Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 10th, 2022

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Many thanks for that very interesting answer.

Another topic I am very interested in is the lack of recovery plans. People often talk about preparation and response, but rarely about recovery.

What do you think the federal government could do to better support recovery?

[Anthony Moore]

That's a great question.

One of the pillars we have identified as FNESS is recovery itself. It's its own pillar. We have identified an emergency management specialist—he was our prior emergency manager—and we've actually tasked him to the recovery specialist branch of our society to try to figure out the best way to handle recovery in first nations communities. When it comes to what the federal government can do to support that, I think there are three things.

Funding for recovery specialists is not something that you can go to university and get trained for. Most of the time, it's a boots-on-the-ground type of thing. You're meeting with the communities, figuring out what they need to do and finding ways to get those things done. Using Lytton as an example, where the fire came through from CN Rail, we're trying to figure out what we can do for the community members who are still displaced, and we are trying to find a way to get them home, a way to get them out of whatever situation they're in. They've been moved four or five times now since this event occurred because of each of the timelines of the response agencies, whether it was EMBC, the Red Cross or the community administrations themselves.

Another part that I think we might be able to support is bringing in other specialists, whether they're from outside of the province or from other agencies that do work like this. I don't recall a lot at this particular time that specialize in recovery, but there is a lot of coordination that needs to occur between construction companies, for example, or builders and electricians and things like that, or ground stability specialists and so on. The list goes on forever, depending on the emergency.

The last thing we discussed in our board meeting with FNESS is trying to have that structure to be able to respond to multiple areas at the same time. Right now, we have only two main offices, one in North Vancouver and one in Kamloops. What we are trying to do is establish offices or at least response offices regionally throughout the province, and there have been discussions of expanding even beyond that.

When it comes to coordination of resources, regardless of which pillar we're in, whether it's mitigation preparedness or recovery and so on, the idea is to minimize the amount of time between when we get the call that they have an incident to where we transition from mitigating the incident to starting to plan for recovery. The sooner that takes place, the better the chances we have of reducing the amount of time that families are displaced from their homes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Monsieur Ste-Marie.

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'd like to thank you for your presentation. It was very informative.

Anthony Moore, you did an opening statement in your own language. That made me feel happy. Thank you.

[English]

I'll be asking my questions in English to Mr. Lackenbauer, because I have too many questions to try to get through them in Inuktitut. I always feel like I lose time asking questions in Inuktitut, but I have too many.

I really appreciated that you mentioned the names of people I know in Nunavut. I thank you for sharing those names.

I will get right to it. Can you describe the investments that have been made for the Canadian Rangers?

[Dr. P. Whitney Lackenbauer]

Yes, Ms. Idlout, I'd love to.

The Canadian Rangers have seen increases in their overall budget across Canada over the last 20 years. The experts from the Department of National Defence could provide you with the exact figures, but the operating budget for all five patrol groups is about $35 million, if I was a good listener.

They are currently undergoing a review, a Canadian Ranger enhancement program, which is following up on one of the commitments in Canada's 2017 defence policy, “Strong, Secure, Engaged”. I will quote it here, because the language was particular. It committed to “Enhance and expand the training and effectiveness of the Canadian Rangers to improve their functional capabilities within the Canadian Armed Forces.” What this emphasizes is a requirement to support the Rangers organization as a metric of success, not simply increasing numbers. Sometimes, there's a disposition to measure that things are better if they're bigger.

What I'm hearing from Nunavummiut, for example, is that it's ensuring investments going forward are providing Rangers with the training opportunities they require to make sure the Ranger instructors, who work with them at the community level, are able to do so on a regular basis.

There are also movements right now to revisit the equipment usage rate, which is paid to Rangers for using their personal vehicles and equipment while they're out doing official tasks as Rangers. This is something that Rangers, for the most part, very much appreciate, because by being able to invest that money in their own equipment, they don't have to ask permission to take it out when they want to go berry picking or fishing. They're using their own equipment, and the military almost pays them this money like rent. They're revisiting whether or not the amount is enough, and there's an expectation that the amount will go up.

Another very recent development is ensuring that Rangers qualify and are paid for isolation allowance, depending on which individual community they're in, to make sure that like anybody else working in those communities, their Ranger pay is supplemented by an acknowledgement of the costs of living in those individual communities.

Those are some of the either past investments or areas of focus right now. There has been quite a bit of investment in the junior Canadian Rangers program. This is a program supported by the Rangers. Junior Canadian Rangers are children between the ages of 12 to 18, very representative of the north and very representative of their communities in terms of who's joining. There's roughly an equal number of young women and men in the junior Canadian Rangers, which is also interesting. There's a significant investment, as well, in ensuring that the youth program, which is supported by the military, is flourishing.

