Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 14th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

It's a tie, so I will vote in favour of the government.

(Motion negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Cathy.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to note that this committee has now denied having witnesses before us for this important piece of legislation, and we have denied even requesting a submission in order for us to appropriately inform the finance committee, given our best information, on what we should be doing with this section, division 4, section 25, which is 32-plus pages.

Now, I guess, I will have to go to our witnesses and, through their lens, get them to speak on behalf of another organization, which is completely inappropriate, in spite of what Mr. Ouellette said. I note that the Assembly of First Nations was concerned with some of the language in the legislation in terms of it not acknowledging the jurisdictional authorities and the responsibilities of first nations.

Can you comment on the concerns that were expressed?

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

You have 20 seconds.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Chair, I have a point of order.

I don't believe that the time spent discussing a motion is time taken from seven minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

I'll refer that to the clerk.

It is my understanding that it did use up the time, but, what is common practice?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Leif-Erik Aune]

It's really the will of the committee. The committee hasn't adopted a routine motion to govern how it uses the time if a member uses their time for a motion, but it's the member's time.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

That has been the practice up to now, and no other motion will guide us, so respond quickly.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

The transformation and the split of the departments didn't start last week. It started almost two years ago now. Since that time, there has been a lot of work and engagement with first nations, Inuit and Métis on what it means to have those two departments. There have also been a lot of sessions managed by Minister Bennett over the last year and a half in terms of looking at and hearing from first nations, Inuit and Métis about the departments. She has met thousands of people and organizations.

We heard concerns sometimes. Most of the concerns—and I don't want to speak on their behalf—are around the distinctions-based approach and making sure that it a distinctions-based approach, making sure that continuity of services is there, making sure that the recognition of UNDRIP is there and that recognition of jurisdiction is there. Those are the concerns that we heard. They are not necessarily specifically related only to the legislation, to be fair. They are concerns that we hear, on a regular basis, on advancing our policy.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

All right. We allowed an extension of time on that in the recognition that you had a procedural issue.

We're now moving to MP Rachel Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have another couple of questions.

Both of you referred in your presentations to the work you're doing to co-develop; I hope I got that correctly. We're hearing in terms of different pieces of legislation—and, of course, most obviously Bill C-92—that a lot of people and organizations are not feeling that this is the correct way to describe the interaction and that it was certainly not co-development. We have heard that repeatedly.

I am just wondering what your mandate is around co-development. How is that progressing through time?

We know that on Bill C-97 we've heard from the AFN that there are concerns around jurisdiction. We've heard from the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs that there has not been a meaningful consultation. There seems to be a lot of interest in making sure that consultation is actually defined as something a little more concrete and not interpreted by the government.

I think co-development is the way that the language is moving, but is the actual action behind it happening? How, in both of these departments, are you accountable to indigenous communities across the country in terms of developing the definitions of co-development and consultation?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

Co-development is a difficult area of the business, because it involves...and could mean a lot of people at the table. You can look at Bill C-92. We have been co-developing the legislation with the national organizations, but we also did a lot of engagement at the regional level and at the local level over the last year. The objective of this legislation—and it's an important element that we're trying to do as much as possible—is defined less...as little as possible in the legislation.

The real story about Bill C-92 is not just the legislation. It's that actually we say to first nations, Inuit and Métis, “Go ahead and develop your legislation and come to us with it.” It's not legislation that tries to impose an approach. It's legislation that just says, “You should be the ones developing this approach.” It's a co-development that leads to an approach that is actually their developing of their own legislation by themselves. I think it's important to see the distinction. Case by case, we did a lot of co-development on the education side.

In terms of reporting to indigenous people, as I mentioned before, we have more and more regional discussions and annual gatherings among our staff and first nations, Inuit and Métis—with first nations specifically because of the services on the reserves—where we discuss how the relationship is going.

I invite the national organizations to come to my senior management committee every three or four months—we try to be regular—to discuss how things are going. We attend their meetings with them: their executive committees, their committees on housing, their committees on education. For us, as much as possible, it's to be transparent in the way we do our business and what we are doing, and that's how we achieve co-development. I think we made significant progress, to be fair.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

One of the questions I have, though, is on what you mentioned the last time we chatted: the part about “take charge” and what indigenous communities are ready to take on. I look at some of the communities that I serve and there are multiple challenges, so when we say “take charge”.... Recently, we had a young man commit suicide in one of my communities, and that community has rallied, has pulled in resources and has been trying to do things. We have a lot of young people discussing on social media. I look at another community such as Grassy Narrows, for example, which is dealing with poisoning right now. They have waited a very long time, and people are very ill and dying because of that.

When we talk about co-development, consultation and indigenous people taking charge, we have to put it in that context, so where is the accountability back to those communities, especially to a community like Grassy Narrows, where what they have to deal with is beyond the imagination of the everyday Canadian?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

The issue we have at the moment is we treat all first nations communities the same way. You implement programs the way they have been developed, even if you had higher or lower capacity. If we move with grants and more self-determination, the communities that are ready will take that, which means our staff will be able to focus more on the relationship with first nations that have more needs.

Who should help them? A lot of the work we have done with the first nations institutions has been on how they can help us to get first nations out of third party management, for example, not our going there and telling them what to do, but more first nations institutions working with them.

For communities like Grassy Narrows, like Cat Lake and communities in the north in many cases, the question is how do we support them and help them to get the capacity, rather than just going with the compliance with our programs. That's the way we want to see the shift and how we move them towards this stream so they end up with self-determination.

