Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 17th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

That is so noted. Thank you very much.

We'll now 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 like to thank Minister Miller, Minister Hajdu and the officials for being here today to answer some questions on the PBO report.

First, to you, Mr. Miller, one of the criticisms in the PBO report is that the department's actual spending is always much higher than the planned spending because it doesn't take into account the supplementary estimates. In your opening, you brought up the Gottfriedson settlement, which was groundbreaking for being the first time that bands were ever compensated for the impacts to culture and language from residential or day schools, on top of the impacts to survivors and descendants.

Why is it that in this case, the supplementary estimates are not being considered? Is there something that could be done to address this, going forward?

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

It's a great question.

I'll take a step back and look at the way this department and Minister Hajdu's department are funded through supplementary estimates.

It is a good chunk of that profile. A report like this looks only at the planned spending, which is based on the main estimates. They're highly technical for most people but very important in a profile of this department, which depends so much on supplementary estimates. There are billions of dollars going to historic settlements—and changing people's lives—for harm that occurred, sometimes over decades and even centuries. Gottfriedson is one of the particular examples secured through the supplementary estimates.

Again, if we were to take the report to its logical extension, it would be qualified as a resistance to change, which is bizarre. I'm pointing to page 12 of the report. What would have been beneficial is a proper back-and-forth with our departments to give some colour to that so that members could have a fully fleshed out report that would reflect the way these departments behave and the different articulations of the spending profiles that underpin them.

I'll take a quick moment as well to respond to MP Schmale's comment about some of these indicators.

We have sometimes collapsed indicators that we have met. Examples are the percentage of first nations with fiscal bylaws or laws and the percentage of first nations communities with financial administration laws. Those are two separate indicators. We met them, but we got rid of one of them because it was subsumed in one of the other indicators that were more general in nature.

There is some housecleaning involved in some of these. It isn't self-serving to remove them. In fact, keeping them separate would have been self-serving, because you'd have two substantially similar indicators indicating success.

I sometimes have the opportunity to look at these indicators and ask why we're doing them. I can't solely or should not solely change them, but it doesn't mean we don't scrutinize them.

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

I want to pick up on the response you had earlier, when you said that it would have been beneficial to have a back-and-forth with the PBO on this.

To both of you, Minister Miller and Minister Hajdu, as far as you know, were you or anyone in your departments approached to contribute other qualitative or quantitative data to support the PBO study?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I just checked with my officials. No, we weren't.

[Daniel Quan-Watson, Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs]

No, we were not contacted. We tried to see whether we could seek some corrections and were told it was too late. It was already being published.

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

Thanks for that.

There have been a lot of questions here about the indicators. I was hoping you could provide some clarity to the committee and explain when and how often these indicators are reviewed, and whether that's on a set schedule.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I will turn to Deputy Gideon for that.

[Valerie Gideon]

We have an opportunity every year to make adjustments to indicators, but I think the approach Indigenous Services Canada is taking with this new departmental results framework is that we're in it for the long haul. We're turning things around. Instead of imposing administrative reporting on recipients as a condition of funding, we're working with first nations, Inuit and the Métis nation on the co-development of indicators and investing in their capacity to do data collection that is honourable to the ownership, control, access and possession principles that first nations developed. We want to maintain that type of sustainable long-term commitment to that partnership.

That being said, obviously we're open to feedback about some of these indicators. We could bring that to our partnership conversation, but it will for sure want to align with, for example, the national Inuit health survey and the questions Inuit will design. We don't want to deviate from those types of core data sources.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Mr. Weiler.

Mrs. Gill, I'm sorry about the first round. This time, you'll have three minutes and 15 seconds.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to time myself.

Very briefly, what I'm hearing is that the old way of doing things at Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada and Indigenous Services Canada is no longer working. Ms. Hajdu, you said that you would like the targets to be set in consultation with indigenous communities, groups and nations.

