Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 6th, 2022

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Precisely. Even if there were just nine members, it would be difficult. In any case, we must always aim for relative perfection. I just wanted to hear you say that you are indeed aware that the representation cannot be perfect.

There is something else I would like to know, and I think you mentioned it in your reply. I would like to know if some people have made comments, not to say complaints, about the consultation itself, during which not everyone necessarily had the chance to speak, or about the membership of the board. Were there certain people, for instance, who were unhappy with the membership or did not feel represented? Did you receive those kinds of comments or suggestions from the first nations?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I am hesitant to speak on behalf of the participants, especially indigenous persons.

I think you will hear that the membership is not perfect. Some people would like their own representatives to be on the board of directors. At the same time, I don't think they want to criticize the current membership of the committee.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Could you give an indication, by percentage or some other measure, of how representative it is of all first nations in Canada?

I know that will be difficult.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

First, I think people are generally very happy with the principle of Bill C‑29. Where it gets complicated is that everyone wants their voice around the table. It's going to be difficult at the end of the day if everyone wants to be represented. There are stakeholders who are very political. I don't blame them for that. Unfortunately, difficult choices will have to be made. Most of the time, people who are independent are not politicians. People can also be political without being politicians. In the end, it will be a hard choice. All in all, I think people, looking back, will be very happy with the bill.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

So people agree on the principle, but there is still a question of legitimacy that will arise for a number of them. We are unable to establish the exact proportions, but, before pronouncing for or against the bill, we must be aware that this question will arise.

I have other questions, but I think I will have to wait until my next turn to speak on some of them.

I would like to talk about the independence of the body that will be created. Obviously, as it is being created, it is necessarily linked in some way to the government, at the moment. I wonder how it will work in terms of the composition of the body itself. You want it to be totally independent, like any board. So you have to ask yourself whether the government is funding some of the organizations that are represented. I'm not necessarily talking about conflicts of interest here, that's not what I mean, but we need to see if there are any difficulties that might arise and, if so, think about ways to resolve them.

We don't know exactly what the composition of the board will be. There is talk of organizations in general, for example women's and youth organizations. But often these organizations are already receiving government grants. I wonder how they are going to be able to say that they are absolutely free to do and say what they want on the board of the organization.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Bill C‑29 provides for an audit process to ensure that everything is as it should be. There is a process established by the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act. In this bill, we have tried to ensure that the government cannot, on its own, make radical changes to that process without introducing a new bill. In other words, it would open itself up to criticism if it tried to interfere with the process.

So I think that everything is in place to ensure the independence of the body. In any event, there will always be provisions for that in the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Ms. Gill.

I now give the floor to Ms. Idlout for six minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

First of all, thank you, Mr. Miller, for being here. I welcome you.

Concerning those of us who are indigenous, our rights have been broken many times and are never protected. This new legislation said only a couple of things about rights. I'd like you to clarify the accountability around reconciliation.

How would your motion or recommendation protect indigenous rights?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Qujannamiik, MP Idlout, for that, and I thank the translator for the work today.

This board is a partial answer to accountability for the government generally. It responds specifically to calls to action 53 to 56 to make sure that we are being held to account as a government for the 94 calls to action. It's not the perfect mechanism of entire accountability. There are other ones, and you mentioned the rights-based approach that we must take as a government with respect to implementing, not only the 94 calls to action but the calls to justice in the final report on murdered and missing indigenous women and girls.

There are many moving parts across the spectrum of reconciliation-related initiatives that look for the accountability of the federal government in making sure that we're moving in a rights-based process, the foremost of which is still outstanding. It is the action plan into the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that will provide a pathway. This will feed into it and, indeed, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is referred to in the act, but it's not the only instrument. It's a very long-awaited instrument that will be the authority on whether the government is fulfilling its actions, not only our government but other governments at other levels. It's obviously one where we can look at budgetary implementation and policy reforms, if they have those recommendations and choose to do so as well as the annual report on reconciliation that is to be tabled in Parliament according to the law.

It is one of many, but I do want to highlight your main point, which is to keep focusing on a rights-based approach to this and not a transactional approach, which has characterized a number of initiatives across the government.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you for your answer.

Last year, in June 2021, there was the implementation of a new commissioner for indigenous languages. One was appointed. Ronald Ignace was appointed.

Thinking about that, those with diverse and different perspectives made the recommendation, and we were expecting that. How will this be diverse or would it be similar to that type of process? Do you think this would be a good route to take with regard to our rights, for example, the right to our languages?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

It's a great question.

