Thank you.
Thank you very much for inviting the BC Treaty Commission to come and make this presentation to you. We really appreciate this opportunity.
As was indicated, we just came from a meeting with the Senate standing committee on aboriginal affairs, so we apologize for being a little breathless getting here. Luckily, it was fairly close.
I want to start off by saying that it was two years ago, almost to the day, that we were here as the BC Treaty Commission. We appeared before the House Standing Committee on Finance's pre-budget consultations. We did that specifically to seek their support in achieving the economic stimulus effect that will result from concluding treaties in British Columbia.
We have travelled here again, two years later. We're appearing before your committee and before the Senate committee to ask again for your help to unlock the economic potential that will be the result of settling treaties in British Columbia. We are asking for your support to regain the sense of urgency—to put that back into the negotiations that are happening—because, quite frankly, we feel there is no sense of urgency left in the negotiation process after 19 years.
For modern treaty-making to succeed, Canada as a country and the federal and provincial governments, as well as first nations governments, all need to move ahead on an economic agenda. Up till now, what we basically have—particularly with Canada, with the federal government and with the Department of Indian Affairs—is a social agenda. An incredible amount of money goes into the social agenda and always has. We have very, very little—and I'm quite concerned that in fact there's going to be less—going into an economic agenda. We feel that's wrong. That just keeps us in this big, deep hole we're already in. We need to start filling up that hole to bring us back to the top. We can only do that through an economic agenda and economic stimulus in our communities.
The Government of Canada has a unique constitutional obligation to aboriginal people. Under our Constitution, aboriginal rights and treaty rights—those that exist now and those that may be acquired—are recognized and affirmed. We all know that's our starting point. The reality in Canadian law is that aboriginal land title, and the rights that go with it, exists whether or not there is a treaty, but without a treaty there is uncertainty about how and where those rights apply. That is our situation in British Columbia: the situation of uncertainty. Through treaties, the free, prior, and informed consent of first nations citizens in British Columbia is achieved. There is certainty of ownership and jurisdiction.
In September 1992, the Government of Canada, along with the Government of British Columbia and first nations governments, committed to this unique, made-in-B.C. approach, because for the rest of Canada, as you're very well aware, we have the historical treaties. We have a couple of historical treaties in British Columbia, but for the majority we have no treaties. The intent then was to form a distinct process to reconcile the aboriginal rights issues there in British Columbia, to meet the unique and specific needs of British Columbia. But given the time and money that's been spent—19 years—and at the latest count we can tell only what's gone to the first nations, we have no idea what the feds and the province have spent on this process…. In terms of the financial resources that have gone to the first nations, that is upwards of a half a billion dollars and 19 years of negotiations.
You will have received a copy of our annual report, and the cover I think says it all: when are we going to start seeing a return on that investment? In fact, we feel that the time is now. We should be seeing a return on that investment. That's a substantial investment already, and we need to start seeing a return on that.
The state of the economy, of course, is the major issue on everyone's mind, as it is on ours. Understandably, the way the world economy is now, the Government of Canada has to be very strategic in its investments.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce report, “The Business Case for Investing in Canada's Remote Communities”, makes a strong case for strategic investments in remote communities. We believe the same case can be made for first nations communities because in most instances they are both remote or rural. Also, the Canada-first nations joint action plan aims to unlock the economic potential of first nations. It's recognized that there is economic potential there. How do we unlock it?
We feel that through the treaty process we have a way of doing that in British Columbia. We feel the treaty process is an effective way to ensure economic growth. We say treaties are an untapped source of economic wealth because where a first nation benefits—just think of this in any of your ridings—and has an economic base, the whole region benefits. This is not necessarily true the other way around. That's why we have such pockets of poverty among first nations.
When a first nation benefits, when they have economic activity, the whole region in your various ridings all benefit. It makes sense for us to support an economic agenda for first nations communities.
Recently, the Government of British Columbia had its Speech from the Throne and they unveiled their plans; they continue to unveil their plans to ensure the economy remains strong in British Columbia and includes first nations people. Much of the type of development we're looking at in British Columbia is land-based. Therefore, it needs certainty. It's around mining, gas and oil, pipelines, etc.
