:
We'll call this meeting to order. This is meeting number six of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. Today we have the opportunity to review the supplementary estimates (B) for 2013-14. These votes are specifically lb, 5b, 10b, 30b, and 35b under Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
Colleagues, today we have the privilege of the minister. He has joined us for the first hour.
Minister Valcourt, thank you for being here.
We have with him officials from the department. We have the Deputy Minister, Michael Wernick. Thank you so much for being here. We also have the chief financial officer, Susan MacGowan. Thank you so much for being here.
Minister, we'll turn it over to you for your opening statement, and then we'll certainly have some questions for you.
Thanks again for being here, and please begin with your opening statement.
:
Mr. Chair, thank you very much for your warm welcome. I am pleased to be here today to speak to you about the supplementary estimates (B) for fiscal year 2013-14.
Since 2006, our government has been working with our aboriginal partners to remove barriers that are preventing aboriginal people and northerners from developing stronger, healthier and more self-sufficient communities. And while we've made significant progress, we also know there is more work to be done.
For example, our government recognizes that aboriginal women are disproportionately represented as victims of violent crime. This is simply unacceptable. This is why we continue to take concrete action to address the issue of violence against aboriginal women and why we have invested over $240 million in the family violence prevention program since 2006.
In economic action plan 2013, our government committed $24 million over two years for the family violence prevention program, of which $11.7 million is included in this year's supplementary estimates, allowing the total annual funding to remain at over $30 million for this year and for 2014-15.
This program enhances the safety and security of some of Canada's most vulnerable—First Nations women and children living on reserve. Since 2006, this program has also supported a total of 41 shelters across the country that have provided shelter services for over 16,500 children and 18,000 women living on reserve as well as offered over—
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Since 2006, this program also supported a total of 41 shelters across the country that have provided shelter services for over 16,500 children and 18,000 women living on reserve as well as offered over 1,800 family violence prevention and awareness activities in aboriginal communities across Canada.
[English]
I also want to take this opportunity, Mr. Chair, to state how pleased I am that we were able to finally pass the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, which will provide first nations women and children with legal protections and rights on reserve in the event of a marital breakdown or death, protections they have been without for nearly three decades.
These supplementary estimates also contribute to our efforts to reduce barriers to aboriginal people's full participation in the Canadian economy through investments in education, skills training, and the urban aboriginal strategy.
We know that aboriginal youth represent the fastest-growing segment of the population in Canada, and yet, unfortunately, they have one of the lowest graduation rates. That is exactly why our government is currently consulting on a draft legislative proposal for first nations education that would put in place a system that is accountable to students and ensure that first nations students have access, like all Canadians, to good quality education. Our government firmly believes that all first nations students across Canada deserve access to a school system that meets, if not exceeds, provincial and territorial standards, a school system where first nations culture and language takes its rightful place and respects treaty rights.
Attesting to the priority we place on education, in economic action plan 2013 our government invested $10 million, over two years, for Indspire to provide post-secondary scholarships and bursaries to first nations and Inuit students, $5 million of which is included in this year's supplementary estimates.
I strongly believe in Canada's youth, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, and I believe it is important to equip them with the necessary tools they need to take our country's future in their hands and carry it successfully into the future.
Through economic action plan 2013, our government is also investing over $240 million to reform the income assistance program and connect first nations youth between the ages of 18 and 24 with skills training and jobs. These investments will help to provide personalized supports for first nations youth in receipt of income assistance for skills training that will help them find and keep a job. The funds included in this year's supplementary estimates, just over $20 million, will be used to initiate the first year of this program.
Finally, the supplementary estimates also include $12.7 million for the urban aboriginal strategy, which is intended to reduce barriers and create economic opportunities for urban aboriginals to get the training and skills they need to participate fully in the economy.
The majority of these supplementary estimates, however, will go toward the settlement of specific claims: $450 million of these funds will be provided to supplement the specific claims settlement fund for 2013-14. The remaining $22 million will be used for the implementation of the specific claims action plan.
As members of this committee know, in 2007 our government took unprecedented action to deal with the backlog of specific claims and reach a negotiated settlement that resolved the outstanding legal obligations of the government, provided a fair deal to taxpayers, and created economic opportunities for first nations communities and surrounding areas. I'm proud to report, Mr. Chair, that 100% of specific claims submitted since 2008 have been responded to within the three-year timeframe set out by the Justice At Last initiative. Furthermore, since 2007 the government has cleared a backlog of 541 claims at the assessment stage, doubling the number of claims in negotiation across the country. That's quite an achievement.
