Science and Research Committee on Feb. 13th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

That's great. Thank you. I'm very pleased that we were able to get your testimony. It's very helpful for our study.

Now we'll go over to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes, please.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to the witnesses joining us for our second hour.

My first question is for you, Ms. Littlechild.

I listened carefully to your opening statement, which was very detailed and informative. I noticed that you've done international work, including with UNESCO. That is to be commended.

I'd like your help understanding a few things.

First, is there a universal definition of indigenous knowledge?

[Danika Littlechild]

No, there is no universal definition.

I think part of that comes from the fact that, in reference to my earlier remarks, indigenous peoples are not a homogeneous group. There is high diversity among indigenous peoples and the different kinds of knowledge systems they hold. We see this with other knowledge holders, such as scientists. Different types of scientists have different types of knowledge. Different cultures around the world have different knowledge systems. Similarly, there's a high diversity of indigenous knowledge systems.

This is why my recommendation to the committee is that it specifically recognize, in the context of the study, the fact that this diversity is difficult to reflect in a brief study, and talk about the need for indigenous peoples to have self-determination to describe their own knowledge systems.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you for your answer.

Is it accurate to say that existing definitions of indigenous knowledge include the idea of spirituality and religious belief?

[Danika Littlechild]

I believe that some do. The resources that will be of the greatest utility in this line of questioning will be those standards to which Canada has already agreed.

For example, Canada is a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which has, I believe, some definitions around what is globally considered to be indigenous knowledge. We can also, perhaps, look to some of the existing legislation in Canada to look for those definitions.

However, I do not think it's a good use of time for the committee to try to come up with a definition, which, to be quite frank, has been challenging the global community for decades, for the simple reason that it's incredibly difficult to come up with a pithy definition for knowledge systems representing over 470 million people globally.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Very well.

You said that indigenous communities were not a monolithic or homogeneous group. You also said that beliefs and spirituality could inform indigenous knowledge. How do you separate what's true from what isn't?

Say a community has a certain tradition or belief. When it comes to making public policy decisions, there has to be some sort of basis or connection. What do we prioritize? How do we integrate indigenous experience into the existing system?

[Danika Littlechild]

Thank you for your question. I've heard you ask many witnesses this precise question, and you've had a lot of different kinds of responses.

For me, the crux of your question relates to the fact that you seek to create.... It sounds as though what you are trying to find is a way of legitimizing or confirming knowledge from different systems. I think this is fundamentally impossible, which is why you've received so many different responses.

As I said earlier, it's very difficult to say I can confirm something is true in a system about which I have no understanding. My example earlier was this: If I sit down with a scientist and ask them to explain a complex scientific concept to me over a period of three days, or even three workshops, I don't think I could walk away from that saying I had verified that this complex scientific concept was indeed true from my own indigenous perspective. Similarly, I think on the flip side that it's pretty well impossible for non-indigenous systems to try to somehow verify or confirm the veracity of indigenous knowledge systems.

We can see that the courts in Canada have also struggled with this. We have some sort of challenging test the courts have laid out—10-part tests around how you define something that is central to your indigenous identity, for example. All of these tests have, for the most part and for many years, relied upon social science evidence, for example, like finding some kind of non-indigenous study to confirm it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I'm sorry. I have to interrupt. Thank you for the answer. We're over time.

Mr. Cannings, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you all for being here today.

I'd like to quickly go to Ms. Sayine-Crawford.

I'm very interested to hear your words on the Northwest Territories' Species at Risk Act. I've been involved with the federal Species at Risk Act for many years.

I'd like to give you more time to dive into that. First of all, how does it align legally with the federal act? How do they work together in the Northwest Territories?

[Heather Sayine-Crawford]

Thank you for that question.

Our Species at Risk (NWT) Act is applicable in the NWT. There are some fundamental differences between our act and the federal Species at Risk Act, but ultimately, I think that they do complement each other.

In the past we have used federal recovery strategies, management plans or species status reports to help inform our own processes here in NWT. For example, our latest management plan for northern mountain caribou relies heavily on the management plan that was developed federally and which included information from the Northwest Territories.

I think the main difference is that here we work in a collaborative system. I talked a lot about the co-management regime. I think it parallels the ethical space that has been spoken about today as well. It's looking to bring everyone to the table to meet and discuss, first, the status reports, then the assessment and, finally, listings.

A difference with the Species at Risk (NWT) Act is just that there are several management authorities, including those co-management boards under the settled land claim agreements as well as the GNWT, and there's also space for all other indigenous governments and indigenous organizations in those decisions.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thanks.

