Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, Grande Prairie.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We provided a costed program to both ministers last week. That was developed with the three territories. There was a desire by the bureaucracy to have that funding all pooled into a single pool. The reality is that with the way the territories work, they need their own independent pot.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It relates specifically to Nishnawbe Aski Nation. The cost of the proposal looks at hiring 43 staff personnel to move the process of transformation forward. Linking that to economic development, health is big business, honestly. It's the way small communities in Saskatchewan and Alberta have maintained local economies: through hospitals and local clinics.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Right now when funding comes to our communities in any of these territories, you get a back-loading of funding. You get very little funding at the beginning of the year, and then suddenly before March 31, you get told that you have three, four, or five times more funding than you had at the beginning of the year.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it definitely is. That is the status quo that needs to be changed, but part of it is understanding the context of the story.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think that communities will collaborate when they have the capacity. If low staffing levels, lack of funding, or being overwhelmed by crises prevent communities from having the capacity to reach out to other communities and actually understand what they're doing, that's the reason communities turn inward.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely. I think if you're looking at the literal situation of these kids, you have a kid who gets sexually abused in a crowded house, right? They have nowhere to go after they get impacted by the sexual abuse. We also have a food insecurity crisis that's happening, which leads to an additional triggering by whoever is doing the abuse, so the abuse gets propagated because of the environment they live in.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think the first place you need to start is that people need to believe our stories. I think what often happens is these crises happen, and then they make their way out of the news, and the overall impression is the crisis must have been fixed. Well, the crisis is still happening.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think the perspective of not fixing the existing system and just piling on new programs leads to unintended results. We have no data with regard to medically assisted dying or the impact that it's had. I do know that if there are no systems in place to support better mental health and to address the suicide crisis, a perpetual crisis inevitably results in worse and worse outcomes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In discussions with the three territorial organizations that we work with, sexual abuse is flagged as a major reason that these things occur. On the issue of sexual abuse in particular and the way we approach indigenous health in general is that we latch onto a core reason and then just paint it with a broad brush across all of our communities.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm sorry to hear those stats. I'll say that first. As you said, I've known that the crises in the north, the far north, were obviously very severe, but even those numbers are worse than the studies that I've read. Bill Tholl, president of HealthCareCAN, who has overhauled the health regions in Canada, of which I believe Yukon and Northwest Territories are members, said that the biggest problem in health delivery is a consolidation of accountability, resource allocation, and responsibility to the proper levels.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much for inviting me here today. Thank you for the comments that were just shared, and for the acknowledgement that it is unceded Algonquin territory on which these meetings are being held. My name is Alika Lafontaine. I'm an Ojibwa-Cree anesthesiologist, currently practising in northern Alberta, Treaty 8 territory.