Evidence of meeting #51 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was community.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
Is your question directed to Wasagamack on the phone or the Algonquins who are here?
Conservative
Policy Consultant Advisor, Algonquin Nation Secretariat, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
The first time it had to do with the federal government meddling in the internal leadership issues of the community. It withdrew recognition of a customary chief and recognized what was called an interim band council. There's no such thing in law as an interim band council. In the end, it had to recognize the customary chief of the community and that's when it signed that agreement in 1997.
It seems to have been politically motivated the first time. It was likely politically motivated the second time, because, as I mentioned, in 2001 the federal government walked away from two major agreements affecting the overall development of the community, the future of the community.
I think it was $87,000 that they owed. They were just over the 8% I think. That's been paid, and paid again over time with the millions of dollars they have gone through.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
On their website, INAC has basically five different trip lines. This would have been not meeting an obligation under a funding agreement. Was the organizational structure not meeting INAC's request?
Policy Consultant Advisor, Algonquin Nation Secretariat, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
As I mentioned, in 2006 the customary chief Harry Wawatie wanted to replace the co-manager because the co-manager was not providing any information to the council. With his decision to change the co-manager, I guess the regional office said, “We're going to put you in third party because you're not addressing the deficit”. The deficit really wasn't that great. It was technically over the line.
Policy Consultant Advisor, Algonquin Nation Secretariat, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
But Barriere Lake was trying to work it out. The council was trying to work out with the regional office to get a co-manager in place so that they could work on eliminating the deficit through a plan, but the government made a decision before that could happen.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
For sure.
To our guest on the phone, Alex, your particular first nation is under recipient-managed third party management, or not third party management but default prevention. Have you any idea what put you in that position, Mr. McDougall?
Chief, Wasagamack First Nation
I'm sorry, I didn't get the question. With all due respect, the French interpretation is overwhelming the English component. I can't hear the English conversation.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
I'll just ask my question again, and I'll see whether that works.
I can't ask it in French, unfortunately. My French is not as good as Romeo's.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
You don't understand French. Okay, I'll ask my question in English, and hopefully we'll get it through.
Essentially, my question is this. It seems to me that communities don't even realize that there are tripwires. On the INAC website, there are five bullet points that basically say that if one of these wires is tripped, you are put into what starts out as recipient managed, then there's a second layer, and then finally third party management.
Can you just outline the situation in which your first nation finds itself and tell us how it ended up in this recipient managed situation? Do you know which of the wires was tripped, in your case?
Chief, Wasagamack First Nation
I can start from the ministerial guarantees that are provided by the department for first nations for various projects within the community. There was some miscommunication, I believe, from the department to various suppliers at the time whereby the community and also the supplier believed that there was a ministerial guarantee on a project, and they found out that there wasn't. That snowballed into a huge deficit for the community, such that it gradually escalated to third party management—for the past five years, I believe.
There is therefore some concern about the communications from the department with the first nations and their suppliers on projects that are coming into the community. That's what started it, and it continued to escalate. The debt continued to grow, amid attempts by community leadership to provide desperately needed programs and services: housing, water, and sewer—you name it. We continued to try to build our community and build an economic base so that we could provide for our own community. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened.
In my opening statement I noted that we are already starting from a difficult position as first nations people, whereby there is chronic underfunding in all areas of services, capital, programs—you name it. We are trying, basically with our hands tied behind our backs, to manage financial resources that are not nearly sufficient to meet the needs of the community.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
We're going to see whether we can deal with the technical problem you're facing. I'm going to suspend the meeting just for 10 seconds or until we get an update.
We'll take a short break, get a coffee, and take five minutes to see whether we can figure out how to solve the problem for the folks who have called in.
Chief, we're going to suspend for five minutes and then come back. We're trying to solve the problem that you're facing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
Good news. Our technician is here. We understand that hopefully the issue has been resolved.
Liberal
NDP
Romeo Saganash NDP Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Welcome to all of the witnesses to this committee.
