 Thank you Lindsay and greetings everyone. It is a real thrill to be here in my home town on the traditional unceded territory of the Lacongan-speaking people, the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nation. Joining us today as hosts of course is Rob Thomas, the Chief of the Esquimalt Nation and Ron Sam, the Chief of the Songhees Nation. We're also joined here at the podium by four national indigenous organization leaders who the premiers have invited to have a kickoff to the COF 2022 discussions around the importance of reconciliation, the importance of addressing land claims and the importance of addressing issues of murdered and missing women, obviously looking of course also at the challenges that have emerged generational trauma as a result of residential schools. So with us are Regional Chief Terry TG from the Assembly of First Nations here in British Columbia, the Métis National Council President Cassidy Caron, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, Elmer Saint Pierre and of course from the Native Women's Association of Canada, Lisa Weber and all of us today have been discussing the range of issues that I touched upon. We wanted to talk about of course the challenges of dealing with the Indian Act, archaic legislation that was brought in at a time when the residential school policies were being developed and implemented across Canada. Clearly in 2022, with the revelation of 215 unmarked graves to Kamloops and Sheret Muck Territory as well as revelations from residential school territories around Canada, it's high time that the national government, provincial governments and indigenous peoples work together to heal that trauma, turn the page, a black page on our national history and start anew with a dialogue about how we can all live in harmony on this land that has been populated by indigenous peoples since time immemorial. Firstly, we talked about the human declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, which is an act that was embraced or UN proposal that was embraced by the province of British Columbia, working with Chief TG and other members of the First Nations Leadership Council here in British Columbia. We are now four years into the Declaration Act as well as just this past spring announcing our work plan going forward to 87 items, Terry? 89. Two more were added while we were in the room. 89 action items within the work plan and what I wanted my fellow premiers to hear, not just from Terry and not just from the other indigenous leaders here but our hosts, Chief Sam and Chief Thomas, that when we passed the Declaration Act, the sun came up the next day. When we passed the Declaration Act, the only thing that changed in British Columbia was that justice arrived for first peoples whose lands have been used by settlers who have come over many, many decades, centuries in fact. My father, an Irish immigrant, I myself am a result of European expansion but I am proud and pleased to be here with my brothers and sisters from the indigenous community to talk about real reconciliation and it starts with leadership at the provincial tables, working with the federal government and then, of course, most importantly, working with indigenous communities. We touched on a bunch of critically important issues. Child welfare, again, harkens back to the residential school processes. The 60s scoop we now have in British Columbia and in other jurisdictions, a move and the federal government has been leading on this as well, a move towards children being kept in community, being kept in their cultures and so that the trauma of family disruption and disunity does not also lead to a loss of culture, a loss of person, a loss of who you are and where you fit in the cosmos. These are critically important issues and we had an opportunity today to sit down around a table the first time since the pandemic where we could be face to face talking candidly about the challenges indigenous people are facing in every corner of the country, having first ministers here to hear those stories, to also engage in dialogue I think was very useful and I'm just proud and honored to share this podium today with my colleagues to let you know that COF 2022 is underway. After this press conference I'll be returning to the conference centre and we'll be picking up the primary issue that we came together to discuss which is the state of public health care in Canada but public health care affects us all, it certainly affects indigenous peoples as well and so we touched upon that in our remarks this morning. So with that I think I'll open up the floor and any any questions directed either to our hosts or to the heads of national indigenous organizations certainly I'll be seeing the microphone but I'll do my best to get us through this to meet your requirements and we'll go from there. I would also ask that you please keep the questions on topic. Rob Shaw, check news. Okay I will split this question in half then Premier. I'd be interested in hearing from any of the indigenous leaders about the value of the meetings with the premiers and the premier today and what that accomplishes and then after that back to you Premier on health care transfers do you intend to come out of this meeting with a very specific way that you would spend the money if you got it from Ottawa on particular items to prove that it's not just being absorbed into an already stressed system so those are the two. Well why don't I open it up to my colleagues to respond to the first piece starting with Terry and then I'll come back to the health care piece. Thank you Premier Horgan. I think the story here in British Columbia as we implement see Bill C-41 United Nations Decorations and Rights of Indigenous People as a Provincial Act I think what could be learned here can be replicated elsewhere and more importantly that as we implement it and pass UNDRIP as law that the sun came up the next day that free prior informed consent isn't a veto rather it's a space that all governments can come together and make decisions such as