Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. Vidal.

We are going to Mr. Weiler for three minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for joining us on our important study today.

I want to direct my questions, in my limited time, to Mr. Eby.

First, I want to confirm that the system you administer—I'm a B.C. MP—is one and the same as the Alert Ready system.

[Kurt Eby]

Correct. I did mention that the brand name of the system is Alert Ready.

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

Great.

One of the topics brought up here was the challenge of a lack of cellphone reception in many remote communities, especially indigenous communities across the country.

In communities where there isn't cellphone reception, have there been policies and programs put in place so that the alert is shared with an area that does have those connections, so that it could be rebroadcast by other means to where individuals may not have that cellphone reception?

[Kurt Eby]

There's nothing like that.

As I said, it's on TV and on radio, and there are also a number of apps that take those alerts. The Weather Network app rebroadcasts alerts in local areas, so you have to be connected to Wi-Fi and not LTE. It's a multipronged approach. Right now it's TV, radio, wireless, and then some apps to rebroadcast the alerts as well.

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

I'm curious about the province of British Columbia. You mentioned that Alberta had allowed some first nations to be on the system. Have you had any conversations with indigenous nations in B.C.—or rather, with the Province of British Columbia—about having that same type of ability?

[Kurt Eby]

We have not done that yet. It's something we want to pursue, but we started at the federal level. We've had some informal conversations with Public Safety Canada to say that this is something we would take on and facilitate if the challenge was having a different agency to administer the accounts.

If that's not the challenge, the provinces could do it. You would also find there are probably many first nations that like the current situation of having it issued on a provincial basis, but we're trying to put it out there as something to move forward on and help where we can.

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

Absolutely.

As an MP in B.C., I am concerned about the operation of the app here. In fact, it wasn't even used at all until 2022. As you know, there was considerable controversy last year, when we had the heat dome, the wildfires and the atmospheric rivers. I know there was no notification sent at all to people. I know of people who were caught in landslides or were driving on unsafe roads that were destabilized because of the atmospheric rivers.

I would hope that would change. In B.C., what are the different weather events that can be circulated as a risk on the app?

[Kurt Eby]

To clarify, it's not an app. It's a cell broadcast system.

For weather events right now, Environment Canada issues alerts for tornadoes and severe thunderstorms. For other weather events—and I had this conversation with other colleagues of yours in British Columbia—such as flooding, even though flooding is caused by a weather event, the alerts are primarily for anticipated damage, road closures and evacuation orders. Those would come from the provincial EMO. I understand the situation in B.C. now is that it has asked the regional municipalities to request the alerts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. Weiler.

Mrs. Gill, if you like, you can have the floor for a minute and a half.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, but I don't have any further questions.

Thank you to the witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

All right. Thank you.

Madam Idlout, you have a minute and a half, if you wish.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you.

I'd like to ask Meeka Atagootak more about what she talked about.

You own your own home and you were not able to live in your own home. How did that touch you personally, and your family? You felt that you were homeless. Can you tell us a little bit more about your personal experience of not being able to live in your own home?

[Meeka Atagootak]

[Witness spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

I can say that for eight months, I was homeless. My home was absolutely damaged. There was mould everywhere. It was really hard to repair. We waited for a very long time for the supplies.

We were in government housing, and we had to take good care of it. If we broke something in it, we had to pay for it. We had to be extra cautious. I have many grandchildren. They're small, so they just want to destroy this and that. It was challenging to look after this unit where we were, which was owned by the government. We managed to keep it pretty clean and undamaged while we waited and they worked on the house foundation and the floor.

We had to move before the house was completed, because our term with the government housing had ended. We had to move to an unfinished house.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

If you were to make a resolution or recommendation to the the federal government, what would that be?

[Meeka Atagootak]

[Witness spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

I would say that those of us who own our own home cannot get into CMHC housing at all. We tried to get into their units but were not allowed. Finally, the Hamlet of Pond Inlet gave us government housing as an emergency shelter. I would like to see people who own their own home, when there's an emergency case in their home, being able to occupy CMHC buildings.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you.

That brings our first panel to an end. I would like to thank Meeka Atagootak, Mr. Merrill Harris and Mr. Kurt Eby for coming this morning, giving us their opening remarks and answering all of our questions on this very important topic.

With that, we will now suspend for a few minutes as we transition to the second panel.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, colleagues. We'll resume with our second panel.

Our second panel will consist of Chief Dwayne Thomas and Chief Sarah Sunday-Diabo from the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. They are here in person today. We also have Chief April Martel from the K'atl'odeeche First Nation, if she manages to join us. She is not on yet.

Also joining us is Mr. Lucas King, director of the territorial planning unit of Grand Council Treaty #3.

