Public Accounts Committee on March 11th, 2008

[Terry Sewell]

Like the deputy, I don't have the actual records. But it would be most unusual for us to put forward a cabinet submission that implicated other departments and did not have their full endorsement. I can't imagine that occurring 23 years ago, and I can't imagine it occurring today.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

I think it's very significant. We're looking for other departments to honour their part of an agreement, and we're not even sure if they agreed with it to begin with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Hubbard, if it's any help, I have the agreement on hand. The Right Honourable Pierre Trudeau signed it, and the Honourable John Munro, Minister of Indian Affairs, but nobody else--

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

But you know how cabinet documents work, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Hubbard.

Mr. Fitzpatrick, you have four minutes.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

This matter kind of reminds me of the episode we had a while back with education performance with your department. It was not a ringing endorsement. For all the money that's spent by the department on education, when you look at the results and the auditor's report, there's a colossal problem here.

What I'm hearing today is that the land has been transferred, large amounts of money have been expended, the agreement has been substantially performed, but the thing I really find troubling—and this reminds me of the education file as well—is that the standard of living of the people who are most affected by the agreement has not improved. It appears as if it's the same as it was before, and you have to wonder what the exercise is all about, if people's lives are not improved at the end of the day.

A famous person once said that eleven of the most dangerous words in the English language are “Hello, I'm with the government; I'm here to help you.” When I see that quote, I very often think of the Department of Indian Affairs.

With that, I'm going to ask a few questions. It seems to me when I look at the economic development objectives under this agreement—and I'm not familiar with all the details and the guidelines on it—they seem to me to be classical centralized economic planning. Governments, through regulations and mandates, are trying to order results, and other than a few leftist friends around the world, most reputable schools of economics have totally rejected that as an economic strategy. It's a strategy that has proven to be a failure, and if I look at the results here about the standard of living of first nations people affected by this agreement, it would seem to me we have another failure.

Is this what we're trying to do here, a process managed by central planning to get results for people in this area? Mr. Wernick, would you have any comments on that?

[Michael Wernick]

Thank you for the question.

Not at all. In fact, it's diametrically the opposite. The point of reaching land claims settlements is to give the communities the tools for self-reliance so they can take control of their own futures, participate in economic opportunity, participate in development opportunities, and create their own businesses. If you were to bring the Inuvialuit people here you would find they're the most business-oriented, entrepreneurial aboriginal people you're likely to meet. They own businesses. They have revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars. This is why we vigorously pursue the settlement of claims, because the land, the money, and much more importantly, the governance gives those communities a much brighter possibility of greater self-reliance.

The issue of living standards is one we will get to in looking at those communities. I think there are all kinds of methodological issues about relative to whom and relative to what, because there are other people in the Northwest Territories doing very well off diamonds. As I said, $100-a-barrel oil is a new phenomenon, and so on, so I think you're going to have to bear with me that there have been great improvements in the lives of the Inuvialuit people. Relative to other first nations people and relative to other people in the NWT is kind of a hard thing to capture in a snapshot, but they have been provided, through the agreement, all kinds of tools for greater self-reliance and participation in the opportunities that are taking place in the north.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

So I would be mistaken to think that this is some sort of situation that's being mandated and managed out of Indian Affairs, the economic development in this region?

[Michael Wernick]

Completely.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

That's good. I'm glad to hear that.

[Michael Wernick]

You have a very sophisticated entrepreneurial group that owns and runs its own businesses, which are as good as any businesses in northern Canada.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Lussier.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to come back again to point 3.45, which talks about reasonable share. It clearly states in the recommendation that a reasonable share must be allocated to aboriginals people. It even recommends that they should be given a share of non-competitively tendered contracts. The department responded by confirming that they will work with the signatories and the Department of Justice to define the term “reasonable share”.

How many meetings have there been on this issue?

[Terry Sewell]

I don't know the answer to that.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Chairman, would it be possible to ask Mr. Sewell to table the Department of Justice's legal opinion on reasonable share?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I think he's agreed to do that already.

[Michael Wernick]

I'm not sure we can provide that because of solicitor-client issues, but I will take that up with the Department of Justice.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Sewell, as part of your discussions on reasonable share, have you consulted the agreements between Hydro-Quebec, the James Bay Energy Corporation and the Crees of Quebec, where reference is made to the reasonable share that the Cree community should receive through its Hydro-Quebec contract on the James Bay hydro-electric project?

[Terry Sewell]

I have not personally, sir, but it's an excellent suggestion and I'll have staff look into that.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Was it mentioned that there would be indicators to measure the reasonable share that aboriginal people would receive under the various agreements? Were indicators determined during discussions with the partners or the signatories?

[Terry Sewell]

At this stage, we've had many discussions with Public Works and Treasury Board around what kinds of information systems we have to track our contracting, for instance, and then our non-competitive tendered expenditures. As you can imagine, the Government of Canada has fairly significant-sized contracting, and we are challenged by needing to break down our contracting activities to settlement land areas, which are different boundaries from normal provincial-territorial boundaries that our big systems may understand. So we're in the process of exploring how to make our information-gathering systems more responsive and give us the kind of information you're asking about.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Are there a lot of non-competitive contracts granted? What is the maximum number?

[Terry Sewell]

I don't know the answer.

[Michael Wernick]

That would be governed by contracting policy. Roughly $25,000 would be without tendering. There may be some exceptions in some departments for some purposes—emergency contracting. I can find out from Public Works for you, but generally the government-wide rules would apply here. These are very, very small contracts we're talking about.