Bill C-391 (Historical)

Indigenous Human Remains and Cultural Property Repatriation Act

An Act respecting a national strategy for the repatriation of Indigenous human remains and cultural property

This enactment provides for the development and implementation of a national strategy to enable the return of Indigenous human remains and cultural property to the Indigenous peoples of Canada.

[Dr. Ruth Phillips, Professor, The Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts & Cultures]

Thank you.

I also would like to thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to speak to you, and I would add on a personal note that I am particularly grateful to be here because I was a member of the task force on museums and first peoples, to which we owe the current guidelines we work with. I'm very happy to see this further stage finally being reached.

GRASAC is also an organization that has existed because of federal funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Canada research chairs program, and SSHRC. We are indebted to federal support for the research that we've done.

We are a collaboration of academics, indigenous communities, researchers, and museum staff. We have come together in order to do some of the work that other speakers have referred to—the need to identify the locations and histories of collections of objects, both abroad and within North America.

GRASAC supports the passage of Bill C-391. We regard repatriation as an important expression of self-determination, as expressed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to which Canada is now a signatory. We've described our organization's work and provided detailed comments in a written report, which will be circulated to you after translation.

Today we want to highlight key provisions and refinements we believe to be necessary for the bill to succeed in its goals. We believe that it needs to support three primary things—research leading to the identification of items for repatriation; multiple forms of access, including digital access and loans where appropriate; and infrastructure in indigenous communities.

Anong Beam, who is with me today, is executive director of the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation and a member of GRASAC's steering committee. She will speak to this last, very critical issue.

Why is research necessary as a precondition for repatriation? As other speakers have said, we actually don't know where all this heritage is located. We also find that much of it is very poorly documented. In many cases, we don't know how it was collected, when, or from which community. Indigenous people need to identify items for repatriation because museums and collecting institutions will need to know these histories in order to consider the requests. They will demand this kind of information, in addition to the practical need to know where things are.

When we do this research, as we have been doing in the GRASAC project, it illuminates the different ways that aboriginal cultural property has left communities over the course of four centuries, in the case of the Great Lakes region.

I brought a few images. I hope to show you how important these things are and the ways in which they have been collected.

The first slide shows a 17th century curiosity collection in Paris that still exists. It had indigenous Great Lakes items in it. These kinds of things were collected by curiosity collectors—a beautiful Odawa bag and a very important pipe.

The bag is in the National Museum of Ireland. It was brought there by an Irish soldier who was in Canada around 1800. The pipe was brought to Scotland by a soldier who fought in the Seven Years War and who left it with his patron. It was only sold around 2006 at a Sotheby's auction, where Canadian museums did not have enough money to bid for it. It went to a private American collector, along with a whole collection of other wonderful things. Indigenous communities were completely unable to bid for these things at the time, because of lack of funding, which I'd like to point out.

A very important way that things left communities in early years was through diplomatic exchanges and rituals of gift-giving. Wampum is the most famous and best known form of item that left in this way, and you see here an important example, now in the McCord Museum.

I have learned from my colleagues in GRASAC that when gifts are received in such a context, it indicates and confirms that an agreement has been reached. There are potential consequences to returning such items, because it may simply signify that the agreement is nullified by the return. This is something to keep in mind.

During diplomatic exchanges, especially in the 18th and early 19th centuries, there were also ritual adoptions of individuals who were regarded as allies or supporters of indigenous communities, and part of such adoptions was very often the presentation of a very beautiful outfit of clothing. Lieutenant John Caldwell was adopted in 1780 by Anishinaabe people. He's wearing the outfit he received. Much of it is now in the Canadian Museum of History. It was repatriated in the 1970s when federal funding was made available for the repatriation of Canadian heritage held abroad.

Other kinds of gifts were given through the 19th century when important officials visited, such as a remarkable collection of quilled birchbark containers that is now in Osborne House on the Isle of Wight in Britain, which was Queen Victoria's family home. These were given to the Prince of Wales, and some of them directly to Queen Victoria. They may look like the kinds of items that were purchased as souvenirs, but they were actually diplomatic gifts.

Things could be commissioned, such as this magnificent and very famous cradle. The panels for it were commissioned of one of the most famous quill workers in Nova Scotia in the 19th century, Christina Morris, and there was an enormous production of souvenir work in the Great Lakes for economic purposes. It provided a very important source of income to indigenous people.

Among these items were very beautiful items of beadwork made by Haudenosaunee people throughout the northeast, and there are lots of those in collections. From the many photographs we have found of Victorian women holding these bags, you can see that they prized them greatly.

However, the largest body of materials in museums, which has already been referred to by other speakers, is the enormous amount of material collected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries under a project that is often called salvage ethnography. Anthropologists fanned out across North America to collect what they regarded as the last remnants of indigenous culture, thinking that indigenous peoples would disappear.

In my experience, this body of material is understood to have been collected under duress. People were impoverished. They had been confined to reservations and reserves. Their children were being removed to residential schools, and it was a period of great demoralization in many places. The status of this material seems to be somewhat different from the other kinds of things I have been talking about.

The important point we want to make is that items in all of these categories can do more good in indigenous communities today than in storages and drawers in museums, but they may require different forms of request to the institutions that hold them. This research phase is really critical to framing requests in ways that will be persuasive.

I agree also that the definition of “aboriginal cultural property” needs to be further refined, as stated earlier by Dean Oliver.

I will now turn our presentation over to Anong Beam, who will address the critically important need for the bill to support indigenous community infrastructure.

[Dr. Sarah Pash, Executive Director, Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute]

[Witness speaks in indigenous language]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you also to the committee.

