Obscure committee quietly targets 'monumental change' for funding of First Nations
OTTAWA — A small committee of federal politicians and indigenous leaders is quietly figuring out how to pull off one of the most radical changes to the way Canada deals with its First Nations since the passage of The Indian Act.
The committee’s objective is to transform the means by which Ottawa transfers billions of dollars a year to the country’s 634 First Nations.
If it works, it could be the single most significant thing the Trudeau government will have done for its oft-promised “reset” of the relationship between the Crown and First Nations.
“This is going to be a monumental change in terms of what happens in Canada,” Perry Bellegarde, the national chief of the Assembly of the First Nations, said. “People are sometimes wary of change but I think this will be in the best interests of Canada as a whole.”
The committee’s work also promises to transform a bureaucracy long set in the way it delivers services, ways recently criticized by Auditor General Michael Ferguson for being too concerned with itself and indifferent to improving the lives of its citizens.
The catalyst for changes in governance and accountability by both the Crown and First Nations could be this little-known committee, known as the First Nations-Canada Joint Committee on the Fiscal Relationship, created by a memorandum of understanding signed on July 13 by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and the Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC).
The committee consists of just four individuals. Bellegarde and David Jimmie, chief of the Squiala First Nation in British Columbia, represent the AFN.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett has been a constant member for the government but, despite repeated requests last week, her department could not identify the other government member.
At its last meeting, on Nov. 24, Treasury Board President Scott Brison sat on the government’s side but it is not clear if Brison is to be a regular member.
The committee has also brought in experts for advice. Don Drummond, a former deputy minister of finance, joined a recent meeting of the committee. Ferguson, the auditor general, also joined a meeting. The AFN says its objectives are threefold:
n To find a way to provide each First Nation with sufficient funding;
n To make that funding predictable so that a First Nation can make more effective allocation of its resources;
n And to build appropriate accountability mechanisms for both Canada and First Nations.
The current system, both sides agree, is deficient in all three of those ways.