Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Ms. Cram.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's a combination of two things. One is process engineering. I think we had a very step-by-step linear process. We're trying to do things more expeditiously and be a little more aggressive in getting offers out, and so on. Some of it is simply how the work is organized, and we'll continue to look for improvements there.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's a bit speculative. These claims are very specific--no pun intended. They deal with a breach of a lawful obligation in either the management of money or land transactions, so we should know the universe of how many times that has happened. There is an onus on the first nation to bring a claim forward, so I can't promise you that there aren't claims lurking out there that haven't been filed.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I will try to get some of the specific numbers. We had a process that had pretty much congested and ground to a stop. When claims came in they had to be assessed in terms of historical research. Then you had to get a legal opinion as to whether a breach of a lawful obligation took place.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, perhaps we could take that up after the minister leaves. Mr. Yeates is leading a reporting burden initiative.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The program sunsets March 31, so it can't appear in estimates as applying to future years.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If it's renewed, when it's renewed it will show up in next year's estimates.

Public Accounts committee  I'd like to thank the committee for its interest. I know this isn't a policy committee; it's an accountability committee. We take our work quite seriously. We'd be pleased to provide progress reports to this committee as well as to the policy committees that oversee us. We'd be happy to work with the clerk on the specific follow-up questions from members, and we'll get you responses in writing as quickly as possible.

Public Accounts committee  It's a report by all of the parties, including the Inuvialuit and the Government of the Northwest Territories, and yes, it is a long process to get their sign-off. I cannot commit to table those reports without the sign-off of the other parties. We can make best efforts to get them unplugged and tabled here, or we can table a federal progress report on what the federal government has done, but for better or for worse, we've locked ourselves into a structure where all of the parties are reporting.

Public Accounts committee  I will defer to Mr. Sewell on the details, but you have 91,000 square kilometres of land held collectively by the Inuvialuit through a land corporation, together with various forms of private tenure in the communities and various mixes of the two.

Public Accounts committee  When a claim is under negotiation, there's no expropriation of private property interests. You work around them. You need a willing buyer and a willing seller. But generally, third party interests are protected.

Public Accounts committee  I'll defer to Mr. Sewell on the past efforts. We've agreed with the Inuvialuit, on a going-forward basis, to the approach we described earlier—looking at the six communities' strengths and weaknesses in the context of the resource boom in the north to see what opportunities are there.

Public Accounts committee  If there's a question, I guess what we're trying to do is to insinuate this particular settlement area into the entire Government of Canada procurement machine, which is across many goods and services and across all departments and agencies. It is a very difficult challenge. We're trying to make it as easy as possible for the actual front-line procurement officers to be reminded of what it creates.

Public Accounts committee  No.

Public Accounts committee  What we have is action, and I have a number of pieces of reporting of progress. We're trying to put them in a form that Mr. Campbell would agree is a kind of plan that they can monitor. We will be doing that within the next month or so.