Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 6th, 2012

[Michael Wernick]

My information is that $106 million for the federal contaminated sites action plan was added in supplementary estimates (B). I will verify that for you and get you a financial—

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Under the “contribution for promoting the safe use, development, conservation and protection of the north's natural resources”?

[Michael Wernick]

And there was an item in the supplementary estimates for the clean air program as well.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Last time you promised to give me a clarification on all of this. We can check the transcripts if you want.

[Michael Wernick]

I'll be happy to provide you a table on what was in the main estimates and what was added through supplementary estimates.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Bevington.

I'm certain if that information has been requested and promised, we can all look forward to it.

Mr. Payne, go ahead for five minutes.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the department officials for coming today, Mr. Wernick and Ms. Swords.

As one of my colleagues mentioned, we are doing a study on land use and sustainable economic development, and in that process we are hearing things on the land management. As well, we've heard some things about additions to reserves.

Mr. Wernick, you touched a little bit on what's going on with regard to additions to reserves and some of the difficulties there. Do you have some specific details you could provide us on what the department is doing to improve the processes associated with lands and economic development programs?

[Michael Wernick]

Further to my previous answer, additions to reserves is a process of taking land that's available. It's almost always provincial crown land. The province has to go through a process of making it available. It has to be transferred to us. In order not to create a whole bunch of liabilities for the federal government, we go through a due diligence process of making sure there are no third-party issues and that the environmental issues on the site have been remediated before transfer--just as if you were buying a house, you would want to know there was no asbestos or hidden gas tanks. Then we go through the legal process of making sure that everybody has signed off and has been consulted on that.

We often have issues with the neighbouring municipalities to make sure it is clear who's going to do the municipal services, pick up the garbage, provide the water, and do all those sorts of things.

It is a slow process, there is no denying that, but we have been able to make a lot of headway in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in particular in speeding that up.

One of the things we do is very simple: get the people from the province, the people from the first nations, and people from the federal government in the same room at the same time to try to work through these issues. We hope we can achieve further streamlining.

Some of it is as simple as getting the survey work done. These are parts of the country where surveys haven't been done for a long time. They need to be reset so that the lawyers will sign off on this. The last thing you want to do is to go through an addition to reserve and then have some terrific legal dispute about who actually owns the land. So we're trying to find easier ways and faster ways to do surveying.

Just as the minister said about water, there are some very useful new technology solutions for doing surveying so that you don't have to get a guy in a helicopter to bash stakes into the ground. There is satellite-based surveying. We're trying to use all of the techniques that a province would use in its land registry system.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Would the province be responsible for doing the surveying, or would that fall under the—

[Michael Wernick]

We usually are responsible for making sure it happens, and it's usually contracted out.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you.

We hear sometimes that first nations land management does not change the situation on the ground. I am wondering, from your department's point of view, if that is true.

[Michael Wernick]

The better people to ask would be the chiefs and councils that have gone through the process.

I think we have enough evidence to say no, that is not true, that in fact it has activated economic activity in the area and it has certainly given the communities a lot more control over their land use and land decisions.

I think the best testimonial to the success of it is that we now have a waiting list of over 80 first nations clamouring to get in. The problem I have now is how to ration all of that demand. The announcement that we had let in another 18 first nations in January has led to an awful lot of phone calls and approaches and a lot of communities across the country at least kicking the tires on the regime. We think there will be a lot more entrants over the next few years.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I tend to agree with you, from some of the testimony we've heard and also from my first-hand experience going to Westbank last year and seeing the development there. It is outstanding.

Is any of the money that could be used for expansion of the first nations land management regime going to the bureaucracy, or is everything going strictly for new entrants?

[Michael Wernick]

No, it has all gone to the lands advisory board for their role in helping first nations get FNLMA ready, or it has gone into operating funding to the participant first nations. We've done it with the existing staff.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

You have 30 seconds.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Just time for one last question.

Why was the funding under first nations land management changed? What is the new operational funding? Could you answer that for me?

Thank you.

[Michael Wernick]

I think the original funding formula, which predates me, was created when people hadn't had a lot of working experience with the regime. It was very much tied to the volume of land transactions. If you were going to have a lot of transactions, you would get more funding, and it kind of escalated. The effect that had—which I don't think even the original proponents and architects had—was that as things got busier in communities, they actually crowded out the available funding and didn't leave a lot of room for new entrants.

We were able to work with the lands advisory board and find an operational funding formula, which has a number of variables in it, but it's not as simply tied to simply the number of transactions. They've agreed that it's fair and reasonable. Again, 18 first nations thought it was reasonable and have signed up for it. It just allows us to take in more communities.

As economic development takes place in the participating communities, we think we'll see revenues accrue. They will get leasing revenues and they will get economic revenues from the various things. We're quite confident that when you look back at this five or ten years from now, those first nations will have better balance sheets than those that have not participated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Payne.

Ms. Bennett, for five minutes.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Thanks very much.

Mr. Chair, seeing that the minister was only here for an hour, and seeing that the deputy has pointed out that there's a separate deputy head for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, do you think we could call the commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission before we approve these estimates?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Yes, Justice Sinclair I believe you're referring to...?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Vote 35 is the only vote that deals with that particular issue. It's up to the committee in terms of whether they want to vote on that now or if they want to defer that vote for a later date—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

In view of the interim report, I think it would be very important to hear Justice Sinclair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Wernick, I don't know if you can provide any additional information with regard to vote 35. I'm not certain that we need to know the inner workings of the commission in order to vote on the allocation of funds, seeing as all we can do in this committee is decrease the estimate or vote down the estimate. We can't increase the estimate. But I believe it's important that we get as much clarity as we can with regard to it.

Ms. Bennett, I'll just turn off your time for a minute, because I do have some questions that relate to exactly your point.

Mr. Wernick, on the Indian Affairs and Northern Development vote regarding the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I read in the highlights of the documentation that the last sentence says, “An estimated $11 million from the 2011–12 carry-forward will be added to the existing $7.7 million budget for 2012–13”. It would seem to me that this would be an addition of $11 million to the amount that's been allocated for this year. I'm just not sure if that's a typo or if in fact that is what is being suggested. I think that may alleviate...or some clarity surrounding that would be helpful for committee members before we vote on vote 35.