Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 26th, 2017

Evidence of meeting #79 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 claim.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Specific Claims and Comprehensive Land Claims Agreements

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Chief Herb Norwegian Grand Chief, Dehcho First Nations

Harry St. Denis Chief, Wolf Lake First Nation

Wayne McKenzie Chief, Timiskaming First Nation

Cam Stewart Director, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research Centre of Manitoba

Patricia Myran Assistant Director, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research Centre of Manitoba

Douglas Eyford Lawyer, Eyford Macaulay LLP, As an Individual

Glenn Archie Head Negotiator, Flood Claims Negotiations, Mishkosiminiziibiing First Nation

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

Okay. Can you give us a sense of what would be an optimum resource to have to truly be able to carry out the work of doing the research on these claims, and what kind of savings would that have for the individual communities? We see in Mr. Archie's case that his community goes $1.1 million into debt, and people think of just the debt. They don't look at the offside of it, where all of a sudden he can no longer do any other infrastructure projects because he can't fund them because of the debt load that's on top of that.

1:05 p.m.

Director, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research Centre of Manitoba

Cam Stewart

Exactly, and they're not benefiting from it, just debt, essentially.

We haven't had that third party influence yet in Manitoba, as far as I know, not to the level that other people have encountered. We are run by a first nation ward, and we are accountable to our first nation members. Sometimes it's almost shameful that we can't provide what we want to provide. That has to do primarily with our core funding. That trickles down, obviously, from the federal level.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

What level of funding, though, would be optimum to be able to carry out the function that you do?

1:05 p.m.

Assistant Director, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research Centre of Manitoba

Patricia Myran

That's really hard to say because we have so many claims on our plate. We can't even handle the load. We have three researchers, I think, three full-time researchers. All one researcher can handle is maybe one or two claims a year. It takes anywhere from six months to two years to develop a claim. If we have 21 claims on our work plan right now, and they're at different stages—we have claims that are still out there that we can't even address.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

Right now, it's year to year. What would a more optimum time frame be, once again, to establish funding levels? You may have 21 today, but, hopefully, if we do find ways to speed up the process, that's going to vary over time, right?

1:05 p.m.

Director, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research Centre of Manitoba

Cam Stewart

Anything past a year-to-year agreement would be fantastic. Honestly, it would be.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

Would five years be—

1:05 p.m.

Director, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research Centre of Manitoba

Cam Stewart

Five years, yes, would be a good start, absolutely. We could gain traction. We could build our infrastructure, so to speak, our research infrastructure.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

That would enable you to speed up the process at your end as well.

1:05 p.m.

Director, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research Centre of Manitoba

Cam Stewart

Absolutely, yes, 100% in Manitoba, for sure.

We're a little weary of this third party influence because I think the third party influence would have a negative affect overall. I think what we're doing at its core is probably the best way to do it because there are no incurred costs for first nations, and communities are suffering as it is.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk

MP Viersen.

1:05 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to our guests for being here today.

Mr. Archie, I'm fascinated. You said you're working on five claims and you've settled three, and you've used the tribunal. Could you talk a bit about your experience with the tribunal? Was it a positive experience? Was the timeline what you were anticipating?

1:05 p.m.

Head Negotiator, Flood Claims Negotiations, Mishkosiminiziibiing First Nation

Glenn Archie

Right now, our highway claim is in the tribunal, and that experience is not very good. Every little document of evidence that we provide, the Government of Canada wants to spend $10 million turning over that piece of evidence that in our view is fact, it's real, it lives. That's the problem we face: the Government of Canada challenging every little piece of evidence that we submit. That's the biggest problem with the tribunal.

The other biggest problem is that the Government of Canada can appeal any decision that the tribunal makes, which they're not supposed to do unless there was a legal mistake somewhere in how they arrived at the decision. There seems to be one found each time.

There was an appeal done in B.C., and I should know more about that. I'm only hearing about it through our lawyers. The tribunal can improve as well the way it is.

Funding has to be provided as well, and hopefully not loan funding, as we spoke about that. That doesn't sit very well with the first nations. That doesn't serve us very well. Grant funding should be provided in that area for us to further our case.

1:10 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Did you find the timeline adequate?

1:10 p.m.

Head Negotiator, Flood Claims Negotiations, Mishkosiminiziibiing First Nation

Glenn Archie

Sometimes you get three weeks' notice to have a document in place, ordered by the judge. Sometimes we have only three weeks and we have to scramble to get that information together at certain times, especially when we're talking about elders' evidence. It takes time to get all the elders together and it takes time to talk to them. It takes time to get proper questions in place, the right questions, and it has to be at the right place.

1:10 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

You said you've settled two claims you've had. When we talk about how it takes a long time to gather the evidence and things such as that, with the two that you did settle, do you feel that the pace at which the decision was arrived at was adequate? I know typically on both sides they're trying to gather documents, trying to gather testimony.

We heard testimony that there's nothing that spurs that on like a date, a particular date. There's frustration on both sides sometimes in trying to gather the stuff, and the date often propels that a bit. Would you say that was your experience?

1:10 p.m.

Head Negotiator, Flood Claims Negotiations, Mishkosiminiziibiing First Nation

Glenn Archie

In 1997, when the Assabaska land claim was settled, that was done through negotiation.

I forgot the last part of your question, as I was thinking while you were talking.

1:10 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Was the pace good?

1:10 p.m.

Head Negotiator, Flood Claims Negotiations, Mishkosiminiziibiing First Nation

Glenn Archie

No, the pace was not good. It took over 25 years to finally settle that claim, because both levels of government would not come to the table. It took a blockade of a highway for both governments to come to the table, especially on the highway claim. I was a councillor back then and I was a negotiator. I was instructed by the membership to put a blockade because the government wouldn't listen to us, so maybe they'd listen to us if we did this, an extreme situation.

1:10 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

I have one more question, which is for Mr. Stewart, in my last 30 seconds.

What's the organizational structure of the TARR Centre of Manitoba? Is it a not-for-profit organization?

1:10 p.m.

Director, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research Centre of Manitoba

Cam Stewart

It's not for profit.

1:10 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Does it mostly contract out its work?

1:10 p.m.

Director, Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research Centre of Manitoba

Cam Stewart

No, it's largely internal, because that's all we can afford.

1:10 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Okay. Thank you.

1:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk

That concludes our available time.

Thank you very much for travelling, for coming out, for being patient and working with us in the sometimes difficult structure of a parliamentary committee.

We will take your words and your evidence. You can submit evidence. Be sure your briefs are submitted. Our report will go to the Parliament of Canada, and then we will likely ask the department to respond in terms of our recommendations.

Please keep in touch. Watch the website for hopefully some positive developments on this front.

Meegwetch. Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.