Okay.
Evidence of meeting #112 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was data.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #112 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was data.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Okay.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I believe you're sincere. I believe they were sincere. But, I also know our first nations people are still getting the dirty end of the stick in this country, and we, collectively as Parliament, are not doing enough. So, when we drill down to the points, this is where the rubber hits the road, sir.
4:45 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Fair enough.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I'm probably rapidly running out of time. I'll turn to page 6, paragraph 5.29, regarding limited use of available data.
Before I get to the detailed question, which I may not get to, since the chair's going to give me the hook—I only have five minutes—my question is this. Are you aware, as a deputy, that the Auditor General and this committee made the issue of data one of the most important macro issues for us this Parliament? Did you know that?
4:45 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Yes, I know. You reminded me of that last time I was here, actually.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Why, then, didn't you treat the issue of data more seriously? It's not like we're playing gotcha. We told you three years ago that this is an important issue to us. The Auditor General has said this is one of the key issues, but I don't see any sense of urgency, sir. I don't see any sense that you know this is important to us in those answers. That's why I made a reference to your opening remarks sounding like business as usual. That didn't help my attitude toward the business today.
4:45 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Sorry for maybe being too bureaucratic in my remarks, but it is a priority for us.
That's why Paul is dedicating a lot of time to working with first nations on this national index. That's why we're working on developing those accountability frameworks. It is capital for us, but not just for us as a government. What we're aiming for is not us having more data, it's first nation leaders and those who work in the first nation education system having the tools they need, which means the data, to make the right decisions. This is not Ottawa-centric; it has to be with the ones who manage the system.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
All right, I'll come back to Madam Mendès. We're giving a little extra time to Mr. Christopherson, because he's been so calm, cool and collected.
4:45 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
4:45 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Obviously, the issue of data and needing the right data is important. I guess what I want to do is bring this back up to.... We used education as an example, but what we are talking about here is data to be able to analyze the socio-economic gap between indigenous people and non-indigenous people in Canada.
I don't want to turn this into an exercise of collecting data for the sake of collecting data. However, the issue about data that is important is to identify what data matters, make sure you collect it and make sure you collect it well so that it doesn't have errors in it. You need the right data, and it needs to be of the right quality, but that data needs to be leading to something. In this case, it needs to be about whether or not the socio-economic gap between indigenous people and non-indigenous people is closing.
This one is more complicated because we talk about a nation-to-nation relationship, but quite frankly, I see it as a many-nations-to nation relationship. There are many nations when you are dealing with the first nations. They don't necessarily all have the same priorities, so that complicates the department's job of identifying what types of data matter to individual first nations or groups.
However, what we see too often is data that's collected and isn't used, data that is collected poorly so that it can't be used, or data that isn't collected when it should be collected. They need to have a very good framework. What is it that we are trying to do? We're trying to close the socio-economic gap. How do we measure the socio-economic gap? What data do we need to do that? Is that data of sufficient quality that we can rely on it, and how is it being reported? It's a simple model, but it is complex in the implementation.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'll start with you, Mr. Ferguson, and then I'd like to hear Mr. Tremblay on some of the issues.
We're talking about...and you just mentioned it, so it's actually a wonderful segue into what I'd like to talk about.
This is about nation-to-nations—plural. This is clearly not something that is done with the federal government and one group, or even the federal government and one province. This is with a multitude of interlocutors who need to be brought to the table as full partners in this negotiation, if I understand this correctly.
However, once the agreements happen, and you have the B.C. example, where do we go with the accountability? My understanding is that once you have a nation-to-nation agreement, like you have with the provinces, the federal government stops having any accountability expectations, except, for example, with regard to the Canada Health Act. You expect the provinces to respect the framework of the Canada Health Act, but you're not asking them to show you, the federal government, how exactly each dollar of the health transfer is spent. They decide how they do it. It's the same thing with education or whatever other national program.
Once you have these agreements, you're going to be negotiating one by one, and there are going to be quite a few. Right now we don't have complete data to actually look at whether it's been closed or improved in any way. However, once it's done, how do we keep on tracking this data? If the first nations are going to be solely responsible for the management of the programs, be they in education, health, culture or all the other factors that you actually did say should be taken into account, how do we do that?
