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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Monday, March 24, 2003

1250

The Chair (Mr. Raymond Bonin (Nickel Belt, Lib.))

Mr. Roger Hunka (Director, Intergovernmental Affairs, Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council)

1255

1300

1305

1310

The Chair

1315

Mr. Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, NDP)

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

1320

The Chair

Mr. Charles Hubbard (Miramichi, Lib.)

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Charles Hubbard

1325

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Mr. Roger Hunka

The Chair

Mr. Pat Martin

The Chair

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

The Chair

1330

Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.)

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Stan Dromisky

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Stan Dromisky

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Stan Dromisky

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Stan Dromisky

Mr. Roger Hunka

1335

Mr. Stan Dromisky

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Stan Dromisky

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Stan Dromisky

Mr. Roger Hunka

The Chair

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Pat Martin

1340

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Pat Martin

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell (Nunavut, Lib.))

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Roger Hunka

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell)

Mr. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.)

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Larry Bagnell

Mr. Roger Hunka

Mr. Larry Bagnell

Mr. Roger Hunka

The Chair

Mr. Roger Hunka

1345

The Chair

Mr. Brendan Sheppard (President, Federation of Newfoundland Indians)

1350

The Chair

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Pat Martin

1355

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Pat Martin

The Chair

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

1400

Mr. Pat Martin

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Pat Martin

The Chair

Mr. Larry Bagnell

The Chair

Mr. Larry Bagnell

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Larry Bagnell

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Mr. Larry Bagnell

The Chair

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

1405

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

The Chair

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

The Chair

Mr. Brendan Sheppard

The Chair

1455

The Chair

1500

Mr. Noel Knockwood (As Individual)

The Chair

Mr. Noel Knockwood

The Chair

1505

Mr. Noel Knockwood

The Chair

Mr. Noel Knockwood

The Chair

Mr. Noel Knockwood

The Chair

Mr. Noel Knockwood

The Chair

Ms. Sue Moxley (Individual Presentation)

1510

The Chair

1515

Ms. Sue Moxley

The Chair

Ms. Sue Moxley

The Chair

Ms. Sue Moxley

The Chair

Ms. Sue Moxley

The Chair

Ms. Sue Moxley

The Chair

Ms. Sue Moxley

The Chair

Ms. Sue Moxley

The Chair

Ms. Sue Moxley

1550

The Chair

1555

The Chair

Chief Darlene Bernard (Lennox Island First Nation)

Chief Francis Jadis (Abegweit First Nation)

1600

The Chair

1605

Chief Darlene Bernard

The Chair

Chief Darlene Bernard

The Chair

Chief Darlene Bernard

The Chair

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

The Chair

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

The Chair

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

1610

The Chair

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Darlene Bernard

Chief Francis Jadis

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Charles Hubbard

The Chair

1615

Mr. Charles Hubbard

The Chair

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. Cheryl Clark (Director of Administration & Operations, Abegweit First Nation)

Mr. Pat Martin

The Chair

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Ms. Cheryl Clark

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Pat Martin

The Chair

Mr. Pat Martin

The Chair

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

1620

Chief Darlene Bernard

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

Chief Darlene Bernard

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

Chief Darlene Bernard

Ms. Cheryl Clark

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

Ms. Cheryl Clark

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

Ms. Cheryl Clark

Chief Darlene Bernard

Ms. Cheryl Clark

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

Chief Darlene Bernard

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

Chief Darlene Bernard

Ms. Cheryl Clark

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

The Chair

Mr. Pat Martin

The Chair

Mr. Larry Bagnell

1625

Ms. Cheryl Clark

Mr. Larry Bagnell

Ms. Cheryl Clark

Mr. Larry Bagnell

Chief Darlene Bernard

Mr. Larry Bagnell

The Chair

Chief Darlene Bernard

The Chair

Chief Darlene Bernard

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources

NUMBER 052

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Monday, March 24, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Â (1250)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Raymond Bonin (Nickel Belt, Lib.)): Welcome, everyone. We are resuming public hearings on Bill C-7.

We wish to thank Mr. Roger Hunka for agreeing to present earlier. That may give us a bit of time to catch our flight later this evening. Mr. Hunka is from the Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council, for which he is director of intergovernmental affairs.

Mr. Hunka, we have one hour together. We invite you to make your presentation, which will be followed by questions.

Please proceed.

Mr. Roger Hunka (Director, Intergovernmental Affairs, Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council): Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, hon. members of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources. I have presented a document to each one of you, plus a report, Koqaja'taqatinen, in two volumes.

The Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council, established in 1982 as an intergovernmental aboriginal leaders' council, had been commissioned by the three maritime aboriginal peoples organizations—the Native Council of Nova Scotia, the Native Council of Prince Edward Island, and the New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council—to plan and conduct the regional consultation process for the federal government's self-government initiative, Communities First. This regional meeting took place after each of the organizations conducted extensive meetings in their provinces.

Beginning in the late summer of 2001, the communities of Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples—who continue to reside throughout their traditional ancestral homelands on the east coast of Canada—with their organized, democratic aboriginal peoples' representative governing organizations, participated in discussions and expressed their views about the federal government's initiative, Communities First, and documented our views in a regional meeting report Koqaja'taqatinen, or Let's do it right.

In the DIAND discussion paper “Communities First”, released in May 2001, the minister responsible for Indian affairs, the Hon. Robert Nault, said:

When we talk about legislated governance under the Indian Act, we do not mean nation-to-nation governance, or the Inherent Right to self-government under the Canadian Constitution, or the fulfilment of treaties.

He said that first nations governance is about people, that it's about giving first nation members a strong voice, and that it's about putting power in the hands of the people to make sure their governments work better for them.

To pre-empt the speech, in announcing the government's initiatives in April 2001, Mr. Nault clarified something that sometimes escapes persons. On April 30, when he addressed a number of persons in an address in British Columbia, he said:

Do you know, you young people in this room, that the most powerful man as it relates to aboriginal issues is me? Under the Indian Act I control everything in your life, absolutely everything, and have the powers to make changes that quite frankly in this day and age are totally unacceptable.... How do we give back the power to the people in the interim as we move towards self-governance? If it's going to take us 60 more years of negotiation to get on with the inherent right to build our treaty relationship, what do we do in the interim?

These statements have little meaning or provide little comfort to the 34,115 Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples and other aboriginal peoples residing off reserve with established governing councils in the Maritimes. Indeed, by the very fact that the minister has maintained that this current piece of new legislation does not cover status and membership, delivery of programs and services, nor a complete review of the whole Indian Act for sections that might discriminate against off-reserve band members, we are provided with clear evidence of the true intentions of this initiative.

The government continues to advance the centuries-old policies of denial of birthright and identity, of displacement of aboriginal peoples from their traditional ancestral homelands, and of who defines who an Indian is and where an Indian belongs. The government continues to move aboriginal peoples, by coercion, to federal postage-stamp-sized reserves. At the same time, the government ignores the nations of the aboriginal peoples of Canada, and our three nations of aboriginal peoples, the Mi'kmaq, the Malicite, and the Passamaquoddy, and their people who continue to reside on their traditional homelands throughout the maritime provinces.

Off-reserve aboriginal peoples know and concur with the minister's statement that there is no secret agenda, no predetermined outcome. We know exactly what the agenda of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs and the federal government is: to continue the assault as they have for 134 years, to assimilate, to debilitate, and to dispossess the aboriginal peoples of Canada.

Of significant note and far more revealing is the continued attempt by the government, under the present government initiative, to ignore the Supreme Court of Canada finding, in Corbiere, that off-reserve band members continue to face historic disadvantage. A far more pressing reality and truth completely ignores that aboriginal peoples as a group form a “‘discrete and insular minority’ defined by race and place of residence.”

One need only look at the questionnaire issued by the department for the current consultative process to discover that the government is perpetuating the divisions, discrimination, stereotyping, and disadvantage created by the Indian Act. The government is elevating the preferential treatment in the running of Indian Act-created band councils and diminishing the demographic significance of the vote held by the voting power of the off-reserve band members.

With this backdrop, no one should be surprised at the reaction and responses of the off-reserve aboriginal peoples to this most recent attempt by the government to tinker with the Indian Act under the guise of first nations governance. No one should be shocked to learn that the majority of off-reserve Mi'kmaq, Malicite, Passamaquoddy, and other aboriginal peoples who continue to live on their traditional ancestral homelands in the Maritimes believe they will see little or no benefit in the current revision process. As voiced by testimony, they see a continuation of the marginalization, discrimination, heightened stereotyping, and diminishing of their existence and reality while the government consciously perpetuates the continued human suffering that our communities of peoples have endured for countless decades for no other reason than our continued being.

The horrible events and the consequences promoted by colonial decision-makers' actions, based on a policy to subjugate the Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy peoples, remains evident to this day. The calamity and legacy of these actions continues to shame the peoples of Canada. As aboriginal peoples, we continue to endure and live with the evidence of social and economic disadvantage, constant prejudice, stereotyping, and political vulnerability. We remain marginalized for no other reason than our continuum as Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples on our traditional ancestral homelands that were never surrendered on the east coast.

The continuing policy of government superiority purporting Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy inferiority, as consistently applied for the last 200 years, has taken a tremendous toll in human suffering endured by the Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy peoples. An inspiring example of the strength and determination of the Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples remains to this day, as does their bond to their ancestral homelands on the east coast.

In the 1820s, the colonial government violated the Crown's promise to reserve all lands not legally purchased or surrendered from Indians for the continuing benefit of the Indians. The colonial government instead created Indian reserves in an attempt to displace the Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples, the first nations, from their homelands and resources for the benefit of settlers. This sinister reserve scheme was first introduced in Nova Scotia, was refined over the years, and remains to this day. The attempt to put the Indian in his place, forced relocation and dispossession from traditional ancestral homelands, and the attempt to wean the Indian from his lands, practices, and resources, remain the guiding theme of Indian policy in Canada to this very day. The government attempt to accelerate the gradual civilization, acculturation, and enunciation of the Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy persons by transgressing the promise of Indian liberty as usual to become control, protection, rule, and wardship of the Indian, remains present to this day.

The government created a registry list of Indians. A tally for the success of control and absorption of the Indian, with the goal that there would be not an Indian who has not been absorbed into the body politic, remains to this very day. This scheme of a registered list of Indians was refined over the years, and it remains the guiding list for making policy decisions to this very day. A government department would attempt and continues administratively to define who an Indian is and continues to deny a birthright identity, in an attempt to deny the recognition of the Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy persons and the Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy nations of peoples.

Â (1255)

The registry and list continue, as does the tally counting assimilation. The role of protector turned into targeted control that has failed on the east coast, as it has throughout Canada. The registered list of Indians displaced to Indian Act-created reserves on the east coast, completely under the direct rule, control, and wardship of Indian Affairs, is now referred to as a modern manifestation created by Indian policy.

Bill C-7 is nothing more than a continued assault designed to codify dulocracy within a department's administration, for the continued direct rule, control, and wardship of its manifestations. It has nothing to do with democracy, nor any tools, nor any short-term measures. Rather, it forestalls the inevitable: the need to recognize the aboriginal peoples of Canada as part of the federation of the peoples of Canada.

Of the continuing communities of Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples remaining on our traditional ancestral homelands and not displaced to reserves, the larger population remains socially and economically marginalized and remains as evidence of failed Indian policy and a dismal failure of the Department of Indian Affairs.

A 1974 review of the historic development of the Indian Act crystallized the horrific results of government decision-makers' actions and revealed an existing reality worthy of quote:

Thus a policy devised in the 1830’s was reiterated, elaborated, and carried forward to Confederation. Almost intact it has served up to this day as the guiding star for administrators of Indian affairs. Probably in no other sphere has such continuity or consistency of clarity of policy prevailed; probably in no other area has there been such a marked failure to realize ultimate objectives.

