Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Sept. 26th, 2022

[Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot]

That's a very good question. It depends on how you define sovereignty.

On the question of the Northwest Passage, it's more of a maritime issue.

On the question that is most pertinent, the extended continental shelf, that is the seabed. It's not an area that has been occupied or that ever could be occupied by humans. It goes beyond 350 miles into the Arctic Ocean. Human occupation is not a condition of extending your sovereignty for that seabed.

Certainly Inuit contributions and representation in the Canadian Arctic are important, but in the most near-term disputes on Arctic sovereignty, that human use and occupation will not be of importance. It's not even about the marine column. It's simply about the seabed and the ability of a country to be able to regulate that seabed of its extended continental shelf.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Heather Nicol, would you also like to answer that?

[Dr. Heather Nicol]

I think this is a really important issue. I firmly believe there is a tremendous role and it is a very effective argument currently that's been advanced by.... I've done some reading on some of the work that I think came before the Senate committee on this. I forget the law firm that was doing some work on the issue. I think, first of all, that people have to understand. It has to be known that this comes under the sorts of conversations we've been having about the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, on the rights of indigenous peoples to participate in conversations, because they are indeed sovereign of their territory, and they have had that right since time immemorial.

To reassure you that I think there is tremendous support for this, I went to a conference in Australia and said something about the archipelago being ceded from Britain in 1880. One of our big defence leaders—I won't say who—was there and stood up to say, excuse me, just to note—and he was right—the Canadian archipelago and the Northwest Passage are Canadian, because Inuit have lived there since time immemorial. I think the message is there. I think the idea is to continue to vocalize and challenge this notion that the rights of Inuit people in the Northwest Passage and archipelago area are constrained by documents and attitudes towards the role of indigenous people that are probably set from deliberations in a different century.

I don't know if that's helpful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you very much.

This brings us to the end of our panel. I'd like to thank Dr. Nicol and Dr. Exner-Pirot for being with us. Despite the technical challenges we had during this past hour, it was very important for us to hear from you and to get your answers to some of our questions. We very much appreciate your presence and helping this panel with the current study.

We'll recess very briefly to configure for the next panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Colleagues, welcome to the second panel for today.

Today in the second panel, we will be hearing from three witnesses: Minister David Joanasie, Minister of Community and Government Services, Government of Nunavut; Chief Darcy Gray from the Listuguj Mi'gmaq Government and Chief Joe Alphonse of the Tsilhqot'in first nation.

For the benefit of our witnesses, you will each have five minutes to make opening remarks, and we'll follow that with a question period. Some of the questions may come in a language other than English. It could be in French, or it could be in Inuktitut. To make sure that you understand it, if English is your language, use the interpretation symbol at the bottom of your screen. It looks like a globe. Hit that and choose English so that you will hear the question.

With that, I would like to get things going and would invite Minister David Joanasie to open up with five minutes.

[David Joanasie, Minister of Community and Government Services, Government of Nunavut]

Thank you and good day from Nunavut, Chairperson Garneau. Thank you for the invitation to present to you and your committee.

[Witness spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

...member for Nunavut.

[English]

Allow me to provide opening comments with an overview about emergency management in Nunavut. First of all, let me paint a picture.

Nunavut's land mass is huge, representing roughly 20% of Canada, and our population distribution is roughly 0.02 Nunavummiut per square kilometre, so it's a vast, vast territory. Our population of approximately 39,000 Inuit and northerners is distributed across 25 fly-in communities, and each of these communities is resilient. They begin at the local level and expand outward through coordination and collaboration.

While logistical challenges are many, the spirit of Nunavummiut is filled with resilience. Northern Canadians are most able to care for themselves and their communities in times of hardships and emergencies, and we've experienced a few of those in recent years.

Nunavut Emergency Management is responsible for the emergency measures organizations and the support of search and rescue operations in Nunavut. These are guided by the the Emergency Measures Act, which empowers the minister responsible for Nunavut Emergency Management to facilitate the development of emergency management programs in both territorial and local government. We continue our efforts to complete the territorial business continuity program to see the coming into force of the Emergency Measures Act here in Nunavut to protect Nunavummiut. We assist both territorial and local governments to mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from the impacts of emergencies and disasters.

