Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 5th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Good afternoon. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to the 75th meeting of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.

We acknowledge that we meet on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Pursuant to our Standing Orders, our meeting today is in a hybrid format. Members are present either in person or on Zoom. The proceedings will be published on the House of Commons website. The webcast always shows the person speaking and not necessarily the whole room.

For those participating virtually, I'd like to outline a few rules, and then I'll come back with an apology and give you a sense of what's happening this afternoon.

You may speak in the official language of your choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting in French, English and Inuktitut. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen for those online, of floor, which is the real-time language being spoken, English or French. Please select your language now. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately by raising your hand, getting my attention or jumping in and we'll make sure interpretation is properly restored before we resume the proceedings.

For members in person, we know the drill. We don't have any guests here, so you know what to do.

Please wait until I recognize you by name and please address remarks through the chair, although we're a pretty collegial and informal group here. Please speak slowly and clearly to allow for our interpreters to follow what's going on. When not speaking, please mute your own microphone. We'll try to keep a speaking order.

For those joining us for the first time, when we get into the rounds of questions and answers, the members are responsible for choosing where they direct their questions. If you have something to say, you can always raise your hand, but I leave it to the member to decide if they're going to another person or not.

I also use a quick timekeeping tool here. The yellow card means that 30 seconds are left in your allotted time, and the red card means time's up. Don't stop mid-sentence, but wind up your thought when we hit the red card.

I would like to apologize for the delay in getting started today. We were planning on a vote. The vote is still expected, with a 15-minute bell, so when that happens, we will have to suspend until after the vote, which could be up to about a 25-minute interruption. I apologize for that.

With that, we're going to get right into our witnesses today, who are joining us on our land restitution study.

We have Chief Commissioner Celeste Haldane and Mark Smith of the BC Treaty Commission; Harold Calla, executive chair of the First Nations Financial Management Board; and Larry Innes, barrister and solicitor.

Welcome to each of you.

We'll give each of the organizations five minutes for opening comments.

Who would like to go first? Perhaps we'll go with Chief Commissioner Celeste Haldane.

If you're ready, we will get started. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Celeste Haldane, Chief Commissioner, British Columbia Treaty Commission]

Good day. Hay čxʷ q̓ə for the invitation.

I would just note that the treaty commission is an independent mechanism that oversees the treaty negotiations process in British Columbia. We facilitate the negotiations between first nations, Canada and British Columbia. We are the only tripartite legal body to oversee reconciliation and are mandated to facilitate the modern treaty negotiations process between the parties, provide funding to first nations in negotiations and provide public education.

There are currently 30 modern treaties across Canada; of those, eight are in British Columbia and seven were negotiated through our process. The treaties are—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Sorry, I'm going to have to stop you just for a second.

The bells, of course, now that we've gotten started, are ringing. I need unanimous consent from the committee to allow you to finish your opening comments. If we don't have unanimous consent, then we'll have to suspend at this point. If we do have unanimous consent, we can perhaps go through your statement and then we'll have to suspend until after the vote.

Do members agree to continue with the opening statement?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Please proceed. You still have four and a half minutes left to go. I apologize.

[Celeste Haldane]

It's no problem. Thank you very much.

Treaties are a true sharing of constitutional sovereignty. They contain provisions for restitution over a variety of areas, such as fair access to lands and resources, self-governance, law-making authority and jurisdiction. Modern treaties also operationalize the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

I want to take the opportunity to recognize and applaud the federal government for the tremendous work undertaken to strengthen the relationship and shift the negotiations with first nations in the B.C. treaty negotiations process. We are moving beyond historical legacies of Crown denial and unilateralism to a new nation-to-nation relationship based on the recognition of rights, reconciliation, respect, co-operation and partnership.

There have been a number of policy changes and transformations within our process.

One is the recognition and reconciliation of rights policy for treaty negotiations, which we call the RRR policy. It was co-developed in the negotiations process with first nations, British Columbia and Canada. This policy replaces both the comprehensive claims policy and the inherent rights policy. A big part of this policy is that cede, release, surrender or the extinguishment of indigenous rights is not a part of the modern-day treaty negotiations process. It's also not a part of our current and modern-day indigenous-Crown relationships.

