Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 28th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Mr. Merasty, go ahead, please, for five minutes.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I'll be very quick. I have some yes or no questions here.

Since you raised the residential school issue, is the Ile à la Crosse boarding school included, as promised by the Prime Minister before? I'd like a yes or no answer on that. I'll go through a couple here.

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

The Ile à la Crosse school is not included. It does not qualify under the agreement that has been reviewed by the courts because it was not a federal residential school for on-reserve children. There was, at one time, at Ile à la Crosse, a federal school, but we have determined that there are no longer any victims living who were students of that residential school. The school that replaced it was a provincial school.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thanks.

I think one of the greatest assaults on women and children is happening right now under the provisions of C-31, an act to amend the Indian Act through citizenship amendments that disenfranchise women and children in particular from their status and from their communities. Is there any work going on in this area? This affects thousands, and we're seeing a huge net decline in that population. Basically, I'd like a yes or no answer at this point.

This is another quick question, because you don't have a lot of time. When a school burns down, is there an automatic rebuilding because the government self-insures? And is the money you've identified in the “extraordinary demands” in your supplementary, or the carry-forward, or the education capital to allow for the immediate rebuilding of a school that has burned down?

Also, very quickly again, a commitment has been made to have the entire country have certified water operators. Are you going to be able to meet that target?

The last one is this. With the residential school funding identified, it's listed as a program, but is it more of a legal obligation of the government? It seems to be mixed in with the annual contribution, as program funding. Some people are confused. Is this a legal obligation? Or are the settlements simply part of a program? I'll leave it at that.

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Okay. Those are fair questions.

Your very first question related to Bill C-31.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Yes, it was Bill C-31.

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

There are two landmark court cases that are expected on Bill C-31. We do have work going on to scope out the parameters of what may or may not happen. But really until these court decisions come down, the whole question of who is a status Indian in this country will be somewhat at large. We are dealing with it, preparing for it, but it is ultimately going to have to be answered by the courts. I appreciate that it creates a certain amount of uncertainty amongst communities. This weekend I met with both the first nations leaders in Nova Scotia and some of the leaders from New Brunswick, and they described to me the circumstances they wrestle with. For instance, they have children in the community who do not actually qualify as status Indian children, and yet they're part of the community. They're within families in the community, so the first nations themselves have taken on the cost of providing services to those children, even though they are not, strictly speaking, under federal Crown financial responsibility but rather provincial. So we both know there are difficult issues there.

When a school burns down--I can tell you--the department moves immediately to deal with the issue and the circumstance, not because we're self-insured but just because we have to get a school on the ground.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Are they subject to the Treasury Board rule then, if it costs over $15 million, or because they need it, they have to do it?

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

We have to work through the Treasury Board process to spend the money, but there are no insurance proceeds that flow in that are immediately dispensed. We still have to go through the process. You'll appreciate that for many of the schools the biggest challenge we're talking about is that with the remoteness of the location, they are extraordinarily expensive to build. They cost two to three times what a school would cost in a metropolitan centre. So that's one of the issues.

In terms of certified operators for water systems, we're doing the best we can, and we've allocated additional dollars to try to get certified water operators in place again. You'll be aware that one of the challenges is that sometimes when we get a person in the community who's licensed and certified, they then have lots of job opportunities as well, and it's sometimes hard for the communities to hang onto those folks. So it's an ongoing challenge.

In terms of residential school funding, I guess we could have quite a debate on whether it's a program requirement or a legal requirement. Certainly once the residential school agreement has the imprimatur of the courts, it will be cut and dried that there are legal obligations payable under the agreements, and the courts will be able to enforce those.

I hope that answers your questions.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you, Minister, for your attendance. I'll let you leave now.

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Thank you very much.

In closing, I'd like to thank the committee. I think your questions are all very fair ones. There are a number of items we've taken away, and we'll provide you with additional detail. I appreciate that the estimates process is complicated, and if I can be of assistance individually, explaining how much the Government of Canada is spending on any of the programs that concern you, I'm happy to have those discussions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

Committee members, the witnesses from the department will stay for further questions. We'll suspend for a couple of minutes to let the minister leave.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Okay, committee members, we are now on our second round. The Liberals have had their question, so we'll turn to the government—Mr. Albrecht, please.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, colleagues, for appearing today.

