Evidence of meeting #21 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agreements.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Ronnie Campbell  Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Michael Wernick  Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Terry Sewell  Director General, Implementation Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Michel Roy  Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Claims and Indian Government, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Justin Vaive

12:20 p.m.

Bloc

Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC

In your presentation, Mr. Wernick, you state the following:

An evaluation of the impact of modern land claim agreements is underway, studying five communities, in both the Northwest Territories and Quebec.

What Quebec community are you referring to?

12:20 p.m.

Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Claims and Indian Government, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Michel Roy

Both the Cree and Inuit, I believe.

12:20 p.m.

Bloc

Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC

There are two files.

12:20 p.m.

Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Claims and Indian Government, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Michel Roy

The Inuit and the Naskapi.

12:20 p.m.

Bloc

Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC

Are the North Shore Innu included in these agreements?

12:20 p.m.

Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Claims and Indian Government, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Michel Roy

No, because the North Shore Innu do not have a comprehensive claims agreement yet.

12:20 p.m.

Bloc

Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC

Very well.

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy

To follow up on that discussion, Mr. Sewell, on this whole issue of untendered contracts and what's going on with respect to this particular contract, can you provide us with some correspondence—not copies but from yourself—as to just exactly what is going on?

12:25 p.m.

Director General, Implementation Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Terry Sewell

As it relates to untendered contracts?

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy

Yes. That's referred to in the agreement.

12:25 p.m.

Director General, Implementation Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Terry Sewell

Strictly untendered?

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy

Yes.

Mr. Lake, four minutes.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB

Mr. Wernick, there are some questions about respectful disagreement with some elements of this report. Just to lead off, are there any specific elements, either in the recommendations or in the paragraphs of this report, that you respectfully disagree with, anything else we haven't identified today?

12:25 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Michael Wernick

No. The response that was tabled at the time of the report is our response.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB

So you generally agree with all the comments--not just the recommendations, but all the paragraphs as well?

12:25 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Michael Wernick

Yes, you could put it that way. We accept the recommendations, and the response was tabled at the time when the chapter was filed.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB

Looking on page 31, there are a couple of timelines in there, one referring to the recommendation to do with the reasonable share we've talked about today. It says here:

The Department will complete its work with Public Works, Treasury Board Secretariat, and the Canada School of Public Service on the development of a Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement training module for all federal procurement officers by March 2008.

We're there right now. Is there an update on that?

12:25 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Michael Wernick

It's not complete, because we have to get those parties around the table. We will have a working draft of it within the next few weeks, or a couple of months at the outside, and then be field-testing it with people to see whether it's useful. It will probably iterate several times through the course of the year.

12:25 p.m.

Director General, Implementation Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Terry Sewell

I'm sorry; I think he's talking about the e-training.

12:25 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Michael Wernick

Oh, the e-training; I'm sorry. I'm mixing that up.

12:25 p.m.

Director General, Implementation Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Terry Sewell

The e-training being developed by Public Works and Government Services Canada is on track to be put in place at the Canada public service school by the end of this month.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB

The recommendation in paragraph 3.30, to do with the exchange of lands, says:

With respect to Annex R lands, INAC will review the process for cleaning up and returning control of parcels of land identified in Annex R and will make changes to improve its efficacy by April 1, 2008.

That's coming up pretty quickly. How's that going?

12:25 p.m.

Director General, Implementation Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Terry Sewell

I can report, if I may, Deputy, that we have developed a process, and we've in fact given it a test drive. In early February we were successful in removing an R designation on a parcel of INAC land. So we have used the process, and it worked: we have actually removed an R.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB

That's one parcel out of 13, I think it was.

12:25 p.m.

Director General, Implementation Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Terry Sewell

It is one out of 21. The important thing to understand about the R designation is that these are parcels of land that federal departments are using—their Inuit-owned lands. There's a reserved designation because a federal department was using it at the time the land claim agreement was signed. If that federal department is still using it today, we would not remove the R designation. Not all 21 are waiting to be removed.