Status of Women Committee on May 1st, 2013

[David Langtry]

Sure. I'll answer that in a couple of ways.

The first way is to reference, which I haven't done yet, the child welfare case that is currently before a tribunal and that has been through the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal. It now is being heard on the merits. We received a complaint, referred it to tribunal, and are participating in an allegation or an assertion from the AFN and First Nations Child & Family Caring Society that funding for child welfare services on reserve is discriminatory in that it is less than funding for children off reserve. Obviously many of the issues of child welfare are tied into matrimonial breakup and the like. So there would be that.

When we were talking about the repeal of section 67, we were hearing this from first nations communities, and also from leadership: how are we going to address remedial orders when we don't have adequate housing; how can you say we're discriminatory by not providing housing if there isn't adequate housing?

So there are a number of very significant issues that we are facing. Some of these will be detailed in a data report on the equality rights of aboriginal people in Canada, which we'll be releasing within the next six weeks or so. That has looked at seven indices of well-being. It's a series of the four designated groups that we're doing. We've released one on persons with disabilities, and now one on aboriginal people, which reinforces much of the data that is known.

But the situation is such that the problems are myriad. If there was a simple solution, it would have been found, I would suggest, some time ago.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

There's a lot of talk around emergency protection orders, and one of the main issues here is the fact that there aren't enough police to enforce them. I'm wondering in your work what information you have around the access to policing on first nations in Canada and how that interacts with human rights abuses.

[David Langtry]

In like manner that we have received complaints alleging discriminatory funding in terms of the child welfare, we also have received and referred to tribunal complaints on the very same...but for police services. We receive complaints, which I would describe as systemic complaints, on services being provided for police, for education, for health care, and the like, which I was addressing, certainly, and referring to when I said the challenges as to whether these constitute service....

The case law is pretty clear that pure funding is not a service, but it's when the funding comes with additional strings attached that we say it crosses the line and becomes a service. Those issues are referred to tribunal.

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Thank you, Madame Ashton.

Ms. Bateman, it's your turn. You have five minutes.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much for being with us again, Mr. Langtry. It is wonderful to have you back with this different issue to address.

I'm not going to repeat what my colleague Tilly O'Neill Gordon talked about, our extensive, over $8 million consultation process, and the reason for that is that the time goes too quickly.

I was very interested to hear that you, too, are engaging in quite an extensive consultation process with the aboriginal community, and that two of the key findings you had.... You were listing them off so quickly that I couldn't catch them all, but fear of reprisal was one of them, and issues of trust with leadership was another. Those are huge.

If a woman is at risk and is potentially a victim of physical violence, it's pretty difficult to go up against headquarters, isn't it? Could you speak briefly to that finding?

[David Langtry]

Yes. Thank you for the question.

Maybe it's not so much a finding, but what we've heard in regard to a number of issues that have been raised by aboriginal women. The reality is that they're living oftentimes in isolated communities. There are issues over leadership, of whether they're not part of...and there are sometimes issues in terms of what community it is. As everybody knows, of course, not all first nations are the same nation: they're nations.

They have all of those issues that confront them, oftentimes compounded by being aboriginal women living in poverty.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

That fear of reprisal piece, when you're speaking out against those in control, is a huge issue.

It's interesting to note that we're hearing from the opposition that the $8 million wasn't sufficient in regard to consultation, and it's interesting to also note that historically, in 1960, when a Conservative government introduced the vote to aboriginal people, it was the aboriginal community at the time that said there hadn't been enough consultation. I don't think there's one of us right now who would say to take back the vote, that we haven't consulted enough, and I think this will be the same issue.

Sir, you have experience as the ADM of family services in Manitoba, my province. You and I have a lot in common, because women and children who first have been beaten and then have been told to leave the home with nothing but the shirts on their backs often end up in the care of family services, and certainly often ended up in the care of my school division. We tried our very best to help these families and to provide supports. We worked in partnership with your organization.

This is meant to address that so that these children can actually stay in their homes. Based on your experience, could you speak to that briefly?

[David Langtry]

Yes, absolutely, and I'm happy to. One of the issues, as an example, in the child welfare case is that too much money is pointed towards protection services, towards apprehension, as opposed to support services to allow children to remain in their own home.

I can say, certainly both as a lawyer and as ADM, that sometimes it's just that some support is needed to be placed, but it is better for children to be in their own home, as long as it's safe and secure. Measures that can be done to keep children safe in their own home and with their parents is a situation that is preferable to apprehension and to being placed in foster care and sometimes passed from home to home.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

That's absolutely true, as we well know in Manitoba.

The centre of excellence, which has also been much maligned by the opposition, gives an opportunity for the leadership of the 22 first nations communities that have already initiated this kind of law. There are more than 600 first nations communities in our great country, but 22 have initiated that leadership. The centre of excellence, in which we're going to invest millions of dollars, is going to enable those first nations to demonstrate their leadership to those who would follow.

Will this help communities find a way to have the rights they need?

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Give us a very short answer, please.

[David Langtry]

I would say that we would always support first nations leadership and first nations determining their own future as to the way in which they would provide services for their own people. That includes doing so via a human rights commission. We would welcome a first nations human rights commission.

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Thank you, Mr. Langtry.

I'm now turning to Madame Ashton for five minutes of questioning.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much.

