Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 7th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Let's get started. I see we have quorum and our members are here.

I want to recognize that we're on the unceded territory of the Algonquin people.

We've had a request to begin our meeting with a smudge. We are the indigenous and northern affairs committee and we respect culture, so I think it would be appropriate, unless I hear objections.

We would ask that the smudge be, as MP Ouellette says, light, because the fire alarms will kick off and maybe the sprinklers.

We would be happy to respect that tradition.

Do you want us to stand?

[Brenda Dubois, Kohkum (Grandmother), Saskatchewan Aboriginal Women's Circle Corporation]

It's entirely up to you.

This is the year 2019. My wish for you is that, by the end of the year, you have an actual smudge policy that respects indigenous people coming into this space. To have my voice heard is one thing, but to have my voice honoured is another. Frivolous words don't mean a thing unless actions start taking place.

If you don't mind, I'm just going to light the smudge. I will walk around once. While I'm walking around, what you can do is list four things you're grateful for. You will then help with the prayer.

Thank you.

In some cases, we ask for the fire thing and everything to be shut. This stuff is not here to cause havoc. It's here to clean the air, to clean the space.

Don't mind me; I'm just going to talk out loud while I walk around.

Blessed grandfathers and grandmothers, look kindly on us today. We're but human beings here in this room, trying to do our best, not just for us but for our population and the new generation that has yet to come.

I ask us to open our minds, cleanse our minds, to start looking at things in a good way. You have to remember why you have eyes: to look at things twice. You also have to remember why you have ears: to listen twice. You have only one mouth, and there's a harsh reality. Our voice is very important, and you have to use it in an appropriate way, too.

If I feel like crying later, I will cry, because you don't realize how hurtful it is and how much strength we have to put together just to come to these places that still don't see us.

Thank you for honouring us today. We honour you.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you very much for that. It's customary and it's a good time to reflect on how we are dealing with one of the most important issues facing Canada today.

As a person from the Prairies, Treaty No. 1 territory, homeland of the Métis, and a resident of Winnipeg, I will say that we see the child and family system has really destroyed families, has hurt individuals, and we don't see a positive way forward. We look forward to your comments.

We have three groups, so you will have up to 10 minutes each for your presentations. If you don't need that much time, it will allow more time for interaction from the MPs.

The first presentation is from an individual, André Schutten.

André, welcome. You can begin whenever you're ready.

[André Schutten, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for having me.

I have put together a bit of a PowerPoint for you, as well—just pictures, no text. I am presenting as an individual because my family has a bit of a story that relates directly to some of the subject matter of Bill C-92, which you are studying here.

It is the story of this little girl. I will just refer to her by her first initial J., to protect her privacy. J.'s story starts about 25 years ago, when her mom was born in Gatineau and then brought into the child welfare system in Gatineau soon after. J.'s mom was in foster care for a while, and then there was a grandmother type of person. She wasn't a biological relation but there was a very close relationship. She lived on the Ottawa side of the river. That grandmother wanted to take J.'s mom into her care permanently in order to raise her in a stable, loving environment.

However, because of the jurisdictional issue between the fact that J.'s mom was actually in care on the Gatineau side and this grandmother-type was on the Ottawa side, they were not able to sort that out. The grandmother did not have the financial resources to challenge anything in court, or anything like that.

J.'s mom ended up being kicked around from foster home to foster home, and eventually aged out of the system. A few years later, she met a young man from the Peguis First Nation, north of Winnipeg. She met him here in Ottawa and they had a child, which is the little girl you see in front of you.

We knew J.'s mom because J.'s mom was living on the streets when she was pregnant. A priest found her there, sought to find her shelter and then also mentorship from some other ladies, including my wife. My wife met her, did her pregnancy photo shoot for her, took her shopping a few times and got her into a home where she could have care and help.

