Evidence of meeting #51 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 community.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Interim Director General, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
On ABL's side no advisory services are being offered to the community.
Conservative
Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB
More than half a million dollars a year is going out of the community for that kind of service and there's no support to develop skills that would aid your community in the future.
Liberal
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Chair, I would like to share my time with Hunter Tootoo. I'll let him take the first question and then I'll pick up from there.
Independent
Hunter Tootoo Independent Nunavut, NU
Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Bossio.
Welcome to the witnesses.
You mentioned earlier on that you're hearing a lot of talk from the government on nation-to-nation relationships and reconciliation, but you're not seeing much action, and in the last round of questioning, little support is coming from the third party managers. I want to draw a clear distinction between the government and the bureaucracy. The third party managers should be trying to work themselves out of a job as quickly as possible to bring up capacity, but it seems as if it's in their own interest to keep things the way they are, at half a million dollars a year.
From the bureaucracy's point of view, they're probably looking at it as they know how much it's going to cost them. They don't have to worry about expanding the expenditure base that may be required and has been ignored for years. I look at that—I've heard a lot about it—and it seems to be an entrenched culture within the bureaucracy. I'm wondering if both the witnesses seem to be hearing one message coming from the political leadership and running into the same old challenges dealing with the bureaucracy.
Policy Consultant Advisor, Algonquin Nation Secretariat, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
From Barriere Lake's side, yes, that would be true, but the Prime Minister appointed Michael Wernick as Clerk of the Privy Council, and he was the deputy minister of Indian affairs who oversaw what happened at Barriere Lake for the last decade. The Quebec regional office is also a big obstacle because they have an idea on how they think the community of Barriere Lake should develop. They've had that same idea since the 1980s, since I've been involved, just to expand the land base and then hook them up to electricity, and then that's it, they're done. But Barriere Lake pushed back and said, no, we need a comprehensive plan to build our community dealing with, for instance, our education needs, and there are, as I pointed out, the age-grade deficits and that.
They do need a comprehensive plan to get out of this mess, and that's why they proposed an action plan. But that was at the political level, and it's really up to the minister to follow up on that and tell the bureaucracy what to do.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
At the last meeting we had the first nations financial management organization here, and they seemed to be assisting a lot of first nations to develop first nations-driven priorities and financial management plans, and community-driven priorities, and a sustainable financial management plan. I know they've grown it now to 207 first nation communities, which is about a third of all first nation communities.
From what I understand here, and a lot of the testimony and the answers you've given, one of the biggest problems we have is that there is no first nations community-driven priority or a choice at all as far as a financial management plan is concerned. Am I correct in that?
Interim Director General, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
I think that from Barriere Lake's side, we've made efforts with the assistance of our tribal council where we invited a financial manager, and I can't remember the organization, but it's from the organization Terry Goodtrack is involved with, and we took our own initiative to try to give the skills, the tools, to our managers. We did that on our own initiative because the third party manager didn't want us to educate ourselves. This is what we did as well.
Interim Director General, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
That's the Aboriginal Financial Officers Association, and that's something we took upon ourselves to try to come up with some kind of a management action plan. Third party management has been in our community for quite some time, and for sure there are some people who may take advantage of that situation, whether it will be third party management, whether it will be INAC officials, whether it will be community people as well, so I think we have to be very honest and look at the whole picture. I know that we have taken steps to educate ourselves—
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
But once it goes to third party management, it's 100% INAC-driven.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
I'm sorry, but the time has elapsed, so perhaps we'll have to save that question.
We are over on the questioning time, sorry.
That ends this session. I do want to thank Chief McDougall for staying on the line and being patient with the technical problems we had, and, of course, to our three guests here who came down, I appreciate that. We want to thank you for your time and your interesting, obviously, presentations and discussions. Meegwetch.
I have a question for the committee. We have a request from another group to appear, so we would typically have to go in camera, or could I just...?
I'll ask the committee if you feel comfortable in having a short discussion about another group presenting, or should we move in camera for this business?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
Do I hear any objections? Okay.
All right, we have a group, the Keewatin Tribal Council, that has made an appeal to come and present. That's KTC from Manitoba, and I think there are 11 communities or bands that they represent, or 11 communities, 11 member first nations, specifically.
Liberal
Don Rusnak Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Madam Chair, where in Manitoba are they—south, north, central?
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Madam Chair, do they want to come present on our third party management topic?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
As you know, we have been approaching various groups, and some have not been able to come in. We could invite them to come on Thursday. Is that all right with everyone?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
It seems fine. Good. I thank you. If that doesn't work for them, we will invite them to present a brief, which they're also willing to do.
Thank you for your attention. That ends this committee session.
The meeting is adjourned.