Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 3rd, 2021

[Kristi Carin]

Thank you.

I can say that of the 76 calls to action that are under federal or shared responsibility, 16 have been completed.

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

Thank you.

Has recommendation 2 been completed? It has to do with child welfare.

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

Perhaps I could turn to my colleague, Madam Gideon.

[Valerie Gideon]

I would say that with the introduction of federal legislation specific to the exercise of jurisdiction from first nations, Inuit and Métis, we are currently at the stage of implementation of the legislation, in co-development with indigenous partners.

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

Thank you.

In regard to calls to action 6 to 12, which have to do with education, is the government using any data to demonstrate the progress towards closing the funding gap for the educational needs of indigenous children on reserves, and if yes, is there a way to access or see that data?

[Valerie Gideon]

We can certainly provide the committee with the significant increases in education funding based on the new national education formula for K to 12 that was developed with first nations. We can certainly demonstrate that to you over the last three or four or five years, depending on the committee's request.

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

Perfect.

Would a member of the public be able to easily access this?

[Valerie Gideon]

We produce our annual report at the departmental level. Our departmental results reports offer some of that financial information. In our response, we can also point you to where there are public sources of that information. We don't provide publicly every community's specific breakdown of education funding, for example.

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

In regard to calls to action 72 to 76 specifically, I know you—or the department—touched on it a bit, but I wasn't clear on it. What is the process for communities to access funds to conduct searches?

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

I'll let my colleague, Monsieur Reiher, speak to the specifics there.

[Martin Reiher]

Thank you.

An email address was made public yesterday for where requests can be sent. We will engage with the requesters to discuss with them what they want to accomplish, to develop a plan and to determine the funding that will be provided.

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

Prior to this, what was the process? Was it as easy as that?

[Martin Reiher]

This department did not have resources available explicitly for that type of work, where we put in place this program. As was indicated, we wanted to first deal with call to action 72 and engage on how best to address calls to action 74 to 76, which we have done. Now we are implementing it.

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

I will just add briefly that we are pleased that it looks like about 4,100 of the estimated 6,000 students who died or disappeared now have a place in the records that are being kept by the National Council for Reconciliation.

We think that is an important step forward. There's clearly more work to be done. Former senator Sinclair, who has been mentioned, has obviously spoken of the records that still need to go there. We support very much that work being done. That's an important part of this piece as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Powlowski, please go ahead.

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

Thanks.

I listened to a statement by former senator Sinclair about the Kamloops discovery. One of the things he stated was that when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was having its hearings, I guess at the end it requested more money to look specifically into deaths in residential schools. That was denied.

This was a number of years ago, but can you say why that was denied? Would the government and the ministry reconsider this, should the indigenous community want to do it at this point?

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

I'm not able to speak to the details of why the decision might have been made at that point in time. I know that, obviously, the request was made and the decision was made not to provide the funds.

This issue is certainly one we are committed to addressing and resolving. There is a significant amount of resources that are available to deal with it. The minister has committed that she's prepared to seek more resources if they are required. We would certainly entertain any request in this area seriously.

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

Deputy Minister, you've already kind of touched upon this. Former senator Sinclair has also talked about lists. I've heard from other sources as well that quite a few people seem to believe the church kept very good records, and that there are lists out there as to the names of people who died.

Does the government have such a list? What, if anything, has the government done to try to get hold of such lists?

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

The federal government has turned over all the documents it has and made them available. Those are part of the records that are currently being held.

Other parties have lists that haven't been shared. Obviously, those would be in their possession, not our possession. If they had been in our possession, we would have turned them over. We are certainly—along with the former commissioner and the report of the commission—strongly encouraging the call to make sure that information is shared.

Perhaps Monsieur Reiher can speak a bit about the communications we've had on that front. There was obviously a take-note debate the other evening that addressed some aspects of related issues here. These are some conversations we've been having with a number of players over the years to strongly encourage them to do as the federal government has done, which is to turn over the records.

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

Mr. Reiher, you might want to respond, but maybe in responding you can also answer this: Does the government have any legal power to require the other parties, such as the churches, to hand over any lists they have?

[Martin Reiher]

As part of the implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, we established an all-party table involving the churches, and we have continued discussion with churches in the development of the response to calls to action 74 to 76. As part of these discussions, they have all indicated around the table that they are prepared to collaborate and share information in their archives.

We will continue to facilitate the sharing of this information in the context of specific projects, and I anticipate that there will be great collaboration.

In terms of a legal capacity to impose sharing, we do not have that authority.

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

I realize that many of these children died many years ago. Has there really been nothing in all those years in terms of attempts to investigate this before? I think we're obviously at chapter 22 of a long story.

Really, did no previous governments, no indigenous services, ever make an attempt to get to the bottom of finding out names and notifying families?

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

There have over time been a number of efforts made, though not as co-ordinated and not on a national scale like this. For example, there have been known situations in Regina where there was a “discovery”, and I think that's a loaded word in this context, because there are many indigenous communities that say, “We told you all along that people were there.”

It is of note that when the Kamloops band went and looked, they looked in only one place; they didn't have to look all over. They knew exactly where to go; they went to that one spot.

There have been many instances where remains have been found—55 sites out of 131 so far—but it has not been done on as organized a basis as this. Even at Kamloops, there was work done in the 1990s originally, or least most recently prior to the events of this past week and this past year.

Yes, work has been done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Sorry to interrupt. We'll move quickly along to Madam Bérubé, for two and a half minutes.

Please go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yesterday, during question period, the Prime Minister said as follows: “In 2019, we invested $33.8 million in this work...” This was for calls to action 72 to 76.

When we look at the 2020‑21 main estimates and the 2020‑21 supplementary estimates (B), all we see is an expenditure of $3.2 million in the supplementary estimates.

Do you agree that a budget and a budget implementation act aren't the same thing? How do you explain that?