Merci. Thank you very much.
I'd like to thank members of the standing committee for this opportunity to share some perspectives from a northern point of view, which is unique from our brothers and sisters in the treaty-based nations south of here.
One of the fundamental problems for many groups up here is capacity, or lack thereof, and therefore I apologize in advance that our written submission is not fully complete, but you will be in receipt of it as soon as practicable.
I will take this opportunity, and I thank you once again, to verbalize some points that might be useful in your deliberations and your consideration of what is obviously a very important subject matter for all people.
I am currently the executive director of the Council of Yukon First Nations. The Council of Yukon First Nations was formed in 1973 as an advocacy body on behalf of all first nations in this territory. Since that time it has undergone some evolution. Currently, today, it represents 10 Yukon first nations out of the 14 that are recognized under the modern treaty that's here in the Yukon.
In 1993, after 20-some-odd years of negotiations, our first nations brought forward, in partnership with the federal crown and with the territorial government, a modern land claims treaty agreement, of which you may be aware. It's a comprehensive treaty agreement, unlike those numbered treaties in the provinces. It's one that's comprehensive in its scope, looking at the involvement of first nations people in this territory in almost all the sectors of society, whether it be in education, health, the economy, and so forth.
It has an element that speaks to not only treaty rights, as defined more specifically related to lands, but it also talks about shared governance responsibilities in the delivery of public programs and services under the self-government agreements. That authority can be exercised by these first nations. We now have 11 first nations in the Yukon that are self-governing. By way of an interesting fact, of the 17 self-governing communities in Canada, 11 of them are right here. And we have four more of them just north of us, in Inuvik, Fort McPherson, and Arctic Red. When you start adding those four communities to that lot, you have virtually all the self-governing communities in Canada right here.
We are really viewed by many people, not only here in Canada but around the world, as being really in the forefront of cutting new relationships with contemporary governments and indigenous populations. Of course, it's very exciting but, nonetheless, has some very interesting challenges.
When we look at Canada and how it provides for its aboriginal citizens, a lot of the policies and initiatives that come out of Ottawa are heavily oriented to the treaty-based nations south of us, which constitute the majority of the aboriginal population in this country. And those arrangements, as you know, were framed or brought to bear early in the conceptualization of Canada itself, and as a matter of fact were necessities as a result of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, as well as the 1870 order, when Canada became more on the path of becoming its own nation.
What I would like to share with you are some realities. I'll thumbnail and bullet them as best I can, and try to tie them into some logical order or sense, but our paper will do it much more justice. In any event, I can let you know that in 1973 the social and economic condition of our people was so desperate that it necessitated them coming together. At that time, our nations had a lot of different organizations advocating status Indians and non-status Indians and aboriginal women--they were all fractured--and they pulled together to form the Council of Yukon Indians, with a grievance document that they tabled with Prime Minister Trudeau, and with Mr. Chrétien, who was the Minister of Indian Affairs at the time. That started the modern land claims process in this country. Canada accepted that document as being a basis upon which to start negotiations.
For our people it was desperate. Our people were still involved with a lot of the residential schools activity. The academic achievement levels of first nations students were significantly lower than those of other Canadians and Yukoners. The unemployment rates among our people were more than triple the rate of other Canadians. As well, in terms of our overall well-being, we had, of course, a much more deteriorated health status than other Canadians.
As a matter of fact, when you looked at all the social indicators, without bulleting them all, when you drew a correlation either to Yukoners or to Canadians, there was a huge disparity with first nations people who lived here.
In terms of housing conditions for the people, I remember living on the Whitehorse Indian band reserve here in Whitehorse. It was basically a patched together shack. We had no water, no electricity, and no real infrastructure in the community to support much healthier living. People were in pretty desperate straits, with high rates of alcoholism and drug abuse, rampant crime, as well as all the related social dysfunctions that come with living in abject and desperate poverty.
I recall as a boy having many days with nothing to eat, yet all around us in this territory there was wealth being generated. You have to remember, back when I was a young boy, the base metal boom was still happening here in the Yukon. We had the Faro Mine; we had a whole bunch of big mining activities going on. There were a lot of people who were building nice houses, and when I'd go to school, I could see that other people would have nice clothes and nice vehicles and they would have all the extracurricular things they could do. The idea that struck me, even as a young child, was the difference.
At that time, given the fact that our suicide rates were shooting through the roof and self-destructive behaviour was something that was going unchecked, our nations took it upon themselves to advocate for this modern treaty.
Without getting into details about the treaty, I can say that the main focus of the treaty was not so much to gain power as to be empowered to deal with all these social ills and to try to find ways to stimulate our communities to be healthier in terms of activity, because idle hands make for a lot of problems.
Since 1993, I've been working on implementing these arrangements. What's interesting is that these arrangements are funded through fiscal transfer arrangements, likened to the ones that Canada has with all the provinces and territories. They're five-year fiscal arrangements. They have built-in escalators for a whole bunch of things in terms of population and inflation and all that sort of stuff, very much like the provinces and territories. They're renegotiated every five years for those adjustment factors and all that sort of thing.
