Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 26th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We'll give you some time here. You have 30 seconds. That's it, though, for the answer too.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

There was a complaint lodged with the Canadian Human Rights Commission around the underfunding of child and family services. I know the department or the crown has taken a certain position. Can you give us an update on where that particular process stands?

[Michael Wernick]

I can provide the details in writing. Basically, it's in procedural things before the Canadian Human Rights Commission.They're trying to figure out when to deal with it and how to deal with it. It's a complaint made based on a set of facts in Alberta several years ago, and we have no choice, when sued or having complaints, but to defend our position. We have had to do that.

I find it deeply regrettable, because the renovation through tripartites is the solution in child and family services.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We'll have to leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Wernick and Mr. Russell.

We'll now go to Mr. Duncan.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you, Chair, once again.

I welcome the officials.

I want to go back in my question. I went to the northern development agency with the minister and I would like to delve into that a little more.

This is for the northern development agency. I don't actually remember when it was, but when you were here earlier, there was a statement that the intent was to purchase as many corporate services as possible, which were to be shared with the department, with the possibility of eventual partnership with others. Does this mean there's a deliberate attempt to have core funding not all gobbled up by staff? Is this in order to retain flexibility and offer greater vision and a chance to adapt to changing circumstances? If so, that agrees with a lot of the philosophy and concerns that were expressed to me in my short visit to the Yukon recently.

That's my first question.

[Michael Wernick]

I'll try to be quick on that.

When the agency is announced by the Prime Minister, it will have its own deputy head, accounting office, RPP, and estimates. You'll be dealing with them just as you're dealing with us. It will be a small agency, by the usual standards. We're thinking it will be between 100 and 120 employees when it's fully mature. We certainly are proceeding with the offer and the possibility of sharing as much of the back office as possible so that as many dollars as possible go into the programming and not into the overhead of delivering it.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Is it anticipated that many of those personnel would come from existing INAC personnel?

[Michael Wernick]

We're starting with that, with the people who work in Patrick's area on northern economic development and project management. We've offered possibilities to other departments to embed staff in the agency, and we'll be hiring new people.

As the minister said, the agency has new things to do with the CAF program, the RInC programs, new initiatives in skills development, and the SINED renewals. Its programming base is quite significantly more than the department was delivering a few years ago.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

This is probably a premature question based on your first answer, but can you describe in what way the design and function of the new agency will be different from the design and function of the existing regional agencies?

[Michael Wernick]

It will very much be tailored to northern issues. We're going to have some function that will deal with stickhandling and navigating the regulatory process. Something analogous to the major projects management office is likely to be part of the agency. We need people who can be eyes and ears on the ground for other federal departments to make sure that all the federal suite of programs is delivered more effectively in the north. I'm sure the committee has heard that a lot of the programs designed south of 60 don't quite work as well when they're delivered in the north. The kind of SINED that we know about and the aboriginal economic development programs we know about will be delivered by the agency as well.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Has there been a decision made as to whether the agency would be created by statute? What would be the advantages and disadvantages of a legislative approach?

[Michael Wernick]

It will initially be started by order in council under existing legislation that's there for the reorganization of government. It would be up to the Prime Minister and the government as to whether they wanted to put it on a legislative footing at some point, as was done with new agencies in the past.

The disadvantage is that it takes time to get legislation through. We want to go through some period of break-in and of making sure that northerners have lots of input into the agency before we set anything in concrete, but legislation down the road is certainly a distinct possibility.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Can you describe possible partnerships the agency might have in the north? I'm sure there have been some preliminary discussions in that area.

[Michael Wernick]

Based on the SINED experience of the last few years, we would have very strong partners in the three territorial governments. We've met them bilaterally and we've met them together. We've had an ongoing conversation with the territorial governments.

