Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2026

[Danielle White]

I'll start with the last part of the question first.

In 2017, in its pleadings in court, Canada suggested that landowners within the claim area be made aware of the case, but it was in the context of the court proceedings; it wasn't a separate engagement. That's why just a couple of weeks ago, in response to Montrose Properties, which is one of the private property holders in the city of Richmond who asked for their application to be added, Canada supported their application to be added to the case.

With respect to the broader decision, as you know, Canada appealed the lower court ruling at the same time as the other parties. Canada disagrees with certain elements of the court's decision, and all parties have appealed, so we do expect there will be an appeal. Further legal clarity is required to address the very questions that you raise and the broader implications particularly around private property rights.

We'll continue to work collaboratively with all of the parties to uphold the principles of reconciliation and transparency and to meet our legal responsibilities. We are remaining available for dialogue with all of the parties as the court case proceeds.

On the broader question, though, I would just point to—in contrast to the Cowichan case—the work that's been done on Haida Gwaii and the Haida title agreement that has been reached, where we've been able to reach a negotiated solution outside of the courts, resolving an important question of aboriginal title.

We continue to prefer negotiations as the way to resolve these issues as opposed to fighting them out in court. However, we will continue to defend Canada's position before the courts.

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

On that point, I know it's still before the courts, but are discussions happening through legal channels or otherwise before it actually continues on this path?

[Danielle White]

I'm not aware of the specifics. Right now, most of the discussion is through the council, but should the parties want to have discussions on a without prejudice basis, Canada would entertain that.

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

I recently met with residents from the city of Richmond, with members of the Richmond council as well as with the leadership within the city. They expressed frustration with the federal government, and with the province too, to be honest with you. Communication, they say, is very limited when they try to get information and try to get an idea of where the federal government wants to go with this. There seems to be no dialogue coming from not only the feds but also the province. It's getting better with the province now that they've stepped in to backstop those trying to renew mortgages in the city limits in the affected areas.

However, the claim is still that the federal government has been lax in their dialogue with the people being impacted, and that has left it all up to the city to provide this leadership or the interaction with constituents, who have a number of concerns with this. They just feel alone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

We're way over the time allotted, so perhaps you can carry on this conversation afterward.

Thank you.

For the last slot, we have MP Lavack for five minutes.

[Ginette Lavack, Liberal, St. Boniface—St. Vital, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses very much for being here today and appearing before the committee.

Ms. Bess, in your remarks, you mentioned that reducing barriers was essential to moving forward with land acquisition and resolving all these cases. Can you identify the biggest barriers? Can you give us three to five critical barriers that we should address?

[Darlene Bess]

Thank you for your question.

I think Laura Mitchell is the best person to answer that.

[Laura Mitchell]

I would say there are five broad categories of challenges for reserve creation. I've spoken about some of them today.

Environmental site assessments were a challenge. Some of the changes that we've made with the interim guidelines have helped that. There's no longer a requirement to update the ESA if it goes beyond five years and there have been no significant changes to the land. That helps reduce some of the burden there.

For the duty to consult, we are still developing tools and things like that. That's going to be a persistent challenge; not all nations will agree on the boundaries of their territory and whose land should be added or not.

For municipal service agreements, I've spoken a little bit about some of the stuff that we're trying to do there with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. It's also just templating things like creating tools that are really practical for communities to be able to use when they have those conversations. It's letters of support from Canada saying, “We support this and, therefore, when you're engaging with the municipality, please know that Canada is aligned with your vision for reserve creation.”

On third party interests, we're looking at some ability to maybe not have to replace those with Indian Act interests once a reserve is created. That can lead to long delays in reserve creation, so we're looking for some creative solutions there.

We are piloting something we have not discussed yet with the nations that we're hoping to pilot it with. I do not want to speak about it very much here just for fear of getting in front of them, but there's work at play there.

The fifth one is capacity issues. A nation may only do one reserve every 10 years. It's a skill set that takes a lot of time to learn and then you may not get to practise it very often, so we're looking at creative solutions around whether there is an external first nations organization that could come in and provide some of that capacity support to nations, so that they don't have to build up the muscle of knowing how to liaise with the municipality around negotiating those things. They'll have somebody they can go to that isn't the federal government and that they would feel confident in having those conversations with. Then that capacity could be moved around the country a little bit more, rather than trying to develop it in individual nations. We're looking at some models for that sort of thing.

Those are the five major areas of delay around reserve creation. They sound very easy to say in a room like this, but they're very difficult to deal with practically, with the number of players around the table. It is a complex process. Policy reform will help, but it's going to continue to be a complex process.

[Darlene Bess]

Could I just add to that?

I would say the other part of it is that relationships with provinces and municipalities are a key part of expediting the processes. Having working tables with the provinces and municipalities to look at those that are kind of stuck between all of these different layers of government is something we're working on as well.

In response to a previous question, we have a target of 70 additions to reserve this year. We're at 36 right now and we're getting close to the end of the fiscal year. Last year we did 67. I just wanted to put that out there.

[Ginette Lavack, Liberal, St. Boniface—St. Vital, MB]

You also mentioned the implementation of new software that is starting to change things a bit in your processes. Are you considering or looking into other tools? Can you tell us a little about the progress you’ve made in terms of administrative efficiency?

