Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 2 - Evidence - December 3, 2013
OTTAWA, Tuesday, December 3, 2013
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 9:34 a.m. to examine and report on the federal government's constitutional, treaty, political and legal responsibilities to First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples, and on other matters generally relating to the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada.
Senator Dennis Glen Patterson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to welcome all honourable senators and all members of the public who are watching this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, either here in the room or via CPAC or the web.
I am Dennis Patterson from Nunavut, chair of the committee. Our mandate is to examine legislation and matters relating to the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada generally. In order to understand the concerns of our constituents, we regularly invite witnesses who can educate us on the topics that are currently of importance to us and them.
These sessions are valuable in helping the committee to decide what future studies it will undertake in order to best serve the Aboriginal community.
The witnesses today have been invited to provide general background information on the broad question of financing infrastructure on reserves, which relates to capital projects, including schools or housing, among other things. This morning, we will hear from the First Nations National Building Officers Association.
I should tell the committee that we had a witness from the National Aboriginal Economic Development Board who was planning to be here this morning, but flight and weather delays will prevent that witness from coming this morning.
Before hearing from our witnesses, I would like to go around the table and ask the members of the committee to please introduce themselves.
Senator Moore: Good morning. I'm Wilfred Moore, a Liberal senator from Nova Scotia.
Senator Dyck: Good morning. I'm Senator Lillian Dyck from Saskatchewan.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Senator Lovelace Nicholas from New Brunswick.
Senator Watt: Senator Watt, Nunavik.
Senator Raine: Senator Greene Raine from B.C.
Senator Tannas: Senator Tannas from Alberta.
Senator Beyak: Senator Lynn Beyak from northwestern Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Champagne: Good morning. My name is Andrée Champagne, a senator from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Wallace: John Wallace from New Brunswick.
The Chair: I would like to ask members of the committee to welcome our first witnesses with me. From the First Nations National Building Officers Association, we have: Keith Maracle, Vice President, Government Relations; and John Kiedrowski, Project Manager. We look forward to your presentation, which will be followed by questions from senators.
Keith Maracle, Vice President, Government Relations, First Nations National Building Officers Association: Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to meet all of you. On behalf of my fellow colleagues and executive of the First Nations National Building Officers Association, I want to thank the Senate committee for giving us this opportunity to speak to you about this very important issue for our people.
I am probably one of the most experienced people in Canada in Native housing. I started in 1974, working for my own First Nation in housing, and in 1980 I became the chief building inspector in Ontario, through an outfit that we formed called the Indian Inspection Unit, which, at the time, was a pilot project funded through Indian Affairs and partly by CMHC.
I have been all across Canada. I have worked from Labrador to British Columbia, and I have seen many, many of our First Nations. We all have the very same problems. When I go down East, everyone says to me, ``What does a westerner know about housing in the East?'' When I go out West, they ask me what an easterner knows about housing out there. We all face the same problems.
I have seen some good stuff. I have seen a lot of good changes over the years, and I have seen stuff that you shake your head at and wonder why this was allowed to happen.
We'll try to put some information on the table today for you to discuss, and if we can help out in the question period, we certainly will. My friend and colleague John Kiedrowski will touch on key areas of challenges. He is the project manager for our association.
I would like to give you a bit of background on FNNBOA, which is the First Nations National Building Officers Association. It's a volunteer, not-for-profit organization. We registered in 2003. The reason that we all got together was that travelling across the country and everything with my colleagues to the different provinces, I found a huge variation in the way services were provided. It was just unbelievable. One province could do this and the other one couldn't. We're all working for the same federal government, so what the heck is going on?
So we got together. We had a project manager from CMHC that helped us out. We put together a proposal, and that is when John came on board and we started the association. We do housing construction and plans review of the houses, and we advise First Nations communities. In most cases, we are more like project managers to them. We help them get their projects on track.
Indian Affairs has changed its name so many times. Don't get me wrong when I say this, but it is still Indian Affairs to me. AANDC, or whatever they call themselves these days, and CMHC gave us some project-based funding over the years, some in 2013: about $60,000 from Indian Affairs for a series of projects and $15,000 from CHMC. We don't get a lot of capacity development money. We have to get it through projects, and by the time we get those projects done, we take a bit off the top to help ourselves, and we have to pay the bills. It is typical of what goes on: We get money and it is outsourced not only with us but also with Native housing.
We are a national organization. There are a couple of other national organizations that AANDC supports, and one of them gets $1.4 million a year. We have no sustainable dollars at all other than volunteer. We are the only non- political national organization that focuses on housing. There is no association that focuses on it as we do in the area.
I would like to have John speak about our authority having jurisdiction, and we are having quite a round with that right now. We have been back and forth. I have been across Canada and have made presentations in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and the Maritimes on authority having jurisdiction. I will let John speak to that.
John Kiedrowski, Project Manager, First Nations National Building Officers Association: The authority having jurisdiction, just to understand what this concept means, is where authority is given to a governing body. In any area of housing, for example, it allows a municipality, which is always the authority having jurisdiction in housing, to take its role and provide building codes, inspections and a governance to ensure that the homes are safe and sound within their authority having jurisdiction.
There has been an effort to transpose this concept to First Nations. It started back in 1983 when the comprehensive agreements between First Nations and the federal government changed and it put an onus back on the First Nations to be responsible for the construction of their capital projects. It forced everything through a comprehensive agreement.
At the time, and even today, it has never been clear through policy or legislation how First Nations became the authority having jurisdiction. Throughout a series of presentations with chiefs and councils, we found that they strongly believe that homes being built on First Nations are the responsibility of the federal government; but with the comprehensive agreements, the onus is back on the chiefs and councils.
It is almost a political scapegoat for First Nations because they can blame the federal government for bad housing and poor infrastructure. The reality is that it's their responsibility. So I don't think there is much debate among those who understand the concept who the authority having jurisdiction is. The problem is that there's been a challenge in providing the capacity and what it means when it comes to construction projects. We think this is the elephant in the room when you talk about housing and who the authority is, who is responsible and how funds are being transferred from the federal government to First Nations to ensure that homes are being built to National Building Code standards.
We found that some First Nations communities have adopted authority having jurisdiction. They have moved forward and passed bylaws and they have inspections. Those communities have removed the political undercurrent to the establishment of housing in First Nations communities. They don't tie it to votes or friendships or anything except to ensuring that homes are being built. Those communities are very few and far between.
In terms of who is taking authority having jurisdiction and passing bylaws, based upon our review of bylaws submitted to the federal government, approximately 20 communities have done this to ensure that homes are being built to National Building Code standards. There is a huge gap among most of the communities. You can see this gap when you look at the governance.
I will turn it back over to Keith to talk more about building codes.
Mr. Maracle: We have a really hard time getting building codes administered at the First Nation level because the building inspector has no authority. I go into a community and look at a house and write a report that there is something wrong. When I go back the next time, it is still the same way — nothing was done. The contractor was paid and on his way, and now we have another dilapidated house — built dilapidated to start with. One of our problems is that First Nations don't see themselves as having the authority to control that, and it is a very hard thing to get them to do. That is why we have been making these presentations.
Politically, all of the people on the ground — the housing coordinators and the people in the office running the housing programs — all understand it thoroughly. They also need something to help them do their jobs because if the chief or a councillor says to you, ``My friend Bill built that place and you're holding the money; give it to him.'' What do you do? You give it to him.
When we go in and do inspections, if they don't like the inspection report that we write they might ask us to change it. I've been asked to change inspection reports: ``Oh, just mark it done.'' I've never done 100 per cent on an inspection report on a house, and I have been working at inspections since 1980. I have never done 100 per cent completion on a house because they are never completed 100 per cent.
Another issue that comes along is qualified versus certified. It just says ``qualified professional.'' There is no definition. It just says ``qualified professional.'' What does that mean? I go to people and try to get them to join the association and band together to get this stuff on track, but the guy says to me, ``Why should I bother to join your association for $100 a year when I can be the pizza delivery man on Friday and, after an election on Saturday, be the building inspector on Monday; and CMHC and Indian Affairs will accept my signature on an inspection report?'' This is why we have been pushing for certification for a number of years.
