Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 16th, 2016

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

No, that.... When we said we'd raise the cap, we said that we would raise the cap, and that means.... The project funding was also at 2% before. This is very different.

I wouldn't waste your time on this, because the 2% cap is gone.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Well, I don't know. I'm looking at 1995-96, when there was a 6% increase for base funding. It was 3% in 1996-97. Every single year, the base funding has been clocked at 2%, and for this year the base funding is still at 2%.

You can have discretionary funding and you can promise to put spending on special projects. That's money that gets announced in press releases. It has a limited lifespan. However, the base program funding was always the issue. That's what the National Chief had said: the one thing to move communities forward is to get rid of that cap.

Therefore, why is base funding still at 2% for 2016-17?

[Paul Thoppil]

There is a time lag between budget 2016 and what you will see in terms of escalators and the lifting of the cap in future estimates.

What you haven't seen through supplementary estimates (A), sir, is those escalators lifting the cap on education and other programs that you will see through future supplementary estimates.

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

But the money is flowing.

[Paul Thoppil]

We are in transition, and the money is flowing notwithstanding that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Well, I get that, but I'm looking at the Order Paper question when I asked what your base funding was for the year and what your planned spending for the year was for increases, and you sent to me, just a few days ago, that it was going to be 2% for this year.

[Paul Thoppil]

That was based on the main estimates.

That's what that number is, and it does not include the future escalators beyond the 2% in the future estimates. What you got was a—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Then in supplementary estimates (B), if I ask again, will we find that the 2% has moved to 4.2% or whatever, or will it remain the same?

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

The base funding is the base. It's the starter.

The cap used to be on everything, right? This is the base. This is what finance and Treasury Board do, and then we have to justify everything we set above that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I get that, but again, when I look at waste water, I see that the previous government spent billions. That cap wasn't on waste water; they actually put billions of dollars into waste water. They were putting the $1.9 billion into education, but the cap was still in place on base funding.

Right now, for 2016-17, the base funding that serves all the communities is at 2%, so is it going to be lifted, and when?

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

It's lifted now.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Well, that's not in what you gave me two days ago, so shall we have this conversation in a couple of months?

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

It's lifted.

Lifting the 2% cap isn't just talking.... The cap included everything. We are lifting all of the program funding. We would like it to be that everything was in a base that was just a transfer to first nations—that would be excellent—but at the moment, it's done on proposals. The proposals we're funding are way above 2%.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

That's what the last government said. They said “record funding”, but they still had the cap in place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

We're out of time, Mr. Angus.

Michael Mcleod is next.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you.

Thank you to the minister and her team for presenting today.

It's been a real pleasure to see all of the different initiatives moving forward. I'm happy that some of these are being unrolled and presented to the aboriginal population right across Canada, more specifically in the Northwest Territories.

One of the concerns we had throughout the last 10 years or so was the reductions in funding to the band councils. I'm looking at your budget, but I don't know if it's in here.

Maybe you can explain if we are planning or will be reinstating band council core funding to historic levels.

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

Do you mean the ARO funding, the aboriginal representative organizations?

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

I was talking about band council funding.

I don't know what program it came from, but it was for core funding for band councils. That had been significantly reduced by the last government, and there had been discussion about reinstating it. I'm not sure if we have done that or plan to do that.

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

Hélène will explain how we do that.

[Hélène Laurendeau, Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

We have increased the funding of bands based on the new needs. In terms of reinstating per se, we are in conversation with them to see what the needs are and we are addressing the needs. We have already amended a series of funding agreements to inject the new money, depending on various programs.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

You're saying that if I go back to the communities in my riding and talk to them, they will have seen an increase in their core funding, or they should be seeing it.

[Hélène Laurendeau]

They will have seen an increase in their funding, yes.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

I see there is money for land claims and I am very happy that some of the discussions have started up again. There have been some really sincere and dedicated people around the table talking about land claims, but we are still working with a mandate that was set quite a while ago, in the 1990s.

I am hoping that now that we are in 2016 and we have taken a different approach to aboriginal people, indigenous people, we are going to look at revising or changing that mandate, or working on some type of policy that will help us move forward. We still have a number of large aboriginal-organized governments in the north that want to settle, but there are challenges when we are still working with a document from the 1990s.

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

As you know, Michael, both the comprehensive land claims and the specific claims have been criticized in terms of what the approach was: “Take it or leave it” or “You love it, don't you?”

That is not the approach our government is taking. We are taking an approach of “What will it take to get an agreement?” Even though Cathy hasn't had a positive situation in her riding, we are trying to work with all stakeholders, including provinces and territories, to find the land that is required, the money that is required, and other, more creative and innovative ways of getting to a claim settlement. I think it is exciting.

You have heard me say before that the treaties and aboriginal government part of our department, with Joe Wild, is really leading to positive approaches, and people who walked away from the table a long time ago, thinking they were getting nowhere and this was a waste, are now back at the table and really interested in pursuing a customized kind of agreement.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

I have said it publicly a couple of times: I am really keen to see this move forward. I have indicated to my constituents that I would like to see some of these claims resolved during my four-year term. I am going to be watching closely.

We have been talking about the suicides across the Northwest Territories for some time now. We have had lots of presentations, yet the concern continues. I have had two suicides in my riding since our study started. Nunavut had two suicides this week, and in fact one today or yesterday. This is still a huge issue in aboriginal communities across the board, across Canada.

I am looking for something in the budgets to try to meet some of the issues in the short term. A lot of our small communities—and I am from one—don't have any facilities. They don't have drop-in centres, restaurants, or coffee shops. There is no place to gather. There are no cultural centres. We have programs that haven't moved for a long time.

Friendship centres could fill that role. Aboriginal Head Start could be very useful to deliver programs. We have junior ranger programs and we have cultural centres that are set up and proving themselves under the urban aboriginal strategy. I am hoping that we are going to look at all the different pieces that are out there, regardless of what department they fall under, and try to see if we can find a mechanism, including the facilities and infrastructure that are needed.

I would love to see all these combined, presented, and built, one in each isolated community. I think that would go a long way, but first of all, we have to start talking about it.