Finally, our government also believes that northerners are best placed to make the important decisions about how to run their economies and how to maximize the use of their resources. That is why I was pleased to be in Yellowknife this past June to sign a historic devolution agreement that will provide the Northwest Territories with greater decision-making power over a range of new responsibilities, which will lead to job growth and long-term prosperity across the territory.
[Translation]
The supplementary estimates support the implementation of the Northwest Territories Devolution Agreement by providing over $20 million that will allow our government to satisfy obligations in the Northwest Territories Devolution Agreement to make payments to the Government of the Northwest Territories and Northwest Territories aboriginal groups to offset their one-time costs associated with devolution. This is a critical time for the Northwest Territories and a historic juncture in their political development, and we continue to work toward a target effective date of April 1, 2014, as requested by the Premier of the Government of the Northwest Territories and agreed to by the .
This includes fostering economic development by improving northern regulatory systems, while protecting our environmental heritage and putting more control in the hands of northerners.
Mr. Chair, this government believes that all Canadians, regardless of where they live—north or south, on and off reserve—should be able to fully participate in our strong Canadian economy.
I'm happy to answer any questions that members of the committee may have pertaining to supplementary estimates (B) 2013-14.
:
Thank you, Minister. We appreciate your taking the time to come and give us some information about supplementary estimates (B).
We also want to thank your staff, through you, Minister, for the briefing they provided to our analysts and, by extension, to our committee through the briefing notes that have been circulated to committee members. Those briefings are helpful. I know we, as a committee, want to thank you for providing them.
We'll begin the rounds of questioning with Mr. Genest-Jourdain for the first seven minutes.
:
Good morning, Mr. Minister.
I have four series of questions to ask you. I will try to be brief, but should we run out of time for your answers, I would like a written response. I'll also submit my questions to you in writing.
In the main estimates, the Specific Claims Tribunal registry provides $1 million, but in the supplementary estimates (B) that we are looking at, $2.2 million to support continued activities of the tribunal registry will be transferred to AANDC, while your department is requesting more money for specific claims to resolve outstanding claims. What measures have you taken to provide adequate long-term funding to enable the registry to do its job in the future?
Along the same lines, budget 2013 promised $54 million over two years to ensure that specific claims are processed quickly. Is that reflected in the supplementary estimates?
When the Specific Claims Tribunal Act was adopted in 2008, your government dedicated $250 million per year to pay for claims settlement. How much has been used since 2008 to settle the claims? What amount has not been spent in the fiscal years the funding was allocated?
Along the same lines, what is the status of the fund? Why do you need to request more funding to settle the claims? Was $250 million not enough to resolve the outstanding claims? Does the department know how many claims will be resolved between now and when funding ends in five years?
I'll continue asking questions and will submit them to you in writing. You'll have time to answer afterwards.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair and Minister.
I want to salute, certainly, our translation team who are battling through some difficulties today. They do a great job helping us to do ours. I appreciate that.
One of the things that I've had the pleasure of doing since being appointed parliamentary secretary is meeting some of the folks involved with first nations youth right across the country. I'm thinking specifically of Roberta Jamieson, the president and CEO of Indspire, who is a remarkable woman, a remarkable first nations leader who's doing great work with Indspire. I was pleased to host a dinner with her for this year's Indspire award recipients and was very impressed, especially with the youth winners. The next generation of first nations leadership that is coming up is certainly impressive and they're already inspiring their communities.
I want to ask about Indspire in these estimates. I see in the estimates that our government has invested $5 million to go to Indspire to pull funds for these bursaries and scholarships. How many bursaries and scholarships will Indspire be able to provide with these additional funds from the government?
:
Let me start by saying that, of course, we are committed to helping aboriginal students to access post-secondary education and acquire the skills they need to fully participate in the labour market and in society. Over and above the program that our government provides to first nations and Inuit students, they can also benefit from other funding sources that target aboriginal students. Indspire is an example of an organization providing bursaries.
We are proud to support Indspire, which has a proven record of success, providing scholarships to over 2,200 aboriginal students annually, and raising significant support from a range of corporate donors to help support the students' success.
