Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 15th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You have one minute. Go ahead.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Oh, I do have a minute. That's perfect.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

No, you don't. I'm sorry.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You're a five-minute guy. We're past.... I had you in for six.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Can I make one quick comment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Sure, go ahead.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

If I had more time, I was going to get you to elaborate on the acquisition of private property, but thank you for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

We have more to come.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I'm sorry about that.

Mr. van Koeverden, you have five minutes.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

President Chartrand, thanks for coming back. It's always nice to hear from you. Whether you're speaking from well-prepared notes or you're speaking from the heart, I think you make your point really clearly. Your knowledge and your wisdom on this file and your work is very evident, so I can't thank you enough.

I'm struck with the reality of the transition in how the Conservatives are portraying this bill. They've stopped talking about a veto, and now they're talking about a duty to consent or a duty to work with. I'm struck with the reality that I feel people on this committee and elsewhere are telling indigenous people what they should be happy with or that things have been fine for the last 20 or 30 years.

I was quite struck with the comment from Mr. Viersen that things have been fine for the last 30 years, in his lifetime, or something like that. I have to speak up about that. I disagree. I don't think the status quo is good enough, and I don't think you do either. Based on your comments, I don't think the status quo is what we want to hold ourselves to as a standard for a country or as a government. I think progress is necessary, and we have to change and do better.

I would love your reflections on a better future for everybody in this country, and that has to include not just participation and not just telling communities how we're going to manage their lands, which they are the rights holders of, but truly working together and what co-operation and collaboration actually mean.

[David Chartrand]

There's a sad part about all this, when you look at the history of it and why we're where we are today in society: All that history is a reflection. My mom used to always teach me this. I speak fluent Saulteaux, and when I used to leave, my mom always told me:

[Witness spoke in Saulteaux and provided the following text:]

Gaawin-wiikaa waniik ke kan aan-di dibi ka ondaad izi ian.

[English]

She said, “Never forget where you come from”, and I never will. I grew up very, very poor, and I was raised by a single mother. I understand what poverty is. I understand what struggle is. However, we lived a life, and I'd never change it in a million years. I love the way we grew up, even though we were very poor.

At the end of the day, if you look at where we are in society, we shouldn't be here. I'll give a perfect example, and it's such a pictorial way to look at it.

In 1870, when Manitoba was created, the Métis leadership at the time set aside 1.4 million acres of land for the children. Section 32 of the Constitution was for the parents, but the 1.4 million acres of land was set aside for the children.

The Mennonites were given 586,000 acres. I mention them because they're a perfect example of what production can do and what the future can give you if you work as a community, and if we allow it to be run as a community and don't interfere. We can look at the progress of the Mennonites. They had less than half the land set aside, but today in Manitoba they're the richest, most powerful people in many aspects. I'm very proud of them. I'm seriously proud of them.

When you look at the Métis nation, we were chased off our lands, pushed away to live wherever we could find. We were called the “road allowance people”. Imagine for a second if our lives did not have interference, and we didn't get chased off our land. We'd be the most powerful and richest people in Manitoba today. There's no doubt. We're very strong thinkers economically and strong business people. We're hard-working people.

When you look at where we are today, a change needs to happen. We can't keep having society or Canadians as a whole say, “We're tired of paying for the indigenous people,” and then we just say, “You're using our land, you're using our assets and you're taking all our riches.” There's an imbalance that happens in ideologies with the growth of Canada and educating everybody. We need to find a balance in how we come together. This is the future. The future we're talking about today is taking us there.

I speak to industry, and I guarantee you that once they really see and hear you, they're not afraid of this anymore. They've gone past that. They're ready for business. They're ready to sit down. Trust me. I invest millions in shareholder institutions in this country and outside this country, and any shareholder who's investing wants to be sure their money is being well planned and well protected and that they're going to make money that will return to them. Industry knows now that they can trust a new pattern, a new process, a blueprint. It is where this is going to take us.

We cannot make a change, as I said earlier, nation to nation and government to government that is going to change things 10 years or 20 years from now. I guarantee you that right now. I've been fighting this since I was 18 years old and I'm 61 years old today. When you look at it from that perspective, change is coming and UNDRIP is another pathway that's going to really let us play catch-up so that indigenous and non-indigenous people can compare economically, educationally and so forth. It's about catching up. We're slowly catching up, which is something we should have done 50 years ago or 80 years ago.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Vice-President Chartrand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much, Adam.

