Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Committee on May 15th, 2012

Greg Rickford Kenora, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming today. I have a little connection to the folks in Kahnawake. I was actually studying law at McGill and had an opportunity to serve in your legal department with some outstanding lawyers, including someone who had graduated from McGill just the year prior to me, so it's great to be here with you.

My questions are going to focus on economic development in the context of a trip that we just took in an area that's of particular interest to me as the member of Parliament for Kenora, where, within 326,000 square kilometres of geopolitical boundaries, we have 42 first nations, 25 of which are isolated. I've been spending a lot of time as the member of Parliament, and in fact, in my capacity as a lawyer just prior to that, looking at this whole idea of urban reserves. Indeed, we saw in at least one instance with respect to Muskeg Lake first nations how beneficial this was in a number of key areas.

First of all, they were not in the city of Saskatoon, so this was an opportunity for some economic development. I think, as importantly, what I heard from the chief and, in fact, what I heard from surrounding communities that were involved in the urban reserve was that this gave a chance to many off-reserve members to reconnect with their community in some meaningful way and to add to the resources that they have there. It was also a place of work that was more comfortable for them. There was a myriad of examples of how this had benefited them.

Chief Phillips, I believe you have two urban reserves, and they each serve up something different in terms of their characteristics. One is about 10 kilometres outside of the city, effectively in Montreal, and the other one, I think, is at Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, if I'm not mistaken. That land would perhaps be used for different reasons. They represent, if I'm correct on this, about 31,000, plus or minus, acres.

I'd like you to identify for us, if you could, what purposes these are serving in the context of economic development or otherwise and what the differences are between the two.

Then just finally, Diane, regrettably we didn't get up into Prince Albert on our trip to Saskatchewan, but it was an area I was more familiar with, having worked up in Pelican Narrows. I know that the PAGC has a role in the Peter Ballantyne urban reserve and I was wondering, subsequent to that, if you could spend a couple of minutes to treat the whole subject of an urban reserve in Prince Albert and how it serves northern Saskatchewan.

Thank you very much, Chief Phillips, or Debbie, perhaps.