AANR Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, February 21, 2002

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1105

The Chair (Mr. Raymond Bonin (Nickel Belt, Lib.))

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1110

Mr. John Sinclair (Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Strategic Direction, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development)

The Chair

Mr. John Sinclair

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1115

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1120

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1125

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1130

The Chair

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1135

Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo--Cowichan, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Elley

Mr. John Sinclair

Mr. Reed Elley

The Chair

Mr. Richard Marceau (Charlesbourg--Jacques-Cartier, BQ)

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1140

Mr. John Sinclair

The Chair

Miss Grey

The Chair

Miss Grey

Mr. John Sinclair

Miss Grey

Mr. John Sinclair

Miss Grey

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1145

John Sinclair

The Chair

Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi--Baie-James--Nunavik, Lib.)

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1150

The Chair

Mr. Guy St-Julien

The Chair

Mr. Guy St-Julien

Mr. John Sinclair

Mr. Richard Marceau

Mr. John Sinclair

Mr. Richard Marceau

The Chair

Mr. Richard Marceau

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1155

Mr. John Sinclair

Mr. Richard Marceau

Mr. John Sinclair

The Chair

Ms. Karetak-Lindell

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1200

Mr. John Sinclair

The Chair

Mr. John Sinclair

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1205

The Chair

Miss Grey

The Chair

Miss Grey

Mr. John Sinclair

Miss Grey

Mr. Dan Beavon (Acting Strategic Director, Research and Analysis, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development)

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1210

Miss Grey

Mr. John Sinclair

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1215

The Chair

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1220

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources

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NUMBER 040

l

1st SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

Thursday, February 21, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á  (1105)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. Raymond Bonin (Nickel Belt, Lib.)): We will call the meeting to order. This is the aboriginal affairs, northern development, and natural resources committee. The order of the day is Standing Order 108(2), overview of the Indian Act.

    This is our first session on the review. Just so we set the tone, what we are asking of our witnesses today and in following meetings is that you educate us so that we start from the same starting point if and when the minister tables legislation on governance.

    Our intent is not to try to anticipate what will be in the legislation, but to understand what exists now, and some of the problems we probably have with it now, as our witnesses see it. So I would hope we don't try to second-guess what the legislation will be. On this front, I address that comment to my colleagues.

    We are pleased to see the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and I mean that sincerely, because I'm one who supports having cameras in meetings. The new policy is that they are permitted in. I want to, on your behalf, welcome them.

    There are certain basic rules. The cameras are on you from the chest up when you are speaking, so what you do with your writing is not covered--to the best of their ability. If you are not speaking, the camera is not on you. But they do have to go from one to the other, so we'll be conscious of that.

    We're pleased to have you here with us.

    We have the department with us today. From the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Mr. John Sinclair, senior assistant deputy minister, policy and strategic direction.

We also have Monsieur Pierre Gauvin, directeur intérimaire, Direction de la gestion de l'information ministérielle, and Mr. Dan Beavon....Is that correct? Like in heaven? I'll try to remember that. I often wonder if I'll be going there someday, so I'll remember it. He is acting strategic director, research and analysis.

    I see the name of Geneviève Thériault. Is she here? Do you want her at the front table?

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    Mr. John Sinclair (Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Strategic Direction, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development): Not right now, Mr. Chair.

    The Chair: Well, we'll leave it up to you who you invite, but as you invite them, please introduce them.

    We'd like you to make a presentation, then we'll open up for questions. This is a very casual meeting. We're here to learn together, so I'll be easy with the time for a change, to try to get as much as we can out of this.

    Mr. Sinclair, please.

    Mr. John Sinclair: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    We have a presentation that I believe is in front of all committee members. We also want to project it up on the board or on the wall there. Maybe we can start the presentation, then catch up with the overhead presentation. Is that all right with you?

    The Chair: That's good. It's your show.

    Mr. John Sinclair: Thank you.

    I just want to give you a little bit of information about my two colleagues here. Mr. Gauvin is responsible for a lot of the data we collect inside the department that affects how we deliver programs. Mr. Beavon has published dozens of articles on demographic research. He does a lot of work with Statistics Canada. Those are the two kinds of data that are brought together in this presentation.

    On the objectives, we would like to talk briefly about three things. First is the population size and where first nation communities are located--I think that's an important understanding. Second is socio-economic disparities that are essential to the understanding of these policy challenges. Third, we would like to move into the future and talk about the population dynamics, because there are some unique characteristics for this community. They are important to the community itself and also to Canada's social and economic future. Those are the three kinds of things we would like to do.

    The next slide is on describing the first nation population. These numbers are always subject to some adjustment. For example, when we are talking about census data here, we're still working from the 1996 census because we won't get data from the 2001 census until early next calendar year.

    In this context here, think about 700,000 first nation people. The split of living on and off reserve is sort of 60:40. That is sort of a national number, and by region and subregion there are lots of differences, in terms of how many people live on reserve versus how many live in adjoining municipalities or urban centres.

    I would also just note to committee members that we're talking about over 600 first nation communities and 50 languages being spoken. So there's a great deal of diversity.

    On the next slide, if you look at the left-hand side you will see that there are 32 first nation communities with over 1,000 in population. Some of them, like Kahnawake, the Blood reserve in southern Alberta, or the Six Nations of the Grand River Band, are very large communities.

    At the other end on that slide, the bar graph says 146. That means there are 146 communities with populations of less than 100. So you get a range in the size of the communities.

    On the next slide, the pie chart tries to give you an idea of the degree of urbanization. All the way through the 1990s, people left non-urban settings and moved into urban settings--that's the general Canadian population--and then moved from small urban settings to larger ones. So that process of urbanization was a North America-wide phenomenon over the last decade.

