Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 24th, 2011

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I now declare this ninth meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in order and duly convened.

Before we begin with the agenda matter at hand, which is to continue our study of chapter 4, “Programs for First Nations on Reserves”, I want to advise colleagues here that the government House leader tabled the certificate of nomination of the new Auditor General of Canada in the House just moments ago. Therefore, with that in mind, I will go to Mr. Saxton for an in order motion.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As you mentioned, our government is pleased to announce that Michael Ferguson, the former deputy minister of finance of New Brunswick, will be the next Auditor General of Canada. His nomination has just been tabled, as you mentioned, in the House by my colleague.

Mr. Ferguson has a proven track record of public service for the Province of New Brunswick. He served as auditor general of that province from 2005 to 2010, is currently the deputy finance minister, and has demonstrated a strong record of non-partisan public service.

Therefore, with that in mind, I would like to put forward the following motion: That in light of the Conservative government's commitment to accountability, transparency, and a strong Office of the Auditor General, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts shall hear from Mike Ferguson on October 31, 2011, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., to provide opening remarks and answer committee members questions, culminating with a vote to ratify his nomination as Canada's fourteenth Auditor General.

That is my motion, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you.

I guess that we have to leave the flowery stuff in there to get to the substantive part, but—

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

It's all accurate, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Well, that's debatable, and what we don't want to do is to enter into a huge debate. However, the motion is in order, and debate is open. If there is any debate or if there are any comments, they are in order at this time. If not, the committee will be determining what the next scheduled hearing will be, and it would be to invite the candidate in for us to have a session with him.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

It's not actually the next one; it's the one on Monday.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I actually meant the next open one that we have. Wednesday is plugged, and then Monday is open, and that's when this will happen.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

That is correct.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Is everybody okay on the issue? Does everybody understand the motion?

Monsieur Caron.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Can we talk about the date? Actually, I would have much rather received the motion in advance so that we could have discussed it at the meeting of the subcommittee.

I know the nomination happened today and we have to decide on a date right away. I don’t have anything against the date, but I would have liked to be notified that this was coming up. This is the first I have heard of it.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you.

Mr. Kramp.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

I can certainly understand the concern of my colleague, but this is one of those unique situations in which there could obviously be no information going forward. We as government members were not aware of this at the time. As a common courtesy, we would have definitely done that, but in this particular case we would have breached parliamentary privilege to have made any comment at all prior to its being presented.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Monsieur Caron.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I understand that.

Meanwhile, we could talk about the witness when the subcommittee meets on Wednesday. We could talk about it then, make the recommendation and decide. Right now, we are going to decide on a meeting that will take place next week, without any discussion.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

The member is entitled to move a motion of tabling, or referral to the steering committee, if he wishes.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I am going to do that. It is not that I don’t want to talk about the nomination, but we have to establish whether October 31 is in fact the best date for it.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I was just conferring with the clerk, because I didn't think there was any debate.

It's a motion to refer this matter to the next steering committee. There is no debate.

(Motion negatived)

We are on the main motion. The main motion is back in order, and the floor is open for discussion.

Mr. Shipley.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We don't oppose those just for the sake of opposing them. It's a week away. We now have the opportunity, from this date forward, to do as much background work and information gathering as we desire to do.

And I think we want to proceed. I think there's an expectation for Parliament to proceed—not just the government, but Parliament—with that appointment of the Auditor General. I certainly think the interim Auditor General is looking forward to our moving forward also.

With that aside, I just give this opportunity to all our members over the next week. My point was that we don't do this just to oppose; I think we have the time to actually do our due diligence as a committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you, Mr. Shipley.

Mr. Byrne.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Chair, notwithstanding that the nominee in question was actually revealed somewhat through the media some weeks back and that we are now receiving word formally in terms of a parliamentary authorization, the candidate himself is extremely well known, and we are able to receive background information on him based on his past experience as an auditor general from the Province of New Brunswick.