The reality of our continuum as direct-descendant Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples on our traditional homelands and not displaced to Indian Act reserves attests as evidence to this marked failure of government Indian policy.

In the document Gathering Strength—Canada's Aboriginal Action Plan, the government's 1997 response to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Government of Canada acknowledgedthe devastating results of Indian policy over the past 200 years. I'm sure members are aware of it, but it's worth repeating:

Sadly, our history with respect to the treatment of Aboriginal people is not something in which we can take pride. ... We must recognize the impact of these actions on the once self-sustaining nations that were disaggregated, disrupted, limited or even destroyed by the dispossession of traditional territory, by the relocation of Aboriginal people, and by some provisions of the Indian Act.

Canadians are not aware of nor informed about the aboriginal peoples of Canada because of an information vacuum. Decision-makers continue to make decisions and take actions to compound the calamity and horrific legacy of the aboriginal peoples' human suffering by posturing, excluding, and stereotyping. Unless you are numbered, on the list, and living on an Indian Act reserve, you are a forgotten aboriginal person or community of aboriginal people.

For our community, the Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples continuing to live on our traditional homelands, we continue to bear the full force of the demeaning of our persons, our work, our capacity, our merit, our being, for no other reason than our perseverance and tenacity to remain the Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples living on our traditional ancestral homelands on the east coast.

Exclusion and stereotyping continue to add to the layers of demeaning actions against our community of Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples. We endure violations of fundamental human rights as a people. The attack on our dignity is attached to demeaning stereotypes.

To this day, there exists a range of government types of Indians in Canada. The concept of a “more or less Indian” is so ingrained in the minds of Canadians and decision-makers denying the failed policy of subjugation, that there is almost an absence of knowledge, understanding, or thought about the reality of the aboriginal nations and the aboriginal peoples of Canada.

· (1300)

In Canada, there continue to be aboriginal people and aboriginal nations whose existence is denied by DIAND decision-makers. Our community of direct-descendant Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples, a continuum of the first indigenous peoples of this part of the east coast of Canada, continues to reside on traditional ancestral homelands as Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples. To this day, despite a clear reality of a failed policy, horrendous human suffering, and violations of fundamental human rights, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs is still promulgating complete rule, control, and wardship over Indian peoples who are on the list, living on a reserve.

Attempts to solve the Indian question in Canada by advancing an exclusionary approach like that proposed in the first nations bill are an attempt to codify a dulocracy in law, in a democracy where the forgotten are stereotyped to be non-existent and the aboriginal nations of people and the aboriginal peoples of Canada are further subjected to an assault. The result of the bill is greater intrusion, wardship, rule, and stereotyping of the aboriginal peoples of Canada.

In 1982, the political will of Canadians was expressed in the Canadian Constitution. For the first time in Canadian history, Canada recognized the existence and continuum of the aboriginal peoples of Canada. However, this recognition is, to this day, constantly resisted by decision-makers who cling to the use of stereotype and exclusion to advance the utility of a failed policy.

The road to eventually acknowledging the aboriginal peoples of Canada and recognizing their aboriginal nations is a long road. Until the stereotypes and fabricated concepts of “more or less Indian” and “where an Indian belongs” are ended, the re-establishment of peoples' relationships will elude us all, and the legacy of suffering, violation, and denial will continue.

For our community of aboriginal peoples continuing to reside on our traditional ancestral homelands, heirs and beneficiaries of rights, treaty rights, aboriginal rights, and other rights, while we do not escape the violations and continued government policy, the creation of types of Indians, demeaning stereotypes, social and economic disadvantage, the prejudice, and the knowledge and reality of our being can no longer be denied. Our perseverance and continuum as a people, our communities of Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples—the forgotten peoples—can no longer be ignored. Our community of Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples continuing on our ancestral homelands that were never surrendered, by our courage, capacity, merit, and dignity, denounce the government policy and remain.

Our challenge is to end a bygone era of governments continuing policy, the thinking, the subjugating action, and the exclusionary decisions, is a great one. Our perseverance and continuum demonstrate the need for fundamental changes in Canada, beginning with monumental changes in Indian policy and an end to the assault on the aboriginal peoples of Canada.

The Parliament of Canada can respond by demanding a new aboriginal peoples policy. Canadians do have the courage to recognize the magnitude of the challenge, and they have the ambition required to tackle the problems facing the aboriginal peoples of Canada. Canada can establish a new relationship with the aboriginal peoples of Canada from coast to coast.

Let us together make it right, Koqaja'taqatinen, with an aboriginal peoples policy and, if required, an aboriginal peoples act, that recognizes, empowers, develops, and supports the aboriginal peoples of Canada. To build an equitable Canada, end the demeaning division and the disadvantaging stereotypes between aboriginal peoples on reserve and off reserve, registered and non-registered, status or non-status. Do not codify dulocracy.

Canada can establish aboriginal policies, laws, and administrative measures that do not create calamity and do not bring national shame. Parliament can stop the disadvantage, social and economic prejudice, vulnerability, discrimination, and stereotyping against the aboriginal peoples of Canada who continue to live on their traditional homelands. We are no less Indian than a displaced Indian who is forced to reside on an Indian Act-created reserve. We are brothers and sisters divided. We are kin, family, the people of our Mi'kmaq, Malicite, and Passamaquoddy nations of the aboriginal peoples of Canada.

· (1305)

Nowhere is the creation and sharing of opportunity more important than for Aboriginal people. Too many continue to live in poverty, without the tools they need to build a better future for themselves or their communities. As a country, we must be direct about the magnitude of the challenge and ambitious in our commitment to tackle the most pressing problems facing Aboriginal people. Reaching our objectives will take time, but we must not be deterred by the length of the journey or the obstacles that we may encounter along the way.

That's from the Speech from the Throne, January 30, 2001.

The tools we need cannot be handed to us. Rather, we have the tools and know how to use the tools. It is incumbent upon the government of Canada to stop burning and destroying our desire to build. Decision-makers have to stop the paternalism, the demeaning, the stereotyping, the division, the assault on the aboriginal peoples of Canada, and embrace our inclusion as aboriginal peoples of Canada in the great federation of the peoples of Canada. Together, we can build a Canada. To continue down a failed path to introduce more control, wardship, and rule is wrong. Dulocracy would not build a strong democracy in Canada, one with freedom and liberty.

Canada prides itself on being a civil, democratic society upholding righteousness and truth. How decision-makers discharge the duty to uphold the principles of our democratic society is not measured today, but by history. The community of aboriginal peoples who remain on their traditional homelands and continue with their birthright identities, ideas, ideals, and histories, is here to stay. We are no less in dignity, no less in work, no less in capacity, no less in need, than another of our relations living on an Indian Act-created reserve or on an Indian Act list.

The 34,000 aboriginal people living off reserve in the Maritimes continue as strong peoples determined to survive and flourish as the continuum of the Mi'kmaq, Passamaquoddy, and Malicite aboriginal peoples. Decision-makers must begin to listen to the aboriginal peoples of Canada as nations of aboriginal peoples with long, rich histories, knowledge, and values. Treatment must begin with respect, recognition, responsibility, sharing, righteousness, truth, honour, and democratic values.

The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs is not the most powerful institution as it relates to aboriginal peoples. The democratic Parliament of Canada is the most powerful democratic institution of the peoples of the federation of Canada. Together with aboriginal peoples from coast to coast, Parliament can set the course to protect and promote the human dignity of all aboriginal peoples of Canada and of their governing councils. No aboriginal person's self-respect, self-worth, and human dignity should be harmed by unfair treatment in policies and laws such as Indian policy, the Indian Act, and its administrative measures.

Existing Indian policy, the Indian Act, administrative measures, and those measures proposed in the next three or four acts, have the old pattern to violate human dignity, to dispossess, to debilitate, to assimilate, and to disaggregate the aboriginal nations of the aboriginal peoples of Canada. The attempt has and will continue to be a dismal failure, with a tremendous cost of long suffering, as we have briefly traced in this report. It is now time to end the long suffering, human indignity, stereotyping, disadvantage, marginalization, and paternalism. Let us together do it right.

Tinkering with the existing Indian Act, for Indian Act reserves and Indian Act-created band councils forced to become dulocracies, violates democracy and the values of Canada. Bill C-7does not end the marginalization, the paternalism, the assimilation, the disadvantage, and the stereotypes perpetuated against Mi'kmaq, Malecite, and Passamaquoddy—all aboriginal peoples continuing as the first aboriginal nations of peoples on the east coast.

· (1310)

How does a free and democratic society like Canada begin to end almost 200 years of human suffering? How does Canada begin to acknowledge the reality and continuum of the first peoples of this great land, and their tenacity and strength to remain the aboriginal peoples of Canada? How do aboriginal peoples, after so much suffering, violation, stereotyping, demeaning of worth, and denial of person, move forward? From our perspective, it most certainly is not through the proposed bill. In fact, it saddens us deeply that in this day and age, enlightened decision-makers would still only continue to divide families and our kin, deny our capacity to govern, and deny that we remain the aboriginal peoples of Canada.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

We'll begin our question period with Mr. Martin, for five minutes.

When I say five minutes, Mr. Hunka, that's for the question and the answer. While explaining this to you, I will remind my colleagues that if they use too much time to ask the question, you are the one who gets cut off. I don't think it would be fair if they did that.

Go ahead, Mr. Martin. The clock now starts.

· (1315)

Mr. Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Hunka, for a very interesting brief. Just for clarification, you're affiliated with the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples on a national level, is that correct?

Mr. Roger Hunka: The Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council is made up of three organizations. The Native Council of Nova Scotia, the New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council, and the Native Council of P.E.I. are the affiliates of the congress. The Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council is the regional group. It's a self-driven, regional group. The three organizations get together on regional matters. And that goes all the way back to 1982.

Mr. Pat Martin: That's helpful. I was a little mixed up, because we just heard from the Native Council of Nova Scotia. I understood them to say they conducted consultation hearings in the three provinces, but you're really the plenary organization for those three provinces.

Mr. Roger Hunka: Each organization carried on individually in their own province. They held hundreds of meetings, and then we brought everyone together at a regional meeting in Halifax last November to round things out, as is indicated in both of our documents. Volume 1 is the summary, and volume 2 actually is the personal testimony of well over a hundred persons who talked about their conditions and so forth.

Mr. Pat Martin: And were these consultations held in the context of Bill C-7 or Bill C-61?

Mr. Roger Hunka: They were held starting with Minister Nault's initiative toward some form of an act, which then became Bill C-61, and now Bill C-7. But they were about this initiative.

Mr. Pat Martin: What was the total budget to conduct those consultations throughout those three provinces?

Mr. Roger Hunka: Totally?

Mr. Pat Martin: Yes.

Mr. Roger Hunka: As I believe was indicated by the Native Council, each organization received something like $30,000 and conducted their meetings within their province, and then we had the regional meeting. Each contributed a portion to the regional meeting when we conducted the regional meeting in Halifax.

Mr. Pat Martin: And paid for the publication and the—

Mr. Roger Hunka: We're still paying for it, yes.

Mr. Pat Martin: Looking through the quick overview, I see a lot of good comments on the general issue of how the Indian Act is a flawed document and how the Indian Act doesn't serve the needs or the interests of many of the people who gave testimony. But very few of the comments—well, none that I could see—say anything indicating that, yes, Bill C-61 or, yes, Bill C-7 will address your concerns. In fact, the theme of your remarks and the remarks of the Native Council of Nova Scotia was that we would be better off starting over with a much broader vision of a new relationship between first nations or aboriginal peoples in general and the Government of Canada, than we would be in tinkering with the Indian Act even further. Would it be fair to say that?

