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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Monday, February 17, 2003

0755

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

Mr. Gordon Lee (Ermineskin First Nation, Individual Presentation)

The Chair

0800

Ms. Marie Smallboy (Individual Presentation)

0805

The Chair

Ms. Laura Deedza (Individual Presentation)

0810

0815

The Chair

Mr. John Twoyoungmen (Member of the Stoney Nakoda Nation (Wesley Band), As Individual)

The Chair

Mr. John Twoyoungmen

0820

0825

The Chair

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun (As Individual)

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott (Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, Canadian Alliance)

Ms. Laura Deedza

The Chair

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun

The Chair

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun

The Chair

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun

0830

0835

The Chair

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun

The Chair

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun

The Chair

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

0840

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

The Chair

Ms. Emma Lee Warrior (Member of the Piikani First Nation, As Individual)

0845

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Emma Lee Warrior

The Chair

Mr. Charles Hubbard (Miramichi, Lib.)

0850

The Chair

Ms. Emma Lee Warrior

The Chair

Ms. Emma Lee Warrior

The Chair

Ms. Dila Provost (Member of the Piikani First Nation, As Individual)

0855

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Dila Provost

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

0900

Ms. Dila Provost

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Dila Provost

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Dila Provost

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Dila Provost

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Dila Provost

The Chair

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen (Elder and Member of the Blood Tribe, As Individual)

0905

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

0910

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen

The Chair

Mr. Rene Paul (Individual Presentation)

0915

0920

The Chair

0925

Ms. Nicole Weasel Bear (Grade 12 student at Piikani Nation Secondary School, Peigan Board of Education)

The Chair

Ms. Nicole Weasel Bear

The Chair

Mr. Denny Listener (Grade 12 student, Piikani Nation Secondary School, Peigan Board of Education)

0930

The Chair

Mr. Denny Listener

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

The Chair

Mr. Gérard Binet (Frontenac—Mégantic, Lib.)

0935

The Chair

Mr. Denny Listener

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Ms. Nicole Weasel Bear

The Chair

Ms. Sally Listener (Individual Presentation)

The Chair

Mr. Doug Dokis (Program Adviser, Aboriginal Education, Mount Royal College)

0940

The Chair

Mr. Doug Dokis

The Chair

Mr. Doug Dokis

0945

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

The Chair

Mr. Doug Dokis

The Chair

Dr. Helen Many Fingers (President, Blood Tribe Historical Society)

0950

Mr. Wallace Many Fingers (Member, Blood Tribe Historical Society)

0955

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Mr. Wallace Many Fingers

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Mr. Wallace Many Fingers

The Chair

Mr. Rick Laliberte (Churchill River, Lib.)

1000

Mr. Wallace Many Fingers

Mr. Rick Laliberte

Mr. Wallace Many Fingers

The Chair

Ms. Helen Gladue (Vice-Chairperson and Adviser, Advisory Council of Treaty 6 Women)

The Chair

Ms. Helen Gladue

The Chair

Ms. Helen Gladue

1005

The Chair

Ms. Helen Gladue

The Chair

Ms. Helen Gladue

1010

The Chair

Ms. Veronica Morin (As Individual)

1015

1020

The Chair

Mark Kaquitts (As Individual)

Mr. Jeff Horvath (Teacher, Morley Community School)

1025

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

1030

Mr. Jeff Horvath

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Mr. Jeff Horvath

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Mr. Jeff Horvath

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Mr. Jeff Horvath

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

The Chair

Mr. Jeff Horvath

The Chair

Mr. Jeff Horvath

The Chair

Mr. Jeff Horvath

The Chair

Grand Chief Lorne Morin (Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations)

1035

The Chair

Grand Chief Lorne Morin

The Chair

Grand Chief Lorne Morin

1040

1045

1050

The Chair

Mr. Charles Hubbard

The Chair

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Grand Chief Lorne Morin

The Chair

Grand Chief Lorne Morin

The Chair

Grand Chief Lorne Morin

The Chair

Mr. Quintine Kootenay (Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations)

The Chair

Mr. Quintine Kootenay

Mr. Charles Hubbard

The Chair

Chief Victor Buffalo (As Individual)

1055

Chief Victor Buffalo

1100

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Chief Victor Buffalo

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Chief Victor Buffalo

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Chief Victor Buffalo

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

1105

Chief Victor Buffalo

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

The Chair

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Victor Buffalo

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Chief Victor Buffalo

1110

The Chair

Mr. Rick Laliberte

Chief Victor Buffalo

Mr. Rick Laliberte

Chief Victor Buffalo

The Chair

Mr. Rick Laliberte

The Chair

Mr. Rick Laliberte

The Chair

1115

Chief Leo Cattleman (As Individual)

The Chair

Chief George Minde (As Individual)

1120

The Chair

Ms. Marlene Buffalo (Political Analyst, Maskwachiys Cree of Treaty No. 6)

1125

The Chair

Chief Simon Three Fingers (As Individual)

The Chair

1130

Mr. David Chatters (Athabasca, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Chief George Minde

The Chair

1135

Mr. David Chatters

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

The Chair

Chief Victor Buffalo

The Chair

1140

Mr. Eric Large (Councillor, Saddle Lake First Nation)

1145

1150

The Chair

Mr. Joseph Steinhauer (Treaty Technician, Saddle Lake First Nation)

1155

1200

The Chair

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Mr. Joseph Steinhauer

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

Mr. Eric Large

Mr. Maurice Vellacott

The Chair

Mr. Eric Large

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources

NUMBER 027

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Monday, February 17, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

½ (0755)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Raymond Bonin (Nickel Belt, Lib.)): We will call the meeting to order to resume public hearings on Bill C-7, an act respecting leadership selection, administration, and accountability of Indian bands, and to make related amendments to other acts.

We are starting a few minutes earlier because we have the privilege of having with us representatives of the first nations communities who will have the ceremonies to bless us all so that we can do the work that is required of us by the House of Commons.

I would invite you to proceed with the blessing, please.

Mr. Gordon Lee (Ermineskin First Nation, Individual Presentation): Showing their respect for our traditions, our elders tell us that we always have to ask for guidance from the Creator when we're going to discuss something that's important to our lives.

So, once again, thank you.

[Witness speaks in his native language]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

And now I invite Marie Smallboy to make a presentation as an individual. To set the tone for the day, we have been asked to make a presentation preferably of five minutes, but there are ten minutes per individual.

Do we have Ms. Laura Deedza here? We do. And do we have Mr. John Twoyoungmen? We do.

If it's okay with the three of you, we'll ask you to make your presentations and all remain here. If there are any minutes left, then maybe some of the members could address a question to individuals.

Ms. Smallboy, proceed.

¾ (0800)

Ms. Marie Smallboy (Individual Presentation): [Witness speaks in her native language]

Welcome. Deerwoman is my given name. I am a direct descendant of Kiskayaw, war chief of the Maskwachiys Cree, signatory to Treaty Six. As such, my adherence today to the treaty necessitates a submission before the standing committee.

My great-great-great grandfather, Chief Bobtail, was about my age when he entered into treaty with the Imperial Crown. I carry that history, a history I did not learn from the textbooks provided to me by the missionaries, nor did I learn it at the University of Calgary. This is a history I learned through my own research and validated by my traditional upbringing and oral testimony.

My presentation today is a collection of thoughts from our elders, which I reiterate as follows: At the outset, we must declare that Canada's past, current, and proposed legislative regimes regarding our land and our way of life are tantamount to a breach of the treaty we have with the Imperial Crown. [Witness speaks in her native language] They are the ones we had arranged co-existence with in peace on this land.

One of the principles in our treaty is “peace, order, and good government”. This is a principle the governments of Canada have failed to uphold at all levels of government. It is a fundamental principle that we know, understand, and respect. By maintaining the spirit and intent of this principle, our treaty relationships with other governments remain intact.

For example, our treaty in 1871 with the Blackfoot Confederacy continues today because:

(1) The unwritten constitution, the law of the land, was internalized in each of our ways of life. It is reflected in our language, our beliefs, and our political, social, and economic systems. The many cultures that coexisted on Mihnstihk, Turtle Island, shared the philosophy and values inherent in this unwritten constitution.

(2) This way of life continues today. Its universal symbol is our pipe, containing a truth we all know in our hearts. Our treaty respects this truth.

(3) We agreed to protect each our respective territories. We knew what our responsibilities were. It was not within our jurisdiction to impose our laws on another's territory. Hence, it was not our place to make a law as to the form of government that the other should have.

(4) The fact that we have internalized the law of the land in each of our ways of life enables us to maintain the spirit and intent of our treaty.

Sadly, for Canada, this is not so. Repatriation of its constitution solidified the way of life of a foreign government on our land. This is an alien form of government, whose man-made law of the land--the Constitution Act, 1982--does not come close to the law of the land as we know it. For us, Canada's Constitution falls short of the principles we have agreed to uphold in our treaty.

For example, the reserving of land for future generations, Skoonkahn, by our treaty signatory, for as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the rivers flow, is being subjected to judicial interpretation. Canada will not recognize the interpretation of the treaty in our terms. Instead it allows its judicial and legislative processes to belittle the entire treaty-making process. How can Canadian courts purport to make “aboriginal law” when they do not know what the true law of the land is?

What puzzles me is if there are two very diverse interpretations of that treaty, does this mean there was no meeting of the minds, hence no treaty? That would seem to be what Canada's legal minds would presume. But in our view, a treaty exists by virtue of the use of the pipe. Even the use of the Bible would not equate the weight of the truth held by the pipe.

It is not up to Canada to unilaterally change the terms of our treaty on a legislative whim or judicial blunder. Canada must uphold the integrity of the Imperial Crown. It is their constitutional duty to do so.

¾ (0805)

The treaty we have with the Queen dictates the repatriation of the unwritten constitution of Mihnstihk. Given the current state of affairs at the international level, Canada must seek the protection of the adherents to the many treaties its predecessor entered into on its behalf.

It would be prudent for Canada to call a first ministers conference on treaty relations with the Iynowahk of this land. A course of action for Canada is needed to govern the treaty relationship we have with one another and other parties. It is only in this way that we can begin to build a constitution that is truly reflective of the multicultural identity it once had. We can build a constitution that clearly sets out the responsibilities we have as caretakers of the land. This is what true coexistence means.

For us, Bill C-7 is not our answer to self-determination. Our answer lies within the folds of our treaty and Canada's willingness to share in our vision. Our vision is the continued perpetuation of life on this land in accordance with the law of the land as it was enshrined in our treaty.

The resources of Bill C-7 could have been better spent to provide financial and human resources to our governments to accommodate a contemporary mode of life in our respective constitutions. It has been difficult to administer a way of life that has been imposed on us and yet maintain our identity. But we are living proof that coexistence of two lifestyles is not impossible. Respect and responsibility are key elements to such a relationship.

Try as it might, Canada cannot make us what we are not--like them. We have laws that we must follow, and no government in this world can change those laws. Those laws are our birthright, protected by our treaty.

Our leadership today is bombarded with an abundance of issues. They are overwhelmed with the day-to-day demands of their own people, crying for food and shelter. Our communities need to heal from the effects of colonialism and alcohol and drug abuse. Much work needs to be done. What we need are resources to do just that, not more laws to be shoved down our throats. Creativity will restructure our governments in a way that can meet the contemporary needs of our people.

Canada has usurped our resources and our land in a vain attempt to build a nation. They have built their forms of government, their institutions, and all that goes with nationhood, at the expense of our peoples. We withstood legislated attempts at genocide and assimilation. Now we want what is due us, so that we can modify our forms of government in a manner that is consistent with our way of life, and yet accommodate those elements that are necessary to carry on a working relationship with other governments and agencies.

This approach would take us a lot further on the road to recovery in our respective community and improve our treaty relations with Canadian authorities. This approach would also take us all in the direction envisioned by our ancestors, towards “peace, order, and good government”.

Hi hi.

The Chair: I invite Laura Deedza to make her presentation, please.

Ms. Laura Deedza (Individual Presentation): Good morning, honourable members of Parliament and my fellow natives.

I am from the Dene Tha' Band. My late uncle was a chief for 55 years, customarily selected. I'm going to address the present time, because the past we have grown up with, lived with it. But on this Bill C-7, I'm going to address the present.

A lot of us have problems with our leadership, and we have constantly complained to the minister, regional offices, other leaders, and other organizations, and we have gotten nowhere. On behalf of a lot of us, the grassroots, there are issues of leadership and finance--band funds--to be addressed, because there are millions, billions that are not reaching people in our communities. I imagine it is for that reason that you're being sent across Canada, to hear us out, and this is an opportunity.

For a lot of us, poverty continuously exists on reserves. So I'm asking, just like anybody else: Where does the money go? If this is going to address that properly.... And I gather that the minister says this would not elide the Indian Act. So there is a lot of confusion here among our people on the reserve. Hopefully some of the confusion will be cleared up.

Things definitely need to be planned out properly. Our membership lists and codes.... We don't have a code. That's an awful mess.

At my band level, there are strange names appearing in our band, people moving onto our reserves. Our own full-status members who have lived on the reserve for all their lifetime have no homes to move to, but these outsiders definitely move onto the reserve. A lot of this--membership and whatever fails our own people--needs to be done through referendums or votes on the reserve.

When my uncle was a chief, there was never such confusion. Since he retired and passed away, nothing has been organized. There's bad administration. When one chief gets in, the next chief, the staff from the previous chief is fired. The administration is bad, and there is too much confusion. We need to straighten some of these things out.

I don't agree with all these sections in the bill. For example, where it says 25% in subclause 4(2), I don't want to read it all, but where it says “by a majority of the eligible voters of the band who participate in the vote, and if those who vote to approve it constitute more than twenty-five per cent of all eligible voters”, that isn't enough. As it is, we're complaining.

The leaders, chief in council, once they get in, have all the powers. We can go right to ministers and complain about our leaders, but nothing gets done. We're told, go back to your chief in council. Then where do we go? If we can't go to anybody, where do we go?

This really bothers a lot of the grassroots. People are complaining to me constantly. I'm really tired of this. So if the minister is out to do a little bit of good, to get a little bit of good out of this.... I'm sure he's not going to do 100% good; nobody does.

¾ (0810)

In this Bill C-7, what people are really afraid of are the uncertainties. Many people say this is going to replace the Indian Act. That's what the fear is back home. And the AFN does not speak for the grassroots. It's all leaders. This is our opportunity for the grassroots to be heard finally, and hopefully something will work.

I tried to study this whole garble here. Just like everything else the government does, it is packed with section this, section that. This is where I'd like to speak on behalf of some of the poor grassroots people who are constantly complaining to me. The elections are really bad, and so is the administration, the band funds. So all of these need to be looked at.

Maybe you can carry a message for us back to the government addressing these things. The grassroots should at least know where the money goes. At this time, we don't even know what we have in our band funds and very few of us know how much the chiefs and council make. The audits are not made available to us, and we're completely in the dark.

We can complain about the past, but right now the past isn't going to help us straighten out our problems on the reserve at this time.

I'm not bragging, but when my uncle was the customary chief for 55 years, we all depended on him. He could not read or write, but he made the right decisions. Other bands depended on his final decisions at big gatherings.

So if you could take a message back for us on some of these sections here, as I said, I don't agree with all of them. I think the minister should address the people in every province at least once. He should approach a lot of us himself--because they're very evasive.

My letters to Ottawa must be a pile in the archives, so many times I've complained. Some of these do address a few of those things, but not enough. From what I've read, a lot of times it still gives the chiefs a lot of power. Again, where does that leave the grassroots?

I have scrutinized elections on the reserve, and they are really bad. Some of us claim we are on custom, but when there's an election by ballot, I believe it's not custom any more.

So a lot of these issues are unanswered. They need to be clarified.

¾ (0815)

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Twoyoungmen, I will say to you that this committee hears complementary sides of stories and we do hear criticism. We are very careful that when we hear criticism, we don't paint every band with the same brush. So when we hear of a band that mismanages money, we don't assume that all bands mismanage money. There are enough people in Canada who think that way. This committee does not think that way. I want you to know that, okay?

So now, Mr. John Twoyoungmen.

Mr. John Twoyoungmen (Member of the Stoney Nakoda Nation (Wesley Band), As Individual): Yes, good morning, ladies and gentlemen and members of the standing committee. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak before you.

I have this fax from Ottawa telling me I that I have only five minutes to make my presentation. I had a lengthy presentation I wanted to make, but I had to break it down into--

The Chair: I can tell you that you really have ten minutes, but we were hoping to have time for questions. Your two colleagues took the full tenminutes, so you can do the same.

