Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 27th, 2008

[Grand Chief Denise Stonefish]

I wouldn't have a problem with judges. I wouldn't have a problem with your comment about being appointed by the government and first nations. However, I have a concern about the advisory committee itself.

To me, an advisory committee only provides advice or recommendations. How would it be accepted if the advisory committee recommended A, B, and C, and then, when it got to wherever it goes, they said they were not going with A, B, and C? My concern would be on how much mandate or authority an advisory committee has.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you.

Mr. Storseth, you're next.

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

Thank you very, Mr. Chairman. If you'd just let me know when I have about 20 seconds left in my five minutes, I'd appreciate it.

I want to thank all the witnesses for coming forward today. They were excellent presentations. I know some of it was at short notice, which makes it even more difficult to get translation and everything else done, but I found the presentations to be very educational.

Ms. Crowder started to allude to something that's been said before, which is that trust is a critically important part of all these processes. I agree 100%. We as a government have to develop that relationship with you on an individual basis, because it's something we have to work forward to the longer we're in government. It's equally important that we have that trust and continue to develop it. We're at a fairly fresh stage of that right now. I think this is a great first step.

It's very important to set the dark days of the Liberal government and their broken promises behind us. It's also important to recognize who our real friends are. You know, at one point in time the homeless actually thought the NDP was their friend, until they started voting against every initiative that came before them to help them out in the budgets.

I would actually like to start by asking a question of Deputy Grand Chief Hare. You put forward a very detailed presentation and you've obviously put a lot of time and thought into this legislation. Would you consider that what you're doing today is consultation? Would you consider this process right here to be consultation with the Government of Canada, and have you had an opportunity to discuss your recommendations--the nine recommendations that you've put a lot of thought into--with the AFN before they brought this forward?

[Deputy Grand Chief Glen Hare]

Again, I would pose that to my chief, the Grand Chief John Beaucage, but we certainly did consult with our leadership from where the grand chief has taken it. But to your question about consultation, no.

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

Mr. Hunter, have you had an opportunity to consult with the AFN before this came forward?

[Luke Hunter]

No. I'm not an elected individual. I'm not a chief or a politician.

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

Nonetheless, you are here. I'm asking everybody.

[Luke Hunter]

Yes. I deal with land claims, and I work in the research department. I assist our first nations, dealing with their land claims and also treaty matters. Whatever definition we use for consultation, in general terms if you look at the English dictionary, it's a straightforward definition.

In terms of the government consulting me on the bill, I would have to say no, I would not define this as consultation. I'm appearing before the committee to express my concerns on the bill and the problems we perceive moving forward.

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

I appreciate that, and we have enough politicians in the room to dance around the question.

I'll go to Grand Chief Stonefish. You really caught my attention when you said at one point in your consultation with us that this legislation should be withdrawn. Do you still feel that way? Have you had an opportunity to express your opinions with AFN to this point in time?

[Grand Chief Denise Stonefish]

No, there has been no real consultation. Our opportunity to comment to the AFN was to express our same comments as we're bringing forth today at their special meeting on December 11. Again, it was December 11, and we only received the presentation on December 6. I feel that the consultation process was inadequate.

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

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

We're all dying to know what you need 20 seconds for, but you have 20 seconds left.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think it's imperative that this committee has the AFN here post-haste. We can no longer go through these presentations where we are talking to groups of people who feel they have not had the opportunity to be consulted.

As the parliamentary secretary alluded to, they've been paid a significant amount of money to bring this legislation forward. They've had the opportunity to consult. I want to be able to ask them what their consultations have been. I don't know how we can go forward without having the opportunity to talk to AFN first.

The members on the other side, who for a year and a half have ragged about consultation, now all of a sudden aren't that worried about it. All of a sudden this is your consultation process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you, Mr. Storseth.

As I said at the beginning of the meeting, prior to last week's break we had set up an agenda to carry us through until the Easter break, which is a three-week period. We are in the first week of this three-week stint.

The AFN has been invited. We had initially asked them to appear at the beginning of our consultation process, immediately after the minister. They had expressed an interest to appear after we had heard from some of the other witnesses. That is what we're doing at this point. I don't think we need to continue this conversation today.

At this point, the AFN is still on our list of people to be invited. One of the questions I'm going to deal with at the subcommittee when we meet next week is how we can make that happen sooner rather than later, but sooner would still be after the Easter break.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I appreciate what you have said. This may be a point of privilege, but I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far at this point in time. I have two points.

First, the AFN was paid to do consultations on behalf of the Government of Canada. I want to know whether those consultations have been done.

