Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 29th, 2024

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Minister, I have just a last question. Do you think we need to have continued debate on this, or do you think this is something we need to get to committee as soon as possible?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

There are great suggestions from first nations leaders across the country about how to strengthen this bill. I have always said publicly, and I'll say it again here today, that I am very interested and the government is very interested in any amendments that will help this bill achieve its goal, which is to protect the drinking water of first nations peoples across this country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. Battiste.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To begin, thank you for being here, Madam Minister.

I have a question about Bill C‑38, An Act to amend the Indian Act (new registration entitlements).

Can you tell us when this bill will be debated in Parliament again and how many people will be affected by the changes your government is proposing?

Before you answer, I would like to state a few facts. First reading was on December 14, 2022. Second reading began on October 20, 2023. Debate then resumed on March 22, 2024, at a shortened sitting. Will we have to wait until 2025 to discuss this bill in the House of Commons again?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I hope not. I hope you can help us prevent obstruction on this bill. Speak to your House leader, and I will also reiterate the importance of this bill.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I will do that now: this bill is important for indigenous communities, including those in my region. This is the bill they are asking for. I will pass on the message, but I think you can provide more direction on the House agenda than we can.

In addition, does your department have information on the membership of tribal councils or band councils since the 1950s, in Quebec and in other provinces in particular? Would it be possible to provide that information to the indigenous communities? That would make it possible to look at the number of women who have held political leadership roles since the legislative provision that barred women from such roles was revoked in 1951.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I don't know. I will have to ask my team.

We can follow up in writing. I don't have the answer right now.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you. It is a question of open data. That information could be very helpful in various research that is being done, in Quebec in particular.

I want to continue on the topic of transparency and open data.

Quebec enacted Bill 79, which pertains in particular to research about missing and murdered indigenous children. An annual report on the application of the law was presented to indigenous communities, including in Pikogan in my region, with Minister Lafrenière and representatives of all political parties in attendance.

In the research done by the Awacak association to find missing indigenous children, problems were encountered with data from federal institutions. We know that Abitibi-Témiscamingue borders Ontario, so there has been a lot of discussion.

Can you undertake to make that federal information available to the Awacak association? That could help indigenous families and mothers who are still alive find out what happened to their children and discover the truth about the often horrific treatment of those indigenous children.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

That work falls under the portfolio of my colleague, Minister Anandasangaree. I will ask him to answer your question.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Great. I thought it was up to Indigenous Services Canada, but thank you very much.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

We have different responsibilities.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I also want to commend the work of Ms. Françoise Ruperthouse on this very important issue.

I also have a question about Chalk River and water contamination. The cities of Ottawa and Gatineau and more than 140 other municipalities get their water from the Ottawa River. The Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs pointed out that there are waste management programs, but that decisions regarding prevention have not yet been made.

Will Bill C‑61 protect that water and enable indigenous communities to stand up for their inherent rights and make sound choices for the protection of water on ancestral land? Could this bill give them that right?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

The intent of Bill C-61 is to give the tools to first nations communities, in partnership with provinces and territories, to better monitor the source water that feeds their water systems. Of course, when you can monitor water, you can determine much more quickly that the water is polluted or has changed in its quality. That's been a big problem with many of those cases that I told you about. The contamination has been happening over years. In many cases, the contamination doesn't have a taste and doesn't have a smell, yet the pollutants are extremely hazardous to health.

That is the intent behind Bill C-61. It's to strengthen protections and tools for first nations to be able to more closely monitor the water that is feeding their systems. Of course, this is work that we will have to do with provinces and territories. As you know, water falls under the jurisdiction of provinces and territories, but I would hope—I have a close relationship with Minister Lafrenière—that we are all interested in protecting the safety of water, because that water doesn't just feed first nations communities. It feeds all of us. Water is essential. In fact, many first nations people will tell you that water is life.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

We know that Chalk River has been polluting the Ottawa River since February. The first nations are concerned about this and want the opportunity to raise the issue.

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

For our last speaker, I'll turn the floor over to Ms. Idlout for six minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister Hajdu, for returning here.

My first question is this: For indigenous peoples, there were funds that were meant to go to first nations families and their children. When we posed the question about this funding in the year 2022, the $4 billion meant for this program was not used up and the government asked for that money back. Now there are guidelines to follow, like Jordan's principle. For Inuit children, there was $4.8 million allocated. Only 48% of that money was used. That left a large sum untouched.

The future of our children is very important to us. Can you tell me why your employees failed to meet the standards set out in allocating or using up these monies?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you for the question.

I'm not sure exactly which program you referred to at the beginning. Do you have the name of the program you mentioned with $4 billion unspent?

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

According to an Order Paper question submitted by the NDP in 2022-23, $24.2 billion out of the $32.3 billion in funding for first nations child and family services lapsed. For Jordan's principle and the Inuit child first initiative, it is a similar story, where $438 million out of $3.2 billion of that funding lapsed.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Okay.

I'm going to have to turn to the officials, because my understanding is that we don't have lapsed money in Jordan's principle. In fact, we routinely have to go back to recapitalize Jordan's principle because the demand is growing every year.

In terms of the compensation amount, I'll turn to the officials to unpack this a bit.

[Catherine Lappe, Assistant Deputy Minister, Child and Family Services Reform, Department of Indigenous Services]

Perhaps I could go first, Minister, if that's all right.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you.

[Catherine Lappe]

With respect to the first nations child and family services program, there are variations between what has been submitted in the mains and what the actual expenditures are. Over the last number of years, we've in fact—as the minister was indicating—also gone back for additional monies as we started to reform the program.

As you may know, we are continuing to have negotiations over the long-term reform of the first nations child and family services program in order to respond to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal orders. As part of that, as we negotiated various elements, we introduced them and secured additional funding. A program that in 2016 was $675 million was over $3.5 billion per year by last year, so I'm not sure where those lapses might have come from.

With regard to the compensation agreement, I think there were questions in the earlier session about it. The $23.3 billion has been approved by the Federal Court and is now sitting with Deloitte, which works with the parties on the distribution protocol. Perhaps the member of Parliament may be looking at previous years, where there had to be a re-profiling of funds while some of the details of the compensation agreement were being sorted out.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

With your permission, MP and Chair, I'll turn to Julien Castonguay to talk a bit about the increase in Jordan's principle spending year over year.

[Julien Castonguay, Director General, Strategic Policy, Planning and Information, First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Department of Indigenous Services]

Jordan's principle and Inuit CFI are needs-driven programs and initiatives that are based on the number of individual and group requests we receive. In previous years, there had been a re-profile to future years, but that was only the result of usage. In these last current years, like the minister said, we expended all of the Jordan's principle funds, and we received new investments in budget 2024 for the Inuit CFI to continue.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you.

It has been reported to me that these so-called Order Papers were reported to.... If you would look at these reports again, I would be happy to hear your response to these reports, because we have been advised through reports or articles that when there were questions posed about Jordan's principle, many questions were unanswered and remain unanswered. There are children who need aid. Inuit also fall into this category where there's assistance needed.

Now, they were told that they missed a deadline. It is clear now that we need to extend the opportunity to apply for this funding, because there are many families that have been at risk and have gone through trauma because there was nothing in place for their support.