Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 17th, 2018

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

—and you're not using the data.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

What we're doing at the moment, as I mentioned, is that after having negotiated the funding formula, we're negotiating regional agreements where we agree with the first nations on what is the structure and what would be the data that would be collected. We will reform that, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you. I usually let the guests finish their statements, but I never go back to another question when we're over time.

Mr. Christopherson, please.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Before I get down to the specifics of the actual report, I have a few comments to make.

They begin with the status report “Matters of Special Importance”, from the Auditor General of 2011, Sheila Fraser, in a report to Parliament. Madam Fraser said at the time, under a subheading, “Conditions on First Nations reserves”:

Between 2001 and spring 2010, my reports included 16 chapters addressing First Nations and Inuit issues directly. Another 15 chapters dealt with issues of importance to Aboriginal people. I am profoundly disappointed to note in Chapter 4 of this Status Report that despite federal action in response to our recommendations over the years, a disproportionate number of First Nations people still lack the most basic services that other Canadians take for granted.

It is clear that living conditions are poorer on First Nations reserves than [anywhere else] in Canada. ...In a country as rich as Canada, this disparity is unacceptable.

That's from Mr. Ferguson's immediate predecessor in 2011.

Mr. Ferguson, in a message to Parliament on November 29, 2016, had this to say at that time, under the subheading “Lack of progress”:

In just five years, with some 100 performance audits and special examinations behind me since I began my mandate, the results of some audits seem to be—in the immortal words of Yogi Berra—“déjà vu all over again.”

...Another picture that reappears too frequently is the disparity in the treatment of Canada's indigenous peoples. My predecessor, Sheila Fraser, near the end of her mandate, summed up her impression of 10 years of audits and related recommendations on First Nations issues with the word “unacceptable”. Since my arrival, we have continued to audit these issues and to present at least one report per year on areas that have an impact on First Nations, including emergency management and policing services on reserves, access to health services, and most recently, correctional services for Aboriginal offenders. When you add the results of these audits to those we reported in the past, I can only describe the situation as it exists now as beyond unacceptable.

Then we roll in here today with the latest report. The audit objective is very simple:

The objective of this audit was to determine whether Indigenous Services Canada satisfactorily measured and reported on Canada's overall progress in closing the socio-economic gaps between on-reserve First Nations people and other Canadians, and whether the Department adequately used appropriate data to improve education programs to close [the] education gaps.

Under “Conclusion”, the report states:

We concluded that Indigenous Services Canada did not satisfactorily measure or report on Canada’s progress in closing the socio-economic gaps between on-reserve First Nations people and other Canadians. We also concluded that the Department’s use of [the] data to improve education programs was inadequate.

When is it going to change?

With the greatest of respect, I believe you are very sincere, Deputy, but I've been here going on 15 years, and I have heard more deputies from that department come in here and make all kinds of promises and then break them. Why on earth should we believe you today, as opposed to all your predecessors who came in and made equally lofty promises?

I'm glad you think that's funny.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

No, no, I'm not thinking it's funny. I'm just wondering if I can answer the question.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

You now have the floor.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

The floor is yours, Mr. Tremblay.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

I don't ask you to believe me. Continue to track us. Continue to look at the result. Do your work as you've been doing it, and I will be doing mine as I've been doing it since I arrived in that department. I am really committed to doing that, and I will take all the energy I have to make it happen, that's for sure. That's the only thing I can tell you.

Judge the results we're already having. As I mentioned, the community well-being index was not bad at the time. It was something that was done in response to questions at the time. What we need is a more comprehensive index. We're working with first nations and we're developing it. That's what we're doing. Paul has been negotiating this over the last years, and it's actually moving in the right direction. I just hope it will continue and we will keep the momentum on this one.

On education, as I mentioned to you, we are now.... You mentioned the underfunding. We have an agreement with first nations on the size of the envelope, on the funding formula. We have now something that is equity with off reserve, as well as dollars for language and culture, and more for kindergarten 4 and 5.

This is progress. Now we need to move to having regional discussions. If we want to exchange data with first nations, if we want to work on improving things, we need to make it meaningful. It has to be done at the level where they will have the capacity to change the system by themselves, and that's where we're going.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

All right. Thank you.

