Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Finance
Issue 14 - Evidence - March 8, 2012
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 8, 2012
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance met this day at 2:15 p.m. to examine the expenditures set out in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013.
Senator Joseph A. Day (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, as per our mandate, today we are going to continue our study of the main estimates for the 2012-13 fiscal year.
[English]
Last night we met with officials of Treasury Board, the secretariat, and today we are pleased to welcome officials from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, which will be name as soon as we have an opportunity to change it in legislation.
Appearing this afternoon are Michael Wernick, Deputy Minister; and Pamela D'Eon, Director General, Planning and Resources Management.
Mr. Wernick, do you have introductory remarks?
Michael Wernick, Deputy Minister, Indian Affairs and Northern Development Canada: I am in your hands as to how you wish to proceed, but I thought maybe a few minutes of opening remarks to set the scene might be helpful and then we could go right into questions.
I had the pleasure of doing this before our house standing committee just two days ago, so the material is reasonably fresh. I welcome the opportunity to go through the spending plans for the next fiscal year. The 2012-13 Main Estimates is an important indication of the government's commitment to improving the quality of life for Aboriginal people and northerners.
The forecast expenditures for the coming year are approximately $7.8 billion, which is a great deal of public money. That is an increase of $429 million, which will strike you as a 5.8 per cent increase over the Main Estimates tabled a year ago for 2011-12.
That may seem like a high rate of growth in light of the current commitment to an environment of fiscal restraint. However, it is largely accounted for by an increase of $286 million in the cash flow related to negotiation, settlement and implementation of claims and, in this case, a one-time payment related to the settlement of the Coldwater-Narrows Specific Claim in Ontario. We see these large fluctuations when large claim settlements move through the appropriations process.
I highlight that resolving these kinds of claims and litigation is a priority of the government because it puts issues from the past to rest and lets us focus on the future. It also is part of building self-sufficient and prosperous communities. Resolution of long-standing claims enables Aboriginal people and communities to take charge of their own futures, make their own decisions, manage their own affairs and make a stronger contribution to the country.
The remainder of the increase in the budget can be explained by a number of targeted investments that respond to specific initiatives and needs. You will have gone through the list, but I draw your attention to a large item related to the assessment, management and remediation of contaminated sites for which the federal government is responsible. There are awards to claimants from the independent assessment process, which is a piece of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. The cheques written as a result of the adjudication of their claims are part of our appropriation.
We have seen tripartite education agreements with First Nations and British Columbia and an increase of support for the Education Partnerships Program in other provinces, which are part of our agenda for education reform. Upgrades, repairs and replacement of fuel storage tanks in First Nation communities, an initiative proposed a previous budget, show up in our capital and maintenance program. There are also a number of legislative and regulatory changes that affect the northern economic environment; the implementation of the government's commitments to cumulative impact monitoring program, which is environmental monitoring in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut; implementation of self- government agreements in the Yukon and a new justice agreement with the Teslin Tlingit community; and the usual growth and demand for a basic Inuit and Indian programs, which reflects the 2 per cent growth escalator, which is an adjustment for inflation and population growth.
I underscore, for those of you not familiar with the basic breakdown of our spending, that the largest share, 83 per cent, goes out in transfer payments to First Nations, tribal councils, Inuit communities, Metis groups, northerners and other recipients. It is mostly vote 10, contribution and grant programs.
There is about $6.5 billion in transfers to others that ensure that Aboriginal people and northerners have access to very basic services. In the case of Aboriginal people, these are basic services comparable in their intent to those provided to other Canadians from provincial, municipal and territorial governments, such services as education, housing, community infrastructure, water and sewer, and income assistance, assisted living and other social services.
In addition to these basic services, the government is involved in promoting economic development. We are involved in the negotiation and the implementation of comprehensive claims and specific claim settlements and the implementation of various forms of self-government across the country.
I would underscore that, in terms of what is driving some of the expenditures and the financial pressures here, the basic province-like services are driven by demographics, as are so many government programs. This is a young and growing population. The Aboriginal population is growing approximately twice as fast as the general Canadian population. Depending on your favourite demographic forecast, you can see that, in about 15 to 20 years, the Aboriginal population will be well over 1.5 million Canadians, and the population will be largely under the age of 25, which is different than the prospects for the broader Canadian population. That is a financial demand for basic services such as education, social development and housing and infrastructure. We obviously monitor those and are always working on policy and program reforms to get the most efficiency out of the program dollars that Parliament allocates to us.
The remainder of the budget is for operating vote expenditures, mostly vote 1, of about $1 billion, but I want to underscore, because I am often asked the question, that that operating vote is a broad category and some of the things captured there are, in fact, things like payments under various legal and fiduciary obligations. They are delivery costs of some of our programs, negotiations and so on, and the basic administrative running costs of the department.
The largest part of that number, over $500 million, or 7 per cent of our total budget, is money that flows out of the department. The cheques written to people who get awards under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement are part of that operating vote. If there is a litigation settlement to somebody outside of government, the award is captured in the operating vote. We operate an Indian registry and a land registry, and we have a number of obligations under treaties and agreements.
I would underscore that somewhere between 3 and 4 per cent of the department's budget is actually what you would recognize as administrative running costs. That percentage has been fairly consistent for a number of years, even though we have grown in our scope and responsibilities. I do hope it reflects a robust management and cost-control framework that we have in place in the department.
In terms of policy themes that I know some of you are familiar with from other committee work, the dominant theme these days is increasing Aboriginal participation in the labour force and the economy of the country. It will be the most effective way to improve well-being and quality of life. It is important to our overall future as a country, not just to the Aboriginal population and community. One of the main policy themes of the department's work is moving people out of dependency into employability.
Canada as a whole will benefit from strong, healthy, self-reliant Aboriginal people, families and communities. To quote another forecast that was done, if, over the next 20 years, Aboriginal education and labour market outcomes were the same as those of the non-Aboriginal population, the country's GDP would grow by approximately $400 billion. It is a big drag on growth and productivity, and we work with people to try to address that.
Indeed, that is why so much of the department's work is done in partnership. We work with other departments. We work with the private sector, territories, industry groups, voluntary groups, learning institutions and the not-for-profit sector. It is the partnerships that make it possible to empower and assist Aboriginal people to reach their potential and contribute fully to Canada.
The services, programs and activities reflected in these appropriations and estimates are designed to support, empower and enable Aboriginal people and northerners in their efforts to improve their own social well-being and economic prosperity, to build stronger communities and to increase participation in Canada's social, economic, political and cultural life.
There are many facets to the department. It has broad responsibilities. There are many things that I am sure you will be interested in. In the interests of time, I will conclude there and invite any questions that would be helpful to this committee.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I have a number of senators who would like to participate in the question and answer period. I would like a point of clarification from you. If I look at the Main Estimates at page 186, which is your main ministry summary, there is a statutory item with an "S'' in front of it about five down on the list: "Grants to Aboriginal organizations designated to receive claim settlement payments pursuant to Comprehensive Land Claim Settlement Acts.'' You mentioned during your introductory remarks the settlement regarding Coldwater-Narrows Specific Claim. Can you explain the difference?
Mr. Wernick: Thank you for the question. There are litigation settlements, which are simply an out-of-court settlement of a suit against the Crown, and there are payments under that.
