Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 23rd, 2013

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I think we should assure the members that we will read them too. There was a bit of a misunderstanding in that I think for a round table we had expected there would be two hours, and it's hard to have this many confined to one hour.

We'll do our best to make sure that your voices are heard.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

We'll begin by going around the table. I'll begin with myself. My name is Chris Warkentin. I'm the chair of the committee, and it's my privilege to have you here. It's good to have some folks from Alberta as well. We welcome each and every one of you here and thank you for coming.

I'll begin with Jean. We'll go around the table, including our guests. We'll have you introduce yourselves as we go around the table.

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

I'm Jean Crowder, member of Parliament for Nanaimo—Cowichan and aboriginal affairs critic for the NDP.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Jonathan, did you want to introduce yourself?

[Jonathan Genest-Jourdain, NDP, Manicouagan, QC]

I am Jonathan Genest-Jourdain, associate critic for aboriginal issues.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I am Romeo Saganash, MP for northern Quebec.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I am Carol Hughes, member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing in northern Ontario and deputy critic for aboriginal health.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I am Carolyn Bennett, member of Parliament for St. Paul's in Toronto and the critic for aboriginal and northern affairs for the Liberal Party.

[Chief Calvin Sanderson, Chakastaypasin Band of the Cree Nation]

I am Chief Calvin Sanderson. I represent the Chakastaypasin Band of the Cree Nation, underneath the umbrella of the James Smith Cree Nation.

Thank you.

[Chief Roland Twinn, Chief, Sawridge First Nation]

I am Chief Roland Twinn, chief of the Sawridge First Nation. I'm also grand chief of the Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta.

[Michael McKinney, Executive Director, Sawridge First Nation]

I'm Michael McKinney, executive directive and general counsel with the Sawridge First Nation.

[Grand Chief Craig Makinaw, Grand Chief, Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations]

I am Craig Makinaw, chief of Ermineskin and grand chief of the Confederacy of Treaty 6.

[Sharon Venne, Treaty Researcher, As an Individual]

I am Sharon Venne. I'm with Chief Craig Makinaw.

[Phyllis Sutherland, President, Peguis Accountability Coalition]

I am Phyllis Sutherland from the Peguis Accountability Coalition.

[Barry Ahenakew, Former Chief, Ahtahkakoop First Nation]

Askitakwa sini. I am Barry Ahenakew, chief of the Ahtahkakoop.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

I am Greg Kerr, member for West Nova, Nova Scotia.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Good morning. I'm Brent Rathgeber, member of Parliament for Edmonton—St. Albert.

Welcome.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

I am Stella Ambler, member of Parliament for Mississauga South, and also chair of the special committee on missing and murdered aboriginal women.

Welcome.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Good morning. I'm Ray Boughen, MP for Palliser, which is in south central Saskatchewan.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I'm Rob Clarke, member of Parliament for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, which is in northern Saskatchewan.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I'm Greg Rickford, member of Parliament for Kenora.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

Our staff have joined us as well. We have Tonina and Norah, who are our analysts, and we have our clerk, Jean-Marie, who many of you will have been in touch with as we have worked to accommodate as many witnesses as we could today.

We appreciate that you've come from different locations to be with us today. Obviously your voices are very important to any issue, but specifically to this issue. When we're talking about the Indian Act, it's your communities that will be affected by any changes to this act.

I think we've heard agreement across this country, and across political lines, that the Indian Act is a relic of the past and something that needs to be replaced. Obviously there are different opinions across the country as to how that should be undertaken. Bill C-428 is one attempt to undertake that. We have heard from folks who have come with different perspectives as it relates to this bill as well.

We are interested in hearing your feedback. Obviously you've had an opportunity not only to read this bill, but you've also had the experience of living under the Indian Act and knowing how these changes might affect you.

We want to get right into it and hear from you with regard to it.

Obviously there are a number of provisions within this act. Specifically, I think those of you who heard the earlier submissions by the bar association will have heard that there are different components. I don't want to assume that you'll have a perspective that would be similar to the bar association or other witnesses.

