Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 29th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

I call the meeting to order.

Good afternoon. Welcome to the 11th meeting of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.

We are gathered here today on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe.

Today, we are continuing our second study, which focuses on the effects of the housing shortage on indigenous peoples across Canada.

Presenting to us in our first panel today are Herb Lehr, president, Metis Settlements General Council; Richard Derocher, vice-chief, Meadow Lake Tribal Council; and Stan Delorme, chairperson, Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement.

Keep in mind the Board of Internal Economy's guidelines for physical distancing and mask use.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services in English, French, Inuktitut and Innu are available for this meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately and we will ensure interpretation is properly restored before resuming the proceedings. The “raise hand” feature at the bottom of the screen can be used at any time if you wish to speak or alert the chair.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you're not speaking, your microphone should be on mute.

Committee members, when you ask a question, please direct it to the specific witness you want to answer that question.

I remind everyone that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

We will start with presentations by our three guests and will follow those with a question period.

It's over to you, President Lehr. You have the microphone for five minutes.

[Herb Lehr, President, Metis Settlements General Council]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of this committee, for the invitation to speak today.

My name's Herb Lehr. I'm the elected president of the Metis Settlements General Council, MSGC. I think it's critical for all of you to understand that the Métis settlements are unique [Technical difficulty—Editor] by any other Métis group in Canada. We are the only legislated land [Technical difficulty—Editor] from other Métis people. That brings with it challenges, but, more importantly, opportunities. That's what I want to focus on today: the opportunities.

Let's not talk about the past. I'm certain you've been flooded with information that shows the efforts of the past have not served our people well, however well-intentioned. Your own agency, Statistics Canada, contains the evidence that housing in our communities is inadequate.

One of the flaws of focusing on statistics is that they don't demonstrate that the problem of housing spills beyond the borders of our communities. Rundown homes and a lack of housing force our people to leave their communities, and houselessness follows them wherever they go.

In Canada, Métis has the fastest growing population. Fifty-five per cent of our settlement populations are under the age of 20 and 28% are under the age of five. Without access to housing, we lose these young, vibrant people who are full of potential from our communities, and we know it contributes to serious child welfare issues, as well as other social problems.

If we look beyond these statistics and see the promise of our young people, and if we take the opportunity to look at housing differently and holistically, we can reinvigorate our communities from the ground up. The current system sees only one type of family: the nuclear family. Building codes reflect this bias, so our non-nuclear families, with multiple generations sharing this type of space, suffer as a result. Overcrowding, mould [Technical difficulty—Editor] infrastructure plague our communities, forcing our people to leave and to seek something better, but they find that it is no better. Far too often, it is worse. Away from their families, communities and support systems, our people are alone and vulnerable.

Our communities have always been forced to address housing in the most reactive and cost-efficient ways, very often in times of crisis. This is because the existing housing was not designed to withstand our remote, rural and extreme environments. The result of this is that our people are living in trailers and modular homes that were supposed to be a band-aid until something better came along, but nothing better has come.

I'm here to ask for the chance to plan our homes and communities using new technologies that better align with our traditional values. We want to have the latitude to have Métis homes built by Métis people. We want any funding provided for housing to include funds for capacity, so that our people can be trained to build these new, culturally relevant and sustainable homes. We not only want the long-term homes that our people deserve; we want to stimulate our communities' economies in ways that tap into the existing skills of our members, but also recognize the potential of those young people who haven't yet chosen a path.

New agreements and programs must recognize the true cost of building homes in remote and rural communities. We need to be able to stock materials, take advantage of bulk buying and have materials at hand when they are needed.

There needs to be a recognition of the fact that our people don't live cheek to cheek with their neighbours, so supporting infrastructure is more costly. We need housing that recognizes that many of our people have disabilities, so our homes require accommodations. We need housing that recognizes that our elders are cared for by their families at home for far longer than is common in non-indigenous communities. We also need to address older homes in need of renovations and repairs, and require an overhaul of the aging infrastructure that supports these homes.

In addition, we want to look at innovative, environmentally friendly solutions, like solar energy and hemp homes, aerated concrete homes that are mould-resistant, fireproof and have a lifespan of 100-plus years. While we are moving forward with our federal framework agreement, immediate funding is needed if we are to address the housing shortages that the settlements have faced for far too long.

