Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 28th, 2022

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Hogan.

We are starting to do that with Minister Blair, Minister LeBlanc, myself, and Minister Hajdu. Yes, your point is well taken, and again, across the floor to those members I will note how important it is that we all work together to ensure that those investments are made, especially, once again, as it relates to climate change and the capacities that are needed because of the old systems we're dealing with. When I say old systems, I mean the pipes in the ground and the different emergency preparedness agreements that we have with our partnering agencies.

I want to drill down a bit and get a bit granular on that. Your point is well taken when it comes to asset management and moving towards capacity and sustainability. Its very well taken. It's something we're working on with our partners right now.

Do you believe it's a step in the right direction to move towards a sustainable, disciplined financing of an asset management approach that takes into consideration the pressures on infrastructure, water, waste water, roads, wildfires, fire departments and things of that nature? Do you think a sustainable funding structure for that asset management is critical to the recommendations you identify within your report?

[Karen Hogan]

Absolutely. Every community has different needs, and I believe if you sat down with first nations communities some might prioritize safe drinking water or a water treatment plant before they would prioritize a community centre. It would be wrong to take a cookie-cutter approach to every indigenous community. There are so many aspects, whether it be their geographic location or the size of their community, the land on which their community is at the moment versus other lands in the area.... It has to be a unique approach, and that's why the regional approach that Indigenous Services Canada has is one that goes in the right direction, in that every region might have different unique needs that others may not have.

That multilateral approach of having communities there with the provinces and territories and the third parties with the federal government is one that could be successful. It's one that has not, however, resulted in any agreements at this time.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Hogan.

To get back to the committee, I want to make this statement in closing. In this process, in regard to the report that we created as a committee and a report that we're going to pass on to the minister as well as the department with recommendations, including what's contained within this report that we're discussing today, it's going to be critical that we move forward with it. As a committee, yes, we have this in front of us, but we have so much more that we can actually discuss and bring forward as recommendations.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. Badawey.

Mrs. Gill, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I must admit that I, too, am surprised that there was no assessment of all the communities to determine which had greater needs than others and that there was no agreement with all the provinces on emergency needs. Yet this is what is noted throughout the report.

After doing your audit, can you tell us why Indigenous Services Canada is not able to identify needs in the communities? Why is the government failing to see, as you said earlier, that the needs are really different for each community?

[Karen Hogan]

Let me ask my colleague Mr. Wheeler to answer that question. It's a complex issue, so perhaps he can shed some light on it.

[Glenn Wheeler, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

Mr. Chair, that's a very good question, and that's the sort of question that sometimes is difficult to answer in an audit. When you compare what we found in 2013 and what we found again in this audit, it's obvious that the department had the best of intentions when it responded to our recommendations in 2013, but there wasn't the follow-through that we would have expected to address the deficiencies that we identified in the first audit.

It goes to a point that we raised in the audit report about reacting to emergencies as opposed to preventing emergencies, and it requires a change in mindset. The department is in a situation of always responding, as opposed to getting out in front of things. As the Auditor General has said, if there could be more detailed work done in individual communities to identify what their risks and weaknesses are and the department could then fund those so they could be better prepared to deal with emergencies when they arise, first nations would be in a much better place.

It goes to an issue that we see in a lot of our indigenous audits. There needs to be sustained leadership on the part of departments to keep working to see these issues through, so that the deficiencies that are identified are rectified. It's not easy, but unless and until that's done, unfortunately subsequent audits are going to cover some of the same issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you.

You have 10 seconds left, Mrs. Gill. I will add that time on for you in the next round.

Ms. Idlout, go ahead for two and a half minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

When I ask a question to Indigenous Services Canada, I am often responded to with the answer that indigenous communities do not have the capacity nor do they have the infrastructure to do the tasks, but your report here, as I read it, points out very clearly that Indigenous Services Canada lacks capacity as well to get the job done to serve the indigenous communities. I thank you for clarifying who is capable, who has the capacity, but we all understand that we have to work together to get tasks done. How can you encourage your department and the indigenous communities to work together? The indigenous people live in their own homelands. They know the land, the environment and their lives. I would encourage you to get to know the subjects that you're talking about, the indigenous people and the environment and the community.

[English]

No. I'm sorry. I can hear the translation. What I'm saying is that I'm imploring you to make stronger recommendations to not—or, I don't know—because I really appreciate your report, and I'm concerned that all the auditors general are going to keep making recommendations that are not going to be implemented. The one recommendation that I really appreciate is that you're telling them to work with first nations. How can you make it stronger—that they have to, and not that it's a recommendation? How can you tell us to tell them to make it mandatory? Give us the message that we need to give to Indigenous Services Canada. What is your one sentence to make sure it happens? That's what I'm asking.

[Karen Hogan]

That's a big question. What would I tell them in one sentence? I think I would say that in the true spirit of reconciliation, you can't say that the community needs to identify for us to move forward. You have to come to the table with the community. Establish that trust and follow up that trust with real concrete actions, not just commitments or dialogue, but real concrete actions to drive change. There are so many communities that have been experiencing these recurring natural disasters, and I'm sure at times they feel let down. Actions speak a lot louder than words, so I would encourage Indigenous Services Canada to take a full, comprehensive inventory of what they believe the needs of first nations communities are in this area and then start taking some concrete actions to find ways to address those, because I agree with you. I would hope that the next two auditors general after me won't be having the same dialogue with Parliament.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Ms. Idlout.

We'll now go to Mr. Zimmer, for five minutes.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and again it's good to see you back in person. It's always good to get together in committee.

I want to especially thank you, Auditor General, especially as it's the first time I've had a chance to talk to you since another report, called “Arctic Water Surveillance”. It was an excellent report. It addresses many areas that lack attention by this government for the entire Arctic community in which many first nations communities reside. I just want to thank you for that work.

