Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 6th, 2021

[Chief Nicole Rempel]

It's important to note that the First Nations Land Management Resource Centre ended up reimbursing us for the cost of that court case. Today we will find out if these trespassers are now leaving. If they haven't and we have to go to court again, I'm not sure the resource centre will feel as generous this time around.

I know that in speaking with the inspector here locally, with the RCMP, he's feeling like his hands are a bit tied because there isn't that direction from his higher-ups to enforce. They want to; it's just that they need that direction.

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

I've heard that as well from local RCMP across the riding. Often they feel very frustrated. They want to help but they can't, because there's not the clear pathway.

In terms of that discussion, how does it feel to be trying to govern your nation, having taken that step towards having a land code, doing all of the work to have your own laws in place, consulting obviously with your membership, and then not being able to enforce? One of the things that really hit me about your presentation today was when you said that in this case that you're dealing with later today, they're literally mocking you and saying go ahead.

How does that feel for you as a leader of your community? How does that resonate within your community?

[Chief Nicole Rempel]

It's absolutely frustrating. We're only speaking of the trespass issues, but I am regularly in the face of crack dealers who are not band members. They are guests of band members living on reserve. Because we have certificates of possession, we can't simply kick people out. They have rights to their homes and their properties.

I'm consistently putting myself in danger, because we can't get the support that is very desperately needed. It's frustrating from a leadership perspective to see how frustrated our members are. They ask why the chief and council aren't doing anything. We regularly have our RCMP liaison officer attend our meetings to try to explain to the membership why the chief and council can't achieve these things—why we can't kick crack dealers off our lands and why we can't deal with trespassers. It's because of the lack of authority given from above to the local RCMP detachments.

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

There's continuous conflict in your own nation because you cannot enforce what you have tried to create a law for.

[Chief Nicole Rempel]

Yes.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you so much.

What a conversation this is, members of the committee. I think we can manage an intervention from each of the four parties again. It will require a motion to extend the meeting past one o'clock. There's also a bit of budgetary business that we need to do.

Could I have a motion to extend beyond one o'clock?

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

I will make that motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much. Mr. Vidal seconds it.

All in favour?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

That's carried.

We'll go to Mr. Viersen, Mr. Battiste, and Bérubé and Blaney.

Arnold.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to thank our witnesses for being here today.

I'm just wondering, in the respective communities that you operate in and represent, what's the size, in terms of the number of people?

Ms. Rempel?

[Chief Nicole Rempel]

We are a very small nation. K'ómoks First Nation has 345 members currently, with about 112 living on reserve.

[Chief Keith Blake]

Our community has approximately 2,400 band members, of the Tsuut'ina Nation. We have some unique opportunities and challenges. Because we're so close to Calgary, there's a very aggressive and visionary development program here. We were the first nation to have a Costco. We have a very strong commercial development, which sees literally thousands of Calgarians on our territories each and every day. Although our population may be smaller, comparatively, to some others, and we have some demands and challenges, we also have opportunities that we're very proud of.

Again, our land mass is about 100 square miles. Three of our borders butt up against the city of Calgary.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

How many members are in your police force?

[Chief Keith Blake]

Again, we're very fortunate. Our community has taken public safety and community safety to heart.

Ten of our officers are funded through the tripartite agreement. That's 52% from the feds and 48% from the provincial government, and 16 of our officers are fully funded by our nation. Again, we more than doubled the funding amounts that our funding partners within the province and federal governments give. We have 26 officers in total, and 32 total staff members.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Ms. Rempel, just around building capacity, with 112 members on the reserve, in terms of the ability to build a justice system in your nation it looks like you purely don't have the numbers to be able to manage that capacity.

Are you attempting to? What's the process that you're going through?

I have 14 first nations in my area. All of them are dramatically larger than that. They are struggling as well.

Where would you like to see that go, in terms of a tribunal or something, so that we can get some more immediate justice? The timing of the justice in many cases.... Enforcement's an issue, but then if your golf clubs go missing and three years later you finally have some resolution to that, that's three golf seasons gone. You just go to the store and buy new golf clubs. How are you dealing with that in your community?

[Chief Nicole Rempel]

Yes, for sure.

Right now under our land code we are developing a community protection law, an adjudication law and a justice tribunal. It doesn't specifically say we can do that within the framework agreement, but it doesn't say we cannot. Those are the options we're looking at.

We have so many first nation communities adjacent to K'ómoks First Nation, like Homalco, Campbell River, Cape Mudge and others, that are also land code nations. When I was talking with other lands managers, prior to being chief, we kicked around the idea of developing a kind of first nations enforcement department where we could cost-share that among first nations land management nations. That's a possible solution. They would, of course, need the required training and the funding.

That's always been the question. Where does that funding come from? I don't think that the FNLM is as funded as it could be by the federal government for the amount of authority that it has passed on to first nations. I feel that there's a serious lack of funding for the FNLM.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

In my area they work with what they call tribal councils. The Lakeshore Regional Police Service is operated through the one tribal council, which is seven first nations in the area. You would have that similar opportunity in your neck of the woods, it sounds like.

[Chief Nicole Rempel]

There's potential for it, for sure.

The Vancouver Island dynamics of the Coast Salish and the Kwakwaka'wakw is always a concern in funding, as K'ómoks First Nation is both Coast Salish and Kwakwaka'wakw. We're always in a tug of war, depending on which side we're on and which funding opportunities we can access. It's all about trying to work together and move forward together, in my opinion. That's just the approach I've always taken.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

That brings us to time.

Mr. Battiste, you have five minutes.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My initial question is for Chief Rempel.

I'm coming to you from the Eskasoni Mi'kmaq community. We have close to 4,000 band members. One thing is that I've been in a room and have heard the RCMP saying that their hands are tied and they can't help out. I see the same frustration in your statements.

I'm wondering what process you would like to see whereby chiefs and councils can appeal decisions when we hear that local enforcement officers' hands are tied. Do you think that should be part of the $861 million for five years that we've put towards policing?

[Chief Nicole Rempel]

That's a great question. Thanks for that.

I honestly would really love to see some of that funding go towards tripartite agreements again being offered to first nations in British Columbia. Prior to my being elected chief, the previous chief was trying to negotiate for tripartite agreements as well, so that we could work together on how to address these issues. It has just been a consistent answer of, no, we don't do those anymore. Opportunities like that need to be brought back, because we're never going to address these issues without having those agreements in place and working together.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Can I get a sense from you of where, in your experience, the obstacles lie in terms of your saying that they don't do tripartite? Is it just the provincial government? Would funding make a difference, or is just that they generally don't want to do tripartite agreements with indigenous communities anymore?

[Chief Nicole Rempel]

I'm not sure. I'm not fully involved in the discussion. It comes to my table at the chief and council level just that the response has been no. It would be our band administrator who is trying to negotiate those things.

I'm not sure if it's just the province, or if they're not being funded federally, which could be the issue as well. I know that the RCMP locally would really like to be able to enforce and to assist the first nation, but you know.... I get that sense, anyway, and it depends on the inspector, I guess, because the previous inspector had no interest in helping K'ómoks First Nation anyway. It really does depend as well on who is helming the local detachment.