Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2023

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

I understand that it's probably a question that I should have asked the governments themselves. They all have their own....

Would you say that there is a ratification process in place for when these treaties come to some kind of conclusion, that it would not just be the Canadian government who looks at this but also the Métis themselves in those areas?

[Cassidy Caron]

Is that for the treaties? Yes, absolutely, there will be ratification of the treaties by our people who choose to be represented by those governments.

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

Yes, so those discussions of people who were saying, “We're not involved. We're not a part of this”, if they choose to have a voice and if they choose to use their voice, as they can in democratic methods, they will be heard and at some point even those who aren't on board who are Métis will have the ability to voice that through a process.

[Cassidy Caron]

Métis people will have a voice through the ratification process. If the treaties impact others' rights, those will be consulted on.

I want to talk about the ratification processes that have taken place up until this date. The Métis Nation of Alberta went through a process of developing their constitution for the Otipemisiwak Métis government. They went to a ratification of their 65,000 Métis citizens in the province of Alberta, and 97% of voters voted in favour of ratifying that constitution.

Métis people are very civically engaged. Métis people love democracy. They will vote if they want to vote. They will have a say if the want to have a say. The ratification of the constitution in Alberta, the Métis Nation of Alberta, is a prime example with what just took place there.

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

In the quick minute that I have, can you talk a little bit about what the Métis scrip is and how that came along?

[Cassidy Caron]

No, I'm sorry, Mr. Battiste. I'm not going to talk about scrip in one minute, and also just because it does not have anything to do with this legislation.

I'd love to go for coffee with you and talk about the scrip system and future processes to settle those historical grievances, because what's important to note here is that this legislation does not provide for methods to settle those historical grievances.

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

I knew that was a challenge, but I thought you'd go for it anyway.

John, I'm good.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Okay. I'll stop the clock there.

Thank you, President Caron, for so much of your time and for being here.

Thank you, Ms. Winterburn, for joining us.

Colleagues, we're going to suspend now. We need to switch to the next panel, including a quick sound check for Mr. Abram.

Mr. Abram, if you're ready to go, we'll get your camera on and the clerk will be in touch with you.

Colleagues, for the next minute or two, we're going to suspend. We'll pull you back in as quickly as we can get the sound check done.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I call the meeting back to order.

Unfortunately, we lost our online witness. We're trying to track him down and get him back. He was here and then he was gone.

We're going to get started with Mr. Gladue. Mr. Gladue is here from my home province of British Columbia, and he is the regional director of the Métis Nation British Columbia.

Mr. Gladue, it's wonderful to have you here. When you're ready to start, we'll turn the floor over to you for your five-minute opening statement.

[Dean Gladue, Regional Director, Thompson Okanagan, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister of Sports, Métis Nation British Columbia]

Good evening. My name is Dean Gladue. I am Métis. I was born in Dawson Creek in northeastern British Columbia and was raised in a Métis community known as Moccasin Flats, which is currently known as Chetwynd. My parents are Bill and Blanche Gladue, née Desjarlais. My father's Métis parents are Louis Gladue and Madeline Gladue, née Laboucane and Lafranaise. My mother's Métis parents are Joseph Desjarlais and Helen Desjarlais, née Belcourt. My family has generations of Métis people marrying Métis people. I am proud to be Métis as enshrined in the Constitution of Canada.

Thank you for your invitation to appear as a witness today. I open today with one statement and one call to Canada.

I support the self-determination of the Métis-governing members of the Métis National Council—Métis Nation of Alberta, Métis Nation-Saskatchewan and Métis Nation of Ontario. I am optimistic that Bill C-53 establishes a pathway to self-determination for Métis in British Columbia.

Today, I'm thinking of my ancestors and all the things they would want to say. My family continues to practice our language, nehiyawk. We speak the language, and we practice our culture very intently. To this day, I'm a son, grandson, great-grandson, brother, uncle and cousin. There are many cousins, as we know, in the indigenous world—lots of cousins.

My family lived on road allowances. My mother attended residential school. I was almost scooped out of my family at the hospital shortly after being born. I carry teachings of what it means to be Métis, the people who govern themselves—of the resistance. This was passed to me from my grandfather, my mooshoom, Louis Gladue. He shared what his mooshoom, his grandpa, said.

