Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 22nd, 2022

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

I want to thank our three guests today, the Honourable Paulie Chinna, Ms. Raigili Amaaq and Mr. Eiryn Devereaux, for their important testimony.

Thank you for taking the time to be with us. I'm sorry the meeting started a bit late, but we did keep all the time we could for this.

With that, we'll proceed to the second panel.

Madam Clerk, please let me know when we're ready to start the second panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

I call the meeting back to order.

Welcome to Margaret Pfoh, chief executive officer of the Aboriginal Housing Management Association; Kenny Bell, mayor of Iqaluit; and Roxanne Harper and Candace Bennett from the First Nations Housing Professionals Association.

We'll hear from each of you, and then we'll proceed with a round of questions.

We will start with Margaret Pfoh.

You have six minutes. I beg your pardon. You have five minutes for your presentation.

[Margaret Pfoh, Chief Executive Officer, Aboriginal Housing Management Association]

Somehow I lost a minute.

'Niit. Hello everyone.

T’oyaxsut nüün, Mr. Chairperson. T’oyaxsut nüüsm. Thanks, everyone, for this opportunity.

In the necessity of brevity, I'll just get right to the point. The words that I'll speak today will be candid and likely make some uncomfortable. For that I make no apology. As a first nations woman from a long line of ancestors, we have been uncomfortable for over 150 years now.

These words, however, do not simply reflect me or the organizations that I am affiliated with. They do represent the voices of hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples not only across this country, but across the world, who have been dispossessed because of colonialism. They are the words of a generation still struggling to see true and meaningful reconciliation become a reality within their lifetime.

I'll say just a little bit about myself. For the past five years I've been the CEO of the Aboriginal Housing Management Association. I'll refer to it as AHMA from here on. I'm also a member of the indigenous caucus working group working with the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, which is based in Ottawa. I have a long-standing career dedicated to urban indigenous housing. In fact, my 28-year-old daughter's first words were not “mama” but “AHMA”. That is the years of front-line and lived experienced voices that we bring to the table.

I come to you today with grave concern and absolute, utter dismay at the release this morning from the Prime Minister's Office with this quoted wording:

Making a significant additional investment in Indigenous housing in 2022. It will be up to First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities to determine how housing investments are designed and delivered.

For us, this demonstrates once again this country's willful ignorance or purposeful discrimination that neglects to recognize that 80%-plus of all indigenous peoples are not captured in a distinction-based microfocus. I'm going to frame this from my own direct experience.

I'm a sixties scoop child. I was literally taken off the birthing table, fostered and then adopted into a non-indigenous family and non-indigenous community. I am only recently, at 53 years of age, affirming my matriarchal lineage. I am Tsimshian. Recent genealogical mapping verifies that I have deep and long-standing ancestral roots within the Lax Kw'alaams first nations.

My origin story, however, is the legacy of active attempts of government to remove the Indian problem through residential schools. My birth mother suffered the injustices of a legacy of trauma and she still suffers today. It's unimaginable pain for many, but a truth that must be purposely looked at. We cannot turn away any more.

Despite this recent affirmation of my ancestral connections, with the ongoing pain my immediate ancestors suffer through I remain completely dispossessed from my nation.

While I have a status card that verifies I am a status Indian, I have never been home. That's a trite word to the nearly 80% like me who have come to create a sense of belonging in for-indigenous and by-indigenous urban communities, created by the over 140 urban indigenous housing and support leaders for over 50 years now.

I'm sorry. My voice is cracking. May I just take a moment to have a quick drink?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Absolutely, go ahead.

You have about a minute and a half. I didn't count the time you were drinking.

[Margaret Pfoh]

I'll just remind you that this is not about me nor about AHMA, but about the thousands of voices past, present and future that must be responded to.

Dispossession is the heart of why we are all here today. The very systems that dispossess us are the same systems that government now either ignorantly or purposely hides behind, thus making the notion of reconciliation not much more than tokenism.

