Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 8th, 2014

[Tom Vincent]

That's right. If the person died as ordinarily being a resident on the reserve, then the intestacy provisions of the Indian Act would apply or the will would apply to administer that estate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

We'll go to Ms. Bennett.

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

I'd be happy to have an informal conversation about what we do about all this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Okay. There are a few people who have indicated they want to maintain their line of questions—

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

One thing I would ask, if you were going to go to provincial...a first nation like Akwesasne spreads over two different provinces.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

This has been our concern with things like the water act, when you talk about provincial standards. Do you have any advice on that?

[Andrew Saranchuk]

We were laughing a little bit, because you can imagine the jurisdictional complexity of Akwesasne, where there are the five different jurisdictions, including the U.S., Canada, Quebec, and Ontario. I can imagine how complex it would be if there were a property right near some of those lines. That's probably, of course, an outlier in terms of...but it would have to be factored into any new system for sure.

What would my advice be? It really depends on how much of a change Parliament would like to make in this area, I suppose. You could see change being made. On the other hand, I would just suggest that there are certain benefits. I appreciate the questions in terms of the constraints, if you will, in terms of reserve land and how that's dealt with under the Indian Act in wills and estates, but as we tried to make clear, there are certain services that are offered to first nations individuals on reserve that aren't necessarily offered anymore through the provincial system. If, for instance, I were to die and my will had to be probated, presumably that would require somebody engaging a lawyer or going to court, and there would be fees associated with that. Those fees, in terms of probate, are currently provided at no cost by the department. If you look at taking the department out of the affairs, then individuals would lose that service or benefit, if you will.

There would be pros and cons to that, and I suppose the only other thing I'd mention—and Akwesasne is a good example in terms of complexity—would be thinking that through with regard to more remote communities. For a community that's in the north, when you're talking about engaging a lawyer to probate a will, there are going to be travel costs associated with that, even in terms of getting to the nearest courthouse.

So there are potentially complexities associated with changing the system, which is not to say that there's any resistance about potentially changing the system. It is actually a complex area in terms of how it works on the ground right now. It's relatively complex.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Strahl, we'll turn to you.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'll share my time with Mr. Seeback.

Perhaps we'll get into this as the study progresses. Have any stakeholders, AFN or other groups, expressed to the department any desire to delve into this matter at this time or at any time in the past, or is this kind of a result of Mr. Clarke's private member's bill? Has this come forward from other groups as well?

[Andrew Saranchuk]

I would say generally that the work we have been doing in terms of some policy engagement here is largely as a result of Mr. Clarke's bill, and we did some outreach when we realized there was potential legislative appetite here to make changes. We've done some outreach with some groups, some experts, and some provinces in terms of their views because, as I tried to indicate in our remarks, we understand the federal system vis-à-vis the Indian Act. We don't have a total understanding of how the provincial systems work or of how they would operate if the federal system weren't there, so we're trying to gain that understanding in the event that there are changes.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I want to turn now to the chart that the analysts provided to us about the regional workload analysis on estates administration. I'm not sure if you have that. Some things jumped out at me.

In British Columbia, my home province, there are 169 departmental employee administrations. In Alberta it's zero. In Manitoba there are 349. How can one province have zero and another have 350 or 100? Is that just a statistical anomaly? Even the number of person-years dedicated to estates shows that B.C. has four times more than Alberta has.

I'm trying to understand the regional disparity. Why isn't it consistent across the country?

[Andrew Saranchuk]

Those are good questions. We've actually looked at the chart and asked ourselves that.

I'll try to field the second question first with respect to the person-years dedicated. It's tough to answer that question. Partially it's a result of how that departmental region allocates its resources, and the extent of emphasis it puts on those resources. Some of this, as Mr. Gray was trying to explain, is about their outreach to communities there. There is an outreach involved whereby people are trying to educate groups about potentially making wills, and how they deal with wills. There's a greater emphasis on that, for whatever reason, in the B.C. region.

I, myself, had the same view as you when I looked at the column, though, about the number of appointments of administrators. How there could be zero in Alberta, to be honest, it didn't make sense to me.

I don't know, Mr. Gray, if you have anything to add.

[Roy Gray]

I'm looking at that and asking myself whether that is an anomaly, because it really doesn't make sense, the zero.

That said, generally speaking, just to echo what Mr. Saranchuk was saying, the resources that are allocated are based on regional decisions. For instance, in B.C. there are significant resources allocated to the function and they do, as a result, a fair bit of outreach that's not done in other regions.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Zero is the big one, but there are three in Saskatchewan, and six in Ontario. Those numbers are also really low. Does that have something to do with what's happening in that region with the office there? I don't know. I'd be interested if the department had an opportunity to provide us with further analysis, more detail on that.

Anyway, I do want to give Kyle some time here.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

When you look at those numbers, what's the processing time for someone who has applied through AANDC? Is there an average processing time?

I don't want to know about contested ones, where you have to refer to the courts—I want to get to that in some of my questions, and maybe in a later round—but the average person that comes in and....

[Roy Gray]

Our understanding is, for example, for approval of wills, it takes seven to twelve days. Bear in mind it's done at the regional level. It's done by a regional officer. That's if there are no issues. If two wills show up, obviously there's an issue, so it's going to take more time. But generally speaking, it doesn't take very long.

If we're talking about appointment of administrators, it may take 120 days or so. Built into that is a notice period. As Mr. Saranchuk mentioned, if you're going to appoint a family member as an administrator, you have to go out and notify the other family members to make sure that they're okay with that.

Moving from that to the overall administration of the estate from start to finish, it's hard to say, because, again, that would much very depend on the complexities.

[Andrew Saranchuk]

For example, whether or not land is bequeathed in the estate to a non-band member, all of a sudden you're into that complexity that we tried to explain. If it's relatively straightforward, it could go a lot quicker.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Presumably the will could not be challenged initially, but as the distributions take place, there could be a challenge from other family members. Do they then come to AANDC and say, “Wait a minute. I was supposed to get x and I didn't get x; I got y”? Is that something that happens within your department as well?

[Roy Gray]

Yes, there could be a complaint, in which case there could be an investigation. What can happen often is.... Because the minister has the authority to transfer a whole or a part of the estate administration to a court, that could happen, because admittedly the department isn't necessarily that well equipped to manage those kinds of disputes. It's not as well equipped as a provincial court.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Do you know how many get referred to the court on a yearly basis?

[Roy Gray]

I don't have that information with me now.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

No? I'd be interested to know what that number is.

How am I doing for time, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

You're out of time, but we'll have additional time for you later.

[A voice]

Do you want some of mine?