Also, I served 26 years in the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Since 2017, I have served as an elected leader in the ministry with the Métis Nation B.C. Every generation of my family has been involved with the Métis nation and this movement since 1816.

I do this work because Métis people are struggling. I see it in my own family. Métis voices are limited. Even in the next generation we are seeing that. The policies of Canada and its provinces are still negatively impacting us. This is the outcome of Canada not recognizing Métis rights to self-government.

I carry my Métis laws with me—my right to care for my children, to speak my language—nehiyawk—to practice my culture, and my right to identify as Métis and to be claimed by a Métis family and nation. I have a right to be supported by Métis society and Métis government.

I am still Métis here in front of you today. My Métis government, Métis Nation B.C., submitted a brief on Bill C-53, which also supports this bill and calls on Canada to see the bill as a pathway to self-government for MNBC. Bill C-53 is Canada upholding a right of self-governance for our fellow governing members.

For you truly to uphold UNDRIP, Canada must recognize the history and cultural practices that all Métis in Canada, including section 35 rights-holding Métis living in B.C. I am sharing the Cree word. It's also a very well-known word in the Métis culture, otipemisiwak, which means people who govern themselves. You heard it earlier with President Caron.

Métis people have always had our laws, our ways of organizing ourselves, distinct Métis societies and recognition of Métis governance. This is key to the recognition of our rights. Métis are highly mobile through cultural practices and livelihoods. We are also a displaced people due to colonial practices such as the residential schools and sixties scoop. Métis laws, cultural governments and jurisdiction over our families were intentionally disrupted and silenced. Outcomes of Canada's laws and policies.... For example, our children, the government continues to deny our jurisdiction over our children. To this day, Métis people live in fear that their children will be taken away by the government. Once Métis children are gone without a recognized Métis government, the individual families must fight to learn where their children are. The inability of Canada to enter into government-to-government agreements with MNBC has caused this.

My story, my family's story, shared in part here with you today is an example of our Métis laws and practices. I believe that some of my family members are still alive because of my parents exercising their Métis rights. My family knows that we need a Métis nation, a Métis government, to advocate with the provincial and federal governments to respect our laws and culture and our Métis-specific services.

My family worked with Métis Nation B.C. to create Naomie's principle, in recognition of my niece Naomie. When you lose a life because of Canada's or B.C.'s policies, that affects us deeply and emotionally. This is hard to talk about. It must be talked about, because you must understand the effects of colonial government. We are creating Naomie's principle because of the continued loss of life due to the lack of culturally safe Métis wellness services. We must ensure that B.C. is a safe place for Métis to be Métis.

Building relationships, transformation and reconciliation is possible. Métis are doing this every day.

I hope this bill gets passed so my Métis brothers and sisters in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario are recognized by Canada. Bill C-53 is a step forward on the path of reconciliation. My hope is that you also realize and understand that Métis in British Columbia are missing from this legislation. We have been forgotten. We've been known as the forgotten people for over 100 years. Our rights must be recognized and respected.

Thank you. Maarsii, all my relations.

[Witness spoke in Cree]

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you so much for your opening statement.

Colleagues, we do have Grand Chief Joel Abram back from the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians.

I am going to have to suspend while we do a very brief sound quality check. When we return, Grand Chief Abram will get into the opening statement right away.

We're suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We are resuming the meeting.

The quality is right on the edge of where we need it to be. Please speak very clearly and slowly. If we need to push the five minutes to allow that, we will do so, but not a lot beyond that.

For both Mr. Gladue and yourself, I use a card system. The yellow card is for when we have 30 seconds left in the allotment, and then the red card signals that we are out of time. You don't have to stop mid-sentence. You can wind up your thought, and we'll move on to the next person.

Now that we're back in session, I will say that no screenshots or photos are allowed.

When you're ready, Grand Chief Abram, the floor is yours for your five-minute opening statement.

[Grand Chief Joel Abram, Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, members of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.

My name is Joel Abram. I'm the grand chief of the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians, whose seven member nations include Batchewana First Nation, Eelünaapéewi Lahkéewiit or Delaware Nation, Caldwell First Nation, Wahta Mohawks, Oneida Nation of the Thames, Hiawatha First Nation and Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte. All together, we advocate for approximately 20,000 first nations citizens.