When we talked with CMHC, they said, ``Oh, we don't do stuff like that; all we want is compliance inspections.'' So you go in and ask: ``Is the roof on?'' ``Yes.'' ``Are the shingles on?'' ``Yes.'' ``Are they on sideways or the right way?'' ``It doesn't matter.'' Whether they're on the roof is all they want to know.
When you go to AANDC and ask them about it, they say, ``Oh, CMHC takes care of that.'' So even in what we're trying to do, we get bounced back and forth between the two.
Forgive me if it sounds like I am biting the hand that is feeding me here, but there is something that just isn't right in this. We need to get some capacity development for our own people, for the inspectors. We need to get some professionalism amongst ourselves.
We applied to HRSDC for funding to train some more building inspectors. What did they tell us? It is not considered an occupation. I have been doing it since 1974, but evidently I have not been occupied. I've been occupied in something else. We get stuff like that.
Every place we go to find funding to enhance the inspection people and the housing administrators, it is not there, or it is there in a limited form. That is the thing with them.
In your paperwork, you call for four inspections on a house. If you have ever built anything in the province, there are seven or eight inspections required. You don't go to the next phase of work until that one is finished, and if you inspect it and it's not right, you have to fix it before you can go to the next stage. We have nothing like that. We have nothing that we can use to help control that, to help move things forward.
We have the ability as Canadians, both Native and non-Native, to build the perfect house. CMHC has all of that information there, but the National Building Code only covers health and safety. It covers nothing in energy efficiency, nothing like that. It only covers health and safety, which is great. So when contractors come on the reserve and say, ``Chief and council, we know you don't build your houses right; they are built badly and we will build your house according to the building code,'' I say to them, ``What the building code means is that it's the worst you can do before the house falls down, the very least you can do before the house falls down.'' That is Part 9 of the National Building Code. We have to somehow put some incentives and things in there to get them to bring the standards up. The minute I go to a First Nation and say that we can do this here and this here to make this house energy efficient, they say, ``We don't have any money for it.'' There is no place you can turn to get any because they have hydro incentives, but 10 per cent of it applies to the First Nation and the rest doesn't.
Native housing is in a bad place between federal and provincial. I hear that all the time, ``You guys are federal jurisdiction and there is nothing we can do about it.'' It gets so annoying and so frustrating. Like I said, the number of years that I have been at it, I see First Nations that want to do better but don't know how to go about it. I am a contractor for CMHC. I do training courses. They put together a number of training courses for First Nation peoples — mould remediation; let's clear the air; homeowner maintenance; a better built house; all that kind of stuff. I go in for three or four days. I can peak these people's interest. They want to do better, but I never go back and see them again. There is no follow-up. The reason there is no follow-up? There is no money for follow-up. So I go there once, get them all excited and walk away. So they are starting to think that I am as bad. They are starting to call me a do-gooder too, but I can get their ear because I am First Nation. I can tell them the way it is because I am First Nation, and they will listen to me. They understand me, and I can understand them.
That is the situation. That is the issue. Mr. Kiedrowski can maybe put more parameters around it.
Mr. Kiedrowski: We did a study looking at the lifecycle of homes in First Nations. We surveyed most of the communities. We broke them down into three areas, one that had absolutely no governance, no authority or jurisdiction policies. We found that if you take an average home of $180,000, over a 50-year period, they are building that home approximately five times due to repairs because there are no building codes, foundations are falling down, roofs are leaking and the walls inside aren't built to code. Theoretically, that home, after 50 years, is costing $900,000.
If you look at third-party management, one of the reasons for third-party management of First Nations has a lot to do with poor housing policies and costs related to housing. Don't forget that a lot of First Nations do not charge rent. There are no maintenance fees to live in those homes, so there is no input or output cash flow on those homes on First Nations. The monies that they borrow to build are the only monies that they have, and if they need repairs, by and large they would, unfortunately, have to take it from another policy, such as education or health, in order to pay for housing.
That could be easily fixed. I understand that rent is a challenge, but they can pay a maintenance fee. They can pay some type of accommodating cost of living in those homes to offset the maintenance.
I would like to wrap up one of the key issues. I passed out a schematic chart with four squares. I think this really sums up the challenges in First Nations. If you look at this chart on First Nations housing in terms of incentives and disincentives, you will see that most of the First Nations in the lower left-hand quadrant follow current policies. Why is that? There are negative incentives. There is no incentive for a chief and council to take on jurisdiction. There are no incentives for federal governments to change their policy to ensure consistency between INAC and CMHC so that the policies match. It is all disincentives for the regions to have the same policies and understanding and interpretations.
At the same time, you have a very low performance. There are no performance measures or indicators on First Nations. Funds are going from the federal government to the First Nations. There are no performance measures from the federal government in terms of whether the funds are being spent properly.
Take the concept of off-reserve expenditures. If you are going to borrow money to build a home, a bank ensures that that home is being built and wants to make sure, if you are getting a $200,000 loan, that you have a $200,000 house there before they release their funds. There is no similar due diligence regarding funding on First Nations.
You also have very high risk. There are no risk assessments, no risk understanding. Contractors write their own contracts if there are contracts. There is no tendering of contracts. There is no transparency, so there's no procurement. They receive the funds and they have to build quickly. They don't build it to code. It is all very high risk.
There are communities, though, in the high quadrant of the table that are doing well. They are exercising their authority and having jurisdiction. They have very little to do with federal government funding of houses. They use the money that they receive from casinos and interest from oil and gas revenues. They have moved on. These are the communities that everyone would want to live in. They are doing extremely well.
How do you get the most of the communities in the lower quadrant up to the higher quadrant? I think that is the challenge. That is the challenge that this committee has to answer. How do you do that?
Somebody mentioned that you need the tools. I think it is more than the tools. Introducing concepts such as the signing of declarations works well off-reserve but has very low impact on-reserve because the apparatus, the structures and the governance do not exist.
The Chair: Did you want to wrap up, Mr. Maracle?
Mr. Maracle: Please, if I could.
I watched this on TV, on CPAC. I was watching the other night when they were talking about skills development, and the minister was there. He was talking about Aboriginal training. One gentleman was hard on the minister and said that we have Aboriginal training. The problem with the training out there for Aboriginal people is this: It's a blanket over everybody. It works well in Southern Canada, but in mid-Canada it's so-so and in Northern Canada it's zip. They keep saying they want industry partners, but there are none up there. There are very few in Central Canada. All of the ones that I've ever been involved with in Ontario require you to be on social assistance or drawing unemployment to get into the four-year apprenticeship program. As soon as that runs out, you're off the program. It's a four-year program and there's funding for one year; so next year we start another batch because we have another batch there. We have never ever been able to get enough money. I went to both CMHC and Indian Affairs in the late 1980s and early 1990s to try to get a commitment of four years for five people. I couldn't get it. You just cannot get it.
They've got the strategies, but they need to be regionalized, or something like that, because they're not working. The gentleman said, ``We have X dollars left from last year's three-year program, and we'll role it into the next three-year program.'' Why do you have money left over? It's because nobody applies — that's why. Look into why people aren't applying and you'll find that they just can't make it because they can't find an industrial partner to come with them — carpenters, electricians, plumbers, heating contractors, and even building inspectors. There is nothing out there.
The Chair: I would like to thank both witnesses for a very informative and candid presentation; it will be very useful to the committee.
Mr. Kiedrowski, you spoke about a big-picture analysis that you did of housing. Would you be able to make that available to the committee?
Mr. Kiedrowski: Yes.
The Chair: Mr. Maracle, can you give us a brief picture of your organization, its composition and its funding before we turn to questions?
Mr. Maracle: The First Nations National Building Officers Association, as I said at the beginning, is a volunteer organization. This year we have $15,000 from CMHC. We used to get about $50,000 from CMHC. Over the years it was reduced each year, and this year the bottom fell just right out of it — maybe it was new people, new thoughts and new directions.
We have members in all provinces. Our board of directors is made up of a member from each province, and our executive committee is made up of the members from each province.
We do not have funding to get together. We make a little built off the projects we do, but like I said before, they give us $15,000 and we have to do some projects with it. We take 15 per cent to 20 per cent off the top for administration, so we don't have a lot. We try to get to conferences to get our name out there and to get people to understand us better, but conferences cost money, and they quit the funding for that. We no longer can do that because they didn't think it was doing what it was designed to do or we wanted it to do, I guess you might say.
