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

[Karen Hogan]

In early 2021, my office produced a report on the management of the COVID‑19 pandemic. We looked at access to supplies, such as masks, as well as access to nurses in first nations communities on reserve. So I invite you to read that report on the health crisis.

I am not aware of any other report on this topic that we may have produced prior to this one.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

So that would complement your report. The recommendations are much the same with respect to emergency preparedness and subsequent management, since that is again problematic, according to that report.

[Karen Hogan]

In that report, we had actually noted that the response to the pandemic had been very rapid. Supplies had been sent to first nations communities within about 10 days, which was a great success, given that some of these communities are very remote. However, we did see opportunities for improvement, particularly in the area of access to nurses and medical staff, which is a challenge that is not new to first nations communities. Overall, it was still a positive report.

However, if I direct you to our report on pandemic preparedness, you will indeed read there that, in general, the government was not as well prepared as it should have been.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

From the beginning, we've heard about the geographic remoteness and poor access to certain places. I experience that myself, here. If you're lucky, you can get there by plane or boat.

I understand that it is difficult to provide assistance. That said, do you think that remoteness is an overriding factor in why it is difficult to be prepared for these situations and provide services to first nations on reserve?

[Karen Hogan]

I don't think so. For us, that would be one risk factor among many. In fact, that's why we recommended to the department that it determine which communities were most at risk. For example, this can sometimes be determined based on the higher number of floods a community has experienced in the past, compared with other communities. Geographic remoteness remains one of the risk factors.

This is the analysis that Indigenous Services Canada is missing. The department should be able to properly identify which communities are most at risk, for a number of reasons, in order to optimize its investments. Since the funding is not unlimited, the department really needs to target the communities that need it the most.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you very much, Ms. Hogan.

I think my time is up, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

That's right, Mrs. Gill.

Ms. Idlout, go ahead for six minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you to all who are present here.

I will try to clarify what I want to ask. I have two questions.

We all know that Indigenous Services Canada is admitting to failing first nations and indigenous communities. We know that's been going on for many years. Many understand that.

In your report, on page 4, I saw that you stated that there are 112 projects that have been identified as eligible, which requires mega-funding, but you are not able to provide the funding because Indigenous Services does not have the money.

Having said that, how far back in years have you known that they have that need for the infrastructure and it still hasn't been addressed?

Thank you.

[Karen Hogan]

The issue of having projects that have been identified by first nations communities and are determined to be eligible for funding but unfunded goes back to our first audit report in 2013. Indigenous Services Canada at that time identified that they needed additional funding, and they are still in that situation.

We looked at the 112 projects that were eligible and unfunded. I would say that the majority of them are more than five years old. They have been sitting there waiting for more than five years. A few of them have been there for more than a decade.

I would also want to highlight that there are about 72 projects that have been identified by first nations communities but have not yet been assessed by Indigenous Services Canada as to whether or not they meet the eligibility criteria. Many of those projects, more than half of them, are about two years or less....

This has been something that has been going on for many years.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you for your response. Now I understand.

Since 2013, a need for infrastructure has been felt, and Indigenous Services Canada has been aware of it. They would have had some planning at that point and lobbying for dollars to be assigned to it.

That is not correct. It is not right. When you make an excuse that there is no funding, no monies to be had, that's not an excuse when there's a need for emergency measures to be addressed.

Are you able to give the indigenous communities the funding so they can build their own infrastructure needs?

[Karen Hogan]

That question is better asked of Indigenous Services Canada. We had a hearing on Friday and the other member mentioned that they were in attendance. They need to apply for additional funding in order to receive the money they need to address all of the projects.

What we were able to look at is whether they had sufficient funding to meet the ones that were in the queue. We found that at this rate.... The annual budget they put aside for structural mitigation is only $12 million. At the current rate, it would take almost 24 years for all of the 112 projects just to be funded. That is why we made a recommendation to Indigenous Services Canada that they really need to do it differently.

First they need to find out the whole comprehensive picture of what they need. Then they need to look at their mitigation for infrastructure projects.

The department receives a budget for all types of infrastructure projects, whether they be water treatment plants, structural mitigation or housing. They have devoted $12 million under this program for structural mitigation. When you break funding up into buckets like that, it causes these delays.

We recommended that they really think about a different way to approach this going forward.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Can you further research Indigenous Services Canada's planning cycle and the way they plan for strategic plans infrastructure? How can they improve their fiscal planning and project planning to meet the needs of indigenous communities? Can they change the way they plan for capital expenditures? Can they change the way they plan for these emergencies?

[Karen Hogan]

Some of our recommendations point to opportunities for them to find different ways to approach funding for structural projects, but it starts with having a comprehensive understanding.

At this time, communities apply. It's an application process. We've encouraged the department to be more proactive with communities. They need to understand the full picture before they can assess and ask for additional funding to meet their needs.

I think they need to find out if there are communities that are not aware of the funding that's available to them or if communities have capacity issues to get through all of the paperwork to apply. That would be getting a comprehensive picture.

Then it is really up to the department to decide how it wants to ask the central agencies to help it split up its structural funding or its infrastructure funding across all of the projects it has for the many needs in communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you.

