Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 19th, 2019

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I'm fine. Thank you.

I knew it was time.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

All right, we're moving on to MP Georgina Jolibois.

[Georgina Jolibois, NDP, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Good morning, and thank you for coming.

I appreciate this. However, I'm not going to focus on the government departments. I live in an area where all of these things you're talking about occur, and the dismay at the solutions and what's coming out.

I'm not going to focus on the negative today but on the Auditor General's report, as well as SSHRC.

To my knowledge, that the work you at the SSHRC have done throughout Canada is very important work. Can you describe what SSHRC has been doing thus far in Canada?

[Dr. Ted Hewitt]

Do you mean globally or with respect to indigenous people?

[Georgina Jolibois, NDP, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I mean in Canada with respect to indigenous peoples.

[Dr. Ted Hewitt]

Okay.

You're asking the question about SSHRC. I'd be pleased to try to answer with respect to the other funding councils as well, CIHR and NSERC, which are also doing important work. I want to make that very clear. If I'm speaking here about my agency, I'm responsible for that.

For many years we have funded indigenous research, which we define as research that is done by and/or with indigenous communities in Canada. We have expended over the years tens of millions of dollars on this type of work through a variety of programming, whether it be team grants, individual researchers or otherwise. For example, we've invested over $20 million in the last five years on work on indigenous language preservation and so forth.

We have an indigenous research policy, which first and foremost validates and supports the importance of acknowledging indigenous ways of knowing and indigenous knowledge as legitimate data for consideration. We have a policy that ensures that indigenous peoples are at the table when projects are being peer reviewed. At this point we're engaged in this larger project with our other partner agencies and with the CRCC, implementing and using many of those principles that we developed over the years in our support for indigenous research.

If I may, I would like to turn to floor over to Ursula to talk a bit about the additional things we are now doing as part of that project.

[Ursula Gobel, Associate Vice-President, Future Challenges, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council]

Thank you.

It's very important to us as a funding agency situated in Ottawa that we have the advice and hear the voices of indigenous communities. We have welcomed tremendously the advice of the indigenous advisory circle, which reflects indigenous scholars from across the country, and also now indigenous community members and a commitment to continuous improvement.

We hear that a lot, but our president mentioned our policies and guidelines that are regularly being updated. We most recently addressed the issue of greater accessibility and support for indigenous students, recognizing some of the administrative barriers that were in place. How do we provide that opportunity for indigenous graduate students to have consideration, should they wish it, for a longer duration, given their needs as caregivers? How can we ensure that merit review committee members recognize traditional knowledge and different epistemologies and methodologies in graduate training? That should be recognized. So we're constantly re-evaluating and ensuring that our administrative processes and our guidelines are respectful of indigenous communities' needs and truly endeavour to support their growth.

Now in the context of tri-agency harmonization, Ted reviewed all of the activities that have been under way for several months. There are clear areas that have been identified across regions and by Inuit, first nations and Métis people: issues related to ethics and ethics policies, issues related to eligibility, issues related to data governance, each of these areas. Coming to a better understanding of the needs of the community, the distinctions between communities and regions and across first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples and within the mandates of the tri-agencies, how can we better harmonize our practices?

That is complex work, but we are committed to doing it. We have established a tri-agency working group directly with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, for example. Being at the table and really rolling up our sleeves and addressing these issues with the voices of the community front and centre has been our approach.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

You have a couple more minutes.

[Georgina Jolibois, NDP, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Auditor General, with all the reports that have come out—and so far, over the last three years, when I hear a report from the Auditor General, it is often dismaying, disappointing and frustrating because I come from and I live in these areas and then I see very little movement.

How can we continue to be open and positive and continue to pressure the governments to make necessary change on the ground?

[Jerome Berthelette]

Madam Chair, it's a difficult question. I've been working with the Office of the Auditor General for 18 years and in those 18 years, I've been involved in a number of the audits that have been reported to Parliament. I've worked with two Auditor Generals and both of them have been dismayed by the lack of progress made in terms of indigenous well-being generally.

Given what I've heard today, I am more optimistic with how departments are starting to pay attention to some of the issues that we have raised in the past and how they are approaching their interactions with and the management of their programs and services.

We have identified four structural barriers to success. One is the lack of clarity about service levels. The lack of a legislative base is second. The lack of appropriate funding is third and lack of organization of local service delivery is fourth. What we have seen in the presentations and what we've seen as we go out into the field is that it seems to us that each of these barriers is being addressed, as the department moves forward. That gives us some hope.