What's very clear in the treaty and the commitment by Canada was that there was, first, an affirmation in the treaty by ourselves, as well as by Canada, that we are indeed, as indigenous people, Canadian citizens, without question, and that we will be afforded every right and opportunity as any other Canadian citizen, without question, whether that be in public services, programs, or other types of support.
As we roll this out, what is really interesting for us--and this is where I think it might be interesting to you--is that we are engaged in a lot of activities related to the social condition of our people. But we're finding, as we see programs starting to roll out from Canada, that we have a lot of terminology that is utilized, such as “on-reserve” and “off-reserve” programming. For our circumstances here, it doesn't apply.
For the first part, we have only maybe two or three recognized reserves in the territory. For the most part, many of our communities don't have a reserve at all; they have what was called “land set aside”. Now the majority of our nations that are self-governing have what is called “settlement land”. That settlement land is defined as a tenure equivalent to fee simple, but the key word is “equivalent”; it's not the same. It's equivalent to fee simple in terms of how we could utilize it, but it is not recognized by many federal departments and ministries as being a designation. In other words, they still stick to the on-reserve, off-reserve; either you live on a reserve or you don't live on a reserve.
For our first nations, when it comes to on-reserve programming, our nations just don't qualify. Yet the social conditions that I spoke of earlier, we're still trying to address. We still haven't succeeded in bringing that equilibrium with other Canadians to our people.
We need those tools; we need those instruments that are being afforded other aboriginals and other Canadians across the country. We cannot take something that was so enlightening and good as a modern treaty, that all of our respective political officers and bureaucracies have negotiated over 30 years and have come to an agreement on, and allow it to be a barrier—and to be a barrier to actually trying to address the issues that were outlined in these treaties, all those negative social conditions.
We know that, for example, in all of our first nations, there's a significant urban-rural divide. I call it that in the Whitehorse context, and I'll qualify that because I'm sure people in Vancouver won't understand this—or Montreal or so forth—but there is our own minute urban-rural divide here in the Yukon. Whitehorse is very small in comparison to most communities in Canada, granted, but you compare Whitehorse, with its 20,000 to 21,000 people, versus our rural communities, which have anywhere from 300 to 400 to 500 people. And also in those rural communities the largest majority of the population is aboriginal. There is a difference in what type of infrastructure support is available for local community initiatives and development.
When we look at stimulus packages that are being rolled out, particularly in the north, related to a whole bunch of federal initiatives, we want to make certain that some of the most desperate communities receive some of these stimulus and infrastructure dollars. When you look at the history of this territory, going all the way back to the fur trade with the Russians and the Hudson Bay Company, the gold rush of 1898, the base metal boom of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the ongoing activity that is happening today, and you look at the wealth that is generated out of this territory, there's no justifiable reason, in our minds, why any community should not have good-quality drinking water. There's just no acceptable reason, when billions of dollars have been generated out of this territory and have been shipped either to shareholders or as royalty payments to the crown or to the territorial government. Why do we still have a problem with people having good-quality drinking water in their communities? There's no justifiable reason for it. This is where we need to put a focus on what the building blocks are for breaking poverty. When we look at our communities, poverty is still a plaguing problem. It's one that holds you down and makes you desperate, and you do desperate things.
When we look at this urban-rural divide, of course, we need the basic elements addressed: drinking water quality, waste water and adequate disposal of waste waters, and so forth. Why is that important? When you look at the critical masses required to do the activities in the communities, small communities can't attract people to work there because we don't have enough adequate housing for people. We don't have enough housing—I know each of our first nations communities has a list as long as your arm of social housing requirements. That's symptomatic of a broader problem, of course. The key word is “social” housing. If people were more financially independent, they wouldn't be on that list; they'd buy their own homes.
When we look at the range of social programs that are being rolled out by Canada, again, the on-reserve/off-reserve issue continues to plague the rollout here in Yukon. We look at business support and entrepreneurial development in our communities and we talk about economic stimulation. If you don't have the fundamental infrastructure to support that—like good-quality drinking water and adequate housing requirements—and to attract the skills in these remote communities to help work on entrepreneurial activities, then it just gets to be a perpetual cycle. There gets to be the ongoing exodus from the rural areas to the urban centres, and that perpetuates itself where people get to a certain skill set here in Whitehorse and then make their way to the Winnipegs and the Torontos and the Vancouvers of the world.
When we look at the north and at the question Canada is faced with, and when we look internationally in relation to sovereignty, the ongoing challenges associated with the climate change issue, and the ongoing anticipation, not only by Canada, but China, Korea, the Far East, the Europeans, about the opening up of the north and accessing new resources, we see there's an opportunity for Canada to try to do it right, in partnership with not only the territorial government but with local and aboriginal communities.
If I had more time I'd talk your ear off, but I recognize I have to share the floor. This is a very complex issue. There's no simple answer to it. I commend you all for dedicating your time and focus on this question.
I think we do have a lot of tools available; they're just not accessible. Your committee could play an instrumental role in helping to turn that around. Our paper, once we provide it to you, will articulate our thoughts and recommendations on that in greater detail.
Merci.
