Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 5th, 2010

[Michael Wernick]

I'll take a run at it, Mr. Chair.

I do not know whether or not I understood the question properly. Perhaps you could clarify if I have misunderstood.

I think one of the things the Auditor General's report makes very clear and is very helpful about is that it's better to have a settled land claim than not. When you don't have a settled land claim, there's a fair degree of uncertainty about who owns what, what is the nature of aboriginal rights and so on. Most of the province of Quebec is unsettled, as you know, except for the James Bay area. It is an issue. It is an impediment to development. That's why governments for more than 30 years have tried to negotiate and settle land claims where they can. You can only settle them if you have a willing party at the other side of the table. The parameters for our negotiators are set by cabinet, and have been set by cabinets for 30 years, and we negotiate in good faith and try to settle them.

You will never get the certainty and legal clarity in an unsettled area that you have in a settled area, and I think the report makes that clear. You can work around it, you can compensate for it, you can try to encourage development, but it's always better to have a settled land claim agreement where possible.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you very much.

Could you provide me with more clarification about development in the aboriginal communities? I know that negotiations are underway and that this can take some time, but meanwhile, people are living and breathing in these territories and their situation is worsening. Not so long ago, the committee looked at the issue of early childhood development. Two weeks ago, members from aboriginal communities came here to talk to you precisely about the underfunding of education. We have people here who are in charge of job development and the environment as well as people responsible for the welfare of aboriginal communities.

Have you carried out an in-depth community impact analysis and, if so, have you shared it? Is there an interdepartmental committee that focuses on this issue? We are trying to understand how you coordinate all of your work. Are you aware of the fact that there are communities that are suffering in the north?

[Michael Wernick]

I believe that I have understood your question. This is no excuse, but I must point out that, with respect to aboriginal communities, there are some fundamental issues with respect to social, political and economic development. The federal government has made investments and provided programming. The lead department is our department, namely Indian Affairs and Northern Development, but other departments also have programs, particularly Health Canada and the department that Mr. Shugart represents, as well as the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Obviously, this represents a challenge when it comes to coordination. It is up to our department and to me, as the deputy minister, to ensure that action taken in the field is done in a coordinated manner.

Currently, the investment earmarked for aboriginal issues represents, for each fiscal year, approximately $10 billion or $11 billion. The issues are difficult. This is no excuse, but there are issues of governance and capacity. What can we do in a small community that is somewhat isolated? Economic isolation was a result of the Indian Act and that has curbed economic development. I believe that Ms. Jauvin referred to this matter. We are trying to change the way that we intervene economically. We have an action plan that takes into account the recommendations made by the Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. We are trying to renew our programs, but we cannot do anything unilaterally. There is always a commitment or negotiation process. We are trying to obtain the participation and support of our aboriginal partners. This process is moving ahead more quickly in some regions than others.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Perhaps the situation is more complex—

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

You will have to wait for the next round.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I am sorry, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

We have a small problem. Actually, it is not a problem.

Mr. Christopherson, I think you'll want to defer until a little later on. That's okay. That's not a problem for us. For now we'll go to Andrew.

Mr. Saxton.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Could I take the floor for a moment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Sure.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I appreciate that, Mr. Chair. Simply to be clear, we're looking to give the one member from the Northwest Territories, who is at a meeting across the hall in a steering committee, a chance to be here to address this. I'd ask the indulgence of the committee to consider leaving the time from the first round, add it to the second round so my colleague, the member from Northwest Territories, can be here to take that time. Is there agreement for that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

The committee is always willing to be as accommodating as possible for those who are going to introduce an element of accountability and transparency to any discussions we have. I think everybody is happy about that.

You've caused me to raise another question in my own mind. I know all committee members are dying to hear what I have to say, and I'm going to in a minute. Mr. Saxton, you have the floor.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our witnesses for being here today.

I want to say that I had the opportunity this past summer, in August, to visit the Northwest Territories for the first time, Inuvik specifically, so I got to see first-hand the development as well as the issues that the people who inhabit the north have to deal with on a daily basis. It was quite an experience for me to see that first-hand.

My first question is for Mr. Wernick from INAC. It's regarding the comprehensive land claim agreements. Four CLCAs have been settled in the Northwest Territories, one of which is a self-government agreement. Perhaps you could highlight for the committee the differences between the comprehensive land claim agreements and the self-government agreements. What are the differences between those two types of agreements?

[Michael Wernick]

Thank you for the question.

There are a number of issues created by the existence and recognition of aboriginal rights in our Constitution. It's not clear exactly what those rights are. They were entrenched in the Constitution in 1982, and governments ever since have been trying to negotiate some clarity around what they mean. They create issues around land title and the use of resources. They create issues around the rights to hunt, fish, trap, and so on. And they create a right to self-government, which has to be exercised within the framework of the Canadian Constitution.

We've tried to negotiate clarity with different aboriginal groups on all of those matters. Some groups have decided they want to settle the land issues first, often because economic development is the most pressing concern. They will come to the table and try to resolve the land title and what not, and then move on to self-government at a later stage.

