Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 10th, 2009

[Michel Roy]

Yes.

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

What has been done to speed up that process of renewal?

[Michel Roy]

The renewals have been a challenge for the federal government. We have the report of the Auditor General and the report of the Senate committee, and we are working with the coalition to try to develop better ways of implementing and renewing those agreements. We are learning from what is going on in Yukon, and with the Nisga'a and other groups like that. We recognize that we are behind, but we are trying to find a way of moving forward.

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

But what sort of timeframe are you looking at in improving the process? Again, these nations are now seriously behind in terms of--

[Michel Roy]

Our hope is that if we are successful in getting a mandate now for those renewals that are pending right now--the Nisga'a and the Yukon--that will give us the direction we need for the future. So that will, hopefully, happen in the coming year.

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

I'm not aware that any formal response was ever made to Justice Berger's report on Nunavut from, I think, 2005.

[Michel Roy]

I think you're right. I don't think we had a formal response for that.

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

A very important part of that report was the recommendation for some significant--$20 million--investment in education. He wasn't actually recommending a huge amount of money. Do you know if there's been any movement made on that? It's an important part of that.

[Michel Roy]

We have had some discussions with the Nunavut government and NTI on some follow-up to Mr. Berger's report, but during those discussions we were unable to come to an agreement.

I have to say I am a bit careful here, because as you know, we have a court case now with NTI in the context of implementation, so it's difficult for us to comment.

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

Just to come back again to the number of comprehensive land claims potentially in Canada--not just in British Columbia--can you tell me the number of nations that don't have comprehensive land claims in place, including British Columbia?

[Michel Roy]

I think I will have to come back to you with some specifics on that.

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

I'm asking that, of course--and this is a resource issue, for both specific claims and comprehensive land claims--because the department needs sufficient resources in order to address these issues. Of course, more and more nations are becoming more aware of their rights and title, and I would expect that there will be more nations that file these claims. That's why I was wondering about the numbers. I wonder if you could comment on whether or not you feel the department has enough resources to actually handle these claims.

[Michel Roy]

If you think about the Inuit, for example--and this will not give you all of the answers--all of the Inuit of Canada are covered by comprehensive claims. They all have modern treaties. We have the issue about the Labrador Métis group, but grosso modo all of the Inuit now have a land claim in Canada. If you think about eastern Canada and the Atlantic, all first nations right now are involved in the comprehensive claims process. In Quebec we have the Innu and the Atikamekw. There were questions about the Mohawk and the Huron in Quebec.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I have at least one or two questions, and by the way, there have been some excellent questions from members this morning.

In the course of your responses, you touched on a couple of statistics. The 40% number was given out in terms of what has been completed in specific land claims. For the three areas mentioned--comprehensive claims, specific claims, and the progress on self-government agreements--I wonder if you could give us some idea of the scope. For example, you have x number of claims in front of you, and there are still x number in the hopper at this point. For each of those three, I wonder if you would give us some context, some ability to understand the scope of the work that you have left.

[Michel Roy]

I have to say that if I look at the business line right now, we have around 200 tables of negotiations going on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That includes all three--

[Michel Roy]

That includes everything--all three--and even implementation table negotiations, so we have around 200 negotiation tables going on right now. Of those, I would say probably around 120 are specific claims going on right now, and the rest are self-government and comprehensive claims.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All right.

There was one other thing. In your opening remarks, Monsieur Roy, you mentioned that in the course of monitoring existing agreements, there are legal and political pressures that come to bear. I know there's probably not quite enough time to elaborate on that, but could you define what some of those are and give some examples?

[Michel Roy]

We have some court decisions, of course, that will challenge the federal government in its interpretation of “obligation”, for example, under land claims agreements. Since we established the government-to-government relationships with first nations and the aboriginal groups, there is the same dynamic as the provinces have with the federal government in terms of pressure, in terms of making the point about moving forward their agenda, and in terms of getting support from the federal government to move their agenda. That dynamic is part of the Canadian Constitution, but that's what we are creating with the aboriginal groups right now. So we are under that kind of pressure in the negotiations. It's exactly what is going on with the provinces and the federal government right now. It's grosso modo the same thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

On behalf of members of the committee, I'd like to thank you for your presentations this morning. I'm sure they'll be very helpful to us in our future discussions.

We're going to take a brief two-minute break, and then we'll resume with committee business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Members, let's get under way here.

[Michel Roy]

We brought the CD for all members here. It's a briefing note on self-government and comprehensive claims and all of the files that we have in negotiation right now. It's in French and English, so you can use it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Merci beaucoup.

Let's continue with our discussions. We're in public session at the moment. Do members prefer to be in camera for the discussion of our work plan?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All right, that's fine.

I think there seems to be consensus that it's okay if we stay public for the time being.

Is that okay?

As I mentioned, the subcommittee met last Thursday and briefly considered what we have in front of us. By and large, members agreed that with two potential bills in front of us in the fairly near future, we ought not to proceed into any substantive studies. Therefore, we opted, as we did today, to receive briefings and updates from relevant departments on three topics, the one we did today, of course; and on Thursday there will be an update on the TRC and the residential schools issue, and where we stand on that issue; and a third meeting will be an update from Statistics Canada and the First Nations Statistics on their work as well.

The understanding now seems to be that Bill C-5, the Indian oil and gas bill, may not get through the House this week. They're putting it off until the week after the break, perhaps. When we had our discussions on Thursday, we considered that in all likelihood we would have the oil and gas bill commencing in the week after the break. But it appears that might not happen now.

At your pleasure, I think we should consider moving the Statistics Canada meeting and update to February 24, and then consider having an additional briefing day on February 26. That will leave the first week of March open, hopefully to receive the bill on Indian oil and gas. So that's the proposal.

I have a question from Monsieur Lemay.