I am here today to speak of our strong concerns that this bill will irreparably destabilize the foundation of Canada's relations with our member nations. Our member nations affirm their sovereignty, founded in the responsibilities provided to their respective nations by the Creator. The member nations have their own constitutionalism and self-determination, including pre-existing laws that govern over treaty relationships, and they are steadfast that they cannot surrender their sovereignty, territory or way of life.

We stand united in our opposition to Bill C-53, and I am here to ask you to kill the bill. We cannot be idle when this Métis nation claims sovereign rights in our territories in southern, central and northeastern Ontario. Bill C-53 is another example of the Canadian government's attempt to assimilate and subjugate our peoples. It ignores our inherent, aboriginal and treaty rights, and prioritizes Métis rights in lands they have no indigenous claim to.

In 1969, Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau introduced a 1969 “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy”, more commonly known as the “white paper”. It proposed eradicating the special legal status of Indians in this country. The result was a first nations uprising and uproar that put an end to that policy. This was the beginning of AIAI: a shared commitment to our sovereignty as indigenous peoples.

We are actively participating in a similar response to Bill C-53 hoping to achieve the same result, because it seems Bill C-53 has the same endgame: eradicating the meaning of the special status we are recognized as having in your Constitution. We are widely known as a first nation organization that takes to the streets to organize demonstrations when Canada goes too far.

Subsection 35(2) is not a colonial equalizer of rights, and our member nations are still called “Indian” alongside Métis and Inuit, but this does not erase the Haudenosaunee, Lenape or Anishinabe nations' very unique and special relationship with Canada.

Co-equal first nation, Inuit and Métis policy continues the harm and damage of the Indian Act. We have communities and nations to heal and revitalize, and the Métis run up the middle with equity-seeking funding they do not deserve in municipalities that have clean drinking water, well-funded schools and first world infrastructure. More specifically, in Bill C-53, recognizing section 35 rights of groups that do not actually have that unique constitutional status waters down the significance of that recognition. This is assimilation all over again through a slightly different angle.

Our nations have treaty relationships that existed before Confederation. At no time did we recognize or have kinship relations with these distinct and separate Métis communities, let alone nations, in our territories. It is that simple. They did not exist at the requisite time they would need to in order to have an inherent right to self-government in territories near or adjacent to our nations. However, our nations must deal with these organizations, the Métis Nation of Ontario and their collectivities within municipalities in southern, central and northern Ontario, and this legislation will make their questionable and illegitimate claims real, while our inherent and treaty rights become subservient.

We were your military allies before Confederation, and we were key treaty partners who shared our territories for the settlement of southern, central and northeastern Ontario. Canada's history could have been a much different one without these important treaty relationships in the 18th and 19th centuries. Bill C-53 grants rights to a Métis collectivity not because it meets the criteria in a Métis right to self-government analysis, but because its name is added to column 2 in a schedule. We are going so far beyond Powley with this legislation.

Our lawyers inform us that differential treatment has always been part of the honour of the Crown and the Crown policy of aboriginal rights, and ignoring these doctrines is to undermine the significance of section 35 for nations that hold inherent aboriginal and treaty rights based on sacred relationships to our homelands and adherence to the law. This is assimilation all over again.

Not only does Bill C-53 promote assimilation by ignoring section 35 analysis, but it also subjugates our member nations and their jurisdiction to that of this modern treaty contemplated in this legislation.

Clause 7 of Bill C-53 states that a Métis treaty would take precedence over any inconsistent provisions of the bill or of any piece of federal legislation. This includes existing first nation treaty implementation legislation and means that the implementation of legitimate first nation treaties would take a back seat to the implementation of the Métis Nation of Ontario’s treaty in event of any conflict.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you for your opening statement, Grand Chief Abram.

We're going to go right into our first round of questions.

For six minutes at first, I have Mr. Zimmer.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to our witnesses for appearing today.

My questions will be for Dean Gladue.

We've known each other for many years, Dean, and I've always know you to be a difference maker, first as a hockey player inspiring young kids from Chetwynd back in the day, then as an RCMP officer and now as a regional director for the Métis Nation British Columbia.

You said something to me that really stuck with me many years ago: “Blessed are the peacemakers”. I see your continuing with that call in your life today, in Ottawa this time. We've had conversations about what being Métis means to you. What I want to ask you about, for the sake of the committee, is this: What does it mean for you to be Métis and to be respected and recognized as Métis?

