Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 30th, 2016

[Grand Chief Joseph Tokwiro Norton]

On the other hand, in the east there are unceded territories. There are very few numbered treaty territories. What we go by is ancient relationships, such as a two row wampum. Without going into a long explanation of that, two nations side by side, travelling the river of life and joined by a chain that they polish, talk to each other. They don't impose on each other. You stay in your tall ship, as we described it, and we stay in our canoe. Your religion, your culture, and all your people are in that tall ship. What we have is in ours. If we decide to cross over in each other's...we do it by agreement. We don't force it upon each other.

That's what we believe in. That's what was given to us 450 years ago, when there was no such thing as a Canada and the United States, when there were the Dutch, the British, the Spanish, the French—whoever came here. That's what we believe in, and that's what we have in our minds and in our hearts to this day. That's nation to nation.

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

Mr. Matson.

[Jeremy Matson]

I'm sorry, I wasn't listening. Can you quickly repeat your question?

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

Do you want to repeat the question?

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

My question was whether you think the way the government has handled Bill S-3 is consistent with the mandate letters that said to build a nation-to-nation relationship.

[Jeremy Matson]

As an individual, I wasn't privy to any information about nation to nation. I belong to a nation and I have a relationship with my nation. Just as I have a relationship with the crown and with section 6 of the Indian Act, I have my own relationship with my own nation.

Also, every family within the Squamish Nation is affected by Bill C-31 and Bill C-3 and now Bill S-3, so it's important to communities such as mine.

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

Thank you.

First of all, welcome to this committee.

I've listened very carefully to your presentations. I wholeheartedly agree with everything you have said, each and every one of you. I too had similar feelings when I was asked to sit on this committee, finally, and become the critic for aboriginal affairs, with this bill coming in as the first task. How do you improve basically archaic, colonial, paternalistic, discriminatory, and fundamentally racist legislation? I have a very difficult time with that.

I listened very carefully to you, Joe, when you talked about the imposition of legislation and jurisdiction, and nation to nation.

It reminded me of the 2004 case of Haida Nation v. British Columbia, in which the Supreme Court talked about reconciliation. The Supreme Court in that case said that the objective was to reconcile the pre-existing sovereignty of indigenous peoples with the assumed sovereignty of the crown. I think you hit on that point when you made your presentation.

I would like to ask you how you deal with the situation surrounding your way of doing things with respect to membership. The Canadian Human Rights Commission has supposedly stepped in. I don't know if that's the case. How do you deal with that?

[Grand Chief Joseph Tokwiro Norton]

To begin with, I would like to jump back in time a little bit to the year 1990, which is infamous. People here who were born before that year will remember what happened with the Mohawk Nation in Kanesatake, Kahnawake, and to some degree Akwesasne.

Without going into a great deal of detail, what happened back then was that a situation arose that created a whole rethinking of the relationship between Canada and the native people. It wasn't just Mohawk people. It was right across the country, because everybody jumped in and became involved in that. Fast-forward to today and what we are living with. The aftermath has given rise to this pride and to the demand that we must do things with the methods provided to us by our ancestors, but in the modern context, if you will. That's what this is about. There's much more to it than that.

I know that you asked a very complicated question in a way, but in a very simplistic way we are allies to Canada. We are not subjects of Canada. Therefore this applies, and not the Indian Act, although that's what has been placed upon us for 150-some-odd years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Thank you for that.

The next question is from Don Rusnak, please.

[Don Rusnak, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you for appearing before this committee today.

I tend to agree with a lot of what was said here today, but what I struggle with is that this is a very large country and we're dealing with this one issue as a pan-aboriginal issue because of the Indian Act.

The Indian Act was designed to control indigenous people across this country; we all know that. It's done a very good job of destroying communities. It destroyed my community. I'm the only first nation member of Parliament from Ontario.

From sitting here listening to witnesses testify either way about this piece of legislation, and other things we've heard here, the one thing that's clear to me is that certain communities are at different levels in terms of governing and in terms of capacity to control their own destiny.

This is my worry, and this is why I see the need for this change to the Indian Act. There are still communities that are so dependent upon the Indian Act that these changes will hopefully help these people—and hopefully we'll get the numbers from the department about where these people are coming from—so that they don't slip through the cracks.

They're at the very bottom of this country, and they need the support that comes from the Indian Act, because they don't have anything else. That's the reason I see the need for these changes, so that we bring them in and they have those benefits and protections.

But that's not what I see, going forward. I see our communities—and MP Gary Anandasangaree and I were with the Mississaugas where they signed an accord to co-operate and negotiate with the government as a nation. That's where we need to be going. Having an agreement over land, resources, and how that relationship is going to look is what first nations and other indigenous communities across this country, in my view, need to move towards.

But right now we're discussing Bill S-3, and of course your community is in a different position. It's great to hear that perspective at this committee, but what would you suggest we do as the government in respect of this legislation, understanding that it's not going to affect just your community but is going to affect all those other communities?