[Witness speaks in indigenous language]

I am very honoured to be here on unceded Algonquin territory to speak about the very important bill that we're discussing today.

Aanischaaukamikw is the cultural centre for the 10 Cree communities of the Eeyou Istchee in northern Quebec. We run a 30,150-square-foot building that has 3,000 square feet of long-term and temporary exhibition space, visible storage, a documentation and resource centre, state-of-the-art collection storage, including archaeology, and workspace for approximately 40 staff.

Aboriginal cultural property is defined in the bill as “objects”. In our experience, and considering our long-term needs for repatriation, the definition should include intangible heritage, archival documentary materials and all forms of research data. As we struggle to maintain our language, ensure transmission of our culture and traditional knowledge from generation to generation and protect our cultural heritage for generations to come, we understand the importance of ensuring our ability to repatriate materials and objects such as our ceremonial items held in museums in the south and the voices of our elders, long since passed, in university archival collections of anthropologists.

This necessitates inclusion of any research data and documentary materials that are part of indigenous heritage. Much of our cultural heritage is held by museums and academic institutions beyond Eeyou Istchee throughout Canada, the U.S. and in other places in the world.

When we define cultural property, we define it in terms of heritage and identity. Heritage is inextricably linked to identity; therefore, there is no way to separate indigenous cultural property from indigenous heritage as a right.

The bill comes at a time when we're welcoming the ratification of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for its assertion that indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize cultural traditions and customs, including the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, referring to both material and intangible cultural property.

After centuries of colonization and colonial actions that have endangered our ability to authentically enact heritage as a right, we welcome actions such as Bill C-391 if the enactment is an authentic way of supporting our right to heritage and ensuring that our cultural property is protected and preserved for generations to come.

Although the scope of Bill C-391 places aboriginal cultural property wherever it is situated, in order for this to be comprehensive and meet our needs, this must be clearly understood to include holdings in other countries beyond Canada. We have items of great significance to our heritage throughout the United States and Europe as well as in many places across Canada, and much of this consists of sacred and ceremonial items.

The lack of strength in statements as a result of utilizing phrasing such as “encouraging” the return of property rather than “requiring” the return of cultural property is of concern in the light of calls for authentic implementation of the UN declaration and the TRC calls to action. The two documents, if taken seriously, require a complete reframing and revisioning of the relationship between indigenous nations, their cultural institutes and mainstream museums.

The bill refers to “owners, custodians or trustees”, which are typically self-appointed positions when it comes to indigenous heritage or intangible cultural property. This is a subtlety in power dynamics that should be more widely understood within the discourse surrounding repatriation as an act of reconciliation.

It's also worth noting that the owners, custodians or trustees referred to in this section have profited from the property they hold, using it to raise profile, develop programming, legitimize their standing as institutions and raise capital. From this view, it should be recognized that the owners, custodians or trustees are indebted to the source communities. The mainstream heritage community and the indigenous heritage community together need to collectively advocate to reframe the relationship as a matter of reconciliation. In fact, the ways in which indigenous cultural property is discussed and publicly labelled as “collections” or “artifacts” work to whitewash processes that are quite violent in nature.

In terms of our territory, items from our territory ended up in museums, academic collections or private collections through means that were more than dubious in nature. Yes, some were bought and paid for, but even when this happened, the collector was frequently in an advantaged position of wealth and power, not facing starvation or other catastrophic life events.

Take, for example, the case of ceremonial objects that we know are in museums across the country and around the world and that we know originated in our communities.

One such ceremonial item, a woman's beaded hood from the mid-1800s, used to honour our relationship with the animals that we depend on and to celebrate life events, was found in a museum in Montreal. Through our research, we tied this ceremonial hood to one of our communities in northern Quebec. We knew which family it was from and we knew who the hood-bearer was in the 1800s, but we were unable to determine how the hood ended up in the hands of a collector, and from there in a mainstream urban museum. We can only theorize that if the hood were not obtained through theft or forcibly taken, then the family would have been in such a state of extreme hardship that they would have needed to part with this important family inheritance, an important tie to their spiritual and ceremonial life.

If we are able to only discuss and acknowledge the fact that the removal of parts of our cultural heritage from our communities was facilitated by undesirable economic or social conditions, or that they were stolen or taken by force, or even unexplainably ended up in the hands of a collector, we have not arrived at the point as a society where we can merely “encourage” the return of indigenous cultural property. In keeping with this, support for the process referred to must ensure that indigenous heritage organizations and communities are not burdened with any costs related to the process of re-homing cultural property.

From our experience, transporting an object from a museum in Montreal or Toronto can cost tens of thousands of dollars. For a small non-profit institute, this is a burden that is taken on with the knowledge that our ability to provide access to parts of our tangible heritage that have fallen out of memory or use within our communities is an important aspect of cultural revival and maintenance of heritage. If we're speaking, as referred to in clause 3, of support for preservation and access, this should be understood to mean the financial support necessary to do this work properly. In addition, this support should ensure that the cost is not borne by indigenous communities or organizations. Authentic financial support takes into account transportation costs, conservation costs, and facility and operations support. There are other considerations that must be taken into account here, including support for increasing capacity within indigenous nations, human resource training, and facilities development.

Our facility, Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute, located in Oujé-Bougoumou in northern Quebec, serves our entire nation of 10 Cree communities across Eeyou Istchee. We own and operate a state-of-the-art facility that has achieved category A designation from Canadian Heritage, a designation that recognizes our facility is on a par in terms of conservation and storage facilities and capacity with many of the major museums in this country.

More and more across the country, indigenous organizations are developing these types of institutes and supporting their ability in cultural heritage management. The bill calls for support for repatriation of cultural property, which must include support for the development of the facilities necessary to house such property.

