Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 7th, 2026

[Marsha Smoke]

The time being spent looking at ways of delaying the bill is a smokescreen. I believe it's much broader than that. There are cumulative impacts of the Indian Act that have happened for decades and decades, almost two centuries—certainly for 150 years, but before that as well.

The issue of delay, along with the cumulative effect impacts, is all about the land. It's all about the resources. It's about our treaties. It's about all the court cases that first nations have won over the last few decades.

We are not going to stand back. We're not going to stand down in protecting our future generations and in being able to be brought back into our families. They are already in our circle, as it exists now, but it's important that they have that recognition in the same manner as their brothers, their cousins and so on.

It's clear in my mind that the delays are all about the land.

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

Chief Woodhouse‑Nepinak, do you agree with what Chief Smoke said about what is preventing the House of Commons and, obviously, the Canadian Parliament, from moving forward to adopt Bill S‑2?

[Cindy Woodhouse-Nepinak]

Absolutely. I agree with everything that she said.

For true co-development, any consultation process or reforms to the Indian Act must be first nations-led. However, without taking action, the federal government risks perpetrating further discrimination.

First nations are ready to decide for themselves who their members are. Canada needs to step out of the way. The government does not have the right to tell first nations what their background is. Delaying the removal of discrimination in the Indian Act undermines reconciliation.

We never created this. This was done to us by the Government of Canada with the creation of the Indian Act. We have a lot of work to do, but we can do that together and get there in a united way.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Lapierre, I saw you nodding your head. Do you want to add a comment?

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have left?

All the witnesses will be able to submit additional documents following the committee meeting, but, if you wish, you can also talk about your nation, the Wendat nation.

[Cynthia Lapierre]

Thank you, Mrs. Gill.

I am here as a private citizen, and I completely agree with what these great Anishinabe women are saying. I'm not a politician, I don't work in Parliament and I always wonder whether the government wants to follow the original intent of the Indian Act.

Does it intend to continue the genocide of our first nations?

I'm not a politician or a strategist, but I always wonder whether the government wants to continue on the same path. Since 1985, we've been losing people. We have said it at length at other times in our presentation: There is a difference between membership, where our nations decide who belongs, and the Indian register.

Personally, I think it's important to keep a register of people who are excluded. To take the example of my great-grandmother, it was very hard to prove, because Indian status didn't exist at the time. There was no list of all the women who were removed. If we continue to exclude people from the register, there has to be some kind of register to keep a record of those people.

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

In fact, you agree that, once again, any delay in passing Bill S‑2 is tantamount to telling children that they are excluded, right?

I'm thinking of the letter you gave us earlier about Amélie Sioui, whose identity and future are being decided.

You agree that all the delays are leading to the disappearance of not only children, but an entire community, as I believe and as Mr. Huneault also said.

Is that correct?

[Cynthia Lapierre]

Yes, Mr. Huneault also said that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you. That's all the time we have.

Next is MP Morin for five minutes.

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to go to Chief Smoke.

We've talked a lot about a lot of things, like legislation and things that have evolved over, quite frankly, 150 years of the Indian Act. One latest development in Canada's history is that the current Liberal government wants to celebrate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. They say they want to implement it. They say they want to help enforce it, but they're also saying at this time that they are essentially delaying...discrimination against women and girls when it comes to the second-generation cut-off.

Do you see consistency there, or is there a lack of consistency in upholding the declaration but keeping the delay going around getting rid of the second-generation cut-off?

[Marsha Smoke]

When we're talking about the UN declaration act, we have to remember that this piece of legislation was rushed through the government and brought to first nations with an imposed deadline by which it had to be dealt with. Any intent to look at that as being consistent with UNDRIP is highly questionable to me, but the intent to align legislation with UNDRIP is an important element. I still believe that there are many other factors playing into this beyond the question of just membership. That is where the delays are.

If we want to be honest, we can talk about costs, but with the amount of money that's being spent right now, cost doesn't seem to be a factor. It's not going to be a huge burden, if I can say, on the government, because the registration numbers in the past have not been in the thousands or millions that were predicted in years past.

If the government truly wants to align the Indian Act provisions on membership with UNDRIP, they need to get on with it, because they're not doing so right now.

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

Thank you.

You mentioned cost. I tend to agree with you, because it's a $25-billion budget, and the implementation costs on this, according to the government's own numbers from StatsCan and some of the internal Parliamentary Budget Officer numbers, are $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 or $8,000 on average over 30 to 40 years. You're looking at direct costs of maybe $2,000 per person to start for the FNIHB and for different things being implemented. I don't get the argument on costs and numbers. I do agree with you on that.

You also mentioned earlier that consultation is being weaponized. Can you elaborate on that?

[Marsha Smoke]

It's pretty clear that when it comes to consultation, we have always taken the position of free, prior and informed consent. I believe it's being weaponized this time, because it's being used as an excuse to delay.

We very much want to see consultation happen, but the consultation has been going on for a long, long time. To use that word as a reason to bring things to a stop doesn't match with either UNDRIP or the UNDRIP Act. It is being used as a tool to delay.

