Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2006

[Chief Patrick Brazeau]

Thank you for your question.

I'll just share this in passing. I was speaking with a former Liberal Indian affairs minister last week, and this person said that if Kelowna were implemented, it would set back the aboriginal agenda ten years, because it is an attempt to throw more money at the system, as I said earlier, which is failing anyway.

Ten years ago, RCAP came out, and at that time national organizations, regional organizations, communities, and people all across this land were consulted. There was obviously a consensus that led to the recommendations that came out of the report.

On that report, ten years later, I will say this in passing as well. I find it ironic that some other organizations are talking about RCAP when in fact in the last five years they never mentioned anything about RCAP. More importantly, even during the Kelowna process, RCAP was never used. In fact, it was our organization that has been mentioning RCAP for the last five or six years.

Other organizations have become educators or teachers, and they're now marking the progress we've made. People in other organizations haven't been consulted. It's true that the RCAP report itself has been collecting a lot of dust, but the solutions are all in that report. It's not rocket science. It's time to pick a few that will entail some structural changes, to ensure that it is going to provide opportunities for real people with real needs, and not just for a segment or an elitist group. That's our collective effort.

The nation-building one, the elimination of the Indian Act, is in that report. It's black and white. The special rapporteur on human rights indicated that reserve communities are not the modern manifestation of self-government because they are too small. There is not enough representation. The governance structures are weak. And that is why we have to rebuild those nations. That's where we can talk about self-government, but that's down the road. We all know that, but it's time to plant the seeds today, to not lose another generation of people. That's what is key. Let's not lose another generation of aboriginal peoples because of partisan politics.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

You are suggesting that it would be better that we have the ability to implement RCAP rather than the Kelowna accord.

[Chief Patrick Brazeau]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

We still have two minutes. Are there any questions from the government side?

Mr. Storseth.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank you very much for coming forward and giving us such an enlightened discussion today. In my short time in this committee, this has been, by far, the best discussion we've had.

We must have been talking to the same former minister, because the message he gave me is that we need to move away from the status quo and move ahead on bringing some accountability, in talking about some of the issues that first nations people, both on and off reserve, want to hear about in this country.

I live in a community where I speak with several aboriginal peoples, both on and off reserve, every single day, and the things they want to talk to me about aren't press releases. What they want to talk to me about are living conditions. What they want to talk to me about is accountability. What they want to talk about is bringing some hope to the first nations people.

I know you just recently held the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples general meeting here in Ottawa in November. You came forward with ten resolutions out of that meeting. I was hoping, Mr. Brazeau, that you could give us examples of some of those resolutions and some of the things that your organization sees that we need to move forward with in the future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Can you be concise? You only have just over a minute.

[Chief Patrick Brazeau]

To be really quick, some of the resolutions are to engage in bringing about more accountability within the organization and in being more forthright about membership lists that we were going to be working on, consulting our people within the next year, so that we're in a position about a year from now to say exactly how many members are in the organization.

That doesn't stray from the services we provide on behalf of or offer to aboriginal people across the country. It's to work towards implementing some of the RCAP recommendations, including possibly having a discussion on the issue of Bill C-31, which is very important, because it's outright discrimination. It basically allows the federal government to decide who is a status Indian and who is not. In my family I have nieces and nephews who are non-status Indians, and on my side my children are status Indians. That makes for a healthy debate at Christmastime.

It's basically to move forward to demonstrate our true representation, our legitimacy within the organization, and to demonstrate to the Canadian public, the taxpayers, that the funds we receive, although very small.... We receive an annual budget, including programs and services core funding, of $5 million. Out of that $5 million, half is disbursed through our provincial organizations so that they can provide services.

So we're not talking about a lot of money within our organization. It's to demonstrate to the taxpayers that with the moneys we receive we are going to provide results with the funds and are going to make significant changes in the lives of people, whether being funded or not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

Hopefully we can continue with this debate another time.

Ms. Karetak-Lindell, please.

[Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Thank you.