As it stands, we have a certification council. We're the only inspection group in Canada that has a certification council. The home inspectors are just starting to get there now. The municipal inspectors are trying to go there but, as you probably well know, they're governed by provincial legislation, so it's a different ballgame for them. We are trying to get there. We have some certified members across Canada, but we have nothing to offer our members.
We cannot even get our members all together in one spot without a conference call. We had a couple of our AGMs out West because most of our support is in Alberta and Saskatchewan. I've travelled there from here on my own dime because there is no funding of any kind. When the local CMHC people are asked if they could support the trip by paying my airfare — and I don't care about food because I don't need to eat anyway, or my motel room — they say, ``No, we can't use our funding for that kind of stuff.''
Somehow or other, FNNBOA needs to get some recognition for the years that we've put in and for the years that I think we're going to be very valuable to the Native communities in the not-too-distant future.
Mr. Kiedrowski: FNNBOA is a national association and its focus is housing. There are no other associations or collectives that focus on infrastructure and housing collectively. While we're looking at residential projects, there are also infrastructure projects for roads and sewers and large commercial projects. There is no coordination taking place at all of any of these activities, and large amounts of federal money are going towards infrastructure. We have talked with Indian and Northern Affairs and CMHC to establish associations similar to what they have, for example, the Aboriginal Financial Officers Association. It's an excellent organization that one could model off, but the government would have to provide $1.3 million or $1.4 million to establish that type of association, and it just doesn't appear to be a priority at this stage.
The Chair: Was that the organization you referred to when you said there were other organizations getting substantial funding?
Mr. Kiedrowski: Yes. The AFOA is an excellent organization that has received a contribution of around $1.3 million for the last several years. They have full-time staff and it's really well-organized. They run probably one of the best conferences. They provide training to band administrators for certification, similar to what we've been trying to do over the years, but unfortunately there are no revenues.
Mr. Maracle: If I could make one more comment on what John was saying, when we get into the infrastructure projects, one thing we need to address is that we have the fox looking after the chicken coop. The builder hires the inspector. Is he going to tell the builder that something is wrong or that he didn't put the right gravel on the road or that he didn't use the right-sized sewer pipe? He won't say anything because if he does, he won't have a job. One thing in the agreement is that the contractor or the engineer or the architect is to provide the inspectors. The fox is looking after the chicken coop. It has not worked and it will never work.
Senator Dyck: Thank you for your presentation this morning, gentlemen. You've raised a lot of issues. My mind is kind of spinning at the moment. It seems like there are a lot of Catch-22s. I'll start with questions regarding inspection. You've raised a number of issues. I'll start with the last question that came to me.
The inspection process seems to have a lot of flaws, and you're indicating there is not enough money for FNNBOA or to set up training. Is it possible to make the argument that the money we would save if we had proper inspection, because then the houses would be built according to code and might last longer, would be more than the money that you actually need to train more inspectors so that you have greater capacity? Do you think that's a viable argument?
Mr. Maracle: It is a very viable argument, and we've used it in the past but have not gotten anywhere with it. We have tried to show them how much longer a house can last and how much less maintenance you have. The majority of the First Nations out there wait for the first five years and then get RRAP to extend the life of the house for another 15. You're right in saying that needs to be done, but I don't know how you go about it.
Senator Dyck: I didn't quite understand. You said the majority of First Nations extend the life of the house by getting RRAP?
Mr. Maracle: RRAP is the Rural Rehabilitation Assistance Program, and you can't get it on a house until after it's five years old. So they build a house, and there are deficiencies in it when it's built. The deficiencies start showing up almost immediately, and so after five years they apply for RRAP. That's why, as Mr. Kiedrowski was saying, we put so much money into just rebuilding a house all the time.
Senator Dyck: The incentives need to be directed toward chief and council and towards AANDC and CMHC.
Mr. Maracle: Yes.
Senator Dyck: So now you're saying chief and council don't have the incentive. What about the government agencies — AANDC and CMHC?
Mr. Maracle: I'll have to let Mr. Kiedrowski answer that one. I'm not polished enough to talk to those guys.
Mr. Kiedrowski: Our view is that you have policies. If you look at the Deloitte report on Attawapiskat, I think it summed it up quite well in terms of how funds are transferred from CMHC to First Nations and the funding agreements between Indian and Northern Affairs and First Nations. The disincentive exists because if a home is not being built properly, money is still being transferred. So there is no incentive to build to code. Money still flows to the communities notwithstanding that they are not being built to code. You have sign-offs occurring that are basically sign-offs for policy objectives of housing and for incremental payments but don't necessarily mean that the inspection is meeting code.
If you have a First Nation that has no bylaws saying you built to code, you are only building to a policy because there are no enforcement capabilities. Mr. Maracle does not have the power to say, ``Wait a minute, that foundation is going to crack; it's built on a swamp, so don't build it there.'' If the site inspection is passed, there's no power to say, ``Stop the construction.'' If we build off-reserve — and I'm sure we've all been in some type of contract — if it's not meeting any code, it's stopped. You have to fix it, and, if not, you have recourse against the contractors. What is happening is the disincentive.
Under capital funding under comprehensive agreements, you need a procurement policy. You have to put in a tender. In housing, under the minor capital, you do not have to put those projects out to tender. So the whole thing is just flawed from CMHC's policies and INAC's policies to the policies as to how the construction process is taking place in First Nations.
Senator Dyck: What would you recommend to fix that?
Mr. Kiedrowski: I'm looking at the time here. I'm sure we can try to squeeze in some of the main challenges.
I would argue that you need to pass national legislation, similar to a water/wastewater one, to say that First Nations have to introduce something like the build safe home legislation of First Nations. They have to meet building and fire codes. All funds have to be attributed to funding policies that they're being built to code. If First Nations cannot comply with a building code structure, then there's a third party that can build on their behalf. We talked about this in a focus group, which I will make available to the committee. Some of these communities do not have the capacity and will not have the capacity no matter what you do or how much money you put in. You could put a gazillion dollars into this; it will not fix the problem.
In those cases, why can't a third party organization or an engineering firm build those homes to code on behalf of the band? What happens if the band wants to take it on itself and to use it as an employment agency? We understand that, and it's important to do that. However, when the chief and council are hiring their relatives who do not have certification to build homes, or when they lend money to the family because ``my father could not build,'' pay it out and the home is not built, there need to be better controls on that. Right now, it's a free-for-all.
There are excellent examples out there. If you look at Kamloops or Kelowna, there are some wonderful examples of construction practices in First Nations. As I said, I would move there tomorrow. They are really well done. They're built to code. Their structure is good. Their funding is proper. Again, there are no politics related to housing, which I think is an undercurrent to a lot of these issues as well.
Senator Tannas: Thank you for coming here and for your candid presentation. It's clear we are hearing from folks at the front line.
You mentioned Kamloops and Kelowna. Could you give us some others that you would hold up as examples of success?
Mr. Kiedrowski: We have to think about that because how do you determine success? Westbank has done well. As you mentioned, Kelowna has done well. I believe there's Mr. Maracle's community, Tyendinaga, to a certain extent, and Six Nations in large part. It seems, as well, that communities near an urban centre build better homes. If you look at the Kamloops situation, they had an agreement with the Kamloops city to provide inspection services. They rely on that, as part of a municipal agreement, for their inspection services. I believe Westbank originally relied upon Kelowna municipality to provide those services until they had the capacity.
It's really difficult to say how many communities are really passing. If you look at the Prince Albert Grand Council, which is an interesting model, they're responsible for 20 communities. I keep on losing the number of how many, but they are looking at providing capacity in terms of infrastructure. As part of the council's requirements and mandate, they're looking at providing inspection services and infrastructure services to all of the communities they serve. Within the PAGC area, Lac la Ronge has really good housing, but why do they have good housing? They have good governance. They have a proper framework, and good governance also relates to good housing.
Whitecap is another good example. They're moving forward in terms of some excellent housing structures.
We did a review in Tsuu T'ina, outside of Calgary, and they are building some really good homes. They are doing proper structures, proper governance.
Senator Meredith: Thank you so much, gentlemen, for your presentation.