Mr. John Twoyoungmen: I had to pick some of the things that were included in Bill C-7, so I came up with three. Some of these comments relate to my colleague and the powers of the band council.

I've been hearing a lot of comments from other native people, particularly from the leadership, who are worried about how Bill C-7 will affect treaty rights and the impact it will have. I propose that we ensure there is a non-derogation clause. The clause should state that no legislation, whether enacted by bands or any others, shall impact or affect treaty rights.

The rationale for this is to remove band members' fear that someone, first nations leaders in particular, will create legislation that will erode treaty rights. The insertion of such a clause will complement legal arguments that treaty rights are protected by the Canadian Constitution.

On our other concerns, it seems to us that band councils, chiefs in particular, have all the powers. They can do whatever they want without consultation with band members. This power affects minors and land interests. For adequate protection of minors and future interests there should be rules and conditions spelled out outlining approval procedures involving the use of reserve-derived money.

When a proposal requires the use of reserve lands or reserve band funds, the required approval should be at least 1,000 votes in favour of such a project or 60% of the eligible voters, whichever is greater. This rule should be in effect whether it is band business or for personal ventures, because use of band lands and money in the present affects future use and possibilities.

On the rationale, setting a higher membership approval is necessary because of the fact that every band member, whether a newborn or a person in power and control, has an equal right and share in the reserve's resources. Therefore decisions by a membership approval of 50% of the people who vote may not be sufficient if financial problems occur unexpectedly, especially if lands are at stake.

Thirdly, a tribal act or constitution should be developed by the membership. This should address the roles and responsibilities of band councils. That direction and agenda should come from the band membership, rather than having agendas developed by band councils and going down to the band membership.

¾ (0820)

On tribal acts affecting band council, before a band council assumes power under clause 15 of the new governance legislation, and upon coming into force of this act, bands must develop a constitution or tribal act that will determine and set out the roles, duties, responsibilities, and expectations of the tribal council. The duty of developing a constitution or tribal act shall be carried out by the preceding council or other committees, to be approved by band membership.

The comments we have heard so far this morning remind me of the many problems we have on our reserve, which is Stoney at Morley. One of the comments we kept hearing from the elders is that the duties and the instruction belong to the people, not to the band council. If we put something in there to that effect, I think that will alleviate some of the problems that we as bands and particularly the band membership are concerned about.

Otherwise, I see a lot of positive things in Bill C-7. I think it's a positive direction. Although we don't know what we're heading into, I believe it's a direction that provides us with the right tools to help the next generation develop better governance in the future, where the powers of the council belong to the people.

Thank you very much.

¾ (0825)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Now I invite Celeste Strikes With A Gun to make a presentation.

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun (As Individual): Earlier Ms. Kingston, the clerk, asked me if I was willing to go ahead with the presentation and then all four of us would be asked questions. I was doing my best to be cooperative, but I would like to state that I would like to keep my presentation separate from the previous three.

The Chair: There's only a minute and a half left for questions. If the official opposition has questions directed to one individual, I'll allow that.

We'll move on to the next presentation.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott (Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, Canadian Alliance): I guess I have a question of Laura. It's referenced to the others as well. It's in terms of a body to which you could appeal if there are issues or concerns, the talk in the legislation of having an ombudsman-like person appointed on each reserve or in each band by, I assume, the chief and council. Some have suggested we should take it outside the local politics level, outside the reserve, have a regional or maybe national ombudsman. Our party, the Canadian Alliance, has for some time actually been of that view. Do you have any sense whether you want to keep it at a local level or go broader?

Laura or John.

Ms. Laura Deedza: There's no trust for the local level at the grassroots. We have to take it to another place. I was thinking maybe an independent body across Canada. We have gone to Elections Canada, but they refer us back to...no one.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

All three of you made excellent presentations. It will be helpful. If you didn't have sufficient time to present everything, we invite you to send documents to our clerk. They will be translated and shared with all members of the committee.

A comment was made about us being sent here. I want to assure you all that nobody sends us anywhere. The committee is master of its own fate, and these members have accepted to spend nine weeks of their lives, along with other members who are not here who will be joining us on the tour. We're putting nine weeks on this bill, four of them full-time, because we're travelling, and the other five weeks will be full Ottawa time, because that's all we have time to do.

It's an important bill, and we appreciate your help in trying to make it better. Thank you.

Now I invite Celeste Strikes With A Gun to make a presentation.

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun: According to this watch, it's past 8:30, and I'd like to be assured of my ten minutes. How can we do that?

The Chair: We have a stopwatch.

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun: Okay, can you tell me when it's five minutes, please?

The Chair: I'll turn on my mike when it's five minutes, so you'll know.

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun: Thank you.

While it is contended that Bill C-7 was triggered by the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Corbiere, Bill C-7 goes beyond the central issue of the case dealing with allowing Indians who reside off their reserve to participate in band council elections.

While Bill C-7 is given the short name First Nations Governance Act, it does not actually deal with real governance issues. Instead Bill C-7 deals with undermining the interests of Indian bands and creating circumstances to implement Canada's Indian policy on termination. This is genocide.

While it is contended that Bill C-7 will facilitate accountability, a fallacy of equivocation has been used to obtain false support for Bill C-7. On the one hand, there have been numerous initiatives to create the misunderstanding that accountability will address the corruption and mismanagement of moneys by band councils and band administration personnel.

I want to make a clarification here. I don't let our council and this new entity off the hook very easily. I have several judicial review applications in the Federal Court where the band council is the respondent. I am putting myself on the line, in that they don't do things right, and I want to do my best to make sure that they do things right. In saying this, I'm not hired by counsels to speak for them.

On the other hand, the provisions in Bill C-7 clearly demonstrate that accountability is really about taxation of Indians and avoiding crown liability.

While it is contended that Bill C-7 will create a positive environment for economic development on Indian reserves, it will allow for corporate entities to steal or convert the proprietary interests of Indian bands. This is criminal wrongdoing. I may add that because of the time pressure and so forth put on us, it really comes down to extortion, too.

While it is contended that extensive consultations were carried out in the past few years, it can easily be established that those consultations were never carried out in a proper and meaningful manner. I will go beyond this. When we're dealing with our proprietary interests and so forth, consultation is not sufficient. We need informed consent in place. If we are going to be giving something up, consultation doesn't cut it. You have to get our okay. We have to have the experts in place who are going to tell us what the different aspects of an agreement are.

Policies on Indian education and training have ensured that status Indians are indoctrinated with propaganda on government initiatives, such as Bill C-7, rather than allowing status Indians to be educated and trained. Since many members of Indian bands and band councils are illiterate, the serious and grave implications of Bill C-7 are not understood. As a result, fraudulent misrepresentations are committed because there's usually no individual who will fully explain the provisions in Bill C-7 to status Indians.

It is outrageous and absurd that Bill C-7 provides that the Statutory Instruments Act will not apply to codes and band laws, because there will be absolutely nothing in place to ensure that codes and band laws do not exceed the provisions of Bill C-7. This is something you find with the Indian Oil and Gas Act. You have fewer than a dozen provisions in the act, but numerous provisions in the regulations. The unfortunate part is that because we are dealing with so many things, we haven't taken the government to task on that yet. But I think that is going to be coming very shortly.

Another outrageous and absurd matter is that Bill C-7 provides that the judicial notice will be given to codes and band laws. You're telling us that we have to put codes in place. If we don't put codes in place, default regulations will be put in place. When those default regulations are given the force of law, you have an express provision in Bill C-7 saying that all these codes are just going to be considered as fact and not law. That is really wrong.

In my life I know many stories to clearly demonstrate that Peigans suffer the burdens of the Canadian justice system while being denied its benefits. As a status Indian, Bill C-7 will ensure that I am denied the benefits found in the charter and the Canadian Human Rights Act. It is a fact supported by both law and personal experience that my Indian status is not sufficient to qualify for Canadian citizenship.

¾ (0830)

In my submission I refer to a Supreme Court of Canada case, also a factual situation that happened last summer. One of our young people applied for a foreign internship program offered through the Department of Foreign Affairs, and his status Indian card and the fact that he was a full member of the Peigan Indian Band was not enough to get a Canadian passport. He had to go and get an American passport so he could take advantage of this opportunity.

I'm also aware that if one is not a citizen, they don't have human rights, freedoms, and that sort of thing. I'm fine with that if it means that I'm going to keep my connection to the land and my special identity that comes from our people. I don't need your rights. I think this is something a lot of people don't understand.

In my presentation I talk about how the timelines were so tight for this. One of the things I'd like to elaborate on is the consultations. When I first heard about governance issues, it was in relation to Corbiere, which dealt with off-reserve people voting. In the Peigan situation, we've never denied voting to off-reserve people.

After that was the first nations governance initiative. And Norm Brennand sat here and wrongly stated that he made it very clear in all his meetings that what he was dealing with was pre-legislative consultation. That was a lie.

One of the things that happens.... I have my own notes, and this is something I would like to--

¾ (0835)

The Chair: I'd like to interrupt. We are here to ask your assistance to make Bill C-7 better. I cannot sit here and accept accusations without offering the other side a defence. So we don't want to get into accusations, please.

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun: Well, that's fine.

What I would like to ask for is an opportunity to have affidavit evidence submitted to you so that it deals with your concern.

The Chair: You can submit anything you wish if it pertains to Bill C-7.

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun: Thank you.

What it comes down to is that consultation is very important. It has been represented that $10 million or $15 million has been spent on consultation and that 10,000 participants have been involved.

I know with Peigan there were numerous meetings. One of the tactics that was used is they put a meal on. As Marie mentioned earlier, when you're dealing with poverty, people are really concerned about their next meal. That was a way to entice some people to attend those meetings. They would show up to eat and then leave. Also, the volunteers who put on the food and refreshments came and left. They didn't take part in the consultation meeting.

I think it is wrong to submit false numbers.

My final comment is that when you do make your report, I would ask that you recommend that Bill C-7 be scrapped.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I now invite a member of the Piikani First Nation, Emma Lee Warrior.

Please, make your presentation.

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun: According to my watch and the ten minutes I was given in this notice, I would like to ask if anybody has a question or two.

The Chair: You're correct, you do have a minute and a half left.

Mr. Vellacott or Mr. Chatters, do you have a question?

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I had a question in respect to the Canadian Human Rights Act.

I'm wondering if you feel, by the exemption of gender, if that covers and adequately protects women. In Bill C-7 it has moved from where it was in the past, but there's still an allowance along certain cultural lines and so on. Do you think women will be given the kind of equity and equality they need by virtue of this change?

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun: What I would like to state is that feminism is racism. I have looked at all the ideologies of feminism, ranging from radical feminism up to liberal feminism, as set out by John Stuart Mill's wife, Harriet Taylor Mill, and with each one--and maybe with liberal feminism--what it comes down to is choosing between my identity as a Peigan person and being a woman. I must say that being Peigan is more important than being a woman.

This is one of the things that has been imposed upon us. We've been brainwashed with this, that feminism is our salvation, and it isn't.

The Chair: You have 30 seconds left.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: My other question would be in terms of women's matrimonial real property rights. The JMAC suggested that would be a key area of reform in terms of marriage. Is that a continuing concern? It is not at all addressed in the bill. Should it have been in some way?

¾ (0840)

Ms. Celeste Strikes With A Gun: I'm glad you've raised the issue of property; I didn't have time to cover that in my presentation. On giving band councils legal capacity, right now the band has power over the land, resources, and so forth. But with legal capacity as proposed in Bill C-7, what's going to happen is band councils are going to have that legal capacity, that authority to go ahead and make decisions.

In the Peigan situation they're acting as if Bill C-7 is already in place. Recently there was a ratification vote held on a $64 million deal. Those guidelines were part of the agreement. It was ridiculous. There is a judicial review hearing on that. It was to be on April 7, 2003, maybe to April 11, but with the property interest that is a big issue.

This is why it's so important to have that informed consent in place, because there are other things too, such as the case that came out of Ontario, Wasauksing. The band council set up a corporation, and both the band council and members of the band brought the case to court to try to ask for some kinds of benefits in the corporation. The court told them, you're SOL.

With all this there have been papers from Harvard saying that with Bill C-7 it's going to make it more feasible for economic development. What that comes down to is they're going to be converting, stealing our property interests, and there's nothing in Bill C-7 to ensure that there's any kind of continuity between band members and what is set up with all these corporate entities. You have two types of corporations--

The Chair: Thank you very much. We went over our time.

I would ask those who have presented to now return to your chairs, and I invite Emma Lee Warrior to commence her presentation.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: May I just interject for a moment?

I'm just going over the schedule here; there are different ones who are here on an individual basis, and different committee members would like to follow up with questions later. We have a break at some point--

The Chair: Yes, there are members who are interested in continuing the dialogue with you, so please stick around. We'll announce this when we have our lunch break.

Ms. Emma Lee Warrior.

Ms. Emma Lee Warrior (Member of the Piikani First Nation, As Individual): My response to the First Nations Governance Act is this: the Canadian government has not honoured the first nations people, despite treaties supposedly keeping guard on native lands and resources and agreeing to support natives medically, educationally, and financially, this in exchange for the land now known as Canada.

The Blackfoot-speaking peoples occupy an extensive area stretching from the North Saskatchewan River to the Yellowstone in Wyoming. My tribe, the Piikani, presently have a 12-by-15-mile reserve.

The government has worked with unscrupulous native leaders to sell us out. Each reserve has its elite group, which includes chief, councillors, and administrative staff. They are controlled by Indian Affairs, who train and anchor them in positions of power on the reserve. They are hard to get rid of and they do a lot of damage. They do not care as long as they are getting money. These people practise corruption: nepotism, mismanaging funds, stealing money, “I don't know the difference”, etc. When people complain, Indian Affairs or the RCMP say it's internal; you voted your leaders in. That's the present situation.

During the 1800s the buffalo were killed off so the Indians would succumb to hunger and be weakened so they would be docile and stay on the reserves. Today the Canadian government is using Bill C-7.

We can't view Bill C-7 without looking at Bill C-19, which is the First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act. There was an article in the Calgary Herald on August 16 saying that Bill C-19 would allow bands to get cheaper loans but use reserve land for debenture, a term not even understood by me; I had to look up the word “debenture”. There is a mystery veiling business carried on by certain members of the Piikani Nation. I suspect Bill C-19 is being used, our assets are being used, to finance these ventures.

In light of this bit of information, Bill C-19 will burden us with taxes and we will eventually lose our land for non-payment of taxes. This bill will take our land away from us, sending natives to urban centres. There they will lose their identity as Peigans.

We have people who frequent the streets of off-reserve towns, but they return to the reserve at night. They are considered an eyesore and a nuisance by the townspeople. Is it our destiny to end our days in the mean streets of cities, despised by white people? At least now we have our homelands, where it matters little the type of home or vehicle one has. In western society, material acquisition rules. We are the dispossessed now, but at least we have a land base we call home.

We are Peigan. It is the land of our ancestors, and now the government, the white people, want it for themselves. They implement tactics such as the pursuance of Bill C-7 and Bill C-19 to achieve their means. They go across Canada giving free meals to attract natives, then they count the number of plates to say this many people came. This is passed off as consultation. Consulting with people who are hungry is not consulting; it is taking unfair advantage.

At that so-called consultation I went primarily for the purpose of eating. At the time I was passive and thought, what good will my input do, since the government has already decided what it wants? I was provided information in a booklet and by watching a video. It was too much to digest, and even now I feel overwhelmed and inadequate to talk knowledgeably about the First Nations Governance Act.

But then I thought about the future generations. They deserve to have their native identity. They are Peigan. Each summer we celebrate life at our annual powwow on our land, in the open, with the mountains to the west and south of us. We remember where we came from.

Now this is a new oppression. We are in danger of losing much more than our land, and our language is teetering on the brink of extinction. We need to save our land and our language. If we move to the city, it will be worse than ever to find our people. We will be lost forever.

When the last chief and council and their supporters sold our river, many of us wanted them to take their money and leave forever and leave the reserve to those of us who didn't want to sell. I took the money, because if I hadn't taken it they would have spent it for me.

¾ (0845)

White people have always been land-hungry. They want to turn everything into profit. Development and technology are ruining the world. I do not want to move to the city; I want to live on the land where my ancestors lived. I want to pray each morning when the sun rises on the land that kept my ancestors alive. I do not want to sell it for profit and move to the city to live a lifestyle that is good for the economy.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

We will have time for questions from both sides, so we'll start with the official opposition. We'll give you two minutes and we'll give them three. How's that?

