Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 8th, 2022

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Marilène Gill]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome, everyone, to meeting number 14 of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.

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

Today we are concluding our second study on the effects of the housing shortage on indigenous peoples across Canada.

These are the witnesses from the first panel: Chief April Martel, from the K'atl'odeeche Nation. We also have Mr. Justin Marchand, the chair of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association's Aboriginal Caucus Working Group. Finally, from the National Association of Friendship Centres, we have Ms. Kelly Benning, the president, and Ms. Jocelyn Formsma, the executive director.

I would now like to remind all members of the committee to follow the Board of Internal Economy's directive regarding the wearing of masks and physical distancing.

I would also like to outline a few rules for the smooth running of the committee.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. There will be interpretation in French, English and Inuktitut during the meeting. I would ask you to be patient with the interpretation. There may be delays, particularly because Inuktitut must be translated into English first before it can be translated into French, and vice versa.

The button for interpretation is at the bottom of your screen in the form of a globe. If you can no longer hear the interpretation, please notify me immediately, and we will ensure that it is 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 to the chair.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are participating in the meeting by video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. The microphone for members in the room is usually controlled by the clerk.

When you have the floor, try to speak slowly and clearly. If you do not have the floor, please mute your microphone.

I remind you that all comments should be addressed to the chair.

Each organization has been invited to give a five-minute statement which will be followed by a period of questions by members.

Members of each party will have six minutes each for the first round of questions. The order and time for questioning for subsequent rounds will be as follows: the Conservative Party, five minutes; the Liberal Party will also have five minutes; the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party, two and a half minutes; then the Conservative Party and Liberal Party, five minutes.

I'd now like to invite Chief Martel to begin her statement.

Chief Martel, you have five minutes.

[Chief April Martel, K'atl'odeeche First Nation]

Good day, everyone.

Marsi cho from the K'atl'odeeche First Nation. I am Chief April Martel. I want to say that it's an honour to sit here with all of you. Thank you for this opportunity and for giving me a couple of minutes.

I would just like to say that I am a very vocal person when it comes to housing here in the Northwest Territories, but also all over. I sit as the chairperson for the Dene Nation here in the Northwest Territories. I am on the Treaty 8 reserve, the first reserve established here in the Northwest Territories. I was elected three years ago, and my platform is housing. I want to tell you that here on the reservation in the Northwest Territories I also sit with the Assembly of First Nations. I am on a committee for housing with the Assembly of First Nations, so I work with a lot of indigenous first nations across Canada.

I also want to say that here on the K'atl'odeeche First Nation, on the reserve, we only have 80 houses. Capital and renovation costs are very high because the houses are very outdated. The federal funding that K'atl'odeeche First Nation currently benefits from goes through the Government of the Northwest Territories. The Government of the Northwest Territories controls and decides who has housing needs and what housing is required, not only on reserves but for first nations in the Northwest Territories.

In terms of the demographics in our community, basically, housing is required in my community and the need is urgent with K'atl'odeeche First Nation on reserve. That's basically where that is.

In terms of the challenges I see for KFN, it's very hard to access mortgages or credit, to get access with banks. K'atl'odeeche First Nation just recently passed a land code. We're currently in the process of trying to work with banks, and it's hard to access funding through that. We're trying to work with the Government of the Northwest Territories on housing needs, assessments and renovations currently, but they're telling us that there is no money for renovations or anything.

I just want to say marsi cho for the opportunity to speak in addressing the issues around the housing needs here in K'atl'odeeche First Nation and in the Northwest Territories.

Marsi cho.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Marilène Gill]

Thank you.

We now turn to Mr. Justin Marchand, from the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association's Indigenous Housing Caucus.

Mr. Justin Marchand, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Justin Marchand, Chair, Indigenous Housing Caucus, Canadian Housing and Renewal Association]

[Witness spoke in an indigenous language]

[English]

My name is Justin Marchand. My spirit name is Firerock. I am Métis, the CEO of Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services and chair of the indigenous caucus. I pray that all our grandmothers, grandfathers, spirits, manitou and Gitchi Manitou be with us all for this important discussion. I humbly pray the words I speak may not be my own but those of [Inaudible—Editor].

Meegwetch for the invitation to appear before this committee. I would like to acknowledge all the members who are on this committee. I believe this committee is open to hearing the truth. I am asking this committee to use its influence to convey to the Government of Canada the importance of supporting an URN strategy in a more meaningful way.