[Georgina Jolibois, NDP, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Next is MP Dan Vandal, and then I'll have a couple of questions.

[Dan Vandal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, Lib.]

Thank you for your presentations.

You've just referenced the lack of progress in the last 18 years. I can speak for the last three years. That's how long I've been here and our government has been here. We've invested record numbers of dollars in infrastructure and education and health. I believe it's close to $17 billion of new money in those initiatives. There's actually construction going on and there's more focus on those very important factors.

In the 10 years prior to that, there was no investment by the Harper Conservatives. Can you draw a correlation between the lack of results with no investment and significant investment in the last three years?

[Jerome Berthelette]

Madam Chair, I don't believe I'd be able to draw a correlation because it's only three years. We're going to need more time to determine exactly what difference the additional funding makes.

[Dan Vandal]

Absolutely. Would you agree that it's more important that ever now to ensure that we have good systems of monitoring and evaluation, given the historical investments our government is making?

[Jerome Berthelette]

Madam Chair, the office would say that yes, ongoing monitoring is important. By having access to the data and sharing the data with the first nations, then in collaboration, the first nations, the departments and the government can work together to make sure that the investments that are being made result in significant change.

[Dan Vandal]

Absolutely. I agree. Partnerships are key and we are laying that groundwork that started three years ago.

One of our success stories, or one of the communities' success stories, is with boil water advisories. Some 78 have been lifted in the last three years. There are 60 that are left, but that is 78 fewer than there were three years ago.

My question is for Indigenous Services, the operators of those water systems. What are we doing to assure partnership communities that we have operators?

[Claudia Ferland]

I can do that. Let me just pull the statistics on the operators.

You're quite correct that we have now lifted over 70 water advisories.

From an infrastructure perspective, one of the things we have been working on is capacity-building at that level. We've trained circuit rider trainers; we have over 60 trainers in the country who can train local resources. We have had operator training. We have had community leadership training in the environment, and water as well. We have trained in various delivery models that adapt to the various regions we have. We've worked with the First Nations Technical Services Advisory Group and the Ontario first nations technical group. We've worked with Alberta on inspection, training, development and infrastructure capacity.

We have local resources, but we also have senior resources that the local resources can call up and say, “I have a problem. Can you help me?”

We have to put a lot in place, as well, to ensure that the water treatment centres are well managed and that we have that capacity in place.

[Dan Vandal]

That's excellent.

Are you confident that once 100% of the boil water advisories are lifted by 2021, we will have the adequate people in place to operate them?

[Claudia Ferland]

With all the investments we're putting in place in training and what we're learning with first nations and with our practitioners, we're also building other tools. As we put the water systems in place, we will continue developing the training and doing seminars, even yearly seminars, to look at new technology and new possibilities.

[Dan Vandal]

That's it. Great.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you.

My questions are for NRCan.

Following up on the discussion we had with many of our indigenous communities, seeing Natural Resources as a real opportunity for economic development, years ago, in about 2004, the government collaborated with industry on preparing something that I think was called the exploration and mining tool kit. This was an attempt to explain a complicated sector, from exploration to extraction to closure.

In how many languages have there been updates? I understand there was one in 2006. How many indigenous languages has the tool kit been translated into? How are you promoting this basic information so that people understand how to work with this vital industry?

[Mary-Luisa Kapelus]

Madam Chair, I do not have that data with me right now, unfortunately, but we will be able to get the data for you on the number of languages and promotion.

What I can tell you, though, is that we have gone leaps and bounds ahead in the mining sector, working with partners. Right now, we have a Canadian minerals and metals plan that we're working with. We're actually co-developing a chapter with indigenous partners.

In my short time in the department, I've noticed already, within the last year, a lot more advancement in the co-development efforts and how we're working and informing the way forward for the path in mining.

I don't know if John has anything else to add.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

I urge you to consider separating the two sectors. Just as with pharma, there's pharma and biotech, there's exploration and extraction. To combine the two, a lot of people would think that if you have somebody in exploration, that means they're going to have a mine opening any day now. Therefore, for the public record, I'd urge us to try to keep those separated, because it's an extremely long and complicated process.

Okay. Then you're going to get back to us on questions.

[Mary-Luisa Kapelus]

Yes.