Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 14th, 2019

[Bernie Charlie, Senior Resource Specialist, Resources and Foster Care, Secwépemc Child and Family Services Agency]

Good morning.

[Witness spoke in Carrier]

[English]

I introduced myself to you in my Carrier language.

My name is Bernie Charlie. I am a proud Carrier matriarch in training. I am the youngest child of nine of my mother, Dil-za Dza-kiy, Violet Charlie, who holds this hereditary chief name that she acquired through the traditional governance system of my people called the bah'lats also known commonly as the potlatch.

I want to acknowledge my late father, Ben Charlie Sr., who has crossed over to the spirit world to watch over us with our ancestors.

In our bah'lats, we have four clans: the Jihl tse yu, which is the frog clan; Likh ji bu, the bear clan; Gilhanten, the caribou clan; and.... Sorry, I can't read my own typing.

Anyway, I sit with the Likh ji bu, the bear clan of my people, and my late father belonged to Gilhanten, the caribou clan. In our bah'lats, children are born into the clan of their mothers. Before contact, it was the matriarchs, the mothers, the grandmothers and the extended family who were the decision-makers for the people in relation to the political, social and economic governance of the communities. The bah'lats are still very much alive in our nation. My community of origin, which is the Lake Babine nation, is statistically the third largest band in B.C.

I want to acknowledge the unceded ancestral homelands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, where I have the privilege to work, to live and to play. I am very fortunate that I have a surrogate family in this beautiful territory of the Secwépemc people. I have an entire network of surrogate parents and extended family who I find comfort in when I need support in my life.

I am the mother of two beautiful children and a surrogate mother to several others who refer to me as a guide, a mentor and a protector for them. I am also a kyé7e, a grandmother to one beautiful biological baby girl and to several others who refer to me as their grandmother in our cultural customs.

As the youngest child in the family of my siblings, my siblings would say that I was the spoiled one. However, I do recall that the multiple cousins who lived with us through many of my formative years were often fed first, given new linen and often bought new clothes as opposed to the recycled clothes that I recall I was able to choose from first. I did not realize at that time that they were foster children and that they were given to our family because they were abused or neglected in their own homes down the street on our reserve.

My recollections of my childhood include living in a government-subsidized, four-bedroom CMHC house that was filled to the brim with multiple generations, including my aged deaf and blind xpé7e, my grandfather, my parents, my siblings and my cousins. At one point in time, there were 13 people living in our four-bedroom home. My parents ensured that we were always fed, that we were clean, and that we were sent to the local Catholic school for our education. When my older siblings completed elementary school, they were sent away to the Catholic boarding high school, which was almost 300 kilometres away from us.

I needed to share with you this small bit of my history and how it relates to this pre-study on Bill C-92.

My work on the front lines as a resource social worker with Secwépemc Child and Family Services Agency has given me some excellent first-hand experience in sharing some of what I have learned. I take a completely relational approach from the perspective of a C6 delegated social worker, which simply means that I have the authority and the obligation to remove a child from an unsafe environment.

I made some notes of potential considerations, and I will just review them according to how they appear in the document.

In regard to the principle of the best interests of the child, historically children were raised in communal family systems where the extended family group all assumed the responsibility of caring for children: parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents and others in the community.

Currently, under the provincial legislation, the focus is primarily on the individual child. This has been the practice in child welfare. Due to the high numbers of indigenous children in care, it is proven that this process is not working.

In moving forward, the focus needs to be on the family unit: the family and the extended family that cares for and provides for children. What is best for families and communities will always be best for children.

With regard to the best interests of the indigenous child, may I suggest the wording in subclause 10(1) read, “The best interests of the family must be the primary consideration”.

Another theme is capacity, building the foundation for children to be home and stay home in times of crisis, investing in rebuilding what was lost. This lends itself to communities coming back to life and caring for families naturally.

Among other factors to be considered, with regard to the child's cultural, linguistic, religious and spiritual upbringing and heritage, or lack thereof, segments of the urban population, specifically in B.C., have seen that due to multiple factors such as—

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Sorry. Please wrap up quickly, because we're over the allotted time.

Thanks.

[Bernie Charlie]

Okay.

In closing, thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts about Bill C-92.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you.

We'll have an opportunity to have your brief. You'll submit it to us online, probably, or through the clerk.

We'll be asking you questions very shortly, after we hear from Chief Judy Wilson.

