Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2012

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

There are some very dedicated people who are involved in that process, I must say. It's a claimant-centred, non-adversarial, out-of-court process for the resolution of claims of sexual abuse, serious physical abuse, and other wrongful acts suffered at Indian residential schools. It was part of the settlement agreement as an enhanced alternative dispute resolution.

Claims under the independent assessment process and remaining alternative dispute resolution claims are resolved by independent adjudicators. Awards are determined using a compensation framework set out in the settlement agreement and approved by the courts. Since we had an increased volume of applications and we wished to complete the assessment process in a timely manner, we increased the number of claims resolved through hearings in 2012-13. This resulted in a higher number of awards and created a funding pressure for this fiscal year of $124 million. I call that expediting.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Excellent.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Wilks.

Thank you, Minister. We want to thank you for coming today, as well as Mr. Wernick and Ms. Swords. We appreciate your being here to answer questions with regard to the supplementary estimates (B).

Colleagues, we will move to votes, but before we do, we have Ms. Crowder.

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

I am fine with our dealing with the motion on Wednesday, but I do want to point out to the committee that on page 86 of the estimates, under vote 10, it actually does indicate “the Vote due to savings identified as part of the Budget 2012 Spending Review...and due to a realignment from contributions to grants”, so it is actually in the supplementary estimates (B) around the spending. The motion, Mr. Chair, I believe, was in order for today because it's related to the topic at hand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I did rule that. I did have the forewarning that this has been brought forward in other committees. The same ruling, as well as the advice, was consistent.

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

I could challenge the chair, but we'll deal with it on Wednesday.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I appreciate that. Thank you, Ms. Crowder.

Colleagues, we have the estimates before us. It's our responsibility to vote with regard to these and then refer them back to the House, so I simply will move through the votes quickly. There are five that have been referred to us, so we'll run through them. I'll be looking for confirmation or for not confirming them, and then we'll report that back to the House.

Shall votes 1b, 10b, and 25b under Indian Affairs and Northern Development carry?

INDIAN AFFAIRS AND NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT

Department

Vote 1b—Operating expenditures..........$248,444,500

Vote 10b—The grants listed in the Estimates and Contributions..........$222,352,170

Canadian Polar Commission

Vote 25b—Program expenditures..........$1

(Vote 1b, 10b, and 25b agreed to)

Shall vote 35b under Health carry?

HEALTH

Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

Vote 35b—Contributions.........$3,000,000

(Vote 35b agreed to)

Shall I report these votes back to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I will report this back to the House.

Colleagues, we will adjourn here momentarily, but I did want to invite members of the subcommittee to just quickly chat up here. I know that there was some discussion with regard to future business, so we will adjourn this meeting.

The meeting is adjourned.