Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 3rd, 2021

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

Thank you for the question.

I wouldn't say that the money was blocked. It's just that there was no question of spending the money without knowing what the communities involved wanted done.

The communities told us that the government was making unilateral decisions during the residential school era and that this was the source of the issue. While the discussions concerned the children who died, there was no question of going back to that era of unilateral decision‑making by the federal government.

We conducted consultations to find out how the communities wanted to proceed. We listened to them. The response announced yesterday is based on what we heard.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

The Toronto Star also reported that the research that led to the appalling discovery in Kamloops was funded by provincial, not federal, dollars. Why is this the case?

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

I can confirm that the funding came from the federal government, specifically the Department of Canadian Heritage. The details of the grant are online. I believe that the amount was approximately $40,000 from a program set up in part to respond to the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Last December, I received the response to one of my written questions regarding the implementation of calls to action 81 and 82. The government responded that only 0.5 full‑time equivalent employees were responsible for the implementation of call to action 82. As you may recall, this call to action consists of the construction of a national monument in Ottawa to honour the victims of residential schools.

Don't you think that this isn't enough to implement the call to action?

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

I'll ask my colleague, Ms. Carin, to explain exactly where things stand with regard to call to action 81.

[Kristi Carin, Director General, Reconciliation Secretariat Branch, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs]

Unfortunately I don't have that information in front of me, but we can commit to providing a written response to the committee.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I have with me the government's response to my question. I'll read an excerpt: “Designation of a site will be undertaken once subsidies are provided to build this monument. As it is likely that a national monument would be constructed on federal lands in the capital, no purchase of land is envisioned at this time.”

Am I to understand that the government hasn't planned any subsidies for the construction of the monument to honour the victims of residential schools?

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

We'll give you a written response with more details. However, I can tell you that the federal government owns a great deal of land in the national capital region. It isn't always necessary to buy land. Often the land costs much more than the monument itself. I don't foresee the funding issue getting in the way of what we need to do at all.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Given everything happening right now and the 2019 and current budgets, how do you plan to help the communities affected at this time?

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

The minister announced yesterday that $27 million was available. She also committed to providing more resources if necessary.

Clearly, communities across the country will want to take a variety of approaches. Some will want to take extremely comprehensive steps. In other cases, there will likely be a great deal of discussion within the communities. The necessary investments may ultimately be more modest, even though the outcome is as important as any other project that communities might undertake in different parts of the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

We'll leave it at that and move on now to Ms. Blaney for six minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to everyone for being here to testify.

I want to start off by saying that I think it's important for all of us to recognize that what we're seeing across Canada in indigenous communities is not a call for remembrance or commemoration. It's a call to acknowledge genocide, and to acknowledge that there are crime scenes across our Canada, that there are graves of indigenous children across our country. I want to acknowledge that as I start my questioning.

My first question is, how many nations is the department currently working with to identify possible burial sites?

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

If I could just pick up quickly on the first point you made, some of the most heart-wrenching conversations I've had in the last week have been with indigenous people who are frustrated with the reaction of Canadians, from the perspective, they said, that six years ago this issue was laid bare in black and white for every Canadian to read. Why is it a surprise now? I would just pick up on the comment you made there.

We are working with every community that wishes to engage on this issue. We have made communications to every single community in the country. It's on our website. We'll be sending out an email blast to everybody. We are prepared to work with anyone on this front. It is their choice. These are very difficult conversations, as you can imagine, and many communities have in their priorities things that are not related to these issues at this moment in time. We will respect the time frames in which they want to raise them and whether or not they want to raise them, but we are open to working with everyone. Again, there are a number of communities where we're having specific conversations, but we're open to working with absolutely everyone.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Justice Sinclair has told the world that when he started this process, when he was part of that commission, they didn't expect the number of stories they received from survivors who were talking about children killed, children who died and children who never returned. They weren't sure what happened to them, indicating very clearly that there was something serious happening here that we should have been looking into and, of course, that wasn't studied the way it should have been.

I'm just wondering if you could tell us how many requests the department has received, how many have been dismissed and how many have been followed up with, and if the stories of survivors are enough for an investigation.

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

I'll ask my colleague Martin Reiher to speak to some of the specifics and the requests we have had.

I'm not aware that we have denied any requests from different groups that might have come forward to us. Obviously, we were waiting for the money. We expect many requests to come in now that it's out there. The groups we work with have known that this money was coming. They were waiting for the details of it. It's now out there.

You're quite right, obviously, that these stories have been told many times. I think one of the reasons people have stopped talking about them is that, throughout history, parents have gone and asked school administrators, and parents have gone and talked to police forces. People asked all sorts of government agents what had happened to their children, and they were ignored time and time and time again. In some instances, they were lied to. In some instances, documents were withheld that should have been given to them. People got to the point where they didn't talk about it publicly and, as you point out, it came out in significant volume during the hearings process.

Perhaps my colleague Mr. Reiher could speak to the engagements we have had where people have sought resources to this point.

[Martin Reiher]

Indeed we have not denied any request for funding. We are actually keeping track of the requests we have received in the last few days in particular, and we will follow up with the first nations, in addition, of course, to making the information available to present requests in the future.

The second part of the question was with respect to what survivors had to say and whether that is sufficient to launch the work. Obviously the information that survivors recall and have shared is critical as a starting point for that type of work. Additional work will be required—historical research and archeological research, obviously, in order to locate potential burial grounds.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just have a quick few seconds left.

Are there support systems that are going to be available for communities, should a cite be identified? We need to see trauma-informed care given onsite for elders, knowledge keepers, community members, survivors and their families. I'm just wondering if those resources are also part of this package.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Answer briefly, please.

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

I'll turn to my colleague, Valerie Gideon.

[Valerie Gideon, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Indigenous Services]

I can speak to that.

In budget 2021, we were able to obtain renewal of the Indian residential schools resolution health support program, to continue to extend those mental health and cultural supports to communities across the country until 2024. There are additional mental health resources also that were included, so the total is close to $600 million over three years. That's in addition to the other base programming that we have in the department, such as non-insured health benefits.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks very much.

Members of the committee, the departmental staff, of course, is available. If we're not able to complete all of our inquiries, we can certainly ask for written submissions back.

In view of the impending hour ahead of us, which features the commissioners from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I'm going to ask that we take one more question from each of our parties on the committee. That will allow us to have just a few minutes prior to noon to make sure that our next set of witnesses is connected and ready to go, because we also have a hard stop at one o'clock, which we won't be able to extend.

Unless someone wishes to challenge that, I will now go to Mr. Schmale.

Jamie, go ahead please.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair, and good afternoon, witnesses.

Out of the calls to action in the TRC report, how many have been completed so far?

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

We estimate that approximately 80% of those for which the federal government is solely or in partnership responsible have been either completed or substantially completed. An example of substantially complete or at least well under way—I think that's the terminology used—would be C-15, where the consultations have been done; it has been presented to Parliament, and it's being considered. Of course, we can't say it's completed until the final step is there, but that would be something we would consider to be well under way.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay. How many are fully completed?

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

I'll ask my colleague, Madam Carin, to speak to the specifics there.