Bill C-53

Recognition of Certain Métis Governments in Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan and Métis Self-Government Act

An Act respecting the recognition of certain Métis governments in Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan, to give effect to treaties with those governments and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment provides for the recognition of certain Métis governments in Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan and provides a framework for the implementation of treaties entered into by those Métis governments and the Government of Canada. Finally, it makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Jason, I want to ask you a question. You referred to Bill C-53, stating that it replicates the agreements of the Métis of the Yukon for self-government to implement the bill.

Can you elaborate on that, please?

[Jason Madden]

What we're doing is not replicating the Indian Act, where someone else tells the Métis who they are.

These governments have their own systems based upon a national definition and based upon who they represent. They have objectively verifiable registries.

As I highlighted in my presentation, many of these registries have been reviewed and audited by third parties over the years to make sure that they meet the Powley criteria. Bill C-53 doesn't modify or deal with those citizenship issues. The whole point of Bill C-53 is to recognize the jurisdiction of these governments over their own citizenship, so we don't replicate the Indian Act.

It's built into the self-government agreements. It will ultimately be built into the treaties as well. It's not about Canada taking control or telling Métis people who they are. It's about respecting that these Métis governments can run their own registries and identify their own citizenship.

[Jason Madden]

That depends on how it would be worded.

I think we all know that Bill C-53, as ordinary legislation, can't change the Constitution and can't bestow section 35 rights on groups that may not have them. What Bill C-53 does is recognize governments.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

When we're looking at possible amendments, do you think it's fair to ensure in the language that Bill C-53 can't grant or allow any section 35 rights? Would you think that's a fair amendment?

[Jason Madden]

Absolutely. There's no question about it. That's the law of the land. Bill C-53 doesn't modify the duty to consult set out by the Supreme Court of Canada in any way, shape or form.

[Jason Madden]

Métis have rights because they were pre-existing. Section 35 protects only pre-existing rights. If we have those rights, we have them. You don't bestow them upon us. The ordinary legislation signed in February 2023 can't amend the Constitution.

What this is essentially doing is recognizing you as a government, but it can't create section 35 rights. Ordinary legislation can't do it. We have those rights, because we were here before Canada became Canada, and those are now constitutionally protected.

People are misrepresenting some things: “Oh, you're creating these rights.” You can't create those rights. Those rights are inherent and they flow from people being here prior to Canada becoming Canada. Those rights are constitutionally protected. What Bill C-53 does is recognize these governments in relation to their jurisdictions, citizens, etc.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

My question is for Mr. Madden.

You spoke about Bill C-53 not creating any section 35 rights, as written. Can you expand on that a bit?

[Autumn Laing-LaRose]

I think I'm next.

If I may be so frank, I think the only thing missing for the committee members is popcorn, as you facilitate this structure where you're inviting indigenous nations from all over Canada to come and fight each other in this setting.

One of the things I'm thinking about for Bill C-53 is that we're doing a favour for you, essentially, by lumping these three individually distinct governments together, because the fact is that the Métis Nation of Ontario will never back down, and they'll never stop fighting for their self-government recognition and treaty. What Bill C-53 is doing is simply stating the fact that we will begin the process of negotiating.

When it comes to our first nations brothers and sisters—and I mean that quite literally, especially with the demographics here in Saskatchewan—I encourage you to invite President Glen McCallum to speak, because he's been a champion in regard to those relationships with first nations and Métis, especially with the community that he's from. We are quite literally brothers and sisters, or cousins, and family.

When I listen to our Métis elder, who has been invited here to speak, I hear her speak about the love that her parents gave her. That was the strength that allowed her to survive and to be resilient through the harsh realities of residential school. That's what I think is needed. We need to bring back the love to our communities and create space for, yes, open dialogue. Yes, we need to be having these discussions, but we need that love and we need to be ensuring that our elders and our youth are in this space. We need to remember that when we are inviting these people here, we need to do that with love.

Thank you.

[Jason Madden]

I think that's a great question, because that's where reconciliation ultimately needs to get to.

I will just say that I think we need to have understanding and context. I completely understand why the first nations in some places stand up and say that this is unfair, because look at what Canada's colonization project was in relation to them. It was to impose the Indian Act, control their lives from cradle to grave, and implement a status system that is racist and inconsistent with UNDRIP. They've lived through 150-plus years of that and are digging themselves out from under it.

Métis have lived through almost the looking glass of complete denial. “If we ignore you long enough then hopefully you'll go away or get absorbed into the body politic.” Now we're finally coming in to finding our place in Confederation, and we don't have the baggage and the racist legislation of the past holding us back. I get it. I understand. You can see why people.... That division is not of our own making, though, as indigenous peoples. It's because of the history of Canada that this situation has been created.

We need leadership, and for those discussions to happen.... Maybe it needs to be a bumpy ride initially, but at some point in time the discussion has to happen. I have family who are members of first nations. Those relationships run deep. When we go out hunting together, or when we go out on the land together, we're a family, but sometimes these classifications in politics divide and conquer our communities.

I think we need to keep sight of the fact that we have very different stories here, and we have to respect each other's journeys to self-determination and self-government, but one can't trump the other, and we have to sometimes look at it and have that broader discussion.

Bill C-53 is going to have to do that. Treaties will be coming at some point in time with the Métis. Those discussions need to happen with first nations. I hope that they are already, and that they will.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank all the witnesses for their statements. You have made very important statements. I will have one question for all of you.

Jason, if you could be the first to respond, then Autumn and then Angie.

Since Bill C-53 was drafted, it saddens me to see how it has divided indigenous peoples. It seems like it is bringing about a lot of resentment and division. This bothers me. It saddens me.

I want to encourage you to lean towards solidarity as indigenous peoples—as first nations, Métis nations and Inuit.

How can we stand together in solidarity and support each other?

Jason, you are a lawyer. If you could respond to my question, I would really appreciate it.

Thank you.

[Jason Madden]

I think that some of the fears are the outcome of 150-plus years of ignoring the Métis.

I've spent my life in courtrooms where provincial governments have been taking these positions. Everyone has this Nimbyism—not in my backyard. We even had to go to court in Manitoba to prove that there were Métis there with rights.

It's a challenging discussion, because you've had 150 years of ignoring the Métis and not dealing with them. The answer, based on UNDRIP, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and the urging of the court, is not to do nothing and sit on our hands for another 40 years. It's to begin the discussion.

As Autumn says, Bill C-53 is a stepping stone to begin those discussions. If consultations are needed at the treaty stage... There is an important distinction between when consultation is required and when someone else's rights are potentially impacted, but I think some of the commentary that's come out from this about just the absolute denial of Métis existence or cognitive dissonance that the Powley case, which is from Ontario, didn't go to the Supreme Court of Canada, is just unhelpful.

We do need to begin that discussion, but I don't think it can come from a place of denial.

I think that, hopefully, through this process, one good thing in the way forward is that those discussions will at least happen. It can't be the rug being pulled out from under the Métis one more time because of concerns.

What absolutely needs to happen is reconciliation with all indigenous peoples. No one gets to go absolutely first, holding back others.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll start by thanking the witnesses for their testimony.

Mrs. Crerar, you're a remarkable woman, and your testimony was very touching. Thank you very much.

I'd like to ask a question and give all the witnesses a chance to respond, starting with Ms. Laing‑LaRose.

The first nations representatives who testified before our committee and were opposed to Bill C‑53 had certain concerns. I believe you're familiar with most of their arguments and have heard them.

What arguments would you put forward to allay their concerns and respond to their criticisms of Bill C‑53?

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Could you clarify this for us? Should this legislation—Bill C-53—pass, what changes, aside from the part about treaty?

[Jason Madden, Barrister and Solicitor, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Jason Madden, and I'm a citizen of the Métis nation and a member of a well-known Métis community in northwestern Ontario, which is a part of the Métis nation no matter what map you use.

