I was part of an alliance called the Indigenous Health Alliance from 2013 to 2017. It had more than 150 first nations across three provinces participating in it. There was Nishnawbe Aski Nation in northern Ontario, Keewatinowi Okimakanak in northern Manitoba and the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations. We had the support of AFN. We were meeting with ministers, and at the time I gained a real insight into the question that you just asked.
If you use the example of cooking, what I think we often ask communities to do is walk into a kitchen with foreign ingredients and cook what they want. I think that's how it is with health care for many people who aren't in health care or have been through a past patient experience. They don't really know what they don't know, and they don't know how the pieces fit together.
The most valuable thing that we did with that alliance, and something that we try to do here at the CMA, is give people examples of what to cook. We teach them what the different ingredients are and how they mix together. I think if you're looking at scaling different approaches, it's giving first nations, Inuit and Métis communities across the country the ability to pick and choose what they want to eat, but then understand about nutrition, about cooking, the ingredients, etc.
The question is not if people can cook; it's if they can cook with what we give them. I think we have to change our orientation from asking if communities have capacity, to assuming that they have capacity but do they have the supports they need to make better decisions?