[Witness spoke in Nisga'a and provided the following text:]
Simgigat, sigidim haanaḵ’, k’uba wilksihlkw g̱anhl k’ubatk’ihlkw. Ksg̱ooḵ ni dim t’ooyaḵshl Sim’oogit Lax̱ha wilt gin̓amhl amaa sa tgun loom̓.
[Witness provided the following translation:]
Ladies and gentleman, first I would like to thank God for giving us this beautiful day to have our meeting.
[English]
Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you to our Creator for bringing us this day.
I wish to thank you all for the invitation to come today. It was a little short notice, so I don't have everything fully prepared.
Regarding FNESS and the work we've been able to do over the last few months regarding emergency management, a lot of it stemmed from the specific work that came mainly from the floods and fires that have occurred over the last five years, and, in particular, the atmospheric flooding that occurred over this past winter.
A lot of the work FNESS has been able to accomplish stems directly from working with those communities directly affected and having the support of our staff and being able to pull in staff on short notice to reach out to those communities and give them the supports they were lacking, given the rapidness of the incidents themselves.
In terms of what we are looking to do over the next few years.... We just completed our strategic planning this past winter, and we are going through a current restructuring of FNESS to better align ourselves with the four pillars of emergency management. The action we're taking, we hope, aligns with the goals and strategies of what both the Province of British Columbia has planned as well as the Government of Canada for responding to emergencies across the province.
In these disasters, we—and I, personally,—have had the ability to witness first-hand the effects the communities are still going through at this current stage. There are many communities that are still displaced with very few plans in place on the recovery side of it to ensure that they have a plan they can understand to get themselves back home.
In addition to that, in areas such as Lytton, where the entire community was devastated by fire, we have witnessed those members being displaced for months at a time, exceeding the limits of what response agencies, such as EMBC, are capable of and will followed-through on.
What we're witnessing is that the communities themselves—their elected members and their administration—are dealing with the long-term financial effects of having to deal with their community members to ensure they feel comfortable and safe, and that they are well attended to.
When it comes to the other aspects, the First Nations Leadership Council for British Columbia is currently developing an action plan to alleviate a lot of this work by increasing the amount of funding that comes through FNESS in the event of larger incidents that may come down in the future. With the wildfires slowly increasing and with Environment Canada predicting, in particular, in B.C., multiple heat domes, we can only anticipate more natural disasters. FNESS is uniquely lining itself up to be that response agency for first nations communities in British Columbia.
Thank you.