Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Sept. 16th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Ms. Idlout.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I so move. I propose to narrow the scope of the motion so as to hold a single meeting where all the ministers would appear. Under the circumstances, the study we are currently conducting may continue for several weeks. However, I think that the meeting with the ministers could take place soon. Given that indigenous communities have many concerns about a number of issues that affect them, I think it would be worthwhile to discuss them with the ministers in the near future, without delaying the study of Bill C‑61 for too long.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

Next, I have Ms. Atwin and then Mr. Schmale.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

I was wondering if that was a formal amendment that Mr. Lemire is proposing. If not, I would like to amend the motion with the following: “That the committee invite the Minister of Indigenous Services Canada, the Minister of Northern Affairs Canada and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations to appear before the committee for no less than two hours following the study of the first nations clean water act in relation to their priorities for the return of Parliament, their mandate and supplementary estimates (C), should the study conclude after they are tabled.”

I can send that around in both official languages.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

First, the proposal was read too quickly for us to be able to get a complete interpretation.

I had already proposed a similar amendment, except that my proposal did not specify that the meeting with the ministers would take place after the study of Bill C‑61 .

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Mr. Lemire, I wasn't sure at the time whether you were moving an amendment or debating the motion. Now you're confirming that it was an amendment.

Yes, your amendment was moved before Ms. Atwin's. If you have something to send us in writing, that would be preferable. If not, I know that Ms. Atwin would like to propose something.

Certainly, he could do a verbal amendment, but it would just be easier if we have that written out, or if the analyst—

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

It was basically changing it to, instead of three meetings, the one meeting. That's all it was, which we're supportive of, so we could probably pitter patter here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Okay.

Is there any discussion on the amendment proposed by Mr. Lemire?

Mr. Schmale.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you for the amendment from the Bloc and the NDP as well.

We agree that Bill C-61 is extremely important, and we do want to get it done as fast as possible and do the due diligence here. Therefore, we will accept the amended motion as presented:

That the committee invite the Minister of Indigenous Services Canada, the Minister of Northern Affairs and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations to appear before the committee for no less than two hours—

It's one committee meeting.

—within 14 days of the adoption of this motion in relation to their priorities for the return of Parliament and their mandates.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I believe that Monsieur Lemire added as well that it was to take place “after” the end of the study, so it's not that 14-day time period, if we could just get some clarification on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

I understand there's some confusion here of the two. I was under the impression that Monsieur Lemire moved a motion for it to be one meeting and then also for it to be after Bill C-61.

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

No. He was speaking to Jenica's amendment.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Two negatives can sometimes amount to a positive. I will try to be clear.

Under the circumstances, I think this study will last a good part of the fall. If we want to be able to address other topics, I'm open to the idea that we could do so as soon as possible. The wording that it would be “within 14 days of the adoption of this motion” seems reasonable to me. That would at least allow us to hear from the ministers very soon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

I see a thumbs-up. Do we have anybody else who would like to get involved in the debate here?

Okay, I will call this to a vote. Just to be clear, this is on amending the motion.

(Amendment agreed to: 11 yeas; 0 nays)

The motion is thereby amended.

Is there any debate on the motion as amended before we get to a vote? No. Then I will call this to a vote.

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

The motion is adopted.

We will go back to the matter at hand.

We will be going to our second questioner in the second round of questioning, and I have Mr. McLeod. We're going to go back to five minutes, given that we are quite a bit over time.

Mr. McLeod, you have five minutes.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses who have joined us today. It's a very important subject.

I'm from the Northwest Territories. In my former life I was a minister with the Government of Northwest Territories, and one of my responsibilities was to provide a review of the drinking water situation in our communities. We don't have reserves, but we have indigenous communities, public communities that are not reserves. When we took a look at 27 of them, we found quite quickly that there were a number of challenges.

First of all, pretty much every water treatment plant was designed and built in a different country, so that made it really challenging to get parts. That also made it very challenging to share parts, because the neighbouring community might have parts but it wasn't the same model as what was in the other community. We saw that there was a need to make sure all the water plants were made through the same company, with the same design, so that we could get and share parts more easily, design a maintenance program with the people who built these facilities, and lock them into contracts with us so that they could provide training for our membership.

It was very difficult. In some cases there were clean sources of water, but the government would still insist on building a well, because a certification for a well operation was less than getting...from the surface water from the lake or a river, so there were all kinds of things happening. In many cases the sources of water were huge distances away. When you're talking 20 or 30 kilometres from the source water to the community, it becomes a challenge. Governments want to just put in a water truck to run back and forth rather than build an expensive pipeline, and that's challenging. To have proper testing training is another area: It was really difficult to find people to do it and to hang on to people who were trained. Many things were brought forward as issues and challenges.

