Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both ministers for presenting today. There's a lot of interesting discussion happening.
I want to make, first, a comment to Minister Vandal about nutrition north.
In the Northwest Territories I think we have 10 communities on the nutrition north program. We don't want to be on that program, but in order for us to get off the nutrition north program we need a solution. The solution is in the government's hands, because in the Northwest Territories the federal government is still responsible for building new roads. So, if you took the opportunity and found the investment to build roads to these communities, we wouldn't need the growing subsidy.
When I got involved in the government many years ago the program was only about $20 million. We're well over $100 million a year now. That's a suggestion, and I keep reminding you of it.
Minister Miller, I belong to the Dehcho First Nations, and I started attending meetings when I was 17 years old. I was talking about recreation facilities and sports programs. The elders were talking about land claims. I'm now 62 years old, and we're still talking about land claims and self-government for the people of my tribal council. Things were not moving very fast, and in 2014 it got even worse because the Conservative government cut funding to band councils, to core funding, to tribal councils and they also cut the resources to the department.
Just before COVID hit I talked to a small community that's negotiating in the Northwest Territories—Colville Lake. We have 14 tables going on in the Northwest Territories. The chief said that in the Northwest Territories when negotiators come, they leave Ottawa Monday morning and fly all day to get to Yellowknife. After 12 hours they stay overnight in Yellowknife. The next day they catch the commercial flight to Norman Wells, and they stay there for another night. Wednesday morning they charter a plane into Colville Lake, get settled into their rooms, and we start negotiations on Wednesday afternoon. We do introductions and set the agenda. Thursday morning we start negotiating, and at noon we start packing up so that the negotiators can head back to Ottawa. They fly to Yellowknife Thursday night and Friday they head all the way back to Ottawa. A half of a day once a month, and it's not improving.
At this rate we're not going to settle any land claims. I've been here six and a half years and we haven't signed one land claim in the Northwest Territories. It's not the indigenous government's fault; it's the federal government's fault. They don't have the investment and resources to do a good job. There are negotiators with more files than they can handle.
Can you suggest a solution? Is there a strategy that you're working on to try to improve the ability for the federal government to take part in the negotiations to speed them up? At this rate—I'm 62 now—I'm not going to see an AIP in my lifetime in the part of the country that I live in.