Today, we're discussing the report, which was requested in 2021 and received in 2022. I hear that we can no longer rely on the rules or ways of doing things that existed before, because things have changed. I don't know if I'm interpreting what the officials are saying correctly. I didn't think I would have to analyze the Parliamentary Budget Officer's approach because there are new data and new ways of doing things that make the picture we have in the report not accurate. However, I'm hearing that we don't have a good picture of the departments, given the many nuances and things we would like to see done that can't be done here. I hear that what we do, as elected members on this committee, isn't relevant. I'm saying this with all due respect, but that's what I'm hearing.

I'm wondering if you have an idea of how to do things differently. If the Parliamentary Budget Officer doesn't have the tools he needs to do his job, as he seems to be saying, what can we do?

The question is for everyone so that this can change. It would be a shame and worrisome to go through exactly the same thing again, as much for Quebeckers and Canadians as, of course, for indigenous peoples.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I think the point of our presentation today—and the officials are talking about exactly that, Madame Gill—is the reform of how we set measurements together with first nations and indigenous peoples, how we report back on that, who controls and owns the data, and who does the research. This is the work of reconciliation.

Far be it from me to really understand the work other offices are doing, but I will say that it is incumbent on every office and every office-holder to look at things through the lens of self-determination if we truly want to reform how we do things in this place. That's hard work, because it's about changing long-standing practices.

It is disappointing that the two departments weren't contacted, for example, because I think there would have been a rich opportunity to talk about the work of joint indicator selection. That is undoubtedly challenging work, but I think it has the longevity we're look for in terms of measuring what's important to first nations, to indigenous peoples. To me, that's the exciting part of this work. We will get to a results framework. We're very close to being able to release it. It will be a document that will be refreshed and revisited, but it will be a document that's been co-created with indigenous peoples.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Mrs. Gill.

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

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you.

Based on the fact that collaboratively you are going to be implementing working with indigenous people, as I look into the future, I'm envisioning a better structure of indicators, and if these indicators were not accurate, perhaps indigenous people are going to be held accountable. How can we be well informed that you are going to be collaborating and that this collaboration will strengthen and empower indigenous people?

Indigenous people need to be empowered. We always think of ways to improve and empower our people. Can we have a solid indicator that in working together, you're going to base your foundations on collaboration with first nations indigenous peoples for empowerment?

Thank you.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

That's a pretty profound question. It touches on the philosophy behind reconciliation, and it's a hard question.

There's a book that I read a long time ago called the Pedagogy of the Oppressed—maybe you've read it—by Paulo Freire. I read it in university first, but I don't think I fully understood it. I reread it again when I was appointed to this position.

It talks about oppressed people and how it is never going to be the colonizer that has the answers to decolonize; it is really the indigenous peoples themselves. This is what you're touching on and what we're trying to as the colonial partner in the relationship, which is reflect on how we get out of the way so that indigenous people have the power, the self-determination and the tools, which were promised in many different ways, to rebuild community, to rebuild governance and to rebuild, in this case, a measurement of how communities are doing and whether or not the things the federal government would like to measure are the same things that indigenous people want to measure. Lo and behold, we find they are sometimes not the same, that they are not measured in the same way or that they're not even conceptualized in the same way.

When I talk about education, that was such an “aha” moment for me. In western culture, you either graduated or you didn't. There isn't an in-between. When I reflected on the change in the indicator, it's a different philosophy of education, which is that it's ongoing. Sure, we could talk about how long it took someone to graduate, but we can't discount that someone will graduate in the future. Doesn't that make sense? It made sense to me as an indigenous perspective when I heard the measurement that was selected in partnership.

I think that as the colonial partner in the relationship, we have a lot to learn as a country, and I think it will benefit all Canadians.

Thank you for that pretty profound question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Ms. Idlout.

I'd like to thank our ministers and their teams for joining us this afternoon.

There is agreement in the room to adjourn our meeting.

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

Unless the ministers want to stay longer....

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Unless the ministers want to stay and keep....

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

I'm happy to go another round, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

The meeting will be adjourned. We're adjourned.