Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 26th, 2025

[Jason Jacques]

I think going back to the comments put out with the text and the observations we made on our budget 2025 issues note, it is a very challenging economic and fiscal situation. Certainly when you have a situation like this where there seems to be a qualitative consensus that there is underfunding for these essential services across the country, and a very important essential service, having clarity around what the appropriate funding level is and actually putting a number around it could certainly help parliamentarians navigate what are very challenging trade-offs right now in the fiscal environment.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Now we go to PS Hanley for six minutes.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you very much for being here today and for your rapid analysis. I really appreciate it.

I have a few questions to get a better sense of the work you've done and some of the conclusions you've drawn.

You obviously point out a discrepancy between funding and spending, essentially. Then you point out one of the reasons, which is asynchrony between budgetary fiscal schedules and cycles among the provinces, the territories and federally.

I wonder whether you could elaborate a bit on that and other reasons behind that discrepancy between planned and actual spending. What lies behind that? In particular, it's not to get federal spending off the hook, but to understand more of the impact of the provincial and territorial funding being out of sync or insufficient.

[Govindadeva Bernier, Director, Budgetary Analysis, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer]

As you probably know, the first nations and Inuit policing program, the FNIPP—and it's the same for the facilities program as well—is a cost-shared program. The federal government spends 52% and the provincial government spends 48%. One condition for the federal government to actually put the money on the table is that the province or territory is going to also provide the 48% remaining.

One thing we heard from Public Safety officials, and it's also in their departmental results report, is that, for example, when increased funding was announced in budget 2021, it took the provinces a bit by surprise. The federal government has this new money that's available and wants to provide it to the first nations police services but the provinces might have already tabled their own budget or might be in the middle of their planning cycle, so they might need to wait until the next year until they can actually match that funding. That was one of the reasons, as I was explaining, that there were often discrepancies.

A more recent example—we don't mention it in the report—is that budget 2024 also announced additional funding for the FNIPP and the FNIPFP. When the the Public Safety departmental plan was tabled, in June 2025, that additional funding was still not in the three-year plan. It's only in the supplementary estimates (B), which were tabled two weeks ago and are going to be voted on before December 10, that there was actual additional money that was appropriated, or right now is being asked to be appropriated. There seems to be also a lag in terms of planning.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Maybe you answered it in general, but I noticed, more specifically, in figure 1 that the gap is substantially higher, I think, in 2023-24 compared to 2024-25. It's almost like there's a recovery, in a way, of that discrepancy. Is there a particular reason for that year being...?

[Govindadeva Bernier]

I can't tell you whether there's a particular reason for that. Potentially, provinces and territories caught up at some point and were able to secure their own share of the funding, but I really have no idea, specifically.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

If you were to undertake further, deeper analysis, I suppose those kinds of questions could be answered.

[Govindadeva Bernier]

We could answer that, although that would not necessarily be the same thing as estimating the funding gap that is necessary right now to address the service levels that would probably be needed in those first nation police services.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I understand, and—

[Govindadeva Bernier]

However, yes, it's definitely the type of analysis we could do, if requested to do so.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Jacques, do you want to add something?

[Jason Jacques]

I was only going to add that this is the eighth report our office has done over the past 17 years with respect to funding gaps in essential services, whether it's on the education or health care side, capital operating or first nations water and waste water, and our office has certainly seen charts like this in the past. What jumps out in this chart—Govindadeva is correct that we don't have a definitive answer—but having seen it eight times in the past, what typically is happening is that the capacity of the 634 first nations across the country to absorb a significant jump in funding immediately is relatively limited. It's not that the money cannot or should not be used. It's simply that, when governments come to the table and say, “Congratulations, we're substantially increasing the funding next year,” everyone is happy and then the real work has to start, which is the work of actually taking the money and putting it into practice.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I guess that solidifies one of your two conclusions about how the effects of longer-term stable funding would obviously mitigate against that phenomenon of undercapacity with short-term funding.

[Jason Jacques]

Yes, very much so.

It has been a recurring.... Typically, when we've looked at federal funding for various first nations programs in the past, there end up being two parts or two issues that we focus on or that become evident. The first is the funding issue. The second is the governance issue.

The governance issue really comes back to the side of the federal and provincial governments wanting to do something, wanting to put in additional funding, and not being able to necessarily provide the guidance or the guarantee that first nations would expect in the same way that for the City of Québec they can provide guidance to its police force from one year to the next, in multiple years going out, on how much money is going to be there and what type of support will be available, whereas in the case of Garden River First Nation, you have the provincial government, the federal government and the realities on the ground that you're dealing with.

