Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 6th, 2012

[Michael Wernick]

Well, I'd just repeat that what you're hearing is negotiating friction between what they would like to get and what we think we can offer. In the Yukon, ten of the eleven first nations did sign a renewal of their agreements. We are generally able to renew these agreements and keep going, but we don't expect that everybody's going to be happy with the formulas and the amounts that we can afford.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Is my time up?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

You have 15 seconds to ask and for the answer.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Very quickly, I'm just wondering, Mr. Wernick, if you can tell the table if the estimates in the mains for the furtherance of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission includes their interim report calling for an increase in funds to complete their work to the end of 2014, to fully compensate all victims, to refund the national healing foundation, and to provide education programs in schools.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Unfortunately, Ms. Duncan has used more than her time. We'll give you a moment for a quick answer.

[Michael Wernick]

Very quickly, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a separate department. Justice Sinclair is the deputy head of that department. He has his own estimates, his own report on plans and priorities, and his own performance report.

So that's really a question you should put to him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

Mr. Wilks, for five minutes.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Swords and Mr. Wernick, for being here today.

I'm going to switch gears a little bit.

The joint action plan, which was developed to recognize the importance of communication and coordination between Canada and the Assembly of First Nations, was broadened to four main areas.

First, how does your legislation agenda advance the government's overall agenda in terms of its commitments to the first nations coming out of the crown and first nations gathering and the joint action plan?

[Michael Wernick]

If you've been following the issues in this area for a while, I think you've seen increasing attention to the need for a more solid structural foundation for the activities we have. It was a major theme of the former Auditor General's report last year.

You're also seeing that reflected in the action plan. We have operated for many years on the basis of contribution programs, where we put money into areas and hope that we will get better outcomes. There's a lot of reporting that goes with those. What you're seeing now is an emphasis on having some clear statutory frameworks with some roles and responsibilities and some accountabilities—accountabilities for the first nations and accountabilities for us as a department and a funder.

The water standards legislation is certainly in that spirit, and we hope that we can get to that first nations education act within the life of this Parliament.

There are other complementary pieces that certainly go to elements of the action plan. The action plan puts a lot of focus on strong, capable, accountable first nations governments who are more accountable to their members than they are to us, which is something we entirely support.

It's in that spirit that we've worked with willing partners to bring forward legislation to reform some aspects, but not all, of the elections regime. We think the transparency legislation will allow a major shift of accountability so that chiefs and councils are reporting to their members and not to us.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you very much.

Further to that, in 2007 Canada announced a specific claims action plan known as “Justice at Last”. Can you provide this committee with the progress and changes that have been made under the Justice at Last initiative? And what is the significance and the result of those changes?

[Michael Wernick]

I'm sure you're familiar with the fact that specific claims are allegations of very specific violations of trust or responsibility by the Government of Canada. Some of them go back a long time and some of them are more recent. They often involve land transactions and that sort of thing.

The action plan was an attempt to remove the bottlenecks in that process, making sure that there were legal assessments given and negotiated, and offers put on the table quickly. If necessary, you could go to a tribunal and get a binding award, so we would know that if we were too slow or not forthcoming, we could lose at the tribunal, and the first nation would know that if it made a ridiculous demand, it could lose at the tribunal.

This has had a very, very salutary effect on negotiating essentially an out-of-court settlement or a claim settlement on a number of these areas. We have been able to take a claims backlog—we counted about 550 claims back in 2008—and settle 44 claims totalling $931 million. We have completed legal analysis and made offers to a lot of other communities.

Of some of the claims that were the biggest, the most difficult and expensive ones, the ones above $150 million, there were six identified at the time of the announcement, and we've settled three of them. We're optimistic that we may get another one within the next year or so.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

You have one minute left, Mr. Wilks.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I wanted to quickly speak to something that Ms. Duncan had spoken to with regard to the Nisga'a treaty.

I was fortunate to have lived in New Aiyansh from 1983 to 1985, and watched as that progression of treaty went through. Although there were some frustrations at the time, the communities of New Aiyansh, Canyon City, Greenville, and Kincolith have come a long way.

