Evidence of meeting #64 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rights.
A video is available from Parliament.
Indigenous Land Defender from Kanehsatà:ke, As an Individual
I have a question for you. Why would you be fearful?
Liberal
Jaime Battiste Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
I'm Mi'kmaq. This is for everyone else, if you could answer. Should Canadians be afraid of indigenous people looking at land?
Indigenous Land Defender from Kanehsatà:ke, As an Individual
It's a very complex issue to say that....
No, you shouldn't. We don't want the keys to your house, but we also want to stop the theft of our lands. If you feel that is a threat to your safety, think of how we feel when we look at all of the land that's been taken under the guise of the rule of law.
Should you be fearful? Only if you do not believe in human rights, only if you do not believe in peace and only if you believe that you are superior to indigenous peoples, just as the doctrine of discovery touted for all of the monarchs in Europe.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jenica Atwin
Thank you, Mr. Battiste.
I will now give the floor to Ms. Bérubé, from the Bloc Québécois.
You have six minutes, Ms. Bérubé.
Bloc
Sylvie Bérubé Bloc Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to thank Ms. Gabriel for her testimony.
As we begin this study, Ms. Gabriel, I have to say that you have broken the ice. The start of a study is always very exciting because we know we will be welcoming witnesses from all over, each of whom will provide a different point of view.
I am replacing my colleague Marilène Gill at committee today, and I am always pleased to attend.
My riding covers northern Quebec, about 800,000 square kilometres or about half of Quebec. It includes a number of Cree, Inuit and Anishinabe people, as well as various other indigenous communities. In my riding, there are problems relating to food security and the suicide rate in Eeyou Istchee, not to mention climate change, which is resulting in changes to ancestral customs and a lot of isolation.
There are also a lot of transportation problems, both on land and by air. Further, we must not forget the missing and murdered women, and that the calls to action have not yielded much progress.
Indigenous issues are particularly important to my, for the reasons I just stated. Even if there are different issues in your community, remoteness is still a heavy burden in my region, as I said. There are challenges related to construction costs, transportation and materials.
Please tell us about the problems you are experiencing right now that you did not have the opportunity to mention earlier.
Indigenous Land Defender from Kanehsatà:ke, As an Individual
There are several issues.
When developers come into the communities, there is an old uranium mine that was closed in 1980 that a company wants to open up. Included in the consultations are our neighbouring Québécois. What we need to really examine are the original title holders to the land, which are the women of the Haudenosaunee nations, the nations whose traditional territory this belongs to, and that free, prior and informed consent is not being practised. The governments, be they provincial or federal, just seem to go through the motions until they get the answer they're looking for.
When I think about the abandonment of the people here in my community by the federal and provincial governments and by the authorities, in regard to the organized crime here, I think about what we need to do to get their attention and say that our issues are as important as a war in Ukraine. Our issues are as important as the lawlessness in Haiti. Why isn't the government spending time trying to address the issues that it has in its own backyard?
We still have a developer who is taking land, and who sold land, knowingly, after we had spoken to him. We have no access to alternative dispute resolutions. We always have to go through the band council. The band council is a colonial-created construct. I belong with the Haudenosaunee people, which is a traditional government that predates European arrival.
In 1924, along with the potlatch ceremonies becoming illegal, traditional governments were criminalized. You passed a law in Parliament, last year, in June, to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It's not about a two-year study. It's about a law that is not being respected by provincial, municipal and federal governments, and by band councils.
Those kinds of things all go back to human rights, and we shouldn't be looking at this as an economic issue. This is an issue that spreads not just through human rights. As you mentioned, how do we get indigenous knowledge to protect the environment and to address the issues of climate change?
The UN has stated many times that it is indigenous knowledge. Therefore, why are we still disputing whether there's relevance in indigenous laws or whether we should even examine indigenous peoples' human rights? It's not just up to environmentalists. This is what essentially is at the root of many indigenous peoples' philosophies and ways of life. How do we use the land today so that seven generations from now they can still use it?
Bloc
Sylvie Bérubé Bloc Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
You are raising some very important points. We know what is happening in Canada right now. Witnesses have given examples from other countries that the federal government could drawn on.
Are you familiar with any examples of land restitution?
Indigenous Land Defender from Kanehsatà:ke, As an Individual
I'm sorry. I can't.
