Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the issue of first nations land management and sustainable economic development. In general, my research examines how existing land tenure regimes on Canadian Indian reserves limit or facilitate economic development. A common misconcepti

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the questions. On the first one, concerning selling the land versus collective rights, I will echo what Chief Whiteduck says, which is that the proposed First Nations Property Ownership Act is not for all first nations. That's clear. We're not saying this is a pana

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. On the question of who decides, it's up to the first nation community as a collective to decide whether they want to opt into it. I'm not saying one part of the community should make a decision against the other. The community has to find a way to decide on its own rules w

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Chief Jules will say that the proposed First Nations Property Ownership Act is in fact about self-government. By gaining title and jurisdiction, what you're in essence doing is giving the first nation the jurisdiction, the self-government, over its land to control it in a much mo

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, Chief Jules always talks about this legislation as being the freedom to choose. I think it's paternalistic to say to first nations people, “You're not responsible, you may be preyed upon by people who are seeking...”. I think first nations individuals are smart, they're res

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, absolutely. Yes, I agree. The proposed First Nations Property Ownership Act is not for all first nations. Neither is the First Nations Land Management Act. There are going to be first nations that will want to remain in the Indian Act, and I think we should support them. I

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Let me reiterate that this is not for all first nations. It will be for certain first nations, especially those that are in locations that can benefit from the use of fee simple. We're talking about places where there's demand and interest in a first nation's land within the firs

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In terms of how many are interested, the initial number is ten. According to the last time I talked to Chief Jules, it was ten. That number is quite normal. The First Nations Land Management Act, which has now 40 first nations, and with more getting more interested in it, starte

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  But like all—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The jurisprudence suggests that customary rights are only enforceable in Canadian courts if they mimic certificates of possession. If they mimic the certificates of possession in terms of how they were allotted and how they are administered and recorded, then the jurisprudence su

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In principle, they're similar. The Nisga'a basically provides the model, because the Nisga'a gained title and jurisdiction through their comprehensive land claims agreement, and then they passed a law that allows for fee simple ownership to occur and that fee simple ownership is

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I see what you're saying.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  This legislation shouldn't be thought of as similar to comprehensive land claims in that way. It's not comprehensive like modern treaties are, but it achieves in many ways the same purpose, which is to give entitlement, jurisdiction, and certainty of ownership to the first nation

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Right, but ours would not. The proposed First Nation Property Ownership Act would not have a chapter that involves self-government; that would be something that continues to be negotiated under the current federal self-government policy. This simply focuses on property ownership

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We actually would argue that, first of all, leases are a very powerful and useful economic tool. The difference would be that the process for getting a leasehold interest and then turning that into a mortgage would be more onerous than getting a mortgage or a loan based on a fee