Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 31st, 2023

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have one question I would like to ask you.

I want to advise everyone I'll be handing this over to my colleague, Mike Morrice.

Right now in Canada, there's a free entry system in effect. What do you think about the free entry system, where those who stake claims on land have the free will to do whatever they want with the land? Do you see that as detrimental to the environment or beneficial? How do you view it?

Should the free entry system be changed or amended so those who stake claims have some restrictions?

[Sean Willy]

Thank you for the question.

Des Nedhe oversees all the land and environment for the community. I have a wonderful band member who runs a process, so we look at it differently. Again, we're in a provincial jurisdiction that's very strong at promoting mining and mineral resources.

We look at all the court cases that have been put in front of us, and we take a very strong approach to being the ones who get out early and define what the processes are for doing exploration on English River traditional lands. We'll sign exploration agreements. If companies don't, then we'll use our leverage, either through public relations or the regulatory process, to make sure those are identified and the bad players and the bad apples are culled out.

What you really don't want to do when you're looking for uranium.... They have a steep hill to climb on the regulatory process as it is and with public perception. English River has long been supportive of that industry—80% of the community supports that industry—so we tried to flip it so resource companies know they want to get our support early and often. We've created a process that's very clear.

Again, we're trying to act like a nation without having a comprehensive land claim agreement.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Idlout, as well.

I'd like to follow up on questions with respect to current federal government land, Crown land—specifically, Mr. Willy, if you have more to say about your advice for parliamentarians who are interested in partnerships with indigenous communities that have made clear their interest in land back and in their leadership to move towards restitution of that land. What advice would you have for parliamentarians who want to be a part of centring their leadership in that process?

[Sean Willy]

I'd support it, one hundred per cent. I would host the first meeting. Let's get going on that. The hard part is going to be the overlap agreements, because how are you going to determine who has used that land and what time period? That's where the process gets sticky. I think everyone's for it. It's just this: Who's traditional? Who was there last? Who used it the most? Especially on Crown land, I think it's a great step to go forward. I'd be well behind it.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

In terms of a follow-up, is there any experience you'd want to share with the committee, Mr. Willy, from your lived experience, where you've seen progress made that parliamentarians here could be learning from?

[Sean Willy]

I think it has to be driven by indigenous communities. That's where I think the issue always falls with the federal government, because there are more hurdles and barricades put up and more challenges. If we really want to.... There's a good push now to clear the docket of all comprehensive land claims and specific claims, which is well-received across first nation country. However, what I've seen is that, when first nations drive these discussions and come up with our own solutions and our own partnerships, it clears the way for the federal government to come in after. It's our own processes and procedures. It's holistic. It's using our own knowledge keepers and elders, all accentuated within the federal process. The federal process is not the conduit.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Mr. Morrice and Ms. Idlout.

Before we move on to our second round, Mr. Willy, are you okay to stay for another 15 minutes of questions? I know you have a hard stop.

[Sean Willy]

Sure, that's okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Okay.

We will do a condensed second round, and we will begin with Mr. Schmale for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our witness here today. It's a lovely conversation we are having. Gary Vidal speaks very highly of you. I was very interested to hear a lot of the stories he's been telling about you. They're all good, though. I want you to know that, and I think it's important to know that.

Since we weren't able to hear entirely from Harold Calla, I want to ask if you know about his RoadMap project? You do. That's basically what you're talking about today: more grassroots-up and less top-down, and less endless program funding that never seems to actually improve life on reserve.

Gary was also telling me about some of the businesses that operate in your community. He thought what a great opportunity it is to talk more about that and tell anybody listening or watching what amazing opportunities are happening in your community.

If you want to, you could tell us about it. Gary was bragging, but I think everyone should hear this, not just he and I.

[Sean Willy]

I appreciate that.

I don't think we're alone. We call it economic reconciliation, but the communities in northern Saskatchewan pushed for inclusion in the opening of these uranium mines in the late 1970s. When I was growing up in the Northwest Territories and got the opportunity to work on starting the second diamond mine, we came down to northern Saskatchewan and brought our leaders down to those communities.