Other groups decide--and it's really up to them--that they want to pursue the self-government issues, the creation of an aboriginal government at the same time. The best example of this would be the treaties we reached in British Columbia with the Tsawwassen community near Vancouver, or with the Maa-nulth communities on Vancouver Island, where it's a sort of a comprehensive package.

Some communities, especially those south of 60 that are Indian Act communities, are pursuing self-government, and there isn't really a land issue to resolve. There are cases of that in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and others. And some people are only focusing on what's most important to their community, which might be education; that's the case in Nova Scotia. Or it might be child welfare, which is the case in Alberta.

We have to go at the pace of the first nations partners. It's great to get a comprehensive treaty, as we occasionally do, but sometimes it has to be more in sequence.

I don't know if that helps or not, but in the meanwhile, simply to make it interesting, the courts intervene two or three times a year with decisions that clarify what those section 35 rights may or may not mean.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

How important are these agreements in the development of the north?

[Michael Wernick]

They're fundamental to development in the north and they're fundamental as a path for aboriginal people across the country, in terms of how they can take charge of their economic, social, and cultural future.

What makes the north a very exciting place to visit is that we have very advanced agreements in place across most of the north. All of the Inuit land claims are settled now. They've exercised their aboriginal rights through the public government of Nunavut for more than a decade now. Many communities up and down the Mackenzie Valley have been exercising their land claims agreements for some time. The Inuvialuit I think are up to about 25 years now. They chart a path very different from that of the Indian Act. What you'll often see is a lot of south of 60 first nations leaders going up to the Yukon or the Northwest Territories to see if this is the path forward. When there is any bit of...what's the word? When the implementation doesn't go as fast and as smoothly as it should, we're upset by that, too, because we'd like to go to first nations across the country and say there is a better way, that you can get out of the Indian Act and you can take control of your future.

The challenge is.... I could go on at length, but Mr. Chairman will cut me off. It's always a challenge for a small community--1,000 or 2,000 people--to exercise broad responsibilities. Running a child welfare agency, a school, or a health authority is hard to do for any community, so what we try to do is make sure the capacity, the management, and the human resources are in place when they take up the jurisdiction and start running these programs and services.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

Can you tell us the average length of time it takes to negotiate these agreements?

[Michael Wernick]

I could get the math for you on that.

The first one was the James Bay agreement in 1975. There was a wave in the 1990s in the Yukon and across the north; they had been at the table for close to 15 years.

You see that in some cases it gets faster because it's pretty clear what the template is. If I could take this opportunity, I'll note that the people with unsettled claims at the south end of the Mackenzie Valley, the Dehcho and the Akaitcho, know exactly what kind of agreement they could get because the Gwich'in, the Sahtu, the Tlicho, and the Inuvialuit agreements are there for them to read. They've decided they want to hold out for a different kind of agreement. We always hope that by setting the example and giving a pretty clear sense of what you can get at the table, you can go to another negotiating table and say, “Is this close enough?” or “How do you want to adapt it?”

It's the same thing in British Columbia. Now that we have treaties in place with the Tsawwassen and with the Maa-nulth, we probably can get seven or eight more treaties fairly quickly. There are a few complicated issues around fish allocation to work through, which I'm not underestimating, but I'm trying to be optimistic.

But actually the average doesn't tell you very much; we expect momentum to build, to feed on itself.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Okay. That's my next question: could you update us on the current negotiations that are under way on agreements?

[Michael Wernick]

Absolutely, and we've gone through this rather exhaustively with the Senate committee on aboriginal peoples. In terms of the north--and the map is in the Auditor General's chapter--it's the south end of the Mackenzie Valley, which is the Dehcho people and the Akaitcho people. A couple of the communities have decided that they may want to get a deal on their own outside the framework of their larger grouping.

Then in the Yukon, almost all of the first nations settled in the 1990s. There are three holdouts, I think it is, and they've just decided that.... And they overlap with the same people in the north part of British Columbia, south of the 60th parallel.

But in terms of the chapter we're talking about today, it's basically two groups: the Akaitcho and the Dehcho. They overlap, just so you get a sense of our world, with the Métis who live in the Northwest Territories, and there is a severe disagreement between the first nations groups and the Métis groups as to whose rights apply where.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you, Mr. Wernick.

I'm going to go to the second round now. We'll come back, as I indicated a moment ago, to Mr. Christopherson when and if he.... There he is right now. Maybe we could begin right now.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Why don't we do it, if you don't mind, in the course of the second round, in our regular time? It will give me a chance to settle in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

I've served with him on another committee. He's pretty good, actually, so sure, we'll do that.

Mr. Bains.

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

Thank you very much for thinking of me, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

We're at five-minute rounds now. We're going to make an adjustment later just for Mr. Bevington.

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

It's much appreciated. Thank you very much, Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses today.

It's nice to see you again, Madam Fraser.

I want to focus my questions around two key issues: accountability and follow-up.

Ms. Fraser, in this report you made eight recommendations to the government. Are you satisfied with the government's response to your recommendations? I'm going to allude to your opening remarks. You said, “Overall, we concluded that Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and Environment Canada had not adequately implemented key measures designed to prepare for sustainable and balanced development in the Northwest Territories”. Aside from that remark, are you happy overall with the government's response to your recommendations?