I don't have the Algonquins of Barriere Lake in my riding but I have a huge chunk of your territory in my riding. It is in that capacity I also want to welcome you. To that end, I've always said that it is fine to acknowledge that we are on unceded Algonquin territory; it's quite another to recognize that Ottawa has not been paying the rent. I think we should always add that second part, which is equally important.
I have similar questions as others because I know that Barriere Lake is in a very unique situation. There are several factors that led us to where you are today. Some of them are related to politics. Some of them are related to social issues, economic capacity, history, and so on.
I'd like you to comment on those other factors that lead a community like yours to where you are today. Could you elaborate on them first?
Policy Consultant Advisor, Algonquin Nation Secretariat, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
The chief was wondering what you were getting at. Maybe I could help because I've been an adviser to the community since the mid-1980s.
There was an agreement signed with Quebec and Canada in 1991 when the Conservative government was in power under Prime Minister Mulroney. That agreement was to develop an integrated resource management plan for lands and resources over the traditional territory of Barriere Lake and to protect the biodiversity and the way of life, because the community still relies heavily on hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering. Even though it's three and a half hours north of here, I think it's probably the most representative community within that area—as you know, Mr. Saganash—of a hunting society. My own community of Kahnawake, we were more industrialized, so Barriere Lake represents a traditional hunting society. They were looking to protect that in the agreement they signed in 1991.
Canada was supporting that agreement for a while, up until 2001, like I said. Then they walked away. They did have some leadership issues in the community under custom. Under the federal policy, the federal government was not supposed to intervene in the internal politics of the community, but the federal government did that several times. Like I said, that 1997 agreement, the memorandum of mutual intent, was to rebuild the relationship with the federal government, in particular with the Department of Indian Affairs. The regional office in Quebec City, the advice they've been giving to headquarters has been pretty stern because Barriere Lake didn't agree with the plan.
When I first started working with Barriere Lake in the mid-1980s, all the regional office wanted to do was a land expansion and hook them up to the Quebec hydro grid for electricity because, at that time, the diesel generator was at its capacity. Barriere Lake was concerned about the impacts because they had high unemployment. How were they going to pay for that? Plus, at the same time in 1987, when the government was trying to hook the community up to electricity, the provincial government, Premier Bourassa, was proposing to privatize the La Vérendrye wildlife reserve around the community. The community's capital dollars were supposed to be used to build this line, because there would have to be an upgrade of a line from Grand-Remous to Le Domaine, and then a new line built from Le Domaine to Rapid Lake.
At that time it was almost $4 million of the band's money that they wanted to use. At the same time, the province was proposing to privatize the land around them, so the chief and council viewed the electrification project as being planned for use in regional development because they wanted to have private outfitters take over the La Vérendrye wildlife reserve. The community wasn't ready for the electrification. They wanted it as part of a broader plan, so they put a stop to it. Since then, they did get an architect. They do have a master plan, like I said, that was part of that 1997 agreement. It's still sitting there, to be implemented. Roads were actually built. There were supposed to be housing clusters built by families. The overall community plan was developed. It just hasn't been implemented.
It started out in 1997 with a proposed $20-million budget over five years to rebuild the community. By 2006 it had become $17 million, I think, over seven years. Clifford Lincoln was negotiating that at the time when Barriere Lake was put into third party management. The community development, the factors that led to that, largely had to do with the poor relationship with the federal government. They wanted them to go into the land claims process. They didn't agree with the policy of extinguishing title in that, so there's been tension between the department and—
NDP
Romeo Saganash NDP Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
I just want to ask, there's a policy and legislative review being undertaken by this government, and I presume that will include the Indian Act. You talked a lot about that. You talked in your presentations about a different governance system. What would be your recommendation to this committee? That is part of our overall mandate as well.
Policy Consultant Advisor, Algonquin Nation Secretariat, Algonquins of Barriere Lake
Basically, the government should respect article three of the UN declaration, the right of self-determination. They should respect the right of customary governance of indigenous peoples in Canada, including Barriere Lake. They should agree to recognize the traditional system and rescind that section 74 order because it's inconsistent with the UN declaration and their right of self-determination.