Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 6th, 2014

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Do you—

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

—and not all—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Minister—

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

—schools are in that situation.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Minister, $175 million isn't even close to the need over three years. You know that it's not even close to the need, and people can't understand how you can't even get this $33 million out the door.

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Well, I have explained why. Because that money was committed to certain projects—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

But you can fix the process, Minister.

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Well, I cannot fix the temperature.

I cannot impose the scope of a school on a first nation.

We respect one another, we dialogue, we discuss, and unfortunately I will not impose on first nations anything that we cannot agree on, so—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

But is this not just more paternalism? Why can't you just let the money go out the door, and if the road doesn't work, it'll get.... I mean, they're going to get.... They need that school built.

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Just let the money out the door.... I know that in your party you believe that the budget balances itself, but we don't, so we have to be careful with taxpayer dollars, and we have to respect taxpayers by ensuring that those investments are made not only according to the rule of law but that they make sense.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Minister, are you saying that when you saw this number, this $33 million lapsed on education, on school infrastructure, you didn't ask your department what on earth happened?

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

First of all, I will correct you. That money hasn't lapsed, it has been reprofiled. Yes, it did—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

It didn't go to schools.

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

But it didn't lapse. The money is being reprofiled so that it can be spent—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Not away from schools....

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

—in the next fiscal year.

Now, you asked what I did when I saw this. The first question I asked was, why, with all the needs we have, haven't we spent $33 million? The answer is the one you've been provided with. These are unavoidable circumstances like weather, circumstances that prevented the spending of the money. What is important here is that we make sure these funds that are targeted for school construction be for school construction. It will happen but maybe in the next fiscal year.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Minister, there is money, just over $1 million profiled here for matrimonial property on reserve and implementing the act. From all the testimony we had at committee from Wendy Grant-John, and reports, it seems that everybody knew the act alone was not going to be enough to keep women safe. There needed to be more money for shelters. There needed to be more money for policing in communities.

So in this little bit of money that you have there for implementing the act, I don't see anything for shelters. I don't see anything to help with increasing policing. What is that money actually going to do? What are the training and education activities, and...key officials? I guess people are wondering about what the centre of excellence will do when there's such great need in communities particularly right now in Alberta, where the Alberta shelters are really crying for help.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Ms. Bennett.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

This money is going to other things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Ms. Bennett, you are out of time but I do want to give the minister an opportunity to answer so we'll turn it to the minister.

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you. I'll be brief.

This is about the matrimonial interests or rights act. It's not about shelters. It's about implementing an act of Parliament, and the funding of $1 million will consist of some $216,000 for operating expenditures to support the implementation of the act; a public education and awareness campaign of $142,000; the operation of the Centre of Excellence for Matrimonial Real Property, $529,000; and training and education for judges and legal experts, $125,000. I want to point out that this act has come into force recently and these are funds for the fiscal year 2013-14. In the main estimates you will see there are other investments that will be made for the other concerns that you've mentioned.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you very much.

We'll turn to Mr. Dreeshen now for the next seven minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here. It's been a few years since I was on aboriginal affairs but I'm happy to be back. During that time I was on public accounts, so I had some opportunities to go through some of the numbers over the years and again to take a look at some of the Auditor General's reports. Of course, I'm pleased to see that all of the recommendations were agreed to by your department to make sure that we are actually able to deal with the issues that are there as far as emergency management on reserves is concerned.

Dealing with the annex that was supplied in supplementary estimates (C), I notice there's $33.2 million that they're funding for on-reserve costs. I know that in November you were in Winnipeg and you announced the changes for this. I was just wondering if perhaps you could take a look at how the streamlining has taken place with this funding and how there's greater cooperation now being able to take place with provinces and territories. Perhaps you could just fine-tune a little bit of these details to find out how we can get some greater certainty for first nations that are dealing with emergencies.

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

We brushed on the topic a bit earlier. As you stated, I was in Winnipeg to announce this new comprehensive approach to emergency management on reserve.

What was important—because after the summer especially with the flood in Alberta, we saw in Alberta, the province with which we have an agreement....

I raise my hat to the first nations affected and the Alberta government and our department for how this situation was handled. That was done pursuant to a solid agreement, which we will use and build into these other agreements we propose to enter into with the provinces.

One of the big issues that the provincial governments and first nations faced was the fact that we were under Public Safety's disaster financial assistance arrangements. First nations had to go through Public Safety to access the fund. Then the province had to go through Public Safety but come to us for what was on reserve. There was overlap.

So with the new single-window approach for first nations to secure funding for emergency costs, we built on the four pillars of emergency management such that now we will have resources to ensure that we address all four of them: recovery, preparedness, mitigation, and response.

These estimates today are not about that. These are for investments that we have had to make because of those floods and fires that occurred in those provinces this summer.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much.

Again, I had opportunity to be at Siksika and in the west country and saw the damage there. Certainly the response was amazing, so I thank you for that.

As a former educator I was extremely pleased to see first nations control of first nations education act and I'm looking forward to seeing where that is going to take us.

In your presentation you spoke of the Purdy Crawford Chair in Aboriginal Business Studies at Cape Breton University. When I was here many years ago I had opportunities to talk to some amazing individuals in the aboriginal community who were moving forward as far as business is concerned. I'm wondering if you can talk about how this aboriginal participation can be helpful for the Canadian economy.