Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 3rd, 2023

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

However, this is your question, not mine.

I really hope so. This is something we need to work with the government leadership team on to make sure it's prioritized. I think all partners want to see it. We want to get it to the Senate as quickly as possible. We know the Senate has stated quite deliberately that—particularly when it comes to indigenous matters—it wants to take the time to review it, given the level of advocacy we see there.

I'm jumping ahead of things. That's a conversation we'll absolutely have with the House leader and push to prioritize.

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

You can see my concern. It wasn't even on the calendar to debate it at second reading, to send it to committee. Although it was a great sign of a unified front, it wasn't even on the calendar in the near future. I don't want to see Bill C-45 disappear into the abyss when it is a priority for everybody.

While unanimous consent is a tool that can be used from time to time, I don't think it should be the tool used all the time. It deserves debate in the committee room. It deserves debate in the chamber.

I'd like to, if possible—I know you don't control the House agenda—see it given a bit of priority on the government side, in order to get it on the table and in front of the House for debate, so we can push it to the Senate as quickly as possible.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

You're talking to the right guy in terms of agreeing with you, but in terms of being able to get it done, we'll need to work with our team and the House leader.

We've had some pretty good partnership on all party sides to get this done, so if that priority is articulated clearly to the House leaders, I have a lot of hope for this. There isn't a person who doesn't want to see this done.

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

If you want suggestions on what legislation we can take off this calendar, I'm sure we have a whole bunch we could throw in front of you, if you need that help.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

We're aware of your ability and desire on those fronts.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Do you have any questions?

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

I'm going to be a little more blunt. I know Mr. Schmale is trying to be nice.

I guess I question the motives of this government. You've had the opportunity to do this for the last eight years. It took an opposition UC motion to get it advanced. There is one problem with that alone, but there's another problem with the future of this bill. My colleague, Mr. Schmale, has asked what the future of the bill is. It doesn't give me, us or first nations, frankly, much confidence that it will advance. There's a lot of talk, but little action. There's a lot of hot air, but little in terms of delivery.

I would like to have some assurance from the Prime Minister and from you, Minister. It sure seems like you have the will to push this forward, but you had the will before the UC motion, too, and it wasn't advancing.

Where does it leave us now?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Let's not pretend for a second that the UC motion magically created a priority for this bill. It would be disingenuous for anyone to pretend that. We appreciate it and absolutely would encourage it at the next stage as well. There are so many advocates who have fought to get this done, and this is important for them to see. For any of us to pretend that we're the champions of this would be disingenuous.

As a minister in this role, I can say this has been one of my top priorities. I've had a team that has pushed this through at every stage as quickly as it can go. I wouldn't say it's been eight years coming, but it has certainly been a couple when it comes to certain parts of this. I know you have the consultation record to underpin that.

To the extent that I have the power to move things, you have my commitment that we'll be moving this forward as quickly as we can and getting this across the line.

I really do appreciate your advocacy in that respect; it is very welcome. In all openness, there are a couple of other bills that we'll need your support for, which sometimes I feel really shouldn't be in front of parliamentarians because it's really about communities deciding what they want to do themselves.

I do appreciate it, and that's what I'd like to conclude on.

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

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Mr. Zimmer and Mr. Schmale.

Now we'll move to Mr. Weiler for five minutes.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd also like to thank Mr. Schmale for tabling the unanimous consent motion, which passed.

It's actually not the first time we've been able to do that in this committee. We were able to pass the modernization of a number of self-governing agreements through unanimous consent last summer. Minister, to your point, that was probably legislation that never needed to come to the House, on how communities want to be able to govern themselves.

Minister, I appreciate your being here today. I just have a few questions about the act itself. It's really exciting that almost 350 communities have now signed on to these various measures. Perhaps the first nations that are most in need of the institutions and the powers they can provide have not signed on yet. These are also communities that can most benefit from things like access to better infrastructure, particularly in remote areas where they also have trouble with the granting process and being able to go through all that to access money that we set aside.

I was hoping you could speak a little bit to how these amendments will make it easier for smaller communities to sign on and get that better financial management system in place to be able to access some of the benefits that come along with it.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I spoke briefly earlier about what this legislation is and what it isn't and what it represents for communities. It isn't a tale of haves and have-nots. It has been instrumental in making sure those have-nots are now haves—and I'm wildly over-characterizing and simplifying the dynamic that exists.

It is the case—and I'll repeat that because it is the case—that in this country there are still communities that are in desperate need of support from the federal government, usually because of some actions taken by the federal government in the past, notably, as I raised earlier, not paying our bills with respect to treaty and causing immeasurable damage in the first place, and now being in a position where we have to compensate.

The bill is premised on a number of things, particularly with the reforms and the capacity of communities to determine themselves what they need to do, and that is some of the refinement we see in the pieces of legislation you have in front of you.

It's also a reflection of the need to expand it, as you mentioned, to communities that are perhaps hesitating. Often, this legislation and the institutions that underpin it have been mis-characterized as municipalizing indigenous communities or forcing them to tax their own. The optionality of it, I think, clears a lot of the air with respect to what communities would choose or not choose to do.

There have been efforts and there continue to be efforts by the organization and by its leadership to engage with communities and, for example, now to try to pitch communities on what expertise they can bring to the table when it comes to some of the critical infrastructure that those communities have and are not optimizing, even based on the grants that have been supported by the Government of Canada.

I think it's about making it easier to access and making the institutions less Ottawa-heavy, but also giving them more funding and the capacity to engage with communities—I wouldn't say communities that are on the outside looking in, but communities that are looking to do things in a different way in their community. It's hard to pinpoint line item measures, in and of themselves, but with the totality of the package in front of people, I think this will be a lot more attractive, particularly with the crucial addition of the infrastructure institute, which really is something that could be game-changing for a number of communities in need.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you.

Maybe I'll follow up on that last point. There's going to be an important component of the First Nations Infrastructure Institute on knowledge and experience sharing. I was hoping you might be able to speak a bit about that and how the nations may be able to learn from what has worked in different parts of the country and what hasn't.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I think we're learning as well.

Minister Hajdu is championing a number of elements in and around infrastructure reform, and how the infrastructure institute fits into that will be key. They can complement each other, but I think that with the suite of experience that Manny Jules brings to the table and with the folks who know best how to build for their own communities and what has worked and what hasn't worked....

There is predation that occurs when it comes to infrastructure bills, particularly when people see dollar signs flying across the table in amounts that they perhaps have not seen in generations, often coming from outsiders. Having that guidance from people who have been through that experience and have navigated it, or who have even been able to leverage their own ideas and push the federal government to do things in a different way, is something that I think is invaluable. There are no people in the Government of Canada who can replace the indigenous knowledge, the experience and the trust that an institute like that brings to the table.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Mr. Weiler.

That concludes our second round.

Next is Mr. Schmale.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

As Mr. Zimmer said, I will continue my “nice” streak here.

Thank you, Minister, for staying late and finishing off that round. That was very kind of you, and I appreciate the questions and answers.

Let's try two for two for UCs today. Since the answers were good and we're agreed on this legislation, I have a motion to adjourn.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Seeing agreement, I would like to thank Minister Miller for appearing today and, of course, his officials. We really appreciate your time.

I would also like to announce that by Friday at noon we will need all of our amendments, and then clause-by-clause will begin on Monday.

Thank you very much for doing this important work.