Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 12th, 2020

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I admire the game, not necessarily the results, but you'll appreciate that I'm doing the same thing.

I think we have to compare apples with apples here. It's key, because it leads into the statement you made.

A number of the FTEs reflect the transfer from the first nations and Inuit health branch from Health Canada as part of the disaggregation, not only of Crown-Indigenous Relations but Indigenous Services Canada, and making sure that first nations health is treated in a culturally appropriate way. So it came under my ministry. We need to reflect that, as well.

As to the other numbers, I guess what we would say is that the penetration rate of the funds into the communities is very, very high. I would like to turn to them, but I will turn to my officials to give you a little more clarity on that.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Before you do, I get your response on the change of the departments, but overall, there are still about 650 people added to the combined department. I would keep that in mind in the response.

[Sony Perron]

Most of the increase is coming from the transfer from Health Canada. If you look at their numbers, you will see a diminution of the first nations health branch plus a bit more than 300 employees coming from their internal services who made up the growth in the department.

Right now, we are looking at the program ratio between internal services and program management. We are below 4% to 5%. This is in fact a ratio that is better than when INAC was managing these services. Our ratio is really thin. It's around 1% internal services spending overall, and around 3% program management. The rest goes directly to communities through transfers, or to organizations out there to deliver the services, or for direct payment for services like drugs and dental care. The department is very lean.

With regard to our ratio of administrative costs versus operations, when it was under INAC, we were talking about something around 40-something per cent. Now if I remember well, we are running at about 29%.

At Indigenous Services Canada, I'm pleased to share with you.... I think it's all right to be concerned about numbers and federal employees doing this work with a mandate like we have, but you should be happy to hear that we are close to having 30% of our staff being indigenous people working within the department. A lot of them are executives or are on the ground working.

We are also making progress in terms of representation. If we want to get rid of this department over time, we need to build a workforce that can help us to transform and transfer the services, like we did in British Columbia, for example.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You have half a minute. Go ahead.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I have one other very specific question.

On one of your measures, the percentage of first nation and Inuit adults who reported being in very good or excellent health in the 2021 plan.... You reduced this target from 50% to 44%, and this has an expected date of achievement of 2028. That is eight years down the road.

Are we adjusting the targets to match our performance? Are we working hard to achieve those targets? That target is a long way down the road.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Briefly, go ahead.

[Valerie Gideon]

I will speak to it.

The source of that information is the first nations regional longitudinal health survey. It's cyclical, over a four- or five-year period. That is the reason. However, that is a first nations data source that's entirely controlled and driven by first nations. That indicator is crafted by first nations to the First Nations Information Governance Centre.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Powlowski, for a final round of five minutes.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you.

H1N1, which was the last COVID-19-like virus to go around, disproportionately affected people in northern indigenous communities for the reasons you mentioned, probably the usual social determinants of health, lack of water, overcrowding, those kinds of things. However, I think there was probably also a genetic component. Being a doctor in Thunder Bay regional hospital at the time, we had a lot of ICU beds occupied by people from northern communities. There were young people who got H1N1 and were ill enough that they had to be intubated and put on a ventilator.

The ultimate concern with COVID-19 is the proportion of people who have more serious illnesses. The answer to that, if you're in one of the northern fly-in communities, is to fly them out. In the case of an epidemic, you're probably going to need more planes, better transportation systems. Is that being considered and prepared for?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I'd ask Valerie to answer that.

[Valerie Gideon]

Air ambulance services are done through provincial governments. Particularly in northern Ontario, it's entirely the Ornge contract. That is entirely an Ontario contract. That speaks to the absolute importance of ensuring that provincial and territorial governments, particularly provincial governments, are factoring in first nations communities in their pandemic planning, because what our department can influence is what's local or in the community, which will not be sufficient at all in response to COVID-19.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Some people in certain provinces seem to have provincial governments that are maybe less responsive to their communities' social and health needs than other provinces are to their own. I won't mention any particular provinces.

What can you do for people who may be in a province like, speculatively speaking, Ontario, who may be concerned about their provincial government's lack of responsiveness to something like this, to ensure that people in those northern indigenous communities aren't left out because of a provincial government that maybe isn't as proactive as we might like?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

To the extent that the services and administration haven't been involved—like in FNHA or in territories—we have had an excellent response rate from provinces. We have joint protocols in many measures to augment and coordinate among each other. You don't want authorities tripping over each other. With responsible leadership, I think everyone is cognizant of the fact that we have to rely on science and to check our operational controls and our capacity to surge.

I won't speculate as to unwillingness. I think everyone is on the same page and knows the emergency and urgency of this pandemic and at the very least how to slow it. There is good to very good communication among governments to ensure that communities in need get the services they need when they need them. Should they not, we are prepared to step in aggressively.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I want to change gear and ask about water supply.

There seems to be an issue with sudden, unpredicted problems with the water supply and the inability to respond quickly to that. For example, the Neskantaga First Nation in northern Ontario was evacuated earlier this year because of a sudden problem with the water supply.

I've heard this wasn't the case, that there wasn't an inventory of what each first nations community had in their water purification system. When there was a problem, the people in Thunder Bay, for example, who were providing the solutions, didn't know what equipment they had up there. They suggested there ought to be some sort of inventory so that Indigenous Affairs—though I'm not sure who it would be—would know which community has what equipment, so that when there's a problem they're able to rapidly respond.

The second part is that some rapid water purification systems are available. Have you contemplated trying to see if we could use them to respond to these emergencies so they didn't have to do things like evacuate communities?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You just have a few seconds. Please, go ahead.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

We have a wide variety of measures we can put in place when these issues arise. The very strict standards around water are such that issues arise more frequently. Correspondingly, we respond quickly. If you look at what happened in Fort Severn, we're working quite quickly to thaw the pipe that froze.

These things do arise, and we're ready to act quite quickly.

As to the inventory, if we have a second, I'll let my staff respond to the inventory.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Okay, very quickly.

[Sony Perron]

We have a good knowledge of recently replaced or built systems. Sometimes additions or changes are made to old systems and our staff are not aware of that. Often when there is a problem, someone with the technical expertise needs to go there to determine the source of the problem. Is it the pump, the filtration system, a maintenance issue?

So at a distance, we have some information. But to be really honest, when no diagnostics can be done at the local level, we sometimes have to fly someone into the community to try to determine the nature of the problem and the potential immediate and long-term solutions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Minister Miller and staff, thank you very much.

We've come to the end of this first session. Another important one is coming up.

Thanks to our committee for moving things along. We got lots of answers.

We'll suspend briefly to set up our next meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Welcome again, everyone, as we continue on with this meeting of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.

The Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and the Minister of Northern Affairs are both here with us today, and they get 10 minutes each to make opening statements. Then we'll proceed with questions and answers.

I will remind the committee that we do have committee business following the vote on the supplementary estimates after we finish today.

Minister Bennett, would you like to go ahead first?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations]

For sure, and I think because it's the two of us, we've really only planned on five minutes each so that you will have a longer time for questions, if that's okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

The committee would like that, I'm sure.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

However, if I go to five minutes and 10 seconds, you'll understand?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!