Mr. Roger Hunka: Yes, it is fair to say that, and to put it into context, volume 1 of the report will probably assist you a little bit.

Many persons think of the Indian Act as just coming into being in 1867 or 1868. It did not. The Indian Act is a consolidation of many ordinances, and the very bases of those ordinances were to put you away and hide you, and then eventually there was the numbering. So the genesis of the Indian Act is obviously one of exclusion, of saying to go away and hide. Therefore, no matter what you do, if you build on that, you're doomed to fail.

Mr. Pat Martin: You won't get to the root cause or the root of the problem.

Mr. Roger Hunka: No, you won't.

Mr. Pat Martin: I agree.

In terms of what your direction to the minister would be regarding Bill C-7, would you like to see him go ahead and spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars trying to impose the terms of Bill C-7, or would you rather see him back up and start over again with a much broader sense of addressing your concerns?

Mr. Roger Hunka: As we found out from the testimony of individuals and the organizations themselves, I think the minister has to go back and start in 1982. He has to appreciate that fundamental, significant change in this country that finally saw us included, and believe that the aboriginal peoples of this country are to be included in the federation of the peoples of Canada. Then, take on the royal commission and the recommendations that it made. To do that, we have to get rid of this control, this wardship, and see what we have.

Let's begin with the recognition of the peoples, first of all. Once you've recognized the peoples, allow the aboriginal nations to flourish. This control, this treatment of persons as children, this imposition of all kinds of further restraints—that's not the way to build a nation like Canada.

· (1320)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Hubbard, for five minutes.

Mr. Charles Hubbard (Miramichi, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon.

I'm having a little bit of difficulty with this. I asked a previous presenter about use of the word “assimilation”. In my own thinking, first nations or native people living in large cities seem to be assimilated more than people living on their own reserves. I'd like you to explain that.

I thought part of the problem that you're suggesting comes in terms of the way governments deal with people, whether on reserve or off reserve. Are you suggesting that, regardless of where native people live, the methods of housing, of taxation, of health services, of educational services, should be the same for all first nations peoples, whether they're on reserve or off reserve?

In New Brunswick, Mr. Chair, we have a whole group of people now who go back generations to become Acadian, Mi'kmaq, to get first nations status. I think a group of probably about 10,000 people, under the act, are not regarded as being native people, but they want to become native people. A lot of people out there want it and don't want it, so I would ask Mr. Hunka to answer on the idea of assimilation.

Secondly, in terms of the so-called white people, many think people on reserves have benefits that they don't have—and I guess you don't have them, because you live off reserve. Are you saying things should be the same for all people, regardless of where they live?

Mr. Roger Hunka: No, what we're saying is this. Number one, understand that the aboriginal nations of people are diverse in this great country called Canada. The relationships between the Mi'kmaq and Malicite are very different from those of the Saulteaux, the Dene, and so forth.

You have to realize that the relationships go back to the 1700s, with pre-Confederation treaties on “peopleness”, and then to the later periods of the 1830s to the 1850s out west, and then, of course, you have the ones in B.C. and in the north. The relationships are those of peoples. You have to recognize that there are Mi'kmaq, Haida, Cree, Saulteaux, Naskapi, and so forth in this country.

When we talk about assimilation, we're talking about the destruction of the capacity of persons to continue as peoples, as Mi'kmaq. Societies continue. We are not burning oil lamps as colonial persons. We've progressed, with television and so forth. Persons moving in and out don't give up their peopleness, don't give up their Mi'kmaqness. The Cree, Ojibway, or Saulteaux don't give that up as persons.

You can live in an urban area and so forth, but you live as a person. The connectedness to the community, with its value system, has been disaggregated, as acknowledged by the federal government and the royal commission. That's what you've disaggregated. You create reserves and you think these are first nations. The first nations are the Mi'kmaq, the Malicite, and the Passamaquoddy. The first nation is the Mi'kmaq nation, the Passamaquoddy nation, the Cree nation, or the Saulteaux nation.

That is what it's about to the aboriginal peoples of Canada: recognizing those nations. From that, you will then find that the relationships that go back are all to be people-to-people relationships, ones of mutual respect, of developing, of governing themselves, within this federation. In 1982, it was acknowledged that the aboriginal people would be part of this federation.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: But looking in from the outside in terms of assimilation, I feel I've been assimilated through hundreds of years of dealing with Irish, English, Americans, and all of those. You seem to think assimilation should not occur. How do you prevent that? I ask that in terms of being a part of a geographic entity in terms of the reserve, or moving all across Canada. How do you maintain your culture? You have this great mixing of people going to all different areas and living next door to somebody who could be of German descent or English descent or Polish descent. How do you avoid being assimilated?

· (1325)

Mr. Roger Hunka: You're losing it, in other words? But you don't.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: You never do?

Mr. Roger Hunka: A person in Quebec, a Frenchman, does not lose his identity whether he is in British Columbia, whether he is in Manitoba, or whether he is up in Sachs Harbour. If you're an Irishman, you don't lose it. Canada is not a melting pot. We are a federation of peoples acknowledging the fact that we're bound together by a wonderful geography, but we have our identities as peoples within it, as aboriginal peoples, as French, and so forth.

The Chair: Well, I understand assimilation, because I am a francophone from outside Quebec. The same laws passed to assimilate first nations were intended to assimilate the French Canadians. The difference was that our priests went in the pulpit and part of their sermon always included to make babies. But it's culture, language, and religion.

Throughout the west, we met many aboriginals with French names. They had lost their culture—not them, because they are aboriginals, but someone lost their language, their culture, and maybe even their religion somewhere. All they have left is the name. And that was intended for first nations, too, which is why the Indian Act is such a bad piece of legislation. We all agree on that.

Thank you, colleagues, for allowing me that much.

Mr. Martin, for five minutes.

Mr. Pat Martin: Absolutely. I don't think anybody minds if you take the chair's prerogative and add your own views from time to time, because it's difficult to sit there and listen in neutral all the time.

The Chair: Especially for a guy like me, yes.

Mr. Pat Martin: And especially if you have strongly held views, like we know you have.

It's good that we're actually going to this larger theme of cultural diversity. Canada can accommodate cultural diversity, and I agree that geography shouldn't limit our willingness to recognize and maintain that diversity. We're probably the only country in the world that, by decree, is multicultural. It's not by accident, but by design, and we want that.

I want to go back to 1982. I'm glad you raised this, because if we are going to take one step back and revisit the historic relationship between aboriginal peoples and the Government of Canada, 1982 is when it starts. But I think you'd be willing to agree that we haven't finished the job. We haven't given meaning and definition to section 35. We put it in there because we knew it to be right, but was there not a promise, either implied or written, that we would continue with that study and give definition and meaning to section 35? Would you care to speak about the importance of that?

Mr. Roger Hunka: You're very right on that. The fact of the matter is that the aboriginal peoples across this country have been using the court systems, step by step, to bring in simple rights that were pretty well understood. The right to fish is an example, and the right to access the resource of fish.

If you look at Bill C-7, the minister clearly says everything but to keep fish. And you can't even run an aquaculture site on your reserve. Is that the tool? You win when you go to court for an interpretation that says you have the right, the constitutional right, the treaty right, but then you have a bill saying you can't do that? That's right in your bill.

There is not a reality here. The minister means well. I'm sure he's trying. But it's so ingrained that he somehow thinks that we have to rule and control everything about all the aboriginal peoples of Canada. It's bad enough to have the Indian Act, but what's proposed in this bill is another piece of intrusion. We have another bill coming up that is another piece of intrusion after that, and then we have yet another bill. It's bad enough to have the Indian Act, which you can live with or not live with, but then you have to have four more pieces in a matter of two years. If that's not intrusion, if that is not denuding the concept of self-government, I don't know what is. So we have to think about that.

Mr. Pat Martin: I agree, and I thank you for that.

I attended the aboriginal round of the Charlottetown Accord in 1992. I was invited to attend as a guest. At the time, ten years after the 1982 Constitution, they thought we needed to give real meaning and real definition to section 35 to avoid all these court challenges, so that it wouldn't be necessary to go to court to prove or reaffirm that those rights do exist as stated in the Constitution.

At that time, the commitment was made that those meetings would take place within three years. That now enters into the Liberal government's period of time. The Charlottetown aboriginal round was in 1992, and we attended and exhaustively worked on this. In 1993, the Liberals formed the government and had a Speech from the Throne, with all kinds of expansive language about how we were finally going to get down to this. Then 1995 came and went, and instead of that, we now seem to have gone the other way.

Would you agree that Bill C-7 and Bill C-61 undermine the very idea of self-governance? If anything, Bill C-7 has turned 180 degrees and has given up on what we agreed upon in Charlottetown, and it has gone back to the 1969 white paper style of legislation.

Mr. Roger Hunka: Yes, I would agree with you, but it has actually gone further than that. It has gone back to that same idea, “We will tell you who you are, and we will tell you where you live.” It has gone back further, to another era.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Dromisky.

· (1330)

Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.): Thank you very much for coming. You've made a very fascinating presentation. It takes a completely different approach from a lot of what we have been receiving up to this point.

However, if the situation arose that it was quite possible that, in the Indian Act—or in any other act that you want to call out—equal rights and treatments were given to all aboriginal people both off and on the reserves, what would be the benefits to the people on reserve and what would be the benefits to the people off reserve if such a situation occurred?

Also, the third part of my question would be whether or not there would be any threats to the chiefs on reserve if that kind of situation arose, in light of the kinds of demands that off-reserve personnel are putting before us at the present time.

Mr. Roger Hunka: First of all, we have to remember that the creation of the reserves is by the act. Let's assume that, from this, we have the band councils created and we have the communities. Some of them have been expanded. Some reserves are very small in the east, and then we have the west, which is very different, of course. Western reserves are treaty reserves, which are different from Indian Act reserves here, so I'll focus on the Indian Act reserves.

As was said by the Native Council, the communities on the reserves have already progressed in some respects and have adapted to this form of life. That doesn't mean each chief and council is not trying to change that, but they're limited. They can't do anything. They're virtually agents of the Indian Act. Off-reserve persons aren't even recognized.

But the provision, the access, the recognition of persons on reserve to be Mi'kmaq and off reserve to be Mi'kmaq is paramount. That's not happening. You're not recognizing anybody on reserve and you're not recognizing them off reserve.

Mr. Stan Dromisky: I understand that, but my question was what benefit there would be to either group if both groups, on and off reserve, were recognized, in that they have the same rights. What would be the benefits to you people off reserve if you were recognized?

Mr. Roger Hunka: We would then be able to say we are building our nation again, our peopleness, our Mi'kmaq people. We are a people within this federation. We are Mi'kmaq regardless of being on reserve or off the reserve, in town or out of town.

Mr. Stan Dromisky: But what specific benefits would there be, besides saying we're building a new nation?

Mr. Roger Hunka: Specific benefits?

Mr. Stan Dromisky: Yes. What does it mean? Does it mean you get better health care? Does it mean—

Mr. Roger Hunka: No, but you would be able to—

Mr. Stan Dromisky: I don't know. What are the benefits? Be specific.

Mr. Roger Hunka: Number one, you'd be able to move ahead in Canada as an aboriginal person, as a Mi'kmaq. In terms of the relationships that you've had, be they pre-Confederation, post-Confederation, or land claims agreements, you'd be able to live those with respect and work out those arrangements with governments. You'd be able to build your society.

