Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 19th, 2023

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

Would you like to see this legislation passed and fast-tracked in any way we can as different parties representing Canada? Would you like to see this go, in what we have the ability to do with unanimous consent, to say that we're satisfied, that the community is happy and the nation is happy, as well as our government and the parties? Would you like to see us fast-track this?

[Frank Royal]

Yes, we would like everybody's support to fast-track it. We have plans to implement it on September 1. We do have the support of the community going forward. We've had numerous consultations with them over the last couple of years, so we're waiting to hear some good news.

Thank you.

[Dwayne Eagle]

It's the same thing—ditto, I guess.

Yes, our community is pretty excited. We've negotiated for 13 years. For 10 years or so, maybe, there was very little to take back to the community to tell them about what was going on. Everything just took some time. Now it is moving quickly. We do want the support of everybody here to move it forward.

Thank you.

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

During the starting point of this discussion, councillors, you talked about how many different ministers you've asked for this, and how many different times you've gone in front of ministers and asked for your section 35 right to be recognized. There's a big difference between being recognized as an Indian under the Indian Act and being recognized as a section 35 rights holder.

I'm wondering if you could talk to me a bit about what your community sees as the value and importance of finally being recognized as section 35 aboriginal rights holders in Canada and what that means for your community.

[Dwayne Eagle]

I guess maybe I'll get a little personal. Sometimes when there's a dispute with other first nations, they say something like, “Go back to where you came from.” We're from Canada. That's our land and our territory. Once they recognize us as aboriginal peoples of Canada.... That's one of the things that we talked about with our community. They want that. They want to make sure that's included in the agreement. It's pretty important for us.

Thank you.

[Frank Royal]

I agree with Councillor Eagle.

Also, the section 35 recognition gives us the land base we talked about, parity with other first nations and sustainable funding for our community for programs for language, culture, education, housing and infrastructure—a lot of our programs.

Thank you.

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

I'll just say, as their community members and elders have stressed to me time and time again, it's important to remind ourselves that they know exactly who they are, and Canada has never recognized that. I think that's the important constitutional element. As a matter of respect and dignity from their ally, that recognition is a strict minimum.

It shouldn't be seen, I think, by the outside world, that this is Canada magically creating a class of indigenous peoples. These people know precisely who they are, and they've known it since time immemorial. That's the reality of it: There is a constitutional implication of Canada's recognition, and that's the least that Canada should be doing at this stage.

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

Thank you, Minister.

As you know, within Canada, there are certain borders that we recognize in this country, but a lot of these borders didn't exist with treaty nations and first nations across the world, who were displaced by borders. I'm wondering if you could speak a bit about the importance of what the law has recognized in terms of the importance of indigenous peoples, especially first nations in Canada, being able to be dual citizens of countries and their ability to practise rights on both sides of the border.

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

It's again another important reminder to the rest of us that the border crossed them, and they don't cross the border. That's the reality of their history, their lived experience and the desecration of their ways the imposition of the border had on them.

There is an ancillary discussion that we need to have on perfecting mobility rights. As of today, vis-à-vis its American partner, Canada is a laggard because it doesn't recognize specific provisions of the Jay Treaty. More importantly, it doesn't recognize inherent mobility rights of indigenous peoples, which has all the pernicious effects it can have, particularly on those most vulnerable populations—indigenous women and girls. That's more work that we need to do.

However, that mobility right is an important part of the discussion we have on perfecting section 35 rights, especially as they pertain to the border and especially when it deals with peoples who have been on both sides of what was called the Medicine Line when we established it.

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

I have one short question for the legal counsel—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

I'm sorry, Mr. Battiste, but I have to suspend. We are out of time.

I can resume within 30 seconds when we come back. We have to suspend briefly to vote, and then we'll be back. I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

We will resume proceedings.

I'll just remind our witnesses now to make sure you are on the proper interpretation channel.

We will resume with Madame Bérubé.

Ms. Bérubé, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First of all, I have to thank the Whitecap Dakota Nation for being with us today.

If I'm not mistaken, Chief Bear has been leading the negotiation process with the federal government since 2009, in your case.

On the one hand, do you have any recommendations for the federal government to improve the process?

On the other hand, do you think that the time between the start of negotiations on a treaty, such as the one for your community, and its implementation should be shortened?

[Murray Long]

Thank you for the question.

I will start and will make a few comments. I'm also going to ask our legal counsel Max Faille to reply in French as well.

