Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 19th, 2023

[Murray Long]

I'll answer first of all. Because I started with Whitecap 13 years ago, it sounds like it might be my fault.

Minister, you may want to speak to the question from the government's point of view.

It does take time, and it is very frustrating. You have to be very patient. In our case, part of it was that Whitecap in many cases wanted to push the envelope and wanted to change some things. We pushed the envelope on property tax jurisdiction. We're a government, so we wanted to say that we have the power to impose property taxes. At the outset, the government's position was that we had to do that through arrangements with the province, because it's provincial jurisdiction. We said that is not the way it ought to be. We've worked through that. We have an agreement to go along with our agreement on real property tax that still maintains some principles for representation and so forth.

There are other examples like that where we've pushed back on the fiscal side. Some of them took a lot of arguing, and some of them are a work in progress. Then, of course, the other big issue that we worked on alongside self-government was this idea of our recognition as an aboriginal people. That was a challenge.

For many years, it was talking to a brick wall with the federal government, because the position was so entrenched. Thankfully, that's changed, but all of those things slow a process down. When we open those up and we pave the way for some of these things, I think it can speed it up for other first nations in the future.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I think that fear, lack of trust and pernicious financial interest in preserving the status quo at times exist across Canada. I think that, when you reflect on what these communities are doing, they're taking themselves out of the Indian Act, but on whose conditions and on whose framework?

I think too often Canada has come into these negotiations in a position of power and not in a position of equals. That usually comes with terms, conditions and legal clauses that basically ask communities to take a leap of faith and impose on their people, at times, a framework they wouldn't have if they had had the choice. With communities that want to get out of the Indian Act, there are at times unacceptable conditions not obvious to the political leadership. Choosing the devil you don't know has political consequences on communities once they decide to do that, no matter what the condition.

Too often, with our rigid frameworks, our negotiation style and the power dynamics, we're forcing communities to choose the devil they know, which is the racist document, the Indian Act. That's not right.

We're still far too slow. It's true that the James Bay convention, which is called a modern treaty, does have some very old colonialist terms in it. If you were to do it today, you would probably want to change some of those terms, including some of the cede, surrender and release language, yet it did take only a few years to negotiate, because you had the goodwill of the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada. I wish they had that same goodwill today with respect to a negotiation with three Innu communities in Quebec, the Petapan treaty, which has taken 40 years to negotiate.

In the last couple years there have been structural changes to the way we're negotiating. We're still not there, but I think there is a lot of flexibility within the teams in getting that muscle memory within the public service as well as the financial instruments and the range of tools available to negotiate, not simply within the structures silo, which is Crown-Indigenous Relations Canada, but across departments and with other provinces.

I think, across Canada, the province doing it best is British Columbia, because we have a protocol that ingrained in the muscle memory of the people at the negotiation table a process and a protocol to get to modern treaties. These folks are blazing the trail for that particular neck of the woods. It's to their credit. I wouldn't say we're there yet, and we're not going to brag about it, but this has been a real change in attitude in the government.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Do I have time for another question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

We're going to go to another round. Your time is up for this one.

We'll proceed to a condensed second round starting with Mr. Tochor for five minutes.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. It's been a wonderful journey for me with the Dakota people. I remember heading out there on maybe a little bit better than a goat trail from Saskatoon, and we were there checking out your ball diamonds. The tourist extent that was out there was a community ground for rodeos and maybe a little bit of sports grounds. To see where it has grown to is impressive. If anyone is watching who is planning a trip to Saskatchewan you need to stop in there for a round of golf, or stay at the hotel and see the exciting things that are going on with that first nation.

The second question I have is going to be more about what this agreement does for you. For the first question either Councillor Eagle or Councillor Royal, could you describe a little bit if someone was going to visit this summer what all of the things are they could consider to do on Dakota?

[Frank Royal]

We are getting into tourism and we are building a trail along the golf course for walking and biking. They do have bikes at the hotel for people to rent. Last weekend they had star tours at the hotel. There are wagon rides that you can book through a local entrepreneur. There's a casino to try your luck. Actually I'm involved with the planning of the Dakota Days coming up in August, and there's a ball tournament, and chuckwagon and chariot races. The casino had been putting on an annual powwow, but we shut that down when COVID hit. They're going to bring it back, so we're looking forward to that.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

It's a great facility to learn from each other. I'm so encouraged by that. One of the very impactful things that you have done is with the 99-year leases on property so that people can get mortgages. That's a little bit around the land development side of things. Can you explain a little bit more of that program for people who don't know how that is managed?

