Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, committee members, for the opportunity to join you today and present on the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, and to entertain your questions and dialogue with you.
I am pleased to be here with you today. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.
Mr. Chairman, we have a very broad and complex subject of discussion today. That's why a number of us came, so we could, as much as possible, dialogue with you on all the matters that are of interest to committee members. We have a brief deck. It is very much a brief overview document. I could go through it quite quickly, if members wish, and then we would have, I expect, ample time for questions and dialogue, if that's suitable, Mr. Chairman.
So, if I may, as I said, here is a brief overview deck to focus on the broad areas of responsibility of the department. It is divided into the major areas of activity of the department. For the most part, the subject matters of the deck and the organizational components they represent in the department are represented by people here today who can work with me in presenting and addressing your questions.
You will see on page 2 that in broad terms, the overall responsibility of the department, pursuant to our legislation, is the support of first nations and Inuit people in developing healthy, sustainable communities and in achieving their economic and social aspirations. In the broad area of northern affairs, the department is responsible as a lead in fulfilling the federal government's constitutional, political, and legal responsibilities in the territories. The legal framework for the department's activities, of course, is provided by the Indian Act, the Indian Oil and Gas Act, the First Nations Land Management Act, various territorial acts, claims and self-government legislation, and of course, section 35 of the Constitution Act 1982 and section 91.24 of the Constitution Act of 1867.
The minister is also responsible as the interlocutor for Métis and non-status Indians. The office of the interlocutor is an office of advocacy and facilitation. The minister plays this role for this constituency and its organizations auprès federal ministers on a wide variety of issues, and the office also serves as a policy and programming centre of expertise for cabinet on Métis and non-status Indian issues.
The first broad area of activity in the department is that of claims and Indian government. Herein is the responsibility, on behalf of the Government of Canada, for the negotiation and implementation of comprehensive and specific claims agreements and self-government agreements, which brings opportunities for reconciliation by resolving disputes that are represented in specific or comprehensive claims. It also brings the legal certainty that flows from these settlements. Certainty provides, of course, for economic growth and a more promising future for aboriginal people and all Canadians.
In many cases, claims settlements--specific or comprehensive claims--are very relevant to resource-sector opportunities and for settling issues and bringing certainty in title, which is essential for the economic development that brings prosperity, not only to aboriginal people but to Canadians in general. Such activity provides aboriginal communities with the tools to improve their governance, increase their self-reliance, and break the cycle of dependency associated with the Indian Act.
Another broad area of activity of the department is that of lands in trust. It is an Indian Act area that has a certain legacy of limitations in terms of the management by the department of Indian lands and assets, under limitations of an Indian Act that is not in keeping in any way with modern opportunities for land management, land and asset development, and the pursuit of economic opportunities that flow from modern management of lands.
The department takes a three-pronged approach with respect to first nations lands, governance, and individual affairs. The first is working in partnership with first nations on legislative tools and intergovernmental arrangements to enable first nations to assume governing authority and responsibility in transition to self-government.
The full self-government outcome, of course, would afford first nations the opportunity to manage their lands, resources, and assets quite independently of the restrictions of the Indian Act. It is a long process to realize full self-government, so the strategy under lands and trusts is to target specific areas of land management through specific innovative legislation that allows first nations to opt in, for example, under the First Nations Land Management Act, allowing them the legal framework and authorities to manage their lands in a way that's more in keeping with modern opportunities, economic and otherwise.
The strategy also fosters professional and institutional development to support first nations government, including a first nations professional public service and institutions. This is the sector of the department that supports band leadership councils in their governance endeavours and their professional management at the band level and at institutional levels that support broader communities—tribal councils and other regional organizations.
The initiative also supports sound federal stewardship under the Indian Act during the transition to first nations governance. The First Nations Commercial and Industrial Development Act is a recently passed piece of federal legislation that allows for federal governance on reserve, but in a way that's much fuller and more enabling of economic opportunities than would otherwise be possible under the Indian Act.
This legislation fills a vacuum whereby today large industrial projects are governed and regulated, by and large, by provincial jurisdiction. For on-reserve applications, there is a void in the legislative and regulatory framework for the development of major industrial projects. This act allows first nations that wish to do so to engage with the department, with the cooperation of the respective province, to have in place a modern legislative framework for major industrial projects that have enormous economic and job creation opportunities.
The slide shows a few examples, and we'll elaborate, of course, in our dialogue.
The next major area of activity is socio-economic policies. This is a fairly comprehensive suite of socio-economic policies and programs that are very much a suite of provincial-like programs that have effect in the first nations world, in first nation and Inuit communities.
These programs are highly devolved. There is not a great level of INAC immediate involvement in the delivery of these programs. The relationship is one of usually multi-year funding agreements with broad criteria and broad requirements that see the transfer of funds under the various program elements to first nations, who in turn implement the programming, be it in education or in various social areas.
We talk in this slide about education, both elementary and secondary, on reserve; programming that addresses approximately 120,000 on-reserve first nation learners in elementary and secondary education. Some 60% of them study on reserve and about 40% pursue their secondary and/or elementary education off reserve. The department provides the funding for that education. There are varying formulae across the country, but in general parents who choose to see reserve-resident children study off reserve have the prerogative to choose education off reserve, and the programming resources are transferred by various means to the provinces to cover those tuition costs.
Post-secondary education is another area of programming for first nation and Inuit people--about $300 million a year in post-secondary support, about $1.2 billion in primary and secondary support. The post-secondary education supports some 25,000 students in various post-secondary education endeavours. There is also programming that supports the promotion and preservation of culture and languages.
The next large block of activity is support for community infrastructure: programming that supports public works types of services, such as housing, water and sewer, roads, bridges; and capital projects like school buildings and public administration offices, etc.
