Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2017

[Murray Sinclair]

I could send you a list. I know that, for example, the University of Saskatchewan, at Saskatoon, offers a land-based educational experience for students who want to understand the indigenous perspective of medicine gathering, the connection to the land, and cultural teachings about the land. That's one area. My young friend Tasha Spillet is involved in that program. I am sure there are other similar programs to that.

I know that John Borrows, for example, at the institute of indigenous governance at the University of Victoria, takes his law students out into the communities to spend time with indigenous elders and have the elders teach them about what their indigenous laws are. They actually spend time in the communities, on the land, in the lodges with those elders.

That's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about immersing yourself in the culture.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Van Loan]

You have about a minute left.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Barlow, do you have anything to add to that?

[Kevin Barlow]

I definitely echo that comment. In the curriculum we developed, one of the key points we make known is that the objective is not to teach somebody everything about indigenous cultures. In Vancouver, there is a mosaic of indigenous people from across the country, and some from New Zealand, the United States, and that type of thing. The idea is to understand what you don't know, and to know how to approach things and where to go for learning. I would certainly echo that.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Senator Sinclair, you recommended that we take an inventory of our laws to see what laws would need to be addressed and changed. What do you think is the best way we go about that? Who should be part of the inventory gathering? What would you see as the best process to do that?

[Murray Sinclair]

As a senator, I have tried to find that out. I don't have the answer. I am told that the Library of Parliament won't do that because it's a political question, and the Department of Justice will take steps in that direction if they are directed by politicians to do that.

I think it is a question of putting a proper legal team together, with the awareness of what the UN declaration is all about, to make sure that they do a proper assessment of laws and regulations.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Van Loan]

We are now going to move into the next round. We only have time to make it a three-minute round for each team.

We are going to start with Mr. Anderson, for the Conservatives, for three minutes.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Chair, I wish I had more than three minutes, but we'll do what we can with this.

I am wondering if you can give us some success stories about people who have overcome this racist attitude and restrictions. We are talking about these issues and looking at them from one perspective, but where would we look for leaders who have been very successful and done a great job of leading their people? Whom would we look to?

[Kevin Barlow]

I think Vancouver is an example. The reconciliation walk a few years back had 70,000 people, who came out on a monsoon rain type of day. Obviously, when leadership shows a certain approach, it has an impact on the local people. Just last week, 100,000 people showed up for the reconciliation walk. When the city made the statement that they were the city of reconciliation, that demonstrated that indigenous people have a place there.

Other cities have those kinds of things. Some of them have indigenous departments, like Toronto. I heard that Toronto is thinking of getting rid of that department. I don't think that's the way to go, to get rid of those mechanisms, but when leadership shows certain approaches, I think it has a ripple effect.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I wish we had more time here.

Senator, I have another question, and this—

[Murray Sinclair]

I can tell you quickly, if you don't mind, that there are those from the Indigenous Bar Association, indigenous groups of teachers, indigenous groups of scientists, indigenous groups of social workers, and indigenous groups in just about every field, including medicine and engineering, who are success stories, and they can tell you about their experiences.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

That fits in to what I want to ask, because both of those are pretty urban perspectives. I come from an area with some rural reserves. I'm just wondering how we support rural reserves when the people want to stay there, and they want to participate and be successful, but their leadership is in the city. Do you have any suggestions for us?

[Murray Sinclair]

I need to know an example of what you're talking about, I'm afraid.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I won't lay it out specifically, but I did have an opportunity to work with someone who was leading one of their bands, and eventually leadership was taken away from them and focused back to the city hundreds of miles away. The band gets nothing on the reserve area. It's all focused a long way away in somebody else's hands. People want to stay there. They want to participate, be a part of the community, and be successful.

Kevin, do you have anything?

[Kevin Barlow]

I think that's a very key issue when these accounting firms step into third party management positions, and then they're there forever. I think that requires study in itself. We need to look at how to get reserves out of that mechanism.