Then you look at the diamond mines and see what they've done in Mr. McLeod's riding—it's the same thing. Northern Alberta started doing it a little later in the process, but, again, you saw the jobs it created, the employment. These are all Denesuline communities that are tied to these resources. It's that very pragmatic viewpoint, and it's that generational “look ahead” of getting educated, getting a job and creating economic wealth in your community, which helps, then, your kids in getting better educated.

I'm a beneficiary of a mother who went to high school, who went to university and who was a first nation woman who was the first indigenous person in the Bank of Montreal banking program. I saw what she was doing, and I wanted to do better. Every first nation, Métis and Inuit person sees their parent going to work, and we all want to strive to do better.

It all starts with being given that opportunity. We have to take the next steps now. The table has been set. Our elders set the table. They fought for us to get a piece of the pie. Now we have to continue with that dialogue. I think that's what sets our region apart.

As I mentioned, we have many different aspects within our company that service multiple different clients across the country. Again, our community's viewpoint is to create as much wealth as we can, so our community can set the path for their own journey on self-determination and create as many jobs for indigenous people as possible, and so we transfer from a welfare system to a wage-based economy. The multiplier effect will be our kids going to work and going into education.

Secondly, what we're seeing with those companies is that they're opening up opportunities. Corporate Canada now wants to do something. For years it was on the corner of their desks, but what I've seen is a massive change since the unmarked graves in Kamloops: We need to do action.

Many companies are getting involved in indigenous reconciliation planning. We have a company that helps corporate Canada do that. Ontario Power Generation came out with a strong reconciliation action plan. Telus and Enbridge came out with strong reconciliation action plans, all with the focus of doing more action than just rhetoric. That's what we really need. We want to be a tier-one Canadian company that happens to be indigenous. We don't want to leave it to just politics and rhetoric to get the first contract. We want to have customer service and quality so we get the second, third and fourth. The biggest component of that right now is developing that land in Saskatoon to create a billion-dollar revenue driver for the next 50 years.

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

Do I have time for one more?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

You have 10 seconds.

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

Okay.

For the own-source revenue you were talking about, can you give us some examples of where some of that money was being turned into the community and creating opportunity?

[Sean Willy]

It goes to support services —education services, elder services. Our community put in an artificial ice rink, because they're crazy about hockey. We built a bridge across the Churchill River. We've supported operations—garbage cleanups, snow clearing—just to create more employment in the community, but not the per diem payments. We don't do per diem payments to individual band members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you very much, Mr. Schmale.

We'll move to Mr. Powlowski for five minutes.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Willy, do I have this right? English River, in their land settlement agreement, received both land and money.

[Sean Willy]

Yes. They received money to buy the land, the number of acres they could flip into reserve lands.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

The money was supposed to be used purely to buy land. Is that the way it worked?

[Sean Willy]

Yes.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Okay, so that's what I'm going to get to.

The reason, as I understand it, was that under the treaty each person was to get so much land, so many acres, but they got ripped off. In fact, two-thirds of their people weren't there and weren't counted, so they were owed more land.

[Sean Willy]

That's right.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Now something similar happened in my riding, with Lac La Croix. They just finished their land settlement agreement. As far as I understand it—and maybe I should be asking my neighbour down here this question rather than you—they were just purely given money and not money to buy land.

Have things changed? That was back, I think he said, in the nineties. I have some other land settlement agreements coming up in my riding. I think it's just money, rather than land. Has that changed? Should it be an option that, rather than getting money, you get land instead? How did it work with English River? You had money, but it had to go to buying land.

[Sean Willy]

That was the process called treaty land entitlement; it's the TLE process. It doesn't include all 74 first nations in Saskatchewan. I don't even know if it was half, but it was a dollar amount tied to then going out and securing this number of acres for your community.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

When they secured those acres, and you bought a bunch of land.... I'm going to get to what you mean by “buying the land”. You got a bunch of land south of Saskatoon, but my understanding is that, if it's reserve land under the Indian Act, the people of the reserve don't actually own the land. The government holds it in trust. Now that land south of Saskatoon, is that reserve land under the Indian Act so it's held in trust?