Potentially, you're dealing with multiple different departments. You're dealing with multiple agreements, and it gets really complex very quickly, especially with differing schedules for election campaigns.

Again, that's a common theme that comes up over and over again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Jacques, Mr. Bernier, thank you for the work you do and the impact it enables us to have in ours.

In your presentation, you touched on the importance of analyzing the costs involved in making first nations and Inuit police services essential. You expressed an interest in that, so I would conclude that the committee should also take an interest in it and make a recommendation in its report.

In your opinion, what are the guidelines that could be used to provide a better framework and that we could recommend in this study?

[Jason Jacques]

If your committee mentioned this in its report, it would be a priority for us.

The Government of Canada and Statistics Canada already have the data. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and some provincial police services have models that enable them to determine the quality of services and the types of investment that would be required.

To be honest, the methodology for this type of analysis is simple. The complex part is having to convince people to share their data and the methodology used. The Excel files are there. It's just a matter of finding them and buying some pizzas and Coca-Cola for Mr. Bernier.

What I mean by that is that all you have to do is give them eight weeks—two months—to do that analysis, and you'll get results.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I would like to ask you a question that seems rather complex to me.

Your report mentions that federal and provincial funding cycles are often misaligned, which complicates cost-sharing agreements for first nations policing.

Do you think that misalignment causes the chronic underfunding we're seeing in the program, or is it a sign of deeper jurisdictional ambiguity between the levels of government?

What structural reform would reduce that friction?

I'm talking about cost-sharing at 52% for the federal government and 48% for the provincial or territorial government, which often results in a race to the bottom instead of to the top when it comes to investment.

[Govindadeva Bernier]

I don't think we necessarily have any recommendations to make in that regard.

However, there is one interesting thing to note. Every funding agreement includes a list of criteria that determine what will be considered to establish the level of funding needed. All kinds of statistics are taken into consideration, including geographic location, type of community, whether it's an isolated community or not, population and rates of serious crime. At the end of the day, two final points must be taken into consideration: the availability of federal funds and provincial funds.

I get the impression that there is a desire to provide the money needed to deliver the services required. However, if the federal government doesn't have enough funding, or if the province or territory doesn't have enough funding to align with the federal government, the result is always a dead end and a lack of funding.

We referenced an indigenous police service in Ontario, the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service, which voluntarily agreed to the provincial legislation. The Province of Ontario seems to have some sort of analytical framework for determining what essential services need to be provided once they're covered by the legislation.

As a result, it was determined that the number of police officers had to be doubled. In our conversations with Public Safety Canada, we were told that the province had gone to the federal government to request more funding, a 52% contribution, since there wasn't enough funding in its budget.

That's just one of many police services, but it's the largest in Canada. I don't think all police services would need to double the number of police officers, but it does illustrate, to some extent, the limitations of the current system.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Let's say Ontario, for example, paid $98 and the federal government paid just $52, would Ontario not be allowed to contribute $98?

How does that work, exactly?

[Govindadeva Bernier]

The $98 would certainly not be provided through the first nations and Inuit policing program, because the 52% to 48% ratio is really strict.

However, there are a number of other provincial and federal initiatives. For example, there is a fund to combat serious crime, which provides funding to a number of police services, not just first nations police services.

They also sometimes receive funding through other initiatives. The provinces probably have other funding structures as well, if they want to provide funding directly.

That said, everything that goes through this specific program really has to comply with the 52% to 48% ratio.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

In your report, you say, “When asked for electronic copies of this data in a workbook format, Public Safety Canada officials told us they did not have the information in this format.”

When Public Safety Canada Deputy Minister Shawn Tupper testified in 2024, he said:

We have simply not been able to sustain an IT system that allows us to do the kind of data analytics that we need to do. This is something that I am looking at now and trying to figure out ways so that I can find the cash to make that kind of investment. That's a department-wide challenge that I have.

What are we to make of the fact that, in 2025, Public Safety Canada is unable to be transparent about funding for first nations and Inuit police services in Canada?

[Govindadeva Bernier]

I don't know if we can make anything of it. It's not in our mandate.

However, I can give you a bit of context.

We did get all the data, but it was basically the same as paper documents. There were columns of numbers on tonnes of pages.

To analyze that data, it had to be entered manually into a computer, into an Excel spreadsheet. That was the problem. I'm not trying to make excuses for the department, but a year may not have been enough time for it to upgrade its data system.

Nonetheless, it is not our role to state an opinion on that.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you. I'm satisfied with your answer.