This $5 million will be matched by Indspire itself. Indspire awarded $5.2 million in 2012-13 to support 2,050 bursary and scholarship recipients, for an average of about $2,500 a year. With the government's pledge of $10 million over those two years, Indspire has publicly committed to raise another $10 million, which will result in about 8,000 students with scholarships and bursaries over two years. That's quite a successful undertaking, I think.
Good morning, Minister, and your officials.
My question is related to the $2 million that will be reallocated from the contributions to grants through supplementary estimates. It's related to the on-reserve income assistance program and assisted living. In the main estimates, you identified a reduction of $40.4 million to the income assistance program. It's my understanding that a significant portion of the expected savings were linked to your department's policy shift from reasonable comparability to compliance with provincial rates and standards.
As we all know, this month the Federal Court struck down your policy to tie rates to provincial levels in Atlantic Canada. It found you owed more procedural fairness regarding your lack of consultation with first nations in Atlantic Canada. In fact, a judge said there was never any meaningful consultation about the merits of a strict application of provincial rates and eligibility criteria.
I can only assume from this case in Atlantic Canada that there has been a significant lack of consultation throughout the country. My question today would be, given the Federal Court ruling, will you be pausing the implementation of this policy shift in Atlantic Canada? And will you indeed be pausing the entire policy shift for the country?
Minister, I know you talked a little bit in your opening remarks about some of the success stories with respect to Justice At Last, the specific claims action plan. I know certainly that when I've looked at some of the material it's really been exceptional how the backlog of, as you mentioned, 541 cases was cleared. I was encouraged to hear you say that since 2008, 100% of claims had been responded to. That to me seems to be an exceptional number.
I want to delve a little bit deeper into that. Do you know how many claims are currently before the tribunal? Is the extra $452 million earmarked for any specific claims that you think are about to be resolved?
I want to thank the minister for being with us today. I look forward to hearing his answers to my questions. I'm going to talk about devolution, because of course that's a subject that's very dear to most people in the north.
I'm curious about the $24.8 million that's up for grabs in the supplementary estimates. This is going to be divided between the Government of Northwest Territories and Northwest Territories aboriginal groups, according to your statement.
First of all, what particular activities are going to be funded under that? I'd like to see that. Is this representative of one-time funding that was described at $26.5 million in June 2013? Is this what the money represents? Or is this money that's in addition to that particular allocation?
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I think it's fair to say that northerners, first and foremost, will benefit immensely from devolution. Decision-making will be in their hands. The people in the Northwest Territories will decide on the pace and the nature of development of resources in their territory, and this is for the benefit of all their residents, and of course of Canada also.
Devolution will not only provide greater decision-making to the northerners, but it will also guarantee that they receive a net fiscal benefit from resource development through resource revenue-sharing arrangements that have been agreed to in an agreement and that will find expression in the legislation.
In addition, aboriginal parties to the devolution agreement will receive direct financial transfers and a share in resource revenues from public lands, and participate in the government decision-making in collaboration and partnership with the Government of the Northwest Territories.
All of these benefits have been negotiated between our government, the Government of the Northwest Territories, and the aboriginal parties, and are set out in the devolution agreement, which I signed in June.
:
Thank you very much. I greatly appreciate the time.
Minister, on a number of occasions in your presentation—I think you have three paragraphs that deal with education—what's interesting is that you said,
[Translation]
“…deserve access to a school system that meets provincial and territorial standards…”. There is no mention that this would be equitable.
[English]
I have tons of correspondence here from the Chiefs of Ontario; from the Chiefs Assembly on Education, which includes chiefs from Quebec and all over; and the Anishinabek Nation, which is in opposition to the first nations education act.
When you were looking at drafting the first nations education act, did you consider the funding envelope? Did you consider equitable funding in designing that first nations education act?
I know you are saying you are consulting with first nations, but I can tell you that a lot of first nations are saying that they're not being consulted. I know that for seven years, Chief Shining Turtle from Whitefish River First Nation has continually asked the minister to attend the first nations, to meet with them so they can have those discussions about education and the economic impact.
I'm trying to get a sense if your view and your department's view of the first nations education act include equitable funding?
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When you look at predictable, we're talking about equitable funding...same as off-reserve children.
When we look at this, I can tell you that here is your opposition:
The development of the FNEA by the federal government did not:
a) adhere to any sections of the report of the National Panel on Education;
b) consult with Anishinabek Chiefs and Councils
c) take into account any of the recommendations from the Council of Ministers of Education Conference focusing on First Nation education; ....
