Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Minister, as a senator from Manitoba, let me thank you for what you have done in helping that women’s shelter. As you know, you and I were on a flight coming back from Winnipeg the day that you came back from there, so thank you.

Minister, in the spring of this year, the Parliamentary Budget Officer published a report which analyzed the government’s expenditures and results for Indigenous peoples through the creation of a second department. The report found the government was failing Indigenous peoples in a multitude of ways, noting a significant increase in expenditures, which is estimated to be several billions of dollars, and a “significant decline” in the results for Indigenous communities. The report concluded, “All organizations examined performed poorly in their ability to consistently maintain a target and date to achieve it . . . .”

Minister, how do you justify another report that your government is spending more and achieving less? In the six months since the report was tabled, what concrete steps have you taken to reroute the bulk of these expenditures from the Ottawa bureaucracy to Indigenous peoples directly?

Hon. Patty Hajdu, P.C., M.P., Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario: Thank you very much, Senator Plett. I will tell you that closing a gap, especially when that gap has been ignored for decades, if not generations, is extremely expensive. Turning a gap around, sometimes those early investments don’t demonstrate the kinds of success that we want to see immediately. It’s like closing any gap.

It’s not closed, by the way. The government has a goal of closing the infrastructure gap, for example, by 2030. But the gap is so large that even with historic investments in infrastructure, over $18 billion to date, we still see the need of communities far outstrips the investments made to date.

The structural change between the two departments, I believe, was important. It was very difficult to have a department that was responsible for the relationship, if you will — land claims, settling of long-standing treaty disputes — along with a department that simultaneously was responsible for administering services.

We are stabilizing as the two departments have become clearer in their roles, and I think having a department that is solely focused, like mine, on Indigenous service delivery allows for us to get better and better at doing that work through the principles of self-determination.

It’s a huge shift for the government in the way that we think about this work, but it’s an important one. I think it will have a legacy for many generations.

Hon. Tony Loffreda: Thank you, minister, for being here, and welcome to the Senate.

As a member of our National Finance Committee, I have noted that your departmental results report for the last year has not been provided, and the previous one was less than thorough. These reports should contain critical information for the Senate’s National Finance Committee.

Will the minister provide a date when we can expect a report and ensure that it is thorough and complete, with verifiable performance indicators, beyond stating that the funding has been dispersed?

Hon. Patty Hajdu, P.C., M.P., Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario: Thank you very much. I think the honourable senator is speaking in my language — measurement of outcomes is extremely important to me. However, we are also talking about measurement in a space where self-determination is very important and data has been used and misused. So there is a huge distrust, in some cases, by Indigenous peoples of the collection of data and of the way that the government will use the data. So this is delicate work. It is important work, and everyone agrees that we need to be able to show outcomes.

In terms of the date of the departmental results report, I’m thrilled that someone reads that because it’s important. In fact, I would agree with the senator that the first year when I was the minister, that report was rather thin. I hope that you’ll find that the report has improved this year. I recently signed off on it, so I would assume you’ll have it in short order.

Hon. Bernadette Clement: Welcome, minister. On behalf of Senator Pat Duncan, I want to ask the following question:

You have an understanding of health care, and with your current responsibilities of Indigenous Services, your mandate letter includes a whole-of-government approach.

Status First Nations can be identified through provincial-territorial health care numbers. Why is assisting the renewal of status cards through Indigenous Services at such a bottleneck and causing such difficulty for First Nations? Why have we not seen quantifiable improvements after the millions you have spent to improve the system?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Minister, in June, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs warned that Indigenous Services Canada is on track to miss its 2030 target to close the infrastructure gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. As I have outlined previously, it is clear that your government’s approach to simply throwing more money at a problem in the hopes that it will magically solve itself is not manifesting in results for Indigenous communities. While funding is necessary, in the absence of an actionable plan and no strategic implementation of these funds, nothing gets done.

Minister, will your department commit to reviewing its approach and to producing an actionable plan to close this gap?

Hon. Patty Hajdu, P.C., M.P., Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario: Thank you. First of all, I’ll reflect back to my opening comment, which is that closing a gap that has been ignored for decades, if not multiple decades, is a huge, astronomical task. In fact, I asked the department when I first arrived a year ago to make sure that they began that work of assessing the gap and what it would take to address it.

I would say, with all respect to the honourable senator, it will take more money. It will take a lot of money to close that gap because, in fact, we have gaps in housing, in community centres, in schooling and in all kinds of infrastructure, including civil infrastructure. Communities are running out of lots to build houses on because, in fact, they are running out of land in some cases, or the land they have is unserviced, so it requires heavy civil engineering. I have learned more about infrastructure in the last year than I ever thought would be possible.

