Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the invitation to appear before the committee today.
This is my third parliamentary committee appearance in about a month. I spoke recently to the Senate committee on aboriginal affairs on this very subject--the Inuvialuit agreement. I'm pleased to have the opportunity to address the findings and recommendations on implementation of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement contained in the Auditor General's October 2007 report.
First of all, I would like to thank the Auditor General for her report. I appreciate the diligent effort and careful study undertaken by the Auditor General and her staff, and I genuinely welcome their thoughtful recommendations.
We recognize the seriousness of the matters raised in the report. Any failure on our part to fully abide by the terms of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement not only undermines the relationship with this aboriginal community, but also diminishes the hard-won credibility of the federal government as it enters into negotiations on agreements with other aboriginal communities across Canada.
In her report, the Auditor General suggests six precise ways in which the department can completely fulfill its responsibilities under the Inuvialuit Final Agreement. The recommendations touch on key aspects of the agreement: land exchange, contracting, economic review, interdepartmental communication, overall implementation strategy, and performance measurement issues.
We are working and have been working in all these areas. Since the report was presented to the House, we have increased our efforts to address the concerns raised by the Auditor General, in order to fully implement the terms of the agreement.
We have been working on developing an action plan to ensure that we are on track, setting realistic and concrete deadlines to address the recommendations. We met with the staff of the Office of the Auditor General, and they provided us with some guidance on the appropriate form and language of an action plan following on our most recent audit and evaluation committee meeting, which was held on February 28.
My officials have provided me with an update on the department's response to the recommendations of the report since it was tabled, and we've made substantial progress even since then on a number of the items highlighted by the Auditor General. I'll just touch on a few of those, and then hopefully that will set the table for questions. I'll deal with them in order.
On land exchanges, accelerated work over the last few months has led to progress on the issue of the airports and the Pingo Canadian Landmark land exchanges. Negotiations with the Inuvialuit and the other federal parties are in fact now finalized and final approval of those parties is expected within the next six months.
This highlights one of the generic challenges for us, in that the department is not solely responsible for or capable of delivering implementation or in possession of all of the levers and tools. Some of those rest with other federal departments. As you may be aware from reading the report, the Government of Canada is the signatory to the agreements, and often this involves a range of federal government departments and other parties.
On contracting, for example, we've worked closely with the Treasury Board Secretariat and Public Works and Government Services Canada to ensure that contract practices across the government reflect our commitments as a government. An amendment will be finalized within the next fiscal year, and the systems to monitor compliance will be brought in line with the new policy.
With regard to economic reviews, we have provided funding to the Inuvialuit to assess the economic development opportunities and potential in each one of the six Inuvialuit communities. We recognize that successful aboriginal communities mean a more prosperous country for us all, and this practical community-based approach supports the objective.
Let me confirm that we continue to explore approaches to enable us to assess and report on a timely basis on land claims implementation activities and obligations, not just in the case of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, but all of our land claims settlements across Canada.
Stronger accountability mechanisms for implementation of modern treaties—including multi-party implementation bodies, quarterly reporting, and audits, both internal and external, when required—are adding greater rigour into our work. To address recommendations of internal audits, we're improving the process we use for tracking implementation and we're producing a practical implementation handbook for staff. We've also conducted workshops to identify performance measures and indicators that will assess and report on the impact of our implementation activities, and all this is imbedded in a larger department-wide performance measurement framework.
The department's implementation branch, led by Mr. Sewell, who joins us here today, has led a series of discussions over the last few months with representatives of all the aboriginal signatories to modern treaties and with all other federal government partners to gain a greater understanding of implementation challenges and to make sure we work together on solutions.
Finally, an evaluation of the impact of modern land claims agreements is underway, starting in five communities in both the Northwest Territories and Quebec, and the evaluation results will be available later in the coming fiscal year.
These initiatives are clear proof of our commitment. Despite the obstacles we encounter we should not lose sight of the fact that the current land claims process works and that agreements are having—and will continue to have—a profound effect on the lives of members of aboriginal communities. By working together we will continue to make progress.
I would cite recent testimony of Chief Joe Linklater of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in the Yukon before your counterparts in the Senate committee on aboriginal peoples. I have an interesting and compelling quote from Chief Linklater in which he said, “I tell people all the time that these self-government agreements were not negotiated to resource ourselves. They were negotiated to give us the ability to look after ourselves and to be self-determining.”
Well, the ability to look after ourselves is what all Canadians want. I believe that the measures this department and other departments will be putting in place, have put in place, and will put in place to respond to the Auditor General's report will bring us much closer to that ultimate goal.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd be happy to take your questions.
