Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 5th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We'll begin the meeting.

Good morning, members and guests.

It's a pleasure to welcome you back this week. In our orders of the day today, we are hearing from the three commissioners of the Cree-Naskapi Commission. Members will know from their briefing materials that this is part of a biannual report to Parliament.

This morning we welcome the chair, Richard Saunders, and the two commissioners, Philip Awashish and Robert Kanatewat.

It's great, gentlemen, to have you before our committee again. You certainly bring you with a history of and experience in coming before standing committees of the House. You'll know that we have approximately 10 minutes for your opening comments. Feel free to take a little extra time, if you need it, and then we'll go to questions from members.

We'll turn it over to Mr. Saunders.

Certainly, Mr. Saunders, if you'd like to add to the welcome of the commissioners who are here with you today, by all means do that.

[Richard Saunders, Chairman, Cree-Naskapi Commission]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all I would like to thank the committee for hearing us again. For new members, I will introduce my colleagues. I have with me today Commissioner Robert Kanatewat from Chisasibi on James Bay; and Philip Awashish from Mistissini in the interior of Eeyou Istchee.

These two guys are pretty modest, so I won't be on their behalf. They're both signatories to the original James Bay Agreement, and are very familiar with the entire history of negotiations leading to the Cree-Naskapi (of Quebec) Act, the agreement itself, and many of the supplementary agreements. If there's something I don't know--which is quite a lot--they certainly deal with more detailed questions around the history of what's taken place there, as well as some of the current issues.

As the chairman said, we have a relatively brief time this morning. We don't want to waste the committee's time with a lot of background that you can read in our written presentation or in the 2008 report itself. We'll be moving over that rather quickly.

There is legislation on the order paper now amending the Cree-Naskapi (of Quebec) Act. I would like to comment on that because all our reports, including the present one, have addressed the need for amendments to the act.

In preparing these reports--I think everybody has seen one, and this is the four-language edition--we hold hearings, and members of the Cree and Naskapi communities come and make presentations. They're generally pretty well thought out and detailed. So our recommendations in this report generally reflect some of what the community has said, some analysis from ourselves, and some input from government officials and others.

We have many times made recommendations for amendments to the act, including all three times that we've been here. In 1998 we were here and recommended some changes. They were contained in the report of that year. In 2007 we again made recommendations for amendments, and today we're continuing that process.

As you know, the amendments that are currently before the House are the ones the government committed to introducing in this agreement last February, which was an out of court settlement resolving some of the outstanding issues about implementation of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, signed by Minister Strahl and the Cree leadership in February 2008.

That agreement provided that two amendments would be brought forward. One was to incorporate Ouje-Bougoumou as a band under the agreement and the act. It is not listed in the act at the moment, so technically its bylaws and such are not under the authority of the act. That's a little glitch that needed to be fixed. Naturally they need to be fully recognized in every other respect as a band within the meaning of the act.

There's really not much disagreement on the part of anyone about that. It's really both a symbolic and housekeeping amendment, and we're glad to see it.

We would note, without being unduly cynical about processes, that this has been promised for the last 19 years. Finally the amendment is here. Hallelujah!

The other amendment deals essentially with the empowerment of the Cree Regional Authority, which is the regional government of the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee. That empowerment again is in line with recommendations from the Cree leadership and the Cree people. We certainly have no issues with that in principle, or with any of the details in the proposed legislation, certainly not in principle.

Let me say where our concerns lie. This also reflects to some extent what the Cree leadership have told us many times. Some recommendations for changes to the act--housekeeping amendments and all sorts of things--have been recommended for 19 years. We certainly recommended them when we came before this committee, and the Cree leadership has been asking for them.

What are some examples? One that Bill Namagoose, the executive director of the Grand Council of the Crees, mentioned to me not long ago was referenda.

The act, quite properly, requires referenda in order to approve such things as land cessions. After all the Crees have been through, if they were going to give up some land, clearly there would have to be a mandate to do it from the people.

So that's appropriate. But sometimes that results in politically impossible situations. You're all public officials who've been through lots of elections and you know a lot about voters. If the Crees want to transfer a piece of land in a community to the Cree school board to build a Cree school on, they have to have a referendum. Think about it. In your communities, how many folks would come out to vote on a referendum for the municipality to transfer a piece of land to the school board? It doesn't exactly have any political sex appeal. So meeting the quorum required for that referendum is just not going to happen. I understand from the Cree leadership that there are a number of illegal schools.

