Government Operations Committee on Dec. 5th, 2024

[Dr. Angela Jaime]

One way they can ensure there are resources provided to best answer those questions is to hire indigenous people, to make sure that indigenous people are, again, decision-makers and to make sure they're resourcing the communities that are being asked to request this information.

I've had many conversations and have done many presentations to provincial and federal agencies about our policy, explaining the ins and outs of it and some of our challenges, but also a lot of our successes with the policy. Again, it's motivating them to take that next step toward ensuring that and upholding accountabilities and consequences when fraud is discovered.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mrs. Block, and then we'll go to Mr. Bains.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you as well to all of our witnesses for joining us today.

Dr. Jaime, I want to join my colleague in acknowledging the very good, proactive work that is being done at the U of S. I appreciate, as well, the distinction between establishing identity versus verification, which you highlighted in your opening statement. You mentioned it was work that was done proactively. What was the imperative that drove this initiative?

[Dr. Angela Jaime]

There were many imperatives.

We had a case within the University of Saskatchewan specifically that was being managed at the time when we started to contemplate what we should do to ensure that this doesn't happen again or at least to try to be proactive about situations that might come up in the future, as well as to establish a line and establish that there is accountability that an institution has to ensure that space be held by indigenous peoples. Then, across the country there were other cases that were coming up of fraudulent claims on indigenous membership or citizenship.

This pre-empted the conversation throughout the country and also within the United States, where that had already happened several times. With this being at the forefront of how we protect that space and create safe and accountable spaces for indigenous people, a policy made the most sense, not just a process but something that had teeth, accountabilities and consequences as well.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

In response to a question by Madam Gill, you outlined the process that you use to verify whether a person who claims to be indigenous is, in fact, indigenous. Have you ever been confronted with a situation in which you were unable to verify a claim of indigeneity by an individual?

[Dr. Angela Jaime]

We had a couple, not many—I would say one or two—that came up and, at the present time, are not able to complete the verification process because a community, maybe, doesn't have section 35 rights and is not part of the bilateral agreement. That doesn't mean that, in the future, if that were to change, the individual couldn't come back and then go through the process successfully. However, at the present time they would not be able to.

There have been other scenarios in which individuals have submitted verification or documentation for verification and it hasn't been the documentation that was requested for us to accept. We've asked the individual to go back to their community to seek that documentation, and then, we're not actually the ones denying them. It's the community that is holding them accountable as well.

Typically, for those who are seeking that space and are fraudulent, a policy like this really deters them from proceeding forward because they know there are set guidelines, a standing committee that adjudicates that, and we're working directly with communities. Therefore, we've had fewer opportunities for individuals to claim and to be fraudulent.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

You highlighted a specific case that began the process of creating this policy. What, if any, consequences would an individual face for being found to have fraudulently claimed indigeneity?

[Dr. Angela Jaime]

At the present time, if you're seeking that space, you automatically go through the process. It sort of pre-empts fraud, right? They're told that they're either verified or not verified.

If it's an individual who's already in the institution and is an employee of the institution or a student and has sought space before the policy existed and is now navigating to occupy more indigenous-specific space, it triggers the policy so that they then have to go through the process.

We weren't able to grandfather everyone into the policy immediately who was already in those indigenous spaces in the institution. They would have to navigate through the institution in order for it to trigger the policy. It would have been violating the human rights.

Now, when a professor who's been there for 20 years wants to apply for a grant that's indigenous-specific, they have to check the box that they're indigenous and then immediately they're sent to my office to go through the verification process.

There is a way that it triggers those who might have been in positions and had been fraudulent. At that point, if they're not able to successfully go through the process, they're denied the ability to hold that space. If someone is—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. We're quite a bit past our time, but I think we'll be able to get back to you.

Mr. Bains, let's try again, sir.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today.

I'm going to direct my first question to Mr. Obed.

You indicated that you value accountability and enforcement mechanisms that come with government oversight. We've heard from some other witnesses about having them value an indigenous-led process that's independent from the complicated relationships nations have with government departments. Do you have any suggestions on how we could bring together these two systems, which may be fundamentally opposed?

[Natan Obed]

Thanks for the question.

At ITK, we always advocate for a distinctions-based approach to the Government of Canada working with Inuit. We recognize that in first nations and Métis realities, there may be very different considerations or policy ambitions. Perhaps in those particular areas, they may think of government administering an enforcement mechanism as being unacceptable.

