Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Dec. 10th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Let's be respectful of the interpreters, though.

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

I will give her as much time as I can, Chair—

[Mandy Gull-Masty, Liberal, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I don't think that was really a respectful comment to make to me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

We don't need a back-and-forth.

[Mandy Gull-Masty, Liberal, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I would like it if you apologized, because I am trying to answer your question.

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

I don't feel you are, Minister. I don't feel you are.

[Mandy Gull-Masty, Liberal, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Your continued interruptions and your continued disrespect for my response are not making for a productive conversation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

MP Schmale, let's just let the minister finish.

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

I'm just asking questions. I get that you don't like the questions. I get that, but I'm asking the questions—

[Mandy Gull-Masty, Liberal, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

You might not like my response, but I still have to answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

We're going to let the minister answer the question. Then we're going to move on.

Please finish up. You have 30 seconds.

[Mandy Gull-Masty, Liberal, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

While there are some communities that are prepared to receive direct funding, we are able to work with them in that space. While there are some communities that need additional support and wish to build capacity and want to work with us, we are able to meet them in that space. When the Auditor General gives me one recommendation to apply, I have to make sure that, in application, I am meeting everybody's needs.

I want to be fair. I want to treat people well. I want to ensure that they are self-determining in the outcome, in addition. I am not here to force one recommendation on a community. I'm here to support them. I want to ensure that the Auditor General, while she sees I do my work, also understands that sometimes the reality from one community to another can be quite different. We as a government have to meet those communities in that place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much, Minister.

Now we have Parliamentary Secretary Jaime, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I know that you were kind of cut off during your time talking about Bill S-2, what you were hearing and what your position is on this. I know that we've had many good conversations about the need for the second-generation cut-off to be removed. Of course, there are difficult questions that we grapple with across this country: How do we remove it? What do we replace it with? How do we ensure that communities, whether they want it or not, have the ability to have a say in their own membership in terms of who decides who's a member of their communities and who decides who's a status Indian?

I wonder if you could just talk a little about your thought process on this and what our government's next steps are in looking at Bill S-2.

[Mandy Gull-Masty, Liberal, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

It's important that, when you're looking at the conversations that are happening at the assembly.... There are so many different perspectives. I had some caucuses who were very supportive of transitioning immediately to a one-parent solution for status; some expressed their concerns about cases in which it was not clear whether somebody who had married into status or had been adopted through status would have to, with immediacy, receive that solution.

For me, in all of my program and service delivery, I am always trying to be respectful of where community is: Where are they in terms of trying to define or determine what their membership code, protocol or citizenship code is? I believe that it is our work, in government, to move out of the space of determining somebody's first nation status and, really, work with community to define a pathway so that they can be self-determining in that space.

While it is very challenging to be the Minister of Indigenous Services Canada, it is extremely challenging to have to work with the Indian Act as a guide. I come from the lens and the belief that we should create space to move away from it, empower community to determine for themselves and work with them in a way that's respectful. I also think there is a lot of opportunity in this space for community to redefine what “solution” looks like. While there is an amendment in Bill S-2 that offers one-parent status as a solution, I do think we have to go beyond that scope to ensure that we're creating space for community to define for themselves.

The component of what the Indian Act identifies as status is one aspect of the discussion. The components of what membership means, how you bring new members into a community, how you identify those members who are part of a community but were denied service or programming in the space of living in a community.... These are all challenging things, really harsh realities that you have to speak to. That's why I think that creating that space and working with community in what they are looking to determine for themselves is the right path forward. First nations know what's best for them. We don't have to come from a place of telling them, especially when the lens that government has used, historically, is the Indian Act. I don't think that's of any benefit.

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

Thank you, Minister.

I don't know how much time I have left, but I would like—

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

You have a little.

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

It's just a little. Okay.

Well, then, I will just end with this: I compliment you on the very beautiful earrings that you have, which have a lot of bling. I have talked to you and told you that my sister actually sells beads all across Canada—Sundaylace Creations. It's her birthday today, so I want to say, “Happy birthday, Mariah. Keep doing the good work.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much. Chi meegwetch, and happy birthday.

Minister, thank you so much for meeting the ask of the motion and appearing before Christmas, the holiday break. I wish you and your staff the best. Chi meegwetch.

