Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 10th, 2011

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

Mr. Wedge, that's a fairly fundamental starting place: if there is such a difference in approach--delegated versus legislated--it's very difficult to see how common ground would be reached. It sounds to me as though people need to get back to basics.

My time is probably very close to being up, but I was interested in a comment you made about comparable services. Did I understand you to say that Yukon and your government have agreed on what comparable services would look like?

[Chief Mark Wedge]

Yes. Under the programs and services transfer agreements, which are the agreements that would transfer the resources that would be required to bring our law to life and to implement our law, we've looked at all of our Carcross/Tagish First Nation children in care with the Yukon government. We've looked at the services they're providing. The agreement says that Canada would provide a programs and services transfer agreement with comparable services. That means the same services and the same resources they're providing to the Yukon government would be provided to Carcross/Tagish First Nation.

We have worked with the Yukon government. The Yukon government and Carcross/Tagish First Nation have said what the comparable services are. We've sent that to Canada. Unfortunately, the Minister of Finance wrote back saying that it's not the approach they want to take at this point in time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Crowder, and thank you, Chief.

We're going to move on to the final question for this round.

I will remind members that if they want to address Chief Wedge, it's a bit of a different orientation, but we can address him directly through the camera at the back of the room.

Let's go to Mr. Rickford for five minutes.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Chief Wedge. I understand it's quite early in the morning for you, and you would have had to travel to be where you are, so thank you for being there today.

I can appreciate and understand some of the frustrations of the nation with respect to some difficult jurisdictional issues. I'm not going to attempt to be an expositor for those things today. What I would rather do is gather a bit of information because, unfortunately, I don't know that we got a chance to look at the statutes of your government. We have a copy here, but I didn't get a chance to appreciate it in a manner that I might have liked in order to talk to you.

I'm going to ask some informational questions. To be clear, who provides the child and family services in your community?

[Chief Mark Wedge]

Currently our first nation is involved with it, but we have no legislative authority. The legislative authority really falls under the laws of general application to the Yukon government, so any of the judicial and legal work is really through the Yukon government. They have the legal grounds for intervention, so they would override any of the work we do in our community.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

When you say “involved”, to what extent do you have an impact on any intervention or prevention, which is a model that obviously the federal government's looking at more aggressively with off-reserve and on-reserve models? What's your assessment of how you can or do impact that?

[Chief Mark Wedge]

Let me start with two examples.

One example occurred when a nurse was attending a family with a newborn. The father was very tired, and the nurse and the father didn't get along too well, so the nurse reported the father to child services. The child services of the Yukon government went to the hospital and began to inquire in terms of looking at the care of the child.

Our staff became very concerned. I was informed that child services was considering taking the child from the hospital, so we began to intervene. We had to go to a political area, because the law said if that child's family worker wanted to take the child, it would have occurred. That just recently occurred with Kwanlin Dün.

In a second instance--

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Excuse me for a second, Chief; I've only got five minutes and I have a couple more questions I want to get to. I may not need the other example to get at the answer here.

Do you currently have some sort of handbook or manual, if you will, that's been developed by the nation for sensitivity purposes that the agency has to be aware of or sensitive to or respect in any interventions that occur?

[Chief Mark Wedge]

That's correct. It's part of our law. We've begun to use some policies and procedures and we try to follow a lot of them to make sure they fit with the Yukon government. There's a coordination there. We do have those policies.

However, one of the things we look at--

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

So the workers themselves use it.

I've appreciated today that you've talked a lot about the constitutions and law. I'm a lawyer, but I'm not always sure that translates into effective intervention. I'm just wondering whether some of the things in your statutes, the ones I read very briefly, are not so much about law but about the quality of your community's traditions to be involved in any given situation.

[Chief Mark Wedge]

In section 6, which we referred to, is where it gets into the procedures. Within the procedures we have a family council that acts as the judiciary, if you wish. It reviews the situation with the family so that those processes take place. The families are drawn into it through our family council, which is really the adjudication process.

We start with the soft and then lead toward the harder adjudication, working with the existing law. That's how we move from traditional governance in those policies and practices to contemporary legislation.

The policies are there. The family council gives direction--

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

How many kids are we talking about in care in your communities?