So you have that kind of thing. Examples that we've mentioned at this committee include the example of the procedure for having an election. It requires nomination, and a certain number of days from nomination to election day, and so on, and the election must be held on that day, etc. Well, the kind of scenario that could unfold would be for a community to have a death in the community and postpone the election for one day, as many communities do. Technically, somebody who lost that election could go and complain that the election was unlawful. Fortunately, we haven't had a complaint of that nature just yet, but we've had some pretty close.

There are a lot of those kinds of housekeeping amendments. They're not contentious. They don't require a year of debate. They don't require an enormous amount of preparation on the part of the legislative drafting folks. They need to be done.

Our concern is that it's taken 19 years to get Ouje-Bougoumou in front of you, and we know legislative agendas are very busy. If we, the Crees, and the Naskapi go back to Indian Affairs and say, “Look, we need all these amendments,” the normal instinct of the bureaucracy will be to say, “Come on now; we can't be running to Parliament every five minutes with amendments for you. We've just been there.” So 20 years from now, we'll still be worrying about whether a school has built legally on a piece of Cree land and whether or not somebody can postpone an election for a day.

Our concern is not with what's in front of you. What's in front of you is good stuff. Our concern is that we're going to be back nagging you in a couple of years, and a few more years after that, saying, “Well, where are these other amendments?” The Crees made it known to the department that they would like to have seen some other issues brought as part of this package, and they're not here. That's our fundamental concern.

My ten minutes seem to be up. I'd like to leave some time for questions and some time for my colleagues to respond to them. As I said earlier, they're the experts.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Saunders.

In fact, you have a bit more time there, but we'll go to questions and that will open the floor to both the commissioners and you to respond. We'll have a good round.

In that regard, we're going to start with a seven-minute round, beginning with the Liberal Party.

Mr. Russell, for seven minutes.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to each of you, again. It's good to have you with us. I believe I noted in some of the background materials that indeed you felt that coming to the committee was of benefit in terms of moving the yardstick somewhat. We're glad to hear that, because sometimes we ourselves get a little bit frustrated with the committee process and how the legislative process works here in the House of Commons, or in Parliament generally.

You said the Crees would like to have seen other elements included in this particular amendment. Could you outline what some of those other elements could have been?

As well, as I understand it—you can correct me if I'm wrong—in the new relationship agreement signed in 2008 there seems to be two streams. There is an amendment to the Cree-Naskapi (of Quebec) Act, outlining what you've already said, some advancement in terms of governance for the Cree Regional Authority, and the inclusion of the Ouje-Bougoumou Cree as a band. There seems to be, in the new relationship, as well, a more substantive, more involved type of negotiation to a Cree government—sort of a self-government agreement, if you want to call it that.

Is it possible that while we move with these particular amendments, other types of issues will be dealt with in that more supposedly comprehensive agreement? Are there any timelines around a self-government agreement, and when we might actually see one?

[Richard Saunders]

I'm going to let my colleague Commissioner Awashish answer most of that question, but there's one thing you might think about.

In dealing with all of these other amendments, I think we'd all feel a lot more comfortable if government committed to getting them done and in front of us—in front of you—within 12 months, say. If Minister Strahl were to commit to doing that, I know his bureaucrats would start moving more quickly and we could get on with it.

But on the substantive question, I'd like Commissioner Awashish to answer.

Philip.

[Philip Awashish, Commissioner, Cree-Naskapi Commission]

Thank you.

The Cree-Naskapi (of Quebec) Act was enacted by Parliament in 1984, so it has been in force for about 25 years. Since the commission began preparing its reports and hearing representations from representatives of the Cree-Naskapi local government, we've always had particular recommendations concerning the implementation of the act itself.

There have been certain problems in the administration of local government. There are problems in the implementation of the act itself. Therefore, since 1986, we have made certain recommendations to amend the Cree-Naskapi (of Quebec) Act to enhance local government, as well as local administration of the Cree-Naskapi communities. As outlined on page 8 of our presentation, over the past 25 years, we've outlined 38 ways the act can be amended to enhance Cree and local government.