Further, regarding access, it would be preferable if there would be no room for conditional demands on indigenous communities centred in western museological norms that restrict access for any reason that an indigenous community deems valid. Control and access decisions should remain in the hands of indigenous communities or their representative organizations, and that authority must be well recognized.

Frequently we're met with resistance from museums to access because of their reliance on decision-making protocols that are based in western museological norms. These norms don't take into account our own knowledge about how ceremonial items and other items should be cared for and handled. In many instances we found that our objects are improperly cared for and disrespected in mainstream museums because of their reliance on western museological norms. In many cases as well, proper care of the object would entail its relocation to the territory it originated in and to which its spiritual life is tied.

The dislocation and disrespectful handling, even incidentally, of our most precious heritage objects is a pain that this bill could work to alleviate. It should also be noted that in many cases collective items have been subjected to less than ideal storage situations. Many sacred and ceremonial and otherwise important objects have been sprayed with pesticides and neglected as low-priority items in museums, as we have found in some of our cultural property that's held overseas.

The need for support in repatriation of indigenous heritage property is contextualized for us by the fact that much of the collecting work took place during an era of empire expansion, when indigenous cultural items were viewed as exotica, fetish and salvage. In light of these points, there's much repatriation work to be done.

In regard to claims on collections extracted from indigenous communities and territories, especially following contact with Europeans, there was rarely any form of proof of ownership in the sense of documentary evidence. The burden of proof can't be borne by indigenous communities alone. While research must be done, this must be led by indigenous communities but supported financially and otherwise, without placing costs on indigenous communities. In addition, oral tradition and oral discourse need to be valued in terms of this research that's done to place objects within their home communities.

I'd like to take a moment to recognize the work of Mr. Casey and others who developed this bill and also acknowledge that, if passed, it would be a substantial support to our efforts to ensure cultural maintenance and access to our own heritage. Repatriation of cultural property allows us to ensure access to heritage to the population we serve. It creates deep and meaningful experiences and learning opportunities that allow us to reclaim aspects of ourselves and who we are, learning about ourselves as we bring our cultural property home.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Regional Chief Morley Googoo, Regional Chief, Nova Scotia/Newfoundland and Labrador, Assembly of First Nations]

Thank you so much.

[Witness speaks in indigenous language]

Thank you so much for having me this morning. I am very glad to be here on the unceded territory of the Algonquin nation, a proud Mi'kmaq from Nova Scotia. My good friend is here, our MP Andy Fillmore. I have worked on some projects with him.

The Assembly of First Nations has not taken a position on the private member's bill, Bill C-391, an act respecting a national strategy for the repatriation of aboriginal cultural property. During our summer assembly, the Chiefs-in-Assembly passed a resolution that directed the AFN to ensure that any future national strategy on the repatriation of indigenous cultural property be created with the full participation of first nations and uphold the standards set out in the UN declaration. I expect the issue raised by this proposed Bill C-391 will be reviewed by the chiefs this coming December in our winter assembly.

First nations across the country have long expressed the need for the creation and implementation of legal protection to ensure repatriation of all ancestral remains, sacred objects and objects of cultural significance. In 1994, the Assembly of First Nations created a task force with the Canadian Museums Association that developed ethical standards on how first nations and museums would work together on respecting the interaction of repatriation.

While that work stands the test of time, we note the need for informed legal analysis on this matter, one that takes into account significant legal documents since 1994, such as the adoption of section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which recognizes and affirms the treaty and inherent rights of first nations; and in 2007, adoption by the UN General Assembly of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

First nations across Canada have experienced many violations of our rights. Ancestral remains, sacred objects and objects of cultural significance have been taken without free, prior and informed consent of first nations. This is what most people think of when they speak about repatriation of our cultural property—heritage and our materials—but it's also important to note a crucial repatriation issue: intangible property.

First nations have lost access to recordings of voices, the voices and stories of our elders that were collected from our people by all the researchers. These sacred stories, histories and lessons from the land are often deposited in museums and archives, gathering dust when they could be helping rebuild our nations and connection to our landscape and to our history.

Action is needed that respects first nations protocol and our human rights as people. Guidelines were developed 24 years ago by the task force on museums and first peoples, but there was no enforceability, and there still isn't. Discretion and power have been left in the hands of the museums. This situation doesn't align with the obligations Canada has under the UN declaration. The Government of Canada has moral and legal duties to assist indigenous peoples to secure the return of property and materials that were illegally and deceptively taken from indigenous people, and they must work with indigenous people to establish a pathway home.

First nations and Canadian museums have developed a case-by-case approach to repatriation requests that respects different circumstances. After all, there are 58 different indigenous nations in this country. As your committee has heard, first nations require resources to participate in many of these endeavours or to bring about repatriation of our own items. There is a need for a full engagement process as well as a thorough legal analysis to understand the diverse situations of first nations across Canada.

We encourage Canada to explore a structured and fully supported dialogue process with first nations. I bring to your attention that the Chiefs-in-Assembly have passed numerous resolutions relating to repatriation. The chief has also directed the AFN to call upon federal and provincial and territorial governments to acknowledge their moral and fiduciary responsibilities to assist first nations across Canada in their domestic and international repatriation efforts. To deny first nations access or control is to impede first nation rights to a self-determination guaranteed by our inherent treaty rights, constitutional rights and international human rights. We must examine what policies and legal framework are required to guide museums in the relationship and interaction with first nations.

A law that simply encourages owners to return property will not achieve the aim of protecting and respecting first nation rights and advancing reconciliation. Many items were sold to museums or private collections under conditions of duress. People were starving. First nations have never consented to the relocation of their ancestral burial remains to museums.