Go ahead, Dean.

[Dean Gladue]

That's a good question, and it's a deep question for me because all I know is being Métis. That's all my parents know, and my mooshoom, my grandfather, as far back as Cuthbert Grant and beyond, who was a direct descendent.

We've known to be who we are. We've known that we've had issues with Canada throughout our history. We've created our own language. We have our own distinct culture and language. We came from generations of European and first nation descent. As a result, we established our own ways and laws. We've always practised our own ways and laws.

I was raised as a road allowance kid. I was born in 1966. I was also almost taken by the sixties scoop within minutes, but because I had an uncle who could read English, he was able to say, “No, they're going to take him away. They're going to steal him”. They knew that we were having children stolen from hospitals throughout Canada, especially Métis children. My mother was a residential school victim as well, which I didn't even know until 1993, because she wouldn't talk about the impacts.

The impacts and policies of Canada have definitely affected us deeply and immensely and continue to this day. I wear this pin proudly as a Métis citizen and as a Métis person because, as they say, you will live and die for your belief. I will live and die for my belief.

Nehiyaw nisitohtamowin—we speak the language; we speak the culture.

You go back home today, and you see people still struggling. In my very own family, Naomie—of Naomie's principle—died of a drug overdose last year. She suffered through her mental illness, her issues and trying to get the right help. Culturally sensitive help was not available and, as a result, she died in care, and we're going to say that. She was 22 years old. She died within a system that was colonial and not built for her success.

Yes, I am here today to say that we are Métis people, and I stand strong about what we believe and what we do. You need to know our story. I call this the grassroots Métis, the ones in the trenches, the ones who come from the resistance of 1885 who also understand the struggles we've had in this country. I believe that we are rights holders according to section 35, and I stay with that. That's why I believe I am Métis.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Dean, I know you say that as a proud Canadian. You said that as a proud Canadian and Métis at the same time.

[Dean Gladue]

I did 100%, and I want to finish with that. We are Canadian as well. Métis is what Canada became about. We were here before Canada was even a confederation. It's about the mosaic. It's about the melting pot of Canada, and it's our time to be heard and say who we are.

I'm a strong voice, I am, but, to be a strong voice, I had to come through fire. I had to come through storms, and I have. I have many scars on my face and my body to show that, but those are hockey scars. I'm willing to go to battle even in that when I speak that because I come from a family who knows who we are.

My grandfather said, “Api Nah pay shish.” He would say to sit down and never forget who you come from and who you are. I never knew what he meant by that until later in my life, because he had to struggle. He says that we're the poor cousins in this country. Our first nations brothers and sisters are being heard, and we're not.

Thank you.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

That was well said, Dean. I will add that you still play a bit of hockey once in a while at the odd tournament. I know your mom and dad, Bill and Blanche. They're special to me, too, Dean. They're people who care for their neighbours in Chetwynd. They're just great folks.

We have spoken about this, and in your testimony you spoke about the issues around Métis children being disconnected from their families in the system. Can you explain a little of what you meant by that?

[Dean Gladue]

I'll speak for British Columbia. I'm not here to speak on behalf of Canada and the whole bigger picture, but I do support my brothers and sisters in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Métis children in British Columbia are the highest number of indigenous kids in care right now. We can stand behind that because we've been preaching that. Right now we don't know where our children are in British Columbia. If our children were taken away, we'd have no idea if they're in culturally sensitive homes or who they are. We're still experiencing that.

The last few suicides in care have been Métis children in British Columbia. We know that. In fact, a good friend of mine lost one of his sons. He was put in a hotel, because where does he go? It's the hot potato, we call it. First nations don't want to handle it. Nobody wants to handle it. It's “He's Métis, so we can do this.” That's why the culture's so....

I was a police officer for 26 years. I saw the devastation from the ramifications of those policies. Because we don't have a self-government agreement in British Columbia, I believe these are still the consequences of the policies of Canada, which have been there for over 100 years for us.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I know, Dean, you have hope—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I'm sorry, but we're out of time on this.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

—for a better future, but thanks for your testimony.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you.

We're going to go now to Mr. Battiste, who will have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Gladue, for your testimony today. Is it President Gladue?