Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There is obviously an impact with rising costs and the new way of doing business with respect to flying and different restrictions. It is costing more to run these stores. I think there's really good compliance with respect to social distancing guidelines and such. Yes, in terms

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  A quick response is that there isn't access to services after hours. That's a really big gap in the community. We also know that youth are really responsive to social media, Internet technology. Counselling services are available, and they are responded well to. Unfortunately,

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Given that there are overcrowding situations, particularly in northern Manitoba, the ability to self-isolate poses a big problem, should that be a requirement. We've had to set up isolation centres outside of the home to accommodate that. It's also been a hard directive to wash

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it's working quite well. In fact, Manitoba first nations erected their blockades long before there was a provincial public health directive. I think that was key in stopping the spread of COVID in our communities and keeping it out. It's been a strict lockdown process wit

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Did that freeze?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay. I think I have enough to answer. We need to ensure that there's ongoing investment into first nation data centres. The data-sharing agreement that we were able to negotiate with the province was only as a result of having strong data governance behind us with respect to fi

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I want to make a comment that this is a glaring point on the lack of primary health care services. Our people have to leave communities to give birth, and they have to leave communities to pass away. That leaves a big gap in services, where we're dependent on a patchwork of nursi

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's hard to say. It's hard to know whether that would have been a better approach. It's never been done that way in the past. As mentioned, I think there could have been a streamlining of how proposals were requested from communities. There were no guidelines. They had to subm

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  First nations in Canada, in general, are the group of people who have experienced the devastating impacts of disease and pandemics like no other group. Therefore, establishing these blockades is an attempt to keep out disease and keep out the opportunity for disease to spread.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Right now, ISC is responsible for infrastructure costs, like security costs. Then FNIHB is responsible for health costs. Communities are expected to write two separate proposals and submit two separate plans, when really it should be the governments that work out these plans amon

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Again, it goes back to communication and common sense, really. A prime example is ensuring that when essential service providers come in, they're screened, and they fly in separately on their own chartered flight so that there's no risk of contamination through commercial airlin

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There was a lot of frustration, particularly around the compliance of young people, but I think that's across the board for the general population. However, as I mentioned, our communities have a lot of unfortunate historical experience with pandemics and disease. We also don't h

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Food security has actually been a long-standing issue with respect to freight costs. This is further exacerbating that situation. We know that to keep flights economical, the way they're done right now is to load them up quickly, clean them up quickly and turn them around. That's

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  A data-sharing agreement was negotiated between the First Nations Health and Social Secretariat and the Province of Manitoba. It's a first nations identifier, so once a person tests positive for COVID, they're asked to identify as a first nations person. That gives us real-time d

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Right now, we know there are no COVID-positive cases on reserve. We have some cases in first nations off reserve, and they have higher rates of requiring hospitalization. This indicates they're a vulnerable population, which is why this kind of data is super important in allowing