International Trade Committee on June 14th, 2016

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

No, no. With all due respect, it was unnecessarily adversarial to the extent that the former minister spent to the tune of $107 million—which is the truth, and I'll look to my colleague—fighting inherent rights and treaty rights. It was totally a waste of taxpayers' dollars.

Just embrace inherent rights and treaty rights, peaceful coexistence, and mutual respect, and find the proper tables for dialogue. You would build this country better than it is now, if that were to happen.

It took 25 years for the William case to work its way through the Supreme Court of Canada, 25 years. It's something that we've been saying all along, to respect aboriginal rights and title that we have as indigenous peoples.

Again, it's a long-winded answer, but the answer is no, and I just gave a couple of examples.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Could that 100-plus million dollars have been saved if the process had been changed, and if we'd had a more open, consultative type of process?

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

Of course.

Again, let's just sit down and talk. Respect our rights. We're sharing this great country together. We have inherent rights. We have treaty rights. Let's just make sure we sit down and talk to make sure this effects and impacts everybody. This great country was founded.

How was Canada founded? John A. Macdonald created a treaty commissioner, and named Alexander Morris, on behalf of the crown to come out and cut a deal with Indians, indigenous peoples. They needed a mechanism, and what they came up with was treaties.

Of course, my chief, Little Black Bear, didn't have the strongest legal advice, I don't believe, in 1874. He didn't speak a word of English or French, but he spoke many languages, Cree, Assiniboine, and Saulteaux. Do you really think he understood these words “cede”, “surrender”, and “relinquish”?

[Witness speaks in Cree]

What I said in Cree was, “Cede. Surrender. Relinquish. No, no, no.”

Again, it's the spirit and intent versus the legalistic interpretation. We can understand sharing. We can understand getting along as a family. We are all to mutually benefit from the land and resource wealth, but that's where we have to keep taking things.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Ms. Palmater, did you find out or look into the protections that were brought forth for indigenous peoples in New Zealand, at how the Government of New Zealand engaged with indigenous peoples and how they got to that point where they were able to bring those protections into the agreement?

[Dr. Pamela Palmater]

I don't have all the details. All I know is that the Maori obviously were involved a lot earlier on, although probably not as early as they should have been or New Zealand wouldn't have been arguing after the fact for intellectual property rights for plants for Maori. However, they did successfully get in the treaty exemption provision, which is under the exceptions part of the TPP; whereas under the TPP all Canada has is something on government procurement, which is no more than what they've also set aside for regular Canadians.

There's nothing indigenous specific to the procurement process, but it doesn't mention aboriginal and treaty rights. Again, for legal interpretation they would say you specifically identified indigenous people for procurement, but not for aboriginal and treaty rights, so the presumption will be you didn't intend to include it. While that was the doing of the previous government, this government really needed to step up right away and get indigenous peoples together and ask what can be done about this, if anything, to save it, and it hasn't. Now we're at a point where it has to be a no. There's no way to save this legally.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

That was my question.

Without substantive amendments to the TPP, as you mentioned, in your opinion Canada would not be able to ratify the TPP for those whom you represent.

[Dr. Pamela Palmater]

Canada could at least make the case for substantive amendments with a view to ratifying it in the future like New Zealand did, but Canada has specifically chosen not to. I don't know if at this point in time you're at a substantive amendment or a yes or no, and if it's just yes or no, then it's no.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

And—

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

We're at seven minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

How did you know, Mr. Dhaliwal? You're watching him, are you?

You just have a little bit of time to wrap up there, Mr. Fonseca.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Yes.

In terms of the amendments you would want to bring in, do you have anything that you would like to put forward to this committee?

[Dr. Pamela Palmater]

I have about 40 of them. The main one is basically the exemption of the aboriginal and treaty rights, lands, and resources from the application of the TPP. That's the main one. Obviously, the wording would have to be very specific.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Would you please submit those 40-plus, or as many as you have, to the committee in a written submission?

[Dr. Pamela Palmater]

Yes, I will.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Great, thank you. I appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

We're going to the Conservatives now.

Mr. Van Kesteren, you have the floor, for five minutes.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for being here. It's a fascinating discussion.

I sit here as a settler. My parents came from the Netherlands, so I'm on one side of the fence and I'm on the other side of the fence. I listened with interest to what all of you are telling me and there's merit in what you say. There's no question about that.

However, I think about the implications as we move forward. I mentioned that I'm the child of an immigrant. There are some here who have generations of white people who have been here and there are others who have just arrived in Canada.

When I'm sent to Parliament, most of the good people in my riding, I would say the vast majority, would say, “Dave, get this settled. We have to get this thing settled.” I think that most of us would agree with that too, but if we're going to do that....

Chief, I listened to you, and Ms. Palmater, I'm listening to your side too as a lawyer. Is there consensus among first nations groups as to, “Listen. This is what we want”? I'm asking you to give me a short answer on both.

Could you prepare a brief and say that this is what they want? Is there consensus across the board?

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

There's consensus across the board to move beyond the Indian Act. That's number one. That's been here since 1876. We need to evolve processes to move beyond the Indian Act and basically start working towards self-determination.

I've always told our chiefs, and I still tell them, “If you don't want other people's laws to apply to you, then you occupy the field and create your own laws.” For example, if we remain under the Indian Act for band membership, there's no more status Indians in Canada in 40 years because of Bill C-31 and 6(1)(a) and 6(2) on how you can get status under the Indian Act. We have to create our own citizenship acts, no question.

We have to start talking about portability of rights. Basically we need to establish processes to move beyond the Indian Act and there is consensus on that. However, it's not going to happen in one year. It's not going to happen overnight. There has to be a process for that. There is consensus on that.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'm going to kind of lead you where I want to go.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

If I could interject, and with all due respect, is it true that you have to leave in a few minutes?

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

Yes. I'm sorry, honourable members, but I have to get to the other meeting on pipelines.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

That's fine. There was a dialogue between you and Mr. Van Kesteren. I want you to finish up. We'll continue on when you leave, but I want to thank you very much for coming.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

Thanks for the opportunity. I'll just stay until this one's done, and then I have to go to the pipelines one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Dave, go ahead.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

You talked about the original agreements. You talked about the plow. I have to think that most Canadians would say, “Get this thing done.”

However, when we start to go beyond, when somebody in Chatham-Kent—Leamington, for instance, finds out that the land their great-great-grandfather cleared no longer belongs to them—and this is what I heard from you, Ms. Palmater—that's when the constituents are going to rise up. You're shaking your head, so you know what I'm talking about.

How do we get beyond that point?