We see yesterday's budget choice as a tiny step for indigenous people living in urban, rural and northern areas. It is not truly reflective of the housing crisis. It is disappointing that these so-called new investments are being paid for on the backs of indigenous people who are living through a precipitous and continued cut to urban native housing programs across Canada by this government.

We do not need more tiny steps. We need a big, bold step, both for indigenous people and for Canadians. A continued solely distinctions-based policy is a continued colonial construct that seeks to purposely divide, exclude, assimilate and institutionalize a collective memory loss of some of the richest, most valuable cultures in the world. These colonial constructs are designed to create intentional exclusionary policies that affect the lives of so many indigenous people.

Indigenous people living in urban, rural and northern areas are treated differently than other people. It is admirable and right that Canada wants to call out human rights abuses, including those based on race, culture and gender, in other countries. That is why it is so terribly confusing that Canada continues policy choices that exclude some people based on race, culture and gender right here. It is a system that is perfectly designed for the outcomes it gets, and the housing outcomes for indigenous people living in urban, rural and northern areas are appalling.

How do we know this awful situation is true? Canada knows this is true and knows these are the facts because this is Canada's own data. Over 80% of indigenous people are living in urban, rural and northern areas. Indigenous people are 11 times more likely to experience homelessness. Indigenous mother-led households have an incidence of need that is twice that of non-indigenous mother-led households, and all indigenous people in urban, rural and northern areas have an incidence of core housing need that is 52% higher than that of all Canadians.

Canada also knows that nearly half of the women in jail and almost half of all children in care are first nations, despite being only 3% of the total population. When indigenous people are exited from government institutions, where do they go? Overwhelmingly, they go to urban, rural and northern areas, and often without a safe housing option.

Canada knows that the report on the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls mentioned housing 299 times, the lack of housing being a significant contributing cause to violence, and the provision of housing being a fundamental solution to end violence against women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people.

Canada knows because the HUMA committee asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer for advice. The PBO provided that advice last year, and the multi-party committee unanimously agreed that a solution for indigenous people by indigenous people living in urban, rural and northern areas was necessary. The national housing council this year strongly communicated the same truths from indigenous people. Yet, again, Canada has chosen not to boldly embrace the truth as told by its own statisticians, its own HUMA committee, its own Parliamentary Budget Officer and its own national housing council.

Using the PBO's estimates, yesterday's budget might address 1.09% of the issue. Using CMHC's updated data, the federal budget might address 0.70% of the issue over the next five long years. In the meantime, we'll continue to pick up the dead bodies of indigenous people off Canada's streets.

So what should Canada do and what is the solution? Canada should accept the advice it asked for from its own institutions, its own officials, its own commissions, and Canada should accept the offer of help from indigenous people, who are willing to do the hard work for indigenous people and rectify the issues being created by Canada's past and current choices.

Canada must immediately make a choice to be intentionally inclusive, starting with the allocation of resources as recommended by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Canada must take a decolonized approach to delivery and utilize the 50-plus years of experience of numerous urban indigenous service providers across this land. Finally, Canada must be brave enough to care about all indigenous people, regardless of their geographic location.

While distinctions-based strategies are absolutely important and are underfunded, we need a distinct urban, rural and northern solution for indigenous people who are consistently not served—

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Marilène Gill]

Thank you, Mr. Marchand. I apologize for interrupting you, but I am obliged to do so as your five minutes are up.

I remind witnesses that they can always submit their speaking notes to the committee so that we can take them into account.

Mr. Marchand, during the question period you will be able to continue the discussion.

I now invite the representatives of the National Association of Friendship Centres to speak for five minutes.

[Kelly Benning, President, National Association of Friendship Centres]

Good afternoon.

This is Kelly Benning. I'm the president of the National Association of Friendship Centres.

I'm joining you virtually today from northern Alberta, home of the Cree, Beaver, Dene, and Métis people in Treaty 8 territory.

I want to thank the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs for the opportunity to speak on the effects of housing shortages on urban indigenous people.

I would also like to thank the other speakers who have come today and acknowledge the essential work that they do for the community. Together, our work addresses the critical issues of housing and homelessness that impact our communities and will continue to impact our people if community-led, indigenous responses are not implemented.

Most Canadian cities are built on traditional indigenous gathering spaces. As long as there have been urban centres, there have been indigenous people living there. According to the 2016 census, more than 1.6 million people identified as indigenous. More than one million, or over 60% of those people, live in urban environments. Urban indigenous people make up the largest portion of indigenous people, yet we are often left out of the conversation when it comes to issues or legislation that directly affects us.