I think the line item you are referring to is that if there was a comprehensive land claim, which is a more general assertion of Aboriginal rights and title that gets turned into a modern treaty, there is usually a statute of Parliament implementing that agreement. There are 22 or 23 of these modern treaties. The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement would be an example, as are the Nisga'a treaty and the Maa-nulth treaty in British Columbia and so on.
The money that goes to those communities for the implementation of those agreements is actually statutory, and that is why they have the "S.'' They are different from the Indian Act bands and communities who benefit from the rest of the department's vote structure.
The Chair: I think it is important for clarification. The other funds, you said, came out of your operating, which is an appropriation vote.
Mr. Wernick: There is quite a bit of litigation. We settle whenever we have an opportunity. Those payments go out through the operating vote part of the department.
The Chair: Thank you for that clarification. We will begin our questions with the deputy chair of the committee, Senator Neufeld from Charlie Lake, British Columbia.
Senator Neufeld: Thank you for being here. On page 187, we see loans to native claimants and loans to First Nations in British Columbia for the purposes of supporting their participation in the B.C. Treaty Commission process. The last year and this year are almost the same. Is there a ceiling on what can be loaned out to natives for treaty processes, or does that just happen to be kind of the same number?
Mr. Wernick: I think it is a coincidence their being similar numbers.
It is a ceiling, essentially, and the amount that is drawn down by the First Nation at the table would depend on the pace of activity. Some tables are moving slower than others.
In British Columbia, as I am sure you are familiar, the whole process is overseen by the treaty commission, and they act as a bit of a gatekeeper. They help decide who is ready and who is not, and they have a role in overseeing the process. They do not do anything outside of British Columbia. We have quite a range of tables in other parts of the country, and that is what you would see in the other line item.
There is a rather elaborate mathematical formula between us and the government of British Columbia and the First Nations for financing the negotiating process and what is recovered at the time of settlement.
Senator Neufeld: So there is a ceiling?
Mr. Wernick: It is essentially an upper limit. If we had a huge rush on negotiation, we would probably be coming back to Parliament and asking for an adjustment. It is an estimate of need.
Senator Neufeld: What has been the record of getting that money back after treaty settlement?
Mr. Wernick: Excellent, is my understanding. It is usually netted out of the settlement at the time of settlement. It does create an incentive for everyone to try to resolve. I know there is frustration around the British Columbia process. Some of the tables have gone on a long time, and the loan amounts are significant. We are well aware of that, but we do recover at the time of the settlement.
Senator Neufeld: I know we are dealing with mains and 2012-13, but I am comforted in knowing that you actually get that money back.
Mr. Wernick: I will correct the record with you if I am wrong on that. I know there are some cases where there have been write-downs, and the write-down is shared between us and the province, but generally the record is very good.
Senator Neufeld: I have one other question. We often hear that most of the money of your budget is spent before it gets to Aboriginal communities, and you have explained that very well. The number $1.2 billion is for operating and other grants.
Can you tell me what the actual number is, without going through every division, of the operating cost of the ministry?
Mr. Wernick: It is about 4 per cent of close to $8 billion — around $300 million. I will give an example. The entire salary budget of the department — every man and woman — is about $400 million. That is everyone; that includes the people working on adjudication of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, for example, which is a temporary activity that we will be out of at some point.
In terms of other costs, there is the usual travel, hospitality, taxi chits, computer equipment, and so forth.
We tend to count it as $200 million in administrative overhead that comprises the running costs of the department, and then there are operating costs, which are related to program delivery. You could count those together if you wanted. For example, we operate the Indian registry; people register as Indians and get identity cards. You could call it a running cost or a service to First Nations.
Senator Neufeld: So it would be about $600 million of the $8 billion.
Mr. Wernick: About that. I would be happy to provide a pie chart or breakdown, if that would be helpful.
Senator Finley: Thank you for your presentation.
My first question is perhaps a little naive, but I like to look at the bigger picture, as well. Obviously, the $7.5 billion a year for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada is not the only monies that flow from the federal government to Aboriginals and northerners. Do you have an idea what that total is for the Main Estimates, if we add it up across all of the various departments?
Mr. Wernick: I will be very close if I say $11 billion across the federal government; it was between $10 billion and $11 billion, the last time I saw a number.
The other large player is Health Canada. They provide Non-Insured Health Benefits, drugs, eyeglasses and those sorts of services to First Nations people across the country.
After that, there is CMHC, which does $200 million in housing activity on reserves. HRSDC provides Aboriginal skills and training programs. After that, a number of small things are involved.
Senator Finley: You are saying $11 billion, which would include what we used to call INAC.
Mr. Wernick: The government saw fit to rebrand us as Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada.
Senator Finley: It is $11 billion.
I am interested in a comment that you made in your prologue. Unlike the rest of the population, the demographics of the Aboriginal and northern populations are different.
Yet in a way, they are not. For example, as OAS recipients — pension recipients — grow and the services that have to be provided to them grow, then so does the taxpayer base to sustain that, so the argument currently goes. I am not being partisan here. We get a shrinking population base to support that service base that is required. We will put that aside as to whether it is right or wrong.
It is similar to what you have described the Aboriginal situation to be: As the population grows — no matter what age group it is — and it will grow to one and a half million from around just over a million or a million-one —
Mr. Wernick: One million.
Senator Finley: — then the taxpayer base will decline in the same manner as it does for other departments and agencies.
I was intrigued by your saying that you felt that one of your goals was to reduce dependency by having Aboriginals and northerners participate more in the labour force. That is a great plan. Where is the plan for that? Do you have numbers? Are there projections? Have we already had numbers and actuals against projections? Is there somewhere to determine if that demographic is an actual fact happening to the numbers that you expect?
Mr. Wernick: Thank you for those excellent questions. I will try not to go on too long.
You are right in a sense that there is a demographic pressure, and it is not the working-age, taxpaying population. I would argue the pressures are different. We baby boomers are putting pressure on health care and pensions. The pressures that a young Aboriginal population is creating are related to schools, child protection agencies, and that sort of thing.
The older people will be in dependency for the rest of their lives on their retirement income system. A 16-year-old First Nations kid is a potential worker and taxpayer for the next 50 years. The difference will be if they get a high school education, skills training, and get into the labour force, they will be a productive worker for another 40 years. The key would be that supply chain, as some people would call it.
We know the demographics are robust because, when they are born, they are registered as Indians. I know where they are and I know how old they are. We count them, and the census will put out a whole bunch of data on this; they are counted in the census regularly. Therefore, I am confident in the demographic projections.
The policy interventions that will make a difference between whether someone is a high school dropout and on income assistance at 18 or whether they become a productive worker and taxpayer are around reform of kindergarten to grade 12 education, which the current government is committed to doing; it is working with the Assembly of First Nations — it has received an advisory group report — and the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples contributed helpful advice on that before Christmas. I am sure we will see the government stake out some initiatives in this area in the next few weeks or months.
The other significant one would be to reform on-reserve income assistance. As most senators here are familiar with, most provinces worked in the 1980s and 1990s to add a more active approach. You do not get a welfare cheque if you are not signed up for a training program, if you are not re-skilling, if you are not involved in something to make you a participant in the labour force.
