Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 26th, 2018

[François Dufresne]

I would like to add an example, if I could. Three years ago, in the province of Quebec, a certificate holder, a major company in this province, lost two major certificates for three to four million hectares due to a dispute with the Cree nation with regard to the Baril-Moses treaty between government and nation. The auditor suspended their FSC certification because of lack of consent.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Ms. Cluff-Clyburne, would you see your organization as having a role in giving licenses to the people you represent, your own people, to say our member organizations are meeting FPIC? Would you say that's part of your organization at all?

[Susanna Cluff-Clyburne]

Our primary raison d'être is as an advocate on behalf of our members. I think those types of licenses would be up to others to grant. I think that's ultimately what the conclusion is. Ideally, if the regulatory review process works as it should, and as it does most of the time, and it doesn't have to go to the courts, then that would be the ultimate arbitrator of whether or not FPIC had been met.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

You have more time. You know I'm sensitive to this.

Moving on to MP Romeo Saganash.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Romeo will take this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Romeo might.

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

Sure. I will take this.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to our guests this afternoon. It's good to see you again, Susanna. François, bienvenue. Pamela, thank you for your presentations. At least it gave me hope. The Chamber of Commerce supporting UNDRIP is fantastic news for indigenous peoples, in particular this guy here, and the use of the United Nations declaration for your organization is also great.

I want to start with you, Susanna, because I'm worried about what you said with respect to the engagement sessions that the government is holding with indigenous peoples, and is excluding business stakeholders in that process. I tend to agree with you, because the circle of engagement with respect to discussions around indigenous rights at the UN declaration has to be inclusive, and that exclusion bothers me a little bit.

Can you elaborate more on that point, and in what way have you suggested to be included in those sessions?

[Susanna Cluff-Clyburne]

Our knocking at the door predates the most recent engagement process, and it has actually been a plea of our members basically since the last election when it was very clear that the federal government was going in this direction on reconciliation. As you know, business likes clarity. We are a country that needs investment from within and internationally to make our businesses run. Without clarity it is very difficult for companies to get international investments, particularly when they're multinationals, and they're competing amongst their offices in other countries.

A policy resolution was adopted at our 2016 annual general meeting. It was followed by a direct communication between our president, Perrin Beatty, and Minister Bennett, and the offer of convening members to have a conversation with the minister. I could go on, but there have been several attempts on our part to try to become....

For this latest initiative, again, we thought it would be a bit more robust, and it has been a bit disappointing, to be perfectly honest.

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

It's at least good to you have you in this committee for—

[Susanna Cluff-Clyburne]

We're still going to submit something, don't worry, but we had a feeling that it might be a little bit more—

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

I'm looking forward to it.

I'll move on to FSC. As you were approaching the table, the chair mentioned that she wasn't sure whether you're a conservation organization or a business organization. During question period I heard at least 14 times that the economy and the environment go hand in hand.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[A voice]

Or together.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Or together, obviously.

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

Since you're using the UN declaration, as you said, as a guidepost for the work you're doing on behalf of your members, I was wondering if you were aware of two important studies done by the United Nations at the United Nations level. The first one is the compacted business guide to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples done by the UN. It's there to help businesses in general to understand, respect, and support the rights of indigenous peoples and how these rights are relevant to businesses. It's a 2013 document that is very important.

There's another document that was prepared by the expert mechanism on the rights of indigenous peoples. That one was done in 2012, I believe, and it outlines what free, prior, informed, and consent are all about, and how they should work. I think in your explanation of criteria you've touched on them.

Have you been inspired by these documents? Are you aware that the expert mechanism is preparing another study with very specific case studies on FPIC?

[François Dufresne]

I will answer the first part, and Pamela will answer the technical part.

To answer your first question, FSC is a convenor of civil society. We're not economic or environmental; we're both. This also includes the aboriginal part of society and the social part, and unions, to make sure that there's no child labour in the woods, and to make sure that the ILO core conventions are applied. It's a neutral zone for civil society, as a convenor, to offer solutions for responsibly managed forests.

We use all of the expertise out there that's coming from all of these fields to build a strong standard, including what you mentioned, for sure. All four chambers in Canada have the same weight of vote when it comes to governance, so we're bound to working by consensus. Everybody has to come together with the same weight in the voting process, which makes FSC unique as a not-for-profit organization.

Our UNDRIP and FPIC approach has been designed by aboriginal people. It's not something non-aboriginal people designed. It's not something coming from me, or an expert, or a non-aboriginal. It's coming from aboriginal people first and foremost, with all the knowledge they bring to the table.

That being said, I will ask Pamela to answer the technical questions about the UN declaration.

[Pamela Perreault]

I am aware of those two studies. I have the standard in front of me here—the 10 principles we operate under—but we also have an FPIC guidance document, and in that guidance document we reference both of those papers. In fact, we used some of the structure in terms of the business guide in particular, because it's written for the business audience and that is what would translate well to our certificate holders, which are forest companies.

I didn't know about the case studies; now I do, so I will look it up. I'd love to do a match and comparison with the 14 case studies we've done on FPIC. It would be a great body of work that would, I'm sure, be very compatible.

Thank you.

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

The case studies report is coming out some time in early June. It's going to be an important document because it really takes cases and looks at them and how they fit within that right of free, prior, and informed consent.

I'm out of time, right? As usual.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

You are.

We move to MP Will Amos.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thanks to our witnesses. It's interesting to hear the wave after wave after wave of witnesses articulating in a different way the importance of UNDRIP and how their organizations see it unfolding.

There's a question going round and round in my head, and I'm starting to ask it of more and more witnesses now. It is very rare for a private member's bill, which doesn't have the benefit of the governmental apparatus behind it to perfect it, to come forward in a perfect condition.

Obviously, we support this bill and we're enthusiastic about it moving forward, but I'm keen to hear our witnesses' suggestions for how it might be improved, because we've had a lot of witnesses saying, “This is great. It's good. We've got to do it.” However, we've not heard a lot of, “This is great. It's really good. We've got to do it, and I have some suggestions for what else could be added to it or what might be tweaked.”

I'm curious to hear if you have opinions on that.

[Susanna Cluff-Clyburne]

I will answer the question, but I'd first like to put it in the broader context of where this bill fits. From our perspective, this bill fits in a broader context of what's become a very complex environment. We have this bill, and we have to take it in the broader context of what the government is doing with its work on the recognition and implementation of indigenous rights.

That takes into consideration as well other work that has gone before domestically, here in Canada. We have the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. We have the Constitution, section 35, of course. We also have the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's reporting recommendations. It's a broad swath of work that is going to form the basis of where we move forward, and this is a very important piece of it.

If you were to press me on improvements, the only thing—and I'm not a lawyer, so we'll get that right out—

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

That's part of your advantage right now.

[Susanna Cluff-Clyburne]

I find that there are several different terms used within the bill. The title of the bill is to “harmonize” Canadian laws with the UN declaration, but if you read the bill, the word “enshrined” is used, and the word “applied” is used. That would be my only suggestion: make the language consistent throughout the bill.

If you're a lawyer maybe those all mean the same thing, but as a layperson they can mean very different things. That would be my only suggestion, if there were to be some amendments made to the bill.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you.

Could we hear from the FSC, perhaps?