We need to think creatively when we're applying this sort of idea to Canada and the provinces. In Canada, you have federal and provincial jurisdictions, and indigenous jurisdictions have not yet been included, so how do we work through that? We need to think outside the box.
I'm sorry. I'm not sure if there are really great examples. I know the Maori in New Zealand have progressed quite extensively in regard to land back. There really aren't a lot of examples, other than centuries-old reserves set aside for indigenous peoples.
This is where I think that, if we are to resolve this issue, we need to have a true partnership. It's not just a partnership that ticks the box that we were in the same room together. We need a partnership that really understands fundamentally what indigenous law is actually about. You have to take that colonial thinking cap off and be open to the ideas that my ancestors were trying to tell your ancestors.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jenica Atwin
Thank you, Ms. Bérubé.
I will now move to Ms. Idlout for six minutes.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]
First, of all thank you.
I would like to highly recommend Dr. Hayden King to be invited to the next session. I would have loved to hear what he would say. Please invite him again.
Ellen Gabriel, thank you so much for your presentation. It's very good to see you again. What you have just presented is extremely important. Unfortunately, you have had to experience very difficult situations.
I have a question for you. For the recommendation you posed earlier, could you please explain why you made that recommendation, so we can understand better how important it is?
Indigenous Land Defender from Kanehsatà:ke, As an Individual
Thank you, Lori, for this question.
It's an important question because the reason I made this recommendation is that we are not getting anywhere using Canada's so-called justice system or with Indian Affairs or the rebranded Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada.
There is a constant deference to the band council, which has weak leadership, as you know. They have thrown up their hands and said that they're not going to do anything about organized crime. They're not going to do anything about it because it's too dangerous for them.
There are all these social issues that are happening in my community and still developers are coming in. They are taking our land. There are individual Mohawks who are just taking land without consultation and not following our own laws and our own protocols.
I have been doing this for over 30 years. I have not seen progress in any way, shape or form. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples came from that 1990 siege of our community. It's all from racist colonial laws. Canada has colluded with the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, bluebloods from France. They've colluded with the Municipality of Oka. They are colluding with the authorities and organized crime in our community—to do nothing. We are distracted by all these threats to our security, yet they still keep taking our land. They keep telling us this message that we are worthless, that we are disposable and that we have no rights to this land.
This system is not working for us. We need an independent inquiry into the involvement of the federal, provincial, municipal and band councils in the situation we find ourselves in today, where we are not safe in our own homes in our community. There's is no such thing as democracy because if you do speak out there will be retribution against you.
I want an independent inquiry investigating Canada's collusion with organize crime in creating the situation we find ourselves in today.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]
Thank you.
On the second question I have for you, I would also like to have Mike Morrice's lawyer also speak out, if you can.
The second question I have for you is on the first nations indigenous legal traditions. Should they be utilized again? Do you have a recommendation for how the indigenous legal traditions could be utilized and/or recognized within the Canadian government?
Indigenous Land Defender from Kanehsatà:ke, As an Individual
Yes, a long time ago in the 1990s there was something called the Manitoba justice inquiry. They talked about using indigenous laws for restorative justice.
For indigenous laws, I can only speak to the Great Law of Peace, wherein we sit in clans and we talk. We talk until we come to a consensus from all the clans about an issue that is before the people. The way the colonial laws are, you have a time frame and you have a time limit and you are not able to address these things afterwards. It's always based on the timeline of the federal government.
For indigenous peoples, we go by those 13 moons. What does each moon bring us? Today we see the flowers blooming in May.
We are supposed to be taking care of the land. We are stewards of the land. We are title holders to the land, yet how many women do we see sitting around the table when it comes to land negotiations? The lawyers outnumber the indigenous people in discussions. They don't know indigenous laws. We need those elders to be there with us because we are supposed to be looking at how we're living today and our actions today. How do they help the people today, but also how do they help the people in the future?
It's not just about human beings. It's about all our relations: the fish, the water, the four-legged, the birds. Those are indigenous laws, and this is what has been under attack by development, especially resource development and condo development.
I'm rushing because I know there are other questions, but thank you. Those are really important questions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jenica Atwin
Thank you, Ms. Idlout.
We'll now proceed to our second round.
We have, I believe, Mr. Schmale, for five minutes.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
We do. Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Gabriel, for being with us today on this very important topic.
