Human Resources Committee on Feb. 7th, 2017

[Stephen Van Dine]

I'll begin by saying that my colleagues at the department would probably be the best placed to give you the precision that you're looking for, but I will give you my best. The department has a responsibility to provide housing on reserve, social housing in particular. It's through the social housing aspects that we work with our colleagues at Infrastructure Canada and CMHC to make sure that those housing units are delivered to the standard, to the quality, and to the number.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

What is the particular amount allocated in the current budget for housing on reserve for building and maintenance? Do you have the current amount?

[Stephen Van Dine]

I'll get you the exact figure after today's discussion. There was an increase in 2016 in both categories, both the number as well as the maintenance side.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Do you have a handle on how many families that covers? Are my statistics accurate based on the current number of aboriginal people on reserve?

[Stephen Van Dine]

I won't dispute the information from 2011. There is a high demand. The need is even higher when we look at Inuit populations off reserve.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

How is the money delivered? I'm from northern B.C., and Fort St. John is my hometown. We have Doig and Blueberry reserves that regularly get maintenance. I was a carpenter, so I knew a lot of these folks who would go out there and fix up the houses regularly.

How is the money delivered? Is it delivered through INAC or is it through your department? How is the money funded? Does it go to the chiefs and council? How is the money distributed?

[Stephen Van Dine]

The money is distributed through a couple of different means. Essentially, it is a transfer over to either a regional or a community enterprise that would have the ability to then undertake the contracts and construction planning necessary.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Can you explain that a little bit? You talked about a few different entities, the way it's done, and a few different methods. Can you elaborate on that? I think I have a few minutes left.

[Stephen Van Dine]

Very quickly, in the case of Kuujjuaq and Makivik, we're transferring the money directly to the land claims organization, and they are building the housing through that mechanism. The other is a more traditional route through community contribution agreements.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Can you explain that last one, the community contribution agreements? What does that look like?

[Stephen Van Dine]

I'll provide you more detail following today's discussion. Essentially, it is an annual amount for housing that is predicated on both the construction and the maintenance side of things. What runs alongside of that is something that this committee is probably familiar with. In some cases, particularly in B.C., there is additional funding that is allocated for community-based planning that allows for the proper planning for housing and other things that are important to the community.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Is there a needs assessment done? Let's just pick reserve X. Is there an assessment in which an individual goes out and assesses the needs in that particular community, and then funds are disbursed based on the needs that are present, or is the funding just allocated based on the population, or per capita? What does it look like?

[Stephen Van Dine]

I'll get back to you with the different program allocation models. There is a population component. There are a number of different pieces that go into it, including a little bit of analytics on what we know of the housing stock in the area as it stands and the quality of that stock.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I would appreciate that, but just a lot more detail than what you're providing. In fairness, I know there's a lot to answer at a committee like this and a lot of different questions that come up, but if you don't mind getting that back to committee on that, because I think those are details that we want to know and I think the communities themselves want to know because we see a lot that's spent. We've talked about $2 billion. They're such big numbers that people don't get specific about them. I think it's a concern of the taxpayer. In my community, a lot of taxes are spent, and a lot is allocated, but then we still see weaknesses in the system, and we still see poverty on reserve at different times. We want to get to the bottom of that, why that's occurring, and then fix it.

[Stephen Van Dine]

I would highly recommend a study that was recently produced by the Senate on on-reserve housing that came out in the spring. There is part two that is coming with respect to northern communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

Over to MP Long for six minutes, please.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses today. These are very interesting topics.

On September 2, Minister Jean-Yves Duclos was in Saint John to announce the tackling poverty together initiative, but he also made a joint announcement with Premier Brian Gallant on affordable housing.

Very quickly, it was an additional $56.4 million: $6.5 million to support construction, repair, and adaptation of affordable housing; $3.8 million to support the construction and renovation of shelters and transitional housing, and to deal with family violence, as you said in your presentation; $13.5 million to help address the increasing demand for repairs to social housing as units age—we all know about that—and $32.8 million as part of the commitment to double funding levels under the IAH.

That was a wonderful announcement, and obviously at the end it said that the Government of New Brunswick is responsible for choosing the programs they design and deliver and that it also has the flexibility to invest in a wide range of affordable housing programs in order to meet local needs. That was a great news announcement, and I was proud to be part of it.

However, one of the concerns I have—and I'm learning as I go in this—is with the execution and delivery. As a federal government, we're responsible for coming up with a national poverty reduction strategy. I'm stating the obvious, but alignment with the provinces is key.

Mr. Moore, how do you recommend that we deliver a national poverty reduction strategy if we're not aligned with the provinces? How do we actually execute that? Can you give me some thoughts on that? Obviously, every province is going to have a different situation across the country. Some governments want to go one way, and other governments want to go another way provincially. How do we execute that overall national poverty reduction strategy?

[Jeff Moore]

Thank you for the question.

I think working with provinces and territories is critical. There are different needs, opportunities, and challenges depending on what province you're working with. Housing issues in Nunavut could be quite different from housing issues in Toronto, for example, though there's always a common denominator at some point in time.

I would say to try to acknowledge the fact that there are these differences. It's important that we do have mechanisms to engage at the provincial and territorial level. The question becomes how we integrate that and coordinate that at the national level, because there will be agreements on housing, through CMHC, with provinces and territories. Infrastructure Canada will have agreements with provinces and territories when it comes to elements of public transit and so on.

Our minister has said time and time again that it's important to coordinate, consult, and work with his colleagues, and to ensure that there's a national coordinated mechanism to actually tell a story with respect to what we're doing. That's not just with poverty, though poverty is very important, but overall in terms of what we're doing with infrastructure. These are huge numbers that we're dealing with. There are different mechanisms to get the money out.

Minister Sohi's role is really to be the integrator. He is the one who brings the story together. He works with his colleagues. We get the information back on how we're achieving some of these outcomes, what mechanisms are being used, how the money is being spent, and whether we are successful in the investments we're making. It's very important to be able to tell that story from a national basis. Those are key priorities for the minister moving forward in trying to tell that national story.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Do you feel, though, there is opportunity for the government to be more involved by having more, if you will, strings attached to that funding downstream?

[Jeff Moore]

In some cases we do have strings attached. A really good example of that within the mandate of this committee, for example, is around persons with disabilities. There are definitely strings attached to the investments we make in all infrastructure projects. I can speak only for our department, but we have strong criteria that say we must at least meet, if not exceed, provincial, municipal or federal standards when it comes to accessibility issues.

In fact, we have some money set aside though budget 2016 to deal with accessibility issues as well, so that people can access public infrastructure. That's just an example of some of the strings that we can have with respect to the funding we bring forward.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Mr. Van Dine, do you have any comments on that?

[Stephen Van Dine]

I believe Jeff spoke to it. What we always try to do administratively is to work closely with our provincial counterparts in planning and collaborating. As you're aware, there are a number of different federal-provincial-territorial ministers' fora in which that collaboration occurs.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Over to Monsieur Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I'm interested in knowing what problem the infrastructure bank is meant to solve, so I'm going to ask some very pointed and short questions.

Is there any federal law banning a private enterprise or group of investors from building, say, a bridge or a road right now?