A number of federal services through HRSDC help in that. Mostly it is done by provinces through the labour market kinds of tools that provinces have. Their reach into reserves is not good, and we are working with HRSDC and the provinces to find a way to get to that on-reserve clientele more effectively in the years ahead.
Every 18-year-old we turn away from welfare and turn on to the labour market will make big difference not only on the financial pressures on the department but also on the revenues of the government going forward.
Senator Finley: When I talk about the services being provided, they are taxpayer services. It does not matter how you cut it — whether it is going to education or old age sustenance. I want to be clear that I was not trying to make a point. It is the service load.
You still have not answered me — and perhaps there is no answer, which would disturb me a little. Surely to goodness, when these programs are developed, whether by our government or previous ones or departments involved, there must be some kind of economic or demographic projections that say "one out of three children, when they hit age 18, will have a high school diploma and will become a productive member of the work force.'' There must be some numbers there to say that is what we are basing this whole thing on and some form of measurement, as you go towards that point, that say if we are meeting the targets. If we are not meeting the targets, we have a major problem coming.
Do those numbers exist?
Mr. Wernick: Yes. I point you to our Reports on Plans and Priorities, which has rich, deep and demographic analysis and reports. We have performance measurement frameworks for every single program. We have done evaluations. The evaluations are on the website. We have done audits; the Auditor General has done audits. We measure and track progress and assess and reassess programs continuously. There is quite a lot of the demographic work on our website.
Senator Finley: The success of this particular program to educate young Aboriginals and northerners — if I went to the website, would it tell me that it is meeting its target?
Mr. Wernick: No, it is certainly not. The education outcomes of First Nations people are deplorable. They are not graduating at high rates. You could take a look at the report of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, at the report of the national panel on K to 12 education, which the government commissioned and which was just released about a month ago. There are lots of Statistics Canada indicators. Fewer than half of First Nations Canadians complete high school. It is not acceptable.
Senator Finley: I could go on, but I really should go for the second round.
Senator Callbeck: There are three or four things I want to have an explanation on. At page 191, you have "Grants for the Political Evolution of the Territories, particularly as it pertains to Devolution.'' Last year there was nothing in there, so obviously it is a new grant. What exactly is it?
Mr. Wernick: We have been in the process in the North of trying to devolve our land management, land use and environmental management responsibilities to the territorial governments. It happened in the Yukon about 10 years ago, and we are at the negotiating table with both the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. There was an agreement in principle with the Government of the Northwest Territories just before Christmas, so we know we are within two years of implementation of devolution.
Senator Callbeck: At page 193, under "Contributions — continued,'' you have "Contributions to Indian bands for land and estates management.'' That amount is to be reduced considerably, maybe 40 per cent to 50 per cent. Can you explain exactly what that is and why the reduction?
Mr. Wernick: It is my understanding — and again I will correct the record if I have erred on this — that there were some communities where the money was moved out of this program into another program related to land management. The money has not actually dropped; it has changed from one envelope to another. There is a small decrease related to some sunsetting in some small parts of programs.
Senator Callbeck: What envelope did the money go into? Is it still in Indian and Northern Affairs?
Mr. Wernick: Yes, it is under "Contributions to Indian Bands for Land Management Capacity Building.''
Senator Callbeck: Is that on page 193?
Mr. Wernick: Yes, and at page 192 we have "Payments to support Indians, Inuit and Innu for the purpose of supplying public services in economic development.''
Senator Callbeck: I do not see those. Do they add up to the $5 million?
Mr. Wernick: Yes. I can provide the breakdown underneath the $5 million, if that would be helpful.
Senator Callbeck: All right.
On page 193, there is a deduction of $800,000: "Contributions for promoting the political, social and scientific development of Canada's three territories.'' Why is that being reduced so much?
Mr. Wernick: That is the wind-down of some activity related to International Polar Year. International Polar Year happened across the North in all three territories. It actually was more than one year; I believe there were four years of large activity and the peak was about a year and a half ago. The wrap-up conference is in Montreal in about a month from now. You would have just seen the level of activity starting to wind down on International Polar Year.
Senator Callbeck: International Polar Year had nothing to do with the polar commission?
Mr. Wernick: No. International Polar Year was a worldwide United Nations-led effort in which Canada was the largest participant, but not the polar commission as a specific entity.
Senator Callbeck: We talked a few minutes ago about education, and two thirds of the way down page 188 it speaks about an increase of $23.1 million, through the Educational Partnerships Program. Would you explain that program, please?
Mr. Wernick: There were two initiatives in the 2010 budget related to education reform. They were about trying to improve the outcomes that I was discussing with Senator Finley. One was called the School Success Program and the other was the Education Partnerships Program. The latter one tries to find some project money to help First Nations schools work with neighbouring school boards, provincial education ministries, professional development associations, teachers' colleges and that sort of thing to connect them better to the surrounding school system. It was an allocation in that budget for about five years' worth of programming. Hopefully, that answers that part of it.
The other piece is that there is a much more formal agreement in British Columbia between the First Nations, the Government of B.C. and ourselves on improving outcomes. In fact, that is attached to a very specific piece of legislation passed by Parliament in December 2006. Some money was announced by the minister in January that is related to the implementation of that agreement.
Senator Callbeck: You say that the Education Partnerships Program is a five-year program and that it started last year.
Mr. Wernick: It was the 2008 budget; I stand corrected.
Senator Callbeck: As Senator Finley mentioned about measurements and so on, do you have any particular goals at the end of the five years?
Mr. Wernick: Yes. We have a performance measurement framework, and the program will be evaluated a little closer to the end. If I can put it in the broadest sense, on-reserve schools are basically one-room schoolhouse models where the principal does their best with what they have. I know you are familiar with this. We are trying to connect them to provincial ministries or local school boards on issues about curriculum, student testing and measurement of what was going on in the school. We now have seven tripartite arrangements across the country. These have accelerated since 2008.
There are agreements in New Brunswick, Manitoba, Alberta and Prince Edward Island, and there is a formal agreement in British Columbia, a very formal agreement in Nova Scotia and, more recently, one in the Saskatoon region. The goal is to accelerate and jump-start a process of closer partnership between First Nations schools and the surrounding education systems.
Senator Callbeck: At the end of five years, after you have spent the money, do you have any figures? We did a study in the Social Affairs Committee on the barriers to post-secondary education. I am well aware of the rates and the statistics of First Nations' education. With this five-year program, you say you are trying to get the schools and reserves in closer contact with the provincial authorities. Do you have any figures at the end of the five years? Are there any goals?
Mr. Wernick: The basic measurement of success will be high school completion rates in the reserve schools. We will have some evidence that schools that had the interventions are performing better than the schools that did not have the interventions.
Senator Callbeck: You do not have any figures or percentages for high school graduation.
Mr. Wernick: We know the completion rates by school and by reserve.
Senator Callbeck: I know, but in five years, do you have a figure that you want those schools to reach?
Mr. Wernick: In those projects? With the School Success Program, you go into the specific community and talk to the principal and the band council, and you create a stretch target appropriate to that community. In some cases they are doing extremely well, and they have high graduation rates; in some cases, it is abysmal. Each of them sets a target that is a stretch for that particular community.
Senator Callbeck: You have targets for the School Success Program?
Mr. Wernick: Yes.
Senator Callbeck: What about the Education Partnerships Program?
