Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 6th, 2012

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I did not ask a question, Mr. Minister. I just made a statement.

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

I know, but I disagree with the premise of your statement from the standpoint that there is much support for combining the land and water boards. If you're taking a position that says the opposite, well, that's your position, but I think we have a strong claim to the fact that it has a lot of support.

In terms of the energy question, the ecoENERGY program is not this department, so I'm having a little trouble responding.

[Michael Wernick]

I'll correct this if I get it wrong, Mr. Bevington, but it's an NRCan program that we were able to tap into. It will affect us, and we can use the first nations infrastructure fund for clean energy projects on reserve if that's what the community wants to make a priority.

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

Thank you.

We did have some money in our budget for some research towards alternate energy sources. I know there's some strong interest in seeing if that can be tried out in pilot projects in remote communities. I don't know how that's played out. I know I've heard some strong interest from first nations and from the north.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

If I could just offer some advice to the department, there's been an entirely successful bioenergy conversion program by the Government of the Northwest Territories in the Northwest Territories. You saw some of the facilities there, Mr. Minister, when you had the opportunity to take a northern tour a number of years ago.

This is a clear opportunity for northern Canada, right across the whole country, to reduce the cost of heating for northern communities, which is one of the main energy costs. Can you show us that your department will be taking this seriously?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

You'll have to do so in less than 20 seconds, if at all possible.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Just say yes.

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

If we can look at cost savings for communities, of course we'll do that. Energy is a costly item.

I was at the Yellowknife hospital, or I think it was the hospital—the big public building where they're using the wood pellets and so on. I visited that plant, and as far as I know, that's very cost-efficient. They were looking at expanding that to other public buildings.

That's all really good stuff, which we're encouraging, but a lot of this falls under the auspices of the Northwest Territories government as well, or the municipal government. There's a tendency to attribute all of this to the federal government, but at times it doesn't really belong there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Bevington. Your time is long up.

Minister, we do want to thank you for joining us this afternoon. We know that you have pressing requirements on your time and you have to leave. We'll thank you for the one hour.

Colleagues, we'll now suspend for a few minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Colleagues, we'll call the meeting back to order, and we'll turn to Mr. Boughen for the next five minutes.

Mr. Boughen.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to our two guests who are with us this afternoon.

Our committee is studying land use and economic development and the relationship between the two. We were wondering what the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

If I could jump in here, we still have conversations happening in the back of the room.

Ms. Duncan, we're back in order. Conversations can move out if they need to carry on.

Mr. Boughen, go ahead.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thanks, Chair.

The question is what is Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada doing to modernize land management to respond to problems in managing lands under the Indian Act? Just a short answer on that would be fine, as opposed to a long answer.

[Michael Wernick]

Thanks for the question, and I will try to be brief.

I know the committee is seized with the land issues and the link to economic development, so we're looking forward to any advice the committee has to offer in the months ahead.

It's one of the most thorny issues in the “Let's get out of the Indian Act” conversation, because when people say that, they don't mean “Let's abolish it tomorrow and have fee simple land and go to the land system that takes place off reserve”. The transition to activate the land base of what are now Indian reserves into the economy is a delicate and tricky thing.

The main tool we are trying to work with is the First Nations Land Management Act, which was developed in partnership with some leading first nations, particularly centred in British Columbia, some time ago. A couple of years ago we found that the process was somewhat bottlenecked, so we worked very hard with those chiefs and with the land advisory board to unclog that bottleneck. We found a new funding formula. We found assessment tools that worked for communities to figure out if they were FNLMA-ready, if I can put it that way, and, as the minister said, we were able to add another 18 communities to the regime.

They basically are leaving about a third of the Indian Act behind them, taking control of local land use, land planning, and environment management, and that gives them the tools to make a lot of decisions about economic possibilities in their communities.

We're also trying to speed up the process of adding lands to reserves—the famous ATR, additions to reserves. Lands are being added either through treaty settlements or when communities get money through settlements and decide to acquire land for expansion or housing, for economic development purposes. It's a very slow, heavily lawyered process to move money from the provincial crown to the federal crown to create reserve status, but we're trying to remove all of the bottlenecks that we can and unkink the hose on that process. We've made a lot of progress, particularly in Manitoba and Saskatchewan on that.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

What do you see as the benefits of the First Nations Land Management Act?

