Federal government failing Indigenous communities on housing, policing: AG report
The federal government is failing to meet its housing and policing commitments to Indigenous people across the country, says a new report from Auditor General Karen Hogan re‐ leased Tuesday.
Hogan delivered three re‐ ports Tuesday focusing on First Nations housing and policing and the federal gov‐ ernment's management of the $4.6-billion National Trade Corridors Fund.
"Our audits for federal programs to support Canada's Indigenous peoples reveals a distressing and per‐ sistent pattern of failure," Hogan said Tuesday. "The lack of progress clearly demonstrates that the gov‐ ernment's passive siloed ap‐ proach is ineffective and in fact contradicts the spirit of true reconciliation."
Hogan said that despite multiple warnings, federal underfunding of housing means that the percentage of First Nations homes that need repair or replacement is essentially the same in 2022 as it was in 2015.
"Adequate housing is a basic human need," Hogan said. "After four audit re‐ ports, I can honestly say that I am completely discouraged that so little has changed and that so many First Nations in‐ dividuals and families contin‐ ue to live in substandard homes."
Watch: Feds need 'fun‐ damentally' different ap‐ proach to Indigenous hous‐ ing, AG says:
Under federal law, Indige‐ nous Services Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) are the primary government organizations responsible for housing in First Nations com‐ munities.
The report says both or‐ ganizations have made little progress in supporting First Nations' efforts to improve housing conditions in their communities.
Over the last five fiscal years, the federal govern‐ ment spent $3.86 billion building new homes and re‐ pairing existing homes in First Nations communities, far short of the $44 billion an Assembly of First Nations re‐ port said was needed in 2021.
Tackling mould
Hogan's report said Tuesday that the number of housing units located on First Nations communities across the country stands at just under 120,000.
In 2015-2016, 20.8 per cent of those homes were in need of major repairs and 5.6 per cent needed to be re‐ placed. By 2021-2022, the number of homes in need of repairs decreased slightly to 19.7 per cent, while the num‐ ber of new homes needed in‐ creased to 6.5 per cent.
The auditor general's of‐ fice first flagged the issue of mould in First Nations hous‐ ing in 2003, leading to a gov‐ ernment strategy to tackle the issue that was launched in 2008.
Hogan's report said that government organizations were no longer using that strategy and that govern‐ ment officials could not ex‐ plain why the strategy had been abandoned.
Hogan's report said feder‐ al departments should work with First Nations to close the housing gap and tackle mould by agreeing on needs, required funding and mea‐ surable targets.
The report also said
CMHC needs to use the most recent data available to en‐ sure that communities re‐ ceive funding that reflects de‐ mographic changes and that the communities most in need are prioritized.
"We found that the de‐ partment and the corpora‐ tion have not prioritized communities with the greatest needs," Hogan said. "First Nations communities with the poorest housing conditions received less funding than communities of the same size with better housing conditions."
To ensure adequate hous‐ ing in First Nations, govern‐ ment organizations should also ensure that housing meets or exceeds national building codes, the AG said.
Watch: There's 'a huge way to go' on Indigenous housing, says minister:
Minister of Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu wel‐ comed Hogan's report and said that since her govern‐ ment came to office in 2015, it has increased funding for housing on First Nations by more than 1,100 per cent.
Hajdu said that invest‐ ment has helped to build, or is currently building, 34,000 homes. She said 22,000 of those homes are now com‐ pleted and occupied, while "many more" have been re‐ paired.
"There is still, as the audi‐ tor general reports notes, a huge way to go," she said. "My hope is that the auditor general's report will bring the same fervor to the issue of First Nations housing as many Canadians feel about the access to clean water in
First Nations."
First Nations and polic‐ ing
Hogan also looked at the First Nations and Inuit Polic‐ ing Program and found that it is failing to deliver on fed‐ eral commitments made to Indigenous communities.
The program is a costsharing initiative between the federal and provincial and territorial governments meant to improve the safety of Indigenous communities.
Hogan's audit found that Public Safety Canada, the federal department over‐ seeing the program, "did not work in partnership with In‐ digenous communities to provide" policing services tai‐ lored to their needs.
Hogan's report also found that $13 million in program funds for the 2022-23 fiscal year went unspent and that Public Safety Canada was "at risk" of not disbursing over $45 million in funds for the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
The audit also found that because of staffing short‐ ages, the RCMP is leaving First Nations and Inuit com‐ munities underserved.
"By not fulfilling some of their responsibilities under the program, Public Safety Canada's and the RCMP's ac‐ tions are not aligned with building trust with First Na‐ tions and Inuit communities and with the federal govern‐ ment's commitment to truth and reconciliation," Hogan said in a statement.
To ensure adequate polic‐ ing, Hogan's report recom‐ mends Public Safety Canada work closer with First Nations and Inuit communities to de‐ velop an entirely new ap‐ proach to policing.
That approach, the report said, needs to update gov‐ ernment policies, revise how funds are allocated, improve tracking of the program and be supported by mandatory cultural training.
Public Safety Minister Do‐ minic LeBlanc also thanked Hogan Tuesday and said ef‐ forts are underway to ad‐ dress the issues raised.
"Public Safety Canada has consolidated Indigenous re‐ lated programming and policy analysis into a single team to make program deliv‐ ery more efficient and more transparent," he said Tues‐ day.
Funding trade infra‐ structure
The audit also found that al‐ though the National Trade Corridors Fund (NTCF) was well-designed and imple‐ mented, its effectiveness has been hard to track because of poor monitoring and re‐ porting by the federal gov‐ ernment.
Launched in 2017 with a planned end date of March 31, 2028, the $4.6-billion NTCF helps fund infrastruc‐ ture projects in Canada that streamline internal and ex‐ ternal trade, such as airports, ports, roads and railways.
Hogan's report said that Transport Canada, which manages the fund, approved $3.8 billion for 181 projects, but that half of the funded projects "had an incomplete performance measurement strategy to assess their re‐ sults."
"Infrastructure programs like the National Trade Corri‐ dors Fund take years to pro‐ duce results," said Hogan.
"This time factor makes it all the more important to have a robust system to track performance so that Trans‐ port Canada can show the extent to which the fund has contributed to improving the fluidity of Canada's trans‐ portation infrastructure."
Hogan's report said Trans‐ port Canada should do a bet‐ ter job of reviewing the ratio‐ nale used when evaluating projects, and monitor perfor‐ mance to improve account‐ ability.
Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez acknowledged that his department needs to do a better job of tracking the re‐ sults of investments made through the NTCF.
"The public servants at Transport Canada will im‐ prove the documentation to encourage transparency and they will strengthen their evaluation to assess the work that needs to be done," Ro‐ driguez said.