Human Resources Committee on April 12th, 2010

[The Chair (Ms. Candice Hoeppner (Portage—Lisgar, CPC)), Conservative, Candice Bergen]

I call to order meeting number nine of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. We are continuing our study today on the federal contribution to reducing poverty in Canada.

We are very pleased to have, via video conference from Kelowna, Chief Robert Louie, who is chief of the Westbank First Nation.

Welcome, Chief Louie. We are very pleased to have you with us today.

Can you hear us all right?

[Chief Robert Louie, Chief, Westbank First Nation]

Yes, I can.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to be here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

It's good to have you. We're looking forward to hearing what you have to tell us.

We will begin with your presentation. You will have approximately ten minutes to present, and then we'll begin the round of questions.

Does that sound all right?

[Chief Robert Louie]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Good. I am going to turn the mike over to you, Chief Louie, and I will let you know when you are at about the nine-minute mark.

[Chief Robert Louie]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

It's certainly a pleasure to be here, and I thank you very much for the opportunity. I'd like to thank Mr. Cannan, our MP representative here in the Kelowna area, for inviting me to be a participant.

My name is Robert Louie and I'm the chief of the Westbank First Nation. I have been chief now for 18 years and on council going back to 1974. So I've seen some changes.

For us at WFN it is important that we make strides for successful change. When I'm talking successful change I'm talking about jobs, homes to live in, reaching standards at least equal to or on par with the average Canadian. So when we're talking about poverty and all the disabilities there, we've experienced it at Westbank. We've worked hard to take ourselves out of the poverty and move into the realm of self-sufficiency.

So that's what we've been doing. I won't bore you with too many of the details. You know the details with regard to suicide rates in Canada. I'm sure you're well versed in the poverty of children in Canada and the numbers of children that are under the child welfare system in Canada, so I won't bore you with these details.

I can say that something has to be done, and the cost of doing nothing is an impediment for first nations in Canada. I quite agree. I know the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples studies indicated that $11 billion was needed--that's a projection from ten years ago--by 2016 to address the needs of first nation peoples in Canada. So if we can rely on some of those estimates somewhat, knowing that the cost of doing business has gone up, the cost of doing nothing is probably higher than $11 billion.

Why is it that our community at Westbank has been able to achieve the achievements that we have? I want to touch on some of those avenues and offer you some food for thought or recommendations that you and the committee may well want to consider.

First and foremost, I believe that our self-governance and the work that's being done in that regard has proven that a first nation needs governance capabilities. You are probably aware and may have heard from different presentations about the decade of research that Harvard University in the United States has done to support the need for first nations governance. I don't think those studies are out of whack. Certainly for us, we've seen a dramatic increase in what it brings back to our first nation and the community at large.

Coupled with that are things that are perhaps also achievable incremental steps for first nations communities, like the first nations land management process. I chair that process nationally. First nations are looking at and now taking control of their lands and resources, and it is an incremental step towards self-governance. I think there are tremendous success stories that have transpired across Canada as a result of that. But it's all about having control and taking those steps to implement self-governance.

The whole issue of taxation implementation on reserve lands, section 83, which former chief Manny Jules was involved with--those keep service moneys that taxpayers pay from a reserve on a reserve, and this allows infrastructure to be put back into the community. You're talking sewage lines, water lines, the basic services needed to be a catalyst for development. Those areas are crucial.

Economic development opportunities I think are extremely important. Infrastructure Canada, the infrastructure dollars from the Department of Indian Affairs, and programs like Aboriginal Business Canada are all contributors towards economic development. So there is much to be stated with regard to the need to help first nations with economic development opportunities.

Land claim settlements are another whole area, and I think you've seen the evidence of what they can bring to communities. When you're talking about settlements, when you look at the prairie regions--Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta--and at what has transpired in that regard, those are real catalysts. In British Columbia, those are objectives that the masses of us, including Westbank, need to achieve. We believe revenue-sharing agreements with the province, with the support of Canada, are going to be crucial.

There are other opportunities, such as gaming, that are relatively new in British Columbia. There are not that many first nations involved in the gaming industry, but I think it presents opportunities that go into economic development. The success you see back in Ontario and throughout the prairie regions with first nations in the gaming industry are really strong catalysts to provide the resources and the moneys needed to take a first nation community out of poverty and into the business world.

For first nations, generally, to have accessibility to social supports and services from Canada and from the provinces to create that fairness and stability is also important.

Perhaps certain policies need revision. I can give you one example: to address the issue of jobs, and so forth. If policy changes could be made, instead of spending money to supplement welfare, why not have money spent to actually be a catalyst to creating jobs so that first nation peoples have the pride and the opportunities to work, and if they have to, as a result of seasonal issues, then go on unemployment and not sustain it with the welfare mentality? Those are policy changes that I think could be done.