[Michael Wernick]

The main thing, as the minister said, is the speed of business. It means that a council can actually make decisions very quickly and execute them without going through AANDC regional offices and getting permissions and getting ministers' signatures on documents.

The Indian Act system is very paternalistic. It requires a lot of ministerial authorizations. If you're in FNMLA and you've created the land codes and the structures, then, much like any regional municipality or city, you can make decisions that this piece of land can be designated for housing, and that one can be leased, and you can go into a partnership with a private sector partner on hotel development and those sorts of things. It just gives them the ability to make those decisions locally and to execute them much more quickly.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Have I any time left, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

You have a minute and a half, if you would like it.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

I have a final question. In the land management, how do you designate the land itself in terms of residential, commercial, or industrial? Do you have some sort of a designation, as there is for land found in other parts of Canada? If so, is it the same kind of designation?

[Michael Wernick]

Those are the decisions the local council should be making if they want to decide this is for housing, that is for protected areas, that is a cultural space, and so on. That is exactly the kind of decision the local council should be making in cooperation with its own community.

We try to encourage community planning processes, much as would take place in any municipality, so it can make its own priorities and decisions.

We don't get into the business of telling a first nation what they should do with any particular piece of property. That is really for them to decide.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

Ms. Duncan, for five minutes.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for hanging in there to answer the rest of our questions.

The government is fond of speaking about the land management act and the land code. It is a mechanism that is useful, potentially, for a lot of first nations operating under the Indian Act to move towards that. But a growing number of first nations are operating under first nation final agreements and self-government agreements, and they are not going to be under that mechanism; they're under their own mechanisms, which are negotiated between the first nations and the government.

Yet we hear increasingly from parties to those modern treaties that the governments are dragging their heels on the delivery of the dollars that are promised under those negotiated agreements. As I mentioned earlier, in the case of Nunavut they have been forced to go to court, because after 17 attempts to have disputes over funding arrangements arbitrated they are not getting anywhere.

I wanted to put this to the minister, but regrettably he isn't with us for the full hour. It has been brought to my attention that during the debate on the Nisga'a.... By the way, Nisga'a is one of the first nations under a modern treaty that is very frustrated with the failure of the government to deliver under that treaty. I noted that in the debate in 1999 on the Nisga'a treaty, Minister Duncan, then an MP, was making quite derogatory comments about the very concept of modern treaties. He said the “Nisga'a disagreement”, as he called it,

...is the most important and the worst social and economic legislation and constitutional amendment in my lifetime. It is with a heavy heart that I speak to this agreement once again, knowing that the government is committed to what will be seen down the road as a monumental social and economic blunder.

The Nisga'a come to the table again to the federal government for delivery under that agreement knowing what strong opposition there was to that agreement by what is now the Conservative government and was then the Reform Party. So I would like to hear from the department about what are the main reasons for the dragging of heels, and the continuing mounting shortfall in the delivery of the promised dollars, so that these first nations under modern treaties can participate in the economy, can educate their populace, and can actually participate in the economy and move forward, as the government is saying they would like them to.

[Michael Wernick]

If I may comment, I think what our position would be is that we are fully implementing all of the legal obligations under all of the modern treaties. There are no dollars that have not been delivered and there is no foot-dragging. What happens in the agreements is that adjustments are made when you leave the Indian Act and enter into self-government, and people enter into those agreements freely. If they don't, you know.... We have formulas, adjustments, and comparators, and people get an initial adjustment for self-government.

What happens then is that the basic financial transfers for the running costs of that government and that community will tend to come up for renewal about every five years, and then you get into haggling about what should be the transfer for the next five-year period. Just like the discussions between the federal government and the provinces, or between the provinces and school boards and municipalities, there's a bit of a gap between what they would like to get and what we think we can offer. That's all you're hearing. It's negotiating friction. There are no unmet obligations.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Wernick, that's sounding like the way the minister talks about “aspirational”. When I actually look at the documents.... For example, I've been looking at the documents for the Yukon first nations and the latest agreement on apportionment of dollars for implementation of the treaty, those dollars, as per.... Their agreement says that they will provide comparable dollars as they're being provided to the Yukon, yet they are telling me that there are major shortfalls. You add to that the fact that they are very isolated communities and it's very expensive to deliver services and develop.

They're expressing great frustration, as they did to this committee as well: they do not feel that the government is delivering the dollars as promised per the terms, even of the criteria recently negotiated.