First Nations Specific Claims—Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada; Implementing the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement

Opening Statement to the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs

First Nations Specific Claims—Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada

(Report 6—2016 Fall Reports of the Auditor General of Canada)

Implementing the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement

(Report 3—2015 Fall Reports of the Auditor General of Canada)

17 October 2017

Michael Ferguson, Chartered Professional AccountantCPA, Chartered AccountantCA
Fellow Chartered Professional AccountantFCPA, Fellow Chartered AccountantFCA (New Brunswick)
Auditor General of Canada

Madam Chair, thank you for this opportunity to present the results of two of our audits: one on First Nations specific claims, and the other on implementing the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement. Joining me today are Joe Martire and James McKenzie, the principals who were responsible for the audits.

I should first note that we completed the work for these audits in July 2016 and September 2015, and we have not conducted audit work on these topics since then.

The federal government has long acknowledged that it has not always met its obligations to First Nations under historic treaties or properly managed First Nations’ funds or other assets. In 2007, the government started a new process, called Justice at Last, to resolve long‑standing grievances more quickly, fairly, and transparently—preferably through negotiations.

Our audit on First Nations specific claims examined whether Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada adequately managed the resolution of these claims. We focused on whether First Nations had adequate access to the specific claims process, whether claims were resolved in line with Justice at Last, and whether results were reported publicly.

Overall, we found that Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada did not adequately manage the resolution of First Nations specific claims in line with the new process. For example, the Department wanted more claims to be resolved than received each year, but we found that the Department achieved this objective in only two of the eight years since Justice at Last came into force. Furthermore, the Department stated that every reasonable effort would be made to achieve settlements through negotiations. However, we found that more claims were either closed by the Department, or ended up in litigation, than were resolved through negotiation.

We also found that the Department’s reforms of the specific claims process were not developed in consultation with First Nations, and that the reforms introduced barriers that hindered First Nations’ access to the process and impeded the resolution of claims. These barriers included certain practices, such as “take it or leave it” offers for claims that the Department deemed to be valued at under 3 million dollars, significant unilateral cuts in funding to First Nations to prepare their claims, and very limited use of mediation services.

The Department also did not use available information to improve the specific claims process. This information included concerns raised by First Nations and organizations representing First Nations about how the Department was implementing the new process. It also included the Specific Claims Tribunal decisions, most of which were in favour of First Nations.

Finally, we found that the Department’s public reports did not contain the information needed to understand the actual results of the specific claims process. For example, the Department publicly reported that the 2007 reforms were a success. However, we found that most of the settled claims used to support this assertion were already resolved or almost resolved before Justice at Last was implemented.

According to the 2016–2017 Public Accounts of Canada, the government has acknowledged an outstanding liability of 5.3 billion dollars for 528 specific claims.

I would like to turn now to our 2015 report on implementing the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement. In this audit, we focused on whether Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Parks Canada, and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada implemented selected obligations in the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement and in two related side agreements, one on Fiscal Financing and the other on the Labrador Inuit Park Impacts and Benefits.

We found that the federal government made progress on some of its obligations under the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement. For example, Parks Canada had managed the Torngat Mountains National Park to provide employment and business opportunities to Labrador Inuit.

However, we found disagreements in some areas, such as fishing and housing. For example, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Nunatsiavut Government disagreed over the share of the northern shrimp fishery that the Nunatsiavut Government was entitled to receive under the Agreement. Furthermore, the lack of a federal program for Inuit housing had limited the ability of the Nunatsiavut Government to fulfill its housing responsibilities.

The failure to resolve differences put a strain on the relationship between these two governments, yet the dispute resolution mechanism contained in the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement was not used to resolve these issues.

Lastly, we found that Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada did not have an effective system to track the status of the federal government’s obligations under the Agreement.

Following the tabling of our 2015 and 2016 fall reports in Parliament, all departments that we audited presented an action plan to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to address our recommendations. Your Committee may wish to ask them for an update on the implementation of their commitments.

Madam Chair, this concludes my opening statement. We would be pleased to answer any questions the Committee may have. Thank you.