Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 29th, 2023

[Audrée Dallaire]

Hi. This is Audrée Dallaire, committee clerk. I usually sit on the official languages committee. I'm happy to be here on INAN.

Can you hear the French interpretation?

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

I can hear you clearly.

[The Clerk]

Is the interpretation coming through?

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Yes, but I hear an echo when I speak. Someone's mike may not be on mute. I'm not sure.

[The Clerk]

I'm going to let the chair take over.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

We'll continue.

Mr. Vidal, take it from the top. You have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

As I said, when I was first elected in 2019, I visited the community of Denare Beach. It was brought to my attention that the community was owed a significant amount of money by the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation. The population of Denare Beach is about 800 people. Part of their community consists of the Amisk Lake reserve, which is one of the eight communities of Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation. There are 37 properties that are part of the Amisk Lake reserve in this community of about 500 properties.

Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation and the Village of Denare Beach have a service agreement that consists of water and sewer, fire, animal control, street maintenance, recreation, garbage and recycling. In essence, it's an agreement that basically is in lieu of property taxes and municipal services.

I raised this issue with your predecessor and his chief of staff, starting way back in March 2020 and many times after. I brought this issue up with your deputy minister on January 24, 2022, shortly after you were appointed minister. I was assured that the ministry was aware of and had approved this agreement, and we received promise after promise of the region's being committed to resolving this issue. It still hasn't. That's over three years later, Minister.

On January 2, 2023, the village was owed about $240,000. That doesn't include the 2023 invoice yet, which will bring the total to over $300,000. Again, to put this into perspective, the village's total annual property taxes are just over $500,000, so $300,000 owing to them is very, very significant to their community.

At my request, the village leadership has shown significant patience with the process as we have tried to work at this behind the scenes. Quite frankly, I think that patience is becoming undeserved. Minister, the leadership of the village has been put in an untenable situation because of the unwillingness or the inability of ISC to ensure that the service agreements they have approved and funded are honoured and paid, but this community's patience has run out. Denare Beach does not want the promise of more meetings, nor the promise of phone calls or follow-ups. In their own words, they just need ISC to pay the bill. If not, they're going to be forced to shut off the water and stop responding to fire calls, animal control and all the other services in this agreement in order to collect what is due to them.

Minister, my question is actually quite simple. Can you commit to the people of Denare Beach—who, by the way, are watching today—that this will be resolved immediately to ensure that there is no disruption of service? In other words, is there a commitment in these estimates to just pay this bill?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you very much.

Through you, Madam Chair, I will commit to the residents of Denare Beach to continue to investigate what is happening. Certainly, Indigenous Services Canada would not have a direct agreement with Denare Beach. They would be supporting the community to procure services. We will need to work with the community to determine why the bills remain unpaid.

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

I appreciate that, Minister, but just for clarity, I've had that commitment many times over the last three and half years. If we can get some assurance that this will be taken care of.... It's absolutely imperative, because we don't want to see a child mauled by a dog, or a fire at a house, or any of these horrible things that could happen if services are ended. Let's just make sure it gets done, please.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

We'll certainly connect back with you, Mr. Vidal, to give you more information on this situation.

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

Thank you. I appreciate that.

My second question is actually pretty simple as well. I have a picture here that was sent to me by a constituent. It's a picture of a package of stuff that was found on the ground outside a service station in my riding. It's a zip-lock bag with a Canada flag, an Indigenous Services of Canada logo, that's identified as a safer inhalation meth kit.

My question is really simple in regard to the estimates. Can you tell me how much was spent on these kits last year in Canada and what the plan is in these estimates for how much we're going to spend on these kits in the coming year?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

We can get back to you, Mr. Vidal, on the estimated cost for a safer inhalation kit, but I can tell you that it will be enormously cheaper than the treatment of a variety of different infectious diseases from using contaminated inhalation kits. The purpose of safe consumption materials, such as safer inhalation kits and the provision of clean needles, is to reduce the rate of invasive group A strep, of hepatitis C, of HIV and of a variety of other related health issues. It is far more affordable to try to help people when they are seeking to try to protect what health they have—to give out supplies—than to treat sometimes very resistant diseases like that, which can spread very quickly and cost communities astronomical amounts of money to support.

