Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2024

[Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot]

Thanks. That's a good question.

There are a lot of similarities between northern communities—which are often indigenous communities—and military bases in terms of their infrastructure needs. They need basic infrastructure to have people there and to operate. In terms of some of the technical solutions we might want to be looking at for first nation communities, these would be similar to some of the technical solutions we want to find for military bases.

On finding smarter ways to provide good-quality water in all of these locations that are off grid and remote.... There are many reasons and layers in Canada in terms of why we want to find those. There are problems similar to base infrastructure, which are what communities face.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

This leads to my next question.

The term for it is “dual-use infrastructure” or “dual-purpose infrastructure”. I would see it—as you see it—as a possible solution to getting water-related infrastructure built in the Arctic and in these indigenous communities.

Your article refers to the Standing Committee on National Defence and its 2023 study called “A Secure and Sovereign Arctic”.

That study says:

That the Government of Canada, when and where possible, in collaboration with territorial and Indigenous governments, as well as Indigenous development corporations, ensure that military infrastructure in our Arctic include dual-use benefits to close the infrastructure deficit in Arctic communities.

Your article goes on:

At a visit to Yellowknife in the days following the [Defence Policy Update] announcement in April 2024, Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal further affirmed there would be “significant opportunities to invest in multi-use infrastructure” to support the military’s operations in the North. But as the CBC pithily pointed out, “Vandal did not explain what those opportunities would involve.”

The DPU does not address the recommendations and exhortations of parliamentarians to develop multi-purpose northern infrastructure—

These are key words here:

—in any concrete fashion

Again, there are more announcements but little on outcomes.

This is from the article:

One significant contributor to past failures has been a lack of coherence between political and departmental goals. However, in the case of multi-purpose infrastructure, there is reason to believe that a common view that supports both the needs of DND and the goals of Parliament is possible.

Again, with all of these endless announcements but little in terms of outcomes, my last question to you is this: With such real and present threats to Arctic sovereignty, are you confident the current government will actually get critical water infrastructure built?

[Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot]

I'm not confident it will happen in the short term. As all of the chiefs will know, we've been talking about this issue for decades.

I understand it's also a difficult technical question. This is where something like the Department of National Defence may have the money and the research and development opportunities to produce some technical solutions to the problems that hey have will have in the Arctic—in the north—which all communities also face.

Trying to be smarter—not just pouring money into the situation, but actually finding some technical solutions—is an approach we should be exploring more seriously. We don't see a lot of innovation in northern, remote infrastructure. We're usually just trying to apply southern solutions and southern infrastructure to situations where they're just not comparable.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thanks, Dr. Exner-Pirot.

I'll pass the rest of my time to Eric Melillo.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Zimmer.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing me to take some time here.

I just want to come back to the Chiefs Steering Committee on Technical Services. In the opening remarks, it was mentioned how there are few first nations in favour of this, relative to the national picture.

I believe Chief Sunshine used the term “manufacture consent”. It reminds me of a press release put out by the committee shortly after this bill was released. In that, Chief Meneen characterized the bill as “dump-and-run legislation”.

Chief Meneen, can you expand on the opening comments from Chief Sunshine, about why you used the term “dump-and-run legislation” and how the consultation process has played out? Where has that come up short?

[Chief Rupert Meneen, Tallcree First Nation, Chiefs Steering Committee on Technical Services]

The “dump-and-run”, in my opinion, is the government trying to give us this old jalopy—as I was going to say in my speech but obviously didn't have a chance to. It's basically a broken-down, old vehicle the government is trying to give us to take over. The government is saying, “This is yours. Take it and run with it.”

I personally don't want that old jalopy in my community. I would rather have a brand-new water system and water treatment plant. Where the Canadian standards are is where I want to be. I don't want to be down there taking it over when I should be up here, on an equal level with everybody else in all of the communities all over Canada.

That is what we want at the end of the day.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Chair, how's my time?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

You are pretty much done.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

Mrs. Atwin, you have six minutes. We'll go over to the Liberals.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being with us this morning, particularly the chiefs. I know how busy you are and how your time is very precious in your communities.

I'm going to take a couple of minutes to quickly wish my nephew a very happy birthday today. I hope he'll see this clip sometime. I don't know if he's up this early and watching the committee, but happy birthday, Robbie.

I want to start by saying we're absolutely committed. I feel this bill really affirms the government's responsibilities, including that fiduciary responsibility and being there as a partner should there be litigation in the future. It's about raising those standards and ensuring that communities have access to those excellent services. It's not just the bare minimum, but again, going above and beyond what I think we want to see in the rest of the country as well. I really feel that's what we're trying to achieve with this bill.

I'd love to start with Chief Miskokomon. Can you talk us through some of the challenges you've experienced so far when it comes to lifting the long-term water advisories in your community? Is it a straightforward process? What are some of the challenges you've been experiencing?

