Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 13th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I call the meeting to order.

We have quorum. We are able to move ahead. We have witnesses ready.

I start, of course, by acknowledging that in Ottawa, we meet on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin people. All of us in our own territories will have other acknowledgements. In my case, I'm on the Haudenosaunee, Anishinabe and Chonnonton first nations' traditional territories.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on April 29, 2021, the committee is continuing its study of enforcement on first nations reserves.

To ensure an orderly meeting, participants, speak and listen in the official language of your choice. Choose, with the globe icon at the bottom centre of your screen, the language that you want to use. You can have “Floor”, “English”, or “French”, so make that selection. Once you begin, if you do switch in speaking from English to French, there's no need to make any other adjustments; just continue on. Make sure that your video is turned on, and please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your microphone should be on mute.

Pursuant to the motion adopted on March 9, 2021, I must inform the committee that Connie Lazore, Reginald Bellerose and Deborah Doss-Cody did not complete the technical pretest.

With that, we move now to the group of witnesses.

We have Brooks Arcand-Paul on behalf of the Indigenous Bar Association in Canada.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Naaman Sugrue]

Mr. Chair, I have to interrupt you. You've become muted, and I'm not able to unmute you right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

How does this sound? Antidisestablishmentarianism.

Did that work? How's that, Mr. Clerk?

[The Clerk]

Yes, I just heard that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

For the interest of those participating, on the official parliamentary headsets that were distributed, there's a selector on the wire. If it falls underneath my arm and I land on it, it cuts off the microphone. You might be aware of that too, because it does happen occasionally, and I apologize for that happening just now.

Also with us is Chief Connie Lazore of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. Representing the Tla'amin Nation, we have Derek Yang, director of community services, and Murray Browne, lawyer. Also with us are Chief Reginald Bellerose and Leon McNab, justice coordinator, on behalf of the Touchwood Agency Tribal Council and its peacekeeping program.

Thank you all.

Chief Lazore, if you're ready, I'll ask you to begin with a six-minute presentation to our committee.

[Chief Connie Lazore, Mohawk Council of Akwesasne]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, everyone.

Shekon.

Hello.

My name is Connie Lazore. I am honoured to be a Tsi Snaihine District Chief of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne.

Nia:wen for the opportunity to speak to you today on a topic that I have always been interested in: first nations enforcement. I have spent much of my political career—which is nearing six years, ending my second term—working to improve the enforcement within the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory. I'm currently completing my second three-year term and currently hold the justice and public safety files.

Akwesasne has a territory that straddles an international border divided into northern Canada and southern U.S. portions. We live in a multi-jurisdictional area. I am a representative of the northern portion, which has two provinces: Ontario and Quebec. Our community has three districts separated by the U.S. portion, which is not contiguous to the mainland Canada. We must provide services in triplicate to our community members efficiently within a community of 13,000 members.

While I'm sure you can appreciate that following the laws of one province can at times be challenging, we are expected to follow the laws of two provinces, which at times can be quite difficult.

Akwesasne needs to be able to enforce our community laws in a manner that is acceptable to the community and will honour their traditions of the past through meaningful restorative justice principles in order to bring a balance to our first nation community. We need to build our compliance program in order to meet that need.

Today I will speak to the enforcement of bylaws and community laws in my community.

Our police service has a complement of 39 officers and serves approximately 13,000 members within in the northern portion of our territory of Akwesasne. The police service enforces offences in Ontario and Quebec, including Criminal Code offences, highway traffic offences and Quebec highway traffic offences, as well as community laws and bylaws. While our service may enforce Canada's laws, we struggle with compliance to community laws because we lack personnel and funding. We need to establish a larger compliance program to complement our police services.

Akwesasne has its own Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service, a compliance program and its own Akwesasne Court. The police service was established in 1970. The compliance program was established in 2007 and was under the Akwesasne justice department to ensure the compliance of community laws. The court was established in 1965 and continues to this day by virtue of a community law that is the first of its kind.

When we talk about jurisdiction, Akwesasne has always exercised and will continue to exercise our inherent right to self-determination. We will continue to govern ourselves.

Indigenous Services Canada has had and continues a moratorium on the appointment of the Indian Act's section 107 justices of the peace. Akwesasne has appointed inherent right justices to the Akwesasne Court. We currently have 10 members of our community in training for justices. Funding was provided through the Department of Justice Canada to offer online justice of the peace training delivered by the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice.

Adjudication and enforcement of Indian Act offences in Akwesasne law is a responsibility to the community of Akwesasne under the jurisdiction of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. We take our responsibilities seriously. Our community does not want to go to outside courts, especially for hearings under our community laws. Akwesasne laws reflect community culture principles, which may not be within the same framework as the Canadian jurisprudence. Our laws are based on restorative justice principles, which restore balance back to the community for both the victim and the offender, versus the penal system of incarceration and punishment.

