Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 12th, 2009

[Aideen Nabigon]

Right, so we're making sure that we have a strategy. It might be hard to avoid 100%, but we're doing everything we can to make sure that people at all of our gatherings are aware that they can't speak about people whom they may be accusing of crimes or whatever.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You still have another minute, Mr. Albrecht, if you wish.

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

One of my colleagues might want to use it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Anybody? Okay.

Then we'll go to Ms. Crowder, for three minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to make sure I'm understanding this. You indicated that the agreement says there's an interim report, which is the two-year report, but there is no final report. Is that right?

[Aideen Nabigon]

Right--not according to the settlement agreement.

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

So there'll be no final reporting out on results and events, no accounting for how public money was spent in a final report other than the normal budget cycle?

[Aideen Nabigon]

I would expect that there would be.

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

But there's no requirement.

[Aideen Nabigon]

I'm not sure why there's no requirement, but I can't imagine that the commissioners won't want to present a final report.

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

It's pretty shocking, actually. I'm surprised there's no requirement.

I know this isn't your responsibility, but I just want to be on record as saying how surprising it is that you have something that has a significant mandate, with significant public funds attached to it, hoping to achieve significant results, and there's no final reporting process. That's pretty appalling. I'm hoping that the commissioners will see fit to take that responsibility on to do that.

In terms of the independence in the relationship with the department, I think part of the concern--this is kind of the trust-building part--is that people were hoping to see the secretariat operate quite independently. I respect the fact that there is a need to get information from the department, but it sounds as though, between staff coming over from Indian and Northern Affairs and the absence of any kind of other reporting relationship.... I think there are some optics around the independence of the secretariat.

So my question to you is twofold. One, how are you going to regenerate that trust among the public and among the survivors that your secretariat is independent and operating at arm's length? And two, what are you going to do about the damage control?

Perhaps you could tell me what your plans are to address those issues.

[Aideen Nabigon]

With regard to the independence of the secretariat, because we are in a transition stage at this point and don't have our own funding yet, we depend on the department for corporate services, but it's very much at a working technical level.

They don't interfere at all in our policies or in the work we're doing to move forward. They're providing corporate services such as procurement services and HR services, but only, hopefully, until we get our money on April 1. The issue of independence really hasn't come up.

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

I think there are some optics around it, though--

[Aideen Nabigon]

Yes, I agree.

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

--and I think that's the piece you're going to have to deal with, because just saying, “trust me, we're independent”, isn't going to work for people.

[Aideen Nabigon]

Right. But after April 1 we'll have cut that relationship and we'll be getting our corporate services elsewhere.

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

And what about the--

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That's it. I'm sorry, Ms. Crowder.

We're going to go back to Mr. Payne for one minute and finish up this round.

Mr. Payne.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You did talk about the secretariat. I'd just like to ask you a question around how far along you are in completing the work on the secretariat. When might it be completed?

[Aideen Nabigon]

As you can imagine, a lot of the work we've been doing over the past five or six months that I've been there is just standing up the secretariat as a federal government department. We had to make sure to get our Treasury Board submission done and approved. We've done an organization chart so that we can start hiring staff. That's currently being approved by the Public Service Commission. We've entered into an MOU with the Canadian Human Rights Commission to provide us with corporate services after April 1.

Really, we're getting to that point where we have a strong foundation in place for the secretariat as a functional department to support the commission when it comes on board. As I mentioned, we've been developing the policies and the initiatives for moving forward on the mandate activities to the extent that we can, implementing schedule N, but being careful not to commit a future chair to a direction that he or she may not want to go in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That will conclude it.

Thank you, Ms. Nabigon. We appreciated your presentation.

Thank you to all members as well. You don't need to hear this from me, but I must say that I thought all of the questions today were thoughtful, precise, and very well done.

There's just one item to follow up on before we adjourn. To follow up on our last meeting, the question came out in regard to the circulation of CVs for the notices of appointment that you will be circulated on automatically. This can be done on request now. You should be reminded that the Standing Orders provide 30 sitting days for time to consider those questions, but in accordance with the Standing Orders, they will and can be circulated to you on request. We'll get those out to you. That was the one item we had left over from the last meeting.

Madam Crowder.

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

This room is ridiculously small.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I agree.

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

I really urge us to find a room that accommodates the staff, the witnesses and their staff, and other people who want to sit in.