Evidence of meeting #66 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 money.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Costas Menegakis Conservative Richmond Hill, ON
How about the specific claims settlements and the $17,421,000 requested in the supplementary estimates? How will that money be spent?
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
My understanding of it is that these are actually going to go into payouts on more than 50 settlements that we've reached.
Conservative
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
As I said in an earlier answer, they're often very small settlements, but all the same, they are meaningful for the communities. We expect in this fiscal year to pay out 51 claim settlements.
Conservative
Costas Menegakis Conservative Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you very much. That is very helpful.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
Thank you, Costas.
That's the end of one round of questioning.
Perhaps I could just build off Costas' last question and ask for a little more clarification.
Under the specific claims, does the cost of negotiating them come out of your budget or does the Department of Justice supply those lawyers out of their budget?
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
It's a bit of both, Mr. Chairman. We have staff who are involved in preparing the cases and actually doing the negotiating.
There are Department of Justice lawyers. I think the bulk of it would be in our appropriations, because we have a service contract with the Department of Justice. They do work, they bill us, and we pay them for it. I stand to be corrected, but I think it would flow through our appropriations.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
So on this $250 million, a good chunk of that might not in fact be to settle outstanding claims, but to fight and resist the settlement of some claims when there's not a mandate to settle them.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
No. I would say that it's the legal work to do the assessments and the opinions to enable our negotiators to make offers. The bulk of the money, I'm quite confident, is actually the cheques that go out in settlements.
NDP
Denis Blanchette NDP Louis-Hébert, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My thanks to our guests.
Your department is facing a major challenge. Your clientele is made of a group of citizens whose number is growing. You also have a government that wants budgets to be reduced. You have to meet the objectives of budget cutting, of strategic reviews and all the rest.
Do you intend to publicly show somewhere how you are going to meet the challenge of budgetary restrictions so that people can see where the staff positions have been eliminated and whether services, or just internal services, are affected? How are you going to manage the elimination of services and do you intend to publish your strategy for achieving it?
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I believe I am correct in saying that, on our website, you can find a table describing the ways we are implementing the reductions as a result of this budget.
They are achieved in operating budgets and in grants budgets. Fifteen or so initiatives are listed. It has been up on our website for a month.
NDP
Denis Blanchette NDP Louis-Hébert, QC
I understand that, but you know even better than I how much pressure that creates inside your department. I am sure that, when you get back to your office, you will sit down and ask the people around you how to handle it. It is going to be an organizational priority for you, given the constraints placed on you.
Do you intend to publish your overall strategy for achieving these government objectives, these cuts? And how that will affect life in your department?
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
The only effects on services to communities come as a result of the measures we have already discussed: the reductions for councils and political organizations. Those are the only measures that affect external services.
As I have tried to explain, we made cuts to our operating budgets and to our staff; that allowed us to reorganize our internal services. Mostly, it was people working in finance, in human resources and in procurement. We reduced…
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
It will involve 480 positions. After the budget, we gave letters to 742 employees to inform them that they will be affected and we spent the spring and summer implementing those internal measures. We have not finished yet. Actually, we are about 80% finished. We have looked for people who want to leave voluntarily, and I believe I am correct in saying that 200 people have left the department or are going to do so. They are retiring, moving to positions in other departments or taking a severance package. That has allowed us to provide some front-line service positions.
I have the figures now. Seventy people have to leave involuntarily.
NDP
Denis Blanchette NDP Louis-Hébert, QC
Thank you very much.
When I began my remarks, I mentioned the challenges you are facing, given your growing population. I admit that I am not an expert and I do not know the file very well. But when I hear questions on this in the House of Commons, I get the impression that we are always plugging holes, patching things up.
We know that the Aboriginal demographic is growing fast and that there are challenges in housing, in water and in schools; but I do not get the impression that there is any plan to deal with those things in the long term. Maybe I am mistaken, and feel free to tell me if I am.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
No, no, no. Thank you for the question because it gives me the opportunity to quote from the best document, the best diagnosis of the conditions of our Aboriginal peoples and communities. This is the former auditor general’s report on First Nations, from May 2011, chapter 4.
This is the manual, the textbook on the diagnosis. She identified four clear challenges that put structural obstacles in the way of progress. It would be fair to say that, since then, the government has been following the advice and adopting the solutions that flow from the auditor general's diagnosis, including legislative standards on drinking water and education.
I agree with the report completely: we cannot simply keep adding money to programs that are not working in the hope that things will get better.
NDP
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for coming. I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of departments on estimates, but I don't think I've ever had Indian Affairs and Northern Development in front of me.
First of all, I want to thank you for the work you and your staff do. I know that it's very important work, with challenging files in many cases. I do appreciate everything you do.
Just because I don't know.... I'm not trying to criticize here; I need to understand a little bit. All the supplementary (B)s are at $2.5 billion, or $2.8 billion with statutory added in, so there's $2.5 billion in voted stuff. Your total is just shy of half a billion dollars. Is it a norm for the department that you have fairly large supplementary (B)s, or is this an exceptional year?
November 29th, 2012 / 10:30 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
It is a norm that we have large supplementaries; they can be (A) or (B). That links to the previous question. Most of our core programs are contribution programs. We give money out in return for services being delivered. They are hard-wired to sunset at some point, so we are constantly—