4:50 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
I think that is a significant complexity. Let's remember that at least with the provinces, while they receive significant money from the federal government, most of them also have revenue-generating capacity, whereas for the first nations, how much revenue-generating capacity they would have would be very different from one first nation to another first nation.
I think it really does come down to that question of responsibility, and I think the federal government's aim in this shouldn't be to try to push responsibility to the first nations. It should be what responsibility the first nations want to take on and what they can take on. Then you need to have an agreement that reflects that.
If you could have a situation where a first nation says that if it has this funding formula, it is going to be 100% responsible for the socio-economic situation of all of the people on its reserve, and if anything goes wrong, that's on the first nation, then you can work with that type of an arrangement. However, you need to be very clear what it is, and it's not going to be the same in every case.
There are going to be very many cases where the first nations will say, “Yes, we will do some delivery, but maybe we don't have all of the capacity to prepare the programs or whatever help we might need.”
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
4:55 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
In that case, there may need to be more reporting back to the federal government in terms of, “Okay, here's the money you provided. Here's what you were supposed to do. Have you done it?” I think it's going to be different. I think, to me, what's fundamental in that question is the question of responsibility. Who is responsible for education? That's not delivering education, but who's going to be responsible for education outcomes? Who's going to be responsible for health outcomes? Once that is decided, then you can put in an agreement that reflects that. If it comes down to the federal government's responsibility, and it's just to pay a certain amount of money based on a funding formula, and then all of the responsibility for outcomes rests with the first nations, that's fine, but I think you wouldn't expect to get to that situation in every single case.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
Nor right away.
Mr. Tremblay, do you have anything to add?
4:55 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I mostly agree.
The comment on one nation versus many nations is a very significant and important one. They all have different situations. Let's put it that way. There are some remote communities. There are some communities that are close to urban centres. There are some communities that are bigger than others, that may have more capacity and so on. We have to take all this into account.
I don't think the system that we have in place is great from an accountability perspective, so the status quo is not a good accountability structure. They deliver programs that we developed most of the time, and it's not actually a good way of doing things. For us, part of the discussion is actually to make sure that we agree on who's responsible for what, but we're going to have to advance at the rhythm that the partner wants to advance on this; that's for sure. In some cases it would require a regional aspect, and in some cases it would be more local.
Paul is doing a lot of work on accountability with the AFN, and he may want to jump in.
October 17th, 2018 / 4:55 p.m.
Paul Thoppil Chief Finances, Results and Delivery Officer, Indigenous Services and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Thank you, Deputy.
As the deputy said, there is no “one size fits all” approach. Each first nation has differing levels of capacity. There are different issues with regard to jurisdiction, with regard to the type of program, whether it's provincial or otherwise. Therefore, one has to look at establishing what is the overall principle before we get down to the outcomes.
The principle that we are co-developing is the principle of mutual accountability, which is to ensure, at least at a community level, as opposed to a provincial or aggregate level, that chiefs and council are accountable to their community members for the outcomes for the money that is transferred to them to deliver. What it needs is a community-approved outcomes framework that responds to the local socio-economic conditions at play, for which they would then measure and then report back to the community. Then, as the principle of mutual accountability, we get that document to understand what are the results that have been achieved and then essentially establish that ongoing dialogue of how we can work together with them to move the needle on their agreed upon targets and outcomes.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
It's the outcomes achieved on their expectations, not on whatever expectations the federal government put on them, but the expectations they have agreed on as being the accounting measures. Is that correct?
4:55 p.m.
Chief Finances, Results and Delivery Officer, Indigenous Services and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Right. That's correct.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Thank you.
I'm going to continue on this train of thought, because I think it's very important.
A number of months ago in the House we unanimously agreed to the Anishinabek Nation Education Agreement Act. The legislation passed. I can't recall, because there was the legislation, and then there were a number of co-agreements of multiple pages below it.
I'm going to start with the staff from Indigenous Services. In that legislation, do we no longer have to worry about how they're doing in the way that Mr. Ferguson indicated? Have we transferred the responsibility for the outcomes, making us strictly responsible for transferring the money under an agreed-upon formula?