Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2009

[Michael Wernick]

Thank you for your question.

There is nothing set aside for that in the supplementary estimates because we cannot predict the contents of a bill that has not yet been introduced or passed by the House of Commons. It is you, the members, who control the outcome and who decide which bill is passed in the coming months.

On our end, we are laying the groundwork by trying to figure out what sort of bill could address the discriminatory effect and satisfy the ruling of the British Columbia Court of Appeal. We are analyzing the effects, we are trying to determine how many people will have status and how programs will be affected. As members, you can amend the act, change the date it comes into force and so forth, so there are still a lot of question marks. But we are doing assessments, and we will be setting up a process with our friends at the central agencies to figure out how much additional appropriation authority is needed.

As parliamentarians, you will see that amount in the estimates within a year, if the bill is passed.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I would imagine that that bill will come from your department. When do you expect to bring it forward or have it ready? The British Columbia Court of Appeal has set a deadline. I would like an idea of when this bill will come to us.

[Michael Wernick]

We expect that it will be done as soon as possible once Parliament resumes after Christmas. I am waiting for decisions from cabinet. There are a number of question marks, but the deadline is April 6; otherwise, the decision will come into effect. I believe it will be very soon after the Christmas break.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

You mentioned the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency. We see that it has a budget of nearly $50 million, when you consider credit adjustments and transfers. I do not want to dwell on the numbers. I would like to know if you think the agency will remain under the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

Perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought you said, in your opening remarks, that there would be a separate report. It always worries me when I hear talk of separate reports; it usually means that the organization will break off from the department. I would be extremely concerned if the agency is taken away from you; I think it needs to stay within your department.

[Michael Wernick]

We created a separate department, and Nicole Jauvin is the deputy minister. She will have the same responsibilities to her organization as I do to the department. We are fortunate enough to have the same minister, who is responsible for both organizations to Parliament.

It is somewhat new to us to have several organizations reporting to the same minister, but that is what is happening with Industry Canada, Canadian Heritage and so on. Basically, there are several agencies, but all of them report to the minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you. Your time is up.

Go ahead, Madam Crowder.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Also, my thanks to Mr. Wernick and Mr. Quinn for coming before us again. As noted, you have been here many times.

I have two areas I want to focus on. If I have time, I'll go on to something else. My first question has to do with the B.C. Treaty Commission process. I looked at the supplementary estimates and saw no change in the budget that I could identify.

I think you're probably aware of two reports. One was a PricewaterhouseCoopers report commissioned by the B.C. Treaty Commission. It said that settling the treaties would boost the B.C. economy by $10 billion.

The second thing, of course, is that the international human rights commission has determined that the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group's case is admissible. The decision says that “the BCTC process has demonstrated that it is not an effective mechanism to protect the right...alleged by the alleged victims” and that “there is no due process of law to protect the property rights of the HTG to its ancestral lands”. It goes on to say that the treaty negotiation process “is not an effective mechanism” to protect the rights claimed by petitioners. There's much more.

So I guess my question around the estimates process is this: will you be considering reaffirming the federal mandate around the BCTC process? Because many of the complaints I hear from first nations there are simply that the negotiators at the table don't have the mandate to negotiate. It's forcing international human rights complaints as a result. Could you comment on that?

[Michael Wernick]

I appreciate the question. One thing I can assure you of is that the department certainly is committed to and is following the direction of many successive governments in that we believed negotiations were the best way to deal with unresolved aboriginal rights in B.C. We prefer that to the courts, although sometimes these things end up in the courts.

We have made some progress, as I noted, with Maa-nulth. I am hopeful and guardedly optimistic that we'll actually have a few more final agreements early in 2010.

On the complaint you mentioned, I probably should not get too far into it because it's going to be discussed by lawyers. But it's an illustration of how you cannot force an agreement with people who disagree on some of the fundamentals.

My understanding of the complaint is that they're not happy that the treaty process doesn't allow for expropriation of private lands and third party interests. But that has been the position of the federal government since the beginning of the process: that only crown lands could be made available, or lands that are acquired from willing sellers. That's my understanding of it. I stand to be corrected.

There are other first nations that don't like the treaty process because they don't like the own source revenue and the expectation that you have to start generating your own source revenues.

First nations that don't want to join the process are under no compulsion to do so. As you know, there's a division in B.C. between those that want to participate and those that don't.

I entirely accept that the current process hasn't been working as well as it could. There's advice from the Auditor General and from the treaty commissioners themselves, and we've had a long engagement with B.C. first nations. We are working particularly with our colleagues at Fisheries and Oceans to resolve this, because those are the issues that seem to have a number of things stuck.

I'm hoping we'll have some cabinet decisions on that very shortly and that we'll be able to re-energize the process early in 2010. We share a commitment with the Government of British Columbia and a large number of the first nations to get to treaties where we can. But we are not going to get to treaties with everybody.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

I don't want you to respond to this, but I have just a quick comment. I mean, the issue with HTG is the fact there is virtually no crown land. At the heart of this complaint is the E&N railroad. They're not asking you to go out and expropriate; there's a much larger issue there.