Given the fact that the nomination of the current interim Auditor General of Canada is set to expire at the end of November, I believe there is a certain value and need for haste to get the committee to review the nomination and report its findings to the House. Given that the Senate of Canada is also required to carry out much the same process, I would encourage all members, having now heard the name formally and having it available to us for review, to move quickly to receive the nominee and express our point of view at that point in time.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Byrne.

To be fair, Monsieur Caron, I indicated to Mr. Saxton that moving it quickly seemed okay to me, but that does not at all override your right to raise the issue—and if I should have touched base with you, I apologize. I was thinking of John, too, and realizing just how lucky we were to have him stay this long, and that there was a chance to expedite this and still do it properly.

So if there was too much haste, a lot of it was my doing in acknowledging to Mr. Saxton that I thought it was okay. If I owe you an apology, you have it.

With the matters now before us, is there any further discussion or debate?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

If there is no further business, then we will proceed with the scheduled agenda of the day, which is to begin a second hearing on this chapter.

Colleagues will recall that the last time, we managed to squeeze in the last rotation before we went off to vote. So we're now in a position to begin the rotation anew.

Therefore, Mr. Saxton, you have the floor, sir.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our witnesses for coming back on this very important subject.

My first question is regarding last week. The importance of working with partners was highlighted, and I believe it was Mr. Wernick who indicated there was a sense of momentum on a range of partnership initiatives.

Could you please provide the committee with additional information on the progress achieved in establishing tripartite partnerships?

[Michael Wernick, Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

Thank you for the question.

I'll try not to go through all of the details but just give the committee a feel for how much momentum has been established since the early days of this effort in 2006.

We have province-wide tripartite agreements in education with British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and P.E.I.. We have a sub-regional agreement, which means the one for the Saskatoon area, in Saskatchewan. There's an agreement in Nova Scotia on education outcomes. And we have discussions under way in Quebec, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and the Yukon that were interrupted by recent elections but that we hope to get back to with the incoming governments.

I think we talked about child and family services. We have tripartite agreements with Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, and Manitoba, and we're at the table with British Columbia and New Brunswick. So we've covered about 68% of on-reserve children.

There are agreements on income assistance with Nova Scotia and British Columbia, a health tripartite agreement with Saskatchewan, a tripartite agreement on Jordan's principle with Saskatchewan, an income assistance agreement with Quebec and with Saskatchewan. And you probably will have seen the very recent agreement with health partners in British Columbia. It's not my department's, but it's a very important breakthrough in British Columbia.

There are other agreements of the same sort in which we're bringing together the province, first nations representatives, and the Government of Canada on a variety of issues. One of the oldest ones is in Nova Scotia with the Mi'kmaq people; it covers a range of subjects.

We're hoping to carry on with these, now that the round of provincial elections is almost over—with the exception of Saskatchewan's.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you very much.

Last Friday the government announced the initialling of the Sliammon final agreement. It represents a significant achievement for all parties involved and Canadians. But are treaties the only solution for getting out from under the Indian Act, Mr. Wernick?

[Michael Wernick]

The short answer is no. The longer answer is that there are a variety of tools that can get you out of parts of the Indian Act, for a variety of purposes.

One of the things that's most important to first nations is to have control over land management and resources, the kinds of things a municipal government would do, that is, local land management decisions. Parliament created the First Nations Land Management Act on that front a few years ago. The breaking news since I was here on Thursday is that we reached an agreement on a new funding formula with the first nations who are running that regime, which will allow us to resolve a bit of an impasse on how much first nations should be contributing out of their own resources once they've gone into land management. We hope to be moving forward another batch of first nations on that very quickly.

You can get self-government arrangements that are limited to child and family services, or to education, as a way of getting out of those parts of the Indian Act. And you can run your own oil and gas revenues. So previous Parliaments have given first nations a number of optional tools, rather than a one-size-fits- all approach for the entire group. We hope to have a few more of these tools available in the coming Parliament.