[Chief Joe Miskokomon]

Could you say that again? I'm sorry. I didn't hear you.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

I speak very fast. I'm so sorry.

Can you walk us through some of the challenges you've experienced in lifting the boil water advisories in your community? Is it a straightforward process? What does it look like?

[Chief Joe Miskokomon]

First of all, it's difficult to get a boil water advisory moving in a community. After that, the challenges are technical and financial. There are also supply chain issues, delivery issues, issues with the elderly and having to meet the special needs of special needs children. There is so much in the emergency plan that needs to get activated all at once when in fact there's a boil water advisory taking place. Not only that, but then there are the technical issues of bringing engineers in and bringing in testing. We don't have our testing base here in the city of London.

If we go back to when the pandemic was happening, we were under a boil water advisory, and we were constantly trying to test our water during this emergency—not only an emergency for us but throughout all of Canada and the world—but that service delivery isn't there. The boil water advisory doesn't come off all at once following the testing. On some days, the water tests “good”, and then, shortly down the road, it falls back down again. Just delivering filters to the water treatment plant when you're at 110% to 115% overworked in that.... I can advise the committee that the one micron filter that is needed to do the final filtration within the system only lasted two days, and that's at $400 a filter, so the cost alone is exponentially escalated, trying to get the system back online.

It's not just a matter of having a test. It's all of these progressive things that you need to go through in order to try to bring the system back online and ensure that there is quality there for a period of time. It's also about addressing the immediate needs of the community and of the households, and the liability of what you're doing falls back on chief and council in terms of activating and ensuring that the technical work is being done properly so that we don't harm our community members.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much for that. That liability piece, we'll be addressing, I think, in the clause-by-clause portion of this as well.

I have such little time. I'm going to try to get to all the witnesses. For the technical committee, I really hear you on the treaty piece specifically, and I know that if we had just respected treaties, we wouldn't even be in this situation right now.

Would you expect that the inherent rights affirmed in clause 6 of this bill fall under the inherent rights the Supreme Court recently upheld in their ruling on Bill C-92 earlier this year?

[Norma Large, Policy Advisor, First Nations Technical Services Advisory Group Inc., Chiefs Steering Committee on Technical Services]

Good morning, everyone. Can you just repeat that? It's very hard to hear you on this side. I just wanted to say that.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Sure. Regarding inherent rights, would you expect that the inherent rights affirmed in clause 6 of this bill fall under the inherent rights that the Supreme Court recently upheld in their ruling on Bill C-92 earlier this year?

[Norma Large]

Thank you for that.

I think that it would be easy to look at it in the way that you're suggesting, in terms of what is contemplated in this bill, but as the chief mentioned, the inherent right to self-determination, which is what was pursued at the Supreme Court, doesn't necessarily reflect the way that we view our inherent right to self-determination. While the Supreme Court is certainly raising the spectre of first nations being able to take over a certain kind of jurisdiction insofar as child and family services, on this bill, we feel like the unfinished business of treaty is really where our inherent right shines. The inherent right is the reason why our nations were able to achieve treaties, so if we were to work through that realm, through the treaty rights that we have or the treaty relationship that we have with the Crown, our inherent rights would be automatically recognized.

The feelings of chiefs in our region lead them to question why we have to work through the Supreme Court of Canada process to achieve something that we already have. If we were to deliver based on that, what we're saying is that there would be recognition already of where we are at with the treaty relationship in the place that people call Alberta, and we remind everyone here that our peoples were here well before there was a province called Alberta. If we were to start from that space, the inherent right would be delivered. However, we're not there, so we continue to have to go through domestic courts to try to achieve it.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry, Mrs. Atwin.

Next up is the Bloc Québécois for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Like many of you, I'm wondering whether Bill C‑61 is as robust as people claim. Often, when it comes to keeping promises, particularly concerning indigenous communities and economic reconciliation, there's a sense of complacency. In many cases, we don't walk the talk, as the saying goes. We need to address this issue properly. As a result, I wonder whether Bill C‑61 will give us the opportunity to do so.

Chief Miskokomon—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

I'm sorry, Sébastien. I'm checking in with our witnesses. I see a lot of people with their hands up. I'm not sure if they got the interpretation.

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

[Inaudible—Editor]

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

While we're here, does everyone online have access to the French interpretation?

Okay. I'm just making sure.

[Chief Taralee Beardy]

I don't.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

The technical team is going to reach out and get you access to that. Chief Beardy, it might be quicker if you look at the bottom of your screen. There should be a globe. If you click that, it should have a link to interpretation. Just hit “English”.

Is it okay? That's awesome.

Go ahead, Mr. Lemire, right from the top.