The institutions in terms of how you want to govern your access to resources, how you want to govern your education, and where and how your language will be maintained as an aboriginal language, are all...you could do all that if there's a recognition, but if there isn't a recognition, you can't. You're fighting for it but you're losing it, so you're trying to keep status. You're trying to keep what you're losing.

In terms of the benefits, we're not talking about...there's a misconception that people on reserves somehow have some extra benefits. What extra benefits? We're all in Canada here. Everybody has a right not to starve. Welfare is available to everybody. It just so happens that the federal government has assumed that responsibility. It said to the provinces not to worry about welfare, because it will give the welfare, so that's welfare. On medical services, Canada has a medical plan. The federal government will pay for it, so it shouldn't be taken out of MSI or the provincial ones. Those things aren't benefits. And everyone has a right to education. It just so happens that for the provinces, the federal government pays the provinces twice the amount that an ordinary citizen would be getting. It's directly infused into the province.

On taxation, we hear this thing about taxation all the time—

· (1335)

Mr. Stan Dromisky: There is a difference in education now, in terms of the grants given to a person off reserve and a person on reserve, especially in post-secondary education. If they're going to continue on in some university program, off-reserve people have to pay for the tuition.

Mr. Roger Hunka: At a university.

Mr. Stan Dromisky: That's what I'm trying to find out from you people.

Mr. Roger Hunka: Well, of course.

Mr. Stan Dromisky: What about the persons from the reserve? Are they covered by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs regionally?

Mr. Roger Hunka: On reserve? It depends on what they're taking. Each province or each arrangement is different. Some will only go so far. Some are only allowed to do this, and some are only allowed to do that.

But the Indian Act by itself cannot cover all of Canada, and that's the failing of it.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Martin, for four minutes.

Mr. Pat Martin: Well, we're onto funding, and Mr. Dromisky was asking very specific questions about rights or benefits that may flow off the reserve from a person's connection to the reserve. I represent Winnipeg Centre. There are over 15,000 off-reserve aboriginal people in my riding, so this comes up all the time.

Would you agree that one of the challenges that first nations have is that, after Bill C-31, their membership lists grew with people seeking to regain their status, but no corresponding funding came along? Sometimes it's not an unwillingness to have those benefits flow through the reserve to people living wherever they choose to live across Canada. It's simply that they're charged with the impossible task of trying to provide basic needs to the people both in their community and off reserve with insufficient funds.

There has never been revenue-sharing on resources and land management issues. I've done the math. It works out to a million people and $7 billion dollars. It's about $7,000 per person, and that's if all $7 billion actually gets to the communities. But it doesn't. We know it gets hived off. We pay more than that per high school student in the city of Winnipeg, yet they're supposed to provide housing, food, shelter, support, roads, and sewage treatment plants for $7,000 per person. That's impossible.

So are those some of the frustrations that you've heard coming out of your consultations?

Mr. Roger Hunka: What I hear, number one, is non-recognition. Number two is that somehow you don't exist, and number three is that even if there are programs that are going to support an aboriginal person, they usually say they're programs for on-reserve persons, right off the bat excluding the off-reserve completely from—

Mr. Pat Martin: Does it specifically say in the program that this program is for people living on reserve?

· (1340)

Mr. Roger Hunka: The term used now is “first nations”, but if I ask anybody here to define that term, you're going to be hard-pressed to define it.

Mr. Pat Martin: Actually, the Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs lives in my riding, so he's off reserve and he is first-nation. Surely, there are people who fit the category of first nation and are living off reserve?

Mr. Roger Hunka: At least in the east, DIAND programs are all directed to on-reserve residents. The very few that are medical services are probably the only ones that aren't, but medical services are under Health Canada. They are just administered by DIAND.

There's a misconception that we somehow have this $7 billion that comes from Treasury Board. These are existing envelopes that the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs says it will administer, including health and so forth. These are all existing programs, and that's because that money is funnelled through there. And who knows what happens there, right?

Mr. Pat Martin: Good point. Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell (Nunavut, Lib.)): You have 40 seconds left.

Mr. Pat Martin: Why is it so hard for the government to get their mind around negotiating nation-to-nation?

Mr. Roger Hunka: Why is it so hard? It's beyond me why it's hard to honour arrangements, deal respectfully, look at human beings as nations with long histories. We have this problem in Canada, and I don't know why. We have a problem recognizing the society of Quebec, and that's a province already. So why do we have that problem?

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell): Thank you.

Mr. Bagnell, for four minutes.

Mr. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.): A few minutes ago, you mentioned something specific related to Bill C-7, and your paper sets out the generalities well. I wonder if you have any more specific suggestions related to the actual technical provisions that should be changed. I know a large part of your presentation was related to the omissions related to off-reserve, but do you have any suggestions about specific provisions that could be added?

Mr. Roger Hunka: To Bill C-7?

Mr. Larry Bagnell: Or related to whatever you would suggest that it be replaced with.

Mr. Roger Hunka: I'm sure you've been spoken to by many persons on reserve, and their chiefs are capable of saying what they think. From the off-reserve perspective, as we said at the beginning, Bill C-7 is actually nothing. It doesn't do anything to respect aboriginal people. It doesn't do anything to advance self-government for anybody. At most, it will now actually entrench in law—because the Indian Act is actually kind of iffy on this—the codification of the idea, “This is how you will now govern. These are the only powers you'll have.” So it's actually a regressive step.

But from our perspective, as we said, Bill C-7 is not going to do anything for our communities, and I think I heard from many other chiefs that it's not going to do anything for theirs either.

Mr. Larry Bagnell: And you don't see any of those pieces of legislation, any of the provisions of any of them, providing any empowerment, increased responsibilities, or interim self-government measures before a nation gets to full self-government?

Mr. Roger Hunka: Well, this is it.

You see, you're again approaching this like the Indian Act. You believe that councillors and chiefs and people who are democratically elected, no matter how they were elected—whether it's through the Indian Act or other organizations—don't have the capacity. You are making the assumption of a bygone era: that aboriginal people like the Mi'kmaq and the Malicite do not have the capacity to govern their affairs, so you have to give them an act to do it. That is very paternalistic. It's saying we don't know how to govern our people. Well, I don't think that's right.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We now invite you to make closing remarks.

Mr. Roger Hunka: I presented a synopsis review. I encourage persons to read the report that the three organizations prepared—the Native Council of Nova Scotia, the Native Council of Prince Edward Island, and the New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council. I think the short one, volume 1, is fairly succinct. It gives you a bit of background. And volume 2 will tell you some of the stories that are personal histories and testimonies of persons who live off reserve and how they are all really clamouring and are saying change has to happen in this country. That has to happen, with recognition first.

· (1345)

The Chair: Thank you very much for an excellent presentation.

Mr. Noel Knockwood was to do a two-minute spontaneous presentation, but he is not yet in the room. I therefore invite Brendan Sheppard, president of the Federation of Newfoundland Indians, to come forward.

Mr. Sheppard, we have one hour together, so we invite you to make your presentation, which will be followed by questions.

Mr. Brendan Sheppard (President, Federation of Newfoundland Indians): Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the standing committee. On behalf of the Federation of Newfoundland Indians, I express sincere thanks and appreciation for the opportunity to appear before you today. The FNI was very pleased that the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs included our organization as a participant in both stages of discussions on the First Nations Governance Act.

Currently, the FNI generally expresses the opinion that the FNGA does not directly affect the FNI and its member Mi'kmaq bands. The Mi'kmaq bands represented by the FNI have not yet been recognized under the Indian Act. As such, the FNGA is not applicable to us at this time. However, as a result of the minister's invitation to the FNI to participate in the FNGA discussions, we are somewhat optimistic that an honourable process of recognition for our people will be established by the federal Government of Canada in the very near future.

On September 19, 2002, the FNI completed exploratory discussions with Canada in respect to possible federal recognition. The discussion centred on a single entity by way of a tribal council or a single landless band being recognized to represent and deliver programs and services to the Mi'kmaq members within the aforementioned bands. If such recognition should transpire and fall within the Indian Act—i.e., a landless band—the FNI and its members feel that the FNGA can work and can offer to the Newfoundland Mi'kmaq a basis for formalizing its government structure, leadership selection, and financial management.

A landless band representing the Newfoundland Mi'kmaq will face a challenge of governing a population geographically dispersed and within nine principal communities. However, we believe the proposed changes in the FNGA would make the above task a great deal easier. A landless band directed by the membership would adopt a government structure that brings together representation from each of the nine communities, to govern the affairs of a central council in the best interests of the Mi'kmaq people.

As a matter of principle, the FNI and its member bands support the notions of sound, accountable financial management, democratic leadership selection, and open and transparent governance. Leadership selection, administration of government, and financial management and accountability—these principles are the basis of the three main components of the FNGA. If the FNI and its members were officially recognized under a process that is outside the Indian Act, the three aforementioned components would still apply and remain as an integral part of our overall operations. Moreover, although the FNGA would not directly apply to the model delineated under the FNGA and the precedent provided by the future codes, it would certainly assist in the FNI's development of its governance structure and institutions.

The FNI believes that the custom election option should be applicable only to bands who practised and operated under the custom process before the coming into force of the FNGA, and provided that the bands have the necessary support of the membership.

In 2002, the Federation of Newfoundland Indians and the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs agreed to enter exploratory discussions with a view to determining if there was any basis for Canada and the FNI to move forward with respect to negotiations around the issue of official recognition. A proposal entitled “2002 Mi'kmaq Regime” presents the FNI's expectations and request regarding official recognition. The exploratory discussion process took place during the months of April, May, June, July, and August 2002.

To provide you with some historical overview, historical research into the Federation of Newfoundland Indians' membership by Dr. David McNab, Dorothy Anger, Adrian Tanner, and various other academics, has proven that the Mi'kmaq people have lived on and used the lands of the west, southwest, and northwest interior of the island of Newfoundland on a regular basis since the late 16th century. The Mi'kmaq people of Newfoundland have organized themselves culturally and socially in the same way as their Mi'kmaq counterparts in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

The Mi'kmaq people in Newfoundland were pencilled out of the normal system of federal Indian relations after the union of the then colony and Canada in 1949, despite explicit undertakings by Canada in pre-union negotiations. While promises were made by Canada to fully recognize the Indian population, the federal government delayed taking steps to apply the Indian Act regime, at the request of the province.

· (1350)

While the aboriginal people of Newfoundland were not recognized or registered under the Indian Act following Confederation, the first formal arrangement involving federal programs and services took effect in 1954. A ten-year arrangement was agreed to by Canada to ensure guaranteed funding for health services and some other projects for aboriginal people in Labrador. Initially, these Canada–Newfoundland native agreements involved only the Labrador groups. However, in 1973, Conne River, an affiliate of the Federation of Newfoundland Indians, at that time was designated as a native community and was included under the agreements.

In 1984, the Miawpukek band, at Conne River, was formally recognized as a band under the Indian Act. The Labrador Innu and Inuit, who were affiliated with the founding aboriginal organization in 1972, have made substantial gains in federal programs and services via federal orders-in-council, and currently with direct funding from the government.

The FNI, against this historical background and with many commitments from past federal Indian affairs ministers, has been lobbying for measures of equivalency in terms of its relationship with Canada and in terms of availability of programs and services for its membership. Recognition of the remaining Mi'kmaq people of Newfoundland would only be in keeping with the recommendations in the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and recommendations made to the federal government by the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Today, we are patiently awaiting the results of a report presented to Minister Nault by the Hon. Mark Lalonde, and we are hoping that other federal ministers will support Minister Nault in his attempt to honourably resolve this longstanding issue of recognition for the Mi'kmaq people of Newfoundland.