Hello, Judy. Welcome to the committee. Thank you. I think it's still morning in your territory, so thank you very much for participating.

Any time you are ready, you have up to 10 minutes.

[Chief Judy Wilson, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs]

Thank you.

[Witness spoke in Secwepemctsin]

[English]

I'm acknowledging and honouring the unceded lands and the peoples of the Algonquin territory, where these proceedings are taking place.

I'm from the Secwépemc Nation, one of the largest nations in the interior of British Columbia. I am a member of executive of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. We've been working towards the implementation, exercise and recognition of our inherent title and treaty rights. The union has been involved in advocacy work and efforts with the provincial government and the federal government to recognize and affirm our inherent jurisdiction over our children, for many decades.

It's important that the work of advancing the policy and legislation for our children is a priority of our B.C. first nations, and for the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. I'm also a member of the First Nations Leadership Council in B.C. We're made up of the First Nations Summit, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and the B.C. Assembly of First Nations. Our three organizations work together, and bring respective political mandates to build a strong collective and unified voice in British Columbia. One of those issues has always been the children and youth.

It started in 2002, with the Tsawwassen Accord—it will all be in our brief we submitted to you—and also in the leadership accord developed in 2005. We've been working toward these outcomes and changes for our children. Bill C-92 does offer practical and meaningful progress that aligns with our work here in B.C.

It is the utmost importance in critical timing this legislation is presenting. Even though we've done some provincial changes to the legislation out here, with respect to children and family, we find that we're still stuck in a lot of the old models. The only thing we were able to do was delegated agencies for many years. Really, the delegated agencies were supposed to be a transition to full jurisdiction for our nations.

We have been stuck in that process. We need to carry on with that work, into the affirmation and recognition of our inherent title rights, especially with our children. We have to change, because indigenous children across Canada are overrepresented in the system. The first contact with the settlers and colonial laws impacted our families, and broke down our families, through residential schools. It's documented in all the different commissions and hearings that have happened in Canada.

We need to make that change. Our families are fractured, and we need to bring them back together, for that meaningful change in the lives of the children—to be able to bring them home.

In our community, we recently brought 20 children home, but it was a lot of effort and fight to do that. We held an honouring and recognition for our children. Our nation also held one, about a month ago, in Vancouver, where many families were reunited with their children. That's only the start of the work. There needs to be a lot more work in bringing up our children, and truly connecting them with who they are, in their lands, their families and their communities. We have to have that meaningful change for our children and families.

One of the core purposes of this legislation must be to implement the United Nations declaration. It's truly a framework for reconciliation, and it was recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Yet, the provisions in the bill, under clause 8, do not reference the United Nations declaration as the context for the reconciliation in child welfare. It's only referenced in the preamble, but not in the critically important and substantive clause 8, on purpose and principles. That needs to change in this legislation.

I also emphasize this because the United Nations declaration reflects the minimum standards of the survival and dignity of our indigenous people. It sets out the minimum standards of human rights. It's an important provision that needs to be emphasized in the implementation of Bill C-92, once it becomes legislation. Article 22 focuses on the importance of respecting the rights of girls and women and ensuring they do not experience discrimination. For this reason, I urge you to consider an amendment to clause 8 of Bill C-92, adding paragraph (c), as follows, “To implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People as a progressive framework for the resolution of human rights issues impacting children, youth, and families.”

One of the other things I wanted to note is that this is a historic and transformational moment for Canada and for indigenous people across Canada. We cannot let this moment pass. If we went back in time to the residential school policy legislation changes, for example, had we made that change, how many families would not have had to go through that whole residential school experience? We're saying that with this child and family legislation, we have an opportunity to make these changes, stop the number of children going into care and reunify them with their community and their family.

There must be that meaningful change, because there are more children in care now through this child welfare system than at the height of the residential schools. It's continuing to grow. Former minister Philpott mentioned that this was a humanitarian crisis, which it very much is, so we can't sit by idly and let this go. We have to keep pressing forward on these changes that are to come. We've been doing it in the courts. We've been doing it in other avenues, but now we have the opportunity through legislation.

It's been about four years now since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report urging Canada to deal with the residential schools and the child welfare system, and to support languages. We're on that threshold, and we need to be able to carry on with this work and not let another year pass by.

Bill C-92 provides a means by which we can begin to action some of these calls. I think the core...the families, the communities and our legal systems are really important. Since the time it was established, that colonial law, as I mentioned, severed that connection. It was meant to assimilate our people into the system, and the result was the removal of our children and the disruption of our family systems.

