Evidence of meeting #53 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 infrastructure.
A video is available from Parliament.
Director General, Regional Infrastructure Delivery Branch, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indigenous Services
Sorry, could I go back? Could I have a moment to lay it out in context?
There have been 129.8—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I'm not looking for context. I'm just looking for real, straight, simple responses. We've now heard there are 52 mitigation...sorry, 58—
Director General, Regional Infrastructure Delivery Branch, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indigenous Services
There are 58, at an estimated cost of $82.5 million.
Conservative
Director General, Regional Infrastructure Delivery Branch, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indigenous Services
What I would say is there's over $1 billion set aside for other community infrastructure projects, of which structural mitigation is one of the asset classes, so on a—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Will the structural mitigation projects be prioritized? Will we see at the end of six months or a year that every one of these projects has at least been started?
Director General, Regional Infrastructure Delivery Branch, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indigenous Services
I'd just add on to that. In addition to that, given the importance of structural mitigation, there was $12 million that was set aside, directed specifically towards that.
In terms of the prioritization, that's being done with the communities. We've reached out to communities. We're working with the communities. Some of those may no longer be the priorities of the communities. We're talking about, government-wide, 8,342 projects that have been completed and are ongoing. It is—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Yes, but specifically on the 58, what am I missing here? There are 58 projects. If they've been identified as mitigation, who decides that it's no longer a priority and it gets bumped off?
Director General, Regional Infrastructure Delivery Branch, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indigenous Services
That would be done in consultation with the communities, so—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Are communities saying, “We don't want this work done, so don't work on this”?
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indigenous Services
That's the conversation that officials are having with each and every one of the nations that have projects represented within the 58 that remain. As we mentioned earlier, budget 2019 provided $12 million annually, specifically for structural mitigation. We continually look to leverage other sources of funding, whether that's through the funding that Mr. O'Connor mentioned in terms of broader infrastructure, working with Infrastructure Canada, and sometimes working with provinces where there's overlap and so on.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
The 2013 report asked that the department do an analysis of what the costs will be if the mitigation work is not done. That report has never been done. That analysis has never been done.
If these 54 are not done, what are...? We've seen that it's $3 to $5 for cleanup services after the fact, for every $1 that could have been spent on prevention. If these 54 are not done, has an analysis been done on what the costs will be?
Conservative
Deputy Minister, Department of Indigenous Services
No, there has not been a specific analysis done on what would be.... We would like to continue to work with those communities to in fact invest in those projects, so—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Is it the communities' fault that the analysis hasn't been done?
Deputy Minister, Department of Indigenous Services
No, it's not the communities' fault. It—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
It was in the 2013 report. It's been 10 years now. It was recommended 10 years ago.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indigenous Services
I'm sorry. I....
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
It's the analysis on what the costs will be if these infrastructure projects aren't done.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indigenous Services
Oh. Okay. I'm sorry. That's another subject. I didn't understand.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
We're hearing that there are still 50-some left to do, yet there's no real—
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
That's very kind of you. Yes. As I said, that's why I wanted to go to Mr. Kram first. I knew how that was going to end.