Mr. Chartrand, thanks for the reflection on the Mennonites. I lived for a few years in a Mennonite community, and some of the first boat people in Canada were in the village of Wellesley, near Kitchener, brought in by the Mennonite relief society. They're quite a remarkable group.

Thanks for that, sir.

Ms. DeBellefeuille, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also want to thank you, Mr. Chartrand.

Let's pick up where we left off in the first round of questions. You said that you were afraid that the bill would be used as a political tool, that it would be co-opted and that it wouldn't lead to real concrete changes.

What real impact do you really hope to see as a result of the passage of Bill C-15?

[David Chartrand]

Again, recognize that I saw this, from my eyes, and many of our cabinet and other people in the west see this, as being used as a tool to scare industry—that if we support this it will kill their future and their opportunity. That is not true. I guarantee that it's not true.

However, in terms of how I see change, let's look at the educational aspect of the Métis people in Manitoba. Let's look at the health situation in Manitoba. We're behind everybody else. We're highest in chronic illnesses, higher than everybody else. People have to understand this and say, “Okay, we'll fix that.” But if you don't start putting a plan in action that's inclusive, that ensures that the people you're speaking of are actually part of it, then you're not going to solve the problem.

At the end of the day, Métis pay billions of dollars in taxes annually. Every year we pay billions in taxes, but when you look at the services that come to us, because of the jurisdictional debate that still happens in this country between the province and the federal government, we're left out. When you look at it from that concept, we are pushed out of the process of being included.

I think in this process, the country and the governments will now have a responsibility to include the Métis nation to be part of the process in doing the right thing. At the end of the day, I'm still a Canadian. I'm still going to use these hospitals, but I'm going to cost you 10 times more. It will be 10 times more the taxpayer bill. When you look at it overall, if we work together, we can stop and prevent this type of situation, including for our children.

We did a study, and our kids—zero to three, three to five—are falling further behind than anybody else. That shouldn't be. Why should we be the ones falling behind education-wise? We're doing all these studies now. I have evidence, if anybody wants a copy of it, from the University of Winnipeg. They're doing studies. Our children are falling behind every other child when it comes to education in this country.

It shouldn't be. That's our future. That's our investment. We want them one day to be working and paying taxes to make sure we get an old age pension in this country. We want to make sure there's a process established where the next generation will have it better than we do. All of us as parents think that way. All of us as leaders think that way. In order to do that, we need to make sure this bill passes. I can see the future changing. It's coming. The mindset is changing in this country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chartrand.

Ms. Blaney, you have two and a half minutes. Go ahead.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

I really appreciate this conversation. One of the chiefs in my riding once said to me that one of the most frustrating parts is this process of incremental justice. It's a little bit, a little bit, and you're just not getting to the place that I really hear clearly from you is where you want to get.

I appreciate so much what you're talking about, that this is a government. As a government, all other governments in Canada have the right to free, prior and informed consent. Why is that indigenous governance structures are not the same? You talked a lot about industry. I know that an industry isn't going to do well in my riding when they come to see me to ask for an introduction to indigenous communities. Their leadership comes to see me and their indigenous manager goes to see the government of the nation.

I'm wondering if you could talk about what you think this bill will do to start to get other industries and other governments in Canada to understand that this is a governance structure that they are talking to.

[David Chartrand]

I think you're hitting the nail on the head when you talk about why other governments are recognized in this country for free, prior and informed consent and not indigenous governments. Again, that is absolutely true. We are governments. I think it's very clear that if there's any blueprint we can start to look at, it's what is already starting to happen. The mining institutions, the petroleum institutions, Enbridge—all these big companies are massive companies worth billions upon billions of dollars. They too are seeing the future and saying, “Okay, there's a change coming in this country.” If you go to other foreign countries, as I'm sure you know, they can go....

I got a call from Colombia. They're asking me to go and assist them—I have to be careful—because they found a bunch of gold, they say, in their lands. They're worried as indigenous people. What if the Colombian government just comes in and sweeps it off them now? They're asking if I can help them and give them advice and so forth. [Technical difficulty—Editor] are exactly a holdback to the late 1800s and 1900s.