Mr. Maracle, I am really in shock today to hear that we have First Nations people living in homes built with deficiencies from the get-go. We know there are codes that govern the way excavation is done, how a foundation goes in, and how one ought to construct a decent home to ensure that it's level. You talked, sort of jokingly, about how CMHC views a home that is built. We had CMHC before us, and it seems like there is this back and forth with respect to codes and that they're not responsible for it.
What's the way forward here with respect to ensuring that these homes are built properly? Please elaborate for me a little bit about the RRAP program and the fact that this is deliberate. Is it a money grab to be able to get additional funds because you know in five years this will be falling apart?
I have a question in relation to Mr. Kiedrowski's point about a home being built that costs $900,000 rather than built correctly for $180,000 and will last for an average of 25 years. In terms of typical homes being built, there is some sort of warranty for 25 years. Would you elaborate for me on that and give an indication of how we move forward?
I'm going to come back to Mr. Kiedrowski in a bit with respect to his ``third party'' suggestion.
Mr. Maracle: One thing, as I said before, is that somehow or other our First Nations inspectors have to get some type of authority. Like I said before, I can go in, write a report and nothing is done. I was called into a community to look at a project that was done by a four-star off-reserve contractor. It was finished and was called in as a third party by the First Nation to have a look. Every house had three pages of deficiencies. Those were the ones I could see. Those were not the ones that they had covered up.
In one house, they brought a furnace down the stairs and set it down. The guy hooked it up where they set it down. You had to duck in order to get underneath the exhaust pipe and other such things. This was a four-star builder. This First Nation said, ``We're not going to use our own people this time because we don't trust them; we're going to hire a contractor that will do it right for us,'' and this is what they ended up with.
It was a case where the fox was looking after the chicken coop. It was the contractor who had supplied the inspections. Again, we come back to this third party stuff in there.
Our people need capacity development. I'm someone whose needs to know why things are being done. I've got to know why they're being done and what's the purpose of doing it, but even my own colleagues don't keep up to date because they have to pay for it themselves. They are not part of the tribal council, they are not part of this or that, and there's no funding for training.
We applied to HRSDC. If we had an association set up we could look at retraining our people every five years.
I'm a member of WETT, Wood Energy Technical Training, for installation of wood stoves and chimneys. Every five years I get a paper saying, ``You have to take these two courses and you've got to get this mark or you're not going to be able to hold onto that licence.'' Maybe I'm wrong, but I think we need something like that in place for our people. With that type of a credential we can start getting better respect in the industry, and not only from our own people but from CMHC, from Indian Affairs and from outside agencies.
The Chair: Where does the authority to allow the contractor to provide inspection come from?
Mr. Maracle: I think that's part of the agreement they sign with Indian Affairs and CMHC on these housing projects.
The Chair: Is this part of the comprehensive funding agreements?
Mr. Maracle: Yes, the comprehensive funding agreement.
Mr. Kiedrowski: The comprehensive agreement states that the inspector has to be a qualified inspector but provides no parameters on what that means. Keith gave the example of one day you're delivering pizza and the next day you're doing inspections. There are no parameters and no understanding.
Again, if you look at the Deloitte report on Attawapiskat, they also challenged that the concept of ``qualified professional,'' which is very similar to what we've been arguing, is a strong certification.
If I can get back to Senator Meredith's comments, there are a couple of other larger pictures. If you look at First Nation housing, right now we have two agencies responsible. We have INAC, Indian and Northern Affairs, and we have CMHC. The question is: Do you really need two departments to administer a program?
If we look at Indian and Northern Affairs, houses are funded through minor capital funding. It's a block fund that goes to the community and there are no performance measures attached to that money.
My suggestion would be that Indian and Northern Affairs needs to move the housing out of minor capital and make housing its own portfolio. That way the department can tie performance measures and accountability to those funds. Right now there is very little accountability to those funds through minor capital.
Senator Meredith: There is also your other suggestion, which is that we bring in legislation.
Mr. Kiedrowski: Absolutely.
Senator Meredith: Is that the only way we're going to get quality built homes on First Nations, homes that are well built and inspected according to code?
Mr. Kiedrowski: I've been on this file for quite a while and I work as a criminologist. I'm not one for slapping down legislation. I'm for voluntary codes.
Senator Meredith: We're talking about people's lives here.
Mr. Kiedrowski: That's right. If you look at the fire death rates on First Nations, it's really a result of bad code compliance. First Nations have the highest death rate in North America in terms of burn rates, and that's from bad housing construction.
Fire response is a whole other issue and it's not part of this topic, but if you look at the way the homes are being built, they're not being built to code. They're death traps. If you look at the number of fires, they're not in the larger capital buildings such as band offices because those are being built to code. They're required to be built to code under capital expenditures. Those inspections have engineers who sign off and they are built properly. But if you look at homes, which are really given to the First Nations under authority of having jurisdiction, they are not meeting code compliance.
Senator Meredith: The other aspect of this is the chief and council. What is their appetite for this kind of change taking place? That's the crux of the matter here, where they will lose control.
I have a suggestion, chair. Because of the lack of leadership, I have to take into consideration the lives of people. I'm not being critical; I'm being straight here because this has happened too often. We've seen the reports about young children getting burned and so on. It has to stop. Where is the appetite for chief and council to see measures really take place that will impact upon their communities?
Mr. Kiedrowski: I believe politically you're going to have difficulty with it. Personally, they're going to say, ``Please give me an excuse so that I can build better homes so I can actually move forward; remove the politics out of the housing in communities and I can move forward.'' I believe there would be a strong buy-in and, again, you have the capacity, the training and the framework to go with that. I believe they would say, ``Thank you for getting me out of the situation where I'm trying to make everybody happy in my community and I'm trying to do the best I can, but by a framework, now I must do that.''
To your question, there is a movement taking place right now where First Nations are actually hiring legal counsel and launching lawsuits against First Nations for badly built homes. They are unsafe, they're moldy, and now they're taking action against their own community members saying, ``You're putting me in this home that's unsafe and my grandmother just fell off the stairs because there are no railings.'' I think there's now an undercurrent where a lot of the First Nations who have lived off-reserve who are moving on-reserve know their rights and they are pushing them.
Senator Meredith: Excellent. Thank you so much.
Senator Dyck: You did mention off-reserve and people moving back to the reserve in terms of the human rights complaints, but my question would be this: Do you see a trend of, let's say, retired, off-reserve members who've just regained their status and want to move back to the reserve, or young professionals who just got their education and want to move back, whose demands in housing might be different from people who've lived on the reserve? Is that a trend?
Mr. Kiedrowski: That is a very good question. We believe that it is a trend. We see that people who have built homes and lived off-reserve know the structures. They know they have to buy a permit and have inspections; they know this process. When they move back to the community, they receive their land entitlement and want to build a home. They go to the chief and council, say they want to build a home and ask what they should do. They are told to build it. There is no code compliance and there are no structures in place. That will push the envelope much further in terms of accountability to many First Nations where people are moving back.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Whose responsibility is it to provide education and training in First Nations to build houses?
Mr. Maracle: We don't know. That's one of the questions.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Would it not be the government to ensure that these houses are being built properly through education and training?
Mr. Maracle: If the government wants these houses, and they do — I'm not disputing that — then they have to put the capacity in place to do it. The capacity is the training.
I listened the other night when they were talking about training dollars, but they are not doing the job because those dollars are not targeted properly. It is not that the training isn't there; it's just that the means and the path to get to that training are so obscure that most people give up trying to get the training.
There is another side to that coin: A number of us who volunteer for this organization have self-trained in a lot of things. I have received a pile of training over the years from CMHC. There were programs to help us get ahead technically, but all that is starting to dry up now. I am 68 years old. I am just about done work, but when I turn around to look, I see that there is no one coming up behind me to take over. I will have to work until I'm 100 years old to keep the message out there because there is no funding to entice people into this role.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: You mentioned the challenges between the government, chief and council of how to build these homes. Do you think the challenge is that if we let somebody else come in, our funding will be cut off?
Mr. Maracle: I am not from that end of things, but I agree that the challenge is what they are thinking. You can get some of them to understand it and to work with you, but the ones who don't have much are the ones who are worried about that. ``If we give this funding to a third party to do that, are we losing it?''
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Exactly; yes.