In closing, thank you again to the committee for the invitation to speak here today. We will provide some housing data later this week, so that you will leave with the big picture and have all the details.

I would now be pleased to answer any questions you may have. [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, President Lehr.

We'll hear from the other speakers first. Vice-Chief Richard Derocher, you have the microphone for five minutes.

[Vice-Chief Richard Derocher, Meadow Lake Tribal Council]

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity to speak before the committee.

To Mr. Lehr, you did a wonderful job on your presentation.

First of all, I am the Cree Vice-Chief of the Meadow Lake Tribal Council, MLTC. The Meadow Lake Tribal Council is in northwest Saskatchewan. We comprise nine first nations, five of which are Cree and four of which are Dene. Our land base takes up just about all of northwest Saskatchewan. We have a population of about 16,000 people. The growth in our territory, the growth of different communities, is very different. Some communities are growing economically; some are not. Some are growing in wellness; some are not. I serve a wide variety of where people are at in their communities.

I want to talk about housing specifically in regard to budget.

I was a councillor in Flying Dust First Nation for 18 years and a band manager for four years, so I know my particular first nation, a Cree first nation. The Flying Dust First Nation has had the same budget for over 30 years in housing.

That is one issue we have. Other than the indexing that we get, there has been no increase in the housing budget for the last 30 years. I believe in Flying Dust it's just under $300,000, and to insure their homes is about $180,000 a year, which leaves approximately $100,000 to $110,000 to build or renovate. I'm sure it's no different for all other first nations in the territory, the MLTC territory.

That leaves us with a definite problem: How do you accommodate housing situations in our first nations when you're building with $110,000?

Remember the area we're in. We're in northwest Saskatchewan. The cost for building is about 20% to 30% more than in southern Saskatchewan. Even close to where I am in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, the cost is about 20% to 30% higher.

The price to build the average house in northwest Saskatchewan is about $230,000, and that's for a three-bedroom bungalow. You can't even finish off a house with that. How do you also look at your renovation list? Our houses are getting depleted and there are no monies to put them into the way housing should be. Therefore, in regard to housing, the chiefs and councils of those communities are very boxed in.

There is another huge impact on housing. With the new bills that are coming, like Bill C-3 and the different membership cases that have been presented by Canada and put into the first nations, our population is growing, not only because of normal population growth but because of new members coming onto the first nations either by the grandmother clause or any other new membership cases. That makes the situation even harder, because now there are new members with expectations of on-reserve housing because that's what they see, which then puts more pressure on the chief and council.

I want to talk to you about overcrowding in houses as well. The average home in the Meadow Lake Tribal Council has 7.9 people per house.

I'm going to use Flying Dust as an example, because I am from there and I'm very familiar with the numbers. Flying Dust has 2.2 people per house. Flying Dust has quite a good housing program, but the shortage is still there. There are only 2.2 people in the houses we do have mainly because of small families and because Flying Dust made what we call an “elders' lodge”, which houses 10 elders in single dwelling units. They are not elders' lodges as you know as long-term care facilities. They are more levels one and two, where they can look after themselves or are looked in on frequently by the nursing staff and family visits.

The overcrowding, as I indicated, is just over 7.9 people per home, I believe. This creates mental wellness problems, especially for our teenage children.

Young adolescents or teenagers get into an arguments with their parents. All of us who are parents know this happens. They get into a little scuffle with their brother or sister or parents. In a normal house, that individual gets to go into their bedroom, sort things out and get their thoughts together. In our homes, that's not possible. They're sharing rooms—sometimes two and three children or maybe two teenagers to a room—which doesn't give them that space to get their thoughts together.

What happens in this case is the young people leave the home frustrated and mad. They go and look for other options, which usually leads to alcoholism, drug addiction and seeking friends. Sometimes it's gang related.

That's the reality of being in northern Saskatchewan and having no place to get your thoughts together. That's one that I speak of often—

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Mr. Derocher, I'm going to have to ask you to wrap up now.

[Vice-Chief Richard Derocher]

For options, CMHC seems to work fine for the communities that want to use CMHC. It gives the opportunity for low-income housing. It gives the opportunity for families who want to live on reserve. I have some families who pay $1,200 a month on reserve. For the first nation mortgaged house, that $1,200 a month is a lot of money for the economy in northern Saskatchewan.