I want to turn to the PSSSP. The reason I wanted to raise this program in the context of the supplementary estimates is that I don't see any additional funds for consultation here. I just want to lay out a timeline here.

Back in 2005, the public accounts considered education more broadly than PSSSP but that was part of the review. At that time, the Auditor General talked about the fact she was disappointed to see that the department's proposed action on our observations and recommendations are not necessarily linked, and that there was no regular reporting out on those action plans.

I'll fast-forward to 2009, when we had the internal audit of the department with recommendations from the PSSSP as well as the ISSP. We saw that report come forward and then had testimony at the committee back on February 26 when I raised the question with Mr. Yeates about what the process would look like around the review. He indicated, “We are determining with the minister an appropriate, more formal, and fulsome engagement and consultation process”.

Then, of course, in November 2009, we had the release of “The Post-Secondary Student Support Program: An Examination of Alternative Delivery Mechanisms”, which was not on the INAC website. It was on a private company's website, so yes, it was released publicly but it wasn't released through INAC.

What we are hearing consistently from first nations from across Canada is that a letter to chief and council or to their regional representatives does not constitute consultation. They don't feel they've been included in the process to date in a “fulsome” way, to go back to what we were talking about.

So since no funds are earmarked and this process seems to be moving along, albeit very slowly, because Mr. Yeates also said there would be some proposals and presumably some action in the fall, what is the plan to include first nations in the solutions to the challenges the audit identified?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We're down to about 30 seconds, so go ahead, but with a short response if possible.

[Michael Wernick]

That's a big topic.

The first thing I should get on the record is that the government has taken no decisions on the future of the post-secondary program. Those will be made, if at all, in the new year. So the program is chugging along in its current design.

The audit, the other studies, the advice of this committee, and all kinds of input tells us that the program design from the 1970s isn't necessarily the best way to get assistance into the hands of first nations learners and their families. That's why we've been doing the kind of work you referred to--looking at whether there are other ways to do it. It's our job to see if there are other delivery models and other forms of assistance, and we hope to pull that together into some decisions that can be made by the government early in the new year.

There has been an effort to reach out to people who are affected by this. We'd like to have more input from students and their families, frankly, and that's been difficult. But we have a working-group relationship with the Assembly of First Nations. There has been regional outreach and so on.

My people have been out and have met with Mi'kmaq groups in the Atlantic region. We've met with the First Nations Education Council in Quebec. Ontario chiefs have delegated the Union of Ontario Indians to represent them on this. We have met them on several occasions. I could give you a list of the number of people we've met.

We have no intention of pushing out changes to the program without having listened to people who are affected by them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Ms. Crowder and Mr. Wernick.

Now we'll go to Mr. Duncan for seven minutes.

Go ahead.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you very much. There are so many areas we could touch on, but we do have somewhat of a focus on the north—well, not somewhat; we have a focus on the north.

You mentioned in your talk that $35 million of the $85 million Arctic research infrastructure fund has been spent. I just wondered if you could expand on what that total of $85 million would be for.

[Michael Wernick]

Thank you, Mr. Duncan.

This was a bit of a windfall through the stimulus package to give us the opportunity to do some capital upgrades to a network of science facilities across the north. It was $85 million over two years, so it was always expected it would take two years to get these done.

On the website, you'll find a list of the facilities that were identified for funding. We did a very quick call for proposals and identified the opportunities. The funding decisions were announced by the minister, as you know, earlier in the year.

They're all on track. They will all be completed within the two years. There is quite a range of facilities right across the north, including the northern parts of Quebec and Labrador in this case, because we're using the International Polar Year definition of the north.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

There was a suggestion when the committee was in the north that we had actually abandoned some studies. I actually question that. Maybe we have not funded some programs, but we've replaced them with other programming, particularly in the area of climate studies. Would that be an accurate representation?

[Michael Wernick]

I think the last few years have been particularly good for northern science. The International Polar Year commitment was about $150 million in additional funding for various forms of northern science, particularly focused on climate change adaptation, people's health issues, and so on. Again, there's a lot of information available on that.

We have had this chance to upgrade and renovate the facilities across the north, and there is a commitment from the government to build a world-class High Arctic research station, for which we're doing the design and feasibility work. We're down to three potential locations and engaging the communities on their potential to be involved in the long-term operations of the station.

In fact, there's probably been more activity on northern and Arctic science in the last couple of years--and there will be going into the next couple of years--than there has been in quite some time.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Just to follow up on Jean Crowder's questions on education, there have been a lot of different initiatives. Once again, I think some of it is windfall through the economic action plan for infrastructure spending and skills development and training. Is there a way to describe this in a big picture to tell the committee what developments there have been over the last year, let's say, and that there will be into the near term on the education front?