[Laura Mitchell]

We have looked at whether we can use AI to address the administrative backlog. Unfortunately, the way we have the data is not such that we can use it with AI systems. Some of it is handwritten or it requires a lot of analysis to get into a system, so we don't think that AI can be useful for looking at historical files.

We're looking at process automation a little bit, but that's already built into the national additions-to-reserve system that we've looked at.

The other area where AI doesn't help us, and Darlene just referenced this, is with the relationships that are so critical to the advancement of ATRs. We don't yet have AI that can help us with that, unfortunately. That's been a shortcoming, but we are certainly trying to look at how we can be creative.

As AI advances and evolves and as we become better with our digital footprint around what we have data on for reserves, we may find new avenues. We're doing what we have looked at so far and remain open to possibilities, but we think we've maximized its ability currently.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much.

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

Chair, I have a point of order.

I just want some clarity on the motion we just passed. It calls for a letter to be written by the chair and perhaps the clerk. What would be the timeline for when that letter will be issued and sent?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

I'm sorry, which motion are you referencing?

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

It's the letter that the committee will write to the Auditor General to consider an undertaking of a value-for-money and performance audit of the Giant Mine remediation project. When do you expect that the letter will be issued?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

I expect it will be as quickly as possible. I'll work with the clerk and the analyst to make sure we are doing it expeditiously. We'll do that for sure.

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

Thanks for the clarity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much to our first panel.

We're going to suspend. We're going to do this quickly because we have four witnesses coming up.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Welcome back, everyone. This is the second round.

Today, from the Assembly of First Nations, we have Linda Debassige, grand council chief, Anishinabek Nation.

Welcome, Grand Council Chief Debassige. It's good to see you.

We also have Helen Paavola, chief of the Namaygoosisagagun First Nation. I don't know if she's here yet, but we'll wait for a minute. She's probably just coming in the room.

Online, we have Chief Céline Cassivi of La Nation Micmac de Gespeg; Chief Steeve Mathias of Long Point First Nation; and Chief Lisa Robinson of Wolf Lake First Nation. They're all online.

Welcome, Chief Robinson. It's good to see you.

To the folks online, if you want to get our attention or you're having an issue, there's a “raise hand” button. Please push that.

Each of the four groups will have five minutes for a presentation.

After the five minutes, each member will have a certain amount of time in which to ask and answer questions. If you find you have more to say or if, after you leave, you think of something else, you can always provide it in writing if you want to continue with some of your explanation. That is equally considered.

Thank you very much.

Without further ado, we will begin with Chief Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige.

[Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige, Grand Council Chief, Anishinabek Nation, Assembly of First Nations]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Linda Debassige. I'm the grand council chief of the Anishinabek Nation in Ontario.

Thank you for your ongoing work on land restitution. Your study provided a clear road map for how Canada can meaningfully advance reconciliation by returning lands to first nations.

That same spirit applies to the work before you today as it relates to first nations that do not have land bases and have been overlooked in treaty matters and/or national policy discussions.

While there are relatively few first nations without reserve lands, the consequences are profound. Canada often refers to these nations as landless bands. The question then becomes one of why this happened and what the implications are for the original peoples of this land.

One more likely scenario is that the Crown did not count them at the time of treaty making, as Robinson did just prior to 1850 and admitted to.

Without land, these first nations cannot build sustainable communities, support housing and infrastructure or restore the economic, cultural and spiritual foundations necessary to thrive.

Today, we see legislation like Bill C-5 and Ontario's Bill 5 that aim to fast-track access to first nation mineral resources wealth, but we're also engaged today in a painfully slow process that drags on the return of lands to the rightful owners.

Perhaps if Canada had the political will and thoughts of true reconciliation, we might just get some faster movement on the return of lands to their rightful owners.

For generations, first nations have sought to work with Canada to create clear, effective and efficient pathways to regain the lands they are entitled to, lands that were unlawfully taken through colonial policies or just a miscount at the time of treaty.

Common sense tells us that because there were no roadways back in the 1800s during the call of first nations people, there were first nations people who were missed, yet even the basic picture is unclear. Historical and ongoing research points to fewer than 30 landless first nations, but only Indigenous Services Canada holds comprehensive data. That lack of clarity reinforces the challenges and invisibility these nations experience.

Just as Robinson acknowledged his mistake in the RG10 files, ISC needs to admit its mistakes and allow access to the comprehensive data.

Addressing landlessness is not just a technical issue; it is a fundamental question of rights, justice and reconciliation. The honour of the Crown should not be an obstacle to returning the land to the rightful owners. Justice means prioritizing those who remain without land recognition or a secure jurisdictional relationship with the Crown.

Advancing legislative recognition of some groups, like the Métis, while ignoring other rightful titleholders, like Chief Paavola, is deplorable and leaves foundational injustices unresolved.

I will now hand over the remainder of my time to Chief Paavola, who is joining us virtually and is also a member of our nation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you.

Chief Robinson, would you like to add to those comments in this five-minute section?

[Chief Lisa Robinson, Chief, Wolf Lake First Nation]

Go ahead with Chief Paavola, and I'll take my turn later.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Okay. Thank you very much.

Online we have La Nation Micmac de Gespeg.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I understand that speaking time has been divided and that this is the second part of Ms. Debassige’s time. This is not a new witness speaking for a new group, but rather the Anishinabe of Ontario who will be able to continue their turn.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Okay, perfect.

Please proceed.