Evidence of meeting #39 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was municipalities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications, Office of Infrastructure of Canada
Thank you.
As I said, there are administrative agreements in place with the provinces and territories with the federal government. There are reporting mechanisms in place. They have to report at least on an annual level, if not more, in terms of how the money is being used and what outcomes are being achieved with the investments that are being made.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In each of your presentations, you told about the many factors that contribute to poverty, and how complex they are. You have told us that employment, housing, physical and mental health, education and the price of food have to be taken into account. A number of witnesses have come before our committee to stress the importance of a multidisciplinary and intersectoral approach.
You have told us about the interdepartmental work, the work with the provinces and territories, with indigenous communities and municipalities. But could you tell me about the specific processes that have been implemented to allow that collaboration to happen? Have you developed any best practices to make it go smoothly?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Northern Affairs Organization, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Thank you for the question.
It really depends on the situation.
In Nunavut, the Food Safety Working Group was started by the communities, the Government of Nunavut, NTI, and the other groups. That is the group that invited us to take part in the meetings to decide on specific options and strategies to address matters of food safety. So we actually operate on a case-by-case basis.
As for the more formal process, many federal, provincial and territorial agencies take part in annual meetings organized by the ministers responsible for health and housing. There are meetings each year. It depends on the situation.
I hope I grasped your question correctly.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
With Infrastructure Canada, how do things happen among departments?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications, Office of Infrastructure of Canada
There are committees at assistant deputy minister level, my level, that is. My counterparts and I meet to discuss policies, but also to discuss data, programs and how they are implemented. Discussions also take place at deputy ministerial level and also among ministers.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
In response to one of my questions earlier, you reacted by saying that it was the responsibility of the provinces. The municipalities and organizations that we represent still frequently criticize us because the ball goes back and forth between the feds and the provinces.
What could the federal government do in order to be able to really work with the provinces and territories, to focus on their needs, especially in infrastructure, and get the results we want?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications, Office of Infrastructure of Canada
I can talk a little about our process in terms of Phase 2 of the infrastructure plan.
Minister Sohi took part in his first meeting with his provincial and territorial counterparts. The deputy ministers met as well. The discussions focused on program data, results and objectives. The idea was to determine whether the provinces, the territories and ourselves had any outcomes and objectives in common.
This was a starting point for the discussion that, at some stage, will be part of the dialogue about implementing programs. It has to start with a discussion about the objectives. We have never done that, but Minister Sohi feels that it is very important to hold those discussions before we develop and implement our programs.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
If I understand correctly, to make that transverse communication possible, you eventually will have to go down into the organization and get to the implementation.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications, Office of Infrastructure of Canada
Yes, exactly.
NDP
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
When we talk about investments in infrastructure, we are mostly talking about bricks and asphalt, but how can we bring community considerations into that equation?
We have dealt with food issues through Nutrition North Canada, but I have a hard time seeing how you can bring community considerations into your discussions on infrastructure.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications, Office of Infrastructure of Canada
Thank you for the question.
When you say community considerations, I imagine you are referring to community needs.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Yes, exactly.
How does infrastructure become social?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications, Office of Infrastructure of Canada
We work very closely with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which is one of the major stakeholders in that respect. We are in constant discussions with the people from the federation in order to find out the needs of the communities.
FCM members include large cities as well as rural and northern communities. We try to have discussions with the FCM as often as possible, in order to find out what the real needs of the communities are. The federation represents all municipalities, but our discussions are with a number of the members in order to find out their needs. We take those points of view into account when we come to develop policies in cabinet.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Thank you.
I hope you understood the inference when I said “all municipalities”.
Thank you.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications, Office of Infrastructure of Canada
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
Thank you very much.
Thank you both very much for being here today and sharing. I do want to loop back on one thing, a conversation following one of the questions by my colleague Mr. Zimmer, just to make sure we do get some of that information back. There are a couple of really big discrepancies between some of the things you brought to the table today, which were great, but the information we have is a little different.
I'm going to share one piece. In the briefing that we have from a report done this past year by the Laval University, named the “Cost of Living in Nunavik, Research Report”, it talks about a basket of groceries costing 48% more than what it would cost in Quebec City. The term you used, both in response to questioning by Mr. Dhillon and also in your speaking notes, was that the cost of living was 10 times higher. I know that's a combination of things, and obviously Kuujjuaq might be significantly cheaper than some of the other communities, considering it's a transportation hub, but that's a big difference in the cost we're seeing.
Would you share some of the research on that on some of the more remote communities, because I would imagine it's different from community to community, so we can get a clear picture of what those costs are. Obviously, we're going to be heading up there shortly.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Northern Affairs Organization, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
What I will absolutely commit to do is provide the calculation behind our revised northern food basket and how we arrive at those statistics.
With respect to some of the other studies out there, they are by other organizations and have used, in some cases, different tools and techniques. We'll try to do our best to delineate the different approaches they have applied to come to their....
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
We just want to make sure we're comparing apples to apples, no pun intended.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Northern Affairs Organization, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Yes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
On that note, we are going to be heading up there, as I said, and I'll give the credit where credit is due. MP Carol Hughes, who shares a floor with me, suggested we take some groceries with us if we have the room.
Is there anything you can suggest we take, a particular item that is significantly more expensive up there? We were thinking about cereal because of the light weight, but perhaps there's something in particular we could take with us that we could probably get within an hour or so from now.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Northern Affairs Organization, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Head to Costco. I would say it's always appreciated when you bring fresh and perishable goods, particularly if you can grab the clementines as you're heading out the door. When I go to the office, I don't bring donuts. I bring fresh fruit for the office.
One criticism we often get about the changes to the program is with respect to diapers. We made some changes to the program in which those are no longer eligible for the sheer reason they can be shipped in bulk during sealift in a much more economical way. That said, we find there are still some being flown in. As a result, the cost of those particular items can be quite high, and they are not currently eligible.