Evidence of meeting #128 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was funding.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
—Mr. Wernick, this is my time—you are likely the greatest Indian agent we've seen in 100 years.
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I did not say that that there is an exit strategy. I said that there would be 10 years for dialogue between governments and first nations to build better exit ramps from the Indian Act structures.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much.
To begin our next round I turn to Mr. Melillo. You have the floor for five minutes, please.
Conservative
Eric Melillo Conservative Kenora, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Wernick, in response to previous questions, you mentioned something that I think is interesting. You said that there would never be enough taxpayer dollars to address the needs that exist.
I'm wondering if you can speak more to that and to how, in your view, the private sector can be better leveraged and utilized to address the housing gaps specifically.
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Well, I think housing and infrastructure go together. You need land. You need to have serviced land in terms of lots, so you're going to need water, waste water, electricity, Internet and the kinds of things that make land into serviceable lots. Then you have to put housing units on top of it, whether they're single-family or multiple home. It's land, infrastructure and housing.
If you're going to do this on an all-cash, upfront basis—which is what the Indigenous Services department has to do with whatever it gets from the Minister of Finance—you can do only so much. You need an algorithm or funding formula for spreading limited resources across a lot of demands. Housing infrastructure is only one.
When I was there, there was a cap—the famous 2% cap price and volume escalator that covered everything. Child and family services, income assistance, education, post-secondary education, housing and infrastructure were all capped by a 2% program escalator brought in by Paul Martin and kept for 15 years by finance ministers. It was lifted by the current government, and spending has nearly tripled on these services.
However, if the results are not getting better fast enough, you have to think that something else is missing. I would say—and you're not going to like this any better—that you're not going to get where you want to be with the department model, because a department pushing contribution agreements out to first nations is not the tool kit that is going to generate housing and infrastructure.
Conservative
Eric Melillo Conservative Kenora, ON
Thank you.
I'm going to jump in there. You mentioned spending, which has, I believe you said, tripled. I want to touch on that, because the Parliamentary Budget Officer a couple of years ago released a report entitled “Research and Comparative Analysis of CIRNAC and ISC”, which mentions that we've seen this dramatic increase in funding under the current government but notes that it hasn't led to an equal level in the ability of the department to achieve its desired goals. There's a lot of spending, but not necessarily the equivalent outcomes you would expect from that.
From your experience, can you speak to why that would be? Why is spending going into the bureaucracy and not coming out the other end to support the first nations and indigenous communities that rely on it?
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Very little of it is actually staying in the department. The overwhelming amount of money that you allocate and appropriate to the departments goes out as transfer payments to first nations communities, tribal councils and other entities and service agencies. You will find this in GC InfoBase, under grants and contributions.
A contribution agreement says, “Here is some money—report what you did with it.” The overreliance on contribution agreements is something that previous auditors general and public accounts committees have commented on and criticized. The only real way to get data and change outcomes is to put a lot of conditions into contribution agreements. That's one of the things Sheila Fraser means by not having a legislative base.
You'll be familiar with other programs, such as old age pension, unemployment insurance, student loans and so on, where eligibility and formula are defined in statute and legislative language. There's almost none of that in the first nations world. I spent a lot of time working on first nations education legislation. Sadly, we still don't have any. We now have first nations child and family services legislation, but it's needed in other areas.
As I said, I think you're pedalling into the wind of a rising population and rising costs. The cost of salaries for teachers and what you have to pay local school boards as tuition for first nations kids who go to school off reserve.... All of the costs are rising, and the population is rising, so the money is always going to be chasing outcomes.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much.
Up next, we have Mr. Weiler.
You have the floor for five minutes.
Liberal
Patrick Weiler Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Thank you, Chair.
I also want to thank Mr. Wernick for being here today to help provide some input for the study we're doing on the housing report from the AG.
I want to bring it back to the topic you first brought up in your opening and that a couple of my colleagues brought up: the Indian Act and the need to move away from it.
I fully agree this would deliver great benefits for indigenous communities, were we able to do this. I would also say I was a little alarmed when my colleague Mr. Stewart talked about the positives of this act, when we know this is an act that is, by its very nature, racist, and that treats indigenous people as wards of the state. It has many impediments to dealing not only with issues like getting housing built but also with economic development and many others.
Putting a 10-year timeline on this is a huge challenge. As you mentioned, there are 630 indigenous communities across the country. While there has been some progress through modern treaties, self-government agreements and otherwise, it's a huge challenge to move ahead, because each indigenous community is distinct.
How would you recommend the government or future governments move ahead with this in order to accelerate more self-determination and self-governance for nations?
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Obviously, it has to be done in partnership, walking the path together. I don't want to be misrepresented as saying that this should be done unilaterally by any Parliament of Canada, but I think it's 2026 when the next Parliament starts, and after all of this time, we can't keep blaming the Indian Act, working around the Indian Act and not face up to the fact that it is software whose time has come and that we need to move on.
Apparently the next government is going to abolish the Canada Infrastructure Bank and strand its loan portfolio, so I think there's an opportunity there to bring housing and infrastructure together. My advice to any of your election platform committees is a complete reworking of the machinery of the federal government in this area. Take all of the housing and infrastructure programs and put them together. Take housing out of Indigenous Services. Take housing out of CMHC. Add it to the indigenous portfolio of the Canada Infrastructure Bank and create a Crown corporation that will do first nations housing and infrastructure in a very professional, 2026 kind of way.
You could give it all the tools that a private sector firm like Brookfield has. You could put a board of management on it, a real board of directors to hold the staff and the executives to account. You could ensure that the majority of that board was named by first nations. You could give that corporation an inspection function.
