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.