Self-determination doesn't necessarily take a local-only aspect. It could be regional. The work we've done on education in the north, for example, is not just with one community; it's with many. I think it's looking with them at the models that would help them get there and make the decisions they want to make to achieve self-government.

In the past it was a one-size-fits-all approach; the program was the same for everybody, even if you're in a better position, even if you don't necessarily need this money for this specific aspect, because you already addressed this issue. How can you reallocate? We're getting this flexibility and we're giving to the communities that are ready to take it, which will give us a chance to have a plan and work directly with the communities in need.

[Daniel Watson]

The lessons about the way we have tried to deliver programs in exactly the same way I think are important in the world of consultation and co-development. If you have a modern or a historic treaty or if you don't have any treaties, the way you engage is different and the capacity to co-develop may be different, depending on what experience you've had in the past.

So coming up with a single definition of how we will do co-development everywhere in the country and follow this definition or be offside I think would repeat some of the past mistakes, but it doesn't mean we are not taking it seriously. It means we have to work out with those individual communities the things we can and cannot do. I have no doubt that we will have very different views over time as to the best and most appropriate way to move forward.

I think the important thing, though, is to have those conversations and to be open on both sides and particularly, obviously, with my responsibilities on the government side, the public service side, to make sure we listen to what we hear, but we still have to make some important calls as to how we engage most effectively.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Questioning now moves to MP Mike Bossio.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for your great answers.

We've heard some of the challenges that exist. We were in the middle of a capacity study before we were interrupted by the numerous bills that are now before the committee, but we saw first-hand the challenges that exist just around capacity. Could you expand for us on some of the challenges and the barriers you're seeing to being able to fully implement the intent and the long-term goals of the splitting of the department into three separate units?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

Capacity is an issue, of course. It's not necessarily the biggest one. For me it means how do you support first nations, Inuit and Métis in the development of their own public service? For us it is one of the reasons we want to hire more first nations, Inuit and Métis because, ultimately, they will take my job or they will take the departments with it. That's what we want.

The more you have people trained as public servants, the more you have people with a different kind of knowledge who can take responsibility. The beauty of the first nations is.... We took the first nations' health authorities, for example, to see this public service that is a first nations' public service in the majority, managing the health system in a way that is comparable to a province. They are doing fantastic work and working very well with the province and doing a better job than what we were doing.

It's the same thing for the Mi'Kmaq in the Atlantic. How do we get there? How do we support the capacity for delivery of services? It is an issue, but I think we also have to trust the first nations communities. They come with solutions.

We often talk about the cases and the places where it's not working. There are a lot of places where it works. A lot of communities develop an innovative approach to addressing their own issues. In many cases the reason they haven't done better is our programs. It's because of our own silos. In many cases it's unlocking that capacity and making sure that people at the local level who want to make a difference can have the tools to make the difference.

That's the challenge, but it comes back to what Daniel said. It means their own employees need to be in service mode, not in the program delivery mode. They have to go to the community and ask how they can I help. That's the better approach.

[Daniel Watson]

You mentioned the three departments. We haven't spoken much about the Northern Affairs component of it. Throughout the legislation relating to CIRNAC, there are many references that ensure that those two departments and ministers would work very close together. There's language specific to the Minister of Northern Affairs using the facilities of the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations, so those things are in there to ensure that some of the visions that might otherwise have been seen really don't develop and that we work as seamlessly as possible on that front.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Are there any other challenges you see out there regarding the implementation of it beyond capacity? You've solved one of them, the long-term stable funding of the 10-year granting process. How do we get it to all indigenous communities on that front?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

There's a challenge on how we work with communities with needs. What is a solution for first nations communities that struggle with some capacity issues or other issues? How do you do it in a way and resist...so as not to take a paternalistic approach?

We've seen in the past that an approach dictated from the centre doesn't work well. How do you build institutions and capacity to support those communities? It's unfair to believe that a community of 200 people can achieve everything. They can do a lot, but they also need some support.

That's why some organizations work well at the regional level, because they are able to build up some capacity at the regional level. How do we support communities toward the path to self-determination and resisting...to the program? And the program is an important one. It comes with a challenge, because the tendency sometimes is to say, “You should do it, you should do it. Can you fix education, can you fix that. Can you build this?”

We need to resist that, because most of the time it leads to a long list of programs with a lot of reporting and compliance issues that actually doesn't produce the results we're looking for. We're going to have to resist that, because under stress, we tend to go to what we know and what we know are programs. That's probably the biggest challenge for us.

[Daniel Watson]

If I can add to that. The other thing we are aware of are the Indian Act bands. One of the challenges moving forward will be to have the conversation about who are we talking to. In the past, our default position would be Indian Act bands and going forward that is probably not going to be the case. How people organize themselves, how they want to either aggregate or not is going to be an important part of what we need to think through, and we have to allow these communities to also think this through. If you've been separated for 150 years by administrative decisions about what band you're in or not, notwithstanding that your ancestors were collectively rebuilding that understanding, you want to go forward from today and that is going to be a big part of the conversation.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

In evolution, not a revolution.

Finally, you talked a lot about the extensive consultations you've had. What are some of the concerns you've heard back from from indigenous communities around this legislation?

[Daniel Watson]

The concern has always been by many players, and quite rightly so, will the government live up to what it understands is the proper recognition of the rights that Métis and first nations communities governments have. They will want to make sure that nothing in here takes away from that in any way, shape or form. They will properly hold us to that test not only in what this legislation would be but more importantly, in all the thousands of actions that we will take, should it be passed.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Mr. Kevin Waugh.