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

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I am on page 144 of the French version of the supplementary estimates (A) 2006-2007. I don't know if it is the same page in the English version. You will give us a bit more time, Mr. Chair, so that the minister and I are on the same page, as it were.

At the top of the page, it says “Indian Affairs and Northern Development”. I don't have the English version. If I had it, I could find it quickly for you.

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

Mr. Chairman, we might make sure we all have the same document here.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Can you stop my time?

Do you have the English version of this document?

I will find it quickly.

It refers to funding for consultation. It is on page 193 in the English version.

When I said, Mr. Chair, that it's become really complicated, I meant that there are just so many documents. We really have to do our homework. You can restart the clock, Mr. Chair.

Coming back to my question, there is $6.38 million for

“the legal issue of on-reserve matrimonial....”

I want details on these amounts. To whom are these contributions being paid, and why?

Also, a little further down, it says Funding for the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board's participation in the Joint Review Panel hearings for the Mackenzie Gas Project. There is an amount of $3.046 million for this.

Here is my question: Is the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development involved in this project, and if it is, how so? Will there be a bill referring to this project?

My last question—if you have time to answer it—concerns page 194, in the English version, and page 145, in the French version. It refers to voted appropriations. It says:

“Explanation of Funds Available....”

It also refers to loans to groups.

“Voted Appropriation”, “Loans to native claimant groups”, etc.

It says loans to Native claimant groups to continue negotiations. $8.5 million has been allocated to this. This $8.5 million is in the form of loans. Will they be paid back? Have any loans already been made? Are there any repayment agreements?

Those are my three questions. It's page 145 in the French version.

I like this type of exercise, minister, because it gives us the opportunity to meet. I would like us to be able to meet more often so that I can ask you the real questions that need to be asked. These are important issues.

I'll let you speak, minister. Thank you.

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

I imagine it gives you an opportunity to use your experience as an attorney.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Yes. I'm a very good lawyer, you know. In my other life, in the “nation”.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Okay. Have you finished?

I can answer your questions. First, you referred to

matrimonial real property. You've asked the question, the $8.4 million. These are the funds that are being expended on the consultation process that has been engaged by my ministerial representative, Wendy Grant-John, who, as you recall, is a very well-respected Canadian. She has headed up a consultation process to travel across the country and meet with first nations representatives from the Assembly of First Nations, the Native Women's Association of Canada, and others, because there are regional groups that don't necessarily fall under the umbrella of the Native Women's Association or the AFN.

On the way the dollars have been allocated, $2.7 million has been allocated to the Native Women's Association of Canada and their affiliates across Canada; $2.7 million has been allocated to the Assembly of First Nations and their regional affiliates; and $900,000 has been allocated to others. That's a total of $6.3 million that has been allocated at this point.

So the consultation process is moving forward. This week I indicated to Wendy Grant-John that I'd like to see something back from her by the end of January, as opposed to the end of December, so she's carrying on with that process. These funds were necessary to ensure that the Government of Canada fulfilled its consultation obligations, legal and otherwise, to first nations.

If you require any further breakdown, Mr. Lemay, I'll be happy to provide that.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

No, that's fine.

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

You asked a question about the funding for the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board's participation in the joint review panel hearings for the Mackenzie gas project. The Government of Canada provides assistance in the context of the Northwest Territories on the Mackenzie Valley hearings that are going on. We provide funding to first nations and aboriginal intervenor groups, and we provide capacity-building dollars so that first nations are able to participate in the joint review panel hearings and in the other environmental processes that are going on.

At this time you will see in the supplementary estimates $3.046 million, which reflects the increased level of activity on the Mackenzie Valley project. I think you're also aware that on the Mackenzie Valley project, the government's first budget allocated $500 million to the socio-economic fund. That fund has been legally created and the board of directors has been put in place. The dollars will not flow to the fund until the pipeline project is approved. The moneys are intended to ameliorate the socio-economic impacts of a pipeline, so the precondition is that there has to be a pipeline. So that is all moving forward.

You asked questions about the loans. You will see in the supplementary estimates--and I don't disagree that it is complicated--reference to loans to first nations in the context of the B.C. treaty process. The Auditor General may have comments about that very subject today. There are extensive loans. You'll see that the expenditures of the department over the last year on the B.C. treaty process have been about $47 million, but there are other specific claims ongoing. The Government of Canada has a loan facility to first nations, and those loans are always repaid out of the settlements.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

Madam Crowder, please.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister, for coming again before us. I want to echo the appreciation of having this time to answer questions.

I have a couple of things. I am going to ask my questions all up front as well.

The last time you were before us I made this comment. Although I understand that the Auditor General is going to be tabling a report on the B.C. treaty process and on specific claims, I want to reiterate my concern that there was no money allocated in the estimates for future budgets, and it is very difficult for those organizations to continue to operate with any degree of certainty. I would hope that there will be some early signal to those organizations because their funding runs out at the end of March. That is more of a comment.

