Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 23rd, 2009

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

I'm sure others experience the same degree of frustration when the Auditor General raises concerns, and the department responds and says, “Yes, we're going to do something about it”, and you come back a couple of years later, review the report, and there's still no response. I struggle with this: what is the mechanism to actually have an adequate response to ongoing concerns that are consistently identified audit after audit after audit? Do you have any suggestions?

[Sheila Fraser]

As I often say, we can only make recommendations. To be quite frank, much of this is policy decisions around the level of resources that are provided and the choices that have to be made between different priorities of government. The department, I think, tries to manage the best it can within the resource levels that it is provided.

I worry sometimes that when we do an audit, for example, on child and family services, it puts attention on that and then more money will be put on that, but that money is going to come out of housing or something else. I think it's only through the kind of parliamentary debate that perhaps more attention can be brought to some of the issues, and then of course there are the larger policy decisions.

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

I want to focus on something very specific for a moment. In your audit on the treaty land entitlement you identified this huge gap between what happens in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Can you talk about anything you may have observed about why they haven't looked at the successes of Saskatchewan and used some of those techniques in Manitoba?

[Sheila Fraser]

We didn't really go into that in any great detail. As you point out, I'd say that the regional office in Saskatchewan was being more proactive and had a much better communication relationship with the first nations. As well, they helped to resolve what we call third party interests, which is one of the major stumbling blocks, whereas I think in the Manitoba regional office the attitude was more that that's not really our responsibility and so we're not going to do it. It's a difference, I think, in the attitude of the managers there. These issues, why there are these disparities in practice between two regions and whether they plan to use some of the better practices in Saskatchewan in the Manitoba region, would certainly be something to ask the department about.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Ms. Crowder and Ms. Fraser.

We'll now go to Mr. Albrecht for the Conservative Party.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I welcome our witnesses today.

Thank you for the report. I also want to acknowledge that obviously there's a long way to go in continuing this process, but at the same time, there have been significant improvements. I noted in your conclusion, especially in paragraph 4.59, that overall Indian and Northern Affairs Canada has made satisfactory progress, with a 42% increase in three years. In addition, the next paragraph talks about the improvement in the relationship with first nations on plans to convert their outstanding selections enabling better coordination of its environmental assessments, etc.

Flipping back to page 10 of your report, paragraph 4.32 talks about the 42% increase and then paragraph 4.33 talks about the difference, with 159,000 acres converted between 1997 and 2005. Certainly 159,000 in one year compared to that number in eight years seems to be significant progress. I think we need to keep in mind that we can celebrate those successes.

Your report points out involving several partners in the process. I would like to follow up on paragraph 4.8, where you talk about treaty land entitlement agreements setting out the necessary responsibilities for INAC, the provinces, and the first nations. The first nations are responsible for land selection and third party interests. I'm wondering if there's any advice you could give us or that we as a committee could encourage first nations groups to take in helping themselves in expediting the TLE process.

It takes three partners. I recognize that, and I want to come back to the provinces in a bit. We've already said what INAC can do to improve, but could you help me understand what some of the other pieces are that we could address in terms of expediting the TLE process?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We didn't specifically look at the first nations' role in this. We were looking at the management process of Indian and Northern Affairs.

I would say on the selection process by first nations that I don't get the sense that it's problematic at this point, because as we mentioned in the opening statement, over one million acres have been selected but still have not been converted. It's not a question that they're not doing the selections and that's why it's taking time; the selections are being made and the conversion process is very long.

One of the stumbling blocks that still remains to be resolved is the third party interests. That can be a number of factors. It could be municipalities, right of access, or water authorities, a number of issues, and at times the first nations have difficulty resolving these. We saw that when the department, particularly in Saskatchewan, became involved as a bit of a facilitator they were able to help the first nations resolve those issues more quickly rather than having the two parties just come to a standstill and not agree.

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

I was wondering if there could be any pre-emptive way that when the areas are selected, maybe first nations could be made aware of potential obstacles that may--

[Sheila Fraser]

Perhaps Mr. Barrett can explain a bit about the process.

