Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 24th, 2012

[Chief Roland Twinn]

Yes.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Right.

Were you consulted on this bill?

[Chief Roland Twinn]

No.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Was anybody consulted on this bill?

[Chief Roland Twinn]

No.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

As a government to government...do you think that is correct? Do you think hat is right?

[Chief Roland Twinn]

I believe it's a fallback to the old ways. We are governments, as asserted. I do believe consultation with us should be required of anything that could affect our aboriginal and treaty rights. I do believe that if you're going to make laws to govern people, they should have an input. How that input is given should be open and transparent, and it should be in a fair manner and cover as many people as possible.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Would you also like to comment?

[John Paul]

I would say that we do have clear rules, in terms of the policies and procedures of the council, that actually describe how you would have to go about disclosing all the information, whether or not you are a council member—including a business person in the community. You would end up having to disclose that information to the community through some means, telling people that you are doing business in the community.

You have to understand, we're also governed by conflict of interest rules as well that also do not permit people, families or individuals, to take unfair advantage of information and so on. At the end of the day, it's really about trying to get everybody, chief and council and the entire community, to understand the rules and procedures they're going to follow and accept, as well as the penalties if you don't follow them.

In our case, if you don't want to follow these rules, you aren't going to be on the council. It's very simple.

I think another piece of it that was kind of talked about is that communication to the members is an ongoing process—daily, weekly, monthly—and you have to spend the time and effort and resources to do that, including the annual report. It's not just an annual report. You have to tell people what you're doing all the time, because as a politician in a community you're accessible 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Whether it's your window, or the curb, or the baby's sick, or something, it doesn't matter. Sometimes they don't distinguish between calling the nurse or whatever; you're the chief, or you're the leader in the community, so they want your help, they want your assistance. That's really the way it is.

I will say more about process. Part of why we went into the FMB was because we already went down the road of ISO certification, to create standards and process and improvement in what we did. This was only in line with exactly what we were trying to do anyway, so when the FMB came along—we knew it was there—we said we'll move it up another stage, and we directed the staff to get all the stuff done to fulfill those requirements too. We are dealing with the banks, we are dealing with the private sector, we are dealing with the community, so the more you have documented in the process, the more information you produce to clearly explain and document this stuff, the better off you'll be.

At the end of the day, in communities, the staff and the leadership serve the people in the communities. Whether they're on reserve or off reserve, it doesn't matter. You still serve those members the best way you can.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Paul.

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

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Let me add my voice to those of my colleagues in welcoming the panel. Thank you for giving us your time and energy this afternoon.

I have three questions, and then some dangling ones at the end. I'm not sure we'll get through the three of them, but we'll give it a run.

My questions are hinged around the International Organization for Standardization, ISO, certification and current practices, first of all.

Membertou has been ISO certified since 2002, and the Membertou website claims that makes it the first aboriginal government in the world to become ISO 9001 certified. Can you please tell us how the certification came about and why you felt it was necessary to become certified?

These questions are for any members of the panel.

[John Paul]

I think one of the biggest challenges we face is trying to build a relationship with the non-native business community in Atlantic Canada, even in our local area. It was decided a number of years ago to create a corporate entity to look at corporate activities, to build and educate the business community about what we do.

During that process, one of the things that was identified as a fundamental basic requirement was ISO certification, in order to secure certain types of procurement, or contracts, or activities. At that point the community, the chief and council, decided to do that and use it as a tool to do two things. One was to put it forward as a standard that we follow like other private sector companies in the country. The second was to improve our own processes internally in terms of just doing things better; ISO is about documenting and doing things better. If you're in a community, that's what you want to do.

I think doing that really helped us in building relationships with companies that didn't know Membertou from a hole in the wall. Some of the companies we talked to said, “Well, where is Membertou? Is it near Toronto? Is it in B.C.? Where is it?” Nobody knows where Cape Breton is sometimes. We had to really nail that part down to make sure people understood where we're from.

I think it took a long time to get through the process, but at the end of the day, it really energized all the staff who worked for the band, almost 500 or 600 people now, to work on improvement—not just improvement of the business side of our activities or the corporate side of our activities, but the community side of our activities.