Thankfully, organizations like AHMA, with over 40 housing and service providers across B.C., have been working hard to address these issues. However, our efforts are neither sustainable nor should they be done without the federal government engaging in partnership.

I just want to frame a comment I heard from Honourable Minister Paulie Chinna. She talked about infrastructure and the challenges of our northern and rural communities. The actual challenges of our northern and rural communities are absolute barriers when I hear sentiments from our provincial government here in B.C. indicating that the cost of building in the north is so disproportionate that they may not be able to continue to fund them. We absolutely need the federal government at our table.

In 2018, in front of over a thousand witnesses from across the housing sectors, Evan Siddall, former chair and CEO of CMHC, stated that the federal investment was coming. Four years later, despite multiple references to urban, rural and northern indigenous priorities in ministerial mandate letters, there is still no dedicated funding stream.

The long and short of it is that we need the federal government to step up, partner with people like the Aboriginal Housing Management Association and urban indigenous housing leaders to ensure that representation is at the decision-making table by the 80%-plus of indigenous peoples who are dispossessed and not connected to their traditional communities.

T’oyaxsut nüüsm. Thank you, everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Ms. Pfoh.

We'll now go to Mayor Kenny Bell for five minutes.

[Kenny Bell, Mayor, City of Iqaluit]

Qujannamiik. Thank you to the committee for the invitation to speak today.

My name is Kenny Bell. I am the mayor of the City of Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut. I'm also the president of the Nunavut Association of Municipalities.

I took a lot of time and effort to choose my words wisely and precisely to ensure that I not only share important information but also the pain and sorrow that the lack of housing has brought to the citizens of Nunavut, especially Inuit.

I'm not here to speak on behalf of Inuit. I am here to speak as a friend, a lifelong friend. I was born and raised in the north.

As Mr. Devereaux pointed out in his speech, 56% of Inuit households experience overcrowding which we know contributes to many different social problems, including abuse, and to our long-standing and current suicide crisis. Inuit commit suicide 10 times the Canadian average, and most are young Inuit men.

As a parent, I know my first priority is to provide for my family, but how can one even start when it's almost impossible to find a roof to put over my family's head?

The federal government needs to change the way money is disbursed in the north and recognize that significantly more is required to meet the deficit in available housing stock. For instance, housing money for Nunavut in budget 2016-17 totalled $316.7 million over eight years. The Government of Nunavut has estimated that it will be approximately 83 houses per year. Again, as Mr. Devereaux pointed out, there is a projected budget deficit of 3,100 to 5,000 units, and the population continues to swell, meaning Nunavut will never be able to catch up at the current rate.

Moreover, money is disbursed per annum and must be used by the end of the fiscal year. However, this doesn't always line up with Nunavut's relatively short shipping and construction seasons. Multi-year funding where funds are received in full and can be used up during the course of five or 10 years would enable better planning and more efficient use of all the funds.

I ran for mayor in 2019 because of our infrastructure deficits, including water and housing. I started a mayor's task force on affordable housing, and it has several important recommendations that I'd like to highlight today. I can make that report available to the committee members once it is translated into French, as it is currently only available in English and Inuktitut.

Inclusion of off-site improvements as qualifying expenditures under CMHC's and other federally funded programs would bring Nunavut in line with other jurisdictions where off-site improvements qualify for CMHC funding. One large part of the issue is the lack of developable land in the territory. Millions of dollars are required just to prepare land and extend infrastructure in order to support new housing units.

The second recommendation is to create partnerships with Inuit organizations. The GN alone cannot support the building of all new housing stocks. In fact, due to government procurement policies, the GN has seen construction-related bids inflated to a point where the GN is building at a significantly higher cost per square foot when compared to the private sector.

The third recommendation is to keep in mind the issue regarding the lack of developable land. The conversion of federally controlled buildings that are currently sitting empty to affordable housing may be an important factor in addressing the growing deficit.

