Evidence of meeting #74 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was buildings.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
That was good, because we're running back and forth between you two guys. Everybody's—
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
I'm sorry. I am not being particular to you. We're probably going to have more time, so we'll go another round.
Julie.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Thank you.
I find this discussion really interesting.
I'll start with you, Ms. Aird. What I've been hearing goes to the heart of definitions about how we define heritage preservation. I was wondering if you might be able to provide a definition. If you cannot, what would be the process that we go about to find a definition for that concept?
President, Indigenous Heritage Circle
I can talk about it in terms of repatriation, in terms of preservation. Within most indigenous societies, when you talk about things that are shared or known, we have individuals who are knowledge keepers. They're people who are responsible for preserving objects, remains, our sacred bundles, and our pipes and for keeping our ceremonies. Generally, a lot of those people exist kind of underground, I would say. They're not known and you don't meet with them because they're not politically active. They might be politically active in some cases, but most of the time they sort of exist within the society.
We have traditional mechanisms. We have traditional methods for preserving remains and for caretaking objects. I know that, for the medicine bundles of the Blackfoot, for instance, that were in the Guggenheim museum, there were people whose role in the Blackfoot society was caretaking these objects. They're considered living entities often, these objects, so when we approach conservation and preservation, I really think we have to approach it with a very open mind and with a willingness to share and learn. I think that it's going to be uniquely different across the country, how every indigenous group wants to deal with preservation.
I know that the Royal BC Museum is in the process of doing some work around repatriation of language tapes, of oral histories, and of human remains. At most museums in B.C. and the universities that have human remains, those objects and those remains are going back to the indigenous caretakers at the indigenous communities, because we need to move away from this paternalistic attitude that people don't know what they're doing. When they come back, we have our ceremonies and we have our ways of caretaking these. Often they're reburied, but not always. Sometimes people will choose to let them remain within a repository.
That discussion really needs to happen. As I said, the round tables we had in Ottawa were sort of the beginning of these discussions. It was fascinating, because we had so many different groups that came, and they all expressed a need to really have a dialogue. I think there's a willingness to have this dialogue nationwide. I think people are ready for it, and even talking about preservation is going to be quite an interesting dialogue because you're going to see that it'll be different across the country. I know it'll be different for Madeleine's people as well as for mine. We're dealing with Site C in northern B.C., so we have a lot of human remains and objects that have been uncovered. We've chosen some of those to be stored in a repository down in Vancouver, in Burnaby and that area, and some we're trying to get back.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Thank you for that.
In the last budget, part of the Heritage budget was toward archiving oral histories, I believe. I was wondering, does that fit within this preservation of heritage, the preservation of oral histories as part of an archiving fund?
Director, Indigenous Heritage Circle
I think it absolutely can, and it's a challenge because part of it is also having to have the resources to have those stories told in our communities, to have them recorded, and to give our people that opportunity. It's not just a single story; there are many, many stories. There also needs to be a process to determine where they get archived. There's value in the Library and Archives Canada at the national level, but there are very few of our own archival institutions. In Nunavut there are no archives except for the one for the government. There's nothing whatsoever outside of the government. We have no cultural performance centre, even. These things are living stories, so when Karen says.... It's sometimes even challenging to explain because it doesn't fit with the constructs or the systems that are pre-existing and understood in mainstream society.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
All right.
I have a few more seconds. The other fund I want to talk about is the cultural spaces fund. Mr. Wiebe referred to it as a bit of an either-or to heritage preservation. I see that aboriginal people's institutions or organizations are eligible, and that it goes toward “the improvement, renovation and construction of arts and heritage facilities”.
Have you been able to access cultural spaces funding as part of this preservation?
President, Indigenous Heritage Circle
I work with our communities in northern B.C., where I'm from. Treaty 8 purchased the Charlie Lake Cave site. It's a 10,500-year-old site. It's one of the most significant sites in Canada, and it also shows the first evidence of ceremonial use in burial. We purchased it to bring it back so our people could use it, but we also want to develop a cultural centre.
