Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I know one of the things they've removed from part of the process, and it may be incorrect, are land cautions. At one point in time, they would put out a land caution to any developers. There was formal notification of contested lands. I think that those instruments need to be pu

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We signed an agreement on the political accord with the Ontario government. That's what you're referring to, I understand.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That, I can tell you, has seen some gain and benefit, and I would have to give credit to the current Wynne government. There are a number of open doors now. For example, the first TLE claim was awarded under the Ontario government, and that says a lot about the political relation

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As the regional chief, I'm not a specific claims technical person. However, I do know enough from what are brought forward as political assertions in our assemblies, as well as from my own first nation. I'll speak for my own first nation, and we will provide supplemental informat

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll summarize by paraphrasing that question. If we have all these instruments of recognition and principles to implement treaties, why are they not being implemented? What is the problem? What's wrong? There are a number of contradictions and inconsistencies in what the governm

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay, thank you. It's a very important question because colonial governments have the ability to set out legislation and regulate that legislation with policies. These policies are really at the whim of the government of the day. We see so much opportunity lost because governmen

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think we're seeing a lot of commitments coming out of the federal government. I believe that the deployment of the 10 principles that would guide the bureaucracy and other agencies and departments as to how to deal with our issues is helpful, but it remains to be seen. We're st

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I will answer that quickly, and I'll offer the rest of the time to my friend and colleague next to me. We just sat with Minister Bennett in Ottawa in the last couple of days and we had this discussion. It's very important to recognize that the years of colonialism and instituti

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We were not. It's frustrating that the minister said with a bit of a discrete smile that when we met before we weren't advised. She didn't indicate to us if she knew or not. It's really a dark curtain approach to some of these fundamental changes. The federal government must do m

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm going to couch my answer based on the situation we had in the early 2000s. For about 90 years, our community, the Serpent River First Nation, where I was the chief for 10 years, was faced with an encroachment of development. First it was forestry, then it was a sulphuric acid

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Boozhoo, wachiyeh, sekoh, shekoli, and good morning. First of all, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional territory of the Mohawk people, Tyendinaga. I am presenting here as the Ontario regional chief. I'd like to acknowledge the leadership that is with us here today, as well

Health committee  I have no comment on that. I have not put any thought to that.

Health committee  For first nations, again, I think the overall effort in the tobacco control strategy and what the federal government has done around packaging is based on prevention. We definitely don't want people getting sick as a result of cannabis. If we use packaging as a way to prevent ill

Health committee  Obviously there is always going to need to be public and private sector interests. Our nations need to find ways to be participatory to help sustain communities. One of the obvious ones will be in the area of health, possibly in education, but to ensure that there is an economic

Health committee  Just quickly, you know, the regulatory impacts of this legislation are going to be huge on our communities. We're dealing with a long list of policy and legislative issues on a day-to-day basis. This one is going to be huge because it's not just the health, not just the economic,