The other part of this is the funding piece. Bill C-92 must include the funding. We can't rely just on the coordination agreements that dictate the resources for this rebuilding. Because of the colonial impact, it's important that Canada also attach the funding to this process so that we don't have to rely on, as Bernie mentioned earlier, the western view of the best interests of the child. It's really important to rely on the collective interests of not just the child, but the families as well. They were trying to stop the transmission of our culture, our ceremonies, our language and our laws, but in a reverse way we can turn that around so that we're empowering the children, the families and the communities for healing and for rebuilding. It's really important to rebuild our families, our communities, our nations.

Our Secwépemc Nation is doing a lot of that work in our child and family jurisdiction. It's called Stsmémelt. We've been working with the Secwépemc Child and Family Services and the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council in rebuilding that. It's a lot of work, and it does need to be resourced.

This approach didn't survive, because our people had resilience and have survived it. I stand before you today despite the damage that the colonial laws caused. We're going to continue to rebuild our people and our children, our families. Canada has an obligation to right these wrongs that impacted so many of our families and children across Canada. We really need to bring our children home so they can be raised in our communities by our own people and know that they can connect with their communities and their language and their laws.

I wanted to touch on one other area. I acknowledge and support a lot of the nations that have issues with this legislation, because each nation has a right to self-determination under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, article 3. If they wish to enact their own laws, they just need the recognition, whether it's their treaty recognition or their inherent recognition; they have the free choice to do that themselves. This legislation must find a way to respect that, or again, it will be a colonial path, and we don't want to go down that path.

We want to be able to respect those nations that make their own decisions for their nations and do not rely on Canada's laws to do that. It's their choice if they don't want to recognize the bill. We have a mandate here in B.C. Our chiefs have already identified the mandate to work with this bill, Bill C-92. It's federal legislation. It provides affirmation to our inherent children's rights that exist and does not rely on these colonial laws.

We will submit our brief. Again, thank you for the time to discuss these issues with you. I look forward to the questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you, Chief.

Our first round of questioning now goes to MP Hedy Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you so much for your presentations.

I must say, Ms. Charlie, that the time you spent talking about your culture and how you grew up, etc., really brings home the fact that what we're talking about here is the de-culturalization of a people, with children being apprehended and sent off to foster homes that are not in themselves indigenous.

There are a couple of things. Most of the people we heard from are supportive of the bill, but they have found some things that they wanted to discuss. One of them I'd like to hear from you about is this. I think, Ms. Charlie, you made a really important point about the collective, about not just the best interests of the child, but the best interests of the families and the community and that whole ability to bring back nations to what they used to be. As you said, the best interests of the child, when it's interpreted through a western colonial lens, is very different.

In British Columbia we have been told, and I have been told by many provincial bureaucrats who wish to remain anonymous, that more children have been apprehended today and over the last 30 years than have been in the residential school time. They were taken from their families and put into foster homes that were not indigenous. How do you see this happening for urban aboriginal children? I think this is the key thing.

On reserve, it's easy to get involved back in the family. But when someone has moved away to an urban area and they're very far away from families, and many times they're fleeing abuse within the family itself, how do you see that ability to come back together happening so that you can protect the child while trying to reunite the child with the family? That's the first question. The second question is, if it's not possible to do that, how do you see the role of either friendship centres or of neighbouring bands being able to take up that role of bringing the child back? Do you see that as a possibility? How do you see funding going to that ability to help neighbouring bands to bring back children into their band, even if the children can't go back to their original band?

[Bernie Charlie]

Those are excellent questions and I'm happy to respond.

In regard to your first question about the urban populations, and the high rates of children and youth in care from our urban centres, I think the first and foremost solution to that is that we need to identify with them who their networks of support are. Their support networks could be their neighbours, a trusted friend, the support workers at their school or even the.... I don't know, there could be a variety of people they identify. Just recently I heard one of my colleagues ask, “Who are the people you first connect with on social media?” Right now that's the main mode of communication for our children and youth—well, society at large, in general. I would say establish and identify their networks.

In regard to your second question, could you maybe elaborate on that again?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I wondered, for instance, about urban areas, where the family has moved to the city, because there are a huge number of apprehended families, and they cannot go back to the original community because there has been family abuse or something like that within that community. Could they go to neighbouring bands within that urban sector that might take care of them? How would that happen, and what is the role of the friendship centres in making sure that happens, if any?

