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Results: 1 - 15 of 151
View Bob Bratina Profile
Lib. (ON)
I call the meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 17 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.
I would like to start by acknowledging that I am joining you today from the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinabe and Chonnonton nations.
Pursuant to the motion adopted on June 9, 2020, the committee is meeting for the purpose of receiving evidence on the subject matter of the supplementary estimates (A), 2020-21.
Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available by the House of Commons website. During this meeting, the webcast will alway show the person speaking rather than the whole committee.
In order to facilitate the work of our interpreters and ensure an orderly meeting, interpretation in this video conference is like that in a regular committee meeting. Choose, on the bottom of your screen, floor, English or French.
If you are speaking in English, please ensure you are on the English channel. If you are speaking in French, please ensure you are on the French channel. As you are speaking, if you plan to alternate from one language to the other, switch the interpretation channel so that it aligns with the language you are speaking.
Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name, and when you are ready to speak, you can either click on the microphone icon or you can hold down the space bar, as I'm doing now, while you are speaking. When you release the bar, the mike mutes.
I remind everyone that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. Should any members request the floor outside of their designated time, they should activate their mike and state that they have a point of order. If a member wishes to intervene on a point of order that has been raised by another member, they should use the “raise hand” function.
When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. If technical issues arise in relation to interpretation, or if you are accidentally disconnected, advise me or the clerk, and the technical team will work to resolve it. We may need to suspend as we need to ensure all members are able to participate fully.
Click on the top right-hand corner of the screen to ensure you are on gallery view.
In this meeting, we will follow the same rules that usually apply to opening statements and the rounds for questioning of witnesses. Each witness will have up to five minutes for their opening statement, followed by the usual rounds of questions from members.
Now it's time to get to our witnesses: the Honourable Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations; the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Indigenous Services; and the Honourable Dan Vandal, Minister of Northern Affairs.
Minister Miller, I was informed that you will be starting. Please go ahead for five minutes.
View Carolyn Bennett Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I am joining you today from my home in Toronto, on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit. I would also like to recognize the traditional territories from which all of you are participating.
I am pleased to be here today to speak to the supplementary estimates (A) for Crown-Indigenous Relations.
Officials from Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs are also online to help respond to your questions, led by our deputy minister, Daniel Lee Quan-Watson.
This has been an emotional time. We have all been upset by the images on our screens and the undeniable evidence of systemic racism in Canada. It is the basis of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and the over-incarceration of first nations, Inuit and Métis.
I know that everyone on this committee wants to ensure that Canada is investing in making amends for the past and in putting in place the concrete actions to make real change.
The estimates for CIRNA include key initiatives and new funding totalling approximately $748.7 million for Crown-Indigenous Relations.
This funding will ensure that we can continue the concrete work to renew the relationship between Canada and first nations, Inuit and the Métis nation, to support their visions of self-determination and to advance reconciliation.
The estimates re-profile $481.2 million for the Federal Indian Day Schools Settlement Agreement and $260 million in sixties scoop funding to ensure sufficient funds are available for individual compensation and to support ongoing administration costs of the settlements. In both cases, the re-profiled funds will ensure that there is no funding shortfall and that Canada can promptly make payments to survivors.
As you know, the McLean implementation date was delayed as a result of several court appeals.
The sum of $500 million has already been transferred to the sixties scoop claims administrator, and the transfer of an additional $250 million of compensation will be determined once the total number of eligible claims is known. Eligible class members have now already started receiving partial payments of $21,000 each.
The estimates also request $6 million to support the co-development of a national action plan in response to the issues identified in the final report and the calls for justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Our hearts are with the families of the missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and two-spirit and gender-diverse people and the survivors. Our government, indigenous leaders, survivors, families and provincial and territorial governments are working hard to co-develop the national action plan that will set a clear road map to ensure that indigenous women and girls and two-spirit+ people can be safe wherever they live.
We will not let the families and survivors down. We have already put in place concrete actions to end this national tragedy as documented on my department's website. We are grateful for all the work of all of our partners towards a national action plan. As you know, prior to COVID-19, work to develop the plan was well under way, and indigenous women's organizations had received funding to engage their communities.
The funding in the estimates will further support national and regional indigenous organizations and groups to engage with their members, and families to engage in ensuring that the national action plan is accountable.
As we have seen with COVID-19, better data is essential in being able to assess results. We are working to determine the appropriate indicators and reporting by partners to ensure an effective plan. This money that is in the supplementary estimates today will ensure that we will be able to measure, adapt, measure, adapt for the next five years.
We cannot let the families and survivors down. We promised concrete actions to stop this national tragedy. We owe it to them to be accountable for the results.
I look forward to your questions.
Thank you, merci, meegwetch.
View Bob Zimmer Profile
CPC (BC)
Thank you for that, Minister.
I know it's urgent. Coming from the mouths of the chambers themselves, they said that short of tourism, mining is the industry and they really need help.
