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

[Merrill Harris]

As I said, there were seven projects that were identified in the overall drainage study that was done, and they span across the region from Lethbridge all the way to Medicine Hat. This project is the one that's closest, as I said, to a natural river course, which is the Oldman River, but there are other projects. Three of them, as I can see in front of me, are actually in Cypress County, closer to Medicine Hat. One of those projects is already being done by the St. Mary River Irrigation District, and one of the other projects that's closer to Taber is being done by the St. Mary River Irrigation District, so that's three of the seven projects under way now.

What I found is that whenever we met with our members of Parliament, MP Shields and MP Glen Motz from the Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner riding, they very strongly encouraged us to work collaboratively, regionally. It carries more weight when you can work together. We do have a very good working relationship with all of our partners in getting this project done.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Excellent. Thank you.

My last question is for Madame Atagootak.

Qujannamiik for being here with us today.

I really would like to tap into your knowledge. In your experience, what are the kinds of climate change impacts that you're seeing in your community, and how can the Government of Canada better support more resilient communities in the north?

We were talking about the different housing needs and some of the materials being used, perhaps. Could you talk generally about what you're seeing on the ground in your community?

[Meeka Atagootak]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

This climate change definitely has changed especially the animal harvesting seasons, and the foundations of the buildings started deteriorating because the ground is rotting and deteriorating. This should be an emergency. It shouldn't be abandoned; it should be dealt with right away. There should be emergency preparedness for those.

All of the foundations of the buildings are damaged by the climate change because the permafrost melted towards the community, so the foundations have deteriorated from the climate change.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much.

That's all, Mr. Chair, for me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Ms. Atwin.

Mrs. Gill now has the floor for six minutes.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to begin by asking Mr. Eby a question about alerts.

Mr. Eby, you explained quite nicely that it was difficult to take action with a number of players and that improvements could be made to the way things are done. I'd like to know what is different in indigenous and northern communities. Obviously, they don't have access to the same services and infrastructure as other communities.

What changes would you suggest to the committee to make collaboration more effective?

[Kurt Eby]

Thank you.

It's not really an issue of what's different. What I was trying to say is there are different approaches across the country.

Saskatchewan and Alberta, for instance, are the only provinces that give access to municipalities to issue alerts. It's really more tightly controlled and centralized in most places. This is not necessarily an issue about first nations versus non-first nations.

From our standpoint, we saw the jurisdiction was not clear for us and we thought this was an opportunity for some more communities, and first nation communities especially, that might be a little more vulnerable, in particular to flooding and forest fires. They would want the autonomy to use the system in some instances, and we wanted to facilitate that. What we need is direction, either from the provinces or from the government, to help move this along.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Eby, my question wasn't in any way intended to pit one person or group against another. It was more technical in nature. You say that you're working with the communities and that they will issue an alert.

Do you see any differences in the issuing of alerts?

What challenges do communities that don't have exactly the same resources as others face?

[Kurt Eby]

To issue an emergency alert, you need an Internet connection. We provide an interface that a duty officer or someone would log in to. You type in where it's going to go and what the message will look like, and that's really it.

Obviously, there's an issue in the sense that you have to have an LTE connection on your phone to receive an alert. Some first nations would be more remote, and I hear they don't have very good cellphone coverage.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Exactly.

Thank you very much, Mr. Eby.

Actually, that's what I wanted to validate with you. I wanted to bring this to light, because that's exactly what's happening in my home. We have no cell coverage at all. When there are storms, like what happened recently with Hurricane Fiona, people are without those services, so it's very difficult to reach people.

Mr. Chair, if I have any time left, I would like to ask Elder Meeka Atagootak a question.

Ms. Atagootak, my question is along the same lines as the one asked earlier by my colleague Ms. Atwin, and it concerns the current situation in the community and their needs.

Do you think climate accidents are happening more and more frequently?

You are appearing before the committee as an individual. How do you feel about the help you receive, and what is the margin between the help you receive and what you would like to see for the community as a whole?

Thank you.

[Meeka Atagootak]

[Witness spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

On emergency preparedness, for example, today my house is unliveable, and I would like the housing corporations to be encouraged to help.