Mr. Maracle: About 30 years ago I met an elder when I was doing a training course. The elder said something to me that I have never forgotten. He said: ``You know something, Keith? You will make a good trainer because you are a story teller and our people learn from story tellers. That's how we learn and move forward. You have to remember one thing: Housing to First Nations people for thousands and thousands of years was shelter. We didn't live in a house; that's European style. We lived in shelters outside. In the last 200 years, they tried to take us from the outside and put us into European-style houses.''
It's a big fight. In Southern Canada we've probably achieved that a lot, but in Central Canada not a lot, and in Northern Canada we haven't achieved much at all. Those thousands of years are still coming up deep inside us and in our thinking.
Senator Watt: Thank you for your presentation.
You talked about authorities having jurisdiction in housing. Do you see your organization having these authorities not only regionally but also nationally? Is that what you are talking about?
Mr. Kiedrowski: Can you repeat the question, please?
Senator Watt: In your presentation, you talked about authorities having jurisdiction over self-government housing. You also talked about the fact that consideration should be given to a legislative compliance framework with the authorities having jurisdiction being stated clearly, and that the framework should have funding capacity.
Do you see your organization becoming that instrument to provide what you are talking about in terms of the codes that have to be followed, knowing that all communities across Canada have a great deal of problems, not only in the South but also in the North?
Mr. Kiedrowski: That is a good question. We have been advocating for that with CMHC and basically the federal government. First Nations have been arguing for self-governance and self-determination. Authority having jurisdiction is probably one of the best examples of self-governance as they would take control of housing. They would pass the bylaws, put in permit systems and develop the structures to ensure that homes are built in accordance with National Building Code standards and all the other standards. It is probably the best example of self-governance.
We understand that many communities will never have that capacity. Yes, we have the powers through legislation and we propose to have the authority having jurisdiction, but some won't have the capacity as they are too small or too remote.
We have been arguing as well that a group like FNNBOA, or even a third-party organization, can be hired to be responsible. For example, Keith could be hired to provide inspection services and capacity for those communities. Our association can give that type of service, which we believe will address the problem for many communities that will never have the capacity. That's a good portion.
Communities near urban centres can adapt easily to that capacity — people living on-reserve, off-reserve or other capacity. In the remote areas, authority having jurisdiction will be difficult for communities to implement.
Senator Watt: I guess you are moving in the direction of establishing a national network.
Mr. Kiedrowski: Absolutely.
Senator Watt: For that reason, you are calling upon the government to pass legislation to make it absolutely clear that the contractors who come into the community will not do what they usually do in order to cut costs.
Mr. Kiedrowski: Correct.
Senator Watt: That happens not only in the South but also pretty regularly in the North. You are basically telling the committee that when we make recommendations, to ensure that we keep in mind that things are not happening the way they should happen, let alone that fact that they do not follow the code.
Mr. Kiedrowski: From a risk management perspective, many of these communities don't have procurement policies and contractors. If you are going to be the authority having jurisdiction, those should be required. If taxpayers' dollars are used to build homes, there has to be a procurement policy to ensure that there is good value for the money; and that doesn't exist.
Senator Watt: In order to develop alliances with the leaders in the community, I guess you have your work cut out for you to realign yourself so that they will be prepared to hand the authority over to you.
Another question that we have to keep in mind is what is wrong with the authority if the authority is put in place properly with legislation to cover that? The provincial government already has certain sets of codes that are acceptable to Canada. So would you be in the process down the road of negotiating with the provincial government, along with the chiefs in the community?
Mr. Kiedrowski: If you look at Kamloops, for example, they have the authorities in place and passed their bylaws — the same with Westbank — and they chose, if I recall, to adopt their jurisdiction of choice. In their case, they adopted the British Columbia building codes. A lot of the authorities have the choice and are adapting either the National Building Code or the provincial building codes as authorities.
We have to remember that building codes are only a minimum standard, and we have been arguing to establish a national technical specification for the First Nations to raise the bar well beyond what the code requires. Some of the communities that are in windy areas of the country need to do better in terms of how to apply their shingles.
While the authority would be a minimum, there still needs to be capacity to provide technical specifications that communities can easily adopt.
Senator Watt: In other words, what you are promoting is you would like to have an inspector on the site where the construction is taking place. We already have a great deal of problems within the reserve system and also in the Arctic because there are no inspectors on the site when the development is taking place. I think that is a must.
Mr. Kiedrowski: Yes.
Senator Watt: The government ended up spending a whole lot of money renovating those buildings, some of them only after three, four or five years. In the North, for example, I think for one building to be renovated, you are talking about almost half a million dollars. I got that information about three weeks ago. I was shocked when I was told the amount of dollars that they spent on the renovation. I think all those could be avoided if you could have inspectors on the site.
You are also talking about the fact that you need to go back to the community to deal with things that you left behind after the construction has taken place, so there is no money for that.
My last question is out of curiosity. I am listening to two messages here. One has a non-profit nature and the other has a profit nature. Why have you decided to choose to set up a non-profit corporation rather than a profit corporation? I will leave that with you. You don't have to answer.
The Chair: Do you want to try, Mr. Kiedrowski?
Mr. Kiedrowski: It's a valid question. I believe while the title is non-profit for tax purposes, the structure, and Mr. Maracle alluded to it, is that FNNBOA could easily be an association to move housing forward and work on profits. Notwithstanding the title of non-profits, associations are profitable by definition as well. I believe we are well positioned to move forward to the next decades, addressing not only housing but also infrastructure.
Senator Watt: Thank you.
Senator Moore: I want to sincerely thank the witnesses for being here; this has been very educational.
Mr. Kiedrowski, you mentioned you are a criminologist. Have you been involved in FNNBOA since it began in 2003? What is your background and connection?
We also heard from Mr. Maracle. What is yours?
Mr. Kiedrowski: As to my background and how I got involved with First Nation inspectors, I was involved with helping to set up a regulatory framework to regulate home inspectors off-reserve and municipal build officials and to set up a framework through voluntary codes and self-regulatory systems. That is how I originally got involved. I have been involved with the First Nation inspectors since, I believe, 1999, so I have been with them from day one.
Senator Moore: I am trying to figure out where to start. There are so many fundamental things, and the chair asked a very basic question. We heard that the builder actually hires the building inspector. I think you said that, and the chair asked who permits that or who sets that rule. I'm not sure if you said CMHC or Indian Affairs. Is it both? Who is responsible?
Mr. Maracle: It comes through the funding agreement.
Senator Moore: Depending upon which department provides the funds.
Mr. Maracle: Yes.
Senator Moore: So when the inspection is done and the report, regardless of content, is written up, who gets copies?
Mr. Maracle: I'm not involved in a lot of offices and stuff like that, so I can't answer that one directly, but we hand our reports to the housing department and chief and council.
Senator Moore: Of the reserve?
Mr. Maracle: Of the First Nation, yes.
Senator Moore: But you are not required to submit a copy, whether it is CMHC or Indian Affairs. You don't have to send them a copy.
Mr. Maracle: On housing I'm not, and like I said, I don't do band offices, day cares, stuff like that, because they have to have an inspector come in; so I'm not aware of that process, sir.
Senator Moore: I am just thinking about the housing part of it because that seems to be the most important part of the discussion here this morning.
Mr. Maracle, who gives you the authority to come on the reserve and to act as a building inspector on a home?
Mr. Maracle: The funding agreement that they get says that they must have a minimum of four inspections done on a housing unit, the site: foundation, framing, vapor barrier and finish. Within that, they call me in to look at those stages.
Senator Moore: Who calls you in?
Mr. Maracle: The First Nation.
Senator Moore: Right, but the funder, either CMHC or Indian Affairs, has given you the authority to go, not the First Nation; is that right?
Mr. Kiedrowski: No. Under the comprehensive agreement, in order to adhere to the agreement, the chief and council will give Mr. Maracle a call as a ``qualified inspector'' to carry out those four inspections. So they are adhering to their responsibility under that agreement.
Senator Moore: And when you do that inspection, do you send a copy of your report to the funding agency?
Mr. Maracle: No. A copy of my report goes to the housing administrator at the First Nation.
Mr. Kiedrowski: We have been arguing that the inspector should have the capacity, when he does a report, to send a copy of it to the funding agency, one to the contractor, one to the potential home occupant and one to the band council. As Mr. Maracle pointed out, it only goes right now to the housing manager, and they in turn give it to the funding agency, but there is no direct access.
