Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 4th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Good morning, everyone. I want to recognize that we're on the unceded territory of the Algonquin people. I want to welcome all members and especially our guests. Thank you for coming. We have another presenter group on the teleconference.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on February 21, 2017, the committee resumes its study of default prevention and management policy. We have two witnesses: the Algonquins of Barriere Lake and the Wasagamack First Nation from Manitoba. Both groups will have 10 minutes to present and then after that we'll get into a series of questions and answers. I just ask all committee members to direct your questions so that we know if it's for the folks on the teleconference or the folks here.

We'll start with our delegation here. Welcome, and I'll turn over the floor to you.

[Chief Casey Ratt, Chief, Algonquins of Barriere Lake]

Good morning, committee members, staff, and guests.

My name is Casey Ratt. I am the chief of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake. We have lived in the Ottawa Valley watershed from time immemorial. Our reserve at Rapid Lake is about three and a half hours north of Ottawa on the Cabonga reservoir. We have over 750 members, but our reserve measures about 74 acres in size.

We have been dispossessed of our lands and resources by Quebec and Canada. Our people live in poverty. We have a high unemployment rate because we have been excluded from the development of our traditional lands. For generations we have tried to resolve these issues with Canada and Quebec. There have been times of conflict, but we have always tried to solve our issues through negotiations.

In 1991, we signed an agreement with Canada and Quebec to negotiate the management of lands in our territory. In 1997, we signed another agreement with Canada to rebuild our community. Canada walked away from those agreements in 2001 and refused to negotiate. Then, in 2006, Canada imposed third party management on our community. Four years later, they removed our customary system of government and imposed the Indian Act election system upon us.

The federal government TPM has controlled all aspects of our community's programs and services since 2006. There is no accountability to our people. Canada has made our system of governance almost irrelevant, since many decisions are made by the TPM without any consultation with us. Taken together, these events have increased our hardship and poverty. We had to ask ourselves why the Government of Canada would take control away from our people and impose a TPM, which actually made our lives worse.

There is no exit strategy. Canada and TPM did nothing to work with us to build a bridge out of this situation. They seemed happy to let us go on forever, so in 2016, we sued Canada in Federal Court. Now we are in mediation once again to try to negotiate a fair resolution, so that our people can take back control of their lives.

We always hear that first nations must be accountable and transparent. Then how come Canada and TPM get away without being accountable and transparent to our people? We know we could do better, and I want to provide you some examples.

Our TPM gets paid $550,000 a year to administer our poverty. We don't think that our community or the Canadian taxpayer gets value for dollar in this arrangement. Nothing in the TPM agreement measures whether our quality of life or the delivery of services actually improves under TPM. There is nothing to link TPM to positive outcomes for our community. It has nothing to do with improving our living conditions or the lives of our people.

We have no role in developing the TPM's terms of reference. Each year, the contract only requires the TPM to administer the current year's programs and services, so past debts are left unattended. Before the TPM was imposed, Revenue Quebec had assessed our outstanding bill at $218,000. We now owe an additional $305,000 in interest and $34,000 in penalties, for a total of $558,000. Separately, Quebec CSST assessed the ABL for $400,000. Since then, they have added another $290,000 in interest, for a total of $690,000. Apparently the TPM has done nothing to pay down these debts because INAC has not required them to do it. Is this proper financial management?

Despite population growth, terrible overcrowding, and a lack of housing stock, no new houses have been built at Rapid Lake since 1995. In the past 10 years, none of the TPMs have worked with us so that we can develop a capacity to take over management of programs. There is no exit plan. We do not receive regular financial statements from the TPM, so our staff are unable to carry out their responsibilities properly. In a normal situation, we would expect to get monthly statements, but the TPM refuses to provide them except once every three months. Notices of layoffs come suddenly and without warning.

We went to Federal Court. We are now in mediation. We want to negotiate a way out of this terrible situation that has caused our people so much suffering.

We're not able to talk about the content of our discussions in the mediation, but we can tell you that INAC and the Department of Justice are refusing to support our proper involvement in our search for a negotiated settlement. They have refused to cover the costs of our legal counsel, financial adviser, or negotiators. Being in TPM, we have no discretion over our expenditures. We are in a catch-22.

We think your committee should be very concerned about this situation. We hear all about this government's commitment to renewing the nation-to-nation relationship. We also hear a lot about this government's commitment to reconciliation, but we don't see it. In fact, we see the opposite.

We think you need to ask this government some hard questions about how it is treating the people of Barriere Lake. We are asking for your help, so we can regain control of our community and our future.

Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Meegwetch.

We have four minutes left if you would like to continue to use your time.

[Tony Wawatie, Interim Director General, Algonquins of Barriere Lake]

I'm Tony Wawatie, the interim director general of Barriere Lake.

During all this time, the community has been positioning itself to bring back the governance system we've had since time immemorial, which was taken away by Canada with the imposition of section 74 of the Indian Act. This is completely foreign to our members.

As you know, we are in a crisis situation. Overcrowding and social conditions have built up. There are no socio-economic opportunities for our members. We would have had all this in place had Canada not walked away from the memorandum of mutual intent it signed in October 1997.

We ask the support of this standing committee to push forth what we want. We have a vision for our community, and this is what we want. We want our governance system back in place. There's a strategy with which we plan to build our capacities. We have had 11 years of third party management with no capacities and no exit strategy. It is wrong for Canada to put us in that situation, and I urge the Canadian people to do something about it.

Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

There are two minutes left.

[Russell Diabo, Policy Consultant Advisor, Algonquin Nation Secretariat, Algonquins of Barriere Lake]

To support what the chief and the interim director general have said, the Government of Canada has two unfulfilled agreements, one it signed in 1991, a trilateral agreement with Canada, Quebec, and Barriere Lake. It was an alternative to the comprehensive land claims policy. It was to develop a resource management plan for over 10,000 square kilometres of the territory because it was on a very small, overcrowded reserve.

Quebec is still at the negotiation table. Clifford Lincoln, the former environment minister of Quebec and former member of Parliament, is the negotiator for Barriere Lake with the Government of Quebec, but Canada is still in breach of that 1991 agreement, and the 1997 agreement to rebuild the community.

The reason why the agreement was signed was that Canada tried to take out the custom chief, and for 18 months in 1996 and 1997, the community went without services, jobs, and everything. Part of that agreement was to compensate Barriere Lake, I believe, $2 million to cover some of the losses it incurred over that 18 months.

Canada never fulfilled that. It was Robert Nault who walked away from the agreements in 2001 under Prime Minister Chrétien. They were basically in a state of arrested development. They had actually started building roads on the reserve as part of that agreement to build new houses and expand, to enlarge the land base and stuff. Those roads are growing back in now because in 2001 they walked away from everything.

There have been no houses built. There is no land expansion. The diesel generators are operating at capacity, so they can't add any new houses onto it. The electrification and the expansion of the land base is all tied to any future development of the community.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you so much.

We will now hear from our other presenter, Chief Alex McDougall from the Wasagamack First Nation in Manitoba.

[Chief Alex McDougall, Chief, Wasagamack First Nation]

I'll say good morning to everyone who is participating, and extend thanks to the standing committee for giving us this opportunity to present.

Wasagamack First Nation is a community of approximately 2,000 people in central Manitoba. The community has had some level of intervention for 20-plus years now, going from co-management, to third party, and then most recently back to co-management again after efforts exerted by the community to develop a management action plan to deal with the debt.

As a first nations community we already start from a difficult position. All our programs and services are underfunded. Our population continues to grow while the funding remains constant and that in itself presents a challenge in trying to provide the essential services to the community and trying to retire our debt at the same time.

One of the common problems we see under a third party is that there is not enough flexibility to create a financial position whereby first nation communities can create surpluses for the purpose of retiring debt. Communities require assistance in approaching financial institutions where a community wishes to pursue loans, not only for the purpose of retiring debt but building economic opportunities within its community. That may also need to include the involvement in the NRTA through Canada and the province for those additional economic opportunities.

Programs and services are used to service debt retirement, which compromises the ability of programs and services to effectively assist its members. It also would create a process that communities would develop their own ongoing implementation and management of plans such as the MAPs, management action plans, that have recently come out from Canada.

I believe some policies need to be revisited to make that more effective for the first nations, such as longer terms for chiefs and councils to ensure continuity as well, and to have internal mechanisms in place where there is turnover in leadership but there is a team in place within the community to ensure ongoing implementation of such plans.

That's pretty much the presentation from Wasagamack.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you very much, Chief.

We're going to go into rounds of questions, and MPs will direct their questions. They'll identify if they're asking you or the group we have here in Ottawa. That will go on for approximately 45 minutes.