I'm not saying that this is right. We have to get away from the pan-aboriginal approach to dealing with communities, because the Mohawks are very different from the Cree in northwestern Ontario or different from the Tsleil-Waututh in Vancouver. The way I explain it is that in Europe people in northern Poland do not enjoy and like the same things and don't have the same culture and language as people in southern Spain, although they're all Europeans. We need to do things differently, and dealing with it under one department and dealing with our indigenous people across this country as a homogeneous society or cultural group is wrong.

What, given the situation we're in, would you suggest we do with this piece of legislation?

[Grand Chief Joseph Tokwiro Norton]

If I may, the European Union is starting to show some cracks, as you know, although we're not in Europe.

We've been approached, and we've talked to the minister and the deputy minister, and they've talked to us about how to extract us from the Indian Act, more or less. How do you get out of the Indian Act? We can find solutions to just about everything that the Indian Act engulfs us with, but there are two areas, land and membership, that we're going to battle like hell over, and we're doing that right now.

As my colleague mentioned earlier on, this is not a “one size fits all” approach. In various parts of the country we understand that people need to have the Indian Act; they need to work with that. Changes that can be made to suit them are not going to suit us, and we don't want to fight with anybody. I don't want to fight with her, and I don't want to fight with him over that, the other witnesses here. If it fits what they need, then fine, let it fit.

You're going to have to go, I think, very carefully case by case and look right across the country in terms of what can happen and what can be done.

We're ready. We're bursting at the seams in terms of the Indian Act and it's application, especially in this one situation. I understand there's a Charter of Rights. I understand there's the appearance of discrimination and something has to be done. There has to be a way for Canada to look at it and say, “Well, that's Kahnawake. That's the way they do things, and it's not going to change”.

[Don Rusnak, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Go ahead, Ms. McIvor.

[Sharon McIvor]

I'm very, very clear on this piece of legislation. It needs to be fixed. You need to take out all the discrimination. It's as simple as that. It's not rocket science here at all.

To follow up on what Joe said, I was part of a constitutional consultation committee in 1989-90. We went to his community to consult, and they invited us into the big house. Their system is led by women, by matriarchs. They were talking about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and discrimination, and one of the matriarchs said, “Well, what would happen if one of the men wanted to be a matriarch?”, and they said, “Well, we'd put a dress on him and he could do what he wanted to do within our system. But there are women out there who are discriminated against, and we, as the Mohawk people, have been around for centuries and we can take care of ourselves.”

I was on the panel I think in 1989, and it's exactly what you've said.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Ms. McIvor, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you very much for that.

We're moving into five-minute rounds of questions now.

The first question is from David Yurdiga, please.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I'd like to welcome our witnesses here today. Your testimony will be instrumental in our moving forward on Bill S-3.

It seems to me that the Bill S-3 consultations were very limited. Some were consulted and some were not, which poses a problem. If we want to get a real perspective of what first nations need and how they want to proceed, it seems to me that it should be coming from first nations, not from us.

If we had to change Bill S-3 to make it work, what changes are necessary so it will be all-inclusive and get rid of some of the issues we're hearing today? What changes would you like to see in Bill S-3?

We'll start with whoever wants to answer that, or I can hear from each individual witness.

[Sharon McIvor]

I'll start.

Take the discrimination out. From the time the legislation was put in place, whatever version it was, up until 1985, there was discrimination against women and their descendants. That's all I am asking: take away the discrimination and put the people where they should have been had the discrimination not taken place.

As I said, they attempted to do it in 2010. There was the report to Parliament then. It's fairly simple to do: make sure that anybody born before April 17, 1985, whether descended from a male or a female, is treated exactly the same.

That means in their registration. We don't want paragraphs 6(1)(c.1.1) and 6(1)(c.1.4). There are categories there that are just making everybody different. The fact that a woman married out and her descendants didn't have the advantage of being in their community and learning in their community doesn't mean they are not entitled to belong to that group.

Just take the discrimination out. I can say it's not hard.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Are there any other comments?

[Chief Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer]

I just think Canada is in a conundrum one way or another, because you're not going to please everybody. I know she's saying that this is all you have to do and that's it, but at the same time, there's the impact it's going to have on first nations across Canada.

As Mr. Rusnak mentioned, some of them depend on these amendments and think it's going to be the greatest thing, because it's going to further their numbers and ensure that their existence as a band is going to continue. Others of us look at it and think, “Oh, my God, there are going to be all these people added to our community who don't even know where Kahnawake is or what it means to be Kanienkehaka.”

You're going to have an issue one way or another, moving forward. I had proposed at one point that there perhaps be registration: who could be a status Indian. You need to have general lists instead of giving band cards and tying it to specific nations or tying it to specific bands.

Or even make Ottawa a designated reserve, if you have to, and tie them to being Indians of Canada.

[An hon. member]

Ottawa Indians.

[Chief Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer]

Yes, Ottawa Indians.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Chief Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer]

I know it's funny, but in terms of the connection to being tied to a community, if they don't meet a specific community's criteria—were it to do a section 10.... If they don't, well, then they have to go somewhere. They have to be tied to somewhere.

[Grand Chief Joseph Tokwiro Norton]

The Algonquin Nation may have something to say about that.

[Chief Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer]

Yes, it's true.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!