Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 27th, 2007

[Ronnie Campbell]

I think the first part of the question, in terms of the impact on the Inuvialuit, would be better answered by representatives of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. But I think it's fair to say that from what we've observed, the ongoing disagreements and pushing and trying to get things implemented causes frustration. As the member correctly points out, it seems to be draining in people. They seem to be having the same discussions and arguments every few months or every year.

As most members will be aware, we're talking about a very small number of people in the Inuvialuit region, so there isn't a massive staff to be able to deal with those things. So I think it has a big impact on the Inuvialuit and their ability to get on and do other things. It takes their time.

That said, I think that question would be much better answered and more completely answered by representatives of the Inuvialuit.

As to the second part of the question, about whether or not they could be opened up, I'm not a lawyer, I'll confess. The fact that they're constitutionally protected probably suggests that's a big hill to climb, but it would also suggest to me that the expectation was that they would be implemented, and fully implemented. When you create an agreement of that nature, the expectation is that you'll implement it fully and completely.

On the question of climate change, the member says 23 years ago it wasn't contemplated. A lot more recently than that, people were having difficulty getting their minds around just what the impacts would be. I think the north has to deal with many of those issues, and whether they would be through different vehicles as opposed to this agreement would be for others to decide.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Ms. Karetak-Lindell, one minute.

[Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Maybe I'll continue it in the next round.

I'm a little concerned about a point made, also on page 10, that INAC has not developed a process for actively seeking alternative lands to achieve a land exchange. I think that would be one of the main fundamental purposes of a land claims agreement, that there be certainty around exchanges of land--which lands are in the settlement, at what level, whether it's surface rights and all that. The land component has to be a key issue that I would naively think would be one of the areas they would be the strongest in, how to quickly exchange land. If there were a different case, like Parks Canada deciding not to take Nelson Head, how do you exchange that for another piece of land, and whose responsibility is it to clean up, if needed?

[Ronnie Campbell]

I totally agree. It's a land claim agreement, and I think you can see from the cases where errors were made how difficult if not impossible it has been for the department to correct its own errors. I think that speaks to the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Right, thank you.

Mr. Albrecht, five minutes please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

I want to clarify. My NDP colleague commented that this is the third audit of land claims agreements. I simply want to verify that this is the first audit of this particular one. I wanted to correct and identify that.

At this committee, one of the primary focuses that I think we've discussed at various times, although we haven't done a complete study, is the whole issue of economic development opportunity for aboriginal people. Certainly it keeps floating to the top as one of the key factors in advancing the cause of all aboriginal peoples in Canada.

I want to turn to page 18 of your report, where you refer specifically, in paragraph 3.49, that there was a framework developed by INAC in 1994 to evaluate economic progress, but it hasn't been used at all. Then in your next paragraph you refer to the fact that 17 months later there still was no reply or action by INAC, and then in paragraph 3.51 that INAC still has not followed through on any of these commitments, that no one is monitoring the progress toward economic objectives.

That's bad enough on its own, in isolation, but then I turn to the notes given to us by the Library of Parliament researchers, and they point out that the $169 million that is payable over 14 years includes a $10 million economic development fund. So the question that obviously pops into my mind is what's happened with that $10 million? Is it still sitting on the table for use when these plans finally get put into place, or has it disappeared?

[Frank Barrett]

Mr. Chair, my understanding is that the $10 million economic development fund was provided from INAC to I believe a subsidiary of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation when the agreement was signed. There is also a string of payments, as you know, controlling $152 million as well. But that was turned over to the IRC.

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

At this point, as a member of this committee, I would have no way of knowing whether that money has been all used up or whether some of it is still available, in spite of the fact that, according to your report, there's really no framework even in place.

[Frank Barrett]

That was beyond the scope of our audit.

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

That concerns me as a taxpayer, obviously. I think it's something that should concern all of us.

Obviously, as we look at this long term of inactivity or inaction on the part of all stripes of government, there's enough blame to go around. We could talk about blame and all of that, but as regrettable as the mistakes of the past are, I think the key thing we can all agree on here is that we need to move forward, not only in terms of this agreement but other agreements that are being signed.

If we were to ask INAC to focus on one key objective in terms of getting to work and implementing this--you've given us six overall--what would the main focus be? Secondly, does INAC actually have adequate resources to implement that focus, if we were to identify it?

[Ronnie Campbell]

These are excellent questions, Mr. Chair.

I do believe that INAC senior officials would be much better placed to answer some of those questions as to whether or not they have adequate resources and how they allocate these resources.

Certainly I think the implementation of those agreements needs to be the higher priority within the department. The Government of Canada has signed on to the agreements, so it should be a high priority.

I don't think there's any one thing other than a really simple approach: know what you've got to do; put the resources to it; do it; measure to make sure you're making progress; and take corrective action as you go. And some of those things are simply not in it.

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

On page 33, in the recommendations you made, I am flipping back again to this economic development question because I do really believe this is key in all aboriginal communities and other communities as well.

Earlier you referred to the fact that the scope of your audit extended from April 2006 to May 2007, and here in the response INAC is already acting in February 2007. Is that to imply that just on their own they suddenly began to take action on this, or were they already getting some markers indicating that this was going to be a focus of your report?

[Ronnie Campbell]

Mr. Chair, they knew we were here, and I would never want to understate the effect of having an audit in the building.