Nunavut Emergency Management is focused on building relationships and learning from partnerships with northern jurisdictions. We are in constant communication with our partners in the Northwest Territories, as well as in Yukon, to restore the northern round table on emergency management. Additionally, we're working closely with Yukon to support the development of their emergency management framework.

We, like our northern counterparts, contend with factors that lower accessibility, increase costs and wear out our critical infrastructure, with the heightened impact of risks. Our critical infrastructure is outdated, and the dependencies within our systems must be carefully considered.

In 2022, the community of Clyde River enacted a local state of emergency stemming from heavy equipment maintenance program issues, which escalated quickly with a series of blizzards. The resulting state of emergency left homes without heating fuel, water tanks without water, and community members without access to emergency services, among other critical needs. Successful response efforts ended the emergency there.

I'd like to say that emergency preparedness is the thin line between successful mitigation and disaster. Issues can compound quickly, and the challenges our population faces can magnify. Broken machinery quickly leads to issues of access to food and security. We face a tipping point where strained housing infrastructure suffers damage and leads to loss of homes and contributes to overcrowding. The risk factors for communicable diseases like tuberculosis climb. The health system strains to respond to surging needs. The impact is large and varied, dispersing across the entire territory. Territorial emergency preparedness brings an about-face to the cascade.

Our emergency preparedness in Nunavut is a combination of 72-hour community preparedness and the all-hazards plan approach. Geography, distance, age of infrastructure, runway length and sealift season are consistent considerations in our approach to territorial risk management.

We support short- to medium-term response by stockpiling equipment capable of handling scale and being transported on small aircraft. Nunavut's all-hazard plan reflects community-identified risks using a hazard identification and risk assessment.

Nunavut Emergency Management aims to deliver biennial training to each municipality. Training and program development sessions include review, update and testing of community plans. We ensure that roles and responsibilities are clearly identified and defined within each hamlet. The result of our training effort is an up-to-date emergency response plan in each of the 25 communities. The next step of our municipal training program is to ensure that comprehensive planning is in place for all identified hazards.

In closing, I want to recognize the importance of emergency response in protecting Nunavummiut from disaster and recognize that our federal and northern partners are important contributors to protecting Nunavummiut. When issues scale beyond territorial capacity, we can rely on Public Safety Canada to deliver lifelines to the territory.

At this time I'd like to thank everyone for your time and our federal partners as well for their ongoing support during times of emergency and disaster.

Qujannamiik.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Minister.

We'll now go to Chief Darcy Gray.

Chief, you have five minutes.

[Chief Darcy Gray, Listuguj Mi'gmaq Government]

Good afternoon. It's an honour to speak with you today.

My name is Darcy Gray and I'm the chief of the Listuguj Mi'gmaq Government. I want to share that on behalf of Listuguj, our hearts are with our Mi'gmaq brothers and sisters and all those who have been affected by Hurricane Fiona.

In the spring of 2018, our community experienced significant flooding in several homes due to a perfect storm of events—heavy snowfall in the winter, rapidly warming temperatures and heavy rains. It was a Friday evening around the end of April when a few calls came in because of basements flooding. Help was sent. Then, as more calls kept coming in, it wasn't long before we realized we had to act on a much larger scale.

The next morning we established a command centre in our Natural Resources building, bringing in staff from public security, capital and infrastructure, communications, health and various other departments. A call centre was created. Our rangers and fire department were doing initial assessments and check-ins, delivering and setting up sump pumps when needed. The responses were swift and rather well coordinated with a touch of chaos.

I can remember at one point handing my personal credit card to one of our social workers to drive to Bathurst, New Brunswick, an hour away, to buy all the pumps they had because locally there was nothing else available. Staff from our health department ensured proper self-care for those responding and helped to flag which homes may have had special circumstances or additional risks because of health concerns. Larger pumps were brought in to move the water out of key areas and hopefully lower the risks of additional flooding. Community members volunteered and offered pumps or generators, whatever they could, to help. We did what we had to, coming together as we often do in times of crisis. We were also in contact with emergency management at ISC. The support was greatly appreciated. They helped us to find equipment and supplies. They provided guidance and support during the initial response and throughout the work that followed.