I want to ask you about a specific line item in the estimates. It's on page 2-20, and it's “Contributions for promoting the safe use, development, conservation and protection of the North's natural resources, and promoting scientific development for Indigenous Peoples and the North”. The estimate to date is $147 million and the supplementary estimate is another $6.6 million on top of that, so the revised and total estimate is $153,792,914.
With that kind of money, Minister, we're wanting to know where that is going and what that's being spent on.
Daniel Quan-Watson
View Daniel Quan-Watson Profile
Daniel Quan-Watson
2020-06-16 17:39
I believe that piece is not actually in the supplementary estimates today, but in the mains, if I understood the question correctly. I'll get the ADM for northern affairs—
Serge Beaudoin
View Serge Beaudoin Profile
Serge Beaudoin
2020-06-16 17:39
I wonder if our chief financial officer would have the details of that in front of her. I don't have that figure in front of me.
View Lenore Zann Profile
Lib. (NS)
I just wanted to say thank you so much to the ministers for being here today. I know that it's been a very difficult time for all of us, and I know that you care deeply about the people of this country and the indigenous people of this country. I just wanted to say that we're all in this together and we need to make things better for the indigenous people of Canada from coast to coast to coast.
Minister Bennett, with respect to the co-development of a national action plan in response to the issues identified in the calls for justice in the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, is that investment of $6 million for a single year or is it going to be ongoing funding to support that process?
View Carolyn Bennett Profile
Lib. (ON)
I'm very pleased to report that will be ongoing for the next five years. We really do believe that in order to have a national action plan that is accountable for results, we will have to be measuring and adapting the plan. We had always said it would be “evergreenable”, but working with our partners, the families and the survivors on the necessity of being able to update the plan regularly based on getting results is what the major part of that investment will be.
View Lenore Zann Profile
Lib. (NS)
Thank you.
How do you propose to go forward? Or is this part of what we are actually waiting for now? How are the families going to be involved as we move forward?
Tanya Brooks was a missing and murdered woman, and we walk every year in her honour. The family lives here in Millbrook First Nation. What do you suggest is the best way to be moving forward?
View Carolyn Bennett Profile
Lib. (ON)
I think that what a number of the families and survivors have said is that they also want to have an ability to influence their local jurisdiction's plans. Each of the provinces and territories will have their own chapter and their own plan. We were inspired by the local plan for the Yukon Territory, where the first nations, the families and the women's circle, together with the government, have developed a very impressive plan.
We will be seeing that again. In Nova Scotia, the families will be included. I think it's coast to coast to coast. Also, organizations like Pauktuutit, the Michif women and NWAC will be involving families as we go forward. Certainly, this investment in the money will make sure that families are able to help us improve the plan as we go forward over the next five years.
View Lenore Zann Profile
Lib. (NS)
Thank you, Minister.
To get to the nitty-gritty of the racism that is at the root of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, we have to take a look at the fact that it's partly about respect.
For one thing, women are not seen to be respected as equal citizens in the eyes of some men, and then when you add on somebody who is racialized, it's even more difficult for them. Anybody whose ever gone through a sexual assault of any sort, which many of us unfortunately have, know what it's like to be just an object and not actually thought of as a human being.
What are your thoughts about what we can do as a government, as individuals and as members of Parliament to change that old-fashioned and just really despicable mentality?
View Carolyn Bennett Profile
Lib. (ON)
I think that as we've seen over these recent weeks—validating what indigenous people have been experiencing in their lived experience forever—this is something that has to be examined in each of us and in every institution in Canada.
Certainly, when we began the pre-inquiry to actually hear about the sexism and racism, not only in what they experienced in policing or in the justice system, but as you say, in a hospital or after a sexual assault, in education, in post-secondary.... This is everywhere—
View Carolyn Bennett Profile
Lib. (ON)
Yes, and walking along the street.
One of the things that really struck me at that time was that for a family with a daughter who was missing, if it got accidentally reported that the daughter was Caucasian, the family would feel that they shouldn't correct it, because they felt that the search would be less...it would be “oh, it's inevitable”, or.... Also, on the quality of the investigation, the charges laid, the plea bargaining and the sentencing, everything seemed to be different to the families if it was an indigenous person who had been missing or was found murdered. That is their lived experience.
View Sylvie Bérubé Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses who are participating in our committee meeting. I also want to thank the technicians and the interpreters, who are essential.
I am on the traditional territory of the Algonquin, Anishinabe and Cree of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou.
My question is for Minister Bennett.
Ms. Bennett, in your mandate letter, you were tasked with drafting legislation to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the end of 2020. The deadline is approaching and time is running out.
Will you commit to introducing a bill as soon as Parliament resumes in September?
View Carolyn Bennett Profile
Lib. (ON)
With my colleague, Minister Lametti—and this is very important with regard to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—
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