However, it would seem that there are the less controversial provisions as they relate to a number of things, such as the sale or barter of produce, the departmental employees being prohibited from trading with first nations folks without a licence, and a number of provisions as they relate to truancy and the residential schools generally.

I thought we would begin with your reflections on those provisions, and then we'll get in to the issues surrounding bylaws and wills and estates further on.

I would like to turn it over to folks who might want to jump in right away. If you have a perspective as it relates to specifically the sale and barter of produce, or the ways that this is being contemplated, or the renewal of these provisions within this act, we'd like to hear the general discussion on those. If you want to go elsewhere, we're fine with that. We thought that would be a way that we could begin the discussion this morning.

Barry, we'll hear from you to begin with.

[Barry Ahenakew]

Iyiniw pikiskwewin ki wi pikikwatinawaw.

I was a chief for 20 years. I haven't been chief for awhile now, but once a chief always a chief to people, I guess.

I'm from Saskatchewan. During the time of treaties, Chief Ahtahkakoop was a major chief in Treaty 6. There were two major chiefs: Mistawasis and Ahtahkakoop. All the other chiefs were subchiefs. They were the lords of the plains and that's where I step from, that crew of chiefs.

When they signed treaties it was nation to nation. They stopped the telegraph line from coming through the Saskatoon area because a treaty had to be made, nation to nation. In 1876 the government people came out there and they made a treaty at Fort Carlton. It took about seven or eight days to make the treaty. Our people had our ceremonies.

To move ahead, many of the people left. They didn't want to believe in the chiefs who were making a treaty, a transition to a new way of life. Some subchiefs and followers left. They stood up and maintained an equilibrium, balance, and they made a treaty.

The treaty is the base that we have to work from—the government as a nation and our people as a nation. The Indian Act was a unilateral thing that was brought in by government, supposedly to protect my people, our people. It has done a bit of that job, but at the same time the government got carried away here and there, and abused or took advantage of certain things to hold our people down, to suppress our people. That's not the way things should be.

What you're doing today—I congratulate the MP, Mr. Clarke, and I congratulate all of you sitting here, to be sitting here for the best intentions of our people no matter where they be, from the east coast to the west coast. Things are going to be looked at legislatively by our people, our leaders. Our leaders are picked to represent our people, like Chief Ahtahkakoop and Chief Mistawasis in their day. Our people today, our leaders, still have to be recognized in that fashion. I'm glad to see the Chief of the James Smith Cree Nation here because they have to be recognized for the input they have to the changes that need to be made.

I think you should leave the student residence clause in there but reverse it. It would be all Plains Cree in Saskatchewan for those doing the residence. Nothing but Cree to be spoken. If you speak English, I'll bat you over the head. That's what happened to our people.

Four generations, now people don't speak Cree. I never went to school in residence. My grandfather and grandmother brought me up and they held me back from student residence. As a result, today I can speak Cree fluently. I know our history from the beginning of time to today. It's an unwritten history, the travels of our people—Lake Ontario, Kici Sakahikan; Lake Huron, Onatowew Kami; Lake Michigan, Misi Kami; Lake Superior, Kitci Kamis—kayas ochi, all our history, the history of our ceremonies.

We have a history, but it's been taken away by student residence. It's good to take that away and it's good that settlements have been made. But what needs to be made is legislation now to put moneys into our language and our culture for our people.

I was reading in the paper that there were 15 or so suicides in some reserve in Ontario. That's because those young people do not know their history, their language, or their culture. That's what it has done to us, generation to generation to generation. I brought my children up Cree, and I'm going to bring my grandchildren up Cree. No matter what takes place, they're going to speak their language. They're going to speak Cree.

My point is that you have to work with our leaders. There has to be money put in to make up legislation through the Indian Act. The Nisga'a, under the Nisga'a agreement, work through a grant system, thanks to you. You've made an agreement with the Nisga'a, but what do all the rest of us work with? We work with a contribution agreement. If the province is involved, it's out of a fiduciary system—a fiduciary system from the federal government and representing the federal government. It does not off-load everything to the province so that they make a decision on their own. No, our treaties were made with the federal government—the Queen, the crown—and our chiefs stood firm. They kept the peace.

