Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 1st, 2017

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I think I see what you're getting at now.

The United States Supreme Court, in interpreting its Constitution in the 19th century, said they regarded the relationship between the United States government and their aboriginal peoples as effectively sovereign dependent nations. Is that heading more in the direction you're thinking is appropriate?

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

There is a jurisdictional piece, sovereignty and jurisdiction. Yes, the feds are responsible for certain things. The provinces are responsible for certain things. Some of it is shared. First nations jurisdiction has to be re-established or re-recognized as well.

For example, citizenship or membership in Little Black Bear, is our jurisdiction. Some of it is shared. It's just working that out right now. That's how we're starting to work when we start talking about recognition of the inherent right to self-government or self-determination.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I had originally intended to split my time with Mr. Sweet.

Do you have a question, Mr. Sweet?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have two minutes.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

First, I want to thank the witnesses very much. I really appreciate the heads-up on that.

Mr. Akhtar and Ms. Landau, again, I appreciate all your work. I particularly appreciate your work in reaching out between your communities. I don't know a lot, but I do know that the Muslim community and the Jewish community are very diverse in themselves.

[Barbara Landau]

Right.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

You mentioned there is tension between Muslims and Jews with motion 103.

We have heard evidence here that there's a lot of tension inside the Muslim community itself. We've had a number of witnesses talk about their concern that the term “Islamophobia” has been hijacked.

My concern hearing Muslims come to our committee and testify that they're concerned about this word is one of importance to me. It's one of the places where we had the only difference, where we wanted to amend the motion to say that hatred toward Muslims because this word is so politically electric. How's that? Many of the Muslims in your community had come to us and said they have some real concerns about the etymology of this word, about how some people use it.

When you mention being a prisoner to definitions, their concern is about down the road being subjected to the inability to be able to see reform happen within their community, for greater freedom for their community and themselves. I'm wondering if you would address that for me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You are now over seven minutes.

That's why I have a problem with sharing time. When you share two minutes, two minutes is not enough time to get in a question and answer, seriously.

We have a problem. Perhaps we can see if you can answer that question very quickly, please. I'll give you 30 seconds to answer it, because we have to restrict our time.

[Shahid Akhtar]

Is my time starting now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

It's starting now, yes.

[Shahid Akhtar]

Very briefly, I believe in the motive and the political will to act. You have to see what works. The Muslim community is extremely diverse, like many communities, like your community. You mentioned 600-some numbers but there is a problem that overall that culture has somehow accepted that you can get away with criticizing the discrimination against Muslims with all kinds of representations of them in the media. That is happening. Discrimination is happening.

The point is that you have to do something about it. If you can do it and it doesn't matter how you define it, the impact has to be that the Muslim community should feel it is mainstream, that it is Canadian. We are Canadians first, anything else much later.

I have just one very quick remark to Mr. Bellegarde. You have to think outside the box. Not only that, kick the box away. Forget about the box. Think originally. Think to solve the problem. That's your 30-second answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Now we go to Cheryl Hardcastle for the New Democrats.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thanks.

I'll try not to do too much preamble so that you can use up my time.

I'm sure all of you, particularly Chief Bellegarde, know that my colleague Romeo Saganash has tabled a bill that would ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with UNDRIP. Rather than ask you to talk about that, I would like you to link that to the point you are making about how we would harmonize our laws. We would have to have evidence and ideas. Concepts need to be data-driven.

You mentioned the missing women's inquiry and the gap between the information that we have and data collection and the sensitivity of that with policing, with law enforcement. Just maybe talk a little bit about how you would envision us moving forward as a country that would have laws that are executed in harmony with UNDRIP, and how our recommendations here would enhance that.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

That's a good question.

We're embarking on that now. The Prime Minister came to our chiefs assembly on two occasions. He's coming again on December 5, 6, and 7, I believe, with a number of the ministers. There was a commitment made to jointly work on a law and policy review two years ago and then just last year, as well.

On the policy side, we can start seeing things happening a little bit. It still has to be tightened up. On the policies that we're keying in on, you can go department by department on what policies need to be changed.

I'll just take the four within Minister Bennett's department: comprehensive claims, specific claims policy, additions to reserve policy, and the inherent rights policy. All of those policies, those frameworks in there, are really outdated because they're based on termination of rights entitlement, not recognition of rights entitlement. They have to be brought up to speed with what the judicial branch is saying in Canada, like recognition of rights through the Tsilhqot'in decision.

The Supreme Court is saying a lot of things, making Supreme Court decisions about aboriginal rights, title recognition, and treaty recognition and implementation, but the legislative and executive branches of government don't keep up with what the judicial branch is saying. We need to fix that, and we have to work very quickly to get those policies changed. Those are just four. There are other ones.

