Proceedings of the Special
Senate Committee on the Arctic
Issue No. 21 - Evidence - February 27, 2019
OTTAWA, Wednesday, February 27, 2019
The Special Senate Committee on the Arctic met this day at 11:33 a.m. to consider the significant and rapid changes to the Arctic, and impacts on original inhabitants.
Senator Dennis Glen Patterson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning, colleagues. Welcome to the Special Senate Committee on the Arctic. I’m Dennis Patterson, a senator for Nunavut. I have the privilege of being the chair of this committee. I would like to welcome all senators, including our new senator from north of 60, Dawn Anderson — a special welcome to you.
I ask senators around the table, please, to introduce themselves.
Senator Bovey: Patricia Bovey from Manitoba, and deputy chair of this committee.
Senator Anderson: Dawn Anderson, Northwest Territories.
Senator Oh: Victor Oh, Ontario.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Nova Scotia.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Carolyn Stewart Olsen, New Brunswick.
The Chair: Thank you. Today we will continue our study on the significant and rapid changes to the Arctic and impacts on original inhabitants. For our first panel we welcome, representing The Gordon Foundation, which has a long-standing interest and involvement in the North, Mr. Blair Hogan, president of Gúnta Business.
Mr. Hogan, thank you for joining us. I invite you to proceed with your opening statement, after which we will go to a question-and-answer session.
Blair Hogan, President, Gúnta Business, The Gordon Foundation: Thank you so much for inviting me to be here. My name is Blair Hogan. I’m a Teslin Tlingit Council citizen. My traditional introduction is:
[Editor’s Note: Mr. Hogan spoke in his Indigenous language.]
That means I’m a little frog in the pond. My clan leader is Sam Johnson. I am of the frog clan.
I was part of The Gordon Foundation’s August 21-22 Iqaluit meeting, where we, over two days, tried to understand the biggest obstacles facing micro-, small-, and mid-sized businesses and allowing that policy to proliferate start-ups, to expand businesses, and to access export markets.
I don’t know how much of the report you would like me to go over. I think I’m more here to contextualize the recommendations. I’ll quickly go over what four recommendations. The overarching recommendations were that whatever policies we develop for northern businesses they need to be co-designed for Northerners, the people on the ground in the North, who are working with businesses, who are business owners and so forth. The communication infrastructure, telecommunications, and so forth, is so important in the North. No matter what we do that has to be supported and improved. There is a desperate need for a more comprehensive, integrated strategy.
Number one would be data. There’s not enough data for policymakers to make informed decisions. There were some recommendations on how to better improve that. A tri-annual survey would be one way. It really helps bridge the gap that the long-form census has left, as well as getting more business-specific data representing the needs, what’s important to business owners, what are their current needs and how we move them to the next step.
There are already a lot of touch points that business owners have with either federal or territorial funding agencies. These could be better synchronized and integrated to achieve some of this data requirement.
The number two would be innovation. A northern innovation framework is very much needed. One of the things we identified is innovation hubs in programs. In Whitehorse we have the NorthLight Innovation Hub. It is a brand-new innovation space. I operate out of it and run a business accelerator program for the Yukon government and Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce.
Skills development: I feel at home with business counselling services in communities. I’ve been part of a group that has gone to communities, working with prospective or current entrepreneurs or established business owners and providing business counselling right in the community. I think there’s this misinterpretation that if we just concentrate on urban centres, like Whitehorse or Yellowknife or Iqaluit, these are the places where all business services can occur, while that supports those business ecosystems, not the outlying areas.
I come from the small community of Teslin. There are other small communities in my territory specifically where, when a business service isn’t available, people don’t progress in their business objectives. And this isn’t across the board. This is just a generalized statement. This is not economic development, in the macro sense, it’s what are your business needs, what are your financing goals, how do we move you from here to there? What are the financing options available, funding options and so forth, that one-on-one approach. When we are in communities, the business success becomes quickly apparent.
Culture of entrepreneurship in the North: I’ve also been a part of a mentorship program focusing on Aboriginal students and it’s all in business. It’s really to replace that mentor. In a lot of First Nation homes there’s not that positive mentor who reinforces going to the next level of education and starting your own business.
There are programs that help bridge that gap. I was part of the Cape Breton University’s In.Business, which is an Indigenous-led business mentorship program, and it does exactly that. It finds youth who are interested in business in their final years in high school and connects them with a positive First Nation business owner.
Sometimes they’re from their community, maybe they’re from another community. It gives them a sense that it’s relatable and creates that sense that if they can do it, I can do it.
That is the fundamental four-pronged recommendation put forward by The Gordon Foundation. I think my strength is in the question-and-answer more so than just delivering rambling. I’ll pause there and see if there are any questions.
The Chair: Thank you. We’ll turn to the deputy chair, Senator Bovey.
Senator Bovey: Thank you, Mr. Hogan, for being with us. I applaud the steps you’re taking and the work you’re doing.
I have a couple of questions coming out of your presentation. Whose responsibility is the policy recommendations? I see you have Global Affairs Canada as one of the agencies that should assume responsibility for the policy recommendations. I wonder if you can talk about the relationship you have, would like to have or ought to be in place with Global Affairs in terms of international trade. Then I have a second question, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Hogan: I can’t speak to the specific recommendation that you’re questioning.
Senator Bovey: It’s on your policy recommendation page in your booklet.
Mr. Hogan: I’m not the author of it. I was a participant in the group session that brought forward the recommendations. Speaking to accessing external trade may be the point there. Perhaps that was just an agency that was identified that could be that trade commissioner. The market in the North is quite limited. It’s easy for businesses to saturate the market quickly.
Something that I recognized going into communities, you have a lot of artisans who create crafts and they’re pricing much below their value. It’s because the saturation point has been met. I think a huge objective of the recommendation is: How do we enable entrepreneurs in communities to access the world market? One of the suggestions was a trade commissioner or having some sort of ability to organize Northern businesses, products and services and allow them to access outside markets.
Senator Bovey: I would like to pick up on your reference to crafts. I’d like to tie into your second recommendation where you said integrate traditional and cultural knowledge. Just by way of background, I think traditionally — I’m going to speak for Inuit artists perhaps — Inuit art was among the best-known of Canadian art internationally and made a huge mark all over. Somehow I’m concerned that maybe that slipped a bit. I wonder if that’s part of what you’re talking about, crafts and art, the whole spectrum. I wonder if you could tie that into your comment on innovation, integration, traditional and cultural knowledge.
Mr. Hogan: Sure. I think art is that easy piece to look at because there are a lot of artisans in the communities I work in. In my community, there are 400 people and I think 200 are artists. Half the population is producing high-quality crafts. When you look at the circle sphere that they currently encompass, it can be quite limited fast. An easy avenue is e-commerce, which is the ability to transact beyond your traditional borders.
That’s an easy fix. There are business support services that can go into communities and help bridge that gap for entrepreneurs to access those platforms for sale. I think on the bigger level, we’re not creating a lot of factories, we’re not creating a lot of products that are export focused. That’s because we don’t have an organizing entity that brings those pieces together that says: Here’s a market in Finland or Austria that is looking for this specific good, and then it creates that environment in which these types of businesses can occur. That’s stretching outside of the traditional arts and crafts. I was just using that as an example.
Senator Bovey: Fair game. I would like to go back to something else you said; you’re right that the price that some of these pieces of arts and crafts are being sold for are far too low. My question from that is, in light of your mentorship, is this the mentorship available to enable these creators to price their works accordingly? It’s tragic when I see some of what some of this work is selling for. I think it’s a slap in the face.
Mr. Hogan: Yes. It’s a consequence of confidence. When you’re trying to sell something for what you think is the right price and you get told, “No, no, no, I already have five pieces from you,” then it’s the bringing down effect. I think once an artist is on a platform, has wide acceptability and is making purchases at the price point they should be, it no longer becomes an issue. There are artists who are very established, very well known, they have huge credibility and are able to make those sales. But there are a lot of artists that aren’t quite there yet. They still have the same high quality; they’re not as well known. It’s just a matter of bridging that gap.