First nations need commitment and action from the federal government to locate, gain access to and repatriate cultural items held domestically and in collections outside of Canada. Ultimately, there must be enforceable measures for those holding sacred first nation items and burial remains to respect the protocols and rights of first nations.

Our communities must be partners with agencies and authorities throughout the decision-making process and application process. Canada's role would include promoting and supporting the return of our cultural property and materials. The principles within the UN declaration should be used as a framework for any decisions on repatriation. First nations should not be limited in their presentation of their own past, present and futures.

In the spirit of reconciliation, the wilful erosion of first nation cultures and languages by previous generations calls for expenditure of public funds. Any new legislation on repatriation that seeks only to encourage repatriation does not go far enough in affirming first nation rights, especially legislation that is not co-created.

In the short term, there are a number of steps Canada can take:

Fund and take action to support first nations in the return of our tangible and intangible cultural heritage and ancestral remains. In the same way, language revitalization action is needed to preserve our protected languages. Cultural heritage faces endangerment, and we cannot wait to act on repatriation to revitalize our indigenous culture;

Develop a domestic and international catalogue. A record of objects of ancestral remains currently held by museums, archives and other institutions must be established.

We need co-development of the process. Actions should be taken to develop an indigenous peoples-led framework to equally recognize the knowledge of indigenous peoples and our rights to make decisions about our tangible and intangible heritage.

Hundreds of years of cultural erosion cannot be overcome simply through small steps. Longer-term steps should be included. There should be robust legislation that is directed by indigenous-led policy development and a review of current policies and practices that identify where indigenous peoples' values and rights have been excluded.

Provide funding and support for the inclusion of indigenous peoples' legal traditions and protocols and cultural heritage policies and legislation.

Carry out audits of museums' and other institutions' past practices in repatriation and an audit of the failure to implement the recommendations of the 1994 Task Force Report on Museums and First Peoples.

Look at reviewing international policies and legislation to understand what has and what has not worked in their repatriation legislation—for example, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The U.S. has some great successes, but it also creates stress on the relationships between parties through a rigid framework and lack of funding to support the work required.

First nations across Canada should be able to maintain, protect and have access to our religious, ceremonial and cultural sites and objects and have a collective right to repatriation of our ancestral remains, sacred objects and objects of cultural significance.

I want to thank the committee and Bill Casey, our MP back home, for raising the profile to another level. I think this is so important for us to build co-operatively with a new narrative for all Canadians and for all our people.

Wela’lioq.

[Travis Gladue, Co-founder, Bigstone Empowerment Society]

Thank you.

Hello. Tansi. I am Travis Gladue.

I would like to thank MP David Yurdiga for the recommendation to be here today, and the heritage committee for inviting me to discuss Bill C-391, An Act respecting a national strategy for the repatriation of Aboriginal cultural property.

Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the traditional territory of the Algonquin Tribe in Ottawa.

I'm a proud Bigstone Cree Nation member from Treaty 8 territory in northern Alberta. Our traditional territories include Chipewyan Lake, Sandy Lake, Calling Lake, and Wabasca-Desmarais, Alberta. We are a Woodland Cree tribe.

My nation is known as sakâwiyiniwak. It's also a Cree word for forest people, bush people.

Over the centuries we have had many ceremonial items taken from us by museums, collectors, churches, specifically from the Anglican and Catholic denominations. Some of the ancient artifacts, which date back prior to European contact, include arrowheads, axe heads and various ancient tools. Due to the colonization of Canada, many of these ancestral artifacts were taken from us or were destroyed.

As a nation, we are in the process of healing and reconciliation, and we greatly need to find our identity, culture and language.

Working together collectively to have these items repatriated is an empowering mechanism that will be a vital component to build the journey toward reconciliation so that our future generations can have the dignity and pride that our ancestors and grandparents had taken away from them.

Safekeeping and monitoring of these artifacts will take a collective effort and support system from all levels of government to help ensure this effort will be sustained and protected in the years to come. Furthermore, first nation, Métis and Inuit nations should work along with all parties involved into helping to preserve and protect our history.

An elder and fellow members from my nation have recently been in contact with the Royal Alberta Museum regarding some of the artifacts they have kept in their collection. A total of 11 objects are being considered for repatriation, including a pair of handmade moccasins, a drum, an axe head, and several pieces of jewellery. We are currently talking with the museum about a long-term loan basis. We have overcome a hurdle recently due to the great efforts to build a facility to house these objects.

Back in 2000, the Alberta provincial government passed the First Nations Sacred Ceremonial Objects Repatriation Act. The act governs the Royal Alberta Museum and the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, but mainly pertains to the Blackfoot tribe in Treaty 7 territory and only currently covers ceremonial items. Members of my nation would like to see the act expanded to include the other two main Alberta treaties, Treaty 6 and Treaty 8.

I would like to thank Mike Beaver, the former Bigstone Cree Nation Chief and current chairman of the Wabasca Museum Board. He was one of the first people to propose the repatriation of items back in 2007. I would also like to thank the former chief, Ralph Cardinal, for his support to achieve the recognition of these endeavours.

On another note, I'd like to take a moment and mention the protection and repatriation of ancestral gravesites. In 1999, a book called Kituskeenow Cultural Land-Use and Occupancy Study was published by the Arctic Institute of North America. The subjects covered in the book included native people in the Alberta region. Specifically, page 36 of this book sums it up:

The project recorded unregistered grave sites only. The total number of these graves exceeded 200 at more than 70 sites. Registered cemetery sites in the communities of Peerless Lake, Trout Lake, Wabasca-Desmarais, Sandy Lake and Calling Lake are not included in the count. Most of the elders in this study will be buried in these established communities rather than the bush where they were born and raised.