After the initial crisis response, assessments were done by a third party project management firm. Approximately 55 homes had been identified and assessed for repairs because of the flooding. The report outlined the scope of the repairs and approximate cost and indicated that basements would need to be gutted and cleaned, and that at a minimum such things as mould remediation, membranes and waterproofing were needed. In many cases the entire foundation needed to be lifted and rebuilt because of high groundwater levels. The instructions received at this time from emergency management were to get things moving and get things done as quickly as possible and to build back better. We hired teams to clean and clear out the basements that had flooded. We documented, tracked and supported to the best of our collective ability. We moved and we got things done.

After several months the project shifted within the ISC regional office from emergency management to infrastructure. The switch brought new criteria to determine which houses qualified for repair, now limited specifically to homes that flooded because of the increased groundwater levels that occurred in the spring of 2018. The new criteria reduced the number of qualifying homes to about 40; however, we had already cleared out most if not all the homes identified in the first assessment. We needed an answer for those 15 homes.

LMG Capital and Infrastructure worked with ISC infrastructure to find a solution, and ISC agreed to cover the cost of repairs but not of the cause of the flooding, thereby creating a problematic gap—the basements would flood again if we could not address the main cause. Our capital and infrastructure team found solutions to this gap and addressed the causes of flooding for the remaining homes as well. We completed the various phases of the remediation efforts in 2020, and none of the homes have flooded again, but we hold our breath every spring while we monitor closely.

These events and efforts placed tremendous stress on the staff intervening and on the families affected. Those who helped in the cleanup found themselves also supporting families who had lost irreplaceable items such as precious photo albums. Our health staff provided support to the families dealing with trauma while helping complete forms to replace items lost or access subsidies to offset the cost of being displaced from their home for weeks or months. We had dedicated staff in finance working with the support workers in health to track, monitor, record, report and process payments and meet reporting requirements while also trying to meet the expectations of those affected.

Our people felt the strain. Our staff felt the strain. Our organization felt the strain. Furthermore I must highlight the efforts of everyone involved, from those who first responded to those who helped rebuild and repair the homes and get families back home, and all those who collaborated and provided support along the way at ISC and LMG and everyone in between. Our response was not perfect, but overall we viewed it as a successful one. Since then we've continued to work with ISC to provide training on emergency management for staff and elected members of council. We've also recognized the importance of good communication and collaboration internally within LMG and with ISC, which helped tremendously during our pandemic response.

I should also note that assessing the root problems has led to many flood mitigation projects in the community to deal with the high groundwater levels.

I thank you for the opportunity to share this with you today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you very much, Chief Gray.

We will now go to Chief Joe Alphonse.

Chief, you have five minutes.

[Chief Joe Alphonse, Tsilhqot'in National Government]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On behalf of the Tsilhqot'in National Government, we would like to thank the committee for the invitation to appear on this important topic.

Today I will be speaking to the need for emergency preparedness within the Tsilhqot'in Nation, the only nation in Canada with aboriginal title as recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2014.

In 2017, Tsilhqot'in Nation experienced multiple wildfires that burned land the size of Vancouver Island within their area. We had two of the three largest fires in the history of Canada. Eighty-five per cent of my caretaker area was burnt. Nobody has better black trees than Tsilhqot'in Nation.

The hardest things with a disaster like this are the issues of jurisdiction and remoteness of our communities. In the face of outside agency-imposed evacuations of our communities, many communities decided to manage their own people. We're the only nation in the history of Canada to say no to an evacuation order. We're going to stay behind and we're going to fight this ourselves.

Our nation is seven hours north of Vancouver with one main highway in and out. We have one power distribution line to all six bands and no cell service. The repercussions of power going out include having no Internet access, home phone or cold storage and the dying of gathered foods.

Coming out of the 2017 wildfire, Tsilhqot'in Nation released a report called “The Fires Awakened Us”. This report has 33 calls to action.

One of the best ways to ensure preparedness for indigenous communities is to recognize their jurisdiction in preparing and managing emergency situations. This takes an investment by Canada and by British Columbia to establish emergency infrastructure training for all members. This has begun, with the first tripartite management agreement in Canada between the Tsilhqot'in Nation, Canada and B.C. This agreement was again renewed this year.

Some of the issues we faced during 2017 included ISC coming to our territory, coming to our community and promising that they would cover all costs related to protecting our community. Since 2017, it has been a fight. Every last financial detail has been argued and argued again to the point that out of the $800,000 that was owed to us, $500,000 remains outstanding.

