Evidence of meeting #84 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was self-government.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians
If you're going to legislate something—
5:20 p.m.
Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians
How about now? I'll slow it down a little bit.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
The connection has destabilized—if that's a word—since we started, so it's getting a bit choppy. There's about a minute left.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
Sir, I wanted to interrupt him anyway because I want to ask Dean a question.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
We're going to end there.
Ms. Idlout does have a question for Mr. Gladue, so we're going to go over to her.
There's still about a minute and a bit, Ms. Idlout.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
Qujannamiik.
Dean, thank you so much for sharing your story. One of the sections in this bill talks about the three Métis nations seeking self-governance in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan being “authorized”. With your being in British Columbia, could you describe how we could better understand how they came to be authorized to negotiate these as collectivities, what that looks like for you and why you support those three nations in that way?
5:20 p.m.
Regional Director, Thompson Okanagan, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister of Sports, Métis Nation British Columbia
First of all, as I said, we're all cousins. I have cousins. We have cousins throughout.... When we look at the different Métis settlements and the Métis traditional communities, a lot of our families started there and then they'd spread out again and again.
My mother's family ended up in the community of Kelly Lake in northeastern British Columbia, which is a known Métis community as well, but it's still trying to get recognition to this day. We've been involved with that. Métis in B.C. are saying, “We've been here. Where are our rights to be heard and voiced, and our services?”
I always say to people that evidence-based land is a whole different debate, but services and programs to help our people—making sure we're getting culturally sound programs and that our children are learning their language and their culture—we're still struggling with that in B.C. In fact, there's a bill coming through for education right now, Bill 40, that is going to take that all away from us again. It's cultural genocide in different ways.
That's why I'm a passionate person for my nation. This is the voice my ancestors wanted. Some were shut down in different ways. Some were jailed, some were shot and some ran. Some of their houses were nearly burnt throughout history. My house won't be burnt because I have fire insurance.
5:20 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
With that, we are going to need to end this round. Unfortunately, colleagues, that's the amount of time that we have.
There is a brief in camera discussion we need to have, so I'm going to suspend. We'll need to clear the room. I need our members online to get back into the closed session as quickly as possible. It's a question of where we go next, because it's our last planned week of hearings on C-53, so there's a question I have to put to the committee on that. We're going to suspend and then resume in camera as quickly as possible.
Thank you to both of our witnesses for joining us. I really appreciate your making time to be here with us today.
[Proceedings continue in camera]