If you look at the cultural spaces fund, you see that there are all sorts of criteria that have to be in place before you can apply for it. We purchased it in 2012. We've had small projects and budgets come, but you have to show I forget how many years of good standing, and you have to have an audited statement. There are so many loopholes that you have to go through. It's really challenging. Then, what you can use it for is extremely limited.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Okay.
We have time, so I am going to give Mr. Stetski six minutes. This time I'm going to give six minutes to the Conservatives and six minutes to the Liberals, and then I can come back for three minutes to Mr. Stetski. That pretty much gives everybody an additional six minutes.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Thank you.
It's kind of a small question. Should the federal government be setting up a separate national heritage organization to address indigenous priorities, or are there already organizations or federal departments in place that just need to do a better job?
Director, Indigenous Heritage Circle
Fund the Indigenous Heritage Circle first, because we need to have the resources ourselves, and then we can begin to have those important dialogues with the existing federal departments. Funding a separate federal entity would take resources away from the indigenous peoples. It would also be creating a colonial system with a colonial approach, rather than actually putting the resources into this organization. Even if it's not us, the reality is that some national indigenous heritage organization needs to exist.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Mr. Wiebe, does the National Trust currently have a role working on aboriginal culture and heritage?
Manager, Heritage Policy and Government Relations, National Trust for Canada, As an Individual
Yes, it does. Actually, in the last three or four years, more of the focus of our national conference and the work we do has been around indigenous heritage issues. In Calgary in 2015, we had an event called Moh-Kins-Tsis, a Calgary indigenous heritage round table, which was associated with our conference. There we were talking about the integration of planning and the integration of indigenous culture.
Calgary is a really interesting example. There is that interface, that exchange between indigenous cultural knowledge and European cultural knowledge in city spaces. Calgary has these incredible layers of indigenous history that aren't really reflected in the narrative that the city traditionally tells itself.
We've been having very early conversations around that. It's in addition to some of the round table work that the Indigenous Heritage Circle has been doing. We had another one in Hamilton recently, where we were talking with...worked with the groups on Six Nations and the Mississaugas of the New Credit, and had a discussion around consultation practices. We are working to integrate that more firmly into our work.
Ry Moran was a keynote speaker at one of our conferences last year, and this year there is going to be another round table embedded in our conference. I think it's progressing quite rapidly.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
I am trying to sort out—and maybe through the other witnesses we'll get there—how many different organizations or federal government departments have a piece of this discussion around indigenous heritage, and whether pulling it all together in one spot might actually be a more efficient way to accomplish things. I don't know whether you have a view on that.
Director, Indigenous Heritage Circle
It's without a doubt an interesting question and dilemma, because as far as we're concerned, when we did an assessment of the political administrative landscape, it turns out that there are probably way more departments than you realize that have some role or some aspect, but they're not even aware of it. That's what we found shocking.
If you have federal properties, that's one area, and anything that has to do with innovation, economic development, and technology. We have all those elements in our own societies, but there's not often any thought or outreach for inclusion for us to even be part of those conversations. More often what happens is that, when we become aware of something, we have to almost jump up and down and go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, you forgot about us. Where are we in those economic development, science, technology, or innovation conversations?”
Concerning the broad spectrum, community and infrastructure, what tends to happen is that you'll have a department, let's say Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, and then everything's just relegated to that one department. If it's Canadian Heritage, then that's relegated in one department. There's very little bleeding out into that holistic view or process.
I also caution that what can also happen is that you then have a little add-on rather than coming at it from “let's have a new way of thinking and a new way of doing”.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Is that in the form of a written report that you could share with the committee, that look that you've done across—
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
That would be great.
I have a quick question for you, Mr. Smith. Did you say that the tax credit should focus only on income-producing properties, or don't forget income-producing properties when we come to Bill C-323?
Director, Centre for Cultural Landscape, Willowbank, As an Individual
I would just say that the emphasis should be on income-producing properties. I'm no expert on where the finance department comes out on this. I would just say that's where, in my experience, you have the best return on investment, in the income-producing properties. If someone has a private home and they turn it into a bed and breakfast, it is ineligible, but that's allowing it to become a semi-public space and be able to share in the benefits of that. I have some worry about a purely private residential property in that category.