Mr. Wernick: It has an overall program goal, yes.
Senator Callbeck: It does not have targets?
Mr. Wernick: It has targets to increase the number of linkages and relationships, yes.
Senator Callbeck: It does not have any targets as far as graduation from high school, though; it is school success.
Senator Finley: Or getting a job.
Senator Callbeck: Right.
Mr. Wernick: On the second point, the labour market programs are delivered by HRSDC. We can try to turn over high school graduates to the skills development programs and to the private sector. There is an enormous pull, as you know, from the private sector across the country looking for labour.
Senator Callbeck: My point, though, on this program is this: Of this five years that we are spending millions of dollars, there is no real, specific goal of what per cent of students you want to see graduate from high school.
Mr. Wernick: This is not a program that can drive the graduation rates of 400 schools across the country. It is a much smaller instrument to start a process of partnerships with the surrounding provincial ministries and school boards. In most provinces they have been operating in complete isolation from their neighbours. The partnerships are leading to kids being tested, teachers being trained and curricula being shared. Those are the outcomes.
Senator Callbeck: Where is the money, then, for the School Success Program? Is that in here?
Mr. Wernick: That is the item that you have been asking about, yes.
Senator Callbeck: I thought there were two different programs: the School Success Program and the Education Partnerships Program.
Mr. Wernick: The school success partnership was $250 million over five years. About 90 per cent of the reserve schools are now signed up and have a plan in place. I do not know exactly which line item it is included in. I will try to get you that before we leave.
Senator Callbeck: All right. I would like to know that and I would like to know what the specific goals are and what the percentage is.
Mr. Wernick: We have a performance measurement framework for each of those programs, which we would be happy to share with you as well.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Thank you for being here.
First, could you tell me, of the million Indians, how many are on reserve and how many are off?
Mr. Wernick: Half and half. That is a very imprecise answer.
Senator Nancy Ruth: All right. I will ask first about the Urban Aboriginal Strategy. The Auditor General, in the spring of 2009 report to Parliament, observed that your department clearly was the leader in gender-based analysis. As I understand, on page 190 of your estimates, the Urban Aboriginal Strategy is not being allocated any funds in the 2012-13 years. This was one of the priority areas for supporting Aboriginal women, children and families.
Are there other funds somewhere else for the Urban Aboriginal Strategy or for initiatives of the same kind elsewhere in the Main Estimates? Can the department provide any gender-based analysis undertaken with respect to the Urban Aboriginal Strategy?
What I do know is this, which I took off your website:
In 2007, Canada's New Government decided to set priorities and make a long-term commitment on Aboriginal issues by investing $68.5 million over five years to help respond effectively to the needs of Aboriginal people living in key urban centres.
Depending how you count the years, 2012 could be the end of it. Is there something else that is a follow-through, and is there something specific for Aboriginal women and children in cities?
Mr. Wernick: On the basic point, no, there is nothing in the Main Estimates for the Urban Aboriginal Strategy. This is one of the sunsetting programs. It was given money for five years. The five years are up at the end of this month. Main Estimates are closed and put to bed before we know what is in the budget. There are a number of sunsetting programs. We hope that it will be renewed in the budget for future years. Then, as is the case every year when there is a sunsetter, it will be back in front of you as a supplementary estimates appropriation.
In terms of the gender-based analysis of that program, I do not know if we have a specific analysis related to it. If we do, I will certainly send it over.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I would be interested in seeing it. That would be great, if you would send it to the clerk.
Next, the water and waste water action plan.
Mr. Wernick: The same answer. It is a sunsetter.
Senator Nancy Ruth: The contaminated sites?
Mr. Wernick: It is a sunsetter.
We go through this every year, and I do apologize if it creates confusion. The Main Estimates are put to bed before the budget. We are a department that relies on supplementary appropriations.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Briefly, if I can go back to Senator Finley's question about what other monies there are besides the $7.8 billion here, I know Health Canada has $1 billion.
Mr. Wernick: It has close to $3 billion in health benefits.
Senator Nancy Ruth: For a million people?
Mr. Wernick: Yes. The First Nations health benefit is available both on and off reserve. There are nearly 800 and some thousand beneficiaries of that.
Senator Nancy Ruth: That adds up. One final question, if I may. Are the programs under the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency done out of your department?
Mr. Wernick: No. They used to be. We had those kinds of small business development and entrepreneur programs. The Prime Minister created it as a free-standing department. It has a separate deputy head, Mr. Borbey, and reports to Parliament through Minister Aglukkaq.
The Chair: That is a recent change, reporting through Minister Aglukkaq?
Mr. Wernick: From 2011, I believe.
Senator Nancy Ruth: It is on page 17.
Mr. Wernick: Yes. It took a little while to cascade through the estimates and RPPs and DPRs. However, if you went looking for it, you would see a separate set of estimates and a separate Report on Plans and Priorities for that agency.
The Chair: Treasury Board brought that to our attention as well. Thank you.
Senator Peterson: Thank you for your presentation.
On page 186, you have "Grants to Aboriginal organizations designated to receive claim settlement payments.'' Are those repayable grants?
Mr. Wernick: No, they are grants paid out under settlements. Sometimes it is a five-year, sometimes a ten-year schedule. You have to think of a stacking of schedules. The fluctuation is simply because of the flowing out over time the payment schedules of the various agreements.
Senator Peterson: It is an advance payment?
Mr. Wernick: No; it is after settlement. This is implementation money.
Senator Peterson: You give grants to people so they can get money. It is in addition to the settlement, is it?
Mr. Wernick: No, these are the settlements.
Senator Peterson: On the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the amount has dropped down. Does that mean the program is winding down?
Mr. Wernick: No; on the contrary. The commission is part of the settlement agreement. It has its own life under order-in-council. It will operate for about five years, to 2014. If you were following the commission, you know that it had a bad start. The first set of commissioners resigned, a new set had to be appointed, and the money that had been allocated for it, which was $60 million, turned out to be off by about half a year. You are seeing it cascade forward, but they will get the full $60 million.
Senator Peterson: On the remediation of sites, last night we were told by Treasury Board that the total figure is $4.7 billion that the federal government has booked. That would not be all yours, would it?
Mr. Wernick: No. There is a federal contaminated sites action plan that deals with a whole range of federal responsibilities. We are deeply involved in two areas. Some of them are actually on reserves and some of the appropriation you are seeing there is for on-reserve activity. We are the sort of point person on the North. The North has the two biggest, most spectacular, most expensive contaminated sites in the country, which are the Giant Mine and Faro Mine. We are the project remediation managers for those. There are about 25 to 30 other projects across the North that we are the delivery agent for.
Senator Peterson: The $138 million would represent what of your total?
Mr. Wernick: That would be next year's instalment. About $15 million of that is south of 60 on reserve and about $123 million is in the North. The largest part of that is the work on Giant and Faro next year, but there is a large inventory of assessments and remediation. Some of them are in the early days, some are nearly finished and some are on monitoring and maintenance. I would be happy to provide a schedule.
Senator Peterson: That would be nice. Thank you.
At page 189, education has quite an increase there of $48 million. Three years ago I was with the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples and we were told that about 2,500 Aboriginal students could not continue with post- secondary education because there was no money available. Would this increase here start to alleviate that?
Mr. Wernick: Sorry, could you direct me to the right page?