    If you take a look at this, about 35 of our first nation communities are in urban settings. We define that as proximity to a service centre. A service centre would have at least one financial institution, federal and provincial service offices, and usually some kind of health care facility.

    If you think about urban communities, for example, the Squamish First Nation is basically found at the north end of the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver. So you have very urban settings. You have rural settings, where there is some distance from a service centre. You have remote communities like Clearwater and River Dene in northwestern Saskatchewan.

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    When you look at special access, you're basically talking about first nation communities that do not have all-weather road access. This means, Mr. Chair, that Indian Affairs is a close student of warming trends. If you have a winter road that starts to melt a month or even a week earlier, your housing supplies don't get in. During the summer it means air ambulances. In terms of service delivery and a lot of those challenges....

    What's interesting about this particular part of public policy is that you have communities with the entire range of realities, from very urban to extremely remote. A number of those first nation communities without all-weather road access are not hooked up to the hydroelectric grid either.

    Finally, take a look at the last item in this first section--“First Nation and Inuit Communities in Canada”. We can move on to that. All it gives you is an idea of the number of communities, many of them clustered around major urban areas. But if you take a look at northwestern Ontario, the Shield country, northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and some of the interior of B.C., there are some very isolated circumstances there, as well as on both the Ontario and Quebec coasts of James Bay and Hudson Bay. So it's a very widely distributed population from the very urban to the very remote.

    The second part of our presentation is about disparities. The Human Development Index is a UN measure based on three things: educational attainment, life expectancy, and essentially on income. From the 1981 census data to that of 1996--this is work Mr. Beavon has done--the disparities gap closed by 31%. This is a major step forward, but I would be the last person to argue that the gap has closed and conditions are great. A great deal of achievement has been secured by first nation communities themselves. There is still a fair way to go.

    There have been some important changes and moves forward in education, as you'll see in a moment, and some interesting changes in life expectancy, but those income and employment disparities remain fairly constant.

    Going on to the next slide on education, when you look at it, essentially step back from it and say to yourself we have about 20% more first nations youth leaving school around grade nine and going into the labour force than we have in the general population. This is important because a lot of people are saying if you're going to make your way in a knowledge-based economy, you need high school, or something a lot more than grade nine.

    The rest of this slide shows you the other population, the other group of first nation people. The increases in enrollment are quite extraordinary, as are the total number of graduates from the first nations, and this applies to the Inuit as well. Whereas 30 years ago there were probably a couple of thousand first nations people with post-secondary degrees, it's now upwards of 30,000. In terms of school achievement, you need to keep an eye on this post-secondary cohort and on the population with grade nine or less.

    I tried to make this next slide on life expectancy not too complicated. In 1975 you see four very distinct life expectancies. First nations men were the lowest, with a life expectancy of just under 58 years. If you take a look at this versus Canadian women as a whole, you're looking at a gap of 20 years in terms of life expectancy. In 1975, first nations men had the lowest life expectancy, then first nations women, and then there was a clear separation, with Canadian men as a whole at just over 70 and Canadian women at about 78. Twenty years later there has been an increase in life expectancy, so that first nation men have moved up by nine years on average. First nation women are now at the same point as Canadian men in terms of life expectancy. And Canadian women have now moved into the early 80s. That gap between first nation men and Canadian women is now about 14 years, versus 20 years.

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    A lot of things are going on there, including a lot of declines, quite marked declines, from World War II onward in infant mortality in first nation communities.

    If you go to the next slide, it is basically to say...Technical difficulty--Editor]

    Someone disconnected me; my apologies.

    Technically, the number of people who are on reserve is the denominator and the numerators are the number of people on reserve who are receiving some form of social assistance.

    This is going to vary by whether or not you've got most of the community living on reserve or not, and it also varies by your economic circumstances. So if you take a look at southern Ontario, we have a number of first nations who are deeply involved in their regional and local economies and have high employment rates and you see a decline in social assistance use. But once you get into the Shield country in northern Ontario and across northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the numbers pop up. In British Columbia there are obviously higher rates in the interior, lower rates in the lower mainland. It's another way of saying this is a reflection, in terms of program, of the previous slide you saw in terms of unemployment and income disparities.

    Moving on to health, whether you're talking diabetes or tuberculosis or respiratory disease or heart disease or arthritis, if you're in a first nation community the incidence of those diseases is higher, and in some cases three or four times higher. Fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects are also much higher in first nation communities. And while the rates move around, the suicide rate for first nation youth, especially young first nation men, is between four and five times higher than you would experience in the general population.

    If you cast your mind back to those slides that talked about a number of communities, say, with a population of 200 to 400 to 600, if you have, as in some cases, one or two suicides in a two-year or three-year period in that kind of small community, you get an idea of that impact and the heartache that brings. So I make that point.

    Finally, in terms of disparities, you have.... Infrastructure is improving. This has been a priority all the way through the 1990s, to make sure that water and sewer treatment was developed, that housing units were improved and that more housing units were built. Obviously, there are still very severe concerns about overcrowding in terms of housing. Then you have to ask yourself, how is overcrowding and housing quality a determinant of educational performance? Is there space for kids to do homework? Also, if you have housing units that develop mould, there's asthma, so you have an infrastructure-related determinant of health as well.

    All of these things are interrelated, so that simply suggests there is movement forward, but obviously there's a lot more to be done.

    The third part of our presentation is on population demographics. Essentially, there are three points to remember about this population. First, this population is growing significantly faster than the Canadian population as a whole.

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    If you go to the left-hand side of the slide, and you take a look at 1971, 1973, the natural growth rate, as demographers say, which is the difference between births and deaths, the Canadian population as a whole has about a 1% growth in population. The first nation community has 2.5%. That is two and a half times the growth. Obviously that has implications for school use and for that age core as it moves into the labour force, etc. I'll talk about that more in a moment.

