Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 8th, 2009

[Charles Pryce]

--consultation, and there is that engagement. I think to that extent, these developments are potentially positive. With respect to the UN declaration, off the top of my head I can't see the direct connection.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

That's fair.

Mark, did you have some comments you wanted to add?

[Mark Prystupa]

Sure. I can say that in modern treaties they usually include economic measures provisions, which include, for example, preferential contracting for aboriginal claiming groups. I think last time Michel Roy, who's our assistant deputy minister, mentioned that there's now a website to look at what's been implemented.

I think there is a tremendous number of success stories, and we need to try to make other companies and other aboriginal groups more aware of what can be done when industry and aboriginal communities work together. Indian and Northern Affairs, I think, helps to facilitate that through some of the programs.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

One of the concerns, obviously, is that--

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I'm sorry, Mr. Rickford, we're right at the end here. We're already over time, so now we'll go to Mr. Tonks and Mr. Bélanger.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll try to make it quick.

I'm fascinated by this. I don't sit on the committee, but it seems that the Royal Proclamation guaranteed that there would be no erosion of aboriginal nations in their rights, which were reserved to them, over lands that they owned. They had treaty rights, too.

That's on the one hand. On the other hand, it stated in our briefing notes that there were relevant judicial decisions that established the crown's sovereignty and the assumption of sovereignty over a country's first nations people. You sort of have the recognition of existing treaty rights. You have judicial precedence, which establishes sovereignty. And I guess the 1982 Constitution Act recognizes existing treaty rights again.

My question is, where there is an application that's being put forward with respect to new lands, and the concept of dialogue and consultation, does it suggest that those agreements are mutual, or do they continuously have to be challenged? I think that's important with respect to how the committee looks at future economic interests. How is this process actually going to help? Never mind the law. The law suggests some trends and whatnot, but what's the culture of the approach?

[Mark Prystupa]

I guess there are historic treaties in Canada. There are the peace and friendship treaties, and the numbered treaties that exist across Canada. We call those historic treaties. For those treaties, we have a process through specific claims, where a first nation that has signed a treaty can submit a claim that's assessed by the government for potential negotiation. A first nation can always choose litigation, but our preference, and their preference, in most cases, is to negotiate.

What we try to do in coming up with negotiating instructions is to undertake analysis of what the current law provides and develop our negotiation instructions consistent with those, but also to negotiate in a way that's, hopefully, win-win. We find out ways to help protect harvesting areas, or potential areas for economic development. There are also areas where we haven't negotiated any agreements. Those have primarily been in the north and in British Columbia, where we're now involved in creating modern treaties. We do that through comprehensive claims policy.

It doesn't set up the same sort of system of reserves and so on, but we try to end up negotiating. Once again, we go to cabinet for negotiation instructions and for mandates. We do an analysis of what our obligations are under the law, in that case, and try to negotiate these win-win outcomes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Tonks.

Go ahead, Mr. Bélanger.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Your official title is General Counsel, Aboriginal Law and Strategic Policy. That means you are responsible for formulating policy.

How can we develop and implement a policy respecting the honour of the Crown. By the way, the French equivalent is “honneur de Sa Majesté“, not “honneur de la Couronne“. I'm not asking you to give me an answer at this time, but if the department were to ask you to develop a policy, how would you go about doing that?

[Mark Prystupa]

I work in a specific area, particularly around negotiations, and you're talking about generally within the department how do we develop these policies. We have a certain internal structure whereby with any new policy proposal and policy work...we make sure that where somebody else is doing policy work in a certain area, we’ll see if there is a way to combine our aggregate, our work with theirs, so that it makes more sense.

Then we have a variety of different committees internal to the department. We have a DG policy review committee. We have a committee that's led by the deputy minister called the policy committee. We also have, even before somebody comes up with developing that sort of issue and they just want to talk more generally, a focus on strategic interests committee.

All that is to say, there's an internal structure by which there's a review and analysis and development of policies.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

That's it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I'd like to speak on another matter, Mr. Chairman, if I may.

I gather we're going to have the professor coming at some point?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I'm glad you mentioned that. Go ahead.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Would it be appropriate for our committee, since we're looking into a rather complex and I think rather meaningful matter, to also hear from representatives of the aboriginal communities on this concept?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That's something the subcommittee can take into consideration when we look at the work plan, which we'll be doing, we hope, the meeting after the break.

Monsieur Lemay, you have a point?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Without getting into the specifics, there are aboriginal law associations, aboriginal committees comprised of students, professors and lawyers who could address some of the concerns that Mr. Bélanger has just raised.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Okay.

For members' interest, you may know that we are attempting to schedule a meeting with the author, Timothy McCabe. His book was published in 2008. It's called The Honour of the Crown and its Fiduciary Duties to Aboriginal Peoples. It's recommended reading for any of you who would like to look more closely at that. And we are attempting to get Professor McCabe before us next month. So if you'd like to delve into this, it's certainly a very good look at this question.

Now, members, there are a couple of very small items of committee business. Is it the wish of the committee to go in camera at this point?

Okay, let's proceed. I have two very quick items. You've been circulated a proposed list of witnesses, categories as well as organizations and individuals, for both the Ottawa hearings as well as the territorial hearings.

I see our witnesses are getting under way.

Gentlemen, please accept our thanks for your presentations this afternoon. It has been very helpful on a very important and complex topic. You can take your leave now, and we thank you for your help.

[Charles Pryce]

Mr. Chairman, I just wasn't sure if we were to stay or to go.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You certainly are at liberty to leave if you wish. Thank you very much.

Again, back to the witnesses, I'm asking, members, if you could look at that list and give feedback to the clerk. If there are organizations you'd like to see added, please take a look at that. If you could feed that back to the clerk by Wednesday of next week, that would be a great help to us. That's on both. Let me just say it's going to be very difficult to scope down the number of witnesses for this study. We are going to have to make some choices, but to do that we need your input.

The final thing is we're going to go to the Liaison Committee here momentarily. Thanks to members, we did pass the budget at our last meeting on Tuesday. We'll present that to Liaison. The way it's looking right now, tentatively, for travel is that the first trip, which would be to Whitehorse and Yellowknife, would be in the first sitting week of November, which would be November 2 to 6. We can't do it any earlier than that. We tried to move it forward by one week, but that first week of November is coming up as the likely week for travel.

The Iqaluit trip, which you will recall is from Monday to Wednesday, is only a partial week, unlike the other one that is a full week. We'll be looking to see the Monday to Wednesday travel in the first week back after the Remembrance Day break, which would put us at November 16 to 18. That's tentative. We haven't locked in any travel arrangements, but the logistics officer from the clerk's office is suggesting that is the likely approach.

Unless there is anything else for the committee, I think we can adjourn. We'll see you back here on the Tuesday after the break. You will recall we're having a meeting on the action plan on child and family services at 11 o'clock the first Tuesday back. Is that okay?

Thank you very much for your attention, and have a good remainder of the day. The meeting is adjourned.