Senator Peterson: It is at page 189, at the top, under "education.''
Mr. Wernick: We identified it in two places. One is for K to 12 and one is for the post-secondary program.
Senator Ringuette: It is the sixth item before the bottom of the page.
Mr. Wernick: I will try to reconcile it to the right line items: $1.4 billion of it is elementary and secondary, and $329 million is the support for post-secondary.
Senator Peterson: From your records, as of today, would there be Aboriginal students who want to have post- secondary education but cannot because they are not funded? Are you aware of the number?
Mr. Wernick: It is a debatable proposition. There is nothing anywhere that says a kid on a First Nation community cannot apply for provincial student aid or to their university for a bursary, grant or scholarship. We do not see take-up for First Nations kids for those programs.
The program is an old one and badly in need of renovation. It flows out to the communities often in the form of our block funding agreements, and then the chief and council and the band administration decide who will get subsidized that year.
It is on our to-do list to work with First Nations groups to find a better delivery model, but there is no reason you cannot go to Canada student loans, Canada student grants, or to the University of Lethbridge or some of the foundations. One group that does good work in this area that you may be familiar with is the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, which works directly with students and their families.
Senator Peterson: On community infrastructure, which is page 189, about the middle, there is a substantial cut of $166 million.
What is in there? Would that be sewer and water systems on First Nations land? What does "community infrastructure'' mean?
Mr. Wernick: Community infrastructure is physical things other than housing. It is electrical, broadband, community buildings, roads, culverts, water, waste water and so forth.
The reduction is essentially the same as in the question that Senator Nancy Ruth posed. It is the sunsetting of money we got in a previous budget for water and waste water construction. We will see whether that continues in the budget in a few weeks.
Senator Peterson: You will find out on March 29. The government has already announced they have $2.5 billion for clean water over the next seven years.
Mr. Wernick: No, I think that is the "have spent'' over the last seven years.
We have a base budget for community infrastructure, which you see reflected in the vote.
We spend about $200 million a year on water and waste water projects anyway, but we have had injections of extra resources in a number of the most recent budgets, one of which is sunsetting now. We got quite a bit of resources in Canada's Economic Action Plan for the two-year, use-it-or-lose-it stimulus package, which allowed us to accelerate about 18 or 19 water and waste water projects as part of that.
Senator Peterson: You have submitted your cuts. You had to do that as well as everyone else. Are you anticipating additional monies?
Mr. Wernick: I am too experienced to speculate on a budget that has not been delivered yet. I am sorry.
Senator Runciman: How long have you been with the ministry, Mr. Wernick?
Mr. Wernick: It will be six years if I make it to May.
Senator Runciman: Is it part of your role to visit the various communities and reservations? Have you done that?
Mr. Wernick: I have, as much as I can and not as much as I would like to.
Senator Runciman: This is really focused on Ontario because I have had the opportunity to visit a fair number of the communities and reservations. You talk about this labour strategy focused on education, and I can appreciate that.
Visiting some of the communities, and I will not name them, being toured around by OPP in several of these locations and seeing significant numbers of males, for the most part, passed out on lawns at 10 and 11 o'clock in the morning, I do not envy the challenge you have there, but the other element of this, of course, is that if you give them an education and HRSDC has the other challenge to find them work, we are talking about finding work outside of the communities they reside in, the reservations. Is this some sort of an approach to depopulate the reservations in these communities where these large populations reside at the moment?
I have a hard time with this as an answer to this unbelievable challenge. Until you visit some of these communities you cannot appreciate how significant it is. I am wondering about job opportunities. I know the resistance within the communities, such as Kashechewan, for example, that Alan Pope looked at a few years ago. I believe it was in a flood plain. He suggested moving the community to an area where they would be closer to transportation routes and out of the flood plain, but the leadership rejected that.
I am trying to get a handle on the approach. With just pouring more money in there, at the end of the day, I do not see a real endgame here that will address this widespread problem.
Mr. Wernick: At the risk of getting into a policy discussion, I can respond to several things that will be helpful to you, senator.
The data show — and again, it is all on our website — enormous variation across communities. There is a spread of communities where everyone is working and no one is on welfare and every kid finishes high school — I can send you the names of those — to the kinds of communities you have described, which have deplorable conditions, and everything in between. Sometimes two communities 50 miles apart have completely different outcomes and different directions. Some are trending up and some are trending down.
What would make me optimistic is the broader trend in the Canadian economy. Two things are happening that work in our favour. One is the demographics that we were discussing earlier. All of us baby boomers are moving on and there is already enormous demand for people in every industry sector and region. I know where they are. I know where half a million of them are. I know where 150,000 kids will arrive on labour force availability over the next little while.
The other is that the kind of economic development happening in the country is largely resource extraction and resource transportation to markets. It is mining, pipelines, LNG terminals, the roads, the service industries, the pilots and all that goes with them. I hope I am not offending anyone. That is not downtown Toronto and downtown Montreal. It is right across the country, and guess who lives there?
There really are opportunities to connect the people in the communities to jobs. Communities close to the oil sands in Alberta are at full employment. There is a community I can refer you to in Saskatchewan that is a net employer of people who live in Saskatoon and come to the reserve for work.
The overall conditions give us a window, I think, over the next 10 years, to be very optimistic, if we get the public policy tools right. The government's agenda, and I will try not to be partisan here, is very much around the structural roots of this and not to put money into what we have been doing and hope for the best.
Senator Runciman: Regarding the recent incident in Attawapiskat, I was curious about what happens within your department and ministry with respect to ongoing monitoring. It seems to me that some sort of alarm bell should go off before you get to a crisis situation, which happened there.
What is the process within the ministry for ongoing monitoring of health conditions and the economic well-being of communities? Do you monitor that on a monthly or yearly basis? What is the process? Are you prohibited from doing that?
Mr. Wernick: No, there is a layer of ongoing monitoring and engagement. The bulk of my staff work out in the regions through regional offices. They are in daily or weekly regular contact with the communities and band administrators. They are either visiting or they are in phone contact. Increasingly they video conference, so we have a lot of feedback from the communities. I commend to you, if you are really interested in this issue, the Auditor General's report of May 2011 regarding the impediments to making real progress in this area.
I was four hours at Public Accounts Committee testifying on this, and I agree entirely with her. She said that we are overly reliant on funding agreements — here is the money, report to us what you did with it. We are a province for half a million people but we do not have education legislation and water standards legislation. We do not have the kinds of underpinnings that any premier would have if they wanted to deal with this.
You saw a water standards bill tabled in your house not too long ago. I believe that the government will be moving on an education bill. One of the things that will probably make a very big difference over the long run will be coming to you from the other place: Bill C-27 on transparency of financial statements by the band government. I think that it will be controversial, but I am a big fan of that piece of proposed legislation in that it will allow community members to see what money came in and what money went out, and if they are not happy, then they go to their own council and hold them to account for better results, which is what happens in any other kind of government.
We built an elaborate machine where communities report to us, but that will not change things as effectively as reporting to their own communities.
Senator Runciman: Are you familiar with the Polar Bear Express? It runs from Toronto to Moosonee. There has been speculation that with the provincial government facing financial pressures, it might either shut it down or try to dispose of it in some way.