Eventually J. was born. J. lived with her mom for about eight to nine months, and then there was an incident which required the CAS in Ottawa to take J. into care. At that time, J.'s mom was completely traumatized by that because she herself had lived through foster care. She knew some of the harms in foster care. She had experienced many herself. J.'s mom was completely distraught that J. was in an anonymous home somewhere within the system here in Ottawa.

We showed up to be a moral support for her at her first court appearance. At that court appearance, we asked, “Would you like us to take J. into our home? Would that be any help to you?” Her face lit right up and said, “Would you do that?” We said, “Sure, we would be happy to try to do that.” It would be a temporary thing because the goal, of course, with foster care is to reunite the child with the parent.

After a long approval process, eventually J. was approved to come into our home. Unfortunately, we lived on the Gatineau side and J. was in care on the Ottawa side. Again, there was this jurisdictional issue. We could not be approved as a foster family for J. We made an arrangement where it was by consent. We did not receive any funding or assistance or subsidies or any sort of help from the Ottawa CAS. That was okay; we were happy to help out.

After quite a long time, it became clear that J.'s mom could not have her back. The next step, of course, was to decide whether or not J. should find a stable place that would be permanent. We were willing to do that, although our hope and desire was for J. to be reunited with her mother. That did not happen.

We spent a lot of time with J. We got to know her and love her as our own child. It was not always sunshine as it is in this picture. In fact, J. was up usually two to three, sometimes four times a night, which made for a very exhausted person, such as me, on some of those mornings.

Just to give you a sense of how far we are talking about, the Peguis First Nation is about a two hours' drive north of Winnipeg, a 25-hour car drive from us here in Ottawa.

The cool thing for us as a non-first nations family is that we have begun to learn so much about first nations culture here in Canada. We've been able to participate in some powwows, including the really big one here in June in Ottawa. We've been able to participate in blanket exercises to learn, with new eyes, the legacy of the residential schools. That has been quite remarkable for us.

Not only is J. a treasure in herself, but she also offers so much to a family such as ours. She is pictured here with my father, and with my grandparents. My grandfather actually just passed away five weeks ago.

Here she is hugging my grandmother. This is a woman who grew up in Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II, came over here to Canada soon after, lived a long and difficult but fulfilling life, and now has advanced dementia. Here you can see that J. is full of love for other people, including people with extreme challenges.

J. has integrated into our family quite well, and that is going well. She loves her brother, our son. They get along quite well. They love each other so much, and we love her.

All of this comes down to the point of this bill and where we think we see problems or at least a gap in the bill. There is some wonderful language in this bill, and I'm happy for it. One of the things that's very encouraging is that repeatedly in different parts of the bill, there's reference to the best interests of the child. I think that's very important, and we need to make sure the rest of the bill doesn't undermine that in any way.

This raises the two issues that I see from my lived experience and J.'s lived experience, and I raise two concerns for your consideration, two gaps I think I see in the legislation.

The first is that it creates a bit of a jurisdictional nightmare. I say this having experienced over the last 18 months the headache and the tumults that dealing with just two jurisdictions, Ontario and Quebec, has caused our family and J., and the intergenerational problems it created for J.'s mother and grandmother figure. J.'s mom ended up being kicked around foster care because of this jurisdictional issue.

When I look at subclause 20(1) and subclause 18(1), I have big questions. In fact, if I look at subclause 20(1), in our situation, if this were in place today, we could be dealing with up to five different jurisdictions in order to sort out how J. should be helped. In our case, it would be Manitoba, because the Peguis First Nation is in Manitoba. It would be the Peguis First Nation. It would be Ontario, because J.'s mom is from Ontario. It would be Quebec, because that's originally where we lived, and then it would be the federal government as well, because we're dealing with first nations issues that require the input of the minister.

It's been nothing but crazy. We've had to move from the Quebec side to the Ontario side temporarily in order for this file to wrap up—18 months in the process. I can't imagine what this would be like if we had to deal with five jurisdictions.