[Bernie Charlie]

In terms of that, here at Secwépemc Child and Family Services we do engage with an urban population that spans all across Canada. We do host and take care of their quests to return home.

In terms of capacity and funding, once they identify who their home community is, Lyle serves as our cultural support worker who engages with them and also supports them to identify who their connections are. We do have relationships with the friendship centres because they deal with the same populations.

I think in terms of funding, front-loading that funding on prevention programs and services, that's the key in terms of working with our urban indigenous children and families.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

We move on to MP Cathy McLeod.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to both sets of witnesses. Of course, I wish I was home in beautiful B.C. with you, enjoying some of that great weather we're having.

I'm going to start with Chief Judy Wilson. I think it would be helpful, because British Columbia is in a bit of a different place from some of the other provinces. In many cases, I believe the devolution agreements already give capacity for both on- and off-reserve for your memberships in terms of providing services.

I think this legislation, perhaps, is a next step. Can you tell me how you perceive this legislation is going to help you go that next step, and what that next step is going to be? Again, I think there are many communities that don't have even the devolution agreements that we already do have in place.

[Chief Judy Wilson]

I think the important part is that many of our nations in B.C. are outside of the B.C. treaty process, so we have inherent title and rights. The modern treaties set out a path that includes children. What we're doing in B.C. is a tripartite table that we set up with the federal government, provincial government and our respective organizations. We have resolutions from our respective tables in regard to children and family.

We went through a process with the provincial amendments, and we still have some more processes to do for the children and family provincial legislation stemming out of the federal legislation. I think it's really important to understand that we've been at this federal and provincial tripartite table, and we have examined the existing legislation and the changes that need to happen.

First and foremost is the recognition of our inherent title and rights, and our jurisdiction and legal orders that include children, but the biggest part of the work is nation rebuilding and healing. That's so important, so we've been working on that as well. We also have protocols and MOUs with the provincial government in different respective areas. We've been involved in a lot of different legislation pieces with the provincial government. It's going to set out this work in recognizing our jurisdiction over our children and family, and I think that's one of the biggest pieces that's really important.

It exists right now, but the federal legislation would provide that affirmation and recognition of our inherent title and rights, especially with children. I'm not sure if that answers your question exactly.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Do you perceive a time where you will not need to have near as much contact with the provincial government as you deal with these issues, and when you will be moving independently of the provincial government?

[Chief Judy Wilson]

The one thing we've always fought for was that there needed to be prevention funding, because what we're really talking about is the healing and the reconnecting and the opportunity for our own governance and jurisdiction over our children and families. Because of the colonial disruption and the number of children who were removed from our communities and our homes, we need to have that prevention and the healing, and we also need the funding to be able to work on our nations' governance for our children and families.

When I was talking with our local delegated agency, we did have strategy sessions and we did talk about the time the lights went out, and everybody was really sad. I told them not to be sad because there was still the huge prevention piece to work on. It's not displacing the work. Your work will shift not from removing the children from families and children in care, it's going to shift to the healing and prevention piece, the culture, bringing the children home, the language, reconnecting with families. That is going to take time because this business of colonialism impacted our communities for hundreds of years, eradicated some and assimilated many. It's going to take many more years to rebuild our nations and provide homes for our children and reconnect them with their language and their culture.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

One of the challenges as you know is that there have been many interpretations of what the UN declaration would mean if you were implementing it, and that includes an absolute right to say yes and no. If you look at article 19 around laws of general application of the UN declaration and free, prior and informed consent, at this committee we've had groups such as the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs that have essentially said it does not support this legislation. They don't give it free, prior and informed consent. So how do you align those concepts of the UN declaration; article 19; free, prior and informed consent and some significant objection? In my perspective, it creates some real challenges in what we do and where we go ahead. So on one hand, you're indicating the need to embed that into the legislation. If it's embedded, some legal opinions say it means you can't move ahead with the legislation, given some of the responses of the groups.

[Chief Judy Wilson]

I think you're talking about self-determination. And as I mentioned in my presentation, the nations have their choices. It just needs to be recognized that way in the legislation, so it's not placing us under any further colonial laws or restrictions. But it's about the self-determination, which article 19 and article 3 of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples speak about. A lot of the nations are at different levels. It's that part too, but it's also that the Government of Canada created this whole.... Some of the nations have modern treaties; some are outside the treaty process; some have comprehensive self-government. Those are the hurdles we need to look at.

