Evidence of meeting #65 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was targets.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Yves Giroux  Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Mark Mahabir  Director of Policy and General Counsel, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer

5:15 p.m.

Liberal

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

Okay, great. I appreciate that.

With regard to my next question, you mentioned in your report that settlements were a big part of the overages in spending. You also mentioned that “several departmental programs increased as a result of provisions made by the federal government” and that this “explains the difference between planned and actual results...both in spending and human resources”.

I was hoping you could speak a little bit more to that and how it's reflected in the conclusions of the study, particularly on the settlement side.

5:15 p.m.

Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer

Yves Giroux

I'm not sure whether we have all of the data at the granular level, but it's clear that money set aside and provided to departments for settlements constitutes a good part of the increased spending.

Beyond that, I'm not sure I can comment without asking you for more specific aspects to your question.

5:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Jenica Atwin

Thank you very much, Mr. Weiler.

We're now going to go to a condensed fourth round.

We'll begin with Mr. Vidal for five minutes.

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

Gary Vidal Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank you again for all of your work on this.

I'm going to go back to a couple of things you said. You referred to this in the editorial that I talked about earlier, which you were quoted in.

You told APTN News about the fact that “five years after...the two new federal bureaucracies aren't meeting their own targets for improving the lives of...Indigenous people..”. You said, “They cannot meet their own targets, which is surprising...they're also failing to keep their targets consistent over time.”

Earlier on in your comments, you also referred to the fact that out of the 42 performance targets set by the ISC, “a quarter or less of the results are consistent with the targets... the department” set for themselves.

I want to drill into a solution-based idea for a second here.

We have an Order Paper question that we received an answer to not too long ago, which indicates that 95% of the ISC executive level or above and 92% of CIRNAC at or above the executive level received bonuses totalling about $5 million in 2021-22. In the response, it clearly states that “Individual performance pay holds executives accountable for individual results and is not related to Departmental Results, which measure organizational goals.”

I referred earlier to an organization I was part of where I have this history of working with the management system that we're talking about here. In my experience, the executive compensation component at our organization was 85% based on the organizational goals and 15% based on the personal performance goals.

This is bigger than just ISC and CIRNAC. I think this is across government, right? Do you think there's some merit in suggesting that we should tie performance, at-risk pay and bonuses, to organizational achievement rather than individual achievement?

5:20 p.m.

Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer

Yves Giroux

I don't see how a majority of executives can have at-risk pay and performance pay if a department only meets half of its targets.

Is there merit...? I think there's more than merit. I think it would be common sense. There might be other issues for why the government is not moving in that direction, but it seems to be quite obvious.

Now you've made me answer a question that has definitely made me lose the only friends I had left in government.

5:20 p.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

Gary Vidal Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK

I sincerely apologize for that.

However, we're looking to fix things here. We're looking to make the lives of people better. There's an old saying that what you incent gets accomplished. I would suggest to you that we're not incenting the right things with the way we systematically do the at-risk pay and the bonus pay across government.

I have a couple of minutes left, and I'm going to move into the conclusion of your report. I'm going to guess that this is my last shot to ask questions today, right Madam Chair?

We talked a lot about the targets and the goals and all of that. I'm going to be frank. Basically, when I look at this, I would suggest that neither department has been very good at achieving some of these targets. I think you would probably agree, from your comments.

Do you have something specific...? What recommendation would you provide to the leadership of these departments?

In my case, I'm specifically talking about ISC because that's the file I look after or respond to. Are there some specific suggestions you have that might lead to improved outcomes and the ability to assess results in a more positive manner?

5:20 p.m.

Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer

Yves Giroux

[Inaudible—Editor] more seriously, you've touched on an important point: tying executive performance to the attainment of corporate targets. These also mean government-wide priorities and targets, so it's a very good first step.

Then, it's about setting themselves ambitious targets. It's good to be ambitious. It's not the end of the world to fail to meet ambitious targets, but it's great to do it. I'm sure these departments are excellent at doing a couple of things, but the performance indicators we see do not clearly indicate that. It would be good to have clear performance targets that are ambitious and reward excellence in these two departments.

It's very hard for me to believe that 95% of executives had a great or an excellent year. We all go through life events that make us have a bad year, every now and then. This suggests that it's seen as an entitlement. It's not just these two departments. I think it's public service-wide.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

Gary Vidal Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK

I'm going to close with this, because I know I have a few seconds: If we tie performance incentives and at-risk pay to department goals, set goals we're consistent with, maintain those goals of what we're trying to achieve and do some things well, at the end of the day, we're going to serve people better than what we're seeing in the results of some of these reports.

5:25 p.m.

Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer

Yves Giroux

I think that should be the penultimate goal of every public servant, and I think it is for the vast majority of them.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Jenica Atwin

Thank you, Mr. Vidal.

We will now go to Mr. Powlowski.

I think you're splitting your time with Mr. McLeod.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Am I? Okay.

I know the summary says that, despite increased spending, the department hasn't met its targets—the DRIs. However, I'm looking at the DRIs and wondering what this actually means.

I'll give you some of the DRIs.

For the percentage of first nations adults who rate the quality of health care services delivered in their community as good or excellent, the target is 57%. The actual results are 55.2%. However, there's a little asterisk there that says data is five years old, because the data is collected from the first nations regional health survey and that's every five years. They haven't done it in five years.

The next one is the percentage of prior approval requests for medication coverage completed within 24 hours, and the target for that is 100%. What kind of administrator creates a target of 100%? Nobody is going to get to 100%. This might be my somewhat cynical view of administrators: Set a target you can easily meet and, when you meet it, claim success. If I have any criticism, it would be this: Why would you create a target of 100%, which is unachievable? However, they actually met 98.4%. Okay, they didn't meet their target, but come on. That's pretty close.

