Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. [Witness spoke in indigenous language] I would like to begin by acknowledging that I'm joining you from Winnipeg on Treaty 1 territory, also the unceded lands of the Dakota. I want to take a moment to acknowledge our elders, who are the keepers of our knowledge and

Health committee  Yes. There are definitely some barriers there. I think the best course of action going forward is the emergency preparedness planning that happens here in the region. The regional office has been involved in the emergency planning. There are two sides to this. There's the ISC s

Health committee  Just to reiterate, every community is doing different things. Many of our communities have just shut down their border. I think that this has been a good strategy, in that if your community is isolated, maybe the community can still be a community and still have some community ev

Health committee  It's as simple as the demographics themselves. We're 4% or 5% of the population, so 4% or 5% of the allocation should be for indigenous communities. We're the closest to the ground, to the political representatives here in the region, and we respond very effectively to our comm

Health committee  Food security needs to be addressed right away. There can't be any back-and-forth about how it's the province's jurisdiction. The federal government is responsible for indigenous peoples, period, so we need to make sure that those kinds of things are being provided for our commun

Health committee  I think that it is, to an extent. I know that many of the communities are online. There are calls every day here in the region. There is some back-and-forth happening.

Health committee  I think that in the long term we need to focus on food security and creating community gardens, year-long gardens, in the community. We see examples of these in OCN, where all year they're producing their own vegetation, their own produce, and then they're providing that to the c

Health committee  We've asked for mental health to be expanded in the region. We have two facilities here in our region, and we're looking to expand them. A great deal of work needs to be done in this area. I think the national suicide prevention strategy that was implemented way back in the day

Health committee  Yes, I can actually answer that. In Berens River, actually, they've been working on creating a camp for isolation. That's what the council has been communicating to me.

Health committee  On the topic of water infrastructure, we have had huge problems with the water infrastructure process, and I think there's a very big conflict happening within the regional office on this issue. We've had examples of infrastructure development that cost almost $2 million over wha

Health committee  Could you ask the question again?

Health committee  We can comment. It's important that mentorship is a cornerstone of helping our young people pass on the values and the teachings of our people. I obviously benefited a great deal from many of my elders, many of my elder cousins and people within the friendship centre movement w

Health committee  I think theoretically it works. Practically, I'm not sure how that works. I think when you start getting into the different regions there are problems with coordination. Communication is always a big factor in those kinds of scenarios. In any national strategy there are always go

Health committee  Thank you, Ms. Ashton. I would just like to state, on the question around the Cuban doctors, that we took a tour to Cuba and asked to have a contingent or a brigade come here to Manitoba. Part of the reasoning behind that was that we had seen a crisis coming. We had already been

Health committee  Yes. Just on the health transformation piece, I think that was even prior to COVID-19. I think that's a good thing that the government has done. We've been trying to move as quickly as we can, pursuing the B.C. First Nations Health Authority model where you have first nations bei