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

Would you not agree that while there is some tension in membership versus status, at the end of the day, nations still have their ability, legally, to define who their own members are? Even that would be a tactic or an excuse not to get rid of the second-generation cut-off right now.

[Marsha Smoke]

Yes. When it comes to the membership of our citizens, we know who our families are. The people who are going to be applying for membership once this bill passes, in whatever form—hopefully as it exists right now—are not strangers. They're not strangers to our communities. They're members of families. They're people who as recently as 1985—

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you.

[Marsha Smoke]

—are there. We know who they are.

Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Chi-meegwetch.

Next, for five minutes, we have MP Earle.

[Philip Earle, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses. I really appreciated the testimony this morning and in past committees. I'm guided by the wisdom that you bring to us at committee regarding this particular matter around Bill S-2. Through your testimony, you've certainly demonstrated the responsibility that I have as a parliamentarian and that this committee has to get this right, and I say that sincerely. I'll come to my question for the witnesses from that position.

It was Chief Smoke who said that nobody gets left behind, and I'd like you to build on that a little to give me comfort as somebody who will be part of writing this report. I've heard from all of the witnesses about the need for the assurance that nobody gets left behind, because the overarching theme of all the testimony I've heard today and in past committee meetings on this subject is that many have in some way been left behind.

Chief Smoke, can you talk to me about why nobody will be left behind?

[Marsha Smoke]

First of all, I want to say where that comes from. That's a teaching from my late mother, June Smoke, who always reminded us as children when we were growing up that if there's someone on the playground at school who has no one to play with, you go and talk to them; you go and make them feel a part of the community.

On that premise, we have to make sure we're working in a place of inclusion rather than exclusion. The exclusion part has been very effective when it comes to the legislative changes that were made in Bill C-31.

[Philip Earle, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you.

Reading documents that I've been provided on this subject matter to prepare for a committee dealing with such important and deep subject matter, I'm drawn to a court case from the Superior Court in Quebec from 2017. In a similar fashion to this, changes were made. After changes were made by government, it was identified that there was a lack of information that got out to people who legitimately now had the ability to exercise the rights they were given through the changes that were made.

Cynthia Lapierre, maybe you can help. How do you feel we should be addressing getting that information out? Should it go out directly from the nations? Should it go out from the Crown? Could you speak to the committee about how you'd like to see that information distributed?

[Cynthia Lapierre]

To clarify, do you mean information about who is entitled or could be entitled?

[Philip Earle, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Exactly. If we accept the amendments as presented, the legislation changes. How would we get that detail out to people who may no longer have a deep connection to their community because of, if I may say so, the cut-off that happened?

[Cynthia Lapierre]

I can only share my story.

My whole life, I've known who I was, but I did not belong to my nation. No one since my great-grandmother had. As I mentioned, Indian status is something that was created around 1951, if I'm correct, and these things weren't documented. There weren't lists.

For example, with Bill C-31, changes had been made. Those people were contacted, and they became subsection 6(1) instead of subsection 6(2), and so forth. That's why I called it. We have to have this Indian registry of who the descendants are, because people have a right to know.

My great-grandmother.... As of right now, I am the only one who has status. Trying to contact people to make people aware and bringing them back to community are really important. My journey was about reconnecting with my community before asking for my status. Personally, that was my journey. There's a responsibility there to document the hurt, because some people don't know. There are people out there who have rights.

For me, it wasn't until I was working in Kahnawake that I learned about all of this. My granddaddy had never said that she lost status. I didn't know. As I learned what reconciliation was as a Franco-Ontarian woman, it was like finding out that you were adopted. It was like, “Wait a minute, this happened to my family. Wait a minute, this attacked me. Wait a minute, I was buried.” I think it's important that Canada has this accountability to people to maintain those lists.

To close on that statement, we face lots of situations with people who affirm indigenous identities. Those lists would be useful tools to confirm identity. However, at the end of the day, our nations get to decide belonging.

Personally—

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much, Cynthia.

Ms. Gill, go ahead for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I heard my colleague talk about a 2017 decision for the governance of the Cree first nation of Eeyou Istchee, for which information can be provided later.

An agreement was reached with that nation to give it more and more autonomy and powers, and even jurisdictions that belonged to Quebec and are now exercised by the Cree. No one can argue that we don't have all the information, because the agreement was made with the Cree. They're aware of it, and they agree.

We're talking about land use and economic development. I think that's absolutely positive. There's nothing stopping us from moving forward.

In closing, I know that the arguments tend to be more intellectual and therefore perhaps more clinical.

Ms. Lapierre, if possible, I'd like you to go back to the letter from young Amélie and speak on behalf of a generation that can't testify in committee. An 11-year-old child cannot appear before a committee.

I know this may be an emotional topic, but I think we're talking about human beings who have rights and who experience discrimination. I know I'm repeating myself, but I think it's extremely important. That's what makes these rights important: We are human and we stand in solidarity.

Do you want to simply talk about the impact on children?

I think that young Amélie also represents the children of every first nation.