Senator Moore: Under this funding arrangement, is the housing officer or office on the reserve required to send a copy of the inspector's report to CMHC or to Indian Affairs? Do you know that?
Mr. Kiedrowski: It is sent because that is how they receive their payment in terms of progress payments.
Senator Moore: Okay.
I found it interesting in your brief, when you said, ``In 1983 . . . Chiefs in Council (CC) became the authority for homes built in their jurisdiction.'' Yet you said that ``First Nations don't see themselves as having authority over housing.''
Mr. Kiedrowski: That's right.
Senator Moore: Why is that? This was done in 1983. We are 30 years into it. Why don't they see themselves as being responsible for the housing on their reserve?
Mr. Maracle: Most First Nations see housing as a treaty right.
Senator Moore: When this so-called devolution of responsibility happened in 1983, was that just a one-way transaction or did the First Nations enter into an agreement with the federal government in that regard?
Mr. Kiedrowski: My understanding was it was a policy decision top-down.
Senator Moore: So it came from the government down to the reserves?
Mr. Kiedrowski: That's correct.
Senator Moore: It wasn't sitting down across the table and working something out?
Mr. Kiedrowski: I believe there were no discussions.
Senator Moore: Has there been any attempt to reconcile the treaty right position versus this one-way devolution?
Mr. Kiedrowski: I believe some communities who strongly believe in treaty rights are saying, ``We understand treaty rights, but we need to move on.'' Some communities are still holding on to treaty rights, and then some communities are sort of trying to move forward and address the housing situation.
We have a policy that has been devolved to First Nations and it has never really been clear what that means. Even in our presentations recently, you have chiefs and councils who really believe that it is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure homes are being built to code. For how much we are baffled by those comments, there is a strong belief out there.
When I talked to a couple of chiefs and councils and asked them why that is the belief, they say, ``Because no one has really explained to us what this 'authority having jurisdiction' means and what does that entitle us to do.'' While they are trying to make decisions for the best of the community, are they interested in moving toward building codes and fire codes? I believe it's a challenge.
Senator Moore: We heard there were 633 First Nations in Canada. Has anyone ever done a study to see what the breakdown is in terms of those who are reluctant, those who are receptive and those who have decided to and who have moved on? Do we know what we're dealing with there in terms of the breakdown?
Mr. Kiedrowski: The only measure that we would have is those communities that have passed building code structures and fire codes in their communities and have logically accepted authority having jurisdiction. There are probably, at best, maybe 20 communities.
Senator Moore: This question that the chair asked is so fundamental, it just smacks of conflict of interest. We are really not doing as well as we can do. You both know that. Your organization knows that.
Do you write a letter to somebody and point that out, or have you done that already? If you have, what response did you get?
Mr. Kiedrowski: Over the years, we have produced a number of reports that raised authority having jurisdiction. We raised it with Northern Affairs and my understanding is that they understand the issues.
The question is really this: Is there political will to make the changes through government structures as well? Again, the Deloitte report made the same recommendations, namely that there have to be fundamental changes in the delivery of programs by CMHC and Indian and Northern Affairs in order to address the challenges of improving housing on First Nations and that there is a responsibility there. Even the Deloitte report came to the very same conclusion that we have been advocating for years.
The Chair: Mr. Maracle, you said that you've gone in and done a first inspection, but you couldn't follow up because there were no funds to pay for your work on the second, third or fourth inspection that you would normally want to do. Who provided the funds for the first inspection?
Mr. Maracle: With Indian Affairs housing — I work for a tribal council, so the tribal council was given some money per inspection. I don't know the formula because I'm not much of an administrator. If I was doing CMHC stuff, I got paid per inspection. It was $587 for all the inspection, including how many times you wanted to go there, but they wanted four done.
Senator Moore: You obviously performed according to the building code and the structures that you want to try to do properly.
Mr. Maracle: Yes.
Senator Moore: So you do one inspection. Then what? You go back and say, ``Gentlemen, I'm ready for the next inspection.'' And they say, ``Well, sorry, there's no money,'' so then you just have to walk away?
Mr. Maracle: The way it is set up, sir, is that they will call you for the next inspection. If I go in and do a foundation inspection and it's not right, I write down that it's not right and I give them the report and then I leave. I don't go back again until they call me.
What we need to understand about the whole thing is that, as a building inspector, I have to be invited to the First Nation. I just can't drive on to a First Nation and say, ``I was here and checked your house last week and there was a problem. I'm here to take a look at it again.'' I'd get BCR'ed off the First Nation. I have to be invited there. So I get invited for the next inspection. When I go to look at the next inspection, the first one wasn't fixed; I see that same deficiency that I saw the first time. You say to them, ``Why didn't you do that?'' They say, ``Well, the builder said there was no big deal.'' Okay.
Senator Sibbeston: I was going to ask about foundations because I know that a proper foundation is the basis for a good house and makes a house last much longer.
In the North our experience that when government came to build houses for native people, they tried building houses as cheaply as possible. Invariably, they wanted to avoid building basements. In the eastern Arctic and up in the Arctic that is recognized because of the permafrost, and so forth, but in the area of the North where I come from, there is ground and trees and no permafrost. Invariably, government would want to build a house without a basement.
How much is that an issue in the South among the First Nations? Does the government, in trying to keep the cost of housing down, try to avoid building proper foundations and basements?
Mr. Maracle: Again, it's up to the First Nation, as Mr. Kiedrowski said, to build. They can select whatever they want.
One of the problems that we have is, number one, they are building in areas where it's too wet. They're trying to put in full basements, so now we have mould. They are building a crawl space and they're not doing them up properly.
I did a builder series workshop in the Maritimes with a bunch of First Nations and I had 25 builders in the room. The first question I asked them was what's a foundation for? About 23 of them told me it was to hold up the house. If 23 of them told me that a foundation was to hold up the house, they had just built 23 nasty houses because, as you said, senator, the foundation is everything.
That's something that the authority having jurisdiction — from my point of view, chief and council — has the authority to regulate. But with no zoning in place or none of these bylaws in place that Mr. Kiedrowski speaks of and any risk management, they build where there is a piece of open land. Ninety per cent of the time it's not good open land. It's bad open land, and that's why we have come up with a lot of the stuff that we have.
Senator Raine: Could you explain a little bit on the NISI inspectors? I read your background document and I'm confused. It sounds like CMHC inspections relating to on-reserve programs, to establish programs with their own inspectors showing that they meet one of the requirements per minimum technical qualifications, obviously haven't really served well in terms of the housing stock. Is that program ongoing or is there any hope for that program — NISI stands for Native Inspection Services Initiative — becoming a solid capacity-building organization, or would you scrap it and start over?
Mr. Maracle: It had some decent potential. It got scrapped, from what I understand. It was put together so that CMHC could control two or three of the programs. If you were part of that you could get on to their website and do certain things on inspections and put certain information on their website from the different programs that you inspected for them. If you weren't part of NISI, if you weren't a NISI inspector, you couldn't get on to the website and put information on to them.
Mr. Kiedrowski: The NISI program was CMHC's very good attempt to address the gap, and that is to ensure how to build capacity among inspectors to at least meet CMHC requirements that those homes are being built to policy and not to building code. I think it was alluded to earlier that they don't want cold compliance, but when the funds are given over, how do you train those individuals? They have done, I believe, an excellent job of trying to train the inspectors, making sure that, in some regions, to be a NISI inspector you must pass the Part 9 of the Saskatchewan building code, for example.
Each region has its own requirements. One of the challenges with NISI is an inspector in one region I believe has fewer qualifications than an inspector in another region. I think over the years they're trying to figure out how to revamp the NISI program. It's really a question for CMHC on where it's going.
Our view is that it has provided good capacity for a lot of inspectors, but NISI was the only program providing the training. It was for their homes only. Don't forget, we have two programs. We have CMHC and we have Indian and Northern Affairs. Indian and Northern Affairs, from my understanding, has provided no training capacity for their own home inspections. What happened is that the NISI inspectors were then being hired to do the Indian and Northern Affairs compliance. So originally NISI was providing all that original capacity, and I believe it's a question for them of where they plan to go. I know that they looked at some options of dropping it, making First Nations inspectors comply and be exactly what an off-reserve inspector would meet, or vice versa, off-reserve inspectors who come on-reserve to do inspections. I'm not sure how well that's going to work because of insurance purposes and liability issues.