the Taltan with Section 7 Agreements and I think it's really important to to really assert back to provincial governments and nationally to the Prime Minister is that what United Nations Decoration means to Indigenous peoples is the assertion of their sovereignty and self-determination and I think that's an important lesson that we could share from the British Columbia experience between myself and Premier in terms of why it's so important such things as UNDRIP is can be utilized on all levels of government municipal provincial and federal thank you next question oh go ahead sorry so these meetings of premiers all across this country are extremely valuable we spent the morning getting to know one another getting to build the relationships talk about the issues that are important to our people the Métis National Council the Métis Nation knowing that these issues are critically important to each of the provinces and territories across this country as well and there's solutions that we can all develop together through talking about you know our challenges talking about best practices what's working and what isn't working in each of our jurisdictions and how can we work together to create solutions that will actually create change and implement change for all Canadians and build a brighter future for Canada so the importance of bringing us all together to meet with the premiers across this country is critically important and there needs to be more opportunities in the future to continue these conversations thank you i'll just share on behalf of the native women's association of Canada the message that was clear to me from this morning's engagement was that there is commitment to inclusion commitment to continuing to achieve measurable outcomes for indigenous women children and families across this country and so i'm coming away from this meeting feeling very positive and hoping that there is that continued commitment for including us at these tables thank you almost thank you of the congress of aboriginal people today's meeting was very successful i believe that we're going to be able to we luck the tables and with good partners that's wants to work together and like the premier said there's a there's a lot of work ahead of us and we have to work together to make this happen and you know like i said it was really good meeting thank you thank you colleagues and with respect rob to your question about detailed proposals from the province to the federal government well we've done that and we're waiting for a response i did get i did engage with the intergovernmental relations minister of the weekend and i got a a text from the prime minister this morning they're aware they've been working on it but we can't determine what we're going to do with money we don't have we're working on building out our budgets right across the country to meet the expectations of patients to meet the expectations of our citizens and we can go a lot further if we had a partner that was carrying half the load that has been the history of the canada health transfer that's been the history of medicare in canada it has been a dual responsibility with the provinces delivering the services and the federal government assisting in the funding of those services that has diminished over decades this is not at the feet of the current truto administration this has been happening back to the 1990s and in fact even you could argue some have going back to the 1980s so this is not something that we take lightly it's not something that we're looking at as a temporary measure we need to reimagine public health care in canada we need to make sure that the funding will be there and the investments that we can make in people ensuring that we have a human resource strategy that allows us to not poach from each other but to make sure that in all of our jurisdictions we're training the next generation of health care workers to take the burden off those who we celebrated during the pandemic with banging of pots and and making noise at seven o'clock every night but let's just not good enough to show our gratitude we need to now show that we're committed to those workers we're committed to those patients and that's what these discussions are about this afternoon and into tomorrow next question kati dorosa vancouver sun chief saint pierre your congress mentioned this morning that the majority of indigenous first nations people are living off reserve in urban communities and raised the lack of services in those areas the federal government in the election had promised 4.5 billion dollars for the provinces and territories for mental health funding so for both the chief and the premier how important is that funding to providing those services to indigenous communities and to anyone who has needs those mental health services well i i would take a different approach to answering the question kati because what the problem has become in canada is successive federal governments have said here's a pot of temporary one-time funding to address the immediate need that's apparent in communities across the country whether they be indigenous or not indigenous and that's not working because once those temporary part time once only funding pots empty we have a void which then is inevitably filled by the jurisdictions that are providing the services once the the public has access to those revenues to build out programs we want those programs to continue we need sustainable long-term funding to make that happen grateful for all of the work we did together all of us not just the people in front of you but uh premiers and the federal government throughout the pandemic we met 36 times 36 times as premiers and prime minister to deal with the issues as they were emerging and there was significant investments of one-time money to get us all through the pandemic we're through the pandemic now the federal government committed to sitting down with us at a table to hash this out and we've been exchanging briefs we've been exchanging phone calls we haven't been sitting in a room