You can go department by department almost, on which ones need change. Those are policies. We're trying to work co-operatively, because we want to jointly hold the pen. We don't want the government just doing this. We have to do it together.

On the laws, that's another process that we have to work together on. There are certain laws that have to be changed. One of them will be the Indian Act. It will have to be changed. How do we work to move beyond the Indian Act? That's a federal statute that's been on the books since 1876. That's one law.

Then you have others such as navigable waters and the fisheries. Some of them have to be changed in light of treaty recognition, aboriginal rights entitlement recognition, and the UN declaration. There has to be a very specific joint process to do that. We're in the process of trying to do that now, working out that work plan with objectives and time frames, working from the Assembly of First Nations, and working with this government now. That work has to be undertaken, and the results have to be measurable. It's a little slow, but we're trying to get it done.

That's my answer there. Policy is one set of work, and the law is another set of work.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you very much, Chief.

I know that this committee's work is really going to be delving into what we can do about evidence-based decision-making, which means data. Maybe I'll come back to you.

I'd like to hear from Ms. Landau. There are some sensitivities around collecting data. You know that from the inside. What are your observations on how we can move forward on that?

[Barbara Landau]

The idea of collecting data about incidents of discrimination in all of our communities is tied to what we're going to do about it. I think the most important thing is, if you're just collecting it in order to collect it, it's not very useful. If you're collecting it in order to improve the educational process for students, teachers, police, or employers, if you're using it with an objective of reducing the gaps between people, that would be very helpful.

One of the things I worry about is that our communities are often very separated. Even though Shahid and I are the best of friends, he lives in Mississauga, and I live in Toronto. We don't get to see each other very much. Our communities are separate. This is certainly true for first nations.

I really like the idea of re-establishing a multiculturalism funding program to work with different groups where you don't have jurisdiction, but you can get co-operation across different communities. What can you do to stimulate events that bring people together to learn about each other, to celebrate each other's traditions, and learn how not to discriminate?

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Chief Bellegarde, do you want to tie in with those comments about the data collection? Maybe you were envisioning more specifically some of the issues around the missing and murdered women inquiry. In order for us to move forward in a meaningful way, we have to have a safe space, like this, where we can talk about what best steps we need to take to embrace that. As Ms. Landau said, in order to educate, to improve, to remove the gaps, sometimes we have to tread on difficult areas.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

I'll just quote from the CERD report. “The Committee recommends that the State party...(c) Systematically track and maintain data on the number of reported racist hate crimes, prosecutions, convictions, sentences and penalties and compensation to victims and provide this data to the Committee in its next periodic report.”

The United Nations is saying that Canada has to do this. This is a recommendation from the CERD committee. Even with regard to just collecting data, you have to look at the question of who has it. There's a system through the RCMP. There are municipal police forces. Is there an overall, coordinated sharing of information now when it comes to, for example, the number of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls across Canada? There has to be a sharing of information in a centralized collection. It has to get done. You have to break down those systems because they're operating in different jurisdictions, in federal and provincial jurisdictions. You have to find a way to break that down.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

We will now go to Ms. Dabrusin for the Liberals for seven minutes.

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

Thank you.

I'd actually like to pick up from where Ms. Hardcastle was about data because it's come up several times from different witnesses, and it's been in different reports. I was looking at Ontario's anti-racism strategic plan. In it, they say that they need better race-based disaggregated data that could be broken down to better understand whether specific segments of the population are experiencing adverse impacts of systemic racism.

I would like to hear from both of you about what kinds of disaggregated data you believe we should be collecting. What do you think we need to do to make sure we do that properly?

I could start, perhaps, with your group.

[Shahid Akhtar]

I will leave the answer to Dr. Landau. I'll just briefly mention that your committee should also recommend establishing a body—perhaps an independent body—where people who are the actual victims of any hate crime, any suffering, or any discrimination can go safely and independently, and say they are safe, without relying on the data from the law enforcement agencies that Mr. Bellegarde mentioned or the data that some other courts or systems provide them. That way you'll have independent data.

As far as other details are concerned, I'll defer to Barbara.

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

I would like to clarify that, for this, I'm not talking about hate crime data. I'm actually talking about disaggregated data from government to better understand how our services apply or what the impacts of different government policies may be. This isn't about the hate crime piece specifically.

[Barbara Landau]

Can I just clarify? You're not looking at hate crimes. Are you looking at things like bullying in school? Are you looking at the sources and what people are sensitive to? Are you looking at driving while black? I mean—