Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 24th, 2022

[Brandy Stanovich]

Okay.

Not doing so in this instance will set a devastating precedent for this country and globally against the current backdrop of proven genocide against indigenous women and girls.

Honourable members, IWWT is therefore requesting that the bill be amended in clause 10 to include one director on the board of the national council for reconciliation.

I can stop there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you very much, Ms. Stanovich. Perhaps you'll have a chance to expand in the question period as well.

We'll now go to that question period, beginning with, I believe, Mr. Melillo for six minutes.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you.

We're going to give it to Mr. Zimmer to start.

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

Thank you, Mr. Melillo.

Thank you, Chair.

My question will be for Garry Bailey, the president of the Northwest Territory Métis Nation.

It's an honour to have you here today, Garry.

Since our conversation is obviously about reconciliation, I have an article from Cabin Radio that was written just after the 2021 election. It quotes you as saying:

It's getting our position moving forward so that we can move on with our own economic opportunities and have management over our land recognized and our rights affirmed.

Could you please explain?

[Garry Bailey]

Okay. Thank you.

As you know, we've been left out of the treaties since they started to be signed in our territory in 1899, with another one in 1921. Up until then, the first nations had been fully funded. The Métis Nation has never received funding of any sort, and we've been left out of the treaties. We've been negotiating our land claim ever since 1996. We were part of the Dene Métis before that, before it failed in 1990. Due to that, we haven't had any opportunities economically or anything like that so we could get on with business and take our place in our country. We have no land and we have no funding coming in for the resources that have been taken out of our territory, so it is important for reconciliation to finalize our land claims so that we can get our land and cash transfer, be recognized as a government with authority over our land and get into economic development, which includes joint ventures and so on.

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

Thank you, Garry.

I have one more quick question and then I'll pass it over to my colleague.

Economic reconciliation has been brought up several times today just by the witnesses, but it isn't in Bill C-29. Do you think Bill C-29 should include economic reconciliation specifically?

[Garry Bailey]

I do think so. I think it definitely is part of the reconciliation aspect of it due to the fact that we've been left out, as I've mentioned. We have to catch up. We definitely need something to move forward with as soon as possible.

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

Thank you, Garry.

I'll pass it over to my colleague Mr. Melillo.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Zimmer.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for joining us today and for your testimony so far. You've already given us a lot to think about.

For my question, I want to go first to Ms. Stanovich.

Obviously, as you said quite clearly in your opening remarks, you believe the Native Women's Association should have a seat at the table. That's something we've heard from other witnesses. From my time serving on the committee, I know that the Native Women's Association has been overlooked in past legislation as well. I'm thinking of the government's UNDRIP legislation in the last Parliament as well, on which the Native Women's Association was also not consulted.

I'm wondering if you could expand on why you view it as being important that there be a dedicated seat on the council for a women's advocate, in terms of matriarchal importance in first nation culture, which I think you were getting into before you ran out of time.

[Brandy Stanovich]

Prior to colonialization, we were the matriarchs in our society, the women. The women led the society. The men would go hunting. They'd bring the food home to the women, and they would divvy it up. We're the nurturers and the caretakers of our families, so a bill like this is something we definitely should have a voice on.

The Native Women's Association of Canada is a collective voice from coast to coast of all the PTMAs and all the women in each province and territory—the mothers, the grandmothers, the aunties, even the little girls. In my territory, we listen to our children because they're the future. Their voice gets elevated through me to NWAC to you, if they're on the committee.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

I'll ask you my second question as well, now that I have you in the hot seat, and perhaps we only have time for one or two here.

We've heard a lot of concerns as well about the fact that there's no direct funding available for this council and that there really aren't any specified, measurable goals for the council set out in the bill. Do you have any concerns around that? Do you have suggestions for this committee on how we can better incorporate some more measurable goals for the council to work on?

[Brandy Stanovich]

One would definitely be working with NWAC. I don't know if you've seen their action plan. They had an action plan before the Government of Canada, so by including the Native Women's Association of Canada, you can get those deliverables.

We need reconcili-action—not reconciliation, but reconcili-action.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I appreciate that.

Mr. Chair, I think that's pretty much all the time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Yes, it is. Thank you.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

We'll now go to Mr. Battiste for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

I'm going to direct some questions at Treaty Education Nova Scotia.