addressing the root problem and that is long-term sustainable funding so is is 4.5 billion over 36 million people over the second largest landmass on the planet for a short period of time welcome of course it is but it's not going to solve the problems like the premier said it's not it's not the problem's fault they get sex number of dollars that's all they can do if it means they can only service you know 3000 people within the province that's it the federal government has to step up it's been like that for years and you know the problem every province and including our national Aboriginal organizations we all need help and the only way we're going to get help is through the federal government and they got to sit down with the premiers and make a solid plan and like like the premier said you know 20 billion dollars whatever the case may be or just a fixed income or fixed project that's kind of like putting a band-aid on something downtown they think it's going to go away well it's not going to go away it's been here for years and it's going to continue on thank you if you want to step up to the mic please identify yourself hi andrew from the globe and mail as provinces push for more funding from the federal government there are groups that say provinces should and could be doing more so here in british columbia for example in primary care the issue with retaining family doctors know that the fee for service model is problematic and yet bc has among the lowest rate of doctors being paid through alternative payment models so why not increase that or add a fee code for time-based billing as we did for pax lobit for example well thank you for that and i absolutely agree the fee for service model is not meeting the needs of patients it's not meeting the needs of general practitioners but you provided evidence to why the salary model isn't working doctors aren't signing up for it and there's a whole bunch of variables there i've sat down with the doctors of bc with the deputy minister of health and my my minister of health adrian dix and we're on a on a track the discussions are underway to find a way forward on that challenge of how do we fix the system so that we can have a patient-centered model not a physician-centered model and most physicians are absolutely delighted with that they don't want to come out of med school and then inherit a business with overhead that they can't control when they just want to practice medicine so you see younger doctors signing on for salary positions focused on delivering the care that they they trained for that they're passionate about but we also have long-term gps who have its significant investments in infrastructure that are problematic as we move from one system to another so it needs to be gradual it needs to be negotiated and i'm confident we're on the right track but we also have a recruitment challenge it's not just for attention it's recruitment today we had the opportunity we started uh seven o'clock breakfast with the nurses unions from across the country the national president convened the meeting we had the head of the bc medical associate or the canadian medical association there as well and it was what what excited me was we had premiers and union leaders sitting at a table not negotiating not talking about contracts but talking about the challenges and that i think is the first order of business that's why it's so critical to not exchange briefs in a transactional way but to sit down and say to the federal government to the prime minister and his team we have a problem here and it's not getting better if you don't like our solution what's yours and and that that dialogue has been stagnant for the past seven months i had a commitment from the prime minister back in november that we would work on this and he put together a team and we had our team uh included uh premier andrew fury who's a surgeon who's a liberal not that that matters uh premier scott moe the former chair of cough who's a conservative leaning not that that matters and me the lefty not that that matters we're three premiers that have the same problems wherever we live whatever political perspective is and that's the value as as my colleague said of coming together face to face is the partisanship doesn't exist it's people talking about other people and that's what's been missing from this debate and and going back to rob's first question uh how are you going to divvy up the pie well we we need to know what the pie looks like before we start having a discussion we have primary care issues in british columbia long-term care issues in kebec in in alberta with a younger population they have different issues but all of us have challenges when it comes to health care and i have a challenge with saliva so apologize oh sorry if let me just uh chime in on that particular issue i think about the fact that we have it's been a number of years since we had the report released by the national inquiry and part of that report said clearly you need to include indigenous people in the solutions and so if there's a problem with the conventional model how about re looking at revamping that model completely turning it on its head and saying let's include indigenous people in those solutions we have significant problems across this country opioids mental health not only related to the covid 19 situation that we all are impacted by we have the re traumatization of indigenous people across the country with this really awful situation of the discovery or dealing with unmarked graves and so i really encourage the premiers and the prime minister to consider including indigenous people experts as you reconsider what model works for all canadians indeed including indigenous people we have time for one more question just a reminder there will be a 245 press conference at the impress later today go ahead bender sahjan ctv so premier getting the money is one thing and getting the staff to actually fill positions that are needed in health care is another so even if the money were to come how long would it