Ms. Gabriel, with the expansion of the pipeline into Wet'suwet'en territory, we saw a conflict, and I know you know this well. It emerged between the hereditary leadership and the elected chiefs. Basically on one side or the other how they felt about resource development determined where people landed on that issue.
I totally recognize and agree with you that the Indian Act is paternalistic. It's archaic. It has failed indigenous people, and one day I'd actually like to see it abolished, the sooner the better.
With respect to land restitution and use, how can we be assured that, going forward, we have achieved free, prior and informed consent, especially in nations that have divided support for either model?
Indigenous Land Defender from Kanehsatà:ke, As an Individual
Yes, that is a really excellent question too, and it's something I've been asked often.
Let's get rid of the Indian Act and then treat us as nations. Treat us as we should be treated, having access to our traditional homelands, which are thousands of square miles for some and millions of square miles for others.
For sure, there is a divide-and-conquer strategy that has been going on for over 500 years. The government, when it suits its needs, will find indigenous peoples who are only too willing to adopt the values of a colonizer, which is that money is the most important thing. For indigenous traditional governments it is important for the people to have a quality of life. It is important for the people to have food sovereignty, to be healthy, but that also means that the land needs to be healthy.
A colonial—
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Ms. Gabriel, can I ask you on that point—
Indigenous Land Defender from Kanehsatà:ke, As an Individual
The band councils.....
I just want to clarify. Just let me finish this for a second.
The band council was created by the Government of Canada to usurp the traditional forms of leadership. This is who the government chooses all the time, and they say to us, as traditional people, that this is the legal authority we recognize and it is their decisions.
If you look at just my community, one-third of the people who are registered band members actually vote. We have, within that, multiple people. It's traditional versus band council, when it's really a nation. This band council system does the bidding of the colonial governments. It has taken itself out of that canoe of the Two Row Wampum and become part of the colonial government, so they should not even be consulted.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
I would maybe ask for your clarification. When they had band elections, the different bands in the Wet'suwet'en had elections and everyone who ran on a pro-resource development platform won in those band elections.
Wouldn't that be democracy in action? Wouldn't it be those individuals living on reserve, talking about economic reconciliation, who wanted jobs and opportunities for themselves?
Indigenous Land Defender from Kanehsatà:ke, As an Individual
Is that what's the most important thing? If you take a look at how informed they are, how informed are they? Is there any coercion that is going on? Free, prior and informed consent addresses those, and I know—because I live in communities and I've talked to other people—that there are people who will vote and there are people who will not vote, who refuse to go to these meetings, because they say if we are using the land, if we abuse the land, future generations will not be able to provide for themselves.
Resource development brings in a lot of money.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
In terms of the pipeline—we're talking about this situation specifically—are you saying that those who were in favour of that project were not informed, and those who were against it were the only ones who knew the full story? Is that what you're saying ?
Indigenous Land Defender from Kanehsatà:ke, As an Individual
Not at all, sir.
Conservative
Indigenous Land Defender from Kanehsatà:ke, As an Individual
No, I think what you need to understand is that, when the government says we're going to do consultation, if nobody shows up, they consider that consultation. What resource developers have done in the past is call the band office and ask for the grand chief, the “Grand Poobah”, and say we want to do this, do you agree or not? It's just a telephone call sometimes. It's not just on the government's back. It's also on the developers' backs. What is happening is that there's no respect for indigenous law, which says we must fight to protect the waters, the fish, the birds, the lands, everything, so that there is going to be a sustainable way of life in the future.
As it is, the majority of water that we see is either not drinkable so we have to put it through a sewage system.... I'm not going to speak on behalf of the Wet'suwet'en, but I do know that this is not a definition of democracy. This is more a definition of good business practice than anything. Even then it is sorely lacking in good faith and in goodwill. It is really about the money, and at the end of the day—I'm going to use a cliché—you can't eat money.
Those of us who are land defenders we are viewed as the troublemakers. We are viewed as the unreasonable ones who don't want to progress. I'm progressing here. I'm here in front of you using Zoom. It's not that I want to live the way my ancestors lived, not at all, but I do want a safe and healthy environment for the children and youth to be able to grow up in. I don't think living beside an oil refinery, or tailing ponds because of resource extraction, is a healthy way. I don't think that attacking the salmon run is also a very smart and intelligent way of using the land.