Evidence of meeting #50 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 communities.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Clarence T. Jules  Chief Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer, First Nations Tax Commission
Harold Calla  Executive Chair, First Nations Financial Management Board
Steve Berna  Chief Operating Officer, First Nations Finance Authority
Suzanne Trottier  Director, Capacity Development and Intervention, First Nations Financial Management Board
Harry Lake  Partner, Consulting, BDO Canada
Jacques Marion  Partner, Consulting, BDO Canada
Clayton Norris  Vice-President, Aboriginal Services, MNP LLP
Robert Campbell  Director, Aboriginal Services, MNP LLP

10:40 a.m.

Vice-President, Aboriginal Services, MNP LLP

Clayton Norris

Sometimes it is, but I think you can take it down, as you said, to the nuts and bolts. When we look at our new cloud accounting model, we think it's great. Everybody looks at it. It's a cloud accounting model. It's a system.

However, we work with the individual to ask, “What are your competencies? What have you done in training? What's your background? What do you want to do going forward? What's your intention in this career?”

Then, we create a learning plan for that individual that we customize. We say, “Okay, you need to attend AFOA courses,” or “You need to go to a community college,” or “We can help you with some of these processes that you may be having difficulty with, such as accounts payable and accounts receivable.”

We also look at it from an intervention perspective in terms of default management if the community doesn't understand the budget process and is not aware of what it means for the reporting, as we've seen in many communities. We've also gone to chief and council, and to band members, to explain why the government is looking for the information and why the finance department may say no. We get the community involved, not just the individual. Those are the tactical things that we do.

10:40 a.m.

Partner, Consulting, BDO Canada

Jacques Marion

We have very much the same type of plan. We use education and training plans. We have an arsenal of all the different task lists that are required to generate financial statements. We find that one of the best internal controls in communities is to have them generate financial statements as frequently as possible. You can't really monitor what you're not measuring.

The agreement process as well is one of the components we need to add when we talk about capacity, and exactly what the governance model understands—the program delivery agreements from Canada, whether it's Health Canada or INAC, what they mean, and exactly how the funding can be utilized and tied into a systemic approach with a cloud-type system so that you can give remote support as required.

It's always necessary to have education plans for the different individuals. It's hard to turn an electrician into an accountant in six weeks. It's a difficult task. When we talk about capacity, the reality of it is very much as Robert mentioned earlier, that the receptionist becomes the head of finance overnight. That's the kind of transition that she's certainly not prepared for. She doesn't necessarily have the background for it. Developing a plan to do something like that over a 24-hour period is a pretty challenging task.

10:45 a.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Thank you very much.

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk

That concludes our meeting and this round of the committee business.

I want to thank you very much for coming out. Meegwetch. We appreciate your comments, your wisdom. You're in the business, so your presentations and comments will be taken very seriously. We really appreciate them. Thank you very much.

The committee will come together again on April 4.

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.