Evidence of meeting #21 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was million.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
You have about another minute, if you wish--believe it or not, yes.
10:20 a.m.
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
I want to touch on the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report again, around the ability to track information. He talks about the challenges and reflects that sometimes he hasn't been able to get the information from Indian and Northern Affairs, which of course reflects directly on the estimates process. Can you comment on whether there are any planned changes to how information is reported and gathered?
10:20 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
We're in the middle of putting a better information system in place, which isn't fully populated with the right data. This is one of the reasons the report is a little funny in some areas. We have an integrated capital management system--that's what ICMS is--to allow us to track and monitor these waiting lists of projects in all the regions. As the minister said, we've come from a period where it was very decentralized and run by each region. We're trying to put a national information system in place and the ability to manage that.
I think you're getting at a much deeper issue about whether there should be separate appropriations, separate tracing, separate tracking. It's not surprising that Mr. Page recommended that for the schools funding. It's very similar to other advice we get in other audits, which is if you want to be absolutely sure of where the money has gone, you would have to have a separate stream of funding. We got advice like that on post-secondary education, on child and family services.
The issue it raises is a trade-off between flexibility and accountability or traceability, if I can put it that way.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
Okay. We'll have to leave it at that, Mr. Wernick. Thank you, Madam Crowder.
Let's go now to Mr. Payne for five minutes.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for appearing today. I have some questions around safe drinking water and the report on plans and priorities. In particular, I would like to know the number of communities that had issues around safe drinking water in 2006 and where we stand today in terms of having remedied some of those problems.
10:20 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
As the minister said, I think we're due for one of our regular overall progress reports, and we should be able to table that. From the numbers I have in front of me, in 2006, when we started the current action plan, there were 193 high-risk water systems. We're down to 48, which means that most of them have moved into medium and some into low. There are about 770 systems across the country, and the reports we've tabled, roughly every quarter, track that progress.
I would just say this to get it on the record: the fact that a community has a boil water advisory in a given year does not mean it's a high-risk community. There are thousands of boil water advisories in communities right across this country, aboriginal and non-aboriginal. They can be seasonal; they can be temporary. We use a risk methodology that goes to a more enduring health risk in the source water contamination; that's how we do the ranking.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
I certainly commend the efforts that have been made so far on that. I'm very pleased, because I understand there are other communities as well that have the same issues, some in my own riding, which does not have any reserves.
What I would like to know is, can you describe the nature of the national engineering assessment, how it's being evaluated and when the assessments might be completed?
10:25 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
One of the things we realized we needed to do in order to make a good business case for further investments in systems is to start with a better baseline of the state of the infrastructure out there. The Parliamentary Budget Officer just made the same observation about schools.
We have started on water and have gone through a process of tendering, and we were able to announce the award of a contract just this week, actually. It's taken longer than I would have liked, but that's government contracting processes.
We'll be going through all of the water and waste water systems right across the country and doing a snapshot of their state and a technical engineering assessment of all of them. This will allow us to have a very solid baseline and track their quality on an ongoing basis in future years, and prioritize investments. The one piece of the puzzle that's missing is very clear standards by which those plants should operate.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
In terms of the standards, is something being developed so that communities—
10:25 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I think it's indicated in the RPP that the government would like to table legislation that would allow the minister to establish standards for water quality on reserve, just as there are standards in the neighbouring communities.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Thank you.
Just going on in the same vein, Budget 2009 allocated another $165 million over two years to accelerate water and waste water infrastructure, and on March 19 the minister announced 14 new projects.
My question is, on what basis were these communities selected, and was the funding provided in the budget directed to be identified for priority communities?
10:25 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I'll have to give you a more detailed follow-up answer. Basically the Budget 2009 initiatives, for schools and water and housing, were a combination of the needs methodology the minister described and shovel readiness. They had to be projects for which enough of the work had been done on design, engineering, feasibility, community support, and so on, that we would be confident that shovels would be in the ground within the two-year period of the stimulus package. The money disappears two years from now.