If you were familiar with it, I was going to ask you how important you feel it is to that area of northern Ontario with respect to taking tourists to the North, getting goods and materials to the North through Moose Factory. In the winter they get out to fort Albany and Attawapiskat. I do not believe the federal government plays a funding role in that, but I wonder if it might be a concern of your ministry with respect to the possibility of that closing down.
Mr. Wernick: We are always generally interested in the well being of the communities and their economic opportunities. I confess that I am not familiar with the possibility of that line closing.
I am familiar from other circumstances with other parts of the country where the rail companies divested themselves of various short lines and spurs and so forth. There are a number of very successful cases where a First Nations-owned business took them over. The line that runs from Schefferville to Sept-Iles is owned by the First Nations in the area; and they are doing very well. They were able to turn it into a profitable business. I think there are other examples I can point you to.
I do not want to be too drawn into the specific file, but there are some good opportunities. To underscore my last answer, all of this transportation of resources and extraction of resources creates business opportunities that the more entrepreneurial communities are taking advantage of. I know you have pointed to some depressing examples, but we have success stories as well.
Senator Runciman: Senator Peterson raised the issue of the contaminated sites. I have a copy of Evaluation of INAC's Contaminated Sites Management Policy and Programming done in 2008. The evaluation found that INAC generally failed to apply the polluter-pay principle when the polluter was a First Nation member or band-operated business.
Do you have comments on that and, more generally, on your efforts to recover money from the polluter?
Mr. Wernick: I will have to catch up on that one. We have had some friction and disputes with some communities on recovery, so I know we are trying to apply the policy where it has happened and to ensure that communities meet the standards that would be applied down the road off-reserve. I will have to inform myself on the specific recoveries over the last few years.
Senator Runciman: Another element was a lack of enforcement and regulations being applied. Is that being looked at?
Mr. Wernick: Yes, that has been addressed. We are limited to some extent in how many resources we can throw at any one thing because I have only so many staff and they have a lot to do. We are much more involved in inspection, monitoring and working with the band governments on this.
Senator Runciman: Perhaps on the first question you can get back to me.
Mr. Wernick: Yes, this is specific to recoveries. I will make sure that we do.
The Chair: We are running a little tight on time to get the report done, so the sooner you can get that information to us, the better.
Mr. Wernick: We have a good record on fast turnarounds on these questions.
Senator Ringuette: Mr. Wernick, you made an offhand comment that you rely a lot on additional appropriation. You told us that a few minutes ago. Could you elaborate, please?
Mr. Wernick: Our department has a lot of programs that are not on a statutory basis, whereas other departments and programs are statutory base. The money keeps flowing unless you change the statute.
We are built largely on contribution programs that sunset, which means we get the money for three to five years and the authority expires and has to be extended. Every year, we have some of them sunset. When the Main Estimates are put to bed, we do not have the budget decision on whether they have been extended. We are a department with fairly large Supplementary Estimates (A) and Supplementary Estimates (B).
Senator Ringuette: For instance, at page 189 under the heading "Community Infrastructure,'' there is a reduction of $166 million in the existing program. Another program is the First Nations Water and Wastewater Action Plan, which is a more specifically oriented program for water, and there is the First Nations Infrastructure Fund.
Mr. Wernick: It is the same money, senator.
Senator Ringuette: On page 188, the First Nations Water and Wastewater Action Plan and the First Nations Infrastructure Fund are being reduced by $200 million.
Mr. Wernick: No, $159 million is the sunsetter on water.
Senator Ringuette: And the other is $43 million.
Mr. Wernick: That one is $166 million.
Senator Ringuette: That is roughly $200 million.
Mr. Wernick: No, it is $166 million. Most of that is water, and there are a couple of other small sunsetting things well.
Senator Ringuette: On page 188, at the bottom of the page, the third item from the bottom, it says a reductions of $159.2 million, approximately, and then a reduction of $43 million. Unless I have lost some ability in arithmetic in the last few hours, that is more than $200 million.
Mr. Wernick: That is correct for the two sunsetters.
Senator Ringuette: Are you anticipating that, in these estimates, these two programs are being reduced by $200 million and that, on March 29, all glory be, in nice packaging, the government will announce that you will have $200 million for the next fiscal year to do infrastructure and water work on First Nation reserves? Does that relate to your comment in regards to relying a lot on additional appropriation?
Mr. Wernick: Whatever we get in the budget, whether it is one dollar or $200 million, will show up in front of this committee as Supplementary Estimates.
Senator Ringuette: You also indicated that, to operate your department, you have $400 million in salary and $200 million in overhead.
Mr. Wernick: That is right.
Senator Ringuette: That is $60 million a year.
Mr. Wernick: No, those are annual figures, senator.
Senator Ringuette: Yes. How many of these are real, full-fledged department employees? How many of these are contractors, and how many of these are consultants?
Mr. Wernick: The salary budget is all for public servants. At last count, I had 5,290; I think that was the number. Those are not contractors or consultants.
That is a number that ebbs and flows as people come in and leave. It is about 5,200 people right now.
Senator Ringuette: You have no consultants or contractors in your operating budget?
Mr. Wernick: Yes, we do. They are in the operating boat, but not the salary boat.
Senator Ringuette: How much is the operating budget?
Mr. Wernick: It is the other $200 million or so.
Senator Ringuette: It is $200 million. Your contracting portfolio is half your full time army of employees to provide services to Aboriginal communities?
Mr. Wernick: A good example would be the remediation of the contaminated site at Faro. We contract a company to do the remediation. They are a contractor.
Senator Ringuette: You just indicated that the $200 million on overhead is mostly for contractors.
Mr. Wernick: No. I will give you the breakdown. Some of it is travel, some is hospitality and conferences, a lot is lawyers and legal costs, and some is management and IT consultants.
Senator Ringuette: Okay. Before I pass on to another issue, maybe we should do a very nice exercise.
You have, in these estimates, five pages of grants and contribution programs. Could you identify for us, in regard to each and every one of them — and I think it will also be interesting for the department — the amount of money, as per these estimates, that will be going to contractors, consultants, and the Aboriginal communities to do the work that the program indicates?
Mr. Wernick: Senator, as I said earlier, 86 per cent of our money goes out to communities. Every single contract the department ever lets is on the Internet site. Every contract over $10,000 for the last five years is there for you to read and look at.
Senator Ringuette: I spent most of my summer in my office here in Ottawa, working on a file. For at least three weeks, in regard to a native community not having drinking water, concerned people on Parliament Hill were talking to your department and your department was saying that it was managed by a community manager that you give money to to manage that community. That person was unavailable, for two weeks, to get someone in the community to give drinking water to them. In my book, that is unacceptable.
You said that we are looking here at an overall allotment for your department and the task at hand that you have to do of over $11 billion, notwithstanding your reliance on Supplementary Estimates (A), (B), and (C).
I think we have to do this exercise to look at the efficiency within your department and the contractors that you hired to do the work that the programs are assigned to do.
Mr. Wernick: I think you are misunderstanding how it works, with all respect. It is the First Nation that owns, builds and operates the water system.
In Attawapiskat, it is the First Nation that tenders and contracts and builds the school.
It is their contractors. All we do is provide funding to the First Nation. They do the building. They do the procurement and the operation.
Senator Ringuette: You disburse the money when the community manager says you can disburse the money because it is needed.