I was especially pleased with the action-oriented item that the minister outlined in terms of where the department is headed and to see some action going on a number of different fronts. I'm pleased to see the kind of action that has already been taken in the few short months.

The one that interests me and that I'd like a little more information on is the water situation. If I understood correctly, Budget 2006 had $60 million and the supplementary estimates have an additional $22 million. The number of high-risk water facilities on reserves have been reduced from 193 to 131. Certainly that's excellent movement in the right direction. I think all of us on this committee have had personal interaction with people from different reserves where water is an issue. So I'm wondering if we could forecast what kind of timeline might we be able to look at until we're down to very close to zero in terms of the number of water facilities that are at risk.

Minister Prentice indicated that he was present for eight new water treatment facilities. Obviously, there's a long way to go if we have 131 more. Could you give us a bit of a timeline as to what you expect there?

[Michael Wernick]

Thank you, Mr. Albrecht.

I think I can give you a more precise sort of calendar estimate when we come back and give you a progress report on all the steps. I think it will be a matter of a few years. I don't want to pin myself down, if you don't mind, because I don't really feel well informed enough about it.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Where I'm coming from is, to try to tie this to the estimates, with the additional $22 million, roughly how many water treatment facilities or communities will be improved?

[Michael Wernick]

We have about 750 water systems across a range of communities. One of the base activities of the department is that we support community infrastructure. In the main estimates, you'll see that about a billion dollars of what the department spends goes into that combination of housing, water, waste water, electrification, and those sorts of things. They're basically transfers to the first nations governments.

Of those 755 water systems, we have a variety. We have very well-run, modern, state-of-the-art water systems and we have some very poor ones.

There is a base activity of the department where, in cooperation with the communities, we try to “chunk” our way through the building and renovation of those plants. We have a capital plan that sets priorities.

The minister's action plan has really forced us to focus on the health and safety risks and to identify high-risk communities where the quality of the water is actually a health issue. As you know from what happened in Vancouver, you can have water advisories for all kinds of reasons. There's runoff. There's what they call “turbidity”, which is only stuff in the water, and so on. We try to focus on the health issues and make it science based to focus on those. They go to the front of the line for renovation.

As the minister said, if you're starting from scratch, it may take two or three years to get a new plant tendered, built, and installed. In other cases, it's a little bit of renovation, and in yet other cases, it's making sure that it's operating properly.

I think we'll see from the expert panel's report that there's more to it than spending money on systems, as we've seen in other communities. The systems will only be as good as the people who are trained to operate them, with monitoring and reporting to the community so that people know what's going on. There's the training and the oversight. The capital is only one piece of the puzzle, and we're looking forward to the expert panel's report.

The other issue that will put be in play for the committee and the government is on standards. What kinds of standards should be set? Should they be imposed by us as funding conditions? Should they be developed by first nations as a part of their own self-government and bylaws? Should they simply import the provincial standards such that if you're a first nation in B.C., you would have to meet B.C. water standards? This is a debate that pops up all the time.

One of the things we want to move on early in the new year, under the minister's direction, is tackling the water issue and clarifying it so that whatever investments are made over the next few years, we'll know they will always be moving forward.

I'm not trying to avoid your question. I'll give you a time estimate when we come back with the progress report.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Do I have a minute left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Yes, but only a minute.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

The question would be this. Community A has been on a boil water advisory for six years and community B had one six months ago. Will the one that's been on an advisory the longest go to the front of the line? How does it work?

That's one of my concerns.

[Michael Wernick]

Boil water advisories aren't always an indication that there's a serious health problem. Sometimes there's a spring runoff problem or there's a turnover in the lake. It could be a temporary phenomenon, especially in the spring.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I'm referring to the long-term ones.

[Michael Wernick]

On the longer-term ones, the combination of problems in the underlying system and the presence of health alerts makes it a high-risk community. Those are the ones we're focusing on for the first tier. It causes some issues because there are lots of problems to attack in the second tier of communities, but we're trying to prioritize the available dollars we have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

We'll move to the Bloc. Mr. Lévesque.