Of course the other question with subclause 18(1) is about jurisdiction over non-first nations parents, where one parent is not first nations and the other parent is first nations. How do we deal with that? This ties directly into my second concern about the bill.

It seems to me that there's a gap, a big gap in the bill. I could be wrong about this, but my impression in reading through this bill a couple of times now is that there's an assumption that when we're dealing with first nations children, the parents of the child will both be first nations.

I'm wondering how we use Bill C-92 if it's passed into law. In J.'s situation, her father is first nations but her father wasn't really part of the picture because her mom, who is not first nations—she's French Canadian—was the primary caregiver. How do we deal with that situation? I'm seeing a pretty major gap there.

When we tie that in with parents' interests, again, that's dealt with in this bill where it says that the parent should be able to have a say in how their child is taken care of, but which parent? Does one trump the other? Does it matter if one is first nations but not the primary caregiver, and the other one isn't first nations but is the primary caregiver? How does that work in the order of priority, for example, in subclause 16(1)? How do we wrestle with these questions?

In the last 30 seconds that I have, I'll end with this. The best interests of the child does require stability, and there is a reference in the bill to stability being so important. Our hope and prayer is that this is something we have provided for J. and that she has a stable home where her new dad and her new mom not only love each other but love her and put her interests first and primary. I hope that pays dividends for her as she grows and develops.

Thank you so much. Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you.

Now we're going to move to the Anishinabek Nation, to Marie O'Donnell and Adrienne Pelletier.

You can begin, and share any way you want.

[Adrienne Pelletier, Social Development Director, Anishinabek Nation]

Good morning.

I'm going to start with the Anishinabek Nation's preamble to our Chi-Naaknigewin, our constitution for the Anishinabek Nation. It's called Ngo Dwe Waangizid Anishinaabe. We are one Anishinabek family. It's on the Anishinabek Nation website if you want to refer to it later.

[Witness spoke in Anishinaabemowin as follows:]

Debenjiged gii’saan anishinaaben akiing giibi dgwon gaadeni mnidoo waadiziwin. Shkode, nibi, aki, noodin, giibi dgosdoonan wii naagdowendmang maanpii shkagmigaang. Debenjiged gii miinaan gechtwaa wendaagog Anishinaaben waa naagdoonjin ninda niizhwaaswi kino maadwinan. Zaagidwin, Debwewin, Mnaadendmowin, Nbwaakaawin, Dbaadendiziwin, Gwekwaadziwin miinwa Aakedhewin. Debenjiged kiimiingona dedbinwe wi naagdowendiwin. Ka mnaadendanaa gaabi zhiwebag miinwaa nango megwaa ezhwebag, miinwa geyaabi waa ni zhiwebag.

[Anishinaabemowin text translated as follows:]

Creator placed the Anishinaabe on the earth along with the gift of spirituality. Here on mother earth, there were gifts given to the Anishinaabe to look after; fire, water, earth and wind.The Creator also gave the Anishinaabe seven sacred gifts to guide them. They are: Love, Truth, Respect, Wisdom, Humility, Honesty and Bravery. Creator gave us sovereignty to govern ourselves. We respect and honour the past, present and future.

[English]

My name is Adrienne Pelletier. I'm the social director for the Anishinabek Nation and have been for the last 11 years. When I became the director, I noticed that there was a resolution on the books that said that we were to pursue child welfare jurisdiction. The chiefs and assembly—we represent 40 first nations—asked us to do just that, to pursue child welfare jurisdiction.

We've been on this path since 2008. We took an inherent rights perspective with respect to our jurisdiction over our children, youth and families. We just did it. We didn't ask the government for money. We just went out and we asked our citizens all across Ontario, and we even got folks sending in their comments from across the country and out of country because they have inherent rights as far as we're concerned as an Anishinabek Nation. We took all of their input into a law.

We created an Anishinabek Nation Child Well-Being Law. It's been well vetted through our citizens. It's been enacted in 17 of our first nations currently. We're 40 first nations strong, 66,000 people. We are seen as leaders on this path forward to take back our jurisdiction and look after our own children in a culturally appropriate way.