Te inherent right to title and rights and our self-determination is key in this whole legislation piece. I think it needs to be clear on that. If some nations are choosing not to go down that path and uphold their international treaties or their numbered treaties, they should have the right to do that. Meanwhile, we would like affirmation and recognition of inherent title and rights, the ones in our processes.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you.

Questioning now moves to MP Rachel Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you all so much for being here with us today.

Chief Judy Wilson, I wanted to pick up on the last part of the conversation you were having. I couldn't agree more. And I think we need to make sure in this legislation there's the ability of nations to opt out with resources, not opt out with nothing.

I'm wondering if you could speak to the ability of a nation to make a decision but still get the resources they desperately need to deal with the issues they are facing in their own way.

[Chief Judy Wilson]

Bill C-92 cannot create more division and cannot create more discrimination against our nations. I think there has to be recognition for those nations, whatever path they're choosing, because the whole overall intent of the legislation is to reunify children with their nations, their communities and their families and support those collective rights of the children and the families. The bill needs to aim to do that, not to further create any more divisions. I don't see why the bill cannot do that because all the nations, whichever path they're choosing, need to be recognized and affirmed as well as how they work with the federal government and provincial government. It needs to be resourced no matter what, because the children did not have that choice when they were removed from the home, whether they're going to be resourced or not or what's going to happen.

The bill needs to be able to look at the adequate healing, the adequate resourcing, the adequate reunification and reconnection of those children with their family, their nation and their community so that we can get on with the work of healing.

I think viewing the legislation such that it's going to be an answer for all of the nations is the wrong thing to do. I think it's about just looking at the legislation as a step forward for the nations that have their pathway set up, but also supporting the nations that do not want to have the legislation limit them in any way in the exercise of their treaty or their inherent title and rights.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Chief Wilson, you had said during your testimony to us that there were some ceremonies done about bringing the children home and that families were reunited through that process.

I'm wondering if you could speak to us a little bit about what that ceremony entails and who participates in it.

[Chief Judy Wilson]

We had a nation ceremony a few months ago here in Vancouver at the Joe Mathias Centre. The reason we chose to do it outside of our nation and do it in Vancouver was that there are many children in the urban areas and many families. A number of our 17 communities participated. The children were from all over. We had the whole Joe Mathias Centre filled with families and children. Each community blanketed and welcomed home their children. Some had a lot, some had a few.

There's much more work. The families called for us to do that each year so that we could recognize the children who are in care and the ones we're still working on bringing home.

About a month later, our community of Neskonlith welcomed home 20 children, which was a high number. Our family support worker Gena Edwards and our councillor Fay Ginther worked for a long time in reunifying those children with the community and the families. It was really emotional to a lot of the families.

I recognize that there's still a lot of healing to the children and a lot of healing to those families that participated. Our families also asked that we continue to do that work.

We had a baby who was being removed in Toronto, for example, and thankfully, they notified us. They almost took the baby and put the baby in the system. We had to ask almost door to door in our community whose relative this baby was. We found out it was because of the sixties scoop when the grandfather was removed. He didn't have a connection with the community, so nobody knew this baby, but it was because of the gap and the void that the sixties scoop caused. We were able to bring the baby home. He was one of the 20 children we brought home and we're working on reconnecting him with his family. His sister is still, unfortunately, in Toronto. She's not from our community, but the grandmother did express interest in having that child placed with us, so that the brother and sister can be together.

Those are the kinds of stories each one of those children and their families could have shared, the horrendous experience they had and the work it's going to take for healing and the work it's going to take for reunifying them with their family, their culture and their language.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much.

I'd like to go to Bernie Charlie really quickly. I think we're related, but we'll talk about that another day. I'm from Stellat'en.

You talked about how the focus has to be on the family and the family unit. You talked about specific language that you want to see changed. I wonder if you could speak a little about honouring the whole family, as opposed to just individual children.

[Bernie Charlie]

As I presented to you, and even in terms of the work that we do, I just want to elaborate on the ceremony that took place in the Coast Salish territory. Children, their siblings and their biological parents were involved. An extension of that was the caregivers, the foster parents. We support that whole circle of support.

Lyle had also shared with you his experience that, as a caregiver to these children, you're not just caring for the children, but you're also encouraging their relationships with their families, whether their parents are able to.

In working under that structure, it's a whole community approach of the extended family, the caregivers, those who are chosen to do this work to care for and to nurture children and their parents.