Our question revolves around the fact that discussions did take place with certain first nations. We find that these were inadequate, but beyond that and at the core of it, what a lot of the first nations raised was that concerns with Bill S-2 weren't actually heard and are not reflected in Bill S-2, which, as we know, is the most recent iteration of this government's efforts in recent years concerning matrimonial property rights.

I have before me a letter from Chief Shining Turtle, and I'll read a section of it.

During the period October 2006 to today May 2013, we did not receive any support, advice, consultation, accommodation, from the Federal [government or] Indian and Northern Affairs Canada on any stage of our MRP law development.

This goes back to the fact that Chief Shining Turtle's community, Whitefish River First Nation, has worked at developing their own MRP law for their citizens. Here we can see—and certainly the government should know—Whitefish River First Nation's work on this, and yet they've chosen not to respond to the first nation, certainly not to work with them in developing their own code.

I'm wondering how problematic you find it that first nations concerns haven't been heard and that in fact some of those who have made the effort, as we hear in this case, haven't heard a response.

[David Langtry]

I would say that during the discussions and debate around section 67, a similar question was asked of me. I said that the Canadian Human Rights Commission, of course, does not undertake to discharge the honour of the crown and conduct the consultation; we're engaged with the community. I left it to first nations and the government to respond as to whether adequate or full or meaningful consultation occurred. From our point of view, in developing all of our policies, our programs, our tool kits—everything we're doing—it's about access to justice.

Our view is that we need to engage with those first nations who wish to engage with us, and we listen and we hear. We have to know the interpretive provision, which you may all be aware of, that talks about gender equality as well as about individual and collective rights. We need to hear from them and learn from them.

So we engage extensively, again not in order to say that we're here to tell you what is good for you, but to say we want to hear from you as to what you need in order to access our services.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

That sentiment sounds so important. We would have liked to see it in the deliberations that have led to this point in the formation of Bill S-2.

Just going back to your statement around respect for individual and collective rights, one of the concerns raised is about the way in which this infringes on treaty and aboriginal rights and on the sense of collective rights that first nations have.

Could you speak to that piece and to the importance of that understanding?

[David Langtry]

In the Canadian Human Rights Act, even as a quasi-constitutional statute, there is the non-derogation, non-abrogation provision in our legislation, with the repeal of section 67, and there is provision, as you know, in the interpretive provision, which says that we have to give due regard to legal traditions and customary laws of first nations in any complaint against the first nations.

In some of what we were hearing from the first nations we were meeting with at the time of the repeal of section 67, they were questioning our jurisdiction and saying that even we as an organization—though again, the provision is in there—took away from their aboriginal and treaty rights. My response always was: these are the laws of Canada; if you develop your own system for addressing human rights, we would certainly welcome it, but we continue to be bound to do this, though nothing we can do can abrogate or derogate from rights under the charter and from aboriginal treaty rights.

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

You have 20 more seconds.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you.

Just quickly, going back to the socio-economic indicators, we know that indigenous women are the most marginalized women in Canada, whether it's quality of life, length of life, etc.

I'm wondering if you could speak to some of these indicators, for aboriginal women in particular.

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

We won't have time to listen to your answer. Sorry about that.

Some of you have two minutes.

Madame Young, it is your two minutes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you so much, Madame Chair.

Thank you for being here today.

I'm going to make this very quick because I have only two minutes, as you know.

I want to table a document, which we have here, where we have asked the Government of Canada to provide us with information on the funding it has provided.

I'm going to skip over housing and a number of health issues, and the billions and billions of dollars that are allocated and spent every year on this, to quickly say that in terms of Justice, which I think was raised here, there was an investment in 2011-12 for $12.5 million, which brings the total federal investment to nearly $100 million since 2007.

I could go on about the aboriginal courtwork program—over 200 courtworkers and $5.5 million a year, etc.—but I'm going to table these documents, which detail the millions and millions of dollars that are spent on programs and services. We could sit here for a millennium and talk about whether that's not enough, how these services should be provided, and through which streams.

Of course, we totally support the fact that first nations should be developing their own systems within their own reserves. What I want to focus on, though, given my lack of time, is what you said on page 1 of your own presentation, that “the need for fair, available and accessible systems to deal with matrimonial real property on reserves is an urgent human rights matter”.

This issue, as you know, has been identified for 25 years as being a gap in legislation. This is a bill that's been in the works, back and forth between government, for over four or five years.

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

You have 15 seconds.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

It's gone back and forth.

I guess my question to you really is, what do you mean by urgent? Should we talk for another 25 years about this?

[David Langtry]

No. I would not say urgent is 25 years, the same as I felt that 31 years was not a temporary measure for the inclusion of section 67 in the Canadian Human Rights Act.

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Langtry.

That concludes the first part of our meeting.

Once more, I want to thank our guests today.

We will break for a few minutes.

I will ask our next witnesses to approach.

[The Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

We will now resume the committee meeting. We'd like to maximize the time we have available with our witnesses.

During this second part of the meeting, we will hear from Ms. Joan Jack of the Berens River First Nation, and Ms. Kim Baird,

the former Chief of Tsawwassen First Nation.

Thank you very much to both of you for being with us today.

You will each have a maximum of 10 minutes for your opening remarks. We will then take questions from the members.

Ms. Jack, you may begin your opening remarks.