Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 5th, 2009

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

Minister, some of those specific claims have been languishing for over a decade. I think part of the concern is that the information originally submitted could have been dated but now they only have six months to add new information. That's my understanding of it.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

No. I mean, assuming—

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

Or they lose their place in the queue.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

You're right, there haven't been enough resources. We know that a lot of them have been sitting there for quite a long time. But the cases are solid. I mean, they have a case. They've given it. They're confident in their submission.

My assumption is that people will update their files all the time. If they get more information that makes their argument stronger, they're going to use that and put it back into the claims system. This assures them that if they have any information and they want to put it in, they don't lose their spot. They have six months to add it in. They can staple it on or however else they want to do it to make sure it gets in there. But again, it's only if they desire to submit that new documentation.

That whole effort was as a direct result of consultations with the Assembly of First Nations. This is exactly what they wanted. They can update their file based on new information and be confident they're not going to lose their spot. This allows them to go forward with confidence. Most of them, I assume, are complete. But again, to give them reassurance, this is not an effort to say you have six months or else. This is a situation where you already have something in place and you want to add something to it. Go ahead. That's all it is.

For others who are developing their cases right now and have not submitted them, they'll go through their regular process of getting the details. They might not submit it for two or three years—I don't know—but it will be up to them when they say their case is complete and they're ready to submit it. That's their timing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Minister.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

That's just for the existing cases. I want to assure people--it's important to do that--that this actually is a safeguard for them to say “I'm not stuck with this old information, because I have new and better stuff”. The new and better stuff should be added in, and then it will go forward properly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Great. I appreciate your indulgence on that.

Certainly there were a number of excellent questions. We are running a little over time on each, so I beg the indulgence of members.

Now we go to Mr. Clarke. You're splitting your time. Is that right, Mr. Clarke?

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

That's correct, Mr. Chair.

First of all, Mr. Chair, I'd like to congratulate you on your seat here and chairing this committee with our first witnesses.

I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Rickford.

Thank you, Mr. Strahl, for coming to our committee today.

I just have one question.

First I'd like to give you some background: 62% of my riding is first nations. We have the highest first nations per capita in the smallest region in Canada. I myself am very proud to be first nations and I have a lot of first nations relatives still living on the reserves. Being first nations is why I chose to be on this committee.

Education is very important for me. I attended post-secondary education, and without it I would not be where I am today.

I notice a lot of meat and potatoes in the economic action plan on which schools will be built. There are some partnerships in my riding in which first nations and Métis are looking at building schools together to help address the educational needs in the north.

I'm wondering if you'd be able to help me out and relay the government's action to address first nations education in this economic action plan. They are an investment in the infrastructure of Canada.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Clarke. It's a good question, and I look forward to getting back to your riding again soon. As you said, there are lots of first nations folks and aboriginal people in your riding and in that northern region, so I look forward to getting back there as early as spring, I hope, to meet many of the folks there again.

The economic action plan is a good news budget for our department and for aboriginal people. This sets aside, in addition to our regular infrastructure money--in other words, all the money we currently spend on infrastructure and on maintenance...$1.7 billion a year, in a general sense, continues on, but this extra couple of hundred million dollars on the education side will allow us to build ten new schools and do three major renovations this coming year in addition to our other work that we already had scheduled. This is going to take a little bit of the pressure off. There are lots of needs out there, of course.

We're working with our national priority ranking framework. We've put a system in place, first of all, where the need is the highest, based primarily on health and safety issues, readiness to go ahead and so on, and this money is part of the stimulus package so we want to get it out quickly. Those schools will be started this year, and we look forward to that.

We have started many other things. For example, I announced the student success program and the partnership program just last fall. This is money on an ongoing basis of about $75 million a year to work with first nations schools and to develop individual students' success plans, partnering with provinces wherever possible. We're looking forward to a very aggressive educational plan.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

This is good news.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That's the halfway point. It's your seven minutes. How you want to split it is your call.

Carry on.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you for your generosity, Rob. I appreciate that.

Congratulations, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister Strahl, for being here today.

I have two rather pointed questions around water and waste water infrastructure.

I'll probably take half a minute, for the benefit of the minister and perhaps the committee, to tell a little bit about my riding. It's one of the larger ridings in the country. We have more than 40 first nations reserves, and 25 of those are isolated; that is, they are accessible only by air. And 40% of the population of my riding are first nations. I have had the distinct privilege of living in most of those 25 isolated communities as a registered nurse over the course of about six years, and two in other parts of the country, mostly through the nineties, where I had a not-so-great experience with the availability of water and water treatment.

I'm pleased that this government took the appropriate steps to consult with the AFN to try to assess the extent of what was required.

My questions now simply are these. Are the additional investments in water and waste water infrastructure on reserve new money or is this part of last year's budget, the 2008 commitment of $330 million?

How will you be determining how to spend the additional money?

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you. That's a good question, again.

