Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 31st, 2016

[Dr. Alain Beaudet]

Is that question for me?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

No, it's for Health Canada.

If the results come in from CIHR and the mental health tool kit is amazing, how are you going to scale that up?

[Dr. Tom Wong]

One of the ways we do it is in working together with CIHR.

Health Canada's first nations and inuit health branch actually collaborates with CIHR on the original pathways initiative, and it is an initiative that includes mental health and suicide as one of its components. Because we collaborate with CIHR on those projects, when there are demonstration projects showing that there are promising practices through our networks we facilitate the sharing of those best practices and promising practices. In addition, we internally reallocate funding, working together with communities, in order to try to scale up those promising practices.

As part of CIHR—perhaps Dr. Beaudet can speak on this as well—there's a small scale-up component to the pathways project as well.

[Dr. Alain Beaudet]

There is, absolutely—

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Sorry, I think we'll probably have to take this offline.

How many of the communities, the 600 and some, have reasonable broadband access available? To what degree is telemedicine and also things like...? There are some very good preventative mental health programs that are quite catchy for young adults in terms of these online supports, like WalkAlong, for example. Are we scaled up across the country for broadband? Are we scaled up across the country in terms of the ability in the majority of the communities, 50% of the communities, to deliver both telemedicine and to have capacity to administer some programs that are perhaps effective?

[Dr. Tom Wong]

The short answer is not enough. We really would like in the future to have enough bandwidth and broadband so that those services can be actually brought to the most remote fly-in communities, but at the moment, unfortunately—

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Would you say 50%?

[Dr. Tom Wong]

It's less than that, yes. In many of the communities remember it is dial-up, so doing any kind of download is extremely slow.

[Dr. Alain Beaudet]

If I may add, scaling up is not easy. We are realizing it is a problem we are facing worldwide. The World Bank is coming to us to ask how to scale up projects in western Africa, and how to deal with different cultural backgrounds and the scale of a project. We're dealing with a science that is a new science, the science of scaling up. How does it work? How do you do it? How do you do it efficiently? We are just seeing the beginning of that and we'll be way more effective in scaling up in the near future.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Thank you.

The final question will go to Charlie Angus. The bells might start to ring or the lights will blink while we're in this question. It's a 30-minute bell, I understand, for a 5:45 vote, so we should be fine to get through it.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for this. It's been a very interesting afternoon.

I want to go back to the issue of child welfare because it appears in the case of this young person who was lost in Lake of the Woods. It's been raised again and again as one of the key drivers in terms of the lack of opportunities for indigenous children.

The government has placed $71 million for immediate relief, I understand, for responding to the child welfare gap, but I'm looking at your own submission to the Human Rights Tribunal, at tab 248, which says at the time it was submitted the gap was $108 million, which now with inflation would be about $121 million or $122 million. Your own internal document said that the gap was much larger than what's been provided, so how can you be in compliance with the Human Rights Tribunal ruling, which has ordered you to immediately end the underfunding?

[Paula Isaak]

When we had—

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

If I could, our procedure requires me to ask for unanimous consent for the committee to carry on when the bells are ringing. As I said, it's a 5:45 vote. Do we have unanimous consent to carry on to the end of this seven-minute question?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

It looks like we have it.

Sorry for the interruption, please proceed.

[Paula Isaak]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

When we undertook that work in 2012 we had also looked at scaling up the funding, so that's what the current budget investments do. They start at $71 million and scale up all the way to $176 million over the five years and then ongoing. This is the same philosophy we looked at when we did that previous work. It's because agencies needed to ensure that they could hire and get the appropriate social workers and the appropriate programs in place in order to expend the dollars over time. That was the thinking behind the scaling up of the money over the number of years, and that was the same thinking that existed when we did the previous thinking.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I guess a question, though, in terms of being in immediate compliance, because we're talking about children who are falling through the cracks nightly and daily.... In 2012 you identified a gap that is much larger than now, so the scaling up is going to take five years, but at the end of that five years, you still will not be at $200 million, which is what the litigants against the government are saying is the shortfall.

If the Human Rights Tribunal has ruled in favour of Cindy Blackstock, and she says it's $200 million, and in five years you're still not going to be there, then how can you be in compliance with the ruling?

[Paula Isaak]

The tribunal as of to date hasn't indicated that $200 million is the number for compliance. They have asked for the information, and we've just recently provided the detailed breakdown. We expect they will get back to us if they have further questions or further orders.

As I said, we've updated the numbers we had used in 2012, which showed ultimately a $108-million gap, and now we see about $175-million gap in ramping up.

It remains to be seen if the tribunal has more information for us.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

What happens if the tribunal says it doesn't cut it? This has been a 12-year process. They have been telling you. You have been aware of this. Your own documents show that the numbers are serious.

How do you become in compliance if your plan over five years is to not even meet the target? Do you have a contingency plan then at that point?

[Paula Isaak]

We will address what the tribunal orders us. We will look at the order at that time and address it at that time.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Would that money come out of other program dollars then? That's what has happened in the past, right? Money's coming out of infrastructure to deal with shortfalls in child welfare every year.

[Paula Isaak]

In the past we reallocated money, that's right. Now the hope is that we will not have to reallocate money from other programs. We will deal with the tribunal order in the future should they order something different.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

So $71 million is what has been allocated. Do you know how much money is expected to actually go out to service children?

[Paula Isaak]

I don't have the detailed breakdown right in front of me, but we've provided that breakdown and we can give it to the committee.