The Indian Act, section 107, allows jurisdiction for four Criminal Code offences in Akwesasne, and it must continue. They are common assault, cruelty to animals, vagrancy and break and enter. These offences have been heard in our courts by our section 107 justices in the past, yet we are negotiating the right to do this now. These four Criminal Code offences must continue to be part of our system.

Our court, the Akwesasne Court, was started in 1965 under section 107 of the Indian Act. In 2015, we developed the couples property law. It received federal recognition that all matters will go to the Akwesasne Court to be heard. That law came down as part of a response to Canada's law in giving us the opportunity to create one.

In 2016 we created, developed and passed the Akwesasne Court Law. That was approved by our community members under our inherent right.

In 2018 a technical working group made up of the Department of Justice Canada, the departments of justice and Indian affairs of Quebec, and MIRR and MAG of Ontario made a recommendation for a reasonable and incremental approach to recognize the jurisdiction of the Mohawk of Akwesasne and to enforce Akwesasne legal instruments through the Akwesasne Court and through a negotiated quadripartite stand-alone administration of justice agreement, which we are currently still working on.

The Akwesasne Court is fully functional, with 90% of staff being indigenous. Akwesasne has established a justice system that includes programs and services such as court services, Gladue services, restorative justice programs, community justice, native court workers, probation and parole services, law enactment processes, an appellate division with our Council of Elders, and youth probation and reintegration. There are native inmate liaison officers at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre. There are a few more to add to that list.

This exists at the expense of the Mohawk Council, which is our community funding. It's time that sustainable funding be provided as a multi-year agreement.

Regarding the multi-jurisdictional table on the administration of justice, as mentioned earlier, in 2016 a technical working group on the administration of justice was given a mandate to submit a recommendation to recognize the Akwesasne Court. I mentioned earlier who those representatives are. The recommendation is for recognition through a stand-alone administration of justice agreement between the Mohawks of Akwesasne, Canada, Ontario, and Quebec, recognizing or agreeing upon specific substantive and geographic jurisdictions of the Mohawks of Akwesasne that would be enforced through the Akwesasne Court, based upon the existing legal regimes of each party.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Chief, are you close? We have a six-minute suggestion, and we're up to eight.

[Chief Connie Lazore]

I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

That's okay.

[Chief Connie Lazore]

With support from Minister Lametti, that table will continue to work.

We have legislative development and we have four years to exercise our inherent right to develop, approve and implement our laws in our community. Those laws—like every law that is created—are based on a need. We are currently working to approve our cannabis law, an emergency management act, the fire code and amendments to the election law. We need laws such as a child welfare laws, landlord/tenant laws, and education and language laws. Those will be next on our list.

What we need—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Chief, can you please wrap up? We're almost at nine minutes.

[Chief Connie Lazore]

Yes, I will do my closing remarks now.

For Akwesasne, we require additional funding for our compliance program to grow from two positions to eight.

Our concept is that we now have our compliance officers under the umbrella of our Mohawk police services. Our capacity development looks to be our compliance officers, who will work in that area of having community members comply with our laws. Eventually, if they feel like it, they will move into the area of policing. We're building the capacity of our members to understand law enforcement to be prepared to go into policing. The underfill will be back in our compliance program.

For years we've been looking for funding to do this. In my mind, the best way to enforce our laws is by our people. We are looking in that avenue to build and even strengthen what we have now to serve our people. That requires funding, because we do have the capacity within. We created a 12-week training program for compliance officers and offered that to first nations communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Chief, we're at 10 minutes now, from a six-minute suggestion—

[Chief Connie Lazore]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

—so I'm going to have to move on. It's essential that you get your points across, and we appreciate that, but we also need to go through our rounds of questioning—

[Chief Connie Lazore]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

—so perhaps other points will come up through that conversation.

[Chief Connie Lazore]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks, Chief.

I'll go now to Derek Yang, director of community services, and Murray Browne with the Tla'amin Nation. I hope I said that right.

Please go ahead for six minutes.

[Derek Yang, Director, Community Services, Tla'amin Nation]

Good morning, Mr. Chair, MP Rachel Blaney and committee members. Thank you very much for having us here today.

I and my colleague Mr. Murray Browne, the legal counsel for Tla'amin Nation—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Tla'amin.... Is that right?

[Derek Yang]

Tla'amin. That's correct, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Okay, I'll try better. Thanks.

Go ahead.

[Derek Yang]

Thank you. Before you today on the crucial topic of first nation law enforcement, I bring greetings and appreciation from our hegus, our chief, John Hackett, and the Tla'amin legislature. “Hegus” is spelt h-e-g-u-s.

My name is Derek Yang, and I am the director of community services for Tla'amin Nation.

Tla'amin Nation is a self-governing treaty nation with over 4,000 years of culture, heritage and knowledge here in the upper Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. I'm honoured to be representing the Tla'amin Nation today, along with my colleague.

The short story that we want to present is that self-determination is virtually meaningless without the authority and capacity to pass and enforce laws. Many federal and provincial laws, negotiating mandates, funding decisions and approaches to enforcement undermine or weaken first nation law enforcement rather than supporting and strengthening it.