    If you go up to 2001, you still have that same kind of dynamic. Perhaps the growth rate in the first nation community is slowing down a little bit, but the fact is it's roughly still twice the Canadian average.

    Now, in the middle we talked about natural increase versus legislative growth. Let me explain to you what happened in 1985.

    As you will recall, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was given royal proclamation April 17, 1982, and at that point it was discovered that one part of the Indian Act, 1951, was completely ultra vires the equality provision in section 15 of the charter. To wit, under the 1951 Indian Act reforms, if a first nation male married out, that is, married a non-first-nation individual, those children from that union maintained status and were eligible for programs, but if a first nation woman married out, she lost status and her children lost status and thus eligibility. That was absolutely unacceptable under the charter.

    Bill C-31 was a legislative instrument that allowed first nation women who had lost status as a result of the operation of the 1951 rules to reinstate, and then their children were reinstated as having status. What that meant was in effect there was an increase in the registered Indian population. All of that just says that the population has grown--it's now up about 700,000. You still have those same growth rates.

    I have two more points to make. Next, this is a significantly more mobile population than the Canadian population as a whole. I had earlier talked about the urbanization trends all the way through the 1990s. Mr. Beavon looked at what happened between two censuses--1991 and 1996--and discovered that while there were a lot of people moving back and forth, net there were more people living on reserve in 1996 than in 1991. This means everyone's assumption for years that it was always a full one-way from reserve culture to an urban culture in fact wasn't necessarily the case. Of course, this was a period when there was a fair bit of infrastructure investment being made by government in health care, etc.

    That having been said, the last two bullets on that slide are very important. Registered Indians move many times more over a year. There are a number of reasons why people move--we all recognize tha: maybe you're going to a city for higher education or to pursue employment or you're leaving a difficult family situation on the reserve community. But then you get into the city and you discover that affordable housing is not within your reach, and you move around three or four times, and then you might go back to the community.

    That kind of churn is really difficult, especially for young kids who are in and out of the Winnipeg school system--same school five or six times in the same year. This is something I wanted to draw your attention to. Obviously, it creates all sorts of program delivery and continuity of health care challenges and all those other kinds of things that people who aren't moving around take more or less for granted.

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    I have a final point to make here. This is a fast-growing population. This is a mobile population. This is a much younger population. On your desk drop it looks a lot better: the yellow line is the Canadian age pyramid, which as you see issignificantly older than the green, which is the age cohorts for first nation men and women, boys and girls. If you take a look, for example, at the five to nine age group, it's fairly symmetric. About 3.5% of the Canadian population as a whole are young boys or young girls in that age cohort. If you take a look at the green, you're basically talking about twice as many young first nation boys age five to nine as non-first-nation boys. And the same is the case with girls.

    If you go up to the age 10 to 14 cohort, it's maybe 80% more first nation preteens and early teens. At age 15 to 19, when you're getting into the workforce, it starts to converge, but again you still have about 50% more.

    If you take a look at the other end, in terms of the life expectancy model we showed you earlier, if this had been from an earlier time, those would have been much smaller. That says three things to me, and these are points you might want to remember.

    First, you have a preschool and kindergarten through grade 12 population that is significantly larger for first nation communities than for non-first-nation communities.

    Secondly, the group going into the workforce is significantly bigger. That's really important when you think about the retirement scenario that is going to be talked about for the so-called post-World War II baby boomers. That has some implications. For example, if you're in Saskatchewan or Manitoba, where the total aboriginal population--including Métis, non-status, and first nation--is 13% of the provincial population, if the provincial population is relatively stable, think about all those retirements from Manitoba Hydro or SaskTel or any of those other big employers over the next ten years and where you are going to get your labour force from.

    Finally, as this young, fast-growing population gets into the workforce and starts to age in a pattern more like that of the general population, it means for the very first time you're going to see some significant aboriginal elder-care costs. For example, in the general population, my colleagues in health tell me between 65 and 75 is when the chronic care costs and the general health system, as well acute care costs, go up. You're going to start seeing that in the first nation population, but you're going to see it at age 60 to 70 or 55 to 60, versus, in the general population, at age 65 to 70. So this is a population that is going to be under pressure: very young; school; labour force transition; and aboriginal elder.

    Just to sum up, then, there are about 700,000 first nation people, 60% on reserve, 40% off reserve. The community size varies enormously, which means this is an area where, for first nation leaders and for policy people and for those providing services, you're dealing with the full range of the Canadian experience from the very urban to the extremely isolated. The gap in socio-economic conditions is closing. It is nowhere close to our declaring victory. Then, finally, if you move into the future, this is a fast-growing, highly mobile, and very young part of Canada's population, and those demographics--maybe not nationally but certainly increasingly in some of the provinces and regions--are going to have enormous import for our labour force as a whole.

    I think I'll stop there, sir.

    The Chair: That's excellent information. It really addresses the issue we're trying to address. We have to be aware of the situation. I want to thank you for this very good presentation.

    I'm sure we'll have other things to say; I will, certainly. But I will open up to questions. We'll try to keep it around five minutes, colleagues. If you go over, I won't interrupt. I would ask that you ask one question, and we'll have as many rounds as you want. Rather than ask four or five questions, ask your one question. I'll give you all the opportunity you need to ask all the questions you have.

    Mr. Elley.

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    Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo--Cowichan, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    I want to add my own personal thanks to you for coming to the committee today. I think some of these things we've heard before, but it's good to have them in this very compact package we can refer to.

