Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 19th, 2011

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Can you investigate the bill?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I'm just getting it checked now, and I'll get back to you in a moment.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I want to make sure that Mr. Stewart and Ms. Woods are not off the hook here, especially on a very important issue.

The Auditor General's conclusions on mould in housing are quite disturbing. She notes that there are a lack of data and insufficient funding, as well as an absence of joint action. That could have serious consequences for the health of first nations people.

In fact, I remember a feature that Radio-Canada broadcast during the election campaign. They went into the communities in northern Quebec and talked about the unhealthy conditions largely caused by mould.

The Office of the Auditor General has done an outstanding job of putting that issue back on the table. That audit was published in May or June.

You've been dealing with this situation for at least seven years. Could you tell me what you plan to do in the near future to resolve this particular situation?

[Shelagh Jane Woods]

I can start by giving you what Health Canada has done.

In partnership with Aboriginal Affairs, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and the Assembly of First Nations, we did the bureaucratic thing. We set up a committee that developed a fairly comprehensive strategy to address mould in first nations communities.

Health Canada undertook the responsibility to lead the development of a health promotion campaign focused on mould. It is a very practical strategy that gives occupants of houses, housing managers on reserve, chiefs in council, and ordinary citizens very practical information about the steps they can take to prevent mould from occurring in the first place, and the kinds of things they can do to remediate small amounts of mould.

In addition, the main function of Health Canada in this area is to conduct assessments at the request of the chief in council and/or occupants of houses when they say they think they have a significant mould problem. We'll go in to assess how severe it is. Is it serious enough that an outside expert is needed to come in to help? That's the kind of work we've been doing.

We've developed and disseminated material, such as DVDs, pamphlets, etc., to all the communities.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Pardon me for interrupting, but I have quite a brief period of time.

I would like to hear Mr. Stewart, and then I'll get back to the people from the Office of the Auditor General.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Sorry, I'm worrying about the bells.

Please continue doing the important work.

[Douglas Stewart]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you for the question.

Following on my colleague's comments, one of the key parts of this strategy is to put good information in the hands of first nations so they can start to deal with mould problems themselves. I brought some examples of some of this information.

In June of this year we published three documents dealing with mould, one aimed at builders and renovators. The idea here was to provide information about how to build houses or renovate houses that have mould problems. We published another document aimed at housing administrators in first nations communities, and that is aimed at how to detect mould, how to determine how serious a problem you have, and how to manage it within the community. And we have a final document that we also published in June aimed at individual households. It's not difficult to assess your mould problem if you have the proper tools and the basic knowledge. That's the objective of this third document: to give individual householders the ability to take a look at their own circumstances and make an assessment of their mould problem.

In the interests of conveying best practices, we've also produced a number of case studies, where individual first nations have dealt with mould problems successfully. We've also published those.

I should say that the appetite for this information has been very strong. We have disseminated over 5,000 units of these publications since June.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you very much. I have to end it there; that's the rotation.

For the information of colleagues, in the matter of the bells, if you'll trust me, things are in hand. I've got one more speaker to complete our full rotation and a motion to go to after that to deal with the bells and where we are in a way that I think will work for everyone. So if you'll bear with me for a moment, I'll give the floor to Mr. Trottier to give him an opportunity--and also to welcome him. He's new to the committee, subbing in today.

Welcome, and I hope you enjoy your first time here at this committee. Please take the floor.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I'm delighted to be here.

I want to thank the intervenors for coming today and answering our questions and doing a terrific job of really trying to wrestle with a very complex issue.

From the questions from the members opposite and all the members of the committee, I think we all have a strong desire to do more. There's no question of the objectives. It's really a question around the implementation and the tactical aspects of who's responsible for doing what.

I think there were a few very good questions related to the governance around tripartite agreements and really defining who has that local delivery capability in particular.

I appreciated the comments by the Auditor General about the fact that sometimes on small first nations it is actually a very complex thing to deliver a local delivery capacity. In a small first nation of 400 people, you can't have an expectation that there's a critical mass where you can have that local delivery capability.

