Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 28th, 2009

[Martin Egan]

Sure. Thanks, Madam Crowder.

In 2004 the Manitoba region reorganized itself. Before that, it had the lands department, which I happened to be the director of at that time, and the additions to the reserve area were separated. In 2004 there was a reorganization to bring them all under one director. I think that helped. That director at the time went to Saskatchewan and did a best practices review and imported those into Manitoba. There was an effort going on to try to import those best practices.

Some of those best practices in Saskatchewan actually evolved because of the differences in the agreement. For example, in the Saskatchewan framework agreement there were templates for various third party interests that were pre-negotiated before the agreement was finalized. That resolved a lot of the third party interests right up front and made them very easy to get to.

There was some work done with the first nations to try to come up with template agreements that could be used in Manitoba. Some of that discussion is still ongoing.

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

On that point, the Auditor General has said that in Manitoba the department doesn't see it as part of their responsibility.

[Martin Egan]

There's definitely a difference between Saskatchewan and Manitoba with respect to the roles and responsibilities under the framework agreement.

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

I'm sorry, it seems to me that's pretty fundamental towards moving things forward. I'm wondering why Manitoba wouldn't consider that as part of their roles and responsibilities.

[Martin Egan]

It is fundamental. Very specifically in the agreement there is a clause that provides the roles and responsibilities for the Treaty Land Entitlement Committee, which is the organization that Canada has funded in order to help the first nations. It's actually a first nation institution that's helping first nations deal with this additions to reserve process. They're a partner to the agreement; the Treaty Land Entitlement Committee actually signed the framework agreement.

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

Let me back up a bit. I'm having trouble understanding this. The Auditor General says that the Manitoba framework agreement does not obligate them to resolve third party interests. Are you saying that first nations agree to that in the framework agreement?

[Martin Egan]

Very explicitly.

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

So in Manitoba first nations say they also don't see it as a department responsibility to help resolve third party interests.

[Martin Egan]

When the framework agreement was being negotiated in 1997, that's how it actually got signed. The Treaty Land Entitlement Committee was responsible to assist first nations to resolve the third party interests, and they were funded for that. Did it work in practice? Well, I think we found out that there needs to be a bit more of a collegial approach to it. Manitoba region has--and for a number of years, actually--begun to be involved more in third party resolution issues as they arise.

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

What kinds of consultations have there been with first nations to improve that or to look at changes within that framework agreement?

[Martin Egan]

I'm not aware of any discussions to amend the actual framework agreement. But even though the Treaty Land Entitlement Committee's funding ran out in 2007, the department has funded it for two consecutive years, over and above the amount in the agreement. So we've gone over and above what the agreement has required of us.

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

The results aren't there, though, so it would seem that they should go over and above.

[Martin Egan]

Right, and that's part of it.

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

Going back to the inaccuracy in the files, it doesn't seem like that's in any framework agreement. What's being done to correct that?

[Martin Egan]

I think the Auditor General found that certain acreages had changed...well, there were a couple of files that had inaccurate acreages. To address that, NATS, the system that Sara talked about in her presentation, is going to be the working tool for the day-to-day practitioners, and the actual information will be in that system. We'll be able to see how it tracks out and where we are at different points in the process. It should be the definitive information source.

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

When will that be operational?

[Martin Egan]

It will be in this fiscal year. It has been delayed a little. Initially, we hoped it would have been rolled out this month.

We did a pilot in Saskatchewan in December and found the people there had some really good ideas about how to make this far more applicable to their day-to-day operations. So those changes are currently being made and we're hopeful of rolling it out within the next couple of months.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Very good.

Thank you very much, Ms. Crowder and Mr. Egan.

We'll go to Mr. Rickford, for seven minutes.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the witnesses.

I'll start with a little bit of context here. Obviously, like Monsieur Lemay, I'm interested in the whole idea of incentivizing...or the problem that was identified was that there was no incentive to move forward with some municipal governments and third parties. Monsieur Fauteux, I want to give you an opportunity to add a little bit more to that, because we do have time constraints, but perhaps you could consider this in terms of one of the things I'm particularly interested in, and that is the idea of small urban tracts of land in and around bigger city centres. I believe that is a key strategy in economic development. There are some very successful examples of that and there is some good literature written about them.

But could you comment briefly on that before I drill down and get into specifics?

[Paul Fauteux]

I think you've put it very well. There is a tendency on the part of first nations to select land for economic development purposes. And as I mentioned earlier, those economic development opportunities, quite logically, tend to be greater, more promising, and more varied in urban centres than they are in rural areas.

Municipalities in Saskatchewan, where this trend began, have been very supportive of first nations' selections in urban areas, because they see the benefit to surrounding communities. A downtown block may become a reserve, economic activity would happen as a result, and there would be spinoffs for the surrounding area.

That happens in other urban areas as well that are not necessarily right downtown. And we see that this tendency is migrating from Saskatchewan into Manitoba.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Specifically, what difficulties do you find are often involved with converting these areas to reserves? Could you give me some examples of some of the challenges?

[Martin Egan]

Whenever there is a municipal government involved, there has to be a negotiation between the first nation and the municipal government to provide services that the reserve, within the municipal boundaries, would require. That would call for everything from fire to police protection, to snow clearing, to water and sewer, the whole gamut of services that are normally provided to people in the city through their taxes. There would have to be an agreement on how that would be provided to the first nation reserve.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Is this the part of the process where you typically see the delays?

[Martin Egan]

There definitely have been some prolonged discussions, prolonged negotiations, and some of them, actually, have not come to fruition.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

And do you think that it's complicated by the fact that it's another government, i.e., a first nation government, trying to work with the municipal government, versus, for example, a private industry that wants to set up a massive-square-foot industry or something like that? How is that different?