Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Dec. 1st, 2020

[Christopher Sheppard]

We have such a long history of working together, but oftentimes, we aren't there in the on-boarding, the development, the creation or the design, which can be extremely problematic when you're trying to measure impact or even to have impact. If you read the statements I've made to a committee, I almost always say that we welcome the opportunity to work with you and to bring our experience. I still genuinely feel that there are so many opportunities that go missed with urban organizations, and not even just our own. We're on the ground making those connections with other indigenous organizations or others—literally anyone who will work with us—just to make it more efficient.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you so much, Mr. Sheppard.

Ms. Blaney, you're the final questioner for this round. Please go ahead for two and a half minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Sheppard and Ms. Formsma. I'm going to come back to you again, Mr. Sheppard.

I just think about when COVID first came out. A lot of nations on reserve were calling me in heartbreak because they had people who were living off reserve calling their office who didn't know what to do. They were calling asking where to send their folks because of course they didn't have the resources to send—in some cases, quite a distance away—to support people. I want to recognize that.

When I hear you talking about this jurisdiction debate about who you belong to anyway, we know when that discussion happens that people are falling through the cracks. Could you talk about the impact, but also the impact on front-line workers and leaders within your organizations across the board and the burnout they must be experiencing, not only because of the pandemic but because they are always in this place of bringing another proposal, and the uncertainty?

[Christopher Sheppard]

In Saskatchewan I can speak to specific examples, because they did surveys with their members at the beginning of the pandemic and in the middle of the pandemic, and the surveys are ongoing throughout just to accurately tell the story of what it's been like. I remember one of the most heartbreaking comments I read in one of the narrative portions was made by an executive director with 47 years of experience in running a centre in northern Saskatchewan. Her only comment was, “I wish I retired in January”.

If you imagine the last 47 years of Canadian history and what that woman has worked through and for, yet this was the thing, this was the moment, that broke that woman, trying to survive COVID and provide support to her community.

If I can be very personal, to me it's extremely difficult to sit in front of the committee and bring testimony when you know for a fact that we have Jordan's principle. Why is there any jurisdictional wrangling around whose responsibility people are when we have legal precedents on putting aside jurisdictional issues and making sure the right things just happen? It's not like we don't have templates for what we need to do. It's just that in this moment everyone is uncomfortable saying the truth, while at the ground level I have executive directors who are self-isolating themselves because they've been serving food with inappropriate PPE because no one else would.

Most of our centres are still open while other people are working from home. The reality I live every day as the president of that is trying to tell the story that when you get testimony from people and you get recommendations from people, we need to see at some point that it comes with action.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks, Ms. Blaney, and thank you to all of our witnesses. This has been remarkable, profound testimony that I know will show up prominently in the work that our analysts will do in preparing a report, and then we will do as committee members in dealing with the draft of that report and making recommendations to go forward.

I really appreciate all of you. It's been an exceptional day, in both of our panels today. Thank you so much.

That brings to an end this meeting of the indigenous and northern affairs committee. The meeting is now adjourned.