[Dwayne Eagle]

Yes, we do have lease agreements in Whitecap. They're 99-year renewable leases. If you wanted to build, say, a home in Whitecap and you wanted to sell it after 10 years you can pay for the 10 years that used and take it up to full value. The housing market would be open to anybody. Right now we're looking at housing for employees. We did a survey with the businesses in Whitecap and about 200 of the employees want to move to Whitecap and purchase a home there as well. We are in negotiations right now, in the planning stages, with a company out of Vancouver, and we're looking at a resort and some condos. I'm not sure when that's going to start, and then there are some higher-end homes around the golf course. They're open to the general public.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

That's a wonderful development if you think of the importance of intergenerational wealth transfer within families to maybe everyone at this table who may have benefited from their forefathers or the generation before them passing down real estate, and what that possibly could bring to people's lives. It has been happening now on this reserve, which is I think a very beneficial thing for everybody for the pride of ownership and putting down roots, and all of the good things that come with it. As much as no one likes paying that mortgage payment, it's a good thing when you are putting away money for your future and future generations, which is wonderful. I just want to congratulate everyone who has made this happen. I am so pleased to be able to be here at committee to play a very small role in getting this across the line.

Thank you again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Mr. Tochor. It's great to have you with us today.

We will now turn to Mr. Weiler for five minutes.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here today and also congratulate the nation. It's been a very long journey, negotiating for 13 years and getting 100% of the nation to support the ratification is incredible. It's hard to get 100% of people to agree on anything, much less something as transformative as this.

The first question I have is this. With this new self-government agreement, what is the role of the provincial government in the administration of it?

[Murray Long]

The agreement and the arrangements are bilateral between Whitecap and the federal government. I can say that when we started, I, as lead negotiator, and Canada did pursue engaging the provincial government. In hindsight, I was wrong. I think this bilateral arrangement works better in terms of getting the arrangements done at the same time we've been working on these self-government arrangements.

We continue to have a good relationship with the province, and we have a number of partnerships with the province. We've set up a bilateral table and we have arrangements in environmental protection whereby we've adopted their laws through our land code. We're working with them now on the enforcement of our own laws, including what we want to enforce in the future under self-government, because enforcing our own laws within the current system is a challenge. We're working through ways and using the province to do that. They've supported us and written letters to various governments regarding issues around recognition and so forth, so we have a very good working relationship.

We're working with them now on how they're going to recognize Whitecap, not as an Indian band but as a self-governing first nation. We continue to work with them on that.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you very much.

I understand that, the way this agreement has been negotiated, it's to go into effect on September 1 of this year. I was hoping you could explain to the committee what it would mean if this legislation was not passed before the summer recess.

[Murray Long]

It would be very disappointing. It would mean we would have to delay the implementation, including some of the financial arrangements and so forth. We've been working hard on our constitution, our supporting governance code, our financial administration code—and rolling our land code into that—and our membership code and so forth. I think it's incredibly important and I'm quite confident we can get it over the finish line for September 1.

As I said, it's taken 13 years, so we might as well get it done now.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I completely agree.

Given that it's been such a long process for this—I have a nation in my riding that's gone through a similarly long process—I am wondering if you could share perhaps any feedback on how this type of process could be improved going forward for other nations that are looking to follow a similar path.

[Murray Long]

I'll start on that.

I may have spoken to this a little bit before. I think it's very important that the membership understand what's going on and that there be a mandate from the membership beforehand. I've been involved previously in other processes that were somewhat similar, in which there was no connection with the membership, and, at the end of the day, that hurt us in terms of trying to maintain things, so the connection is incredibly important.

The other thing that is a challenge—Whitecap's in a pretty good place—is building capacity within the community. You don't want guys like me running government. You want community members running the government over time, and we're working on that. I think it's really important to get people involved, the youth and so forth, because there are huge opportunities in terms of governing the community and so forth and learning the business of government at the younger level. I think it's really important to do that from the outset to show that there are those opportunities as well for the membership.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Mr. Weiler.

Ms. Bérubé, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I'll give my speaking time to the Conservatives, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Go ahead, Mr. Schmale.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the Bloc.

I appreciate hearing the witnesses today. There's some amazing stuff going on. I know all of the Saskatchewan caucus raves about what you are doing on your land and the opportunities you're providing, not only for your people but for people living off reserve as well. It's truly amazing, and it's a model, I think, that can be used and replicated.

Where I want to focus my attention is on some of the comments we have been hearing in committee from the other side.

Probably to you, Mr. Miller, if I could, Minister, we're being told here today.... We understand how important this legislation is and we support it, but this legislation, like the Métis legislation, comes down in the dying days of Parliament. You promised the Métis legislation on April 28. Now we're getting it in the last week of Parliament.

We're dealing with this piece of legislation, which is extremely important, in the dying days of Parliament. Why?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Let me preface this by saying I'm not going to joke around and say you may have to change your golf plans this summer if this doesn't go through. The reality is that, if you truly believe in inherent rights, we should all be asking ourselves why this has to go through Parliament in the first place.

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

No, I'm not asking that. I'm asking why it is not that important. The agreement was signed months ago. The Métis were promised on April 28. We're now in the last couple of weeks of June. Now, all of a sudden, there is this rush to get it done.

What happened to the few months in between?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Just to clarify, do you want to talk about Métis recognition legislation or—

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

The point's still the same. We are told how important this legislation is. We agree with both pieces of legislation. We know how important this is, yet we're being told we must deal with it in the last couple of weeks.

There was a whole lot of runway before we got to this point.