Evidence of meeting #47 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 money.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
Okay.
I notice there is no movement on nutrition north in the supplementary estimates. I realize that your consultation process just finished on February 8, but I would like to know when we can expect these major changes to come into play. Can we expect anything in the next budget, or will it be in the supplementary estimates next year?
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
The consultations were really interesting, in terms of the kinds of things people were talking about in a broken program. As you know, people just feel that they used to be able to feed their families and now they can't.
With the parliamentary secretary, Yvonne Jones, we are now looking at how we respond to the individual needs, which are very different in northern Manitoba from what they are in Goose Bay or in Iqaluit. How do we deal with the reality of the cost of bringing in healthy, nutritious food? Also, though, community after community wants harvesters and fishermen to be able to feed their families in a traditional way. How do we get back to being able to have the hunters and fishermen able to have the boats and motors and snow machines and ammunition, the kinds of things that allow them to feed their families in a nutritional way? This is what we heard from coast to coast to coast.
It will be with northerners that we will design the next program. We can't do that ourselves. It will have to be done in full collaboration with northerners.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam Minister and colleagues, thank you for joining us.
With respect to the emergency fund and the replenishment of your money, can you give us a sense of the dollars we spend on an emergency that takes place in an indigenous community versus a non-indigenous community? It may be out of your department's ambit, but can you give us a sense of the dollars the federal government spends on both, and whether there's a disparity between that spending?
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
I'd love to get back to you on that and how it works.
From talking to the communities during the Fort Mac fire, I am very proud that our department in the regional office there was able to forward money to the communities to be able to help them, particularly with some of their people who worked in Fort Mac or Edmonton and their transportation needs.
Quite often our department is able to front-end load our community with the money right away for an emergency. We then have to figure out how we replenish or get that money back.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
I guess my question really was about whether there's a disparity between the dollars we spend.
9:25 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
There is a fully integrated security management system that starts from the federal and provincial levels—and the municipal level if you're governed by a provincial government. The portion that INAC takes is to do the same thing and be plugged in through that cascading. It stems from the same type of emergency management system, so there is parity. More often than not, with the agreements that we have with the provinces, the provinces will front-load the bill and then we will replenish later. In the specifics of these, we work directly with providers. We did it particularly for Fort Mac and a few others in conjunction with the activity done on the ground, either by a municipality or province under the federal government.
The quick answer to your question is that we operate with parity and provide the same level of services.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
If you could just confirm that at a later date, that would be good. I am very curious to know if there is a disparity.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Certainly when you're on the ground during these emergencies, it is the province that is quite often taking the lead. Again, the on-reserve, off-reserve distinction disappears at the time. It is about doing what needs to be done.
But we will find out what that looks like.
9:30 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
We'll send you a description of that.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
Thank you.
With respect to childhood claims litigation, if I understand this correctly, this is very specific to the sixties scoop and the liability that's likely to come about because of the Ontario court decision.
I'm a little curious as to why this kind of work would not have been done during the litigation process itself. I would have thought that when the government entered into litigation there would be some analysis of what that liability would be rather than fighting it for 10 years. If this is one of these instances in which we are kind of doing the work now, it seems to me an almost futile exercise to go to court and fight without really knowing what the liability is from the outset.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
I must admit, Gary, that I was surprised at how secretive a lot of these claims are in terms of our having no idea how many people would be in a class, or those kinds of things. When they're in pure litigation, that isn't clear, but as we get to negotiation and we are prepared to go to the table, then this research needs to be done, but it also needs to be done with regard to what the claimants are actually asking for. Particularly in court, people can only be asking for money or land or whatever. At the negotiating table, it is about the structure of an apology. It is about language and culture. It is about how you would build back what was lost in satisfying what the claimants are asking for.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
With respect to any other similar pending litigation, would it not be prudent for us to maybe look at taking a different approach to this as opposed to fighting it out and then saying that we're going to go to the negotiating table?
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
You're absolutely right. I don't want to be fighting anything out. I want to get to the table on as many claims as we can. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes two to get out of court. We would love to be able to get a lot of litigation, but on these childhood claims, we are really doing everything we can to get these out of court and to the table.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for being here today.