I clearly understand that this presentation is not within the norm of what was expected here today. However, the Federation of Newfoundland Indians believes it is important to make our plight known to as many federal representatives as possible when the opportunity arises. So I thank you very much. I could have actually gone on with a lot more historical background, I suppose, but that's not necessary. I feel that was sufficient. However, in terms of the FNGA, the people whom I represent were quite willing to go along with the recommendations put forward by the federal government.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we will go to question period, keeping in mind that Newfoundland is not under the Indian Act.

Do you have any questions, Mr. Martin?

Mr. Pat Martin: I think I can use just one round of questioning, for five minutes. I have a few brief things that I'd like to ask.

First of all, welcome, Mr. Sheppard. I don't think anything is wrong with you using this forum or opportunity to make your case known at all. I think it is quite appropriate, in fact.

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: Thank you, sir.

Mr. Pat Martin: Roughly how many people are you representing in terms of Mi'kmaq who live in Newfoundland?

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: Our membership within the Mi'kmaq nation in Newfoundland now is 3,868.

Mr. Pat Martin: That's significant.

Were you asked or were you invited to do consultation hearings on Bill C-61 or Bill C-7 with the people you represent? Did you do them?

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: Yes, we were, and we did.

Mr. Pat Martin: Was funding made available to you to conduct these hearings?

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: Indeed it was, yes.

Mr. Pat Martin: Could I ask how much that was?

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: Gosh, I'd look to my left, but my accountant is not with me. It was enough to do what we wanted to do and to reach our membership, to be quite honest with you.

By being given that invitation by the minister as a group of Mi'kmaq people not yet registered—and I do use the term “not yet registered”—it seemed to give some indication that the minister obviously would be trying his utmost to ensure that recognition took place, and that we would be recognized and registered with the federal government, probably in the near future. Therefore, by doing these consultations, we certainly wouldn't be in a position to come back afterwards and say we weren't consulted.

Mr. Pat Martin: Do you believe the two things may be tied, that the minister would look favourably upon you doing these consultations?

I'll make it clear where I'm going. I'm one of the opposition parties who opposes this bill, and we've heard from some other groups across the country that there were financial incentives or incentives in terms of the idea that if you look favourably on this FNGA, maybe this other program will be funded, etc.

Did you sense that the minister would be well pleased if you came out with a favourable recommendation about the FNGA even though it doesn't apply to you?

· (1355)

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: No, not really. I believe what I've reflected in that short report on the FNGA—and I indicate it in my report as well—is that the Federation of Newfoundland Indians certainly wants to live by that sort of measure of accountability to our members, and most importantly to our grassroots people, as well as to the funding agencies that provide such funding, of course.

Mr. Pat Martin: Most of the first nations across the country have made it clear that the accountability side of the bill isn't what bothers them. They're perfectly willing to adopt increased accountability if necessary.

Were you aware that many aspects of the bill offend many first nations leaders? In fact, many are insulted by many of the provisions of the bill. Were you aware of the overwhelming opposition to the bill right across the country, amongst virtually all first nations leadership?

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: I certainly was. I followed that particular matter. As someone representing the Federation of Newfoundland Indians, by no means do I proclaim to be one who knows the Indian Act to any degree, to be quite honest with you, because we don't deal with the Indian Act.

If I was dealing with the Indian Act, if the federal government had allowed us the opportunity to deal with the Indian Act in 1949, when Newfoundland became a province of this country, maybe I would have a lot more insight and maybe I could really expand on what's in the Indian Act and how offensive the FNGA would be to us. But as we see the FNGA, quite frankly speaking on behalf of my people who have looked at this, it certainly doesn't rub us in any direction that makes us overly concerned.

Mr. Pat Martin: I can see your point. If the Indian Act doesn't apply to you, then you won't be too up in arms about the FNGA, I suppose. If you're actually seeking to achieve getting within the Indian Act, then I can understand your point of view.

We should make it clear on the record, though, that I wouldn't like to see it written in the minister's future statements or reports that this is an endorsement of the bill or evidence that there's widespread support for the bill because of your group in Newfoundland. With these qualified statements, clearly the report you made to us today is more about being recognized under the Indian Act than it is about amending the Indian Act.

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: It certainly is so. On that we agree. But the comments I did make on the FNGA relate how we see the FNGA as it's related to our particular situation. To be quite honest with you, if there was any way—and we're trying all ways possible—the Federation of Newfoundland Indians is not jumping with joy or saying this is the last straw and that we want to be under the Indian Act. We're looking for a new regime, and in terms of the timing, I think it's an opportunity for the Government of Canada to try something else that can work for aboriginal people outside of the Indian Act.

We don't especially like the idea or want to come under the Indian Act, but if there's a system in Canada that can allow us programs and services delivered to our people without us being tied to the Indian Act, then certainly it might be an opportunity for Canada to look at that and move with it.

Mr. Pat Martin: Do I have time for one last question?

The Chair: Yes, go ahead, but we won't have a second round.

Mr. Pat Martin: I just have one last question, and I won't need a second round.

How many of the 3,800 people actually were consulted, and do you believe there was informed consultation? Did people understand what the bill was all about to an adequate enough degree that they could say yes, it's a good thing, or no, it's a bad thing?

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: With regard to the numbers, all you do is announce and give an opportunity to the people you represent to quite adequately know that this is happening. As you know yourself, just as it would be in an election in Canada, whether it's for federal members or provincial, etc., you're not going to get everybody out.

Mr. Pat Martin: No, you're not going to get everybody.

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: The opportunity was there for all those people to attend whenever sessions were held.

Mr. Pat Martin: But how many did? What were the numbers.

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: I'd have to reflect back. Certainly we didn't have the 3,686 members participating.

Mr. Pat Martin: Humour me. Give me a ballpark figure. Was it 100? Was it 150?

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: I don't like to humour people. I'm not a comedian to any degree. I would much rather present to you the appropriate numbers. I can do that if you leave a number with me. I do have the figures, and I will provide you with them.

¸ (1400)

Mr. Pat Martin: You can get them to the clerk and she can circulate them.

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: Sure.

Mr. Pat Martin: Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Bagnell, you have seven minutes for your side.

Mr. Larry Bagnell: I won't use all of that time.

The Chair: You might want to share it.

Mr. Larry Bagnell: You said several times that the FNI didn't have any major problems with the FNGA, and that was after your consultations and after everyone had an opportunity.

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: That's right.

Mr. Larry Bagnell: On your issue about recognition, are you happy with the progress, with how things are moving along?

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: I would say I'm quite pleased with the progress to this stage, because it was only at the end of September that Minister Nault was given the report by Marc Lalonde. I understand quite clearly the different processes that take place and the time that's necessary to have things move around within any government or any particular structure of that nature.

However, there's no sense of me making a pretty picture out of everything. I do have band council chiefs who are urging me to have a date set for when they need an answer from the minister. In my own view, though, I'll meet with all of them—I am about to do that this coming week—and if a majority gives me a date to set for an answer, then it will be my job, as their representative, to put that date forth. But I certainly would be hopefully trying to convince them to just give us a little bit more time here, and to give the minister more time.

Mr. Larry Bagnell: I'll give the rest of my time to colleagues, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Ms. Karetak-Lindell.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: Thank you very much for your intervention. As you say, it's not directly related to Bill C-7, but I feel part of our job as a committee is to learn as much as we can about the different parts of the country and the different situations. I believe this is something most of us probably were not aware of.

You call yourselves a landless band. If you do get your settlement, are there plans to rectify that, or are you looking to be just recognized as a band without being tied directly to any particular pieces of land?

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: That's something I've mentioned to the minister. From the chiefs' perspective, I made it quite clear to him that they all had to participate and certainly agree to that, and agree to it in writing to some degree. In a sense, their position was that, yes, we have programs and services that we can deliver to our people at this point in time.

As you know, a court process is fine and we could reach the end of that process very soon. It certainly could mean that the Government of Canada would have to live up to all that we would want to expect if we had to go through a court case that went back to 1949. However, in dealing with programs and services, economic development, etc., the council chiefs are quite prepared to move ahead with our aboriginal people in this day and age rather than taking a 53-year step backward.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: But do you then get the recognition that you're a band? How does that differentiate your group of people from the other off-reserve people in the rest of the country?

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: I'll just go back to the Terms of Union of Newfoundland with Canada, and to 1949. The organization, the Federation of Newfoundland Indians, represented the Conne River group, who are now on a reserve. Of course, the Innu and the Inuit of Labrador are also part of that organization.

Really, in a sense, we're looking at this because our people, the people now living outside the reserve at Conne River, were made a promise by the then minister, John Munro, that Conne River would be used as a pilot site, and that Canada certainly would deal with the rest of the band councils affiliated with the Federation of Newfoundland Indians during the course of the agreement, which was for something like five or six years. However, nothing of that nature ever transpired.

The band councils at that time certainly were indeed looking for a reserve to be established in each of those nine principal communities, to represent the Mi'kmaq people of Newfoundland. Since then, we've tried everything possible to make the situation as easy to deal with as possible for the federal government.

We're not giving up our identity, because I think you are who you are and that will never change in life anyway. But I think we have to look at least at the chiefs' position that we're now into the future, we're into the 21st century, and we're moving on quickly. Let's try to get some programs and services that will benefit our people. That will certainly give them the opportunity they rightfully deserve and which has not been provided to them since they became part of Canada. That was the decision made by the other people in Newfoundland at the time, I might add, and certainly not by the Mi'kmaq people.

¸ (1405)

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: What about the question that I asked, though? If you don't have a reserve, how does that differentiate you from other people in the rest of the country who are known as off-reserve, status Indians?

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: The landless band obviously would be what we're looking for, rather than having this circle that we split up into four or five or nine different tables, each off into a corner, each looking for an agreement.

We're willing to give up the reserves and to go for a tribal council agreement, whereby the different programs and services will reach all of our people under a proper government set-up within the Mi'kmaq nation, outside of the reserve of Conne River.

Looking at that, and obviously again going back to 1949, we consider ourselves to be in a position in which an agreement could be unique. What we've put forward to the government could be unique in terms of dealing with us on that longstanding issue, but we're offering the government an opportunity to put some other form of recognition in place for the aboriginal people outside of the Indian Act.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We invite you now to make closing comments.

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: Very short as my presentation was, as I say, we certainly like to get in the door wherever possible. I'm open to being able to even go with a little bit more extensive presentation before the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, specifically dealing with the issue of recognition and where we are now with the federal government in the very near future, if and when the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs would like to certainly give me that opportunity. I'll certainly be asking for it.

With regard to everything else, just on the position of the Federation of Newfoundland Indians and not being quite as understanding of the Indian Act and what the FNGA may have that others feel would certainly hurt them, we certainly don't take away from anybody's views, we just put forward ours.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Brendan Sheppard: Thank you.

The Chair: We wish you the best.

Chief Francis Jadis and Cheryl Clark, from the Abegweit First Nation are not yet here, nor are Chief Darlene Bernard, Sue Moxley, and Noel Knockwood.

Jason Knockwood and Valerie Chisholm are not here for the one o'clock presentation either, so that presentation will be shown as a no-show.

Our next presentation is to be made by the Abegweit First Nation. It is scheduled for four o'clock, but I ask members and the support staff to stay around. If anyone shows up at any time, the bells will ring.

If anyone in the audience wishes to make a spontaneous presentation—this is something this committee has done throughout the country—I open up the floor to anyone who has not presented or is not scheduled to present, for a two-minute presentation. If you have an interest in doing so, you may step up right now or you may register to do so later.

