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Results: 46 - 60 of 112
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
With all respect, Ms. Bérubé, I would not want people to think that there is a legal or regulatory void. We have an entire team at Indigenous Services Canada that works with communities to check that quality standards for drinking water are upheld. Without that, we would not be able to know which communities have a long-term advisory or a short-term advisory as to the quality of the drinking water. We are constantly doing tests.
The fact remains that the legislative framework put in place by the Conservative government was very roundly criticized by First Nations peoples, because it provided no resources with which to eliminate long-term advisories on the quality of drinking water. That, of course, was not appropriate, given the context.
But thanks to our work with the Assembly of First Nations and others, we now have a number of initiatives for reforming the regulatory framework. I do not want to leave people with the impression that there is a legal or regulatory void. The standards used to determine whether a water quality advisory should be for the long term or the short term are very strict, and for good reason: safe drinking water for people in Indigenous communities is vitally important.
The Auditor General did indeed express some criticism in this area, but I was somewhat opposed, given the regulatory context that is in force today.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that.
You'll note that with the lifting of the Wet'suwet'en long-term water advisory, that leaves only one left in B.C. We're cautiously optimistic about that in the next little while. It'll be something to really celebrate and lift up.
Clearly, there are a number of elements in the Auditor General's report that are very compelling. When I was named minister about 15 months ago, I sat down with my team and said that there may be elements that perhaps don't fall strictly speaking into the context of lifting the long-term water advisories and that we need to address through additional funding, through a number of other elements. This was before COVID hit. I asked my team to sit down and come up with what that might look like.
What came back with a lot of the engagement was obviously the O&M, the operations and maintenance, of what is a critical water asset. Communities were telling us that it was important to get to the deadline of lifting all the water advisories—I think that is something that is important for all first nations, whether they're on long-term advisories or not—but a lot of questions came with that. What are you going to do after March 2021? Where are you going to be? Are you going to disappear like you did before?
These all turned around the very important points that you raise, which are around the deficiency in the funding model. For the benefit of everyone, I note that it was an eighty-twenty model. The government would give 80% and the community would be asked to contribute 20% . With a state-of-the-art asset like a plant, particularly some of the new ones that are being built, the people in there need to get equal pay for equal work, as you've said. Those people are the pride of their communities. You can't blame someone if they want to go somewhere else, or if they get pulled into another community, which is often non-indigenous and is paying them more. It just isn't fair.
There were a lot of discussions around the funding model and making sure that there was more of a perpetual funding model that would allow us to fix the O&M gap, because it contributes precisely to that point, as you said, which is the insecurity, the risk model and profile that the Auditor General looked at.
When I saw the medium-to-high risk category, that risk is with respect to the integrity of the asset, because it is threatened through people that aren't paid properly and perhaps through cutting corners to get people to work there. That puts the integrity of a critical asset at risk. There are some issues with the sensitivity of what that is measuring, because it's not as if you're looking at crumbling infrastructure. You're looking at all the investment and maintenance in and around a critical asset system for a community.
Those are aspects that perhaps fall outside of what would be taken to lift the long-term water advisory—i.e., producing safe and clean water—but they are so critical to the lifespan and the asset span of a plant, for example, and they weren't necessarily addressed in prior funding models. The announcement in late November of $1.5 billion was, yes, designed to address some of the challenges and the costing around dealing with the global pandemic and increased costs, and what we might do to support communities that want to build through a pandemic, but also that O&M that you raise, which is so critical.
It is part of a greater approach to water safety and integrity that was addressed a few months later in the Auditor General's report. It's something that I'm glad we're moving forward on. There's still more work to do, but at least in terms of financial support and telling communities that the Government of Canada is there for them, that funding is there and it just has to be rolled out over the coming months.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I'm looking at some of the time frames you're referencing, MP Viersen. Clearly, going into COVID, or just prior to, we were confident we would be able to hit that date of March 2021. There are always challenges with infrastructure and building critical assets in communities, as well as relationships that have to be maintained during COVID.
When COVID hit, we did see a slowdown; there's absolutely no question about it. Your question has to do with updating the numbers. As a minister, in the first three or four months of going into a global pandemic, we wanted to be in a position to assess what the impact of COVID was on ensuring that critical assets were built. What did we need?
