Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Sept. 28th, 2017

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Maybe we could do a five-minute round.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Because we had people not show up, the MP from the jurisdiction and I had a conversation saying that we would have it at 60 minutes, but if it's the will of the committee, we can extend it. That would be fine.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Definitely—as long as the witnesses are okay with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Obviously, these guys will keep on asking you questions.

[Grand Chief Constant Awashish]

I have no problem with that. I could sit here all day, if you want.

[Eleanor Bernard]

I have to leave at about 11 o'clock.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

All right.

Kevin, why don't you continue. You had a couple more minutes in your round.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Yes.

Let's start with what we were just talking about: your three out of 10 subactivities.

[Eleanor Bernard]

You're talking about the enhanced funding programs.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Yes.

[Eleanor Bernard]

We did not get anything in immediate needs. We did not get any funding in transformational dollars, which we figured we wouldn't be getting anyway because we were already up and running. Another was post-secondary education, although just recently we did receive some post-secondary education dollars. There was nothing new in capital. Forgive me, but I can't remember the other two.

Those are some of the areas that we did not receive—

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

That's what Cathy asked about.

[Eleanor Bernard]

Yes.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

You can submit that later, if you don't mind.

[Eleanor Bernard]

I will, yes. I've been taking notes.

I want to point out as well that not only are our graduation rates high, but the age-grade appropriateness is also very good compared with other areas. Our students are graduating within three to four years of entering high school. That's a big thing.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Very good.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

The next round goes to MP Anandasangaree, and I understand he's splitting it with MP Bossio.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Great. Thank you.

I want to follow up on these points. You're $35 million in debt, so really they put you in a position where you can't negotiate, because you keep going further and further into debt. At some point have you had to go into default management as a result of it?

[Grand Chief Constant Awashish]

No, we never did that.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

So they keep lending you the money.

[Grand Chief Constant Awashish]

They keep lending the money and we don't get to an agreement. As well, I think the party who, in the end, leaves the table in bad faith is the one who will have to pay for that. Maybe that's the reason why.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

In the specific land claims process, there's a tribunal where you can go to an independent body in order to find restitution or find some level after a number of years. Under the comprehensive land claims arrangement, there is no recourse. You are hostage to the process, and you have to continue even though there are dead zones where there's no negotiation going on. You have to continue to pay your experts because, if you hire new experts, then you're starting back at ground zero.

[Grand Chief Constant Awashish]

In 1979, our people, our leaders, believed that the best way possible was negotiating. They believed in the good faith of the government. They believed in the system, the rule of law, and negotiation was the way they chose. We could have chosen to go to a tribunal at that time, but that was not what they believed in. The tribunal is very expensive, first of all, but with the debt we are in for the land claim, maybe we should have chosen that fight. It would have cost about the same and we would probably be set today already.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

In your 40 years, how many years have you spent negotiating? Of the 40 years, for how many years have you been negotiating?

[Grand Chief Constant Awashish]

It's been 35. It stopped in 2009 until 2013. The Quebec government kept negotiating, but the federal government stopped negotiating from 2009 to 2013. I was just an observer at that time. There was another part when I was younger, and the same thing happened.