Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 12th, 2009

[Kevin McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In direct answer to Ms. Crowder's question, the coalition has long called for a new land claims implementation policy. In 2006, the coalition adopted what we called the Four-Ten Declaration, four main principles that are the foundation. These four principles would assist all parties to modern land claims agreements to more effectively implement those agreements. In our view, the four principles formed the basis for the development of our new model land claims implementation policy, and those are very crucial.

I assume, Mr. Chair, that everybody has those supporting documents in their information kits, but I'd like to point out to committee members that those four principles are the very foundation of what we're advocating for in the new land claims policy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You still have over a minutes, Ms. Crowder.

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

I need to back up a bit.

I think we must be an embarrassment on the international stage when what we do is acknowledge that there is a government-to- government relationship by signing treaties...because we were reminded last week, with the treaty land entitlement, that a number of these treaties date back to the late 1800s and they were based on the fact that it was unceded territory, that the government needed something from the first nations so they signed these treaties, apparently in good faith. But we find that not only in ancient history but in modern history, that implementation isn't happening. I think Nisga'a is a really good example, because that's a very modern treaty, as is Nunavut.

You've done all of this work. You've laid the framework. What is getting in the way of making this happen?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You're actually out of time, so we'll take one brief response to that and then we'll go to the next question.

[Kevin McKay]

A willingness on the part of the Government of Canada to come to the table.

[Paul Kaludjak]

The other one is, we're not sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Well done.

Thank you, Ms. Crowder.

Mr. Duncan, for seven minutes.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to Mr. Kaludjak and Mr. McKay, a fellow British Columbian, and also somebody from Nunavut.

I was in Nunavut probably in 1998 with the fisheries committee. We were in Iqaluit and in Pond Inlet. We met with some people from your government and we were told about some specific treaty implementation issues at that time, which we tried to address through the committee. So we do know there have been issues for a long time.

I would like to make reference to your comment early on where you talked about practical solutions. I think that's where we want to go.

The Senate has been very good at tackling these kinds of issues. The Senate can be credited with the actions we've taken as a government on moving forward on the specific claims, and all evidence is that this is moving in a very positive direction. As a government, we also, I believe, have done a lot for the north and for Nunavut and we would like to continue to do that.

I would beg to differ with Monsieur Lemay, who suggested that government should have no role to play here. We have to remember that Mr. Lemay wishes there was no federal government

Kevin McKay, you talked about being told last week that there was no increase. You were told there was no increase in the fiscal arrangement, the financing arrangement. That is incorrect information. I don't know where that is coming from, but we're certainly working in a very different direction. We're close to having the authority. We know the tardiness, the lateness of the Nisga'a and Yukon financing renewals. We want to get on with fixing that. If we can't demonstrate with your treaty and with the Yukon treaty, the comprehensive agreements, that we can move forward and address your issues, then there's much less incentive for others to move into treaty arrangements. We're still moving ahead with treaty arrangements with other groups. We've had Tsawwassen and Maa-nulth this year.

So I want to assure you that we are putting those authorities in place and we'll get on with tackling that. There are identified problems. You have identified problems with the treaties. This does not mean it's an international embarrassment. This means you have identified problems. We're going to try to do our very best to resolve those problems, and I would like to suggest that where we are today is a lot further ahead than where we were before you signed your agreements.

I don't know if I have a question out of all that, other than to ask if you have any comments about what I've just said.

Thank you. I direct that to both of you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Okay, go ahead, Mr. Kaludjak.

[Paul Kaludjak]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Duncan, for your comments.

Some of you have been up to Nunavut in your field of work, no doubt. I was telling Kevin this morning that it's nice and summery here, but we still have seven feet of ice in Nunavut. We went fishing over the weekend and he was actually shocked that we had seven feet of ice left on our lake. So there's a big difference between here and where we live.

Regardless, in terms of the work we do in trying to put forward our arguments, it was confirmed by the Auditor General that implementation matters were not being adequately dealt with. That confirmed our arguments, and that was confirmed by many.

I'm glad to hear that the Senate has moved on these kinds of issues. You've said that they've made a difference. That difference should be transferred to the federal people who do the actual work of implementation. It's being missed out on somewhere. It's not getting there.

As you mentioned, there's progress on the issue of implementation, which is being dealt with at the Senate level, but it's not making it to where it's supposed to actually be happening. So I would pose the question to you: where is it going in this whole system? It's not getting to the people it's supposed to be directed to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

If we want to get a comment from Mr. McKay, we'll have to go there now.

Thank you, Mr. Kaludjak.

Mr. McKay.

[Kevin McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In response to Mr. Duncan's comments, I would like to distinguish and make it very clear that the example we provide in the area of our frustrations in trying to renegotiate a new fiscal financing agreement is a subset of the overall frustration we feel in implementing our treaty. I can't be any clearer. We need a new national policy in implementing land claims agreements, period, full stop.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

D'accord. Merci, messieurs McKay et Duncan.

Now we will proceed to the second round, which is a five-minute round.

We'll begin with Mr. Russell.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Kevin and Paul. It's good to see you here again.

It's very interesting, but strange things are happening at committee, or just before committee. I listen to Kevin talk about the FFA with Nisga'a and then we hear the parliamentary secretary announce that they're seeking a different mandate than what you've been informed about. That's quite interesting. Maybe we should have committee meetings more often where you show up, so the implementation could be a little more hurried.

I would like to make one point, because a lot of times in the Canadian public there is a myth perpetuated, even amongst parliamentarians at times, that somehow you always come to the table asking for something. But land claims were a huge compromise for aboriginal people. They were a huge compromise. They came under a lot of stressful conditions at times and people gave up a lot. Aboriginal people have given up a lot in terms of their lands, certain rights to lands, and in fact, certain ways of living. I think Canadians always have to be aware of this, because there's a myth always being perpetuated out there.

