Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 7th, 2022

[Sara Brown]

Certainly it is an ongoing challenge for us every time we come up against a new risk or a new challenge. The roles and responsibilities are very unclear.

We would definitely benefit from additional training, even if all it does is establish relationships beforehand so that people know who they are dealing with, know who they are speaking to, understand the communities, understand the territorial resources, and understand the federal resources better before they go into it.

The pandemic really demonstrated that. It was an uncontemplated risk and event, and we were really making things up as we went along. However, because we had relationships, we were able, for example, to convene regular meetings of mayors and chiefs and the territorial government, so the more training that happens in advance, the better set up everybody will be to respond effectively.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

I have another question for you, Sara. I want to know if you have any suggestions for the government on supporting infrastructure, especially in our smaller indigenous communities, that could help mitigate the damage they may face from natural disasters. We have a lot of communities that are under threat from flood. We have a lot of communities that now are being challenged by erosion, and we're still seeing communities that don't have berms or dikes.

In fact, they don't have the ability to relocate major pieces of infrastructure, some of them very important pieces of infrastructure like power plants and sewer lagoons and water treatment plants that are located in flood areas. When those go, then it's the whole community.... Whether the house is flooded or not, if you don't get water or power, you're out of luck.

That's something that seems to be lacking.

[Sara Brown]

Yes, absolutely, and part of the challenge is we are leaving community governments to sort these issues out on their own and not supporting them in doing those mitigation measures and helping them with hiring an engineer, for example, to come in and do some of those analyses. That's where I really strongly believe we have to embrace this partnership model.

We should have a working table of everybody who has a flood risk, so they can learn from each other. They can identify knowledge gaps. They can identify engineering gaps. They can then go look for funding as a group and try to start addressing those issues, but when we leave communities to just struggle on their own with individual risks or a collective of risks.... These are already people who are extremely tapped out. Many of them work 80 to 90 hours a week. We have huge turnover, all those things, so we definitely have to do a better job of supporting them and doing the mitigation that will reduce the impacts of these natural disasters.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

For my last question, I want to ask you if you could expand a bit on your recommendation to make partnerships official policy. Could you explain what that really means?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Be very quick, please.

[Sara Brown]

Yes.

I think we have all experienced all the work we do being in silos, whether they're territorial, community or federal. We have to move away from that approach. We have to see this as a collective problem, and we need to work together. We will achieve so much more. We're a small jurisdiction here, and our communities are that much smaller. If we don't work together in partnership, we will all be in trouble.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you very much.

I now give the floor to Ms. Gill, who has six minutes.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to ask Mr. Huebert a question with respect to his area of expertise. In fact, I know that he previously appeared before the Standing Committee on National Defence in 2010.

You spoke then about Arctic sovereignty and defence. Can you tell us if there have been any improvements since 2010? If not, what steps should have been taken between 2010 and 2022 in this regard?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

That's an excellent question.

If I'm being honest, I think, if anything, the cupboard has been demonstrated to be bare.

If we look at the period between 2010 and 2022—and I would just move the bar over to 2007—we have had two instances in which vessels have, in fact, entered the Canadian Northwest Passage without permission. In fact, we were not able to stop them.

We had, in 2007, the Berserk II, which sailed from the eastern side of the Northwest Passage all the way to Cambridge Bay. Finally, because community leaders were able to alert the RCMP to the arrival of this vessel, we were able to arrest the participants, who had criminal records, and deport them a second time.

The second example, of course, occurred in 2021, when the New Zealand Kiwi Roa yacht sail through the Northwest Passage. Again, we closed the Northwest Passage—as is our sovereign right, since it is in internal waters—because of the pandemic. They refused to acknowledge our ability to close it, and the boat sailed through. Again, the Coast Guard made a call that it was probably going to be safer to allow the vessel to go through than to risk having it come into a port and perhaps pass the virus on.

Nevertheless, I think it illustrates clearly that we do not have the ability to fully know when these vessels enter into our waters, and that we do not have the ability to stop them.

What is important is that it was the local communities, the indigenous communities, that in fact alerted us to it. Here we go back to Sara's point about the ability for a shared response in terms of defending our Arctic sovereignty.

As we move forward with respect to this inability to know and this inability to coordinate, once again we go back to the very important point Sara made about our ability to talk to each other and our willingness to act politically against those who are against our interests. We basically haven't really demonstrated very much in terms of political will to act upon this.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you.

I have a supplementary question about land occupation. It's still for Mr. Huebert, but Ms. Brown and Mr. Daigneault could also answer it.

We talk about working with the communities, but we know very well that, in our northern regions, the population is quite small.

Do you believe that measures should be taken to populate this territory, to have people living on this territory and staying there? If not, any other recommendations from you would be welcome.

I would like to hear what you have to say about this issue. I would ask Mr. Huebert to answer first.

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

It's difficult, of course, to get any type of population movement, particularly when there are economic challenges within the region. That's probably been the greatest challenge that Nordic countries have faced and that, I dare say, Canada will face in this regard.

I would add one important thing here. It goes back to a point Ms. Brown raised in terms of communications. One of the things I want to bring out is that one of the ways of ensuring communications is through an existing body known as the Arctic security working group, which will, in fact, facilitate precisely the type of co-operation that your question gets to and that Ms. Brown was talking about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Ms. Brown, would you like to answer the question, and then Mayor Daigneault?

[Sara Brown]

The ability to increase our population, and thus increase our eyes on the ground, is an interesting one. It's one that we struggle with all the time. I'm not sure that's entirely what needs to happen.