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: It's hard to know where to begin when you have such a short amount of time here.

I often raise the issue of matrimonial real property with women who are presenting to us because it's an issue they've often raised with us. If that's not something you're concerned about, you can tell me off the top. But sometimes in the whole matter of loss of houses and property women have big concerns and they've expressed them. Do you have concerns about that issue being addressed in some way down the road, possibly even in this bill?

Ms. Emma Lee Warrior: I'm not really familiar with the bill. Actually I just started reading it the other night, because I had this passive attitude about the whole matter.

I feel it's wrong for the man to take the house, because the women bear the children and they need a home to live in. They don't have to move into the city. Maybe they should have a hostel for men where they can stay, but the family needs to have a home. On the reserve the man usually gets the house.

The Chair: Mr. Hubbard.

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

I have just a brief comment. I certainly understand where you're coming from, because society has changed so much. I'm from a small community too, and we see our young people moving away. We see that rural life is changing. Legislators, Canadians, and people around the world see it's hard to keep the old ways when we're always encountering so many new ideas and new ways. The movement is everywhere. I hope your people can continue.

You mentioned how much land and resources you have--I know because I looked in the book here--for the size of your community. But it's a frustration all people in Canada in rural areas are experiencing. I know that your people have lived on the land for thousands of years, and probably others who have come to this country have only lived here for a couple of hundred years, but there's a strong feeling throughout rural areas that our way of life is under attack. Hopefully we can continue.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for those few comments.

¾ (0850)

The Chair: Thank you.

If you wish to make closing remarks we have a few minutes.

Ms. Emma Lee Warrior: I think it's unfair the way white people have dealt with natives. Everything is in their language and from their perspective, and they have set things up the way they operate. They have been pushing all this stuff on us and expecting people....

I just think white people have a very unfair advantage. It amounts to stealing and oppression, and I don't think that's how it should be.

The Chair: In the few seconds that are left I would like to say to you that this committee is not a committee of the government, the minister, or even the Prime Minister. We are a committee of the House of Commons, and we are very interested in what you have to say.

After we send the bill back to the House it will be in the government's hands, but for the time being it's in the committee's hands, and we're sincere about wanting to make it better before we send it back. We appreciate your assistance.

Ms. Emma Lee Warrior: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

I welcome now Ms. Dila Provost.

Ms. Dila Provost (Member of the Piikani First Nation, As Individual): I would like to say good morning to everyone here. I'd like to thank those of you who made it possible for me to be sitting here this morning. I wrote my presentation and timed it. I have five minutes. I hope I understand my own handwriting.

My name is Dila Provost. I'm from the Piikani Reserve of the Blackfoot Nation. I'm the third generation granddaughter of Chief Red Crow and the fourth generation of White Striped Dog, who represented the Blackfoot at the assembly of Treaty 7 in 1877. Since this treaty was never sanctioned in legislation in accordance with the Constitution of Canada, the Blackfoot Nation has never been recognized as a sovereign partner in the Canadian governing body. Furthermore, the Indian Act came into being prior to this treaty, with no mention of it at the time and without consultation or representation of our people. At that time our people couldn't speak English and had very poor interpreters.

We, the indigenous Blackfoot Nation, from time immemorial have maintained and survived by a sacred covenant to the land and all its resources, animals, and environment. This exquisite domain is governed by divine adherence, and this is the foundation of our culture.

The Indian Act and eventually Bill C-7 will contribute soft colonization, further extraction of Treaty 7, assimilation, and termination of our identity and the existence of our unique ethnic group. To avoid further ethnocide, the Government of Canada is providing tools of government. It must begin to legislate the native claims to the natural resources preservation and use and must adhere to our sacred covenant to the territory. Our claim to crown land resources must be exercised. We must share in the natural resources preservation and use, as at present we are without primary industry on our reserve.

Today we live in extreme poverty and illiteracy. Our health problems are at an epidemic level in diseases such as diabetes, arthritis, and addictions. These are all stress-caused diseases. The death rate is high, and longevity is at a younger age than the average in Canada. Suicide is common. We've had seven suicides in my family. Housing is our number one social problem, with homelessness, overcrowding, and no funding for repairs and maintenance and new homes. Some of our people have left. Some are working in Calgary. I counted 12 Piikani living on the street, and two were women.

At any time, 80% of our people are totally dependent on a substandard welfare program. I was the director of welfare, and I worked as a social worker on my reserve. I came up with these numbers. I say substandard because it's not as good as what is available in the cities. When the native people move to the city, they get more help. There's more advocating and representation for them.

Without natural resources we have no base for economic development and, as I said, no primary industry. Since the reservation system began in the late 1800s, our people have not been allowed to progress beyond the state of the basic needs of food and clothing. As Maslow's hierarchy of needs depicts, you have food, shelter, and clothing. But on the reserve all we have is food and clothing. At that, we don't even have the rate the province has. We have to drive ten miles to town to get food. We have to have a car. Where are we going to get that car if we don't have any money? How are we going to handle a car? On top of everything else, we have to pay insurance. Then we have to have gas money. It's a really traumatic situation.

¾ (0855)

Human development, band government, and economic development can only be feasible if we at least share in the natural resources that belong to the Blackfoot, not any other part of Canada, just our own Blackfoot territory. She gave you the area. It's from Edmonton to Regina and then along the 49th parallel and up. That was our land prior to Treaty 7. And my own research on Treaty 7 has shown it to be a fraud. So we still have claims to all of these and yet we don't even get any of it.

As well, 80% of our people live on welfare. I've worked in the prison system, and natives make up 80% of the incarcerated. Something is very wrong.

I doubt if this piece of paper is going to change much. We've heard all the complaints on the reserves. It's common, and it's right across Canada. My brother and I visited 72 reserves one year, and we found the same thing straight across Canada. It was that little ID card, that little Indian status card, that held us subjugated under the Indian Act. As I said, the Indian Act wasn't even there, and people didn't know--my grandparents didn't even know--it existed in 1877, when this land was taken from us.

At any rate, I still have hope. I still believe things will turn out right. But I think the white man should begin to understand that we're not a nation that governs underneath a human being. We're a nation that governs under a direction that leads us to a higher power, a spiritual power, to divine adherence. That's how our government was when the white man first came here, and that's how our leaders were chosen. They weren't elected.

That's what I have to present today. I hope I covered five minutes.

The Chair: Seven minutes, and you did very well. That was interesting.

Any questions, colleagues? Mr. Vellacott.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: As our honourable chair has made very clear, this is not our bill, per se; it's courtesy of a minister of the crown, of the government. It's come into our possession for this period of time. Speaking as a member of the opposition, we want to improve this, and I think members on the government side do as well.

My question is, have you had the opportunity to read this particular bill that's before us, or at least parts of Bill C-7? Because I want to try to--

Ms. Dila Provost: Yes, I did read part of it. I didn't read it all. I also went to a women's conference in Edmonton that was going through it, but we never did really go through the whole thing; it's kind of long, and a lot of people wanted to talk.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Some of this bill is supposedly a kind of transition piece to the end of self-government, eventually. Do you see nothing good in this bill at all? I didn't hear a lot of your comments directly or specifically address any clauses or parts of the bill.

I guess my heart goes out--

¿ (0900)

Ms. Dila Provost: Well, when I was looking at it, the only part I didn't find anything wrong with was the part on human rights. Several times I went to human rights in my whole journey of trying to find jobs here and there. When I got fired from Bowden Institution it was basically a human rights issue, but they wouldn't help me. They wrote a letter and said there were no findings when they interviewed all the other parties, but they never interviewed my party.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Because you were aboriginal, you feel?

Ms. Dila Provost: Yes, because I was living on the reserve. I had to move home to the reserve.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: This bill supposedly addresses that, at least in part.

Ms. Dila Provost: Well, in part.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: So would you be favourable to the aspect of the bill that does that?

Ms. Dila Provost: The aspect of human rights, yes, but also I think there are a lot of human rights issues. We're not educated in that way. Whatever I got, I had to scratch around for, and not as a professional. It didn't come from a post-secondary education or anything like that.

What I'm finding is that a lot of Canadian governments, in exercising different parts of these bills, are against what's under United Nations human rights.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Now, I don't know that you're saying this, necessarily, but is it just about adding more money for, say, health and education? That may be part of it, but if we could just add buckets and buckets of money to address some of these very serious problems and concerns for native people across this country, would that resolve it all?

Ms. Dila Provost: As far as more money goes, I guess it will always help; more money always helps. But on the other hand, the chief and council take it all.

On our reserve last year, we had an experience of some school councillor going to the band and saying we need to try to do something about these kids; they don't have proper nutrition. So some women on the reserve got together and went to work on a food bank, and they got it going. They got something like $100,000 to work with their food bank, and the council blew it all on travel. Those women couldn't say anything. They sat there and got depressed and frustrated, and nothing happened.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Now we invite Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen to make a presentation.

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen (Elder and Member of the Blood Tribe, As Individual): My name is Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen. I'm an elder. I reside on the Sarcee Reserve; however, I'm a member of the Blood Nation in southern Alberta.

I looked at this Bill C-7 with caution and with a great deal of concern, not only for myself, but for future generations. The past for us has never been easy. We have always been fighting for the rights that we, as first nations people, have to strive for. I mean, we're second on the list on the food chain when it comes to being recognized as a proud and honourable nation.

One of the things that I came across was the destruction of 100,000 first nations people in 1675, when they brought diseased blankets into this country and spread smallpox to the people of this country just so they could conquer them and take the land, what little land the first nations had. This is ongoing.

You talk about going out and becoming equal. How long is the Canadian government going to try to make me white? I'm always going to be this colour. I'm always going to be second in line when it comes to employment, when it comes to.... Even registering in a hotel, you have to give a damage deposit. These are the things that we--and I as a person--after all these years are still confronted with.

It has only been since 1961 that as a Canadian I could go and vote in elections. In 1969 the white paper was exactly what we're looking at right now--Bill C-7. It's an attempt to take our rights away and an attempt to make us equal, the same as every single Canadian.

I'm as much a Canadian as you are. I pay income tax. I still owe Revenue Canada some money from last year. I'm no different. The only safeguard is the reserve, the land that I can go back to when I die, or when my children or my grandchildren are there.

I know the Indian Act has many flaws, but it doesn't cover the whole country. In B.C. and eastern Canada they don't have treaties, but in the central part of Canada we do. Those treaties are very sacred. That was just a peace treaty, it wasn't a land settlement. Now all of a sudden we'll be faced with this Bill C-7, which deprives us of many rights.

As I was reading that bill I noticed that many of the paragraphs in there related to council. I didn't see a chief. Suddenly there is no longer a chief, only council people? Isn't that a municipality in another form?

Why bother trying to take more from us, when we don't have very much right now?

One treaty after the other has been slowly chipped away, and I make reference to health, the medicine chest in Treaty 7. We don't have one in there, but we hold that as part of why we have medical services.

In this country, if you are so concerned about first nations, then maybe the Canadian government, the way you're spending money and the way you're forever.... For example, the bill on guns--where did that all go? You're looking at us. You're saying let's just change this whole thing and make it a white paper where we no longer have rights.

I have to think about the future and of the people who can't be here, the people who can't speak on behalf of themselves or the people.

¿ (0905)

This whole thing is like the residential schools. They said residential schools would be good for us. It's now many years later, and we're still suffering from the repercussions of what happened 60 to 80 years ago. They attempted to make us white and take away our language, our culture, and our heritage. They tried, but they didn't succeed.

I'm still here. I am a survivor of a residential school. I'm certainly not proud of what happened and what I went through. I will never forget how I was treated when I was going to school, what the teachers told me, and what they called me.

In closing, that is basically where I'm coming from. I really think you have to get out there and talk to every single first nation. That is their future. They have to know what the old Indian Act says and what the new Indian Act says. You just can't just talk to one nation and that's it.

We are in a fast system, but you have to slow down to the pace of first nations. We're taking things rather slowly because we've never had the opportunity to govern ourselves.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

As I said before, committee members spent three months last spring educating ourselves before the bill was even written. Now we're doing this for nine weeks. I hope the effort the committee is making will at least be appreciated. We're here to listen to you and we're going to bring this back to the government.

I won't dispute all the other things you have said. I'm hurt and embarrassed by them, as a Canadian, and I understand why you would say those things.

Mr. Vellacott.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Thank you, Victoria, for being here today. I appreciate that, and I appreciate everyone who has come forward and expressed different things that are strong in their hearts, things that we need to hear.

Do I understand you to say that you don't want Bill C-7 at all, or any amended changes to Bill C-7? Do you want to stay with the Indian Act? Where do we go from here? If you don't want Bill C-7, do you like the Indian Act as it is? Where do you want to go with things to improve the lives of native people across the country?

¿ (0910)

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen: We want full consultation with all first nations people. There is a wide scope. There are different tribes and different levels of self-government determining their own destinies.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Do you like the Indian Act the way it is?

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen: Yes, in part.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: But you'd like to change or adjust some things in the Indian Act.

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen: Yes.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: So you'd like to either amend that or get a bill in place that would kind of alter some of the effects of the Indian Act.

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen: I don't want to be misconstrued in my statement. I'm not totally in agreement. I've lived with the Indian Act in its present condition.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: But you're saying there are problems with it.

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen: Well, you changed the Indian Act to Bill C-31 and we had influx of other scenarios. That was just since 1985.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: So if there were more consultation--

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen: Yes, we need more consultation. I can't sit here and say “You guys over there, I just changed the whole government. We no longer have a Prime Minister.” Can you see yourselves being told that by somebody? You're doing that to me and to first nations without consulting us, but could you do it to yourselves and say “Okay, fine, we'll do away with the Prime Minister and we'll do away with members of Parliament”? You would have a revolution beyond anything in this country, and you know that.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: There was a department that undertook consultation, supposedly, and we're hearing that maybe it wasn't the kind of consultation it should have been. I wasn't a part of that. But I guess I'm hearing that you were greatly disappointed with that, and you felt if it had gone on more months....

I'm not sure if it would ever be possible to meet and talk to absolutely every individual of first nation or aboriginal ancestry across the country. I appreciate what you're saying about talking to a whole lot more people and having a lot more thorough consultation. You would like to see that happen over several years, and maybe we'd get it right with that kind of lengthy--

Ms. Victoria Crowchild-Aberdeen: You would get it right eventually. It would appease some of the first nations people. But you can't do it with this microwave system where you push and in two minutes you have an answer. This is a matter of our lives, our heritage, our future. I'm sure even you guys can't get a microwave answer.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I'd like to know if Alfred Toots Dixon is in the room. No.

We will go to Mr. Rene Paul. Please make your presentation.

Mr. Rene Paul (Individual Presentation): Thank you. My name is Rene Paul. I'm a member of the Alexander First Nation, which is part of Treaty 6.

First of all, I'd like to thank the honourable members of this committee for giving me the opportunity to make this presentation here this morning. My comments are made in support of Bill C-7, the proposed First Nations Governance Act, because of my own personal belief that this proposed legislation is timely and long overdue.

For the information of the committee, the comments I make here today are based strictly on my own views and beliefs, and not necessarily those of the Alexander First Nation. Many Alexander members have given me their support to speak on their behalf in support of Bill C-7.

In my view, Bill C-7, with some minor adjustments, represents the perfect balance to guarantee members rights against those leaders who sometimes believe that members have no rights. Often members who speak out against leadership are persecuted and victimized for their beliefs and their actions. This is happening to me. I feel Bill C-7 will go a long way to protect against this.

I will begin my comments by advising you of the legal matter concerning the recent custom election of the Alexander First Nation. I've just gone through a very bitter and very expensive dispute concerning our customary election regulations and their relationship to proper financial management and accountability. At the direction of over 51% of Alexander members who signed a petition, I stood up on their behalf and challenged our September 12, 2002, custom elections on the grounds of corrupt practice.

In my allegation I stated that over $300,000 was caused to be spent by certain incumbents for purposes of vote-buying. An internal appeal hearing and a subsequent Federal Court of Canada review overturned my appeal strictly on procedural grounds. The then chief and council appointed the appeal board pursuant to our custom election regulations. Two of these appeal board members were in a perceived conflict of interest situation because of their direct affiliation to the chief and council of Alexander.

