When the Liberals created two new indigenous departments, it created no new results except added costs, says the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO)..Blacklock's Reporter said the findings were requested by the Commons Indigenous Affairs committee..“Financial resources allocated to providing indigenous services have increased significantly over this period,” said a PBO report. Analysts compared costs from 2016 to 2022..“The analysis conducted indicates the increased spending did not result in a commensurate improvement in the ability of these organizations to achieve the goals they had set for themselves,” said the report..The PBO did not detail actual increases in spending and hiring of additional employees that resulted when cabinet replaced the old Department of Indian Affairs with two new departments, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Indigenous Services..The Senate National Finance committee in 2019 estimated spending grew from $14.1 billion to $18.9 billion and the number of employees grew from 4,600 to 8,300..“It was just doing some math,” Sen. Scott Tannas (Alta.) said at the time..“When I am looking at the amount of money being spent by both departments, if you add them up together it's $18 billion.”.“That’s a lot of extra money. Canadians want to make sure that gets into the hands of indigenous people and doesn’t support a bloated bureaucracy in Ottawa.”.Then-Crown Indigenous Minister Carolyn Bennett in 2018 testimony at the Commons Indigenous affairs committee would not disclose the total cost of two departments over one..“Basically we’re sending a whack of money from our department over to indigenous Services,” said Bennett..“How much more?” asked Conservative MP Kevin Waugh (Saskatoon-Grasswood)..Bennett did not reply..Library of Parliament analysts in a 2018 report estimated the number of employees in the two departments increased at least 49%.