Social programs are also part of this suite for on-reserve residents. The programs run the gamut: income assistance; child and family services; assisted living for those in need of assisted living care, either in institutions, homes for the elderly who need care, or for individuals who require care in their own home; and there's a program for prevention of family violence. In most cases, these programs are delivered by first nation service delivery organizations for on-reserve services, and in some cases the services are delivered by the provincial service provider. In either case, whether it's first nation delivered or provincially delivered, the services are overseen and licensed, in terms of standard provision, by the province.
There's a suite of economic development program supports that supports a wide spectrum of economic activity, both in the north and in communities in the south. There is economic development programming that supports in-community community development offices. So there are community development officers for economic development in virtually all the first nations that are supported by this programming. And there is programming that supports, on a project basis, proposals for economic development in communities, very often linked to the natural resources opportunities. But there is a whole gamut of community economic building.
The elements I mentioned earlier about the First Nations Land Management Act and the first nations industrial project act providing the legislative framework for industrial projects are also, we consider, major structural innovations that are essential to significant economic development.
The northern affairs portion of the department occupies the lead in the federal family in managing federal interests in the north. It's a very broad mandate. It includes the development of federal northern policy and coordination of federal activities--coordination with other departments, boards, and agencies. Our northern affairs program supports federal and territorial relations. Our minister plays a significant role with territorial premiers. We support research in the science that's necessary to guide the activities of lands and resource management in the north. And we play the federal lead in the area of circumpolar activities, which really means partnering and cooperating with those other countries that have circumpolar interests to harmonize policy and to share information for international cooperation.
In the Northwest Territories and in Nunavut, the department is responsible for province-like land and resource management. In the Yukon, this responsibility for land and resource management has been devolved to the Yukon government. It was devolved in 2003. Discussions are under way now for the devolution of this responsibility to the Northwest Territory, and we hope to be in similar negotiations with Nunavut before too long.
This branch also assists northerners in developing political and economic institutions that enable them to assume increasing responsibility within the Canadian federation. A few examples are the development of the Nunavut Planning Commission, the Nunavut Water Board, the Nunavut Surface Rights Tribunal, and, in the Northwest Territories, the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Board.
The office of the federal interlocutor provides direct liaison between the Government of Canada and Métis and non-status Indian organizations. This office established bilateral relations between the Government of Canada and the national Métis and non-status Indian organizations. It has a mandate for tripartite self-government processes with off-reserve aboriginal groups and the provinces. Its minister is an advocate of Métis and non-status Indians and urban aboriginal peoples issues within cabinet. The office takes practical steps to improve the life chances of Métis and non-status Indians, urban aboriginal people, for example, through the implementation of the urban aboriginal strategy, a piece of programming that seeks to cooperate with other jurisdictions to develop a relevant program for Métis and aboriginal people off reserve. The office is also a principal player in implementing the Government of Canada's response to the Supreme Court of Canada's Pawley decision, recognizing Métis rights.
The next few slides give an aperçu of the resources of the department involved in these major areas of activity. In terms of planned spending for 2006-07, there's an approximate $6.3 billion programmed for the department, laid out as you see it there. The big chunk of that pie, the people, $3 billion and a bit, covers main areas like education, at approximately $1.6 billion; social programs, at approximately $1.3 billion; and then a variety of lower-cost endeavours, such as estate planning, estate management, and managing individual moneys. In the north, the north food mail program is part of this chunk of programming, as well as resources for hospital and physician services in the north.
The next largest, at about $2 billion, the blue slice, the economy, includes moneys for the settlement of claims. Once they're negotiated and a settlement has been determined, the settlement amount is in this category, currently estimated at probably $400 million or $500 million. There is also a slice here for the economic development programming that I talked about. The annual economic development programming is about $100 million annually. The housing dollars are in this portion as well, which we refer to as the economy, as are the capital investments made on reserve--building of schools, building of houses, building of band administration buildings, roads, bridges, etc.
The next largest chunk, the government, at $865 million, covers the cost of the process of claims in self-government negotiations: the cost to the government for these negotiations and the cost to aboriginal parties in the negotiation processes. This includes any support to governance in first nations and to governance-type institutions, the institutions that support the building of governance.
The land, at $280 million, includes work in the area of reserve creation--any addition to reserves that takes place as a result of claims work, for instance. It also covers land and resource management south of 60 and in the north--it's a big activity in the north--and it also includes work on contaminated sites remediation.
The department employs about 4,200 people. It is rather extensively decentralized; 57% of the workforce is outside the national capital region, working in all of the regions of Canada, which cover the 10 provinces and the territories, and about 30% of the workforce, some 1,300 people, are aboriginal employees. It's a very robust number, but the department wishes to exceed the number by a considerable amount. We continue to work on increasing that representation.
The last slide shows a visual image of the structure of the organization. Of course, the department is headed by a deputy minister and two associates. The next line shows the assistant deputy minister complement, a number of whom are here today. I didn't talk about each of the boxes in the presentation. I didn't mention corporate services, of course, but the department has a robust and complete corporate services component for finance, administration, information management, etc.
I should mention that there is an executive director of Inuit relations. This is a new secretariat in the department. I believe it's just under two years old, and it was created to facilitate dialogue with the Inuit population in the department, to improve the entry of communication, and to facilitate relations between the headquarters component of the department and the Inuit people. It's early in its development. It's a small secretariat of about a dozen or so people now. It may grow a little, but we believe it has proven very instrumental in improving relations and communications with Inuit people.
That's a very broad overview. I expect it raises more questions than it answers, but we didn't feel we could hope to address all the possible questions in the presentation. We wanted to provide an overview and spend the majority of our time addressing your questions and points of interest.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Merci.