To the panel witnesses, there is English, French and Inuktitut interpretation, if you choose to have it. Select a language on the button that's called “interpretation”. It looks like a globe at the bottom of your screen. You can listen to the proceedings in either English or French. However, there will be questions in English, French and Inuktitut asked by the members of the committee.

That said, before we go to the question period, let me invite Chief Dwayne Thomas and Chief Sarah Sunday-Diabo to take the microphone for a combination of five minutes.

Thank you.

[Chief Sarah Sunday-Diabo, Chief, Mohawk Council of Akwesasne]

She:kon.

My name is Chief Sarah Sunday-Diabo. I represent the Tsi Snaihne district of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne.

This is my first year on council. In my previous role, I was the emergency manager for the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, which is our counterpart on the southern portion of Akwesasne.

As you may know, Akwesasne is a multi-jurisdictional community. The international border runs straight through our community, so we have to deal with the American side as well as the Canadian side. There are two counties—St. Lawrence County and Franklin County on the New York state side—and the two provinces of Quebec and Ontario.

My role was to assist with.... I didn't see a border in my community, so whenever we would have any planning activities, we did Akwesasne joint emergency operations plans that consisted of all our hazards. I would do mitigation plans, continuity of operation plans and pandemic plans for my community.

I would always have external as well as internal stakeholders. Our stakeholders consisted of about 50 federal partners such as FEMA, which is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as the New York State Office of Emergency Management and Emergency Management Ontario through Canada. In Quebec, because of the language difference, we didn't really participate with them. We don't speak French, so it was hard to work with them.

We do have two police departments, which are the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Police and the Akwesasne Mohawk police.

We have one fire department. The fire department has substations in Akwesasne, Ontario, and Akwesasne, Quebec, as well as the main headquarters, which is in New York state. We have one fire department that serves two countries and two provinces. They're all volunteer. I think there are probably about 240 active members. They do anything from haz-mat response to ice rescue. They have a marine unit. They're very active in the community and sometimes they're employees of Mohawk council.

We do have one ambulance unit that's New York State-certified. It's housed in Quebec and responds to New York state, Ontario and Quebec. We have three paramedics, some advanced life support, basic EMTs and drivers. They're all New York State-certified.

As well, we have an environment crew that does haz-mat response. We have had multiple incidents of ships that run aground through the St. Lawrence River. We have to respond because it would affect our water treatment facilities. We've learned how to do boom deployment and cleanup and how to take care of our waters. In our culture, our water is sacred, so we all have to protect that because of the water intake and things like that.

Oftentimes we do all this training with the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as with the Canadian Coast Guard, so we have a good relationship with both the United States' and Canada's coast guards so that they come in and train with us. We do a lot of mutual aid with them, as well as with U.S.-Canadian customs and Canadian border protection. We have various tabletop exercises and mock drills. Whatever we would need, they were a support to us. We have this local emergency planning committee of all these different agencies that come onto our territory, train with us, give us guidance and share their resources with us.

We do have our own health department on both sides. In Akwesasne, everything has to be duplicated, because we have about 14,000 members who are enrolled on both sides. Some live on the U.S. portion of Akwesasne and some live on the Canadian portion, so we have to have New York State Department of Health, as well as our own health department.

We have two long-term care facilities, one in Ontario and one in the Quebec part of Akwesasne. We have day care centres. We have recreation facilities and our own school system. We have an Akwesasne board of education on our territory up to grade 8. One is Mohawk immersion, teaching the Mohawk language, culture and ceremonies to our youth. We're trying to bring back the language and make them fluent speakers.

We have our own busing that transports these kids. On a daily basis, they have to go through the United States and report to customs, go back in and go into the Quebec portion of Akwesasne. That's probably about a 40-minute round trip for these children. On the way home, they have to go through Canadian customs as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

The five minutes are up, but we will have questions for you, Chief Diabo. Thank you.

I would now like to go to Mr. Lucas King, director, territorial planning unit, Grand Council Treaty #3, for five minutes, please.

[Lucas King, Director, Territorial Planning Unit, Grand Council Treaty No. 3]

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Lucas King, and I'm the director of the territorial planning unit at Grand Council Treaty #3.

I certainly appreciate the invitation to be here today and to work together with the federal government on the critical issues of water regulation and emergency management in Treaty No. 3. I'd like to thank the committee members and other participants for having the Grand Council represented.

Several weeks ago, we were asked by one of our local MPs to share our experiences with and knowledge about water in Treaty No. 3. Over the past two years, to say the least, things have been extreme in Treaty No. 3. Last year, the territory experienced one of the lowest water levels on record. This resulted in well-known drought and fire emergencies across the territory. I wanted to share some photos, but due to time constraints and translation, we couldn't get them in front of you this morning. However, one photo we would have showcased is of the 10-foot difference between the water levels this past year and the year before.