The fourth recommendation is to reduce the amount of red tape that acts as a barrier to non-profit organizations accessing funding. For example, the rapid housing initiative requires a partnership at a government organizational level that includes a contribution agreement. While many southern municipalities and provinces have such agreements, Nunavut does not have that in place and there is no bureaucratic mechanism to support this.

The fifth recommendation is to require the completion of the work by the National Research Council on the creation of northern building codes. This will ensure that housing stock is built better, more efficiently and requires less O and M.

In response to a recommendation arising from the Senate study on housing throughout Nunavut and throughout Inuit Nunangat, the then minister of CMHC, Jean-Yves Duclos, told the committee in 2016 that the National Research Council was actively working on these standards. However, the building codes have yet to be seen.

In closing, Nunavut is the most unique, most beautiful and largest land mass in Canada. We have our challenges, that is for sure, but our two biggest issues, infrastructure and housing, can easily be fixed with more money. The simple answer is more money.

All of the social problems will take time, money and a lot of work across many different professions. Let's put a roof over our heads by changing to multi-year funding, a better release of funds and more money to give us a fighting chance at change.

Thank you. I will stick around for questions at the end.

Qujannamiik.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

We'll now go to Ms. Harper, I'm assuming, for five minutes.

If I am wrong and it is Ms. Bennett, go ahead for five minutes, Ms. Bennett.

[Roxanne Harper, Director, First Nations Housing Professionals Association]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, members of the standing committee.

My name is Roxanne Harper. I'm originally from Natoaganeg First Nation located in the province of New Brunswick.

I am a board member with FNHPA, the First Nations Housing Professionals Association, and I'm joined today by our executive director, Ms. Candace Bennett. Both of us, I will let you know, are certified housing professionals.

The housing shortage that first nations face is not new. It has existed for many years and has, in fact, gotten worse due to the global pandemic. We know that 36.8% of first nations people living on reserve are living in what are considered overcrowded conditions. This is compared with 18.5% for those off reserve.

The housing shortage results from many things. Just to name a few, there is the increasing demand for housing assistance, chronic underfunding and inadequate human resources. Every day on reserves in Canada, first nations are confronted with the reality of the housing shortage. We know that some of our people, our elders, our children, our women and our families live in overcrowded and often unsafe conditions. This is not just a first nations problem. This is not just an indigenous housing problem. This is a Canadian problem requiring all of us to share in the solution.

At FNHPA we are a national professional association exclusively serving the needs of individuals who are working or aspiring to work in the first nations housing industry. As the only national association for first nations housing, we are dedicated to filling long-term capacity development gaps, addressing educational requirements that lead to certification, providing training and development and, of course, working with like-minded organizations and associations that can also help to support our members.

We have today identified three key issues directly related to the housing shortage that we believe are impacting first nation communities. The first one is that first nations require dedicated financial support to hire and retain qualified housing staff. We are requesting that the Canadian government designate long-term funding for first nations housing positions. Doing so would allow our communities to protect both people and property.

At this point in time, first nations must self-fund housing positions. This is often done by cobbling together special initiatives or any proposal-driven funding available by the federal government. This approach results in inconsistencies, inequities, and even worse, in some communities no housing staff at all. As housing deals with health and safety, it cannot be effectively done by an already overburdened administration at the first nation or on the corner of the desk by our chief and council.

At this point in time, we call upon the federal government to support long-term funding for these positions. We believe our communities would immediately view it as an investment and it would improve the quality of lives for first nations people.

In addition to that, housing staff would require dedicated and long-term financial support to continue their capacity development and to continue to access educational programs and training. These opportunities are often cost-prohibitive and not easily accessible. This is especially true when we look at the location of first nation communities and realize that most educational opportunities are available outside of the community.

If the federal government were to provide this support, first nations would immediately be able to increase how they can attract and retain qualified staff and plan for the future development of our staff, which would improve how we respond and react to the housing crisis. We believe that first nations need and deserve this level of support and, again, it would be viewed as an investment in our communities.