Perhaps I could just take a second and point out to members something that I think is quite important and would be worthy of further exploration with the Department of Indian Affairs, and that is, in paragraph 3.83 on page 27, during the course of our audit, certainly departmental officials.... This is relating to the obligations of the agreement. The officials were certainly telling us that they were reluctant to monitor and report progress towards achieving the principles for several reasons, and the main one being that they didn't think that was their responsibility. When you go to the recommendations—we got to the end of the audit and we made the recommendation that they should do just that—they've agreed with that recommendation. So perhaps we've had an effect.

I really think there would be value in having, perhaps, both the Inuvialuit folks and certainly the department here, particularly the department, to get an action plan and dates, and not to put too fine a point on it, to hold their feet to the fire.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you, Mr. Campbell and Mr. Albrecht.

Monsieur Lévesque, cinq minutes.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Gentlemen, without wishing to assign blame to any political party whatsoever, you are telling us that you audited an agreement that has been in place for 23 years. In paragraph 7 of the document you tabled today, we can read, and I quote:

For more than a decade, government contracting policies did not reflect specific agreement obligations to inform the Inuvialuit of federal contracts related to the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.

Who are the losers, the Inuvialuit or the government? After 23 years, you have listed all the mistakes that beset these agreements. You also mention that, in 2003, you mentioned similar concerns in an agreement with the Gwich'in and the Inuit. You state that it is disappointing to note that the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs still focuses its effort on only some obligations.

I would like to remind you that the federal government is involved with Nunavik. The Naskapis of Kawawachikamach, who are from Nunavik, send reports to the government each year both on their finances and their activities. Bill C-44 was amended by Bill C-21. I have to insist on this question. Given that several departments are able to act and get involved at the same time, would it be possible to send these agreements to the office of the Auditor General of Canada in order to correct deficiencies if required? That would perhaps help with the implementation of these agreements.

[Ronnie Campbell]

Certainly, Mr. Chairman, if that's the wish of the committee, I'm sure the Auditor General would pay full attention to that. There may be value, however, in any future hearings that your committee may have, in asking the department to elaborate in terms of the weaknesses that we've observed in relation to the implementation of this agreement, to get some assurance from the department that those weaknesses don't also reside in the other agreements. So there may be a quicker way for the committee to get at some of those issues at least.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

After our discussions, we realize that it seems much more difficult...Given your understanding of the deficiencies or weaknesses in various agreements, and your experience in the matter, surely you would be able to detect them in the new agreements we are signing today. In my opinion, you are the best qualified people to do it at the moment.

[Ronnie Campbell]

Possibly, but we are very busy.

We have, obviously, a full slate of work, but as I mentioned, when the Auditor General receives a request from a committee, although often we're not able to respond to it immediately because everyone is busy on other audits, we take those requests very seriously.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Mr. Storseth, you have five minutes.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank you gentlemen for coming forward today representing the Auditor General's Office and doing an excellent job in this audit.

Going about reading this, it's a little bit surprising. I'm still a rookie member of Parliament. I understand that in 1998 the Auditor General conducted its first large audit audit of the department. In 2001 you followed up and once again recommended that there be an acceleration of the implementation process. Here again in 2007 we have an audit that shows, quite frankly, that the implementation has been an abysmal failure to this point. That's what I read out of this.

Could you suggest to us some of the main issues that you see out of this that our government has to clean up from its predecessors?

[Ronnie Campbell]

Mr. Chairman, the issues are pretty clear in the report. I certainly wouldn't go beyond that. We've boiled it down to what we think the major issues are: government has signed those agreements; people expect them to implement them and implement them fully; and they need to put the resources to it and to measure their own progress to make sure they're on course.

One of the members alluded to the fact that the difficult part may already have been done, in terms of finding an agreement that works for all the parties. Now it's all written on paper, and I would just say get on with it and keep measuring until you know you have gotten there.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I appreciate that, but one of the things we need to do, with the help of the Auditor General's office—you've been looking at this—is get down to the nuts and bolts of what's going on. Is this a problem, as my colleague said, of insufficient resources, or is it a problem of the Government of Canada not getting value for the resources it has put out there?

I read in paragraph 3.22: “INAC also inadvertently transferred a section of the airport runway in Sachs Harbour, which belonged to Transport Canada.” The following paragraph says: “Although 23 years have elapsed since the agreement came into existence, INAC has yet to resolve this error.”

In your investigation of this, have you been able to identify one aspect of the department, or an individual within the department, or a position within the department that is substantially the cause for the continual failure of the implementation of this?

[Frank Barrett]

Perhaps I could address the question, Mr. Chair, in this way. In paragraph 3.5 we note that there are today 21 comprehensive land claims agreements, and that the department is organized with approximately 25 staff—approximately one person per agreement—on the implementation side.

Earlier we were speaking to the negotiation side. There, you have interdepartmental committees; you have a whole apparatus to negotiate and implement agreements.

Perhaps there is something to be said there.

If we could put a bit of positive spin on it, I would note that on the wildlife side, in environmental screening committees and some of those areas, what you saw was departmental officials who very much had goals that were aligned with those of the Inuvialuit. They were interested in protecting the environment, in protecting the wildlife, and in seeing development done in a responsible way. What you saw was committees that were working very effectively.

There might be some fruit, Mr. Chair, in looking at the shared objectives and goals.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I appreciate your trying to take a positive step in this, but I sit here and think about the Inuvialuit. They can't see this as a very positive process at all. I quite frankly find it very disturbing, as a member of Parliament, to see that this is how we implement our land claims.

Once again I have to ask you: is there one aspect of the department that is really falling down on this, apart from the constant cry of lack of resources for it? Is there one aspect that has really fallen down? We sit here, and you talk about the department needing an action plan. After 20 years, one would hope they would have an action plan with some timelines that they could address on this.