Environment committee  The reality is that the Supreme Court of Canada says there are three sovereign jurisdictions in Canada. They include the jurisdiction indigenous peoples have, the provinces, and the federal government. The Supreme Court of Canada will tell us that they don't want to solve our iss

Environment committee  Go back to jurisdiction. You're looking at this as a federal entity. You have to determine what other entities are out there. For example, we contest—and we proved this in court—that the lands that we live on, we have title to. We have title to a huge area in the Northwest Territ

Environment committee  Thank you.

Environment committee  Thank you again, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to be here. Our country is so vast and huge that it took me a whole day to get here yesterday, and that's why it's a pleasure to be here. I have the environment portfolio for the Assembly of First Nations; it's a national portfolio.

Environment committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Bill Erasmus. I'm the regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations for the Northwest Territories. I'm also the Dene national chief for the Northwest Territories. We're pleased to be here. I understand you have

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, thank you. I don't want you to get me wrong. I think much of what Health Canada does is good, but it's not designed to deal with the whole issue of healing. That's the difficult situation we're in. And that's why we're emphasizing the need to expand what they do, if they a

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. We agree with what you're saying. That's why I think it's so important that we begin a dialogue very quickly. The more I understand Canada's decision and the more I understand the direction they have given the departments to work on this, I don't think that decision i

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, we're quite open to talking about that. There are different ways to do it. I probably shouldn't say this, but if the expertise can get to our communities and it works, it may not matter so much who does it. But it would help everyone if we knew what Canada is thinking.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it needs to be a comprehensive approach and it needs to be worked out, fleshed out with us. As we mentioned earlier, it may cost more money, but as you know, spending money now and getting the benefits down the road is worth it. It's difficult to determine because of the

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. Well, there's a number of ways to look at this. First of all, one of the first things that came to mind was if you're not going to provide funding to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.... The model is already there, it's a good model, it works, and Health Canada is no

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. To my knowledge, we were not consulted. And you may have heard this from them when they made their presentation. We were told the Aborignal Healing Foundation.... Their understanding was that they were on solid ground with the minister, partly because they had just co

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. I don't know exactly how long it takes to heal. Maybe Elder Williams can talk a bit about his own experience. What we're finding is that this issue has not been talked about until very recently in our communities. Part of it is because many people acted like it didn

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for those questions. I think what's needed is that we have to be engaged with Canada on this question. Canada can argue that it has lived up to its part of the agreement because there was an understanding that the Aborignal Healing Foundation would be funded for five y

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Just as a final comment, I want to say that the funding.... It's been five to six weeks since the news came to us. We're finding it abundantly clear that there really is no political will to continue funding the AHF. Therefore, in the best interests of our people, we ask that the

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We ask the assistance of this committee to facilitate and expedite that process.