Also, there have been some substantive changes when it comes to section 87 of the Indian Act tax exemption in the context of modern treaties. We also have both provincial and federal UN declaration legislation, as well as action plans. There is Canada's collaborative self-government policy. We have loan forgiveness in budget 2019, and the move to contribution funding in 2018.

All these notable policy shifts have transformed the negotiations process and expedited negotiations. We have a tremendous opportunity to conclude treaties in British Columbia. We have four tables representing eight Indian Act bands that can reach a negotiator's handshake within the next six months and initialling within 12 months. They are Kitselas, Kitsumkalum, K'ómoks, and the Te'mexw Treaty Association, which represents five nations.

The RRR policy supports self-determination and self-government, and ensures that modern treaties are adaptable, living agreements capable of renewal when necessary. It also explicitly states that negotiations are grounded in the recognition of indigenous rights and title, and is a framework to implement the UN declaration. These treaties will be the most innovative to date, given the fact that they're going to incorporate all the policy shifts that we've seen.

There are concrete examples of restitution within the B.C. treaty negotiations framework and modern treaties. For instance, the four tables that are closing have negotiated available provincial Crown land to be included in their treaties. As well, there are federal Crown lands to be included. For instance, there are some Department of National Defence and Indian reserve lands.

Another example of restitution is the implementation of self-government. That is a form of restitution that supports the modern treaty nation to restore its law-making role and jurisdiction over its lands and resources, and strengthen its language, culture and communities by being able to prioritize its community needs.

As we know, there has been a lot of damage. Since time immemorial, first nations have been self-governing. Upon contact and colonization, a lot of that was taken away through defunct policies such as the Indian Act. We have an opportunity to change, shift and move towards supporting restitution and reconciliation by completing modern treaties in British Columbia. This will provide for a concrete realization of investments in negotiations and a new path forward for a stronger future for all Canadians.

Concluding these four treaties will undoubtedly establish nation-to-nation relationships and partnerships that are grounded in recognition and reconciliation. It will enable faster and effective closing for the next set of advanced negotiation tables—again, as a pathway towards restitution.

We will continue to urge the entire federal and provincial family to understand its role in reconciliation and its role in concluding modern treaties in British Columbia, as well as in implementing the RRR policy. Momentum needs to continue, especially when treaties and agreements reach Ottawa. Given the fact that the RRR policy applies to all government departments and agencies, we encourage departments to review their authorities. Where they see the opportunity to innovate and update their authorities to reflect a new nation-to-nation relationship, we encourage the federal government to do so.

If not, then there's no progress, which means status quo, which creates uncertainty for Canada and British Columbia, as well as first nations. This also goes against the very definition of restitution.

That concludes the treaty commission's opening remarks.

Hay čxʷ q̓ə. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you so much for those opening comments.

I should say how much we appreciate the work your office does. I reside on the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Kwantlen, Katzie, Matsqui, and Semiahmoo nations. I just wanted to acknowledge those are the territories I live on in British Columbia.

Colleagues, I also should have mentioned that we did do the sound checks with everybody for today, and everybody has passed.

We're hoping that everybody can stay with us. We do need to suspend now. We'll come back to opening statements from the other witnesses. I need to allow 10 minutes once the vote is called for members to get back to committee. At that point, we will be able to resume, so we'll be out for probably about 20 to 25 minutes.

We have resources to support us today until six o'clock. We cannot go beyond six o'clock. I hope our witnesses are able to stay with us for the duration of the meeting. If we get through our rounds of questions earlier, we'll definitely let you go. We have some committee business that we would like to get to as well.

For the moment, colleagues and guests, we are suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I call this meeting back to order. Votes are concluded. I hope all of our witnesses have been able to remain with us.

Everyone joining us online has successfully passed the test for audio, for interpretation.

With that, I'll give Mr. Calla a chance to get his headphones on. We have Mr. Calla and Mr. Innes, still, for their five-minute statements.