As the chairman of our commission mentioned this morning, there is a bill before Parliament amending the act for the purposes of empowering the Cree Regional Authority with additional responsibilities and powers, so that it may be able to assume the responsibilities conferred, or transferred, to it as a result of the Agreement Concerning a New Relationship between the Government of Canada and the Cree of Eeyou Istchee.

We of course commend the government and the Cree for taking the journey together in a new relationship, and we also commend the government for the bill to empower the Cree Regional Authority, so that it can assume its new responsibilities and exercise certain powers.

However, the agreement itself, that is, the 2008 agreement between Canada and the Cree, does not speak about amending the act to enhance local Cree and local Naskapi governments and administration. Therefore, the bill before the House does not speak or deal with amending the act for the purposes of enhancing Cree and local government and administration.

The amendments that we recommend have been in our biannual reports since 1986. Our presentation to you this morning summarizes the findings from our biannual reports, as well as certain representations made to us and reports from certain investigations we conducted under the act.

Our chair has already mentioned the problem concerning the referendum provisions of the act in regard to the transfer of category IA lands, which are like reserve lands. They're not called reserves, but are simply called category IA lands. They're lands under federal jurisdiction, set aside for the exclusive use and benefit of the Cree and Naskapi peoples and communities.

There is one other particular priority for the Cree and the Naskapi governments and administration. It concerns certain impediments in the act. These impediments create problems for the Cree-Naskapi governments' decision-making process.

The act specifies certain quorums in order to approve certain bylaws. These bylaws could be about land zoning or band elections. So there are certain matters that the Cree and Naskapi local governments can enact certain bylaws on. These require a certain quorum by the community to be approved.

I was personally involved in the discussions and negotiations between Canada and the Cree concerning the terms and provisions of the Cree-Naskapi (of Quebec) Act. The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was signed in 1975. It took nine years of discussions between the Cree and Naskapi to finally agree upon the terms and provisions of the Cree-Naskapi (of Quebec) Act.

When we were discussing the terms and provisions of the act itself, the population of the Cree communities as a whole was about 6,000 people. Today we number about 16,000. The quorums that are discussed, that are specified in the act, were adequate for the people back in 1974-75 days. The communities were small. There were small populations of people, so it was easy to achieve the quorums provided for in the act. But now with communities that are somewhere over 3,000 people, it gets very hard to achieve the quorum provisions of the act.

There's one area, in addition to the comments made by our chair, in which we feel the act should be amended. There should be amendments regarding the quorum provisions in the act. We had recommended that these quorum provisions be under the authority of the local government to establish for matters that affect our communities.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Mr. Russell, perhaps I could just interrupt at that point.

I think we jumped into members' questions a little too prematurely. We wanted to perhaps give some time for each commissioner to have a statement, and I apologize to our witnesses for jumping into that prematurely.

Mr. Russell, we'll come back to you for the commencement of questions from members.

Thank you, Commissioner Awashish, for your statement.

Now we'll go to Commissioner Kanatewat for an opening statement, and then we'll commence with questions from members at that time.

Commissioner.

[Robert Kanatewat, Commissioner, Cree-Naskapi Commission]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would pretty well summarize what the chair had already stated. We all concur with what he has said. We were more or less inclined to answer questions from the floor at this point in time, because we did mention a few. We didn't make many statements here, except what was presented in the paper to the committee. We were more or less looking forward to their questions. In the short period of time that we have, it would be more appropriate for us to answer from that perspective.

What my colleagues have already said is more or less what we had discussed before we got here.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Very good. Thank you, Commissioner.

Now we'll proceed to questions.

Mr. Russell, if you want to, you may resume.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

I just want to go back a bit.

Is it the sense that with this amendment now before the House, there are no provisions for the enhancement of local governance? Is it the sense that the amendments in Bill C-28, which is now before the House, do not enhance local governance?

They enhance the Cree Regional Authority from a regional perspective in terms of making bylaws and having a more regional approach to governance. It doesn't come down to the community level or the band level. Is that sort of the criticism, if I could say it in that way? You're saying that was because it wasn't a part of the new relationship agreement that was signed in 2008.

[Richard Saunders]

My colleagues may want to comment also, but I think it's a fact that this agreement, the new relationship agreement, was in fact an out-of-court settlement. It got rid of a lot of litigation that had been hanging around that was annoying to everybody involved. That's a good thing--working together, collaborating and so on, and not letting judges sort it all out. That's the way to go.