Third, we agree with many of our colleagues here today that it is time for a new approach to northern, remote and special access communities. We believe this is necessary. We know that housing needs are significant, that the building cost is greater and that human resources are stretched to the limit. The designs in many northern communities are often inadequate. We face a short construction season, and even something as simple as the lack of connectivity to access education and training.

We believe a better solution exists and we urge the Canadian government to redesign its approach.

As a final note, at first nations levels we are aware that our people are leaving the community to access better housing off reserve. This has an impact on both our cultural community and we know they go off reserve and apply to already overburdened aboriginal housing programs that exist.

On behalf of FNHPA and all our membership, we thank you for the opportunity to be here and we look forward to working with you to find real and lasting solutions.

Wela'lin.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Ms. Harper.

We will now proceed with the first round of questions.

The first round goes to Mr. Shields.

You have six minutes.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I very much appreciate the panel we had before and the panel we have now.

To begin, I'll go to Ms. Pfoh.

We've heard a lot about funding, whether with this study or the previous ones we've done, and I think everybody is identifying that the colonial model of funding just doesn't work. In your experience, where do you see the will to change that?

[Margaret Pfoh]

It's an interesting question that you ask.

Having been in this industry for over 28 years, I was here when the federal government got out of the housing leadership role in the 1990s. They devolved all the funding to the provincial governments, and many of our provinces across this country devolved it further to the municipalities, all to the detriment of the urban indigenous portfolio.

Roxanne was bang on when she talked about an already overly burdened system. We are certainly overburdened, and it was only exacerbated when the federal government got out of investments in urban indigenous housing, because as she so rightly indicated, many of our communities, whether they're first nations, Inuit or Métis, are migrating into urban, rural and northern communities for multitude reasons and seeking a sense of belonging in those communities.

Without the ongoing investment from the federal government, most of our provinces fail to invest. Here in B.C., we were fortunate. The B.C. government did honour the Aboriginal Housing Management Association's request to be self-determined, to allow ourselves to administer our own programs. With over 25 years of experience and demonstration of our capacity, our 40-plus providers have paid off mortgages. We've divested. We've reinvested. We've branched out into social enterprise to become self-sustainable, because we have had to live off only the provincial funding that was transferred from the federal government to the Province of B.C.

The Province of B.C. has made some new investments, but there is no way they have kept pace with the need and growth in urban indigenous communities. Therefore, what we need to see is ongoing investments and the invitation from the federal government for urban indigenous leadership, whether it's AMHA, the indigenous housing caucus working group or other entities that have put recommendations to the federal government for solutions in urban, rural and northern areas.

I agree 100% that this government needs to stay vested and invested in first nations, Inuit and Métis communities, but they need to also recognize that we are underfunded in urban, rural and northern areas, and perhaps those most hard to access communities are the ones that are suffering the most.

As I said earlier, I just heard from our provincial government about a month ago that the cost for building in rural, remote and northern communities is so exacerbated right now with supply chain issues that they're considering not funding any more housing in those communities. We can't allow them to become ghost towns. We need the federal government, the provincial governments and the municipal governments to be working collaboratively.

The strategy we unveiled on January 26 outlines some very in-depth solutions that are inclusive of what many of the panellists have talked about. It's not just bricks and mortar; it's also skills, expertise, capacity-building, infrastructure, recruitment, retention and understanding what it means for cultural and trauma-informed work within our communities.

I hope that answered your question.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

I believe you have submitted or will submit that report.

[Margaret Pfoh]

We did.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Ms. Harper, when you talk about the capacity, the nations' councils have a whole wide range of responsibilities that most levels of government don't, so I appreciate your comment about not adding it onto another nation's chief and council's agenda to deal with.

Mr. Bell, I will go to you in the sense of the list that you have and what you live as a municipal leader.

I'm familiar with ATCO builders, who have had a 50-year history of building the best housing to staff people all the way to the Arctic Circle when need be.

Where is the will? Where do you think the will is to invoke that kind of capacity building, where they could build warehouses in the north and train people like they do in the south to build them in the north?