Witnesses, thank you so much for your patience.

Mr. Calla, if you're ready for your five-minute statement, I'm happy to turn the floor over to you.

[Harold Calla, Executive Chair, First Nations Financial Management Board]

Thank you very much for inviting me to participate today.

The restitution of land is a significant and necessary part of reconciliation. This is a pathway toward inclusion for indigenous people and away from a potential outcome of extinguishment. Indigenous people have a strong connection to the land. It defines indigenous peoples in Canada.

According to a recent study released by the Environics Institute, 81% of Canadians see inadequate indigenous control over their lands and resources as a barrier to reconciliation. More and more Canadians are seeing the need for indigenous communities to have more jurisdiction over their traditional territories as stewards of the land.

It should be noted that Canada sees reconciliation as part of its action plan for the implementation of UNDRIP. However, we need to understand that the transfer of land alone will not bring improvements to our communities. Canada must be prepared to invest resources to develop indigenous-led responses to managing our traditional territories. We need to build capacity in our communities to properly manage increased indigenous jurisdiction over our traditional territories.

The significant opportunity Canada has before it in the extraction of critical minerals will be facilitated by engaging with indigenous communities and recognizing they have economic, environmental and governance interests that need to be included in decisions affecting their traditional territories. The public service needs to facilitate this capacity building with resources to help with this transfer towards co-development with indigenous communities.

I often speak to FMB staff and ask them to imagine in their minds a young girl growing up on a northern rural community reserve. How does what we do improve her life and help her fulfill her dreams and goals, and the dreams and goals of her community? This is our opportunity to do some of that. I think that's the vision we have to keep in mind as we consider these matters. You can't develop healthy, sustainable indigenous communities in keeping with UNDRIP unless you have land and jurisdiction over it. You need to be recognized as a government with the appropriate powers and fiscal capacity.

An expedited ATR process needs to become a reality, not a consideration. First nations increasingly look to expand their communities in order to respond to growing populations and new economic opportunities. Irregular boundaries, such as the one I experienced in Attawapiskat, can mean a situation where one home may be on reserve and, in the same space, on the other side, it is not. This is simply out of [Technical difficulty—Editor]. Many first nations communities are out of land and not able to construct homes to meet the needs of their communities.

The need to consider economic opportunities is important. Reconciliation must mean helping communities with economic opportunities in order to support the creation of healthy communities through economic activities in their traditional territories. We should not be afraid of “land back” as a concept. You should see it as a way for communities to overcome poverty and support the ability of the Canadian economy to be competitive on the international stage.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you.

We'll now move to our final opening statement.

Mr. Innes, when you're ready, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Larry Innes, Barrister and Solicitor, As an Individual]

Good afternoon and thank you, Mr. Chair and members.

My name is Larry Innes, and I'm a partner at Olthuis Kleer Townshend. We're a national law firm with offices in both Toronto and Yellowknife. Our practice focuses on advancing the rights and supporting the evolving jurisdictions and authorities of indigenous governments across Canada.

I'm pleased to be joining you from Sǫ̀mba K'è in the Chief Drygeese territory of the Yellowknives Dene.

My work has been in trying to reconcile the complexities and the conflicts inherent in what our Supreme Court described more than 20 years ago in the Haida Nation decision as the fact of prior sovereignty of indigenous peoples over their lands and resources with the asserted sovereignty of the Crown.

As a white Canadian, someone who has the privilege of working for clients in the negotiation and implementation of modern treaties and in self-government agreements, as well as, to Mr. Calla's points, working to create real wealth for communities through impact and benefit agreements and other constructive partnerships with industry, I have a perspective on what restitution means.

I have also served as an adviser to the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, which is a national organization that's working to advance indigenous-led conservation and guardians programs across the country. I understand that the committee has already heard evidence from ILI in the testimony of my colleague Dahti Tsetso, who appeared before this committee in May.