[Frank Barrett, Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Mr. Chair, to answer the member's question, I believe that when first nations are selecting land, generally speaking they are aware of potential third parties. Often, for example, in Manitoba we'll be dealing with hydro wires that are around Lake Winnipeg, so they'll know there are issues there. In some cases, in fact, they'll even suggest partitioning land selections to scope out, if you will, the third party interests.

There are ways around that, and first nations are aware of that, but of course they are issues to be dealt with.

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

The other question I wanted to raise is this. On page 11 of the report, you refer to the size of the land selections in Manitoba contributing to the department's success in converting a large number of acres. Then later in the report it says that the department's priority for converting large volumes of land has an adverse impact on the time required. I'm just wondering if there is another mechanism that INAC could use in terms of setting a goal for conversion, as opposed to just acres, because as we all know, you can get a large acreage but it may not be as meaningful as resolving some longer-standing issues.

[Sheila Fraser]

I do agree with the member that we are pleased to see that so many acres have been converted in a relatively short period of time, certainly compared to the progress previously. The difficulty is that going forward it will likely become more difficult because the size of the selections is likely to be smaller. It's easier when you have a really large land mass.

What the first nations can do--it's all based on acreage, but there's a minimum that they have to acquire--is make the decision to have fewer acres in a more expensive area, if you will, closer to a city, rather than more acreage in an area that may not provide them the same opportunities for economic development. In those cases they would generally be purchasing the land from another party. So it's really up to the first nation and their strategy as to how they want to position themselves, and I would suspect most of that is tied to economic development opportunities, if they want to be closer to a large urban centre.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You have 30 seconds.

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

I will pass on my last 30 seconds.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, members.

We're going to our second round now for five-minute question and response. We will begin with Mr. Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Thanks for coming. I love when we get an objective analysis of government.

I have two quick questions, and if you can keep your answers short, I'd like to share my time with Mr. Bélanger.

The first one is on the northern land claims. We still have a bit of a philosophical disagreement on the spirit of it, but I want to get into the letter of it. There are problems even in the basics. We have a nine-year review going on, and I think we're in year 14 just to provide the basic funding for the programs.

One of them allows a first nation to take down justice, and now they are in 10 years of negotiations to get something we have already signed off that they could have.

I wonder if you see faults in the northern land claims--in the implementation, almost in the letter of the law, as opposed to the spirit.

[Sheila Fraser]

We have noted difficulties. With the Inuvialuit, certainly it is very clear that 26 years after the agreement was signed there were still some basic things that had not been done, and in that case--I'm sorry to go on--it was interesting that when we asked the department what their obligations were under that agreement and what they had done, they didn't even have a list. They didn't know what the obligations were. So it's not a surprise.

It comes to the whole question of implementation and understanding what they've committed to. One is contracting. They're supposed to give preferential treatment to contracting. Well, the Department of Public Works and Government Services hadn't been involved in that and wasn't aware of it.

So there are real issues around implementation, as you said, of just the basic things.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Do you come upon the problem that I come upon, where the Government of Canada signs a treaty under the honour of the crown for all departments, but only Indian Affairs seems to know that they've signed it, while all federal departments are supposed to live up to those obligations?

[Sheila Fraser]

Absolutely. There are issues that the other departments are not aware of. We mentioned the contracting one. There were no provisions put in place to be able to operationalize the commitments that had been made in that treaty.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Could you comment on the 2% cap on Indian Affairs? Then I'll turn it over to Mr. Bélanger.

[Sheila Fraser]

All I can say is that it exists. There's a policy decision that has been made.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

No, I mean the effect it's having. Do you think it should be changed? Is it having a negative effect?

[Sheila Fraser]

It is having an effect when the population is growing by 10% or 11%, and there were already disparities there. There's a commitment to provide certain services, but the funding is not appropriate. So either you change the funding or you change the level of service. The government has to define clearly what is the level of service that can be provided, and then the resources have to be commensurate with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Mr. Bagnell, there is sufficient time and we can get to Mr. Bélanger on the next round, so if you want to use your whole five minutes, you're welcome to do that.