Evidence of meeting #29 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was process.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
You're certainly a model for all of northern Ontario.
I thank you for your time today.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Rickford.
Ms. Bennett, we'll turn to you for seven minutes.
March 13th, 2012 / 4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your perfect brief and for doing our work for us by actually having the recommendations. That's always very helpful.
In our trying to write a report, I think it's helpful for you to describe what you can do now that you couldn't do under the Indian Act, or how you've been able to move forward more quickly as the model that you are now.
4:50 p.m.
Chief, Nipissing First Nation
Certainly under land management we're able to expedite.... When we grant for residential purposes, we can do that within a day or two, whereas before, with Indian Affairs, it would take us a year or two to finally get that approval.
We're able to now.... What am I trying to say? There was so much bureaucracy tied into lands and lands management, so we can do transactions much quicker. We can set leases on our own. We don't need the approval of Indian Affairs, or Aboriginal Affairs, as it's now called, to enter into those agreements.
Because we're in such a strong financial situation.... We have a very good economic situation, so we're able to go out and borrow money to develop on our leased lands. Our members are now able to get mortgages from a local bank so they can build their houses to the standard they want. The trick to that is that we guarantee those leases, and if they default—and we try to work with our membership—we take that house back, and the land, and then we will try to sell it to our membership, and whatever profit is gained we will give back to the mortgage holder.
It's only because we control those and we guarantee those loans. That would not have been afforded us under Indian Affairs.
We have a good housing market on Nipissing First Nation. Some of the houses are selling for $300,000. That was unheard of in the days when Indian Affairs looked after our affairs.
Does that...?
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
I think that's good.
In the funding formula you were describing, in terms of the actual distances, it's quite clear that one size doesn't fit all. I remember even during H1N1, whether it's Georgina Island or Christian Island...they are not really remote, but because you have to get to them by water, there are serious challenges.
You're saying that some of the funding formulas need to be developed bottom up, based on the actual costs to operate a perimeter of a lake or unique situations, as you mention in your first recommendation.
How would you do that?
4:55 p.m.
Chief, Nipissing First Nation
What needs to be taken into account is the amount of fuel we expend just getting to and from our communities, depreciation on our equipment, opportunities to replace that equipment, and just adding in a distance factor, because our communities are distant. That's why I referred to a northern factor, because when you look at some of our northern communities, you see they have this northern factor that's built in that recognizes that it costs more to get materials up to the communities, and the cost of fuel is much higher up there.
Come and talk to our public works manager and he will tell you how much it really costs us to operate our public works department.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
So you're concerned that the amount that's been in budgets in the past for land management is now being spread over all of the new entries, and you're hoping there will be some new money for this in the upcoming budget, now that the Prime Minister has made a specific announcement?
4:55 p.m.
Chief, Nipissing First Nation
Yes. Definitely, there has to be more money. We're borrowing from Peter to pay Paul within our administration. We know we need those extra positions.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
Thank you, Ms. Bennett.
We'll turn to Mr. Clarke for seven minutes.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rob Clarke Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Chief, for coming in today. I apologize for the votes that are taking place and interrupting our committee meeting here today.
Chief, just to get a little clarification, just to elaborate further on what my colleague, Ms. Duncan, mentioned, I'd like to get more intricate details in regard to the land management framework that's taking place in your first nations community. What are the inner workings here?
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rob Clarke Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
Explain how it works; break it down even further if you can.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rob Clarke Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
The regulations, the bylaws, what's taking place....
4:55 p.m.
Chief, Nipissing First Nation
Okay, yes.
Since we've taken over land management, we do, through a process, develop bylaws, and those bylaws are put out for public consultation. For instance, we have bylaws for grants of entitlement. We have an ATV, all terrain vehicle, bylaw; we don't want our swamps and those special areas destroyed. We have a business licensing bylaw. We now have a matrimonial property law. We have a land law consultation and enactment process. We're moving towards, as I said, developing capacity in our geographical information system and data management. We are working on a zoning bylaw because our community members don't want a construction outfit developing their neighbourhood; they say residential should be residential and business should be business. We are working on an archaeological management plan and also our environmental plan.