Also relevant is my own perspective as a fourth-generation Albertan whose pioneer ancestors settled in the shadows of Nínaiistáko, or Chief Mountain, in the Blackfoot Confederacy in the late 1800s, just outside the boundaries of what is now the Waterton Lakes National Park, in what was then still the Northwest Territories.

Like many Canadians, I am trying to understand my own history in this context and what it means to become a treaty partner. To this, I offer that there are many pathways we can follow to answer these questions. For me, it's largely been through a love of the outdoors. I grew up hiking, fishing and hunting in the foothills, coulees and mountains of southern Alberta. I moved to the north in my twenties, and I've had the opportunity to spend most of my life and most of my career deeply immersed in indigenous communities, where I've learned from the patient teachings of my Inuit and Dene teachers what it means to be on the land and to be of the land.

For many Canadians, those are remote possibilities. It's through our national, provincial and territorial parks that people really get an opportunity to form these connections to land. These iconic places showcase, certainly, some of the best of what Canada has to offer. They've created lasting memories for generations of Canadians. While these places, our national parks, are a model we share with the world, they also have a deeper and darker side. Few Canadians know of the histories of indigenous dispossession that have followed the designation of places like Banff or the consequences that have followed.

To set a single example, when Wood Buffalo National Park was created in the northeast corner of Alberta and the southeast corner of the Northwest Territories, the government assumed that the lands were taken up and that all indigenous rights to that area were extinguished. Denésuliné peoples, in particular, were driven from the park, their homes burned and their belongings left behind. Members of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation were reduced from being independent and economically self-sufficient people to being beggars on the margins of their own land in less than a generation.

These events are history, but they're also a metaphor for the ways in which our understanding of our relationships to land is shaped by narratives that are unfortunately all too one-sided. We celebrate our parks and we celebrate our nature, but too many Canadians don't understand the past and present experience of indigenous dispossession.

When the committee is looking at restitution, when the committee is considering what this means, it's complicated, and necessarily so. There are solutions, but they have to go deeper into our history and look at some of the solutions that have been devised in comparable jurisdictions. We can look to recent examples in Australia, where such iconic national parks as Uluru and Kakadu have been handed back. We could also look to similar examples in Canada, where the recognition of indigenous rights and the sharing of jurisdiction with indigenous governments are occurring in the context of indigenous-protected and indigenous-conserved areas.

These are only the beginnings.

I would like to thank you for your attention.

Mahsi cho. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you so much for your opening comments.

It's days like this when I wish I were on the members' side of the table. I spent 34 years with Parks Canada, living and working in some of the places you talked about, and I've also visited parks internationally. The colonial construct that we find with them is quite fascinating.

Your reference to coulees takes me back to my growing-up years in southwestern Saskatchewan. We don't hear that term very often. We could also talk about Quonsets and other things, but we'll save that for another day.

We'll get into our round of questions now. First up is Mr. Schmale from the Conservatives for six minutes.

The floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks to our witnesses for appearing.

I'll start with you, Mr. Calla, if I may. I think this is, like, your 998th meeting, addressing this committee and others. Two more and you get a free pizza.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

I wish you luck for those two.

In all seriousness, I want to thank you for the contribution you've made in speaking with this committee over the years. We're now talking about “land back”. I know that's something close to your heart and something for which you've advocated for as long as I've known you, and of course long before that as well.

Let's talk about what your nation, Squamish Nation, is doing in terms of helping out the housing situation in British Columbia with their land. Let's start with that. Then we'll get into some of the comments you made just a few moments ago.

[Harold Calla]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for raising Sen̓áḵw, the Kitsilano lands. These were lands that were taken from us that were subject to a specific claims lawsuit as part of the CP Rail right-of-way that we eventually got back because of the Supreme Court of Canada Osoyoos decision on the residual interest.

Our community members were put on a barge. The village was burned to the ground, and we were shipped up to the Squamish Valley. Having that land back and giving us the opportunity to develop it in co-operation with the City of Vancouver or Metro Vancouver to develop rental housing, something desperately needed in downtown Vancouver...and also being in a position where we could allot a certain number of those units back to our Squamish membership, to the point where there will be sufficient units that, on the basis of the average family size in Squamish, it will become the second-most populated reserve in the Squamish Nation.