There are lot of [Technical difficulty—Editor] are neglected by the housing corporation. We have to get our parts from sealift, and it would be wise to encourage the housing corporations. Especially most neglected are the people who own their own homes.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mrs. Gill.

Go ahead, Ms. Idlout. You have six minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, thank you very much to the witnesses who are present here today. Your comments are very important.

I just want to ask Meeka Atagootak to clarify what you're talking about here today as a witness.

I asked you.... We parliamentarians here, if we have to repair our homes, would go to the local hardware store and buy their products. It's not the case for us. Perhaps you can explain a bit more how everything is more out of reach.

[Meeka Atagootak]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

I can say, when I own my own home, that I had to wait for my housing supplies after we had moved to another home because it was unliveable. By the time the ship arrived, the house foundation had already deteriorated, so the supplies that we ordered were not feasible.

Everything is a very slow process, and we have to wait for a very long time for certain things to be repaired. We have absolutely nothing locally, and supplies cannot even be shipped by airplanes.

Thank you.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you.

You had briefly stated about the insurance. Can you clarify more about the insurance and how hard it is to get insurance and how hard it is to make a claim, for example, with your home insurance?

[Meeka Atagootak]

[Witness spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Yes. We have insurance for our house, of course. We can get our supplies upon request, but when they look over our insurance, they see that what we actually need for the homes doesn't apply in our insurance, so it is completely unusable and invalid for the specific needs in the north. Therefore, the housing corporation should be informed of what kind of insurance would be covered under them.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

This is my last question to you. You said earlier that the housing corporation needs to assist. Can you clarify that a bit more? What do you think we should recommend to CMHC?

[Meeka Atagootak]

[Witness spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

My house needs lots of repairs and we have to wait for a very long time for the supplies, although it's an emergency case. They don't even answer us for a very long time. They just promise us they will do something about it, and they don't. I wish they would be encouraged more about our need to get our buildings repaired. It would be very useful if they could have everything ready for us when we have our emergency situations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Ms. Idlout.

Colleagues, I can offer a shortened second round. It would be three minutes for Conservatives and Liberals, and one and a half minutes for the Bloc and the NDP, if you wish to avail yourself of that.

I see Mr. Vidal is interested, so, Mr. Vidal, why don't you kick it off for three minutes?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of the witnesses for taking time to be here with us today. With my limited time I am going to focus on just one question for Mr. Eby.

Sir, you talked about the NAAD system and the alerts and authorizations, etc. As a former mayor, I've been through that process of having to go through the authorizations for who could issue those alerts for our little city in northern Saskatchewan. You went on to talk about accounts for first nations communities. In my riding, which encompasses the northern half of Saskatchewan, there are very many unique circumstances of remoteness, including rural and remote communities and first nations communities. My colleague Mr. Shields talked about one size not fitting all.

In the context of pursuing this idea of the individual first nations being able to be part of this system, would one of the benefits be that it could be more localized with content very specific to their community? In a more general sense, what would be the benefits and the barriers that you would see in advancing your system into the localized efforts of each first nation?

[Kurt Eby]

Thank you for the question. It's a good one.

To clarify, Alberta does have some first nations that do have access to use it, but as far as I understand no other province does.

The benefit is just to have the local emergency management organizations on the ground issuing the alerts and having that autonomy to do so.

I could see another benefit. Right now we see that the system is used on an inconsistent basis. There's never been a forest fire alert issued in Ontario, and there have obviously been forest fires. Enabling more users would lead ideally to more use of the system. We built the system to be used to save lives, so that's a major benefit, whether to first nations or to any community.

A remote community might benefit more. They know what's going on there, and it might be even more of a challenge to have an alert issued through a centralized agency. That wouldn't always be the case, but that could be the case.

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

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

You still have 35 seconds.

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

Thank you. I have a quick follow-up, then.

A couple of my colleagues have already mentioned remoteness and connectivity and the availability of Wi-Fi. I assume those are going to be huge barriers on a localized level. Is that correct?

[Kurt Eby]

I could only speculate from what I hear about the level of connectivity in certain areas, but the alert system does also issue alerts over radio and TV, so it's a three-pronged approach. It helps, obviously, if your radio is on or your TV is on, so you'll still get alerts. That helps to cover more of the bases, regardless of the situation. However, you need an LTE connection to receive alerts otherwise.