I think I'll just continue right on in the same vein there. The whole legal system in Canada is set up such that if you aren't going to appeal a decision, you therefore accept the decision and have to abide by the ruling.
We had Cindy Blackstock here just last week telling us that you weren't appealing tribunal decisions but that you didn't seem to be implementing their decisions either. This seems to be an ongoing trend in the same vein as the transparency act's being the law of the land while you are just not enforcing it. I guess I have a significant struggle with that since the basic rule of democracy is the rule of law. If we voted in the House of Commons to suspend the rule of law in this country, I don't think that would be a legitimate vote, because the rule of law is a basic, fundamental part of democracy. So I'm struggling with that. It seems to be an ongoing trend of yours. That's just probably more of a comment.
Cindy Blackstock was here the other day asking about Jordan's principle, and I see in the supplementary estimates here that we have $1 million dollars for Jordan's principle. I know that her organization was asking for $155 million for Jordan's principle, and you made an announcement of about $382 million. Can you just explain to me the $1 million that we see in the supplementary estimates and how that works? There might be a good explanation for it, but I'm just not sure how.... We have several different numbers running around. Last month, the number was $5 million. Can you just try to line that up for me?
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
There are two parts to the tribunal decision. One is the child welfare system and the other is Jordan's principle. As you know, Minister Philpott manages Jordan's principle in terms of the health care needs.
We get a small amount of that to deal with housing and assisted living, the kinds of things that would be more for quality of life as opposed to actual health care. As you know, this year we made available the money for Jordan's principle in the $382 million over three years; $88 million was made available this year. Out of that, we have identified 3,200 kids who now will get care who weren't getting it before the broadening of that definition.
It is about us identifying the children and making sure they get the care they need. That's where the ramping up takes place, because that definition was only changed July 1. It used to be that it had to be multiple disabilities, multiple agencies. Now, any child with a disability will no longer have this sort of fight between provinces and federal government as to who pays. We have put that money in place.
The $155 million that Dr. Blackstock talked about is for the combination of both Jordan's principle and the child welfare. We're very pleased that this year we've made available $197.7 million, and that there will be, as of the next fiscal year, $246.6 million available for the combination of the changes to the child welfare program as well as Jordan's principle.
We also know that we have to change the system, because too much money is still going to lawyers to apprehend children. We want more money into communities so that these kids don't end up with the system at all.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Staying out of court is a laudable goal, but how do you square that with the fundamental principle of the rule of law in Canada?
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
The tribunal is not a court of law, and it didn't put any numbers on it. They have agreed that they know we're serious about making these changes. We are doing that in an intentional and very meaningful way.
One of the things that was interesting that's in the supplementary estimates—
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'm happy to fill in.
Thank you, Minister, to you and your team for being here.
Minister, you know I have the pleasure of representing the beautiful riding of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour in Nova Scotia. I know you know the region and the riding specifically. I thank you for your visits in the past. I look forward to hosting you again.
If it's okay to stay along a parochial line, I am wondering if you could tell me a little more about how the estimates that you've presented today to this committee will impact communities in Atlantic Canada. I know that the needs vary greatly from region to region in this huge country, but can you specifically tell me a bit more about your plans for Atlantic Canada in particular?
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Mr. Fisher, I think you know that water systems have been a big problem in Atlantic Canada. Hopefully, we will be able to look at that for Potlotek First Nation and the one that was very noticeable in the news.
Let me just see. I have a handy-dandy sheet on Atlantic Canada. There are 23 projects and 16 communities being funded for water and waste water; 72 projects and $11.5 million for housing; education facilities, $7.7 million; culture and recreation, $3.9 million; energy, sustainability, and connectivity, $1.1 million; fundamental community infrastructure, $6.7 million.
I'd be happy to give you that. Also, because of Labrador, there's $4 million for Inuit housing. We'll break it down for you.
That's what we're hoping to do. What we're hoping to do for everybody here very shortly is to be able to release the water and wastewater projects that are happening coast to coast to coast.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you, Minister.
I would be pleased, if the chair would permit that to be distributed to the committee, or to me specifically—