     I'm greatly concerned, as I'm sure most Canadians are, about the living conditions for aboriginal people on reserves, so it was an interesting set of statistics you presented on social assistance. I'm not quite sure how you arrived at this particular figure. By social assistance, do you mean the people on reserve who are receiving what we might call welfare in the general population and rates comparable to provincial rates where these reserves are located? If that's the case, if that's the criterion you're using for this, why are 90% of aboriginal people in the Atlantic provinces on social assistance, compared to 27% in my home province of British Columbia? Could you give us a little more detail on that to help us understand the situation a little better?

    Mr. John Sinclair: I will defer to Pierre Gauvin on issues of the technical calculations. Essentially, the points you made are the right ones in the sense that for social assistance, we should think welfare. I think there's also child and family services, but essentially it's a welfare kind of expenditure. We do follow provincial rates.

    As I said earlier, sir, when you take a look at some of those regional variations, you have to factor in economic conditions in general. For example, the contrast between British Columbia and the Atlantic is an interesting one. You have larger reserves in B.C., a number of them with important resources. The first nation at Westbank has urban proximity and rental income and taxation income. Also, if you were to break that out, there would be significantly better employment rates in British Columbia, whereas in Atlantic Canada you have in general a smaller economy. I think the slide I put up there showed that there were higher rates of unemployment.

    For whatever reason, more first nations people in Atlantic Canada live on their reserve than in the cities. This is where you have to get quite detailed, and my knowledge is starting to escape me on this, but in general, the first nations reserves in Atlantic Canada are physically smaller. They don't have the same resource base. You have reserves in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and B.C. where you have significant oil and gas reserves. When you mix all those things together, you're probably dealing with a smaller economy. You're dealing with higher rates of unemployment in Atlantic Canada.

    Also, if you take a look at aboriginal entrepreneurship, Alberta right now is a hotbed of first nations economic activity and joint venturing with oil companies and that kind of thing. There are different project mixes across the country. You don't see a lot of that in Atlantic Canada, so the employment opportunities are smaller. The opportunities for entrepreneurship are not as developed. The reserve base itself isn't as big.

    So all those things come together. There's no one particular reason, but that gives you an idea of some of those reflections.

    Mr. Reed Elley: Thank you.

[Translation]

    The Chair: Mr. Marceau.

    Mr. Richard Marceau (Charlesbourg--Jacques-Cartier, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The debate on First Nations self-governance has been ongoing for several years. My party, the Bloc Québécois, is a strong proponent of the concept of self-government. Do you have any figures you can share with us indicating that when a First Nation enjoys a higher degree of autonomy, indicators such as human development, level of education, life expectancy, and so forth are more positive than in the case of First Nations that are more dependant on the federal government?

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    Mr. John Sinclair: If you don't mind, I'd like to field your question in English.

[English]

    There's no systematic analysis of that. There is anecdotal evidence. For example, Sechelt First Nation in British Columbia, which has had a form of self-government since 1986, has a very vibrant economy and very good socio-economic indicators. And if I remember correctly, I think it was in June of 2000 that Stephen Cornell, from the University of Arizona, came in front of this committee and talked about the research they've done with American Indian bands that are particularly well governed and whose activities the Bureau of Indian Affairs is really not involved in. These Indian bands, like the Navaho First Nation, but also a number of first nations, have much better economic development performance and much better quality of life results.

    I think the other point to make is that over the course of the nineties there was an enormous change in who was doing the delivery of services in first nation communities. In 1985 our department had probably 7,500 employees. We delivered the social welfare cheques, we did the teaching. Over the course of the nineties we devolved all of that so that first nation administrations now deliver that themselves. They run their housing authorities themselves, and that local involvement and self-management, whether it's under the Indian Act or under a self-government agreement like the Nisga'a, has seen more pride in ownership and has seen better program performance.

    So I think you can make a broad argument in that way, but to come out with a statistical analysis to that extent, we're not there yet.

    The Chair: Miss Grey.

    Miss Deborah Grey (Edmonton North, PC/DR): Thank you very much.

    And thank you for coming and making this presentation today.

    I am under the impression that we are doing an overview of the Indian Act, which we're leading to this governance. These packages here look extra. Are they from your folks, or is this just something we got handed out? I'm having a hard time marrying these two. Your presentation is excellent, but I'm assuming that with this information we're going to do something about the governance act. So maybe I could just ask where these came from.

    The Chair: I just got my copy after you mentioned it.

    Miss Deborah Grey: No, I appreciate that, but I'd like to know where they came from.

    Mr. John Sinclair: Yes, I can explain.

    Miss Deborah Grey: It's part of this whole thing. Excellent.

    Mr. John Sinclair: That's the next presentation on the first nation governance initiative.

    Miss Deborah Grey: Got it.

    Mr. John Sinclair: So it was a desk drop at the same time, not to bother--

    Miss Deborah Grey: Perfect. Good. We're looking forward to that, too, then. That's excellent.

    Regarding these overviews, I think if we look at the demographic bulge in the population, I am one of those baby boomers, and it amazes me that everyone has known governmentally that we've been coming along, in fact for 50 years for me, and my older sisters are in the position of just being that much farther ahead of me.... We have this statistical data here that these young people, whether on or off reserve, are a huge demographic bulge. And having the stats are one thing, but how are we going to address it at the other end?

    I taught on a reserve in northern Alberta, so I'm pretty seriously concerned about making sure that young people who are coming up through the school system are, one, going to have a job, and, two, when they're through that working life, with an unbelievable explosion of people who are getting into their retirement age.... Can you make recommendations to government, or is anybody thinking about what might come ahead? If you look at health care costs, housing, retirement funds, all those things, it's just going to be exploding here for us, who are 30 years down the road from the large population of young aboriginal people. What kind of foresight is there, not just a cool little five-year plan, but a 35- or a 45-year plan?