It's very interesting to hear where everyone is coming from today; it's almost like very selective hearing. I believe on Tuesday we heard very convincing testimony that people across the way are totally willing to forget.

We talk about elections and people who are elected to represent people. We heard from three people who are duly elected and who speak on behalf of many aboriginal people. That's not discounting that you're elected also, but I believe it's very selective hearing. It plays right into what I have observed over the years, that people who don't want to agree with what the majority of the people are saying as far as leaders are concerned will pick and choose whom they want to hear, depending on what the message is.

All it brings is an opportunity for a government to be able to say there's no unanimity among these people. As long as they're fighting with each other, we don't have to do anything about the situation. Let's just let them fight over the resources we have, and we'll get nowhere.

I've been sitting here for nine and a half years listening to that kind of conclusion. I thought we'd moved beyond that. I would like to think we've moved beyond it.

I totally agree with where the friendship centres are coming from--that you are serving a lot of people who are falling through the cracks.

Yes, we can call any agreement any name we want, but I think we all realize that the status quo cannot continue. I thought we had moved to a recognition accepting that we need some mechanism so that we can respect the wishes of the people, respect the relationships we have.

It's very disheartening to hear a parliamentary secretary get back onto technicalities, because it doesn't move the issue forward one bit. I understand where you're coming from. You're picking up people who are falling through the cracks. That's really what our reality has been. There have been many cracks, whether it's within our own aboriginal organizations or within the government system. I don't think any of us disagree with that.

But where I disagree strongly with the current government's way of dealing with issues is in the lack of recognition of and respect for the relationships that I thought our aboriginal organizations had graduated to in the last couple of years: they were sitting at a table with the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers and moving forward, recognizing that we need to deal with many issues, and not one of them being how you define who fits where.

I think we're mature enough and have as a people matured to a point where we can state, “This is where we want to be”. We recognize that there is no one fix for all regions of Canada, but we certainly deserve the respect and recognition that we are speaking for certain groups of people and that there have to be different discussions on different levels.

Whether it's a Kelowna accord or something else, I think we have to get past semantics. When I listened to the leaders of Tuesday's presentation, I heard them keep talking about hope, that we have to keep providing the hope for our people that there is room for discussion—and compromise; we will always have to compromise, no matter who the groups are.

We're talking about Bill C-292, to implement the Kelowna accord. Can we all agree that it's a stepping stone to further discussions on dealing with many issues that are multi-faceted?

[Vera Pawis Tabobondung]

Most certainly, that is our view as we presented it, that we need that. But we need that “plus”, in the sense that Chief Erasmus reminded me the other day when he talked about all the recommendations in our camp, that they came from solutions within the first nations communities, from within the aboriginal peoples. If we really look, we do have the solution, but if we never have the opportunity to have the dialogue and follow through to advancing it and to encouraging and supporting and talking amongst ourselves about what it looks like, then....

We could, and that's why we're saying it needs to be “Kelowna plus”. This thing we take for granted on our table today is really what women in our nation have walked around all of the Great Lakes to bring to the attention of not only this country and the people of Canada, but of the whole world. We take this for granted. We didn't believe we would have to have our grandchildren pay $300 for one ounce of water.

I think the spirit of how we move is in “Kelowna plus”. It has to be a big heart, a big thinking, a big commitment, and a great belief in our abilities to work together, to advance—not only for my children and grandchildren and the great-grandchildren, but all of our children.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you. I'm not going to allow Mr. Brazeau to answer that question. Unfortunately, we are out of time.

I want to thank the witnesses. I want to assure the committee members that the fact that we may have dissenting opinions from the witnesses doesn't mean that we just count the last witnesses we had. I think there's a balance. That's what healthy debate is about and how healthy debate brings good solutions.

I really do appreciate the witnesses today. Thank you for all your knowledge and insights. We'll be working with you to move forward those recommendations and meet those challenges you are faced with.

Thank you.

I'm going to suspend for two minutes to clear the room, because we are going to go in camera, please.

[Proceedings continue in camera]