An option I see is to have more CMHC housing in our communities. Once again, the budgeting for housing in first nations country hasn't increased in over 30 years, which causes problems.

With that, I would like to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to speak this afternoon.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Vice-Chief Derocher.

We'll now go to Chairman Stan Delorme.

You have five minutes.

[Stan Delorme, Chairperson, Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement]

Good afternoon. Thank you very much to the committee today for allowing me the time to do a presentation, and thanks to the two presenters who came before me as well.

My name is Stan Delorme. I'm the chairperson of the Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement. Our council consists of four council members plus the chair.

Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement is situated in the northeastern part of Alberta, the gateway to Fort McMurray, near Lac La Biche, Alberta. We are one of eight Métis settlements and we're unique to Canada. I believe we're the only Métis settlement landholders in Canada.

Buffalo Lake is located approximately 200 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, which is the major centre closest to Buffalo Lake for any kind of shopping. Buffalo Lake has a population of approximately 700 adults, not including the children who are 18 years of age and younger. We have approximately 240 dwellings, which indicates that there is a critical shortage given the number of people we have on settlement land.

We estimate our on-settlement population to be, at any given time, around 1,200 people who reside on Buffalo Lake, and we've witnessed an increase in the last while due to COVID, with families wanting to move home. Some would like to move back, but unfortunately there's a housing shortage that prevents them from doing so.

There's a severe and critical shortage of capacity to build homes and to accommodate basic housing needs. Provincial housing dollars have decreased, leaving our organization to apply for federal housing programs such as the rapid housing initiative program. To meet the criteria for these funds, modular units are only transitional in nature since they are smaller than normal modular long-term sustainable housing units.

As I said, Buffalo Lake has approximately 240 homes, and its housing stock, if you want to call it that, is basically getting old, with the last batch of houses built back in 2008 and only a few new houses built in recent years. I must add that people are still living in homes that were built in the 1970s and early 1980s. As well, a large percentage of homes were built in the 1990s.

Some of our infrastructure consists of 160 kilometres of gravel roads. We have a water treatment plant that's getting outdated, and it's obviously costing the community a few more dollars than we had really anticipated. We have two water delivery trucks that haul water to homes on a daily basis, which raises our operational budget costs as well.

The effects of the housing shortage include illness due to mould—I believe Herb Lehr spoke about that to some degree—and an increased cost of infrastructure and budget for water and sewer and for water deliveries. Generally families are deprived of rest and sleep, and there is a loss of education due to the high cost of utilities, which has increased dramatically in the last number of months. Sometimes families have to choose between heating and lighting their homes and buying food.

Our population is young. We have young families with one and two children who are living with their parents, and sometimes with their grandparents. These are multi-generational families. We also have seniors who are at risk of being homeless. We're finding any alternative available, such as living in recreational trailers over the winter months and hooking up to power in their family's yards.

Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement held a housing consultation with our members back in July of 2019 and received feedback on our housing. The feedback relayed the need for housing for single families living with their parents and grandparents and for the seniors who lack housing and are homeless, meaning that some of the homes they had to move out of were basically not proper living accommodations.

We have some large multi-generational families living in one home. For example, one family home has 13 people living in it. Can you imagine having 13 people in a two- or three-bedroom bungalow? There are grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren all living in one home.

We are currently—

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Mr. Delorme, could I could ask you to wrap it up, please?

[Stan Delorme]

All right.

We currently have 40 people on the waiting list. Affordable housing is needed in our settlement. Our settlement is largely a low-income community and, compared to many Canadian indigenous communities, our unemployment rate amongst our young people is high, as many of the young people have not moved out of their parents' homes. Some have gone to college and university to begin their careers, but because of the high cost of living and education, and with the lack of education dollars, the young people can't really afford to leave. Therefore, they just basically stay at home with their parents or grandparents.

I have more here, but I can probably squeeze it in with the questions that the panel has.

With that, thank you very much to the committee for hearing us out today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. Delorme.

We'll proceed with the first round of questions and start with Ms. Stubbs.

Ms. Stubbs, you have six minutes.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the presenters who are here today.