The government is committed to closing that gap. It will require strategic investments of financial resources, and it will require increased capacity, in some cases, in some communities to be able to plan. It will also require rigorous oversight to make sure that the contracted services that we, as a government, fund and that First Nations contract, deliver in a timely and sustainable way. We’ll continue to do that hard work together.

Hon. Michèle Audette: Kwe, minister. We’ll start from the same principle of self-determination. Your government made a series of amendments — Bill C-3 in 2010 and Bill S-3 in 2007 — to announce its intention to address the issue of emancipated persons in order to eliminate gender-based discrimination in the entitlement to Indian registration. Where we part ways is that in my books, this is more about softening or reducing discrimination and maybe not eliminating it altogether. I would like your thoughts on that. What are you going to do for the thousands of people, men and women, who can be registered in Ottawa, but because of membership codes in section 10 of the Indian Act, will be excluded from their community? To me, that is not what it means to eliminate discrimination.

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Hon. Patty Hajdu, P.C., M.P., Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario: It’s a very difficult question that the senator has posed to me. In fact, I find this space a challenging one because there is no question that people have been discriminated through the Indian Act. The entire act is discriminatory. The aspects regarding how the colonial state decided who is — or is not — Indigenous has been marked with gender discrimination and other forms of discrimination throughout its history.

As the honourable senator knows, we are working now on amendments that would allow individuals with family histories of enfranchisement to transmit entitlements to their descendents — to the same extent as individuals without family histories of enfranchisement. These came from the Bill S-3 three-year review and extensive partner outreach.

The honourable senator is correct that it is also a somewhat contentious space because, in fact, there is not consensus amongst First Nations leaders, in particular, about how to reincorporate people into the community. Having status is one thing. Being a member of the community is another. This work continues: to understand how we do this in a thoughtful way that doesn’t impose obligations on communities — which some communities don’t want — and, yet, also satisfy the rights holders, the individuals, in terms of their connection to their community.

Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: My question is about the Non‑Insured Health Benefits, or NIHB, in Nunavut. There was a 6% increase of the 36,611 eligible clients under the NIHB administered by your department. This is all about Inuit: They are unable to access the full range of services that are meant to be covered under NIHB because many communities don’t have regular access to professionals, such as mental health providers, dentists, opticians and other specialists. They have to come to Southern Canada to access these services.

Once they are here, without the means to pay upfront, they find it difficult to find providers who direct bill to NIHB. Many of those who can pay upfront have complained about being left seeking reimbursement — only to get lost in a maze of bureaucracy.

Does your department have a publicly available list of providers that are enrolled in the NIHB direct-billing programs which are translated into common Indigenous languages and broken down by province?

Hon. Patty Hajdu, P.C., M.P., Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario: Thank you.

I believe the honourable senator knows I can’t talk about the legislation that will be tabled at some point in order to address the ongoing systemic discrimination.

I believe that the legislation that we will table will address some of the concerns, and likely not all of the concerns, because there is still more to do. There are still people who have some strong perspectives about what needs to happen.

I will say this: The government is committed to ending all sex‑based discrimination. We will be looking forward to the comments from honourable senators in this place during the inevitable study of the legislation.

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Hon. Scott Tannas: I’d like to go back to my questions, minister, with respect to staff — 6,800 full-time employees. We heard about the status card bottleneck. We heard at committee a few days ago that it was taking up to two years to get a simple residential lease transferred.

Indigenous governments need to take up the jurisdiction. They want to take up their jurisdiction. You want them to have it. What is the plan? What does the “stop doing” list look like? How do you get your 6,800 people to back off and start planning an exit from the affairs of Indigenous people?

Hon. Patty Hajdu, P.C., M.P., Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario: I think I understand the honourable senator’s question.

The water settlement is one of the largest in Canada’s history. Quite frankly, I hope that this country arrives at a place where we are not forced to do things through litigation, but, rather, we lean in and do these things as a country.

We know that when Indigenous people have a fair chance to succeed — when communities are healthy, and when people have access to drinking water and education — all of us will thrive as a country.

In terms of how the compensation will flow, I can’t specifically say. I don’t have that information in front of me, whether or not all of those community members are subject to compensation, but my suspicion would be yes.

It is a broad number of people who are owed compensation as a result of long-term drinking water advisories. That agreement, as I said, has been reached with the litigants. We look forward to flowing that compensation. It’s being managed and administered by a third party.

The historic settlement also commits the government to the appropriate amount of money to be able to complete the rest of the long-term boil water advisories, as well as to provide equity in operating funds for the salaries of the water operators — that was one of the critical ingredients to having clean water in communities.

Not having people paid appropriately or equitably, compared to the province that they were in, meant that, oftentimes, communities could not retain qualified, skilled people to run the plants.

Hon. Marty Klyne: Minister, my question is in reference to digital transformation, and the mobilization and readiness of young adults located north of the fifty-fifth parallel to compete in the new economy.