In early 2017, I researched the potential burial location of a former chief of Bigstone Cree Nation. Chief Maxime Beauregard served the nation from May 26, 1947, to January 31, 1962. After his time as chief of Bigstone Cree Nation, my great-grandfather became ill and was sent to the Charles Camsell Indian Hospital in Edmonton. He passed away on July 24, 1963. His body was not sent back to Wabasca, where he was from and where his children resided at that time and reside even to this day.

According to his death records, he was buried at the Winterburn Cemetery, which is located in Enoch Cree Nation, Alberta. We were able to find some potential burial locations, and at this point in time, we are in talks with the Enoch Cree Nation with regard to burial plots and the location of these potential plots or the names of these parties.

I would just like to conclude that this bill is very important, but it will also have to take into consideration the consultation needed in the communities. There needs to be a collective, joint effort by all parties involved.

Thank you for having me today.

[Dr. Dean Oliver, Director, Research, Canadian Museum of History]

Thank you very much.

Good morning, Madame Chair.

The Museum of History is very appreciative of the opportunity to discuss Bill C-391 and the proposed creation of a national strategy for the repatriation of aboriginal cultural property.

As an institution that has been historically at the forefront of discussions on this subject, and on reconciliation with indigenous communities more generally, we are pleased at the invitation to share some notes from our own experiences and recommendations and have had an opportunity to meet with the sponsor of the bill earlier this year to provide, directly, some feedback and advice and I will reiterate that a little further in my remarks.

The museum, as many of you know, is Canada's national museum of history. It is one of Canada's six national museums and is mandated onto the Museums Act of 1990 to collect objects of historical or cultural interest to be preserved on behalf of all Canadians. The museum's unique collection represents the entire country, all of its peoples, and it is very well documented. It was built and continues to be built with very particular deliberation in terms of collections, building and management.

It holds, I think, the largest collection of objects related to indigenous history and culture in Canada, collected over the past 150 years. It's well known in the museological community for its close work in collaboration, consultation and partnership with indigenous communities, and many of those same communities are, in fact, quite proud to have their cultures and their histories represented in the museum and its activities.

The museum recently opened the Canadian History Hall, the most comprehensive exhibition of Canadian history ever developed, and that hall begins with an indigenous creation story and continues to weave indigenous stories throughout approximately 15,000 years of Canadian history that are depicted in the hall, fully integrating indigenous stories into the fabric of the museum in its entirety. A section of that hall—to point out one example—presents a digital forensic depiction of the likenesses of a high-ranking indigenous Shishalh family that lived approximately 4000 years ago. This module was created in very close collaboration with that indigenous community, and a second version of the module was presented at the same time in the community's own museum in Sechelt, on the Pacific coast of British Columbia. The entire hall, in fact, was created through that kind of collaboration with indigenous communities around the country, as well as in consultation with an indigenous advisory committee. The hall, too, was designed by someone many of you know, indigenous architect Douglas Cardinal, who was the designer of the original museum building itself.

The museum's leadership in that kind of principled engagement was, in fact, highlighted in the 2015 report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by name. Such projects build, we believe, strong and positive relationships with communities, and they share knowledge and expertise. They achieve all of that through day-to-day museum work, as well as through more formal programs, such as something called the sacred materials project, which brings community members to the museum to share appropriate and traditional care and handling of the materials and knowledge of same.

The RBC Aboriginal Training Program in Museum Practices, which was created in the early 1990s, offers professional and technical training for first nations, Métis and Inuit participants from the around country so that they may gather, preserve and share their own histories and cultures in their own communities. That has now graduated more than 100 young indigenous museum professionals.

In the field of repatriation activities specifically, we have been very heavily involved for around four decades. Beginning in the early 1990s, the repatriation of objects in the national collection was also added as a topic in treaty negotiations. The museum engages directly in those negotiations, providing information about the collections to participants and discussing repatriation in the context of its own repatriation practices and policies.

In addition to treaty negotiations, custodial agreements or sharing agreements are another important way that the museum shares responsibility for, and access to, its own collections. The museum has a custodial agreement, for example, with the Nisga'a Nation whereby Nisga'a objects are shared on a permanent and ongoing basis with the community.

That agreement speaks to consultation and the inclusion of Nisga'a cultural practices in the care of objects that remain at the museum and of any future acquisitions by the museum of Nisga'a material. Nisga'a Museum director Stephanie Halapija called the implementation of that agreement, “a tangible representation of reconciliation in action.”

The underlying purpose of the bill we are discussing today, as reiterated by the sponsoring member before this committee on September 18, is to provide an additional voice or doorway to the repatriation discussion. This is an objective my museum certainly shares.

As we understood it directly and indirectly from the sponsoring member, his intent in drafting the bill was to address concerns he had for a small museum in his riding in an effort to help it repatriate an object held in an international museum. The proposed strategy that has resulted, which was kindly shared with the museum in the spring, promises to support the return of aboriginal cultural property under specified conditions and to improve access to that property for educational and ceremonial purposes as matters of equal importance.

The museum shares fully these objectives. In fact, as I've already indicated, the museum is doing much of this work now, and has been for a very long time. However, the museum would add for the committee's due consideration—as we shared with the member after meeting with him in the spring—some suggestions on how the bill's current language might better serve these purposes.

As written, the bill's language may be more expansive and imprecise, and therefore not as helpful as originally intended. The strategy could identify more clearly the types of material to be subject to repatriation and the terms and conditions under which requests or demands might be entertained. For example, the current draft offers little distinction between legally acquired objects and all objects, a difference of cardinal importance to all collecting institutions, and indeed to all collectors the world over.