The friendship centres do not operate under your ministry, but I wonder if you could talk about your commitment and your willingness to work with the Minister of Heritage, and whether or not there is some signal that further consolidation is going to happen with INAC, given that, for example, residential schools have now come under INAC's mandate. That is one question.

The second question is around the aboriginal healing fund. Of course, as you are aware, their funding also expires at the end of March. Under the residential schools, this has been an important part of the program, and there are some clear recommendations and analysis on what it will mean if future funds aren't bookmarked for that.

My next question is around economic development. In the main estimates there was a substantial reduction in access to capital and economic development, from a spending of $733.4 million in 2005-06 to a planned spending in 2008-09 of $286.7 million. My understanding, when you came before us in the past, was that other departments were taking some responsibility. I heard you say today that there was some effort to reconsolidate that under INAC. I didn't see it in the supplementary estimates, so I'm wondering where that money is, who's holding it, and what outcomes are anticipated for that.

My final question is on page 193 of the supplementaries, under the line, “Funding to support the administration of representative status Indian organizations”, I wonder if you could just tell us what that money is going to be used for.

That's it.

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

I'm happy to answer those questions. It's a lengthy list, but I'll be terse.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Some of them are short answers.

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

Yes, some of them are short answers.

One of the first structural changes we made was that the residential school department was consolidated with INAC. Under my ministry, it's still a separate operation, staff have not been integrated one into the other, but it is part of the INAC ministry. There's $125 million in the residential school agreement, which is currently before the courts. That flows through to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. That is the total sum of money they will receive over the life of the agreement. The arrangements under which it was negotiated is that it's a fixed sum and that's the amount they will have to complete their work. That's what's taking place with respect to that.

It's a very fair question with respect to friendship centres. The whole issue of friendship centres to some extent overlaps with the urban aboriginal strategy. The urban aboriginal strategy sunsets March 31 of this year. The friendship centres are not subject to the same sunsetting. I have had discussions, extensive discussions as a matter of fact, with Minister Oda about the subject of friendship centres because they're the primary delivery mechanism on the ground in urban communities, and the urban aboriginal strategy is an issue that's currently before cabinet, because it, of course, sunsets, so we will have to deal with it.

I have to tell you that I can't make any commitments. It is before the cabinet as a whole. I have to say I've been impressed with the work under the urban aboriginal strategy for the dollars that have been spent. As I've travelled across the country, I find, first, very fervent people who are working under the urban aboriginal strategy. I find they're doing good work. I find they're very committed, and I've also been very struck by the extent to which they are able to leverage off reasonably modest expenditures to access other sources of funding, both public and especially private, to do good work.

I've been, and I've said this publicly, quite impressed with what I've seen. One group I'm familiar with is the urban aboriginal consortium in the city of Calgary, who had received, as I recall, $2.8 million under the urban aboriginal strategy but had leveraged off that another $7.5 million of other funds. So they'd actually accessed over $10 million, and they are doing extremely good work.

Most of the major urban centres in Canada where aboriginal people live have similar committees at work, and they're doing good work. So that's very much in front of us.

With respect to economic development, this consolidation happens effective December 1, so you won't see any of those numbers reflected in the supplementary estimates. That is happening even as we speak.

If I could take you back to the B.C. treaty process, and we should maybe talk a bit about this today because it is important, the Auditor General is releasing a report, and I believe the Auditor General of B.C. is also releasing a report today, as I understand. There's a lock-up elsewhere on the Hill right now dealing with this very subject. We will see what the Auditor General has to say, and I'll comment publicly, but I want to assure you that this government has been very committed to the B.C. treaty process, and I've been quite involved personally.

On the Lheidli T'enneh treaty, I was at the initialling, but I can also tell you that I was personally involved in the negotiations to complete the Lheidli T'enneh agreement in the eleventh hour. I can also tell you I have been involved personally in the Maa-Nulth negotiations that are nearing completion, and there is a third agreement that is nearing completion as well.

So in the course of our seven months, eight months, in government, there are three of the B.C. treaties that we have essentially gotten to the finish line. Others are behind, but these agreements are complicated. They involve difficult public policy decisions, and at the end of the day they require a direct intervention on the part of the minister to make sure things move forward.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Answer my question.

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

In terms of dollars allocated in future budgets, the real issue is what the Auditor General says about the whole process and how we move forward.

I stand to be corrected on this, but to my knowledge there has not been an absence of funding at the tables. That has not been the problem at the negotiating tables. If you're aware of different circumstances, I'm happy to look into it, but the real issue has been the complexity of the public policy questions that underlie the treaties and the difficulty in governments, plural--B.C. and Canada--coming to grips with the difficult questions surrounding own-source revenue, the allocation of salmon stocks, all the self-government questions, and so on.