The distinctions-based approach that the federal government uses in policy, legislation and decision-making is intended to recognize the diversity of the three first peoples of Canada and how their needs, wants, governments, cultures and world views differ. However, there are nuances within indigenous identities. For example, there are layered identities that many of us experience in addition to our identities as first nation, Inuit or Métis, such as gender, location, residency, sexual orientation, age and abilities.

From an urban and service-delivery experience, a distinctions-based approach result is often an inconsistent patchwork of funding, which makes indigenous organizations compete against each other. By prioritizing only distinctions between first nations, Inuit and Métis people, the Government of Canada has no mechanism to see or address the full spectrum of indigenous people's experiences, which ultimately compromises our ability to have our full set of human rights realized.

Since the 1950s, friendship centres have been central in urban indigenous community growth and flourishing by providing programs, services and gathering spaces for our friends and families. Friendship centres across Canada provide a wide range of housing and shelter options, including emergency crisis shelters, violence prevention, homeless shelters, transitional housing, supportive housing and long-term housing. In addition, our work includes crucial wraparound supports such as food, security, employment and training, child care, before- and after-school programming, health care services and counselling, among others.

Friendship centres partner with many organizations to provide the most support to the most people, because community members rely on us. The lack of safe and affordable housing contributes to poor health, chronic illness, homelessness, increased risk of premature death and the breakdown of families. Indigenous and community-led wraparound programming, such as the programs mentioned above, is an effective approach to addressing the housing and homelessness crisis in urban indigenous communities across the country. Housing and homelessness continue to be the central focus of friendship centres' work.

Yesterday's announcement of $300 million for the urban, rural and northern housing initiative is not enough to meet the needs of urban indigenous people. The national housing council recommended $6 billion for the urban, rural and northern housing initiative. The National Association of Friendship Centres has offered and remains committed to playing a role in ensuring those funds are administered by indigenous people for indigenous people and organizations.

In our budget ask, we sought funds to make up the infrastructure funding gap in friendship centres, whose costs include major repairs, renovations and securing space for lands and to require...the demands of the community. The national association applied for funds to support friendship centre-wide housing plans wherein we plan to collect data and information on housing needs, including forecasting for every community in which there is a friendship centre. We were denied funding to do this important work.

There are great urban indigenous and—

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Marilène Gill]

I am sorry, Ms. Benning, but I am going to have to interrupt you as well. Like Mr. Marchand, we invite you to send us your presentation.

We are now ready to begin the first round of questions.

Ms. Gladu, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for appearing today.

I'd like to start with Mr. Marchand.

It's disheartening to hear that, after the government has continued to say that the nation-to-nation relationship is their number one priority, you still called this budget “a tiny step” and said that a bold step was needed. Can you comment on what exactly is the gap the government needs to address and the timing you'd like to see on that?

[Justin Marchand]

Thank you, MP Gladu.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer undertook a study of this issue. A number of studies have been completed by organizations such as ours. We know that for Ontario alone, for example, that gap is $22 billion for urban indigenous people. The Parliamentary Budget Officer indicates that the need ranges, depending on how you measure it, between $638 million and $1.4 billion per year.

This is help we need now. This is not something that needs to be further “co-developed”, as per the phrase used in the budget, for another five years. The strategy has already been developed. What we need is delivery, not further study.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Very good. Thank you.

This question is for Chief Martel.

I appreciate the difficulty of constructing houses in the north, with the short construction season and all of the expenses there. The government has suggested that perhaps multiple houses could be built at the same time. I'm wondering if that's even feasible with the way the financing is overseen by the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Could you comment on that?

[Chief April Martel]

Thank you, Marilyn.

Again, with the weather, we get only two months here in the Northwest Territories. Financing is really complicated with the GNWT. The direct funding comes from the federal government to the GNWT, and then for us to access funding from the GNWT is very complicated. I would have to wait two years. Right now, I applied to the Government of the Northwest Territories under the housing corporation, and it's going to take two years to review the application, and then probably another year, so three years, to actually build my home. It's a little complicated.

If the funding went directly to the first nations, we could take that on and build our own homes, according to the Dene values, in the way our people built our homes. We could do that if they allowed us to build our own homes. It would be a lot better that way.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

That sounds much more efficient. Thank you.