Another issue is education, in many aspects. I'm talking about starting at an early age with things such as the child development centres, having our own schools developed by first nations, having the education, and having future parents know things such as the effects of alcohol on pregnancy and the effects of the use of drugs and the prevention of that. In terms of children in care in this country, from an aboriginal perspective, I think we probably have the highest record of that effect, which is a cost to our society. So having prevention and having the head start programs and all of this is needed and is vitally important.

That takes a lot of work, but it requires support from Canada and the provinces to get to those levels. Those programs can't operate by themselves.

Another thing is to have communities--first nation communities--do things such as community needs assessments to determine directly from the community what is actually needed in the community to address the community issues. That includes poverty, health care, jobs, and employment. It's something we're going through right now in my community at Westbank, the community conversations whereby our people themselves tell us the needs, so it's not driven by the chiefs and councils, it's driven by the community. Those are important areas, and perhaps they need more support in terms of funding to help get some of these first nations into that aspect. They can help themselves if they have the tools.

Another issue is structural changes in the bureaucratic system that would support first nations design of these programs, the delivery and the management of programs and services, where you have first nation decision-making. All of those areas need to be focused on. Really, I think the crux of it is empowering our peoples, as first nations, to empower themselves. Those are issues that must be looked at.

In my community at Westbank, I think we've been successful in many areas. Having the peer pressure of seeing success by some of our community leaders and people in business, for example, acts as a catalyst to our peoples. I think that creates an added desire in our overall community that they too can be successful. They can have the jobs, they can have the employment opportunities, and they can have the contracts and be contractors themselves in all kinds of areas.

All of those are just some very preliminary suggestions, but they need to be focused on.

I've been speaking fairly quickly, but I know that my time is probably up. In a very brief summary, I'll say that I see those as some of the ways things can be improved. I think we can focus on the successes, not only here at Westbank but in other communities. I see successes across the country. I see the jobs, the creation of programs, and the people really rolling up their sleeves and working together. That's how we can succeed. That's how we can address poverty.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you very much, Chief Louie. You did an excellent job of staying right in that ten-minute time allotment. Congratulations on that, and thank you.

We will begin our first round of questioning with Mr. Savage, please.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Chief Louie, for spending some time with us today in our study on poverty, which we hope to wrap up soon and have a report on. We've been at this for some time.

We met a couple of weeks ago with the AFN, the Métis National Council, and the National Association of Friendship Centres. It sounds like you have some good stuff going on.

I congratulate you on the economic development that your community has put together--certainly under your leadership. I come from Nova Scotia, so I'm about as far away as you can get from where you are, but we have some very entrepreneurial first nations people as well. We have Membertou, Millbrook, and a number of first nations that are doing very well and are showing a lot of leadership economically.

You talked a lot about how you've managed the economy at the Westbank First Nation. Do you have any programs specifically for the most impoverished of your citizens?

[Chief Robert Louie]

Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Savage.

Specifically, we've got a community services department located in our health and wellness centre. I am in one of the meeting rooms in this building, as we speak.

One of the programs we have, for example, provides some of the basics of getting a job. I'm talking about how one presents himself or herself to an employer, getting some of the basics down so that they know how to dress and they know how to maybe answer questions for the possibilities of employment. We provide some of the tools and basic knowledge.

If we are addressing poverty, that's where we've got to start. That is the one area that needs funding. We don't have enough financial support from outside governments to help sustain that, so we have to inject dollars into that process ourselves. It would certainly be nice. I suppose we're fortunate in that regard, because we'll find ways to help bolster these programs, but many other first nations I know simply cannot do that. They just do not have the resources or the moneys to create this. Those issues are essential.

When you are talking about poverty and the poorest of our poor, they have to have those means and they have to have support. Sometimes giving support is handholding in some cases with our community members. Poverty is a factor here. Some of our members are experiencing alcohol and drug abuse. So poverty in a family.... If you've got the mother or father, or in some cases both parents, in that situation, what about the kids...? What is the dramatic impact they have in their everyday functions? Getting up in the morning, having a lunch packed so they can go to school, going to school...what if that particular child needs support in the schooling system, tutoring or whatever, and you have parents in that alcohol syndrome or drug abuse? That impact on the child--you know, thoughts of suicide and so forth--those are the issues.

We have that in our community. As far as our schools go--substance abuse in schools, for example--they look for what is going on in the home life and how that gets passed down to the child. There are programs in that regard for the proper counselling of the child, and for knowing when the parents have to be told there are problems with the child at school, and told that we think it's a factor of home life. We tell them they've got to work with us if they want their child to be successful. We tell them we can't do it without their help.