I hope, Ms. Idlout, that addresses that question a bit.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Absolutely.

You already answered a portion of my second question, so I'll change what I was going to ask as my second question. I will ask you to make a recommendation as to how we as a committee can ensure we increase those investments, because I do frequently hear from my constituents that, as volunteers, when they have to use their own capital like snowmobiles and boats, that “rental” is not sufficient when those capital items are so expensive and the cost to repair them is so high.

What kind of recommendation would you make to ensure that is increased sufficiently to meet the needs of Canadian Rangers?

[Dr. P. Whitney Lackenbauer]

Taking what you just said, and turning it into an affirmative statement, is one I would support completely. It's really important, in light of inflation right now and in light of the cost of living, and realizing the importance of the Rangers, especially in this year of the Rangers, that we really see this as an investment in communities, an investment in families and an investment in subject matter expertise, which is really meaningful. At the same time, it's also increasing the budget envelope available for Ranger training and Ranger pay.

Another one that I've often heard at the community level, if I've been a good listener, is that Rangers really want challenging training opportunities. That also means having Ranger instructors who are able to go in sufficient numbers to work with them. A specific recommendation would be to ensure that the Canadian Army is treating Ranger instructors as a priority, and that investing in Ranger instructors, who in turn support the Canadian Rangers themselves, is an investment in Arctic sovereignty. It's an investment in security. It's an investment in safety, and ultimately it's an investment in communities.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Ms. Idlout.

We'll go to a shortened second round now.

I have Mr. Schmale up for five minutes.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses.

I might continue on with the professor. It's great to have a professor from Trent University there. I'm going to guess you're in Peterborough. I'm coming to you from Lindsay, Ontario, which is just a little bit down the road. I appreciate your contribution.

Maybe I will pick up on a comment you made in your conversation with Ms. Stubbs. I think I heard it correctly, but please correct me if I'm wrong. You talked about threats that don't look like what most are used to or that appear like foreign investment or research initiatives on the surface, but might have other objectives.

Did I hear that correctly? What did you mean by that? Can you expand on it?

[Dr. P. Whitney Lackenbauer]

Absolutely. Canada has often welcomed foreign direct investment in several sectors of our economy, with non-renewable resource extraction being prime among them. There have been concerns expressed about what foreign direct investment from non-like-minded state sources might mean in terms of our Arctic sovereignty and security.

The clear example is Shandong Gold's attempted acquisition of the TMAC Hope Bay mine, which was blocked on national security grounds by the federal government. That would be an example of a concerns about foreign-owned companies or companies backed by foreign state-owned banks developing a toehold in strategic parts of the Canadian economy, in the Arctic or strategic locations in the Arctic, and potentially acquiring infrastructure. This is not a unique challenge set facing Canada. Other Arctic states are balancing the same considerations.

Another concern relates to activities of foreign scientific actors. Let's say a research icebreaker is operating in Canadian Arctic waters. We want to make sure that the research being conducted is actually that which has been approved and that the findings of that research are being released transparently, as is required under international law. There are also concerns about whether that particular practice is really pursuing the research it's claiming to be doing, or whether it's being done to gather bathymetric or hydrographic data about the seabed in anticipation of future activities by that actor. I'm not trying to be too cryptic here. I hope I'm not, so please push back if I am.

At this stage, I think these are risks and I think we've done a fairly good job of managing them, but we need to remain vigilant. Here's where it's very important for us to be mobilizing all the different sources of information we have—be they different sensor systems, the information being gathered or marine security operations centres on the coast that are synthesizing information.

We also really must make sure we have those connections with northern rights holders and stakeholders who have often been approached in the past with some of these opportunities and in turn really must be reassured that they have the support of Canada as whole in dealing with some of this uncertainty, particularly around foreign direct investment. I think it also requires the federal government, if it's going to step in and block certain initiatives on national security grounds, to be prepared to step up with some of those strategic investments.

Minister Garneau, I know that you, in your former hat as minister of transport, were overseeing a lot of the work being done in terms of transformative transportation infrastructure investments and what those could enable in the north. All of those investments also have a benefit in allowing us to increase our ability to sense what's going on within the region at the same time as improving resupply, improving health of communities and serving as a catalyst for more diversified economic development.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you for those comments.

You have a very impressive resumé, by the way, Professor. It makes me wonder what I've done with my life.

We talked about Russia. I believe, if I heard correctly, that you also mentioned China and their interest in the region. Should China be treated the same as Russia or is Russia still the threat—I guess it's safe to call it that—to the Arctic?