The Government of British Columbia, quite frankly, is getting quite frustrated with the treaty process, feels that it's taking too long and is not effective, and it has started going into bilateral agreements with first nations. While we support that, and we say, good on you, keep doing that because it brings immediate economic benefit to the first nation, we are also being very careful and reminding British Columbia that whatever agreements they enter into have to tie into the treaty process for us to achieve what we're all looking for, which is long-term certainty on all sides. The bilateral agreements are good, and they're around natural resources in particular--energy, transportation--which are going to bring those short-term and immediate benefits. That's really good, but together all three parties need to re-energize this treaty process so we can all benefit from that certainty.
For the most part, the federal government has not been a party to these bilateral arrangements with British Columbia—that's why they're called bilateral—and we feel that on its side the federal government has become more involved in what are called treaty-related measures. This would be a way of providing benefits now, rather than waiting until the end. The treaty-related measures we get are usually in terms of financial resources for first nations in areas of capacity building, which is perfect. We need that, in some instances for economic development. Mainly it has gone to supporting first nations as they finalize their agreements around capacity.
As I mentioned a few minutes ago, the federal government's agenda in terms of aboriginal people has not deviated from a social agenda. I described it with the senators just a half hour ago. I said we have a culture with the federal government and the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development that is one of always helping the aboriginal people, to the point where they hold both hands, so you can't do anything because your hands are always held. We need to figure out a way to let go so we can all help each other go forward.
The Mining Association of BC talked about the treaty process last spring, and while they said that treaties are not perfect, they see that treaties are one of the best ways of providing a level of certainty on the land base and a vehicle for reconciliation with first nations, which of course is very important.
You have an agenda of reconciliation, as does British Columbia. So we say that the treaty process is really the most effective way of reaching recognition and reconciliation.
The Mining Association went on to say, though, that in its view, “the federal commitment to the BC treaty-making process has waned in recent years”.
We also come to report to you that we don't feel the commitment is there to actually finalize treaties. However, the Government of Canada has demonstrated in the past that it can move quickly on treaties—for example, Parliament's passage in 2010, just last year, of the Maa-nulth treaty. The Maa-nulth First Nations Final Agreement made its way through the House of Commons, through the Senate, and the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, and received royal assent in four days. So that's on the one hand, where we know that kind of work can be done.
On the other hand, we have the exact opposite that is also true, where the federal government has taken more than 16 months to initial a final agreement with the Sliammon First Nation—to simply initial it. This is not final signature yet.
The process, in case you're not fully aware, is that after it's negotiated, the chief negotiators shake hands around the table, they bring it back to their parties, they all agree, and they come back together with an agreement. Everybody puts their initials on it because then the first nation has to bring it into their community for a ratification vote. Once it passes that vote, it goes to the British Columbia legislature. Once it passes that vote, then it comes here to you.
Because it took 16 months—and not just the 16 months, but there was a lot of frustration before that, particularly around fish—the community has lost a lot of its trust in this. They don't know if this is such a good treaty for them after all this time. So now that it's been initialled, it still needs to go back for ratification, and the negotiators in the community need the assistance of all the parties to ensure that there is good communication, that the right message is getting out to all of their people, and in fact that the questions the people have are answered, straightforwardly, so they can make an informed decision on this.
But it makes it really tough. There was a big hoopla back in June of 2010 when they agreed to it, and we thought initialling was going to happen in two or three months. It would have been very quick, but it took 16 months to get that agreement. When we have that kind of delay, it just makes it really difficult to convince everybody that there is a real commitment to treaty-making.
Quick passage of the Yale First Nation Final Agreement by Parliament, because it's here now.... Yale has gone through its ratification, it's gone through the B.C. legislature, and it's now sitting here for you to deal with. So quick passage this fall would also help in reinstating some of that trust in this whole process.
We recognize that court decisions in the past have helped in terms of the negotiations and the agreements that are reached, but those court decisions were the result of litigation, obviously. So we've always believed that as an alternative to litigation, we support, and are very aggressive in supporting, dispute resolution at negotiating tables, whether those disputes are among the three parties—Canada, a province, and the first nations—or within the first nations themselves on overlapping claims on shared territory.
Human resource planning is also very essential to first nations governance once the first nation signs off on a treaty and gets into the enactment, past the effective date—as we've had with the Tsawwassen First Nation and with the Maa-nulth First Nation.