One of the major issues we have with this legislation is that we're already negotiating with both the province and the federal government to fund our Anishinabek child welfare system but then we have this bill coming in and it's causing interference for us. We would like to continue to pursue our jurisdiction and the path that we set forward under that inherent rights perspective. We continue to do that.

One of the major issues with this bill is that in Ontario we have band representatives and, thanks to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, those band reps are now funded. For many years, for maybe 15 or 20 years, the government stopped funding the band rep position in Ontario. We now have band reps fully funded in Ontario again.

This is our stopgap. The band reps are child advocates to make sure that no child or family service agency is interfering in the rights of that child as an indigenous child or the rights of the parents and the right of their extended family wherever they're from. If they're from two or three or four first nations because they had ties, then that's the right of that child.

We believe that the connection to community and extended family culture and spirit are a requirement for all indigenous children. It's the right of that child just because they're indigenous.

We would like you to make some considerations with respect to the band representative role and my colleague here, Tracey O'Donnell, will talk a little bit about some of the other sections that we have serious concerns with. You do have our submission. When we did that submission, we had 16 first nations that had enacted the law. There are now 17.

We continue to go to our communities, because now the lawmakers are the first nations, so the first nations give us the authority to enact a law for them. It's a community-based law. It's a prevention-based law. It gives the power back to the first nation to set its own community standards, its own way of doing child welfare for its indigenous children.

Meegwetch.

[Marie Elena Tracey O'Donnell, Legal Counsel, Anishinabek Nation]

My name is Tracey O'Donnell. I'm from the Red Rock Indian Band, part of the Anishinabek Nation. I've worked, together with Adrienne Pelletier, on the development of the Anishinabek Nation Child Well-Being Law since its inception. The law, as Adrienne said, is based on first nation jurisdiction, our inherent jurisdiction.

We acknowledge that this bill recognizes the first nation jurisdiction; however, the bill also restricts the exercise of jurisdiction by putting a number of requirements in that we see are going to interfere with the work we've started. The discussions we've had with Canada indicating that this would not interfere with our work are not ringing true, now that we see the words on the page.

Of particular concern is the requirement for an agreement with the governments of those provinces in which we wish to exercise our jurisdiction. We've asked for technical clarification of what this means. For Anishinabek, our law says that our jurisdiction extends to our people, the Anishinabek citizens. The law doesn't have a geographic restriction, so if we have Anishinabek citizens who are living in the province of British Columbia, our law would extend to those individuals as well.

When we read this bill and see the requirement for the indigenous group to engage with the governments of those territories where we wish to exercise our jurisdiction, to us it appears that we would have to negotiate agreements with every one of the provinces and territories within which our citizens live. That's an onerous task and is of concern to us, because we have no resources, other than our first nations' intent to exercise our jurisdiction and move forward to protect Anishinabek children and youth and maintain the unity of Anishinabek families.

As Adrienne mentioned, the issue with the band representative extends to the fact that band representatives under this legislation are not afforded party status in proceedings. In the province of Ontario, band representatives are parties to proceedings, receive notice of all of the actions that are taken through the courts and have standing to represent the first nation in those proceedings.

It's of major importance that this role continue for our first nations. We have a very active band representative program within our first nations. The band representatives are there to speak on behalf of the first nations to ensure that Anishinabek children and youth have a voice and that their connection to the community is maintained.

In fact, we took this so far in our law that under our adoption sections in the Anishinabek Nation Child Well-Being Law, not only is the consent of the biological parents or guardians required, but the consent of the first nation of which the child and the parents are members is also required for an adoption to occur that involves an Anishinabek child.

It's very important for us that this band role be respected and acknowledged. We're concerned that, as the law is currently written, foster parents or care providers have standing as parties but our band representatives' standing is taken away, and that would cause an incredible challenge for our communities. It would also interfere with the implementation of our law.

