Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 30th, 2010

[Paul Quassa]

There are two members from the federal government, and I believe both of them are now appointed. But because one of them is now elected at a regional level, they're wondering if that person is eligible to be on our commission. She was appointed by the federal government. We have two seats that are now there.

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

And the other federal one is full or empty?

[Paul Quassa]

As I said, the other one is pending. I think they're looking for a legal opinion on whether that person could still be appointed and represent the federal government. There are two seats there.

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

I think we're talking about a fairly small situation, not a large one, as was originally contemplated by Mr. Lemay.

My second question—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I think the witness just wanted to add another thought on your last question.

[Paul Quassa]

Mr. Chair, just to make it clear, there are other appointments that are still outstanding. Those two have been appointed, but the other one is still a question mark.

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

But only two of them are federal appointments?

[Paul Quassa]

There are two federal, two territorial government, and then four are from Inuit organizations.

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

Thank you for that.

My second question is for Richard Edjericon. There are reports now that it's anticipated the Mackenzie gas project will not proceed before 2018. Even with that statement by the proponents, they're saying they won't really know even that until 2013. I was just wondering how that affects current assessments and plans. It must be difficult to proceed in any direction, given that between now and 2013 there's a complete absence of knowing which way it's going. Does this affect your level of activity at all, or not really?

[Richard Edjericon]

No, not at this time. In the Mackenzie Valley, that project was referred to EIR, the environmental impact review. That consists of the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board, CEA, and the Inuvialuit Game Council.

These are the people who gave the direction to go ahead and put this joint review panel together that did the report. Right now, it's done. We've finally assisted as much as we can to try to steer them in the right direction to get this thing out. We did that. The report is done. We're still waiting for the candidate to respond, and that kind of thing.

But at our level, it's business as usual. We'll continue on. Some people say that the pipeline is going to start flowing by 2018. If you hear that, I presume that when you say flowing, then you subtract the years to build the pipeline. I heard 2013, in around there, as to when it's possible that the pipeline might be starting construction.

We don't know where things are at until they go through their process through the National Energy Board and so on. It's up to the proponent to decide that.

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

Thank you.

I have a question for Sharon. The mandate of CMHC is sometimes misunderstood when it comes to the north. We already had that confusion in one of the areas in the north. There's also similar confusion at times for on-reserve and other housing that would be affected by the mandate of this committee.

When I was looking through your notes or listening to your speech, you were talking about social housing a lot and affordable housing a lot. We have first nations who don't have social housing, but they have a need for affordable housing. None of the existing arrangements seem to accommodate that in any way.

It's been suggested to me that we have low-income people who have gone out of their way to try to build their own housing. They always fall just a little bit short, and if there were something there that would actually be less liability for government or CMHC to accommodate that little missing bit and—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We're just about out of time.

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

—I'm wondering if this has been brought to your attention before and if there's a thought process to maybe try to address this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

A brief answer, if possible.

[Sharon Matthews]

I'm not sure I understand the question in terms of our mandate. I did speak very much to social housing and affordable housing. CMHC is working with the provinces and the territories, and I know you're focused particularly on the territories. There's a considerable amount of funding that has flowed through CMHC from the federal government.

The way we partner in most of this is we do not design the programs, we do not determine the best way to get those funds on the ground. The view is that working in partnership, we can do the funding and we can have some overall federal accountabilities in terms of how that funding is going to get used.

Having the local territorial housing corporations and governments determine exactly what those programs are and how to design them, who to serve and how best to operate, is a much more efficient and a much better local answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I'm sorry to have to shorten you up on that, but we'll have to move on.

Just before we go to the next round, which is a five-minute round, I just want to revisit this issue of the appointments and the timing of them.

Mr. Quassa, you clarified that in fact there were two points. I'm doing this just for the record. You mentioned, though, that there were some seats on the planning board that were vacant anywhere from two to three years.

I note in the background, for example, that those nominees come from regional Inuit associations, some from NTI, and the Government of Nunavut. In your view, is getting nominees the problem in terms of the delay, or is the delay when a nominee is put forward to be approved? I think that's what we need to know here, if you could just clarify or comment on that.

[Paul Quassa]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is the appointment stage. Nomination is not really a problem. We've seen maybe once or a couple of times where the nomination stage from the RIA took a little longer, but in most cases it is the appointment process that takes longer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

So the nomination has been put in and this might be from one of the associations, but there's a delay in hearing back that the appointment has been made. I just wanted to make sure of that for the record. Thank you.

Now we'll go to the second round.

Mr. Russell, you have five minutes.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon to each of you. It's good to have you here.

On the Nunavut Planning Commission, or the Sahtu planning, how do you get funding? There's some talk about the appointment process, and I think we got that clarified somewhat. Then there's the issue of financing, and some people would equate that to capacity in order to carry out the mandate of each of your organizations.

Can each of you tell us how the funding comes to you? Does it come to your territorial government? Does it go through the land claim group? How does that work?

[Marg Epp]

Thank you.

We are funded by the federal government, from INAC, through the implementation branch. That's where our funding comes from. Our issue is that we're still based on the original 1993 agreement, when the Nunavut Planning Commission was formed. That funding agreement has not changed. It was supposed to be a five-year deal at that time, and it has not ever been renewed. So we're still at that plateau level of that core funding, and all we get is the FDDIPI increases. Well, the FDDIPI increases in Nunavut don't even cover our cost of living and their cost of doing business.

So it's hard for us to move forward with new staff and with the new requirements that we have for creating and then implementing the land use plan when we don't get the funding increases we need to do that.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you.

Mr. Overvold.

[Robert Overvold]

Funding for working on land use planning is really part of the land claim. In 2003 core funding for the operations of the board was set for a ten-year period at around $350,000 or thereabouts. But we find that basically enough to cover the administration and the board meeting a number of times a year, et cetera. Money to actually do the work of developing a plan has been lacking for some time.

Money comes from INAC, obviously, and only from INAC for this. In 2008 we were encouraged to put together a three-year funding proposal to complete the strategic plan, which we did. For the past two years—not this coming fiscal year but the past two years—we did receive additional moneys in the area of $500,000 to $600,000 on top of our $350,000 core. We're very pleased with that, and based on that we've made progress. As I was referring to in my presentation, for this coming fiscal year, starting a couple of days from now, we have no guarantee we're going to get that additional money. We know we'll get our core funding, but we're at this critical stage of trying to complete it in one more year, so we need it.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

What would the situation be with the Mackenzie Valley?

[Richard Edjericon]

Thank you, Mr. Russell.

We're similar to my colleague here, Robert Overvold. With our board the funding comes from the Gwich'in land claim group. We get our funding on a ten-year basis as well, and it's due in 2012. It comes from the claims implementation office as well. We get approximately $2.3 million a year, plus we get supplementary funding and so on. But to really implement the act as laid out we definitely need anywhere from between $5.5 million to $6 million annually. So we've been struggling with that. But in two years I think we'll sit down and try to talk about those numbers again.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you. I think it's important for us if we're going to make recommendations going forward around capacity or about financing of these various agencies that we've created and negotiated, basically, and constitutionally protected, I would say.