Evidence of meeting #24 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was youth.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome to the commissioners. We're glad you could take some of your day and spend it with us. We appreciate your commitment to the project.
Commissioner Saunders, you talked about youth and the necessity to work with the youth, give them some options, some alternative ways of working on the reserve, off the reserve. Can you expand on that a little for us, be a little more specific maybe?
Chairman, Cree-Naskapi Commission
I think there are quite a few dimensions to that. One is, first of all, that the youth retention rate in the Cree communities is way higher than it is for most first nations across Canada.
Across Canada, as you know, there's an outflow of a lot of young people into non-native communities, into the cities, and so forth. Sometimes that's a positive experience and sometimes not so much.
There's a 95% retention rate in the Cree communities, and that has a couple of impacts. One impact is that young families are being formed and so the demand for housing is higher than it is in a lot of other communities that are otherwise comparable, just because of that retention rate. So you have a very good thing happening on one hand, the retention rate of young people, but there's a price for that good thing. Housing is one of them. Another is programs that are aimed at them particularly.
Programs are needed for elders. I'm 71. I need programs. Seriously, programs are needed for young people. As I said earlier, I think sometimes this is looked at as something nice we wish we could do but times are tough, so we have to cut, blah, blah, blah, so we're going to cut that or we're going to postpone it or whatever.
But I think that governments at every level, the Government of Canada, the governments of the provinces, the first nation governments, have to have a hard look at that because if you get situations where there is substance abuse, where there's a certain amount of violence and dysfunctionality of one kind or another, even suicides, which are happening, it's long past time to take that need seriously.
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
What about educational programs? I'm thinking particularly of those that were more hands on, like trade programs, Red Seal programs. Do you see the youth being involved in those programs? Many of them are off reserve, I know, but some I'm sure are run on the reserves as well, particularly things like masonry, bricklaying, carpentry, those kinds of programs.
Chairman, Cree-Naskapi Commission
There's some of that, but I think before I give you a proper answer I would like to get back to you on that and give you some facts, not just my impressions. I must confess I'm not up to speed on facts that will be useful, but I would be happy to look into that and provide you with some facts.
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
That would be good.
Kind of switching horses here, your mandate deals where? Is it across Canada, eastern Canada, western Canada, or mid-Canada? Is there a complementary group of commissioners who are also working where you folks aren't working?
Chairman, Cree-Naskapi Commission
That's a very good question.
Our mandate's pretty clear. We operate with 10 Cree communities in what the Cree people in Quebec refer to as Eeyou Istchee, which is their traditional territory, and with the Naskapi community, which is over in the vicinity of Schefferville, along the Labrador border. Our mandate is from the Cree-Naskapi act, which applies only to the Cree of northern Quebec and the Naskapi. The act provides, for example, that we are appointed by order in council—well, upon the recommendation of the Cree regional authority and the Naskapi band. So our mandate clearly is limited.
Also, our mandate permits us to make recommendations. We don't make decisions. If somebody comes to us with a complaint about the government, about their chief, or about whatever, we can make recommendations. We cannot make binding decisions. We would argue that's a good thing. We have courts to deal with that. We try to deal with things in a non-adversarial way, and generally speaking, our recommendations at the community level have been accepted quite readily.
For example, we have no power of subpoena. That's a good thing. People come to us voluntarily. We've only had two people who wouldn't cooperate in 28 years, and one of them was told by his chief, “Get in there. Cooperate”. We'd say that less power is better, in our case. If you want to fight, go to court.
Our mandate is limited, and to my knowledge, there is nothing really analogous to us around the country in terms of overseeing the implementation of an act.
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As always, I welcome Commissioners Awashish, Saunders, and Kanatewat before the committee. I've been privileged to be here a number of times when you've come forward. What strikes me as I go through this report is that a number of your recommendations are recommendations that you've been making for a number of years. Housing in particular is one, but I know that the governance issues have also come up consistently.
I want to drill down just a little bit. I know that this is your 13th report. You mention in the report that you've had 13 ministers, but I think it's now up to 14 since your wrote the report. There's been an ever-changing, revolving door of ministers, which might, in part, speak to the fact that a significant number of the recommendations have not been either responded to, or they're responded to but they're not responded to in a way that sees action happening.
In the report you talked about the requirement for resources, and you talk about, “In particular, strategies need to be developed and implemented to strengthen Eeyou governing capacities for meaningful and effective governance”, and then you list a series of things, including education, human resource development, formalized systems, and so on.
In your view, what gets in the way of having these strategies developed and implemented?