During this election dispute, the issue of financial management and accountability, specifically related to the principles of transparency, disclosure, and redress that are entrenched in the funding agreement between Alexander and INAC, became virtually non-existent. In order to substantiate my allegations, I was told I needed evidence. I made request after request to Alexander's finance department to request certain financial information that would prove that corruption occurred. Naturally I was denied this information due to privacy concerns.

When INAC, Alberta region, was asked to intervene, the same response was given--show us the evidence. While I had a small part of the evidence in my possession, again the rest of it was locked away and available only to a chosen few. As a result of this failure of INAC to respond to my requests, I now question whether a serious breach of the funding agreement between Alexander and INAC occurred by non-compliance with the principles of transparency, disclosure, and redress.

While I cannot prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, I find it ironic that the same department that introduced Bill C-7 may have been negligent in ensuring compliance with the principles of transparency, disclosure, and redress during the election dispute. This particular election dispute is still under legal advisement and far from over, so I must restrict my comments.

Because of the humiliation, pain, and suffering I endured during these trying times, I welcome with open arms the passage of Bill C-7 to ensure that there's not a repeat of the problems at Alexander. Furthermore, I know that other first nations people before me have challenged their own governance systems. Many more will continue to challenge unless strong governance reform is imposed on those first nations who need it. I understand that Bill C-7 is designed such that no one else has to endure the pain and suffering I went through in my attempts to secure justice against a very serious problem--corruption.

Many more people at Alexander have also been victimized for expressing their views and beliefs and on our recent custom election. The nature of the punishment handed down is extreme, but will remain internal for us to endure. The one thing many Alexander people can agree on is that the root of our problem is the non-existence of a structured governance system at Alexander. I know Bill C-7 will fix this problem.

Very clearly, despite all the cosmetic surgery it can endure, the governance system at Alexander is seriously flawed. We are far from a perfect first nation. We have a governance procedure and financial management code that is still in draft form, despite being in the developmental stage for over five years.

¿ (0915)

Our customary election regulations are ambiguous, confusing, and contradictory, yet election after election we continue to use them and continue to have appeal after appeal. The most notable flaw is the inability of our people to enforce these rules through presumed methods of redress.

The current approach to redress available at Alexander appears to be one of go ahead and appeal or go ahead and question--if you dare. Once again, it is my hope and my objective to ensure that once Bill C-7 is given final approval it will apply to Alexander in its entirety. Many of our people will be ready for it.

It is my view that over the past few years the leadership at Alexander believed that Bill C-7 would never get final approval. In fact they hoped it would go away. As a former staff member of Alexander, I continually advised the leadership of the day that Bill C-7 was not going away and that they should do their due diligence by giving this information to the members. Not much has happened. As a group of concerned Alexander members, we took the initiative and have struggled, without council's help, to conduct information sessions and to distribute information to our members on and off the reserve.

There's no question that first nations governance reform is long overdue. For me, personally, Bill C-7 is a blessing in disguise. At long last there will be legislation to guarantee a fair, open, equal, and honest government for my people and my community.

Just so the record is straight, I'm a treaty first nations person who's advocating governance reform through Bill C-7. However, I continue to place high regard on our sacred Treaty 6. I place it in high regard because one day there will be an understanding reached that Treaty 6 confirms our inherent jurisdiction and authority to determine our own laws and government. A process is in place that intends to achieve this result. I offer this view to acknowledge that Bill C-7 could be seen as an interim administrative measure that is without prejudice and subject to the outcome of the Treaty 6 bilateral process.

While the bilateral treaty process is far from complete, Bill C-7 offers a transitional opportunity to provide much-needed protection and security for the well-being of many first nations. In his many presentations, the Honourable Robert Nault, Minister of Indian Affairs, continually stated that Bill C-7 is a good starting point. I agree. He goes so far as to suggest that other options or alternatives are possible. I'm hoping that's still the rule of the day.

I would also like to echo the sentiments of the first nations leaders who have stated that consultation regarding this process was limited and that the outcomes appeared to be predetermined. However, this is not to say that the nature of Bill C-7 is not needed for many first nation communities.

As a concerned first nation member, I've closely monitored the developments of Bill C-7 since it was first introduced in June of 2002. My initial reaction was this was going to be a bad piece of legislation against us as first nations. However, once further discussions were held on the proposed bill, and after having experienced the shortcomings of an extremely flawed governance system in Alexander, my views have drastically changed. I now feel that Bill C-7 may not be all bad.

I have reviewed all of the material provided since June 2002. I concur with the problem areas and many of the solutions identified through the initial consultation process. These problem areas are not far from the truth. In large part, the suggestions made have been made by people like me, a grassroots person.

In light of my support of Bill C-7, there are still areas of concern and suggestions I'd like to make, as follows:

In the preamble, include a statement that makes particular reference to treaty first nations to give assurances that this act is an interim administrative law that is without prejudice and subject to the outcome of bilateral treaty discussions.

Include a non-derogation clause to give further assurances that this fact will not prejudice treaty and aboriginal rights.

On the purposes of act, include an addition to clause 3 specifically referencing this act as being an interim administrative law that is without prejudice and subject to the outcome of bilateral treaty discussions, or something of that nature.

Under band governance, on the issue of band funds, band funds that are the result of land claims settlements and held in trust accounts with specified terms are governed by other laws and should not become subject to this legislation, unless or until specifically stated in the respective trust agreement.

¿ (0920)

No doubt members will ensure that a clear and distinct relationship between their financial management code and their respective trust agreements is developed.

The leadership selection section covers all the problem areas we've experienced in this most recent dispute--

The Chair: I have to interrupt. I'm interested in hearing the balance of your presentation, but I would not want to be accused of allowing someone who supports the bill to go on longer. You understand, I have to be fair. There will not be time for questions, but I appreciate your presentation, and we do have the rest of your recommendations in writing. They will be translated and distributed to all members.

Thank you.

For the next panel, do we have Doug Dokis in the room? If so, come forward. We have Sean Coghlan, Jeff Horvath, Nicole Weasel Bear, Denny Listener, Verna Weasel Child, Dr. Helen Many Fingers, and Wallace Many Fingers.

The first on the list is Nicole Weasel Bear. We invite you to make the first presentation on behalf of your group for ten minutes.

¿ (0925)

Ms. Nicole Weasel Bear (Grade 12 student at Piikani Nation Secondary School, Peigan Board of Education): My name is Nicole Weasel Bear and I'm a member of the Piikani First Nation. I'm a grade 12 student from the Piikani Nation Secondary School.

The Chair: Carry on. I do want you to relax. We are all friends around the kitchen table here.

Ms. Nicole Weasel Bear: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you on the matter of Bill C-7, the First Nations Governance Act, to speak as a youth about my perspective on this bill.

I was overwhelmed as I read it and tried to understand it and make sense of what is written. We had an opportunity to hear from others in our community as to their understanding of what the proposed plan is for us. I also did research on the Internet to view other comments and responses at the government level about the concerns the first nations people have about Bill C-7.

I oppose the governance act, Bill C-7, and I support the Assembly of First Nations, Matthew Coon Come and others who are not in favour, in rejecting the proposed plan and action from the government's initiative.

The reasons are these. I feel we did not have equal consultation and were not given enough information, and I speak on behalf of the youth. Allocate more time to study the package. The proposal is complex, and I fear that if we are not informed effectively, Bill C-7 will devastate the first nations and will misgovern us.

In Minister Nault's answer to a question from a concerned person that the First Nations Governance Act was going to turn his community into a municipality, he said no, this is a myth. Yet opponents view it and say we will be a municipality. Who shall we believe?

It asks the first nations to produce a government in two years. Why are we pressured to accept the offer? The government has already done the first reading in Parliament and states it will be effective by 2004, according to reports, and then they will give us two years to develop codes on leadership selection, administration of government, and financial management and accountability. This will be done with limited human capital or other resources.

The government had the best resources, such as funds, manpower, and lawyers, to put this proposal together. Many bands are struggling financially. Will Indian Affairs provide adequate financial support?

I have many concerns with this Bill C-7, but my time is limited. I urge you to listen to first nations people and I encourage you to begin our relationship with trust, honesty, and respect and to make more of our people involved with the decision-making to recognize our true place in Canada and our place in the Constitution of this country.

The Chair: Thank you very much for an excellent presentation. I know it's probably the first time you're doing this. You did it extremely well, and I invite you to continue to be involved. It's for your generation that we should try to make society better today.

Denny, do you have a presentation?

Mr. Denny Listener (Grade 12 student, Piikani Nation Secondary School, Peigan Board of Education): My name is Denny Listener and I'm a high school student from the Piikani Nation Secondary School. I was raised off reserve and now attend school on reserve. I was selected to speak on behalf of the youth from our school.

Bill C-7 is something new to me, but my opinion is that I do not agree with this First Nations Governance Act because we were not given enough time to prepare for this document, and there was a lack of consultation from the perspective of first nations.

For example, a document was prepared and given to the people, and you expect us to either do something about it or the government will implement this act regardless of our opinions.

We need more clarification on the wording of this act. The legal wording is too complicated.

Who will be able to vote, either in favour or not, on this act? Will band members across Canada be able to vote for or against the act? Is the federal government trying to negate their fiduciary responsibilities toward first nations peoples?

Although there is no clause specifically on taxation, it is implied throughout the document who is going to develop the taxation. Secondly, this taxation needs to be an issue. The First Nations Governance Act has been developed from an economic ideal, and you are implying that economics is the means for self-determination. What about the cultural and spiritual aspects of life that also create self-determination? There is no amount of money that can replace our culture.

Thank you.

¿ (0930)

The Chair: Thank you also for an excellent presentation. I want you to continue, too, to be involved. I want to commend your teacher for the role you are playing.

Mr. Denny Listener: This is my mother.

The Chair: Your mother. Well, the first teacher is your mother, there's no doubt about that--for all of us.

I think we have four minutes. Are there any questions or maybe comments of encouragement for our future--

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I want to comment.

[Inaudible—Editor] ...across the wisdom of the ages--the elders, and the younger folk who have come along too. Maybe we'll have some opportunity at break time to talk a little bit more.

I guess I feel as well that the Indian Act has some problems. It definitely has, and I think that's agreed all around. I think the attempt is to try to get beyond the Indian Act in a consultative way with first nations people. I'm not necessarily of the view that this is the best way or the best piece to do it. I'm not necessarily convinced at this point if this is the piece that's going to do that job.

That's the whole point of these hearings. I think there's obvious admission that the Indian Act is flawed and has its problems. We have to get beyond that and get at some of those issues, so I think we need to make the attempt. Whether Bill C-7 is that work or not, I guess that's the point of the hearings.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Vellacott.

Next, my two friends, we will put you through an experience that will be new to you. Monsieur Binet will be making comments or asking a question and he will do that in French, so you will need the translation device to understand what he is saying to you.

Monsieur Binet.

[Translation]

Mr. Gérard Binet (Frontenac—Mégantic, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good day everyone.

This morning, you've talked at length about information and consultation, the latter subject seeming to be your main concern. I'm delighted to meet a group of young people who use the Internet. I'm 47 years old, and I don't use the Internet at work. My assistants use it, as do my children.

In order for the consultation process to be satisfactory, what is required, in your opinion? Should we be organizing meetings via the Internet and targeting all age groups? Apparently, thousands of people have been consulted. Of course, there have been complaints that people came for the food and then left. Nevertheless, I'd like to ask you again how best to go about holding consultations.

¿ (0935)

[English]

The Chair: Do you have comments on what you feel would be a good way for governments to reach everyone, especially the young people when we say we want to consult? Do you have tricks to give to us?

Mr. Denny Listener: Yes. Band meetings, more with the youth.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Did you have a comment, Nicole?

Ms. Nicole Weasel Bear: What about more time to study the package? I was given a week to study it and I still didn't really get it.

The Chair: Okay. That's a good position. We'll have to find a way to encourage your leaders to share the information with the whole community, because I sense that in feeding the information, it stops somewhere. The information has been available since June of last year. We'll have to find ways to get the information to you. Probably the best way to bypass your leaders and even myself is to go through the Internet, because I know you guys are skilled with the Internet and we can reach you.

Did you wish to make a short comment?

Ms. Sally Listener (Individual Presentation): What they're trying to say is if you have band meetings, use wording that will be understood by everyone. We understand that the document is prepared by your legal advisers, but we're not all lawyers, so we'd like wording that is plain English and to the point. We'd like more information. Some of the documents in the package are very vague. For example, on page 9, there's really not a clarification of what you're stating. Really clear meanings of what you're saying exactly would be helpful.

The Chair: We appreciate your comments. You're right. Laws are usually written by lawyers, and they do a good job, but they have to write laws that can be defended in courts by lawyers who are now judges, and it creates problems for you and for us also. We thank you very much for your input.

I now invite, from Mount Royal College, Doug Dokis, program adviser, aboriginal education. We have ten minutes.

Mr. Doug Dokis (Program Adviser, Aboriginal Education, Mount Royal College): [Witness speaks in his native language]

Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I was a little late getting in from Calgary.

My first point leads in from what the young people were saying here. I work at Mount Royal College as an instructor and a program adviser for aboriginal education. One of the biggest concerns that came up, even with the young people, was the same thing there--timing and the information getting out to them. I hear about looking at the Internet. Within a lot of other initiatives that are put forth, the media seems to be a big outlet for government to get the message across. I would suggest possibly using public media such as television and so on to try to get the message out to the young people, because my concern with this bill is the long-term effects it will have on our children and the not knowing what those effects are.

On the surface the bill may seem good to some, but the long-term and underlying effects it's going to have on our people in generations to come is what concerns me--losing some of the things that we already have and some things we've already lost.

I too am not a lawyer, and I'm not as well versed on these amendments as I'd like to be, because it is very complicated, and the language is important. It also is important to spend the time to educate us, and the young people especially. They're the ones who are probably going to have to deal with the outcomes of this 10 or 15 years down the road. If we can't understand it now, imagine what it's going to be like for them trying to make those changes when the bill is already passed.

I think it's critical that this gets resolved before this bill gets implemented, so there is a clear understanding of not only the immediate outcome of the change of the bill but also the long-term implications it's going to have with regard to our existing treaty rights and our existing rights as first nations people.

I have a few submissions. Again, I don' t speak on behalf of all the students or people. I can only say that in Calgary there was so-called consultation. I mean no disrespect to the effort that went into bringing this down, but the consultations in my opinion came across more as just an opportunity for the Indian Affairs people to make quota with regard to certain numbers that had to be reached and certain people who had to be addressed in order to legitimize this bill. It was very difficult for the young people to come together and to bring them together at such short notice and have them understand exactly what was being presented to them.

I would again suggest that more time be spent on this, more media be put out there, and an opportunity, as the lady said, for people to be able to understand what this really means, because I don't. I don't understand the long-term implications. I was inundated with paperwork like that. Timing is everything, and for our leadership to be able to disperse and disseminate that information and get it out to the people is a big job. We need to spend the time to do that. This seems to me to be very rushed. Two years may seem like a long time, but when we're dealing with hundreds and thousands of years of history, two years is nothing.

A lot of time, money, and effort was put into the gun registry, and I think the same money, effort, and time should be put into making sure that the implementation of this bill is going to be good for everybody concerned. For some communities, they like the bill as it stands. For others, they're not prepared for this. We need to hear those communities and we need to respect that.

¿ (0940)

Where I'm from, a couple of communities decided not to go with that bill, and their funding was withheld by the government. That disturbs me, because if we come to the table and want to talk on an equal level, then those kinds of things break down the trusting relationships that need to be happening in order for us to move forward in a good way.

I would hope that before the bill gets implemented unilaterally across the country, more time will be spent on consultation and information-sharing with the young people in particular and those of us who truly don't understand the long-term implications of this.

Some people submitted some things to me to bring forward, and I would like to do that in closing.

As I get older, I notice that I need to bring glasses. I don't have them, so I'll have to move back a little bit.

In the absence of a non-derogation clause--

The Chair: If I may interrupt, I'll send you mine, and I'll bet you a dollar they will do the job. They suit everybody.

Mr. Doug Dokis: They tell me that if you wear them, you become more dependent on them. Thank you, but I'll manage. I'm still in denial.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Doug Dokis: On the absence of the non-derogation clause, although the minister has stated that the amendments to the act must not infringe on existing aboriginal or treaty rights, the bill needs to state specifically that aboriginal treaty rights remain unaffected.

Band leadership selection needs to be treated equally. Under the proposed amendment, some bands will carry out elections under section 34 of the Indian Act while others will not.

