Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 1st, 2017

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

Yes, right from K to 12.

The provincial systems have to be overhauled, everyone right across Canada. I know that's not the jurisdiction here, but that should be supported in every province and territory. The United Nations' CERD committee, the committee on the elimination of racial discrimination, had Canada under review. There's a lot of recommendations in there. Take these and follow them and implement them because they talk about land claims.

I always say it shouldn't be “land claims”. What about “land restoration” for indigenous peoples? All their policies and everything else in here deals with that. We need to find ways to implement and respect the treaty relationship we have with the crown, because it's all about sharing land and resources.

This is a citizenship guide. When new immigrants come to Canada, you should change the existing citizenship guide, because they have to swear allegiance to Canada and its laws and treaties. We said there should be a male elder and a female elder. There should be a drum song. There should be a smudging to welcome these new people to Canada.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Yes.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

I'm going fast.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Carry on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You only have 10 seconds.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

That's it, then.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

I wanted to thank you for the introduction you gave us about us all being a two-legged tribe. This is who we are, and this is how we should all think. Thank you very much for sharing those wonderful thoughts at the beginning of your presentation.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Dhillon.

I go to Scott Reid for the Conservatives.

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

Thank you very much.

I have a couple of questions to ask you, Chief Bellegarde. Perhaps before I do that, I should ask you to finish the recommendations that Ms. Dhillon tried to assist you to answer. Failing that, I might ask you if you have your recommendations in written form to submit to us. That means they'll be taken into evidence and we can cite them.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

Thank you for that. What I'll do is leave what I have. I have the written one, and I always acknowledge my staff for doing great speeches, which I never read. Well, parts of them I do. We can leave this because there are recommendations in there. I'll also leave with you a letter that I wrote to all the premiers on what to do.

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

Okay.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

There's an 11-point action plan here. I'll leave this as well and submit it as evidence.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Submit it to the clerk and he will make sure it's distributed to all of us.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

One of those 11 points is to change your curriculum.

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

Okay.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

It's in there.

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

I'll just say the obvious with regard to recommendations that apply to areas of provincial jurisdiction. We can't make that happen. As a committee of Parliament, we can't actually make anything happen. We can only make recommendations. Hence, we can serve as a transmission belt for ideas including those that are in provincial jurisdiction.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

Okay.

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

I wanted to ask you about two specific things. The first one is about the concept of terra nullius. I'm a former resident of Australia and in Australia the land process was to actively use the doctrine of terra nullius. The doctrine says the land in question is effectively uninhabited territory, that there is nobody with whom we are attempting to work out any kinds of relations, treaty or otherwise. This is a doctrine traditionally applied to completely uninhabited lands. You arrive in a place and there's nobody there, as was the case when Europeans came to Iceland and found it empty.

My understanding is that in Canada we have not actually used the doctrine of terra nullius and that what happened in Australia was a departure from the traditional British practice. Am I incorrect in my understanding of history?

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

They're not concepts. They're doctrines, and there are two.

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

Fair enough.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

You have the doctrine of discovery and the doctrine of terra nullius.

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

Yes.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

Here in Canada, as indigenous peoples, we view them—and so do a lot of other countries—as illegal racist doctrines. That's why there are these terms people are starting to use now—“assumed crown sovereignty” or “assumed crown jurisdiction”.

Let's take subsection 91(24) of the British North America Act where the federal government is responsible for Indians and Indian lands. That's what it says in subsection 91(24). Now in the current laws, my reservation back home is called Little Black Bear. Is that federal crown land set aside for the use and benefit of Indians? That may be true in common law or civil law, I guess, but not in first nations law. That's not how we view it. We view our land as sovereign land, sovereign territory. Everything else we'll share, but our reservation is sovereign territory, not crown land set aside for the use and benefit of Indians.

How did the crown gain title to indigenous peoples land and territory? By planting a flag. That's what those doctrines dictate. We're saying that's not right, because there were indigenous peoples right across Turtle Island. That's how we see that. Now there's a movement. It's not to put fear into everyone. It's all about the principles of peaceful coexistence and mutual respect and mutually benefiting from sharing the land and resources.