Further, the notion of physical and legal availability of an object is likewise currently absent from the bill's language, as is the notion of compliance with existing and relevant indigenous protocols. The bill, we believe, would be further helped by clearly defining what “available” or “availability” means in its context.

These suggestions would help hone and target the bill's efforts to realize what we understood to be its original spirit and intent. They would also serve to clarify the work and deliberations of any strategy or implementation framework that would later be created by the bill to help manage the flow of information, claims and decisions.

In our experience, this important but delicate work also requires clarity on the link between the requester for repatriated material and the material being requested. This, too, is presently imprecise in the bill's language, which specifies objects that are “of importance” to requesters. Describing objects as “linked to” or “originating from” the requester's specific indigenous group would, we think, be closer to the professed intent.

The bill may also be enhanced by including the notions of access and/or accessibility in addition to that of repatriation. As we indicated earlier, there are other means in addition to repatriation that can enhance accessibility to stories and to objects. As the bill proposes ways to measure progress and eventually to create metrics for success, it might also acknowledge awareness of the work already being done today by cultural institutions of many types, and the ways in which the bill can support such institutions in their work.

Any such metric should differentiate between existing efforts that are successful and new initiatives that stem from the bill and might also be successful, to ensure that future reporting is effective, accurate and encouraging of future results.

In closing, we've been guided in these comments by the text of the bill itself; by what the sponsoring member indicated about his motivations and intentions, including his comments to you on September 18; and by our own considerable experience in repatriation work and related fields as a very privileged participant and, humbly, a leading practitioner for some 40 years in this field, in anticipation of greater and more impactful efforts yet to come.

We certainly believe that the bill holds promise. We also believe that it needs some additional diligence and tighter drafting in key areas to ensure it meets its author's and this committee's expectations, so that if enacted, it can serve as a usable, effective and respectful framework for many years to come.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today. We hope the committee finds our recommendations to be of use in its deliberations.

I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

I call the meeting to order.

I would like to welcome everyone to meeting number 122 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I apologize for a slight delay in beginning, but we will keep moving it along.

We have witnesses here today with regard to our study of Bill C-391, an act respecting a national strategy for the repatriation of aboriginal cultural property. We have Travis Gladue with us, from Bigstone Empowerment Society, and from the Canadian Museum of History, we have Dean Oliver.

We have one other witness on this list, but I just want to confirm whether she's in this room. She would be Sarah Pash from the Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute.

All right, we're still waiting for her. What we can do is begin with the witnesses who are present.

I would also like to flag for you that you have translation services available. We have members of Parliament who will ask questions in both English and French, because we are a bilingual committee, so if you need translation services, you have earpieces you can use.

Why don't we begin with the Canadian Museum of History?

We'll begin with Dean Oliver, please.

[Bob Laidler]

Museums contribute to the economy and the tourism industry. Over 60% of all our international visitors attend museums. Museums are catalysts for creative hubs, a collaborative community building upon its ability to stimulate creativity, innovation and business development and to build a culture of success and prosperity.

The CMA is named in the TRC call to action number 67, which calls for the complete review of museum practices and policies. We have established a special reconciliation council composed of 15 respected individuals—with a majority of indigenous descent—to address this review.

In addition, before the House is Bill C-391, which calls for a national strategy on repatriation. We have supplied a comprehensive brief to you, based on extensive consultations. These are based on several main pillars of support: reconciliation, digitization, social inclusion, diversity and financial stability.

[Bill Casey]

I think you can tell that I would like it to go a long way. This calls for that strategy. I'm calling for the strategy you're calling for, and that includes all of those things you listed and the resources that would be necessary. We're talking about a lot of different things.

We just agreed with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We're going to adopt that. In there it says we have to take special measures to help the economies of first nations. This is a special measure. If we can help them establish what you're talking about—facilities with artifacts on display—that's going to be a huge draw.

Everybody is interested in indigenous history, it seems. I am for sure, and I know most people are, but they don't have the resources. Everything we're doing, everything we're saying we're going to do, points to this. It points in this direction. We've adopted it. We've agreed to take special measures.

The number one issue for the Indigenous Tourism Association was artifacts. I had no idea that would be it, but I had just tabled my Bill C-391. I went to this meeting in Centre Block, and that was the number one issue. They didn't know about my bill, but their number one issue was restoring their artifacts so that they could put them on display and attract tourists. This will help pay for it. It could be a viable business plan. They have these artifacts on this display and it's going to cost this much money. It might be a positive economic business plan you could put forward and finance in that way.

The strategy is to help first nations like Millbrook figure that out. I'm not calling for a lot of money to be spent on it, but I'm calling for a strategy to help first nations. For sure, there will be cases where it's just not viable. If that robe was $500,000 or $600,000 10 or 15 years ago, it would probably be much more today. There's no way we could support that, but by adding a voice, which the House of Commons has done, maybe we're going to get it back for zero dollars.

Fortunately, Millbrook does have a properly built facility that has environmental controls and fire protection and everything else, but you're right that a lot of them don't. Maybe it's part of the strategy to help work on that. If we recognize the artifacts as a tremendous resource and a tremendous asset—and they are—then maybe these resources will be available to develop them. How's that for an answer?

[Bill Casey]

The experience I had was that Millbrook had no place to turn. I talked to museums, and they talk about repatriation, but from talking to indigenous communities, I feel they don't provide the help they need. The whole goal is to add a voice to small indigenous communities like Millbrook so that they're not all by themselves on this endeavour.