Á  (1145)  

    Mr. John Sinclair: I'm not sure that anyone has a formally developed 35-year plan, but I understand the sense of your question very clearly.

    Let me give you my perspective. I've been in the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development since 1993, and I did claims negotiations for a while, so I'm coming to this area on the basis of that experience.

    By way of your question about foresight, Ms. Grey, in that period, 1985-1995, there were a couple of things going on. There were a lot of people concerned about making sure that basic services were put in place. I think if you cast your mind back to the early 1980s, we had four aboriginal constitutional conferences in five years. And then, if you'll recall, there was the Oka crisis. So there is a fair focus on what would be called rights agenda issues. That was absolutely important, and I don't think it was a mistake to address those concerns.

    Over the course of the 1990s a lot of people have been able to say, one way or another, at least there's some engagement on the rights issues, let's get back to quality of life. As that started to happen, people in a number of areas started to run the figures. For example, my colleague, Dan Beavon, started doing a lot of this work in the mid-1990s. Health Canada was doing that kind of work.

    I think what's really exciting, for example, is that provincial governments--Saskatchewan and Manitoba-- were running those kinds of demographic projections starting in the mid-1990s. The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations ran those kinds of projections. I was in Calgary two weeks ago at a conference sponsored by the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation--John Kim Bell.

     There are all sorts of private sector firms in western Canada that are running those projections. They're looking at their workforce turnover. The pipeline companies in Alberta and the hydroelectric companies in Saskatchewan are setting up work co-ops and becoming involved in placement and job training. So it's happening. It may be uneven across regions. I think that in western Canada, with its demographics, economic opportunities, and generational turnover, everyone is engaged in that and a lot of focus is going on there.

    The Chair: Monsieur St-Julien.

[Translation]

    Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi--Baie-James--Nunavik, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I have a very direct question for you. I'm not at all satisfied with your overview. You may have used some pretty colours, but I'm not satisfied and I'll tell you why.

    On page 10, you refer to social assistance. There's much more to it than that. In all, there are 612 First Nations and 49 Inuit communities. You claim to have received your economic indicators from Statistics Canada. As you know, Statistics Canada has produced a report on economic dependency on federal transfer payments to the provinces, notably Quebec, on Workers' Compensation, on Social Assistance and so forth.

    Allow me to give you an example. In Kuujjuaq, transfer payments from the federal and Quebec governments represent $26.10 of every $100 of employment income. In Val d'Or, transfer payments account for about $22 of every $100.

    I'm surprised that this report was not tabled along with yours. Your overview contains a reference to social assistance, but there's much more to it than that. Social assistance is only one component. There's also the Child Tax Credit, Workers' Compensation, and so forth. Let me explain.

    The last report was released in 1999 and the next one, with figures for the year 2000, should be ready in August of 2002. Why am I telling you this? It's important information because members of certain First Nations communities pay no taxes, whereas the Inuit of Nunavik do pay taxes.

    You talk about social assistance and note that there are 612 First Nations and 49 Inuit communities. We need to make a distinction here. Committee members need to receive Statistics Canada's 1999 report on all First Nations, in particular the Inuit, to get a true picture of economic dependency, not just the social assistance component. Only then will we have an accurate picture of the situation in each aboriginal community in Canada. I'm sure Mr. Gauvin is familiar with this report. I had to spend $349 out of my office budget to obtain the portion of the report that concerns my region. It provides a true indication of the changes that have taken place.

    On page 12 of your overview, you mention housing problems. You note that 22 per cent of on-reserve dwellings have more than one person per room. However, you don't say exactly how many persons there are per room. In some cases, the number may be as high as six, seven, eight or even nine persons per room. It would also be useful to know the size of the room. I know of rooms measuring 10 feet by 12 feet which are home to eight people during the winter months.

Á  (1150)  

    The Chair: In all fairness, we have asked the witnesses to make a fifteen-minute presentation and they'll be back on the 26th. Be reasonable. You have an opportunity to ask as many questions as you like and it is somewhat premature to be critical of the process, given that we are in the initial stages of our study.

    Mr. Guy St-Julien: I realize that, but I prefer to state this at the outset because I feel I have a good point. People just don't understand. You talk to us about social assistance, leaving people with the impression that First Nations and Inuit live off of social assistance. I'd like each committee member to get a copy of the report on economic dependency prepared by Statistics Canada in 1999. It will provide information not only on social assistance, but on other components and programs as well.

    The Chair: Mr. St-Julien, if you'd like the committee to invite officials from Statistics Canada to testify, that can be arranged. Let's keep our demands reasonable, however. We've only been meeting for about one hour and we plan to spend three or four months on this topic. Therefore, we need to be reasonable. Go ahead if you have a question.

    Mr. Guy St-Julien: I'll table the report in my possession with the committee.

[English]

    Mr. John Sinclair: I'm aware of the limitations of this presentation. I was given an understanding that it would be on first nation communities only. I think I said in the course of my presentation that some of the housing issues are quite extraordinary. You could spend a couple of hours just unpacking the whole issue of dependency of different kinds of things. We could have got into such things as the number of children taken into protective custody. There's a whole range of issues.

    Mr. Bonin, if that's the kind of thing the committee wants, I would defer to one of my colleagues who spends her whole time as an assistant deputy minister focusing on those social programs. There's a world there to take a look at.

     All I was simply trying to give you is, in this case, just the top of the mountain in terms of an idea of the situations and welfare rates and unemployment rates. I think everyone understands those as reasonable indicators of what's going on.

    But you're right, sir, on housing, that in and of itself is enormously complex and could be talked about at length, but I think I'll stop for the time being.

[Translation]

    Mr. Richard Marceau: Mr. Chairman, getting back to the presentation made, I have a very straightforward question for the witness. On page 10 of your presentation, you provide a breakdown of the rate of dependency on social assistance by region or province. For your next appearance on the 26th, could you provide a similar breakdown of the other indicators mentioned, namely urbanization, the HDI, education levels, life expectancy and age?

[English]

    Mr. John Sinclair: Let me raise a caution in my response. I would have to sit down with my colleagues and determine which of those we could do, and which of those we could do by the 26th. I suspect that we might not be able to do it, because if we can do it, it means running things back through StatsCan data packs and all the rest of it.

    We could do a regionalized version of this presentation or some aspects of it, but I would be hesitant to try to make that undertaking for the 26th.

[Translation]

    Mr. Richard Marceau: If you can't do it for the 26th, could you do it before we complete our three- or four-month study?

    The Chair: Fine then.

    Mr. Richard Marceau: Clearly, there is one very important factor that we need to take into account in this debate on First Nations governance, and that is the need for First Nations to take charge of themselves, take charge of economic development at the local level, etc. However, culture is also an important consideration. Do you have any figures on the rate of language retention for male aboriginals, either by nation or by region? This is a critical issue for several of the First Nations I have visited. First, are these figures available, and second, what is Indian and Northern Affairs doing to promote language retention and to prevent the disappearance of aboriginal languages, an important part of First Nations' cultural heritage?

Á  (1155)  

[English]

    Mr. John Sinclair: Let me respond in a couple of ways. I'll turn to Mr. Bevan in a moment, but if I recall correctly, there has been some StatsCan analysis of language retention, and I think we could probably provide the committee with that report.

    A voice: Yes.

    Mr. John Sinclair: So that has been done, and I think what that report will demonstrate is that a number of those languages are at risk in terms of the number of people speaking them. There are maybe five or six language groups that have a critical mass of use and population. So that's one point.

    The second point is that as we get past the idea of providing basic services and start to understand how some programs are more successful, we're starting to discover, for example, in school, that if children who are raised in a Cree community can take some of their classes, kindergarten through grade four, in Cree or some of that, they recognize themselves in the school system; they're a lot more effective. So there's research going on in that area right now. I don't know how much of it is published, but certainly a number of people are focusing on that.

    In terms of programs that deal with language preservation, Indian Affairs gets involved in that primarily through the school system--in other words, what makes for a more effective first nations school system. Language is part of that, but essentially the program mandate for language support is with Canadian Heritage. They work with us on a partnership basis, but they have the policy lead in that respect.

[Translation]

    Mr. Richard Marceau: Have you concluded a self-government agreement with any one nation in particular? Are there language retention programs in place that are jointly administered by your department and by Heritage Canada, programs for which responsibility has been turned over to the First Nation community itself?

[English]

    Mr. John Sinclair: We would have to make some inquiries into that inside our own department and with Canadian Heritage. Nothing comes to mind, but that's not an area of primary expertise for me. I will note in passing that, for example, the Nisga'a comprehensive claim and final agreement has provisions for the use of Nisga'a language, and in most of the self-government agreements that is usually negotiated as part of the final package.

    So clearly, language plays in both in terms of the provision of services, especially education, and also in the self-government negotiations. And I would give an undertaking to try to put some information together and provide it as a note to you, Mr. Chair. I don't know when we can do that, but we will put a rush on that and see what we can come up with. Okay?

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Ms. Karetak-Lindell.

    Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell (Nunavut, Lib.): Thank you.

    I'm looking at page 10 also, but I have probably more observations than questions. For instance, when you look at the figures of 90% over in the Atlantic and 27% in British Columbia, I kind of come to the conclusion that the newer the treaties, and the more people have been involved in coming to their own settlements, then the more this would reflect whether or not they were more self-sufficient.

    In British Columbia we know there are more modern treaties and more opportunities for people to have a say in the actual agreements. I would like to think that's also reflected in the numbers of people now on social assistance.

    I would be interested in seeing, for perhaps the governance part of the discussion, a map of Canada in terms of what treaties there are. I think a lot of us who don't live with the issue every day and don't know all the facts have to rely on other information. If I knew what treaties had been signed and when, through what part of Canada, I think it would give me a better understanding of what we're dealing with. We look at it as a national thing, but I know that each and every one of them is so individual. And that, I think, tells its own story of why we are where we are today.

    But on top of that, I can't stress enough the fact that we as an aboriginal people always feel that we've been studied to death, but we don't ever see real action taken after a study. I think now is the time that we have to actually come out with concrete, substantial things that people can work with in their communities.

    You talked a bit about basic needs. I am on record as talking about basic needs every opportunity I get. Until we take care of such basic needs as access to health care and housing, it is so difficult for people to rise above and deal with higher education and entrepreneurship. I think we have to think of that gap.

    As I said, these were simply comments, but I would find it helpful to see the treaties that have been signed, and the years, by the regions of the country.

  (1200)  

    Mr. John Sinclair: Mr. Chair, I--

    The Chair: Just before you go on, I understand the comments made, and I relate to them. What I'm interested in is this: How does--or does it--the Indian Act prevent communities from creating wealth or solving some of their problems? Is the Indian Act an impediment to quality of life? Eventually our discussions have to turn around the Indian Act and governments.

    Carry on, Mr. Sinclair.

    Mr. John Sinclair: All I was going to say is, if you could give me a minute, I think I have a slide we can project that shows when treaties were signed. It will take us a minute or two to boot it up.

    But if I can respond to part of the question, one of the things you'll discover when you take a look at the map is that basically there were no land-related treaties signed in Atlantic Canada, whereas when you go west from the Lakehead.... Here it is up there.