I have to tell you that I'm still not overly impressed. In fact, I was a little underwhelmed. I didn't get a sense of urgency from your remarks. You kind of rolled in here like it was a regular report.

Look, I'll give you an example, and next round I'll get into some specifics. I was just so furious when I read this report. In the context of previous reports, you would have thought the department would be a lot more sensitive to the hot water they're in with this committee. I happened to be reading page 12. I assure you, I wasn't flipping through trying to find the.... There were 14 occasions of this on one page: “did not have data”, “did not collect”, did not “access”, “still unable”, “the Department did not distinguish”, “did not collect”, “did not collect”, in our view “did not distinguish”, “did not adequately use”, “could have been used...but was not”, “did not analyze”, “did not assess”, “did not adequately”, “did not report”.

Did not, did not, did not: You did not do the job, and so far, I haven't heard a damn thing that tells me anything will be any different.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

Just to underscore what he's saying, we see a number of big issues. First of all, data is an issue, as Ms. McLeod said, in many different departments. The department did not collect the necessary, important and complete data. The department did not adequately use the data. That is one big issue that other departments have.

We also know that the government has talked extensively about improving the relationship with the first nation community, and yet the Auditor General says in paragraph 5.18, that the department has failed to “meaningfully engage with First Nations to satisfactorily measure and report on whether the lives of people on First Nations reserves were improving”. Those are big deals. Data is the big deal, but so is their life. Is their quality of life improving?

When we go to the action plan, I see the expected final dates of completion. Well, by June 2021 we're going to have one part done, and by June 2022 another part done. Typically, the expected final completion date is 2022-23.

Be certain of this: There are other timelines mentioned in the action plan, and this committee will be following it up very, very carefully. We want to see marked improvement on some of these. It's not just the data collection. It's also the measurable improvement of some of the measurements right there on first nation territory.

Mr. Massé, you have seven minutes.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to continue in the same context you highlighted, Mr. Chair, and our colleague, Mr. Christopherson, brought up during his time.

We on the government side are of course also very worried about the findings of this audit and of past audits.

My first question is for Mr. Ferguson. Based on your experience and the expertise you have gained, as well as the numerous audits you have conducted over the past few years, how can you explain these kinds of findings beyond the difficulty of gathering data and measuring the right elements? What do you think explains the findings laid out in this document, but also in previous reports you prepared and consulted while drafting this one?

[Michael Ferguson]

The importance of focusing on results is something we have brought up in the past.

In this case, it's about focusing on ways to improve aboriginals' quality of life. I understand that this file, which is very complex, affects many first nations people, who all have their own needs. It's important to focus on the improvement of results for individuals. In the past, focus was placed on a few programs or on the money put into them, but this issue is really important. We have analyzed that type of data to determine whether any progress has been made in this file. That kind of information is important.

So I think those issues are caused by a lack of focus on results for individuals.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

I understand the need to let results guide our actions.

As an example, in your report, the title of exhibit 5.4, which follows item 5.95, is the following:

Exhibit 5.4—Indigenous Services Canada overstated First Nations' secondary school graduation or completion rates by up to 29 percentage points.

How can meaningful results be obtained when it is impossible not only to gather the right data, but to draw from it, when it is right, accurate results? Can you explain to us how you're able to determine that the results were inaccurate in this specific case?

[Michael Ferguson]

It is because we looked at the data in another way.

I'm going to have to do this in English because it's a little too complicated for me.

Essentially, what the department was measuring was concerning, if a student starts grade 12, does that student graduate from grade 12. What we said was that, to really understand the graduation rate, you need to look at students who start—I believe it's grade 9—to see whether they go all the way through to grade 12, in that four-year time period. Many students drop out in grades 9, 10 or 11, so it's not sufficient just to measure who starts grade 12 and whether they graduated grade 12 because that doesn't capture all of the students that have dropped out between grade 9 and grade 11. That is a very important component to understand.

In this case, when you only look at grade 12, one out of two students was completing. When you start at grade 9, it was only one out of four students who was completing. We don't have any complaint with the analysis the department did. We just felt it didn't provide a fulsome enough picture to really understand whether students were being successful, once they got into high school.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Tremblay, I would like to give you an opportunity to respond to these concerns, beginning broadly with the message you received from all the committee members.

