Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's very holistic. I worked with the Sayisi Dene in Tadoule Lake, northern Manitoba. They're a one-hour flight north of Thompson, fly-in only. In that community, it's a very basic thing. If a lock breaks on the band office, it could take them weeks to bring in a locksmith to replace it.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  One of the previous speakers mentioned rural depopulation being an issue. I think the government, in some cases, exacerbates this by centralizing essential services in urban centres. I grew up in a town of 4,000 people. We saw, over the years, those services centralized in your hometown, three hours away from us.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There's a shortage of planners. I served a couple of terms in local government myself, and for our municipality, as you said, we had one planner covering a territory about one-fiftieth of the territory of my own first nation, which doesn't even have a professional planner on staff, so there's a huge deficit there.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. Gilakasla. [Witness spoke in Kwakwala] [English] I'm Jessie Hemphill. I'm from the Gwa'sala-'Nakwaxda'xw Nations, located on the north bend of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. I'm coming to you today from Nanaimo, B.C., in Snuneymuxw territory, and I'm really happy to have been invited.