In the proposal as it stands, band enforcement officers' powers far exceed law enforcement officers' powers anywhere else in Canada. As it stands, they have the right to enter homes without reasonable grounds, and they might also have the power of eviction.

As in the Nisga'a agreement, a clause should be inserted that ensures that all federal employees would be subject to first nations laws when carrying out business within the first nation. Transparency, accountability, and redress must apply to both first nations and the federal government.

The term “eligible voter” in relation to the band should be used in place of “member”. “Eligible voter” means that a member of the band, whether residing on or off reserve, has attained the age of 18. “Member” is ambiguous and may limit the participation of band members in the communities that have a band membership code. This will ensure availability of government services and programs to all.

An independent institution and ombudsman, as proposed in the royal commission, should be created. This institution should house the first nations registry of laws and provide an appeals mechanism.

The amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act is vague and needs to be stated more clearly. That the needs and aspirations of the aboriginal community affected by the complaint “shall be consistent with the principles of gender equality” is not clear and strong. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that all human beings have the right.

In closing, I would like to say that with regard to this bill I am very concerned, as are a number of the students and the people I have talked to over the years from post-secondary institutions in Calgary. Their words to me, during some of the talks I've had with them, were that they really would like more time to hear from both their own leadership and the leadership of the Canadian government to help explain the true meaning of the bill and the underlying intent of the government with regard to it.

I thank you for listening to me today. Meegwetch.

¿ (0945)

The Chair: Thank you. There won't be time for questions, with only about 35 seconds left.

A bill normally is sent to a committee after the second vote in the House of Commons. This was sent to us after the first vote, so you still have time. We ourselves have another five weeks to work on this bill, and after that it will go back to the House of Commons. There will be a debate, and there will be another vote, and possible amendments there. Then there will be a third debate, with possible amendments there also.

So there is time, and we encourage you to get involved.

Do you have a point of information?

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: There hasn't been a vote in the House. Did you mean first reading?

The Chair: No, I said it was sent after first reading.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Okay.

The Chair: When it's tabled in the House, it's automatically first reading.

So there is time, and that's what I wanted to say to you. I want to thank you very much. You drove a long way to get here, I understand?

Mr. Doug Dokis: Yes, I was up north. I came here on my way back.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We appreciated your presentation.

Is Mr. Jeff Horvath in the room?

Is Verna Weasel Child in the room?

We will proceed with a presentation from Dr. Helen Many Fingers and Mr. Wallace Many Fingers.

We have ten minutes.

Dr. Helen Many Fingers (President, Blood Tribe Historical Society): Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for your invitation to appear before the committee.

The mission of the Blood Tribe Historical Society, as created three years ago by local educators and historians, is to provide authentic information about the rich history and culture of first nations.

The people of the Blood Tribe have a long tradition of self-government, and there have been important democratic developments over the past 50 years. Our ancestral governance tradition remains strong in our community, and we are striving to develop a modern form of tribal government.

The Bloods adopted, in the mid-1960s, aspects of democratic governance such as elections; one man, one vote; and secret ballot. We have retained these features under the authority of our own tribal law. No government is perfect, but improvement can and will be made if the people are involved as meaningful participants in change.

We fully support the position of our head, Chief Chris Shade, and his council on the need for greater respect for our treaty rights. In support, we have provided the committee with some background of Treaty 7 of 1877 and also our concerns with the bill as it pertains to human rights and self-determination.

It is my hope and prayer that our people will continue to be guided by our ancestral traditions, that we will all be inspired by God, the Creator, to learn from the lessons of our past, to learn that we are all related and have visions to chart a better place for our people to be in the generations to come.

¿ (0950)

Mr. Wallace Many Fingers (Member, Blood Tribe Historical Society): I'll go through some of our concerns with the bill. We don't like the bill, but if you go ahead, there are some things you ought to be aware of. I'm happy you've come to learn.

One of the things perhaps you could take away is that things have changed. This is an era of self-determination; it's not colonialism. It's bad to build on something that is bad. You don't put new wine into old bottles because of its character.

It's going to be hard to sustain some of the legitimacy in some of the bands because they're just hybrid colonial creations. There is a new way--and there ought to be a new way--that respects the self-determination of the first nations.

Number two, our treaties are very important. There are aspects of internal autonomy that have been retained by these treaties and have to be taken into account by any government that signed the treaty in talking about improving governance on the other side. The bill will upset treaties.

On human rights, the federal government has never recognized the authority of the tribes to maintain their own internal juridical autonomy. It has allowed other parts of the federation--the French people--to retain their own language, their own law, their own culture, under a provincial framework; it has never allowed us this. That is discrimination against first nations.

We think the bill should recognize self-determination. It should recognize that first nations have the right to maintain their own forms of resolving disputes. We still have it. We'd like to use it. Get out of our sunlight.

Number four, what's this stuff about a non-derogation clause? That bill derogates treaty and aboriginal rights. You know it; we know it. It seems only fair that if you're going to derogate rights, we're going to derogate rights. You say these are the rights we recognize and these are the rights we're going to take away.

You're going to impose new forms of control on tribal customary law. There's nothing preventing this; there's nothing that allows it right now. It's a new intrusion. You're intruding into areas properly within the internal economy of first nations. The federal government does give lip service to this, but it doesn't “walk the talk” with regard to its 1995 self-government policy.

With regard to the ratification of codes, some of the codes are colonial hybrid creations. Perhaps they do need to be ratified, but the threshold ought to be more than 25%. It ought to be at least 51%.

Federal control over the decision-making process at the band level has caused massive land losses. A third of Saddle Lake has gone. A third of Brocket Peigan went, a third of Siksika went--these are the larger reserves in Alberta--because the federal government manipulated how the bands make decisions. Stop it. Give us our land back.

On the application of the bill, I think you have to keep in mind the principle that the people have a right to decide if a government is to be supported. If it wants loyalty and legitimacy, the people have to have a say in approving what the law is. If this has never been the case, it's going to be difficult to obtain band consent.

There should be consent to all codes. There should be consent to ones that are adopted. We don't support grandfathering, but keep in mind that we think these codes are internal matters of first nations and we should be allowed the freedom to develop our own rules and standards.

I'd like to leave a little bit of time for questions, if you have any.

¿ (0955)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Are there questions, colleagues?

Mr. Vellacott.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Thank you, Wallace, for being here. Is Helen a relative of yours?

Mr. Wallace Manyfingers: She's my mother.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I'm pleased to see a mother-son combination here.

You made a point early on in your speech about resolving disputes and so on. I assume there are methods and that some have worked and some have not. I'm recollecting Mr. Paul's comments that were made earlier. Whatever the dispute resolution mechanisms are, maybe they weren't present or acted upon in his particular situation. How does one deal with situations like that? Does the tribal council step in? How do you address it? It obviously did not work in his situation.

Mr. Wallace Many Fingers: It obviously didn't work, because there has been too much distortion of our traditional system of justice. If you were to relieve that pressure on our traditional system of justice and allow the spirit of that system to evolve, we could resolve our own problems. Unfortunately, because the subject matter is sometimes a federal law or a customary code recognized by federal law, it ends up in the Federal Court.

In the case of Frank vs. Bottle the judge said we're going to let the case rest while the two parties on the Blood Reserve try to settle it. We tried to settle it, but we couldn't. So it had to go back to an election, and we settled our dispute in that way. We listened to the Federal Court, but we felt the situation was useless. We took this dispute back to the people and settled it in 1995.

Give that to us. Let us have our own dispute resolution mechanisms. It's our right to decide our own future within the framework of our own values. We understand what our culture is.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: You're saying in all instances, without an exception, going back eons of years of history, every dispute was eventually settled and resolved to the satisfaction of the majority of people there? Am I understanding you there?

Mr. Wallace Many Fingers: I'm not omnipotent that way, but yes, we did. We had to live with the results of how we decided. We still have our own sun dance traditions that we use to resolve our own disputes; our own religion and our own values come into play.

Parliament has tried to do away with the sun dance for 50 years. You haven't been successful. Our rites are still there. Our values are still there. We still believe strongly in our own people. We believe in our own culture. For me it's a matter of the MPs getting out of the sunlight and letting us develop our own society with minimal supervision.

I do think, though, that there is some room for the application of international norms of human rights on first nations. I think that is very essential. I think human rights are essential components in any system of self-determination that we're developing.

The Chair: Are there other questions?

Mr. Laliberte, we have two minutes.

Mr. Rick Laliberte (Churchill River, Lib.): I have a question. I missed some of the witnesses this morning and I would have asked them a similar question.

Just in the area that we have and the witnesses that are here, we have a number of nations and a number of tribes: the Blood, Stoney, Nakota, Cree, and Siksika. Are there others that you could identify from this area as being on a tribal or nation basis? There are Treaty 6 and Treaty 7 nations in this region as well.

À (1000)

Mr. Wallace Many Fingers: The indigenous polity is the Blackfoot Confederacy.

Mr. Rick Laliberte: The Blackfoot?

Mr. Wallace Many Fingers: The tribes are part of the Blackfoot Confederacy. There's the colonial arrangement called the Treaty 7 Tribal Council, which was created by Indian Affairs about 10 years ago. There's a move towards the return to the confederacy and that whole set of values, which are different from an Indian Affairs-created tribal council. There aren't any terminated bands here like there are up north. Our bands are large bands. When we signed the treaties, the Blackfoot, Blood, and Peigan had different bands, band chiefs.

We had a system of head chiefs, which Lieutenant-Governor Morris said would be protected. He said our traditional form of government would be protected under the treaty. This bill violates that. We have our system of head chiefs and band chiefs. That's our traditional system, not the Indian Act. The Indian Act has distorted us, and we're moving back I think to a more traditional form of government. Slowly we're moving in that direction.

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

Is Jeff Horvath in the room? In that case, there was a misconnect. I told a lady who is booked for tomorrow but is here today that if we got ahead of ourselves on the schedule, I would invite her to present. I will do that at this time. From the Treaty 6 Women, Helen Gladue. Is Helen here?

If you have others with you, they can come up to accompany you. Mrs. Gladue, we'll ask you to introduce your colleagues and proceed with your presentation. We have 10 minutes.

Ms. Helen Gladue (Vice-Chairperson and Adviser, Advisory Council of Treaty 6 Women): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me our chairperson, Veronica Morin, and Margaret Gadwa, board member of the Advisory Council of Treaty 6 Women.

Honourable members, I have a complaint right now. I feel that 10 minutes is not enough. We came here to educate you about what we have worked on for many years.

The Chair: I will make a suggestion. If 10 minutes is not enough, don't use it up on something other than the bill. We can explain after why we do have 10 minutes. It's your time.

Ms. Helen Gladue: Okay. We have a presentation regarding Bill C-6 and Bill C-7.

The Chair: We won't deal with Bill C-6.

Ms. Helen Gladue: Okay, Bill C-7, the governance. What we are saying at the present time under our council is that we reject this bill, based on the previous speakers who talked about different reasons. Our reasons come in full force with our treaty rights. We are concerned. The full rejection that is being stated by different speakers gives us an opportunity to say that no consultation took place. Within the territory of Treaty 6, we were not given any consultations by the leadership, nor did they accept the money that was provided to do some work on this bill.

We would like to tell you that our presentation states a declaration of the Advisory Council of Treaty 6 Women of Alberta on the pending federal legislation. It's based on: one, we are the original people; two, we are a party to the sacred bilateral treaties; three, our views on traditional and present first nations government--it goes on, in order to educate you on our reasons for making this presentation; four, the federal government has a fiduciary role in relation to us, and the constitutional provisions are intended for our protection; five, the Advisory Council of Treaty 6 Women have a long history of activism. Economic accommodation should be a two-way street. The historic trend is clear. Canada and the provinces are intent on assimilating us one way or another.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to state this. I am a grandmother. I am a mother of six children. I brought up a grandson. I am also a direct descendant of the signatory of Treaty No. 6 on both sides. I walk with pride. But when I heard about this bill, I read it through and I put it away, because it told me this is the 1969 white paper all over again.

If we are concerned, we have documents to prove it, Mr. Chairman. Besides what we are doing on this, we've spent weeks developing our position. We also have a summary that we're presenting to the honourable members here.

We have with us, and I would like to state, a miscarriage of justice that has been carried on by the federal Government of Canada. Here is the reason. Bill C-31 was passed in 1985. Yours truly and the chairperson spent four and a half years lobbying to the Government of Canada about the implications that were going to occur if this legislation was to come about. Mr. Chairman, yes, they did.

À (1005)

The Chair: Excuse me. I will interrupt you, because I think you'll be pleased that I am. I'm told that because you represent an association of six women, you get 20 minutes, not 10.

Ms. Helen Gladue: Okay, very good. Maybe I'll go home happy that I got my way.

The Chair: We moved you ahead, but we didn't refer to the notes. I apologize for interrupting.

Ms. Helen Gladue: But, Mr. Chairman, as we go along with our miscarriage of justice, in 1999 a group of Bill C-31 women walked on Parliament Hill and said our chiefs were crooks. We didn't like what was going on, on Parliament Hill.

We are an Advisory Council of Treaty 6 Women with many concerns. For example, I am a former member of the Samson Reserve. That is unfinished business. I was also struck off with a stroke of a pen to another band, which my husband belonged to, but I have not betrayed my people. I sleep in a bed that I made for myself 46 years ago, as I told you last night, Mr. Chairman. I value the marriage I got myself into. Those under Bill C-31 thought there were mountains of money out there. They lost their treaty rights. I concur with them.

The unfinished business is that we have white women who entered into our reserves and who have not even a drop of Indian blood, and the Indian Act states there are treaties. That's wrong.

If I am being told that gender equality is now an issue--we have Indian Affairs that has gender equality persons. Well, let me tell you at the Cree Nation we were born with equal rights. That is our traditional way, our cultural way.

You hear of men carrying the pipe. My colleague and myself and the board members are all pipe carriers. We hoped to educate you, but we also brought evidence. After our meeting--we hold annual meetings in Treaty 6. We sometimes get over 300 women who come to our meetings to make it stronger and to hear our voices. Although we had the endorsement of the chief and council, the confederacy, the chiefs' summits, we presented resolutions here and we have not received a response. The grassroots women made 150 recommendations. We lobbied all summer. I have not received a word of what the government is going to do regarding our suicides.

We in the Treaty 6 nations, Mr. Chairman, have lost by suicide 63 first nations young people, and that is not counting Treaty 7 and Treaty 8. We are given these. As soon as a young person commits suicide, we get the call. We are under pressure. What can we do? How can we do...? That's why, again, I say we have been in existence since 1972.

Here are the resolutions of May 1999 that we presented to the honourable member, Robert Nault, and again, this letter, an updated one, of January 18, 2000. We have not received a response, and these are legitimate. The outstanding one in this resolution is the resolution that pertains to the Native Women's Association of Canada. And I'd like to state this. We are not affiliated with that organization. We are not puppets.

We are women with concerns, and we were born with treaty rights. We stand by our chief and council regardless if they're crooked or not, because that is our system. There are systems that can be built within the Cree Nation that can justify the work that is done with the mountains of money, supposedly, they receive.

It is very difficult to say that the Native Women's Association of Canada has received, on record, $6 million. This group doesn't get that money. Also, they received $2.2 million to do the governance work on behalf of the first nations women of Canada. We immediately told Mr. Nault they do not represent us. The CAP people--the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples--those are made up of Bill C-31--the wannabes, I call them, received $2.2 million. We got nothing.

But I tell you, because we're concerned, we developed these papers for you to study.

À (1010)

Last but not least we have a pamphlet. Treaty No. 6 is 127 years old already. I am here also on behalf on Treaty 6 women to educate you. We value our rights.

You open this. It was made by the Advisory Council of Treaty 6 Women to educate our young people in where we come from. Why is it that we have reserves? Why is it that we have free education? Those are prepaid treaty rights, honourable members. Please take that message back, from us. They are not handouts that we get at the reserve level; those are prepaid rights.

I want to tell you while I have this opportunity, we never sold our land; we are still the landlords of Canada.

With that, I will end my presentation. I know I have to give my colleague a chance to speak, and once she gets going she doesn't know how to stop either.

I am presenting you this whole booklet, Mr. Chairman, and we have some copies upstairs. I didn't know I was going to be called in a split second, but we always stand on guard. So the box will be brought down for each of the honourable members to receive a package.

With that, I'd like to wish that you take our concerns back. We are concerned. We totally reject the whole regime of this bill, and that is the message I bring to you as an elder of Treaty 6, northeastern Alberta.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

The documents you share with us will be translated, and at that time will be distributed to each and every member, even those who are not here.