We went into the court system. When it became absolutely crystal clear that there was no hope that they would win that case, they paid us in full with no questions asked.

I would say that during times of crisis like that, the fires were never a threat to my community. Our region is dependent on forest fires. We see a lot of forest fires. We have all grown up and fought fires as indigenous people in our area. We know the area. We know this area better than B.C. firefighters do, better than all of the fire help brought in from throughout Canada and throughout the world. We had Australian and Mexican firefighters who had never seen forest fires reach the height that they did. We know all the game trails, the highways, the roads, the back roads. In times of emergency, our guides know that territory better than anyone else.

It's crucial that that be recognized. We have hired our own trainees. That has to be recognized and incorporated in times like this.

We believe the crisis of 2017 was the result of poor forestry management practices. We have come to know that we will be involved in every decision from this point on.

What we did in 2017 was an act of self-government, and that jurisdiction has to be recognized and respected.

Sechanalyagh.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Chief Alphonse.

We'll now proceed with the first round of questions, beginning with the Conservatives.

Mr. Shields, you have six minutes.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

First I would go to the minister with a very specific question about communications. Can you describe to me the level of communication that you have now and where you would need to go in the sense of broadband to get the coverage you need?

[David Joanasie]

I believe that in terms of communications, all of our communities are serviced by satellite right now. We are working on a fibre optic cable to connect Iqaluit over the coming few years. It can't come soon enough. That's going to help tremendously to ensure that communication is solid and useful for every community. Going further, this is an area in which technology is advancing, so we want to tap into that resource as soon as we can.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you. I think what you're suggesting is that “years” is too long, and that with technology going quickly you need to be at the forefront to receive that kind of technology to make it work for safety. I'm guessing that's what you mean.

[David Joanasie]

Well, we make do with what we have. Our emergency response team has all the communication devices, whether it's satphones or what have you. We harness those tools and communication devices to the best of our ability and make them available to our communities as well. In particular, SPOT devices have been quite successful and useful in mitigating search and rescue efforts.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

Chief Gray, where are you with your communication systems and what do you need next?

[Chief Darcy Gray]

For us, the important part is continuing to build the capacity internally to address the issues. I think the other witnesses spoke to that as well.

We have a lot of capacity in our community, and it is the collaboration and support of ISC and other governments that helps in these times of crisis. I would say that we don't have the ability to have a team on standby or to have people on standby who can react in these times, and it's having that extra expertise or those extra people who can come in, whether it be equipment.... We're not so remote, but at the same time, there are still concerns with accessing certain equipment because of where we are.

I would say that through these events what we realize is that having that solid plan of communication—taking a unified command approach internally and that one contact person at ISC or with other governments—reduces a lot of the confusion that we experience.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Chief Alphonse, when you describe forestry management practices, can you just briefly explain the difference between what we've had in the past and what you believe should be done?

[Chief Joe Alphonse]

Yes. I think the way forestry is managed is for profit for today and really nothing else. We have beetle epidemics that are killing trees out there, and trees that are falling. The amount of fuel on the floor is unreal, and when 2017 hit, that's what created the intenseness of the fires. There has to be more prescribed burning in early spring, as our ancestors used to do, so that there is no fuel, there is no forest floor and there is no threat from fires. We live in a semi-desert region of the province. We don't see a lot of rain, even in a normal year, so fires are something that our people have grown accustomed to and live with.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

What would you implement that would make a difference?

[Chief Joe Alphonse]

I think I did just finish saying that you implement fires in early spring, small, regional fires, to eliminate as much as possible areas of a lot of forest floor debris. In some cases, the dead wood that would be lying on the forest floor would be as high as 10 or 12 feet. That's not good management.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

That's the point that I wanted you to re-emphasize—that the fuel on the floor creates the fires, and there is a burning process to deal with that, rather than just letting it grow.

[Chief Joe Alphonse]

Yes, that's the case to some degree. You can also log different areas that are problematic and stuff. You should have a good inventory of the stock that you have. A store owner is going to do the same thing for what they want to sell in their store. If we're generating revenues from our natural resources, we should know what's out there and manage it.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

We'll go to Mr. Powlowski for six minutes.