The other points that we raised are in our written submission, which we know has been prepared for the committee's review in both English and French.

Meegwetch.

[Adrienne Pelletier]

I also want to say that the Anishinabek Nation Child Well-Being Law is on the Anishinabek Nation website, if you want to have a look at it. If you have any further questions, we'd be happy to answer them through written responses.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you.

Now we have the Saskatchewan Aboriginal Women's Circle Corporation. Judy Hughes is the president and Brenda Dubois, kokum, meaning grandmother, did the ceremony this morning.

Welcome.

[Judy Hughes, President, Saskatchewan Aboriginal Women's Circle Corporation]

Tanshi and good morning, Madam Chair Mihychuk, committee members, elders and colleagues.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify on Bill C-92. My name is Judy Hughes. I am a Métis citizen and I am the president of Saskatchewan Aboriginal Women's Circle Corporation, out of Saskatchewan, of course.

I appreciate the opportunity to gather on the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin people.

Meegwetch to Georgina Jolibois for recognizing that SAWCC needed a voice at this table. We had to corner her in Meadow Lake, but we got it.

The Saskatchewan Aboriginal Women's Circle Corporation is the provincial not-for-profit voluntary indigenous women's organization. We're celebrating 16 years of providing programs and resources in education, advocacy, research and economic opportunities to all nations of indigenous women, their families and the LGBTQ2S+ community.

Our governance includes a provincial president, directors from the six regions of Saskatchewan, a kokum and a youth advocate. SAWCC is one of the 13 provincial-territorial member associations, or PTMAs, of the Native Women's Association of Canada, which is the largest indigenous women's organization in Canada and boasts a PTMA in every province and territory of Canada.

My comments today are specific to all Métis children and families. Our children are our essence of being. Who will be administering the services and the funds? I'm thinking about the jurisdictional gap that may arise if services are only provided to members of one Métis national organization or government.

How are Métis children going to be identified? I do not want any Métis child left out, as it is with status first nations with Bill S-3, where people are put into categories and then it's decided whether or not they deserve a service. Not all of us are members of the Métis National Council, or in Saskatchewan, Métis Nation Saskatchewan. It's our choice whether we want to be part of that organization. I'm not saying anything negative about it, but it's our choice.

As an example, someone who is not a member of those organizations, such as my niece who has autism, would not be able to, and cannot, access any services that are provided by them, because her mom and dad choose not to be registered members.

It is long overdue for us, as Métis citizens, to have an opportunity to build our child and family services from a blank page and do it right. Why? Because, from my perspective, there is nothing more beautiful than our Métis values, teachings, cultures, language, protocols and ways of being. It would be free of all this systemic discrimination that we find in all of the institutions in Canada.

Growing up, I wasn't able to exercise my right to practise and be proud of my Métis culture. Because of this discrimination, we were forced to pass ourselves off as white. In my younger days, which was quite a few decades ago, I lived in a mixed community of people who were considered white, half-breed and Indian. That's in Bertwell, Saskatchewan, on Highway 23. I was called a “koo-bah squaw” in school. This referred to my being of Ukrainian and Dene heritage.

Regarding Bill C-92, what I see as a significant limitation is that it is missing the voices of the women of many nations—the grandmothers, the kokums. We know that boys and girls have different needs and we want to put it on the record that culturally appropriate gender-based analysis still needs to be done on any legislation, programs and services.

The Métis citizens of Saskatchewan deserve time to understand the implications of Bill C-92, if the legislation passes, and also, the patriarchal approach needs to change. We need to do more research on successful child and family models, and we do have one with the Manitoba Metis Federation model established in 1982, which I think is quite successful. We need more communication and we need to involve the matriarchs.

We have abilities within our communities to develop and implement legislation and reparation programs, versus a top-down, “Here, this is in your best interests” approach. We need to be the ones saying, “This is in the best interests of our children.”