I think that goes more to number three, skill development, the business counselling in the communities. The territory piloted an e-commerce project, Yukon government, six years ago. I was put into some of the most challenged communities, Ross River and Faro. I had success with about 40 entrepreneurs. We built Etsy sites or WordPress sites, helping them take product pictures, coaching them through the costing so they understand their costs. A lot of these artists are pricing below their costs. There’s this fundamental education saying if this is what it took to build this, then you can’t price it below that point. At least it gives us a foundation.
They don’t want to feel like they’re ripping anybody off. They see people are also challenged with their income. I think the important aspect is if you allow them to access a wider audience, an audience that desperately wants to pay the price that is deserved for that piece, I think for them things become a little clearer.
Senator Bovey: I think the wider audience is really important, Mr. Chair. I’ll close with this: When you say that one of the major artists of the Yukon, though not Indigenous, Ted Harrison, does not have a work in the collection at the National Gallery of Canada, nor does any Yukon artist. I think this wider understanding and appreciation has to be worked on collectively.
Mr. Hogan: Absolutely.
Senator Oh: Thank you, Mr. Hogan. We had a chance last fall to travel. The committee travelled all the way up to the Arctic Circle. I can see that there’s no manufacturing base up there, basically. What you can export to the world is culture, your handicrafts, et cetera. But they’re pretty basic. Is your foundation able to help the locals to increase or upgrade the local artwork and handicrafts to be able to export overseas? Of course, part of it would be to sell locally to the tourists coming up there. But the majority is to export it outward, Canadian Arctic artwork.
Mr. Hogan: I don’t think that’s The Gordon Foundation’s role. I think The Gordon Foundation is a great entity to make these recommendations, but it’s the role of business mentors, coaches. For instance, I mentioned the e-commerce project that Yukon government piloted six years ago. That was a pilot project. They found four or five business coaches who would go into the communities. These are private contractors who go into the communities. Their fees are paid for by the program and then the business owners have free access to those services. When that happens and that one-on-one coaching occurs, the artist or business owner is able to directly market and directly sell into outside markets without the help of any central organization.
I’m not sure if I answered your question. I don’t think The Gordon Foundation would play that role, but they certainly have a pulse.
Senator Oh: E-commerce. When we were up there, the biggest problem you have on e-commerce side is broadband. You don’t have high-speed Internet.
Mr. Hogan: That’s right.
Senator Oh: We talked to a lot of people. The feedback was it takes a long time just to send email out.
Mr. Hogan: Yes.
Senator Oh: How will you manage e-commerce when you don’t have the tools to get to the outside world?
Mr. Hogan: Exactly. That goes to infrastructure. Infrastructure is so desperately needed. For instance, I’m based in Whitehorse, but I have a videographer based in Beaver Creek, a small community on the border of Alaska and Yukon. For me to access a video he creates, he has to put it on a flash drive and send it in a vehicle. Then if I have edits, I have to email him the edits, and he does it again. It could be weeks before I get a video. That’s not practical. That’s a symptom of the infrastructure that we have.
For me in Whitehorse, that’s not an issue. I think for those in Yellowknife and other urban centres, particularly, that’s not an issue. As soon as you move away from an urban centre, then data becomes an issue. If we want to have knowledge-based sectors growing in these communities, which is probably one of the easiest things to grow in a community — for instance, I don’t need to be based in Whitehorse to do what I do. I could be based in Teslin or Ross River. However, the infrastructure, the broadband and data limitation, is a huge factor.
A lot of these communities have cellphone coverage now, which is great, but even that is very limited in what you have available for data.
It’s a fundamental issue. If that cannot be addressed, it really limits what we can do for our Northern communities.
The Chair: Maybe I’ll jump in here, since this was a question about The Gordon Foundation and its role. Could you describe for us what a hackathon is and how that works? That was sponsored by The Gordon Foundation, which led to these recommendations. What went on there?
Mr. Hogan: It was a series of facilitated workshops that proposed a question or a problem, and had a number of Northern business owners, governments, community developments and CEOs participate and provide recommendations on how things could be achieved. As I said, I never authored the report. All of these recommendations were recommendations that I was a part of. I see a lot of things that I said specifically.
A hackathon is a bottom-up approach to providing policy guidance and framework advice. It was maybe the second or third hackathon I’ve been a part of. I’ve been part of health hackathons. This was my second business hackathon. It’s just that: a series of facilitated workshops that allows you to provide the advice to create the policy change for those whom you’re trying to affect. That’s my definition of a hackathon.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you for coming. It’s very interesting. Bear with me; I’m new do this committee.
I wondered about the state of your Internet, because it seems to me that if you’re going to develop businesses, you must have high-speed Internet with broadband capabilities. Do you see that as a federal responsibility, or who do you think should be ensuring the provision of high-speed Internet?
Mr. Hogan: It has to be a federal responsibility, because for the private businesses that provide these services, their business case does not warrant the infrastructure. If you have a community like Beaver Creek with 85 people and that is maybe 600 kilometres from the capital, Faro with 35 people or my community, Teslin, with 400 people and is closer to the capital, that market doesn’t create the environment for that type of investment to occur.
For instance, Northwestel, in our case, is subsidized in a lot of ways to maintain the network, but to make massive improvements to that network is a bit outside of their mandate and scope. I would even suggest that the Yukon Government — it’s predominantly funded from federal government.
It’s the same story when we talk about electrical transmission lines to service a small community. It doesn’t create the business case that allows for that investment unless there are federal dollars that allow that type of investment. I think it’s in the interest of the Canadian government to have our Northern communities more able to operate as businesses.
Maybe I’ll speak to the one last thing: cultural integration. From my perspective, there are lots of self-governments in the Yukon that really take the traditional economy very seriously. I look at Vuntut Gwitchin in Old Crow. Their government is quite big, because they have a lot of redundancy built in so that, if somebody needs to take three or four months to go on the trapline, they have a staff person to fill in. That is baked into that organizational structure in a way that allows that to occur, but that’s not always the case.
From a business perspective — and I’m a self-employed entrepreneur, I’m able to take two months off during hunting season to go out, go on the land and pursue my traditional activities with my family. That is something that is possible when you have a business or you’re a self-employed entrepreneur.
If we allow these infrastructures to occur, we allow local business owners to have the confidence and access the markets that they need to be profitable, then they’re better able to take advantage of their traditional opportunities, which reduces health issues and dependency on the federal government.
If that scope were looked at in that wide sense, the business case would be there. It has to be looked at in that wide sense. Just straight looking at how many people there are in that market and how much infrastructure they’re going to use doesn’t make sense. In that narrow scope, it doesn’t make sense. When you bring in all these other factors, it allows that business case to be more understood.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you. I look to Saskatchewan, which invested a lot of money into broadband in their north. It’s been very successful, especially at reducing health care costs.
How much do you in the North work with Scandinavian countries, who are further along? I think we should be looking to them to see how they assist and help their north develop. I think it’s criminal that we don’t develop our North; it’s our treasure. To not put funding and bring forward all of these ideas and advancements — we’re missing out a huge amount.
Are you in conversations with Scandinavian countries?
Mr. Hogan: Thank you. That’s a great question. I’m pleased to say that I am. Part of what I do in Teslin right now is build biomass district heating systems. I work hand in hand with Austria and Finland. It’s crazy that we’re transporting up petroleum fuel to heat our space. We have a huge supply of local resources around us.
I’ve built three full systems. We’ve offset almost half our community’s diesel in the last few years. I’m now working on the fourth and fifth one. I’m building a combined heat power system that will offset our cultural sector, and I’m working with Volter, a Finnish company. I have yet to visit, but I’ve had many colleagues visit my project, as well as partner on this current project.
Part of my business is to help communities access renewable energy opportunities. The first thing I always say is this is new to us in the North, or maybe even Canada, but this is not new in the northern sphere.
