Evidence of meeting #24 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was housing.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
—I'll be happy to pass on the information to the committee.
Interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
I don't want to give you a specific number right now. I would rather pass on the information to the committee.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
Thank you.
Mr. Jacques, you'll pass on the information to the clerk, won't you? Thank you. I see that Mr. Bonin is satisfied.
Mr. Ross, I'm sorry to wake you.
Conservative
Conservative
Ellis Ross Conservative Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Ms. Withington, I actually covered this already in a line of questions regarding first nations in Canada. It's probably your department that would have a good line on this question, or maybe you'll have it in your future surveys. Do we know how many first nations in Canada have official firefighting capacity?
Assistant Chief Statistician, Economic Statistics, Statistics Canada
I do not have a number off the top of my head. Through gross domestic product we do cover first nations and expenses. I would have to confirm whether it's at that level of granularity and get back to you.
Conservative
Ellis Ross Conservative Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay. It would be great if we knew how many of those are under the Indian Act programming. It's very difficult to get firefighting capability under the Indian Act. It's almost “ask, ask, ask” and “report, report, report”. You basically get maybe 50% of what you're asking for. Really, the first nation has no choice but to go after own-source revenue and fund it themselves, as our band did.
Do we have any numbers in terms of how many first nations across Canada have house insurance? I'm talking about whether or not it's backed by band council or individual house insurance.
Assistant Chief Statistician, Economic Statistics, Statistics Canada
I'll have to look and see whether we have numbers on expenditures on house insurance for first nations. I'm not sure whether we would have the distinction between band and not band, but we'll try to provide you with that information if it's available.
Conservative
Ellis Ross Conservative Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay. There is a difference, especially with government-funded programs.
Assistant Chief Statistician, Economic Statistics, Statistics Canada
I understand.
Conservative
Ellis Ross Conservative Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Some band councils have no choice but to insure based on the agreement they have with the indigenous affairs department. Some choose not to do it just because they don't have the funding in place. I know what that's like.
This one may be more for you, Mr. Jacques, with regard to the disaster financial assistance arrangements. When we're talking about disbursements, is that one big pot for all communities, or do first nation communities have a separate pot or a parallel pot? I'm really talking about the division of government funding for the program, I guess, versus indigenous affairs funding.
Interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
My understanding is that it's the provinces and territories that can make an application to the government after the disaster has occurred. If it's over the threshold, that may include some costs that were incurred by first nations, but I don't believe there's a separate carve-out under the existing program, under DFAA.
Conservative
Ellis Ross Conservative Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay. That opens up another question. Have any first nations applied for this funding on their own that you're aware of, or does it have to be some type of a transfer to the province?
Analyst, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
My understanding of the program is that the provincial or territorial premier or the minister responsible for emergency preparedness must make the application directly to either the Prime Minister or the federal minister of emergency preparedness. I don't believe individual first nations or any government other than provinces and territories would be eligible to apply, but it could be that first nation governments are receiving transfers from the provinces, which are then added to the provinces' bills and then the provinces would add that to the expenses sent to the federal government. I couldn't specify if there's any particular case where it has happened, but if it could happen, that's the system that I imagine it would take.
Conservative
Ellis Ross Conservative Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay. I do get the bureaucracy of what it means to get funding under an indigenous band council. I'd be curious to know whether or not that transfer is categorized as indigenous funding or is just under a blanket term for disaster financial assistance?
Interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
We'd be happy to go back and run down that issue. To an earlier point that you raised with respect to the comparability or adequacy of funding for first nation communities across the country in comparison to non-first nation communities, we are currently doing work for INAN right now, another committee in the House of Commons, around funding gaps for first nations policing. There's a program currently provided by the Government of Canada for first nations emergency services. There was roughly $700 million in supplementary estimates (B) that people might have seen.
We were asked questions in the Senate with respect to the adequacy of that funding in responding to natural disasters and emergencies. We would be very happy to undertake that type of analysis for this committee were a motion passed to evaluate the comparability and adequacy of existing federal funding for the 634 first nation communities across the country, in comparison to the programs provided to non-first nation communities.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
Thank you very much, Mr. Ross.
Thank you very much, Mr. Jacques.
Mr. St‑Pierre, you have the floor for five minutes.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here. It's a pretty packed room today. Thanks for making the time and going through the snow today.
I'll start with you, Mr. Jacques. Thank you also for being here. You've been pretty busy. We read a lot of your reports, so thanks for the great work that you do.
The PBO released a report called “Projecting the Cost of the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements Program”. I'm wondering if you can provide a copy of this report to the committee because I think the report itself will be very useful to the analysts and to the phenomenal work they were doing looking at adaptation.
Would you be able to provide a copy of that report?
Interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Absolutely, and it's in both official languages.