It's very interesting what we do, not just on the business side for ISO, but on the community side for ISO, to improve the quality of service to community members. That's a critical part of this whole process. That's the big reason we ended up following it and achieving that standard. We believed at that time that it must be okay; if it's a world-recognized standard, somebody must recognize it somewhere. So you go down that road, you get it done, and you apply it.

It does take a lot of work. It takes a lot of time and effort of the staff, talking to the community, talking to a lot of people about really trying to take the concept of ISO and actually implementing it in a community context. It's quite interesting how it gets applied in things we do relative to the community, whether it's health services, social services, housing. Whatever it is, those rules of improvement apply, and the processes are documented for everything.

When I tell the story, I always say, what if the band manager or the finance guy who's been working here for 20 years gets hit by a bus next week? Somebody else can just pick up the file, pick up the manuals, and figure out how to do it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Boughen, I do apologize. You broke in there, but we're out of time.

We're going to turn now to Mr. Cash for five minutes.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'd like to thank all of you for being here.

Your deliberation today has been very enlightening for me and very meaningful. Because you touched on some of this earlier, Mr. Paul and Mr. Calla, could you give us a more detailed sense of some of the ways in which you'd like to change this, some of the amendments that you'd like to bring forward here?

[Harold Calla]

The one suggestion I would have is that remuneration needs to be looked at, and the definition of it. I think this is clearly one thing that needs to be done, to ensure that it's consistent with practices in the non-aboriginal world—I don't like using that term, but it's a term you might understand. I think this needs to be reflected upon.

It's a requirement to produce an audit. I think it's burdensome to expect that a first nation community is going to have to put an audit on a website that it may or may not have for ten years. I don't see the merit of that. It's not something that is needed, quite frankly.

Subject to those two provisions, I'd like to add a whole bunch, talking about financial management systems and financial performance. If you take our standards and want to replicate them in the law, we'd be pleased. You have a binder at the back that's about three inches thick, English and French.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Paul.

[John Paul]

In terms of looking at the remuneration issue, as Harold said, you have to look at standards.

One thing we did as part of work with Membertou and other communities in the Atlantic area was to go to the international Hay Group to put a value on the job of chief and to look at setting what the benchmark should be, based on the role as assessed by the Hay Group, an independent body that is world-renowned and recognized—to make those determinations and set those benchmarks based on the role of the chief, not based on who it was or on anything else.

We did the study, we shared it with all our communities, and it's very interesting that many of the communities are using that information to make determinations on what range they feel is acceptable, based on the actual role of the chief.

The other issue, as Harold said, is to decide how far you're going to go into the detail of the subsidiaries. The only thing I would say is, don't create harm for our communities based on something that you believe is supposed to help us. You can't create more harm for us or eliminate business opportunities because of something you're trying to achieve; that doesn't make any sense.

If you want us to get out of poverty, if you want us to become economically self-reliant, help us. Help us do it in a way that ensures that the business side of the things we do is done using the general standards of everybody else, but don't put us out there basically with no clothes on and let everybody take advantage of us. Part of the big problem we run into is that in the business world not everybody is a saint. I wish it were the case that they are, but it's not. There are still people out there who would in some cases take advantage. Community people and communities are well-minded, very trustworthy people in some cases; they trust people for who they are and what they do. But I think that in some cases bad things happen. The issue Harold was talking about concerning financial performance is something that really needs to be figured out, in terms of what it is.

The other issue that I mentioned earlier is that we have to figure out a way to eliminate the paper burden of reporting requirements. As I mentioned earlier, in spite of our being ISO-certified, in spite of our being FMB-certified, we still have to deal with the reporting guide, which is very thick, from the department—the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development reporting guide.

You ask the question, and you have to wonder.... I tell our CFO and the other guys, just fill out the paperwork and send it in. God knows, somebody has to read it there—I hope. It's usually thousands of pages long.

For the community, having the tools and the commitment of the leadership to communicate and get the right information out all the time is essential. Communities can figure out how to come up with the best ways to do it that are considerate of our values, considerate of our culture, and considerate of the different stakeholders you deal with in the community. It could be the opposition, it could be the different interest groups in your community, but you have to figure out how to deal with them all, because they're not going anywhere.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Paul.