We're going to start the questioning with MP Rémi Massé.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Chiefs, thank you very much for being here and participating in the work of this committee. This is really important for us to try to understand this arrangement, this policy, and why it works, why it has had to be put in place, especially in your communities.

Maybe if we go back a bit, you can tell us how this came about, and why the third party manager was put in place in the first place. Help us understand how this came about for ABL.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Mr. Massé, is your question directed to the...?

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

It's directed to ABL, the chief or Mr. Wawatie.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

It's for the group here from the Algonquin.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Yes.

[Russell Diabo]

I'll try to answer that, because I was around then.

Basically, back in 1996, the customary Chief Harry Wawatie was dissatisfied. Barriere Lake was in co-management, and the co-manager was not reporting to the community. It was supposed to be an arrangement where both parties retain the co-manager, and the co-manager reports to both parties, the band and the federal government. That was not happening. Then the chief said that he wanted to bring in a co-manager who would report to both parties, to the band council and not just to the federal government. They were reporting only to the regional office of Indian Affairs in Quebec City.

Once he did that, the regional office announced they were going to put Barriere Lake into third party management. Chief Wawatie, who was an elder, resigned because he knew the pressure that would put on the community once it happened. It wasn't the first time. They did this in 1996-97, which led to that 1997 agreement. The relations with the department have been pretty tense over the decades, mostly because Barriere Lake didn't go into comprehensive claims. They wanted a different kind of agreement. They had their own vision, as Tony Wawatie said, of the development of their community.

Once they wanted to change co-managers, Indian Affairs took the opportunity to put them into third party management. Chief Wawatie died shortly after, I believe, due to the pressure. He had a hemorrhage of the brain. I myself believe it was related to the stress.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

In preparing to meet with you this morning, I was reading a number of articles that have been published over the last few months. One was in The Globe and Mail. I think some of you were interviewed in The Globe and Mail. It said that while being under third party management you were not really allowed to have access to financial statements or documents. The third party manager was asking you to sign off on financial statements, but unfortunately you were not provided with those reports.

Is that correct? Could you explain the relationship?

[Tony Wawatie]

Good morning. I'm Tony Wawatie.

The problem that's happening right now is that the third party manager doesn't provide us with the proper information to budget and forecast our year. There is always a delay. We've tried to implement the practice that we start looking at our budgets in February so that we can plan throughout the year, but that is never the case. What happens is that third party managers come and go. We've had about four. It's a contract from one year to another, and it changes.

What happens to the bills that are not paid? Are they going to be paid? With 11 years of this going on, something has to be eventually incurred. We do need that proper exercise where we sit down and look at it program by program by program. We are dealing with Health Canada programs and HRDC programs that we haven't seen. We've been trying to move away from this corporation that we belong to. Without new knowledge of any financial snapshot, it's pretty hard to try to move forward.

We've been asking, time and time again, what the actual deficit is. Are these monies that are being clawed back and taken away put into the deficit? I don't know. It has been very frustrating for the community to plan and to try to come up with ways to build our capacity, which has never happened with third party management. I know that for a fact. I was there.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Do you know how much it costs the community to pay for third party managers? Do you have a sense of how much it costs a year?

[Chief Casey Ratt]

Back in 2007, Lemieux Nolet, which is our current TPM, billed the community $658,000. That gives you a sense of what they cost per year. Right now they're at $550,000. In the beginning, it was $658,000. They were very high at that time.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

That was for 700 members within your community...?

[Chief Casey Ratt]

Yes. There are over 700 members registered, but we have 350 on reserve and approximately 200 living within the territory.

[Russell Diabo]

Maybe I could just add quickly that about 10% of the overall budget of the band has been paid to the third party manager, millions of dollars, over the last 11 years. I'll just leave it at that.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Questioning is moving to MP Viersen.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our guests for being here today. It's much appreciated.

I'm going to go into a vein similar to the one Mr. Massé took. Are you aware of the trip lines for what puts you in third party management? We had the ministry here the other day, but I sometimes get the sense that the communities themselves have no idea what the trip lines are. Mr. Massé asked what put you in there. This third party management or “recipient managed” seems to go way back to 1995. I was 10 years old in 1995. That's a long time ago already.

Do you have any idea what the initial reason was the very first time you came out of band management and went into some sort of default management? It seems to be that once you've tripped the first trip line, it's essentially a spiral drain after that. Do you have any idea what the initial trip line was?