Those are the types of things that have to be addressed. There is an immediate need. If you miss one child and that child subsequently goes off the rails, you've got another potential family in another generation consumed by poverty. So it's an issue that has to be addressed quickly. You have to start from the basics and go from there.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much.

I want to follow up on the issue of education for a second. Can you tell me what you have specifically on the education side? Do you have a head start program, early learning in child care, that you support? How do you help your high school students finish high school? What success do you have in getting kids into university, community college, that sort of secondary training? Can you just chat a little bit about that and some things you may have had a role in supporting, educationally?

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

You have a minute to wrap that portion up.

[Chief Robert Louie]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

We do have head start programs. We have an early childhood development centre, and in some cases we start right from the time the child is a baby and old enough to go into a facility. Our Westbank Child Development Centre supports that child through to kindergarten and then eventually into first grade, second grade, and so forth. We have a school with grades one to seven, and we focus on that. It's an option for our first nations communities, not a requirement. Many of our community members choose that option for their children.

So we have those types of programs and put a lot of emphasis in that regard. Counselling is a big issue as well as recognition from birth to have the means to do that. We have tutoring programs. Part of our education is to provide tutoring and support to our children who need that. I think a lot of our success can be attributed to the tutoring support from early ages all the way through the system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to our second questioner, Mr. Lessard, please.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would also like to thank Chief Louie for coming here to tell us about the situation on his reserve.

First of all, Chief Louie, I have to say that when I read the information about your reserve, I was pleasantly surprised to see that your community boasts a dynamic economic and a range of services.

If I understand correctly, your reserve is located in the Okanagan Valley on land that is fairly conducive to development. Your reserve covers approximately 5,300 acres and your community has 434 members.

There is also mention of 8,000 non-natives. Do they also live on the reserve?

[Chief Robert Louie]

Yes. We don't know the exact numbers, but we estimate just over 9,000 non-natives. Those are actual residents on the reserve. Our total membership is just shy of 700. We have five reserves, both on the west side of the Okanagan Lake Bridge and on the east side of the Okanagan Lake Bridge. Location is certainly a factor.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I see.

You say that these residents are non-natives. Am I to understand then that they have no ties to the native community? If they do have ties to the community, what kind of ties are we talking about? What conditions must be met in order to live on the reserve?

[Chief Robert Louie]

We strive to provide opportunities here. Leasing of lands is one of the big steps we have taken. We provide a lot of 99-year leases. So our community members, including the non-natives, certainly having 9,000-plus population.... It started first with the development of mobile homes, then it moved into the higher-end homes, and today homes that many of our non-natives live in are well in excess of $1 million in value.

Today, including the residential and all the commercial, we've got in excess of $1 billion of investment on the Westbank lands. To deal with the non-native population--not only are they welcome and invited to participate--we have representation. We have a five-member board that sits on an advisory council. One of the first laws we passed under self-government was recognition of this advisory council to give it teeth. The non-native citizens of our community elect themselves and have five representatives and they are involved in the direct business of taxation primarily, their moneys. So whether it is the direct impact of their tax dollars--and right now we're collecting somewhere close to $10 million annually--they look at the budgets, they pre-approve the budgets with us, make recommendations on that. They look at how their moneys can be better used for things like street lights, paved roads, or better services overall--maybe it's bylaw enforcement, maybe it's more parkland, any of those issues. They are directly involved with us.

It helps create a united community. The recreation services, for example--some of our tax dollars go into our recreation complex and professional-style ball fields at Pine Stadium, having the gymnasium and new floors put in when they're needed, and maintenance. Being able to offset some of those tax moneys so everyone benefits makes for more of a united community. So things like this we work hard at, and our non-native community are very much part of the support and the growth that's happening here. It's a united front and doing things together.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Excuse me for interrupting, but part of this information comes from what we have read.

You live on fertile land, from an agricultural standpoint. You have vineyards and various other types of crops. Has this always been the case for your reserve or was there a turning point? If so, could you explain to us how everything got started?

[Chief Robert Louie]

I have to say thank you very much for that question.

I just want to make sure that you're not confusing Westbank with Osoyoos, for example. Chief Clarence Louie is from Osoyoos. If I were to say fertile lands, they have the vineyards and the agricultural lands, whereas, yes, we're economically suited to the location we're at, but we focus not so much on the agriculture and the fertility of lands but more on the fertility, if you will, of the people and the economic aspects of shopping centres and that sort of thing. That's where we focus.

