Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 17th, 2023

[Chief Byron Louis]

Yes, I do. If you look at what some first nations have actually done with trust money or monies generated from on-reserve resources, you don't have to look further than Peace Hills Trust. It started out with around $196 million, and today that bank is worth just shy of $1 billion.

Look over in British Columbia, where the provincial government, with first nations, established about a $100-million trust. I sat on that for a number of years. That one generates a little less than 6%, based on $100 million, with the interest generated.

If you look at some of those settlements coming out of land claims, these types of institutes are very much a solution to a lot of problems. You could look at some that could be providing or underwriting mortgages to their members or looking at investment into economic development.

There are a lot of solutions available, but as I said earlier, there's a need to have partnerships and support from the federal government to actually do this.

For resource development, especially in the province of British Columbia or across Canada, you're going to see first nations and indigenous peoples being front and centre in those types of initiatives.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Just for the record, I said five minutes, but I corrected it and gave you six, because this first round is six minutes. I apologize. You got your full time there.

Next we have Mr. McLeod for six minutes.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the presenters today. I appreciate the information that you're sharing with us.

I belong to the Deh Cho First Nations, which represent both the Dene and the Métis in the region I live in. We've been trying to sort out land tenure and self-governance since the 1970s. It's still a challenge. It seems like a lot of times we're not talking the same language.

When we talk about land, we talk about large tracts of land where moose and caribou can roam freely and can survive. There's enough food, trees, plants and everything else, so we can also continue to practise a sustainable way of life. We need our waters clean and pure so the fish can survive.

When we talk about land here in Ottawa, people have a tendency to say, “How many properties do you need? How much is it worth anyway?” It's difficult and really challenging, because, as I said, sometimes we're looking at the same thing but it's interpreted differently.

I hear fairly constantly about some of the policies that are still in place that are very colonial. We've entered an era of reconciliation, and a lot of things are being discussed. A lot of things are moving forward, but there are still certain policies that are very dated. The comprehensive claims policy is one I hear about the most. It stops and slows down negotiations because of the cede and surrender clause.

I wonder if all of you can provide your comments on some of these policies, especially the comprehensive claim policy. Does it need to be replaced, in the spirit of reconciliation?

Let's start with that.

[Shady Al Hafez]

I would say the comprehensive claims policy does need to be replaced with something that is co-developed with first nations on an equal footing. I think the process needs to be guided by both parties equally. It doesn't need to be dictated by one party to another, whereby if you want to see redress for your lands, this is the process you have to use. Instead, I think the process needs to be negotiated fully as equal partners.

I think the cede and surrender clause is a significant issue with comprehensive land claims. I know that with my own community, when we signed the global settlement, that was a big, divisive issue for the community. There were a lot of ambiguities around that clause.

I think another issue with those claims is not being able to pursue further claims after the claim is settled. I can't remember the exact clause itself. If something comes up later on and you find out and want to pursue that claim, you can't if it's related to that original claim. I think that's also an issue.

It's just an outdated process. We've been using the same comprehensive claims process now since the James Bay agreement. I think it's time to update it.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Chief Louis, it's going over to you. You have your hand up. Please feel free to weigh in.

[Chief Byron Louis]

I would say that, yes, it needs to be looked at and revamped. In British Columbia, when you're talking about the province, the majority of it is unceded. One option is to negotiate through the B.C. treaty process, which our people are adamantly opposed to. The other is to seek declaration of title. That's always an option. There seems to be no middle ground between the extremes. Part of that is that a lot of our people feel that we should not actually give up ownership of our territories in order to get a fair and just settlement. That should not be a prerequisite of any agreement.

If we're talking about reconciliation, why does it have to be that way?

If you look at hydro production in our territories, 56% of all hydro produced in the province of British Columbia comes from our territory. It has destroyed our fisheries. It has destroyed habitat and all other things, yet the sharing of revenues from there is not even being looked at. What options do we have besides taking the most adverse approach?

There's never been any attempt to actually sit down and treat us as partners. That's why I brought up such things as Sublimis Deus and the whole process going through there and the point that we are in fact human.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

I was going to ask the question about working together. We've heard from the previous presenters that it was difficult to have municipal, provincial, territorial, federal and indigenous governments working together to try to resolve these issues.

Maybe we could have a quick comment from the chief.

