Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Dec. 1st, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We are actually--

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

--and also the capital program freeze.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We're out of time.

Mr. Wernick, maybe you could just give a 30-second snapshot.

[Michael Wernick]

All the projects we started under Canada's economic action plan will be finished and will be unaffected by the deadline. If there's any spillover, we will find the money from the department. I don't think that's really going to be a big problem.

Also, there's no freeze. We have a very constrained budget on a lot of projects, but you've seen our regional capital plans. We make adjustments when there are fires and emergencies, but we certainly have not put a freeze on decision-making.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Ms. Crowder.

Let's go to Mr. Weston.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome everybody. We are sorry you had to wait.

We heard a lot about the results of the Canadian Economic Action Plan, and it is an issue I am very interested in.

Ms. Jauvin, would you please tell us how northerners have benefited from this plan?

Mr. Wernick, would you please tell us how aboriginal peoples have benefited from it?

[Nicole Jauvin, Deputy Minister and President, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency]

Thank you.

The Economic Action Plan is an important part of the programs that are managed by CanNor. For us, the most important ones are the Community Adjustment Fund, the Recreation Infrastructure Canada program, and additional funds for Strategic Investments in Northern Economic Development.

Concerning the Community Adjustment Fund and the Recreation Infrastructure Canada program, we managed to get projects approved so that all these funds will be spent. The total is about $30 million, which is a lot of money for the north.Some projects still have to be approved, but they are in the system. We do not expect any major difficulties.

Generally, these are projects which have contributed to job creation and improved the economic situation in the three territories. For example, with the Recreation Infrastructure Canada program, small amounts have been distributed but they really benefited the communities.

For example, if we fix a cement pad for an arena in Nunavut, that has a huge impact in the community. Replacing a pool liner in an isolated community also has a great impact. So over and above creating employment, there are community benefits that have been very important. We're very happy with the way these programs have been rolled out in the north.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Wernick.

[Michael Wernick]

Je vous remercie.

On the aboriginal community side of things, you will know that there has been regular reporting to Parliament on CEAP, and we've always contributed to that. You can find maps and drill down on specific projects and so on.

So as the minister said, it's allowed us to accelerate and do projects we probably wouldn't have been able to do without the extra push from the stimulus spending. The highlights are, as the minister said, about 18 water and waste-water projects, 12 schools, 40 health facilities, 17 policing facilities, and over 500 housing projects. You can actually look them up on a map and see where they are.

We are now chasing, at the Auditor General's behest, the actual job and employment impacts of these projects and trying to do the analysis of that. One of the examples would be that a couple of schools in Saskatchewan--I'll just pick one example--generated over 50,000 hours of construction labour and support. So there are a lot of benefits, and I agree with my colleague about the legacy in the community of having a school or a water plant. Some of these were renovations and some were upgrades.

In the north, a great deal of science infrastructure was renovated or built that probably would not have got done as quickly without this initiative.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Wernick. Ms. Jauvin just talked about the Community Adjustment Fund and the Recreation Infrastructure Canada program. I would like to know whether these two programs also benefited the aboriginal peoples?

[Michael Wernick]

There are several examples of recreational projects done on reserve communities. I don't have them at my fingertips. There were a couple in northern Ontario that were quite important. There were some that the provinces were quite keen to partner on. The community adjustment fund right across the country actually helped.

At the outset, we tried to make sure that these programs' terms and conditions and the design were open to aboriginal communities as sponsors and proponents, and we saw a fair bit of take-up. I wish we could have done more, but there's a pretty healthy list of projects.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

So this is really good news.

In this committee, we've talked a lot about education.

What we see in the context of education is the importance of partnerships. I wonder if each of you might comment briefly on how the education partnership agreements are actually progressing and whether they're having a good impact.

[Michael Wernick]

The approach is similar to one that we've taken in child and family services and in income assistance and to the one my colleagues from Health Canada have taken in health services. Most Canadians get these kinds of services from provincial governments. The delivery systems, the infrastructure, and the governance are largely in provincial ministries. The people who know how to run these things really well are in provincial ministries.

So what we have tried to get together, wherever possible, is federal involvement, largely as a funder; provincial involvement, because the provinces have a lot of know-how and expertise in these areas or their local delivery systems; and first nations involvement, of course, because they set the priorities for their communities, they identify what they need, and they're going to participate in these.

So we go at the pace at which we can get willing partners. Sometimes they're fairly detailed and sometimes they're relatively general. We've been able to do agreements in Alberta and Prince Edward Island. We have a very detailed agreement in one part of Saskatchewan, and we're in negotiations to do a whole-of-Saskatchewan agreement in the new year. We have other provinces that are interested. We see more provinces willing to participate, and we see more first nations who are interested in these kinds of arrangements.

These are useful with things like teacher training, professional development, and connecting people who work in first nations schools to those networks in their provinces. This also is useful with student identifiers, so that when a kid moves to a reserve in another community, or from the other community's reserve, we don't lose them; we know where they are and can follow them up. Also, this is useful for teacher testing and assessment. There are many, many very practical applications of these.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you very much, Mr. Weston.

Thanks to our witnesses.

Now we're going to go to Mr. Bagnell, as Mr. Russell kindly gave up his remaining time when we suspended. His time will be added to Mr. Bagnell's time.

Go ahead, Mr. Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Todd, for your generosity.

Because he's mad that he's lost his 35 seconds--

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

--could you actually get an answer in writing back to the clerk on his question about salaries? That was the question he asked before we adjourned.

I'll go on to my question. The first question is easy, because I told you what it was, but basically, as you know, the Teslin Tlingit Council is trying to go to cabinet with a justice agreement. They were told it would go forward last June, but it didn't, and now it has gone on to September. I asked the justice minister about it in the airport a couple of weeks ago, and he said to ask your department. But I had already asked your department, which said that Justice wasn't saying anything, so your department has been very helpful.

I'm just wondering if you have any idea when that's going to go to cabinet.

[Michael Wernick]

I can confirm that we have all of the federal approvals in place. This is going to sound like a runaround, but we're waiting for the Government of Yukon, and once we have that, we're done.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Oh, okay. So once the Government of Yukon approves it—and I understand that should be shortly—does that mean it can just sign the agreements? Or do there need to be any more federal approvals? Because it's been through cabinet and everything....

[Michael Wernick]

That's my understanding. All the federal approvals are in place, so we're just—

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Okay. So you can just have your ceremony and get on with it.

[Michael Wernick]

We would hope so. As soon as the territory gives us what we need, we're done. That's my understanding.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Did you want to look at that little note there?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!