Second, we are a parliamentary committee that has the right and the ability to call our witnesses. We do not ask our witnesses when it's best for them to come forward if it is critical to the legislation that we have them here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Ms. Neville, on the same point of order.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

It's been the practice of this committee, as long as I've been on it, to treat witnesses with courtesy and try to accommodate them at their convenience. To hear this kind of rudeness from the member opposite is astounding.

It was the government that was anxious to bring this bill forward quickly. I have no problem with that. But before we start assigning blame, we have to understand why this bill came forward at the speed it did. Perhaps informal consultations were made that we don't know about, and these kinds of allegations are totally uncalled for.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Thank you.

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

I'd like the opportunity to rebut that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

No, Mr. Storseth. This is not a point of order. As I said already, we have a list of witnesses we have agreed to and a process we've agreed to follow. As for whether it's the preferred process of each member of the committee, that may not be the case, but so be it.

Grand Chief Stonefish, do you want to make an additional comment?

[Grand Chief Denise Stonefish]

Yes. I want to clarify that just my organization felt that the consultation process was inadequate. I'm not sure how the Assembly of First Nations did their consultation process throughout the rest of the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Okay. Thank you.

Ms. Crowder, you have five minutes.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

I have a couple of editorial comments. There's no response required to this; I just want to be clear about the record on this.

My issue in bringing forward the political accord—and I clearly must have hit a sore spot with the government—was more about the fact that there's a history, and not necessarily just with the Conservatives. I only went back a couple of years, but I'm sure if I went back decades I'd find any number of political accords broken by any number of governments. The context in which I was raising the political accord was more around the fact that when the next government comes into place after we have an election...whether people would actually trust it to honour a political accord that a previous government had signed. That's just an editorial comment.

I want to come back to consultation for a moment. I don't have the precise definition, but the Supreme Court has directed that consultation must be meaningful, require much more than the mere sharing of information, be substantive, have a procedural component, and require the participation of first nations people in the decisions that affect them.

Any body that is drafting legislation is somewhat hampered by its ability to take the legislation out to the broader public before it's tabled in the House of Commons. I don't have the terms of reference that the AFN was tasked with, but we heard from people who came before the committee on Monday that the AFN was told it could not share the information before it was tabled in the House of Commons.

I don't recall the exact date that it was in the House of Commons, but I think it was early December. Given that there was a special chiefs assembly on December 11, with other things intervening there was no possibility to have a fulsome consultation. The Assembly of First Nations was limited—and I can't speak on its behalf, but from my understanding of the legislative process, it was limited—in what it was able to do.

Given those limited kinds of circumstances, we're now in a position of having to ask people what they would like to see done differently with this piece of legislation. I would argue that what we're doing now is not consultation. It's certainly hearing from witness, but in terms of what we've heard from first nations from coast to coast to coast--from Inuit and Métis--what constitutes consultation is simply not going out and saying to people, “Well, this is what we're up to. What do you think?”

I wonder if you could comment. If the time and resources had been available, what could a consultation process that developed a more comfortable bill have looked like?

[Deputy Grand Chief Glen Hare]

I think we might have had more recommendations that we had worked on with our members.

I don't want to go back to the AFN and the timeframes in December. For all governments, even ours—we're a government—that's Christmastime. Nobody's going to be sitting in any house at Christmastime. We weren't there in December, I don't think—not all of us.

You talk about consultation. We at the Union of Ontario Indians have to run around to get our chiefs. When we call our chiefs to gather in our assemblies, there are 95% in attendance.

For this, again, with the timeframes.... We have met as a whole—we were given the time and financial resources, I guess—but to answer your question, it is our chiefs' duty to go back to their councils, and to have community meetings if they so wish, and for the council tables to talk and deal with this and bring it back to the PTO and then to here.

From December until today is not reasonable. It's not reasonable for us. I don't even know whether your governments are all back yet. It's holiday time.

This is pretty major to be put upon us, and to hear the member over there question our positions here.... Maybe if we were given more time we'd be more prepared and we'd have answers, and the grand chief himself would be here. To me, the scheduling of all this.... I feel that it's hurting us, but we are here to try to work with everyone. I think this would have been pushed ahead if I couldn't make it or any of us couldn't make it, but we're here and we're trying to work with everyone. That's our main goal here.

[Grand Chief Denise Stonefish]

I think there probably should have been another component in this: that once Canada and the AFN had developed a bill, there should have been a process that allowed first nations the opportunity to sit down in working groups to review and analyze the potential impacts or potential benefits that might arise out of that bill, and that allowed us to provide this government or any government with suggestions or recommendations on how to move forward on a jointly developed piece of legislation.