Evidence of meeting #20 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was system.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Gwich'in Tribal Council
Thank you for that.
I guess we live this every day. It all speaks to how our people are being treated in the system.
In full disclosure, we are minority owners of a company called Larga Ltd., which provides boarding-home services for medical travel for visitors from the NWT and Nunavut in Edmonton, Alberta. We've been providing this for over 30 years. The genesis of Larga Edmonton was that we were seeing residents returning to our communities sicker than when they'd left. Oftentimes these individuals were being medevaced. It was determined that the major reason was the diet that was imposed upon our medical travellers.
The early owners of Larga decided to propose to the Government of the NWT that they purchase a home staffed with northerners who relocated to the Edmonton area and arranged at times for the provision of traditional foods, such as fish and caribou, for the residents. From the recognition of this gap in the service that was created as a result, Larga Ltd. has been a tremendous success story, offering residents of the north a home away from home while also having the ability to interact with others who are on medical travel themselves.
Larga has now expanded into other jurisdictions, which I am sure you are aware of, such as Winnipeg and eastern Canada. It is culturally considerate care for those who need to be in southern Canada for short periods of time, and truly a model that was well ahead of its time in a pre-TRC world.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Garneau
Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of the panel.
I would like to thank Isabelle Wallace for her testimony. I would like to thank Grand Chief Kyikavichik for his testimony today and for answering all of our questions. I want to thank Betty Villebrun for being with us.
I'm sorry that we could not hear your testimony. I'll be speaking to the committee to see if there's a way we can hear it. We have one small window left. We would like to have heard you and to have asked you a couple of questions. We'll get back to you on that.
Thank you very much to all of our witnesses today.
For committee members, before we wrap up, there are three very quick things I wanted to do.
One is to remind you that you should have received the draft of the housing study today, and we'll be discussing that one week from today on May 20. That's the second study we did—the housing study.
This is addressed to the Conservatives. The second thing is that there was an email from my colleague David asking whether you would be ready to hear our first batch of witnesses on emergency preparedness, the next study after this one, and to focus on those in the firefighting area, because at the moment those who are focused on floods are pretty busy these days, so we would hear from them in the fall.
Mr. Schmale, are you all right with that?
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
I believe so. I don't recall seeing that email, but I will have another look for it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Garneau
Okay. The NDP, the Bloc and the Liberals are okay with it.
We're going to have witnesses, but we will focus on firefighting. They probably will be busy later on this year, unfortunately, but at the moment, it might be the best group to hear from.
Finally, we do have another session on non-insured health benefits next Tuesday. At the moment, we have one hour reserved for three more witnesses, followed by an hour to discuss drafting instructions for the non-insured health benefits study.
One possibility that might allow us to hear from Ms. Villebrun is if we had four witnesses and went for an hour and 20 minutes and then reserved the last 40 minutes for drafting instructions. Is that something that would be acceptable to the committee members?
I see some heads nodding.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Garneau
Betty, if you're still listening to us, we're going to get you back next Tuesday. Hopefully, you will be available and we'll hear your testimony.
With that, I wish everybody a happy weekend. This meeting is adjourned.