That concludes the first round of questions.

We will now start the second round of questions.

Mr. Schmale, the floor is yours for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you to the Auditor General and her team for the testimony today.

I want to pick up on some of the testimony I heard on Friday at public accounts.

In terms of responsibility for the funding, I believe the deputy minister from Indigenous Services talked about Parliament approving the funding. In my understanding, shouldn't it be the deputy minister building budget proposals for the minister to then approve? Shouldn't the minister champion that funding and then submit those budget proposals?

It seems by your report that the money is, in fact, there.

[Karen Hogan]

If your question is asking me about how the traditional funding increases to permanent funding that a department gets, yes, it would be up to the deputy to put together their plan and put it forward to their minister. Ultimately, all of that rolls into the budget that Parliament approves. I believe that's what the deputy was referring to.

In our report, we looked at the specific projects related to structural mitigation for emergencies, but I did take a step back to talk to you about how I know the funding works in Indigenous Services Canada, where they have this really large envelope for infrastructure but then it is divided by many projects. There are housing projects and water treatment projects, and then $12 million is put aside for structural mitigation to support natural disasters.

Perhaps it's about their doing it differently, on how they break down those silos or ask for additional funding if they believe it's needed in order to meet the needs and requests of first nations communities.

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

If you're looking at the $790,000 you talked about in your report and the fact that not one management agreement was signed, to me that shows that the money is there. Is there anything here that is giving you some confidence, even a little, that things will change by the time the next report comes out, after you or another auditor general looks through this again?

[Karen Hogan]

I believe that's why in my opening remarks I talked about how all these strong words that my predecessors used are not driving change, clearly. We looked at this issue in 2013 and are finding the exact same recommendations. It is time to do—and act—differently.

I do believe in the spirit of reconciliation. Sitting down with first nations communities and establishing that trust is the first great step that the department should be taking, but it is about maybe changing the processes. You can have all this dialogue and try to encourage collaboration, but if we're forcing everything into the same traditional processes, that doesn't seem to have worked over the last few decades.

I really encourage Indigenous Services Canada and the federal government to think about different ways to approach this and to meet first nations communities in a more timely way.

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

The status quo is clearly not working.

[Karen Hogan]

I believe we have many decades of audits that show the status quo is not working. Yes.

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

Looking at the data from page 9—I'll give Gary Vidal a bit of credit for this—and at the 112 eligible but not funded projects, the number in the report is about $290 million, but you bring it up to $358 million, as some of the projects had not been assigned a value yet. That's about a 1:6 ratio of savings. This is rough math, but it could have contributed to over $2 billion in savings had the government looked at ways to mitigate and add that to climate change rather than its current method of evacuation, relocation and rebuilding—that repeating cycle.

[Karen Hogan]

Absolutely. You're referring to the statistic we put in there from Public Safety Canada, where they said that for every dollar invested in preparedness, you could save up to six dollars in responding to an emergency. I caution that it is “up to”. I think it depends on every situation and every emergency.

That would be a saving overall for the federal government. My understanding of how Indigenous Services Canada is funded is that it receives money to respond to emergencies. The money isn't sitting in the annual budget. It might be a saving overall for the federal government, but it might not be additional funding that Indigenous Services Canada can tap into.

It is a great question...to invite them to a committee and maybe ask them how they approach all of this infrastructure funding and allocation of monies that might be saved.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. Schmale.

We'll now go to Mr. Badawey for five minutes.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to preface my comments by saying thank you, Ms. Hogan. Thank you for your report and for the recommendations you've put forward. They highlight the needs of indigenous communities and how pressing it is to deal with the numerous needs of those indigenous communities. I appreciate that. Speaking as the parliamentary secretary for ISC, I can say that it is something we are working on and something we are going to work on more diligently.

I want to say to the members across the floor that this is not a partisan issue, as it goes back quite some time. It goes back to different parties forming different governments of the past. Frankly, it was one of the reasons I brought this study forward for committee consideration in the first place. Unfortunately, we're getting to it now versus when I wanted to get to it, almost over a year ago.

With that said, working together with members across the floor with respect to supporting whole-of-government investments to be proactive is extremely critical. Prevention, as stated in this report, is paramount. We need to look at causes of emergencies due to climate change, such as flooding and wildfires, and ensure that communities have in place emergency preparedness planning involving all partners that are implementing the emergency measures through disciplined deployment of partnering agencies, including mutual aids.

With all that said, Auditor General, while drafting this report, did you examine other departments—Public Safety, for example, or Infrastructure—that are preparing to work in tandem with Indigenous Services Canada to bring forward, once again, whole-of-government recommendations to proactively deal with the many issues you have highlighted within your report?

[Karen Hogan]

In preparing this report, we did not reach out to those other departments. We dealt solely with Indigenous Services Canada, but we did spend a considerable amount of time talking with indigenous communities themselves to hear about their experiences and find out about their needs. I agree with you that if there is a whole-of-government, multi-governmental response, should we return to this topic we would look at it in such a fashion. However, at this time it all falls under the responsibility of Indigenous Services Canada.