I want to talk to you about housing in particular, because that's such an important issue. It's one of those areas, if you look at our three levels of government in this country, where all three levels do actually play a big role. In my own city of Toronto, in my riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore, for example, we've got some federally managed housing projects, some municipally managed ones, and some provincial. That's not as clearly defined as with health and education, for example, where it typically resides within the province.

Can you talk about some of the challenges around tripartite agreements when it comes to housing? If you think of the life cycle of housing programs, where does it make sense for that local delivery capability to really take root and ensure that over the lifespan of these programs you can really manage these things for the longer term?

[Michael Wernick]

Perhaps I could start the ball rolling.

It's very unlikely provinces will get involved in building houses on reserves. That's a legitimate point of view. That's something the federal government should be doing with local governments and first nations housing authorities. Where provinces have been extremely helpful is in bringing utilities and services like water, electricity, and broadband to the reserve boundary and helping create infrastructure for the communities. Provinces do play a significant role in urban settings, where half of first nations people live, so a lot of their issues around social housing and other kinds of housing issues are essentially aboriginal issues in cities like Winnipeg and Edmonton and elsewhere.

In terms of reserves, the policy issue that is before us is that we're really trying to push money through funding agreements, compounded by the fact that these are 100-cent dollar cash arrangements. If you need $200,000 for a house, you have to find $200,000 in cash, and it's very difficult for governments to come up with enough cash. So what we would like to pursue, in terms of policy, is bringing more market financing and more individual tenure of houses. There's too much social housing and not enough individual tenure in the housing units. If we could change the mix over time—and this is something a lot of first nations communities want to do—we would get much better results for the money that Parliament appropriates.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Stewart, perhaps you could answer some of these questions too.

Have some first nations experimented and actually demonstrated that they're doing a better job when it comes to housing than others? Could you describe what they've done to make it more successful when it comes to not only getting things built but in maintaining the structures for the longer term, instilling at least some sense of pride of ownership, to make sure there are the types of things you'd expect? It's not necessarily home ownership, but it's people taking responsibility at the local level to make sure the housing stock is well maintained.

[Douglas Stewart]

Thank you very much.

Yes, there are some very good examples of first nations communities that have done an excellent job in housing their members. For example, there have been first nations that have used government funds to leverage additional financing through revolving funds. This has been a very successful technique on some reserves. Some of the more successful reserves have dedicated significant resources to the administration of existing stock and have put maintenance plans in place that require regular expenditures to keep the housing up to standard.

There are quite a variety of techniques that have been used. They're not unlike techniques that would be used by non-profit corporations off reserve or municipalities that are managing large housing stocks off reserve. They're the same types of things.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Are there particular solutions for smaller first nations where they can perhaps pool resources across more than one first nation? Is it something that could be considered if it's too small to deliver that capability or to build that capability? Are there examples of that?

[Douglas Stewart]

Yes. There are perhaps not as many as we would like to see, but in situations where we deal with smaller communities, perhaps tribal councils could provide the locus for expertise. It would bring together the resources of a number of reserves and those types of things.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

They were very good questions. Thank you all.

This concludes the rotation once through the committee.

We have 17 minutes before the vote. I look to Mr. Saxton for a motion with regard to the committee going forward.

Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

May I propose that in light of the shortened session we have today as a result of the votes, and also because I'm sure there are more questions for the witnesses, we reconvene on Monday at 3:30 and ask for the same witnesses to come back at that time?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

There is a motion for a continuance of this hearing on Monday. This is consistent with the steering committee report and our discussions, in that we reserved Monday with the thought that this may be the case. Everything is perfectly in order. That motion is in order. Is there any debate or discussion?

Hearing none, all in favour of the motion, please indicate.

(Motion agreed to)

We enjoyed your presentation so much, we'll ask you to come back and do an encore. We'll see you Monday at 3:30, as we will all colleagues. That concludes the business of the day.

This committee stands adjourned.