It dealt with the two items we mentioned, which is taking care of Ouje-Bougoumou and providing some enhanced powers for the Cree regional government. That's an appropriate thing. But most of these other concerns and recommendations about quorums, and all of those things that have come up over the years, have been issues that have come from individual communities. They may be similar in all the communities, but they've come from the communities. Addressing them is addressing the issues of local government.

A local council has to wrestle with nonsense, like when you can't get a quorum out to vote on the transfer of this piece of land to the school board. Well, you know, that stuff needs fixing.

We're happy this has happened. This is great. And the amendments that flow from this, they're great too. No question about that. We're not complaining about that at all. We're just saying that there's some other stuff to be done. We're concerned that we may be waiting as long for that to get done as we waited for this to get done. We don't want to wait that long. We don't want to have those problems dragging on and on. We don't want to come back here every couple of years on the same old stuff.

Philip, Robert, do you want to add to that?

[Philip Awashish]

The proposed bill does not enhance the local government and the local administration of the Cree and Naskapi communities. If this bill impacts local government.... It does benefit, of course, the Ouje-Bougoumou Cree, who will become a new band under the act. Therefore, they will have their local government and administration in place recognized by the act. That's a good thing. It has been one of our recommendations over the past many years to create the Ouje-Bougoumou Cree as a band. So it will be a good thing for the Cree of Ouje-Bougoumou if the bill is passed.

One way the bill affects local government, of course, is in how the regional bylaw powers of the Cree Regional Authority will impact bylaws of the Cree bands. There will be discussions between the Cree regional government and local governments concerning the relationship of their respective bylaws and powers and authority. Those are foreseen in the future because the new relationship agreement between the Cree and Naskapi contemplates Cree federal negotiations concerning a Cree Nation government. It's something that is presently under discussion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Go ahead. You still have three minutes, Mr. Russell.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Okay.

It doesn't cover the whole gamut to solve some of the issues at the local level. Were there any specific issues from the Naskapi that weren't addressed in the new relationship agreement? It certainly doesn't seem to be reflected in this particular bill.

[Richard Saunders]

The new relationship agreement is between the Cree and Canada. It doesn't affect the Naskapi.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Oh, yes, okay.

[Richard Saunders]

They certainly share with the Cree some issues around local governance at the community level, and they would like to see some of the same amendments in certain cases, but they're not affected by the Canada-Cree agreement at all.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Okay. But there were some issues brought up in your reports, though.

[Richard Saunders]

Oh, yes.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

So this particular bill has no negative implications for the Naskapi communities?

[Richard Saunders]

Apparently not. It's no secret that before coming here we contacted both the Cree and the Naskapi leadership to make certain that, if there were issues out of our report that are critical from their perspective to be raised here, we would give them some priority during our time. The Naskapi did not raise any issues this time.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Very quickly, what additional powers will the Cree Regional Authority have under this particular act? What authorities will they assume from the federal government under this particular act?

[Richard Saunders]

Philip has already mentioned one of the critical ones; that is, in their bylaw-making powers, where there's a conflict between a bylaw of the Cree Regional Authority and a bylaw of the individual first nation—which is not likely to happen often, but when it does—then the Cree Regional Authority bylaw will prevail to the extent of the conflict.

That's one that the Crees have come forward with, which I think speaks well to the idea of working together and working as a broad community. I think that's one that sort of springs to mind as critical.

Robert or Philip may wish to speak on other specific elements.

[Philip Awashish]

The bill before the House concerning certain amendments to the Cree-Naskapi (of Quebec) Act enables the Cree Regional Authority to receive and carry out assumed federal responsibilities as listed in the Agreement Concerning a New Relationship between the Government of Canada and the Cree of Eeyou Istchee. The bill will equip the Cree Regional Authority with bylaw-making powers similar to those of the Cree bands under the Cree-Naskapi (of Quebec) Act.

Under the bill, of course, there are certain bylaws that are contemplated. One is to regulate essential sanitation services, which includes water and sewer systems, drainage, and solid waste management. There are bylaw powers over housing and housing standards, bylaws to manage and administer moneys and other assets, and also bylaws to promote the general welfare of the Cree communities and people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Commissioner.

Mr. Lévesque, you have seven minutes.