Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 5th, 2010

[Sheila Fraser]

Chair, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, this audit was completed in November of 2009. Since then, as was indicated by the deputy ministers, in budget 2010 there was additional funding put in for environmental monitoring and other activities in the north. You will note in some of the responses that the government refers to “if additional funds are available”, and it would appear that this has occurred.

We are pleased with the action plans that have been developed by the departments, and we believe that for the most part, obviously, if these things are put into place and the actions are completed, they will address many of the recommendations. But as Deputy Minister Wernick mentioned, much of this depends upon the settlement of the agreements with those two groups, which are still outstanding and which represent about 30% of the territory. Until that certainty is there, there will be difficulties with economic development on a broader scale, with questions around ownership of resources, land, public consultation, and so on. But for the environmental monitoring, we do believe that if the actions are put into place it should address many of the issues raised in the report.

If I could just add this on follow-up, we in the office go back and do follow-up audits to see if departments have actually done the work they have committed to do in their action plans. Furthermore, there are departmental audit committees that have a specific responsibility to track the implementation of the recommendations that have been made. So the committee can expect in probably two, three, or four years to see a follow-up report on this audit.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Sorry, what's the follow-up timeline?

[Sheila Fraser]

The timing will depend upon the timing the departments themselves have given to complete these actions. I would suspect it will be three or four years before we would do a follow-up. We want to ensure we respect the time they have said it will take them and then make sure we have the time to see it actually in place. I would suspect it would probably be something like three or four years before we would go back.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

You mentioned in your remarks, as well, that the committee may wish to ask each department for its action plan and the action it has taken to date. For example, we received from the clerk, from one department, an action plan for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency. It's a document. When I did take a look at it, I went to the clerk to clarify, again, if this was the document that everyone received. It has a fair amount of blanks, unfortunately, when it comes to the action plan, organization, accountability, timeline, and progress to date.

That's something that caught me off guard, and I just want a clarification on that. I think in your opening remarks, Ms. Jauvin, you indicated you did have an action plan in place and that you were looking into it, but the document we received doesn't necessarily elaborate on that. I was wondering if you could follow up on that and provide us with some details as to why that's the case.

[Nicole Jauvin]

Absolutely. I'm actually beginning to wonder whether you have the right copy of it.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, but did the member say there were blanks in the document?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Yes. For example, page 3 says, “The Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CANNOR)”, and the first section has the Auditor General's recommendation for economic development programming. It goes through a set of those, and then there are certain sections for the action plan, organizational accountability, timeline, and progress to date, where there's no information.

[Nicole Jauvin]

I apologize, Mr. Chair. I assure you my action plan is very full, so obviously there has been a bit of a glitch in the documents that members were provided with.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

I'm glad that's the case, because the Auditor General said she'd received the plans and you indicated you had a plan. That's not what we received earlier, so that disconnect threw me off a bit. If you could provide us with an up-to-date document with that information, it would be greatly appreciated.

[Nicole Jauvin]

Absolutely. We can do this right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bains.

Madame Jauvin, if you do have that copy, there is no reason we can't get some of our staff to photocopy it and give it to people as soon as possible, in both languages. I think you must have it.

Let me go on to Mr. Young before I go back over to that side of the table.

Mr. Young.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair. I was looking at that report as well.

Madame Jauvin, we're going to look at your report in detail, but perhaps you could tell us something. My understanding is that historically no prime minister, since perhaps John Diefenbaker, has understood the importance of the north better and has committed the time and resources that Prime Minister Harper has. My understanding of that is because of the consideration that there's unlimited potential in the north, and I think evidence of that is the creation of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency.

I was impressed with the impact of your statement. You are there on the ground--that's huge--and you have done a consultation process and you have a framework.

Could you please comment on the key principles of that framework and how they will help develop the tremendous potential of our north?

[Nicole Jauvin]

I believe you're referring to the action plan we have. Essentially, the Auditor General has asked CanNor to take on the responsibility for the future programs in this area.

In our action plan we actually break down this recommendation into a few parts. The first one is to clarify objectives and identify needs and gaps under the existing programs. These are addressed by the program renewal process that is--

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I'm sorry for interrupting. I understand the process. Could you comment on the actual strategic objectives and how they're going to develop the potential of the north?

[Nicole Jauvin]

All right.

The program has very specific objectives. If I can find them for you, I can give them to you immediately.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Perhaps you could just pick a couple.

[Nicole Jauvin]

Certainly diversification of the economy, ensuring there is full participation by all northerners, including first nations and Inuit, in all of the economic activity that is going on in the north would be the high-level objective of our program.

The program renewal process that is covered by the new framework has four or five very specific objectives, which I can find for you.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Maybe we should wait for the reports to come in with those pages that were missing, and we can come back to that. I didn't want to put you on the spot.

Mr. Shugart, I was really impressed with the numbers here on the commitment to aboriginal skills and employment partnership programs. We know that equality relies on equality of opportunity.

There's $100 million available in this program for skills development in the north. I wonder if you could just tell us who would benefit from that. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about how the program works. Are the people who develop those skills going to use them primarily in the north, or is the program there to give people equal opportunity to work in the provinces as well?

[Ian Shugart]

Well, I think the vision here is that increasingly as economic development occurs in the north, the people of the north themselves benefit from that activity. The historical pattern, not entirely but probably too frequently, has been that when there's development, trained people are brought in from other places in Canada, from southern Canada, and there's no lasting employment in that particular area. There might not be the establishment of a culture of long-term employment and all of the benefits that come from that entrenched kind of economic activity.

The vision is to reverse that over time and to have jobs developed in the north by northerners when there is economic opportunity. We believe the best way to do that is to work with the organizations. The program will establish agreements with service delivery organizations and develop strategic business plans that will set out the actual training and employment needs.

In the past these have been client focused in many cases, and there's nothing wrong with that, because the training and skills development do need to occur. Increasingly, as the level of economic opportunity and activity increases, we want the programs to be demand-driven so that there's an actual connection between the nature of the activity, the skills that are required, and the provision of service to aboriginal people in the north.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

What kinds of jobs are those--regular, a whole range of trade skills, an so on?

[Ian Shugart]

There is a wide range of trades. They will typically be those that flow from resource development. Some of my colleagues can speak more knowledgeably to the type of economic activity that is forecast for the north. It would be substantially in the resource sector. These undertakings are increasingly highly technical, so a wide range of fairly advanced skills is required.

Then, of course, as development occurs and communities grow, there will be a range of infrastructure development needs, and there will be spinoff trades and occupations flowing from those.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Wernick--

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

No, I'm sorry, your time is up, Mr. Young.

I have to go to Monsieur Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good day to you all. We should keep in mind that the issue on today's agenda is the chapter entitled “Sustaining Development in the Northwest Territories,” of the spring 2010 report of the Auditor General of Canada. The report states the following:INAC and Environment Canada have not met their responsibilities to monitor the cumulative impact of development and of various pollutants on the fragile environment in the NWT, whether or not a settled land claim is in place.

Mr. Wernick, what will you do to rectify the situation?

[Michael Wernick]

Ms. Fraser spoke about investments that we obtained as part of the latest budget. I think that will help to stabilize the programs and allow us to continue rolling out a greater number of projects. We do not quite agree with the Auditor General with regard to the analysis of our accomplishments over the past five years. If I may, Mr. Chair, I will let my colleague Mr. Borbey briefly explain what we are doing. We are getting things done; we are not at a standstill—

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

I simply want to point out, Mr. Wernick, that the report states that the departments in question have not met their responsibilities.