Philpott’s new ministry has steep climb ahead

The new department of Indigenous Services has an unusual long-term goal: Its own eradication.

“This department should disappear over time,’’ said deputy minister Jean-Francois Tremblay as he and Minister Jane Philpott unveiled Tuesday the plans and priorities for the new department.

It was established less than two months ago as the government split Indigenous Affairs into two parts — Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs to handle treaties and land claims and Indigenous Services, to oversee programs in health, education, infrastructure and child welfare.

Philpott said “Indigenous peoples want and need control over their lives’’ so the focus of each service area is to eventually provide funding to Indigenous organizations who can then manage the programs themselves.

Once that happens the need for an entire department would be eliminated.

Among the first steps towards that goal will be putting in place 10-year funding agreements with up to 100 First Nations by April 2019 and eliminating or amending “regressive policies’’ like thirdparty management, where band governments lose control of their finances when Ottawa deems them to be too far in debt to be able to manage on their own.

The department will also overhaul the reporting structures that sometimes require each First Nation to file more than 100 financial reports with Ottawa each year, reports which have sometimes gone onto shelves without ever being read.