As you know, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada is working feverishly to connect all households and businesses in rural, remote and Indigenous communities with 50/10 internet speeds.

Minister, what levels of digital skills, training and readiness are our working-age Indigenous adults at? Are they ready to participate in the new economy? What efforts are being made to close any gaps before they widen?

Hon. Patty Hajdu, P.C., M.P., Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario: Thank you. The honourable senator raises a complex question with multiple moving parts.

In terms of capacity of communities, and our capacity as a government to close the digital divide, we have been making historic investments in broadband. We need, again, to work with partners to do that.

The federal government doesn’t have its own broadband company — for example, in northern Ontario, where I come from — where we can hook homes up to it. In some cases, we have to work with regional providers and, in other cases, provincial providers. Frankly, I think we all have to work to push those regional and provincial providers to consider how they will be equitable in their approach with Indigenous and remote communities.

It can be a challenging conversation when many of those providers are looking at this through the lens of revenue and economic feasibility rather than of equity. That’s where I hope that our investments at the federal level will help to close that divide.

You’re right; access to the digital world is a critical ingredient — not just for education, but also for health delivery and economic capacity. Many communities are growing their own economic capacity, and they need access to high-speed internet and broadband to be able to market their services and goods. We will continue this work with our provincial, territorial and regional partners.

Hon. Scott Tannas: Welcome, minister.

In 2015, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada — which was the full ministry before it was split in two — had just over 4,500 full-time employees. Over the last five years, your government has worked tirelessly to devolve responsibility of Indigenous matters to Indigenous governments. All the while, there has been a rapid increase in full-time employees in your department over recent years. As of this year, there are 8,800 full-time employees working in Indigenous ministries, and your department employs around 6,800. Before you mention this, I was aware that 1,400 employees were transferred into the Indigenous ministries from Health Canada. We have to take those out. It isn’t just 4,500 to 8,800; there are 1,400 that need to be taken out. However, with the 1,400, it still doesn’t explain the year-over-year growth.

Hon. Patty Hajdu, P.C., M.P., Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario: Thank you, Your Honour. I think I understand the general direction of the question, and it’s a question that I have recently asked of the department.

In fact, the finance minister’s instructions to ministers is to look for reductions in expenditures by departments — reductions that are not directly related to outcomes. This is a hard thing for a minister to understand because it is a delicate balance.

We were talking about status cards a few moments ago. This is a space where we need more people in order to efficiently process the volume of renewals that are on people’s desks right now. As I mentioned to the honourable senator, there may be ways to increase efficiency using a digital approach.

There are also employees in the department who are providing direct services. We are hiring more nurses, for example, and we would not want to in any way undermine the day-to-day functioning of communities by removing people who are essential to supporting First Nations.

The question is around program planning, and that is where it becomes difficult for ministers to understand because if we reduce capacity, it will reduce the ability for the government to deliver on its agenda.

I have a lovely new deputy minister, Gina Wilson. Many of you will have met her in your travels. I am confident that she is doing the analysis right now to make sure that where we decide to reduce our numbers of public servants, it does not in any way undermine the capacity of the department to deliver.

Finally, I want to thank the hard-working members of Indigenous Services Canada, especially over the last two years during a pandemic when we had extraordinary demands placed on the department from a variety of urgent situations. They really rose to the occasion.

Hon. Patty Hajdu, P.C., M.P., Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario: Thank you very much. I will have to defer the answer to my colleague Minister Miller, who is working actively in this space and is responsible for some of these decisions.

I am focused on preventing the next generation of Sixties Scoop. I will talk about the work we’re doing on child and family services reform through Bill C-92. I want to thank this place for helping to get that important landmark legislation through last term. It is coming to fruition, and it is exciting.

I was in Wabaseemoong six or eight months ago, signing the first agreement in Ontario with that community to regain control over their child and family services. It is that work that I think will prevent the need for future inquiries about yet another generation of children removed.

That is the transformational work that I am proud to be a part of — not just addressing the harms of the past, but looking toward the future and creating the legislative and funding frameworks that, quite frankly, we, as a country, need to decolonize. In fact, there are many colonial practices that still exist today, that are still determining the lives of Indigenous people and that are still doing so inequitably.

Hon. Kim Pate: Thank you, minister, for being here and thank you for the work you have done since being in government, and also in the community before being in the government.

You spoke earlier about the importance of prevention. As you will well know, successive governments have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees fighting Indigenous people and communities in court.

Minister, could you please share with us the kinds of processes that are considered, and, in fact, how social, human, environmental and fiscal costs are assessed in terms of deciding whether to fight international charter and human rights decisions in courts versus the manner in which resources might instead be used to provide preventative services and avoid the sorts of litigation and court decisions that you have already mentioned?

If you are not able to share that, would you commit to requesting, say, the Parliamentary Budget Officer or another arm’s-length body to do that kind of assessment?