Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 23rd, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I'm sorry, Mr. Payne, we are out of time.

We're still going along quite well here, and perhaps we'll be able to get back to Mr. Clarke and Mr. Payne.

Maintenant nous allons à Monsieur Lévesque.

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

Good morning, Ms. Fraser. It's always a pleasure to see you. Good morning, gentlemen.

There are so many questions to ask that we don't know where to begin. I heard Larry talk about Nunavik. Even though I don't believe Nunavik is part of this report, is it still a land claimant?

[Sheila Fraser]

My colleague seems to be saying that they are all settled.

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

They are municipalities now.

In point 4.15 of your report, you state this: “...the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs committed the federal government to converting 150,000 acres of land in Manitoba to reserve status for each of the following four years.”

Can he catch up or do you think he won't be able to do so?

[Sheila Fraser]

In the first year, the departmental people had some success. They converted 159,000 acres. However, in the second year, 43,000 acres were converted. We don't yet have the results for the third year.

I hope they're be able to catch up, but we see they had trouble starting in the second year. That's why we believe they must solve the management system problems at the basic level in order to achieve that objective.

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

How do you explain why Manitoba has more than 430 selections representing 650,000 acres, whereas there are 700 in Saskatchewan, but only 451,000 acres? Are these extensions to existing reserves?

[Sheila Fraser]

Not necessarily. As I indicated, they may select the lands that are closer to the urban communities, which are farther removed from their reserve, if they believe that would be advantageous from an economic development point of view. It is possible that these are smaller lands, in urban areas, not necessarily large spaces near their reserve.

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

Now, in point 4.10 of your report, you list the department's key responsibilities. I was struck by the expression “conduct environmental site assessments”.

Did you count the time they devoted to doing that research in the various areas and the cost that could represent?

[Sheila Fraser]

We don't have the answer, Mr. Chairman, but we could inquire. We don't believe they counted the time by activity.

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

In point 4.6, you state, and I quote:

Canada entered into this Agreement to fulfil longstanding commitments made in treaties signed by Canada and First Nations in Manitoba between 1871 and 1910. Eight additional First Nations in Manitoba have signed separate treaty land entitlement agreements.

Are there many more of these nations in Manitoba that have to sign agreements?

[Sheila Fraser]

We don't have that information, Mr. Chairman. We will try to find it and then give the committee an answer.

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

Note that I'm sorry to complicate your life.

[Sheila Fraser]

Those are excellent questions.

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

I'm going to hand over to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That's fine, thank you, Mr. Lévesque.

Now we'll go to Mr. Rickford, who has five minutes.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming today.

In my private practice, just before this last election, I was involved in working with a number of first nations, primarily in Saskatchewan, in developing infrastructure around urban centres, obviously for their economic development, but also to improve access to various services like health and education. I was reading the 2005 report and the 2009 report comparatively, almost on that basis alone, because we identified a few challenges there. The treaty land entitlement agreements require that first nations negotiate a municipal service provision agreement with local municipalities. Obviously, if they need municipal services for reserve land that's attached to urban centres, there are cost-effective reasons for that. It absolutely may be required to be part of that urban infrastructure.

In your 2005 audit you identified that negotiating a municipal service provision agreement was a factor in delaying or undermining the selected land conversion process time—which is what a lot of chapter 4 focuses on—resulting in first nations paying taxes on the land selection out of settlement funds. I don't believe this issue was raised in the 2009 report, so I have two questions.

Does the negotiation of municipal service provision agreements continue to pose barriers for the selected land conversion process? And second, did the auditors follow up to examine what steps the department has taken since 2005 to resolve this issue?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Chair.

We may not have specifically mentioned municipal agreements, but we do talk about third parties, which would encompass--

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Well, I'm just drilling down here, because obviously that's part of it. And as you mentioned earlier, we seem to be on the hook for selected land conversion process time, and I want to clarify for myself and for the benefit of the committee that third party is particularly complicated. In fact, the report talks about the federal government and the provincial government, and now we're talking about the municipal governments and the responsibility of the nation to negotiate with them under the TLE. So there seems to be a gap in information there.

[Sheila Fraser]

I'll ask Mr. Barrett to give more specific information.

[Frank Barrett]

I'd be glad to, Mr. Chair.

Maybe it's worth clarifying one point in particular. Referring to the time it's taking to convert, when we looked at the Manitoba agreements from year one and how the average went, we focused specifically on phase two and phase three of the agreements. Whereas a lot of the responsibilities of first nations in terms of resolving third party interests, which would very often include the municipal services agreements, will focus on phase one, we left that out of our analysis. Recognizing that from the point at which the request goes into the department, the department will be doing a lot of the work, that's where we placed our emphasis and focus.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

That's fair enough, Mr. Barrett, and I appreciate that. But if phases one, two, and three follow each other, it may not be that the nation understands, or that we understand, exactly what it is they have to negotiate until the other phases, which we're responsible for and which are measured in your report, are actually required. Wouldn't that be a fair statement?

[Frank Barrett]

I would perhaps want to clarify that, if I may. For that reason, we only looked at conversions that have completed the process. From those ones, we only looked back to the beginning of phase two. So when we said that the average was seven years, it was that limited amount. There may have been several years in phase one, but we wouldn't see that if it isn't through the process yet, and we wouldn't focus on that.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

In the end, why doesn't this show up in the 2009 report? Is it because of what you're saying, largely?

[Frank Barrett]

I would say no. In 2009, the main focus was to consider the progress that has been made toward specific recommendations. We also tracked other things. But there was a lot of explanation and background and description in the 2005 report that we didn't think was necessary to repeat in the 2009 report.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I have no further questions.