We need partnerships with all levels of government. We're willing to work with all levels of government, including our own indigenous governments, and Canada must be willing to enter into a sincere working relationship with us.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child said that every child has every right, and we must ensure that every Métis child has every right.

Meegwetch. Thank you for listening.

[Brenda Dubois]

Thank you for the honour of being here today.

If you could indulge me for 30 seconds, let us have 30 seconds of silence for all the children who have died while in care. In your mindset as well, get ready for the reality that some of the present children in care may not return home.

[A moment of silence observed]

Thank you very much.

Please do not misinterpret the tone of my voice. It may come off as being angry, but it's from the five generations of hurt. If you don't mind me, at times I may stand up or sit down; that's just who I am.

The first question I have to ask you, and you don't have to answer me—I want you to think about these things tonight before you go to sleep—is this: Do you see me? Do you see me? I think I'm invisible to some people. Our walk on the bridge again this past while reminded us of that. Is there not a better way to do this? “Get out of the way! You're hindering our traffic!”

I'm glad to be here. I want to be recognized as a human being with one great quality, and I encourage you to have that quality too—the quality of honesty. Learning how to relate to one another over this next while is going to be really interesting.

Please don't misinterpret my presence here as an approval of this bill. It is not an approval of this bill.

Please do not play politics with our children's lives. This is a very serious matter, and if we're going to do this shift, let's do it appropriately and in a really respectful manner. Walk with respect. Walk with forgiveness.

Listening means two things....

Don't mind me; I do parenting classes. I'm not here to talk to you as though you're kids, if you know what I mean.

Listening means two things: You hear what I say and do what I'm asking you to do. I'm in my sixties now. I need to see some markers, because I've heard idle words since I was in my late twenties and I have seen no improvements in my community.

Besides being part of SAWCC, I'm a part of the Aboriginal Family Defence League. It is a non-incorporated entity and it will never be incorporated. I've advocated for families for the last 35 years, and I still advocate for families to get children back today. I'm still traumatized by the archaic patriarchal approaches that come out of the people who are there to supposedly help us. I am encouraging you to relate to us differently.

Treaties...? There's a word my relative used during the Constitution talks when somebody asked him about treaties. He said, really, the federal state is in hypocrisy. They've been fighting us for years. Look how long it took to get Jordan's principle. Look at the fact that they took up the Supreme Court issue around children to fight us. That is appalling. I want to say “blasphemy”, to some degree. It's blasphemy. It's terrible.

To help with the shift, what you need to realize is that we have grandmothers, we have kokums in our community—matriarchs who have been here for many years. That traditional kinship system is still alive. It's why we still have a generation of grandmothers willing to help by interfering and asking for those grandchildren to be tended by them and not by the state.

I want to make a plea for the most important institution of all—family. If you can, explain to me why and what is preventing us from that investment. Really try to help me understand it, because I can't. What my eyes see is a contradiction, the state willing to waste $18,000 a month to keep nine children away from a mother that they already raised in foster care. It's intergenerational. They already have second generation kids in care. What does that tell you in regard to what they're doing? This way is not working.

At the last meeting I went to, as I was leaving a young person said.... I'm an advocate for families, but what he said was, “Kokum, you're a hostage negotiator. You're negotiating for the return of children.”

What I need to awaken you to, especially in Saskatchewan and maybe throughout Canada, is that there is a national crisis going on. It's called genocide, as well. Do you know that it's illegal to remove one group of children and place them with others. It is against the law to do that.

We have a national crisis going on. We have a child advocate in Saskatchewan who just released a report on suicide. Action...? What's going to be done? Suicide is a result of PTSD, the ripple effect.

We do not have an opioid epidemic in our community. We have a doctor and a pharmaceutical problem. I'm trying to re-shift this stuff because we keep on being blamed as if this is our problem. These are not our problems.

Poverty...? We have economic poverty that started when they killed the buffalo.

Housing...? It's a treaty right. We have homeless people.