Do you wish to add to the presentation?

Veronica Morin.

Ms. Veronica Morin (As Individual): Good morning, and thank you for allowing me to be able to speak to you on behalf of our women within Treaty 6.

You will get this documentation. I'll ask Margaret to distribute this package to you. But there's a whole lot more that needs to be said, that needs to be reviewed. I don't know if I want to ask for a lot of time, more time, because I feel the imposition that the federal government has always made on our people--like Bill C-31, the membership code. We have two years to develop our codes--two years. I feel that the imposition has been 500 years of colonialism and we receive two years to come up with our own codes.

A lot of our first nations people follow their tribal law, because all natural law, our governance, before the foreigners, was in the tribal system. We have our own governance, our own way, and our belief system. We were all grounded with the land.

The sacred law stems from the environment surrounding our lives, and we very well understand and know our purpose and our responsibility and the trust we have, that we carry as women. We are the fire keepers; we are the water keepers; we give life.

In our interpretation, the Creator put us here as women. We are the helpers to the Creator, because he gave us the responsibility to give life. We firmly all believe in that, and we live accordingly.

So there's no way we can give consent to the future generations for our people, our young, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren, to destroy their lives, to destroy the land.

We also, as first peoples, have obligations and responsibilities towards our relationship. We have been accommodating you for a long time. We have been listening to you for a long time, and we are still trying to understand; we are still trying to understand you.

What is it that you want? You have everything. You have our land, most of it. You boxed us in on little reserves. You have the upper hand. You took all the resource money, all the resources.

In our treaty, we never gave up the mountains. We never gave up the water. We never gave up the grass or the trees. You want to really understand that.

In our way, in who we are, in what we call ourselves, our name, Neheyim, four-direction person, and that's what it means to us: the land, the grass, the trees, the water, and the mountains. That's what our ceremonies are all about. That's what we need, that's what we have preserved, and that's what we will continue to preserve.

À (1015)

I don't think any legislation should be allowed to take that away from our people. After all, we have never imposed on you. Maybe in the next 500 years you should consider studying our ways and trying to understand. After all, you've had 500 years to destroy us and we're still here, and I think we'll continue to be here.

I don't think I want to be anything else but who I am. I can understand who I am. I can identify with who I am. I still have my language. I believe in the Creator. I believe in natural law. I believe in giving birth and raising my children as much as I can. As hard as I can, I try to live that responsibility, and so do all the women. But it's very hard when you're confined to one little place, and manipulated, and starved. With all the cutbacks that are happening in the welfare system, the social services delivery at $229 doesn't last very long. It doesn't go a very long way.

That's what's happening to our women, whether they are on the reserve or driven to the streets because they're homeless. Our people are homeless.

But those changes you have recommended have always been recommended. There have been different systems, and I think they're listed here--all the different systems, all the standing committees, all the different times in the last 20 years that we've gone to convince you that this is no good for us. I don't know when you're ever going to accept the fact that you've colonized us to death and you're still trying to.

What makes your way better than ours? I want that question answered truly, from the heart, from a real good feeling. Convince me that what you have in your documentation--piles and piles, households of it.... What good is it for me if I cannot feed my children, if I cannot find a roof over my head to accommodate my six starving children? Tell me what good is legislation if it's going to tie my hands and bind my feet? That's what this legislation is doing to us. It's undermining, it's manipulating, and for me, there's no freedom. That's not justice, and that's not democracy.

Hi, hi.

À (1020)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

We're over the 20 minutes.

We now have in the room Mr. Jeff Horvath from the Morley Community School, accompanied by Mark Kaquitts. We'll revert to the 10-minute slots.

Please proceed.

Mark Kaquitts (As Individual): [Witness speaks in his native language]

Mr. Jeff Horvath (Teacher, Morley Community School): Good morning. Thank you for giving us the opportunity.

I'm a teacher at Morley Community School. I'm Ojibway from Ojibways of Onegaming in Ontario. Mark is a student at the school and he is representing a group of students who compiled a request or a piece of writing. It is a group of five students we've met with over the last few weeks, and we have come up with this idea of what we wanted to tell you as a board. We understand there have been a lot of meetings before and there have been a lot of ideas. We thought we wanted to come up with something a little bit original, and this is what we have.

From what your representatives have told us, as well as our own personal research, we agree with some of the fundamental principles of the governance act. However, we believe there should be additional concerns addressed.

After several discussions within our school, we have agreed that one of the biggest problems with this legislation is that it does not address native and non-native relations. One of the greatest rifts between our two cultures is that a large proportion of non-native citizens believe they pay for our treaty rights with their taxes. With the current financial system, this is essentially true. We believe average Canadians do not believe in our treaties and do not believe they should be paying for our communities, but this is not true.

The land that makes up our reserves is not free; our schools are not free; our education is not free. We have paid in blood; our ancestors have paid in blood. Every dollar that has been made in this country has come at the price of our people. Every dollar that has been made in this country has come at a price to our families. Every dollar that has been made in this country has come at a price to our lives.

There have been billions of dollars that have been made by pillaging our traditional lands. Whether it's the oil in the prairies, the forests of the west, or the mines of the east, this was all native land at one time. We believe the amount of money that comes to native people should come from the taxes gathered from the companies and corporations that have raped our land. We're not asking for more money, although more money is needed for education, health, housing, social services. We are asking that the Indian Affairs budget come directly from the taxes that are gathered from the corporations that stole our land. This will take away the power the average Canadian has over every native in Canada.

It seems simply symbolic, but it's so much more than that. Until you have a racist yelling at you, “My taxes pay for your education”, or until you have a racist yell, “Go back to your reserve and collect your welfare cheque,” you cannot fully understand the power these people have under our current financial system.

We do not want to be shamed about our treaty rights. We have lost so much in the last few centuries. We have lost our lands, we have lost our heritage, and we have barely survived colonization. Take away the racist power and give us back our pride.

Meegwetch.

À (1025)

The Chair: Very well said—the same way I say we don't paint with the same brush every reserve when we hear of one that is mismanaged. Some people are too quick to assume they're all mismanaged, and we defend against this.

As members of Parliament, we get a lot of calls from our constituents, and what you say about the judgment and the treatment is true. They call us; they tell us we're throwing money away and make all the accusations that you get. We defend the treaty rights our ancestors engaged in. Both sides entered into these agreements voluntarily. I say to my white people, we will honour the agreements of our ancestors.

This committee is trying to make this small piece of legislation better. We will not pretend to anyone that when we send this bill back it's going to be good legislation. The best thing that could happen to the Indian Act is that we abolish it, and abolish it with self-governance.

Someone spoke of 15 years before. Well, the reserves in my riding want self-governance. Maybe you can tell us why that will not at least make the problem better.

We need your help, but I just wanted to say well said. I understand what you're going through, because some of the racism is sometimes filtered through the local MP and it's hard to take. I understand what you're saying.

We have five minutes for questions.

Mr. Vellacott. We'll split it with the Liberal side.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We've heard a great deal of opposition to the bill before us.There have been some who said if you changed it in these ways, it might be okay. Do you think there's any redeeming value in this particular bill before us, or should we scrap it and live with the existing Indian Act for the next decade or so?

À (1030)

Mr. Jeff Horvath: The Indian Act is archaic and out of place in our times. Along with the badness of the Indian Act, it also protects our treaty rights in many ways. We want what every Canadian wants. We want the same level of education, standard of living, and life expectancy. We also want our rights honoured. We believe that the situation our people find themselves in is not by choice. It was the circumstances of colonization that were placed upon native people, including our residential schools and the reserve system itself, that have lowered our standard of living. We want the same standard of living as every other Canadian.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Jeff, if I can just interject, I need an answer to my question. Do you want to stay with the Indian Act? I know there are people, even in the audience, who are shaking their heads. They don't agree that the Indian Act.... It's long overdue and shouldn't be around another day.

What do you do in the transition to get us to honour the treaties and move to self-government? What do we do in the interim?

Mr. Jeff Horvath: Again, we agree with some of the fundamental principles of the governance act. We like the idea of accountability. We like the ability of average citizens to have a say in our government.

There are a lot of questions. We're concerned about the possible extinguishment of our treaty rights or the fiduciary responsibility of the government to native communities. How is that entrenched, protected, or guaranteed in the governance act? If we could have more protection, I think a lot more people would be supportive of this.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Are you saying we could think about Bill C-7, that we could patch it up enough to make it workable?

Mr. Jeff Horvath: I believe so. Again, we're stating the views of my student group that met at our school. We did like some of the ideas of the governance act.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Do you have that written out or are you still working on it?

Mr. Jeff Horvath: We're still working on it.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Could you submit it to the committee? We know it will be from your perspective and won't be universally agreed to, but it will be helpful to get it.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Vellacott.

If you will direct the document to the clerk, it will be distributed to all members.

Thank you.

Mr. Jeff Horvath: Our main point is that we want our money to come from the corporations of the land, to take away the power. That's our contribution to this committee.

The Chair: I could be corrected, but that would not be affected by Bill C-7.

Mr. Jeff Horvath: Maybe it could be an addition to the financial obligations within the governance act, because the governance act would involve finances, or could include that.

The Chair: We'll take the information under advisement.

There are 15 seconds left. Do you have any closing remarks?

Mr. Jeff Horvath: No. Thank you very much for this opportunity.

The Chair: Thank you very much for coming all the way here and contributing. It was very helpful.

From the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations we now have Chief Lorne Morin, grand chief; Bobbi Okeymaw, executive director; and Quintine Kootenay. Welcome. We have 45 minutes together so I invite you to make a presentation.

Grand Chief Lorne Morin (Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations): Thank you.

Good morning, chiefs, council members, first nation members, and guests from Ottawa or wherever it is you come from. Welcome to Alberta and Treaty 6 territory.

I'll read our position to you, along with some other comments. We the chiefs of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations, representing the indigenous people of Treaty 6 west, do hereby present our position in relation to Bill C-7, the First Nations Governance Act. After careful review and analysis, the chiefs of Treaty 6 reject outright the current legislative initiative known as the Nault package on the grounds that consultation was constitutionally inadequate.

The legislation fundamentally violates our treaty rights. The enactment of this legislation will devolve fiduciary trust and responsibility. The legislation provides no recognition of first nations as a distinct order of government within Canada with inherent nationhood status as recognized under section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982.

Furthermore, the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations will continue to maintain that the law of the Creator, the natural law, and our tribal customary laws will supercede any federal or provincial legislation on first nations land. We will continue to exercise our inherent right to self-determination according to the will of our people, which will culminate in the reaffirmation and implementation of our sacred treaty and bilateral relationship. With this in mind, the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations will continue to maintain indigenous government structures that reflect our traditional and customary beliefs and practices, which derive from natural law, as sanctioned by the Creator.

With reference to the protocol already established between the Assembly of First Nations and the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations, we the chiefs of Treaty 6 will continue to resist Canada's termination strategy and assimilation policy.

The Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations has developed a red paper to counter the Nault package and is currently seeking a direct meeting with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to present our position within the coming months.

There also exists an international lobby that the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations believes can assist in having our position presented at the international level.

As chiefs, we believe that Minister Nault is circumventing the bilateral relationship that is apparent in the nation-to-nation relationship as demonstrated by Treaty 6, 1867, and its adhesions and subsequent validation by the United Nations treaty study, which was completed in 1998.

Our main points are: one, the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations rejects outright Bill C-7, and as the grand chief I can safely say that on behalf of all the chiefs; two, statements made to the standing committee on aboriginal affairs and northern development by the first nations of Treaty 6 do not amount to consultation as such; three, we have no recommendations for an alternative, for to do so is to accept the initiative in principle; and, four, the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations demands a meeting with the Prime Minister in order to deal with Treaty 6.

That's my presentation to you.

I also have some comments.

À (1035)

The Chair: Didn't you just make a comment before?

Grand Chief Lorne Morin: No. I want to finish with some comments.

The Chair: I'll grant you that.

Grand Chief Lorne Morin: I have some time, I guess, to... As you said, we have 45 minutes. I don't know if we'll use it all. Nonetheless, I think our point is very clear, and there are some comments I want to make in relation to our outright rejection.

It is the responsibility of the chiefs of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations to ensure that the integrity of the treaty is maintained. The signing of Treaty 6 signified the beginning of a new partnership between the Crown and the member first nations of the Treaty 6 region. The document is not a document that recognizes the submission of first nations people to the Crown. It is a document that legally ratifies the existence of first nations people of the Treaty 6 region and the rights that are fundamental to the continued preservation of our way of life.

The parameters of the Treaty 6 document are not fully understood by the majority of society, and at times by their agents, but we, the chiefs of the first nations of Treaty 6, understand what it means. Each and every one of us has been taught by our elders that it is a binding promise made by the Crown that we have existing rights as first nations people. Those rights, in their broadest sense, entail self-governance, education, health, land use, etc.

That said, one of the most important facts to state is that the Crown did not grant these rights to us; they were granted to us by the Creator.

It is also of paramount importance to state that the Treaty 6 document is a nation-to-nation agreement. How is it, then, that the current sitting government can determine what governance means to us? We are a nation comprised of Cree, Stoney, Sahtu, and Dene people. We have our own ways of governing the affairs of our people, and yet we are now being told that we will be equipped with more effective tools of governance. Bill C-7 is not an endeavour to provide effective tools of governance; rather, it is to provide effective tools of accountability to third parties.

This proposed regulation of first nations leadership will hold the leadership accountable on three fronts--to the Crown, to the membership of the first nations communities, and, more importantly, to third parties with no vested interest in the Treaty 6 relationship. It effectively is providing a means for third parties to hold first nations leadership accountable, both legally and financially.

The language of the minister's speech is to make one believe that Bill C-7 will put first nations communities on the path to financial stability and growth, but such a proposition is an economic equation. In this instance, it's an equation that lacks the key element of capital. It may be said that the legal standing of first nations will be enhanced to enable them to embark on economic initiatives that will generate revenue for their respective communities. In reality, however, it will be reducing in law the status of leadership of Treaty 6 first nations to that of directors and officers, and to the liabilities associated with such titles.

Furthermore, by limiting the capacity of the first nations leadership to directors and officers, the Crown may argue that this will enable the first nations communities to participate in economic development on a commercial level. But what of those communities that do not have the economic resources? This is an issue that must be addressed in order to deal with the issue of governance.

Another area of concern is the consultation process. The delegation of tasks to subordinates to deal with matters that are of critical and vital importance has not produced tangible results. Treaty 6 is of the view that a more thorough and comprehensive consultation should occur. The treaty bilateral process should be given more importance when dealing with matters such as Bill C-7, for it relates specifically to the matters that are of utmost importance to the member first nations of the Treaty 6 region.

À (1040)

In this case, it is a matter of self-determination. Self-determination embraces our responsibility and rights to practice our traditional forms of government, to determine the future of our people, and the social, economic, and cultural uses of our lands and resources.

The treaty bilateral process should be utilized more sincerely by the Crown in order to address these matters. The situation as it is currently is that the federal Department of Justice provides authoritative legal opinions to their client, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. This raises a concern with the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations that interests of the first nations people are not being taken seriously.

Rulings in previous Supreme Court cases that dealt with treaty aboriginal rights issues may have possibly enabled and triggered the Crown to discharge their responsibility to consult in a normal fashion. The Supreme Court provides a standard that cannot be breached. However, if the Crown was concerned with its honour and integrity, it would refrain from implementing Bill C-7.

In addition to this, the chiefs of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations are concerned with the delegation of fiduciary duty owned by the minister to bureaucrats and entities with no vested interest in the well-being of the first nations people.

To revisit RCAP's statements, I restate the following statement, taken from the commission's comments:

The relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Crown reflects the classic fiduciary paradigm of one party’s vulnerability to another’s power and discretion. The law imposes clear duties on the ‘dominant’ party within such a relationship.

In the Commission’s view, the Crown is under a fiduciary obligation to implement such measures as are required to reverse this colonial imbalance and help restore its relationship with treaty nations to a true partnership. This will require the Crown to take positive steps toward this end as well as to refrain from taking actions that will frustrate it.

If one is truly to assess the intention of the Crown regarding this initiative, one may realize that it is not concerned with effective tools of governance, but rather the fulfilment of legislative objectives that have nothing to do with the first nations communities at all.

In closing, I would like to say again that the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations rejects Bill C-7 outright. A statement to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources by the First Nations of Treaty 6 does not amount to consultation. As such, we have no recommendations in the alternative, for to make any is an acceptance of the initiative in principle.