[Michael Wernick]

If you're referring to school infrastructure in particular, it was a priority in two initiatives. One was under the stimulus money of Canada's economic action plan, which has allowed us to move ahead with 10 school projects and two renovations that we probably wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. Those projects are on track and are being reported through the quarterly reports that the Minister of Finance tables. We'll have another aboriginal-specific report in the new year.

We were also able to get some of the gas tax money prioritized for first nations school responsibilities, so I think the combined total of that has been a surge of about $300 million over three years into school facility renovation and construction. We've done about 80 accelerated projects above the normal rhythm of the department.

If your question is about education in general, there are other initiatives. I'll stop there if it is limited to school facilities themselves.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

We have done a lot on skills training and labour, but I think I'll leave that for the moment. In the supplementary estimates (B) there's money for funding to support construction activities related to recreational infrastructure. I know from personal experience that the economic action plan, also through RInC, funded a lot of recreational facilities in first nations communities. To what is this specific that RInC wouldn't be specific to? Or are they complementary and both useful at the same time?

[Michael Wernick]

There are two parts to the answer. RInC itself is delivered through another department. In the north it is being delivered by the new Northern Economic Development Agency. I stand to be corrected, but the regional development agencies are always the front line on these projects.

We've done two things. With the funds available, there are some projects going ahead in the north. You may remember that the Prime Minister was at the shovel ceremony in Iqaluit for one of them. South of 60, we've worked with the regional development agencies to push forward, for their consideration, projects in aboriginal communities.

Quite a range of them have been funded, many in B.C., as you may have seen in The Globe and Mail article a couple of weeks ago. I can refer you to the update of the Minister of Finance There are a couple of pages on RInC and we hope to do a little bit of highlighting.

These are not sort of the health and safety of having clean water and safe housing and so on, but we all know about the benefits that good recreation and sports facilities can have for young people in the community and the beneficial effects of those investments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We're down to about 30 seconds.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

I'll point to the supplementary estimates (B) on child and family services and ask you to address the fact that we've signed two new agreements in P.E.I. and Quebec. What might they portend?

[Michael Wernick]

I have to give credit to Alberta first nations for getting the ball rolling on this. This was very much a partnership between treaty first nations in Alberta, the child and family service authorities in the Government of Alberta, and Minister Prentice. We were able to reach agreement on a prevention-based model.

We had a model of funding that tended to be biased toward taking kids out of their families and into care and didn't focus on prevention. We fixed that in our authorities. We've rolled out five agreements now. Alberta's is the first. We were able to do Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Alberta, Quebec, and P.E.I. We're working very hard on the ground to get those agreements operational.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Duncan.

Now we'll go to the second round of five minutes. We'll begin with Mr. Bagnell, followed by Mr. Dreeshen.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you. Perhaps you could get your pen out, because I'm going to ask you a few questions. I hope you will commit your staff to get back to us, to the clerk, because I don't think you will have time to answer all of these questions. I'll do them all quickly.

You mentioned the Maa-nulth. That was great, but land claims seem to have stalled in B.C. since then. There doesn't seem to be anything happening. Could you comment on that?

You talked about the International Polar Year. Since Anne McLellan announced $150 million for that, there doesn't seem to be any more Arctic science money. In fact, CFCAS has been cancelled, the three major granting councils, so these research centres in the north are great but people are talking about them being ghost towns because money for research has been cut.

In infrastructure, as you know, some of the northern nations with which we now have--in theory--a government-to-government relationship are upset that funds for infrastructure and housing are actually run through another government, when they should be going through their governments.

I was happy to see in reading the estimates that it looks like food mail is all now in your base funding; I thought that in previous years it might have been in the supplementaries. If that is all that will be needed, that's great. I applaud you for that.

I'll move on to child and family services. As you know, during one of the other times you were here, we had an exchange on the Carcross act, which has been going on for a long time. I hope you can update us on whether that is successfully proceeding.

If you could tell us the three potential locations that you've identified for the centre, that would be great.

On the northern agency, are there any new programs? Virtually everything in the estimates, or the vast majority of it, is just transferred from other federal departments, so it's just sort of moving money around. Has anything been announced yet about new money for programs?

On ABC, you talked about the aboriginal economic agenda and the new agenda and money for that. That's great. But as I mentioned in a previous committee meeting, one of our persons went to ABC in August and was told there wasn't any money, which is already so early in the fiscal year. I don't think it has ever run out before, so I hope you have enough money for those programs.

On the operating expenditures under 1b, I'm not a financial expert but it looks like there is $97 million more in supplementaries for operating and a whole bunch of things. There must be a big chunk there, because I can't imagine being that far off--$97 million--on the original budget.

On the Canadian Polar Commission, I think it was over a year to get to appointing the board members. It's in the estimates here. I hope that has been done. Could you let us know if that has finally been done?

On the comprehensive claims, there is $11,400,000 for Yukon, N.W.T., Nunavut, and Quebec. Being very provincial here, I'd be curious to know the amount that is for my riding in the Yukon. Thank you.