As far as money goes, that's part of the strategy. This regalia, I understand, had been given a price of $500,000 to $600,000. That was the estimated value. We're talking about zero now; because of Bill C-391, we're talking about them returning it for zero. That's how this national strategy that I'm calling for could help. That was one of the barriers they ran into at the beginning. By adding our voice...and I just say to all members, it was two minutes and 37 seconds in the House of Commons. That's meaningful. I wouldn't rule out money being made available, but it's not necessary. Mostly I'm talking about assistance in communication and transportation, things like that. Safekeeping is really important. That's what it's about.

Here's a book written by Ruth Phillips. We met with Ruth Phillips. This is almost the bible of indigenous artifacts. You have the whole story about the travels of this robe in here, in the chapter called The Global Travels of a Mi’kmaq Coat. The whole story's in here. It's an amazing book. It's just amazing, the research she did. Huyghue, the guy who bought the regalia in 1843, is quoted in this book:

...Huyghue was convinced of the inevitable and tragic fate that awaited Aboriginal cultural traditions and ways of life: “Alas! poor remnants of a once mighty nation - ye are like the few remaining leaves on a tree from whence their companions have withered....”

That's why the person who bought this robe in 1843 wanted to save it. He wanted it saved. He treasured the Mi’kmaq traditions and culture. It's all in this book. It's just an amazing book. She spent five years writing it.

[Heather Stevens, Operations Supervisor, Millbrook Cultural and Heritage Centre]

I do.

Hello and good afternoon, Madam Chair and committee members.

My name is Heather Stevens. I'm a Mi'kmaq woman from Millbrook First Nation in Nova Scotia, as Bill said. I am here before you this afternoon to address Bill C-391. In doing so, I'm going to tell you a bit about me and the story behind the bill.

I am the operations supervisor at the Millbrook Cultural and Heritage Centre, which is located in Millbrook First Nation. Within the centre, we have artifacts from our Mi'kmaq people that date back 7,500 years. Think about that. It's a long time ago.

I'm going to go off my notes just a bit. We have an archeological dig taking place just outside of our location at Mi'kmawey Debert. In Mi'kmawey Debert, artifacts dating back 13,600 years for our people were uncovered. Mind you, we don't have them in our centre yet either. We're hoping to get those as well.

We are fortunate and honoured to have in our centre these artifacts from 7,500 years ago.

I am here today to bring light to our struggle in trying to have a priceless piece of our Mi'kmaq cultural history returned to its mother country. The Mi'kmaq regalia that we are now trying to acquire is being held at the Melbourne Museum in Australia. This regalia dates back to about the 1840s. We have a picture of it in our museum, as Bill said, but the true piece is in the Melbourne Museum, tucked away somewhere.

When I first started at the Glooscap Heritage Centre and Mi'kmaq Museum, which is now the Millbrook Cultural and Heritage Centre, I was a programs assistant. At that time, the picture of this regalia was in the same display case, and I often wondered why there was just a picture. Why didn't we have this historical regalia displayed here for our people from all over Mi'kma'ki, which in our language is “the land of the Mi'kmaq”, to see, touch and experience that part of our history at first hand?

The answer I received from those in previous endeavours of trying to acquire the regalia in partnership with the Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq and the GHC was that “We have tried, but there's too much red tape and it's just not worth the fight anymore.” That frustrated me so much, but in the position I held, my hands were tied.

When I was eventually put in my current position, I made it a point to have not only me but the entire staff speak to all visitors to our centre about the regalia. In doing so, we were hoping that eventually someone would listen and help us. That day came at the end of last year when MP Bill Casey came to the centre on a different matter. I had been chosen to give him a tour of the museum. When we reached that particular display case, I spoke to him about the value of the piece and the struggles that I had gone through to no avail. At that point, I saw a light in MP Bill Casey's eyes that I had never seen before. That light was hope.

From that point on, MP Bill Casey has worked with me on moving forward with regard to acquiring this priceless historical Mi'kmaq regalia and having it returned to its rightful place. Over a short period of time, I made a connection with another first nations woman of the Worimi Nation, who is employed at the Melbourne Museum, and spoke with her about the regalia. She could relate to the meaning and the desire to get it back home where it belongs. She's so very excited to be a part of having this artifact returned to its rightful place.

As of right now, the movement is slow, but I am very optimistic that if this bill passes, we are going to open a door that is going to let other first nation communities get back the material history that is rightfully theirs, and they will be able to share that history with others. Sharing this history among the Mi'kmaq people and others could uncover direct descendants of that regalia and other historical properties.

The feeling is about recognition of wrongdoing and moving forward with a part of reconciliation for first nations. I, as well as many other first nation people, feel that this would be a step in the right direction, a step to allow us to reconnect with our past, which was taken from us so long ago.

That's it. Thank you very much for your time, Madam Chair and committee.

[Bill Casey]

They also spelled my name right, which is the important thing.

That's the impact it's had. We had calls from Germany. We had calls from Britain, the U.S., and all over asking about the details of the bill. We had a call from the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Association of Museums, which represents 52 countries with thousands of museums. They suggested that they may use this bill as a template for other countries that are trying to get their artifacts back—especially African countries, which have seen many of their artifacts taken all over the world.

Therrefore, we've already had an impact. We had one family call and tell us that they have indigenous artifacts and they don't know what to do with them. This bill would provide a place for them to go. The family told us that they want the artifacts to go back to the proper people, to go back to the people they came from. They don't know what to do.

This bill will help to provide that doorway that people can go to if they do have artifacts to return.

Yesterday I received an email from Chief Dean Nelson, who says:

...I am the political chief of the Lil'wat people

That's in Mount Currie in British Columbia.

He says:

I thank you for your efforts in the introduction of this Bill C-391. I am currently pursuing the very same action of repatriation. If there's anything we can do to [help] strengthen these efforts, please [let us know].