More important than assessing the challenge is actually moving to fund and support communities through a historic pandemic, not really knowing how different waves will hit. As well, there is what I addressed to the committee in an answer to MP Blaney on the other issues in and around lifting long-term water advisories that touch on water security in communities.
In order to give Canadians a portrait of what was going on, we wanted to get a sense of what the delays were, what the causes were and how we could move quickly to address them. I think you'll see in the updated website that for each community with a long-term water advisory still in place, there's a work plan and an ETA on a number of these.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
If you look at where we were in 2015, MP Viersen, there were 105 long-term water advisories in effect with no plan to remove them. We are now at 102 as of Thursday of last week. That is real, significant progress for thousands of indigenous households.
There is no question there have been challenges that were due to COVID. I could name them. You and I could sit together and I could walk through every community that has challenges. There's no question that those communities and those that have remaining water advisories want additional assurances as to where we will be in the long term. This is why I asked my team in March or April to sit down and get a sense of where we're going and how we'll navigate through a global pandemic to ensure that we're with communities every step of the way, plus address some of those issues that I've talked about in previous answers around addressing a failed funding model or a model that wasn't meeting communities' expectations.
Every person that you've spoken to should know that there's a plan for each long-term water advisory to be lifted and the investment is there to support it. I think that's the confidence that the backing of the Government of Canada would give communities to lift their water advisories.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
It's important for everyone to realize, to the extent it hasn't been clear up to now, that the Government of Canada doesn't lift the long-term water advisories. The communities do. There are a number of communities that have been in long-term water advisories, like Neskantaga, that everyone saw—
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
We always work in partnership to ensure that the water is safe, first and foremost, and then the community takes the decision to lift the long-term water advisories. It's not the position of the Government of Canada to pressure a community to lift their long-term water advisory. Neskantaga has been under a long-term water advisory for a quarter of a century. They may have had good water that has tested clean for three months, but there's a confidence level that still needs to be achieved and we're not there yet.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, MP Battiste. Your advocacy is really exemplary. I can imagine the amount of pride you must feel to see your community getting priority access. I think it says something about our country that your elders and elders in communities across Canada who are the most vulnerable are getting vaccinated before the Prime Minister or me or anyone who has the privilege to sit in cabinet. That says something about our country. People may say that's a thin veneer. I don't think it is. I think it says something about how we need to conduct ourselves going forward. It's a good lesson to us all.
We know the impact of systemic racism, particularly in institutions where people are at their most vulnerable, whether that's in the health care system or in their interactions with the police. It kills and it has killed, and it will continue to do so until we fix it.
The solutions aren't easy. They don't happen overnight. If they did, I think that would sort of diminish the scope and depth of the problem. There are things we are doing immediately in Indigenous Services Canada, such as making sure that Joyce Echaquan's community is front and centre of the continuing conversation over Joyce's principle, which achieves, broadly speaking, substantive equality between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. It's a principle we support, but we're going to need the provinces and territories to be part of this conversation. We all know about the jurisdictional spats we've had with respect to health care, and in this case those have been on the backs of indigenous peoples.
There is work that needs to be done within my department in terms of how we transform health, how we provide more mental health supports—which is a key issue coming out of the pandemic—and how we move towards distinctions-based health legislation, which will be a difficult conversation with indigenous communities who haven't felt consulted up until now. We will have to recognize that their way of conceiving their own health needs to be respected and can't be dictated to them from Ottawa.
We recognize that a number of the elements and reports that have been published to date don't need much further examination. We need to start investing in infrastructure and supporting local infrastructure and local self-governance over health infrastructure. That is key.
You perhaps have stories in your community about how that is missing compared to the situation in a similarly situated community. That's work that the federal government can do, but as you've heard through the elements of my answer, it isn't easy. It's complex, and in the case of the legislation, it will take time, because we won't succeed if we don't engage with indigenous communities. [Technical difficulty—Editor] distinctions-based health care legislation that reflects the continuing gap and the treatment of indigenous peoples as second-class citizens by the health care system in this country, regardless of the jurisdiction.
I hope I have been able to paint a bit of a picture in the couple of minutes I had.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
The short answer is yes. Let me remind you that, in recent months, we announced investments in work on, and community support measures for, water infrastructure. In 2025, that investment will be four times greater than it is today; that gives you an idea of how important it is. This is a an exceptional investment that will transform the way in which we plan for the sustainability of these infrastructures.