We'll turn now to Mr. Clarke for the last five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of things, being myself a first nations person.

I thank the witnesses for coming here and testifying today. This is very important, not just for me, but also for my band members and my home first nation in Muskeg Lake, and also for all first nations across Canada.

We all have a responsibility and we're all elected. But what we've heard goes from one extreme to the other: there are first nations that are accountable to their band membership, but then there are the ones that just disregard the band membership, blatantly not providing any information or any type of financial transparency to their band members.

That's what I find really disheartening. We look here at the issues that are facing first nations, and at the challenges. At times there's no accountability. They're spending at their own rate.

I've seen first nations—for instance, in Saskatchewan, Beardy's first nation. Under one administration they were in the black; now, currently, they are in the red, overspending and not being accountable to the membership.

I look at Clarence—and thank you very much.... I'm going to ask you a couple of questions, and I hope I have my notes all in order.

Here is one of the points I have. I was just talking to my first nations chief, Chief Tawpisin in Muskeg. He says that membership assemblies' auto-presentations are placed on the website's members' section. That's how they transmit their information to the membership; they use the website.

Also, they take an extra step. For first nations members off reserve, they travel to Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Prince Albert, and through band meetings on the home reserve.... They provide that information to the band members. All they're doing is transferring the data from the auditor's statement at their meetings to their website.

I find it a relief to know that first nations people, especially my band membership, have this opportunity to look at it and do their own examination to see where the funding is going.

Clarence, you mentioned program funding. I have an example here from one of the first nations in Saskatchewan, which is very concerned.

They made a request for $140,000 in funding for the children and community programs, to be utilized by the band through the school—I'm not going to mention what school, but it was approved by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs—in a reinvestment fund; however, to the best of her ability and knowledge, those funds have not been available for the school's use—and this person is the one who wrote and made the funding request—and there has been no accountability.

That's why we're trying to look at the first nations individuals here. I expect first nations individuals.... If the funding is available and it's being allotted for that community, it should be given.

Clarence, you made a statement in 2010 in a Winnipeg Sun article. You were quoted as saying that:

It's very disturbing that salaries could be as high as what has been reported when the majority of the leadership are making an average of $60,000 per year.... It really paints a negative picture when there are many chiefs making good efforts to provide the best leadership for their communities.

In your opinion, if first nations governments disclose this information and provide the opportunity for first nations to demonstrate that the leaders are receiving such a high remuneration, are they outliers?

I'm hoping you can address that question.

How much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

You only have a minute left.

I think you may want to rephrase that question, Mr. Clarke.

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

Okay.

In your opinion, will having all first nations governments disclose this information provide an opportunity for first nations to demonstrate that the leaders receiving the remuneration are being accountable?

You can answer that question.

But Harold, I have one further question that I hope you can answer as well. You mention your best practices. How do you compel first nations to start complying? There are going to be blatant attempts not to comply. What suggestions do you have?

Clarence, you can answer. And Harold, if you can, answer that question as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I think, Mr. Calla, if you're prepared....

[Harold Calla]

I think I can.

We're not saying that there don't have to be consequences. But with respect, the issue you just raised is a management issue. It's not going to be resolved because you tell somebody how much salary you got. Financial management systems deal with process management types of actions. That's why we're saying that the Financial Management Board has to develop standards that address those kinds of issues. Yes, there must be reporting, and yes, there must be consequences.

The money whip has been used by the federal government for hundreds of years. Where are we today? We're no better off than we've ever been. So maybe we had better get them to think about why they want to do it for themselves, not why they want to do it to satisfy Ottawa.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Clarence, did you have a follow-up? The time has now expired, but I want to give you an opportunity to respond to the question.

[Clarence Paupanekis]

If I understand you correctly, I think you're asking how we hold chiefs and councillors accountable if this bill isn't passed.

We're not against being accountable and transparent. I think that's something I mentioned earlier. We do what we can for our Cree Nation, our membership, in terms of providing the information that's available. We have our annual audit. It's made available to them.

I can't speak for other first nations, but it's been mentioned that amendments are required. From our perspective, as a Cree Nation, we're not against it, only portions of it. It should be fair to our community, our first nations, and all first nations in general.