Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 19th, 2016

[Michael Ferguson]

If the question is specific to the first nations file, I would say that there is a whole gamut of different types of agreements in place between various levels of government. Trying to categorize them would therefore not be particularly easy. We haven't really audited this from the perspective of all of the different types of programs that are out there.

What we identified in the British Columbia First Nations Health Authority situation was that it wasn't just long-term, stable funding from the federal government to the health authority, but that it also involved provincial government funding on a long-term basis for the health authority. That is a case where we have seen it. I don't think any of the other audits....

Did we see it? Okay, Mr. Martire can speak to another case.

[Joe Martire]

As the Auditor General mentioned in his opening statement, in order to make movement in a lot of these files, there has to be the will and coordination among all three players.

For example, the policing program is funded 52% by the federal government and 48% by the provinces, and they have different types of agreements, which we talked about. We saw there that it's very important that these programs be coordinated.

When you talk about health services in remote communities, again, on that whole issue of the delivery health services to people in those communities, from the first nations' point of view, it's very important that they get the health services from all the players.

Coordination is a very important issue that has to be managed by all three parties.

Also, on the emergency management issue, there's provincial funding that takes place there, until an emergency is of such a magnitude that the federal government has to kick in.

In a lot of these programs, the federal government normally has the lead, but from the service delivery point of view, all three players have to be involved, and the services themselves are actually delivered by many first nation organizations.

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

You noted that many first nation reserves lack organizations to support service delivery, such as school boards and health service boards. Did you come across any reasons that those boards don't exist? Is it because of the different structure in government, or is there just not the expertise in the area?

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, I think it's probably difficult to generalize. I don't think we were necessarily looking at why they didn't exist. I think what we identified was simply that when there is a gap or absence of those types of organizations to make sure that services are delivered, it's harder to make sure that those services are getting to people.

I think it was more just a matter of identifying that in order to make sure that those first nation members were getting access to those types of services, it's important to have somebody whose job, on the ground, is to make sure that those services are actually being delivered to people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Thanks. We're out of time there.

The next question goes to Gary Anandasangaree.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

With respect to the overall audit function that you perform on the first nations' file, what process do you use to ascertain the priorities? Is it something that's mandated on a cycle by the department? If so, on rulings such as the one that was referenced earlier with respect to child welfare, what role would you play in furthering and supporting the department in understanding the breakdown that led to the systemic failures within the system?

[Michael Ferguson]

I'll speak first to the audit mandate, and then I may look to one of my colleagues to talk about the child welfare issue.

Fundamentally, again, I think it's important for everybody to understand that under our legislation, we choose whatever we want to audit. Our audits are not dictated by any department or anyone else. We choose whatever it is that we want to audit. The way that we select audits is by doing what we call a strategic audit plan. We try to identify where the risky areas are. There are issues in first nations, so we have identified them as one of our priorities.

We do a lot of outreach. We have an advisory committee, for example, on aboriginal issues. We will get them together periodically to try to understand what people outside of government believe are the issues.

We have the work that we do in the three northern territories. From the point of view of the north and the aspect of services to the north, we're in the north a lot in each of those three territories.

Then we spend a lot of time working with all the departments involved to try to understand the issues and to try to set the priorities. One of the biggest challenges for us is figuring out where the risks are and what things need to be audited. We spend a lot of time trying to sort through that.

In terms of the child welfare, I'll ask Mr. Berthelette to provide you with more information on that.

[Jerome Berthelette, Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Mr. Chair, we conducted an audit of the child and family services program a number of years ago. The issues that we identified in that audit were similar those that came out during the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision, related mostly, I think, to funding and the lack of support for family services within the communities.

We don't have a particular role to play in terms of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision or the department's follow-up on that decision-making process, but because we have already done an audit on child and family services and because of this decision and the need for the department to do something further now, I suspect that at some point I will be going to the Auditor General and suggesting that a follow-up audit on child and family services would be appropriate. Exactly when that will happen will be determined as part of our audit planning process.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

On a similar note, the next speaker will be talking about correction issues. For the first time, the prison population in Canada in the federal prisons has surpassed 25% for the indigenous population. That number is staggering when you look at the indigenous women, who represent 37% of the prison population.

On something like that, what would trigger an audit? At what point do you say that it's ridiculous and you really need look at some of the structural issues and the failures in the system and come up with a report that maybe gives more insight or shines more light on these numbers?

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Just half a minute, please.

[Michael Ferguson]

We have a lot of respect for the work that's done through the correctional investigator. A number of our audits look at and rely on the work of the correctional investigator. In fact, right now we have an audit under way that's looking at aboriginal offenders and the sort of rehabilitation, or the handling, I suppose, of aboriginal offenders. We have already decided that's something we need to look at, and that audit is already under way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Thank you.

The next question is for David Yurdiga, please.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

In our discussion on April 14 of the declaration of a health emergency on first nation communities in northern Ontario, we heard testimony from Mr. Michael Kirlew that indicated there's a lack of a proper pharmaceutical inventory. Is this a matter of a lack of financial resources? Or, is there a supply-on-demand policy? I'm not sure if you ever audit that sort of issue, but it was brought up, and it was a concern to all of us.

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, I can't speak to that particular issue. I don't think it was something that we identified in any detail.

