Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Dec. 10th, 2024

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I want to stop you there very quickly, because I have one final question.

I used to work at the national Centre for First Nations Governance. One thing we did was work with indigenous nations from across the country on developing membership codes and things like elections acts. Where the first nation is in terms of capacity determines where they fit into this question. How important is it to provide funding to support nations in developing their own governance structures?

Those were programs that were cut under the Harper government.

[Jacques T. Watso]

It's extremely important. It will help us address a lot of the problems that stem from self-identification and define our own system of governance and our own membership lists.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You spoke about entrepreneurship. I know there's a lot of bureaucracy. If you want to open a business in a city, then you go to the bureau. You have to get a couple of signatures, and then you can just open a business. On a first nation, if you want to open a business, it can take up to six months. How does that oppressive colonial bureaucracy impede entrepreneurship in first nations?

[Jacques T. Watso]

I can speak from experience, because I myself opened a business. I had to seek out grants and apply for loans, which took me nearly nine months, whereas my Quebec neighbours would only have needed a week or two. That's a problem. People talk about reconciliation, but there's also the matter of trusting indigenous entrepreneurship. We're a hard-working people and always have been. We're in charge of our own destiny.

Now that our communities have the wind in their sails in terms of economic development and access to financing, it's very important for them to be fully trusted by financial institutions and the different orders of government. As I said, we alone are in charge of our destiny. Access to financing is often restricted due to a lack of trust. That's what I feel and what I maintain. However, I believe that greater trust in indigenous entrepreneurship is extremely important. We've always taken part in Canadian economic development. The first nations are made up of honest, hard-working people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Ms. Gazan.

That will complete our first round. We are going to go into a shorter second round here. We'll go for four minutes, four minutes, two minutes and two minutes. We're going to be very equal with how we're reducing the times. I did want to make sure we had sufficient time to get to a second round here.

With that, I'll go to Mr. Schmale for four minutes.

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

Thank you very much to our witnesses for the great information being provided today.

I'll go to Ms. Semaganis.

First of all, I want to say that I'm very sorry for what your mother had to go through and the fact that those traumas were continued through testimony.

Having said that, you talked about the experiences of what your mother went through, what you had to go through as a daughter, as a family member, watching that happen and then having non-indigenous people falsely claiming indigenous status.

Now we have a situation in which we have a program through the indigenous procurement program that was meant to do good work in terms of ensuring that five per cent of government contracts were going to indigenous-led businesses, and we find out that 1,100 businesses have since been purged from that data bank for falsely claiming to be indigenous.

We have testimony from whistle-blowers showing that the governments, through ISC, knew about the false directory, the false members on the directory, for years and did nothing about it. We know that very few of those businesses are audited before or after contracts are awarded. It was said in the last panel that there is some fear to come out against it. Now, of course—and this in part led to this investigation, this committee meeting—we have a former member of the Liberal cabinet, Randy Boissonnault, the member from Edmonton Centre, co-owning a business that claimed to be wholly indigenous-owned. We found out that is false.

There is an article posted on the website of your organization, Ghost Warrior Society, from an article from APTN, dated November 20, 2024, quoting Leah Ballantyne, a Cree lawyer. She said, “Anyone who is a member of government on any level who takes an oath of office has to have a higher ethical standard and adhere to that oath of office for the benefit of not only Indigenous people, but for all Canadians”.

Would you agree that there has to be the higher standard? She also went on to say that it's “double for anyone in government”.

[Crystal Semaganis]

I would agree with Leah Ballantyne a hundred per cent. Yes, you are held to a higher standard than the ordinary Canadian citizen because of the responsibility and the mandate that you hold to speak on behalf of our resources, our people and our most vulnerable. Yes, I agree with Leah a hundred per cent.

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

She is also claiming or at least stating that there could potentially be grounds for the police to investigate and look at those who are falsely claiming to be indigenous on this list to attempt to secure government contracts, thereby pushing down true indigenous-owned businesses. She said that there are potentially, depending on the severity, some grounds for charges to be laid.

[Crystal Semaganis]

The problem is that there are absolutely no deterrents or legal sanctions imposed on anybody who has been falsely claiming indigenous identity. There are recent cases like that of Amira and Nadya Gill and their mother, Karima Manji. There are no consequences.

Michelle Latimer is a millionaire. Here she is, now celebrated at international film festivals, and there's absolutely no deterrence. Everybody sees this and says, “Oh, hey, I can claim to be indigenous. I can even partner up with somebody and get them to sign on the dotted line. Here I have access to thousands, millions, billions of dollars,” and here we are in this committee.

The problem is that there are absolutely zero legal consequences for claiming to be indigenous. There are a lot of resources to be exploited, and there's a lot of exploitation that has been going on. There has to be more than lip service in these committees. There have to be real legal consequences.

There has to be a law. Our people are witnessing this, and we are experiencing real trauma. You go to any urban centre in this country and you will see my people homeless on the street. Don't think that we don't see that as an injustice when our limited resources are being given away with the checking of a box.

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

I agree. There need to be consequences—

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

I'm sorry, Mr. Schmale. We're well over time here. We're going to have to move to the next speaker.

Mr. Battiste, you have the floor for four minutes.

