Finance committee  Thanks, Jocelyn. There are a couple of specific points I've made in other committees. I think my first committee was probably with Peter, when I was much younger. In Saskatchewan, for example, our infrastructure deficit before COVID-19 was $57 million. What kind of economic dr

Finance committee  I'll start, and Jocelyn can finish up. The concern for us was twofold. First, the requirement for some, and not for others, to stop what they were doing, reach out to almost 100 members across this country during a pandemic and ask for data and actual numbers was the first porti

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Jocelyn and I have previously stated in front of other parliamentary committees our frustration that the jurisdictional issues around health information and the current structure of case identification do not include urban indigenous people. There's a reas

Finance committee  [Witness spoke in Inuktitut and provided the following text:] Atelihai, Christopher Sheppard-Buote Uvanga. [English] Good morning, committee. My name is Christopher Sheppard-Buote. I'm the president of the National Association of Friendship Centres. I want to recognize that

Finance committee  Good morning, committee. My name is Christopher Sheppard-Buote. I'm the president of the National Association of Friendship Centres. I want to recognize that I'm on Treaty 6. I'm joined by Jocelyn Formsma, the executive director of the National Association of Friendship Centres

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think there's a huge.... We talk about our network a lot. However, in my opening statement, I talked about the sheer number of physical urban indigenous buildings and spaces across this country. Canada has a built-in network of agencies and infrastructure that it could use as e

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm from a specific part of the north that, for most of my high school education, had the highest rate of suicide in the world. Canada talks about mental health, and yet when there are opportunities to truly make an impact, it doesn't happen. As a specific example, our entire na

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I have the benefit of living in Saskatchewan during this time. This is, I think, the crux of what some of the visibility problems are. Our members are in over 100 communities in this country, from metropolises to 1,000-person communities. Sometimes the mid- to small-sized communi

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We finally did receive resources, but I'll reiterate what I said back then. You've forced the largest portion of indigenous people in this country to compete for the smallest amount. I don't have another way to describe that. Now we've moved beyond that as an organization and w

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We've also done that GBA+ analysis of some of the announcements, because we feel that they are not responsive. Specific gaps are in employment and training, considering the massive budget that Canada has for indigenous employment and training, the lack of that for urban people,

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There is a lot of talk about distinctions-based and what that means. Anecdotally, we look at how the government interacts with three large indigenous representative organizations. A policy paper on the challenges will soon come from NAFC, taken from a feminist, queer perspective

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  [Witness spoke in Inuktitut and provided the following text:] Atelihai, Ullâkut, Christopher Sheppard Buote Uvanga. [English] Good morning, committee. My name is Christopher Sheppard-Buote. I will tell you a little bit about myself. I am a beneficiary of the Nunatsiavut gover

Health committee  Jocelyn can probably follow up more specifically with examples from the specific centres, but I think it's about understanding the isolation that already exists in urban spaces. As Jocelyn said, there's this idea that if you live in a city, it must be better because you have acce

Health committee  For what friendship centres have contributed to Canadian society and what they do every day, I want to start seeing that recognition and that trust instead of hearing about it. We hear a lot that friendship centres do great work. They support people every day and they make mill

Health committee  Thank you. My favourite questions are about indigenous young people. On my screen in front of me, there are at least three of us who were members of our national youth council. In terms of one thing that Canada can do, right now in this country there is no program specific to i