Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members.
We appreciate the opportunity of coming back to the committee. We find these are very useful in making us focus very clearly on what's important and what you need to hear, and on what's not so important and can be left to be read. It's also very good because it focuses the attention of other policy-makers in government that we deal with on some critical issues.
Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I'll concentrate on some of the highlights from the chairman's remarks in the report. I'll elaborate on a couple of those that need some elaboration. My colleagues will deal with an executive summary of our other findings and recommendations.
First of all, it's approaching two years since we were before the committee, and during that time there's been some good news, rather than problems. There have been problems too, but there's been some good news and I'd like to report on that first. As you know, there were some amendments to the Cree-Naskapi (of Quebec) Act immediately following our last presentation here. We know that members did a lot to expedite those and move them forward. We very much appreciate that sort of progress and focus.
Since then, there have been two additional agreements made between the Cree and Naskapi nations and others. One is the Eeyou Marine Region Land Claims Agreement. Under that agreement between the Cree of Eeyou Istchee and the Government of Canada, the islands offshore and inshore along the eastern coast of James Bay and Hudson Bay, which were not included in the original James Bay agreement because they weren't in Quebec—they're technically in Nunavut—are traditional Cree territory. We're happy to see that there's an agreement in which those islands, for the most part, are now within Cree jurisdiction. That's an excellent development. They're still within Nunavut, but they're now essentially part of the Cree governance in Eeyou Istchee. That's a very positive development.
On the part of the Naskapi nation, a new Naskapi–Quebec partnership agreement deals with some community development issues and some economic development issues between the province and the Naskapi of Kawawachikamach. That's another good development.
So there's been progress in negotiations and successful conclusion of negotiations in those two areas.
The amendments to the act, which were passed by Parliament shortly after our last meeting, include the full recognition of the Crees of Oujé-Bougoumou as a Cree band within the meaning of both the Cree-Naskapi Act and the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. That had been outstanding for more than 20 years, and it's good to see that concluded.
One work in progress is the recognition of the final group of Crees, who are not included in either way—the Washaw Sibi Eeyou Cree. They are currently moving forward on becoming recognized as the final Cree band in Eeyou Istchee, and we look forward to having some good news on that to report, hopefully soon.
Some problems continue to exist in housing, and I think this committee is very familiar with the problems manifested across the country. On-reserve housing continues to be a problem. It continues to be a problem for the Cree. We have highlighted what we think are some reasons for that. Part of it is in fact the success of the Cree. Young people in the Cree communities have a 95% retention rate. That's unheard of in first nations across the country. Young people stay in the communities or return to them, form families, and consequently the demand for housing is very high.
The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development uses a formula that's based on regions. The housing formula, and the money available under that formula, is determined region by region.
It's certainly true that housing conditions in the Alberta region are different from those in the maritime region. That's fair enough. We argue that within Quebec a regional formula that encompasses all of Quebec is inappropriate given the very high level of family formation and retention of young people in the Cree communities. That needs to be looked at. They ought to be looking at demographics specific to the Crees.
Problems continue in a number of other areas. There are needs for further amendments to the Cree-Naskapi Act to deal with local government issues. There's the problem of quorums. We've mentioned it before at this committee. The act requires fairly high-level quorums to approve things as simple as a transfer of land from a Cree community to, say, the Cree school board. Now, that's not the kind of issue where you're going to get a huge turnout of voters. Some of those quorums need to be looked at again.
Those issues are being moved forward by the Grand Council of the Crees, Eeyou Istchee, in terms of their further discussions with the Government of Canada on Cree governance. So that will move forward.
A couple of other developments are probably of interest. The Cree have long had a traditional Eeyou hunting law that covered a lot more than hunting. It was a traditional and customary law for the management of Cree resources. A tallyman played a key role. Stewardship of the land, for example, was a major concern of that.
My colleague Philip Awashish has now completed developing, on behalf of the Cree, the traditional Eeyou hunting law document, which I think is a major development.
There's one other thing I would mention. We as a commission have begun to understand some of the issues around administrative law and its interface with aboriginal and treaty rights and the newly evolving law coming from the courts and elsewhere relating to aboriginal and treaty rights.
The body of administrative law that's been developed in this country is very effective. It's based on English law concepts. It's based to some extent on European concepts of natural justice. It works pretty well for such things as the Immigration and Refugee Board, the Ontario Municipal Board, and the Ottawa taxi commission. There are some good principles there, and they work reasonably well. Some of them, which are regarded as fairly basic among those commissions and boards, don't work particularly well for aboriginal communities.
When we began in 1986, we were the only aboriginal commission, tribunal, or board of our sort legislatively based in Canada. Now there are about 50. So the issue of the need to reconcile administrative law as it's generally understood around Canada with aboriginal and treaty rights is becoming important. We've been doing some work with colleague organizations around the country about that. Our mandate clearly does not extend to doing very much outside of our territory. We've been in discussions with AFN about picking up the ball on that issue and doing some of the moving forward on that. We'll have further discussions with them.
We found there's an interest in this across the country in other aboriginal boards, tribunals, commissions--particularly, obviously, those that have some administrative law responsibility. We expect to be able to report back at some point in the near future on some progress in that area.
I'll just give you a very quick example of the areas where that doesn't work too well. It's a normal principle of administrative law that if I appear before a board that's adjudicating my rights or dealing with an application I've made or something of that sort, I don't expect to see sitting on the board the opposing party's mother-in-law. That's a basic principle. It works quite well. It's a shortcut to getting fairness at least in terms of not being a judge in one's own case, or in the case of one's relatives or friends.
However, if you look at this commission and the folks appearing before us, the chances that neither Philip nor Robert nor I will know them fairly well are remote. You're looking at 15,000 people; chances are we know most of the leadership, and we know a lot of people who aren't leaders. When a group appears before us, chances are we'll know some of them. One of my colleagues could possibly be related to them.
When you look at administrative law bodies in smaller communities of several hundred or a couple of thousand, the chances go up that somebody's related to somebody, or they had an old business relationship, or they went to school together, or they had an affair 20 years ago, or whatever. There's frequently some connection. So you have to find other ways of getting to fairness than by saying that nobody related to you can be on a board. It involves greater transparency about reasons for decision-making, very likely, greater transparency about the process that goes on within the board or commission, and greater availability to the parties of all--and I mean all--the relevant information.
There may be other approaches. Another example would be the consensus model. We've made hundreds of decisions on this commission, for example, over the years, and only once did we ever actually have a two-to-one vote. We don't have votes normally. We all agree, and that's how it works. It takes a bit of discussion, but that's how it works. That one decision, by the way, was on an internal administrative matter of very little importance.