I'm going to suspend for a bit while we change to the Auditor General.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Welcome back.

Right now, we have Karen Hogan, Auditor General of Canada—welcome, Karen—and Glenn Wheeler, principal, Office of the Auditor General.

You have five minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Karen Hogan, Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General]

Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today to discuss our follow-up report on programs for first nations, which was tabled on October 31.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. I am grateful for the contributions and stewardship of indigenous peoples across Canada, who have been caring for the lands they inhabit for generations.

With me today is Glenn Wheeler, the principal responsible for the audit.

Programs for first nations have been a long-standing concern for my office. In this follow-up audit, we examined Indigenous Services Canada's progress in implementing 34 recommendations from six audits that my office has conducted since 2015.

Those audits examined a variety of programs that are important to the health and well-being of first nations communities, including programs that provide access to primary health care, emergency management services and safe drinking water. Those audits cover things that most Canadians take for granted.

Even though program spending has nearly doubled over the past five years, we found that Indigenous Services Canada had made unsatisfactory progress on more than half of our recommendations.

For instance, as early as 2005, we identified concerns about drinking water quality in first nations communities. Although the number of long-term drinking water advisories has diminished since our 2021 audit of access to safe drinking water in first nations communities, we are greatly concerned that nine advisories have remained in effect for a decade or longer.

Similarly, we also recommended, in 2013 and again in 2022, that the department establish agreements to ensure that all first nations communities have access to emergency services. In this follow-up audit, we found that even fewer emergency service agreements were in place than in 2022. These agreements are essential for timely, coordinated responses to events such as wildfires and floods while mitigating disruption to people's lives and damage to critical infrastructure.

Reflecting on our audit findings, as well as on decades of audit reports on indigenous matters, we have identified four barriers that, in our opinion, hindered the implementation of our recommendations: lack of sustained management attention, lack of clarity around service levels, insufficient support to bolster first nations' capacity to deliver programs, and a passive and siloed approach to supporting first nations.

One thing is clear: The public service has to do a better job in working with first nations to make meaningful progress on these long-standing issues, which have spanned successive governments and impacted multiple generations. In my view, this will require a different approach and mindset.

Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer any questions committee members may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much, AG Hogan.

First off, for six minutes, we have MP Eric Melillo for the Conservatives.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the recognition.

Thank you to the Auditor General for being here.

You spoke about the department making unsatisfactory progress on these recommendations over half of the time. That is a question I put to the minister a couple of weeks ago, actually, when she was at committee. She straight-up disagreed with that assessment.

You confirmed this in your opening remarks. I'm wondering if you can expand more on what you found in your report, in order to make sure it's clear to everybody.

[Karen Hogan]

I want to be clear by starting off with the fact that we did choose a binary decision. It was either satisfactory or unsatisfactory, so that we could really draw a line in the sand and say whether or not we felt meaningful progress had occurred to address our recommendations.

“Unsatisfactory” does not mean that nothing happened. There was progress in many areas, but what we felt was that the outcome had not been achieved. An example would be if we made a recommendation to consult with groups or communities and then implement something. While the consultation may have happened, the action of implementing something did not. We would have deemed that to be unsatisfactory, because, in the end, that was the outcome the recommendation was meant to achieve.

I acknowledge that there's been a lot of consultation and a lot of activity, especially around drinking water. There was a big reduction in long-term drinking water advisories, but in my opinion, one is too many, especially if it has been a community that has had it for multiple decades. Drinking water is a basic necessity, and I will always say that it has been unsatisfactory until all of those long-term drinking water advisories have been lifted. There were commitments made by the government to do so, and that deadline has come and gone.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

I definitely agree with you on the drinking water. Northwestern Ontario, the region I'm from, is one of the regions where there are quite a few drinking water advisories that remain, a number of which are long-term ones. I do want to ask about that as well, because where I live in Kenora, in town we occasionally have a drinking water advisory that lasts maybe a day.

Things malfunction. It happens. I think that's expected across the country in all jurisdictions, but when you see a long-term advisory that goes on for decades, obviously there are greater structural challenges at play there. I'm wondering if you could speak to your findings over the years on what has led to those long-term advisories specifically remaining in place.