One of the functions of Bill C-29 is to conduct research on promising practices that advance efforts for reconciliation in all sectors of Canadian society by all governments in Canada and at the international level. I know there are a lot of calls to action that speak to education: call to action 10, call to action 62 and call to action 63. I'm wondering if Treaty Education could give us a little bit of a glimpse into why there is an important element of education in reconciliation. Do you feel it's important for provincial governments to be a part of reconciliation moving forward?

I know Ms. Sulliman didn't get a chance to speak, so maybe we can start with her, and then we can go to Jacqueline after that.

[Celeste Sulliman, Director, Treaty Education, Nova Scotia Office of L’nu Affairs]

Yes, the treaty education initiative in Nova Scotia is unique because it is an equal partnership between the province and L'nu through Mi'kmaw Kina'matnewey.

The really interesting piece of this collaboration is that it is co-led between the Office of L'nu Affairs and Jacqueline at MK, but all Nova Scotians have the opportunity to learn about our treaty relationship through the lens of four foundational questions.

Who are the Mi'kmaq historically and today? What are the treaties and why are they important? What has happened to the treaty relationship? What are we doing to reconcile our shared history and ensure justice and equity?

We direct our education to three audiences. Jacqueline spoke about her focus through MK and the public school system as public education, and that's one of the three Ps that we focus on. The other two Ps are public service employees and the general public or the public writ large.

Essentially, we focus reconciliation through treaty education. We focus on all Nova Scotians and not just on what's happening in the schools, and it's not just what's happening in L'nu schools, but what's happening in public schools as well.

Really, through all the collaborative work we are doing, we are trying to educate, to essentially respond to calls to action that call, for example, for the education of public service employees. At the Office of L'nu Affairs, we have engaged thousands of public service employees, in person and online, in the delivery of workshops and presentations. We've created learning materials.

We've hosted events throughout the province, and we have a really strong social media presence as well. The Treaty Education Nova Scotia Facebook page now has over 10,000 followers, which, for a small initiative in a small province, is a lot of people following our work, engaging with us regularly and asking us questions.

The collaborative work that we do together is really important, and we feel that it's the responsibility of municipalities, education systems, provincial governments, the federal government and all organizations of all types and stripes to work together to advance reconciliation. We welcome people to participate in our work and in the initiatives that we're doing.

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

Thank you, Celeste.

I want to ask a question. Maybe Jacqueline can guide a discussion.

Call to action 57 calls for indigenous professional development for public servants. Do you think this is an important thing that should be reflected within Bill C-29, maybe in the preamble? Do you think this is an important new dimension in this legislation?

[Jacqueline Prosper]

I believe so. I think that the more people who work on the initiative, the more work gets done. As a small group of people who support the direct initiative here, being able to have somewhere to go for support in those things, absolutely.... The more people who are hands on, the easier the work gets. It's a big project. As I mentioned before, we're learning that we have no shortage of work.

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

Part of Bill C-29 is that there's a budget. In the 2019 budget, there was an amount of $126.5 million over the next few years to help the committee with oversight.

From the perspective of a provincial role and from a Mi'kmaq perspective, where do you think some of the money should be going in terms of moving forward on reconciliation within education?

[Jacqueline Prosper]

I would say definitely in producing resources to support teachers and administrators in teaching about reconciliation and including the stories that have not been included in teachers' professional development. We know that teachers are anxious and excited to do the work. They're nervous about getting it wrong, so the more support we can give them in providing all of those resources, the better.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

I'm sorry; we've reached our time. We'll go to Madame Gill.

Mrs. Gill, you have six minutes.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd also like to thank each of the witnesses for their opening remarks.

I have a few questions for Ms. Stanovich about the representation of women on the National Council for Reconciliation. It was touched on briefly earlier in this meeting, but in fact we haven't heard much about the lack of women, particularly from a national organization like the Native Women's Association of Canada. I took note of it, especially since we know, Mr. Chair, that women make up half the population. It's all the more surprising since, as Ms. Stanovich said, these are predominantly matriarchal societies. I understood that Ms. Stanovich was saying that there had to be a place for women.

I would like to know if she thinks an organization representing women would consider that there could be a gender‑based analysis in the actions that will be taken by the council.