What the Auditor General pointed out in her report was the fragility of the infrastructure. Last December, we very quickly set about correcting that situation.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
As I said in reply to a question from Mr. Battiste, it is not an overnight solution. From the outset, we made sure that the community of Manawan was front and centre in the discussions. Sometimes, there is an annoying habit of appropriating a concept and forgetting where it came from. That is not the case here. In fact, we want to make sure that Joyce's family and the people of Manawan continue to be at the centre of the discussion. The principle is not yet completely accepted, and we must be able to call for it to be implemented in all provinces. Although it's a very simple concept, it cannot be achieved overnight.
Since that tragedy, I have been ensuring that our department is making a contribution. Specifically, we have offered the community psychological support and financial resources, as required. We have also made it possible for people in the community to go to other hospitals until the situation at the Joliette hospital is resolved.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
As I mentioned in a previous response, this pandemic has taught us to look at housing through a health lens, and as Minister Bennett says, it's very hard to mend what you can't measure. Part of my mandate is to complete an infrastructure plan in partnership with Minister Hussen and Minister McKenna to get a sense of where those investments need to be. It doesn't mean that we can't act quickly through short-term housing.
You saw the billion dollars that was announced by Minister Hussen for rapid housing. That will make a difference, but it's very much a small piece of the puzzle, which is really closing that infrastructure gap by 2030. People may seem to think that's a long period of time, but in infrastructure talk, that's actually a pretty short period of time.
There are investments that need to be measured, quantified and have the finances and support of the Government of Canada to do so. This government—and it's difficult to contradict it—has made historical investments in housing, but obviously, they have not been enough and they need to continue. That gap is there. What we've seen through COVID is that it is very much a health concern that has made it such that communities are three and a half to five times more vulnerable to COVID because of, in particular, the crowded living conditions that they live in.
People might say to us that we should have known it because that is the lived reality of many of the Inuit, and I wouldn't dispute MP Qaqqaq on that point.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Chair.
Kwe. Unnusakkut. Boohzoo. Good evening.
I am speaking to you this evening from the traditional territory of the Algonquin people.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, I'm pleased to join you virtually today.
I also want to note the presence, as the chair did, of Christiane Fox, deputy minister; Valerie Gideon, associate deputy minister; and the senior officials from Indigenous Services Canada named by the chair.
I appear before the committee today knowing that, despite these very difficult days, we continue to make great strides in reducing socio-economic gaps between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. In these unprecedented times, we must not fail in our commitment to reconciliation or our efforts to address the inequality experienced by indigenous peoples.
Colonial practices and decades of inequality and discrimination have compounded the challenges faced by indigenous communities during the pandemic. Once again, we have witnessed the tremendous resilience and determination of indigenous communities and leaders all over the country, both during the first wave and now in the midst of the second.
As of November 18, we can confirm that there are 1,170 active cases of COVID-19 in on-reserve first nations communities, for a total of 2,890 confirmed cases. Of that number, 1,668 people have recovered and, unfortunately, 22 have died.
Nunavut has 70 confirmed positive cases. Nunavik, in Quebec, has 29 confirmed positive cases. Nunavik has one active case, and the rest of those affected have recovered. Nunatsiavut, however, has no confirmed positive cases at the moment.
Lastly, the Northwest Territories have 15 confirmed positive cases and 10 cases in which people have recovered, for a total of 25 confirmed positive cases. The Yukon has 25 confirmed positive cases, 22 of which are people who have recovered.
I remain convinced that, thanks to first nations, Inuit and Métis leadership during this crisis, lives will continue to be saved as the appropriate measures are taken and support is made available to community members.
I will now turn to the topic of today's hearing, which is closely related to the pandemic response.
These supplementary estimates include total authorities for Indigenous Services Canada in 2020-21 of $16.3 billion, a historical high in line with these unprecedented times. They reflect a net increase of $1.8 billion.
Of that $1.8 billion in new funding, $1.1 billion in both voted and statutory appropriations, or approximately 60%, is related to various COVID-19 responses, measures that have been integral to our response to date.