When we develop bylaws, there is always that opportunity for community and membership input, and we take those concerns, if those are raised.... We operate through a committee structure, we have a lands and bylaw committee, and they will review any comments that come back to them. Then that comes to first reading at our council table. Most of our bylaws go through three readings. We advertise these bylaws on the web—we have our own web page—and we use a community newsletter. We also use special community mailouts between newsletter publications. If somebody wants to develop a business, it is put to the membership that we are entertaining the possibility of approving a business permit for this land, for this use. We say to our membership, if you have any concerns or questions, please contact the land office or members of the land and bylaw committee.
Does that help explain it?
5 p.m.
Conservative
Rob Clarke Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
It helps quite a bit.
You mentioned the matrimonial. You talked about home ownership—you touched on that—and you also touched on matrimonial. Can you explain the process that you went through and the challenges you may have faced with introducing matrimonial property?
5 p.m.
Chief, Nipissing First Nation
There weren't a lot of challenges.
Yes, there was a big concern from those band members who married non-first nations people, but our law says that the house belongs to the children. So whoever is going to raise those children has the right to occupy that house and that property. If they're non-native, if they're non-band members, they don't have the right to sell the house out from under the children. The children have the right to that house and that property. That's how that works.
It was a fairly smooth process.
That's how we handle family breakup. We try to keep our membership home.
By the way, we're also developing our own constitution that sets out who we are and how we're going to govern ourselves.
5 p.m.
Conservative
5 p.m.
NDP
Jonathan Genest-Jourdain NDP Manicouagan, QC
I will share my time with my colleague Mr. Gravelle.
[Member speaks in his native language.]
[Translation]
Since I will share my speaking time with my colleague, my question will mainly be about the Nova Beaucage project, which appears in the documents and which you referred to.
I have a fairly brief question. Before the ratification of the Framework Agreement on First Nation Land Management and your inclusion in the process regarding the First Nation Land Management Act, were you aware of the environmental liabilities related to the uranium project on the territory?
5:05 p.m.
Chief, Nipissing First Nation
No, we weren't.
Besides the federal contaminated site, the Ontario government also has a contaminated site on our first nation land. Ontario is in the process of trying to ascertain how big their site is and how they're going to approach it. The federal government—and we've been working with a number of different researchers—is now telling us they need to find the budget to clean up the site. So the federal government is further ahead than the Ontario government in the cleanup of contaminated sites.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Jonathan Genest-Jourdain NDP Manicouagan, QC
When the Framework Agreement on First Nation Land Management was ratified, and as you were participating in the First Nations Land Management Act process, you realized you would have to take on the liability when you became a signatory to the agreement and thus became responsible for the management of those lands.
5:05 p.m.
Chief, Nipissing First Nation
I wouldn't say that's true. We became aware of the contaminated sites through the process, and we understood that the governments would work with us to clean up these sites.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Jonathan Genest-Jourdain NDP Manicouagan, QC
Still with regard to the Nova Beaucage project, was there an effect on the water table, on the water source? You talked about the Nipissing River—nepi. I understand that generations of your people have lived off that land. Have there been any repercussions on waterways since the 1930s, including the presence of radon in the water, or contamination of the water table, as far as you know?
5:05 p.m.
Chief, Nipissing First Nation
As far as I know, there has not yet been. I have some concerns about that community, primarily with the land. It's not that people drink or draw water from Lake Nipissing. We do have more children who require extensive special education services. I'm wondering if this is because the families have travelled back and forth on the road that fronts this contaminated site.
There is a whole exercise of trying to determine how far and wide that goes. Some of those tailings were actually used on the road in that area, because people didn't know that it was contaminated. Where we found that residential units were impacted, we did things like replace septic systems.