Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 19th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Good afternoon, colleagues. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to the 77th meeting of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs. We acknowledge that we're meeting on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Pursuant to the Standing Orders, our meeting today is in a hybrid fashion. We have both witnesses and members joining us online for the first hour. After the first hour, we're going in camera, so there's a new log-in link for our members who will be joining us for the second hour.

Mr. Augustine, you have on your screen the choice of language—floor, which is the language being used, English or French—if you want to select that now. For everybody else, there is interpretation on the headsets here if you need it.

When speaking—again, Mr. Augustine, this applies to you—you'll have to mute and unmute yourself. For anybody in the room, we'll look after that for you, so you don't have to worry about pushing any buttons if you are here in the room with us.

When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, please make sure you mute yourself.

Now that we're in session, there are no photos or screenshots allowed.

With us today, we have three representatives. In the room with us, we have Adam Munnings, legal counsel of the Semiahmoo First Nation. He's from my home area. I live and work on the traditional territories of the Semiahmoo, Katzie, Kwantlen and Matsqui first nations. We have Chief Stephen Augustine of the Mi'kmaq Grand Council. Also in the room, we have Graham Marshall, Membertou councillor of the Membertou First Nation.

Welcome to the three of you.

We're going to give you each five minutes for opening statements. I have a handy card system here. When I give the yellow card, there are 30 seconds left. When you get the red card, the time is up, but don't stop mid-sentence; just finish your thoughts and then we'll move on.

When you're ready, Chief Augustine, I'll start the clock. The floor is yours for five minutes.

[Chief Stephen Augustine, Mi’kmaq Grand Council]

My name is Stephen Augustine, and I'm a hereditary chief on the Mi'kmaq Grand Council. The reason why they call me a hereditary chief is that I come from a long line of hereditary chiefs. My father's name was Patrick. His father was Thomas Theophile. Thomas's father was Thomas, and that Thomas's father was Noël. Noël's father was Peter, and then Michael Augustine. Michael Augustine signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, in Halifax, on March 10, 1760. This is the reason for my involvement in the Mi'kmaq Grand Council. I'm a descendent of the treaty signer. Before that time—the same person, Alguimou—is a long line of hereditary chiefs. Gwimu is the name for the loon.

When Champlain arrived in Nova Scotia at Port-Royal, in the early 1600s, they baptized Grand Chief Membertou on June 24, 1610. His daughter married a hereditary chief, Alguimou. His name comes up. It is recorded by Champlain, Marc Lescarbot, Pierre Biard and a few others who were in Port-Royal at the time.

That gives you a context of the connection that I have with our land, our treaties and our peace and friendship. I wanted to give a perspective of the land. The idea is that our creation story, the Mi'kmaq creation story, explains that we were created on this land and that we peeled ourselves from the land as human beings. We belong to the land, not the other way around. The land doesn't belong to us.

We moved around quite freely. Every chief looked after their family. They had fires, what we call mawiomi. Mawiomi is the idea of coming together under one roof. The chief's responsibility was to take care that everybody had food, medicine, clothing, shelter, tools of survival, the ability to travel around and the ability to negotiate their survival from mother earth with the birds, plants, animals and fish, using ceremonies.

This is our connection to the land, which is very sacred. We belong to the land. There is a different kind of ideology around the notion of land in the mainstream context, because when you talk about land, you're talking about boundaries. You own a lot of land or acres of land. It belongs to an individual. It's registered at the local registry office. It has boundaries. Similarly, the laws of the land have boundaries as well. Our own job descriptions for the jobs that we hold are bound by the job description. We cannot go beyond or away from that.

In essence, when Europeans arrived, the early French, we allowed them to come and settle on the land as our fellow brothers and sisters. There were a lot of them. Almost 100 French people intermarried with Mi'kmaq women for the first 30 years of the 1600s. There were a lot of interrelationships. That was our way of making peace with the new arrivals. There was no question about us giving up our land. Marc Lescarbot wrote to Henry IV, King of France, and told him that the indigenous people here had no notion of private property or real estate, and they were not going to tell them that by planting their flag, they claimed sovereignty over our territory.

The fallacy continues. When the British arrived and declared war on the French and defeated the French, they assumed that they took control of the sovereignty that belonged to the French, which was at the time determined to be called Acadia or l'Acadie.

In Mi'kmaq, akadie is the term we refer to as “the land”, and A’kadi Kewak, or les Acadiens, are “people living in the land”, because they made their houses out of mud, straw and wood. Our terminology for Acadian people was A’kadi Kewak. They were related to us because they intermarried with our women from about 1605 to 1632, when De Razilly arrived with French women and children. In that instance, we were attached to the land spiritually and physically.

In terms of restitution of lands in a modern context, I would look at obtaining lands that are unoccupied; that are owned by the Crown, federally and provincially; and that nobody's living on and paying taxes on. Those are the kinds of lands...because we have to be able to obtain our livelihood from the land. We need to have access to fish, animals, birds and plants, because those are the necessary elements we relied on for our food, medicine, clothing, shelter and tools of survival. It's how we travelled around. Everything that came from those elements was our identity. That was our connection to the land. It describes us culturally and distinctively because of what we wear—the animals we wear, the feathers we decorate our clothing and headdresses with, and the shells and beads we use.

It all comes from the land. Everything comes from the land.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Chief Augustine, I'm going to have to jump in here.

We're up to five minutes now, but thank you so much for the opening statement. I want to save time to have a discussion with the members, as well.

If there's a quick concluding sentence, I'll get you to do that. Otherwise, we'll move to our next witness for an opening statement.

[Chief Stephen Augustine]

All of that is to say that we have a very sacred relationship to the land, and it wasn't given up by us in the Peace and Friendship Treaties that were signed in eastern Canada, pre-Confederation in the 1700s.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you so much for that. I look forward to the conversation with you.

I think we'll go next to Mr. Marshall, if he's ready to go.

The floor is yours for five minutes whenever you're ready to start.

[Graham Marshall, Councillor, Membertou First Nation]

Wela'lioq. Ni'n teluisi Graham Marshall, naspi Membertou chief and council.

I want to thank each and every one of you for inviting me here today.

My name is Graham Marshall. I'm part of Membertou chief and council. Membertou Mi'kmaq nation is one of the top indigenous communities in the country of Canada because of what we have done. The work ethic that our ancestors instilled in us has always reminded us to always remain at the top, to always fight, and to always honour our ancestors.

I come from Membertou, which was located first on Sydney Harbour, which we call Kun'tewiktuk. Kun'tewiktuk means “the place at the rock”, which is located in Sydney Harbour. During that time, in the early 1900s, we were forcibly removed. Until the present day, Membertou was on top of the hill where it was all swampland and land that wasn't really fertile for growing anything. Because we come from Membertou and because of the amazing work ethic that our grandparents and great-grandparents instilled in us, we became one of the top indigenous communities in the country of Canada.

When we talk about ATRs and when we talk about how we have to do those, that speaks to why they are important, because when we became successful in this country of Canada, we tried to acquire back the land of our old territory of Kun'tewiktuk located in Sydney Harbour. It took a long process and it ended up lost. As Membertou, we initially just bought that land and gave that land back to our community. Right now, there are present-day commercial buildings located in Kun'tewiktuk representing who we are and representing honour and our ancestors and where we come from.

When we look at getting land back, there are so many different things that happened in Mi'kma'ki. This country was created through Confederation in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Prince Edward Island is located in Mi'kmaq territory. As Mi'kmaq people, we are one of the indigenous tribes that have the longest relationship with settlers, more than the other indigenous tribes throughout the country of Canada. With that being said, we know the pros and cons of working on relationships with settlers through so many who have come through here and from understanding the people of the dawn, understanding Mi'kma'ki. When we talk about land, you heard from Saqamaw Augustine about the importance of the land to us as well.

When you look at the country of Canada, there are so many amazing monuments and so many landmarks throughout this country. Canadians tend to forget that they are on indigenous lands. They are on the lands of the Algonquin, the Anishinabe, the Haida, the Mi'kmaq, so when we understand that, Canada realizes that this is all indigenous territory.

N’in tleyawi Membertou. I am Mi'kmaq. I am from Membertou, so as an indigenous people we have had experience with settlers of our people. Every Mi'kmaq today is really a walking miracle of the trials and tribulations of a thousand years of a common relationship with travellers. Every Mi'kmaq today is really a walking miracle of why we are here today.