[Chief Byron Louis]

We're working fairly well with a lot of municipal and regional governments, but there's still the whole issue of looking at legislation regarding such things as you brought up—such things as resources, or what we call our natural capital. That's salmon. That's all the other things that are found in nature, that we're dependent on. Now anywhere from 85% to 90% of our territories are impacted and that is no longer possible. Now we're suffering through diabetes and other things. A lot of municipalities are basically some of the causes of those declines. How do we actually work with this?

I think there needs to be a different type of arrangement that more or less mitigates some of these impacts, because you're looking at our inability to actually feed ourselves. We had the lowest common denominator in terms of wages and in terms of families, yet we were able to be quite healthy. The only reason was that we had our traditional foods. Now they're gone, and we still have the lowest wages. It's a real problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're going to stop there.

Next we're going to go to Madame Bérubé.

You will have six minutes for your questions.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Chief Louis, after six consecutive terms, how have you seen the situation evolve? What are the shortcomings that the federal government continues to perpetuate and that you've been noticing for a long time?

[Chief Byron Louis]

I'm going to need more than five minutes.

I think one of the biggest ones is with government and the development of such things as socio-economic analysis. You know, they don't really show what the impacts are on reserve. They don't show conclusively what the social problems are, or others. They might highlight them, but it doesn't actually go down into policy that you have funding formulas that they are based upon.

You look at drug and alcohol use. They say those are high numbers, but, statistically, first nations consume less alcohol than the general public. With those who drink, it's at a lower level. The ones we have are chronic. If you look at the people who have chronic dependencies, what are those? Are those the people who are self-medicating from all of the other effects, like our residential schools, the sixties scoop and all of these other factors?

Then, you look at our inability to actually address our own issues through access to our resources. We don't have that, and then we're dependent on the government.

You have a provincial government that views the federal government as having resources for all of our problems. That is not the fact. It's formula driven. The formulas are not adequate or even based on the true facts and figures of the socio-economic conditions on reserves.

The chief in Attawapiskat once said, as she pointed towards the resources behind her community, that they have everything they need to fix their problems. It's the same thing here. It's access to resources to the point where we can actually fix our own problems.

That is the problem.

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

Reconciliation is part of government strengthening.

Would you have any examples that highlight the positive effects of land restitution in your communities?

[Chief Byron Louis]

I really do believe that government and first nations should sit down and have the discussion on what I described earlier on, where we're both equal partners sitting at the table. Then we can start discussing what the issues are.

You look internationally at places like Pakistan and others. These small communities are actually looked at and approached using the multi-input area development, which means you're not just asking NRCan to come in there to look at how you can develop a sustainable community. You're bringing in NRCan, ISC and provincial authorities, and each one of their mandates is able to tackle a particular problem that exists within those communities.

It's not just coming out there and saying, “I'm a representative from the mining sector and I'd like to build you a school.” Well, maybe the school isn't the problem. It could be having access to food and food security. That could be the problem.

You need to be able to let first nations describe what their problems are and then build a solution from there. Multi-input area development is one solution. Some people call it public-private community partnerships.

We need to look at a different model. We need to look at how we can come together and use limited resources that are out there to create a solution about sustainable communities. That could be part of our culture, which includes what we call our “natural capital”, with access to ungulates, fish, wild game and others. That's along with contributions and other access to our resources, so we are able to actually develop a sustainable community.

Quickly, I'll just describe it to you. You look at how the whole population of Canada lives within about 150 kilometres from the Canada-U.S. border. Who lives in that middle point? It's first nations and other people. This is the area that's being developed. Have you developed a workforce that can actually sustain the type of development that's being proposed? No, because you haven't taken that step. Governments have been concentrating on getting them off reserve and out of their communities and back south, and now they don't have a workforce to take advantage of what's there.

We really need to flip this over and look at a new model of doing things.

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

Ms. Mitchell, we've talked a lot about federal bureaucracy. Could you tell us more about the communities that need the processes to move forward quickly?

[Patricia Mitchell]

I was speaking about a first nation that has been evacuated for over 10 years, and their kids are being raised in hotels.

Just today, we had a community meeting that was held to try to update them on the process of converting that land. The region gave them funding already. There's been funding set aside for the infrastructure, and then it's the region that's holding up the paperwork. They are such minor things.

