Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 29th, 2024

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

If it has been eight years, with 81 remaining unfulfilled and zero completed last year, are we doubling our efforts here, as Mr. Melillo just talked about? Spending is up but results are down.

What are we doing differently?

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

To be very clear, 81 remaining unfulfilled means that many of them are in progress.

I'll give you the example of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. We called for an inquiry in 2017. The report of the inquiry was delivered to us five years ago on June 3. There are 231 calls to justice that we're in the process of implementing. If you suggest we do that in eight years, I don't think we would do it properly.

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act came into force in 2021. Again, we tried to bring it in during 2019. Unfortunately, it was stalled in the Senate because some of your colleagues in the Senate didn't support it.

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

Minister, I'm sorry. I have limited time, and I really want to get to another one.

We talked earlier about safeguards to ensure there's no fraud by non-indigenous people trying to get money they aren't entitled to. You said earlier we could talk about another settlement. Let's talk about the sixties scoop settlement that was created.

According to the website, there were almost 35,000 total claims received. There were denied claims—almost 14,000. I've been reading here. Clearly, there were some safeguards in place. There were potential safeguards in place to ensure the money went to the victims, and appropriately so.

Are you telling me your department didn't share information with Indigenous Services to ensure the child welfare settlement is going to be properly allocated? There must have been some communication.

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

I'm going to ask Valerie to address this question.

[Valerie Gideon, Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs]

Thank you.

I can assure you that, with respect to the compensation agreement, which of course is under the responsibility of Minister Hajdu.... That is a first nations-led process. They will be driving the compensation process in terms of its design and delivery.

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

According to the information we have here, it's being managed by Deloitte. That's the administrator. We're talking about child welfare. It goes to the individual, not the band.

[Valerie Gideon]

That is a third party claims processor. Again, Minister Hajdu can speak to this. It was selected and the oversight will be through the first nations party process.

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

However, through the administrators—

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Mr. Schmale, I'm afraid that's the end of your time. It will have to wait until another time.

Thank you very much.

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

The former chair would have given me more time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

I already gave you a bit of extra time.

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

You can also ask me a question in the House, Jamie.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

With that, I want to turn our last round of questions over to Mr. Carr for three and a half minutes.

[Ben Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I'd like to ask you a more open-ended question. I know we have a new, more progressive government in my home province of Manitoba that has been working quite collaboratively with the government on a variety of files—perhaps none more important than the one with which you are preoccupied. Of course, that's extending to Minister Vandal and Minister Hajdu, as well.

Can you talk a little about the relationship that has developed between you, your department and your counterparts in Manitoba as we work collectively to improve the livelihoods of indigenous people in my home province of Manitoba?

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

Thank you, Ben. I really do appreciate the question.

You know, the Province of Manitoba under the premiership of Wab Kinew has become a remarkable partner for us. We've been working on a number of major things. I think the Prairie Green Landfill is probably one of the most profound issues and one of the most difficult issues I've had to deal with as we look at the families who are impacted and the young people who have been advocating for a search. Premier Kinew has been a good partner. We're working with him as well as with Minister Fontaine towards the search. It's something we both committed to.

Recently we announced the pilot of the red dress alert, which was one of the budget items in 2024. Given its history and the fact that it is one of the epicentres of this crisis, Manitoba is the appropriate partner to be piloting a red dress alert and the work we're doing towards red dress implementation.

Last February as part of the work around MMIWG, we had the second indigenous provincial-federal-territorial meeting on missing and murdered indigenous women girls and two-spirit individuals. Minister Fontaine was one of the co-chairs.

We believe we have very important partnerships. In many cases, without the provinces being an essential partner, we cannot go forward. I give you the example of the Robinson Huron settlement with the Province of Ontario. We're doing some very important work with the Province of British Columbia and the territories. The federal government cannot do it alone. It does require essential partners in our provincial and territorial bodies who can rise to the occasion. I believe Manitoba is in that state right now.

[Ben Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thanks very much, Minister. I do appreciate your leadership on this file, as well as that of ministers Hajdu and Vandal.

When I speak with colleagues in Manitoba, there is a noticeable change in the relationship and the desire to accomplish things on behalf of Manitobans, including indigenous communities of course.

Mr. Chair, if I have any time left, I'll cede it back to the committee.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. Carr.

That concludes our second round.

I want to thank Minister Anandasangaree for appearing on the estimates today. I want to thank all of our officials for being here as well.

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

I know this is probably Martin's last appearance. I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the extraordinary work he has done in the civil service in, I think, 30-something years as a lawyer and as essentially our chief negotiator on many of our files. He's been an extraordinary leader.

Thank you, Martin, for everything you've done.

[Voices]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much and congratulations.

With that, we are going to suspend while we welcome our next set of witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

I call this meeting back to order.

I would like to welcome our witnesses on the second panel. The committee really appreciates Minister Hajdu's returning to speak to the estimates again after the last meeting was unfortunately cut short by votes. I do want to recognize the officials who are here today as well, but given that they were already introduced at the last meeting, I won't introduce them all in detail.

Minister, given that you have given introductory remarks before, we will be jumping right into the rounds of questioning.

Mr. Melillo, go ahead, please.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just on a quick point of order, the committee did pass a motion unanimously inviting Minister Hajdu back for an additional hour. I understand she's scheduled for only half an hour, but I'd like to invite her to stay for the full hour if possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Mr. Battiste, go ahead on the same point of order.

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

I'm pretty sure the discussion point on that was that, since they had already done a half-hour, they would come back and they would not give any opening comments. We would go straight into questions. We would do 30 minutes with Minister Hajdu and 30 minutes with Minister Vandal, and then we would go to the Indian tax commission. That was my understanding of what we had all decided.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Ms. Idlout, on the same point of order.