Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Sure. Thank you. One of the things we heard very clearly was that communities have worked to keep COVID out by looking at lockdowns and border controls, but what that has meant is that the community members themselves don't have the freedom of movement. They talked about how that was a triggering of a past system, where they needed permission to be able to leave the community to go out to do their shopping and things like that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. Many of our community members have found with the services outside of the community that they're likely to face racism, and that often the services are not culturally competent. The service providers are unaware of or not equipped to talk about those colonial traumas and don't recognize intergenerational trauma.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. We've seen through our work with the mental wellness teams that there has been a lot of effort to give people access to cultural teachings and cultural activities. We've seen a shift to being able to have people go on medicine walks. People can stay in their homes and watch somebody do a medicine walk, or they're able to organize and say, “We're going on a medicine walk today and we need you to go to this part of the community and look for these types of medicines.”

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thanks.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No problem.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Good morning. [Witness spoke in Ojibwa] [English] First Peoples Wellness Circle is pleased to be a witness before the standing committee today. As an indigenous-led organization dedicated to advocating for mental wellness in indigenous communities and supporting a segment of the mental wellness workforce, we would like to focus our comments around the first nations mental wellness continuum framework, where we get our mandate, to talk about mental wellness during COVID-19.