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

I'm sorry. My time is really limited. I want to make my point on why I bring that up.

On the comparison of what we spend on that, I've brought forward a number of initiatives of indigenous-led, land-based treatment opportunities that treat families for addictions and for mental health issues. I've brought those forward to the department on a number of occasions, and the people I have represented who bring those forward can't even get a response from the department.

To me, the challenge is the comparison between what we're spending on something like these safer inhalation meth kits and the treatment options I've brought forward. One, for example, is the White Lightning organization in Beauval. They were looking for $50,000 to invest in a facility that's already there to do land-based, indigenous-led treatment, and they can't even get a response. That's the frustration that I'm bringing forward to you today.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Well, certainly, two things.... One, I would say that the amount that is spent on harm reduction would be far outweighed by the amount spent on mental health and substance use supports, including treatment.

We will look into communities that have not had responses, and that's not acceptable, quite frankly, if a community is not receiving a response, but I will tell you that we receive requests all along the continuum, from conceptual to fully programmatic and designed and ready to deliver.

We work with communities, no matter where they are on that continuum of design, to make sure that whatever they're proposing is going to actually be implementable in a community, and to ensure they have the right suite of supports, including financial support.

We'll follow up on the specific proposals, and my department will get back to you.

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

Thank you. I can assure you that this one was fully developed.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I'm not judging that particular proposal. I just want to make sure you understand that communities are along the continuum of design.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Mr. Vidal.

We'll now move to Mr. Powlowski for six minutes.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you.

Minister, since we started talking about health care, I'll continue with that. I know that our government has recently committed to $2 billion in further funding for indigenous health care. If somebody—either you, Minister, or one of the members of the department—can get a little more specific as to where exactly that money is going, maybe I'll start with that.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Powlowski. I will just say that this is a really exciting and brand new, innovative fund for first nations indigenous partners to be able to access.

The intent behind the indigenous health equity fund is, first of all, that the fund will be self-determined—that indigenous groups, whether they're health care providers at the community or regional level or other experts who are indigenous-led, will be able to access the health equity fund to pursue projects that look at increasing access to equity.

Some of the most exciting announcements I've made with indigenous partners are projects that work on system navigation—for example, within the non-indigenous or what I would call mainstream health system. For example, in Manitoba there is now an ombudsman for people who are not able to access service through a mainstream health care system. They now have an ombudsman that is indigenous-led and can provide indigenous people with access to health care or with the ability to make complaints about the refusal of health care.

I know that as a practising ER physician, you have seen a great many things in your practice, and one of the things you may have observed is the ongoing systemic racism that indigenous people face in provincial and territorial health care systems across the country. This health equity fund is about empowering indigenous people and practitioners to come up with innovative ways to close that gap and to work more closely with provinces and territories.

Finally, I'll say that some leaders may use the indigenous health equity fund to further their work on the creation of self-determination, of self-determined health care legislation. That is work that's exciting. It's happening across the country. It will empower first nations indigenous people to have broader control over how health is delivered within their territory and in partnership with provinces and territories.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

As you know, coming out of COVID we've had a lot of discussion and a lot of concern about mental health and needing more resources both for mental health and for substance abuse. Will that come out of the $2 billion, or is there further funding to deal with those problems?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

The $2 billion is very separate and is unique to health equity programs.

The mental health and substance use treatment will continue as a separate line item. It is delivered in a variety of different ways. Through first nations leadership, there are direct health and mental health support lines that the Government of Canada provides, and we contract services for communities that need additional care in a variety of different circumstances.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Can you give me some numbers as to how much money is going to both—

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Valerie Gideon will provide us with those.

[Valerie Gideon, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Indigenous Services]

In mental health, we have over $600 million a year that is invested in mental health services across the country.