If we look to Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Denmark and Finland, there are examples upon examples for almost a generation. For 30 years some of these district energy systems have been operating very successfully. I am pleased to say in Teslin we are becoming that little Scandinavia outside of Scandinavia. We’ve had over 900 individuals touring through our current biomass system. Those are people from all over Canada, the States and Europe. There is a lot of interest in what we are doing.
People in the Scandinavian countries come to see that there’s a community that finally gets it. I appreciate the question. That is something I lean on heavily. For instance, how do they organize these things to make everyone work in the same direction? We are trying to figure that out. We go visit, and, oh, we have cooperative joint venture models that align all the stakeholders. I look really smart because I just bring these models home. These are exactly the examples we need to bring these types of projects.
But it is so far from home. It is so difficult to get that example and showcase it to the world at this point. What’s really interesting, in Teslin, for instance, with our three district energy systems offsetting half the community’s diesel for space heating, people are now visiting us and they see an example of what a Scandinavian project could look like for them. That has created a huge adoption rate. NRCan has been really pleased at how many additional communities are asking for these investments and supports. That was a great question. Thank you.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Chair, I would say, not being on the committee, you might want to travel to Scandinavia and have a look at how they are developing their north. I will just leave it at that. Thank you.
Senator Coyle: Next Parliament.
The Chair: What’s the biomass fuel used in Teslin? Is that wood fibre?
Mr. Hogan: Wood fibre, locally sourced, all waste wood. We have 10 buildings in Teslin hooked up to the first three on finalizing a heat agreement with the Nunavut government to heat their school, we are already connected to it. It is incidentally harvested fibre. We do a lot of roadwork in the community, subdivision development and easements. In the last building season, we were able to transfer over 500 cords, approximately, which is about two years’ worth of heating fuel. The next stage would be sawmill residues. We have an old sawmill that we will be bringing back to life with this biomass being its anchor client. After that it would be wildfire risk mitigation.
It creates a financial aspect to being able to reduce your wildfire risks. Then the final piece is commercial harvesting of timber. Purpose-cut wood for biomass does not create an economic case for biomass, but if you include enough waste wood, it brings your overall fuel costs low enough that you can create market opportunities for your community.
In our case, we had three slashing jobs that we put out six years ago. We had 40-some applicants. We hired them all because we saw that this was a huge want and need in my community. Then we started slashing programs, and that led to the biomass project.
The goal is utilizing all the waste wood we can, but at the same time supplement it with commercial purchasing. We have a scale, and we buy it by the oven-dried tonne from citizens where it is in between their lucrative cord contracts where they can also sell their wood waste to us — the tops, limbs, branches. Things that are not desirable for their cord wood contracts, we can chip it, weigh it, and give them a price. It is that multi-fibre sourcing strategy we use to keep our fundamental costs where they need to be so we can make purchases.
The Chair: Very good. Thank you.
Senator Eaton: I am sorry I was late for your presentation, but I love your part of the world. In fact, I will be fishing there this summer.
You come from a part of the world where there are a lot of natural resources. Are they being developed? If so, what are the small business offshoots you could grow using a natural resource development like a mine as your anchor?
Mr. Hogan: Mining has a strong history in the Yukon. It has its ups and downs like everything else. There are a lot of businesses that support the mines in the Yukon. Right now there are a number of mines coming close to production. A lot of the First Nations development corps are making those positive partnerships so that the communities have the opportunity to access some of the businesses and activities that come from it.
Instead of speaking about that, I will just go back to the forestry sector. Right now the forestry sector has been very limited in its activity. About 15 or so years ago —
Senator Eaton: There was a terrible downturn.
Mr. Hogan: That’s right.
Senator Eaton: You are reinventing yourselves, really.
Mr. Hogan: That’s correct. The fact that we have not had forestry activity has led to a lot of the issues we are currently seeing. Whitehorse and Teslin, we have all had analysis done that we are a huge risk for wildfire. That’s because when you are not harvesting, when you are not actually —
Senator Eaton: Clear-cutting and growing.
Mr. Hogan: Not even clear-cutting, but the spot clear-cuts that is more appropriate for the industry, you are not removing that wildfire risk. Biomass has been a really big push for creating and revitalizing the forestry sector. Biomass, creating an anchor client for the residues for a sawmill sector, where a sawmill doesn’t have to produce lumber for the markets anymore. It produces waste for the biomass, and, as a by-product, has dimensional lumber that you are not selling; you are just offsetting your internal needs.
Senator Eaton: We did a study in the Senate about the forest industry. You know that they are doing biomass in the Maritimes.
Mr. Hogan: Yes, P.E.I. is a huge model for us.
Senator Eaton: You are very on top of everything. Yes, you have a sawmill and biomass, but does it mean you are getting a book store, drug store or a restaurant? What are the outfitters?
Mr. Hogan: Having that forestry sector, as I was saying, the biomass creates the environment that those types of businesses can occur. Now you have people who are participating in the natural resource economy. Then you have businesses that can support it. How do we grow our communities’ economies? Our natural resources is the first step. Mines is a bit difficult and different, you know, where they are located, you win the geographic lottery, so to speak. We are all surrounded by forests. This is a huge opportunity — and not all across the Arctic.
Senator Eaton: And you have tourism.
Mr. Hogan: Tourism is a fickle beast. With our biomass, we have had 800 people purpose-visit Teslin to see it. You bet they are buying lunch and renting rooms, and, “Hey, we are here, we will access a tour and go down to the lake.”
Senator Eaton: Don’t you have people who come there to cross-country ski in the winter and fish in the summer and shoot because it is such beautiful countryside?
Mr. Hogan: It is not as much as you would think. If you look at the Northwest Territories, they have the Northern Lights Tours. We have a spill-off. We are thankful for the Northwest Territories Northern Lights tours because if they can’t get a room in Yellowknife, they come to Whitehorse.
Our tourism is a by-product of the Alaskan tourism economy. People are travelling through the Yukon and back to the Yukon to access Alaska.
Senator Eaton: Why is that? You are just as beautiful as Alaska.
Mr. Hogan: It is maybe how it is marketed. It is front and centre in their minds. American tourists already have an idea of where they are going to stay, what they are going to buy, and what they are going to do. If you don’t get in their head when they are planning their trip, you don’t get a lot of that economic impact. Sure, we have a thousand tourists come through Teslin every day. I wouldn’t suggest that is creating a positive economic factor to the degree we would like.
I’m speaking on behalf of my small community, we are creating strategies on how to slow them down.
When the highway washed out, we had tourists stranded who now swear they are coming back every year to Teslin because they were forced to experience it. They loved the community, friendship, and environment. But it was not something front and centre in their mind. It was not on their pre-planned destination, but it was something that occurred.
On a final note, we have a cultural centre that has very passionate demonstrators. We have notes written to us almost weekly during the summer, thanking us, saying it was the highlight of the trip and next time they will spend a lot more time. If we have that ability to slow them down, stop them for whatever reason, it becomes something they see value in and they want to repeat, and the word of mouth spreads. It is all about trying to get into their heads before they start on their trip.
Senator Eaton: There is CanNor and EDC. What kind of government help are you getting to build? On our trip to the Arctic, we heard about the lack of hydro, fiber-optic cables. And we heard about a public-private partnership, building a hydro and optic cable line up through the western part of Hudson Bay. Do see anything like that on the horizon, the government coming in and saying, “Okay,” or public-private partnerships?
Mr. Hogan: I am also on the chief and council of Teslin Tlingit for the last seven years. We have been exploring public-private partnership to build an $80 million bridge in our community. This is a first for us. I think it is a first for the Yukon as well. But those are still in the exploration stage. Just to comment on the entities, CanNor is the big one we are able to access for funding support to help finance pre-feasibility, feasibilities, to help with some of the capital requirements or to have an equity-matching program, which is a great program. I help a lot of clients through that program, through my business.
Those types of programs are important, but it is not enough. The competition is quite high. There are the winners and the losers. That is not always a good case for a growing economy. For instance, a lot of communities have Community Futures. We don’t have any in the Yukon.