We will suspend.

¸ (1455)

The Chair: We'll resume proceedings in our public hearings on Bill C-7, and we'll hear from Noel Knockwood, in a spontaneous presentation.

We explained that it's two minutes, but we have been known to stretch it to three. I suppose if we get unanimous consent, we can go to four, right? So you've gained two minutes. You're getting double what everybody else had, and you can start now, sir.

¹ (1500)

Mr. Noel Knockwood (As Individual): Thank you, sir.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Noel Knockwood. I'm a band member of the Indian Brook First Nation, and I also sit on the Grand Council of the Mi'kmaq Nation.

[Witness speaks in Mi'kmaq]

Ladies and gentlemen, since you do not understand the aboriginal languages of this country, I need to communicate with you in a borrowed language called anglophone or English.

First of all, I want to thank you for allowing me two minutes of your precious time. I require more time, but my people are accustomed to exclusion—and to me, this is a method of exclusion.

I need to tell you that Parliament is supreme in Canada, and it would change the Indian Act with or without us. But at least we have two minutes, which is a very unfair measurement of time.

I want to tell you right from the very beginning that laws are often made under pressure from self-interested organizations and institutions, and they are enforced onto individuals.

The Government of Canada must derive its power from the consent of the governed, the aboriginal people. Keep in mind that the government is still subject to public scrutiny, and you will be watched worldwide. I suggest that the new act be called the Aboriginal Peoples Act, and it must protect our inherent rights. Our interests must be met not by politicians or civil servants, but the Indians, Métis, and Inuit.

I need to tell you with great dignity and respect that the Indian Act is racist. It was designed and administered for a particular race of people, and it is in contempt of Canadian human rights legislation. It was legislated by Parliament, not by the people. Therefore, that makes the Indian Act undemocratic. Because Parliament is supreme in Canada, it can change this act with the consent or without the consent of native people, and that, too, is undemocratic.

The Indian Act tells how to administer, and it has no Indian rights within it. The Indian Act is an apartheid, which is a policy or a system of segregation or discrimination on the grounds of race. The Indian Act is undemocratic and it is racist because it only applies to us.

The Indian Act also violates the mobility section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. For those of us who choose to live off reserve, services are not provided to us. That makes it unfair.

The Indian Act is a rule that was made by the visiting Europeans who established themselves under the British North America Act, and the Indian Act—

The Chair: We thank you very much, Mr. Knockwood. You've used up four minutes, although as I explained to you, if you leave those documents with us, we will make sure they are translated and that all members receive them.

You accuse us of being unfair. You did receive a letter offering you—

Mr. Noel Knockwood : No, I did not.

The Chair: Well, your leaders received a letter, so it's up to them to pass it on. It offered you the chance to register, and you would have had a minimum of ten minutes.

¹ (1505)

Mr. Noel Knockwood : That's called bureaucratic justification.

The Chair: Well, we take a lot of abuse on this committee, but—

Mr. Noel Knockwood : Of course you do.

The Chair: —I won't take abuse when it's really not fair.

Mr. Noel Knockwood : I know it's not fair.

The Chair: This committee goes that extra step to open it up to the floor. We've done this everywhere we've gone. We said we would at least give everybody a last chance to put in a two-minute presentation, and we get criticized for doing that.

Mr. Noel Knockwood : Okay, sir. I will submit my form to you.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you.

I understand that Ms. Sue Moxley has arrived. We now invite her to present as an individual.

Welcome, Ms. Moxley. Thank you very much. You registered on time last fall, so we have ten minutes for your presentation.

Ms. Sue Moxley (Individual Presentation): Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you on the matter of Bill C-7, the First Nations Governance Act.

I'm currently a member of the indigenous justice working group of the Anglican Church of Canada, and I continue to serve on the committee that administers our healing fund in relation to residential schools. For nine years, I have been a part of that council. At our most recent meeting two weeks ago, I heard from a number of people who are concerned about this proposed legislation. Because a number of our folks are also chiefs or members of band councils, I've heard that information first-hand about their concerns.

I'm going to start from the Royal Proclamation of 1763. It identifies “the several Nations or Tribes of Indians with whom We are connected, and who live under our Protection”. It says they “should not be molested or disturbed in the Possession of such Parts of Our Dominions and Territories...not having been ceded to or purchased by Us”—and that's the royal “Us”, the King of England.

The main problem with this proposed legislation is that its development has failed to take into account the nations for whom it will be life-destroying. The wide-ranging and in-depth consultation that was done by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples provided recommendations on leadership, governance, and self-determination that were built on a solid foundation of real consultation. Why have those findings been disregarded? Why have those recommendations not been used? Why were millions of public dollars wasted on kits and information presentations when we already had excellent material at hand?

The government's own document Gathering Strength spoke of recognizing past mistakes and not repeating them. It said that policies of assimilation were not the way to build a strong country. I know some people laugh about changing the name of the document to Gathering Dust, but I don't think it's funny. It has been disregarded as well, and the proposed Bill C-7 is clearly assimilation of all first nations into one European form government, a municipality. It appears that the federal government can produce lots of kits and paperwork and can say one thing for public media moments, but then it continues to create legislation that will deny treaty and inherent rights and promote assimilation into a European style of governing.

Within our church, we are working to build a new partnership with first nations, aboriginal Anglicans, and those who have come to this land from other parts of the world. All of us have had to work hard at learning new ways of doing things, and I think our federal government could work just as hard at new ways of doing things. Particularly, our members who are of European ancestry are having to do a lot of learning, and they are doing it because they have made a commitment to building a stronger church and to building a stronger Canada.

There is widespread agreement that there are problems with the Indian Act, and I think there's also agreement that everyone wants good governance and administrative accountability. I have not heard anyone except Mr. Nault say this legislation will contribute to either of those things. What it will contribute to is the destruction of aboriginal rights. It will contribute to the devolution of the federal government's financial responsibility to first nations. It will contribute to greater paperwork for and greater control by Indian Affairs.

The Indian Act and the structures that have become attached to it have been around for a long time, since 1876. As Chief Matthew Coon Come has said, there is no quick or easy fix for it, yet it seems this proposed legislation is being rushed through the legislative process with great haste. I am asking that this standing committee say no to that hasty manoeuvring. You can do what the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has said. You can take time and negotiate in good faith, rather than controlling the process and dictating the interests of the government over those of first nations.

¹ (1510)

Lastly, at the international level, I'm a member of something called the Anglican Consultative Council, the body of representatives from Anglican churches around the world. At the meeting last September in Hong Kong, I was made aware of how the Canadian government is seen as hypocritical by some other nations. Internationally, I was told, Canada promotes the right to self-determination. Canada is involved with the preparation of the United Nations' Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which says among other things that indigenous people have a right to self-determination, a right to “determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development”.

It was pointed out to me that much of Canada's domestic aboriginal policy stands in clear contradiction to its international policy. The standing committee has the opportunity to begin to work for change on our domestic policy. Beginning to do that, I think, requires rejecting this bill. We could then work with the recognized leadership of aboriginal peoples nation to nation and address the issues of governance, as well as other priorities that have been identified by aboriginal peoples—land rights, treaty implementation, poverty, education, and employment opportunities.

The standing committee has the opportunity to put to use the royal commission report. That commission came to be after huge frustration on the part of first nations erupted in violence over a particular topic in a particular area. When the government chose to do nothing with the royal commission report, the frustration level began to rise again. Many of us believe the massive lawsuits against the federal government and the churches were directly related to the government's failure to act on the royal commission report. I believe that frustration is building again.

Chief Matthew Coon Come has said, “The issue of real self-government for first nations will not go away. Our people will not go away, we will not disappear, and we will not assimilate.” For the federal government to continue to ignore or to deliberately oppress nations that have individual and community rights under the laws of this country is perilous behaviour.

So I'm asking you to reject this suite of legislation, of which Bill C-7 is a component. I know the Liberal government can, by sheer numbers, force this legislation through, but I'm asking that the standing committee say no to it, that you make the effort to make a new start. Make the effort to say that justice and integrity in our dealings with first nations are more important than party politics.

Thank you for listening.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I'll just make a comment on one little part. I don't comment on the contents, because I let members do that.

As chair, I try to be as impartial as I can be, but you're the second representative of the Anglican Church who has accused this committee of rushing it through. I think that's a little bit unfair. There was a consultation done by the department, whether it was a good one or not.

This committee spent three months last spring studying the Indian Act, with experts such as National Chief Coon Come and others. We are putting nine weeks, full time, into this bill as a committee. When it goes back to the House, there will be a debate and we will make amendments. There will be more amendments in the House after debate, followed by a second vote, more debate, and then a third vote and other amendments if needed. After that, it goes to the Senate, where it goes through the full process.

If anyone thinks that's rushing legislation through.... If I have a problem with Ottawa, it's that it takes too long to do things. So in defence of this committee, I don't accept it when we get accused of rushing this through, because we're not. I just want to make that clear, because it's the second time your group has made a representation with that point of view.

¹ (1515)

Ms. Sue Moxley: What I put it in the context of was a hundred years and more of the Indian Act. In relation to whatever you said—four months, nine weeks, and another two or three months—that seems to be very little and very fast. That's the context that I put the time into.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

You have about a minute and a half left, but there's not enough time for a round of questions. If you have any closing remarks, you may make them.

Ms. Sue Moxley: No, I think I said what I wanted to say. I just don't think it's amendable. I think it should be rejected, and I think the group should start over with the report from the royal commission and work with the national chiefs to create something that really is a joint document, rather than taking a document that was developed apparently by non-aboriginal people and then presenting it to others to object to or agree with. I don't think that's an appropriate way to work at it.

The Chair: Can I ask if you've seen the recommendations in the commission report?

Ms. Sue Moxley: The recommendations of which commission?

The Chair: The royal commission report.

Ms. Sue Moxley: Yes.

The Chair: You've seen all the recommendations?

Ms. Sue Moxley: Yes.

The Chair: I can't imagine how much it would cost to implement all of those, or how fast we could do it. I'm sure some of the issues have been addressed, and some are being addressed. But do we expect that the government will drop everything and implement all these recommendations?

Ms. Sue Moxley: What I was referring to was the section on self-governance and leadership. That particular section has good recommendations that could work, instead of Bill C-7. I think that's a more appropriate way to work.

The Chair: The Indian Act is a piece of legislation that's still in place. What do we do with that? If we don't amend Bill C-7 but reject it instead—which we can't do as a committee—we're still stuck with the Indian Act.

Ms. Sue Moxley: That's right, but I don't think Bill C-7 is in fact an amendment to the Indian Act. Bill C-7 is contrary to the Indian Act.

The Chair: I see. Okay, thank you very much.

Ms. Sue Moxley: Thank you for listening.

¹ (1550)

The Chair: Chief Francis Jadis, Cheryl Clark, and Darlene Bernard are not in the room, so we will suspend.

¹ (1555)

The Chair: We will resume our proceedings of public hearings on Bill C-7.

We welcome Chief Francis Jadis and Cheryl Clark, director of administration and operations, from the Abegweit First Nation; and Chief Darlene Bernard, from the Lennox Island First Nation. The two groups have requested that they present together, so we're together for one hour.

We invite you to make your presentations. Hopefully they will be followed by questions.

Please proceed.

Chief Darlene Bernard (Lennox Island First Nation): Mr. Chair, committee members, I would like to begin by thanking the committee for providing us with this opportunity to present our concerns and opinions on Bill C-7. This presentation is further to our submission that was provided to Elizabeth Kingston on February 14.