You heard from Saqamaw Augustine about the land and the importance of it to us. It runs with us. Every river and every rock on the land is part of us. We come from the land. The creation story of who we are and where we come from, of Mi'kma'ki, is so important and dear to us. The land is part of us, so as Membertou, one of the top indigenous communities of Canada, we understand that. We understand that, working nation to nation to understand that every country realizes the importance of who we are and where we come from. Indigenous peoples throughout this country are so important and they are so dear to their territories. Therefore, when we change the narrative on understanding who we are and what territory we come from.... We have to go and change the narrative of that.

When we come from Mi'kmaq territory—and I'm in the district of Unama'ki, which is Cape Breton Island—it's so important to understanding who we are. When we are forcibly removed, with the dispossession of so many indigenous peoples throughout this country, that land is so important to us, because land is also included with our language, our culture and our way of life.

I come from a Mi'kmaq community that is located in a town. In this town, we were forcibly removed. There were only two times in this country's history when that was accessible. One of those was my community. We had to make that work. We had to adapt to that, to understand how we understand from the land. The land is so endeared to us, of who we are and where we come from.

When we are in a community where we don't have access to water, as we are located in a swamp, it determines our way of life and who we are. It's embedded in our DNA as L'nu people. That way of life is taken from us. The land holds our language. The land holds our culture.

When we are in dispossession of so many territories and communities, that life is taken from us. That's why land is so important for each and every one of us as indigenous people in Canada, as Mi'kmaq people coming from the “People of the Dawn” in this country of Canada. We are the ones who greet the sun first. We are the ones who have an understanding of settlers. Everyone who resides in this great country, from Toronto to Vancouver, from coast to coast to coast.... We are greeting the sun first and have the longest relationship. We are still here. We still have an understanding of who we are.

Indigenous peoples are created and have a duty to protect Mother Earth. It is our duty to protect every single person in our territory. We have rights, with water and lands, that are taken away. That is why it's so dear to indigenous people, because as indigenous people it's our duty to protect Mother Earth. We are connected to Mother Earth.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We are at the end of the five minutes. If you could conclude with whatever closing statement you'd like to give, then we'll move to our next guest and get into the questions.

[Graham Marshall]

Thank you. I was waiting for your red card and yellow card.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I was waiting for you to finish. It's a very interesting and useful statement.

If you want to just conclude, then we'll carry on.

[Graham Marshall]

As Canadians, I want to thank each and every one of you for giving me this opportunity to...how we have changed the narrative. When we look at truth and reconciliation, we have to understand the truth first.

Msit no'kmaq, wela'lioq. Thank you all so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you. We really appreciate that.

Now we'll go to Mr. Munnings with the Semiahmoo First Nation.

Mr. Munnings, it's over to you for five minutes whenever you're ready.

[Adam Munnings, Legal Counsel, Semiahmoo First Nation]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Adam Munnings. I'm Anishinabe from Curve Lake First Nation and legal counsel for Semiahmoo First Nation.

I sent around two maps, one of their traditional territory and one of the reserve where Canada placed them. The Semiahmoo First Nation is on the furthest west coast of the mainland, on the border. They were displaced with the border, with the signing of the Oregon Treaty. They were displaced from their other village sites. If you're not familiar with the border in that area, Point Roberts is on the U.S. side. They had a village site there. They had fishing sites in the United States' waters. Now they can't access those. They can't access their village site.

They had village sites near Tsawwassen, where there's now the Tsawwassen treaty. They weren't fully consulted on that treaty, so some of their rights are being infringed by that treaty. They also lost village sites to the south, near the city of Blaine. Semiahmoo Resort is on one of their village sites down in the States. They lost that through the Oregon Treaty. They also have a couple of village sites at Crescent Beach, as well as their current reserve.

They've lost a lot of those lands that are important to them, similar to the other nations.

In addition to land and the importance of land, which the other two speakers spoke about, is the ocean. For Semiahmoo, there's a huge foreshore there that they're no longer able to access for cultural purposes such as getting cultural foods, shellfish, and other fisheries in that area. It's been closed by DFO arbitrarily, and DFO hasn't been doing any studies to look at how that is.