Ms. Benning, you talked about how 60% of indigenous individuals are living in urban circumstances and face challenges that are maybe different from those faced in the remote places. Can you elaborate on that?

[Kelly Benning]

Most of the indigenous people, as I said, live in urban centres. It's challenging for people to have their needs met outside of their original community or to constantly be connected back to their original community, which some people may not have lived in for a while. I personally am second-generation urban indigenous. It can prove to be a big challenge when people are directed to a place where they perhaps don't live or they're not recognized.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

We know the affordable housing crisis is making this even worse. Under the Liberal government, house prices have doubled, and there really is a lack of affordable housing available. Is that a factor for indigenous people in urban settings?

[Kelly Benning]

Absolutely. In most urban centres across Canada, you see a large number of indigenous people who are homeless or without housing, which, as I said, breaks down family units as well. It puts children at risk. It puts families at risk. As we've seen from all the reports on murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, we're at great risk living on the streets of urban centres.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Absolutely. We need to see some prompt action on the murdered and missing aboriginal women report.

Finally, there was talk about the lack of money for renovations. If you can't create new affordable spaces, you at least have to fix the ones that you have. Chief Martel and Ms. Benning, could you comment on what you think the government needs to do there?

We'll start with you, Chief Martel.

[Chief April Martel]

Yes, there is a lack of renovations here in the Northwest Territories, as well as on my reservation. Renovations are a big thing. It's actually costing our first nations more money to go to elders and fix their homes. We do that through administration. There is no renovation money in the Northwest Territories.

I'm advocating for that, as well, because right now we're seeing a very high amount of overcrowding in homes here on my reserve. There are only 80 houses, with over 220 people. You can see that there is a large amount of overcrowding on the reservation. People get sick. We're trying our best on homelessness. We have to buy small trailers to put people in, but it's not—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

That's time. Thank you very much, witnesses.

Thank you, Ms. Gladu, for your questions.

We'll go on to the next round of six minutes.

We're going to the Liberal Party now and Mr. McLeod.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses today. These are very interesting presentations.

I want to quickly make a bit of a statement on the friendship centres, and then ask Chief Martel a question. I really appreciate the work that the friendship centres are doing. I personally think that every indigenous community in this country should have a friendship centre with an expanded mandate and a budget that supports it.

My question is for K'atl'odeeche First Nation's Chief Martel. First of all, thank you for joining us. It's good to see you here.

I think we've talked about housing many times and some of the challenges that you're facing. First of all, the K'atl'odeeche is a reserve, but it's not treated the same as a reserve in the south. K'atl'odeeche is also an indigenous community, but it's not treated the same as the indigenous communities in the north.

Now that you're here presenting in front of us, maybe you can take the opportunity to tell us what steps the Government of Canada could take to recognize the unique nature of reserves north of 60 such as yours, like KFN. How could they make sure that they have better access to federal housing programs?

[Chief April Martel]

Marsi cho, MP McLeod.

To access better funding, I think direct funding would help a lot, not only with KFN, but with our Salt River First Nation. We are very unique in the Northwest Territories, as there are only two reserves in the Northwest Territories. I think we should be treated a lot better.

We don't get access to reserve funding from the federal government. The GNWT takes and claws back that funding. If direct funding could happen, that would help the two reserves in the Northwest Territories a lot.

Marsi cho.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Could you tell us why K'atl'odeeche, which is a reserve that was formed by the federal government, is not funded like the other reserves in the south are? Do you know why that is?

[Chief April Martel]

I have asked the Government of the Northwest Territories that question many times. I've met with previous MPs and ministers on that matter. They said the funding.... They speak on behalf of the reserves, so I get treated a little differently, including Salt River First Nation. We're trying to work out direct funding with the GNWT, and I think it would help a lot. They said that the funding doesn't come to reserves because we need to sit with the other governments as well.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Could you tell us if you get any funding directly from the federal government at this point? Has the reserve, at any point since it was created, received any funding similar to what the reserves in the south get?

[Chief April Martel]

No, we haven't. We have not received any direct funding from the federal government. We have to wait for the Government of the Northwest Territories for any call-outs for funding.

The Government of the Northwest Territories applies for all funding on behalf of the two reserves and all the nations within the NWT. We basically have to apply the same way.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

I'm not sure if you would have a dollar figure, but I will ask you anyway. What would it take, what would an annual budget have to look like, to make sure the membership of your community is living in safe and secure homes? Would you have an estimate of what it would cost on an annual basis?