Thank you, Chair.
Through you, Chair, thank you to the witnesses for joining us today for this conversation.
I want to turn to a part of the Auditor General's report that I found concerning. This has been touched on a few times.
It says:
Small communities with the poorest housing conditions were approved for less targeted funding from 2018-19 to 2022-23 than small communities with better housing conditions
This is obviously counter to what you would expect to see. You would expect to see communities with the highest need targeted for funding. Obviously, that's concerning, and I think most people would agree with that.
What I found equally concerning was the fact that the CMHC and Indigenous Services Canada only partially accepted that concern.
The Auditor General said, at the time:
We are concerned that Indigenous Services Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation only partially agreed with our recommendation that they work with communities with the poorest housing conditions to ensure that they receive the support they need to improve housing conditions.
The deputy minister at the time said they only partially accepted the AG's recommendation because they didn't agree with the methodology the AG used to come to the conclusion. We can quibble about methodology all we want, but the reality is that this is what's happening on the ground.
I want to put the question to, frankly, all of the witnesses, but I'll start with Chief Mitchell and Chief Haymond, who are in the room.
First, can you confirm that what you're seeing on the ground is, in fact, that the funding we're talking about for those indigenous communities most in need isn't getting there? What should we be doing? Should we not be insisting that the CMHC and Indigenous Services Canada remedy this, rather than quibbling about the methodology of the Auditor General?
I'll put that to all four of the witnesses.