[Dr. P. Whitney Lackenbauer]

Thank you. I think that is an absolutely core question that not enough people are asking.

I think they're different threats. Again, even “threat” is strong language when we're thinking about what they are to the Canadian Arctic.

Certainly, in light of the absolutely atrocious war that Russia launched on Ukraine in 2014 and has further accelerated in the last few months, my trust level for Russia is very low. However, I think within a Canadian Arctic context, it's not particularly coveting our resources. In essence, there are some natural alignments in our concerns about certain changes to the status of shipping routes in terms of access for international transit traffic and so on.

I don't think, within a Canadian Arctic context, that Russia is primarily a competitor. It is in terms of North American defence, the defence of Europe, our allies and NATO. It absolutely is. It's an urgent challenge that needs to be met—and we are meeting it with our allies—but I don't see it as a primary threat in the Canadian Arctic or to the Canadian Arctic.

For China and its interests, I do not see it at this stage as a primarily military threat. I see it, primarily, as a risk relating to foreign direct investment, clarity of what China's interests are within the region, and scientific activities as a way of normalizing the presence of a country that has self-declared itself to be a near-Arctic state. It is suggesting that this, somehow, gives it a status somewhat close to that of Arctic states, but it has no bearing in international law or the international order.

I don't think that China is inherently an adversary in the Arctic, and it's not necessarily best to jump ahead and frame it as such in a specific Arctic context. However, we have to think about and be vigilant in how we're looking at China, as both a potential collaborator on certain initiatives—like mitigating global climate change—and, at the same time, an economic and strategic competitor in the global context, and what that means in terms of our relationships in the Arctic.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. Schmale.

We'll now go to Mr. Weiler for five minutes.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for joining today on short notice, as well as for your very thoughtful and energetic testimony so far.

My first question, through you, Mr. Chair, will be for FNESS.

Given that FNESS's work is throughout B.C., I was hoping they could share with this committee what proportion of British Columbia's 204 indigenous communities currently have emergency plans in place.

[Anthony Moore]

For the communities that we have been dealing with, emergency plans really vary. There are all-hazards plans. There are hazard-specific plans. We've been working with about 150 of the communities. A lot of them are grouped together because of geography. As an example, in the Lower Nicola, there are probably five or six communities that are really close together. It's a two-minute drive between the communities.

When it comes to the north, though, there are few communities that have a fulsome plan. If they have a plan, they rarely have the capacity to have a full-time emergency coordinator to be able to implement said plan.

With that being said, we have been working, as FNESS, with our emergency department—or our mitigation department, as we're labelling it—to try to coordinate with those communities that don't have a plan and supply them with one. It's been a little difficult, at this point, because some of them are still dealing with COVID, for example. They haven't opened up their community for us to come in. We have many other supports that we're also trying to provide to them by way of wildfire training on mitigation, planning and things like that, as well as for structure fires.

When it comes to the communities that have a plan, there are probably about 15 to 20, off the top of my head, that have a full-time emergency coordinator position to go along with these plans. A lot of times, we're finding that, even if they have a plan, it's sitting in a binder in somebody's desk or has been sitting on a bookshelf for five or six years and rarely gets opened up.

We're trying to communicate with these communities and bring them an emergency specialist or an emergency officer. We've increased our capacity to be able to do this by hiring about four or five extra officers to go to these communities and work with them. We've even built EOC kits for those communities that don't have a plan in place. We have an all-hazards, super-generic plan to at least get them in the right direction for what they should be thinking about, but there's so much work that still needs to be done.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you for that.

I can imagine it may be difficult to take a plan off the shelf, but in situations like that it's certainly better than not having a plan at all.

I want to maybe continue on that topic a little bit. We talked quite a bit about response here, but I'd be very curious if you could explain to this committee a little bit more about the work you're doing on mitigation and on fuel management. Do you have any recommendations for this committee on how the federal government could better partner with FNESS to be able to assist in these types of services?

[Anthony Moore]

We do a lot of work in mitigation, especially when it comes to wildfires. We have on-reserve fuel funding grants that communities are able to apply for, but it's only a maximum of $75,000 if they prove that they are high risk.

What we're finding is that, through each of the communities we deal with through their community wildfire protection plans, if they have one in place already, it's out of date by seven, eight or 12 years. Doing those, you need a registered forestry professional to go in and physically walk through each community, through the exterior of it, and determine what hazard level it is based on their findings: how deep the duff layer is, what types of trees are there, what type of vegetation there is and how healthy it is. All of those factors determine how high risk that community is.