We're dealing with Bill C-28, the Cree-Naskapi act, and problems stemming from a land claim agreement back in 1975 and subsequently in 1984. In Labrador we have the Nunatsiavut land claim agreement that was signed in 2005, and they're already experiencing problems with implementation and with the government living up to the spirit and intent of the treaty itself.

You've made these specific proposals to government, I understand. What has the government response been? What has the minister's response been to what basically are the four pillars, if I can put it that way, of a new treaty implementation policy? What has the minister's response been?

Also, is the minister going to be at the Land Claims Agreements Coalition conference this week? I understood that he was supposed to be there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Go ahead. If you want to split your time, there are about three minutes left to handle both those questions.

Mr. Kaludjak.

[Paul Kaludjak]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Russell, for that comment.

In terms of the implementation, we looked at the IRC, the Inuvialuit Regional Council, and their claim. The Auditor General did an audit on their claim, and it was one of the first. They determined there were many outstanding implementation provisions, and you're talking about 20 or 25 years. If that's one of the difficulties, how about the modern ones, like today's claims? You mentioned Nunatsiavut, those kind of things. They're going to keep falling behind each year, and the backlog will build up. That's something somebody has to pay attention to, the backlog that's going to happen. We need to start work now. You can't keep piling it away and expect it to work.

That's why we're in challenge today in Nunavut, because we lost a lot. As you said, when we signed the claim, a lot of people...our own people said we could do more, and some of us said, okay, we have a deal now, so let's at least try to make it work. It wasn't a perfect deal. We knew that. We lost some things we wanted, but we said, let's make it work, and that's why we put our pencil mark on it. With that, we have already lost a lot in terms of employment for our people, economic opportunity benefits. That's why we're in challenge today, because we lost so many benefits because of lack of implementation. We failed our community.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Mr. McKay.

[Kevin McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Russell, for your questions.

We released our model policy in the first week of March in a press release in the Parliamentary Press Gallery, with the assistance of Ms. Crowder. Before that, we had a meeting with Minister Strahl, I think the day before, and we had an opportunity to provide Minister Strahl with the model policy and a brief opportunity to speak in support of it.

At that meeting we reiterated a standing invitation to Minister Strahl to address our conference this week. We thought that would provide a really good opportunity for the Government of Canada to articulate its response to our model policy. We were told Minister Strahl was going to be there, and then as you had indicated, late last week we found out he has cancelled, with no alternative plans. That's all I can say to that.

Other than that, the minister has not, nor has the Government of Canada, formally responded to our model policy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. McKay, and thank you, Mr. Russell.

We'll go to Mr. Rickford for five minutes.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to the witnesses.

I have a few questions and I don't think five minutes is going to do justice to them, but I want to address this issue we're speaking about.

I can say that the minister's schedule has changed for personal family reasons. Minister Strahl has a strong reputation for working closely with stakeholders like your coalition, and unlike former governments, we feel strongly that we've been moving ahead under the current structures on land claims at a record pace for the last couple of years. I think when it comes to self-government agreements, gentlemen, with the greatest of respect, we continue to work hard to strengthen those agreements. We recognize that there are ongoing problems, and we need to work with our partners and federal departments and agencies towards addressing some of those.

I took the opportunity to read through your 49-point submission to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. I have a couple of questions. There are some things that I can't reconcile.

I have probably four minutes left here, so I was just wondering, as a general question, has a time and cost analysis of the benefits of a new policy regime and a land claims agreement implementation commission really been looked at?

I see 49 points here. Again, with the greatest of respect, there are some good points; some of them are consistent with the Senate submission. But they're rather vague. They don't have specific implementation modalities, and furthermore, it's my understanding that the agreement itself is to a certain extent a legal document. In context, there are these other activities going on between the governments in areas of socio-economic development and education that are all part of a capacity-building experience, so that when we get to the end of this process, the land claim agreement, in the spirit of it, has actually been occurring synchronously. And the land claim agreement as a substantive document in law simply pulls together all of the elements that the governments have been working on. There are capacity issues, obviously, on both sides of government, both your side and our own, and a certain finite amount of resources.

I have a lot of other questions, but I'll put that general one out there, given my time constraints.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you.

Mr. Kaludjak, go ahead.

[Paul Kaludjak]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Rickford, thank you for that.

Yes, when we go into discussions there's a lot of talk about vagueness. As I said in my presentation, we have 16 breaches of our claim that need to be resolved in terms of implementation.

If you want to go to specifics, you can look at our claim. That gives you a clear direction on what should be done today, where the government needs to go, where they sign the document.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

The claim is in process right now. How does this document here effectively change that and stay within some reasonable cost objectives and get you to where you want to go? Are we really in the mood to change the system almost in its totality, given the 49 points that are there?

[Paul Kaludjak]

Yes. People are always scared of change. Sometimes it's good or bad, but in this case there's nothing but good. Because something has to change, and if we don't change it, you're going to see the backlog keep going up. There has to be some move, and there has to be clear direction for the government as to where it needs to focus, instead of being vague. That's why we've tried to step in to say, why don't you create a commission or a directive? Why don't you task a certain department to do the implementation solely by itself, so it's not all over the place? We have to deal with Environment Canada, the Canadian Wildlife Service, all those groups under the government that play a role in our claim, in the Maa-nulth claim, for instance. We have to find a way of coordinating that with them. They have to get together like this and say, okay, we're going to do this respectively; we're going to coordinate this as a big family.

Somebody has to step in to say what he's talking about, to coordinate it so it's clear, so that we're not all over the place, the way we are right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Kaludjak. We do have to move on.

Thank you, Mr. Rickford.

We now go back to Mr. Lemay, for five minutes.

Mr. Lemay.