labelled as the same as the reserve. To be honest, they thought the settlement boys and girls were all first nations.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you for that description.

I've been able to tour a number of them. One of the Métis settlements suffered a pretty damaging fire over the last couple of years. Could you give us a bit of an update on that?

[Herbert Lehr]

I sure can, and thank you very much.

The community that he's referring to is called Paddle Prairie Métis Settlement. It's the largest settlement that we have. It's 16 townships of land, around 600 square miles. It had a fire that came onto it called the Chuckegg Creek fire. I may not be correct in my numbers, but I believe it burned around three-quarters of the trees on that land.

Those trees were worth over $2 billion. A lot of them were trees from our reforestation projects. The community had expended a large amount of money. They were looking out for their future by planting trees that they could log later on. They lost 15 houses in that community.

All of our communities are the same. There are very few homes that are insured, because the cost of insuring the homes is atrocious. This community is approximately 12 hours from Edmonton. We have our meetings in Edmonton, so they have to come all the way to Edmonton to meet with us when we meet as a collective. The people have been put in new homes. The Métis Settlements General Council took its own money and passed on $3 million to rebuild those homes, and we had hoped to recoup that money from either the provincial or federal government disaster plans. To date, we have not recouped anything.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I'm sorry to interrupt. Thanks very much, Mr. Viersen and Mr. Lehr.

We go now, for six minutes, to Ms. Damoff.

Pam, please go ahead for six minutes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thanks a lot, Chair. Thank you to all of our witnesses for your very helpful testimony tonight.

Chief Yakeleya, I'm going to start with you. You published a book of Dene medicine and on-the-land healing resources for Dene communities. You also spoke earlier about getting funding for land-based education. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about whether your guide has encouraged and inspired more Dene to go back to the land. Could you also address the importance of being on the land during the pandemic for both physical and mental health?

[National Chief Norman Yakeleya]

Hello?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Yes, you're there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Go ahead.

[National Chief Norman Yakeleya]

Thank you. My son is not here. He just gave me instructions: “One, two, three, Dad.”

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

He's a smart boy.

[National Chief Norman Yakeleya]

Yes.

Thank you very much for a very powerful question, and I want to thank the previous speaker from northern Alberta. Certainly we understand.

We wanted very much to say that within the Dene culture and tradition, for guidance and for direction and support in our way of life, when we knew that COVID was coming into Canada and we started to monitor it in March, as the Dene national chief, I went to my elders. I talked to an elder and said that this sickness was coming upon us.

The elder said, “Kah. We heard about it in the past and we know it's coming.”

I asked, “What shall we do?”

He said, “I'm glad that you've come to talk to me. I will tell you. We heard this in the past from our elders. We were told to go on the land, and that's the only place we are going to be safe. When you go back to the land, you will learn your medicines, you will learn your way of life, you will learn to live in a healthy relationship with your families and your children, and you'll learn how to be a person again.”

It's not something I wanted to happen, because living on our land is very tough. It's wintertime. After a week, however, I had to follow what the elder said, and we pushed a strong initiative to get our people on the land as much as possible, and we have been very successful.

The federal government really supported this initiative with the ministers and put direct funding into our communities to get people on the land.

Part of the whole thing about this is that our land holds all our medicines. We are mindful and respectful of the medicines used in western society through the hospitals, but our elders also told us that there are medicines on our trees and in our animals and that we need to learn.

Part of the imitative we undertook was to have a project about compiling the medicines from all over the different regions in the Northwest Territories. We put it together with the elders and the researchers and compiled a book about helping us use our own medicines for COVID-19.

For the second phase, which we're in right now, we will receive $40,000 from the federal government to do some more work. The real work will begin when we go into our regions and specifically ask the elders about our own medicines. The elders are very sacred in regard to teaching and keeping it among ourselves, but we said we want to share this with our indigenous brothers in Canada. That's very powerful.

The other matter we wanted to talk about was education. We need to train our young people with education to live on the land. That is why we pushed strongly to support the education initiative on the land.

Also we are working on the wellness treatment model on the land, but haven't received money or much support from the federal government for it. We have issues of addictions—alcohol and drugs—and of providing wellness for our communities to keep them safe.

In a nutshell, we're following the guidance of the elders and are encouraging our communities to use as much support as possible through Nutrition North and the harvesting program and the government support for us to get our people on the land.

At the same time, we are maintaining some safety for some of the elders in our communities who aren't able to go on the land. We want to use this opportunity to get fish from the lakes—

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Could I interrupt you just for a second? I only have 30 seconds left.

[National Chief Norman Yakeleya]

Okay.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Is one of your recommendations that the federal government should fund land-based addictions and wellness programs that you're not getting funding for?

[National Chief Norman Yakeleya]

That's music to my ears, and that's what we're pushing for—core programs. Thank you.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Pam, thank you; I'll move your 10 seconds over to our next speaker, and that is Madame Bérubé.

You have the floor, Madame Bérubé, for six minutes. Please go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses who are joining us virtually this evening.

My question is for all three witnesses.

Have your communities been consulted about what you needed to prepare for the second wave?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Go ahead.

[Herbert Lehr]

I'm sorry; who was she asking?

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

This is for all three witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Chief Yakeleya, go ahead first, please.

Would you please repeat the question, Madame Bérubé?

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

Have your communities been consulted about what you needed to deal with the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic?