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.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
Thank you for presenting here today. I certainly can understand the level of frustration. I spent six years working as a band manager in my hometown, my home community, and I can relate to the struggles with ongoing financial resources. I've had opportunities as recently as last week to talk to some of the chiefs, and I think every one of the communities in my riding is in a deficit situation, every band council except for the ones that have settled land claims and self-government agreements.
I remember back when I was working as band manager, there were many different pots of money to apply for and our core funding was small. Everything was application based, and that slowly evolved to closing the pots of money and putting money into core funding. Our buildings got fancier and we had more of what we needed and things got to a point where it looked to be doing very well, but then the core funding started to get cut.
Is that where it started? I understand the agreements and the governance issues, but I'm trying to find out whether the change in core funding levels is the reason you started accumulating a deficit.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
All right, perhaps we can start with the Wasagamack chief.
Chief Alex, do you want to take that question?
9:30 a.m.
Chief, Wasagamack First Nation
Yes. I would agree with that conclusion as one of the reasons we're accumulating deficits. The level of core funding that the communities get definitely contributes to it. However, I would highlight that there are other contributors to it as well. Some of the programs and services that are administered by the community suffer annual clawbacks, in the social development program or the IA program. It's a dollar-for-dollar program and the policies that are imposed on communities for providing that service aren't reflective of the communities' needs. Because of that, annually our first nations have to pay back a fair amount of funding to the department. Also, within that program, there are bereavement costs that aren't taken into consideration. As our point of service is in Winnipeg, the amount of travel and cost associated with providing that service to the family of the deceased, those are big contributors to that as well.
One thing we've discovered is that the many co-managers we've worked with and the third party managers who have come and gone have all come in with a debt retirement plan in hand for how they're going to get us out of debt. They've never included the communities themselves and its leaders in participating in that development. That is a flag for immediate failure. That just perpetuates the situation where first nation communities continue to be in intervention with the department. It is not until our community says, “No, we want to be involved in the development of a plan for how we to try to address some of these concerns.” It was under our instruction, working with the regional office here and the assigned third party—
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
I'll just interrupt you because you're going into an area that I was going to ask a question on next. While you're in third party management or intervention, what is the role of the chief and council? If you're not part of the co-management recovery plan or if there's no recovery plan, the money is under somebody else's authority. I want to ask both groups. What does the chief and council do and what kinds of resources do they have?
9:35 a.m.
Chief, Wasagamack First Nation
I'll say there's no role at all if you're in third party management. The department basically assigns you a third party manager. They have certain guidelines and restrictions that the department imposes through the third party manager, and as leaders we don't have any involvement in that.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
You just have the title of chief and really nothing else.
9:35 a.m.
Chief, Wasagamack First Nation
There's really nothing else in dealing through the department, anyway.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
I want to ask the Algonquin people a quick question. In your view, at the rate you're going, you could be in a deficit third party management situation forever, unless something changes drastically. You're not getting further out of the hole. You're going to need third party mangers to bind you to the third party people because they're driving you deeper and deeper into debt.
9:35 a.m.
Chief, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
Yes. I also agree with Chief Alex. There is no say when you're under the third party management system. They make all the decisions in terms of where to spend the money. You may get a courtesy call once in a while to say we're coming into the community next week and we'd like to meet you. That's it.
As far as the TPM regime is concerned, I said in my opening statement that they do not repay any debt that has occurred in the past, even to the CRA, the Quebec CSST. Right now they are well over a million dollars. There's nothing we can do or say to TPM to try to get the debt lowered so we could move out of TPM. I guess it's just part of the third party management system.
9:35 a.m.
Chief, Wasagamack First Nation
Yes. That's one of the discoveries we made. It was that until there was some flexibility provided by the region, if we don't have that ability to start dealing with debt under a third party, we would be in perpetual third party management and under the intervention policy of the department.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB
Thank you.
Russell, you looked like you wanted to say something. Would you go ahead?
9:35 a.m.
Policy Consultant Advisor, Algonquin Nation Secretariat, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
I wanted to answer one of the previous questions the MP had, which was about the reduction of the core funding.
I would say in Barriere Lake's case it started with the 2% cap being imposed in 1995 by finance minister Paul Martin. Barriere Lake was managing that except for the intervention that occurred in 1996 and 1997.
I think there is another contributing factor to this. Barriere Lake has severe age-grade deficits in the community. Barriere Lake did a study in 1995-96 that found that the federal principal had no pedagogy. They were just processing kids through the grades until grade eight, when they were then sent outside the community. They didn't have the literacy or numeracy skills necessary and they were put in special courses. They wound up dropping out. There has been maybe a handful—the chief or Tony could correct me—I believe maybe five high school graduates, less than 10, in the community over the last 30 or 40 years. They're consistently dropping out. The education of the community has not been properly managed either, which is a contributing factor on capacity.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB
On that note, do you have a high proportion of young people in your community compared with most communities?
9:35 a.m.
Interim Director General, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
We have 65% who are under 25 years old. That gives you an idea of the struggles that we go through in terms of trying to build our capacity. It's a big mess. We have to honestly take a look at the situation collectively and start coming back to the table. Especially, the federal government has to be a part of that solution, not the problem.
9:35 a.m.
Policy Consultant Advisor, Algonquin Nation Secretariat, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
If I could just add quickly, Barriere Lake had proposed an action plan to the department, which they didn't get an answer to because they knew you couldn't put all these issues into mediation. Third party management's in the mediation, but they proposed addressing all these other related issues that the chief referred to in his opening statement through an action plan to be worked out between INAC and the council, but INAC hasn't responded to that.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB
Could the third party manager play a role in closing that loop, but they are not working with your chief and council so there's no movement on that?
9:40 a.m.
Interim Director General, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
As it is now, I guess, with all the heated pressure, with all the issues being exposed on third party management, I think they are trying to help somewhat but with a limited commitment. I wouldn't say it's perfect, but at least now we do communicate and some of the things that I've been requesting are slowly being given to me. That just goes to show the pressure our community has been under in exposing the situation, and I think every Canadian has the right to know what's going on in Barriere Lake.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB
It sounds similar to what Chief McDougall said, that it takes your action and your pushing constantly to try to get action on the issues that are important to you and your community.
Around this issue of capacity development and skill development, and this is for both witnesses, I think that the third party manager theoretically is supposed to be providing some kind of learning opportunities or work in that regard. Is that happening for your communities? I'll ask the chief on the phone to answer that as well after.
9:40 a.m.
Chief, Wasagamack First Nation
No. There's no effort by TPMs to provide a strategy for training at the first nation level, at least at that level of intervention.