Let's get into this report and some questions that you brought up, and I thank you for doing so. I represent many first nations communities in my home riding, such as Doig, Blueberry, Halfway, Moberly and many others.

On page three of the report, it says:

We found that the department’s actions were more reactive than preventative, despite First Nations communities identifying many infrastructure projects to mitigate the impact of emergencies.

We had a devastating windstorm last year that went through Doig and Blueberry. There was almost zero immediate response to what happened there. There are many trees that are still down, which brings up concerns of wildfires in the future.

It continues:

The department had a backlog of 112 of these infrastructure projects that it had determined were eligible but that it had not funded.

Can you give us some examples of what those 112 look like? Maybe list one or two examples of what one of those projects would have looked like that would have been preventative, that would have been much better suited to preventing the disaster as opposed to responding to the emergency.

[Karen Hogan]

I can try. I might steal everything Glenn might say, but if you want some more details, we can turn to Glenn.

An example would have been to build a culvert, or a dike, to help mitigate the impacts of flooding. We have highlighted only 112 infrastructure projects. There are other projects that are not infrastructure related, such as flood mapping, that would really be helpful to communities to understand where they could move, or where they should build going forward.

Glenn, is there anything you would like to add that's more specific?

[Glenn Wheeler]

Those are good examples. Additional examples would be flood and erosion protection, feasibility studies and shoreline protection. The Auditor General mentioned culvert crossings. Elevating houses sometimes in flood-prone areas is another type of structural mitigation. There's a wide variety of potential areas in which structural mitigation could make a difference.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I'm going to ask you a blunt question. Are the current ministries responsible for responding? There's an obvious answer, but I want you to answer it for me. Are the current ministries doing a great job?

[Karen Hogan]

Do you mean about responding, or about developing mitigation?

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I am referring to both, developing mitigation and responding.

[Karen Hogan]

Responding to emergencies is not the federal government's responsibility. Responding is done by the provinces or territories, or even third parties, the first responders. Federal employees who are on the ground do not respond to these emergencies. The federal government does reimburse those parties for those costs. Throughout our audit, we did not see a community that did not receive response services.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but part of the responsibility of the ministry is to have a plan in place, so that when the emergency happens, adequate resources are available to respond to that problem.

I will give you an example. I know of first nations that I was personally involved in, trying to help with some of these emergency mitigation measures. We were trying to deal with them. This was even around COVID. It's kind of out of the scope of this study. We were trying to get a response around different things and how to take care of the needs today.

There were a whole bunch of people who were navel-gazing, or looking at the sky without a response, while people's lives were literally at risk. There was a lack of response. I can tell you that approaching the ministers myself on other matters, they kind of threw their hands up, saying, “Well, you know, we don't know what we can do”, and these are the ministers.

If they can't respond to a crisis or an emergency on a reserve, or in a first nations community, who can? I guess I just throw that back to you. There are obviously structural issues and communication breakdowns between first nations and the ministers themselves.

How can we fix those breakdowns?

[Karen Hogan]

My initial response was just about the actual responding to an emergency, but you're right, the other side would be the preparing and being ready to respond, and then knowing whether the response is one that meets the community's needs. We definitely found that there were sometimes no emergency management plans in some of the regional offices. Those that were there were long outdated.

The department was unaware if every community actually had an emergency response plan, and then when they did receive response services, they weren't monitoring whether they were timely, culturally sensitive and met the needs of the communities. Did they meet more than just the physical needs of coming in and moving individuals? Did they meet the mental health needs and the ongoing health and education needs?

There is a lot missing on the preparedness and planning side that the department has as a responsibility that it hasn't yet addressed.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

How about the communication breakdown between—

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

We'll have to wait until the next round, Mr. Zimmer.

Ms. Atwin, you have five minutes.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses today, Ms. Deveen and Mr. Wheeler, and our wonderful Auditor General, Ms. Hogan, as well.

I'm speaking from the unceded, unsurrendered Wolastoqiyik territory here in Fredericton. We're a river community. We had back-to-back 100-year floods in 2018 and 2019, and we certainly have that tendency, I think, to wait until a disaster is at our doorsteps before it's really taken seriously, as you highlighted in the report. We certainly can't afford to do that anymore.

The other piece that really stands out is the savings that are associated with being proactive. I want to really highlight that piece for those watching at home.

I also just want to say that your report is really about that truth piece. It's truth and reconciliation, so I certainly appreciate how much you shared and how much it's calling for transformative change. I really feel like that's what this committee is. It's a great example of that. We're all here for the right reasons. We're here to get to the bottom of these issues and to ensure that we fix them. I think I speak for all of us when I say that I don't want to be here in another five years having the same kind of conversation.

I just want focus specifically on its being indigenous-led and culturally sensitive, culturally responsive. This piece is paramount, I think, to having the process moving forward. Can you clarify if anywhere in the report there's a distinction between Inuit communities, Métis communities and first nations communities? Were there any disproportionate impacts, or did you see it kind of across the board?

[Karen Hogan]

I agree with your remarks about preparedness and the savings dollars. I would argue that while there's a monetary savings, the impact on communities and generations of communities would be invaluable if they could stay on their lands and continue with their daily lives.

During our audit, we did not break it down to Inuit and Métis communities. We just looked at all of the first nations communities across the country, so we don't have that breakdown for you—I'm sorry.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

That's all right.

In terms of prioritizing—because, again, the urgency is there and we want to be sure we're tackling the most pressing issues first, even though we're playing catch-up—in your opinion, would it be key to sit down again with indigenous communities, as you mentioned, to establish those emergency management plans from their perspectives first? Would that be a good place to begin?