We are here on behalf of the Mi'kmaq bands located in the province of Prince Edward Island. My name is Chief Darlene Bernard, from the Lennox Island Band. With me are Chief Francis Jadis, the chief of the Abegweit Band; and Cheryl Clark, the director of administration and operations for the Abegweit Band.

I would like to welcome this committee to Mi'kma'ki, the traditional territory of the Mi'kmaq people. The Mi'kmaq have a long and rich history with the colonial and Canadian governments. Our treaties of peace and friendship stressed the importance of our co-existence and mutual respect between our respective nations. This nation-to-nation relationship is truly unique and special to the Mi'kmaq people and to all Canadians.

However, with the passage of time, we have come to realize that our relationship has changed. This fact is reflected through the reported findings of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which provided that, after some 500 years of a relationship that has gone from partnership to domination, from mutual respect and cooperation to paternalism and attempted assimilation, Canada must work out fair and lasting terms of co-existence with the aboriginal peoples.

The royal commission's reference to fair and lasting terms of co-existence with aboriginal peoples is not respected in either the substance or process dictated through the proposed First Nations Governance Act. This is primarily due to the fact that our first nations were not provided with appropriate and meaningful consultation on the contents and related legal impacts of this bill.

Throughout history and today, the federal government has believed and continues to believe that despite what we may think on governance, they still know what is in our best interests. Failed initiatives such as the Indian Act, Indian scalp proclamations, centralization, residential schools, and other numerous initiatives of the colonial and Canadian governments have all sought to cure one problem, the Indian problem. In fact, the existing situation in our communities is the product of the federal government's failed good intentions. This is the legacy of the Canadian government in its dealings with the affairs of first nations peoples.

As leaders, we recognize that lessons can be learned from the past, and that government must now act honourably in its dealings with first nations peoples. We ask that this committee, as representatives of the Crown, consider our views and opinions on the First Nations Governance Act in an honourable fashion.

Despite the lack of consultations on this bill, we were advised that the committee hearings would provide a last opportunity for our communities to offer input for suggested changes. We feel the only way to help change the bill at this late stage in the parliamentary process is to comment directly on its substance. We feel this is the only option we have since the proposed act may become law.

We would like this committee to note that our participation in this process does not and should not be viewed as meaningful and appropriate consultation. Rather, we find this process and the supporting consultation by government to be more akin to the prisoner attempting to negotiate favourable cell conditions rather than a real discussion on the terms and conditions of a release.

As a general statement, we are in agreement with the underlying principles of good governance and accountability. However, we disagree with both the process and product of these objectives throughout the proposed act. We believe that in order for the objectives of the act to become a reality on the ground in first nations communities, certain concessions must be made by the federal government.

Chief Jadis will now highlight some of the main concerns that we have with the bill.

Chief Francis Jadis (Abegweit First Nation): Good afternoon. My name is Chief Jadis.

Number one, we need to have an appropriate non-derogation clause. The Mi'kmaq have existing aboriginal and treaty rights. These rights have been recognized and affirmed by court decisions. Although these rights form the backbone of Mi'kmaq self-government, they are not recognized or protected through the act. An improved non-derogation clause should be inserted in the proposed act. This clause should also be more inclusive of other rights that flow from our treaty and aboriginal rights.

Number two is band capacity and its relationship to good governance. The act has a one-size-fits-all approach, regardless of band size, capacity, and requirements. Accountability and good governance demand that funds be provided for capacity development and administrative costs. Therefore, we suggest that the act should commit the federal government to providing enough funds for these new legislative requirements. Funding amounts should be determined through independent assessment.

Third is a community approach to complaints and redress. To create a bureaucratic, arm's-length, neutral body would be to create a bureaucratic nightmare for everyone. If all decisions are subject to review, this could conflict with existing communities' practices—for example, union disputes and joint justice committees. The council and employee decisions are subject to review. It will create a steady erosion of council powers. It will also undermine the band members' confidence in the elected leadership. A neutral body should be replaced by a community-developed and -approved process.

Number four is in regard to ensuring finance management and accountability. The act provides that bands must do their best to fix breaches of band laws. However, the act does not comment on any similar obligations owned by the government or provide the necessary capacity to properly build a response to this situation.

The act should ensure that first nations' capacity requirements are met. It should also outline the obligations owned by INAC to respond properly to bands' interests and concerns. Since the handing over of band powers under the act is extensive, we suggest that it contain community-developed guidelines. This will inform the manner in which the bands' laws are delegated to these persons and bodies.

That was for the law-making powers.

Sixth is the need to protect the reserve lands gained through this act. We find it necessary to protect any future lands gained through that act. This would change subclause 15(4) to ensure that land acquisitions through the act are considered to be reserve lands in accordance with the Indian Act.

And the seventh thing is development of regulations by first nations. First nations are expected to comment on the act without having access to the regulations. This affects our ability to conduct a proper assessment of the act. It is similar to buying a car based on the way it looks from the outside. The manner of the process in which the regulations are drafted must involve the full input and consideration of the band members.

º (1600)

Thank you. We're open to any questions.

The Chair: I have been informed that this brief is different from the one you tabled before February 14. Is that correct?

º (1605)

Chief Darlene Bernard: We have the one we submitted. There were fourteen recommendations in it, but since we have limited time today, we thought we would just put our introduction through and touch on the seven that we thought were the most important.

The Chair: But you still stand by the other report?

Chief Darlene Bernard: Oh, yes. It's the same thing, only this is the shorter, condensed version.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Does this complete your presentation?

Chief Darlene Bernard: Yes, it does.

The Chair: Then we will now go to Mr. Martin for five minutes.

Mr. Pat Martin: Thank you very much for your brief, Chief Bernard, Mr. Jadis.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Chief Jadis.

Mr. Pat Martin: Chief Jadis. I'm sorry. Thank you.

It was very interesting, and I'm glad to have actual, concrete recommendations or specific recommendations. Many of the briefs that we have had more or less speak about the bill in larger, abstract terms.

Chief Darlene Bernard: They just don't want it, do they?

Mr. Pat Martin: That's right. We're agin it.

Chief Darlene Bernard: We don't want it either.

Mr. Pat Martin: I gathered that, but I guess that actually is my first question. Some of us don't think we're going to be able to stop it, even though that's the position of my party. The NDP thinks this bill should be withdrawn or stopped in its tracks.

But in the absence of doing that, if the fourteen amendments that you put forward in your original brief were implemented, would you be satisfied then that the bill—

Chief Darlene Bernard: We could live with it.

Mr. Pat Martin: So you're trying to minimize the impact or reduce the—

Chief Darlene Bernard: Exactly. We're trying to get ahead of the curve.

Mr. Pat Martin: You're trying to make the best of a bad situation, maybe.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Right.

Mr. Pat Martin: That's fair enough.

One thing you don't comment on—and I'll ask you if you would see it as an area that you'd like to see addressed—is subclause 9(3). You have subclause 10(3) itemized, very wisely citing the—

Chief Darlene Bernard: Which recommendation is the one on clause 10?

Mr. Pat Martin: I'm talking about subclause 9(3) in the act.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Subclause 9(3) in the act? I don't have the act with me.

Cheryl will find it for us.

Mr. Pat Martin: To just briefly summarize what it does, it has to do with the accountability provisions, whereby you have to disclose the—

Chief Darlene Bernard: —financial statements?

Mr. Pat Martin: The financial statements, yes.

Chief Darlene Bernard: We did address that in there somewhere.

The Chair: It's in recommendation 6.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Yes, recommendation 6.

Mr. Pat Martin: Oh, yes. Thank you.

The Chair: If I appear to be smart, it's because my researcher told me.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Chief Darlene Bernard: That's great. We have one of those as well.

Mr. Pat Martin: Everybody should have one.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Recommendation 6 specifically addresses that part.

Mr. Pat Martin: Very good. Excellent.

Chief Darlene Bernard: It says, “We recommend that the provision for bands to produce financial statements to anyone upon request be removed from the FNGA.”

Mr. Pat Martin: You nailed it. Congratulations.

Chief Darlene Bernard: We provide financial statements to any band member. Any band member can come in and request them and we will give a copy of them. We present our financial statements every year at a band meeting to which everyone is invited, and we feel that is sufficient enough for accountability purposes.

Mr. Pat Martin: Excellent point. Thank you. I didn't realize that was one of your recommendations. It's certainly something we feel strongly about. They would be holding you to a higher standard than anyone else in the country is held if anyone could walk in off the street, essentially, and demand to see your financial statements.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Yes, that's right.

Mr. Pat Martin: It's just not fair.

Thank you. That's very thorough of you.

Subclause 10(3), dealt with in your recommendation 7, deals with expanding the minister's authority, really. I guess I'd ask you to address it just off the cuff. Wouldn't you agree with us that it's the very opposite of self-governance to actually implement amendments to the Indian Act that expand the authority the minister currently has?

Chief Darlene Bernard: We would be in agreement with that.

The way we see it right now, our existing programs and services are already compromised because they are insufficiently funded right now. They already are compromised, so this just gives the government an automatic in. We feel that, no, that's not good enough.

Mr. Pat Martin: Good point. This is what we had brought to our attention by others, too. You're charged with the impossible task of trying to provide services with insufficient funding now.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Some of our programs are only funded at 10% or 20%, like fire protection, for example. It's only funded 20%, so we have to find other moneys to be able to pay for it.

Mr. Pat Martin: You're robbing Peter to pay Paul for that kind of thing.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Exactly.

Mr. Pat Martin: Well, you put together a very good brief. I concur with many of your findings, and I'll make good use of these when it comes time to write amendments.

Thank you very much.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Thank you.

º (1610)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Martin.

On the Liberal side, we'll go to Mr. Hubbard.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Again, thank you for a very good brief. I guess it's a brief and a brief, because we have two versions.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Yes, you have two.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: You mentioned a non-derogation clause. With your first nations on the island, it's about 50-50. About half your group live away from reserve, apparently.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Yes, but we represent our off-reserve band members.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: I know that, and that's what I was leading to. In terms of everyone being able to vote, how far away would some of your members be? Do you keep tabs on people?

Chief Darlene Bernard: We know where pretty much everybody is. We have people living throughout the United States, and we have some in France.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Even France, eh?

Chief Darlene Bernard: Yes, but they don't come to vote.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: But Boston and Portland, Maine, are big—

Chief Darlene Bernard: Yes, Boston, Maine, and even Florida.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Florida?

Chief Darlene Bernard: Yes, we have members in Florida—but that's for Lennox Island. I don't know about Abegweit. You may want to—

Chief Francis Jadis: At Abegweit, we only have on-reserve voting right now, but we're hoping that we'll have that changed by this fall so that the off-reserve members can vote. I'm strongly for it, but some people on reserve are opposed to it right now.

Chief Darlene Bernard: We're both custom bands, so we weren't affected directly by Corbiere. What Lennox Island did was embark on a very long consultation process with our community. We had lots of meetings over a year a half, with our on-reserve and off-reserve, and then both together, to come up with amendments to our election code in order to include the off-reserve so that everybody would be satisfied and everybody would be represented. It was passed with very high numbers, so we do have our off-reserve members voting in our elections. Abegweit is in that process now in order to include their off-reserve members.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: We realize, though, that it is an expensive business in terms of trying to get to people, to communicate with them, get their votes in, and maintain—

Chief Darlene Bernard: Yes, it's a very expensive proposition, and the government doesn't fund it—which they should, by the way.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Which they should.

The other point to ask you about is the idea of redress, that concept. You have four first nations groups on P.E.I., is that right?

Chief Darlene Bernard: Yes. They would be Abegweit, Lennox, the Aboriginal Women's Association, and the Native Council of P.E.I.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: And the bill provides for the concept here that they could work together in terms of developing codes and even the redress mechanism. Others have mentioned ombudsmen.