One of the problems is that there just aren't enough people out there, and if you bring in enforceable building and fire codes, you need an inspection service. If you brought all of this together and they could partner with capital markets and private sector firms, I think you would be able to do something. If we just keep putting money into the same tools, don't expect the results to fundamentally change.
Liberal
Patrick Weiler Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Thank you.
I would agree with that. It's truly alarming when you visit indigenous communities and see the state of some of that housing. While we are seeing the effects of some of the additional funding, the tripling of funding, there is a community in my riding that hadn't seen a single dollar in housing investment in 30 years until a year ago.
These are the types of things that absolutely need to change, but maybe you could just provide some testimony to this committee about what you see as the biggest challenge in addressing that housing gap and if it's the same today as when you first became the assistant deputy minister in 2006.
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Well, housing has been built. I think the Auditor General has presented data in percentages that makes it look like there was no progress. Of course there were housing units built.
To go to an earlier question, there are lots of communities that are innovative and have built high-quality housing and are doing all kinds of interesting things. Community leadership is a huge part of that.
I think that raises the issue of what the funding algorithm should be. It's one of these programs, like many others, where there will always be more demand and possible uses than funds that are available. Even if you continue to increase the funding, it'll be finite and you'll need an algorithm for allocating it.
When I was there, there were basically regional pots of money, so British Columbia had a pot, Alberta had a pot, Ontario had a pot and so on, and then there were a lot of negotiations with chiefs in that region on allocation formulas for very finite resources where the department had to say no a lot.
Now, the Auditor General has a very specific view of what equitable means, but it's basically a policy judgment, even a political judgment, of what is the fairest way to allocate finite resources. She puts a lot of emphasis on torquing the money to where the most need is.
I could also argue that maybe you want to seize opportunities where they come up. For example, build an entire subdivision because land becomes available or an opportunity to lever a claim settlement or a litigation settlement comes into a community's hands, and they suddenly have the opportunity to build an entire subdivision of new housing. Maybe there's a community that has tapped into capital markets and can put up 50% of the money—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Mr. Wernick, I have to move on. The time has elapsed, but I'm sure members will come back to this.
Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Wernick, in response to my colleague Mr. Weiler's question, you said that a potential solution would be the creation of a Crown corporation. In your view, this would help build new housing in a productive and efficient manner. However, this is exactly the opposite of what we just heard from the grand chiefs, including Chief Lance Haymond. I urge you to take a look at what he describes as a solution that works. That solution is the Yänonhchia' program.
Indigenous resources, indigenous capital and self‑determination are the ingredients needed to build housing. The federal government must stop thinking that it needs to get involved in indigenous affairs and manage everything, as if indigenous people weren't capable of managing their own affairs. This is crucial.
Having a Crown corporation build the housing is the worst possible approach. First, at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, we keep hearing that Crown corporations are inefficient and unable to get the job done. The performance audits show this time and time again. Giving more responsibility to the federal government is exactly the opposite of what we want, in any area. Moreover, in this specific and highly sensitive situation, it's wrong to think that giving power to a Crown corporation will miraculously solve the housing shortage on reserves.
Again, I strongly urge you to listen to what Mr. Haymond told us earlier and to look into the model proposed by Yänonhchia'. It's a pity that you and Mr. Haymond didn't appear at the same time. I think that the discussions would have been insightful.
The Indian Act does indeed contain significant barriers. You said so, and everyone here agrees. However, there are solutions. I'm talking about solutions proposed by indigenous people to resolve indigenous issues. That's what needs to be done.
As a Bloc Québécois member, I must say that self‑determination is a principle that I greatly value for Quebec society. Self‑determination is also a good idea for indigenous people.
On that note, my time is up. I strongly urge you to look at programs such as Yänonhchia'.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much. That leaves no time for a response, not that there was a question there.
I'll now give the floor to Mr. Desjarlais.
You have the floor for two and a half minutes.
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to just return to the perspectives you hold, Mr. Wernick, which I find problematic and outdated in relation to the efforts of indigenous people to return our country to a position of understanding its deep relationship as a colonial state with that of its assumed title over land and jurisdiction manifested in treaties.
What is your perspective of the treaties, particularly the historical treaties?
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I'm sorry. What is your question?
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
What is your perspective of the historical treaties in relation to the fact that Canada has largely assumed title via these historical treaties?
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I think what you have to look for is ways to get out of the Indian Act, which sits on top of the numbered treaties—one through 11—across most of central and western Canada. Other parts of Canada, as you know, have modern treaties. In all of the north, there are almost 24 modern self-government land claims agreements, and in most of those you have much clearer aboriginal title and ownership of the land base.
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
You know, we have an agreement, maybe not necessarily a trust, about the need to actually reduce barriers between the treaty and.... You're suggesting that Parliament has assumed sovereignty. It's not just the entirety of its responsibility in the treaty, but it's now the only vehicle, you're suggesting, out of this paternalistic relationship. Is that correct?
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
No, that's a misrepresentation. It is a nation-to-nation relationship. It is a Crown-indigenous relationship.
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
Mr. Wernick, you said that. You said the Indian Act, which is an act of Parliament.... Other than Parliament, I'm saying, what if we just assume the opposite, Mr. Wernick? What if we assume that an indigenous government, like that of Treaty No. 8, were to legislate its own laws and bylaws and just ignore the operative power of Parliament. Would that be okay?
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
No. Every self-government agreement is the subject of an act of Parliament. There is a treaty implementation act that goes with every modern self-government agreement.