It goes on.
From the Chiefs Assembly on Education:
Therefore Be It Resolved that the Chiefs-in-Assembly:…
Reject the development of a First Nation Education Act as announced in the federal budget 2012…and…demand that the federal government uphold the honour of the Crown and fulfill its obligation to First Nations by providing needs-based, sustainable education funding that supports First Nations lifelong learning.
You've indicated both here and in the House that if first nations are not supportive of this, you will not go forward with it.
You also mentioned that you required support for this. What is the required support? Do you have a base on that right now?
Will you ensure that the proper consultation is done? It has to be meaningful.
:
You asked a question. Will you let me answer?
You referred to a resolution of the assembly and chiefs, who have taken away from the AFN the mandate they had received to work with the department, with the federal government, to develop a legislative proposal that would meet the requirements of ensuring that first nations youth on reserve benefit from an education system that has a legislative basis, a statutory basis.
Notwithstanding the resolution, we have undertaken these consultations throughout the country. I have personally met with many chiefs and councils, tribal councils, as have officials. Throughout these consultations, or meetings—certain people are afraid of calling them consultations—we have heard first nations calling for control of education by first nations. We have heard the call for predictable, sufficient funding and ensuring that they could rely on a system that would respect their treaty rights.
It is with these asks in mind that we have developed a proposal on which we are continuing to consult. That process is ongoing. We'll see where it leads. We believe as a government that it's imperative that we act quickly. The current non-system is failing students all across the country.
We believe we have examples of successful initiatives that have taken place. I point to Nova Scotia, where the Mi'kmaq community, and the province, and the federal government have put in place a system that results today in aboriginal youth on reserve in Nova Scotia graduating at a rate of 90%, above the rate of those non-aboriginal students.
It is building upon these successes that we believe we can get the statutory base and eventually the framework that will ensure that first nations students have the right, like every other Canadian, to a good system of education.
:
Mr. Minister, thank you for being here.
Our government has made significant progress since the 2008 apologies for the residential school system. In supplementary estimates (B), $6 million have been allocated for the commemoration initiative, under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, which honours the former residential school students, their families and their communities, and pays tribute to them.
Could you give us an update on the work the government has done recently to honour its commitment under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement?
:
Thank you for your question.
As you know, our government is 100% committed to reaching a fair and lasting resolution to the unfortunate legacy of the Indian residential schools, which is at the heart of the reconciliation and renewal of relations with aboriginal peoples and all Canadians.
Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of announcing that the Government of Canada was going to work with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and all parties to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to extend the commission's mandate to June 30, 2015, so that it can complete its important work. The additional year will give the commission enough time to complete its mandate and draft its final report, and to receive some documents that Library and Archives Canada must provide.
We want the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to be able to complete its important mandate and fulfill our obligations under the agreement. We are determined to arrive at a fair and lasting resolution to the Indian residential schools. We want reconciliation for aboriginal peoples, their families, the communities and all Canadians.
Although the commission's official work ends in June 2015, the work won't stop there. Reconciliation is a constantly evolving process. In fact, the effects of this chapter of our history continue and will continue to be felt for several generations, unfortunately. That's why it's important for aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians to work together to deal with the harmful effects of this sad chapter in our history.
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I referred to it in my introductory remarks.
Our government recognizes that aboriginal women are disproportionately represented as the victims of violent crime. As I said, this is simply unacceptable. That is why we are taking concrete action to address the issue of violence against aboriginal women and girls.
You have to look at the actions we have taken. I referred to the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, which I submit with respect is an important step in getting to where we want to be. We want to provide aboriginal women and children and families on reserves with the same rights and protection that other Canadian kids and wives and husbands are getting. I think that was an important step.
As I said, it's not the amount of dollars, but we've invested over $240 million in the family violence prevention program. This has provided shelter services to thousands of children and women living on reserve. In the last budget, we committed another $24 million over two years for the family violence prevention program.
But all of this is in isolation. You have to have a holistic approach. That's why education, skills development, the efforts we deploy to try to enhance the delivery of family and child services with first nations, are all steps that I believe can help to reduce these shameful statistics about aboriginal women and girls being victimized so much.