I would submit to you, having been very involved in the completion of the Lheidli T'enneh treaty, that these are very solid agreements.

To the extent that the Lheidli T'enneh treaty and Maa-Nulth define the way forward in British Columbia, there is lots of work to be done, and it'll go on long after I'm no longer here. But they provide a very sound basis for all of us to move forward in British Columbia to reconcile the interests of aboriginal and non-aboriginal people. And the funding allocated on the B.C. treaty goes on until March of 2009.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

May I turn to the government, please. Mr. Bruinooge.

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, if I could go back to some of the questions Jean was asking in relation to the residential school settlement, perhaps you could update us on where the advance payment claimants are, in terms of numbers, and some of the reflections in the estimates.

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

Okay. I'm happy to do that.

I'm going by memory here, but I've got some updated numbers as of this morning. The total number of applications received for the advance payments is 12,685. The number of applications that have been verified and processed is 9,308, or 74% of the claims submitted.

And then there are about 2,000 in various stages of review. And approximately 1,200 or 10% have been advised they don't meet the requirements for the residential school advance payments.

I can tell you these numbers are consistent with what was expected. The total cost of the advance payments is $74.5 million to this point. That's slightly higher than what we had expected, but not far off, so it's well within what was anticipated.

The difficulty throughout in dealing with the advance payments, but also the residential school agreement as a whole, has been the uncertainty surrounding how many people qualify, because the record keeping was not perfect at that point. So there is some ambiguity about precisely how many students there were and how many years they were in school, and the whole process of verification is a difficult one.

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Winnipeg South, MB]

How long do you see this process going on?

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

I should report to the committee that the agreement itself was signed off in February/March of this year. The process then called for the submission of the agreement to all the courts across Canada.

I've received regular reports on the progress made at court in each jurisdiction. I understand it's going reasonably well. We are anticipating receiving a decision from one of the courts that will speak on behalf of all the courts, providing their opinion on whether they feel the settlement is appropriate, and that will provide the basis upon which to proceed.

I expect to receive the results of that court decision. There is no fixed timeline, but I expect we will receive it before January 1.

So in short, it's moving forward as anticipated, pretty much on budget, and pretty much on schedule.

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Winnipeg South, MB]

That's great.

I want to move into an area you've talked about often as one of the pillars of your objectives for the department, and that's in terms of family and women and children.

I know you've taken a real interest in women's shelters, and I think the department has made an investment. Perhaps you could talk about your overall strategy for helping families in first nations communities move forward and helping them get out of situations they find themselves in, whether it is an economic plight or a matrimonial breakdown. Could you tell us about your overall strategy?

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

I appreciate that. I'd like as well to acknowledge the hard work of Mr. Bruinooge, who's my parliamentary secretary. Nobody on the Hill works harder. As the parliamentary secretary, he does a very good job in helping me.

We've discussed this matter before. I think the circumstances of aboriginal women in Canadian society, in particular aboriginal women on reserve, cry out for attention and require attention. I've said previously that in my time in opposition, the people whom I met with often and who moved me the most were aboriginal women, and the issues they face have been extremely important.

I certainly hope everybody at the table will be supportive of the matrimonial property initiative. We are proceeding in a respectful, consultative way. I know the issue is not without its complexity; I understand that, but at the end of the day it's incumbent on this House to move forward and to deal with the issue. In 2006 it's not acceptable that aboriginal women on reserve would not have the same protections as other women.

As you've seen in the funding numbers in my discussion with Monsieur Lemay, we've also moved to increase the funding to the Native Women's Association. Through the matrimonial property consultation, we've certainly put them in a position to speak on behalf of themselves and the umbrella groups beneath them, but we've also allocated significant resources on behalf of disenfranchised women to make sure their voices are heard.

There's also the issue of section 67 of the Human Rights Act; in the days ahead, it will be before this committee. I think that's a very important step forward as well. Section 67 is included in the Canadian Human Rights Act, and it's essentially a block to first nations citizens, including women, on their ability to file human rights grievances. This should not be present in Canada in 2006.

On women's shelters, there is a network of 35 women's shelters on reserves across Canada. The annual budget for these shelters is $18.5 million, as I recall, of which $11.5 million actually goes to the shelters and $7 million is for community programming. We have taken steps--I have taken steps--to have that funding increased. I can tell you that has been noticed. As I've travelled the country, I have met first nations women who have come forward and said thank you; they had been trying to get that funding increased for 15 years, and our government is the first one that has moved forward on it.

Those are some of the initiatives we're moving forward on. Again, I understand that all of this happens within a context of a need for housing. We have to ensure there's safe drinking water and we have to ensure the school system is functioning properly, but I do think advancing the interests of aboriginal women is central to all of this, and we're trying to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Mr. Minister, it's just a few minutes before ten. Would you like to get away at this point? I've given you an opportunity here.

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

I'm happy to take a couple of other questions. I do have a meeting at 10:15.