Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 12th, 2026

[National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak]

I think first nations need to decide for themselves who their members are. Canada needs to step out of the way.

Many of us come from many different cultural backgrounds in this beautiful country that we all share. Nobody should ever tell you that you're not one background over another. The same goes for first nations. We need to decide for ourselves.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish, NS]

Chief, I'd like to go to you for the last 10 seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

We've run out of time. Perhaps we can get that out in a supplemental question.

We're going to go to MP Gill for six minutes, please.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We can come back to the answer, because I think we all have more or less the same view anyway. In any case, I can only speak for myself. I wouldn't accept an outside institution defining me and deciding who I am either. Even though the study isn't about Bill S‑2, we have no choice but to keep coming back to it. For example, Mr. Lafond talked about….

Mr. Chair, I think I'll wait, because the witnesses are not ready. If I may keep my speaking time, I'll start from the beginning, because the interpretation isn't available right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Madam Gill, you can proceed.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll speed up. We can come back to the chief's question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

You can take it from the top.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. I wanted the witnesses to be able to understand me, and sometimes there are technical difficulties.

Thank you very much to the witnesses for being here today to testify before us.

I was saying just now that, as an individual and a citizen, I indeed wouldn't accept someone else defining who I am. I can't say that I understand everything you're experiencing in your communities, but I'm able to understand and be empathetic.

We have talked a lot about small steps. There was Bill S‑2, Bill S‑3 and, in 1985, Bill C‑31. Again, I believe it was Grand Chief Wilson who called this a transition.

You also talked about consultation. I'd like to know several things.

According to Mr. Lafond, there has been consultation work on the same things for 10 years. It could even be said that it's been a lot longer, more than 40 years.

Are we ready? Are the first nations ready for the work to be carried out completely?

In an idealistic way, we know that the matter is very complex, but are the first nations ready?

Can the consultations be carried out? Could we stop taking only small measures every time the government is backed into a corner and forced to take important action for the first nations, as will be the case on the deadline of April 30?

My questions are for all the witnesses. I would be very happy to hear the comments of anyone who wants to respond.

[National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak]

[Witness spoke in Anishinaabemowin]

[English]

He'll speak.

You can get translation for our languages.

Thank you.

[Chef Kelly Wolfe]

Yes, we understand that there is a deadline, and we feel that there need to be big steps.

If you were to put yourselves in our shoes, where an external delegating authority determines where you belong, it's an awful feeling when you hear testimony from families and children and all different ages of our people knowing that they do belong and there is lineage, yet through Canada's lens, they are not members of our nation.

The longer we wait, the more of our people will be impacted, and it's important that we move forward without hesitation. I agree that there should be big steps.

Thank you.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

I would like to ask two sub-questions.

First, I was wondering if we're ready to settle the issue once and for all. I know it can be complex. As I was saying, there's a deadline, and we can choose to move forward thanks to Bill S‑2. However, will we then be able to follow this through and settle the issue once and for all?

Second, are we ready to hold consultations? Can that be done as quickly? We could make progress on both fronts at the same time.

Are we ready to find solutions to resolve the issue once and for all, rather than waiting for legal action and for the government to respond?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

We'll suspend for a moment and we'll come back. I want to make sure that the microphones are working

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Before I go to Lori, because she did put her hand up, I'm just going to let us resume so we can finish this question here for Drew.

Please proceed and we'll add a little time back. Perhaps repeat that question for Drew, MP Gill.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to know how much time I have, because although I was interrupted and repeated myself twice, two of the witnesses were unable to hear the English interpretation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

You have two minutes and 30 seconds.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

I'll repeat myself a third time. I think I had almost six minutes, but I'll speak quickly. Obviously, I didn't want to take speaking time away from all the witnesses, but, out of respect for my language, I want to be able to express myself in one of the two official languages and have the time I was supposed to have to be able to do so.

I'm addressing all the witnesses, because I may not have time to ask all my questions.

If you have any additional information, you can submit it in writing to the committee. We will take it into account in the recommendations.

Earlier, I said that I didn't want anyone to decide for me what my identity is and who I am. It's up to me to decide. I believe first nations should be able to do so too.

Are we ready to hold consultations that would settle the issue of registration entitlement once and for all, instead of taking small steps, as is done whenever there's a court case?

Is it possible to do that, even though we know that Bill S‑2 needs to be passed quickly?

Mr. Lafond, I'm sorry for the commotion, but thank you. Please feel free to send the rest of your response to the committee if you don't have time to share it.

[Drew Lafond]

I just want to briefly speak to your comment regarding consultation. We have been consulting internally with our communities on this very question of citizenship ever since 1985—at least in my own memory—about how we overcome the issue of this dichotomy of Indian status versus band membership, versus indigenous citizenship.

When we're talking about timing and whether this is the right time to make substantive change, like monumental, seismic change, to the Indian Act regime, I think we're long overdue. However, I want to also be mindful of the political realities, and this also reflects on the earlier question by Mr. Battiste. It's not going to be easy to disentangle Indian status from indigenous citizenship. If it were, we would have been able to resolve this question back in 1985. We're in this position because Indian status has been a reality in indigenous and first nations communities now since at least 1850.

We're looking at over a century and a half of disentangling colonial legislation from our indigenous citizenship systems. Even for our own members who now use Indian status, many of whom use Indian status as a proxy for their own identity, we are going to be on the path to reinvigorating and exercising our own rights over indigenous citizenship. It's going to be a significant journey for indigenous peoples themselves. That's a journey that we'll undertake. Let's not lose sight of the fact that it's the federal government, it's the Crown, that has legislated indigenous identity, and it's the Crown's responsibility to justify any discrimination under that legislation. Again, I don't want to muddy the waters here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much. As MP Gill said, if you have more in writing, please send it in. That goes for all questions, or anything in this study as well.

Lori, go ahead.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Qujannamiik, Chair.

I'm very much hoping to get the unanimous consent of the committee to ask questions of the witnesses on this important issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Lori, I'm hearing it will be at the end. We're going to go through a round of questions and then at the end we will allocate some time for you to ask a question. That's what the committee has said and I think that's fair.

Meegwetch.

Back to our questions in the second round, we have Billy Morin again.

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

Thanks, Chair.

Chief Wolfe, you're going through the process of developing your own citizenship and membership law. I inherently believe, as I think is iterated by all parties and consistently by first nations, that the solutions lie in them developing their own laws, but it takes time to get there.

You have a nation, just looking at some of the stats, that has a smaller on-reserve population and a little bit more on the urban side.

Is that correct?

[Chief Kelly Wolfe]

Yes.

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

It will be difficult for you to meet the threshold of 50% plus one to get the referendum through under the current rules.

Is that correct?

[Chief Kelly Wolfe]

Yes.

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

I want you to comment, though, on some of the inconsistencies that come from governments applying their own legislation. Speaking for myself, which I can, when I pass my own election law, the same thresholds apply when it comes to creating your own custom election law, which is 50% plus one on a referendum.

I do thank the government at that time, a number of years ago, which said, “We'll ignore that and you can still have your custom election,” because we had a great turnout and did all of the above. Also, they refused to implement the First Nations Financial Transparency Act. They also said, “We want to consult and do free, prior and informed consent,” but they didn't do it on Bill C-5 and on other land regulation laws.

What does that say to you, when they pick and choose when to do consultation and when not to, and when to enforce a law and when not to when it comes to your jurisdiction?