[Chief Mark Wedge]

How many are in care? Right now, when you say “in care”, some of them are in the welfare system. That means they have foster parents. We have about two or three in foster situations. We have another two or three for whom the Yukon government is looking for permanent custody in adopting out. Those are the kinds of numbers we're beginning to look at. It might sound small, but it's big for us.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Yes. Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Rickford and Chief Wedge.

We have a little over 20 minutes left in this hour to address ourselves to the question of specific claims. Members were circulated a very good brief on this in advance of the meeting.

Chief, if it's okay with you, I would like to start right into questions on this issue. You did touch on some of those issues in your opening comments and if members are in agreement, I think we'll proceed in that fashion. That will give each member at least five minutes to get a question in on the specific claims issue. We note that the Carcross/Tagish First Nation has three in that process at the moment.

If that's okay, I think we'll proceed.

We'll lead off with Mr. Bagnell for five minutes.

Thank you, Chief.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mark.

Now we're studying specific claims, particularly claims that are over $150 million.

As you know, there are two processes. The claims that are under that number now go to the new tribunal, while the ones that are over don't. Without getting into the details of your specific claim, can you tell us the experience you've had with specific claims, and, once more, if you have any recommendations?

By the way, you said you were putting in a submission on family and child services. When you put that in to us, could you make sure you put in the recommendations that you would like this committee to make related to the federal government?

Now, could you tell us about any problems or good aspects related to the specific claims process, especially for claims over $150 million, and give us recommendations on how we could improve that specific claims process?

[Chief Mark Wedge]

As you know, we don't have a specific claim over $150 million. Our three specific claims are under $150 million.

It's been a very slow process. We appreciate that Canada is going through and looking at a more appropriate or more efficient way to deal with the claims; however, they have been outstanding since our effective date, and we started this prior to that. Our effective date is now five years.

Just recently we did get some responses in relation to looking at whether it qualifies or not. Oftentimes we don't feel there's interaction. Different agencies begin to start looking at whether it qualifies or not, and this leaves us in a dark area. I don't know if that answer addresses some of that.

One of our concerns is that I don't feel we're well enough informed as to what's happening with it and what the thinking is around it. Oftentimes in a court process you begin to have the pros and cons and you have dialogue, and it goes to court. On the specific claims so far, we've had very little dialogue and very little input in terms of what's happening. As I say, I appreciate that it's a process Canada has been implementing; however, it's been long and it's been slow.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Before the new process came into effect, I assume it was long and slow and wasn't very effective, which is one of the reasons the new process is in effect. Now this independent tribunal is available to you. What you're saying is that the department is slow in making the decisions as to whether or not they're going to negotiate, meaning whether or not you can then go to the tribunal. They have to make that decision first—within three years—but then you could go directly to the tribunal.

Do you at least think the objective tribunal would offer you some more hope than the process that hasn't been working?

[Chief Mark Wedge]

We recently got our effective date, but I know a number of the other first nations have outstanding claims, and it's been very long now. I understand that the court process was also very long because of the number of them. I think we've held out a lot of hope that the new tribunal would act quicker and more efficiently. Unfortunately, “quicker and more efficiently” doesn't mean not hearing them. If the response back is that they're not sure of where the specific claim falls or how it falls, that's where that dialogue becomes important in terms of where they're at.

I apologize for not answering your question more clearly.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Perhaps one of your recommendations is that the specific claims process should have more resources, more officials, and more people, so that they can work with these claims and work faster with you and other people, as well as explain where they're at in order to expedite the process.

[Chief Mark Wedge]

That's correct. That's the intent of it, but the difficulty is that the expediting is to say, “No, we don't want to take this into account, or these claims. We'll drop them off the table without giving them due process”. That's not quicker and more efficient for us.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Maybe the criteria for going to the specific claims tribunal are too narrow.

[Chief Mark Wedge]

I believe so, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Mr. Asselin, any questions or comments?

[Gérard Asselin, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

I have to say that I was late because of transportation problems. As I do not normally work on this file, I am not very familiar with the subject. Unfortunately, Mr. Lévesque who normally sits on the committee was not able to attend. I will therefore let my colleagues use my time since they have a better knowledge of these issues and regularly work on this committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.