Furthermore, the member first nations of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations demand a meeting with the Prime Minister to deal with Treaty 6 and Bill C-7.

I have some further comments. As I mentioned earlier, we have no recommendations. We've fully reviewed Bill C-7, and the bottom line here, committee, is that the Prime Minister of today needs to pay attention to what we as chiefs and first nations are doing.

We have stood back and looked objectively at this Bill C-7. We said, okay, let's look at it. Well, we have. The seriousness of this Bill C-7, we believe as chiefs, deserves the respect and attention of the Prime Minister of Canada, as was the situation with the late Right Honourable Pierre Elliot Trudeau in 1969-70.

À (1045)

If that was not the only national meeting with first nations chiefs in Canada, that's the only one I remember. At that time, Jean Chrétien was Minister of Indian Affairs in 1969-70. That was the red paper-white paper.

But at least the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau had the integrity and the guts to meet with first nations chiefs and call a national conference, and I think that's what the Prime Minister of today should do. He was the Indian Affairs minister in 1969-70.

Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's the only national meeting there was with the chiefs across this country.

So, again, there's the federal government and its seriousness in trying to ram this down first nations throats, and as far as we're concerned, this is not consultation. If you want to have proper consultation, let's not forget you're dealing with nations. I think the federal government needs to educate the general public on exactly what a treaty is. Only nations can sign treaties. And, yes, there's talk out there about how that was a long time ago, but our treaty was signed on the basis of forever. To have the government we're dealing with introduce bills like Bill C-7 is just totally unacceptable. So as far as we're concerned, there's no consultation here. The only time that will take place is when we have a national meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada.

Those are my comments and our position.

À (1050)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Are there others who wish to add to the presentation, any of your colleagues?

Mr. Hubbard.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: How much time do we have?

The Chair: We have 25 minutes all together.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Chief, in terms of your confederation, how many chiefs do you represent?

Grand Chief Lorne Morin: First of all, I'm not going to get into a question and answer period. I've made our position very clear. But I will make a comment.

I'll let you know that we represent 38,000 first nation members of Treaty--

The Chair: One moment, please. I will chair this meeting.

Would you like to have as much time as you want within the 45 minutes for closing remarks?

Grand Chief Lorne Morin: We've made our position here, and our position is final. We're not going to interact with you on questions and answers.

The Chair: No, but if you wish, I'm offering you time, not for questions and answers, but for closing remarks. I'm giving you the floor for 10, 15, 20 minutes, if you want it. If you're not going to engage in questions and answers, that's fine, but I'm offering you the time.

Grand Chief Lorne Morin: No, we have nothing more to say. What we'll do is we'll give you guys a coffee break.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Quintine Kootenay (Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations): My name is Quintine Kootenay. Good morning, elders and staff. I find it funny, you're sitting here talking within Treaty 6 and you don't know how many people you're talking to.

The Chair: That has nothing to do with our--

Mr. Quintine Kootenay: There are 18 chiefs, if you want to know. You guys should know these things when you come to these meetings.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: I had some following questions with that, but it's your decision not to try to enlighten us as a committee.

We deal, as you know, Mr. Chair, with over 600 first nations across the country. For my own benefit, and probably for others around the table, it would be nice to know exactly the large group you are supporting, and of course that goes into our documentation and it goes back to Ottawa. It's certainly good for us to know that kind of information.

I'm sorry if I offended you. That certainly wasn't my intent. We'll let it go at that.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Chief Victor Buffalo (As Individual) I now invite to the table representatives from the Maskwachiys Cree of Treaty Number 6. The names I have are Chief Victor Buffalo, Chief Simon Threefingers, Chief George Minde, and Chief Leo Cattleman.

This is for 45 minutes also.

Immediately following this, if there is a group in the room that is scheduled to present this afternoon and it would benefit you to present immediately following this group, we will delay our lunch. We have allowed an hour for lunch and we don't need that much time, so if it's of benefit to any group that was to present this afternoon to present immediately after this, please indicate it to the clerk.

I invite you to begin your presentation.

À (1055)

Chief Victor Buffalo: Thank you. We are the four chiefs of the Maskwachiys Cree, and we reject Bill C-7. We call for its withdrawal in its entirety and to begin afresh.

This bill is an extension of the Indian Act, which is an administrative tool used to control us. When the treaty was entered into, our ancestors were not informed of the Indian Act. It is not part of the treaty. We did not agree to its imposition, so why would we agree to amending it?

Bill C-7 does not address housing shortages, economic development, high unemployment, social, health, and vital services for our youth. As leaders we need more powers and access to our resources to deal with these life and death issues. There is no power in poverty. We are already practising accountability in our lawmaking. We have our own financial law and election law drafted with the full consultation and participation of the people. We hold regular open band meetings, on and off reserve, on finance, budgets, on our investments, holdings, and companies, with our people. This information is available to all members.

The Auditor General stated before Christmas that we're already accountable. She stated:

We estimated that at least 168 reports are required annually by the four federal organizations that provided the most funding for major federal programs.

We are forced to file an average of three reports per week, with time and costs involved. We are spending all our time producing reports instead of addressing the needs of our people.

A treaty is an arrangement where we would peacefully co-exist; it was never about ceding land or releasing sovereignty or nationhood. It established a new and official relationship with the Crown. It is a sacred pact between the Cree, the Crown, and the Creator, who is a participant.

The Supreme Court of Canada, in the Sundown case in 1999, confirmed that a treaty represents exchanges of solemn promises between the Crown and the Indian nations. This is the basis for the bilateral nation-to-nation relationship, which is being violated by the top down unilateral imposition.... That scope of the treaty rights and inherent rights exists. The problem is that Canada has never recognized them, has never honoured them. There are two partners to the treaty. You have obviously benefited more from the treaty.

Treaty rights are protected in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, including the right to governance, and they prevail over inconsistent legislation. Bill C-7 is an example, and it's about reducing Canada's fiduciary trust, treaty, and other obligations to our people. This is illegal as well as immoral. Article 20 of the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that we have the right to participate fully in legislative measures that will affect us before they can be adopted. Our free and informed consent must be first obtained, and this is violated by this unilateral imposition.

We reject Bill C-7 and call for its withdrawal in its entirety and for us to begin afresh with a clean slate. We call for a new relationship based on trust and respect, as set out in Treaty 6 of 1876. We want the government to implement the recommendations from the throne speech; the Penner report of 1983; and the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples of 1996. The questions of revenue sharing and access to lands and resources need to be dealt with first. We require the implementation of our treaties as understood by our elders. Thank you.

Á (1100)

I have with me Chief Leo Cattleman of the Montana First Nation, Chief Simon Threefingers from the Louis Bull First Nation, Chief George Minde from the Ermineskin First Nation, and Marlene Buffalo, our administrator.

The Chair: Thank you very much. I apologize to you if I mispronounced your name. I apologize sincerely.

Are there others who wish to make presentations?

We'll proceed to questions. Who wants to go first?

Mr. Vellacott.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I have a question for Mr. Buffalo.

From what you sketched there, Victor, in terms of.... It may be off Bill C-7 here, but I guess I need a bit of a response and some advice on this.

From time to time, as you well know—and the chair has certainly made the point—there are here and there spots where there is not accountability among the leadership. We'll have the grassroots, ordinary band member coming crying out for some recourse, redress, and so on, because there are not the open books, there is not the access, there are not the kinds of things that you tell me are there and are practised in your particular situation—and that's commendable.

So what does one do? Is there a way to address it? It's not obviously being addressed within, and because of the Indian Act, or impositions of the Indian Act, or whatever, things have got pretty screwed up, I guess you might say. How do we defend the rights of individuals to basic health care and education and so on when they're deprived of them, supposedly under the guise of elected band council leadership?

How would you suggest we do that? Does the tribal council have to step in, or AFN, or FSIN in our province of Saskatchewan, where I come from?

Maybe it's a very simple question, and it's not really going to hit Bill C-7 a lot here, but I would like to know what you would suggest about how we can deal with it, because my heart breaks and goes out to these dear aboriginal first nations people when they come with these kinds of situations, who are maybe indirectly downtrodden because of what the white man has done, but certainly now in the present because of their own leadership and council, in some instances.

I'm not painting that across the country, but you know of situations like that yourself. How do I, as one wanting to represent people and do right by them, respond to this so that the situation is properly addressed?

Chief Victor Buffalo: Are you finished?

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I'm finished.

Chief Victor Buffalo: Thank you. That's a very long-winded question.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: It is.

Chief Victor Buffalo: In fact, I lost what you asked me.

Let me tell you, and these people, my colleagues, will maybe answer on their own time. The Samson Cree Nation are involved in a very massive litigation against the Government of Canada for its breach of fiduciary responsibility. We're asking the Government of Canada to account to us for what has been done in terms of our management and resources—the management of our moneys and the management of their duties concerning what they're supposed to provide under Treaty 6—and they have not done that.

Then you're asking us as first nations to account for the limited services we're able to provide to our membership.

You asked me a whole bunch of questions, because each first nation is unique. You're imposing on us a legislation that's run as a blanket agreement throughout this country. Those services you asked about need to be identified and acted on by our first nations. Everything is done at the moment at the Ottawa level and the regional level. We don't account for those. The four nations of Hobbema, the Maskwachiys Cree, have their own resources. Fortunately we have our own resources and we have provided those services to our members. But it's not enough.

So I'm missing your question because you asked such a long-winded—

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: With my lengthy question, I guess my point is, in a situation where there isn't.... Your response was simply, what right have we to ask about accountability? I'm talking about first nations peoples having accountability from their own chief and council; that's all I'm asking about. What do I do as an individual when there are limited reserve moneys—maybe not enough—but they are not even getting through to those people? What do I do in a situation like that?

Á (1105)

Chief Victor Buffalo: We're involved. I used to be the chair of Peace Hills Trust, the only national aboriginal financial institution in Canada. We are in a situation where the first nations have incurred deficits because of management problems. The services that are supposed to be provided to the first nations are not being provided, because first nations are caught in between. Do you provide a welfare program for them or do you go into economic development? There is hardly any money for economic development. We feel that economic development and the control and management of resources is the answer.

We need to get hold of those employment-generating resources to put our people back on the road to self-recovery and self-determination, rather than have what's being advocated by Bill C-7. It is more control, more a holding down of the people at the reserve level.

We agree with some of the principles being articulated in the bill. Unfortunately, it goes beyond those. As I said, Bill C-7 is an extension of the Indian Act, and we're fighting tooth and nail in court saying that the Indian Act is unconstitutional. So is Bill C-7.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Thank you.

The Chair: Is there anyone else? I'll call members first.

Mr. Hubbard.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Chief Victor, you're bringing out some important parts of what Bill C-7 has to deal with.

I see a great number of chiefs and councils who have to deal with a single year of accountability for the money they have available. I hope some method of long-term planning can be set up so first nations can invest in the future and won't be held to a single year of accounting back to somebody. Some first nations have told us they have to send 150-some reports back to Ottawa each year. That's not a very tenable way for people to expend their energy.

If you look at Bill C-7, it asks various first nations to put in writing how their chiefs and councils are elected. If they need to have band laws in writing for their people, I know it's a big task. I think you're saying your people have an annual budget that is available to all people of your first nations, and at the end of the year there is a system by which the people of your group can say where the money was spent.

We have an idea, as Mr. Vellacott says, that in some cases people complain that they don't have good relationships in terms of financial obligations. But Bill C-7 talks about elections of councils and chiefs, annual budgets, and trying to show your people.... Are you saying you object to some of those things? Are there other parts of Bill C-7 that you find objectionable?

Chief Victor Buffalo: We of the Maskwachiys Cree certainly agree with the accounting portion of it. The regional director is present this morning. We have to account for all our own dollars, which is nobody's business but our own. Our financial statements are this thick. We spent over $100,000 on accounting. I don't know about the other three Maskwachiys Cree. We account for those dollars.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: But, Chief, don't you think right now there's too much accounting? There's a whole bureaucracy in Ottawa that deals with all of this. They ask for all this. Do you think it's really needed? That's what I'm asking.

Chief Victor Buffalo: Some of it is certainly required. The resources that come from Ottawa should certainly be accounted for. But we have our own dollars and we shouldn't have to account for them. Those dollars are our own. It's nobody else's business how we spend those dollars.

But the bill is going to go beyond that, and anybody will be able to walk in and scrutinize our financial statements. We feel that's downright objectionable. The government doesn't allow that to happen. We tried to get records from the government at the court level, and Parliament has this immunity clause that it hides behind.

Á (1110)

The Chair: Mr. Laliberte.

Mr. Rick Laliberte: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There's a passage in the bill that says the government adopted a policy recognizing the inherent right to self-government.

[Member speaks in his native language]

Chief Victor Buffalo: [Witness speaks in his native language]

Mr. Rick Laliberte: The inherent right to self-government in the Cree translation is...[Member speaks in his native language]...a state of being...[ Member speaks in his native language]. You can provide self-government as a Cree nation, and if the government recognizes that...[Member speaks in his native language]...our nations and tribes...[Member speaks in his native language]...is that the search of the relationship you have through treaty?

When the British Crown signed a negotiated treaty with the first nations of Canada, it created a country. In that relationship the Crown is now looking at the governance structure of those first nations. But because it's a treaty relationship, would you define and interpret it that the first nations can look at the governance of Canada? Maybe the relationship of the governing structure of Canada should be redesigned to accommodate the first nations and their governing structures.

Chief Victor Buffalo: [Witness speaks in his native language]

The Chair: Perhaps you would allow me to interject, Mr. Laliberte.

I encourage you to use your own language. It is appropriate. It is welcome. But if you wish, for the record, maybe you could assist us and repeat some of it.

As well, I'd like you to explain what you meant when you said the Government of Canada should change its governance so that we can.... I think we missed part of that introduction.

Mr. Rick Laliberte: My question was, if Canada recognizes the policy of inherent right to self-government, and in that recognition that the first nations of Canada view themselves as having a nation-to-nation treaty relationship with Canada, when you come to 2003 and the Crown wants to look at the governance of the first nations, then because there's a treaty relationship, I think the first nations have the privilege and the opportunity to look at the governance of Canada as well, at how they fit.

The Chair: And how does that fit in with Bill C-7?

Mr. Rick Laliberte: Bill C-7 comes with a policy statement that mentions recognition of the right to self-government, but it also goes into this definition of “first nation”. I'll touch on that, because in this bill the definition of first nation refers to the band council. However, under section 35 of the Constitution, where the Inuit, Métis, and first nations...the first nations is a bracket of first nations.

Maybe it would be wise for us in this bill, and in our efforts, to truly define the first nations for you. The first nations of Canada are Nehiyawuk, Cree, Dene, Peigan.... If you list all the nations of Canada, maybe that's a first step this committee could be working toward to forge that proper relationship between first nations and the Government of Canada.

The Chair: Do you wish to respond?

Á (1115)

Chief Leo Cattleman (As Individual): I'm from the Montana First Nation.

I just had an opportunity to meet the speaker who is asking questions in northern Saskatchewan.

[Witness speaks in his native language]

I think it was a couple of years ago that I was over there.

The inherent right of self-government is an existing right that already finds protection under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. It is an inherent and delegated right. The critical problem is not the source of the right but the scope of the right that's recognized by Canada and provincial and territorial governments. This point is important, because while we reached a watershed with the recognition of the inherent right in the Charlottetown accord and the subsequent Liberal Party of Canada's red book versus federal and provincial policies, the scope and nature of the implementation of the right has been a key source of contention. Recognition is not the issue; rather, the issue is to make it jurisdictionally, fiscally, and otherwise possible for first nation governments to thrive politically, economically, and culturally. We need a political climate receptive to first nations aspirations and their legitimacy and importance for the nation in order to move forward.

The Chair: Thank you.

Are there others who wish to add to that?

Chief George Minde (As Individual): [Witness speaks in his native language]

I would like to welcome the standing committee and thank them for coming to hear our concerns and taking the time to hear everybody else.

First of all, I'd like to address Mr. Vellacott's question--a little bit anyway. His question is somewhat difficult to try to answer. First of all, we, as the four nations chiefs, cannot speak for the other 14 tribes in Alberta or the other 600 bands across Canada. We can only speak for ourselves as a collective unit and ourselves as individual bands, so that becomes very difficult to answer.

The one-size-fits-all answer obviously doesn't work. There are very many different and diverse communities of first nations with also a diverse amount of circumstances that befall us. We cannot be put into a one-answer-fits-all situation.