Senator Eaton: What is Community Futures?
Mr. Hogan: Community Futures is a business support service where if you have a business, you can go there and say, “This is where I am at.” They can help you with your business plan, your marketing strategy, to access dollars to market yourself.
Senator Eaton: You can’t go online?
Mr. Hogan: Community Futures is regionally focused. They are in urban centres, but also pushed out. They are across Canada. Our community economic developer in Teslin was one of the original founders in Manitoba of Community Futures. That’s been his biggest headaches. There is no business support services in the communities that replicates Community Futures.
A big piece of the work I am trying to do is replicate it ourselves. I do it through my own business practice, as well as build in that capacity in communities. If a business owner is to operate in a community, their ability to travel to the main urban is centre to receive this help does not quite get them to where they need to be. In fact, it encourages them to move markets. If we want them to build businesses where they are at, we need to provide business support services where they are at as well.
Senator Eaton: If you could have one thing that the government could give you tomorrow, what would it be?
Mr. Hogan: To have a business counsellor in every community, or at least to go there periodically and help support local entrepreneurs.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much, Mr. Hogan. You’ve been providing us with a lot of wonderful information on your own environment in the Yukon, your own business and community economic development involvements. Back to this report, we are very impressed with the Gordon Foundation and what they’ve been doing over the decades in the North. And this report we have today is very interesting. I have three questions.
I notice across from the policy recommendations page, there are five icons representing the five themes, but then we only see four themes. The fifth theme is financing. We’ve just started to talk about financing. My own background is in micro finance in Canada and internationally, and community-based microfinance in particular. I am interested to start to talk about Community Futures. Sometimes there is a link to financing.
What are the recommendations coming out of this, if there are some, related to the financing, for either Government of Canada, which is our primary interest? We’ve heard here from , and maybe the Chair can remind me — across the Arctic there are Indigenous finance instruments by Indigenous finance organizations. I forget the name of them. Do you remember what I am talking about?
The Chair: Yes, birthright corporations, development corporations, Aboriginal development corporations.
Senator Coyle: Of Indigenous people in the Arctic themselves. They have their own. I am interested in those. I am interested in banks, credit unions, community-based solutions. What was discussed regarding financing and what are your points of view?
Mr. Hogan: I think if you looked more in that number three skills development, that is where the finance piece really hits.
Senator Coyle: You incorporated it under skills?
Mr. Hogan: I believe so. Like I said, I am not an author of the report. I was just a participant during the Hackathon. It is giving a business counsellor that one-on-one ability on how to build a financial strategy and how you build your overall financial package.
Senator Coyle: That’s part of it. But once you’ve got it, where do you go?
Mr. Hogan: Where do you go? It is a bit limited in the Yukon. We have our traditional sources of financing, but at the start-up phase, it is not appropriate. It is very difficult.
Senator Coyle: The newer you are, the harder it is.
Mr. Hogan: There is däna Näye Ventures in Whitehorse and it has been in operation for over 30 years. It takes on the higher-risk loans, but at a higher interest rate, as well, right? It could be 15 per cent. That’s very hard to make that work at an interest rate of 15 per cent. There needs to be an alternative solution. CanNor now has a new name, but it had the Aboriginal Business and Entrepreneurship Development Program, which was an equity matching program. I would work with a business owner and we would create a business plan. We would scale it beyond their financial means. That’s important because the CanNor grant would give him an equity match.
It was a non-refundable grant where now they are able to go to traditional financing, if they have that 30 per cent equity match, the banks can leverage that loan to get their business off the ground. Quite often, däna Näye Ventures plays that role as the de facto bank. My own personal strategy is to start there but after a year, I try to refinance it somewhere else. The terms of the däna Näye Ventures loan is that it is a demand loan. They can be recalled at any time. At 15 per cent, it doesn’t give me a lot of confidence, especially when I am working with business owners.
As you said, it’s a difficult situation. Programs like the CanNor Aboriginal Business and Entrepreneurship Development Program are surely helpful, but I think there could be a little more support. We don’t need to create a whole new institution. We just need to help business owners who are not quite ready for traditional financing, and how do we bridge them toward that? And that equity-match program is perfect example of how to that.
Senator Coyle: That equity-match program is good for businesses of a certain scale where equity is at play. Some may need working capital or to purchase a small asset. It sounds like there is a range of financial products and mechanisms for which there may be a bit of a vacuum?
Mr. Hogan: I would agree.
Senator Coyle: That’s what I wanted to get at.
Second, what you are doing is extremely impressive, as is what people in these smaller, remote communities are doing on a much smaller scale than you.
I used to work, not in the Arctic, but in the North. I found that a lot of people in communities with whom I was working were doing income and livelihood patching. You are not earning all your income from business X or business Y; you may have two or three little businesses, and you may supplement that with hunting, fishing and other livelihood pursuits. The whole ball of wax gives you your living — your household living.
Was that kind of reality discussed at the hackathon? If so, was it accommodating or supporting that? How did that play into some of the recommendations that came out?
Mr. Hogan: I will go back to my story. I’ve been a business owner for seven years, but only in the last year have I been a full-time business owner. I’ve always had to bridge my income gap with part-time work. That’s a reality across the North. What I recommend to most clients is to start up lean, try to figure out your processes while not fully investing and creating that risk environment where, if it does not fully work out, you fall on your face.
Since I’ve fully committed to my business, I’ve grown to five employees. We are working in B.C., Ontario, NWT and Yukon. It’s a common story across the North of having people who just start their business on the side of their desk. They have to bridge that income gap through these various means.
That was discussed at the hackathon. It was a common story. I brought my Yukon story, but we heard it again and again from all the participants across the North.
I’m not sure how the recommendations enable that, other than recognizing it’s a reality; it’s a path many entrepreneurs need to take in order to confidently, 100 per cent, jump into their full-time business.
Senator Coyle: I will defer my other question.
Senator Anderson: Thank you for your presentation.
My question pertains to the report itself. On page 6, there are recommendations for seven groups responsible for policy recommendations. Can you tell me if those seven groups are federal, provincial or territorial governments and only federal, provincial and territorial governments? If so, what was it the rationale? Was any thought given to Aboriginal groups or Indigenous governments partaking in the policy recommendations?
Mr. Hogan: Could you read the six entities for me, please?
The Chair: It is on page 6 of your presentation.
Mr. Hogan: I apologize. It is hard for me to defend a document I didn’t write. I was just part of the recommendation.
But to your point, I am part of the TTLP wealth development corporation, Tle’Nax T’awei Limited Partnership. It is my First Nation’s own private equity firm. It owns 27 businesses across Canada, in five geographic regions, in six sectors. That would be an ideal candidate for assisting policy direction. Even expanding beyond that, we now have a First Nation chamber of commerce, the Yukon First Nation Chamber of Commerce, which fundamentally brings the CEOs of all the First Nations development corporations to the table. That would be a great entity from which to receive policy direction.
Ignoring the list of six here — I can’t recognize half of them — I would say that, even in that context, I don’t think the CEOs of the various wealth corporations, or chambers of commerce for that matter, fully speak and represent First Nations business openers and their needs. Part of this recommendation was the co-design that, if we are to build program services or create policies that truly affect Northern business owners, you need to work specifically with those Northern business owners.
I think that’s what this hackathon was. It had a couple of dev corp CEOs and chambers of commerce people. It had government people. It also had people like me. I’m not part of government; I’m a business owner. They had business owners from all across the North in that room. If you had sat back and watched that hackathon, those were the people who were vibrant, vocal and who created a lot of the fundamentals.
I don’t think many of those entities were really discussed at the hackathon. I can’t defend the list, I’m sorry.
Senator Anderson: That’s fine.
I was going to ask you a question, but seeing who you didn’t write the paper, I will make it more of a statement. On page 11, the last sentence basically says: When appropriate, the strategy could also leverage local events and celebrations to conduct further outreach; for example, First Nations’ general assemblies.
The language, especially the word “leverage,” used in that statement, to me, as an Indigenous person, indicates taking as opposed to partnering and working with.
That’s just a comment that, when these reports are written, some of the language should be looked at in terms of not a privilege or a right, but of fairness and a partnership.
Mr. Hogan: Absolutely. I would even suggest that, while those are concentrated consultation moments, it is really challenging. As I mentioned, I’ve been chief-in-council of my First Nation for the last seven years. We don’t look very kindly to the helicoptering in and the “Hey, look at us. We have a federal program, and we want you” and then they kind of go away. It really doesn’t embody a lot of trust. It doesn’t create common understanding. If you truly want to consult or work with the community, you have to be there, unofficially. You have to be there in a friendly, approachable way that allows people who want to talk to you and understand what you are talking about to have that opportunity.
Not focusing on the wording of this so much but on the concept. It’s about just being present and working with these types of events that bring the target to market, together, to inform that policy. It is just a way to ask, “How do we co-design? How do we create these opportunities that we could all work together to create that policy?” I think that’s what was written here.
As you can see, it was Northerners who informed it, not Northerners who wrote this. That’s probably the discrepancy there.
Senator Eaton: Why was it not Northerners who wrote it?
Mr. Hogan: I am not sure that many Northerners work for The Gordon Foundation. We have a fellowship full of Northerners, and that’s been a huge success. A member of my old community is part of the fellowship. The Gordon Foundation has the fellowship side and the policy side; it’s kind of the two wings to the bird.
I am representing, in the report, as a participant but not as an author. I apologize that I can’t fully defend it.
Senator Anderson: I thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. I’m sure that will be noted.
Senator Coyle, if you have a brief question, we can go back to you.
Senator Coyle: It is about marketing. It is usually a major factor for any business, but in particular for dispersed, remote-based people who are trying to get their product outside their community to the wider world. It’s not just the information about it but getting it delivered.
Did you talk much about the issues of marketing products from Arctic communities out to the bigger world?
Mr. Hogan: Yes, it was discussed. One of the biggest barriers we heard was shipping costs. It depends on what type of business owner you are. Aurora Heat participated. They have this beautiful hide product that’s very easy for her to ship, but if you are looking at somebody who is building a product or has something with more weight and substance, the transactional cost of shipping is a huge barrier.
I don’t know if there was any kind of solutions put to that problem. It certainly was identified.
Senator Coyle: Was there any talk of Export Development Canada or any of Canada’s various export development mechanisms intervening? Because I don’t think I saw them on the list.
Mr. Hogan: Yes, it was alluded to in the report, but it was a significant part of the hackathon. There was a whole workshop on how we create an export-oriented market in the North. One of the big recommendations was this trade commissioner aspect, which is in the report. How do we not only market what we have, but how do we market the markets to the local potential business owners, and how do we create that fundamental connection? I think it was identified that there is no Northern trade commissioner. There is no First Nation trade commissioner. That is in the report.
Senator Coyle: Because there’s such an opportunity.
Mr. Hogan: Yes. We’re so different too. If you have a Canadian trade commissioner, it’s totally apples and oranges to what a Northern trade commissioner would fundamentally do. A lot of that was discussed. I believe it is in the report, maybe not to the fullest extent. I can sense that. I think that is a fundamental gap. That could be one of the policy changes that could really help Northern businesses.
It’s not just the Northern businesses that are currently there, but what about the ones that could be? If they only knew that there were these opportunities out there that leverage absolutely everything they’re already doing and that allow them to execute on a business opportunity. That doesn’t exist currently in the North.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much.
Senator Oh: I have a short follow-up question. The BDC, Business Development Bank of Canada, is active down here. The starting costs for small businesses capital up to $250,000. Are they active up there?
Mr. Hogan: I’ve worked with them on one or two occurrences only. They’re up there. They’re more focused, it seems, on the larger wealth corporations and participating with them — my answer to you is no, I don’t think they’re as active as they could be. They have a presence. I’m struggling to tell you what they do.
Senator Oh: They should be able to help up there, but they’re doing it widely here on starting small businesses.
Mr. Hogan: Fair point.
Senator Oh: Thank you.
The Chair: I’d like to thank Mr. Hogan very much for your stimulating presentation and the exchange.
For this second segment of the meeting, I’m pleased to welcome Ms. Karen Dunmall, Former Liber Ero Post-Doctoral Fellow. You’ll explain that to us, I’m sure. Thank you for joining us. I’d like to invite you to proceed with your opening statement. You can expect some questions afterwards.
Karen Dunmall, Former Liber Ero Post-Doctoral Fellow, as an individual: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I’m speaking to you today in my capacity as a Liber Ero postdoctoral fellow, current, at the University of Victoria. It is a great honour and privilege to meet with you all today.
I consider myself fortunate to have spent time in the Arctic for almost 20 years. My experiences span international boundaries. I have conducted fisheries research in Norway, in Alaska and in the Canadian Arctic. While most of my experiences involve travelling north, I have also lived and worked in rural Alaska, just south of the Arctic Circle as a fisheries biologist for an Indigenous organization for several years.
I have learned a great deal from listening to the people while sharing a cup of tea. Their experiences and stories have shaped how I conduct research in the North.
I am helping to tell a shared story of change. My message today builds on that shared story, by developing and embracing a collaborative approach that effectively connects Indigenous and scientific knowledge systems. Both Northern peoples and governments can more effectively prepare for and adapt to the rapid changes that are shaping the Arctic.
I will provide two examples of research programs that I lead which embrace this collaborative and community-based research and are developing into community-led efforts. These examples, of salmon monitoring and of assessing fish habitats, help address the broad categories of rapid change in fish biodiversity and in assessing and monitoring fresh water and coastal ecosystems in the Arctic.
Salmon are now present in the Canadian Arctic and are increasing in abundance. We find them in more places and in greater numbers than ever before as a result of the changes in the ecosystems. Unlike on the West or East Coasts, however, salmon are not the preferred fish in the Arctic. Similar to the Pacific salmon species on the West Coast and Atlantic salmon on the East Coast, it is Arctic char and its close northern relatives that are the iconic Arctic fish.
Yet we are in a time of such profound change that these iconic fish that are each representative of Canada’s three coasts are not only in the same ocean, but they could actually be caught in the same net set by an Indigenous fisher harvesting food. This means that increasing abundances and wider geographic occurrences of salmon in the Arctic is a tangible example of climate change. The people in the Arctic are on the front lines of this change. When a strange fish shows up that leads to questions: What is it? Where did it come from? What does it mean for the fish that I usually rely upon? Can I eat it?
I lead a community-based monitoring effort to track salmon in the Canadian Arctic to address those questions using science combined with local knowledge. This project began because people noticed change, had questions and wanted answers.
This program is now called Arctic Salmon, and it’s connecting people across the Arctic. It relies on the key pillars of local knowledge and science, using salmon as an indicator of change, to better understand broader changes in the freshwater and marine ecosystems.
It is helping to address each of those community-driven questions about environmental changes that are impacting day-to-day lives. What is in the net becomes what is for dinner. And strange fish called salmon are now showing up in the nets across the Arctic. Changes that impact how you feed your family resonate with people no matter where you live. This is why assessing and monitoring biodiversity change in the Arctic is so important.
Simply identifying these fish even as salmon is a challenge. Salmon are not commonly harvested; so people know they are different, but they may not recognize them as salmon. This first step requires common language. It’s the reason why we developed salmon and char guidebooks. These species ID books rely on illustrations and point to key identifying traits. They are now translated into several local languages across the Canadian Arctic to reach more harvesters.
What does the appearance of more salmon mean to the broader ecosystem? The North is perceived both as a conservation haven for species distributing northward and a potential global conservation hazard for cold-adapted species in a warming environment. Put more simply, the rapidly changing Arctic environment threatens the native biodiversity in the region.
While drinking tea, Arctic residents have expressed that challenge more plainly: Are salmon going to take over rivers that currently have char? Can salmon establish new populations in new places? Are those places already supporting other Arctic fish species? Those are excellent questions and ones we are working together to address right now.
The complexity of monitoring and predicting biodiversity change in the Arctic is exacerbated by the lack of knowledge regarding distributions, biology and habitat needs of many Arctic species. Layered on this limited knowledge are the rapid changes that these species and their habitats may already be undergoing.
For instance, it is very difficult to predict if salmon can colonize new areas and to understand the potential implications and opportunities of that change without detailed knowledge about the habitats of those areas, the biology of species that live there, and the needs or tolerances of the species that are showing up. These knowledge gaps represent an opportunity to combine Indigenous and scientific knowledge systems and to work collaboratively with communities to address common goals.
With my colleagues, including community partners, I have developed a community-led effort that is monitoring fish habitats in rivers across the Western Canadian Arctic. This effort hinges on local knowledge to identify key habitat areas and on science to identify the bottlenecks that may be influencing establishments of new species in new areas.
The Arctic is changing, but it is still cold in the winter. Salmon, char and other fish species develop their young from eggs during these cold winter months; therefore, they need places that do not freeze, called “groundwater springs,” in order to survive and grow in winter. These places are limited, but they exist as oases amidst a white frozen Arctic desert.
By focusing on these key habitats, we can better understand potential impacts and opportunities of climate change on Arctic species as well as on the species that are shifting northward. This effort develops capacity within communities to identify and monitor key habitats to address questions that matter locally.
From listening to stories of local peoples from across the Arctic, the common threads are the profound nature of the changes, the rapid rate of changes, and the impact of those changes on day-to-day lives. Northern peoples are being forced to adapt by changing where, when or how they are fishing, and now even what they are eating.
I am also adapting by changing how I conduct science in the North. I listen and learn from people. I am developing community-led approaches that rely on science and local knowledge, working together to address community-driven questions. Science in the Arctic takes patience, funding, innovation and many cups of tea.
Thank you for this opportunity to speak today.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Bovey: Thank you so much for being with us. I have had the privilege of hearing you speak before. We had the coincidental experience of sharing a couple of flights west to east and have talked about some of these issues. I really appreciate your coming and sharing your perspectives with my colleagues around the table.
As you know, our study in this special committee on the Arctic is looking at issues of the North in the six areas defined by the strategy of the federal government. One of those is the blend, if you like, or putting together scientific evidence and Indigenous knowledge.
One of the things I’ve been really interested in in your work is the way you have changed your research to combine Indigenous knowledge with your own work. Can you show us, in a deeper way, how you combine the Indigenous knowledge and scientific evidence? You said you listen and you learn from people, you’re developing community-led approaches that rely on science and local knowledge. What are you doing in that leadership? Do you have Indigenous people on your teams who have specific responsibilities, jobs to do? How are you tying this together? What do you think is the ongoing impact of this unity, if you like, of Western science evidence and centuries of Indigenous knowledge and observation?
Ms. Dunmall: The partnership between scientists and communities really begins with that relationship building to understand what the questions are that are impacting communities locally. Then it’s identifying what pieces that each of those members can bring together in order to try to solve the puzzle or bring a better understanding toward the puzzle.
For instance, on a particular project, we tried to address that question of: “Are salmon going to take over a river where they currently have char?” It’s a very interesting question and one we’re trying to tackle right now. The first step was to identify how many salmon are being harvested — we do that with the Arctic salmon program — and identify the key habitats for the char. We have local people involved in that project who have the knowledge to identify where those key habitats are for char. Then we add information about the habitats of those areas from the science. What can we monitor remotely in those specific habitats that will bring knowledge to help address that question? We focus on parameters like temperature, water levels, issues that matter to the community, things they’ve noticed have changed from those conversations. Then it’s figuring out how to do that in the rivers.
A lot of techniques used in the South, for instance, for science, aren’t necessarily applicable in the North. For instance, simply monitoring temperature is difficult because the ice will take out any device that we put in. How do we do that in these northern rivers? It’s developing the tools to do that, even down to, with a welding shop, figuring out a pipe that we can drive into the ground which has holes in the bottom of it so we can monitor the temperature of the water at the level where the eggs are developing for these fish species. And then how to put that into the river in these key places that have been identified by local knowledge. How do we get the data back from those locations?
It’s this back and forth with the transfer of knowledge and the communication, with the understanding of the common goal that we’re trying to address these questions together. It’s a continual effort.
For instance, I have a call this afternoon with some folks from Aklavik, where this person will go out to a river with those pipes that have been installed and get the data from those rivers to support a collaborative project with myself and colleagues and the community to try to understand the habitats of those rivers.
It’s a process and relationship building, understanding, trying to find common language, and then trying to figure out what will work in those remote locations and how to access them and get the data back.
Senator Bovey: What one recommendation would you like us to make in our report when we’re talking about scientific evidence and Indigenous knowledge? What’s the core recommendation you’d like to make based on your experience and your dreams?
Ms. Dunmall: I think the emphasis on building relationships needs to be key for science in the North.
Time spent in the North and talking with people is an investment in the development of science and of community-led efforts with meaningful outputs for communities in the North.
Senator Eaton: I’m a salmon fisherman, and I’m fascinated. We’ve slowly watched the salmon in our salmon rivers in the South become scarcer and scarcer. Overfishing in Greenland, it can be for a multitude of reasons.
Are you seeing them in the North, because the water is colder? Maybe the water in the salmon rivers down South have gotten too warm for salmon, and this is what’s attracting them to go north? What do you think is the reason they have gone north?
Ms. Dunmall: That’s an excellent question. Actually, the basis of my postdoc work is trying to understand the environmental factors influencing salmon and other species to move northward.
Speaking with people in communities, we also try to understand that from a broader perspective. The temperature in the North is increasing; spring is happening earlier and fall is later. Ice breakup happens earlier and forms later. All of those are creating opportunities for salmon, for instance, to access places in the North they have never accessed or had the opportunity to access in the past.
Senator Eaton: When you catch, say, Atlantic salmon, are they bringing with them any — what do you call diseases on fish?
Ms. Dunmall: Parasites?
The Chair: There’s a sea lice problem.
Senator Eaton: There are sea lice, but in Atlantic salmon, there were other things that were hurting them, at the smolt stage and later. Are they bringing diseases North with them?
Ms. Dunmall: All of the salmon we receive in the salmon collection program are fully processed for all of the samples that we can. Also, all of the measurements are taken from the salmon, so we can address questions like that as they come up. We have samples in hand. We look at the fish themselves for parasites, for the occurrence of sea lice and other obvious parasites, and we have samples at hand so we can address questions of disease and other issues that come up, especially from community members who have similar questions.
Senator Eaton: I can see why, if you were a community up there, you would be very worried if you thought that was going to be the end of the Arctic char.
Are there reasons, off the top of your head — and I know as a scientist, you don’t like going off the top of your head — but are they a threat to the Arctic char, from what you’ve anecdotally been allowed to see from the communities up there?
Ms. Dunmall: The salmon?
Senator Eaton: Yes. We won’t hold you to this. This is anecdotal.
Ms. Dunmall: It is a big question, yes. I addressed part of that question with my PhD work, in trying to figure out whether salmon and char could compete for the same spawning habitat, for instance.
Senator Eaton: Do they eat the same thing?
Ms. Dunmall: We’re looking at diet and interactions in the marine environment. When Pacific salmon enter a freshwater system, it’s generally thought they don’t eat much. At that point onward, they’re focused on spawning, and after spawning, Pacific salmon die. We collect the stomachs of all the salmon that are traded in so that we can address questions like that: Are salmon and char eating the same things?
We look at what’s currently in their stomach, and colleagues of mine use muscle tissue analysis to figure out if we can identify whether they’re eating the same trophic level, for instance — if they’re all eating plankton or fish in their recent history.
We are at the beginning of this research, as you can tell. We have samples and information. We’re trying to start addressing those questions. As more and more salmon are showing up, those questions are becoming more and more apparent. People would like to know the answers to them.