Affordable housing...? No, at $1,300 to $1,500 a month, you can't afford that.

Missing and murdered indigenous women happens on a daily basis, and it's still going on in this community.

I'm here to remind you that it's illegal what they're doing. What I'm here to do as well is to demand.... In Saskatchewan, Merriman refuses to meet with common citizens who have been doing this work and have the answers. He ignores us. We're invisible. I'm demanding from Saskatchewan a hundred children home by Christmas and a hundred children thereafter. We know the reasons children are being taken. We all know why. If we don't help with this shift, we're going to be part of the problem. I can't apologize any more to children, and you can't continue to pay out children.

Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Meegwetch.

Very powerful words, I believe everyone here was listening. We hear you.

We are now at the question period. I'm going to ask MPs to identify which person they're asking their question to. We'll move on to those questions. We start with MP Yves Robillard. He's going to be speaking in French, so if you need the interpreter, please put in your earpiece.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Hello, everybody.

I want to thank the witnesses for their presentations.

My first questions are for Ms. Hughes and Ms. Dubois.

In his presentation to this committee, Minister O'Regan made it clear that the families of Indigenous children, particularly in Saskatchewan, should be prioritized.

Do you think that Bill C-92 represents these considerations?

[Brenda Dubois]

It may represent the considerations, sir, but what you need to realize is that we're invisible. We were not talked to. I don't want to use the word “consulted”. I need to move beyond that frame of consultation.

If we don't have respectful relationships to actually work together to solve these and develop mechanisms, it's a top-down approach. That top-down approach has to stop. The paternalistic acts from the state in regard to trying to define our needs can't work anymore. If we're in a truth and reconciliation frame right now, we need to shift the mechanism of how we're working together.

Mr. O'Regan may have a good intention, but good intention done in the wrong way is skewed.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

The bill's approach is to establish a minimum standard for the protection of children. Is this the right approach?

[Brenda Dubois]

Throughout the years, as someone who has been asked that question, but also because of my dealings with the state, I will say that what may be in the best interests of a non-first nation child may not be in the best interests of a indigenous child because we come from a distinct background.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

In your opinion, could any amendments be made to improve this bill?

[Brenda Dubois]

At this point in time, you need to cease and desist and really start on respectful relationships with people. The pressure being put on the communities you are starting to feel and the backlash is there. You need to realize that we have a different government style than this state does and it is the citizens who determine this.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I now have questions for Ms. O'Donnell and Ms. Pelletier.

In your brief to the committee, you mentioned the need to amend the definition of “care provider” to exclude persons who receive compensation for caring for an Indigenous child.

Can you elaborate on the consequences of the current definition and the consequences of your proposed amendment?

[Marie Elena Tracey O'Donnell]

With respect to this issue, our concern is tied to the use of the definition of caregiver and how it applies to standing and civil proceedings, in particular the fact that the “care provider” here is broad enough to include foster parents. In Ontario, foster parents include those who receive compensation for caring for indigenous children. We have customary care arrangements where we have care providers who are providing and taking care of indigenous Anishinabe children but are not receiving compensation, so they're excluded from this definition of “care provider” as well.

Therefore, we have concerns with respect to the way it's currently drafted. In particular, that ties us back to the standing to make representations and have party status in proceedings. We believe more attention is required to look at the definition of “care provider” and the implications of the use of that term throughout this proposed bill and how it impacts the delivery of services and the access to provide information and representations in court proceedings.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Sixteen of the forty communities that you represent have adopted the Anishinabek Nation Child Well-Being Law.

Can you tell us how Bill C-92 will affect these communities?

[Marie Elena Tracey O'Donnell]

My earphone doesn't work. I'm sorry; I didn't hear anything.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I'll ask my question again in French.

[Marie Elena Tracey O'Donnell]

Thank you so much.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Sixteen of the forty communities that you represent have adopted the Anishinabek Nation Child Well-Being Law. Can you tell us how Bill C-92 will affect these communities?