To Mr. Laliberte's question, or statements, on the bill itself, we do in fact share some of the concerns in the bill as far as accountability and those issues go. Chief Buffalo has indicated that the four nations in Hobbema worked very hard on the accountability aspect of running our first nations.

I agree with Mr. Laliberte that maybe the first nations need to be taken out of the aboriginal definition and a better definition made to identify ourselves in the unique relationship we have with the federal government. My problem with the bill is that currently the first nation definition is very similar to corporate definitions. I think if anything needs to be dealt with, you have to try to separate that. We're not corporations; we're nations, and nations aren't corporations. Once you understand that, you can come up with a better working definition that's going to encompass what first nations mean to us.

Following up on Mr. Laliberte's comments on the right to self-determination or the inherent right to self-government, we have to go a little bit further than that, in my opinion. Hopefully I'm not speaking out of turn here, but what we also need is a recognition of self-determination. I think that's very important. What we need the federal government to recognize is that the Maskwachiys Cree, and also individual first nations, need to have the right to legislate, execute, and adjudicate their own laws and by-laws from the first nations they establish for themselves. Also the federal government needs to understand, and they really have to sincerely try hard to understand, that there is a Cree understanding of our treaties and that's what we're striving for.

Those are my comments to the standing committee. Thank you.

Á (1120)

The Chair: Excellent comments. Please proceed.

Ms. Marlene Buffalo (Political Analyst, Maskwachiys Cree of Treaty No. 6): Bonjour.

When the question is posed in many different ways as to how individual citizens can exercise empowerment, and if we don't agree with the proposed Bill C-7 legislation.... First of all, with respect to Bill C-7, it is obvious that the government is acting contrary to the law. It is the responsibility of this committee and parliamentarians, individually and collectively, to safeguard and promote respect for the Constitution and the common law, and that includes avoiding infringement of treaty rights and acting in the best interests of all first nations people.

The government must act in accordance with the Constitution Act, 1982, so as not to infringe on treaty rights, and it must act in the best interests of all first nations people. To continue to treat Indian people as subject matter is dysfunctional. The inadequacies present in first nations governance are a direct result of federal policy, law, and federal administration. Perhaps we need to look at the federal government's problems.

I believe the wrong questions are being posed. I believe the following are the right questions to ask: Why have first nations not been able to get the money they need for economic development? Why are there significant shortcomings in the infrastructure and housing supply on reserves? Who is responsible for the deficiencies?

Ottawa's governance initiative and the suite of legislation are a subset of the real debate. Nation building is at the heart of the debate. Money is also integral to the debate. To give you an example, the present value of resource-based revenue received by Ottawa and the three western provinces during the past 30 years amounts to $710 billion. The rightful share of the first nations is $350 billion. Annual interest payments owing on this amount are $14 billion to $18 billion. Annual resources--revenues of Ottawa and the three western provinces--are $17 billion. The rightful annual share of the first nations is $8.5 billion. The present value of underpayment of annuities during the past 30 years is $8 billion. So annual losses for first nations are $22.5 billion to $26.5 billion--$5-plus billion for income gaps, unknown billions for social and health gaps, hundreds of millions for legal costs, $300 million for underpayment of annuities.

What is the price for loss of sovereignty, loss of dignity, loss of hope? And what do first nations have to show after 400 years? For example, Canada's land mass is 6.5 million square kilometres. Reserve land is 0.4% of the total. Average per capita income is 40%-plus less than average for non-aboriginal; therefore, there is an annual income gap of $5-plus billion. Based on a record of improvement during the first half of the 1990s decade, it will take 75 years to close that gap.

Á (1125)

So the answer is this. If there is a lack of economic development on reserves, an exodus of your best and your brightest people, and a culture of dependency, the vicious cycle threatens the long-term viability of communities.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

I wish to move on. I don't mean to be disrespectful. The cards were placed in a position where I can't see them. I'd like to do the courtesy of naming you, but I can't see the cards and I couldn't see yours.

Chief Three Fingers.

Chief Simon Three Fingers (As Individual): Just a little bit on what my friend over there or my brother talked about, our ways, being an Indian, that more or less applies day after day in our operations and in our communities--not totally, but as somebody said, there are piles of reports you have to make on maybe just a five-page agreement on contributions or whatever. It's nonsense.

I think you hit it right when you said we have to get involved, and I don't think the government should predetermine what we want--for instance, in self-determination, self-government, or whatever you may call it. It's always predetermined for us. It isn't ever going to work, because I've been around for a long time--I guess I'm one of the oldest in the group here--and I haven't seen changes yet, to advance in our little areas.

Some of us have small reservations. We had to buy certain extra lands in order to be able to meet the requirements of other things, like ranching, farming, and so on. We had to do that. How can you farm in just 5,000 acres when you have, say, 1,500 or 1,600 people on a little reserve? We're getting crowded.

I don't know; sometimes when I think of it, I'm not going to be around forever, for me to face the bad situation. However, the young people will still be there to face that. So I just want to highlight that I concur with the Métis.

That's it, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Are there others who wish to add anything?

Colleagues, do you have any questions or comments?

Mr. Chatters.

Á (1130)

Mr. David Chatters (Athabasca, Canadian Alliance): We've heard many times this morning recommendations that this committee or the government in fact should scrap Bill C-7 completely. Is that an option for this committee? Are we obliged to report this bill back to the government in some form, or is simply recommending the abandonment of this bill a possibility for this committee? I really don't know whether that's the case or not.

The Chair: Thank you very much for the question. That is the point I wanted to clear up before, when I asked if I could make a comment. It was denied me, but that's fine.

There are two things I'd like to clear up, and these aren't things that happened because we felt that's the way we wanted them to happen; these are realities we have to deal with.

One of them is that this committee is a committee of five political parties. We are appointed to this committee by the House of Commons. So this committee is not Jean Chrétien's committee. It's not Bob Nault's committee. It's not the government's committee. It's a committee of the House of Commons. That's why we try to bring you back to Bill C-7, because we're mandated to do a job for the House of Commons.

It doesn't mean all that you're saying is irrelevant, but we'd like to bring this back to the House better than it was sent to us.

Now, can we scrap this bill? We cannot scrap this bill. This committee cannot scrap this bill. As a matter of fact, at this point, maybe even the government can't scrap it. They could stop acting on it and hope that it sleeps and goes on the shelf. But this bill now belongs to the Speaker of the House.

We have been asked to peruse the bill the way it was tabled. The Minister indicated to this committee that he has sent us here after first reading encouraging amendments, encouraging improvements to the bill. That's why we're going around the country--we're travelling for four weeks--to ask you to help us do that. But we cannot put a motion, as a group, to say we move that we scrap this bill.

What we could do, when we go clause by clause--and there are 59 of them--is go to each one individually to see if it should be changed--improved, hopefully. The only thing we could do is vote against all 59 of them, and it would go back to the House of Commons saying they disagree with everything on this bill. But the bill would still be in the House. I think it's important to clear that up.

Normally a chair would say you're out of order, would you get back to the bill. I'm allowing, really, a lot of freedom. But it doesn't take away from the fact that we need your help to make what we have better.

Is that fair enough? Do you have other comments?

I will not be entertaining comments from the floor, only from those who have been scheduled.

Chief Minde.

Chief George Minde: I just have a final comment.

My understanding is the bill hasn't gone into second reading yet, so wouldn't it allow us to change the principles of the bill, to maybe change it so there's more federal accountability to first nations and respect for the treaties act instead of what Bill C-7 lays out?

The Chair: In response to that, the committee will do anything under amendments. Whether those amendments will be accepted by the Speaker of the House as to the intent of the bill will be left to the Speaker of the House.

We've been at this five weeks. We put in three months last spring on this. We hear a lot of the concerns communities have. We believe they are legitimate concerns. There are other areas in legislation where we believe those things should be fixed, there's no doubt. But this is restrictive.

Everybody agrees that we have to eventually do away with the Indian Act. This is to be done with the people who are affected, not unilaterally. I've had a little bit of experience with this. This is the second time I've chaired a committee looking at amendments to the Indian Act. I see the Indian Act as a broken-down car. We are asked to patch up that car, to bring it to the garage. Hopefully, someday this act will be abolished.

As a method of economic development, let's say you want to raise cattle. By the letter of the Indian Act you have to ask permission from the Minister of Indian Affairs to sell cattle. I don't like hearing about things like this; it is very embarrassing. If I were you, I would feel mad about this too.

The amendments we're about to make will take this away. You will no longer have to go to ministers to have them say, please, do your thing. And you probably don't do it now. But in law, we're taking away this aspect that I find so demeaning. It gives you the liberty to do things.

I see a lot of good in this bill and the amendments we're looking at. But when we send the bill back to the House of Commons, hopefully we will improve it. I don't believe it will be considered good legislation and standing legislation.

We are working very hard to send it back better than it is, but it doesn't take away from all the other things you think should be fixed. I don't believe they can be fixed with the Indian Act. We may be back sometime with another bill to do that.

Mr. Chatters.

Á (1135)

Mr. David Chatters: Just in response to your suggestion, in my experience in 10 years in the House of Commons, if we were to introduce amendments to this bill that would fundamentally change the nature of the bill, as you suggest we should, the Speaker of the House would reject those amendments and we would not be allowed to table them.

The Chair: Mr. Vellacott.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I would also suggest that it would be helpful to the different members here that if the chief had specific amendments that may make some radical alterations, we will certainly attempt to include them by bringing them forward. But as my colleague shares, it may well be that if they're off in a different direction altogether, they might be ruled out of order. But with some reasoned amendments, some of us would be prepared to mitigate or change some of the clauses here that we believe and agree are really problematic. It would be worth some effort on this.

We have heard from lots of people that we should just do away with it altogether. As the chair indicates, the only thing we could do is delete every clause in it and send it back to the House with just the title. I guess that's the other option.

The Chair: I hope my remarks weren't offensive. They were certainly not intended to be.

We have four minutes left. If you have any closing remarks, I would like you to make them.

Chief Victor Buffalo: I just want to thank the committee for coming to our area. I know the procedure is very unusual, where the bill was introduced and then you're asking us after the fact. I realize it was done before, but the procedures are very unusual.

This gives us a chance to be able to participate in this process. Again, we reiterate to you that we reject the bill. We don't accept it. We're not asking you to scrap it. We're asking you to reconsider and vote the way we feel the united people here are going to present the facts to you. That's all we're saying.

The Chair: And we appreciate that very much, and we appreciate your help. Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we have invited another group to appear. We will proceed to hearing from the Saddle Lake First Nation.

I welcome to the table Councillor Eric Large and Treaty Technician Joseph Steinhauer from the Saddle Lake First Nation. Welcome.

We have half an hour for this presentation, and we invite you to begin.

Á (1140)

Mr. Eric Large (Councillor, Saddle Lake First Nation): [Witness speaks in his native language]

Honourable chairman, members of the standing committee, it is an honour and a privilege to appear before you on behalf of Saddle Lake Cree Nation. My name is Eric Large and I am an elected leader and councillor of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation.

I've been requested to speak on behalf of the Saddle Lake chief, Eddy Makokis. Sitting beside me is Joseph Steinhauer, who is a treaty technician and policy analyst for the Saddle Lake chief and council, and he will be taking part in this presentation as well. I will read the first five pages and he will cover the rest, time permitting.

The reason we are here is to share our views on Bill C-7, the First Nations Governance Act.

To begin with, our leaders and spiritual people foresaw the time when the federal government of Canada would attempt to terminate the treaty rights of our people and assimilate us into Canadian society. Through the years, many attempts have been made to do this.

In 1969, the Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau and then Indian Affairs Minister Jean Chrétien introduced a white paper that sought to transfer the federal government's responsibility for Indians to the provinces, an extinguishment of the Indian reserve system that recommended individual land ownership for development purposes under the Indian Affairs loan and land surrender policy.

The Saddle Lake First Nation views Bill C-7 as a modernized version of the 1969 white paper policy that will implement unilateral policies of assimilation of indigenous peoples and attempt to terminate the treaty status of our people.

The Saddle Lake First Nation's official political and legal position toward Bill C-7, the First Nations Governance Act, is that we reject it completely and categorically. A band council resolution, which we have attached to our presentation, supports this position.

The leadership has held numerous band meetings on this issue and the people have provided direction for the leadership to follow. That direction is to maintain a consistent position toward protecting, maintaining, and implementing the terms of Treaty 6 signed in 1876 between the Crown in right of Great Britain and our forefathers who have resided on this land since time immemorial.

The grounds on which the Saddle Lake Cree Nation rejects Bill C-7 is that after close examination of the bill itself, there is every indication it will violate our inherent treaty rights and devolve the trust obligation of the federal government, among other things. Due to time restrictions, we will briefly mention these and other items later on in this presentation.

How does Bill C-7 violate treaty rights?

Bill C-7 violates treaty rights by attempting to legislate self-government on treaty first nations. Treaty first nations already have the inherent power and authority to govern themselves and make treaties as they did, and they have had that power and authority to govern themselves since before European contact.

The Crown in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 recognized the fact that we hold nationhood status. What has been missing, in Saddle Lake's view, is the federal government's recognition of this simple fact.

How does Bill C-7 devolve the fiduciary trust obligations of the federal government?

Minister Nault has made repeated reference to the media and to the House of Commons that first nations need to be given the responsibility to govern themselves. Bill C-7 gives first nations that responsibility. However, the federal government continues to retain the authority.

What is happening here is that first nations are being handed all the responsibility, and all the authority will remain in the hands of the minister. This is not a good way to help first nations govern effectively. These tools for good governance, as the minister is so fond of saying, are merely devolved mechanisms that will continue the destructive neocolonial relationship that now exists and operates through the Indian Act structure.

This structure will continue with this legislation, and the relationship and conditions that first nations people live under will continue to deteriorate. These factors need to be carefully weighed by the standing committee as you move across Canada to hear from first nations on this bill.

Á (1145)

Accountability. The title of Bill C-7 is An Act respecting leadership selection, administration and accountability of Indian bands, and to make related amendments to other Acts. In our assessment of the First Nations Governance Act, it is noted that in the preamble and other areas there exist various contradictions. The first example of many contradictions found throughout the legislation begins in the second paragraph of the preamble, which says “Whereas representative democracy...and transparency and accountability are broadly held Canadian values”. It may be a moral ideal of Canada to be transparent and accountable. However, Canada's record in this respect may be questioned. The government of the day and those before it have run up deficits and debts that run into the billions of dollars. Canada's current debt load is $547 billion. The bottom line is that when it is a matter of expressing the accountability of first nations compared to that of the federal and provincial governments, a double standard exists. Close examination of the historical record of the latter senior governments points to their inadequate accountability in their fiscal affairs from 1990 to the present. Amazingly, the majority of the public seems conditioned to regard this abnormal lack of accountability as something normal.

Given that first nations have to work with so little in the form of CAP funding arrangements to serve an increasing population and that first nations already meet stringent standards and auditing requirements and to avoid being in deficit--and it should be to their credit that many first nations are debt free--Saddle Lake First Nation continues to run its financial affairs in a responsible manner.

That being said, as legitimate indigenous nations, maybe we should consider imposing third-party management on the federal government for gross negligence in the areas of transparency and accountability.

Charter argument. In the eighth paragraph of the preamble it states “And whereas the exercise of capacities and powers under all Acts of Parliament is subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms”. This particular paragraph and other references to the charter argument totally undermine the collective rights of Indian people in Canada.

This bill does not offer any substantial recognition to Indians as nations or to the protection of Indians as a special collectivity in Canada. Individual rights of Indians are offered attention in the charter of rights much in the same way as it applies to other Canadians. What this means is that an Indian may be protected to a degree from discriminating measures. However, the nation or tribe in which his/her identity and rights are rooted has no constitutional protection from intolerant groups in the cabinet or legislature.

Because Bill C-7 does not support the existence of a distinct Indian society in Canada, all Indian and/or treaty rights are in jeopardy. In the final analysis existing rights in Bill C-7 will prove to be nothing more or less than the rights enjoyed by other Canadians as citizens of their respective provinces and Canada. In short the legislation sets the stage for a concentrated round of new measures designed to fully terminate the collective rights of Indians and to accelerate their dispersal and assimilation.

Inadequate legislation, inadequate consultation. The view held by Saddle Lake First Nation concerning this bill is that it is seriously flawed in terms of its consultation procedure. There is a legal requirement to consult first nations. