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

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

We will now begin with 30 minutes on receiving witnesses with respect to proposed legislation Bill C-29.

We have with us this afternoon for the first half hour, and they will stay on for the hour when the minister will join them, Mr. Andy Garrow, director, policy and strategic direction, reconciliation secretariat, planning and partnerships; Ms. Kate Ledgerwood, director general, policy and strategic direction, also from the reconciliation secretariat; and Ms. Seetal Sunga, senior counsel from the Department of Justice.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline the usual rules. Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services in English, French and Inuktitut are available for the first part of today's meeting. Please be patient with the interpretation. There may be a delay. For those in the video conference, the interpretation button is found at the bottom of your screen. It's the interpretation globe, and you can listen in English, French or Inuktitut, if you choose. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately and we will ensure interpretation is properly restored before we continue.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room, of course, your microphone is controlled by the proceedings and verification officer. When speaking please speak slowly and clearly, and when you're not speaking, please put your mike on mute. This is a reminder that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

We're going to launch immediately into questions. We'll have six minutes for each of the four parties.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe, Mr. Vidal, you will be starting as the first speaker for six minutes. Please go ahead.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, folks, for being here today. I think most of you were on the technical briefing the other night, if I can remember the faces in the checkerboard instead of in person. I appreciate the other night as well.

I want to go through a little bit of timing, and I want you to help me out with a couple of things to make sure I understand. If I'm clear, the government announced the creation of an interim board of directors in December 2017. That was through a Governor in Council appointment, which would be directed by cabinet. This interim board that was appointed at that time did their work and issued a final report to the then-minister on June 12, 2018, with 20 fairly specific recommendations.

In the technical briefing the other night, you indicated that these recommendations were the basis for the draft legal framework, which ultimately ended up in Bill C-29 now.

It appears that the vast majority of the work was already done by June 2018 to create this council. That was when the work happened, but not until December 2021 did the minister actually take that next step, as advised by the interim board and the report, to appoint the transitional committee members. Finally, in March 2022, the final recommendations of that group were given back to the minister to go ahead and finalize the legislation.

My first question is simply this: Is that an accurate time frame? Have I understood that well?

[Andy Garrow, Director, Policy and Strategic Direction, Reconciliation Secretariat, Planning and Partnerships, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs]

That's correct.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you.

Could you tell me what happened between June 2018 and December 2021? My understanding is that there was nothing done in that three and a half year period to advance this process. Can you tell me why or why not that was the case?

[Andy Garrow]

In that period of time, the department undertook its analysis of the recommendations that were provided by the interim board and provided that analysis to the government, and really did a thorough review of what was provided. The interim board in that period of time did extensive engagement with their work and came up with really sound recommendations in terms of where they should move forward. That analysis took some time.

Also in terms of what the next steps were, there was the recommendation for establishing a transitional committee and determining the process for that. In the meantime, that's when the pandemic came as well. That delayed efforts significantly, as well as identifying who was going to be on the transitional committee. There were some delays in that process.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

No, I appreciate that but, sorry, we use COVID as an excuse or the pandemic as an excuse, but the time frame was June 2018 and the pandemic didn't start until March of 2020. That's 18 months, almost two years in the meantime, and really the next steps were already identified. The report on June 12, 2018, indicated the next step was to appoint the transitional committee.

I'm not quite following all this work that was supposedly done in the three and a half years. It seems to me from your technical briefing, honestly, the presentation, it's pretty clear that things just paused and then picked up again in December of 2021.

I will leave that one for now and I'll move on to something different because I think my assumptions on that seem to be fairly accurate.

On call to action 56, we've had this conversation a couple of times over the last few weeks already. Call to action 56 explicitly calls on the Prime Minister to answer the national council for reconciliation's annual report by providing a response. This interim board of directors that issued these 20 recommendations back in June of 2018 also advised that this should be the process, yet according to the bill it's the minister who would respond to the national council's annual report.

Can you tell me how this happened and who made the decision not to respect that call to action and have the minister respond instead of the Prime Minister?

[Andy Garrow]

For that one, the minister was bringing forward the legislation and in that process it was determined that the minister responsible for the legislation would be the appropriate person to table the responses as identified in the legislation.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

The minister made that decision on his own. That wasn't something recommended by any of the transitional committee people or the department officials?

[Andy Garrow]

It came out through the drafting of the legislation process.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

From the minister...?

[Andy Garrow]

Through the process...yes.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you.

In the legislation there's some language that I struggle with, and I'm going to be quick because I think I'm running out of time.