For example, a first nation was waiting 20 years to convert some parcels of land. When we came into the picture, we were told it was just a typo on a piece of paper that was holding up that ATR. It's crazy that this type of bureaucracy is what's preventing these communities from developing. This particular leadership, having had the entire community evacuated, when they were trying to go back home, wasn't even allowed to select the land. Instead, it was the province that said, “No, we're going to put you over here.”

Now they're going back to an area that's not their original reserve. The province on the one hand has dictated to them, and ISC on the other hand is saying, “If you don't sign this comprehensive agreement, we're going to stall it,” and that's what's happening.

How can the region on one hand give this first nation several hundreds of thousands of dollars to go and develop, and then the ATR unit on the other hand say, “No, you have to do A to Z first”? It just doesn't make any sense, and here we are.

We took them to meet with the municipality, and we did their applications. We even worked with the municipality and tried to make sure the right parcels were being discussed. Then the bureaucrats came back to us and said, “Oh, you forgot this.”

We had been going at this for a year already. How many times have they gone through this process, and they're only telling us now, a year later, that maybe we needed an additional letter? It's so ineffective. If they would just say, “Here. Go do it,” then we would get the paperwork back to Ottawa, and whoever needs to sign it could sign it.

It's stalled in that region. I don't know why. Manitoba is.... It's a frustrating process, having to deal with that region.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're going to have to stop there.

We have Ms. Idlout, who still has six minutes.

The floor is yours.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you.

First, Patricia, I want to encourage you. I respect you because you are trying to use your mother tongue. If we are going to revitalize our languages, the only way we can do that is to have other people, other nations, hear us speak our language. Don't give up. Just keep going. I encourage you to keep striving forward, because I am proud to be able to use my own language while I'm here. Next time, if you come here again, you can request to use an interpreter.

To Chief Louis, I want to ask you about reconciliation pertaining to restitution of lands.

When we're working with governments to have restitution of lands to first nations and indigenous peoples, there are ways we can work more closely and work better together, but there are always barriers and hindrances.

Can you elaborate more on your vision of new ways to work on restitution of lands to indigenous peoples and to work towards reconciliation?

Thank you.

[Chief Byron Louis]

Thank you for that opportunity.

When I look at these types of issues, I have to go back to what the Supreme Court said in terms of “What is that community?” What I mean by this is, look at whether you're in an urban reserve or close to an urban setting, where your ability to have land—to put aside or return to reserve—is very limited. In a place like Vancouver or somewhere like that, just a small house lot is worth over $1 million.

It is very hard to look at the ability. What are the other benefits that could be used to mitigate such things as the lack of a land base? It could be economic development, shared resources, or looking at fisheries or other things that could be utilized. If you're further in the interior, for example.... You know, it could be an agricultural land base, fisheries or forestry, but it has to be specific and driven by the people who live on that land and by what they actually need.

In certain instances you look at, it may not be something you can solve with money, because we need our traditional foods. For the majority of us, it's protein diets. What do we have on the table? Carbohydrates.... What are the ramifications of that? Diabetes, heart disease and different types of cancer.... It's not just the ability to say, “Here, have some money.” Money is nice, but you can't eat it. That's what our old people used to say.

We need to look at solutions that are by the community. The community has to be a partner on the other side of that table with the federal and provincial governments, looking at how we can identify solutions. If it has to do with resources, what is the problem? If it's fisheries, provide the means to increase the volumes. If it happens to be access to resources, increase the share that goes there for first nations to build houses or what have you. When mining and everything comes in.... You have critical mineral mines being the primary focus, not only in Canada but also in the United States, especially. What are they going to do for the indigenous people who are living there? It has to be based upon sustainable communities and how we're going to develop them.

What I don't see is one size fitting all. I see a community-based solution by the people, for their people, and them developing it in partnership with governments that provide them with the technical and policy support to achieve that. If you look at residential schools and the sixties scoop.... You're asking people to become parents again. I always tell people that being a parent is not by instinct. It's a learned behaviour. What happens when you take that away?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Colleagues, that takes us to the end of the first round. We are within about four minutes of running out of time. We had two hours from the time we started, so we're going to have to end it here.

I'd like to thank our panel so much for joining us for the second hour today. We really appreciate your being here.

For our members, we'll see the notice of meeting in the next 24 hours or so, to prepare you for Thursday.

There is one very important piece of business. The former chair is holding an event right now with Indspire in support of indigenous students. It's happening from 5:30 to 7:30 tonight at 131 Queen Street, in room 853. If anybody has time to go by there, please feel free.

With that, we're adjourned.