    If you take a look at it, peace and friendship treaties were signed in Atlantic Canada during that period of time when the French and the British colonial authorities--the British coming up from New England and the French coming from Quebec--basically used Atlantic Canada as a scene for struggle. I know if you can ever get Professor Leslie here, he's forgotten more than most people know about this. In effect, peace and friendship treaties were basically treaties of non-aggression: we won't fight you; you won't attack our colonies; we won't attack your settlements; and we'll trade together. But they were never really about how you lived together, and land set-aside, and all the rest of it.

    Starting in Upper Canada and then with Robinson-Superior, Robinson-Huron, you have what are called the unnumbered treaties. These were situations where, as settlers came in--the United Empire Loyalists--land was reserved for the exclusive use of first nations, and that's how the name “reserve” came up. That's all within the context of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which said only the crown can buy or acquire first nation land. That's really the reason for the American Revolution, because the American colonists didn't like that. They wanted to get that land. They wanted to buy it, and the crown was saying no--we want to have controlled growth.

    When you then have the numbered treaties--Ms. Grey will be aware of these--in a sense, yes, they created reserves, but certainly from the first nations' point of view those were negotiated between treaty commissioners and the representatives. First nations, for example, in Alberta believe their treaties were the basic foundation of what came to be Alberta. They believe there is an ongoing relationship--the ability to use land in a traditional way. So you had a much more integrated kind of dialogue, although it was obviously a colonialist dialogue, and there was a power imbalance. But there were those kinds of discussions.

    Now, anywhere on that map where you don't see a numbered treaty, essentially you're going to see comprehensive claim negotiations, because essentially in British Columbia--and the Supreme Court has been very clear on that--where you did not have what was called in the trade a “land cession treaty” as on the prairies, then there is still unextinguished aboriginal right and title, so you negotiate it. That's what the Nisga'a have done, and I know your committee is deeply familiar with that treaty.

    We have seven or eight of the fourteen Yukon first nations that now have comprehensive claim and self-government agreements, and the others are working very hard that way. The Tungavik Federation of Nunavut is the largest land claim ever negotiated, I think, anywhere in the world. It led to the creation of Nunavut.

    So one way or another, you have the existence of either a more traditional treaty--a numbered treaty--or the creation of a new, comprehensive claim. You've got Montagnais claims being negotiated in northeastern Quebec, along the north shore. You've got the Labrador-Inuit agreement in the north and central coasts of Labrador. They are vehicles for creating a relationship and for putting demands and for sharing resources and for working through things. So treaty-making is very important.

    In all of that history, the first part, in Atlantic Canada, for a variety of reasons got missed. That's why the Marshall decision was so important. It said those peace and friendship treaties contain rights that are contemporary; thus, how do you work out aboriginal fishing and all the rest of it?

  (1205)  

    But you're right: different parts of the country either already have or are negotiating different forms of a modus vivendi between a first nation community and the federal government. In B.C., for example, it is also with the provincial government because it's a signatory.

    How does that relate to quality of life? There are lots of complicated linkages, but Atlantic Canada is now an area where the provincial government, the federal government, and the first nations are thinking about that whole question. Is it a comprehensive claim? How do we relate to each other? How do we do that in a way that shares resources, whether it's forestry in New Brunswick or a fishery in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia? Those agreements are ways in which you sort out those relationships. I think they always have quality of life implications.

    The Chair: Miss Grey.

    Miss Deborah Grey: I thought your presentation was good. It seems to me that if someone's going to go on a rant, they ought to stick around for the rebuttal to their rant. But perhaps I'll deal with that another time, when he's here.

    The Chair: I agree.

    Miss Deborah Grey: On page 14 you talk about mobility. We see this certainly in my province of Alberta, which I'm obviously most familiar with. There is some controversy, I suppose, but also some awkwardness, vis-à-vis Bill C-31's on-reserve, off-reserve status. It always makes it difficult because there are financial issues of course, as well as housing and water, if people want to go back and live on the reserve. Those again are dicey issues, and I'm not sure you can come up with answers for them. When you look at it, though, it's a pretty sizable chunk of people.

    Just semantically here, if you turn to page 14, I'm just not getting this part, but maybe you could explain it to me. It says: “Between 1991 and 1996, reserves were net recipients of migration and have been since 1966”. If they've been that way since 1966, what's the deal about 1991 to 1996 here? I'm obviously missing part of this.

    Mr. John Sinclair: You've now taken me beyond my skill envelope, and I'd like to turn to Mr. Beavon. This is a case of people at two census points and where they were living. So I would call on Dan.

    Miss Deborah Grey: Did you get my question? If they have been since 1966, then why are we singling out 1991 to 1996?

    Mr. Dan Beavon (Acting Strategic Director, Research and Analysis, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development): We have other research that shows the patterns back to 1966. We just focus on the 1991 to 1996 period because that's the most recent census data. On the 1996 census, as on every census, they asked where you lived five years ago. On the basis of that question, we can determine whether they moved or not.

    The information here is just showing the most recent census data, but in the research we have, we show the very clear patterns since 1966. In every census year since 1966, there's been a net return back to reserves. That's the in-migration subtracted from the out-migration. This is contrary to popular belief that there's been a mass exodus from reserves to urban centres.

  (1210)  

    Miss Deborah Grey: Okay. Well, I'd be happy to edit that sentence for you so it says that.

    On page 11--Nancy, you were talking about this--how can we talk about such grandiose things as post-secondary education if a kid's not eating properly and not getting to school? Guy was talking about overcrowding. The last thing on your mind is going to school.

    I was living in Fort Chipewyan up north in Alberta in 1977, when television came in. It changed the community forever, overnight. The next day the kids didn't go to school, or the next day or the next day, because they were watching TV. In the school system, we saw that happening right before our eyes.