I met with Commissioner Ignace this morning to speak about the work that's ongoing and the work that the commission is doing. There's an opportunity here, I think, to cross-pollinate. I think that it's odd to say you're limited only to language, because language is identity, and it falls into every aspect of the calls to action as well as the work that the commission will be doing.

Commissioner Ignace's work is targeted specifically to how the work that needs to be done on indigenous languages is still outstanding, and the recommendations that have to be made by the government are related to that particular area of language, which is obviously so key to this debate.

I do think there will be an opportunity. They shouldn't limit each other in their approach. For example, I wouldn't think this commission would abstract itself from the calls to action that deal specifically with language. They can have other views, which is their right, but I do see the opportunity to feed into each other and to have a better approach as we talk about something in this country that we're not very good at talking about or at least having an intellectual debate on, which is language, particularly in the promotion of indigenous languages, which both colonizing languages have contributed to destroy. That's something that is an ongoing challenge, but it will be an opportunity in both the form of the language commissioner and this board.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you.

We have time for a complete second round. We've never done this, but we're going to start off right away.

We have Mr. Schmale this time for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister and officials, for being here today.

I want to pick up on the line of questioning by Madame Gill regarding representation. We talked about the big three being included on the board of directors initially. We've had your words through testimony pointing out that there's a vast majority of indigenous people who are not feeling represented by the big three, but it also says that, after five years, you get some mandated representation on the council from groups like indigenous women, youth and that kind of thing. Why not do that right away? Can you help me understand that?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

The three national indigenous organizations have a very powerful voice in this country, and it is important for them to have that representation on the board.

As I explained to MP Gill, we're open to suggestions. We want to make sure that there is diverse representation on the board. How much the federal government steers that is a challenge. It's why we've deferred quite a lot to the interim board and the transitional board. It isn't lost on me that there are perhaps some organizations that are forceful advocates of indigenous peoples that will not feel represented necessarily, or they may feel represented but not have the opportunity to appoint one of their own. This can be a highly political and politicized process.

Again, I think my recommendation to this committee, if it chooses to do so, is to put forward some suggestions, understanding that this has to be a working group that isn't too large but has that level of representation.

I would note the comments that MP McLeod made, which is that the north, despite having fewer people, has to have that representation on the board, particularly in light of his comments on residential school survivors.

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

I'm sure you're aware that the Native Alliance of Quebec, the Manitoba Métis Federation and the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples have all said that they want to be included rather than have to wait.

Again, for the record, is the government open to reasonable suggestions?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

We're open to suggestions.

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

Let's talk about time frames now.

According to the technical briefing, the interim board of directors did six months of work between January and June of 2018. Then the transitional committee did three months of work between January and March of 2022. There's a massive gap there.

What happened to that first bit of work that was done way before the pandemic started, in 2018. How did we get to the point we are now where there has been a long time between any movement?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I don't want to blame the entirety of this on the pandemic, but there is a large measure of that attributable to the pandemic.

Recall that, for that two-year period, the focus, particularly for indigenous communities, was to keep their own alive and safe, which is a basic minimum, but it became priority number one under the pandemic.

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

This started in June 2018, not December 2020. The pandemic didn't start until March of 2020, when the world declared a health emergency.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Like I said, I'm not going to ascribe everything to the pandemic, but for a large measure of this.... Recall that for the funding for this it's not like nothing happened. The funding was achieved in budget 2019, so it's not an accurate argument to say that nothing happened. There has been work that's been done and is under way—

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

I'm sure there has. I just want to know what in terms of.... It took a long time to get this going here. This has taken a lot of years.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Well, $126 million isn't nothing. I would add, just to complete my thought, the large portion of that time period relates to a period of, let's hope, a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, when people were focused on keeping their own alive.

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

Absolutely, and no one is debating the fact that everyone around the world had their priorities changed during the pandemic. What I'm trying to focus on is what was happening way before that, for two years. All of a sudden there's a rush for it at the end. We have to get this tabled now. We've had years, minus the pandemic, to get moving on this. All of a sudden now is the crush to get this done ASAP.

I agree it's important, but I'm still not understanding what the blockages have been.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I would submit to you that, in light of the discoveries in and around Kamloops, our government has been focused on how we accelerate things. Despite the work of the transitional committee and the interim report—

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

That happened during the pandemic, as well. Again, we're going before the pandemic.