Climate change is creating increasingly unpredictable water levels, making it very difficult for emergency management planning and damage mitigation in Treaty No. 3. This past year, in contrast to the year before, we had large amounts of snowfall and rain throughout the winter season. Then, in the spring, there was a lot of flooding that damaged land, water treatment plants, docks, bridges and homes, leaving communities in Treaty No. 3 with impeded access to food, medical appointments and work. Evacuations and loss of sacred sites to flooding also impacted Treaty No. 3 communities and directly impacted their inherent and treaty rights.

Through all of this, lingering impacts of the global pandemic weighed incredibly heavily, compounding the struggles people faced, including their ability to evacuate and be with family or in safe spaces through everything.

The second photo I wanted to share was on harmonizing governance structures. October 3 is a special day in Treaty No. 3. Today specifically marks 149 years since the signing of Treaty No. 3. We are coming up on 150 years in 2023, a year to celebrate that special and sacred relationship. It's our responsibility as treaty partners to work together in relation to shared lands in Canada, because that's the essence of treaty land. We have a responsibility to harmonize our governance and work together as brothers in that shared capacity.

Modelling provides a great tool for understanding a basin when we talk about water regulation and quantity. However, in the last two years, especially with the impacts of climate change, we've seen that our understanding certainly needs to be more holistic, and our decision-making structures need to reflect this. It's only through the harmonization of governments and decision-making protocols that we'll be better able to manage our own responsibilities for, and relationship to, water in Treaty No. 3.

That doesn't mean managing water; it means managing ourselves and understanding the protocols between both governments in terms of what water looks like in Treaty No. 3. We at the Grand Council are always going to be willing to co-operate with any level of government or any treaty partner because of that sacred relationship. We are willing to share our knowledge, experience and expertise in order to find solutions to the issues we face together.

Today, as we see it and as we move forward, we need to harmonize those governance structures, because, for the last two years, Treaty No. 3 communities have been the most affected by these water regulation impacts. The communities also have the least amount of say in terms of water regulation and protocols. It's all within that western structure. We really do need to take a hard look at how we manage ourselves, what our principles of decision-making are and what our governance structures are, moving forward, so we can take that more holistic look. As we found out through the global pandemic, we can only work on something like this together as a whole. Climate change and water regulation are the same, as they don't sit in just one jurisdiction. They connect everywhere.

With that, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here today and share our experiences from Grand Council with you. I'm looking forward to the rest of the session. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. King.

Unfortunately, our third witness, Chief Martel, is not yet with us, so we're going to proceed with questions, beginning with the Conservatives.

I have Mr. Vidal for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for taking the time to be here with us today.

We were chatting briefly about the fact that fall is in the air, and we're probably not going to avoid that as it transitions to winter. I want to thank you for coming and sharing your knowledge with us.

I have a couple of questions for Chief Thomas and Chief Diabo. The comments you made were quite amazing in the context of your managing multi-jurisdictional challenges. As a former mayor who dealt with different levels of government, I appreciated your perspective—a very positive perspective—and I'm sure it has its challenges.

Emergency management is a shared responsibility, obviously, and you're sharing it way more than most people have to. We heard testimony in the last hour from the people who issue the alerts—the alerting system—and they talked about wanting to engage individual nations on maybe being part of that at their own level.

I'm trying to flesh this out in the context of your having to deal with what I used to have to deal with as a mayor: multiple jurisdictions. Would it be beneficial for you to issue your own emergency alerts just for your nation and your communities, or do you do this already?

[Chief Sarah Diabo]

We don't have the reverse 911. It's only good for the Ontario portion of Akwesasne. I wanted to start something called CERT, community emergency response teams. They are almost like a neighbourhood watch, neighbourhood groups that we would create.

Akwesasne is kind of one big family, so everybody knows everybody. Everybody knows who's the elder and who lives alone. We would create these little teams and have them do door-to-door checks if we needed to evacuate or things like that, but we don't have any reverse 911 or alert system, because our phone numbers are both American and Canadian, so you can't do that. It would just have to be the old-school way, door to door. You knock on the door to see if they're okay.

We also use social media. As well, we have our own local radio station, which is our lifeline to Akwesasne. If there is a power outage or evacuation or winter storms, everybody tunes in to CKON. In the past we have given these kits that have three to five days' worth of food, water, a little radio, a flashlight and batteries. We would deliver them door to door and give them to our community so they could at least turn on the radio and have some way to be in touch with first responders.

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

I appreciate that very much, and the effort you make in doing that. That approach makes a lot of sense. A witness in the last hour talked about TV and radio; it's not just an alert on your phone. It's a multipronged thing.

If you could have an alerting system that worked, so that you could issue very specific local alerts without having to rely on going door to door, would that be a benefit to you?

I'm looking for a pretty quick answer because I want to get on to something else before my time runs out.