If I were to say a turning point, I think the turning point goes back in time when we actually started being recognized as the decision-makers of our lands, where we could make the decisions without having to have our hands held by the Indian agents in the district offices or having decisions being made elsewhere, off the reserve. Once we got to the self-government aspect of doing business, that's where the magical curve, if you will, started to happen. When we were empowered and recognized as a government with authority over our lands, our resources, and how we do business from day to day, that's where the entrepreneurial aspects took place. That's when we just said this is how we can do the water lines, the sewage lines, to attract the investment. That's where we can focus in on the culture and the heritage to get the support of the community so they know that this was being addressed as we moved into this next level of a generation that we're seeking, and that is having everyone with jobs and a place to live and homes.

We still have a ways to go, there's no question about it. Certainly the location, we've been fortunate with that, knowing that it's one of the fastest-growing regions in Canada. I think that's all attributed to the fast, rapid growth rate here. But it's the turn of the governance and the manageability of our lands, that's the turning point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you very much, Chief Louie.

We'll go to our next committee member. Mr. Martin, please.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much. There has been some very interesting information this afternoon.

I want you to talk a little bit more maybe about the whole question of taxation and how you got to a place in your community where that was acceptable and how you do that.

[Chief Robert Louie]

Thank you very much, Mr. Martin.

I go back to taxation. When I look at our property tax assessments and what we did in the early 1990s, we were one of the first communities in Canada to look at what then Chief Manny Jules was doing under section 83 with the amendment to the Indian Act. We looked at it carefully. Taxation, of course, has been a fiery topic for first nations in Canada, but for us as far as property taxation is concerned, it has provided a means to keep the dollars on the reserve. Prior to the 1991-92 timeframe, yes, the Province of British Columbia was collecting taxes on all of the businesses and mobile homes and the early developments, but it was tax money the province collected. It took those moneys off the reserve, it took the moneys and put them into the province of British Columbia, but it did not focus any of those moneys back into our community. Even on things like the general portion of the taxes, that is, the road building and the maintenance of roads and the snow plowing, there was zero, absolutely zero, put back into the community.

So when we looked at property taxation we asked what the benefits were for us. If we took control of the property tax assessments and were able to focus those dollars into services that actually went into the reserve, then we could make a difference, and that's what we focused on. Property taxation is about providing services. It's not about taking a cut of that and handing it out to the members; we don't do that. We focus on taxation as a separate piece of business that's needed for our lands. As I mentioned, we have over $1 billion in investment on our lands on which non-natives pay taxes. The taxes go back into services. Yes, we still have fire protection needs and we have local service agreements with the local and regional districts and the municipalities where part of our moneys go. Those are necessities.

However, we also have moneys that we put right back strictly for road building and sewage lines. You can't do a major shopping centre development without proper sewage, without proper water. That takes a lot of energy and costs a lot, and we budget accordingly.

That's what we see and that's how we went about taxation. It's something that allows us to deal with the future growth of our communities.

Other forms of taxation that we have include our agreements with the government on things like the GST equivalent, the tax on alcohol or tobacco or fuel. That similar GST amount is now the Westbank First Nation's tax component, which we now use to offset the needs of the community.

So things like that have worked for us.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

In terms of the property tax, which seems to be the biggest taxation program you have, you tax not only the non-aboriginal businesses and properties on your land, but do you also tax your own people?

[Chief Robert Louie]

If I chose to do that in our community, or if a council wanted to do that in our community, on things like property assessments, then I and the council of the day wouldn't be in office. We focus on the non-aboriginals. A person who has a corporation, for example, can exempt themself from the provisions of the Indian Act and then become a corporation. So in property taxation we focus on the non-aboriginals. Our peoples see it as a benefit, as a right, and it's something they are not prepared to give up as far as their internal benefits are concerned. We're a long way from that right now. Now it's a matter of catching up and knowing that we have some source that actually can go back into the community, and that's how our people really look at that.

So property taxes, for example, are assessed on the non-aboriginal person. Yes, the non-aboriginal person pays it, but our own membership do not. We have two reserves, for example—Tsinstikeptum Indian Reserves 9 and 10 on the west side of the Okanagan Lake—where 80% of the land is held by certificate of possession. Our peoples have the entrepreneurial spirit to actually make use of those lands, and they're not taxed per se for property taxes. Once they develop, though, and once a non-native is involved, either in a business venture or a residence, or is in any way connected with their venue and locale of doing business and residence there, then the lands become taxable. So it's collected in that fashion.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

As we cross the country there are a couple of big issues that people raise with us, and one of them is housing. So let's focus on that. Do you have a housing program for the people of your community? What are the needs? How do you see housing in terms of basic infrastructure and rights of families and individuals?