I know when the Conservative government at one point came up with the statistical management act, that was an effort in that regard. Some of that stuff is really good, but I think we need to figure out a way of looking at those communities and coming up with strong recommendations on how to reverse that third party and co-management scenario that is on so many reserves, because that scenario is there forever.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Van Loan]

We're on to the next round, which belongs to the Liberals.

I believe it's Ms. Dzerowicz. You have three minutes.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much for your excellent presentations. I've learned so much today.

I have two key questions. I'm hoping I can get to both of them.

As part of the plan that we're trying to put together, there's a whole slew of recommendations we're going to make. One of them is going to be around education and communication. Mr. Barlow, you've already mentioned some of the challenges that we have. It is incredible how difficult it is, with all the tools that we have, to communicate and to educate today. If we were to come up with a series of recommendations around communicating and education, I wonder if you might be able to make a few specific recommendations of your own regarding details that we need to keep in mind as we're doing this.

Maybe, Mr. Barlow, we'll start with you, and then end with you, Senator.

[Kevin Barlow]

Certainly in the education system there are systemic issues. It's the responsibility of the teacher to control the classroom. We may say that we'd like the teacher to adopt this or teach that, but it's up to the teacher, and the principal can't do anything, and the school board can't do anything, because it's a system and a certain curriculum that's in place. I think we have to look at those challenges.

I think a lot of the problem is that the schools have to do the standard curriculum, but then we want to teach culture and language and all of these other things, and that's an add-on. It's a burden to the children because then you're bombarding them with all kinds of things that are taking up their time, and they don't have the time.

It's not an easy answer, but I think we have to try to identify the systemic issues and remove them one by one.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I want to add to that.

In my riding, 52% of the residents were born outside of the country, so even just educating them around systemic discrimination, discrimination that many of them have experienced themselves as well, is a big issue. It's not only an issue for those coming in. It's ongoing.

I don't know, Senator, if you have any recommendations around that as well.

[Murray Sinclair]

My first recommendation is that I think everybody should read the TRC report, at least a summary. I know it's heavy reading in the sense that you see a volume and you immediately hesitate, but let me assure you that there are pictures in it, and that will help. The calls to action, I think, are designed to educate people. Calls to action make you focus on a particular area, so my first advice always is to read the report.

When it comes to newcomers to the country, we have to recognize that newcomers are not going to be connected to this history, and they don't feel that connection to the history—although they do have their own experience. I always remind those people who are newcomers, and those who are working with them, that they have a responsibility for the future, and that if they want to exercise that responsibility correctly, they have to know this history too.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Van Loan]

We will now move to the last three-minute segment, which belongs to Ms. Kwan of the NDP.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses.

Mr. Barlow, you were going to talk about some concrete examples of what we can do by way of recommendation, and then we lost time. I wonder if you could expand on that for me.

[Kevin Barlow]

I've spoken about endorsing reconciliation and having practical ways of working with groups to make that happen. Cultural competency, if it's done properly and designed correctly, can have the desired impacts. More and more, we have to work with these systems and look at what the issues are. One of these is the example I gave of poverty and the psychology of poverty behind it.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Part of the challenge with your organization and many others like yours, the grassroots organizations in our community, is that you don't have the resources or the funding or the staff to get the work done. Would it be helpful as a recommendation from the federal government to institute a national strategy to support NGOs and non-profit groups such as yours to do this work and to localize those strategies within those communities?

[Kevin Barlow]

Most definitely. Civil society can do things that government cannot. You guys have to study things and talk about things forever. We can do things a little quicker.

I made the point about urban programming for indigenous people and the flaws this programming contains. My agency has been held up as an example of an urban coalition they want to replicate across the country, yet there are flaws within that funding. One of these is that it only funds my position. I'm getting close to retirement, so everything to do with professional development and all those things is geared toward my position, me as a person, not the organization. We need to build the organization up as a coalition that will be a solid vehicle to do all these different things.

I've been working with the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs to try to change those things, but I'm hearing groups all across the country talking about the changes that need to happen so that the urban population has a strategy, a system, that's going to support us, because that's where the majority of indigenous people live.