Most of the remaining funds, including $740 million in vote 10 grants and contributions, are providing further support to indigenous businesses impacted by COVID-19 as well as to maintain essential services through the non-insured health benefits program, child and family services, Jordan's principle and long-term care engagement.
Key programs and initiatives included in these estimates directly linked to addressing the impacts of COVID-19 include $305 million for the first wave of the indigenous community support fund, allocated directly to indigenous communities off-reserve or to urban indigenous service delivery organizations that were so key in fighting the first wave.
There is an amount of $298.3 million to address the specific needs of indigenous businesses impacted by COVID-19; $245.4 million in funding for a safe restart and reopening and for health and safety measures for schools and child care centres on reserve; $105.9 million to support students and youth, primarily delivered through the post-secondary education program and first nations and Inuit youth employment strategy; $82.5 million in support of surge capacity and adaptation of indigenous mental wellness services; and finally, $75 million for first nations, Inuit and Métis businesses and indigenous businesses in the tourism sector, which has been hit so hard.
To continue our effort to support children and families, $240.9 million has been assigned to child and family services in these supplementary estimates.
I will close by saying that while our commitment to sustained attention and action to address the challenges faced by first nations, Inuit and Métis during this pandemic will be maintained over the course of the next several months, we're not losing sight of the broader need to advance on our government's and Canada's shared priorities with indigenous leaders. These include infrastructure;supports for children, women and families; health legislation and transformation; new fiscal relationships; economic development; and the recent universal broadband fund announcement, under which $50 million will be dedicated to mobile Internet projects that primarily benefit indigenous peoples.
As COVID-19 continues to progress, we will continue to do everything in our power to ensure that indigenous peoples have all the supports they need to protect their health and safety in both the immediate and the long term.
I am encouraged to say that tomorrow, along with the Prime Minister, we will be announcing support on this matter in light of the various surges, notably across the Prairies.
I look forward to taking your questions.
Meegwetch, nakurmiik, merci, thank you.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you.
Gary, thank you for your question, and thank you for the briefings you took with my team to keep you up to date in real time about what is going on. Again, I'm willing personally to do it if you reach out.
I did have a chance to speak to Chief Louie Mercredi yesterday to ensure that he was getting the service that was due in this time of crisis. He identified a number of issues. The ones you identified, particularly the shutdown of the water services, is exceedingly alarming, for the reasons you mentioned. There are ways to work around it, but it's obviously unacceptable that this is the status quo.
There were talks about some pieces that would have taken a little longer to get into the community. We've accelerated that, in particular in relation to the pump and the service to the plant. Up to now, we're confident that it is either in the community today or will be tomorrow, with work being done to make sure that the water comes back on.
We've been assured that they do have enough water and we've ensured that they've had supplies of water shipped into the community. That's key, but so is the pandemic response. As you've alluded to, part of tracking down COVID is ensuring that those people you are doing contract tracing on are identified with very short delay, or else you just expand the number of people that positive cases come into contact with. We are hopeful that not all of those 200-plus contact cases will be positive, but we can't take anything for granted.
As part of that, we're are assisting in enhanced PPE and enhanced resources. The chief recently expressed concern with respect to food security, and we've employed some financial resources to assist with that on an immediate basis. Our teams are working around the clock in those communities that are affected.
Sadly, I suspect that these conversations you and I will be having on that response will continue. We're not through this second wave by any stretch of the imagination. If you look at the numbers that I identified in the introduction, they're essentially four times the total numbers that affected indigenous communities in the first wave. Therefore, this is hitting indigenous communities hard. The role I have, along with other ministers in government, is to deploy resources and funds as quickly as possible and allow communities to implement those pandemic response plans that they've been so good at implementing up to now.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Things could always be more expedient, but we have deployed resources into the community.
If Valerie Gideon is on the line, I'd perhaps allow her to talk about the specific assets in the communities at this time.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
It's very hard to speculate on precisely the concern without speaking together. We've had a number of conversations, organized by FSIN, with the chief in question. We do have numerous amounts of medical-purpose PPE that have been sent into the community to assist them with their needs, and we will assist them throughout this and their lockdown.
We've had a number of exchanges of letters. They've had a Canada-wide request to distribute PPE. It is a complex matter of significant financial proportions that would exceed what their community has requested for their own purposes and needs. It's an initiative that we are looking at and continue to look at internally, but it is something that I will do with the chief in question.
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