take and how would you ensure that other provinces simply wouldn't pay more and be in that race to get the same resources in terms of people good question and that the notion of poaching is part and parcel of what we were discussing to will be discussing today we have a national challenge when it comes to recruiting and retaining skilled health care workers whether it's nurse practitioners doctors surgeons general practitioners care aides you name it we're short all the way through you talk to any business operator right now their number one issue normally it would be taxes taxes taxes it's not it's people people people we don't have enough people to fill the vacancies in our private sector economy and in our public sector economy which of course the most important public service we provide is health care so we've been increasing spaces in our post-secondary institutions other jurisdictions have been doing that as well we need to ensure that foreign credentials are recognized much more rapidly than they have been to this point in time that's been a quite frankly a more difficult process and I think most Canadians would would realize that if I was to sit down at a kitchen table and talk about the challenges of having foreign credentials health credentials recognized in British Columbia or in Alberta or in Manitoba people will be horrified why is it taking so long it takes so long because there are a whole host of systems that are in place that are no longer functioning maximum capacity for the the agencies that they're designed for whether to be doctors nurses care aides and so on and similarly we have challenges about what what is the model is it fee for service is it salary only how do we manage shortfalls I tell a story of my time after surgery I was in post-op and a nurse who was in the first trimester of a pregnancy was fantastic care as I would have expected compassionate kind professional and I said I guess I won't see you I'm hopefully checking out tomorrow and she said no you'll see me because I have to stay at my replacement called in sick so the strain on the faces of health care providers is not about accounting it's not about the Canada health transfer it's about people who are strained beyond belief and the nurses across the country talked about that this morning and doctors feel the same way surgeons feel the same way care aides nurse practitioners social social workers everyone is feeling the strain we need to make sure we're training the next generation of welders of carpenters but we also need to train the next generation of health care providers and we're taking steps in that direction our budgets reflect that across the country but this will not be solved by the waving of a wand it'll be solved by hard work and relationship building as you've heard from my colleagues that's how you make progress and again a fantastic example is to sit down with nurses union representatives from across the country and we didn't talk about benefits we didn't talk about wages we talked about people and how important it is to make sure that we're building out a human resource strategy that meets the needs of a modern dynamic country like Canada which has been so blessed with public health care and i it take five minutes to scan the media and the United States about how they stumbled through COVID how they're stumbling through basic delivery of services because they don't have a publicly funded universally accessible program we do and we need to work hard to protect it we're going to squeeze in one more question for an ONCP I really appreciate that thank you um so the federal government promised an additional two billion dollars back in march to help clear some of the surgical and other backlogs but my understanding is that the money hasn't been distributed to the provinces yet and i'm just wondering how that's affecting bc system and what you've heard from your counterparts well we uh we did a lot at the front end of our mandate to reduce surgery wait times by bringing on new surgery filling up our surgery capacity we had surgeries surgery rooms are operating rooms left vacant because we didn't have the staff to fill it so we started bringing on more staff we started doing procedures in the in the wee hours of the morning which was great for patients particularly in our urban centers it's easier to get to st paul's hospital or to uh royal columbia at three in the morning than it isn't three in the afternoon so we were able to go through a great deal of the surgery backlog and then covid hit and for reasons you're all aware we had to pull back on surgeries which saw the the list going up again i can't tell you where the funds that have been committed are in the system but i can tell you that they won't be adequate to meet the long-term challenges what we need is a commitment of two billion and then two billion and then two billion on through through time not here's some money for now best of luck because it's not getting better it's getting worse and although the band aid is welcomed we need stitches and we need prosthetics and we need a whole bunch of other equipment and people to make it all work and until such time as the federal government does more than say they're listening we're going to be having this conversation i was i've been five years at the council of the federation this was the number one issue when i stepped up to the table and it's the number one issue as i'm walking away from it that tells me that a half a decade and of course time goes a lot faster in a social media environment so the criticisms are coming thick and fast and that's fine but the solutions have to be coming at the same pace or we're just going to be in a sea of unhappiness we don't deserve that as people because of all of the investments in the sacrifices canadians have made for generations to build the system to what it is we need the next generation to take it the next mile and i'm confident we can do that but we need a partner that's all the time we have we look forward to seeing you this afternoon thank you