As I was growing up, I lived on the Mackenzie River—I still live on the Mackenzie River—and we'd be able to go out in our canoe and drink water right from the river. You can't do that now. The water's dirty. It's not safe. There are lots of things that are out there, facing indigenous people. The big thing is to have capacity to run your own operation and to have the resources to do that.

The intention of the bill is to ensure that there's access to clean water and an adequate supply. I think the intentions are really what got my attention to this. However, I ask whether all of you feel that the measures in the first nations clean water act could support indigenous communities' ability to build capacity when it comes to operations, maintenance and training for water treatment plants. That's my first question.

[John Paul]

Capacity is a critical part of creating, owning and operating these systems over a long period of time. One of the challenges many of our communities ran into a number of years ago was everybody wanting to move to Alberta because of the wage differential in terms of water operators. Working closely with communities, one by one—with a systematic approach to training, certification and commitment by people to stay in their communities for a long period of time—is the foundation for a system and process that can work over decades.

In terms of consistency across systems, having people train locally in the community on the system that is there is another thing. One thing we're dealing with in our communities is trying to achieve that level of consistency across communities in both engineering and design, in order to ensure that an operator from community A can work in community B and community C. There has to be a group to make sure that, as systems grow and challenges arise, enough people are dedicated and committed to staying with what they're doing. Working closely with all of them in our communities has been one of the biggest fundamental commitments our chiefs have made to our water operators: ensuring training and also ensuring ongoing training, because the skills you need now will not be the skills you require in the next decade. This is critical if these systems are going to last for their entire life cycles and benefit each and every community, because we deserve equality across communities in terms of safe water and safe systems that last.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to continue my discussion with Chief Emerita Whetung‑MacInnes.

In our conversation, you talked about the Curve Lake situation. I want to come back to one point. A water filtration plant has been in the works for several decades, maybe even 40 or 50 years, but the main problem is determining who will pay for its construction. Of course, it would have cost a lot less had the project been able to go ahead decades ago. Instead, it dragged on and on, much to the dismay of the people of Curve Lake. Today, the reality is that the project has still not been completed.

Who do you think should pay for it? Is it the federal government's responsibility?

[Emily Whetung-MacInnes]

This is absolutely the federal government's responsibility, and thank you for that question.

Through the chair, I've seen across history that Canada, as a government, has taken responsibility for indigenous people and Indians under the Indian Act. The Constitution speaks in section 91 to “Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians”. This is the sole responsibility of the federal government. Therefore, this is a federal issue that needs to be resolved.

I'd like to take a moment on this.

One of the questions asked today was on the urgency of having this legislation, even if it's not perfect. I've come to terms with the fact that we can't find perfect legislation the first time. We need to legislate and enhance this basic human right now, knowing the legislation might not cover all aspects of all things for all indigenous people on all Indian reserves. If we don't start now, the consequences will be extreme. There is an election in October 2025, possibly sooner. If we don't entrench this legislation for indigenous rights to clean drinking water now, the consequences of those delays will be felt by every indigenous person living on an Indian reserve in Canada. Those consequences will be felt more by indigenous mothers, who suffer the consequences of not being able to care for their infant children in the way every other Canadian gets to.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Let me ask you one last quick question, which you can answer with a yes or no.

Do you think the provisions of the bill should designate waste water treatment as an essential service to be provided? That would associate it with an immediate need and make it an obligation for the government.

[Emily Whetung-MacInnes]

Yes, I do, provided it doesn't delay the passing of the legislation.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

For our last questioner, I'll be turning the floor over to Ms. Idlout for two and a half minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Given that it is my first opportunity to speak to the witnesses, I thank you for having appeared for this important study.

As I've mentioned, I am quite aware that first nations have been waiting a very long time for this bill to come, as is. It's unfortunate that it doesn't go far enough. In my assessments, I've also noticed that it needs some major amendments to make sure that first nations' rights are being upheld.

My first question will be for Emily, who mentioned to the committee, I believe, that she was part of the class action.

Given the concerns we've heard since this bill was first tabled that the language around jurisdiction is not strong enough, I wonder if you can share with us whether you have any recommendations to amend the bill so jurisdiction for first nations can be stronger.

[Emily Whetung-MacInnes]

Thank you to Ms. Idlout, through the chair.

Thank you for speaking English. It's wonderful to hear your language in the committee, but I appreciate that you have made accommodations for us.

I believe your question is whether the language around jurisdiction is something that should stop this legislation.

I don't think it is. There are review periods—reports and re-evaluations—built into the legislation every five years in order to make sure we're moving it in a good direction. I think that's one thing that can be fixed over time.

Thank you.