Evidence of meeting #125 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nunavut.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director and Curator, Co-chair Haida Repatriation Committee, Haida Gwaii Museum
I think in Canada over the past 20 years, our own work around ancestors—and it's truly transforming to be working at that level of repatriation—has fortified our relationships with major institutions across Canada, as well as in the United States. That comes from working together. We're a little afraid of law and a little afraid of policy, but we also understand the benefit of it.
Our relationship—
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Can I just jump in here? Is it a cultural shift you're talking about, to want—
Executive Director and Curator, Co-chair Haida Repatriation Committee, Haida Gwaii Museum
We're shaping a hybrid culture of indigenous nations and nation-state or mainstream museums. The work that is happening is shifting the societal discourse, essentially, because in the work we've done with institutions, which is what I think this bill should focus on, we celebrate in the media with these institutions. As long as they're working with us, they aren't the face of colonial history.
Celebrating the work we do in the media and through documentaries and through our museum, and mainstream museums, brings a greater education to the greater public and inspires individuals to send home or repatriate incredible treasures, and also our relatives. We've had people send home relatives; they didn't realize when they first took them what they were actually doing.
Educating, celebrating and continuing to move forward are spurring huge change in society, in our opinion, but there is so much work to be done, particularly education around the history: why our ancestors and treasures wound up in museums, and how we can make things right and move forward.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Thanks for that.
What would you recommend that we, as the federal government, do to help with that? What can we do to help make the museum in Washington or another country or another group or what have you...? What can we do to aid in this process?
Executive Director and Curator, Co-chair Haida Repatriation Committee, Haida Gwaii Museum
A bill like the one that's being proposed, as long as it's kept broad.... This is the conundrum. This is where I think more time is needed to discuss it with the mainstream museums that we work actively with, along with indigenous nations across Canada, who should be the key stakeholders. We need more discussion before we do something like pass an important bill such as this. More time is needed to do such a thing.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
You've led me right into my next question. I was surprised to hear you say that the process needs to slow down a bit. You just think we're moving too fast. Do you want to pause? Can you just elaborate as to why you're so concerned that we're moving too fast?
Executive Director and Curator, Co-chair Haida Repatriation Committee, Haida Gwaii Museum
When I first looked at the bill with some colleagues and friends, it was sort of a blind side for us to even have it come out. Again, though, I thank Mr. Casey so much for initiating this process. I do understand from the minutes of the second hearing that it was asserted that some good consultation with indigenous nations and museums had happened. In my case—and I work with indigenous people and mainstream museums across Canada—it was something that none of us were necessarily expecting. It's such a great idea, but it does need more consultation.
It's not a negative response to the bill. It's saying that we've been doing this work for decades. We've been forging paths with museums and changing the way we live our lives together. That's not going to stop, but can we just back up a little bit and come together to discuss this bill so that it really works for indigenous people, mainstream museums, and the greater Canadian society? It's not to halt it. It's to slow it down, and think and engage harder.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Thanks for that.
My riding is Saint John—Rothesay. It's in southern New Brunswick. It's a riding in a city that has a strong indigenous heritage but a very small indigenous population. How can a national action plan for the repatriation of aboriginal cultural property be designed in a manner than ensures that more non-indigenous Canadians learn about indigenous history, indigenous rights, and the process of reconciliation? How can we make sure that our communities are included in that education also?
Executive Director and Curator, Co-chair Haida Repatriation Committee, Haida Gwaii Museum
What I've found.... My father said a long time ago, “Why would we do to others what was done to us?” At least from a Haida world view, we have to work very closely with our nation on what is acceptable to put out and what isn't. For example, burial materials are not always the ideal thing to put on exhibit. It really needs to be indigenous-led. The majority of the treasures that have left our ancestors did so through theft or force. Again, as I said earlier, I would assert strongly that the majority of the material culture that left between 1885 and 1951, the life of the potlatch ban, did so under duress, so they're not—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
That brings us to the end of your time. You're actually overtime now, Mr. Long.
We're going to go to Mr. Blaney for about four minutes.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Collison and Mr. Doore for coming out in support of Bill C-391, an act respecting a national strategy for the repatriation of aboriginal cultural property.
My first question is for both of you. Do you have an inventory of the artifacts of your nation throughout the world that are spread through other museums?
Maybe you can begin, Mr. Doore. Do you have an idea of the number of artifacts within your new museum, the Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park? You mentioned the Crowfoot artifact and so on.
Community Member, Board of Directors, Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park
The artifacts that are currently at the Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park were already available to us and they were simply transferred. I have a long list of those artifacts, but in regard to other artifacts that exist in other museums, we know of some of them and some museums are starting to communicate with us.
The second place our artifacts are stored is with private collectors. They want millions of dollars for them, but we can't afford that.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
So your artifacts are either in other museums or in private collections.
Ms. Collison, what about you? Do you have a type of mapping, or would you find it interesting in a national strategy to know where the artifacts of your ancestors are located or are exposed throughout the world?
Executive Director and Curator, Co-chair Haida Repatriation Committee, Haida Gwaii Museum
Our nation has been researching this since 2006, I believe. To date, over 300 museums have been contacted, and we know well over 12,000 of our physical objects to be held in these museums around the world, including places such as India. We lost potential pieces in the fire at the museum in Brazil. We know of pieces in Australia. I could go on and on.
There are problems with provenance. A lot of the time, when these pieces were collected, they were called Haida but they might be Tsimshian manufacture, or called Tsimshian but they might be Haida manufacture; or they're simply labelled “northwest coast”. There is a lot of work that we still need to do on that.
