Evidence of meeting #55 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was process.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Colin Mayes
Rather than get into debate in front of the witnesses, I would prefer that you ask another question. If you're not—
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Then I would ask you to comment on the importance, again, of the consultative process and whether you think it would be in the best interests of your communities for us to sit here all summer.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
How does it affect the communities if we work all summer?
Conservative
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
The communities want to be heard.
How do you view the consultative process and the processes of this committee in dealing with and hearing from communities?
Driftpile First Nation
I'd like to respond to that.
When this bill was brought to my attention some time ago, after reviewing the documentation on it I felt that my human rights should not be an imposition but a process that would respect me as a person. That hasn't happened. Isn't that the whole philosophy of the Human Rights Act?
By the time I get to this table for face-to-face communication or consultation, whatever we want to deem it, my choices have already been diminished. My decision-making powers are very limited already by the time I get to this table. So even in that, my human rights have been violated in this process.
As a first nation leader, I feel very violated, because I feel as if I'm helping work in that broader context of the phenomena of modernization, colonialism, and genocide, coming here as a so-called witness in a process in which I should have been involved in discussion, with the changes that needed to be made, and with the bureaucracy and the manipulation through processes that have occurred within time. I'm speaking as a human being who has to live in the context of being violated all my life.
It's sad that something as critical and as important as a human rights act, which has enabled many citizens to voice their concerns, was not available to me as an Indian living on a reservation. Then all of a sudden, this wonderful thing was going to happen for the women and children. “I'm doing this for the women and children.” Well, I'm sorry; that's not what's happening.
The manipulation that's still going on and the non-truth that's not coming out onto the table is what needs to be communicated with me. That's what I want to know. What is the real purpose of this repeal of section 67? What is it? What are we accommodating here? Nobody's going to tell me that it's just done out of the blue for the benefit of me as a woman and of my children.
I want the honesty put on the table. That is how I was raised to deal with stuff, to be honest and open. As a leader, I have no choice but to put those same things on the table, because that's how I was taught.
I was very discouraged and disappointed that one minute I'm here, and one minute I'm not here. Either we're going to do this or we're not going to do it. That's pretty sad. I just hope that one day in this country we're going to be able to talk to one another as human beings. That would be a real human right, in my opinion.
Thank you.
Conservative
Liberal
Gary Merasty Liberal Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
I want to pick up on your comment on openness and honesty.
Having come from this community and having been a chief myself and seen the struggles of our community people--women, children, everybody--the openness and the reality is that the government policies, Indian Affairs policies in particular, force human rights violations to occur on the reserves every day, period.
Then we have a government trying to deflect the blame or, maybe even worse yet, assign that blame to the first nations communities. When you peel it back, is it the fault of a mother who under Bill C-31 falls within subsection 6(2) and has a child and does not disclose who the father is, and the child is no longer status? Is that the fault of the band? No, it's government policy.
A disabled child can't get any services, unless they perhaps get apprehended by the state. What is happening to address those issues today by this government?
To me, when you peel it back, if the media were to understand where these violations start, if Canadians were to understand where these violations start, then we would have much more fruitful dialogue, because then Canadians would tell us to consult extensively. They would say we should reconcile these rights, which are real, because 30 years of Supreme Court and Federal Court cases have established them as being real. They would say we should reconcile them in a modern context.
They'd say we should analyze consequential impacts on the Indian Act, because the Indian Act is a racist document. We want to get rid of it, but I don't think the trust is there for this government to actually replace it with something adequate. That's what I hear from the communities.
Then they would say we should design something that's fair, reasonable, with the proper consultation and accommodations made. But I guess instead we have this government exaggerating the sins of first nations administration on this issue.
I guess I ask whether that's a fair assessment, because that's what I've heard from witnesses over the last little while.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Colin Mayes
Unfortunately, Mr. Merasty wanted to make a statement rather than ask a question. We have to move on. The rule is seven minutes for questions and answers, and as the chair, I have to do my job.
So I'm going to move on to the Bloc and Mr. Lemay.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
I am honoured to welcome you before this committee, Chiefs.
I have to tell you that I got involved in politics only three years ago. Previously, I was a criminal lawyer and my clientele, in the region where I live, Abitibi-Témiscamingue, was mainly people from aboriginal communities. Therefore, I am well aware of their circumstances. I live 550 km north of here. I know what the situation is in my region and I suppose it is unfortunately the same in many of your communities.
Even though this may be very hard for me, I would like to avoid blaming the present government. I will try to restrain myself. I would also prefer not to blame the previous government. The members opposite will tell you that the Liberals were in power for 13 years and did not do anything. I think it would be better to stay calm even though I have to admit that it is a very hard for me after what happened this morning.
First of all, I would like to know if you all agree that section 67 of the Indian Act should be repealed. I suppose you will say yes. At the last meeting of the Assembly of First Nations of Canada, several chiefs told us that they needed to be consulted, and we got the same message from the Chiefs in Quebec. There is however a problem and I would like to know what your position is. The present government as well as the people at Indian Affairs are saying that there has already been too much consultation. As far as they are concerned, this matter has been talked about during 30 years. I'm sure that this is what the Parliamentary Secretary will tell you later on.
Of course, we will do everything in our power to have this bill amended. If its implementation takes 36 months, I will have no problem with that. As far as you are concerned, however, what would be proper consultations? That seems to be the crux of the matter. At least, that has been my feeling during these past few weeks. You can use of the rest of my time for your answer.
Driftpile First Nation
You said you're a lawyer, and so I have to be careful on how I respond and define “consultation”.
Liberal
Driftpile First Nation
Well, this has been a criminal process.