The minister suggested at the very end of his statement that education was a very important part of the ministry's plans for the future. However, I'm aware that the waiting list for post-secondary education is growing. In fact, it is now at 10,600 students on reserve who are on a waiting list to get into post-secondary education.
That number has gotten bigger in the last two years, not smaller. I understand that in some places the waiting list is now so large that they are no longer putting students on the waiting list. In other words, the waiting list is too large to have a waiting list.
What is the department doing to try to allow native persons, native youths, to attend post-secondary education?
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What we have on first nations reserves is passive welfare of a 1970s model—cheque writing by band councils. There is no case management. There are no diversion services in which people are assessed for what they need in order to be job-ready. There's no real partnership with post-secondary institutions or the private sector. There's nothing that's effective. It's a passive welfare system and it's a trap for young adults.
The reform that the government announced in the last year is to catch up to what every province in Canada has done over the last 10 years, which is to add active case management to assess people's needs and divert them and channel them to the services; to say you aren't getting a cheque unless you're involved in some kind of skills or upgrading or training program; and to deal with whatever the issue of the individual is, which might be child care needs, literacy training, or specific training for a specific occupation.
What we have finally been able to do is to bring in all of the skills of my colleagues at the employment and skills development department, formerly HRSDC, who never dealt with an on-reserve clientele but who are now rolling out the program to an on-reserve clientele. We're in the very first six months of that reform. I would hope to have a lot of progress for you in the next year. Projects will be rolling out that have been developed in partnership with tribal councils and first nations. Chiefs and tribal councils are extremely excited about the opportunity to turn away...young adults in particular. The focus in the first wave is 18- to 24-year-old young adults.
Michael, I want to go back to talk a little more about specific claims. For whatever reason, it's an area that I'm quite interested in.
If I remember correctly, both you and the minister were saying that about 300 active claims right now are going through. Are the numbers actually changing? Were there 400 the year before, or, with the cases that are coming in and the cases that are going out, are we staying at around the same number year over year?
:
The short answer is that the numbers change virtually every day—which drove my staff crazy in trying to get ready for questions at today's appearance.
We have 320 in progress, either at legal assessment... I'll come back to that in a second, if you don't mind. We have about 180 at active negotiation. Some of them will get settled next week, I think, so the numbers do fluctuate.
What we have done, if any committee members are interested, is put a dashboard on the website in which you can look up the inventory. The statistics I just read to you are from the website. You can look up by province and even by specific file. There's information on all of the active claims on the website.
:
I'll have to provide you with the active list as a follow-up. The projects that are under way right now are at different stages, and it's going to take many years to complete all of them. There has been 200 years of development across the country using practices that wouldn't be tolerated today, and we have a lot of work ahead of us.
I think just in the north, the inventory was over 1,400 sites. Now some of these can be as small as a single oil tank under a garage somewhere, and some of them can be as big as the Giant Mine. There's an enormous range—old military sites, DEW Line radar stations, fuel dumps, old air strips, and so on and so on. There is an inventory. Right now, I think the number that we're very actively working on is about 80, but one of those is the Giant Mine, which as you know, is the largest contaminated site in the country.
:
We've been operating with a capped operating vote for some time. That was announced in one of the previous budgets, so we've been very frugal about travel for quite some time. We've been trying to limit travel to the important things like meeting community—for example, setting up for negotiations, inspections of water facilities, activity in communities where we need to be boots on the ground supervising construction projects and that sort of thing. Internally, we've pushed really, really hard to use video conferencing tools. We've been installing them everywhere we can to try to avoid people getting into airplanes and coming to meetings. We use video conferencing for training and so on.
So I think overall, depending on what benchmark you want to use, we've made a reduction of about 25%. Now some of the travel that you will see in our budget for travel is actually subsidizing the travel of former residential school students to attend the adjudication of their cases at hearings, and that counts in our travel budget. So I would caution you to dig a little deeper.
The $1.1 million is an initiative that came after the budget, where the government ratcheted down travel even further and froze $1.1 million in our department's budget to make sure it was not available for travel, and that's reflected in these supplementaries. So it essentially creates a situation where we're asking for fewer funds from Parliament because we know we're not going to spend that $1.1 million.
:
The project, as I'm sure members are familiar with, was announced some time ago. We've gone through the issues of its mandate, science priorities, location, which community it should be in, and even what site within the community it should be in—all in very close consultation with the community.
