Committee
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Add search criteria
Results: 121 - 126 of 126
Robert Bertrand
View Robert Bertrand Profile
Robert Bertrand
2020-05-05 18:57
Mr. Julian, I would like to thank you so much for your question.
To answer it as honestly as I could, I deeply feel that CAP is not listened to. We have talked to CIRNAC and we've talked to ISC. I don't know how many letters I've sent to the Prime Minister's office for a meeting with him, and the people answering his letters say that, unfortunately, he is too busy to meet with me.
It's very discouraging, the answers we are receiving, but I'm not usually the type of person who will take no for an answer. We will keep on knocking on doors. We will keep on trying to meet with all the concerned ministers, because indigenous constituents, our communities, rely on us. I can assure you, Mr. Julian, that we—me, the board of directors and all our reps—will not let these people down. We will continue knocking on doors. We will get what rightfully should be coming to our people, and we will not stop until we get the job done.
Thank you.
View Sylvie Bérubé Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Tremblay. I'll keep going with questions for you, provided you can answer, of course.
As you know, there are currently 16 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nunavik and one in Nunavut. Is Indigenous Services Canada monitoring the cases reported in Métis and Inuit communities and among first nations members living off reserve? What's being done to prevent the virus from spreading?
Valerie Gideon
View Valerie Gideon Profile
Valerie Gideon
2020-05-01 15:42
I'll answer very briefly.
In Nunavik, public health is the jurisdiction of the province's Regional Board of Health and Social Services. The same goes for Inuit people in the territories.
In Nunatsiavut, Labrador, the Inuit government is responsible for public health, and it works with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
As for Métis people and indigenous people living off reserve or outside their communities, they are the responsibility of the province or territory, depending on where they live. We maintain a presence at the federal-provincial-territorial round table and work with these public health specialists to identify issues and challenges. We collaborate Canada-wide, but we're not directly responsible for public health in those communities.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
My fourth and last question, and thank you for your patience, is this. There is $15 million that has been provided for indigenous people living off reserve, for all the costs linked to COVID-19. Do you believe that is even remotely enough, or are we repeating the errors of the past?
Thank you very much for responding to these questions.
Perry Bellegarde
View Perry Bellegarde Profile
Perry Bellegarde
2020-04-08 15:32
Thank you, Mr. Julian, for the questions.
To the first question regarding the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, I have been in contact with Jonathan Vance. He's targeting not only the 96 first nations communities but the Inuit communities as well. We had one case in Eabametoong First Nation in northern Ontario. Chief Harvey Yesno has made the request for support, in terms of hospitals, to get up there. It's a community of about 1,600. I would encourage the Canadian Forces to make sure they have their plans in place to deal with the 96 first nations territories when this COVID-19 does hit, and that they be ready to go into action on a moment's notice to get up there before things spread drastically.
We did say, on the second point about the doctors and nurses, there are no hospitals in the north. They have nursing stations and they're inadequately staffed already. With COVID-19 and the cases coming forward, there is going to be a surge or an increased demand for proper health care, for nurses and doctors to go up there. I would encourage all levels of government, federal and provincial, to start doing the emergency planning to make sure that need is addressed.
Regarding the CERB, the universal benefit for all, I think at some point that should be investigated further to look at the pros and cons of that, because there are a lot of people who are going to be falling through the cracks regarding the CERB that was talked about initially.
For the $15 million for the off-reserve people, the question was whether it is enough. Of course it's not enough. We have 50% of our people who reside in urban centres, in terms of access to proper health care, issues with rent, issues of food security, all of the above. That's something that has to be kept in mind going forward.
Since this is the finance committee, I would make this last comment regarding the long term, and again stress that once COVID-19 is finished and it mellows out again, everybody needs to get their heads around some sort of economic development advisory team to kick-start the economy with the involvement of first nations people. We have to start thinking about that down the road. Yes, we're dealing with COVID-19 and the immediate health care needs and crisis right now, but we have to start thinking long term as well about how to kick-start the economy in a way that benefits all Canadian people, including first nations, Métis and Inuit.
David Chartrand
View David Chartrand Profile
David Chartrand
2020-04-08 15:35
Thank you for the question, Mr. Julian. I'll keep it short.
Thank you for inquiring about the Métis. There are over 400,000 of us, so I was hoping somebody would ask a question about the Métis people.
Clearly we're not requiring or asking for the military right now. We're creating our own plans as we move forward. One of the things that should be specified very clearly is that we don't have nursing stations. We do not have clinics in any capacity in our villages. We have zero because we're still caught in this limbo between two jurisdictions in terms of who's responsible. As I said, we still pay billions in taxes but nobody seems to take heed of that and worry about us.
The matter you raised regarding the emergency benefits, it's a matter we should all look at again one more time.
On the $15 million, I'll follow what Perry Bellegarde said. Even in Manitoba right now, we've just decided on our own that for the $7 million we got, we're giving friendship centres half a million in Manitoba. We're also giving homeless shelters resources from our $7 million, on our own. We've opened our own pandemic emergency. We own three construction camps and we've now turned them into hospitalization for potential utilization for major pandemics, not just for us but for all Manitobans in the event they need it.
We also have isolation units we purchased from British Columbia that are coming in. Regarding mobility, we've also contacted the school divisions to see if we can use gymnasiums in the event it does go out of hand in our villages. We have big villages everywhere. We're connected right next door to reserves all across western Canada, but we do not have the same benefits, nor do we have any nurses or clinics.
We're on our own right now, and that's an unfortunate situation. As a Canadian, I feel very disappointed in our country right now on this. Why do the Métis have to stand for themselves always on their own? As I said, nobody hesitates to look for our taxes, both provincially and federally, when it comes to paying taxes.
Results: 121 - 126 of 126 | Page: 9 of 9

|<
<
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Export As: XML CSV RSS

For more data options, please see Open Data