Another one is the percentage of eligible first nations and Inuit who received at least one non-insured health benefit in a year, which has a target of 74%. In the results for 2020-21, it was 67%, but that's during the time of COVID. You looked at non-insured health benefits like dental and psychological care, which means going from wherever you live to some other community. Who's going to want to do that?

The next one is the percentage of first nations adults who reported being in very good or excellent health, which has a target of 44%. The result was only 38.7%—but, again, it was five-year-old data.

As I go through these, nothing jumps out to me as being very bad, or “We're not meeting the indicators and we spent a lot of money.” What indicators did we go awry on and clearly didn't meet? The ones I'm looking at.... They are hard for me to get too excited about.

May 15th, 2023 / 5:25 p.m.

Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer

Yves Giroux

You're right. It's hard to be excited about this, and these survey results are from five years ago. For a department that spends billions on health care funding, to use survey results from five years ago that health care is good in your community, or a percentage of eligible first nations and Inuit who received a benefit, that doesn't tell me anything. Are they in good health or not? I think that should be the performance indicator. If you receive a benefit because you're diabetic or suffering from an ailment, that's not a good indicator. If few people receive a benefit in a community, it might be an excellent thing because they're very healthy.

I think that speaks to the problem of not having good performance indicators. For the ones we heard, except for the ones who reported being in good or excellent health.... That, I think, is good. The rest is worth what it's worth, in my humble opinion.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Jenica Atwin

Thank you, Mr. Powlowski.

Next is Mr. McLeod.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT

Thank you.

I have one quick question. It's based on a response you made regarding self-governance. You indicated that you found there weren't enough performance outcomes tied to some of the funding agreements. I'm very disappointed to hear that's how you measure relationships within indigenous nations.

As an indigenous person, I'm hoping that we've moved quite a ways past the paternal attitude from federal governments and provincial/territorial governments and we're working towards a truly nation-to-nation type of arrangement. I would expect that we would come up with funding arrangements such as our self-governing fiscal policy that would allow the indigenous governments to govern themselves and to do it how they see fit, not compared to how we funded band councils and analyzed their performances up to now.

Could you maybe clarify if you're still using the same measuring stick that we've been using for the last 150 years when it comes to band councils and indigenous governments for the new relationships that we're developing and signing agreements with?

5:30 p.m.

Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer

Yves Giroux

Just to be clear, my comment should not have been construed as my opinion on the type of relationship the Crown should be having with first nations communities.

I was responding to a question about specific performance indicators that were a bit more difficult to attain—or to measure, to be more precise—and that was not a comment on the type of relationship at all. I was rather explaining what some of the departmental results indicators were, or some of the wording that explained that in our report was what that was referring to.

5:30 p.m.

Liberal

Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT

One other question—

5:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Jenica Atwin

We're out of time, Mr. McLeod.

5:30 p.m.

Liberal

Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT

Okay. Thank you.

5:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Jenica Atwin

I'll have to go to Madam Bérubé.

Ms. Bérubé, the floor is yours for two and a half minutes.

5:30 p.m.

Bloc

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Giroux, earlier you mentioned that the targets didn't always fit the objectives. In your opinion, why are objectives and targets not aligned within the departments? How are targets set? It seems to me that a target should definitely be used to achieve an objective.

5:30 p.m.

Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer

Yves Giroux

I experienced this issue when I was in the public service: It's always difficult to set ambitious targets ourselves. People tend to go towards targets or indicators that already exist, that are familiar to them. Rather than measuring results, people tend to measure the mechanisms used, that is to say what's been produced, how much has been spent or the number of social workers affected, rather than the outcomes they want to achieve, such as the number of healthy people or how many children are thriving in their families.

It's true that the targets set are strange. To remedy that, I believe targets must be set based on departmental objectives. I think ministers need an opportunity to be more involved in setting their targets. House committees like yours could also suggest appropriate targets or performance indicators to departments and agencies.

5:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Jenica Atwin

Thank you.

Ms. Idlout, you have two and a half minutes.

5:30 p.m.

NDP

Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU

Thank you so much.

The federal government has been doing work for about 150 years. I don't know how economics really work, but the federal government has seen inflation a few times, so I'm sure it knows how to, when there's inflation, make sure that when it's setting targets it factors in those kinds of external things that it might not be able to have control of.

Time and time again, we see first nations, Métis, and Inuit communities being made promises; targets are made. For example, one of my communities, Arctic Bay, had an agreement with the federal government—I'm pretty sure it was either CIRNAC or Indigenous Services Canada—that it would fund Arctic Bay for a marine infrastructure project, a small craft harbour.

About three to five years later, that project has not yet been established. The community of Arctic Bay says that it's been answering all the questions so that this project can go ahead. One of the recent excuses that it's been given is that inflation has made it difficult. The budget that was originally allowed has not been able to be met because of inflation.

I wonder if that's what you mean by these moving targets. At the same time, haven't these types of governments been able to factor in such external factors so that if they sign agreements that allow projects to go ahead, they should be able to do so?

5:35 p.m.

Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer

Yves Giroux

I cannot comment on one specific agreement, but inflation has increased the cost of doing business in many communities. I'm sure Arctic Bay is no different. Inflation has also increased government revenues through more income taxes, more sales tax revenue.

On the one hand, yes, it costs more to repair or build some installations, some assets, but on the other hand, there is more revenue coming in.

You're right. Inflation has been around before, so we should know how to deal with inflation. Blaming inflation.... Inflation is probably a good reason it costs more, but on the other hand, there's more revenue.

When an agreement is signed, usually it tends to have to be honoured, so I can't speak to that specific one. If you get a chance to ask ministers when they appear, I think that would be a very good question to put to the ministers.