Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 25th, 2022

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

It was sent to the members.

[Gina Wilson]

It is preliminary, but we are supposed to come back with a detailed action plan.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Yes. The action plan was sent to the members.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

We have the action plan, but not—

[Gina Wilson]

Yes. That is the preliminary.... We had one week to turn that around, so we have a little more time to provide a detailed one.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I would agree with Mr. McCauley that the department had 20 years to provide a more comprehensive response.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

We now have to move on to Mr. Kram for five minutes, please.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. It's certainly a very emotional meeting, but I'd like us to get into some of the specifics.

Most of my questions will be for Ms. Wilson, but if Ms. Hogan or any of the other witnesses wish to intervene, feel free to do so.

On page 18 of the report, it highlights the case of the Kashechewan First Nation in northern Ontario. This first nation has been evacuated every year for the past decade. They used to be evacuated to Thunder Bay and to other far away communities, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, they were evacuated to higher ground within the reserve.

Now that the pandemic is over, will this first nation continue to be evacuated to higher ground within the reserve, or will they continue to be evacuated to Thunder Bay and to other faraway places?

[Gina Wilson]

I think that if plans are not already in place, we won't make that decision on our own. I'd ask Joanne to speak to the current status of discussions with Kashechewan.

[Joanne Wilkinson]

Certainly.

I would say that, with the on-the-land initiative for Kashechewan, certainly COVID was a factor, but it was not the only factor. The nation's leadership and community members were very interested, from a cultural perspective, in doing that on-the-land piece. Getting back to some of the previous questions, it is a more cost-effective way, beyond how fantastic it has been from a cultural and safety perspective. The numbers we've seen there are now about $140 per person per day for that on-the-land initiative versus $235 per day when they were evacuated to host communities like Thunder Bay. That's a tangible piece that we are able to then redirect and, as folks have said, move towards prevention as opposed to continuing down the recovery path.

I'll just note that there were questions earlier about previous audits. After the 2013 audit.... Before that, the emergency management program was very much only a recovery-based program. That 2013 audit sparked a discussion around the four pillars of emergency management. This is how we've been able to do these types of projects with nations like Kashechewan that are at risk. They are at risk every year and are looking to find ways beyond diking, because there is a dike there, but it creates within the community kind of a dust bowl effect.

We're working with the community and working with the province to make sure that we're finding ways by which people can be safe but can also explore that cultural piece so that it is not just about an evacuation but also building on other pieces that are important to the community.

Thank you.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

I'm just doing some quick math on that one. There were 1,825 band members. Instead of spending $235 per day, it will now cost only $140 per day. Given that it's a six-week evacuation, that means the cost goes from about $18 million down to $10 million.

My next question is this: What happens to that $8 million that gets freed up? Will it be used for prevention or a permanent solution? What happens to the freed-up $8 million?

[Gina Wilson]

I think that's the direction we're going in.

Joanne, I think you referred to being able to redirect those resources to prevention.

[Joanne Wilkinson]

Yes, the way the budget works is that we don't receive a massive amount of money to start. Our aid-based funding is smaller than that, and we go and seek funding to supplement it, based on actual costs. However, absolutely, as we're able to build that case study around the significant reduction in costs, we would look to go back and have discussions, as the deputy has said, around the tangible difference in those costs and seek to have that redirected towards prevention.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

This case was covered last week by the news outlet TBnewswatch, and I'd like to read a quick quote from that article. It says:

The evacuation efforts are necessary because federal officials forced the community to relocate to a flood plain in 1957—and until a federal commitment to help the community move permanently to higher ground becomes a reality.

1957 was a long time ago. How much longer do you suppose the community of Kashechewan will have to wait until there is a permanent solution in place so they don't have to evacuate every year?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Give a short answer, please.

[Gina Wilson]

I think those are longer-term discussions that continue with the community.

Joanne, do you want to comment very quickly?

[Joanne Wilkinson]

It is an active discussion with the Kashechewan and Fort Albany first nations around what the communities' wishes and desires are in terms of the longer-term plan.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

Mrs. Shanahan, you have five minutes, please.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank all the witnesses for being here today.

I also thank my colleague, Mr. Kram, for really sussing out that essential tension between whether we are continually in this catch-22 where we're throwing money at simply solving emergencies and saving lives, or whether we are able to do the right thing soon enough and capture some of that money and then putting it into prevention.

I do have a question for Ms. Wilkinson. What do you mean by saying that, prior to 2013, emergency management was on a recovery basis only? What does that mean?

[Joanne Wilkinson]

By “recovery”, I mean expenses that were made for communities to evacuate and then to be repatriated home. That was essentially the extent of the program. Following 2013, it was extended to cover the four pillars of emergency management—prevention, mitigation and those types of activities—so it became a broader program after that audit.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Okay, so we're still in the early stages, I would say, of a completely new way of doing things.

As my colleagues around the table know, I'm very much a process-and-management person, so I'm intrigued by that, because it's the frequency of events. I think I heard one of the witnesses saying that. It's the frequency of events that of course is catapulting us into a whole other level.

That being said, I'm hearing progress. There's one thing I do want to ask perhaps Ms. Wilson about, and then maybe the Auditor General.

This government split Indigenous Affairs at one point, and I remember that it was quite a shocking event. I don't know that it happens very often. As we know, it's now Crown-Indigenous Relations and, of course, Indigenous Services, your department. What effect did that have on this kind of transformational effect on how the department did things?

[Gina Wilson]

I wasn't there at the time, but I can only imagine that it was highly disruptive.

Valerie?

[Valerie Gideon]

Thank you for the question.

Absolutely, I was there, and learned about it in The Globe and Mail, just like others.

I was at the first nations and Inuit health branch of Health Canada, and that is a really important factor in terms of Indigenous Services Canada, because that branch became part of Indigenous Services Canada, along with other sectors of the former Indigenous Affairs.

What that did was actually give us an opportunity to include health emergencies within the emergency management assistance program's scope, and in a postpandemic.... We're not quite postpandemic, but in a COVID recovery type of time, it has been so essential for us to ensure that when we have emergency evacuations we are thinking about mental health cultural supports, and that when we have health emergencies, we're thinking about infrastructure and we're thinking about other aspects of how to ensure we're responding to and also mitigating risk over time. I would say that in this space this has been such an important transformation.

The other aspect is that our mandate is different. The enabling legislation that has established Indigenous Services Canada is very different from the legislation that Indigenous Affairs was founded upon. I would encourage all members to really look at that legislation, because it speaks to the transformation of services towards self-determination of indigenous peoples. That includes health and other sectors of responsibility in this department.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

That's very encouraging.

How much time do I have, Chair?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

You have a minute and two seconds.