As far as accelerating the process, yes, there are ways. When we have consistency in representation on the federal side, that helps move things along. We've had changes in legal counsel that have slowed things down, and that sort of thing, because people have to get onto the file. No offence to the lawyers in the room, but every lawyer likes to put their stamp on these things. That's one thing.

When there are changes in ministers and so forth, that takes some time as well. Those are some of the things that I think would speed it up.

On one hand, you don't want to go too fast because you have to bring the community along as well. We worked with the community throughout and developed our constitution and so forth. That takes some time, so I don't want to.... It shouldn't be the process of developing within the community that's rushed.

Maybe I could ask Max to speak.

[Maxime Faille, Legal Counsel, Whitecap Dakota First Nation]

I'd be happy to.

I completely agree with you that the negotiations are indeed taking much longer than they should. Consider, for example, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, which includes not only a treaty, but also a number of self-government components. If I am not mistaken, it took two or three years to negotiate it. It was the first modern treaty. Since then, it seems that the negotiation processes have been taking longer.

As Mr. Long mentioned, it is extremely important that the agreements negotiated with the federal government have some continuity. In my opinion, the fact that the federal government's policies and requirements allow much more flexibility, as we currently have, to negotiate such agreements helps us a great deal.

In the past, there were a lot of restrictions on what the government was prepared to grant or not. The lack of flexibility really tends to limit negotiations. In my opinion, the government has nevertheless made significant improvements in this area.

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

Thank you.

Following up on my previous question, if you had any advice for other first nations that would like to enter into a self-government treaty such as yours with the federal government, what would it be?

[Maxime Faille]

Murray, do you want to take that, or do you want me to pick that one up as well? I'm in your hands.

[Murray Long]

I'll start, as far as advice around the first nations, but I'm going to ask the councillors to maybe speak after.

Generally, patience, strong community support—there's been community support from the beginning with our community—and understanding, I think, are very important. As I say, I think you need some patience as well over time.

The last point I'll make is that I think Whitecap is a very good example of how it's built over time. It started with the election code and taking that over. It began to take away little parts of the Indian Act over time, and then of course the land code was 25% of the Indian Act. The people understood, and we were making laws under the land code. That created the foundation. People understood, and it provided support for our people and our elders. Our elders are always very worried about taking the wrong path, but through those experiences, that certainly helped pave the way for self-governance.

Do you want to add anything?

[Frank Royal]

Yes, I'll just add to Murray's comments. Yes, good communication with the community.... I know when we had consultations with our membership, we had them on Zoom, and any voting we did was electronic voting. Everybody was involved, and we knew what we were voting on and what we were going towards: self-government.

Thank you.

[Dwayne Eagle]

I think, with our negotiations and dealing with our membership, when we had the ratification vote, we wanted a 100% yes vote and 100% participation. We wanted everybody to understand what we were doing and how good this is for our community.

I know that, within the Saskatoon Tribal Council, there are two other first nations that are going to declare. I think one did the other day, last week, the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation. I think it declared that it's going to go for an agreement as well.

I know it's a long process, but we started 13 years ago and it's here now, so it was really quick. Murray's kind of hoping it won't go 20 years because he wants to retire.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Dwayne Eagle]

Anyway, I think it's just communication with the community.

Thank you.

[Murray Long]

One last point on that question is that—and we said this especially as we got to the end and wanted people to participate and understand and vote—there are some people who always participate in those things, but it's not those people in the community who are.... Well, they're important, but we also wanted to make sure that it was the younger generation and people who, in 20 years when I'm gone, and council is, our elders and so forth.... We wanted to make sure that the people who are running the self-government at that point and the people who are voting for their chief know what the constitution is and know, “Hey, we voted for this, and this is ours.” I think it's very important that they take that ownership.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Ms. Bérubé.

Ms. Idlout, you have six minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you. I will be speaking in Inuktitut to pose my questions.

First, I want to welcome you. It is wonderful to hear the report you have. It's very clear and understandable.

Frank, I am proud that you used your first language in your opening remarks. It's good to hear indigenous people use their mother tongue in opening remarks.

I also want to remind other indigenous people that, if you want to ask your questions in your mother tongue, feel free to do so because we have interpretation here.

I just want to ask this: Since you said it took 13 years to come to this point, can you tell us why it took so long for this agreement to come about? This is a very important agreement. Many discussions have taken place because there were many concerns. We all want to be seen as a people who can self-govern. Why did it take this long to reach this point?