Evidence of meeting #150 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was services.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
Okay. I think that's a very reasonable way to approach it. The opposition parties have questions.
We will continue.
We now go to MP Mike Bossio, for a five-minute round.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to accentuate the results of splitting INAC into these three separate departments. When we look at housing, education, water, Jordan's principle and, as you mentioned, moving health into ISC from Health Canada, these are having discernible differences, and positive impacts in communities.
On the first part, I'd like you to expand on the impacts of these changes you're seeing on the ground—of having that focused effort on the ISC side. On the opposite side of that, it would be greatly appreciated if you could speak to the success we're having in self-determination, through negotiations with a number of communities across the country, as well. This splitting has actually accelerated the delivery of both services and the nation-to-nation relationship.
9:35 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indigenous Services Canada
Yes, clearly there have been way more initiatives and activities as a result of the last few years. Is it all due to having two departments or just one? It's hard to know, but having two ministers—one minister dedicated only to services, and one to rights—has been very useful over the last few years. It means that a minister doesn't have to choose, sometimes in the same day, at which table to sit. It's the same thing for the DMs. It's the same thing for the organization. We can proceed full-throttle, on the services side.
You mentioned a long list of outcomes and activities. On housing, we are aiming to have 16,000 houses repaired or built over five years—with our friends, of course, at CMHC. We have been building significant numbers of schools. We're on time on the famous water issue. More than 85 long-term boil water advisories have been lifted.
You were talking about Jordan's principle. We are now at more than 220,000 demands that have been responded to under Jordan's principle, which is quite significant. We were mentioning child and family services. In a bit more than a year, we co-developed a proposal for legislation that is now in front of you, for jurisdiction under child and family services.
We mentioned grants earlier. There are more than 85 communities. We offered 10-years grants to more than 100 first nations communities this year. I would like to remind you that grants have been discussed in the old INAC, since the 1980s. There was only one community in the country that actually had a grant, and now we have 85. It's a significant change.
When you look at all of this together.... On mental health, we did a lot. We also did a lot in other areas. We can send you more stats if you want, but a lot of that is on our website.
On the last point, we developed, as you know, a new funding formula on education. We're now implementing this formula across the country. The formula was co-developed with first nations.
Significant things have happened. For sure, the fact that we split and created those two departments helped. The fact that we have health on our side also helps. When you address housing issues, such as those at Cat Lake, as you heard this winter, it's really helpful to have health, social services and infrastructure together. I think that, yes, the split clearly offered us tools that we didn't have before.
For first nations communities, it also means future capacity to integrate those services. For example, on the grants side, we were able to include health, which we would not have been able to do if we were the old INAC. A lot of results emerged, probably most of them from the fact that they split the two departments.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
9:35 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Sure.
When you're in the business of changing relationships, no matter what the domain is, you're really helping people to see themselves differently and see the impact that they've had on the relationship differently. That is one of the hardest human things to do.
It may seem mundane, but a big part of our job is actually helping people to see things differently and see the impact they've had on that relationship differently. That requires an enormous amount of management focus. My recollection is that my colleague is responsible for delivering a budget that's about the size of the Government of Manitoba's, if I have the numbers correct. To do that on top of trying to help people see themselves differently, see their history differently and see their future differently is an enormous amount of work. We're now freed up to do that last part and to focus on that. That's inside the federal government. It's outside the federal government. It's with indigenous communities. It's helping to see ourselves differently, too. That's takes an enormous amount of management time.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you.
I'm going to come back to you Mr. Tremblay.
One of the things you said in your presentation to us is that you're working yourself—and you're telling your department that they're working themselves—out of a job. I'm just wondering if you could speak a little bit about what that looks like. That's an immense amount of change. I agree with you around the health services in B.C. I'm an MP from that area. I certainly appreciate the local ownership of that and how they deal with cross-jurisdiction issues, which has become a lot smoother in B.C. compared to a lot of the other provinces and territories.
I would like to hear how that planning is happening. How are indigenous communities involved in that planning? How do you sort of look at the whole country and the different realities?
I represent over 20 indigenous communities in my riding. A lot of B.C. communities are smaller. Some of the other ones in other provinces are larger. It's a very big process. I'm just curious how that's even beginning to be spoken about.
9:40 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indigenous Services Canada
It always has been in the DNA of the department. I think it's because we didn't have the tools to achieve that. Since the 1980s at least, and even in the 1970s—the historians may disagree with me—there's always been an attempt to attempt to devolve. That's what it was called at the time. The transfer of services, most of the time, was at the community level. Most of the time it was the programs that were transferred. Most of the time resources were not necessarily at the appropriate level. We're now trying to ask what the right combination is among those three elements.
That's why, for example, on school boards, we're not backtracking. We're actually responding to demands. First nations, Inuit and Métis decide how they want to do that. It's their services in the end. There's no one-size-fits-all approach in this.