Mr. Wernick: The funds flow through the band government, which is why we have Bill C-27 that will make it clear, to you and to anybody else, the funds that went in and the funds that went out.
Senator Ringuette: I do wish to make it clear. I have been on this committee for as long as you have been deputy minister of that department. I am looking at all of these programs, and, once and for all, I think that this committee needs to really look at what is happening in regard to the different programs.
The Chair: I will put you on the second round. I have two others on the first round, and we are running short on time.
Senator Poirier: Thank you very much, chair, and thank you for the presentation.
My question is for some clarification on social assistance to First Nation people, as compared to social assistance to other Canadians.
Can you explain to me whether a First Nation person living alone or in a family, with the same number of family members in a household, receives the same amount of social assistance no matter where they live in Canada?
Mr. Wernick: The policy is designed to say that you will get the same rates, under the same eligibility criteria, as the other people in the province in which that First Nation sits. If you are in a New Brunswick First Nation, you should be getting the New Brunswick rates; if you are in an Alberta First Nation, you should be getting the Alberta rates, and so on.
Senator Poirier: Have there been any recent changes in that policy?
Mr. Wernick: We are trying to be more diligent in enforcing that policy. They are given the funding to pay to provincial rate schedules and not more than that, so we are stepping up the enforcement and recovery if people are paying more than the provincial rates.
Senator Poirier: How closely is it monitored? How often do you look into it to see if it is being matched?
Mr. Wernick: They have to report to us on what they spent and how they have used the funds. That is the nature of the reporting that goes with the funding agreement, and we do spot audits when there are complaints or allegations from anybody in the community. Sometimes it is an audit. Sometimes it is just the kind of reporting they do.
Generally, I would say, most First Nations are fully in compliance. They pay the provincial rate schedule and no more. I will bring it back to the Finance Committee's interest in this, perhaps. It does make us what you would call a price taker. If the province raises its rates, we have to follow. If the province lowers its rates, we try to follow.
Senator Poirier: Can you explain to me how it would be possible, then, for a First Nation to be significantly higher than a provincial rate without the department catching it for a period of time?
Mr. Wernick: About a third of them have block funding agreements, and they get a block of money for four or five programs. However, they do have discretion to move money around and they do have lighter reporting burdens if they are in a multi-year block agreement. This is a tool that was used extensively in the 1990s to try to lighten the bureaucratic and reporting burden on the First Nations. The price you pay for it is that you cannot track the money as precisely sometimes as the evaluators and auditors would like. They generally receive block funds.
I would underscore that the average size of a First Nation is 400 people; 200 adults. This is a lot of administration for a band government to have to deal with, as the Auditor General's report points out.
Senator Poirier: When it is discovered that a First Nation would be paying more than the provincial rate of any specific province in Canada, is there a turnover period, or is it just from day one to day two that you automatically cut the amount to the families?
Mr. Wernick: No. The families are not paid by us. It is a similar question. The families get their cheques from the band government. It is up to the band government how quickly they want to implement. We would work out an implementation and recovery schedule. Since there is always money coming in, we can recover in instalments over time. We would not throw a First Nations' finances under the bus in order to recover. We would work something out with them.
Senator Poirier: Would you give the order to the First Nation to do it, that they have no choice in doing it?
Mr. Wernick: They are under a contractual agreement with the Government of Canada that they got money that Parliament appropriated for a particular purpose. They should not be using it for anything else.
Senator Poirier: You do not give them a time frame that they have to do that?
Mr. Wernick: We would work it out with the specific First Nation.
Senator Poirier: I was part of the Aboriginal Committee for the first year that I was here, and I took part in the study that we did on First Nation education from K to 12. Can you give me an update on where that report is, what stage it is at and if anything is being done on it?
Mr. Wernick: The committee did report and it is public. It came in just before Christmas, if I remember. The national panel, which we have been doing with the Assembly of First Nations, reported in January. We have two major pieces of advice on reform from those. There are also observations by the Auditor General's report from last year. That has all gone into the mill, and we are hoping the government will respond in the next few weeks and months.
Senator Housakos: Thank you, deputy minister, for being here. I have some general observations and a question. I appreciate your presentation and your frank answers.
Listening over the last little while now to your responses, it seems clear to me that the department has good strategic planning processes in place to deal with a variety of problems that we have to deal with in the Aboriginal communities. It is also clear that department has established great tracking systems in order to monitor the results. You have claimed yourself in your presentation that in some cases you have seen progress and that in some cases there are still dismal results in a wide range of areas. Why is there such a discrepancy, in your opinion, in having such success in certain communities and the lack of success in others?
I also want to go back to the line of questioning from Senator Callbeck and Senator Finley. I think where they were going with their line of questioning was with regard to benchmarking rather than tracking results.
Before getting summoned to the Senate of Canada, I came from a world where, as an operator of medium-sized businesses, when I authorized the expenditures of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, I set clear benchmarks. In this case you are authorizing hundreds of millions of dollars to deal with a specific issue. What sort of benchmarking is being done in the department? Through the years, as we see in the budgets, Indian Affairs has been growing by enormous amounts. By the same token, we are hearing continuously, story after story, about how things are not getting better. That is a general picture.
From an observer's point of view — and as one who is relatively new to the scene up here — I find it remarkable that you are not able to answer a couple of my colleagues' specific line of questions. That is, when we go into a project and we have an objective to build or deliver 10 widgets, at the end of the project we want to know if we are getting the 10 built and delivered or if only three are being built and one delivered. That is the line of questioning.
Why the discrepancy of results from community to community? My general opinion would lead me to believe that the discrepancy is due to the fact that as a government, we are not doing enough in terms of benchmarking. If we are benchmarking, what sort of benchmarking are we doing? If we are not, why are we not?
Mr. Wernick: They are excellent questions. I would offer more personal kinds of observations, if I can.
The people who do serious research on this look at the data and see why some communities are trending up and some are trending down. There is an index called the Community Well-Being Index, which we do with the help of Statistics Canada. It is updated every five years, using census data. You are probably familiar with the UN index of countries on human development. It is similar to that. It is a basket. You can track and you can go to our website and see community scores, who is going up and who is going down.
The people who do research on this and work on it in academia say the biggest variable is leadership, as it is between countries, between provinces and between municipalities. Strong, committed leadership makes a difference; community involvement makes a difference. If parents do not care and do not bring their kids to school, there is nothing that government programs can do to push that. People are not widgets. You are dealing with human behaviour, education, income assistance, patterns of dependency that are deeply rooted in some communities, and these are not variables that respond. I can give you lots of widget-like examples of how many contaminated sites were remediated, how many water plants were built and how many acres of land were moved. We have rich performance management information.
Regarding the second question, I can try. There is no program that we get money for that has not gone through a rigorous due diligence by the Treasury Board Secretariat people. There is a performance management framework attached to it, and those are all available to you. They say what are the goals and sub-objectives of this program; how are you going to measure it? Every program is evaluated. All the evaluations are on the Internet. Every auditable unit in the department is audited. Every audit is on the Internet. The audit plan is on the Internet. The Auditor General has done 30 audits of my department in the last 10 years. All of those are on the Internet. There is an enormous amount of transparency, review and evaluation of what is working and what is not working. The census data next year will shed a lot of light on some of these things. The results are quite variable across communities. Some are doing extremely well and some are still stuck.