There's a transitional change happening in Canada. We can see it. All we have to do is play catch-up amongst ourselves. I read all the party platforms. I read the 2019 platforms for all parties. Erin O'Toole is saying he's going to bring reconciliation under his government also. He's going to bring it under his party. I see the NDP is powerful in that particular aspect. I see the Liberals are powerful in that. The Bloc Québécois will always support the Métis. That I can count on.

Anyway, it's very clear from our perspective that we look towards the future, and I think the future is telling everybody that there's a blueprint being established here. If we all follow this blueprint, nothing but positive change will be coming. It's a win-win for everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks, Mr. Chartrand.

Mr. Melillo, you have five minutes.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank Mr. Chartrand for his comments.

You've given us a lot to think about already. In one of the comments that I picked up on—I don't remember when you were saying this—you stressed the importance of being included in the process, I believe perhaps in response to the questioning from our friend from the Bloc.

I'm just wondering if you can speak a bit about the process of consultation on Bill C-15 to this point. Do you feel there has been adequate consultation with the Métis nation?

[David Chartrand]

In Manitoba, unfortunately we're in a very peculiar position, one that I've not seen in a long time, where the government is trying to avoid consultation. What's happening is that I'm filing matters in the courts, so I'm going to be holding up process and criticized for holding up the diversion between Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba, but I'm not holding it up. I'm not opposed to it. I need to understand and ensure for my people, my fishers, that our economic engines out there, the land and the water, will not feel a dire effect 10 or 20 years from now, so we need proper consultation.

Now, in my province, it's not happening. I know there was a question that was going to be raised earlier, that was raised by Jamie, I think, about Crown lands. When you look at Crown lands in Manitoba, a lot of the ranchers are really getting a hold of me, and a lot of the farmers are getting a hold of me. They're very concerned about what's happening with their Crown land. The prices have gone up threefold in two years. They can't afford it anymore, but what's happening is that they're putting them up for private sale.

Guess what's going to happen now, Mr. Melillo: I'll be filing it in courts. I'll be telling them they can't sell Crown land. They didn't consult. There was no proper consultation, but if they just followed the UN declaration, we wouldn't be there. The premier and I would be sitting at a table somewhere. We'd be coming to terms with how we look towards the future of this province that we both like, love and support, and how we work together to achieve that.

I think the issue here, when you look at it, is that there's a situation where, if the UN declaration were in place and respected, we'd avoid the courts many more times in the future, and I can't say that enough. Judges have said in Ontario, and everywhere else where you're from: “Get out of it. You got elected. Do your job. Quit bringing matters to us to adjudicate on your behalf.”

From our perspective, we're saying very clearly that consultation is the way to go. This gives you a blueprint of how we get together. Once we respect each other, there's no doubt it's going to be successful.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you very much. I can appreciate those comments. I think maybe you're looking a little farther ahead than I was when I asked the question, and I'll try to bring it back to just when the government was developing Bill C-15 itself. Do you feel there was an adequate consultation, an adequate dialogue?

I understand what you're saying about once it's in effect, but what about at this point?

[David Chartrand]

Yes, okay. I understand the question. I thank you for that. It's a good question.

Yes, definitely there was. What, of course, took a lot of it away from all of us is COVID. COVID was restraining us from doing what we traditionally would do. As I said, one day you should come to my assembly. It'll be in October this year, if COVID allows me to have it. You'll see 3,000 citizens coming from across Manitoba to listen to government, and that's a big convention, probably bigger than some of the conventions you guys have. It's a massive group of people, leaders, coming together. When you look at it from that concept, our consultations.... I gave a document. I believe I included it. You could check on it.

We talked with many different people from diverse sectors of our society, trying to get their opinions and views, but I assure you, if COVID were not there, we'd have more of a robust process. Our style, I'm sure like yours.... I like to be with the people. I like to be there as a leader. I like to talk to them, see their faces and see their body language, but I can't do that, of course, as we can't here in the Zoom world that we're in, but yes, there was good consultation. There was adequate funding for us to do what we had to do.