The short answer is, we're on time and on budget. The slightly longer answer is, we're now in the pre-construction phase, mobilizing materials, getting the site ready, doing the fine tuning of the design work. There will be shovels in the ground next summer, all aiming for an opening in 2017.
In parallel with that, we're working on the science program of which the station will be the hub. We're hiring a chief scientist and we're working with other departments on science priorities in the north.
Earlier in your response, you talked about money for skills training in first nations communities. In my riding, they've already made a transition to more active case management and employment counselling for aboriginal people who seek funding for training, and it's working very well.
As with anything, there will always be some hiccups, but one of the concerns continuously expressed to me is still the lack of funding. They tend to run a wait-list, especially on skills training that extends beyond the 12-month period, if they're going into two-year or three-year training programs.
In that light, has any assessment been done on particular areas that have made the transition and are probably experiencing some shortages in meeting those training needs?
:
It's a very good question. This is an example, like other areas—education, post-secondary, housing and others—where there are pockets of real excellence out there in first nations communities. Strong communities, strong leaders are doing all kinds of things and delivering great services, and there are challenges to make that available to the largest number of communities possible.
One of the key features of getting the income assistance reform designed and approved was to point to examples that show the way for other communities. The minister alluded to the role that Mi'kmaq communities have played in education as a possible signpost of what other communities could follow.
I don't know the specifics of what you are referring to, but I can say that if members of Parliament have any feedback whatsoever on specific communities and specific cases, we'd like to hear it so that we can fine-tune the program as it goes ahead.
The underlying premise is to try to provide the same kinds of services in helping people get off income assistance that would be available to somebody down the road off-reserve
:
Yes. I guess my question really stems from the fact that we have a lot of industry going on and that most of those industry agreements are with aboriginal first nations. There are requirements for employment and training and so on. Because of that, I guess, you get more buy-in. You get a lot more marketing of what the programs are, so the list gets a little longer for those who want to do it, but I'd be happy to talk to you about that.
The other thing is, could you provide us a list of those groups right now that have transitioned to that model so we could also consult with some of them and find out how it's working? If there is any timetable in place to bring that to the other aboriginal self-governments and aboriginal groups, you could probably provide that to us as well.
My other question is with regard to the comment, I guess, that was made by AFN National Chief Shawn Atleo. He issued an open letter and was basically telling the government that the current federal proposal for the bill for first nations education was not acceptable. He also outlined the absolute need for funding guarantees for first nations children to learn in a safe and secure environment, which we've talked a lot about this morning in this committee.
What is the plan right now to engage with Chief Atleo and with others to resolve the concerns they have and to work with them with regard to this bill?
:
Some members of this committee will remember that when the bill went through we had to provide our best forecast of how many people would apply and at what pace they would come in. We were expecting, based on our sort of demographic analysis—the best we could do—about 45,000 applicants. We think that's probably still about right, but we've only received 39,000 to date.
We are processing them very rapidly. Almost all of those cases have been processed, and status has been given to about 35,000 people.
We simply didn't need the money in the previous year. We've slid it into this year. We'll just continue as people apply under the act.
At some point, probably everybody who's eligible, who fits the criteria of that legislation, will have applied. People who were well aware of the situation probably were in the first batch, but there will probably be small numbers in future years.
:
I'll just say that we are finished the third round of questions. The best thing to do now is go to the votes, if committee members are prepared to do that. We'll do that, and then we have some committee business to take care of.
INDIAN AFFAIRS AND NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT
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Vote 1b—Operating expenditures..........$86,576,828
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Vote 5b—Capital expenditures..........$2,600,000
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Vote 10b—The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions..........$501,907,367
Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission
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Vote 30b—Program expenditures..........$1
Registry of the Specific Claims Tribunal
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Vote 35b—Program expenditures..........$2,650,314
(Votes 1b, 5b, 10b, 30b, and 35b agreed to)
The Chair: Shall I report the supplementary estimates to the House?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: I will report this back to the House.
I want to thank Mr. Wernick and Ms. MacGowan for being here. We appreciate your willingness to stay for the remainder of the meeting and we are thankful for the questions. The were some questions that specifically asked for additional responses. If you will hasten to respond to those and get them in to the clerk, we will distribute them to committee members.
Colleagues, we will now suspend the meeting and go into camera. I just have one piece of future business to take care of, and then we will dismiss.
[Proceedings continue in camera]