Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for your attendance today.
I would like to take a moment, while we have the opportunity of being televised, to revisit something very briefly, Mr. Chair.
By the way, if the Auditor General feels it's important enough to comment on the question I asked earlier, that's fine. I only get one shot at this, so I'm going to get my stuff out and then I hope to leave some time for comment.
I want to refer to the last status report of Auditor General Sheila Fraser before she departed.
The heading is “Conditions on First Nations reserves”, but it speaks to attitude and approach.
She said this:
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....
On the surface, it may appear that the government simply needs to work harder to make existing programs work better. However, after 10 years in this job, it has become clear to me that if First Nations communities on reserves are going to see meaningful progress in their well-being, a fundamental change is needed....
In a country as rich as Canada, this disparity is unacceptable.
Mr. Ferguson issued his report, an interim report, halfway through his 10-year term. These are Mr. Ferguson's words to us last fall:
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 on in the past, I can only describe the situation as it exists now as beyond unacceptable.
[There] is now...a decade’s worth of audits showing that programs have failed to effectively serve Canada’s Indigenous peoples.... Until a problem-solving mindset is brought to...issues to develop solutions built around people instead of defaulting to litigation, arguments about money, and process roadblocks, this country will continue to squander the potential and lives of much of its Indigenous population.
Now I'll move to the report that's is front of us. I'm just going to read some highlights, because my question to Mr. Wild is going to be about how things have changed.
My specific concern is the attitude. The attitude of some of the decisions that are made here is very troubling. I was very angry by the time I was done with this report. I probably won't get through them all—I'm going on again.
These are snippets of different issues from the report, summaries from the Auditor General. On page 11, it says:
In 2011, without input from First Nations, the Department developed a separate process to expedite the negotiation of small-value claims. In our view, the following characteristics of this new process introduced barriers to negotiations that were inconsistent with Justice at Last:
That was with no input from first nations.
It continues:
We noted annual funding to First Nations for claims research decreased by 40 percent from $7.8 million in the 2013–14 fiscal year to $4.7 million in the 2014–15 fiscal year. According to Department officials, this funding decrease was undertaken as part of the Deficit Reduction Action Plan.
... We found that the absence of methodology resulted in funding cuts that were arbitrary and unevenly distributed.
Here is another one:
For example, we found that the Department arbitrarily set the maximum amount of a loan that could be provided to a First Nation at $142,500 per year or $427,500 over three years. We found a departmental study that suggested annual funding of $240,000 for a First Nation to negotiate a specific claim.
It's insulting.
Here is another issue:
After 2008, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada no longer shared the report with First Nations before sending it to the Department of Justice Canada. Consequently, after Justice at Last came into effect, First Nations were not made aware of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada’s analysis and interpretation of the claims submission. It is our view that this awareness is necessary to understand the factual basis for a legal opinion and help....
Again, there is that attitude.
I'm on page 18. It says, under “Incomplete reporting”:
. We found that some results were either not reported publicly or not reported clearly. The Department’s public reporting of results was incomplete and masked actual outcomes. In our view, parliamentarians and Canadians would, therefore, have difficulty understanding the real results of Justice at Last.
There's more and more. I'm running out of time.
Here is another one: “In our view, parliamentarians and Canadians have received an incomplete view of how long it takes for a claim to be processed.”
Help me understand. Every time, we hear “This is the moment there's going to be change”, and there's never change.
Mr. Wild, give me some reason that my colleagues and I on this committee should believe that this time it's going to be different.