Over the last 20 years, I've been one of the Métis lawyers who's been in the courtrooms to ensure that the promise of section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, is finally implemented. I have acted as legal counsel in Métis rights cases in Ontario and southern Manitoba. I was Mr. Goodon's legal counsel in northwest and southwest Saskatchewan and in Alberta. I've appeared in all the Supreme Court of Canada cases dealing with Métis rights.

Before I go into why Bill C-53 is such an important step for the Métis, I want to bring some facts to the committee, because last week there was a lot of misinformation put before you.

Let's be clear. No one's going to tell me, Hayden Stenlund, Jordyn Playne or other Métis that our Métis families and communities don't exist. Just because someone makes a drive-by statement that Métis communities don't exist or cannot exist without their permission doesn't make it so

Let's look at some of the historical facts from my Métis community.

If our ancestors were simply Anishinabe, there would not have been a need for a half-breed adhesion to Treaty No. 3 in 1875. It could have been an Indian adhesion. They made one with Lac Seul in 1874. Nicolas Chatelain, who signed the adhesion, was not an Anishinabe chief. If the half-breed adhesion to Treaty 3 turned half-breeds into Indians, that adhesion would say that. It does not. Read it.

In 1878, Nicolas Chatelain applied for half-breed scrip because, in his own words, Canada was breaking its promises made to the half-breeds at Fort Frances.

These are actual facts. Much of what was said last week ignored these well-documented facts and Métis history. Much of it was deeply offensive and simply untrue. I just want to say that this needs to be said for the Métis people watching this, especially the Métis youth who are watching these hearings.

Would the committee be comfortable with those remarks being made about the Québécois or other unrepresented groups in Canada? I don't think so.

While first nations have an absolute right to be consulted when their own rights and interests are adversely impacted by Crown action, the Métis have absolutely no obligation to consult or seek permission from anyone about our existence as a people and who we are. Anyone can make a broad and unfounded statement before this committee or in a commission report by consultants who aren't even historians that rejects the legal framework in Powley. That doesn't make the objection valid.

I implore the committee to read the Métis perspective section in RCAP or the Supreme Court of Canada's decision on Powley. None of this Métis history or the fight for Métis rights is “new”. After 20 years, Powley remains the only Supreme Court of Canada case to confirm the existence of a historic and contemporary Métis community with section 35 rights.

Powley is about the Sault Ste. Marie Métis community, and let's just be clear: It's in north-central Ontario, not the Red River. They didn't rely on facts from the Red River in order to ground that historic community or its existence today. This community did not magically drop from the sky. It's connected to other Métis communities that were situated along old fur trade routes and water routes.

What is new is that Canada has finally begun to recognize and deal with the Métis as it should have in the past and based on the promise of section 35. Since 1982, the Métis have had the rug pulled out from under us several times: the failed constitutional conferences in the 1980s and the rejected Métis nation accord, a part of the Charlottetown accord.

In the 1990s we began to turn to the courts, and we've been successful in much of the litigation, from Powley in 2003 to Daniels in 2016.

The Supreme Court of Canada has held that, because of government denial, Métis have been forced to live in a legal lacuna, which means a legal gap that has denied Métis existence and rights. In 2011, the Supreme Court wrote, “The constitutional amendments of 1982...signal that the time has finally come for recognition of the Métis as a unique and distinct people.”

Bill C-53 finally begins to get the Métis out of this legal gap. It's long-overdue recognition, and I also want to emphasize that much of the criticism you've heard about Bill C-53 is not what the bill says when you read it.

First, Bill C-53 recognizes the MNO, MNS and MNA only as indigenous governments, which, to be quite frank, they always have been, regardless of whether Parliament recognizes them as such. Right now, these Métis governments rely on not-for-profit corporations or societies to provide them legal status and capacity, because that's the only option that was available to them.

Bill C-53 simply recognizes the reality that these are already Métis governments. It doesn't create constitutional rights, nor does it recognize any specific Métis communities in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta. It recognizes the collectivities that mandate these Métis governments.

Secondly, Bill C-53 creates a legislative framework that future self-government treaties can sit comfortably within. I want to highlight that this isn't novel. This legislative model was used in the Yukon implementation agreement from 1994. If you ask some questions, I can point you to this schedule. At that point in time, only four treaties were ratified. Other treaties were brought in by OICs subsequently.

