Public Accounts committee  Kwey kakina. Hello. Ullukkut. Tansi. Thank you for having me. Before we begin, I want to acknowledge that we are on the land of my ancestors, my relatives, and we gather in the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. Meegwetch. Thank you for invitin

Public Accounts committee  Is there a question there, sir?

Public Accounts committee  I believe that is directed at me, Madam Chair, so I will make an attempt to respond to that. I would take some exception to the words about having “blown off” those recommendations or that we have completely ignored them. As deputy head and primary accounting officer, I would sa

Public Accounts committee  Madam Chair, I am hoping through this particular meeting that we can demonstrate that we have in fact made progress. Through our deliberations and the responses we'll give, we will hope to prove to you differently, that in fact we are managing this as well as we can at this point

Public Accounts committee  Performance bonuses are not in my realm to talk about, Madam Chair. I would leave that to Treasury Board and others who make those decisions. That is beyond my decision. Thank you.

Public Accounts committee  I agree, actually, that we need to shift from that response. I agree that we need to make this shift in Canada more broadly and in the first nation emergency management world, and I want us all to put our attention, our focus and our efforts towards mitigation and preparedness. I

Public Accounts committee  I don't think, actually.... This concept of communities and countries and municipalities, all parties, actually, wanting to move increasingly toward mitigation and preparedness is not a new concept, certainly not—

Public Accounts committee  All jurisdictions need to make that particular recommendation. All EM experts—

Public Accounts committee  We have a say in that, and all emergency management experts in fact do repeat that message: that we need to be focusing more on mitigation and preparedness.

Public Accounts committee  We are definitely working towards that shift, sir.

Public Accounts committee  Is it my turn now?

Public Accounts committee  On those particular projects, I can't speak to the regional variations that exist, but I would say as a starting point that I think we would certainly want and prefer to be funding all 112 of these projects. I'll explain this with some context, if I may. This department has a fi

Public Accounts committee  That's a great question. What can the department do? We ask ourselves that question a lot, and then we ask ourselves if we are making that decision unilaterally or making that decision with first nations. Certainly, when it comes to infrastructure funding, we try to work as clos

Public Accounts committee  I'm going to defer to Joanne or Kenza on that one, to speak directly to those particular communities.

Public Accounts committee  We're increasing some things, but I'm going to hand over to my colleague.