Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 29th, 2006

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

It's a good piece of information for me to have.

I'll ask two questions and then I'll get out of the way and let you respond. In your report, you indicated the funding gap: that population growth was approximately 11.2% and I believe the funding has only increased by 1.6%. In a press release from the Assembly of First Nations, they indicated that since 1996 there has actually been a 2% cap on funding increases for Department of Indian Affairs core programs.

A week and a half ago we had a presentation from the department that talked about the significant demographic growth. These were the department's own statistics, and it was for a variety of reasons. So when you addressed that gap, I wonder if there were concrete recommendations aside from only increasing the funding that could be made to the department. That may be policy, so it may be outside of what you could do.

The second thing I wanted to ask you about was around consultation. Out of the seven factors identified, you talked about meaningful consultation. I know that's been the subject of a number of court cases. In your view, are there elements of meaningful consultation that need to be considered, and was that reflected in this report in terms of consultation from first nations, Inuit, and Métis communities?

Thirdly, do you look at timeliness in terms of government response? In previous reports you talked about comprehensive land claims taking 29 years to settle. I don't think we've seen significant reductions in the speed of response from the department and from the government in terms of addressing some of these critical issues.

I wonder if you could address those three things.

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you.

On the funding, we're presenting this as a statement of fact. We will not make comments on funding or on what the levels of funding should be. We might make a comment if there is a difference between the expectation and the funding that goes with it.

As to concrete recommendations, if we could reduce the number of reports people have to prepare, funds might be available for front-line services. So hopefully our recommendations are trying to indicate ways of performing better and providing better services.

On the consultation, it is reflected in the report to the extent that we do a lot of consultation when we conduct our audits, as you will see if you go back to the original audits. We often give the views of first nations communities vis-à-vis certain programs or areas about which they felt that they had, or perhaps hadn't, been consulted well. We haven't done an audit per se on consultation, but we've tried to include it in our audit work.

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

Do you have some specific recommendations concerning what meaningful, effective consultation would look like?

[Sheila Fraser]

Ronnie, do you have any examples? Perhaps we could ask Mr. Campbell.

[Ronnie Campbell, Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Mr. Chairman, we don't have any specific recommendations in that regard.

One example given to us was in the case where legislation needed to go before the House in relation to land claims. Obviously by the time it got there, there was significant and meaningful consultation as those land claims were negotiated, which is different from other situations we described. That was the most substantive example in which first nations were involved in the consultation in a meaningful way for some period of time.

[Sheila Fraser]

Finally, on the question of timeliness, when we make our assessment as to whether progress has been satisfactory or not, we consider what government has done and take into account the complexity of the issue and the amount of time that has passed. So we do include timeliness as a factor in making our assessment about whether progress is satisfactory or not.

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

Do I have time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

You have a little over a minute and a half.

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

A recent article in Cultural Survival Quarterly, dated March 27, 2006, deals specifically with a land claims issue, regarding the Hul'qumi'num treaty group, in my riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan. I didn't see it, but in your assessment, did you look at the debt load that's being incurred by first nations communities in negotiating land claims? The reason I ask is because first nations communities are caught in a bit of a bind. As I understand it, if they withdraw from the negotiation process, they have to start repaying the debt. For example, if they got involved in the litigation of a treaty-related issue, it could result in its termination or suspension. So you've got this situation where first nations communities are being forced into increasing debt loads just to stay at the table.

I didn't see it, so I wondered if you considered that.

[Sheila Fraser]

It's not specifically in this follow-up report, but I know in our 2001 audit we mentioned that in certain settlements the costs the first nations had incurred were so extensive, because of the time period, that very little money actually went to them.

We have an upcoming audit in November on the B.C. treaty process. There are some issues around the length of time and costs, and when these amounts become payable.

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

There's a saying in British Columbia that it's cheaper to negotiate than settle.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

I'm going to have to cut you off.

Does the government have any questions for the Auditor General?

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank Ms. Fraser for appearing before the committee today. I would be remiss if I didn't thank her for all the great work she's done over the last few years. As a member of a government now, I hope I continue to look forward to your reports.

You've identified seven factors critical to the successful implementation of your recommendations. Of course, an increase in funding is seen as one of the key factors. You also reference structural change, capacity building, and better communication and coordination with aboriginal leaders.

Perhaps you might recommend or state that before increasing funding, other areas, such as structural change and capacity building, might be required. How would you prioritize these seven points?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you.

You will note that funding is actually not one of the seven points we noted.

I don't think we put them in any particular order, but we certainly feel quite strongly that sustained management attention is critical to the success of programs. As well, there is the issue of meaningful consultation with first nations and the whole issue of capacity and institutions.

I think we see in many of the audits we do that the capacity or structures aren't there to be able to support the programs. For example, in the area of education there are no school boards. And in the water audit—which isn't part of this but was done by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development this past fall—there are no water standards. So there's base work that has to be done to help increase the capacity, and part of that is building those institutions within first nations.

I guess that might be a gratuitous comment, but I would think that some of this is going to require funding to be able to do it, as it's not going to be done for nothing. So it will require funds and effort to get these things in place.

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Winnipeg South, MB]

On that matter, you've mentioned that there have been attempts in some areas such as water. However, we've seen success in some areas the department has worked on. Are there any particular reasons that you can attribute to those successes that have come about based on your previous recommendations?

[Sheila Fraser]

On many of the recommendations that we made, there was successful resolution, and you'll see that we have given a satisfactory rating. We gave an overall rating of unsatisfactory because most of the recommendations on which there was satisfactory progress were ones that tended to deal with administrative issues within government, and didn't actually deal with the more serious health issues and the issues that really affected first nations communities. So it would appear to be much easier to resolve things on the administrative side, rather than some of these other questions.

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Winnipeg South, MB]

I just have one more quick question, in relation to prescription drugs. You had some thoughts as to how it was, unfortunately, not working. Is there any particular system that you see as being the focal point of why this system is not working?

[Sheila Fraser]

I'll pass that to Mr. Campbell.

[Ronnie Campbell]

Thank you.

This is an issue that has shown up in our audit reports for some time, so when you talk about time-sensitive issues, this goes back to several audit reports over several years. Some of the systems are now in place, such as the point-of-service system. What we're looking for is for the department just to focus on a couple of outstanding issues and to follow through. The Auditor General talked about sustained management attention, and part of that is in there. I think Health Canada just needs to focus. They stopped intervening in a certain way; they've reinstituted that, but at the time I was doing the audit the results they could demonstrate from that weren't there. So we'd be hopeful that in the not-too-distant future those results would be evident.

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

I would like to have about a minute on the government side, so I'd just like to ask a question.

I come from a local government background, and any time we had future or pending costs we always put away reserves to meet those pending costs. We know there are treaty settlements that have to be settled. Is there any way the federal government puts away reserves for pending costs of treaty settlements?

[Sheila Fraser]

There are provisions made in the public accounts of Canada for certain claims and certain lawsuits. But I think—and the department might want to confirm this—that when there are large treaty negotiations, those costs are actually booked when there is more certainty around them. Even if the negotiations are not all complete—which tend to take a little longer because the process is very long—there will be a provision made for an estimate of what it might take to settle suits, claims, treaty negotiations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Just to follow up on that, would you not think that it would be prudent for the Government of Canada to start a reserve and start putting moneys away, because this will likely be an expensive settlement in the future, and rather than going into debt to meet those challenges, we should have those funds put away now when the economy is doing well?

[Sheila Fraser]

We are already in debt by a lot--like $500 billion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Correct.