Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 26th, 2022

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Are you finished? You have 45 seconds, if you want it.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

No, I'm good.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

I'll take that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

He'll have to give it to you.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In listening to both witnesses, I do want to highlight two areas, and I want to make a point to Mr. Quesnel and Mr. Bailey that having your testimony as part of our final report is very important to us.

Therefore, I am going to open the door wide for you to give that testimony with respect to housing investments and how important it is to leverage those investments with health care investments, education investments and economic development investments. Equally important as part of overall community planning are the infrastructure investments vis-à-vis the growth-related investments that would be needed to complement housing investments: water, sewer, roads, sidewalks, parks, emergency services, recreation and the list goes on.

I have two questions. One—and Mr. Quesnel, you touched on it, something I'm a fan of—is the First Nations Fiscal Management Act and allowing an opportunity for communities to borrow—“debenture” or whatever you want to call it—to leverage the money the government has given them to then accelerate those investments that need to be made.

First, opening the door to you, is to take the opportunity to comment on that so we can get that into the testimony and how important it is to allow that change to happen under the act and to then leverage those monies.

Mr. Bailey, I'd like you to comment a bit more on health care. You mentioned it earlier, but I want to give you an opportunity and open the door for you to comment on health care because we do know that housing is a key social determinant of health, and I'd like you to comment on that.

Mr. Quesnel, how about we start off with you on the financial levers?

[Joseph Richard Quesnel]

I suppose they're connected in the sense that, in order for first nations to be able to access own-source revenues that they can use and leverage from the First Nations Fiscal Management Act, you have to open the door to economic development. So you have to unshackle first nations from the Indian Act. You have to encourage them in all kinds of business ventures, and that involves access to capital.

This is circular because, regarding access to capital, the most common, universal complaint among indigenous entrepreneurs and small business owners is the fact that, under the Indian Act, land ownership restrictions prevent them from accessing loans. It's the same thing with the housing. They can't use their own house, their own yard, as collateral.

I think that all of these issues with accelerating economic development and housing are connected. I would recommend that the committee look at reintroducing a first nation property ownership act, which the finance committee under the previous Harper government talked about and never introduced, as a way to provide a means for willing first nations to join that regime so that land title can be transferred voluntarily to first nations. Those first nations in turn, if they choose, can transfer that title to individuals to allow them to hold mortgages, build up credit and build up equity in their own homes. That would unshackle indigenous entrepreneurs.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Quesnel.

Mr. Bailey, go ahead.

[Garry Bailey]

Since the treaties were signed, health care was given to the first nations. They are 100% covered, and the Métis nation has never had that. The Daniels case that was put through the courts in 2016 said that Canada has the obligation for all Métis around Canada. We need that Daniels case implemented, so that the policy states that the Métis will be 100% covered. It affects our health, our way of living and our cost of living.

I want to focus on the housing, as well, including the opportunities that come when you have housing. If you have housing, you have that responsibility to sustain your house. It's going to make you live healthy, get you off the drugs and get you off the alcohol. It's going to get you out working and get you into the economy, so that you can buy yourself a truck or skidoo, and support a family of three or five, whatever it may be. Because of the lack of housing and the overcrowding, people are living a certain way. It's an unhealthy way of life in our communities. It's very noticeable.

It's very important for us to settle these land claims. As it was mentioned, we don't have access to the lands. We talk about early land transfer opportunities. Since we're not settling our claim right now, there should be good faith negotiations on behalf of the governments to give us early land transfer so we can access that land and, as I said, give it to our members so that they can develop a house on that land.

There's also going to be a problem with borrowing money. We may have people who work and stuff, but it's going to take a bit more than us giving them 5% down because the banks always want to know how you got that money. We want to be able to have more of a guarantee, so that the bank doesn't focus on them. The cost of living in the Northwest Territories.... The average monthly rent is $2,200, which is a mortgage, but it doesn't go to your credit rating. Maybe after five years or something it might, but you're still expected to save that money.

On the health benefits, I definitely need them to recognize that policy from the Daniels court case to start implementing the programs and services on an equitable basis to first nations, which is what that court case was all about. It includes more than just health. It's health, education, housing and everything else.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. Badawey.

Mrs. Gill, go ahead. You have two and a half minutes.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Bailey and Mr. Quesnel, I have one last question for you. It's about members who leave your communities, sometimes for cities, because of the lack of housing. Obviously, some people want to live in the city, but do you think that people leave the community because there isn't enough housing? Do you have any figures capturing that?

Would you say that jeopardizes the community's culture at all, its survival even? I imagine that community members who leave probably go through some level of assimilation.

Those questions are for both Mr. Bailey and Mr. Quesnel.

Mr. Quesnel, you can go first.

[Joseph Richard Quesnel]

There's one example of the James Bay Cree. They moved from a long-term lease to full home tenure. One of the reasons for that was that you can't stop the allure of peoples' lives. They meet significant others from other communities or they seek educational and economic opportunities, so they go off. People vote with their feet, and that's what we're seeing with the off-reserve population.

The solution, I always say, is to have a fully functioning housing market and a market housing program, as much as you can on reserves. I'll speak to the reserve part in the first nation. Those communities don't feel that they lack what they can get elsewhere. People want to build businesses, they want pride of ownership and houses that they own on their reserve. They want to stay in their communities, and they don't want to....

This issue is completely connected to that. If we don't transform housing toward a more market-oriented system, it's just the system that we all take for granted. Why does housing work in the mainstream? It's because it's mainly based on the price system and all of those things. We try to bring those as much as we can to reserves, so that people don't feel they have to leave.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Mr. Bailey, you can comment very briefly on that, if you wish.

[Garry Bailey]

Okay.

Affordable housing is definitely an issue. As we mentioned, people do leave. I've had members leave our community because they didn't have the work and they owed a lot of money for housing because of low-cost housing. They left and moved on to Winnipeg, Manitoba. There are about 250 Métis living in Fort Resolution, which is the oldest community in the Northwest Territories. However, in being the oldest community, we have 3,000 members who are mostly from Fort Resolution and Fort Smith. Assimilation.... A lot of people have moved to the south. They have forgotten their cultures.

What we want to do is keep people in our communities. That's why I mentioned that you have to deal with us directly, so we can build our economy. Settle these land claims, so we can build our own economic development in our communities and so our people will stay there. Have affordable housing. I'm not so keen on market housing, depending on what the rates are. We want to set those rates because we have to develop our communities.

I'm from the oldest community. We still only have 500 people in our community. It was once the capital of the Northwest Territories. There's a lot of work that needs to be done. We can't just be house-poor in paying for a house. We have to build our communities.

One job in our community normally provides for five families because of the lack of employment in our communities. That's why it's so important to settle our land claims—so we can build our communities and continue to live our ways of life and practice our cultures in our communities, where we were born and raised.

Hopefully, that's enough.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mrs. Gill.

Ms. Idlout, go ahead. You have two and a half minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Technical difficulty—Editor]

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Just one moment, please. There is a point of order. I believe it probably has to do with the translation.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Yes, it does.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Are you hearing it now?

[Joseph Richard Quesnel]

The translation came in and out. I apologize. I might have to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

There was a delay in getting it going, but it should continue now.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Chair, the committee members may need a reminder to wear their headsets. That would make things easier.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

That's a good point.