Thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity. I want to point out that, as you said, my name is Duane Smith. That's my English name, anyway. I'm located just near the northeast tip of Alaska, to give you some perspective. It's roughly nine hours by jet to get here from Ottawa, but I'm still in the same country. The area I represent is almost a million square kilometres, two-thirds of that being the ocean in this area. That's just to give you some perspective on the size and scale of the geography I represent and the distance I'm speaking to you from, which is, again, still a part of Canada.
There was discussion earlier, as we were getting set up, that I'm so far north, in a couple of days we'll be losing the sun for about five weeks. That's part of the process here.
I want to give you an update in regard to the COVID activities we have been implementing. We have been working hard with different federal departments to access funds that are identified for indigenous organizations such as ours. We have been able to allocate funding for food baskets, as we call them, to needy households and families. We have provided support in regard to harvesting and food preservation supplies to try to enhance and/or address the food insecurity in the region. We have provided sewing supplies to communities for them to distribute. That's part of our cultural approach to our activities. We have provided household cleaning kits so that people can further sanitize and get some relief and comfort in regard to how they might be ensuring that their households are clean. We've had supplies for elders.
We have also initiated what we call an “on the land” program. We provided individuals, couples and/or families during the spring, summer and fall with help to get back out on the land. As indigenous people, we spend a lot of time out on the land, either at the coast or in the large delta we have here, which is about 18,000 square kilometres, where people have their camps, cabins, cottages or whatever you want to call them. This was an opportunity where we saw a lot of family bonding, not only parents and children but also grandparents and grandchildren; enhancing their life skills out there; giving them an opportunity to get back out and live more on the land, with nutrition from there; and making it a healthier opportunity and getting away from the communities. We saw a lot of stress and anxiety in people from the remote communities, knowing that if this pandemic gets into one of our small communities, it will spread quite rapidly. There is that concern there.
We were interested in the federal government's announcement in the past on different mobile camps. I can't remember the proper term, but we thought these would be medical camps that would be mobilized if there was a pandemic outbreak in one of our remote communities. A medical team would go in and use these camps for different testing and isolation purposes.
We've also provided activity kits to five different age groups—zero to three, four to six, and that sort of age group all the way up to 18. There are different reading, writing, arithmetic and science activities within those kits. We see the need to keep them occupied and busy. We'll be looking to do that again as we move forward. As I said, we're in a cold, dark period of the year now. People will be spending a lot more time inside.
Housing is a significant issue that we have. We have been working with the federal government to try to alleviate housing issues within our region as well as across Inuit Nunangat. Overcrowding is a significant issue in all areas of the north. That is where there's a major concern about the pandemic spreading quite rapidly.
I would support the previous presenter in regard to the need for improved bandwidth. COVID has demonstrated the dire need and the lack of infrastructure throughout Canada's north.
I would also support the comment in regard to the need for more rapid testing, especially in these isolated areas, because we don't have large hospitals or large medical teams that are easily available or ready. We have small nursing centres. Some of these communities have two nurses. My community is the hub, so we have doctors here.
Again, the other concern is testing and the potential for burnout in regard to the volume of people they're having to see.
I would also point—