Consultation is taking too long for too many, and it's really sad because the Supreme Court of Canada has set out that there is a duty to consult. Those are not my decisions. That is a Supreme Court decision.
My views on consultation mean that I have to know the facts, I have to know what changes are going to occur, and I have to know what impact it's going to have. There's been 30 years of this, and we had to take it upon ourselves to study it, to know what's going to happen, and think of the outcomes. Where has the consultation occurred and with whom?
You know, 30 years is not a hell of a long time when we've been going through this for 100 and some years of lack of consultation in any process that was very real and impacting our community. Taking me on a plane ride, or in the olden days giving a bottle of whiskey to someone--that's not consultation. We know that's a violation and a criminal offence, if we look at it and go back and study it. A lot of times that's what consultation was to many people. It was coming in, handing out a few trinkets, and going off again. That was consultation.
That's not what consultation is. I want to sit with you. I want to discuss the problem. I want to come up with strategies, solutions, and outcomes that could make the difference and make that change. It's long overdue. And knowing that there are other lawyers in the room, I have to be careful how I answer this.
Okanese First Nation, Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations
Chief Marie-Anne Day Walker-Pelletier
I want to respond and say that I think the government has their own process of consultation and their understanding. I make reference to what I provided on language and its understanding. That's where we come from. As treaty first nations people, we come from a uniqueness of having treaties and that understanding. We come from a different understanding, and that needs to be respected. When we talk about consultation, it's from the perspective of our elders, of our people who guide us. That's consultation--going back to the community.
The government has its own definition that, again, does not jive with how we believe consultation should be. I think that's where we need to connect and come to understand each other. What is it that you need and what is it that we want? We're not there yet.
It's driven again by government policy, and it will never work because our communities think more about collective thinking than individual thinking. Government is trying to make us think individually, and I think that's where we're going wrong right now. You're saying one person, but not looking at it from a community or treaty rights position, from an inherent rights position. I think there is a big difference.
Thank you.
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our witnesses for taking the journey to come and appear before the committee. I know that asks a lot of people, when you have to leave your communities and come to this place.
Both Chief Day Walker-Pelletier and Chief Laboucan have touched on the heart of the matter before us, in that we have fundamental differences between what we see as an appropriate way to move forward on something that affects people's lives at their community level.
I'm going to read a brief paragraph from page 150 of Thomas Berger's book, A Long and Terrible Shadow: White Values, and Native Rights in the Americas Since 1492. This is with regards to the Nisga'a claim. I'm from British Columbia, and he's talking about some of the challenges. He wrote:
Chief Justice Davey's inability to comprehend the true nature of Native culture and Native claims is widely shared. It results in an attitude toward Native people that exasperates them when it does not infuriate them. This attitude is sometimes manifested in an attempt to preserve Native culture and sometimes in an attempt to eradicate it, but it is always manifested in a patronizing way. It assumes that Native culture cannot be viable in a contemporary context. This is the crux of the matter. Native peoples insist that their culture is still a vital force in their own lives, that it informs their own view of themselves, of the world about them, and of the dominant society.
For me, that paragraph talks about the fact that if governments of all political stripes truly recognized that native peoples have a vital, vibrant culture that has entrenched human rights and that expects to be dealt with on a nation-to-nation basis on matters that are going to affect you in your own community, we would be having a different discussion.
Could you please comment on that?
Driftpile First Nation
I definitely think we would be having a different discussion, because the sad thing about this process is that many of you know the traumas—not the dramas, but the traumas—that my people have gone through. One was the residential school era. That wrecked our homes, our families, our views. Now my job as a leader is to try to mend that. Then there was the colonization process, and now my job is to try to fix that and decolonize my people.
It's really an oxymoron that I should be in front of a standing committee on the Human Rights Act. It's really sad that this country has allowed me, as a witness, to come here now and try to justify my voice. I don't know how to put it any other way, because even now, in the general populace, there are views are out there and the mentality out there that I'm the drunken Indian, that I'm the tax burden to this country, that I'm the uneducated human being in this country. The list goes on. That is so wrong.
Who has that right? Who has that right to judge me? And I'm speaking in the context of my people here. Tell me who has that right to say, “Well, you can't think for yourself. We need the Indian Act.” And the civil servant industry that we've created off the backs and hunger of my people, is that not a violation of a human right?
The culture, the language, the beautiful, magnificent teaching that we have, none of you is probably familiar with them, except a couple who I see in the room, maybe four or five. I am very cognizant of the environment I'm always in, and it hurts like hell to be a leader in today's world. It saddens me that at the time the treaty was signed--and I'm a direct descendant of Treaty 8--and the lies that have surrounded it and the philosophies that have been implemented and policies that have been made to allow the continuance of the discrimination against first nations people in this country...it does not even begin to touch how I really truly can share with you, as another human being. And the teachings that I have for my culture, you may never have an opportunity to witness or be part of, because this country doesn't allow it.
Think about the changes that have been made, and it was not till what year that we were allowed to vote? You know that. It was not allowed for us to practise our culture and our ways in the Indian Act. It was taken out. Give us some time here to really understand, and let me be the one, for a change, to manipulate that bureaucracy. Give me that opportunity.
And I look directly at him because he's directly connected to the Minister of Indian and Aboriginal Affairs, so that's where I look.
Driftpile First Nation
I'm sorry, but either we get with this program or we don't. Talk to us or don't talk to us, but it's got to be that real, it's got to be that genuine. We are living in 2007.
I am totally tired of the concepts that are out there and the judgments and decisions that are made on my behalf. I was elected for a purpose, and that was to make decisions. Allow that to happen for me, because if it doesn't, then I'm just going to go ahead and do it anyway.