Obviously there are the aboriginal land claims groups; we've met with them and we've dealt with them, and there's a huge private sector interest in pipelines, mining, oil and gas, tourism, and other groups. The advantage the agency offers is that there will be one-stop shopping with a headquarters in the north. People from the north will be able to put forward their ideas and feedback very directly to the new agency.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you very much, Mr. Duncan.

We will now hand the floor over to Mr. Lévesque for five minutes.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I apologize for having had to leave very quickly, earlier on. I do not know if the residential schools agreement was raised with you. We will be celebrating the anniversary of this agreement a week or two weeks from now. I would like to know what the situation is regarding payments or settlements involving the people concerned and the claimants.

[Michael Wernick]

Thank you, Mr. Lévesque.

Earlier, I talked about the reconciliation commission. Related to that are two significant support programs. The first is called

the common experience payment.

It is a payment to each individual who attended a residential school.

I can get you more recent data. What I have now is that we're very well advanced. About 98,000 applications came in for CEP. We've processed almost 94,000 of them. Some people are not eligible, and most are. We've dealt with over 73,000 payments. Over $1.5 billion has gone out under the common experience payment. We've given people the benefit of the doubt when documentation was incomplete and paid out for what we could demonstrate. So we still have about 10,000 cases in reconsideration, trying to fill in the gaps and deal with any issues. There is an appeal process for people who are not happy with those outcomes. So we're very well advanced on the common experience payment.

The other process that's available is for people who have claims of serious physical or sexual abuse. This is an independent assessment process. There's a set of adjudicators who deal with those and make payments. We're well into that and reporting to the courts on their implementation. My numbers are that about 7,000 claims have come in, and there were about 2,000 that carried over from before the settlement agreement. We've resolved over 2,000 of them. About 1,000 are in the process right now. Over the next three or four years we hope to deal with all of those. We can't be absolutely sure how many claims will come forward, because people still have some time to bring claims forward.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I would like to know the approximate percentage of people who made a claim in one area or another, and actually survived to see a ruling applied. The people who were abused are in the majority of cases, very elderly or very ill. Given all the time it has taken to reach a settlement, some will die before being compensated, even if they are registered. Are you tracking this issue?

[Michael Wernick]

On the common experience payment, there was an advanced payment to elders. About 9,000 payments went out even before the settlement was fully implemented. That was dealt with under CEP. In both processes elderly claimants are flagged and given priority processing and put to the front of the line. Obviously we're not going to be able to catch everybody, but we do take note of urgent cases of people who are elderly. It's just a case of about 7,000 files that have to be adjudicated. There are only so many adjudicators. These are difficult cases to hear, but the court supervises very closely, I assure you, and they're satisfied with the progress that's being made.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I recently toured Nunavik very quickly, not too long ago. In those areas, the cost of air transportation is partly subsidized to help people get around. I was unable to gather what percentage of these costs are paid for, as it were, by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. Other departments also make a contribution. I would like to know how much each one of the parties, at the federal level, contributes. I was wondering if you were able to provide us with some figures on this. Since you allocate funds to help with air transportation, this would be included in the estimates.

[Michael Wernick]

I do not believe that this is the case, but I will double check. We can send you our answer in writing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Lévesque.

At this point I'll just interject and ask members whether there is accord for the agenda that was circulated. Because if we need to have a discussion, we'll have to leave that at the end and allow time accordingly.

You had a question, Monsieur Bélanger?

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I have a question on the agenda.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Okay. We will take one more question and then we'll have a very brief suspension—very brief—and then we'll go in camera for the last 10 minutes of the meeting.

The final question, then, Mr. Albrecht.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll try to be brief.

Economic development has occupied a lot of our time, not only at this committee meeting today but in our committee over the last number of years. We have had the privilege of seeing some great examples of positive economic development stories in many first nations communities. Many times they have something of an advantage, possibly because of geographic location or specific resources that are present. I'm wondering what the department's plans are to initiate or come alongside first nations communities that might be more disadvantaged because of geographic location or the resources they might have available right next to them. I think that's probably our biggest challenge.