For Inuit, we have really gone all in on our relationship with the Crown. We see ourselves as first Canadians and Canadians first. We have settled modern treaties with the Crown, and we want to forge this path together for implementation of our modern treaties as shared responsibilities. Therefore, the attempts of government, even if they are well meaning, to silo enforcement or even the adjudication of indigenous businesses to an external partner gets us further away from the enforcement mechanisms that we were hoping for.

Ultimately, we want recourse and a remedy for those who violate our human rights—we've advocated for a long time for an indigenous human rights tribunal—or, in this case, accountability for not being an Inuit business but being eligible under this procurement strategy. Having to go through a third party doesn't have the weight and power of the federal government in order to do anything about this particular violation.

I do recognize your central point that there are others who feel that the Government of Canada shouldn't be in the enforcement space, but our position is very much that the government should be.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you for that.

You've been in your role since 2015. Have you seen the national conversation and narrative around indigenous identity evolve over the last, say, 10 years?

[Natan Obed]

Yes. I could have never imagined, when I took on this responsibility in 2015, that so much of my time and the time that Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami spends would be on protecting the constitutionally protected status of Inuit against fraudulent collectives that claim Inuit status or individuals in government and in academia who—and either I or our organization have had to interact with them—turned out to be—the nomenclature is “pretendians”: people who are not indigenous who gain status, whether it be in the academic, government or private sector, based on being something that they weren't.

That is why it is so imperative that we short-circuit these opportunities for bad actors. We have had too much experience with these scenarios to think that it is somehow a one-off or one or two people who got caught. This is a movement, and the ability to create an indigenous collective in this country and then immediately have an opportunity to get education, health and economic development benefits is there for the taking.

I'm not saying anything that's secret. It is an open secret that people are driving a truck through, and we need some way for the federal government to be a leader to stop this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry, Mr. Bains, but that's your time.

Thanks very much.

We'll go to Mrs. Kusie and then to Mr. Jowhari.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

Dr. Jaime, I'll go to you to talk more about these memorandums of understanding. Can you please clarify why you believe it's important to ensure that it is the Inuit people who benefit from programs set aside specifically for Inuit?

[Dr. Angela Jaime]

Absolutely, and I'll mirror or echo some of the things the president already said. The reason these indigenous-specific opportunities are established and designed is to create equality where equality has not been. Colonization has done an amazing job of keeping indigenous people from having every opportunity to have economic sovereignty and growth within their communities—both educationally and economically—and health, etc. These opportunities are absolutely essential in working towards truth and reconciliation as a country. For us, for indigenous people, it is always about: How do we protect? How do we support? How do we move our communities forward?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

How should the government take this model of the memorandum of understanding and reflect it when they are ensuring that it's only Inuit, Métis and first nations who receive indigenous contracts?

[Dr. Angela Jaime]

How should...?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

How should they reflect on this memorandum of understanding as a model?

[Dr. Angela Jaime]

It has worked really well for our institution. Again, it's not our right, as a colonial institution, to make these determinations about who is and who isn't. That information and decision need to be held within the indigenous communities themselves. Their governments make these decisions. We have to trust and honour that sovereignty.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Have there been any other similar memorandums of understanding for other indigenous nations at your university?

[Dr. Angela Jaime]

Yes. We have one with Métis Nation-Saskatchewan. We have several with first nations communities within the province, and then those that are benefiting from the Jay Treaty south of the border, New Zealand and Australia. We have conversations directly with those communities, those tribes, to do the verification of their own members who might be seeking that space.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Have these additional MOUs helped ensure that those who are members of these indigenous nations are those who benefit from the specific set-aside programs?

[Dr. Angela Jaime]

Yes.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Excellent.

I just want to make it clear for the committee and our witnesses here today that this study came about as a result of another study, which the committee spent a significant amount of time on, into the ArriveCAN scandal. It found that two of the major contractors, Dalian and Coradix, under or in concert with GC Strategies, were not necessarily providing contracts for indigenous communities that benefited indigenous employees and indigenous Canadians specifically. The genesis of this study is really the finding that occurred as a result of another study. I just wanted to make that very clear.

This is not a rush to victimhood or a search.... This is an attempt to correct what we found to be lacking in indigenous procurement as a result of that one specific study.

This is my last question for all of you.

Recently, there have been issues of members of Parliament and their claims of indigeneity. I just wanted your commentary on that, please. What do each of you think of these issues, which are very pressing in Parliament at this current time?