[Kenny Bell]

One of our major issues is that Nunavut has only 39,000 people. We are the largest land mass in Canada, with 25 communities and the largest community being the city of Iqaluit at under 8,000 people. It's just capacity. Even if we wanted to build buildings and build modular homes here in Nunavut, it would be hard. Plus, we have zero trees. We would still have to ship in all of the wood—

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I got that, but what if the will was to transfer massively in the sense of technology like ATCO builders? They build in the south, take that and transfer that knowledge and the materials to the north to do it.

Unless there's a will to do it, how do you see it's going to happen?

[Kenny Bell]

I don't know that there's not a will; I just don't think there's the capacity to undertake that right now. Right now, people are food insecure. They have no housing at all.

We are in a position where we are reacting to emergency upon emergency because of the lack of infrastructure and the lack of housing over the decades. We're not in a position where we can start new projects other than just the very basic ones. We need these houses built so that we can get people in them to continue on the process. We're literally at least 20 years behind the rest of Canada here in Nunavut.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

When we talk about updating our security in the north, maybe we should be talking about the security of the people who live in the north.

[Kenny Bell]

I agree with you 100%. It would be a lot cheaper to house us here in Nunavut than it would be to build military bases across our great land mass.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

We need both, but if we don't have the security of the people, then we don't have the land to protect.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. Shields.

We'll now go to Mr. Weiler.

Mr. Weiler, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd also like to thank the witnesses for joining our important meeting today. I'm really struck by their knowledge and expertise.

My first question, Mr. Chair, through you, is for Ms. Pfoh.

First, I want to thank you and AHMA for the work that's been done on the thoughtful urban, indigenous and northern housing strategy. Last week, we heard from officials at CMHC that a specialized committee was established to assist indigenous groups in accessing the national housing strategy programs.

In your recommendations, you mentioned that a fourth stream should be established for indigenous people living in urban, rural and northern settings. You also mentioned in your opening remarks that 80% of indigenous peoples are not connected to their traditional communities and not covered by distinctions-based programming.

I was hoping that you could share with this committee where you see the gaps in the national housing strategy that are not being filled and why it's important to have culturally appropriate and indigenous-led housing solutions.

[Margaret Pfoh]

Thank you for that question.

I think the reality is that when you think about my story—and I share that not for consolation, not for pity, not for anything else than awareness—I've been working in this industry for 28 years. We see people from all nations, not only from within Canada but from across the world, who come here looking for safe, secure housing.

They come to urban indigenous community leaders like AHMA and our members and our providers because they have a sense of safety. They don't have to explain the trauma they live through every day. They don't have to explain why they're seeking education or why they're seeking employment. They don't have to explain that their child has been apprehended and is now living 15 minutes away.

I live in Mission, British Columbia. Abbotsford is 15 minutes away, but technically and theoretically are two different things. A woman like me, who has had a child apprehended, as an example, a child who is now living in Abbotsford.... I don't have a vehicle. I don't have transportation. The infrastructure to get me to my child is [Technical difficulty—Editor] The success of me meeting the criteria to re-obtain that parenting of my child is very limited, and this is considered a city—both Mission and Abbotsford.

The people in the urban, rural and northern regions are even more challenged in those capacities, so when we talk about needing that fourth stream, it's because we have lived this. We experience this. We know this. We've been doing this for over 50 years. Here in British Columbia, we have a collective experience of over a thousand years of understanding what culturally safe, trauma-informed work means when it comes to supplying the appropriate housing for our communities.

That is why we were fortunate when B.C. said yes and agreed to let AHMA do their own administration and to let AHMA create their own strategy, yet they can't sustain it. We need the federal government to step back into the game. Evan Siddall came here in 2018 and promised us they would, and we sit here four years later waiting for action. We're waiting for an actual dedicated investment where somebody like AHMA, something like the CHRA's national housing council recommendation.... We submitted, over three years ago, through the national housing council round tables, a recommendation for a “for indigenous, by indigenous” national housing centre that can do exactly what AHMA is doing here in British Columbia. So, as Murray Sinclair once said, we laid a path for you.