We've heard from indigenous peoples all across the country. When we started, we consulted with just our local indigenous community, but since then we've consulted with dozens of museums and indigenous communities to make sure that we did this right.

When we first started, we didn't realize what a big thing this might end up being. It was just to add a voice. That was our goal, just to add a voice, but it seems that countries around the world are really anxious to have their artifacts repatriated.

In a coincidence, I went to the Indigenous Tourism Association meeting last spring, and the number one issue to them was repatriation of artifacts for economic purposes—not for heritage and culture so much, but for economic purposes, because people who want to come to first nations are really interested in the history and the heritage and they want to see the artifacts. They want to see the history. The young people want to see how things were made. They want to see the talent. They want to see the processes that were in place in the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s. That's what this artifacts issue is really about.

In the U.S., they did it a little differently. They developed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which requires confiscation of artifacts. Our bill does not require confiscation. It would mean that if artifacts are available or have been obtained through nefarious approaches, the Government of Canada has a structure and a policy to help first nations bring them back.

Millbrook First Nation has about 1,500 to 2,000 people; it depends on how you count them. They're incredibly innovative and imaginative and they do a wonderful job, but still, they're 1,500 to 2,000 people and they do not have the resources to take on something like this repatriation of the robe. However, if this bill passes—I hope you'll help us with it—they will have some place to go to in order to ask for advice on storage, repatriation, restoration and safekeeping.

I'm sure you all heard about the museum in Brazil that burned to the ground a week or so ago. A whole lot of Canadian aboriginal artifacts were lost in that fire, priceless artifacts that are gone forever and ever because they weren't stored properly. Maybe we can save some future losses if we can have this bill passed and we can get those artifacts back in our own hands and properly stored.

It's been a thrill to be involved with this issue. It's been a thrill to talk to aboriginal peoples all across the country and all around the world about this. It's been very gratifying to me. What started out to be a small thing to just add a voice has turned out to be something really meaningful, and I appreciate your attention to it.

I have to hand it to Heather Stevens. She's done a great job on this.

Heather, thanks very much.

Joel, too, you did a great job.

With that, I'm going to finish my remarks. I welcome your interventions and questions and everything else.

Thanks very much.

[Bill Casey]

Yes. Thanks very much.

I think I'll start the presentation by telling you a little story about how this all unfolded and how I got involved.

In 2017 I visited the Millbrook Cultural and Heritage Centre. Millbrook First Nation is a small first nation in my riding, but very progressive. They have a wonderful cultural and heritage centre, and Heather Stevens is the manager and curator. They have a lot of artifacts on display. She was explaining the artifacts to me, and she showed me this—I've passed the picture around for everybody to see—in its own glass display case.

I was admiring it, and Heather told me that it wasn't the real one, but a replica. The real one was in Australia. She told me they'd been trying to get it back since the 1990s. Because of different barriers, they hadn't been able to repatriate it.

I thought that was not right, so when I came back, Joel and I checked to see if there was any legislation or any government program or policy that would help a small first nation like Millbrook reacquire their artifacts. We knew where they were—they were legally in Australia and everything—but just in general, we wanted to find out if there was any way the government could help. There was no way.

We decided to draft this private member's bill, mostly just to give a voice to indigenous peoples and to know that there's a strategy on behalf of the government to help them get their artifacts back. We started it out that way, with the very small goal of just adding a voice—that's the way I like to put it—to indigenous peoples' voices.

The amazing thing was that when I tabled the motion at first reading, I spoke for two minutes and 37 seconds. I talked about the robe and I talked about it being in Australia, just to introduce the bill. Three weeks later, the Australian embassy called and asked if the ambassador could come and see me. I told them, “Of course”. I didn't connect it. I just thought she was doing her job and making good connections. She came in, she sat down, and we talked for a little while. All of a sudden, she told me that she'd been in touch with the Melbourne Museum, where the robe is, and they were prepared to begin negotiations to repatriate that robe. I was floored. I couldn't believe it. Two minutes and 37 seconds in the House was better than 30 years of trying on behalf of indigenous people.

It was a profound moment for me when she said that. I couldn't believe it. She gave me the name of the people in Melbourne to contact. She was very outgoing. When I asked her why she had done this, she told me that in Australia they have a thriving indigenous community. They have a rich heritage and rich culture, and they want their artifacts back. How could they ask Canada or other countries to please return artifacts if they wouldn't return theirs? As a result, that process is under way.

The magic to me is this. We have here a young aboriginal woman from Nova Scotia, from Millbrook band, and she is negotiating with a young aboriginal woman in Australia. It's not Australia to Canada or Canada to Australia: it's first nation to first nation, 15,000 kilometres apart. To me that's very meaningful. I think it's an indication of where we're going as a country and as a globe with respect to indigenous relations and respect.

We've already had an impact with Bill C-391, even though it hasn't passed. We don't have this robe back, but we're well on the way to getting it back. I'm optimistic that we are going to get it back, and the other artifacts with it.

I've passed around this article. It's not in either official language. It's in Chinese. This private member's bill was picked up in China. I know what it's about because it has my picture in it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

We will start up again.

In our second hour today, we are reviewing Bill C-391, an act respecting a national strategy for the repatriation of aboriginal cultural property.

We have with us MP Bill Casey, who brought forward this bill; Heather Stevens, from the Millbrook Cultural and Heritage Centre; and Joel Henderson. I do not have him on my list, but he is with Mr. Casey.

Aboriginal Cultural Property Repatriation Act

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

It being 3:34 p.m., pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-391, under private members' business.

Call in the members.

Before the taking of the vote:

The House resumed from May 30 consideration of the motion that Bill C-391, An Act respecting a national strategy for the repatriation of Aboriginal cultural property, be read the second time and referred to a committee.