Senator Eaton: Thank you very much, doctor.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you. I have a supplementary. Char and salmon have coexisted for many years in Labrador and northern Quebec. Have there been any studies, the way you’re studying in the Far North and Arctic, to see if any problems were identified there? As far as I know, they’re both fairly healthy populations still in Labrador. I wonder if you know of anything.
Ms. Dunmall: I focused more on the Pacific salmon species. They also coexist with Dolly Varden, a close relation to the Arctic char. We have examples of salmon and char species coexisting on both the East and West Coasts. There is potential for salmon to coexist with Arctic char and other close relatives in the Arctic.
It is important to remember that they can coexist. The challenge is to take those previous studies where they currently exist and try to figure out how it would be different if they were to access a new location.
When I lived in Alaska, I had that question for the biologists I worked with there: How did Dolly Varden and salmon coexist in this river? The answer I got was: Have you ever stuck your hand in the water? Yes. It’s a lot colder where the Dolly Varden are spawning than where the salmon are spawning. If we have that separation of habitats, then there is potential for coexistence of species.
We’re focusing our research efforts to try and understand the habitats so we can help address that question of interaction.
Senator Oh: It’s very interesting research. We have East Coast and West Coast salmon. Which one is farther north?
Ms. Dunmall: With the Pacific salmon collection program, or Arctic salmon now, we have people who are trading in Pacific salmon into Nunavut. Pink salmon have reached as far east as Kugluktuk. Sockeye salmon have reached as far as Cambridge Bay, and we’ve sequenced those with a collaboration with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
There are more and more reports of Atlantic salmon reaching farther and farther North. However, there’s also a history of Atlantic salmon harvested in some of those communities. It’s trying to understand the amount of change and how fast it’s changing on both sides. That is a really interesting and challenging topic.
Senator Oh: As a researcher, do you look into the quality of salmon when they go farther north? Compared to the salmon in the South, in the Vancouver area, are they better quality? Is the meat better? Because there may be commercial value in Arctic salmon.
Ms. Dunmall: I don’t compare quality of salmon. We get salmon traded from communities across the Beaufort Sea and also from communities up the Mackenzie River. As salmon turn into spawning condition, their meat gets softer. Physiological changes occur. When the salmon are swimming farther north, and they are farther up the river in the Mackenzie River system, they are undergoing those physiological changes and getting ready for spawning. People have increasingly reported using the salmon species, no matter where they live, as a food resource.
I don’t assign quality to salmon, regardless of where they’re harvested.
Senator Oh: What about the char? Are they affected by the salmon coming up? Are they moving farther north, or do they have a change of living patterns?
Ms. Dunmall: One of the offshoots of the Arctic salmon program is that we’re getting reports of other fish species that are being harvested in places they don’t normally exist. It’s not just salmon but, for instance, char that are found outside their distributions, as well as Dolly Varden. I get texted lots of pictures of strange fish and try to help communities members try to figure out what those fish species are.
I think that all fish species in the North are affected by changing environments. The Arctic salmon program or the community-based monitoring program is a way to assess biodiversity change of fish on a broader scale.
Senator Oh: When did you notice the salmon moving North? That’s probably the time when the global warming started.
Ms. Dunmall: We have a project right now in the Beaufort Sea communities to document local and traditional knowledge of salmon so we can have a better understanding of how these changes are occurring, when they started happening and when salmon first started showing up in those communities. It is interesting. It changes depending on which community you speak to and which harvester you speak to, the history of salmon in that community.
Senator Oh: Very good. Thank you, chair.
The Chair: Just in that connection, you have talked about how to develop relations with Indigenous people to acquire the traditional knowledge. Was your research project informed by input from Arctic governments or Indigenous organizations?
Ms. Dunmall: One of the key features of the Liber Ero postdoctoral program is to have a team of mentors as part of your support network for the post-Doc. For myself, I have academic mentors at University of Victoria and University of Manitoba. I am also supported by mentors at comanagement boards throughout the Northwest Territories, the Fisheries Joint Management Committee, the Gwich’in Renewable Resources Board and the Sahtú Renewable Resources Board. The intent is for the information that comes from the research to be applied and meaningful to decision makers. Having those decision makers as entities on board with the research and guiding research as it happens has the potential to have more impact for decision makers.
The Chair: Do you obtain research funding, if I may ask, from federal agencies?
Ms. Dunmall: I do, yes. I write a lot of proposals for research money.
The Chair: We did hear from Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national Inuit organization based here in Ottawa. They were critical of the federal research funding processes. They said it tended to marginalize Inuit research priorities. I know you work in science. There was a criticism that the federal government research priorities tend to reflect a biological physical science research bias and tend to exclude Inuit organizations from accessing research funding as lead institutions or principal investigators. From your knowledge of the federal research funding families, would you have any comments on that observation?
Ms. Dunmall: I think I will answer that more as an individual scientist who also tries to navigate several different options for funding. The challenge of writing a funding proposal for research is apparent. I also work with community organizations in the Beaufort Sea area to try and help write funding proposals for research that is based on community-driven questions.
I think the capacity to write research proposals is definitely apparent. It is challenging to find common language so that the priorities of the community are apparent in that research proposal. With scientists, even among scientists and also with scientists in communities, it is finding that common language. We are all moving toward the same goal. It is just trying to figure out how we are going to get there.
The Chair: Could those agencies help in this worthwhile goal, do you think? And if so, how?
Ms. Dunmall: Definitely. Personally, I have received support from agencies to further research for myself in developing this community-led approach. I think if we as scientists can foster that approach, then, definitely, they can facilitate the efforts.
Senator Bovey: I’m not sure if this is a question or a comment. Maybe I will ask you to clarify. One of the major research funders is of course SSHRC, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. I think they have opened up their programs in the last few years. It always used to be the university-based academics. I am aware in my field they have allowed museums to come in, in part, and some of the humanitarians, people working in research in social sciences, to do joint projects with the university community.
When we are talking about the North, we are talking about large expanses of Canada without research-intensive universities. Is this a problem? Are people who are going to SSHRC for these important research grants, able to partner to the degree — or NSERC or any of the community partners or organizations that may not be the pure academic organizations?
Ms. Dunmall: I think collaboration is key among scientists. I’m not a social scientist. However, I co-supervise with my post-doctoral program, and with my postdoctoral advisor, a student who is leading those salmon traditional knowledge workshops across the Beaufort Sea communities. That stems from a collaboration that I would not be able to do as an individual scientist.
Fostering those collaborations is key to accessing funding across all sorts of different disciplines and opportunities, and also with communities and among scientists.
Senator Bovey: Chair, I think it might be a good idea to see if we could get a bit more research on the mandates of the various funders that are funding collaborative research projects in the North. I would be interested to know to what degree they need to be or could be community-led as opposed to saying, “Oh, gee, it would be good to have somebody from the community as part of this project to help me get the money.”
I know the criteria are published. If we could do a search on the criteria for some of the funders, I think that will be helpful to us.
The Chair: Okay, thank you.
Senator Coyle: Some of what both the chair and Senator Bovey have asked were questions I had in mind. I want to follow up. As we are talking about traditional Indigenous knowledge systems, the interface and the benefit of collaboration with our other traditional approaches to scientific or academic approaches to scientific knowledge across the Arctic, you’ve been very clear. I appreciated your presentation. Thank you for the decades of work that you’ve been doing. It is wonderful to have you here with us today.
Ms. Dunmall: Thank you.
Senator Coyle: Fundamentally, you talked about the importance of building relationships. I have heard and read about collaborative research, community-based research, community-led efforts and research based on community-driven questions. I know these are not all the same thing. These are layers of intensity in terms of how those relationships act, and who is driving the bus on the formulation of the priority questions and also the engagement in the answering of those questions.
You’ve been at this a long time. I am interested to know what you see as the next frontier in terms of these sorts of interactions that give us the best possible outcomes but also, at the same time, draw from and support the knowledge base on the ground in the Arctic itself. I would just like to hear what you think about where things are going and where they should be going.