We went through and cross-referenced our capital plan against shovel readiness, and those were the projects that came to the top of the list.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
It's up to you; it's your time.
Thank you, Mr. Payne. Now we'll go to Mr. Russell for five minutes.
Mr. Russell.
10:25 a.m.
Liberal
Todd Russell Liberal Labrador, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning to the witnesses.
I have a very specific question on the TRC, the truth and reconciliation commission. It's been a year now since the announcement was made, or thereabouts. There has been no formal invocation of this commission after a little breakdown involving some of the commissioners.
I'm wondering where we are with this. Some of the calls I get indicate that people really want to move on with it; they feel that a year has been lost. We can come up with all kinds of things saying there is some work being done on this, that, and the other thing, but a lot of people feel that a year has been lost in terms of this particular process. I'm wondering where the process stands.
10:25 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Thank you for the question, Mr. Russell.
Yes, a year has been lost, and that's deeply regrettable. We certainly hope the commission will recapture some of the momentum that was there last year.
There was a process involving all the parties to the agreement—the governments, churches, aboriginal groups, and so on—that dealt with the governance issues that may have contributed to the breakdown of the first commission. All of the details on a selection process are on the TRC website.
I was the minister's representative on that selection committee. Its advice has been handed in, and we're expecting an announcement very shortly on the new commissioners.
10:30 a.m.
Liberal
Todd Russell Liberal Labrador, NL
Thank you very much.
Can you give us an update on where we are with the post-secondary education program, or the review of the education program generally, in terms of the level of consultations and the nature of consultations? Is the department on track to report next fall about the renewal of that particular program?
10:30 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
The short answer is yes. We're deeply engaged with consultations with people who would be affected by it. It's one of those situations in which the program needs to be renewed, and we're asking people whether they want to pursue renovation as well. This committee studied the issue and has given us advice.
There are lots of findings. We have an audit on the program that points to a lot of deficiencies in the current design. I'd ask Christine to speak about whom we've talked to and when. As far as I can tell, we're on track to give cabinet advice this fall.
May 26th, 2009 / 10:30 a.m.
Christine Cram Assistant Deputy Minister, Education and Social Development Programs and Partnerships Sector, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
AFN has approached us. They're very interested in working with us on both the response to the audit and the review. A number of first nations and first nations regional organizations have also approached us. We're contemplating, at the present time, engaging with them on both the audit and the review.
10:30 a.m.
Liberal
Todd Russell Liberal Labrador, NL
I have another question on child and family services. Almost every report that has come out from outside the department per se has indicated that this area is grossly underfunded and has led to an exorbitant number of first nations children in care, much higher than among the general population.
I think there is general agreement as well that child and family services on reserve are not funded to a level comparable to that for those who are off reserve. The department has seemed to say that they need to move into a tripartite type of process involving the provinces and that they're going to be funding some of these initiatives “one off”, so to speak.
Is there any sense of how much this will cost, if it were fully implemented across the country?
10:30 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Very quickly on child and family services, I've said this at the public accounts committee and it gets me into trouble: I don't think there is a lack of funding in the child and family services agencies. The funding more than doubled, because a lot of kids are being taken into care—the system is biased towards taking kids into care. That is the most expensive solution for the children. One of the reasons we've had to take money out of capital and community infrastructure is the very rapid growth of the bills for child maintenance.
What was missing from the old approach to child and family services was prevention services in the community—culturally relevant kinship and family based prevention services. That's what the tripartite agreements are about: providing that possibility in the renovation. We have made investments in those provinces where we have an alignment between the first nations agencies, the provinces—because they operate under provincial child welfare legislation—and our funding. We've done the renovation in three provinces; we're open to doing it in others, as the minister said. We hope to do two more within the next few months. We have a couple of other provinces in the “on deck” circle.
We think that as the investments are made in prevention services—which are cheaper per child—the bills for maintenance of kids in care will come down over time.
10:30 a.m.
Liberal