Chairman, Cree-Naskapi Commission
I think there are a couple of things: resourcing and leadership. I think the point you make about the fact that ministers are not in office particularly long—the average is two years—is important. Let's be realistic. The ministers we have dealt with for the most part, without any partisan consideration, have been people who have been largely wanting to make a change, wanting to do things. You might take issue with one or two, but it wouldn't be a partisan thing. There are ministers of various parties who have held office and have been relatively sympathetic in trying to get problems solved. So you could say, whose fault is it? Is it the bureaucracy? Well, not exactly.
That's part of the problem of accountability for decision-making at senior levels, when you have a minister who on average is in office two years—and the two years dates back to when Chrétien was minister for Indian Affairs, which is a long time ago. There were ministers there who some of us have probably never heard of because they came and went so quickly.
We have some 630-odd bands in Canada, first nations. We have three federal territories. We have scores of Inuit communities, and we have law that since 1982 has been evolving more rapidly, possibly, than any other area of law in Canada, which we need to keep up with. Also, contrary to the impression that the number of treaties might give, there are several hundred treaties in Canada for which the minister is responsible, and there are a couple of dozen land claims agreements in modern times. Then we have several thousand officials, a couple of hundred programs, yet the poor guy or lady in office has two years. Come on.
We've met with quite a few of the ministers—again, this is not a partisan comment—but one of them was Jane Stewart. She wanted us to sum up quickly our big issue at her level. We said, “Minister, you're impotent”. She sort of pulled herself up to her considerable height and said, “Well, I can't speak for my colleagues, but I certainly am not”. She tells that story all the time now apparently. But that was our point. You can have a minister who is really well-intentioned, or one that's not, but the fact of the matter is that in two years they're not going to get the problem by the throat and address it. They simply cannot.
I mean, I'm not telling the Prime Minister how to run his cabinet, but it would be real nice if some minister could stay in office long enough to get his hands on the throat of the problem. It really would.
The other thing is resourcing, and yes, that is an endless problem. We don't know what the answer is. The answer we think might be there is one that's being discussed, and I'm sure you've heard it a million times, about resource revenue sharing.
These first nations in Canada were operating as independent communities, looking after their own affairs, addressing their own needs thousands of years ago. The Crees were in James Bay looking after themselves before my ancestors, the Anglos and the Saxons, got to England. We weren't even in England when these guys were running societies here, and running them very effectively. So the answer, to me, is somewhere around resource revenue sharing, which brings in provincial jurisdiction, of course.
It seems to me that traditional territories supported first nations across this continent for thousands of years. They lived off their traditional territory. In some cases that's still possible, if they get a fair share of resource revenues and direct benefits from the exploitation of resources in their territory. That's not simply from hunting and fishing, because that's something they were doing to a greater extent than they are now, but all of the benefits from logging, mining, tourism, the benefits from all of those things.
You can say that's a nice answer for the Cree, but how does that solve Six Nations' problem and how can we be consistent?
Well, you might start looking at things like the sharing of land transfer tax.
What's the land producing right now for the crown and for local governments? It's land transfer tax. Every time you buy or sell your home, there's a land transfer tax. That's what's happening on the traditional territory of Six Nations. The crown use of that.... There are all kinds of rights-of-way for hydro, highways, pipelines, railways, and everything else across the traditional territory. Maybe there's something to be talked about there. Acquisition of increased land base on a willing seller basis. There are innocent third parties there that have nothing to do with any treaty violations or anything else. Some are willing to sell. That should occasionally be looked at.
But for the Cree, we're looking primarily at what Quebec would call crown land, and that's, I think, the long-term answer to the reserves thing. The government right now is demanding in negotiations that own-source revenues be there on the table. Okay, let's have a base for those own-source revenues. Bingo games aren't going to raise it all.
I could go on and on, as you can imagine.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Commissioners.
Gentlemen, we appreciate your taking the time today to join us and share with us your thoughts, and to express your thoughts, again, on the work you've been doing. This report is appreciated, so we thank you and look forward to having you again.
Colleagues, I'll just suspend for a minute so we can greet our visitors as they leave. We just have to adopt the report that's been circulated, so I'll just suspend for a minute.
The meeting is suspended.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
I'll call the meeting back to order.
Colleagues, you have had circulated to your desk the copy of the third report from the subcommittee. It is just a work plan, moving through to the 27th, so I'm hoping we can just adopt that so we can schedule meetings. All in favour?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
Colleagues, we will see you after our constituency workweek.
The meeting is adjourned.