Ms. Dunmall: It’s a process. It is a process of knowledge building, although those community efforts you mentioned are on a continuum of where we start and where we want to go with this. I conduct the research and science by trying to figure that out with a common ground of the communities themselves. Start with the questions; identify the questions. Then figure out how to answer those questions.
The end goal for me is always the generation of and the sharing of knowledge. If we can do that together, that is a success. The community-led efforts we have developed over the years are really key to that success. For instance, I am going to Poly Tech next week with colleagues of mine to figure out how to monitor a coastal ecosystem in the winter. We’ve had many conversations to this point of figuring out what we can monitor, measure, how we can do it, what is feasible, what kind of information that information would derive, and how does it inform that community and their priorities.
We have had community members go out now once a week for the past three months, over the winter, gathering information, figuring out what is feasible, testing equipment and gathering data. We go next week to augment those efforts and see what have we learned, what do we now know and where can we go from here.
It is a continual conversation. It’s developing where we are at to where we can go.
Senator Coyle: Thank you. One last small question. We visited the Canadian High Arctic Research Station in Cambridge Bay. We know it is early days in terms of that physical infrastructure getting up and off the ground. I am curious, though, whether you’ve had any interactions with the station. What do you see as opportunities? Do you have any concerns with it?
What is your take on it as it relates to your work and the work of other Canadian scientists in the Arctic?
Ms. Dunmall: Yes. I don’t know if you remember, but you were part of an all-caucus ocean breakfast.
Senator Coyle: I remember.
Ms. Dunmall: For the benefit of the others, we were here in Ottawa as part of the Liber Ero postdoctoral program and had the opportunity — and it really was — to interact with you, Senator Bovey and others to talk briefly about what we do. I think you asked that question at that event.
Senator Coyle: Yes, I did. We were not in committee then.
Ms. Dunmall: No, we were not.
I will answer it similarly. It is, again, another opportunity. I personally have not had the opportunity yet to interact with the High Arctic Research Station. It is definitely an opportunity for more of that collaborative relationship building and development of science and knowledge building for addressing questions that are relevant to people in the North.
Senator Coyle: You see it, potentially, as a very helpful instrument or platform for the expansion of the work you and your colleagues are engaged in?
Ms. Dunmall: Yes, definitely.
Senator Anderson: Thank you for your information so far. I have a question about the booklet. At the bottom, it says “gift card received, yes or no.” Can you tell us about what the purpose is of that question and what it references?
Ms. Dunmall: Where is it?
The Chair: The last page.
Ms. Dunmall: For the Arctic salmon program, people who trade in salmon for the research receive a gift card as compensation for their time and effort. I get questions a lot about the value of the salmon versus the value of the gift card. It is a gift card to the Northern Store, which is like the Wal-Mart of the North. It does not replace the value of that salmon, so why do people trade in their salmon? Why would they provide that salmon for research rather than for food on the table?
I have struggled with that question quite a bit. It is the exchange of information that people get. It is answering questions that are relevant to that person or that community using the information that we can derive from that salmon. People also have the opportunity to trade in just the head, if they wish to eat most of the salmon. Then we can still derive information from that.
The only reason we are aware of salmon shifting northward is because people in the North talk about it and are willing to trade in the fish so we can figure out questions like: What are they eating? Where are they coming from? We answer those questions with communities.
Senator Anderson: Can you tell me why it is important, though, that it is on this document?
Ms. Dunmall: It speaks to the logistics of doing a community-based effort of that scale. Sometimes, people bring in several salmon heads at once, and we may not have gift cards in the local offices to be able to provide those gift cards immediately. We want to make sure that people are receiving the compensation — the gift card — so we can follow up if that didn’t happen and make sure they are getting that. It just speaks to the specific logistics of the program.
Senator Anderson: You said the research is relatively new, and that you are just in the process of gathering information. Once the information is gathered, is there a plan to share the information back with the communities the information was derived from?
Ms. Dunmall: Yes. In fact, that happens on an ongoing basis. We have a Facebook page, Arctic Salmon on Facebook. That’s a way for people interested in the project to get information back immediately. We can talk about where salmon are being harvested, when they are being harvested and provide updates in real time about the in-season changes occurring.
We also travel north for research and other purposes, and always provide the opportunity, if we can, to exchange knowledge at that point. We develop many different handouts and brochures so we can provide information back to the communities.
A couple of weeks ago — maybe three weeks ago — we were in Ulukhaktok and provided information in a community dinner sitting so we could have that exchange of information with people to provide information about the project.
It is an ongoing process.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thanks again. I have a general question about the health of the char and salmon you are studying, specifically around mercury levels. Do you find that in the char, and are you finding the same thing in the salmon?
Ms. Dunmall: I don’t have specific expertise about mercury levels in char — or salmon, for that matter. However, generally, mercury accumulates over time. The Pacific salmon species are quite young when they get ready to spawn. Depending on the species, pink salmon are only two years old. Chum salmon are three to five years old. They don’t have time to accumulate a lot of mercury in their bodies. Also, they eat offshore in the marine environment where they grow and live for a period of time until they come back to spawn.
I don’t have specific expertise on mercury levels, but with information about their life history, we have general information.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Is there a chance, then, that the salmon could be a healthier choice than the char?
Ms. Dunmall: Again, I don’t qualify —
Senator Stewart Olsen: I’m sorry. Right.
Ms. Dunmall: — different species of fish. Salmon are harvested for food throughout their distribution.
The fact they are turning up in the Arctic does not change; they are still an option for food on the table. They are different; they are a new option. There are questions about it.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you.
The Chair: You are working with community residents. I’m wondering if you have any comments on how the federal government, to whom we are reporting, could help to increase the capacity of Arctic residents to participate in Arctic research initiatives. I have a mundane question, maybe: Do your local informants get compensated?
Ms. Dunmall: Yes. I will speak as an individual and a scientist working in the North. First, to answer your second question, yes, the people who work with us do receive money — funding and compensation — for their time. It is a way of providing some funding back to the community. We hire as many as we can for a particular project so we can provide that to the community. We also try to include the youth in projects. Providing opportunity for mentorship, for even just being a part of a project is key to fostering that development of science and community-led efforts in the North.
The Chair: Do the funding criteria currently permit that financial support?
Ms. Dunmall: The research funding I receive for this research supports the provision of contracts to people whom we can support in the North through contracts, yes.
The Chair: We had a recommendation from the head of ArcticNet, Dr. Fortier, that there should be habitat enhancement and restocking of Arctic char populations implemented. I don’t know if this question is related to your work, but would you have any comments?
Ms. Dunmall: This is definitely not my area of expertise. I will not comment specifically. However, it does speak to the potential for — if the opportunity for communication and collaboration is there, then we can provide information about science and research in the North to more adequately inform questions like that. It is an opportunity for communication among scientists and people in the North about questions such as that.
Senator Bovey: By way of closing, we have several new community members since we had that breakfast with you those months ago. On that day, this atlas was launched, Canada’s Arctic Marine Atlas, which talks about some of what you’ve been talking about and other related aspects. I use this all the time. It was printed in English, French and Inuktitut.
The Chair: Thank you for that comment. I am a keen char fisher person. I’ve always been curious about whether Arctic char and salmon are related. Are they scientifically close? You’ve got a great graphic about how to distinguish between the two. They look pretty similar to me. Are they related?
Ms. Dunmall: They are a different genus, which makes them more like cousins.
The Chair: That’s helpful.
Ms. Dunmall: It is not an easy question to answer scientifically about the relationship between char and Pacific and Atlantic salmon. They are distantly related as a different genus.
The Chair: That’s good to know. What’s the difference in taste?
Ms. Dunmall: They all taste good to me.
The Chair: Colleagues, if there are no further questions, I would like to thank Ms. Dunmall very much for coming here to help us discuss this important area. I commend you for your work. This has been most helpful to the committee.
Ms. Dunmall: Thank you again for the opportunity. It has been wonderful.
The Chair: Thank you. Qujannamiik.
(The committee adjourned.)