Again, the good news is that it is additional money that's been announced. This is $165 million of the $515 million of infrastructure spending that will target water and waste water projects. That's in addition to the money you mentioned from previous budgets. So again, it will take some of the pressure off and will allow us to continue other work we're already doing. It's important work, and it's part of an action plan that's been laid out and that people have been able to buy into. This is in addition to that, so it will, as I mentioned, allow us to target I think 18 new projects.

They tend to be very expensive, because, as you said, they're often remote and hard to get to, so they're expensive to build. But they're critically important, not only because people need decent water to drink, but because water plays into everything else that happens on that reserve. You can't have an economic development plan if you don't have clean water. You can't develop a good school if you can't drink the water at school. Without clean water, you can't do any of the other measures that we would just take for granted in other communities.

So the clean water action plan and this additional money is going to help us. As I mentioned, we've reduced the list from some 190 to some 50, and that's good progress. But in the remaining communities and in the long-term management of all those communities, we have to have a really good action plan. This is going to allow us to do all of that going forward. So I'm delighted with this extra money.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Great. Thank you.

That's the end of the seven minutes. I appreciate that. We'll come back. We're now going to the second round of questioning.

I would just ask members who wish to get on the speaking list to catch my attention by raising your hands or by letting the clerk know so we can put you on the list. We'll proceed on a first come, first served basis.

Now we go to Mr. Bagnell for five minutes.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister, for coming.

Just to let the officials know, so you can get to the right pages, my questions are going to be on Yukon self-government, PSTAs, and the Teslin Tlingit Council justice agreement.

Minister, as you know--and we talked a couple of weeks ago--this is probably the biggest issue for Yukon first nations. They've had a nine-year review. I think they're in year 11 or 12 or 13 of that, and they seem to have had a problem getting consistent negotiations and a negotiator with a mandate from the department. I know you're on top of this, and I'm hoping this will be resolved soon. I'm just wondering roughly how much is set aside. If it's internal--it might be internal reallocation within the department--where might the money come from?

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you.

No, the money is not earmarked in the estimates because it has not been negotiated, so I can't earmark it. Once the mandate is established and the negotiation is successfully completed, which we hope to do soon, we'll have the actual dollar number and we can put it in the estimates. But right now, it's not there, because we're still in the negotiating stage.

As you know, we had a good Yukon forum last year, which I attended with Andy Carvill and the rest of the first nations, both those that are involved in the self-government agreements and those that aren't, as observers. We had good discussions and a good protocol for those discussions and for some of the detail work we were able to do with both the Yukon government and the self-governing first nations. They did good work helping us inform that mandate. It was very useful to talk about where the money is being spent, and how, and what their requirements are. They're making a case that they have been kind of the first out of the block, if you will, so they've learned a lot, and we're learning with them what it actually costs to be self-governing first nations.

They've done remarkably well when you think of it, considering that they were the first ones. They've done a remarkable job, and Premier Fentie is quick to remind me steadily that this is really a template in many ways for successful self-government agreements across the country. So the Yukon has done a tremendous job. The Yukon first nations have as well.

I'll be meeting again with Premier Fentie and the first nations who are coming here for Yukon Day in Ottawa shortly. Let's put a little plug in, Mr. Bagnell, for Yukon Day, which is coming up here in Ottawa. And I know that a series of meetings has been set up with everybody from Finance to me,and many other ministers to talk about all the issues in play and about implementation renewal. So we're getting very close, and I'm very hopeful that we'll be able to drive that to a conclusion soon.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Do you have any idea what “soon” might be? I know before the election even, at that forum that you referred to, you committed to getting a mandate. The studies have all been done. People know what the costs were. It has been done for years now. How soon do you think this might be resolved?

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

With negotiations, I'm loath to give an actual date. I can't know how that nitty-gritty of negotiations will go, but I think we're narrowing the gap, if you will, or expanding the amount of knowledge and narrowing the gap between us as to the issues at play. So I think we're getting progressively closer. This meeting that we're going to have here during Yukon Days is going to help us.

Did I mention Yukon Days? You should be part of Yukon Days here in Ottawa.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

What about the Teslin aboriginal justice strategy? How's that coming?

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

What part of it?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Well, once again, they've been actually negotiating for over ten years now. So is the money in place? Can we get going with that?

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I'm not familiar with this. I think it's mostly negotiated through Justice. It's more of a Justice issue.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I think the funds are coming from INAC, though. I think you're right. It's Justice that is doing the negotiations.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I'm going to have to get back to you, Mr. Bagnell, because I don't have that detail. The Justice issues are typically negotiated through the Justice department. I don't want to say we play second fiddle, but we have to make sure that what we're doing there is consistent with the objectives and the plans of Justice.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

If you could, that would be great.

On the waste water issue across the country, as you know, audits have been done right across first nations, and this money is set aside. That's good. How much do you think, over and above everything that has been set aside so far, will be needed in the future to complete all the systems in the country, based on the audits the department has done?