I agree with Professor Huebert that we need to be doing a more efficient job of communicating and knocking down those silos. This is a complicated and expensive place to live. I don't know that we're going to attract a whole bunch of folks here as a response to security threats.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Before Mr. Daigneault speaks, I would like to bring to your attention that there is also the matter of retaining the population. We need to improve living conditions so that people do not leave their communities.

Mr. Daigneault could conclude.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Mr. Daigneault, if you want to answer that question, you have about 20 seconds.

[Nick Daigneault]

I'd like to take the time to reinforce the points that were made earlier.

As a community, we need resources to hire engineering firms to create new subdivisions, and to further look at our official community plan to find out that we're not building in flood zones or whatnot, making it difficult for future and new members of our community. Those supports are needed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Ms. Idlout for six minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

First of all, I wish to welcome you and thank you for your presentations. They were very informative.

My question will be for Robert Huebert, and only Robert Huebert.

Do you agree that investments in Inuit infrastructure, such as paving airports, are very important investments in protecting Canadian Arctic sovereignty?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

Well, if I can address the infrastructure question, the real strength of empowering indigenous communities and improving the infrastructure of the communities is, of course, that from a geographical perspective, it is the indigenous communities that go the farthest north. It is in those communities that we have to be making better plans in terms of having a capability of knowing what is happening around...be it in terms of over-the-horizon radars, the modernization of the north warning site or in terms of the airports we now have for our forward-operating locations.

All of those, of course, entirely need and require the participation of the indigenous communities. They need the participation also of the non-indigenous communities. However, given the geography that exists, that has to be front and centre in terms of how we are able then to have that capability to move.

To be honest, we need a flexibility. If war comes, the plan that we have and the infrastructure that we have at this location will be the first thing to go. You need that resiliency, which means that you have to have more than you think you need.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you for your response. It makes sense.

I will ask you this again.

The past ITK president, Rosemarie Kuptana, had a definition of “Arctic sovereignty”. Her definition was as follows:

Arctic sovereignty means having the ability to exercise one's culture based upon the many characteristics that define a people, such as your language, your traditions, values, history, geography. It means sovereignty over decisions that are being made about environmental issues, climate change, wildlife—anything that affects Inuit in particular [in their lives].

Do you know how “sovereignty” is said in Inuktitut? Do you agree with that?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

To further emphasize your point, I'm currently doing research on or writing a book on the voyage of the Polar Sea, which was one of the most important elements of challenging Canadian sovereignty. I have to tell you that in 1985, one of the strongest voices in terms of how we understand what sovereignty is for came from the ITK and other leaders, such as our current Governor General, who spoke very eloquently.

Sovereignty is all about the ability of the government of whatever state it is to allow its rules, its norms and its values to exist, to be promoted and to be protected. Therefore, the definition.... Once again I go back to some of the writings of Mary Simon in 1985, saying that the whole point of why we were concerned about the Manhattan in 1969 and why we were concerned about the Polar Sea in 1985 was precisely because the people, and particularly the indigenous people, have lived on the land and ice. Therefore, what we want the sovereignty for is the protection of that lifespan. That, in fact, is the essence of.... Sovereignty by itself means nothing, as far as I'm concerned. It is what you do with sovereignty and why you want sovereignty.

Therefore, the expression that you have just provided is the “So what? Why do we bother even worrying about protecting Arctic sovereignty, if we're not going to protect it for a purpose?” I think that what you have just quoted is the beginning of a long establishment in terms of what Inuit understand by “sovereignty”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to a shortened second round, and we'll start with Mr. Vidal.

Mr. Vidal, you have five minutes.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also want to thank all the witnesses today. As my colleague, Ms. Stubbs, said, it's a very wide-ranging topic we're talking about today, and I want to focus on emergency preparedness for a minute.

Mayor Daigneault, my question will be for you, based on your testimony. You talked about some of the jurisdictional issues. You talked about the Métis nation, the first nations and the municipalities in that region of northwest Saskatchewan coming together specifically around the pandemic. In your closing comments, when you had to end, you talked about a regional response.

I want to give you the opportunity to flesh that out a little and maybe give us some guidance on what the regional response might look like as you bring together those levels of government you talked about, as well as the provincial and federal governments. What might that look like and how would it help you in the future to be more proactive and better prepared for whatever future emergency you might face?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Go ahead, Mayor Daigneault.

[Nick Daigneault]

Thank you, Gary.

I had it in my notes, but unfortunately I had to rush through it. Thank you for the opportunity to get into detail on that.

When we first started the regional pandemic strategy, it started out as simply putting together a toll-free number through our communications company, SaskTel, so that mayors and emergency coordinators could all jump on the same phone line and coordinate regionally that way.

It's since, obviously, grown to something much larger, such as the sharing of resources using Beauval as a staging ground for all PPE, RVs, etc. to be disseminated and deployed from here. It grew even further so that each individual community didn't have to attend a one-on-one with the SPSA. We created an ad hoc regional EOC with a coordinator from Beauval who served as our go-to centralized person to get all of the resources together, including the medical health officer for our region and the director of the Saskatchewan protection agency, to get them all on to the same Zoom call and share that information so that everybody left with the same message at the end of every day when the call was done. We all went away with the same message to take back to our communities and the same strategies that we offered back to agencies to take to the governments, the province and the federal government, as the resources were coming in. Like you said, there were a lot of moving parts, and there are a lot of resources that each government can offer, and we wanted to make sure that we, as the boots on the ground, were giving them those suggestions directly so that we could work together.

As a region, all our communities have a kinship, and we capitalized on that. It's just expanding that concept in coming up with an actual legal plan, because, as you all know, there's an emergency preparedness act for the province, and it's just bridging the gap between federal jurisdictions such as first nations and the Métis governments and the municipalities. The province needs to put pen to paper.