Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Dec. 13th, 2011

[Ronnie Campbell]

Yes.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Ms. Bennett talked about a waiting list for programs such as first nations land management. I take it that this waiting list has existed not just in the last couple of years either. It's a waiting list that developed back in the early 2000s, because I believe the FNLM program was closed to new entrants in 2004. Is that correct?

[Ronnie Campbell]

Yes, that would be correct.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Thank you for that.

I'm going to ask Mr. Moffet about how these problems have been addressed. I understand that there have been some steps taken. I think you talked about them briefly in your opening statement.

Could you perhaps bring us up to date on some of the legislation or programs that have been brought forward in the last number of years to try to address some of these environmental gaps?

[John Moffet]

I can only speak for Environment Canada on that issue. Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada of course has received renewed funding to support increased work under the FNLMA and is also pursuing a variety of other strategies with respect to negotiating self-government agreements with a variety of first nations.

With respect to Environment Canada, the main developments are the ones I've spoken about. They are the ongoing support we're providing for the storage tank regulations, which are responsible for a significant portion of the environmental risks on many reserves, and the imminent application of the waste water system regulations, which will apply the same standard to reserve waste water systems as to off-reserve waste water systems, which in turn are being supported by funding being provided by Aboriginal Affairs and by Infrastructure Canada to enable the implementation of appropriate technologies.

In addition to that, of course, the federal government last year promulgated changes to the Environmental Assessment Act that affected both reserves and developments off reserve and have gone some way to providing a little more coherence and clarity and predictability to enable a variety of parties to participate in processes to review potential environmental impacts of planned developments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

You have about ten seconds, if you have a question that would be that short.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

I don't have a question.

I was just surprised that there is anything that makes the heart of an auditor go pitter-patter, but that was good to know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Seeback.

Mr. Bevington, you have five minutes.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I think you mentioned that you're doing this within the limit of your resources or that INAC is doing this within the limit of its resources. Do you have any idea, after doing the audit, what the total resources are that are dedicated by INAC towards environmental matters for first nation and Métis communities?

[Ronnie Campbell]

No, I don't have that information. As I said, we haven't done any audit work in this area since 2009.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Okay.

I'm interested in the fuel storage issue, because having dealt with diesel storage issues throughout the north, it's pretty....

Now, they did an assessment. Did they find any contamination? It's in the Auditor General's report; they say that INAC did an assessment of x number of fuel tanks. Did they find contaminated sites?

[Frank Barrett]

I don't think I have that information at my fingertips. Certainly we know that they've been assessing them and determining what was needed.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

They did an assessment, but did they not notice whether they were leaking or whether there was any contamination? Was there not a part of the report that would deal with that?

[Frank Barrett]

What we deal with is contaminated sites. There's another area in which we look at cases in which there are contaminated sites and a clean-up. That's not under a regulatory regime, but—

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Has INAC cleaned up any contaminated sites on reserves?

[Frank Barrett]

Yes. We point out in the chapter that Aboriginal Affairs, as INAC now is called, has done something to address contaminated sites; however, we also point out that in their assessment and determination of what sites are contaminated, they are finding sites far more quickly than they are cleaning them up. We also point out that their current estimates are that they're not going to meet their target of cleaning up the contaminated sites that were observed before 1998. The target was to clean those up by 2020.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Are there any figures on how many sites...? In your analysis, did you look at it at all?

[Frank Barrett]

Yes, in paragraph 6.81 we make reference to their having identified 1,610 contaminated sites in April 2008 and to 557 of them being high- or medium-risk. Those are the ones that are particularly a problem. But then they continued doing assessments. Between April 2008 and April 2009 they discovered 270 more suspected contaminated sites on reserves. Then they put some money into cleaning it up, but in effect they're finding the contaminated sites far more quickly than they're able to clean them up.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Within government as a whole, supposing you found contaminated sites on another government facility on their land, what are the regulations like for the clean-up there?

[Frank Barrett]

What the federal government did, I believe through Treasury Board, was set up a $3.5 billion cost-shared program to help all federal departments clean up their contaminated sites. That was dealing with the DEW line and lots of other areas in government as well.

In fact, perhaps Mr. Moffet could speak to this. I believe Environment Canada is very much involved. But certainly there has been some activity there.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Do you want to add something, Mr. Moffet?

[John Moffet]

I have a couple of points.

First, on the issue of storage tanks, standards with respect to the construction and management of storage tanks are typically promulgated by provinces to address storage tanks off federal land and off reserves. However, the federal government has regulations in place to address the same issue on federal lands and on reserves. We've been very active in identifying where those storage tanks are as well as working with relevant communities to enable them to bring their storage tanks up to standard.

In 2010 we worked with Aboriginal Affairs to identify about 3,100 community-owned storage tanks. Prior to that, we only had 100 registered across all of the reserves. The first step, of course, is to know what the scope of the issue is. Of these 3,100, a little less than a quarter were on aboriginal lands. The next step is to ensure awareness of the regulatory standard and, where appropriate, provide funding to enable compliance. Aboriginal Affairs has dedicated funds—I don't have the specific figure in front of me, but I believe it's over $20 million—to enable compliance with those regulations.

The next issue is what programs are in place to support the cleanup or the remediation of contaminated sites. Obviously the storage tank regulations are in place to prevent the development of future contaminated sites. The government, of course, is dealing with a very significant liability with respect to existing contaminated sites. There is a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar program that applies both off and on reserves across Canada; Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development are full partners in the delivery of that program.

I apologize that I don't have the particular details about what portion of the money is spent there, but it's not accurate to say no work has been done there. They're full participants in the government program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you very much, Mr. Moffet.

Mr. Clarke, for five minutes.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for coming before the committee here today.

It's kind of interesting when I look back from a law enforcement standpoint, having worked on reserves for a majority of my career and having to deal with a lot of the issues on law enforcement, as well as some enforcement on environmental factors. I just sometimes see the regulatory gaps that come forward, especially in certain circumstances, such as landfills, which are very difficult when they're close to dwellings and everything like that.

I just want to ask a couple of questions here.

My first question concerns the regulatory gap on environmental issues: would you agree it's not enough just to pass the legislation? From what I've seen in the past from the provincial standpoint, the full range of issues addresses managing the environment from the provincial side, such as the enforcement of provincial laws. I hope you can clarify that.

Secondly, you mentioned the Indian Act, and I'm interested in that. What types of changes would you propose if you could change it under the Indian Act, or what type of legislation would come forward?

[John Moffet]

Maybe I can address the first question, and leave the speculation to my Auditor General colleagues.

I apologize, I may have misunderstood your question. Were you asking about the possibility of enforcing provincial laws on reserves?