'Reactive' Indigenous Services failing to help First Nations manage emergencies, says auditor general

Indigenous Services Canada is putting First Nations communities at risk by failing to provide them with the support needed to adequately manage emergencies wrought by increasingly common extreme weather events, the federal auditor general says.

Karen Hogan released a review of Ottawa's on-reserve emergency management efforts on Tuesday, which says chronic problems identified in a similar audit nearly a decade ago remain unaddressed.

"We found that the department's actions were more reactive than preventative, despite First Nations communities identifying many infrastructure projects to mitigate the impact of emergencies," the audit says.

"The department had a backlog of 112 of these infrastructure projects that it had determined were eligible but that it had not funded. The department is also spending 3.5 times more money on responding to and recovering from emergencies than on supporting the communities to prevent or prepare for them."

First Nations are responsible for local-level emergency-preparedness initiatives, but Indigenous Services is ultimately  responsible for ensuring First Nations receive adequate services including planning, prevention, mitigation, response and remediation, the audit says.

The department doesn't provide these services directly and instead negotiates with provinces or third-party providers to download that responsibility, resulting in jurisdictional confusion, chronic underfunding and systemic lack of planning and preparedness, the audit indicates.

"This audit is important because emergencies have significant health, environmental, and economic effects on the people affected, ranging from psychosocial trauma to lost economic opportunities," the report says.

"Once emergencies and evacuations are over, their effects continue to be felt by communities because it can take years to fully restore services and infrastructure."

The auditor general is an officer of Parliament tasked with auditing operations of the federal and territorial governments and providing them with non-partisan advice about the use of public money. The office has long made critical findings when auditing programs delivered to First Nations.

Hogan's 2021 audit of Ottawa's efforts to supply First Nations with potable water, for example, found these efforts were inadequate and that Indigenous Services was not on track to meet its self-imposed deadline to lift all long-term water advisories on reserves.

The office reviewed the federal government's approach to on-reserve emergency management in fall 2013. It found underfunding, jurisdictional questions and ill preparedness were exacerbating First Nations communities' pre-existing vulnerability to emergencies and disasters even then.

That report found Ottawa spent $448 million supporting on-reserve emergency management in three fiscal years. However, Aboriginal Affairs, as the department was then known, had a yearly operating budget of only $19 million for emergency management.

This meant the department had to re-allocate cash from other revenue sources to respond to just about any emergency and had little money on hand to use for prevention services.

Hogan's latest review says "for every $1 invested in preparedness and mitigation, $6 can be saved in emergency response and recovery costs," meaning the lack of preventative cash is costing more in the long run.