Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2012

[Phyllis Sutherland]

No relationship whatsoever. If I go to a band meeting and ask questions, there are people who are put in place to get up and shout me down. I was at a meeting, standing at a podium, when a band member came up. I literally thought he was going to assault me. Those are the kinds of things we put up with.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I've met Chief Hudson—he's a great guy in many regards. I know your community is doing a number of large-scale projects you're having some success with. It sounds to me like there is some tension amongst community members, and that's something this committee needs to hear. There's a bit of a communication exercise we have to go through—I see some heads nodding at the panel there—so we can build on that. It's an important point for us to take.

Beyond specific information, which I think you answered in your speech, I have a couple of other important questions. First of all, does Bill C-27 address your concerns? If the answer is yes, and perhaps even if it's no, what kind of financial literacy steps have to be done for a band member such as you or anyone else to go to a given website? What would they need to see? What steps would they have to go through to be able to understand it? Not everybody can read a consolidated audited financial statement, necessarily.

I'll get that answer from you, and if there's enough time, maybe Joseph will get a minute to chime in, given his enthusiasm.

[Phyllis Sutherland]

The information on the website should be laid out in a simple format that people can understand. They can understand, say, that education got $14 million in funding, or the band used $2 million to pay the band deficit—stuff like that. The band got $4 million in housing. Where is that $4 million? There were no houses built.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

The reporting requirement beyond just the audited consolidated statement should have these items in clear and simplified view for the purposes of your ordinary, average person looking at it.

[Phyllis Sutherland]

Yes, because right now—somebody alluded to it already—there's the use of own-source funding for slush funds for favours for supporters.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I don't want to implicate anybody here today, Phyllis. My exercise is more pragmatic. I want to break down the steps. I'm trying to envision what a person would do.

[Phyllis Sutherland]

That's a big job. You have to start with the election; it goes right back to that. The very act of allowing somebody who lives 2,000 miles away or in another country to vote, when they haven't a clue what living on a reserve is like....

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

That's a good point, so beyond the Gazette, the first nation member who is not living in the community has no access.

[Phyllis Sutherland]

Yes, and another thing that's closely related to that is who has access to all this information. Let's say Joe wanted to run for council; he doesn't know who lives where. The chief and council have access to all that information.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I appreciate that.

Joe, did you want to chime in just briefly?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Rickford, I apologize, but your time has expired. You will have another round to chat with the witnesses.

Mr. Donnelly, we'll turn to you for five minutes.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As well, thank you to our witnesses for appearing before the committee.

I have two questions. The first question is for Mr. Graham.

I'll start off with a remark and say that if we assume the fundamental principle of government-to-government relations is critical, and we also assume and accept that corruption at any level of government, or within any organization that receives public funds, is unacceptable, given those and what we're trying to fix here, would you agree that the best method or way forward is a legislative approach?

[John Graham]

I support this initiative, for sure. Will it solve all accountability problems? No.

I wouldn't mind addressing this government-to-government issue, because Ms. Sutherland raised it. Is that all right? I don't want to waste your time.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Sure. Take a minute.

[John Graham]

There is a sort of assumption that because this is a government-to-government relationship, each of the governments—that is, the first nations—should be allowed to essentially decide on what kinds of accountability relationships and that sort of thing. I think there are some really interesting differences, though, between a relationship between the federal government and the provinces, say, and between the federal government and first nations.

Even when you look at the relationship between the federal government and the provinces, there are certain grant-like transfers—health, equalization payments, and that sort of thing—but there are also contribution arrangements between these governments, which do have conditions and reporting requirements that the federal government imposes on the provincial governments. It's not all just simply a transfer of money and there you go.

The second point, I think, with this government-to-government relationship is that you have probably somewhere between 80% and 90% of first nations funds coming from the federal government. If you look at the provinces, you see that it's probably something like 80% coming from their own-source revenues. So it's quite a different thing when problems arise, in that the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs is the one taking the risks, in a sense, because the media immediately turns it to his attention and says, “Look what federal funds are doing: they're creating this mess.”

It's quite different in terms of the relationship here, because when the provinces muck up, it's not the federal government that's usually on the hook; it's the provincial minister. It is quite the reverse in this situation.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

So these are contribution agreements...?

[John Graham]

Right.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

However, if you look at first nations, if you look at provinces, if you look at cities, and if you look at charitable organizations that receive grants, you see that there are structures within those organizations that have been developed, whether or not it's by the federal government. They're more than likely developed by those organizations. I'm just wondering if the best method forward is a legislative approach, but in the few minutes I have remaining, I want to ask Mr. Craig a question, if I may.

Again, I'll just start off with a preamble. I think, Mr. Craig, you said that the average Canadian wants to know how taxes are spent, and I'm not sure that's the case. There's no question that some Canadians want to know that level of detail, but I would probably argue that there are many more Canadians who want to know that their tax dollars are being well spent or properly spent. I think there would be quite an argument over the priorities for how those tax dollars should be spent. In other words, you're going to get into quite a discussion when you talk about use of tax dollars.

I guess where I'm going—and I think you brought it up—is that publishing the salaries is one thing, versus the other columns that are also critically important when you're talking about income. I think what we're talking about here are two things: disclosure of public funds and also the misuse of public funds, or the alleged misuse. Essentially, we're dealing with an issue of income levels, fairness, and equity, and I think we're trying to find out what is the best way to achieve the level of fairness and equity with the use of those dollars. So I'm wondering if—

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Donnelly, you have only 20 seconds left, and you want to get some answers in here, I'm sure.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Twenty seconds? Sure.

I'm just wondering if publishing salaries over a particular threshold is the way to go, or if there is some other method that you would suggest.

[Colin Craig]

One of the things we like about this legislation is that it doesn't really increase the burden on reserves. This information already has to be produced. What it does is it merely puts it online.

You know, it wouldn't take long at all to take, say, all the statements from last year, hire a summer student, get them to scan them all, and start posting them on the reserve profile sites, which are already online. That could be a very easy step to get all this information on there.

We think it's positive to report the full pay picture for reserve politicians, for two reasons. As I've already stated, band members want to know what the full picture is, right? If a chief or a councillor is receiving money from a gas station, they want to know how much they're getting in terms of that total pay amount. But taxpayers also want to know how funds are being spent on reserves as well.

We're not suggesting that every single person out there in Canada wants to spend their evenings going through these profiles to see what's happening in every community. I mean, obviously that's not the case. But it is important to have that information available so that, as I stated before, if there is a reserve that has indicated that they need more money for this, that, or the other thing, then the typical person living off reserve can go in and look and say, “This community is very transparent, and their pay levels aren't very high. You know what? It might make sense to vote for a politician who wants to put in a new sewer system there.”

I think that's why it's important to have this information online.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thanks so much.

We'll turn now to Mr. Richards, for five minutes.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think I'll start with you, Mr. Quesnel. When my colleague Mr. Rickford was asking some questions of one of your fellow panellists, you looked like you were kind of eager to respond as well to that question.

I just wanted to give you the opportunity to add your voice on that.

[Joseph Richard Quesnel]

Could you remind me of the question? I think there were a couple of points I was eager to answer.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Sure. And if there's another point you wanted to make, I would allow you to do that too. That would be just fine.

I think the question related specifically to providing the information, and how it might best be provided and shared in terms of ease of use for people in order to help create the accountability they're seeking.