My colleague and I will be responding to questions in our areas of knowledge. I will be speaking to operational issues regarding law enforcement activities in the Tla'amin's territory, while Mr. Browne will be speaking to legal, treaty and land code issues.

With that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, who will continue our opening statement.

[Murray Browne, Lawyer, Tla'amin Nation]

Thank you, Derek.

Greetings from the west coast of Canada.

Good afternoon, eastern Canada. Emote from Tla'amin. Thank you for the opportunity.

My name is Murray Browne. I'm legal counsel for Tla'amin.

Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Murray Browne. I'm legal counsel for Tla'amin.

Twenty-five years ago I began my reconciliation journey working for INAC in Les Terrasses de la Chaudière. Then I went to work for the BC Treaty Commission, and for the last 20 years I've worked exclusively with first nations. I've been on a 20-year journey with the Tla'amin to negotiate and implement their treaty. I also work with four other nations in advanced treaty negotiations and with over 30 first nations in the development and implementation of their land codes. I was also on the legal team for the Tsilhqot'in title case.

What we want to do this morning is to jump straight to our recommendations. I also want to acknowledge our MP, Rachel Blaney, who's been very supportive and very proactive in reconciliation efforts.

I want to determine whether the committee members have our written submissions. We were hoping to refer to them. I'll proceed regardless, but I want to say that in our written submission, we have a summary of recommendations. There are 14 of them, and if we have time afterward, we'll highlight some issues.

I'll go through them quickly.

First of all, there's a lack of stable funding. You've probably heard that from everyone.

Second, in our view treaties should require orders from the chief justice of all courts to confirm court enforcement of first nation laws. You shouldn't have to spend $100,000 like K'ómoks did to just get simple confirmation that your laws are enforceable.

Treaties should confirm, upon request, that arrangements will be made with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada or the BC Prosecution Service to prosecute. We have the unfortunate situation that the Public Prosecution Service of Canada has said that it can only enforce COVID bylaws under the Indian Act. That's a nice step under the Indian Act, but it's problematic otherwise.

We need changes to the federal offence act and the BC Offence Act. They need to be amended to refer specifically to the authority of treaty first nations.

We need to confirm that treaty nation enforcement officers are peace officers without having to go to court to get this confirmation, provided they have the training.

We need to retain all of the authorities under the Indian Act as well as under the land code. One of the unfortunate aspects of treaty in British Columbia is that it's about taking away things from first nations. It's the opposite of what it should be. The minute Tla'amin walked through the treaty door, they lost their property transfer tax authority, FNLMA jurisdiction to appoint their own justices of the peace, property tax authority to enforce issues by adding them to property taxes, etc. That's not the way that it should be.

I was really happy to hear the chief of the Akwesasne speak about appointing their own justices of the peace. Tla'amin had that authority under the land code. They do not have it under treaty, and we need to get that back so that they can appoint culturally appropriate justices of the peace.

We need to confirm the authority to evict drug dealers. It's a huge problem in first nation communities. Under land code, FNMLA, we pass a community protection law and we evict drug dealers. I've been involved in a number of those. The nation passes a law. We ask the RCMP to enforce. If they do not enforce, we hire private security and we pass a council resolution. We designate someone as a dangerous individual and we evict them. We also have other measures, for restraining orders and so on. They're hard to enforce, because the federal system thinks that you need a criminal conviction and court orders, and we can't get those. There has to be respect for first nations dealing with their community safety and protection issues.

We also need to think that enforcement is not only about prosecution. Much of enforcement is education, but it is also ticketing. Right now, first nations in B.C. do not have access to municipal ticketing the way municipalities do. I don't know about other provinces, but we have to have ticketing enforcement, because it works. One of the things that really work in British Columbia and other provinces is that if I, as a non-aboriginal citizen, don't pay my traffic fines, I don't get my driver's licence renewed. That's a powerful and effective technique. Why don't first nations have that? If I don't pay my fines for illegal dumping, the municipality tags them onto my property taxes and sells my home. That's a good enforcement mechanism. First nations don't have that.

We also need to sort out issues with DFO. DFO is resisting efforts of Tla'amin to enforce their laws and protect their marine resources. Historically, the Tla'amin had traditional laws for protecting and managing their territory. They had bountiful resources until DFO came along and started mismanaging them. Right now, DFO is resisting Tla'amin's efforts.

I'll finish here. I know time is going to be running out shortly, but Tla'amin is an amazing, beautiful place where oysters grow in abundance. It's one of the few places in the world where you can drive through the park at Okeover and harvest a bucket of clams right from the beach. Tla'amin guardians try to protect that area. Unfortunately, DFO resists them. We have buses of tourists coming in, four busloads of 50 people each, tourists from Vancouver on a day trip, all overharvesting, taking all the oysters so Tla'amin can't get them. DFO will not support Tla'amin, and they in fact tell people that Tla'amin guardians have no enforcement powers.

I'll finish there. We have a number of other items that we could highlight, but those are some of our top 10.

Thank you.