NISI was a very good program. I think they're revamping it. It's a costly program for them as well.
Senator Raine: In a perfect world, your organization of professionals should be leading how this whole issue of home inspections is carried out. If you look at what the Aboriginal Financial Officers Association has been able to achieve, if you were given the same opportunity with the same funding, could your organization step it up so that First Nations building inspections could be on par with off-reserve inspections?
Mr. Kiedrowski: It will be better. The reason I'm saying that is that we have approached CMHC to take on the NISI program as an association, but the problem is then you have to build the capacity; you need an executive director; you need staff and all that cost.
I believe AFOA is very well run and is a good model for First Nations, but I believe we can go further because a lot of the stuff that AFOA has been building we have already identified and started to build as a volunteer group. We could springboard much further ahead, especially if we take on the infrastructure as well.
Senator Raine: I see that as a hopeful path to go down. For the life of me, I really can't understand why you are being funded for $15,000. It's ridiculous.
Senator Beyak: Gentlemen, thank you for your expertise and knowledge in this area. It has been very enlightening for me.
My question is broader than housing. I am thinking that over these decades the federal governments of both stripes have put billions of dollars into Native issues, Aboriginal issues. If you, in your vast experience and comprehension of these things, could do one thing and our Senate committee could make a recommendation, do you see value in a comprehensive review of all Aboriginal funding? It seems to me that it's quality and quantity. There is a lot of money there, but it doesn't seem to be going to the right places, from what I have heard. You both have vast experience of many years. Do you have anyone we should ask, if we did undertake something like that? Who would we ask and where would we start?
Mr. Kiedrowski: I know the way the housing is funded right now through minor capital and that whole structure. I know that we have discussed this among the groups. You can put another gazillion dollars into this and it's not going to fix the situation. While there is an appreciation of poverty, overcrowding and addiction, which is a sadness, it has impact on the housing. To look at it from how the funding applies, again when have you two organizations funding the same objective and it's a question of do they even agree on the same objective, then should that be examined? I believe it's a question for the federal government departments on how to streamline cost when you're delivering one program, which is a housing program. I believe there would be an interest in examination.
Again, I recall the Auditor General has flagged some of this as well in terms of programs, but it would be an interesting recommendation and I wonder if it has already been tasked in previous reports.
Mr. Maracle: I'm going to touch on a First Nation that has been in the news: Attawapiskat. I've been there many times. They have great capacity in Attawapiskat. The problem is that they can't use it. When houses come in there, the program that they're getting from CMHC, or whoever, sends in an outside contractor. The deal is that you hire six of our people to train. The last time I was up there, I had worked with a couple of them and went looking for them because I had become friends with them. Someone said, ``Oh, they're down there in that last house.'' I went down there, and there they were, sitting there playing cards. ``Guys, what's happening here?'' ``They told us to come down here and wait till they needed us and they would call us.'' The outside contractor is up there working. There is no transfer of knowledge here. Those guys that sat in there, I could take and build a good house or better than what was being built, but they are not given the chance.
The problem is that when you get into the North, you send a million bucks in and $900,000 of it comes out of the First Nation. It doesn't stay in the First Nation. They pay these guys the minimum wage they have to pay, and that's it.
Every one of these communities like Attawapiskat has the capacity to do it themselves, but they've been put down so much and told that they don't know what they're doing, they've started to believe it. That's the sad part about it.
Senator Beyak: Thank you very much.
Senator Dyck: Thank you for that observation.
I'm just wondering if there is any way within a policy that you could write into the building of that house, where there is training, that there has to be a sign-off and proof that that training actually happened so that you could prevent that situation from occurring. Is there a way of ensuring that if you commit to training or hiring local people, they actually are doing the job and trained in a way that they are supposed to be?
Mr. Maracle: In the mid-80s, we had a program that was started on Manitoulin Island, and a booklet was produced within that training program. We weren't looking to train carpenters, plumbers or electricians. We were looking to train handymen, which is what we need in a First Nation because there is not enough to keep an electrician year-round. In there, there was a section saying that you had done this work. You had put on siding. You had put in insulation. You understood it. The lead carpenter, who was licensed, could sign off on that, and at the end of it you got a First Nations construction worker certificate. It went through a pilot phase, but it never went anywhere. I still have the books at home. Something like that is the verification that you're talking about.
Senator Tannas: I want to return to the top box in your schematic. You mentioned that a couple of the distinguishing characteristics around the exercising authority/having jurisdiction success corner were own source of funds and strong governance structures that were already in place. Is there anything else that you see in terms of distinguishing characteristics? One, there is having your own skin in the game, your own capital that you've earned in some way; and, two, strong leadership and good governance. One of you mentioned that rents don't get paid in a lot of First Nations. Is that another one that you see? I do not want to lead you into something that you wouldn't observe yourself, but is there anything else in that top box besides strong governance and own source of funds that you might attribute to that group?
Mr. Kiedrowski: If you look at communities like Kamloops, they're using professional, certified inspectors. They have stop-work programs under the building code, so they can stop if the home has any deficiencies.
I think you have a strong leadership in terms of tenant and rental policy programs. Some communities have attempted to collect rents, but, by and large, a lot of them are in arrears. I was talking to one community that decided to hire a collection agency to collect their rents. They were owed $3 million in rent in arrears from residential and commercial payments in the communities.
I know rent is a whole topic of discussion elsewhere, but those communities in the upper quadrant do have strong tenant and rental policies, and they make people within communities make a contribution.
Another one is a risk-based inspection system. It's ensuring that the inspections are taking place, that they have proper zoning laws, that homes are being built where they should be built and sewers are being run where they should be run properly. It's everything that we take for granted in our communities, and they have soundly implemented these and are doing quite well.
Senator Champagne: I think somehow I am not quite as stupid now as I was earlier today. Whenever you drive close to a reserve or see pictures on television of houses, they always look like they're in a total disaster area. You feel that, obviously, with all the money the government puts into Indian Affairs and CMHC, they should have decent homes. Why is it that after a few years there has been no maintenance, no upkeep, everything is in disarray, and it looks like a tornado went through, even though there was none?
I'm learning today that the houses are not being built properly to start with. There are not the right codes and the right inspections that should be done. I'm not quite as stupid now as I was at nine o'clock this morning, and I thank you for teaching me, sir.
Mr. Maracle: One of the things that I use when I talk to chief and councils is the example of giving somebody a brand new home or a brand new car. There is a manual that comes along with the car. We show them how to run it.
We show them nothing in the new house. They have come from living in a shack. Now, we are going to put them in a modern house. We show them nothing. We tell them nothing. We do not give them any information on what to do, so it's like the brand new car. If it has an automatic transmission, everybody can drive it. If it has a standard transmission in it, down the road, you will need a clutch, a new transmission. They will need to be fixed up because they don't know enough to shove the clutch in before they hit somebody.
I have a couple of communities in Ontario where, before anybody gets to move into a brand new house, they have to sit through a one-day session with me on homeowner maintenance. I take them to the house and walk them through it. I say, ``This is your HRV; this is how you work it. This is your electrical panel; this is how you work it. This is your plumbing. If this happens, you do this; if this happens, you do that. Do you have any questions?'' I go there for a day. The last time I was there, I spent four days because people kept coming back wanting to know more. They had never seen that before.
CMHC paid me to go there for one day to do basic home maintenance. When you go back to them, they say, ``We just have enough budget for one day for them.''
Senator Champagne: One thing I do know is that in the Oka area, for most of the beautiful homes around the river that were built for people who used to go there just for the summer, the builder was a Mohawk. I know it sounds funny; the name is Cree, but he's a Mohawk. He built extraordinary homes. Obviously, the Indians knew how to build a house properly. Why would they build it properly or beautifully for outsiders who would come and live close to them but would not repair or even build their own homes properly? Can you explain that to me? I'm trying hard to understand.
Mr. Maracle: The auto mechanic who fixes your car probably has the worst car in the street.
Senator Champagne: Le cordonnier mal chaussé is what we use in French.