There is another variable that seems to be making a big difference. This is a big generalization, but if you looked at the map, in the North, in B.C. and through the Prairies, things are trending up because overall the economy is pulling people up. In Atlantic Canada, things are trending up. Where we have a huge problem is in the communities around James Bay, and Manitoba and northern Ontario, the old Rupert's land sort of area. Until now, they do not have the connection to the economy that would really pull social conditions up. I think you can be more optimistic about northern Ontario because of the Ring of Fire development and there will be tens of billions of dollars of mining, railroads, electrification and that sort of thing, which will create some pull on those communities. On the other side of the bay, in Quebec, the James Bay Cree are doing quite well. They are quite entrepreneurial. They have a lot of businesses and much better indicators.
I do not want to sound defensive, but the high school graduation rates for non-Aboriginals in this country are not great. There is about a 20 per cent to 30 per cent dropout rate in non-Aboriginal schools. It is hard to move some of these indicators. Just shoving money in through government programs is not how you do it. You have to get into the communities and give people the tools so that they can take charge of these things. You support the classroom teacher, the health care worker, the band councillor and the band administrator the best you can.
My predecessors were colonial governors who ran the communities through Indian agents. That is not the world we are in anymore, and we never want to go back there. We want to increase the capacity and the accountability of the band governments and their administrations.
Sorry if that is a long answer, but it is a very important question.
Senator Housakos: I appreciate your comments. If I understand correctly, then, where the Aboriginal communities are doing very well is where the private sector and the economy are driving northbound, and driving them northbound with them. If I understand correctly, in some of the pockets in the country where government has undertaken to solve some of the problems that exist, we have not been efficient or effective with our programs in getting it done.
Mr. Wernick: I would rephrase that. Where the government interventions have helped people get skills and education and have helped make them sort of job ready, they have had tremendous results. There is no point in training people if there is no job for them to go to, if I can put it that way.
A lot of the money you are looking at is just the maintenance of basic provincial programs. You have to think of me as the chief administrative officer of a very strange province of half a million people in 600 communities.
The Chair: I am mindful of the time and the commitment that the deputy minister has made to be with us. I have three people for a second round. I will suggest that you could take notes, Mr. Wernick and Ms. D'Eon, of these questions and then provide a written answer to us, unless, of course, you can answer it very quickly after you hear them.
Senator Neufeld: For First Nation people who live off-reserve and live in the same community as I would, doing similar work, are there health services and post-secondary services, in fact if there is money there available to those families, whether they live on- or off-reserve?
Mr. Wernick: Off-reserve people would get the same basic health services that you or I would get. What they get, wherever they live, is essentially a supplementary insurance plan that covers drugs, eyeglasses, physiotherapy, that kind of supplementary benefit plan. They would draw that down.
On post-secondary, you do not have to live on a reserve to get the post-secondary assistance, which is basically money for tuition and expenses to go to school.
Senator Neufeld: If you are living in a community next door to someone who is a First Nation, if their children need health services, such as dentistry or glasses or all those kinds of things, they would get those paid for. If you need to send your children away, both families, to post-secondary education — which, where I come from, could involve a thousand miles away — the costs would be paid for by government for the First Nation, but the other non-First Nation would have to pick that cost up. Do I understand that correctly?
Mr. Wernick: That is correct. One of the anomalies in the program is you could be living in Ottawa and you will have to go to your home community's band council to get the money.
Senator Ringuette: There is a community in either northern Saskatchewan or northern Manitoba that twice has been flooded. I think it is northern Saskatchewan. I saw a documentary about a month ago that they are living in almost an ice rink facility. They have been living there for quite a few months, since the summer. They were saying that the provincial government was ready to offer a parcel of land for them to move to but that your department was not moving. Therefore, they were looking at another year, maybe, before the entire community could have, and hope for, a decent, new place to move to. It seems that your department and the provinces were not sitting down to make sure that it was going to happen, and they were powerless. Has that happened? Is the negotiation happening? What is your benchmark with regard to making sure that community has decent housing, water and a school?
The Chair: Can you answer that quickly?
Mr. Wernick: Yes. Those are not the facts and you should not believe everything you hear in a media report. It is simply not the case. I know that is a shock to some of you.
The community you are probably referring to is Lake St. Martin. We are working closely with the province on a daily, if not weekly, basis. We will be happy to create an additional parcel of reserve land. It is actually the community that cannot decide which parcel they want to move to.
Senator Finley: Mr. Chair, you said we could refer to Supplementary Estimates (C) during these meetings, if I may.
In the INAC Supplementary Estimates (C) there is a grant on page 67 to the Maa-nulth First Nations for the acquisition of fisheries licences to the tune of some $4 million. Do we buy, on behalf of Aboriginals, fishing licences? Are we buying from them or what are we doing? What does this mean?
The Chair: It relates to Supplementary Estimates (C), if you are able to answer.
Mr. Wernick: Yes, I appreciate that. An important part of the treaties in British Columbia is usually defining specific fishing rights that are Aboriginal fishing rights. There is often what is called a food, social and ceremonial allocation to the band. These are always trumped by conservation in the overall fisheries management in the area.
In the sort of back and forth and the final settlement of Maa-nulth, which is five communities on Vancouver Island, part of the overall agreement was they did not really want to increase their treaty fishing rights, they just wanted to enter the market as commercial fishers. Instead of getting some of the money in the overall settlement, they got some of the money to go out in the market and buy licences on a willing-buyer, willing-seller basis. That happens from time to time.
You could ask DFO, but I think they are happier to have Aboriginal fishers operating as commercial fisheries rather than increase the treaty catch. It is a sensitive issue. It is a fixed resource with a lot of demand on it.
The Chair: Thank you. Colleagues, this concludes the time we had allotted for this particular session. We have been hearing from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada and the Deputy Minister, Mr. Wernick; and Director General, Planning and Resources Management, Pamela D'Eon.
Thank you very much for being here and helping the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance understand a bit more about what your department is doing.
Mr. Wernick: Thank you. My pleasure. We will be working with the clerk on the follow-up.
The Chair: As soon as you can get those undertakings answered, that would be very much appreciated.
Colleagues, before I adjourn the meeting, I will tell you that we have a session at our normal time on Tuesday. We have two different panels, HRSDC — so you can be preparing yourself over the weekend. The second panel will be Public Works and Government Services, Shared Services Canada and Natural Resources Canada. That is at 9:30 to 11:45 on Tuesday morning in our normal meeting place. Then we will have a session in the afternoon at 2:30 to 4:00: Correctional Services of Canada and Canadian Heritage.
That is all that the steering committee felt we would have time to look into before we do our interim report. Have in mind that we are charged with the supplementary estimates throughout the year, so if there is any other department or agency you would like to have before us, we can do that any time during the fiscal year.
If there is, before we do our interim report for interim supply, some department you absolutely feel you must hear from, please let us know. Otherwise, keep in mind that we do have a bit of a tight time frame within which to get our report in before the supply bills come. Our Library of Parliament is working hard to get those reports ready for us.
Senator Finley: Did you say Public Works was coming?
The Chair: Public Works, I did say that, second panel on Tuesday. DND is not able to attend in the next week.
That is all for this meeting.
(The committee adjourned.)