Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for coming before us today. I appreciate your commitment to following up, because I'm going to ask you a number of questions that I know you won't have time to answer today.
I want to follow up on the specific claims for just one moment. The initial plans and priorities documents that came out laid out some targets and timelines. I think we would welcome a report on what those numbers look like. The Indian Specific Claims Commission, in their report on plans and priorities, indicated, of course, that they were wrapping up operations at the end of December. When I was looking at the supplementary estimates, what I didn't see was whether the money was just rolling over from the commission into this new tribunal support function or not. I wondered about the funding around that.
In addition, I understand that some nations received a letter telling them that they had six months to file additional information, and that either they would have to stay with their old claim without the new information, or any new, additional information after that six months would actually put them into the queue with new claims. A letter was sent out by Grand Chief Stewart Phillip from the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. I wondered about that process.
I have one other comment on the whole claims process. On page 80 in the estimates, there was funding under comprehensive land claims outside of British Columbia, but they've indicated in there that additional money has been asked for. Part of the ask was around “acquisitions and holding costs of surplus federal real property for comprehensive land claims negotiations”. Of course, in many of our ridings, land is a huge issue. I wonder if a report can be made on surplus federal real property that's been acquired to help resolve some of these comprehensive claims, particularly in light of the fact that in the recent budget speech we heard about the selling off of crown assets. Certainly, first nations would like to be first in line with that.
On education, on page 151 of the supplementary estimates there is funding “to support the implementation of new accountability initiatives and tripartite partnership initiatives for First Nations education”. I wonder if that funding will include things like implementation dollars for the British Columbia—First Nations Education Agreement. When you and department officials came before the committee back on May 14, Mr. Wernick and Ms. Cram both talked about the fact that the British Columbia—First Nations Education Agreement implementation process had not been sorted out. As late as December, it still had not been sorted out. I wonder if some of this supplementary money will go towards funding those agreements that are already in place.
As well, at the bottom of page 153, under the explanation under vote 10, it talks about the fact that “$294,903 in total authorities is available within the Vote due to reduced contribution requirements for Community Infrastructure in order to increase grants for Education in Nova Scotia”. We know there are serious community infrastructure needs. I wonder how it was possible to free up infrastructure money to put in grants for education in Nova Scotia. Although I would agree that the funding authority in Nova Scotia needs the money, I'm surprised that we would take money out of infrastructure for it.
The other two quick pieces are that I didn't see any money in the supplementary estimates for the implementation of Jordan's Principle, unanimously passed in the House of Commons, supporting the fact that two levels of government will put children first and not argue about who pays.
The last thing was on the PSSSP review that's under way in the department. It's creating a great deal of consternation in first nations communities because, in their view, they have not been involved in the consultation. I wonder if the minister could provide details on that consultation and if there's any intention around changing the way that funding is currently in place for first nations communities.
I know that's a lot. I know you'll respond to what you can and provide the rest in writing.