We have an inventory. We know that so many of the indigenous nations that we and the Royal British Columbia Museum are working with are just starting out, and we do need to find ways to support this research and create databases. I've done a lot of thinking about a national database, and I don't know that it would be feasible, given the thousands and thousands of pieces out there by the more than 600 indigenous nations in Canada.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
Ms. Collison, is private collection an issue for you? Are there many Haida artifacts in the hands of private owners?
Executive Director and Curator, Co-chair Haida Repatriation Committee, Haida Gwaii Museum
There are a ton of treasures with private owners, and actually, after that initial repatriation of the totem poles from the Royal British Columbia Museum—
Conservative
October 18th, 2018 / 11:55 a.m.
Executive Director and Curator, Co-chair Haida Repatriation Committee, Haida Gwaii Museum
We can't force private people, but we can encourage, educate and build relationships. That's how we've built the majority of our collection.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
I have just one last question. Do you see benefit to having some artifacts exposed, as you mentioned, in other places in the world so that the culture is exposed elsewhere?
Executive Director and Curator, Co-chair Haida Repatriation Committee, Haida Gwaii Museum
Yes. First and foremost, we have Haida who live around the world, but also, we love to share and educate, as long as we have a say on how it's presented and shared with the world.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
Mr. Clement Doore and Ms. Nika Collison, thank you for being part of our first panel. That was really interesting for all of us, and I appreciate it. Thank you for bearing through some of our technical challenges.
We are going to suspend briefly so that we can get our next panel up.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
I want to let the francophone members and everyone who needs French interpretation know that the third witness, Aluki Kotierk, will be giving her evidence in Inuktitut. The interpretation will be from Inuktitut to English, then from English to French, so there will be a delay. I'm announcing it so that everyone will be ready for the delay.
We have with us Lucy Bell, from the Royal British Columbia Museum, who will be speaking by video conference.
We have present with us right now President Clément Chartier, from the Métis National Council.
Also here with us is President Aluki Kotierk, of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.
We have everyone at the table.
We will start with the video conference, just in case we run into other technical difficulties this morning. Could we begin, please, with Lucy Bell, from the Royal British Columbia Museum?
You have time to make a presentation right now, if you'd like to begin.
Lucy Bell Head, First Nations and Repatriation Department, Royal British Columbia Museum
Okay.
[Witness speaks in Haida]
Good afternoon, friends. My name is Lucy Bell. I come from the Haida Nation and I work at the Royal BC Museum.
Haw'aa. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. I'll begin with a little bit of the background of why you've probably called me here today.
I'm one of the founding members of the Haida Repatriation Committee on Haida Gwaii. More than 20 years ago, I was an intern at the Royal BC Museum. That's where I learned about human remains being in museums, and I learned there were more than 500 of my ancestors in museums around the world. I took that message home to my Haida community, thinking I could tell them that our ancestors were in the museum. They told me to get busy and start repatriating my ancestors. It took well over 20 years to track them all down and bring them home.
Many, many years later, I started working at the Royal BC Museum as the head of the first nations and repatriation department. With the provincial government's support, the museum responded to the calls of the TRC, UNDRIP and the task force, and really wanted to move the museum in a stronger repatriation direction. My team has been working for about two years now with a renewed focus on repatriation.
The Royal BC Museum has been repatriating for many decades. We are one of the two museums in Canada that repatriate under treaty, and we have been repatriating ancestral remains, belongings and intangible heritage.
I'll mention some of the changes we made in the last couple of years.
We recently revised our indigenous collections and repatriation policy to be more open to repatriation. One of the changes that I'm most proud of is that we changed the policy to say that anything taken during the anti-potlatch law from 1885 to 1951 is considered to have been acquired under duress and is up for repatriation.
Another change we've made is that we've really amped up our repatriation and our work toward repatriating intangible heritage. That means that our very extensive collection of audio recordings, linguistic recordings and cultural recordings is being digitized and provided to communities.
We recently launched a repatriation granting program, with the support of the provincial government, and we've been supporting 21 B.C. indigenous communities in their repatriation journeys. We also support treaty repatriation, and on average two to three nations come to the table with the museum every year.
We are in the middle of creating a repatriation 101 handbook. Knowing that there are not that many nations actively involved in repatriation, we knew we could support them by giving them some tips on how to repatriate.
Today I'll mention a few points.
I had the advice of CEO Jack Lohman, curator Martha Black, and archaeology collection manager Genevieve Hill, and we've come up with a few suggestions. I'll mention a few that I wrote down.
It's important that the strategy that's created be created by and with indigenous peoples and with museums. It's important to bring both to the table.
From my experience repatriating from the United States, we found the NAGPRA law to be very restrictive. By the time we got to the museums, the museums felt really rushed and forced. They were quite tired, and they were feeling obligated to repatriate. It was a big strain. I would recommend the way the Haida repatriation movement went, which was to use the task force report in a much friendlier way. We would bring that document and say, “We're here to work in collaboration and in friendship with you.” That seemed to go a lot further for us than the NAGPRA law.
Something we're facing here with our granting program is that repatriation does take time and it does take money. With the Haida repatriation movement, we estimate that it probably cost us about $1 million to repatriate 500 of our ancestors. That's money we had to raise ourselves.
There are some other things we wanted to speak to. A few definitions could be worked on, ensuring that “ancestral remains” are mentioned in the strategy of the bill and ensuring that “intangible heritage”—i.e., language recordings—is included. It's probably a good suggestion to use the term “indigenous”. Asking museums to be more public about their collections, and more public about having ancestral remains in their collections, will be important as well.
Finally, I would say that repatriation does take time. Reporting out takes time. It is just an absolutely slow and thoughtful process. It took 20 years for the Haida to bring home over 500 ancestors. In British Columbia, with so many nations here, that's what we're understanding here at the museum, too. It takes time and it takes people and it takes resources.
Those are my main points today. Haw'aa for the opportunity.