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

[Chief Karen Bell]

Yes, absolutely.

At the time that I was on that integrated border enforcement team, we had weekly conversations with a lot of the law enforcement on the Canadian side and the U.S. side. We did joint projects together. I spent a lot of time in the U.S. That faces Canada. It was predominantly my nation. I knew the people in my nation, and they knew that was a vulnerable location where people were being trafficked back and forth.

The public gets to know that, too. We were interdicting people from all over Canada who knew that was a vulnerable location.

To increase that relationship and keep it going is very important, especially in this time of what's going on in the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much, Chief Bell. Thank you for your testimony and your answers.

Thank you very much, Sandra DeLaronde, for your work as well.

Chi-meegwetch, everyone.

We are going to suspend and get ready for our next panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

We're back.

On the second panel, from the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, we have Jason Jacques, interim Parliamentary Budget Officer; and Govindadeva Bernier, director, budgetary analysis.

Welcome. You will have five minutes. Please, gentlemen, begin.

[Jason Jacques, Interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting us to appear before you today.

We are pleased to present the findings of the report entitled “Overview of First Nations and Inuit Police Funding and Spending”, which we were honoured to prepare at the request of this committee.

As you know, indigenous policing is a complex and sensitive topic. An adequate comparative analysis of the costs of providing policing needs to consider multiple factors. Given the significant amount of time it took to determine the availability of data and obtain it from Public Safety Canada, we were unable to provide a comparative analysis of indigenous and non-indigenous police services.

Instead, this report examines funding and expenditures trends for the first nations and Inuit policing program, and the first nations and Inuit policing facilities program, as well as four self-administered first nations and Inuit police services.

Between 2015 and 2025, planned and actual federal funding for first nations and Inuit policing through the first nations and Inuit policing program and the first nations and Inuit policing facilities program tripled.

Notwithstanding this funding increase and based on our analysis, we bring to the committee two conclusions. The uncertainty with program funding leads to short-term contribution agreements. This disrupts long-term planning for the communities that actually need to deliver policing services. Second, the funding gap for first nations and Inuit policing must be estimated. Should the committee wish, we would be very eager to undertake this analysis.

We would be pleased to respond to any questions you may have regarding this report.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you.

We're going to the first round.

For the Conservatives, we have MP Zimmer, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks again, Jason, for coming before committee. I appreciate your work.

I'll turn to page 1 of your report on the overview of first nations and Inuit police funding and spending. It states:

Most stakeholders believe self-administered First Nations and Inuit police services are underfunded, and there is a need for federal legislation that recognizes First Nations policing as an essential service. While the federal government previously committed to table such legislation, the Minister of Public Safety wants to secure funding prior to its introduction. The cost of funding resulting from such federal legislation is currently not known.

That's from your report. It essentially says that the government's not spending enough on community policing. I know there are issues with even getting some of the money to community. Even for some of the money that's on the table, it's difficult to get it spent.

The puzzling part for me is that the government seems to have the money to confiscate the firearms of law-abiding first nations and Inuit firearms owners. As your office stated before, and I'll quote an article from 2024:

The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates range between 150,000 to more than 500,000, with an estimated total value between $47 million and $756 million. These costs only include the value of the confiscated firearms and exclude the administrative costs to collect them and the costs of destroying the collected firearms.

This is the doozy:

The total cost of this ban to taxpayers will be more than $4 billion and possibly more than $6 billion.

That's not from you. This is from this other source that extrapolates the numbers.

Seeing that most stakeholders of the quote I just read believe first nations and Inuit policing is underfunded and under-resourced, do you think it's a good use of taxpayer dollars to spend potentially billions of dollars to go after highly vetted, law-abiding citizens and their hunting rifles, or would it be better if the government spent that money to go after criminals?

[Jason Jacques]

It's not the mandate of the parliamentary budget office to opine upon government policy.

What I would say is, similar to the Government of Canada's gun buyback program, where we received a request from a committee to put a number, a cost estimate, on something where the government did not have a cost estimate, this seems to be a similar situation where there seems to be a broad qualitative consensus that there is underfunding for these services and there seems to be no official number available to anyone. As a starting point to come up with an estimate of how much additional money may be required.... I think it behooves somebody—potentially, it's certainly within our mandate or other people could do it—but simply putting a number around it is a good starting point to support parliamentarians in having a very healthy policy debate.

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

Yes, that's a great answer.

I'll move on to my second question, Jason.

On page 3 of your report “Budget 2025, Issues for Parliamentarians”, it talks about budgetary balance. On the bottom line on page 3, if you add $78.3 billion this year, $65.4 billion next year, $63.5 billion in 2027-28, $57.9 billion in 2028-29 and $56.6 billion more in 2029-30, the total debt added to our national debt will be $321.7 billion. That's over the next five years. That's more than twice the $154 billion of the previous prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

This Prime Minister promised he would spend less and invest more, but it looks like he's spending a whole lot more by my estimations and by your document. Does this massive increase in government spending and debt concern you?

[Jason Jacques]

Mr. Chair, I'll just circle back through you with respect to whether the committee would like me to answer the question. While I'm very happy to answer questions about our analysis, and I definitely have an answer, it does seem slightly outside the purview of the reason why we were asked to come and testify before the committee today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

You are correct, so—

[Jason Jacques]

Yes, feel free to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

No, I mean stick to what we're supposed to be doing here. I think I heard some over here [Inaudible—Editor].

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish, NS]

I have a point of order.

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

I asked the question. I'd appreciate it. It is your report—

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish, NS]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

On the point of order—

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

Yes, I would appreciate an answer to the question.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish, NS]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

You have to stick to the context, and even the witnesses have identified that they feel this is out of order, so I would appreciate—

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

It's Bob's time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

I can—

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish, NS]

I'll give him his time back but on a point of order, we brought him here to talk about indigenous policing.

He did a great CTV interview you can watch, which I think answers the question you're posing. I think it addresses that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

We'll give you your time, but please ask another question because even the witness identified that he didn't feel that it was appropriate.

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

I'm interested.

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

Yes, even talking about indigenous policing and Inuit policing, considering that the budget has massively grown and there are other requirements and other requests for those funds to be spent on policing, do you think the money spent on things other than policing is overly excessive, the $321 billion is overly excessive?