Mr. Kiedrowski: You raise a very good question. I know some of the challenges. If you take some of these homes that are being built in Oka or some of these communities, the question is: Is the home being built for an individual who is paying for it himself? Then he will make sure it's built properly. Whereas, if it's for the band council, as Mr. Maracle has told me, some of these contractors go completely brain dead on the reserve because they don't have to follow building code requirements. There is nothing compelling them to do that; so, it depends who they're building for. If they're building for individuals, it'll probably be one of the best palaces built, but if it's for a band council, that won't necessarily be the case.
Senator Champagne: Finding a way to make them follow building codes could be one thing we could try. There has to be a way. As long as they build things for themselves that have no value or will not retain any value because they were built improperly to start with, then we won't get ahead. The government and taxpayers give money, money and more money. We wonder why it is that when we work with Indian bands they never have enough money; that the government and taxpayers never give them enough money for them to live in proper homes. However, they have the money, they build homes for themselves but they don't build them correctly. Well, excuse me, but I don't feel very guilty.
The Chair: Senator Champagne, thank you very much for summarizing this excellent discussion.
Gentlemen, your presentation was well appreciated.
Our journeying witness has arrived, so we should have time to hear her presentation.
Welcome, Ms. Madahbee. Thank you for coming here to share your expertise with us today. We are running short of time because of our strict 11:30 a.m. termination time. Unfortunately, we will have time for your opening presentation only. I'm sorry about that. Thank you for your efforts to come here. Please proceed, and we will go as far as we can.
Dawn Madahbee, Vice-Chair, National Aboriginal Economic Development Board: Thank you and good morning. My name is Dawn Madahbee, Vice-Chair of the National Aboriginal Economic Development Board. The board was established in 1990 by order-in-council to provide strategic policy and program advice to the federal government on Aboriginal economic development. The board brings together First Nations, Inuit and Metis business and community leaders from all regions of Canada to advise the federal government on ways to help increase the economic participation of Aboriginal men and women in the Canadian economy.
The board is pleased to know that the members of this committee are considering undertaking a study to address the infrastructure needs, in particular housing and schools, with the objective of enhancing economic development. I believe it is our common understanding that housing and infrastructure development directly correlate to community economic development, as it supports many entrepreneurs, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike, when it comes to housing and infrastructure construction.
Through the federal government engagement process on the Federal Framework for Aboriginal Economic Development, along with the analysis and research undertaken over the past years, a consensus emerged on deficit of infrastructure being one of the principal barriers to Aboriginal economic development and investments, in particular on reserves and in remote northern communities.
Three of the board's recent and upcoming activities touch specifically on infrastructure in the Aboriginal Economic Benchmarking Report, which presents a picture of Aboriginal economic outcomes, including issues of crowding and major repairs to dwellings. The second report is Recommendations on Financing First Nations Infrastructure, which is a set of recommendations presented to the government in February 2012. It touches on specific issues that the federal government should address. We have an upcoming study on infrastructure in and around Northern Aboriginal communities that will identify key barriers that hinder economic development and will develop strategies and recommendations to work within and around those barriers.
I want to elaborate more on the Aboriginal Economic Benchmarking Report, which was published in June 2012 and is the first comprehensive document of its kind to assemble indicators and establish benchmarks that measure the social and economic well-being of First Nations, Inuit and Metis people in Canada. The objective of the report is to assess the Aboriginal economy in Canada across a number of key indicators, including employment, income, wealth and well- being at a specific period of time, that being in 2012. From that, we plan to track the progress of Aboriginal people in Canada against these indicators over time. We're actually looking to produce a progress report in 2015.
The key findings in the benchmark report indicate that access to clean drinking water, the situation of overcrowding in dwellings, and access to communication networks and the electricity grid are measures that present an overall picture of some of its determinants and indicators of how well Aboriginal communities will be able to sustain a healthy living environment and have the necessary supports in place for economic development. I was going to get into some of the numbers, but I think I'll just say that in some First Nations, especially in the northern communities, the rate of overcrowding is seven times higher than the non-Aboriginal rate according to this report.
We all know that across Canada, local governments are facing increasing challenges to manage current infrastructure demands, multiplied by a growing backlog of required maintenance, for example in areas such as the rehabilitation of mine sites. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities asserts that many municipalities continue to face an infrastructure tipping point as revenues cannot keep pace with demands, with the result that the overall quality of life and competitiveness are being compromised. According to that group, the consequences of not investing adequately in local infrastructure are immense, and if infrastructure investment continues at current levels, Canada will not be able to realize its full economic potential. You can imagine that in First Nations communities and remote Aboriginal communities the situation is even more dire.
In our February 2012 report, our national board urged the government to develop a multi-pronged approach to financing First Nation infrastructure that is focused on increased access to alternative financing options, strengthened capacity to leverage different sources of financing, and comprehensive community planning to support sustainable and long-term planning for capital assets. Further, our national board recommends that the federal government streamline approval in administrative processes and leverage partnerships to maximize investment and address increasing First Nations infrastructure gaps.
Specifically, our recommendations advise that the federal government should assist communities in generating own- source revenues, including taxation, royalties, user fees and business development, to allow for increased revenue sharing and leverage with the private sector and other levels of government. We also recommended that there be the provision of safeguards to communities generating own-source revenues, guaranteeing that their core funding will not be reduced and that they will not be penalized.
Also recommended is to find ways to accelerate the process through which communities can benefit from the financing provided from the First Nations Finance Authority, particularly for infrastructure and housing developments; and to invest a minimum of $100 million to the First Nations Finance Authority to help create a strong credit rating on debentures backed by own-source revenues. This would enable the First Nations Finance Authority to begin addressing the currently projected $3 billion infrastructure gap.
We are also suggesting that we strengthen the capacity of Aboriginal Financial Institutions to gain in long-term financing of infrastructure projects and issue bonds where capacity has been developed. There is an example of an AFI in Quebec that has set up a fund for this purpose.
I also want to mention in this regard that I think it is important with the First Nations Market Housing Fund that you maybe look at the Aboriginal Financial Institutions network as a deliverer of housing mortgages across the country and to get the dollars out there. They are already situated in places where they can do that type of financing, which actually would be easier to provide than the commercial financing that they do. They have already invested over $1.4 billion in Aboriginal businesses, so they have the capacity to deliver this kind of a housing mortgage fund.
I want to also let you know that our board is delving further into the northern infrastructure needs in and around those communities — for example, in the three territories: the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and the northern comprehensive land claim regions — to help them look at ways to reach their full economic potential, making sure that it is imperative that they are equipped with adequate infrastructure, which includes, of course, transportation. There are a lot of examples of the issues of transportation and limited windows of opportunity to transport building materials and supplies. We need to look at that.
We need to look at telecommunications. There is still a problem with connectivity throughout the North, as we all know, and also there is social infrastructure that is necessary. When you look at it, 32 per cent of Inuit in Nunavik reside in overcrowded lodgings compared to the national average of 1.9 per cent.
There are also the regular supports — daycare facilities, schools, training facilities, libraries, health facilities — everything. We are in very desperate situations in many parts of Canada right now in terms of the infrastructure deficit.
The Chair: Ms. Madahbee —
Ms. Madahbee: I know we are at my time limit. I tried. I skipped over as much as I could, but I would like to thank you for your time. I wish I had about five more minutes. I left home on Manitoulin Island at 2:30 this morning to get here, and I was making good progress until the fog hit Ottawa. I really appreciate that I have had some time, but I do not know your timing to be able to delve further into these. I really appreciate the opportunity.
The Chair: We are extremely grateful for your efforts to make it here, and we are regretful that time does not permit us to continue.
Congratulations on giving us a very good overview. We will want to follow up further on those reports through our capable staff, and I am sure we will want to engage again with the National Aboriginal Economic Development Board. You have obviously made it a priority to study exactly what we are going to be looking into, so your presentation today was very valuable to our work.
I must apologize. We are on a strict time frame here; someone else has to use the room. On behalf of the committee, thank you very much for your effort in getting here and for the helpful information that you were able to convey in such a short time. Thanks to our translators, as well, for making that possible.
Thank you again.
Ms. Madahbee: Thank you.
Senator Meredith: Chair, just as she is leaving, could we have her provide to us a copy of her comments?
Ms. Madahbee: We have copies available.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
(The committee adjourned.)