When it comes to what supports can be improved, there is the increase in funding that these communities can apply for to be able to get this work done. As an example, just updating a community wildfire protection plan with a registered forestry professional is based on the amount of hectares that person does. I just did it this last year with two of my four communities. I can only afford to do two with the Nisga’a nation where I work. That work cost me $47,000 for this RPF to come through and determine exactly what we knew, but we had to get an RPF stamp of approval on it—that we are high risk in those two communities.

Following that, we needed to apply for fuel treatment. FNESS does a lot of that fuel treatment work and can coordinate with communities on how to get it done. They do lots of training and have the capacity in some instances to be able to go to the community and conduct that work, but it does cost a lot of money. It's about $2,000 per hectare, give or take, in the Okanagan, and about $8,000 per hectare in the northwest, where I live. This is because if you live in the Okanagan you drive through and you can see the ground everywhere you go. There are trees maybe six to 10 metres apart on a regular basis. Whereas where I live in the northwest, just about an hour north of Terrace, I have to walk sideways through the trees. I have to crawl and climb over. As an example, the work that we did for eight square hectares took five months of work for 20 guys.

It varies in the amount of time and the amount of funds it takes for each of these areas, and I'm not even talking about the northeast. I'm not talking about the Vancouver area or the central interior of British Columbia where all these topographies are very different. There are some areas that are completely flat or with rolling hills. We have mountains shooting out of the lakes and rivers where we live, where we have an 80% incline to get to the top and we're supposed to clear as the raven flies, like flat on a map, a certain amount of area.

It's very difficult to say what Canada can do in partnership with FNESS, but that hopefully gives you a little bit of insight into the issues and the various types of issues. To be able to answer that question thoroughly requires a little more technical explanation that we probably don't have time for here.

However, there is increased funding for these areas that FNESS has already established, such as the on-reserve fuel funding or the community resiliency investment grant and things like that, to be able to conduct large-scale work over multiple years instead of reapplying once a year, year after year, because grants themselves are very incumbent on the people who apply for them. It requires a lot of reporting throughout, and especially in the final reporting a lot of labour-intensive coordination in all the documents and photographs and GPS, spatial data and things like this, to be able to prove that we did work there.

Hopefully that answers your question. I tried to break it down as easily as I could.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. Weiler.

Mr. Ste-Marie, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have another question for Mr. Moore, related to what he just replied and to his answer to my previous question.

Mr. Moore talked about the importance of having an emergency response centre in each region. Why does he consider it important to adapt the response strategies and the actual responses to the needs of each community and each region, rather than using a single approach, that is the same everywhere?

[Anthony Moore]

British Columbia is very sparse, with very different geographic tendencies. When we talk about breaking down our offices, as I mentioned, we have two main offices, and they are primarily in southern B.C. and strategically placed because of those hazards that are typically there. When it comes to the floods and the fires that occur throughout the province, in the past when we tried to get resources from, say, Vancouver, because that's where we keep our flood equipment—storage issues are always a big issue right now—trying to get them to the north past those areas when the Okanagan is flooding is difficult.

Last year was a perfect example this past November, when the entire south was cut off, the entire metro Vancouver area. All of our resources in North Vancouver could not get anywhere beyond that, and the equipment that we have in Kamloops is more geared towards wildfires, so it didn't have the flood response equipment necessary to be able to support those communities. That's one of the reasons why we are trying to work towards having something similar to what the regional districts have for their regions or what the EMBC breaks out for regions, and also what B.C. Wildfire has. They all have it broken down very similarly: the northwest, the northeast, the Cariboo central interior, the south, metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island.

This plan allows us to coordinate our personnel and our equipment to be able to respond to any community. Let's say there are more fires in the Kamloops area but north of Kamloops, and that there are northern communities on the other side that we can't get to. We can bring resources down from the Prince George area, as an example, and support those communities, or vice versa. It's about having that ability and that capacity to be able to respond from multiple angles or pull in multiple resources. B.C. Wildfire uses this model as well. If there are a lot of fires going on in Kamloops, they pull their resources from the Skeena district, where I live, and from the central interior and Bulkley Valley interior, to the south, leaving minimal resources up there because there's nothing going on, so that they can all move to where the hazards really are that are impacting communities.

That's basically what we're trying to do—to mimic what successful regional offices have already established.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you.

[The Clerk]

I'm sorry. The chair has been disconnected.

Mr. Schmale, could you take over?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

I can, yes. I don't have the time. I wasn't looking at the time.

[The Clerk]

There's only one more person left to ask the last question, and that's Ms. Idlout.