My son was in Afghanistan fighting for Canada, fighting for all of you and me, right at the front. My father fought in the Korean War in the air force. My grandfather fought in the First World War—he was too young, but he still did it. He was there in the Second World War too.

So we stand up for Canada, but at the same time we need respect and recognition from the government.

Thank you for listening to me. I won't take up too much time.

Hai hai.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

We'll continue. I appreciate your beginning this discussion. This is what is important: that we as parliamentarians hear from leaders.

I'll turn to a grand chief, and then we'll go over to a regional chief.

[Chief Calvin Sanderson]

Thank you.

I, too, come here with many concerns and issues with the Indian Act. Back home we have what we call landowners, and yet we have a lot of obstacles. The department, the regional and the district office, are telling us that we have to take these lands back. This is an issue that was brought up back in 1955, when the district office told us that we can give these landholders land for them to prosper and profit from.

The other issue is with the wills and the estates that we have. When we lose a loved one, there are disputes, but we handle them at the band level. When people go through the process at the district and regional office, they have to wait for close to one year to get an application process through in order to try to get their grievances out of the way, yet they run into a lot of red tape through the system. This is one of the reasons we do it on our own, but it's not well respected for the chief and councils to try to settle these wills internally without any federal bureaucrats coming in to tell us what to do.

We've been doing this for some time, and yet when people pass away in our communities, they're still on the band list. They're not excluded from the band list. They're still on the band list when they pass away. A lot of these things are going on.

We pass a lot of bylaws, but they are scrutinized at the federal level too, because these are not bylaws that they accept from a first nation. When I heard that first nations are not allowed to pass bylaws....

We're under the band custom back home, whereby we have our own band elections, not elections under the Indian Act. Our people drafted their own election codes. They weren't drafted by an Indian Act process. We respect these band custom elections, because they are under our laws, which we wrote. These are respected at the regional level and at the district level and also at the federal level. They are recognized by our band membership, who pass these things at band assemblies. What our band members speak, when we pass things, goes through them, not through the chief and councils creating any of these bylaws.

So you can see that there a lot of issues that we inherit back at home as chiefs of a first nation. Yet we go through obstacles in making these changes.

I have to give Rob Clarke a pat on the back for making these changes, because back at home we are looking at a hydro project from which we can benefit in the long term. But some of these designations of the lands are a hurdle to our first nations, because we have to go through this process now in trying to benefit our people through this project. If it ever does go, then that's the wealth of our first nations back home.

Yet this Indian Act holds us back. I as a chief represent 1,050 from Chakastaypasin First Nation. It affects us on our land claims too. There are a lot of issues that affect us in this Indian Act, that tie us down.

Our elder here, Barry Ahenakew, mentioned the recipients' agreements that we signed. There are sections in these that define a band. If you're a band, you're a band. There are a lot of things in these agreements involving accountability and transparency that we have to endure for our funding, from monthly reports right down to auditing and consolidating the audits. These things are hurdles to our first nations people at home when we try to do business and our staff are not funded properly, because all the programs are at a standstill. These things and the Indian Act affect us back at home as a whole.

From a treaty perspective, I've always said that if the treaties were honoured and if the Indian Act were maybe abolished, we wouldn't be in this situation today.

You know, some first nations do abide by and work by the Indian Act, but it does have hurdles and it does have infringements on how to conduct business and how to prosper in the modern world today. A lot of these articles and sections are obstacles for us back at home.

I'm pleased that I am here today with my colleagues from east to west, and I guess from north and south. A lot of first nations back at home would like to see a lot of improvements in this Indian Act.

I have lots to say, but I'd like to let my other colleagues around the table here say something. I know we are limited to at least an hour here.

Thank you. If there are other questions, I will answer them as much as I can.