I will focus my questions around Métis settlements. I am so grateful that Stan and Herb can be here today. As Stan mentioned, Métis settlements in Alberta are unique in Canada, with eight of them in total and half of those in Lakeland. I'm pleased, too, to be joined by our NDP colleague for the day, whose many relatives and friends I represent and am proud to represent.

Because of that reality, I have made it my mission to fight just as hard for all of the indigenous communities and for the people living on Métis settlements in Lakeland as I do for every other resident.

Stan, just to give more of a sense to our colleagues here and to Canadians, I wonder if you can expand a bit on infrastructure details for Métis settlements and for Buffalo Lake. Last Friday, the minister was here and didn't know the answer as to how much money has actually gotten to Métis settlements. I understand that housing has been lumped into the infrastructure component by this government, which in 2021 committed $40 million to Métis settlements, but not a dime has been received.

Could you give us a sense of your annual infrastructure budget and how much you actually received from the federal government this year and also touch on how revenue is generated in your community?

[Stan Delorme]

Thank you very much, Mrs. Stubbs.

On the infrastructure that you're talking about, we look at it as two categories. One of them is basically building roads and adding on to our water treatment plant. That's the one infrastructure budget we do have. We don't have a housing budget as such, but our annual infrastructure budget runs around $1 million per year.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

How much did you receive from the federal government for infrastructure this year or last year?

[Stan Delorme]

We haven't received any infrastructure dollars from the federal government other than the grant that we applied for through the provincial programs that are available.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Do you have the capacity within the settlement to build homes, or do you have to bring in outside contractors?

[Stan Delorme]

We do have the capacity here to build homes. We've trained tradespeople in years gone by. We have the capacity to build a home, but as for the capacity to install utilities such as the electrical part of it, the power lines and the natural gas lines, we don't have the capacity to do that yet, but tradespeople can provide in the event that we do have a housing program.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

If governments ensured that the big announcements they make about dollar amounts got to local communities, that could create jobs.

To give even more of a sense of the unique challenges that your council faces, Stan, would you comment on economic activities in Buffalo Lake? How do you ensure that people in the settlement have jobs and revenue through natural resource development that help meet your infrastructure and housing needs? How do carbon taxes and other taxes impact the real dollars of Buffalo Lake people and elected officials like you trying to provide the needs for your community?

[Stan Delorme]

We are obviously challenged with the employment part of it, if that's what you're asking, Ms. Stubbs. We generate a few job shares through our entities, through our development corporation and our sand and gravel businesses that we have, which employ just a small number of individuals on a full-time basis.

To generate any other kind of revenue at this point in time, we're only limited to a small amount of workforce that's out there right now. We're in the process of trying to get into the oil and gas business. We're currently talking to some oil companies to do the exploration and development in our settlement, which hopefully will create more employment for our members as time goes on.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

You aren't exempted from paying taxes, so additional costs like the carbon tax and other tax hikes hurt the people in your communities just as they do all other Canadians.

I wonder, both Stan and Herb, if you might comment on when funds are promised to other organizations for housing or infrastructure, say for the Métis National Council. Maybe you can explain how much of those funds your community receives and whether or not....

How do you feel about those announcements when your community doesn't receive that funding and whether or not it's discriminatory?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

I'll ask you to be brief in your answer, because the time is up.

Please go ahead.

[Stan Delorme]

Okay. I guess I can kick-start this thing.

I keep hearing about the dollars that are provided to these nations, the Métis nation, the Métis National Council and those kinds of organizations, but as land-based people, the Métis people like us, who own their own land, have not been provided with any kind of funding and have not got a share of whatever the Métis Nation of Alberta might have been provided with. Therefore, we're left holding the bag as far as any kind of dollars coming into our communities from the federal government and its processes are concerned.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Mr. Lehr, did you want to comment?

[Herb Lehr]

Sure.

The Métis National Council and the Métis Nation of Alberta have never devolved money to the Metis Settlements General Council. They go there to Ottawa. They say they speak on our behalf, even though we've never given up that ability. We say we're autonomous unto ourselves.

We have an arrangement with the federal government, a framework agreement that we've signed, but because of COVID, we haven't been able to pursue it. It was just the national organizations that have received any funding as far as I know, though I heard that Northwest Territory Métis did sign a new deal and are getting funds as well now. We're hopeful that we will change that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you.

Mrs. Atwin, you have six minutes.