Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here on behalf of the Sto:lo Xwexwilmexw Treaty Association. Our chief negotiator, Jean Teillet, and I are grateful to have this opportunity and are here on behalf of our six chiefs in leadership: Chief Maureen Chapman, Chief Angie Bailey, Chief Derek Epp, Chief Mark Point, Chief Alice Thompson, and Chief Terry Horne, who is also a member of our treaty negotiating team.
I'm going to run through primarily 11 points we've put together that we want to bring to your attention with regard to issues around the comprehensive claims process, specifically, though, as it relates to the B.C. treaty process, with which we're engaged.
I also want to acknowledge being here on Tsawwassen lands in the Tsawwassen treaty nation area.
The content we're providing in this presentation is based on experiences of the Sto:lo Xwexwilmexw Treaty Association in comprehensive land claims negotiations and in participating in the B.C. treaty process since 1995—for the past 22 years. We're currently approaching the conclusion of stage four—agreement in principle—out of the six steps of that process.
This presentation, as I say, focuses on 11 key points and recommendations that are drawn from our experience over those past 22 years. We'll also be providing a written submission in a follow-up as this is a pretty high-level bullet-point type of presentation to begin with. We do need the time and more substantial space to add the detail that we feel we need to inform these points more fully.
First, I'll speak to certainty provisions with regard to rights recognition, as opposed to extinguishment. Second, we'll speak to core treaties and the need to review and transform the process of treaty as it links to the rights recognition basis and to the implementation of UNDRIP. The third part substantially is the introduction of shared decision-making over land and resources off treaty settlement lands.
Fourth is the area of jurisdiction and law-making. Fifth, we'll speak to fee simple land acquisition. Sixth, we'll speak to treaty settlement land status and administration. Seventh is negotiation funding, debt forgiveness, and grants. Eighth is community well-being catch-up and the need for fiscal reform to allow for that catch-up to happen.
Ninth is community well-being social reform and the need for social policy reform, specifically around indigenous children and families. Tenth, we'll talk to stage four in the B.C. treaty process as a barrier to treaty-making. Finally, on point 11, I'll talk to public education and reconciliation and the need for more substantial public education and understanding of reconciliation.
I'll go fairly quickly through these points with a bit of detail.
The first point is with regard to the need to change certainty provisions. We need to do that, and our recommendation is to immediately move towards the implementation of a rights recognition model and language consistent with UNDRIP and a human rights foundation to treaty-making fundamental to reconciliation, and not pursuing and eliminating altogether any aspect of extinguishment as a factor of treaty-making and the core to what treaty-making is. Again, that also moves us away from the current language. It still embodies to some extent extinguishment when we're talking about modification in non-assertion models. We need clear language that is specifically and explicitly based on rights recognition and non-extinguishment.
Extinguishment is a non-starter for many of our community members and fosters an ongoing critique of treaties. When we move into rights recognition, it opens the door to a wider range of support . Also, this moves us into the next point here, which is a wider range of options for treaty-making that are not full and final, where the rights are not nailed down in the four corners of the treaty, as is all too often the objective of treaty-making at this point in time.
The second point is on core treaties and the need to review and transform the process of treaty-making. We see core treaties as the foundation for developing relationships across the spectrum of rights, based on the principles of the Tsilhqot'in decision and the implementation of UNDRIP. That includes authority, management, access and use to be implemented, revisited and revised, and updated as a matter of creating a living treaty model, the evergreen living tree model.
Core treaties can contain elements of but not necessarily all the rights that exist. We don't need these to be considered full and final, because we don't want them to be considered a full and final agreement but rather a treaty. In the SXTA, we've resisted the idea of this being a final agreement. We've insisted on it being called a treaty, an agreement establishing relationships between nation and nation—again, consistent with UNDRIP and with Canada's 10 principles—and have said that these relationships in these documents and these treaties can be and should be reviewed every few years in an orderly process for change.
Tied to recognition, core treaties, and treaty-making is the aspect of shared decision-making as something we're putting forward as, again, substantial, and that needs to be developed, implemented, and recognized within treaty-making. The sharing of decisions, based on the recognition of title that indigenous peoples are owners of the land and the resources and therefore have a say in how those lands and resources are used and managed, is substantial. It is also an element of the fiscal policy that we mentioned before. Fiscal policy is an element of the resources that are being extracted, and where, when, and how that happens needs to be a factor of the decision-making by indigenous peoples, but also, the revenues resulting from that extraction need to be understood as part of the revenues of the indigenous peoples themselves.
There's a Halkomelem saying that will be challenging for the interpreters. [Witness speaks in Halkomelem] It means: “This is our land. We have to take care of everything that belongs to us.” Very simply put, it expresses that idea: the concept of ownership, title, and the need to take care of and steward the land. Shared decision-making off treaty settlement lands is a significant factor of the process to be reformed.
On what we'll call jurisdiction and law-making, we want to say simply that there's currently too much bureaucratic detail, particularly as included by B.C., in treaty documentation and treaty text. Treaties should simply set up prophecies for relationships. Implementation should allow for and provide mechanisms to be worked out, developed, and changed as needed, through orderly process, much of which could be done as side agreements to trim down what is central to the treaty itself.
On fee simple land acquisition, in many cases crown land is limited, particularly in southwestern British Columbia. It's also a critical need. There is a critical need that exists for fee simple lands to be included in a substantial quantity as treaty settlement lands. Mechanisms for fee simple land acquisition under a framework of willing seller-willing buyer should accommodate the need for incremental acquisition over an extended period of time. This shouldn't be constrained by relationships with local municipalities. This should be something that can be done over time without interference from local governments.
Treaty settlement land status needs to be a unique status, not a subsection 91(24) status or provincial fee simple status, and something that recognizes indigenous title apart from the lands set out under the Indian Act or otherwise set out as provincial grants. That motivates a need for an indigenous title land registry system that can be taken care of affordably and in an available way for treaty and other first nations to administer.
On negotiation funding and debt forgiveness, debt accumulated through loans to first nations supporting comprehensive land claims processes needs to be forgiven. The debt issue is a huge disincentive to treaty participants and critics both. Capacity funding support needs to be granted and loans need to be forgiven.
As I said, we'll be submitting a written version of this in more detail.
What I want to say is basically around the need to reform fiscal and social policies and the ability to govern and have direct participation in taking care of children and families. We've received resistance to that, but when we're looking at the need as an outcome or an element of treaties that's substantial in order to deal with this catch-up period, to bring the status of health and well-being in indigenous communities up to a common level and standard, that motivates the need for reform in fiscal relationships, taxation, OSR, and involvement in jurisdiction on the fundamental elements of society, such as children and families.
Next, stage four is a barrier to treaty-making. Simply, it takes too long, it's too complex, there are too many hurdles, and what we hear from the communities is why is it taking so long? Why don't we see any results? We need the revision of stage four to provide earlier and greater access to a more substantial tool kit, and pre-treaty land transfers, protections, and benefits. We need to substantially look at how stage four is taken care of.
I'll end with education and reconciliation. The government needs to develop meaningful public processes filling the gaps between truth and reconciliation, so the public can better understand why these processes are in place, what we're trying to do here, what the needs are for supporting the treaty process and comprehensive claims.
Thank you very much.