Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I would say, certainly, that the flexibility become more so. It also means the capacity becomes that much more important.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Potentially, if you have the capacity there, yes, certainly.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. If you take the spectrum, you have the Indian Act at one end of it, whereby the flexibility of the first nation—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I know land use plans under the Indian Act are more restrictive because first nations don't have full control of them. Certainly, and as we've talked about previously, under the First Nations Land Management Act, first nations would have far more control of them. I'm sorry I don't have a more specific answer for you.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's the most restrictive. They can only do the pieces that INAC isn't doing and delegates to them, because INAC is responsible for everything that goes on in that first nation. As we move to the FNLMA, it's much more flexible. If you move to a comprehensive land claims situation, now the first nation has full responsibility and autonomy over developing what should be on that land.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, it is important. Then, of course, if you're addressing the environmental gaps, and dealing with the contaminated sites, those would be the things that you would want to make sure you're addressing.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. I have just a couple of points. First of all, we haven't done any audit work since 2009, so we can't speak to that. What you're saying sounds encouraging, certainly, and we'd have to see the fullness of it. We'll take some time in looking at it. Also, our recommendations did focus around the need to transfer control to those first nations that want to move into it.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't think I have that information at my fingertips. Certainly we know that they've been assessing them and determining what was needed.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  What we deal with is contaminated sites. There's another area in which we look at cases in which there are contaminated sites and a clean-up. That's not under a regulatory regime, but—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. We point out in the chapter that Aboriginal Affairs, as INAC now is called, has done something to address contaminated sites; however, we also point out that in their assessment and determination of what sites are contaminated, they are finding sites far more quickly than they are cleaning them up.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, in paragraph 6.81 we make reference to their having identified 1,610 contaminated sites in April 2008 and to 557 of them being high- or medium-risk. Those are the ones that are particularly a problem. But then they continued doing assessments. Between April 2008 and April 2009 they discovered 270 more suspected contaminated sites on reserves.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  What the federal government did, I believe through Treasury Board, was set up a $3.5 billion cost-shared program to help all federal departments clean up their contaminated sites. That was dealing with the DEW line and lots of other areas in government as well. In fact, perhaps Mr.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for these questions. Mr. Chair, I'm very happy to address this question. There are a couple of things. First of all, it should be noted that the two programs we're talking about are fundamentally different. One of them is a delegated program. The regional land environment management program is a delegated program under the Indian Act, and there they had established a training program.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. I think the important element here in terms of program design is that it's the first nation that's designated as being an RLEMP first nation, but it's an individual who receives the training. We speak to this at the end of the chapter, and I think the issue is that there were real funding constraints.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. I guess the simple answer as to why there is a regulatory gap is that this is an area, as you said, that is typically regulated provincially. Obviously, as we have been saying in many cases, provincial regulations do not apply on reserves. If we were to have no regulatory gap, it would require that we have consistent federal legislation and regulations that mirror those of the provinces.