I wonder if you could speak to how that treaty paved the way for the positive results of other modern treaties that have come about.

[Michael Wernick]

I think there's definitely momentum in these issues. The pioneering communities were Sechelt, Westbank, and Nisga'a in terms of a modern treaty. Everybody has learned a lot from the early experience. We've learned the importance of having dispute resolution mechanisms in place so that you don't have to go to the courts to resolve every little issue. We've learned a lot about the difficulty of implementation in the start-up phase of that.

In the more recent generation of agreements, such as Tsawwassen and Maa-nulth, we pay a lot more attention to the implementation and hand-off to the first nation, and I think we're seeing better results with those.

Nisga’a does have ongoing issues with us, and I certainly acknowledge that, but they have been able to really take charge of their own affairs. They're very active in the economic life of northern B.C., as you know, and they've been quite innovative in terms of their land management regime. They're willing to experiment with the property ownership regime within their communities. It's a decision they took. I think a lot of other first nations communities are watching them very closely to see how it goes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Wernick.

Thank you, Mr. Wilks.

Mr. Bevington, for five minutes.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Wernick, I believe you were here, speaking in front of this committee on estimates, perhaps last fall, was it?

[Michael Wernick]

It's very likely. I've been here for the last five cycles, so....

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

At the time, I asked you questions about northern programs and the rather large reductions in the northern programs that were in the main estimates last year. You told me that likely those dollars would be added in the supplementary estimates.

Well, we've seen the supplementary estimates now, and very little of that money was added back in. In fact, now we see that in 2012-13 in the main estimates, the area of “Northern Land, Resources and Environmental Management”, which started at $293 million and dropped in 2011-12 down to $73 million, has returned to $203 million, which is a net loss of $90 million.

Then we have the area entitled “Contribution for promoting the safe use, development, conservation and protection of the North's natural resources”, which started at $82 million, dropped to $24 million last year, and has now been set at $30 million in the main estimates.

These are fairly significant cuts to northern programs. You indicated the last time we spoke here that these were...that you didn't understand these cuts. Could you give us some more information now on what those cuts actually meant to northerners?

[Michael Wernick]

I don't think, if I understand your question, these should be characterized as cuts. These are actually changes in spending because things have been completed.

What happened on a number of the contaminated sites projects up north is that the remediation work is done. We've moved on to the monitoring phase on those specific projects. There are still some big rocks to lift in terms of northern contaminated sites, but a lot of them have actually been done. So you'll see the profile drop a little bit because we're not in the remediation phases of some of those.

There was money allocated for the Arctic research infrastructure program. That was part of the stimulus package. About 20 facilities were built. It's done. We don't need the money any more, because those projects were completed.

Similarly, under the International Polar Year there was money spent, but the high point of the research was about two years ago. That activity has wound up, so we don't need that money next year.

So I think what you're seeing is a change in the profile of activity, but not a cut in the sense of something we're doing that we're cutting back on.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Well, you haven't given me any figures indicating in those programs what was cut, what was spent. You've just once again said to me.... I'm looking for more active information about what actually was not funded last year, what has been returned to being funded this year, what you're proposing when you go from $293 million, down to $73 million, back up to $203 million. What's going on there, in your department?

[Michael Wernick]

No, I think the exchange we had was about the contaminated sites program and the clean air agenda, which were again caught in that problem we always have that when the estimates go to bed, we don't know what's going to happen to the sunsetted programs in the budget. That's always unfortunate, because the planned spending doesn't reflect things that will happen in the budget.

So in fact what I told you—

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

And they brought it back up again this year.

[Michael Wernick]

In fact, in those programs the money was added in. There was money added through supplementary estimates (B) for contaminated sites—$106 million—and there was money added back in for the clean energy agenda.

I'd be happy to try to construct a funding table for you of what was in the mains and what was added with supplementaries. In that case, the sunsetters did in fact get renewed and were replenished through supplementary estimates.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

You are saying $103 million was added in the supplementary estimates?