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

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Yes, you may.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Thank you.

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

First of all, I want to welcome the witnesses and thank you for your testimony. I like what I'm hearing, but I'm going to ask you to answer my questions individually.

The question pertains to the time when we lived on the land before missionaries came. We had existing laws and, since the missionaries and foreigners have come, our laws have been changed and disregarded. We indigenous people would like to see those laws that we had revived, because we can move toward reconciliation by reviving the laws that we had.

Is this considered an important aspect of reconciliation? Is there going to be research or a study done on the laws that existed before missionaries and foreigners came?

[English]

[Karen Restoule]

I'd like to respond first, if that's okay, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Please go ahead.

[Karen Restoule]

I studied law at the University of Ottawa between 2009 and 2012. That was at a time when indigenous legal scholars John Borrows and Val Napoleon out of the University of Victoria's faculty of law initiated, in partnership with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a project on the revitalization of indigenous laws.

It's been about ten or eleven years since they first took on that initiative, and I understand that they've continued on with their mission to revitalize laws, which, as you say, rest at the foundation of our governance systems and of our ways of life prior to contact. I and many others with a legal background who are indigenous find that this work is a necessity to support, if not be at the core of, the reconciliation process in this country.

If there were a way for the bill to support that in a specific way, we would be doing ourselves a lot of service as a country to continue to invest and take that work on in a serious way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Ms. Idlout, did you want somebody else to respond as well?

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Yes. I would like to hear from the other witnesses as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

All right.

Ms. Buffalo, do you have any comments?

[Karla Buffalo]

Yes.

That's a great question about indigenous law-making. I asked our elders before if we had systems of law-making, and they said, “absolutely”. It's work that needs to be done to help our indigenous communities learn how to do indigenous law-making from the stories that have guided our communities for many generations.

I offer the example of child and family services legislation. At ATC, we run under provincial jurisdiction for child and family services and the current delivery of those services, but we are starting the process of indigenous law-making. Part of that process is going out and working with our communities, and listening to the stories of how we have traditionally cared for our children. We help our communities take those stories, translate them and change them into indigenous law, so that we have legislation and processes based on traditional practices. We then ensure that our funding is based on how we have traditionally supported and cared for our families, so that when our families are in crisis, we have ways of being that direct in how we support those families in a way that makes traditional sense to us.

Part of that process that we need to support is helping families, communities and leaders to understand how those stories translate into indigenous law, and then provide appropriate funding to ensure it is practised and supported in our communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you.

Chief Commissioner Jules, you have about 40 seconds, if you wish to comment.

[Clarence T. (Manny) Jules]

Of course, we traditionally had laws. That's one of the areas that I'm working on right now. It's the implementation of our law over taksis. We look after each other. We help each other. We are not stingy with each other. We are not jealous of each other.

That's a fundamental premise of our law-making authority. That's what I want to be able to modernize today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you very much, Ms. Idlout.

Colleagues, we have time for a compressed second round. It would be three minutes for the Conservatives and Liberals, and one and a half minutes for the other two parties.

Is it still Mr. Vidal for three minutes?

[The Clerk]

It will be Mr. Schmale, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Mr. Schmale, go ahead for three minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

For the first question, I'll go to you, Ms. Restoule. You had great comments, and I appreciate the testimony.

Let's talk about the oversight committee. Do you feel it's very independent right now in the way that it's set up by the way the bill is currently written and how the first group gets appointed, which sets the stage for future groups?

[Karen Restoule]

That's a critical question. Transparency, accountability and independence become critical in this instance.

In the selection of members, I'd recommend that the committee examine other means to appoint the members, the board of directors and the length of terms.

In my experience, having come as an order in council appointee to Ontario's administrative justice system, I've dealt a lot with terms of service. It's very rare to have such a lengthy term on the first bounce. It might be worth the committee's while to examine a shorter initial term that leads to lengthier terms thereafter.

Independence absolutely is key, as well as being the vehicle to trust and confidence in public institutions.

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

Do you see the line here? We've heard many times in testimony that we're talking about reconciliation, and specifically economic reconciliation, in setting the stage for a different conversation in the future, recognizing that the status quo isn't working right now and that we have to develop that conversation into something different or we'll have 150-plus years or more of failure by governments of all stripes.

[Karen Restoule]

Absolutely. Economic reconciliation is the vehicle forward in terms of setting our peoples or communities back on a path to prosperity—not only our nation, but the country as a whole. It really does lead to a strong social fabric.

With the emphasis on ensuring that we are well positioned on that front, at that point I see us achieving some tangible outcomes and the dial shifting in the right direction, as it should.

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

Mr. Jules, do you want to comment on any of that, even the part about the minister responding to the report—not the Prime Minister, as recommended in the TRC report?

[Clarence T. (Manny) Jules]

I too have been involved in the First Nations Tax Commission, which is a government council appointee process. It is lengthy and cumbersome, but having an adequate term is critically important, particularly at the outset. This is so you can begin to delve into the complex matters we will be facing, in terms of economic reconciliation and where we fit into the fiscal makeup of the country.

However, and as was stated in the past, if we don't have a fiscal relationship that includes first nations, Canada will not achieve its global standing of former days.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Chief.

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

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

Thank you very much.

I thank the witnesses for their testimony.

I'm interested to know more about this concept of economic reconciliation. I've looked through the calls to action, and two things stand out. When they talk about economic reconciliation, which doesn't really appear in the calls to action, they talk about closing the gaps, specifically in education and around health.

If we frame things from an economic reconciliation standpoint, would you not agree that it is also important that we look at the cultural component of reclaiming languages and positive mental health among our communities? Could you talk a bit about the importance of culture, language and indigenous laws as part of reconciliation, and whether you can balance that?

Manny Jules, if you want to start, that would be great.

[Clarence T. (Manny) Jules]

I work with the Ngāi Tahu on the South Island of New Zealand. One thing they have accomplished since settling their outstanding treaty obligations is investing a considerable amount of money—their own money—in culture and language. It has helped revitalize the language to the extent that it's a fundamental part of New Zealand language. The language itself has changed over the last couple of decades, since the implementation of their treaty rights.

Economic reconciliation means we will be able to develop our own programs and unique ways of dealing with language and culture. Who are the best preservers of that, other than ourselves?

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

Thank you.

Karen, did you want to weigh in?

[Karen Restoule]

Yes.

I'm thinking about responsibility here to the self and the collective. To me, that is at the core of economic reconciliation. The Honourable Murray Sinclair, the former justice, has been heard saying time and time again that we have to know who we are and where we come from, that at the core, when we understand those two questions, we understand the responsibilities we carry in terms of advancing a better quality of life and ways of life for ourselves and the generations to come.

If you want to cut the language a little closer to the culture, I think that could be an alternate definition of “economic reconciliation”.