That is restitution. That is bringing back our people to the lands that we knew, to being in a position where we've righted a wrong, in our view, and to being in a position where we're also responding with economic activity that benefits the entire Lower Mainland and provides accommodation to those who previously might not have been able to get it.

In my view, this is one of the more positive outcomes in an urban setting of “land back” that can and should be examined as a positive. Land back shouldn't be feared. First nations, and there are many across the country that can replicate what Squamish Nation has done, can make a significant contribution to local communities by having the opportunity and removing the impediments to have their lands developed.

These lands would not have been developed as easily as they have been without the support of CMHC. That should also be recognized. The need to get access to capital is a significant component of what's needed. When I talk about how just giving the land back is not enough, it's because getting the land back without jurisdiction and access to capital is a challenge.

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

That segues into exactly what I wanted to ask about next, the access to capital but also the jurisdiction over that. Maybe you want to elaborate a bit more on what you mean by that. Then we can talk about the access to capital component, which is key.

[Harold Calla]

Okay. Getting land and examining what the economic opportunities are on that land, I think, is an important consideration in looking at restitution. Getting land back that carries with it responsibilities but no economic opportunity can be a challenge to first nations communities. I think that's something we need to understand and respect, that we need to have access to the kinds of properties that can promote economic development in a way that reduces the cost of poverty to our first nations communities and provides opportunity to our citizens to actually be employed and work.

Too many times we find ourselves with membership who are becoming educated—becoming professional and being able to add great value to our communities—but we don't have the economic opportunity for them to come home and work. I think restitution needs to look at, as an objective of restitution, the ability to support this kind of activity.

Now, the challenge we face is that the scope of economic opportunity far outreaches our current capacity to access debt. In Sen̓áḵw, we're talking about two or three billion dollars' worth of development. Without the support of organizations like CMHC to support construction financing, that becomes increasingly difficult. Access to capital is a critical piece and it's one of the reasons the Financial Management Board is proposing in our work plan this year the creation of an indigenous development bank, and we'll soon release the scoping study on that.

What we need to do is to be able to bring Canada's balance sheet to the table, together with the private sector, and create a pool of resources that can respond to the quantum of economic demand opportunity that's facing first nations in this country.

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

I think have 15 seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

You have 20 seconds.

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

Thanks, Chair. You're generous.

Let's quickly go back to the housing. Maybe we can reiterate how quickly you were able to get that development going based on the current bureaucratic hurdles that exist around Vancouver.

[Harold Calla]

One of the benefits that the nation has is that it does have its own governance structure around these matters, and has had for years. Many may be familiar with the Park Royal shopping centre, which has been on Squamish Nation land since the 1960s. We have a familiarity, and a concept, and a process for regulatory development. We're able to expedite that in a way that municipalities don't seem to be able to.

I'm not going to try to explain why, but our ability to get to a final investment decision happens much more quickly, and there's much more interest in realizing those opportunities on our first nations land.

The other thing that we also did in Sen̓áḵw is that we utilized one of the tools that were created by the First Nations Commercial and Industrial Development Act, which Squamish supported. That was to bring the Residential Tenancy Act onto the Squamish Nation reserve for the period of the lease so that we could create on reserve the same kinds of measures that tenants might have off reserve.

All of these tools are being used by the Squamish Nation to support this economic development activity, which is why I reference the fact that you need to have more than just land. You need resources, access to capital and jurisdiction.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Okay. We're out of time on that one.

We're going to go now to Mr. McLeod, who will have six minutes on the clock.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the presenters today. It's a very interesting discussion, for sure.

My question is for Larry Innes. I'm glad that Larry has been able to join us here today. I've come across Larry many times in many different communities, so I take a special interest in his presentation.

As a negotiator, what are the biggest challenges you have identified with the existing comprehensive claims process, and what changes can the Government of Canada make to improve the process?

[Larry Innes]

Thank you for that question, Mr. McLeod. It's good to see you as well.

This is going to take way more time than we have today, but—