What we're trying to do more is identify partners across the country who want to do things differently and would like to take charge of their services. We're not coming to the table precluding with of a sense of what it should be because as soon as we do that, we end up with a program and it will end up with exceptions across the country, to be honest. We're trying more to listen to people.
We have interest, for example, in post-secondary education. We're getting a lot of interest on infrastructure. You may have heard that there are actually first nations in B.C. that are interested in creating a first nations institution on infrastructure. We support them in developing what it may look like. We'll look with them at what it could look like without presuming the result. We're doing it a bit that way. We're moving in that direction.
It doesn't mean that all the staff are going to lose their jobs. It's not the way to see that. For example, we continue to have a relationship with the first nations health authorities. We have a regular relationship. It's more of a partnership relationship. We just don't deliver the services as we did before. We entered into a trilateral agreement on mental health with them and the Province of B.C. last year. It is something that we will continue.
The way we approach it is really to ask all partners what institutions and capacity they need. What kind of services do they want to deliver? It should not be programs, it should be services and making sure that the resources are there.
The work we've been doing on the formula for education is an important one. The work that we're doing under the grants on formulas is an important one. If you agree on a funding formula, the rest becomes more about how they will manage it differently.
It's hard to explain because it's not one-size-fits-all. It's basically opening the door for different approaches.
Madam Chair, thank you. Sorry, I went long.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
Thank you.
We're now going to restart the process. We're at seven-minute rounds.
We start with MP Ouellette.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
[Member spoke in Cree as follows:]
Niwakoma cuntik Tansai Nemeaytane Awapantitok.
[English]
I just have a few questions actually.
Monsieur Watson, you mentioned you see things differently and you also mentioned they see their future differently, see themselves differently. Who are you referring to “they” exactly?
9:40 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
All of us collectively have to see this. We're different parties that bring different perspectives to it. For far too long, the former Department of Indian Affairs occupied all of the space in deciding what was the right thing in the future historically. As we move forward, when we work with Inuit communities, Métis communities and certainly with first nations we must understand how those communities understand their future. We have to understand what they want the relationship to be in the delivery of services or not or how they want to engage with us in the types of agreements that we would negotiate with them. Understanding those pieces is critical so that we get it right in the way that we did not in the past.
9:45 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
We go back to something that my colleague said. It has to be in the outcomes. I think part of the outcomes now we understand and it's set out in this legislation. We begin building those outcomes by actually having the conversation at the outset of where we're headed. I think that's one of the important reasons why in this legislation it says that we are to work with indigenous groups, with Métis, with Inuit, with first nations not at the end to implement an idea that we had come up with ourselves at Les Terrasses de la Chaudière but to actually build together something that we started talking about at the beginning, not at the end.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
After 133 years of the Indian affairs department, does that mean your department was wrong for 133 years?
9:45 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I don't think everything is right and that everything is wrong. But certainly there's a lot of wrong. You just have to go to the court cases to find out how wrong we were in a number of those instances. Certainly I think many of the things that we did we would choose deliberately to never do again.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
What type of training programs do you have now to change the culture and the mindset for the employees of INAC? I'm an anthropologist. If you've been doing something for 25 years, you've invested 35 years of your career into a certain way of doing things, it must be quite difficult to say we're going to do things differently.
9:45 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
It is and it isn't. Many of the things that we're talking about today, the people who are employed in the department have been telling us for a long time we should be doing. Having spent much of the early part of my career as a negotiator, you can't sit at the table and hear communities tell you things that make perfect sense about their past, about their hopes, about their aspirations, and not be profoundly affected by the rationality of it.
Then when you go back and find an institution that is perhaps not in that headspace, you start to speak up in your organization. In many instances, we will be doing things that many employees have been suggesting for a long time we should do.
In other instances though, you're right. We will have to continue to work with people to understand things differently because what we're about here is some very profound change. We do have training programs in place for people who arrive in the department. As my colleague mentioned earlier, having indigenous employees, Inuit, Métis and first nations, is a critical part of that. For those who are not indigenous, to understand and to be clearly told that our expectation is the value that those employees bring is important.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
I was just wondering, does everyone now have access to the mandate letter? I was talking to employees and early on when our government first came to office, the mandate letters, even though public, were not to be shared within Indigenous Services by certain lower level managers. That is what I heard from employees.
9:45 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indigenous Services Canada
They're online.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
People actually actively discuss them or have discussed them in the department at all levels?
9:45 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
We refer to them regularly in our speaking points, in our mandate letters and in correspondence that staff develop. They're very well known.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
That's great. I think that's fantastic.
I was just wondering, what is the overall number of employees today in Indigenous Services Canada and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada? What's the plan into the future? Are we going to see a reduction in numbers as we devolve these services to indigenous peoples or are we going to see an increase in the numbers within what we often refer to as the aboriginal industry?
9:45 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indigenous Services Canada
At ISC, there are 5,230 employees.
9:45 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
As well, there are 2,850 employees at CIRNAC, so there's a total of 8,080 employees.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
Do you believe you will be seeing a reduction in numbers in a certain period time, or will you be seeing stable numbers?