Bill C-53 ensures that the rug can't be pulled out from under the Métis yet again in the future and that section 35 is no longer just words without meaningful implementation. A legislative framework for future treaties is locked in. That's why it's constructed this way.

The legislation also makes it clear that multiple Métis governments represent different Métis collectivities, and each Métis rights holder gets to choose the government that represents them. These governments each have citizenship criteria that are consistent with Powley. This is set out in the self-government agreements. In addition, the registries of these Métis governments have been repeatedly reviewed and audited. Frankly, they've been reviewed more than the Indian Act registry.

To repeat the words of the Supreme Court of Canada, “The time has finally come” to recognize the Métis. Bill C-53 does just that.

[Autumn Laing-LaRose, President, Provincial Métis Youth Council, Minister of Youth, Métis Nation-Saskatchewan]

Thank you so much.

[Witness spoke in indigenous language]

[English]

Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. My name is Autumn Laing-LaRose.

I'm joining you today with profound optimism and a sense of purpose as the elected president of the Provincial Métis Youth Council and Minister of Youth for the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan.

First, I want to acknowledge the incredible strides that Métis people have made. Our unique identity has persevered through generations of attempted assimilation and colonialism.

I recently finished my teaching internship in Saskatoon. This took place in a public school that the Métis nation of Saskatchewan partnered with to provide funding and resources for Métis cultural programming and education.

Our grade 8 class hosted a weekly smudge every Monday, where the kindergarten students would come and join us. The first time I was able to participate, this brought tears to my eyes. Because of the work that my Métis government, Métis teachers and elders were doing, Métis children had access to cultural experiences in their classrooms.

Within my own mother's lifetime, children were being removed from their homes and beaten for speaking their language and practising their culture, for just simply being Métis.

The Métis nation is working hard to heal the complex harms experienced by our youth from the loss of culture, language and identity. It is uniquely able to do so because of our inherent right to self-government.

Growing up, my mother worked for a Métis local, which is a core governing body of our Métis nation here in Saskatchewan. When I turned 12, I began volunteering at the children and elders' Christmas suppers that they hosted. At 18, they hired me for my first full-time job. Now I'm 27 and I work alongside them at the Métis Nation Legislative Assembly here in Saskatchewan.

Grassroots Métis governance has played a pivotal role in sustaining our culture, language and history. It is those governing bodies that give us our direction on how we move forward as Métis Nation-Saskatchewan. We have always been here, and it is time for the federal government to do its due diligence.

As Métis citizens of the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan, we have the ability to vote for our elected leaders and participate in our Métis Nation Legislative Assembly at the age of 16, because we recognize the importance of Métis youth involvement. Our lived experiences, aspirations and concerns help shape the policies and initiatives that our governance structures undertake. When integrating our voices into decision-making, we are creating a more inclusive and representative Métis government that addresses the needs of all of our members.

During the spring of this year we hosted a full-day workshop for youth about UNDRIP, before hosting a two-day conference. During this workshop, youth spoke about holding Canada accountable and wanting fewer band-aid fixes and more things that get to the heart of the issues.

The passing of Bill C-53 will further affirm our inherent right to self-government and directly impact the trajectory of our Métis nation. It acts as a stepping stone towards establishing a modern treaty between the Government of Canada and the Métis nation of Saskatchewan.

A lot of the time I hear that youth are our future. They're not just our future. We are an integral part of our present. Our voices deserve to be heard and our perspectives must be considered when shaping policies that impact our collective well-being. To you this may be just another Tuesday, but for me it means pleading for a better future, one where I know that we're not just taken care of, but the wrongs have been made right.

Members of this committee have the rare ability to change my life forever. When you're wondering who this impacts, remember my face and the faces of those who have spoken to you, like Jordyn Playne and Hayden Stenlund.

My question to you is, will you listen to what Métis youth are saying, or will you give up this opportunity for reconciliation?

Thank you so much.