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View Francesco Sorbara Profile
Lib. (ON)
This is my last question, Madam Chair, and this probably will take me to my time.
In reading the Auditor General's spring 2020 report on page 15, the recommendation at paragraph 2.48.... You know, we have a program in place. The program is there to encourage and ensure that individuals have access to education. One barometer for measuring that is looking at the participation rate and fundamentally asking this question: Does this program increase the participation rate of youth accessing post-secondary education? We know how important that is for human capital development, for an economy to move forward.
There is a department response to that.
Mr. Flack, could you comment or elaborate on this? There were departmental plans to start in-depth CESP evaluations in the spring of 2020 to assess the interaction of the CESP. I look forward to seeing this report—I believe it's for the spring of 2020—when it is done.
Could you comment on that? I think this is incredibly important.
Graham Flack
View Graham Flack Profile
Graham Flack
2020-12-01 12:37
We're thrilled to now have the datasets merged after three years of hard work, and we're looking forward to putting that to work and being able to get that more granular conclusion that you're seeking.
Natan Obed
View Natan Obed Profile
Natan Obed
2020-11-03 11:07
Thank you. It's great to see everyone.
Tunngasugitti. Welcome, everyone.
ITK is the national representational organization for approximately 65,000 Inuit in Canada, the majority of whom live in Inuit Nunangat, our homeland, which encompasses 51 communities, nearly one-third of Canada's land mass and over 50% of its coastline.
Our four regions are defined by our land claim agreements: the Inuvialuit region in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik in the jurisdiction now, Nunavik in the northern part of Quebec, and Nunatsiavut in the northern Labrador part of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The status of COVID-19 in Inuit Nunangat sits in stark contrast with the situation seen in the rest of Canada. To date, there have been only approximately 30 confirmed cases of COVID-19 detected within our 51 communities, the majority of which have been related to travel, with very little community spread after the initial diagnosis.
It has been tough to implement measures like the two-week quarantine in the south for some jurisdictions, and also the change in lifestyle around social distancing has been challenging within communities. However, to date we have been very successful in ensuring that our communities are not overrun with COVID-19.
Prior to COVID-19, we experienced greater adverse socio-economic conditions. We also had up to 300 times the rate of tuberculosis, depending on the region, in our communities. Respiratory disease and viruses have played a very significant role in the way in which public health has functioned in our homeland. Therefore, we knew right away how difficult this might be and took the appropriate measures.
The federal government has helped with the response to COVID-19, with approximately $90 million of federal Inuit-specific funding through two rounds of indigenous community support funds and a top-up to the Inuit post-secondary education funding. Those types of supports have really helped Inuit communities and Inuit land claim organizations respond to COVID-19 in a meaningful way.
The monies have been spent on things like supporting food programs; getting people out on the land, especially in the summer; the provision of cleaning supplies; in some cases, providing more water—because a lot of our communities are on trucked water—so that people can wash their hands for the appropriate number of times a day and not have to worry about water running out; home heating; purchase of supplies, including technological devices for education purposes and to support families and children in care, making sure that they can connect through the social distancing requirements of their jurisdictions.
We have also done a lot in relation to air transportation, and I'm pleased that the federal government has defined Inuit Nunangat air transportation as an essential service. I think there's a lot we can do moving forward in trying to figure out what that means and how to support it fully. However, the recognition is there that without air transportation, we don't get testing results on time, we don't get people to medical care, and we don't have fly-in, fly-out access to food. We are very fortunate that there has been a response and that there have been subsidies, because our airline industry has been hit just as hard as in the south.
We also have created Inuit-specific communications, making sure that any of the public health messaging is produced in our Inuktut language and also made available in the community.
We also have taken advantage of the Inuit Child First initiative to help families with children ensure that every child gets the health, social, and educational services and supports they need during the pandemic.
Moving forward, and especially going into this winter, we need to do more on testing. We need to make sure that the gains we've made in access to testing are sustainable, such as the GeneXpert testing platforms that have been mobilized in Inuit regions, and ensure that we have cartridges for them, and make sure that there's funding to ensure that those tests can be administered in Inuit Nunangat, that we can have access to rapid testing when it becomes available and that when testing needs to go to the south, we have a specific stream that those tests can go into so that they don't get lost in provincial or territorial structures.
We also need more data, especially outside of Inuit Nunangat. Provinces and territories need to fill out the appropriate Inuit-specific data to ensure that we have an understanding of any concerns in relation to COVID-19 in the Inuit population outside of Inuit Nunangat, and we need the federal government to help.
We also need to ensure that as the vaccine plans come together, Inuit are considered a highly vulnerable population, especially considering our exposure to TB, our remoteness and the fact that we need fly-in and fly-out support at all times for our communities.
Throughout all of this, we need an Inuit Nunangat approach. We need to do away with the odd, capricious nature of each of the 30-plus federal departments doing their own thing when it comes to indigenous peoples and programming and terms and conditions, and adopt for Inuit an Inuit Nunangat policy approach so that we are treated the same no matter where we live across Inuit Nunangat.
Thank you for the time this morning.
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