Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. I think part of the issue isn't just what the website reflects; it's that the Auditor General has commented, and first nations have certainly noted, that they don't like the way we've styled some of the information. Part of the work we're doing with the Assembly of First Nations and others is to work on the kind of information that would be shared so that we have a common understanding of what we're reporting and what it means.

Public Accounts committee  I sit on the joint technical working group, and the Assembly of First Nations coordinates the participation of first nations and other participants.

Public Accounts committee  There are about 20 or 21, I think.

Public Accounts committee  I think there are about 20 decisions from the tribunal, if you're referring to the actual decisions.

Public Accounts committee  Are you asking how many decisions we have received from the tribunal?

Public Accounts committee  I think the statute came into effect in 2009. It took some time to get the rules created and whatnot. I would say it's in the last seven years.

Public Accounts committee  From the tribunal, I think so. I could verify that, but I think that's about right.

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry; are you making—

Public Accounts committee  I don't have a number for that.

Public Accounts committee  Do you mean the operational budget?

Public Accounts committee  Thanks for the question. I'll give you a couple of examples. I don't mean to try to interpret what the Auditor General may or may not have meant, but my understanding from the discussions I've had with first nations groups was that there was a cut to the research funding back in 2012, I believe, so the argument was that if first nations couldn't research claims, they couldn't submit, and therefore they couldn't have them dealt with.

Public Accounts committee  On smaller ones it would be three months or something like that, three to six months. I think three months was the general timeline for the very small ones.

Public Accounts committee  To give you a bit of background context, the reforms in 2007 were in response to long-standing criticisms of how long it was taking us to research claims and to resolve them. Our branch put a premium on trying to get the work done quickly so that we could show that we were making progress and that we weren't in processes that weren't going to produce a result.

Public Accounts committee  It's not zero. We do have a number of claims that were resolved, but I can tell you that the large number of claims that were suspended are the smaller-value ones. Since typically they are closed because we haven't received a response, I can't give you an actual reason. I can't speak for the first nations, but your assumption may be that they just said, “Well, this isn't negotiation, so we're not negotiating with you.”

Public Accounts committee  There was a case at the Specific Claims Tribunal in 2014 where the issue of that approach to small-value claims was dealt with. The judge told us that, effectively, that this wasn't negotiation, so we have changed the practice in response to that.