There's some language in the purpose that talks about the purpose of this bill is to “advance efforts for reconciliation”. I'm an accountant. I'm all about measurable outcomes and numbers and data and that kind of thing. Can you give me any indication of whether there have been discussions at all in this journey of four and a half years about how we would measure the success of advancing efforts for reconciliation?

[Kate Ledgerwood, Director General, Policy And Strategic Direction, Reconciliation Secretariat, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs]

Perhaps I'll say that as we have been developing this and working very closely with the transitional committee, one of the directions that we have received is very much to provide the frame but to let the board make some of these determinations once it's formed. It is there that it can make the determination in the future on the scope. I think it is better placed than perhaps us determining what is to be advanced around reconciliation.

While this bill is there to provide the frame, we understand and appreciate that there will be much more work once the board —

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I'm sorry. I appreciate that but the legislation says “advance efforts” and I think it could really just say “advance reconciliation”. We want to move forward on advancing reconciliation. I don't think we can measure efforts in this context, and I think we heard that from some of the people on the transitional committee and the interim board of directors who said this language was pretty weak.

That's kind of somewhere we'll be going in the future.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. Vidal.

We'll now go to Ms. Atwin.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

I just want to take the opportunity to acknowledge that we did just have the second National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. I want to just acknowledge survivors and descendants from my riding, and of course, across Atlantic Canada and throughout the nation. I was fortunate enough to attend a ceremony. It was anticipated that 50 people would be there and there were hundreds of people. I think that speaks to the important work that's being undertaken and how effective it is at communicating just how critical it is for all of us to walk this road of reconciliation.

I want to point out that there have been several organizations and self-governing first nations who have voiced concerns about, perhaps, a lack of consultation for the legislation and the national council. They might feel left out of the process.

Could you please elaborate on the consultation process that the interim board undertook to advise on what the national council for reconciliation would look like and just how important it is to include indigenous voices every step of the way? Thank you.

[Andy Garrow]

We're looking at this in terms of what's happened over the years from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to now. In that process, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission travelled across the country with the national events, the community events and the regional events that were part of that process and heard from thousands of survivors, thousands of community members and those impacted by residential schools.

That was one thing and that created the framework of what went into call to action 53, which is what's been established for the national council for reconciliation. After that the interim board also held engagement, so they established a public website so that any interested individuals across Canada could share their thoughts on the national council for reconciliation. They did some outreach to the national indigenous organizations and then they also hosted an event where a number of experts came in.

Then with the transitional committee, noting that it was time for the legislation to move forward, they wanted to move forward with this as quickly as possible. They also did some engagement as well but with targeted experts on the framework of legislation and what would be in there.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Would either of you like to add anything to that? No...?

Were there any lessons learned throughout that process that you could maybe speak to that might be helpful for our committee?

[Andy Garrow]

This is a really broad council that we're establishing. There are a number of people who are going to be impacted by it. I think over time—and we're seeing this in a number areas—whether it's the level of engagement that's happening across the countries on issues or.... There's a lot happening because of that.

With what's happened here, we're grateful for the experts who came and brought their voices to the table. We're grateful for the leadership that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has shown, and the interim board members and the transitional committee members. I think they have created a solid framework, which we see in the legislation today.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Could you also speak more broadly about what the reconciliation secretariat does? I'm curious and excited to learn more about it.

[Kate Ledgerwood]

Thank you very much for the question.

The reconciliation secretariat, which is situated within Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, supports what are called the “permanent bilateral mechanisms”. These are meetings that take place between indigenous partners—the three national indigenous organizations—annually. There are meetings that take place with the Prime Minister as well as with the other ministers.

That is a forum to advance joint policy initiatives and a place where we can come together at the table to identify key issues and policies and to take efforts to make some differences and move programs forward. My colleague Andy Garrow helps support the overarching whole-of-government approach to the calls to action. As well, he is supporting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the advancement of this bill too.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Excellent.

I would add that oftentimes the communication piece is difficult. I've talked a little about those who might feel left out of the process. I've also seen a bit of feedback from Canadians, even around the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, just not understanding what it's grounded in and that it's actually a response to a call to action itself.

Can you speak to the communications piece and what it looks like to engage with community members across the country?

[Andy Garrow]

Thank you for the question.

A lot of this is talking about the different aspects of what came out of the Truth and Reconciliation report, and also in terms of what the interim board and the transitional committee have heard through their journeys. That communication has gone out. We've tried to share some information through the website and through ministers' statements, etc., about it as well.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

That's all I have, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Ms. Atwin.

I now give the floor to Mrs. Gill for six minutes.