Just for the record, Mr. Chair, it's interesting that recommendation 4, which talks about funding...sometimes it's awfully easy to have people looking for redress to a chief, but the bill has no provision for chief and band to have redress with DIAND.

Chief Darlene Bernard: With who?

Mr. Charles Hubbard: With Indian Affairs. In other words, if you don't get sufficient funding for programs—and I'm asking a question here—do you think the bill should have something in it whereby there would be some ombudsman you could complain to that Indian Affairs doesn't give your band enough resources to be able to do a good administrative job?

That may be a curve, Mr. Chair. We probably haven't thought of that.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Which recommendation is that?

Mr. Charles Hubbard: It's not your recommendation. It's my question.

Chief Darlene Bernard: No, but we did talk about this. We discussed it, and I thought we had put in a recommendation with regard to that whole idea of having—

Mr. Charles Hubbard: You asked about having enough money, but I'm asking if there should be some mechanism by which you...Steven Joudry's here and he's the regional director general. If he doesn't give you enough money, you should be able to....

That's probably my time, right?

The Chair: It's okay to throw curves, but it's not a strike if it doesn't go over the plate.

º (1615)

Mr. Charles Hubbard: It depends if you swing.

The Chair: Mr. Martin.

Mr. Pat Martin: Thank you.

Chief, the first comment you made was about the consultation process, and many others have spoken about it. I know you've been in consultations regarding your election codes recently, but Minister Nault was the first witness to this committee when we first started touring, and his claim at that time was that this bill was made up in consultation with 10,000 first nations people across the country who essentially dictated what would go into the bill.

Right across the country, people have been crying foul and have been saying that's simply not true. Even if there were information meetings, they were just that. They were information meetings, not consultation meetings.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Right. Information was put forth, but there was no sharing of ideas. Therefore, it was not a true consultation.

Mr. Pat Martin: So this is what I'm asking you: Do you feel there was genuine consultation in your area, or did you have any input into the drafting of Bill C-7?

Chief Darlene Bernard: No.

Mr. Pat Martin: That's what I suspected, so I think it's really quite an outlandish statement for the minister to be making, frankly, when he says 10,000 people were consulted. Consultation requires some accommodation of the points you bring to the table.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Yes, exactly.

Mr. Pat Martin: Thank you.

Ms. Cheryl Clark (Director of Administration & Operations, Abegweit First Nation): I'd just like to expand on that a little more, too.

Within Abegweit, we did have a series of public community meetings on the consultations and on the Indian Act that was coming down. A firm voice from the community was put forward to the chief and council not to partake in the consultation process that the government was promising, because they did recognize that it was information only and that it did not allow their voice to be heard in a way that could guarantee that their voices would be in this act.

When you read through the sessions that the Native Council had on Prince Edward Island and look at a lot of the points they raised at those meetings, those voices are not reflected in what we see in this act. That is of concern.

As for the voice that the community had on it, actually, even a protest was staged, organized by the youth, and we had representatives there from both Lennox Island and the Native Council. All the organizations on P.E.I. were there.

There was no mechanism for the first nations to let DIAND know that voice had been put forward, because we did not feel we could partake in the consultation phase without having it impact our rights. There was no way to let them know exactly what the community was saying without being part of it. So that's one of the problems we had with that consultation phase.

Mr. Pat Martin: That's an excellent point. That's right.

Do I have much time left, Mr. Chair?

The Chair: Yes, you do. You have two and a half minutes.

Mr. Pat Martin: These are comprehensive and sweeping changes. This really is the most comprehensive attempt in a generation to amend the Indian Act. Some people have made the comment that when the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples did a true consultation, moneys were made available to small bands and communities that wanted to submit a brief, etc. Were you given any money to even write this comprehensive brief?

Chief Darlene Bernard: No. We were offered money, but we declined to take it. Past experience told us that if we accepted money, we were automatically considered as having been consulted with even though our opinions might not go forth. We therefore decided to stay away from it and do it on our own. So on what we put forth, this is from us.

Mr. Pat Martin: That's very interesting. You thought they would have lumped you in as people on the pro side.

Chief Darlene Bernard: That's right. We would have been lumped in with those 10,000 who had something to say and wound up with that act. We don't want to have any “credit” for what came out in that paper.

Ms. Cheryl Clark: And like I said, the community very clearly told the council not to partake in the process. They were willing to listen to that.

Chief Darlene Bernard: I think the majority of community members don't understand what it is and what it's all about, and they're relying on leadership to guide them through it. It's a scary thought.

Mr. Pat Martin: You're doing a good job in terms of leadership.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Thank you.

Mr. Pat Martin: Thank you again.

The Chair: As chair, I have to clarify one thing. In regard to those who were offered money to have consultations, that money was for consultations before the bill was drafted. Mr. Martin asked if you got money to produce your brief. Nobody got any money to produce presentations for this committee, and nobody was offered any money. If they were, I'd like to know. We have to make that clear and differentiate between the two consultations, okay?

Does everybody agree with that comment?

Mr. Pat Martin: Just to be clear, Mr. Chairman, that isn't what I meant. What I was getting at was the fact that I thought there should have been some money made available to communities to develop a brief on such a comprehensive package. I wasn't saying the government did buy anybody's support.

The Chair: Fair enough.

Ms. Karetak-Lindell.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: Well, I also thank you for providing us with a working document that will help us with the work we're doing.

I'm interested in the ones on pages 10 and 11, “Offences under the FNGA” and “Inspection and Search under the FNGA”. We've heard from numerous witnesses who were quite worried about the sweeping powers given to officers and about the fact that they would be able to enter into homes to carry out certain inspections that they felt were above and beyond what would be given to any other peace officers elsewhere in Canada.

To combine the two and to get a better understanding, what currently happens now if you feel one of your bylaws is being violated? How is that carried out? Which officers are involved? Do you have any contracts with either provincial or other peace officers to carry out some of the work for you?

º (1620)

Chief Darlene Bernard: For starters, Lennox has only one bylaw. It's a dog bylaw. When the dog gets loose, we go pick it up and we make them pay a fine to get it back. People normally do that, and then if the dog gets out again, we go talk to them.

To comment on recommendations 12 and 13, the ones you're referring to, we feel those provisions open the band up to a lot of liabilities. There's also no provision in there for any appropriate training or resources available to the band enforcement officers, so if somebody does something wrong, they can be sued and we in turn will be sued. That just opens up a large can of worms to us.

The other thing is that, in recommendation number 13, my worry is that you can't have power without question. This person is not God.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: Do you currently have bylaw officers on your reserve?

Chief Darlene Bernard: We have an RCMP officer dedicated to the reserve, but that's totally criminal and community policing, which works well.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: I didn't get the number of people on your reserves.

Chief Darlene Bernard: We have approximately 325 members living on reserve.

Ms. Cheryl Clark: Abegweit has 296 registered, and we have 174 on reserve.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: What was the first number?

Ms. Cheryl Clark: There are 296 registered with the band.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: And 195 on reserve?

Ms. Cheryl Clark: No, there are 174.

Chief Darlene Bernard: We have approximately 800 registered at Lennox, with 325 to 350 living there.

Ms. Cheryl Clark: If I could just answer your question, Abegweit does not currently have any bylaws whatsoever. The gap for enforcement was something that I think the community had recognized under the Indian Act, which is why they're concerned with the sweeping powers of the enforcement officer. You have to ensure that there are appropriate checks and balances for that type of authority.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: One of the other things I'm trying to struggle with on the committee is the size of the communities. I come from northern Canada, and I know operations that we have running in our large communities are not possible in the very small communities. I have one community with 174 people. You can't expect the same kinds of operations.

We're also trying to understand how we deal with this legislation when some members we spoke to in Ontario have thousands of people on their band list, versus a small community like yours.

Chief Darlene Bernard: And some are smaller than ours.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: Oh, really?

Chief Darlene Bernard: This is the Maritimes. We have smaller bands. The capacity is also different at all bands, and that's the other thing the bill doesn't address. Funding has to be made available for capacity-building and resources in order to put this thing into place.

Ms. Cheryl Clark: When you attempt a bill such as this, one in which one size fits all, you do run into those problems. Some of the larger communities may operate in a different manner from that of the smaller communities, which is why I think that if the first nations had an opportunity to consult, some of these clauses would not look the way they do.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Martin, for four minutes.

Mr. Pat Martin: I don't believe I have any further questions. I'd just as soon wait until their closing remarks.

The Chair: Mr. Bagnell had asked for a spot, so we'll do a four-minute round with Mr. Bagnell, and then we'll get closing remarks.

Mr. Larry Bagnell: I want to congratulate you on your brief. There are some excellent recommendations in it, and it seems to provide really positive input into the details of the act. It gives us a lot of things to work on.

I'm just curious about something relating to recommendation 5, on handling the disputes arising from council. Do you have any ideas in this regard, or is anything in place in any of the first nations at the moment?

º (1625)

Ms. Cheryl Clark: Abegweit is actually in a pretty unique situation. We actually have a labourers' union currently on the reserve. With that labourers' union, we have a collective agreement in place that addresses grievances between the employer and the employees. We were able to put a first nations flavour to that grievance structure.

The concern is that, if we have a neutral body that is able to address any concerns, I'm not sure how that's going to work out for our first nation. I'm not sure how the grievance structure with the union and a neutral body under a First Nations Governance Act will operate together.

Mr. Larry Bagnell: So the union is the employees and then the chief and council are the employer, basically?

Ms. Cheryl Clark: Yes.

Mr. Larry Bagnell: That's very interesting.

Chief Darlene Bernard: Lennox Island doesn't have one of those, and we'd like to steer clear of it. We've watched them go through hell over that one. At any rate, we'll learn from them.

We've had different community circles in the past, and we are setting up a community justice circle right now. One of them is going to be directly related to the fishery and infractions in the fishery. If someone is fishing when they shouldn't be fishing or whatever, it's going to go to this justice thing. DFO will sit on it and we'll sit on it, probably with a couple of elders or whoever. And we also are working to develop a community justice program as well.

As far as the recommendation goes about that neutral body, we feel that's going to cause a bureaucratic nightmare. We think it should be omitted altogether. Let us deal with the redress in our own traditional ways that we have used in the past and that work for us.

It's like anything else, if you don't have community buy-in, it's not going to work. You're going to be fighting an uphill battle all the way.

Mr. Larry Bagnell: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

I now invite you to make closing remarks.

Chief Darlene Bernard: I have closing remarks.

To conclude our submission, we would like to state that the act seeks to produce a generic and complex governance structure within two years of its enactment. Like the Indian Act, it will be unilaterally imposed without our consent and with no regard to our existing rights or our communities' vision of the future. We submit that if no significant changes are made to the proposed act, it will be regarded as just another product of the federal government's failed good intentions.

George Erasmus, a renowned Dene leader, once explained that “self-rule confers a measure of respect and cultivates self-reliance and dignity.” It is hard to find self-reliance in an act that does not recognize our unique relationship to our traditional lands and systems of governance. It is hard to find dignity in an act that once again does not provide recognition of our own identity as Mi'kmaq people.

Honourable committee members, we still identify ourselves as Mi'kmaq. First and foremost, we are Mi'kmaq.

Thank you.

The Chair: Chief Jadis, do you have any closing remarks? No?

Thank you very much

Chief Darlene Bernard: Thank you so much.

The Chair: We thank you for your recommendations. They will be helpful in our deliberations at clause-by-clause.

This concludes our public hearings in Halifax. We will meet tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, when we resume in Fredericton.