Public Accounts committee  I can get the committee the final costs. It's actually something that's still ongoing in some parts of the country, specifically for the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority communities in northern Ontario. The decision to provide this service was in consultation with o

Public Accounts committee  I will have to get that for you. I don't think I have the exact number across the country, but I will get that to the committee for sure.

Public Accounts committee  By me, I did a number of all-chiefs meetings throughout the different COVID pandemic time periods. For instance, I would have done the all-Saskatchewan chiefs committee. I did the all-Ontario chiefs committee. I did direct outreach to Cross Lake, Berens River or Shamattawa when t

Public Accounts committee  I spoke to Treaty 8 two nights ago. I spent a couple of hours with them, because they did not feel that we should be engaging broadly on our health legislation. The message I had for the chiefs of Treaty 8 was, “We want to hear from you. We respect the treaty relationship. You ma

Public Accounts committee  We have ongoing conversations with the Métis settlements. We have ongoing conversations with the MNC and with the MMF. We did a lot of work with the MMF during the pandemic, as opposed to—

Public Accounts committee  I have not consulted directly with the Métis settlements, no.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for that question. I would say that during the pandemic and even postpandemic in conversations we're having within teams, we are looking at innovative approaches. We are looking at ways, and I think the one that you've raised is similar to how sometimes teachers college

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much for that question. Yes, as I've said, we provided PPE to communities, not just limited to the health professionals or the ISC employees or the contract nurses. We really try to take an all-of-community approach to the PPE. If a community would have made a req

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. I'll say three things. The first thing is that we definitely agree that the housing challenge and overcrowding had an impact throughout COVID-19. Overcrowding does present huge challenges for health. That would be my first point. My second point wou

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. I should say we have 862 nurses. I'd say about 50% are in remote and isolated communities and about 600 of them are on contract. What worked in terms of strategies? Ideally we tried to ensure first that people had the right training and culturally re

Public Accounts committee  I would have to check on that. Of what we've received, 2% would actually be procured by PSPC and by the Public Health Agency of Canada. Then we also sent funding directly to indigenous communities to purchase their own PPE, some of which may have been from indigenous businesses.

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely. With some of the planning that's being done now, given the pandemic and the lessons we've learned to date, and hopefully postpandemic when we can really focus, there are going to be strategies in place in terms of how we manage the most vulnerable. That could be every

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much for the question. I wasn't here in 2014, but my understanding is that there was a reliance on the national emergency stockpile, and probably, in terms of when you talk about the “gap”, the gap was probably not a thorough assessment and a regular monitoring of

Public Accounts committee  There are enormous needs within indigenous communities. In terms of future planning, I think we are taking the lessons of the pandemic for PPE specifically. I think I mentioned moving from a six-month supply to a 12-month supply, which allows for that buffer zone if ever we were

Public Accounts committee  We absolutely think that data, capacity and governance are key to supporting indigenous leadership in this country for all areas of EM, health or economic development.