Public Accounts Committee on June 1st, 2026

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Yes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Can you give us your definition of a rural region? It's just to understand how that applies within your funding structures. I get the impression that we're being heavily penalized in Abitibi‑Témiscamingue.

For example, federal funding for the Foire gourmande went from approximately $700,000 to $200,000 this year. This obviously has a major impact on the survival of a major event in Abitibi‑Témiscamingue and northeastern Ontario.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

We're turning now to Mr. Stevenson, who will have five minutes, and then we're going to close with Mr. Ma for five minutes.

You have the floor, Mr. Stevenson.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

I'm going to go back to a line that's similar to my colleague Mr. Deltell's. I have seven indigenous reserves in my beautiful riding of Yellowhead. Over the last year, I have started communications with them. One message that's been clear is that indigenous languages and culture must be preserved, especially with some of the results out there: Today, nearly 70 indigenous languages are at risk of disappearing.

The report that came out about this conference—$10 million spent over four days—is a bit concerning. There are some reports out there that an elder from Norway House is being paid about $20,000 a year to teach language, yet the commissioner earns over $216,000 and directors are earning over $150,000. The frontline people who are actually teaching are making significantly less.

I'll ask a couple of more general questions to start with. Was the creation of the commission meant to isolate the government from decisions so that the commission made all of the decisions and the government wasn't really responsible for any of them?

[Francis Bilodeau]

The nature of the decision was that, in this space, it was important to co-create and work in partnership with indigenous communities. We wanted to avoid a situation where the government was the sole decision-maker in this space, which is so important for indigenous communities—

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Would you say this was part of the reconciliation strategy from the languages side of it?

[Francis Bilodeau]

I would.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

It appears to me that when some of this was created at arm's length, there was not really a lot of oversight. Can you tell me what kind of oversight the department has when it comes to this commission, especially in dollars? To me, it looks a bit like the Liberals—as they've done best—threw money at a problem and let somebody else take on the duties and responsibilities for it.

[Andrew Brown]

As has been mentioned already, it certainly was created as an independent, arm's-length organization.

At Canadian Heritage, we have two funding agreements with the Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages. This is about their annual expenses, if you will; it's not about looking inside the organization at their specific intentions.

They provide an annual business plan in advance, which is reviewed. They also submit their annual reporting.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Earlier, one of you said that Canadian Heritage considers the “prudent management of public funds”. Would that include actually analyzing a budget?

My other colleague talked about how the money comes out, and you've given them money, but it doesn't appear that you're actually doing any sort of budget review. You're leaving that entirely to them, and that's why there's now an investigation. It's because maybe somebody didn't have a very good budget.

[Andrew Brown]

It's fair to say that the onus is on the commissioner and the directors to do oversight of the office's operations. It is a very high-level review that we provide at Canadian Heritage. That's the nature of the—

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

The heritage department isn't going to review anything other than their final product after the fact. You're not reviewing anything prior. You're not looking at budgets.

[Andrew Brown]

That's a fair assessment. That's due to the independence.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Would it be fair to say that this investigation would not have even come onto your radar if there weren't a whistle-blower?

[Andrew Brown]

That is fair to say. We are conducting this because of a whistle-blower.

Beyond that, we are looking for information so that we can determine whether there are issues with the management in that office. At this stage, we do not have evidence that would validate that one way or the other.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

So—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ask a brief question, Mr. Stevenson. “Brief” is key, though.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

It doesn't appear that there are any checks and balances from your end. You've given them a blank cheque and they've run with it.

[Francis Bilodeau]

It's fair to say that independent organizations and the people who are named as the heads of them have an accountability to ensure the proper oversight and management of those reserves. It's fair to say that there are requirements for some reporting within our grants and contributions, as Mr. Brown said, but they are not the same as they would be if it were our own department. That is by design, to ensure some independence and that it's at arm's length.

It's also fair to say that once we learned of potential allegations, steps were taken.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Ma, you have the floor for five minutes to close us out with these witnesses.

[Michael Ma, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

As my first question, what are the key performance indicators for Canadian Heritage?

[Francis Bilodeau]

As you'll see, they are clearly laid out in the departmental results report. They are aligned with our core mandates. One is around thriving culture and arts. Some are about sports—participation in sports and the safety of sports—and thriving multiculturalism. They are aligned to our major project objectives. I will see if my colleague can pull them out.

As we do our department reports, they are also reviewed to ensure they are meaningful and that we are able to effect and move them over time. There are areas such as the vibrancy of journalism, where we have seen a lower number of journalists. At the same time, there are areas where we're seeing significant progress. The indigenous languages area has been named multiple times. That is a space where, over the last several years, over $1.4 billion has been invested and where we've seen some progress and improvements in the vitality and existence of languages that were by and large having difficulty surviving.

[Michael Ma, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

In general, do you have set targets for all of the spending in the funded programs? How do you measure that?

[Andrew Brown]

Absolutely, we have targets. In fact, we have a lot of targets, which I think is one of the challenges we have in pulling them out.

For example, the deputy talked about indigenous languages. We have specific targets with respect to the number of people in Canada who are able to maintain a conversation in an indigenous language. This is something we hope to report on soon, as the 2026 census is under way. We expect to have some new data to report on that, to understand the impact of investments in indigenous languages, as one example.

We look at other kinds of activities we support—festivals and celebrations across the country, like Canada Day, for example. One of the things we measure and that we're interested in is the number of participants—the number of Canadians—participating in these broad festivals, not just those that are perhaps more community-specific. We have specific indicators with respect to official languages as well.

We have the five main areas of our programs that were spoken to. I wanted to mention that we do indeed have specific targets that cut across all of those areas. Certainly, one of the things we're looking at is where we are meeting targets, where we are having challenges meeting targets and how we can improve our programs so that we deliver a better performance for Canadians.

[Michael Ma, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

How have these funded programs contributed to the economic recovery of the cultural sector?