Meegwetch.
[Witness spoke in Oji-Cree]
[English]
Good afternoon, everyone. It's great to be back here on the unceded, unsurrendered lands of the Algonquin nation.
My name's Alvin Fiddler, and I'm the grand chief for Nishnawbe Aski Nation, one of the PTOs in what is now called Ontario. It's one of the largest PTOs in the country, covering almost two-thirds of the province of Ontario. There are three distinct languages in NAN: Cree in the eastern side, Oji-Cree to the west, and Ojibwa in the central south area.
I stand before you today to reiterate our position, which we set out in a letter we sent to Minister Anandasangaree, the new CIRNAC minister, on October 10. The message in that letter was clear. It was to ask Canada to withdraw Bill C-53 and to say it is reckless for Canada to rush through this legislation without meaningfully engaging with first nations, ensuring there is a proper basis for what Canada is doing and getting a thorough understanding of the consequences.
Canada's current attempt to force through Bill C-53 will do nothing but damage first nations' rights for generations to come, and I am here to tell you it is likely to cause damage to our relationship with you. The Métis Nation of Ontario has repeatedly made public statements and demands to our communities that it intends to impose itself on first nation lands and displace our rights. Given that reality, which Canada is choosing to ignore, what choice will we have? Giving aboriginal and treaty rights to groups on our territories that do not have a legitimate entitlement to rights diminishes those rights.
What we're asking for is transparency and meaningful consultation. We are also asking that you do proper due diligence on MNO's claims.
I want to be very clear: We're not here to oppose the legitimate rights of the Métis people as set out by rigorous legal test, for example in the Powley case. We support their aspirations in seeking to correct the historical injustices they faced and the processes established to get there. We have no issues with that.
What we are opposed to, however, are the six new illegitimate Métis communities in Ontario as represented by the MNO. The recognition of these communities is baseless, non-factual and not supported by genealogical evidence. One of the six, the Abitibi Inland Historic Métis Community, is deemed to be situated in Treaty No. 9 territory. This community does not exist. The neighbouring communities and elders have never seen such a community. I would invite you as members of this committee and ministers to visit this community—you will not find it. It's a fictional community simply designed to assert rights that are non-existent. I wanted to bring an elder here with me today to testify to this, but because of the short notice, he wasn't able to be here.
There are a number of other things we have issues with relating to this bill: one, the territorial rights assertion of Métis rights; two, future treaties with the Métis have been discussed by members of this government; three, undefined references to concepts such as mobility rights and activities incidental to harvesting.
In the last 15 seconds I have, I want to say that I hope you read all this material that we've given to you, and I hope you recognize how colonial this is, that you're sitting up there contemplating giving recognition to another group that is not legitimate in our view—at least the settlements they're claiming in our territory are not. We do have treaties—I brought the treaty documents with me—that were signed by my ancestors and your ancestors. That's the relationship we want to maintain.
Meegwetch. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of this.