Before I turn it over to Mr. Martire, I'll just mention again that there might be a couple of aspects that need to be looked at there. Number one, would there have been a funding issue? A second one could again be this whole area of local service delivery that we've identified, right? In order to make sure there's an appropriate supply of medications or, again, other access to health services, having the appropriate organizations at the local level to ensure that would be something worth looking at.

I'll ask Mr. Martire if he has anything to add.

[Joe Martire]

Actually, that's a good example that would link to the impediments that the Auditor General spoke about. We looked at the access to health services in remote first nation communities. As the committee may know, the nursing stations are the first point of contact for health services. Therefore, when we did that audit, one of the things we looked at was what services these nursing stations are supposed to provide.

The good news was that the department was getting around to actually defining what services were to be provided. At that time, though, they didn't know the capacity of the nursing stations to actually provide the services. They had identified what services people could expect, but they didn't know whether any particular nursing station could actually provide, or had the capacity to provide, those services. They didn't have the information at that point.

That issue was identified in the audit, and the department is working on it as we speak.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

You were mentioning that the department is working on it. Once the report is completed and recommendations go back to the government to rectify the issue, what safeguards are there? Will there be pharmaceutical inventory control, dispensary procedures...? It's obvious that we don't want anybody in the situation of needing pain medication or morphine and there being none to be found in the inventory.

To what depth will you go to to ensure that these sorts of situations don't happen again?

[Michael Ferguson]

As Mr. Martire pointed out—and this goes back to the idea of having the right support at the local level—the first thing is to identify the availability of those drugs and how many are needed at these first nations nursing stations, and then make sure that the supply is happening, that the people know how to handle it, and all of these types of things.

Again, it goes back to making sure there's a definition of what level of, in this case, pharmaceuticals needs to be available at the nursing station and making sure there's a way to ensure that it's getting there and that the people there are handling it, so that you have the appropriate local support level to make sure, if people need that type of medication and should have access to it the nursing station, that it has already been defined, the nursing station knows how to handle it, and know how they are going to get it, and that somebody is making sure it is happening.

The department—in this case I guess it would be the Department of Health—needs to make sure that all of those components are in place, not just for pharmaceuticals or medication, but for all of the health services that they have identified should be delivered through those nursing stations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

You're out of time.

I'm sorry. Please finish your thanks.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you very much for those answers.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

I'm sorry to cut you off there, my friend.

The final five-minute question for the Office of the Auditor General is going to Michael McLeod.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Once again I want to compliment you on some of the work you've done. It's really interesting, and I certainly will get copies of some of these documents to review further.

The one area I want to flag as a concern is the absence of fiscal arrangements. I'm from the Northwest Territories, and we've had quite a few land claims that have been settled. I think we have four large claims that have been concluded and signed off. The expectation would be that the tribal council or the aboriginal government would then move into the next stage of providing governance to its members. However, from my discussions after being elected to this position, I'm quickly realizing that many of the fiscal arrangements that were supposed to be part of the discussions have not moved forward, some going as far back as 2004.

The claim spells out the procedure for how both sides are supposed to work out the need and for providing programs, for land administration—all the different areas. The Conservative government in the last term decided to come out with a new policy, the harmonization policy, which brings forward a whole new set of rules that nobody expected and that would provide maybe one third of what the aboriginal governments need to govern their people, provide the programs, provide everything that's agreed to in their agreement for operations.

I'm wondering whether this is something you've looked at. I see you looked at the Labrador claim and its implementation and how that's working.

[Michael Ferguson]

In terms of the audit we did on the Labrador Inuit lands claims agreement, I think maybe what would be relevant was that part of—I believe it was the fiscal arrangement agreement....

Under its agreement, the Nunatsiavut government had been given and taken on, I suppose, responsibility for housing within the land claims area, but there was no actual mechanism for them to access any funding for a housing program. There wasn't a specific federal program that existed for that, so there was a situation in which there was of a land claims agreement with a fiscal arrangement agreement that was saying that the Nunatsiavut government was going to be responsible for housing, but there was no way for them to deliver on that housing obligation and responsibility.

The other thing we noted was that there had been about a 10-year disagreement between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Nunatsiavut government over access to shrimp quotas. There was never any resolution to that problem. The agreement included a dispute resolution mechanism, but that dispute resolution mechanism was never used to try to resolve the dispute.

To me, when we look to that Labrador Inuit lands claims agreement, I think there are a number of things in there that the government needs to learn from in making sure that when an agreement is establishing a responsibility and a first nations government is taking responsibility for something, it's understood how they're going to be able to live up to that responsibility. Also, when there is a disagreement that happens over the course of an agreement, both parties need to be confident that they can go to the dispute resolution mechanism and accept its end result.

I think there were a number of things in that audit that, perhaps, point out some issues that need to be dealt with in future land claims agreements.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

You have about 40 seconds.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

I want to flag a quick issue regarding police depots and nurses across the north and the high suicide rate. You can't have nurses in the community if you don't have the RCMP, and if you don't have the RCMP, you can't have nurses. So there's a real challenge there, and I think the high rate of suicides between Nunavut and the Northwest Territories...we have had 650 suicides over the last 15 years and we don't have any services.

I was going to go along that line of questioning, but I'm out of time.

Thank you very much.