    That's one thing, and I'm not decrying television by any means. But if you're not doing the very basic things, if you're not getting good water to drink, if you're not getting three squares a day, if you're not able to sleep at night because things perhaps are too crowded--and this isn't general, but there are certainly some cases--and then you look at the health considerations here, this is frightening. We need to be able to deal with this. I know this steps into another department--health, I suppose--but I know it's all tied in together.

    These rates are just staggering. I have a history of tuberculosis in my family. The general population hasn't even mentioned the word for the last 15 years, yet here it is. It's frightening.

    How do we deal with the housing, the water, the basic health, the food and nutrition, and then get on to some serious solutions in terms of economic development and people going into business and getting post-secondary education?

    Mr. John Sinclair: While I accept everything you're saying, I would make a couple of comments.

    This gets back to your problem of how societies--or in your first question, I think it was organizations--spot those trends or those problems and react to them.

    I think over the last several budgets--I'm doing this from memory, and I don't want to mislead the committee--there have been provisions inside Health Canada to address in a very targeted way the whole issue of diabetes, and also more recently fetal alcohol syndrome. If you have children with FAS or FAE, they're not going to learn, they're not going to make it in the labour force, and they may wind up in a prison population simply because there's not that capacity.

    So we understand a lot better now the impact between health and educational performance, and between housing and educational performance. So between our department and for example CMHC, we're addressing questions of housing. Our own department is working very closely with first nations educators to address the whole range of issues with respect to performance in education.

    There is between HRDC and ourselves the whole aboriginal head start consideration--how can a kid learn if he's hungry in the morning? So there are those kinds of considerations. Also in health--I think this is really important, and Dan can speak to this more--there is...I think two fiscal years ago...the Canadian institute of aboriginal health.

    Mr. Dan Beavon: It's the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and NAHO, the National Aboriginal Health Organization.

    Mr. John Sinclair: So in effect, the health care system itself, including the epidemiologists, the federal Department of Health, and funding institutions are now starting to get the kind of very precise data that will allow health care professionals to start monitoring. I mean, a lot of this is middle-age diabetes. So you have a strong community who pull themselves together, they're doing economic development, and maybe you have 30 or 40 people who are really making things happen, say in a community of 500, and four of those individuals come down with middle-age diabetes. All of a sudden the doctor is saying “No, don't go to Ottawa and beat up on those guys in Indian Affairs. Lord knows they need it, but we don't want you travelling because you're overweight, you have a health problem. You're grounded.”

    So when those problems come together in a small community, you lose that critical mass of leadership. What's interesting about these health issues is they affect the youth as well as the middle-age leaders, the people who make the community work. And as we get more and more into self-government, you start to wonder about how these things fit together. So in one sense it's more problems. In another sense, you also say we just have to be smarter about how we work with people and where we target the investments.

    But now you've drawn me into a disquisition on Health Canada and other departments, so I'll retreat from the field of discourse at this point.

  (1215)  

    The Chair: Are there any other questions?

    First of all, I'd like to share that the information presented here was distributed to members. We appreciate that very much. I want to thank you very much for your presentation. We will meet again before and after legislation is tabled.

    There have been rumours that someone saw in the media somewhere that the governance bill will not be tabled until June. I can say to you, my colleagues, that I haven't heard this from anyone involved with presentations. I certainly don't believe everything I read in the media, but sometimes it's correct. If the plan is to table in June, we would appreciate some indication, so we can share that information with the committee.

    Another comment I will make before we adjourn is that... These are my comments. If my colleagues disagree, they're certainly welcome to offer their own. This is 25 years in politics for me. I've been at every level except provincial. I've always seen, and my rapport with the bureaucrats has always been, that they are the advocates for the people who depend on the department they work in.

    Having chaired this committee before and having done the legislation at the committee level on the Indian Act, I can say that I do see the bureaucrats of Indian Affairs as the lobbyists and the advocates for aboriginals--first nations. I say this because during my last experience on doing the legislation, there was a certain amount of abuse by some witnesses on the bureaucrats, on the minister, on the members of this committee. I'd like to set the tone early that the members of this committee are dedicated, serious people.

    This is a difficult committee. The work that we do here affects people's lives directly. Some of the committees on the Hill are more fun. Some are a lot of fun--international travel and all kinds of things. I want to commend the members who agree to sit on this committee. It's difficult work. It's valuable work, and it's very important.

    I want to say to the department that, as advocates, we depend on you, because the purpose of the work that we do here is to make life better for first nations, for our first people.

    The tone has been set. Because people read the blues and the minutes of our meetings, I'd like to repeat that the work we're doing before we receive the bill is work that is constructive to help us understand. It is not work that we are doing to affect the bill. We don't know. As your chair, although I'm a member of the government side, I have no idea what's coming down. I'm not being consulted. We're not trying to influence the legislation at this point. We will have all the opportunity in the world to influence it after it's presented to us.

    For what it's worth, I wanted to set the tone. We are here to do what is best for the people who are affected by this legislation. I thank you for being there for us. We will invite you again and again and again. After we get the legislation we will invite you again and anyone else who can contribute, because the purpose of this committee is to make the quality of life for our first nations better. There's no other mission that we have. I'd like that to be clear for everyone.

    Do my colleagues wish to add anything to that? You're welcome to disagree if you wish.

  (1220)  

    Colleagues, you have received an invitation to a meeting on March 12. I have a different style as chair. For those who like to lobby the chair and do lunch with the chair, I don't do lunch. Those who want to lobby me must lobby the whole committee. So when somebody approaches me to educate or try to influence me, I reserve a room on their behalf and invite all members of the committee. You don't lobby just the chair on this commitee, you lobby everybody. That's why you received the invitation.

    Is there anything else for the good of the club?

    Thank you, everybody.

    The meeting is adjourned.