Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 14th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you.

You have one minute, Mr. Minister, to answer his question.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I'm not sure if I'm looking at the same pages as the member. Sometimes when we're dealing with the estimates, we're dealing with the estimates, but then we have the supplementaries and then the supplementary Bs. So when you add it up through the year, we're dealing with what we have in front us, I realize that, and it does show less than what there was last year, but there are other shoes to drop on this front.

I think Monsieur Lemay deserves a fuller answer than this, and perhaps my officials can do that later, and certainly I'll get it for him later.

In front of me here, I see we have another $138 million on infrastructure that will be added on the supplementary As, and likely more than that will be in the Bs and the Cs. The trouble is that we're comparing what was spent last year in total. When you do the main estimates, supplementary As, Bs, and Cs all added up are one number. Today we're just dealing with the main estimates. The main estimates are less then, because they don't include the other numbers that will be rolled out as they're approved through the year. So I don't think we're comparing the same thing at the same time of the year. That's the trouble.

If we went back and looked at the main estimates for last year compared to the main estimates for this year, that would be a different thing. I think we're talking total budget expenses versus just the main estimates, and I think that's a significant part of the difference. I see the number here now that you're talking about it, which does show that $230 million difference, but that is based on the main estimates only, and not on what will come later on in the budgetary cycle.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Monsieur Lemay, I'll give you a more complete answer, either personally or in written form. You deserve a better answer than that, but I think I could say in just broad terms, that's what we're up against here.

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

Merci.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

With that, Mr. Minister, I think your time is up. We thank you for being here today, and we look forward to your deputy and officials remaining with us for the second hour, so I'm not going to formally suspend the meeting.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I'll take my leave.

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and all the committee members. Again, I thank you for your work on Bill C-30. I know we've had some differences on Bill C-21, but I'm hoping we can resolve some of those differences as well.

I continue to be impressed. Even though we're in a minority Parliament, and even though it gets cranky from moment to moment, this committee continues to get things done, which is a tribute to all of you, and I just want to thank you. In between, I'm sure, some tense moments, you're getting some good work done.

I look forward to your economic development trip up north. I plan to be there myself this summer once or twice, not in June but later on. So we'll compare notes when it's over, and I'm sure we can get together and discuss that as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you very much.

Could you possibly do one more thing, which is to introduce the officials you are leaving behind? We didn't do that at the beginning.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I would, absolutely.

Michael Wernick is my deputy minister. Of course Peter Harrison needs no introduction. He'll be here to answer anything to do with residential schools settlement, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and so on. Michael Wernick can answer pretty much anything about anything. Jim Quinn, our financial guru, will be able to answer financial questions, I'm hoping. Neil Yeates is associate deputy and man about town, who can fill you in on everything from specific claims and so on, right through it.

They're all excellent people, and I rely heavily on their support. The professional civil service in Canada is second to none.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you very much, sir.

Next on our list of questioners is Mr. Warkentin. You have five minutes.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To those gentlemen who are remaining with us for the second hour, we appreciate the clarity that you bring when you come.

We as the committee have been working for some time on Bill C-30, which is this committee's effort and the government's effort to reduce the specific claims backlog. Of course we know right now that there is a backlog that has continued to grow over the last number of years. I'm wondering if you could give us an update as to the situation when it comes to the backlog, how many resolved claims have developed over the last year, and what has traditionally been the case in terms of the number of claims that have been settled year after year. What is traditional or what is a norm, and how have things been progressing in the last 12 months?

[Michael Wernick]

I will try to get some of the specific numbers.

We had a process that had pretty much congested and ground to a stop. When claims came in they had to be assessed in terms of historical research. Then you had to get a legal opinion as to whether a breach of a lawful obligation took place. Then you entered into a negotiating process, which was essentially an out-of-court settlement model. You spent time in negotiation, with no particular clock on that. Some were being settled. There were 15 or 20 a year, maybe 10.

We came to the conclusion with the government that a tribunal would be more expeditious, not just because it would deal with a lot of claims. The existence of the tribunal as a path forward would change behaviours for both us and first nations, and make negotiated settlements more likely.

Minister Prentice at the time, responding to concern that we would drop our tools on claims while waiting for Bill C-30, pushed us to speed up the process of research and offers of settlement. We moved 54 claims through last year, in terms of settlements or clear dispositions. We will continue to try to keep up that pace this year. They vary from a claim the size of a couple of hectares, to the claim in northern Alberta, the Bigstone, which is $250 million with very large acreages, and so on.

One quick point is that accompanying Bill C-30 in the tribunal is a re-engineering process between ourselves and the Department of Justice to make sure we increase the through-put on settlements and offers. They will be reporting regularly to Parliament on progress on that. We'd be happy to give you progress reports.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

That's very interesting. I guess in the last number of months your department has put through five times what would traditionally be the case. You're talking about a number of things.