We're wanting to learn from those examples. We have the support of Chief Kim Baird, from Tsawwassen, who is sharing her experience so that we can assist first nations that are ready to take over and be self-governing once they reach the effective date. Human resource planning is a major part of our agenda, and we are doing some very progressive and very active work in that area. If you're interested, we can talk more about it later.
There are really two initiatives we have as a treaty commission where it refers to first nations, and those are, specifically, assisting first nations with their overlapping claims on shared territory and helping them with human resource planning.
What we're asking you to consider and to support us in, and again, it underscores the reason we need to finalize these treaties, is for the economic benefit of all of us. We're requesting some very specific actions, some very specific recommendations. They are in the area of a recommitment from all parties. We feel, as a commission, that the Prime Minister, the premier, and the first nations leadership need to be engaged, in a public way, to a recommitment so that the message gets out to all Canadians that there is a commitment to this B.C. treaty process. What does that recommitment mean? Specifically we're talking about actions and making recommendations to overcome the bureaucratic inertia.
When I started in this position as chief commissioner two and half years ago, it became clear to me very quickly that what had happened over the 17 years was that we had gone from quite a dynamic process to a process that really was no longer about negotiations; it was really just part of an Indian Affairs program. And it was being dealt with as a program. We weren't looking at real negotiations. We weren't looking at ways of dealing with uncertainty by reaching a negotiated settlement.
The bureaucratic inertia is also caused by the lengthy delays when federal negotiators have to come back to Ottawa to get everything kind of cleared through. We feel that the negotiators need to have real authority and flexibility to complete treaties. Basically what we're saying is that we need some deal closers. We need people who know how to make deals and close them for everyone's benefit.
We're also saying that we need a commitment to transparency. We need to have on the table, much earlier than they have been, land and cash offers, because the heart of a treaty is the land and cash offer. All the other stuff is important too, yes, but it's that land and cash offer. We need to have that land and cash offer made sooner, instead of wasting years and years while first nations build up debt in the millions of dollars so that people can sit around a table like this for months on end moving commas. That's basically what they do. They move commas as opposed to dealing with substantive matters. Let's have those mandates to deal with substantive matters.
We need to give the federal negotiators real mandates to negotiate. This is the situation right now. We're not having any negotiations going on because every table is affected by national reviews. These are just the ones we're aware of right in front, and there are probably half a dozen more. There are a series of multi-year, pan-Canadian federal reviews ongoing at any one time. Right now, the comprehensive claims review is going on. We have the fiscal harmonization review. We have the Cohen commission and the west coast fisheries review. When I started two and half years ago, we were right in the middle of the west coast fisheries review. I understood that the review had kind of followed on the heels of the Pearse review on fisheries.
In the middle of the west coast fisheries review we started with the Cohen review. We don't really know what happened to the west coast fisheries review. Are they going to bring that back out of a drawer sometime and continue it after Cohen?
We're also told that we will have a better sense of what the negotiating position is going to be on fish once we finish the Cohen review, which is scheduled to finish in 2014. But we find that difficult to really accept because what it's going to take is two or three years to figure out what Cohen says and how you deal with it.
So we could be, I don't know, seven years without a fisheries mandate, and all that time first nations will be building debt because they're supposed to be in negotiations. You get my drift.
We also have the national capacity program review, and a very big one that is going to affect us is that in 2014 there is the expiration of the current five-year federal budget for Canada's participation in the B.C. treaty process. So we have all this work right now to get us to 2014. All of this work goes on, and it makes it very difficult to actually have negotiations at the table.
What we're saying is that we need to have a public recommitment, a recommitment that sends a message throughout all of our systems that says settling treaties is a way of reaching certainty, settling treaties is the right thing to do, and most importantly it's a way of generating the economic benefits that we can see coming out of settling these treaties.
So we're asking that you help us to revive the spirit and the meaning of the made-in-B.C. treaty process by supporting a public recommitment at the 20th anniversary of the B.C. treaty process. Next year, in September 2012, it will have been 20 years since we signed on to this process. At the time--and I was part of the original signatory--we all figured we were going to be finished with this business by the year 2000.
Thank you very much.