Our government wants to ensure that first nations, in all communities, have a chance to develop in a variety of ways, and it wants to support them in a concrete manner. Your department is an important tool for ensuring the well-being of first nations across Canada.

Given the fundamental issues raised in this report, what new approach will your department use to quickly obtain concrete results that will have a positive impact on first nations communities?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

The Auditor General talked about focusing on results. We used to give a lot of importance to programs and the need to respect them. So, in education, we had a long list of programs, some of which lasted two years, others five years and others even longer, with annual calls for proposals. Those programs were often underfunded.

For us, it has become important to change the perspective, to get away from those prescriptive programs and to adopt a new formula that would move responsibility for funds to stakeholders in the region and to aboriginals themselves, with discretion for them to develop their own solutions. Those solutions will come from aboriginals, as we are seeing in British Columbia and elsewhere. So, there must be awareness, but there must also be control-taking of tools by aboriginal populations, so that they can resolve those issues themselves.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

I am glad you mentioned this because it is clearly a recommendation that comes from the Auditor General of Canada. It is important to make sure to inform first nations of the analyses you are conducting, the objectives you are establishing and the action plans you wish to implement.

I must not have a lot of time left. Please explain to us how you will ensure to....

[Jean-François Tremblay]

As I was saying earlier, we now have a funding structure into which we have integrated programs. We are making an effort to eliminate many of those programs, and so we have returned to the negotiating table with aboriginals and asked them how they intend to organize the development and the implementation of their educational programs. That is how we are proceeding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Tremblay and Mr. Massé.

Mr. Nuttall, please, for five minutes. We're in the second round now.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Tremblay.

I'm going to start with some of the words of the Auditor General, which I actually think are not very relevant in the private sector, but when it comes to government, I have found this to be more and more true.

In a statement accompanying the spring reports, the Auditor General highlighted that the measure of success has become the amount of money spent, rather than improved outcomes for indigenous people. We can apply that across the government as a whole, quite frankly. It's not one government; it's many successive governments that have done this more and more.

I am going to ask you the question, what is your job in coming to committee today? I get the feeling that your job as you come here today is to say to the committee, “Don't worry, we're working on it, and we're going to get through this. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure the results are better next time we come back.”

I would hope that your job coming to committee today would actually be to say, “There are some really hard issues to work through. We don't have some of the answers, but we're going to collect the data so we can get the information to come up with the answers and solutions down the road, because it's still not being done.”

As I look through this report, I have found the entire education piece to be very frustrating. I'll speak to you offline about this, but I have my own experiences with trying to help some local reserves with education items.

I have a question for the Auditor General on this. If we look at the funding for education, are you able to audit each and every dollar that's spent in comparison to the results that are coming out? I know you're being fed results. Are we able to go through every dollar after we transfer it from the Government of Canada?

[Michael Ferguson]

Certainly all of those dollars are reflected in the financial statements of the Government of Canada. We would be able to compare them to any agreements that were in place with the recipients, and then we would be able to go through those to determine whether the recipients met their side of those agreements.

We would have a certain ability to audit them. It might be different in different cases, but I would say in general, yes. Because of the way things are structured, we can get to what money was distributed to whom, what it was for, what they were supposed to do with it, and whether there is some record that they did that with it.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Mr. Tremblay, in terms of education, it seems to be a very broad, comprehensive issue. It's stunning that we would only look at grade 12 to determine whether...but let's move past that.

Are the necessary utensils there for our young people to be successful in the education systems that are set up on reserves? Are we dealing with everything from not having the right tools to be able to complete their education right through to not having the right system in place, or is it specifically related to the system itself?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

We would not have the result that we have if the system was good, to be honest. There are clearly issues. There are issues that are beyond, you mentioned, grade 9 versus grade 12. We could start with when the babies were born. We're losing people from the day the pregnancy starts, in some cases. We have to take all of those factors into account.

I'm not in the “not worried” department. I'm in the department that's dealing with big issues. I'm not telling you that we're going to keep going and everything is good.

To answer your questions on this, it is clear that not all the tools are in place. That's why we think....

Sorry, go ahead.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

However, there are underlying poverty issues. When you're outside of reserves or in the general population, the underlying poverty issues have a humongous effect on the outcomes related to dropout statistics and to success into post-secondary education.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

Yes.