Finance committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, committee members and fellow witnesses. My name is Robert Bertrand. I'm the national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, or CAP, as we like to call it. I would like to extend my thanks for this invitation and to those who have worked to bring

Finance committee  The amount of resources allocated off reserve for this pandemic was a slap in the face, excuse the expression. When we convened our PTOs to tell them that, across Canada, CAP had received only $250,000—if you divide that by 10 PTOs, it's $25,000 per PTO—some of the chiefs were so

Finance committee  Mr. McLeod, thank you so much for your question. I'm very happy to see that your people were able to participate in these programs. By what you have just said, I think we have concrete evidence of why it's important that all groups be included. It is very maddening when you see

Finance committee  Mr. Julian, I would like to thank you so much for your question. To answer it as honestly as I could, I deeply feel that CAP is not listened to. We have talked to CIRNAC and we've talked to ISC. I don't know how many letters I've sent to the Prime Minister's office for a meeting

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair, committee members and fellow witnesses. My name is Robert Bertrand, National Chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, CAP. I thank the committee members and staff for this invitation to share our constituents' concerns. Mr. Chair, we appreciate thi

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  But without federal funding, our PTOs cannot meet the needs that already existed before COVID-19, let alone the added pressure due to a pandemic. CAP has been told that we will receive $250,000 under the indigenous community support fund. This was the result of a competitive bu

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay. I will be sending the rest of my notes to your committee.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As you know, CAP and its PTOs are all democratically elected representative organizations. Our PTOs are the ones that are serving the off-reserve communities, and it's important to note that these communities are the ones that know what their needs are and, if they do get funds,

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, again, it's to be treated as equal. I don't know if I mentioned it in my opening remarks, but we signed a political accord back in 2018. That has to be worked on. We have been working on it, but it is so slow to get the resources to implement some of these items that were i

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I believe CAP was aware of the announcement on March 13. We had already reached out to request that CAP and its PTOs be included in the federal response policies before that announcement was made, but we didn't hear the criteria for the competition for funding until, I believe, m

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  —your committee suggests strongly to the government that not only the three distinctions-based organizations be included, but also all the NIOs be included in their discussions with indigenous peoples.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Again, you can make sure that you follow up on how the political accord is coming along. For any new programs that are announced by CIRNAC or ISC that affect indigenous people, make sure they are not only reserved for distinctions-based groups, but open to everyone.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The little amount of money we have received has created quite a bit of, how should I put this, uneasiness with our PTOs, so much so that the board of directors met. The $250,000 is an insult, and we will be sending the money back.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I would just like to inform the committee of news from CAP this morning.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples has been left with no choice but to initiate legal proceedings against the Government of Canada on behalf of the off-reserve and urban indigenous peoples over ongoing inequitable treatment in violation of their rights. Government continues to u