Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt spends Thursday evening fielding questions from MPs on his department's 2013-14 estimates and plans for the coming year.
Ministers or their parliamentary secretaries appear for up to four hours during such sessions. Each year the official Opposition leader, in this case Thomas Mulcair, chooses two departments for such a review in Committee of the Whole. They must be held by May 31, according to House of Commons Procedure and Practice.
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver is the other minister to answer questions, but no date has been scheduled.
Valcourt also presented main estimates in March to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. WATCH
►Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) has been allotted $7.905 billion in the main estimates, compared to $7.718 million in 2012-13. Actual spending during the last fiscal year reached $8.386 billion, thanks largely to specfic claims settlements and the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
According to the Main Estimates, spending increases for 2013-14 include the residential schools settlement ($224.5 million), water and wastewater infrastructure ($137.4 million), education ($115 million), accounting for inflation and population growth ($100.8 million), managing federal contaminated sites ($55.9 million), and the transfer of urban aboriginal programs from Canadian Heritage ($39.6 million).
Spending decreases: the negotiation and settlement of specific and comprehensive claims ($341.1 million), departmental savings as part of government-wide austerity measures ($55.1 million), sunset of funding for the First Nations Infrastructure Fund ($53.8 million), and the Income Assistance Program ($40.4 million).
A related document, the department's Report on Plans and Priorities hopes for:
- spending over the next three years to decline mainly because of the "sunsetting" of funding for residential school settlements, contaminated site clean-up, education, and water infrastructure
- 70 per cent of First Nations free of financial intervention by April 2014
- 90 per cent of active negotiating tables having relationships based on "trust, respect, understanding, shared responsibilities, accountability, rights and dialogue." (by April 2014)
- a 50-per-cent survival rate for aboriginal businesses within three years of receiving federal financial aid (by April 2014)
- a Community Well-Being Index rating greater than 57 by 2016
- a five-per-cent decrease in concentration of contaminants in the North over 1990 levels by April 2014.
Also, the department's "aboriginal relationship risk" over the next year was rated "very high."
►The March budget included the following aboriginal policy measures:
- $7 billion over 10 years for roads, bridges, energy, Internet, and other First Nations infrastructure, along with $155 million from the Building Canada Fund
- $54 million over two years to resolve specific claims
- expanding the First Nations Land Management Regime
- $100 million over two years for Nunavut housing
- $241 million over five years for the on-reserve Income Assistance Program
- $10 million over two years to Indspire for scholarships and bursaries
►Quizzing the Ministers
The ministerial sessions stem from a standing order (81.(4)(a)) adopted by the House in 2001, allowing the Opposition to choose two federal departments or agencies for review by a Committee of the Whole.
According to House of Commons Procedure and Practice, the new custom would permit "a more meaningful examination of government estimates" and confirm "the financial oversight role of the House of Commons."
The corresponding minister or parliamentary secretary sits in the front row of the government benches and prepares to act as a witness. Outsiders are almost never allowed to walk beyond the Bar of the House, but in this case a small number of department officials are permitted to sit near the minister to provide advice.
MPs are allotted 15 minutes each to speak and question the minister.
Environment Minister Peter Kent and Defence Minister Peter MacKay appeared in May 2012.
►Committees of the Whole
Committees of the Whole date back to the 1500s and the creation of the committee system in England's Parliament. Major bills were debated in a less restrictive forum than formal proceedings of the House of Commons overseen by a Speaker. Canadian legislatures adopted the custom with little change until 1968, when the current system of standing committees was established.
Today, the House of Commons switches to this less formal setting on rare occasions. One notable recent example was the 2008 official apology to residential school victims. Sitting in a Committee of the Whole allowed First Nations representatives to sit on the floor of the Commons and deliver remarks after the prime minister and opposition leaders spoke.
The Speaker leaves their customary chair and moves to the Clerk's seat at the main table on the Commons floor. MPs can speak more often than a normal debate.
-Andrew Thomson
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