Evidence of meeting #19 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was communities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to the witnesses.
I have a question about residential schools in general, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in particular. My understanding is that a key part of the commission's mandate is to establish a permanent research centre on residential schools. I understand the current commissioner says there isn't enough money to do that. He or she has funding constraints. I understand the departmental performance report says the commission lacks funding and is subject to bureaucratic constraints.
I wonder if someone can comment on this situation.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Resolution and Individual Affairs Sector, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I can't speak for what the commissioner of the TRC feels is sufficient funding, but the government provided the TRC with $60 million. It also provided $8 million for the TRC to set itself up as a department, $2 million of which was used by the former residential department, so there would be about $66 million. Further questions on their funding would go, I would expect, directly to the TRC commissioner.
I can speak to the fact that the settlement agreement asks the TRC to bring together all the records that deal with 100 years of residential schools. I'm pleased to say that Aboriginal Affairs has transferred 732,000 of its documents and will have transferred close to a million in another month's time.
We're also responsible for coordinating the transfer of relevant documents from 19 other federal departments. We have MOUs in the process of being signed with Library and Archives for the archival material.
So we're diligently supporting the TRC in its efforts to bring archival material together, because they have a very important mandate.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
What about this research centre? You can't comment on whether it will be established or when?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Resolution and Individual Affairs Sector, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Our responsibility is to transfer all the material, and it's up to the commissioner to decide if there's a research centre or a holding for all this documentation, or what approach he will wish to take.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
One of my colleagues raised the issue of Attawapiskat—I might be pronouncing it wrong—the town that's in the news.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Resolution and Individual Affairs Sector, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Yes.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
You were saying $80 million has been spent since 2006, and I gather that's something in the order of $50,000 for every man, woman, and child. I don't know if you can say much about this, but if you look at the TV images and then you consider the number of $50,000 spent for every man, woman, and child, it's difficult to reconcile the two.
Can anybody comment at all on that?
Chief Financial Officer, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
The only comment I would make is that we have departmental officials actually on the ground now. They're working with the community to try to sort things out. I don't have a comment beyond that, though, at this point.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
My last question is very broad. Some time ago, maybe 14 years ago, I wrote a paper called “The Cost of Doing Nothing”, about aboriginal affairs. It was an extremely dismal set of statistics, whether you looked at health care, incarceration rates, education, etc.
Now, you spend large sums of money every year. Can you comment on the cost-effectiveness of your department in terms of whether it's in housing or education or health? Has there been significant progress in the living conditions of aboriginal people over, say, the past decade—that would make it non-political—or are things standing still or getting worse?
Chief Financial Officer, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I didn't bring any of the socio-economic statistics with me today.
I don't know if my colleagues would care to comment.
Patrick Borbey Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Treaties and Aboriginal Government, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I'll answer, Mr. Chair, maybe from a self-government perspective, because a number of our first nations or aboriginal groups are now self-governing, and we're starting to see a body of evidence that can make a link between better socio-economic outcomes and becoming self-governing, and getting the benefit of being able to be more self-sufficient in their communities.
About 40% of our land mass is now covered by treaties or self-government agreements. A large number of first nations...it's still a minority of the first nations population, but we're making progress, and we're negotiating with a large number of other first nations that have those aspirations. I think this certainly points to some better outcomes that can be achieved through our departmental programs.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
Again, as a point of clarification statistically, when you said $80 million since 2006, that equals about $50,000 per person. Does that include education, health care, housing, from all five of the departments that feed reserves?
Chief Financial Officer, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Yes.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
So $50,000 over six years for everything. That would be about $9,000 per person. We spent $10,000 per child simply to go to high school, so $9,000 per person over six years doesn't seem like a lot of money.
Is my math right? Mike, you're good with math.
Conservative
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
It's about $8,000 per person per year for everything: health, education, housing, infrastructure, sewer, water, electricity.