They look at the ocean, their fishing on the ocean, and their shellfish fisheries on the foreshore as land, too. It has significance and importance to them. Right now, there's no real resolution in how they can get that land back, when we're looking at the foreshore and when we're looking at the ocean.

The Semiahmoo is working through addition to reserve and specific claims to get land back. If you look at the map of their reserve land, you can see that it's almost wholly encompassed by takings by the federal government, takings for railways, for highways, for Canadian border services, for a park, and for sawmills and stuff, historically. The Semiahmoo has never received revenue sharing from this, never received any economic compensation for that, other than minimal payments, so they're working through specific claims on those to get some of those back or get compensation for those lands.

When you look at the map of the larger territory, you can barely notice where the Semiahmoo reserve is. It's small, in a little corner at the edge of the thing. Their territory is quite huge. They don't really have a footprint there. The main areas where they live are the Surrey and Langley areas. In those areas, the nation is trying to do some addition to reserve to get some economic development happening, because their reserve is quite limited. It was originally 390 acres, and I think now the usable space is around 150-180 acres that they can use for development and for their members living there. They need something else. They need lands to come back. They need to look at that.

Some of the problems we have with the addition to reserve and specific claims are around staffing. There's not adequate staffing at Indigenous Services Canada and there's not adequate staffing at the Department of Justice to address these issues and do things in a timely manner. The nation has frequently lost opportunities because of delays in processes at Indigenous Services Canada and the Department of Justice on some of these things. Over the last six years, the nation has been coming to Ottawa to lobby the government to try to help change these things for themselves and other first nations, and they have had some good results on that.

Again, for them, economic development is needed in order to build housing on reserve to bring members back, to protect the oceans, protect the rivers and their traditional territory, and bring back something. Right now, they don't have any of their traditional food sources. They're not able to fish, and they're not able to harvest shellfish in their territory. They're looking at ways to have economic reconciliation, to have land back so they can help protect and bring back those resources.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you so much.

We're going to get right into our rounds of questions.

Our first round is for six minutes each, and I have Mr. Viersen up first.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. I'm going to depart a little bit from questioning the witnesses.

I put a motion on notice the other day around Bill C-69. I would note that the Supreme Court has deemed Bill C-69 to be unconstitutional. This bill affected many communities in northern Alberta.

I was wondering if we could take a moment to pass my motion. The motion doesn't call for a study or anything like that. It just asks for this committee to state an opinion and that the opinion be reported back to the House of Commons. My motion notes the Supreme Court's decision and that Parliament should work quickly to ensure we abide by that decision.

I would note that at the time of the passage of Bill C-69, Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom from Woodland Cree First Nation was quite upset about the passage of this bill, as it ended a number of pipeline projects that were anticipated in northern Alberta, the Eagle Spirit pipeline being one of them and the northern gateway pipeline being another one. At that time, he was concerned about this, and it seems as if his concerns have been upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Mr. Chair, I would seek that we pass this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I have a speaking list, and Mr. Schmale is next on it.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for their great testimony.

I won't take up too much time, because I know we have some good questions for them and I know they have some even better answers, so we look forward to that conversation.

What I would like to focus on is—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Sorry, we have to deal with the motion. Are you speaking to the motion?

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

Yes. I was just thanking them for their time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I thought we were still on the motion, but I wanted to clarify that.

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

I know I can be all over the place sometimes.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Carry on, please, Mr. Schmale.

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

I lost my train of thought.

Yes, it was on Bill C-69. I think my colleague's motion is something the committee should consider very seriously. Of course, as you know, I am voting in favour of it.

Prior to the bill's implementation, we had a number of indigenous leaders at this committee talk about the damage Bill C-69 was going to do, and we saw, almost immediately, the amount of investment that left Canada following its introduction, among others. I'm including the anti-tanker bill that came after that, as well. We got warnings from indigenous leaders before, during and after the debate. We saw oil and gas investment take a severe hit.

