Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 13th, 2021

[Chief Reginald Bellerose]

Yes. It's Reg Bellerose of the Muskowekwan First Nation speaking. Thank you for the question.

I think what we all have to realize is that this has been going on for us since treaty-making in 1874, so if this control comes back to us, it's not going to be perfect on day one. There needs to be a strategy not to say, “Okay, Indians, you have this now, and you've failed in the first day.” There has to be some patience. There has to be a timeline put forward and an understanding that we're not going to be perfect right out of the gate.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Mr. Arcand-Paul,

did you have your hand up?

[Brooks Arcand-Paul]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the question, MP Schmale.

What we're looking at is that the Criminal Code isn't disappearing either. The Criminal Code has equal application on first nations reserves. What we're looking for is getting the ability to deal with our band resources, which are our homes, to be able to try to deal with and curb this activity. Chief Bellerose has the same situation as some of my clients, and certainly my client now has the same issue. It is a concern about having individuals who are effectively breaking the law but are not able to be dealt with appropriately on the nation.

When we're looking at solutions, we have to empower first nations to be able to do these types of things and to recognize that we have our resources, our inventories of band housing, that we have to deal with as well. It's not just that there is absence of the law on first nations; we just need to be empowered to be able to exercise it.

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

Clearly, the enforcement....

I know that someone else has their hand up, but I just don't want to lose that thought about the enforcement.

I'm sorry that my camera is not on.

Would it potentially work better if more first nations communities investigated and had the funding to do it and the legal authority of potentially having their own police service...? Can you build on that?

Then I'll get to the witnesses who have their hands up on the other question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

We have Ms. Lazore, Mr. Browne and Mr. Yang.

Ms. Lazore, did you want to respond?

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

That's fine, Chair.

I wish my camera were on. It would.... I'll restart anyway. I'm sorry.

[Chief Connie Lazore]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I could probably comment on both questions.

I agree that we all need the funding, but it was stated earlier that all first nations are not at the same level of capacity in their communities and in their districts.

Here in Akwesasne, we've had a police force. We've had a compliance program. We have our own court. We develop our own laws. I don't see Canada as being able to hear and decide on our laws when they're not developed for them to hear. They're developed for our community. They should be heard by our justices in our court and adjudicated in the area that the law was developed for.

In my mind, funding is always going to be an issue until it starts to come to us. For us, we have a plan in place. We want to develop the compliance program—much as the safety officer title that was used earlier—to serve our community. When we can build trust within, these services will go a lot more smoothly, but right now Canada pushes their laws and Canada tells us in our self-government agreement that we must negotiate self-government. That's not the best place to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks, Chief Lazore.

I think this is going to be picked up along the way by the other witnesses with their hands up.

I'm going to go to Ms. Damoff right now for six minutes.

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

Chair, just quickly, before you switch to Ms. Damoff, I'm just going to restart my computer. I'm going to jump off and then you'll see me jump back on, because I can't seem to get my camera to work.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Okay.

Pam Damoff, you have six minutes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses. It's rare that at committee you have all of your witnesses come to committee and provide recommendations. It has actually been really helpful to all of us, I think. I wish I had time to ask all of you questions, but I don't.

Chief Bellerose, we've spoken before. I know that the Touchwood tribal agency is working on or trying to get funding for a policing proposal. When we spoke, it was Chief Buffalo who talked about three people who died because of the lack of a peacekeeping program and how that would have allowed the community to do surveillance and liaise with community members.

I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about the peacekeeping program that you would like to run, but also, tying into that, how would the work that those peacekeepers are doing be enforced?

[Chief Reginald Bellerose]

Thank you, Pam. It's nice to see you.

If it's okay, I'll let Leon start. He's our lead.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Sure.

[Chief Reginald Bellerose]

If Leon can't, then I'll start and he can jump in.

Lives are at stake here. With a lot of situations, if it's not addressed properly, we get a bad day; in hours, people are going into the grave. The gap I was talking about from the community to the RCMP in our area is wide. What can we do to bring that closer and closer? Peacekeepers are one solution for us.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Could you touch, though, on how the work they're doing would be enforced? They go out and say there's an issue with a house party. The peacekeeper arrives and says, “We need to break this up”, but then the people ignore the comment. How do you enforce the work that's being done?

[Chief Reginald Bellerose]

The enforcement piece is our challenge right now, and the court of competence. If there need to be tickets, right now they would have to be done through the RCMP. I'm very happy to hear that some of the first nations are actually into policing and can issue the tickets and are making arrangements with provincial courts. The solution is not one piece. It's enforcement, judicial, courts, parole—the whole system.

Leon can supplement.

[Leon McNab]

As a supplement, we've worked closely with our RCMP and created positive working relationships. In the case of community safety officers handling some of the issues and concerns in our communities, it has to be through partnership and working hand in hand with the RCMP. If it's self-administered, then we need to cover a lot of these issues and concerns. Through our police management boards, our people are self-administered police officers who address and know how to handle a lot of the situations, issues and concerns that are ongoing in our communities.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

As you know, Public Safety Canada and Indigenous Services are actually doing consultation. Both ministers have in their mandate letter to work in partnership with first nations communities to designate policing as an essential service.

I'm really impressed, Chief Lazore, at just how advanced you are in terms of your criminal justice system, from policing to courts—all of it—and for some time.

Chief Doss-Cody from B.C., thank you for your testimony. You're obviously in a different place, and Chief Bellerose, you're in a different place.

I guess my question to the three of you is this: Do you think the government should be providing funding to build capacity in communities?

I think, Chief Lazore, you could be providing a lot of advice to other communities, but you need the time and resources to be able to do it. Everyone is at a different place.

To your point, Chief Bellerose, you want to put yourself in a position to succeed. I'm wondering what you think about providing funding for that capacity building.

[Chief Reginald Bellerose]

I think one of the first things we need is community engagement.

I've been a chief for about 830 weeks. That's a little more than 16 years. It comes from the people. I can't come here and say, “This is what to do.” That capacity is definitely needed, but what we need to do is go back to the root, to the power, which is the people. The people have the power in treaty territories and Indian country.

What we need to know is how to go and talk to them. Right now I will tell you, because of the colonial system and what's imposed, there's a lack of trust, especially toward first nation leadership. For us, we need to also regain that trust, because we're the ones answering for you guys. It's not government—

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I'm going to stop you, Chief.

I only have about 30 seconds left and I would love to hear from Chief Lazore, if I could, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Yes. Go ahead, Ms. Lazore.

[Chief Connie Lazore]

Thank you, Chair.

As part of capacity building, Akwesasne has put proposals forward to increase our compliance program. Instead of receiving funding to do that, Indigenous Services Canada gave us funding to develop and host a 12-week compliance training program for other first nations. We did that. We still saw no funding for our program.

We also created and delivered a justice conference for law development. We had other first nations come to Akwesasne to do that, so we have been sharing our resources and our knowledge with other first nations and we will continue to do that when asked. We always—always—will help, but funding, again, is the issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you, Chief.

[Chief Connie Lazore]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Ms. Bérubé, you have six minutes. Please go ahead.