You mentioned that you structure your assessment process and perhaps the recovery planning process differently from the federal process in that there are essentially two paths, the indigenous knowledge path and the scientific path, or whatever you want to call that. They kind of remain separate throughout the process, whereas in the federal process there's the indigenous knowledge committee on COSEWIC and an attempt to try to bring both of those knowledge pieces together to form a final assessment report and recovery plans. You seemed to intimate that this approach doesn't work as well as your method.

I'm wondering if you could expand on that. I'm very interested in hearing your thoughts.

[Heather Sayine-Crawford]

Yes. Thank you for that question.

I think it touches on some of the things that have been talked about today.

As I discussed, our process heavily relied on the IUCN and COSEWIC processes, which are based on scientific knowledge. When traditional knowledge holders came to the table, it didn't fit their world view and the way that they viewed the different species. Really, changing the system to a dual process to allow for each knowledge system to put forward their own information allowed us to communicate in a way that best fits that knowledge system.

One concrete example would be considering barren ground caribou. In a normal scientific status report, we talk about the systematic and taxonomic classification of barren ground caribou. They're a branch of tarandus.

What does that mean for indigenous peoples? To flip that, indigenous knowledge holders and experts in the field changed that to how they view the species as a whole and how they see the herds on the ground. Based on science, in the barren ground caribou status report, we relied heavily on definitions of herds, while the indigenous knowledge component looked at such things as where the barren ground caribou are travelling and what their range is, as well as their colour, body condition and even the taste of the meat. That resulted in a different identification of herds.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

I'd like to turn quickly to Professor Littlechild.

You mentioned CEPA and the implementation framework around the right to live in a healthy environment. As I understand it, that applies only within the confines of CEPA. I put forward a private member's bill that would do the same thing, but for all federal pieces of legislation. I'm wondering if you could quickly comment on the utility of that process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

You have 30 seconds, please.

[Danika Littlechild]

I think what you're proposing would be incredibly useful, and I think the reason is that creating formalized mechanisms has really shown to provide the richest and most useful outcomes for the inclusion of indigenous peoples. If there are no formalized mechanisms and if we can't point to some high specificity in the context of legislation or policy, I think there's less utility to those types of mechanisms. I think expanding that beyond CEPA, which is one example, would be very useful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

Thank you for the questions.

In the next round, we're going to be abbreviated, doing three minutes, three minutes, one minute and one minute. That will cut into our committee business time a little bit, but with the committee's indulgence, let's go ahead with three minutes to Mr. Tochor, please.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to our witnesses.

Ms. Sayine-Crawford, I've heard some of the stories about permafrost and the challenges with global warming. In knowledge transfer from elders, is what the elders have been saying about global warming affecting some of the caribou herds in the north pretty universal?

[Heather Sayine-Crawford]

I think we see lots of similar testimonies coming from different communities, but there are differences across the NWT, as the Northwest Territories are quite vast. We have a huge area and five different ecotypes, actually, of caribou that exist here and that people rely on. We do see some differences, but there are some main points that continue to come out from everyone.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Going forward, you hear stories from elders talking about the challenges of dealing with warmer climates. Are there stories from elders who talk about when the climate was colder? I'm going way back to stories about the last time everything was in an ice age. Have they shared stories about the changing climates over the years?

[Heather Sayine-Crawford]

For this question, I actually think Tammy would be best suited to speak to—

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Be really quick. We're short on time.

[Tammy Steinwand-Deschambeault]

Our elders have stories that talk about how in the past with the caribou, during very cold temperatures, there was both a decline and an improvement you could see in the populations.

The climate, we know, is really affecting the caribou. There are also other factors that we're seeing. We're finding with our research in the Contwoyto Lake area that there are other predators coming in, such as the bald eagle; so there are lots of different factors that we feel are affecting caribou populations in that area.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you kindly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

We'll go to Dr. Jaczek for three minutes, please.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for their testimony today.

Ms. Littlechild, thank you again for the practical recommendations you've made. The discussion today has very much focused on environment, on wildlife, and those particular study areas. I didn't know that in fact the Environment and Climate Change Canada department had a wildlife and landscape sciences directorate, and we heard about their efforts to incorporate indigenous knowledge.

Are you aware of other departments of the federal government that have such science directorates that might also benefit from more collaboration and integration with indigenous knowledge? I'm of course thinking of health, social services—that kind of area.