Thank you.
Good morning, honourable and respected members. I am pleased to be on the unceded territories of the Anishinabe and Algonquin to speak in full support of Bill C‑10.
I am here both as president of the Nisga'a Nation as well as one of the co-chairs for the Land Claims Agreements Coalition. The coalition was formed in 2003 and currently includes 23 indigenous modern treaties.
The coalition came together because we were faced with common problems related to the implementation of our agreements. All of us have spent decades negotiating our treaties with the Crown and have made considerable compromises to conclude our agreements. In our case, it took many years, 27 years of negotiations, to conclude our agreement. The Nisga'a Nation gave up ownership of more than 90% of our traditional territory in exchange for ownership of 10% of the land and for the certainty that our treaty brings.
However, soon after we entered into our treaty, we realized that the federal government was not equipped to implement our agreements in a timely and effective manner. In other words, our treaties were not being honoured. This is why the coalition, since its formation in 2003, has spent more than two decades advocating for an independent oversight body to hold the federal government to account for the implementation of its modern treaty obligations.
In other words, Bill C‑10 is not just a government bill. We asked for it, and it was co-drafted. We want this bill, and we do not think any amendments are required.
Importantly, after all of these years, the commissioner that Bill C‑10 would establish is still needed. Out of the 25 years of our treaty, the Nisga'a Nation has assessed that we have spent two-thirds of that time in dispute resolution or litigation with the provincial or federal crowns.
With no oversight body to turn to that would address how the federal government is implementing treaties, we have had no choice but to commence dispute resolution or litigation. For example, we have been in dispute for years now with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans because they continue to enter into agreements that have the potential to seriously impact our constitutionally protected fishing rights as set out in our treaty.
Our pleas have continually been ignored despite support from other federal departments, and we had no choice but to request that our issues be arbitrated. Having an oversight body to turn to could have avoided all of this and saved the cost to both treaty partners.
Its benefit was also recognized in 2008 when the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, chaired by a former Conservative cabinet member, recommended that such an entity be established through legislation in collaboration with the coalition.
The Liberal government recognized the need for and the benefit of this, and worked with us to co-develop Bill C‑10 in 2023.
We appreciate that governments of all stripes have made efforts to fix the structural federal problems that led to poor implementation. However, these tools are aimed at improving internal coordination. They do not provide Parliament with any independent assessment of treaty implementation. They do not hold the highest level of government to account.
This is why the establishment of an independent commissioner outside of the federal public service and reporting directly to Parliament is so important. The complexity and unique nature of modern treaties also require continuous, comprehensive and specialized attention. There is no existing mechanism that does this.
While the Auditor General has provided important reviews of various indigenous issues, it has a broad mandate and cannot focus solely on treaty implementation. To date, that office has only conducted specific reviews on modern treaty implementation on three occasions.
Finally, I want to emphasize that, when modern treaties are fully implemented, they benefit all Canadians. For example, we are co-developing the Ksi Lisims liquefied natural gas project on land that our nation owns under our treaty. This project is expected to bring $30 billion in investment, create thousands of skilled careers and strengthen Canada's leadership in low-emission LNG.