Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 15th, 2023

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I would like to go back to the structural changes made at the two departments. You said there are still discrepancies between actual and planned spending since those changes were made. Why do you think the habit of making inaccurate forecasts has persisted, even after a number of years and after the departments and their areas of responsibility were separated?

You also referred to the departments' difficulty adapting. How does that difficulty adapting affect departmental spending?

[Yves Giroux]

I'm going to start by talking about the incidence and recurrence of gaps between forecasted and actual numbers. As I mentioned, this often has to do with the fact that the government announces new spending or new investments after the departments have tabled their plan. I believe the two ministers would be in the best position to explain why the departments aren't aware of all the resources they will have over the course of a year when they table their plan.

What was the second part of your question?

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

My second question was about the departments being unable to adapt.

[Yves Giroux]

It's hard for the departments to adapt quickly when they receive additional funding. It doesn't seem as easy for them to respond as quickly as other departments do to additional funding and new priorities imposed or requested by the government.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Despite previous years, we're seeing no changes in jurisdiction. Is that right?

[Yves Giroux]

Actually, I believe we're seeing some adaptation, but that isn't keeping pace with the additional funding.

Your colleague Mr. Aldag stated that the government has invested heavily in Indigenous communities, which is true, but it seems like the investments are being made before the two departments can adapt. They don't seem to be able to keep their heads above water and meet expectations as rapidly as the government would like.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Ms. Bérubé.

Welcome, Mr. Desjarlais. You have six minutes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I want to thank the witnesses for being here as well. I understand that I'm not a permanent member of this committee, but I do respect the PBO's work and, of course, the work that you've done to prepare this analysis.

It's quite clear from the comments by many of the colleagues around the table that there seems to be a clear discrepancy—at least in your perspective—between the amount the government is spending and the actual ability of the government to get those priorities done. You just mentioned that in some ways the priorities are continuous, in the sense that year after year we often see this increase in the priorities of the government to help indigenous people and we also see the finances that are required to do that, but there isn't the actual capability, whether it's in full-time employees or in other means.

Did your report in some ways look at aspects outside of just the number of people who are necessary to get this done? Is there an issue in terms of how the actual division of the ministry played a role in slowing down how these priorities could be monitored or even completed?

[Yves Giroux]

It's certainly an issue that the department formerly known as Aboriginal Affairs was split into two and some other parts of other departments were attached or merged with Indigenous Services Canada. That certainly played a role. When there's a major reorganization like that, it tends to consume quite a bit of energy internally—senior management energy—which is diverted from delivering on the core mandate. It certainly is one factor.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

So you recognize it had a lasting impact. Would you say that from the time the ministry was divided to today continues to have an impact on the priorities?

[Yves Giroux]

Our report was tabled last year, so I cannot speak about today. But it seems to still have had some remaining leftover impacts, even when we tabled the reports last year, because some of the performance indicators were still not being met. That being said, it could be due to other factors than just the reorganization.

Mr. Aldag mentioned COVID, which is a very good point, and there could be other extenuating circumstances. However, there still seem to be issues resulting from the reorganization.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

These issues, I imagine, would continue to persist. You've mentioned in your report that they persist. If those issues continue to persist with organizational management and the inability to continue to have the ability to do the work that's been assigned, and to then continue to do the additional work that's there, there's going to continue to be a gap, don't you agree?

[Yves Giroux]

I think the likelihood of there continuing to be a gap is there. It's not insignificant.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Who suffers from that delay? Who suffers the most, do you think?

[Yves Giroux]

It's obviously the recipients of these services: those who expect to get these services and are in need of these services.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I sit on the public accounts committee. I've seen your references. You speak of a report we had: “Report 5—Socio-economic Gaps on First Nations Reserves”. When we did that study, of course—and to the benefit of my colleagues here, I hope—we actually were able to determine that there was a funding gap.

I know that your report suggests that there were funding increases, but not all funding increases are particular to the issues that are pertaining to indigenous people. One of those, for example, and something that's a big issue in my province of Alberta, is forest fires. We studied the first nations emergency management, for example, which is governed by ISC. We brought in the deputy minister.

We talked to many of those folks. We asked them clearly important questions about why it is that the government had only assigned $12 million, for example, to natural disaster prevention across the entire country. It was just $12 million. When I asked the deputy minister how much it was going to cost to actually see this level of preparedness, she reluctantly admitted that it was in the mark of $360 million to $500 million.

We do see, of course, that the amount of money here is increasing in these total portfolios, but is it being targeted in the most appropriate way, the way that would actually see the kinds of programs that would ensure the longer issues that can be stopped, for example, can stop today? Did you go through, for example, the department's planning on individual issues?

[Yves Giroux]

Not on every single one of them; however, we did report on access to water and wastewater treatment plants. We also did reports on housing for aboriginal people.

We found that for water and wastewater systems there was sufficient funding for capital spending, but clearly not enough for operational spending. When it comes to housing, we found there was a funding gap to meet the needs of people on and off reserve.

We didn't look at every single one of the components in the aboriginal affairs portfolio, but we looked at a few of them under separate reports and—

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

It's fair to say that it's a mixed bag.

[Yves Giroux]

Yes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Some areas are underfunded, like emergency management preparedness for first nations that are experiencing a natural disaster like they are in my province of Alberta, versus, for example, clean water initiatives, which is a different standard of complexity. It's not fair, I think, completely, to say that the government is spending a lot, but I think, to the Conservatives' point as well—they often say this—there's a lot of spending, but not enough results. I don't know if that's exactly the same truth. I think I would disagree with the Conservatives on that point, but I would agree that there seem to be outcome issues.

Although the amount of money that's there is appropriate, let's say—I'll agree with you on that in some respects—the areas to which that investment is targeted are not appropriate. We see that when we see $12 million for natural resource protections across first nations while at the same time seeing massive investments in some areas that could—and this is now my partisan position—limit the government's liability on certain issues. I want ask you to comment on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you very much, Mr. Desjarlais. We'll have to move on to our second round.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

We will go to Mr. Vidal for five minutes.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I think this will actually follow up a bit on Mr. Desjarlais' comments. I want to move onto the qualitative stuff. I told you that I wanted to talk “quantitative”, and we can do that for a long time, but let's move on, because we have only so many slots tonight.

The qualitative component focuses on the departmental results indicators, the DRIs, as you abbreviate them. These indicators are used to evaluate progress towards its goals. That's the whole purpose of this kind of management system. I've been part of that in my past.

You go on to explain some of the reasons and you talk about how some of these are more difficult to achieve and lever because of circumstances, but you also say, “Even if these components are excluded, ISC”—in particular—“still falls short of [its] ability to specify and maintain targets.” That's a clear conclusion you make.

I'm going to come back to Mr. Coates again and quote from his article. He says:

The government can and does change up targets and metrics, making it difficult to determine actual outcomes. But given the vast expenditures, such a conclusion is tragic.

This goes to exactly what Mr. Desjarlais is saying. It's about getting outcomes for the investments we're making. I'm just curious about your comment on Mr. Coates' conclusion on this particular aspect relative to the qualitative component.

[Yves Giroux]

I've commented before in general, and I can be a bit more specific here.

Departments can set their own departmental indicators and their own targets. It's surprising to see that out of 20, only four were reached in 2022-23 by Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada— the mix of the two. If a department can set its own performance indicators and its own targets, it's surprising that they cannot meet more than 50% of them.

I agree with Mr. Coates that there seems to be an outcome problem.