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

I understand that both witnesses are first nations or status Indians—as am I, from the Mi'kmaq community—so I'll direct some of the questions around how we can verify first nations in our communities instead of the indigenous box. It's very difficult. We're looking at three separate indigenous groups who all have different ways of determining who is a member of the Inuit, who is a member of the Métis and who is a member of the first nations.

There are challenges within first nations with the Indian Act, in terms of status after 1985. Section 6 cuts off the ability for first nations to pass down their status past the second generation. Further to that, there's a non-stated paternity policy that says if you are a woman who doesn't know, or doesn't want to list, who the father of your child is, it's automatically the assumption that the father would be non-status.

With the discrimination that currently exists within the Indian Act and the challenges around how we're determining registration, how do you recommend that we best verify whether someone is first nations and belonging to a community? Would you say that the Indian Act's band membership and status is the be-all and end-all, or do you think there have to be some grace and some exceptions? How do we do this?

[Crystal Semaganis]

The problem is that the Indian Act prior to 1985 allowed entirely non-indigenous women who married indigenous status Indian men to become status Indians. They were then allowed to pass that Indian status on to their children, whether they existed prior to that union or not, and also through the process of adoption.

There are many intricate issues embedded within that question. We have always believed that each indigenous nation has the ultimate power to dictate who its members are, to control who those members are and to assert who those members are, yet we have the Inuit saying that the Nunatukavut are not a legitimate organization. You have the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, in September 2024, doling out $24.4 million to erect a treaty centre to a pretendian club.

These are infractions of colonial interference in who Inuit, Métis and first nations people are. We have to listen to Inuit people. We have to listen to first nations people. We have to listen to Métis. We have to.

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

Would you agree that the band status and the status card and the number of it should not be the be-all and end-all for when we have this discussion of who in our communities are part of us?

[Crystal Semaganis]

I'm sorry. Could you rephrase that?

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

If we're trying to verify, and someone doesn't have a status card—maybe their mom was a subsection 6(2) and they were not able to pass down their status—should we be able to be flexible on that? Should the communities be able to have that option to include that person within their communities, or do you think we should just stick to the status cards?

[Crystal Semaganis]

One of the problems we have identified is that a lot of people who are members of fraudulent Métis organizations are in fact non-status descendants of a first nation. They lost their status. Then you have first nations who are subjected to the second-generation cut-off. Then you have the Métis, such as the Métis Nation of Ontario, which seems to accept people up to 10 generations. There is no consistency across the board.

Those are the issues we are mitigating. Disingenuous colonial frameworks created this problem in the first place. Pretendianism would not exist without the absolute failure of colonial systems to look at us and tell us who we are. We are telling you. Here we are, telling you that this is who we are. Nobody is listening. Nobody is listening.

I'm grateful that this community will actually finally be heard.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. Battiste.

Now we'll go to Mr. Lemire for two minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Watso, now that lawmakers like us are aware and informed of the pretendian issue, what can we do to support you better? Do you think we should immediately transfer the indigenous business certification process to an indigenous organization by and for indigenous people?

[Jacques T. Watso]

Yes.

More specifically, you need to consult us. For example, when someone says they're Abenaki, you should come to us and we'll tell you who our members are. A person can't just self-identify as Abenaki. There's a process in place for recognizing that person through the Indian status card, but also through the communities. If someone doesn't have that status but is descended from a community, the community they claim to be associated with can certify their ancestry. That way, we help our own descendants.

We're the ones in the best position to determine who our members are and who should be entitled or have access to the services or grants available to support the economic development of each of our nations.

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

You mentioned your experience with the false Abenakis of Vermont earlier. Do you think the same thing is happening in Ontario? What are your thoughts on the Anishinabe or Métis people who may have an incorrect interpretation of indigenous law?

[Jacques T. Watso]

I wouldn't want to speak for the first nations of Ontario, but I do think it's problematic. I spoke in May at a summit between the assembly of chiefs and the Red River Métis in Winnipeg. I said the same thing.

This isn't an isolated problem affecting a handful of nations. There are cases all over Canada. I'm thinking of the NunatuKavut community in Labrador, which falsely claims to be Inuit. It's received millions of dollars in grants. I'm also thinking of the false eastern Métis nations that claim Mi'kmaq heritage through a root ancestor, or the eastern Métis of Quebec. French Canadians have even hijacked the Native Alliance of Quebec away from genuine first nations descendants.

This isn't an isolated problem; it's happening all across Canada and the United States. It's great that the committee is studying this situation, because first nations, Inuit and Métis people have been holding up the red flag for decades and saying they need help. A whole tsunami of people are appropriating the identity of indigenous peoples in Canada.

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

Thank you so much. Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lemire.

Our last speaker in the second panel will be Ms. Gazan.

You have two minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Chair.

I want to continue with you, Mr. Watso, because you were speaking about opening a business on reserve, and you said it's trust, but I think it's racism, actually. I think it's the racism that's embedded in the Indian Act that places this extra bureaucracy on indigenous people.

It's funny, because the stereotype is that everything's handed to us, but it's 50 billion times as hard to do the same thing as everybody else. That's the reality of it.

How can we change that system to make sure the process is quicker, so that somebody like you who opened a business doesn't have to jump through unnecessary bureaucratic hoops or legislation?