Have additional monetary resource been allocated, or is it a different way of handling things? I guess we're all looking for that glimmer of hope that something can continue; that there might be an action or behaviour that will give us all the assurance that there will be this continued expedition of the processes moving forward.

[Michael Wernick]

It's a combination of two things.

One is process engineering. I think we had a very step-by-step linear process. We're trying to do things more expeditiously and be a little more aggressive in getting offers out, and so on. Some of it is simply how the work is organized, and we'll continue to look for improvements there.

We have been given a cabinet authority for some resources for ourselves and the Department of Justice. The front-end window will be improved and enhanced with more staff and lawyers. I'm just trying to wrestle that out of Treasury Board now. We'll be happy to report on that. Some of that will come up through supplementary estimates to this committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

You have one minute.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Of course we're concerned about moving specific claims forward. Is there any assessment out there of how many specific claims exist or could exist in the country? Every time you turn around, another community is talking about another claim they're proposing or sensing might be developed. I'm wondering if there is any research on what might be coming down the pipe. We know what the backlog is currently. Do we see an end point or a resolution? Have any assessments been done thus far?

[Michael Wernick]

It's a bit speculative. These claims are very specific--no pun intended. They deal with a breach of a lawful obligation in either the management of money or land transactions, so we should know the universe of how many times that has happened.

There is an onus on the first nation to bring a claim forward, so I can't promise you that there aren't claims lurking out there that haven't been filed. But we've been at this for many years, and you would think we had seen most of them. It's possible some new ones will come out of the woodwork. We've worked very closely with the Assembly of First Nations and regional aboriginal organizations in going to Bill C-30. We're confident that we have a pretty good fix on how many are out there, because we know where the railways were built, where the canals were built, and so on. It's unlikely that we're going to see an awful lot of new business related to land issues or Indian moneys issues. I think you're seeing a growing number of claims about consultation and economic development, which are a different animal. They're not specific claims.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you, Mr. Wernick.

Ms. Crowder, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a comment and then a question. I don't want to deal with the accountability at this point, but I do have a comment.

Given the minister's comments that transparency protects all parties, and given the confusion around main estimates--supplementary As, Bs, Cs, and all of that stuff--we can't even track what the department is spending. I would say that the transparency process needs to work both ways, because we often can't tell from specific programs where money is being spent and how it's being moved around. We often can't compare year over year either, because the reporting process continues to change.

The question I'd like addressed is around education, and there are two pieces. I didn't get a response on the extension of the band operating funding formula remaining the same, despite what we know is a growth in educational costs and despite the fact that band schools don't have the capacity to operate with libraries, special education, speech therapy, computers, and so on.

Then with regard to the B.C. education agreement, I see Ms. Cram has joined us, and I know that Ms. Cram will probably be able to answer this question. There is confusion over funding for the First Nations Education Council and the FNFA. It has been unclear where the funding is going to come from for those two bodies. They were an essential part of getting that agreement to that point.

The other piece around the B.C. agreement is that it keeps being touted as a great agreement, but we know it takes two to three years to actually get things on stream with that. There are 13 nations willing to sign on, but because the process is so lengthy, we're not clear that the funding is going to be in place. I notice that there's $600,000 in grants to participating first nations in the main estimates, but I wonder if you could address both the BOFF--the band-operated funding formula--and the B.C. first nations.

[Michael Wernick]

Mr. Chair, if you agree, I'd flip the question to Mr. Yeates and perhaps to Christine. Christine Cram is the assistant deputy minister in the area that covers education, social services, water, and a number of topics.

[Neil Yeates, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'll start off on the general funding issue.

It is the case that the K-12 funding is still part of the 2% funding cap, and that is a challenge, as I think the member has noted. Off-reserve costs have been increasing faster than that, and a significant portion of first nations students attend off-reserve schools, so that's a challenge for first nations and for us.

The situation varies quite a bit across the country. This is a bit of a segue into British Columbia, because our region, British Columbia, over the years has been able to allocate additional funding for K-12. As the member has noted, this issue of comparable funding and comparable services is a key issue in the development of education reform in British Columbia. We've gone a fair way to get to that level. It's not quite there yet, but it's within the ballpark in B.C.

I'll just turn it over to Christine on the funding for the two organizations in B.C.

[Christine Cram, Acting Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Socio-Economic Policy and Regional Operations, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

I'll just mention the 13 first nations that are negotiating. At a meeting about two weeks ago, Canada came forward and presented a financial offer. First nations are taking that away to consider how they want to respond to it.

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

Would that offer include comparable funding for the province of B.C.?

[Christine Cram]

Well, they presented an offer to them, in terms of.... I can't say what the amount is. It's up to those 13 first nations to determine whether it's sufficient to be able to carry on. They agreed to take it away and come back with it.

In terms of the two organizations that will be created as a result of.... The way the legislation worked is that as soon--

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

They're already in place now. The First Nations Education Council and the FNFA are already in there.