Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 1st, 2010

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Mr. Gray, thank you.

I thought I heard you say that there will be more applications than people entitled. Or do you mean it the other way? There won't be as many applications as--

[Roy Gray]

No, what I meant was this. The thinking is that there will likely be more applications than people who are ultimately entitled to status.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

In fact, you might imagine that there will be even more than the 45,000.

[Roy Gray]

There may very well be. That's right.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

I think it comes back to my colleague, the member opposite, who asked the question about the financial implications. Quite frankly, we can't know because we don't know what that uptake is going to be.

[Roy Gray]

That's right, exactly.

At this point in time, what we have is demographic projections. Obviously, what is going to drive the financial implications is the actual number of people who are entitled.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Holder and Mr. Gray.

Now we're going to go to Ms. Crowder, who will be followed by Mr. Clarke. Then we'll go back to Ms. Neville.

Go ahead, Ms. Crowder, for five minutes.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the departments for coming before us.

We just got the briefing binder this morning, so I am presuming that if we have more technical questions after today, we can get the department back if needed.

I have two questions. One is a technical one and one is a resource issue.

On the resource issue, could you answer two questions? First, will resources be provided for the NAOs for the exploratory process?

The second question is around resources. On December 6, 1986, the Ottawa Citizen ran a story about the impact on the department. They indicated that the government had officers working two shifts a day who were adding more than 500 people per week to the country's official Indian population. The system became swamped with more than 38,000 applications seeking status for more than 76,000 people.

What plans have you put in place within the department to handle the volume of applications that could potentially come in?

[Roy Gray]

As I mentioned, a strategy is under development to address the influx of applications. It's going to involve the creation of a new team of people--I don't know if the exact number has been determined--who will focus specifically on the applications of people who will be newly entitled.

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

Then you will be adding people and resources in order to process the applications.

[Roy Gray]

Yes.

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

I asked also about resources for the exploratory process.

[Brenda Kustra]

With respect to the resourcing for the national aboriginal organizations' participation in the exploratory process, yes, that is anticipated, and it will be one of the things we'll be discussing with the organizations when we meet with them in early April.

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

You are saying they will get resources.

[Brenda Kustra]

Yes.

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

You mentioned in your previous response that there was a proactive communication strategy. Will that go out in multiple languages--Cree, Ojibwa, Coast Salish, Halkomelem?

[Roy Gray]

I don't know the answer to that today. That's something I can certainly take back to our communications people.

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

I ask because in some communities, English or French is not a first language. We're actually talking about people who could be older, so their primary language of communication may be their....

[Roy Gray]

I should say as well that part of our engagement on that would be with the Indian registration administrators who work in the communities. They would be targeted with information. They would have information that they presumably would be able to provide to the people in the communities.

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

Can I go back for a second? You indicated that additional resources would be added; we know that in the previous budget there is essentially a spending freeze across government departments, so how will you accommodate that? I'm hoping that it won't have to come out of some other resources within the department.

[Roy Gray]

It may very well have to, at this point.

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

So we may rob Peter to pay Paul.

[Roy Gray]

I don't know exactly where those resources will be coming from.

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

That might be a good question for us to get back to you on, then.

On a really technical matter, proposed subparagraph 6(1)(c.1)(iii) reads:

(iii) was born on or after the day on which the marriage referred to in subparagraph (i) occurred and, unless the person’s parents married each other prior to April 17, 1985

The parliamentary research folks did a really good analysis on this, but I wonder if you could walk us through it. My understanding is that this clause.... A couple of other discriminatory practices are already in the Indian Act. For example, the Wabanaki had raised an issue about registration. Prior to 1985, illegitimate daughters of an Indian father and a non-Indian mother were not registered, but illegitimate sons of an Indian father and a non-Indian mother were registered. I'm presuming this proposed subparagraph doesn't deal with that particular issue, and I presume it also--