It's in turn also hurting first nations communities themselves. I point to an article written by Stephen Buffalo, who was at our committee just last week. The date is June 14, 2019. It's talking about the damage it will do to the prosperity of first nations communities that would have benefited from resource projects like oil and gas, mining, and the list goes on. It talks about how there is a way to capitalize on the investment coming into the country for natural resource projects and turning it into jobs, investments, revenue generation, wealth and opportunity, on and off reserve. That would be a benefit for everybody—indigenous people and non-indigenous people. That could be a win-win.

At the same time, it could supply the world with energy—some of the cleanest energy taken out of the ground—and displace the bad actors in the world. We saw the German Chancellor come to Canada. We saw the Japanese Prime Minister asking for Canadian energy. The Prime Minister told them there wasn't a business case for it. I don't know which industry people he spoke with, but clearly not the same ones who are advocating for the growth of the industry.

Then, we saw disruption in the world. We saw Germany sign on to Russia, which is basically financing the war against Ukraine, despite warnings against that. The conflict happened. We've seen pipelines disrupted; therefore, supply starts to get disrupted. Of course, demand was ramping back up after the pandemic and other things. Therefore, we have a shortage of supply, not to mention that some other countries are cutting their production. Canada could have played a leadership role had we been promoting this industry and the extraction of this resource. There would be tremendous wealth earned and generated from some of these projects.

When we talk about the cost of gas, we mentioned the carbon tax as a major point, but another way to bring down the price—which would bring down the price of almost everything, including food and fuel, things that Canadians are having a tough time affording—is to add supply. The law of supply and demand is almost absolute. By adding supply to an already stretched system, doing it the best way we can, and providing jobs, wealth and opportunity in all communities, we could have a win-win situation here. At the same time, we'd help our residents and citizens—the people of this country who would like to have lower prices at the supermarket and who would love to have lower energy prices when filling up their cars and the tanks in their trucks, which they use to transport the goods. It is all combined.

When you have an industry that is handcuffed—basically shut down because of bad government policy, with no way to increase it when the world is itching for it—you have an increase in price.

I find it very frustrating that these indigenous leaders.... I'm going to quote Stephen Buffalo very shortly, and I will wrap up my comments, because, again, we do have witnesses and we want to ask them some questions.

The warnings were there, all the warnings, that this was going to cause problems. All of the warnings were there in terms of the investment that was going to leave the country, and we saw billions of dollars leave. Even when the government bought Trans Mountain, what did the company that sold the government Trans Mountain do? They took that money and invested it in infrastructure in Texas, so Texans and the Americans get to use Canadian dollars, Canadian taxpayer dollars, to invest in their infrastructure and create job opportunities and wealth in their country while we lag behind.

I'll quickly quote Stephen Buffalo, and then I'll wrap up, because I do want to get to the witnesses.

For some of our communities, oil and gas projects, pipelines and related infrastructure, and a vast service sector have produced jobs, supported new Indigenous-owned companies and produced large returns for Indigenous governments. We used the money to build houses, support cultural programs, and pay for our administrative operations. The revenue also gave us more financial autonomy and created a real sense of optimism in some of our communities.

Again, Stephen Buffalo just appeared at the committee last week. He was advocating for this. There are lots more opportunities here if the government would reconsider some of its anti-energy policies, especially at a time when the world is asking for it to do so.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you, Mr. Schmale.

Next on my list I have Ms. Idlout, Mr. Zimmer and Mr. Carr.

Just for our witnesses' sake, to let you know what's happening, we had a motion that was put on notice. It met the threshold, the time that's needed. It's a legitimate motion that has been brought forward, so we need to dispense with that before we can get back to rounds of questioning.

That's where we're at right now in the proceedings. I need to go through my speakers list.

Ms. Idlout, we'll go to you next.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Thank you, Chair.

I think it is absolutely shameful that we're even discussing this motion during this study. Not only have indigenous people's lands been stolen, hence why we're talking about land back, but now study time is being stolen by the Conservatives' filibustering and taking away time from witnesses, who I'm sure are very busy themselves.

I think we should move to discussing going back to the study, vote now and stop our conversations, because it is absolutely embarrassing that we're studying a motion mid-study. I'm sure there should have been a process to make sure we discuss motions afterwards, not mid-study.

Qujannamiik.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Ms. Idlout, I just want to clarify. I didn't hear you state it explicitly, but were you asking for a vote on the motion now?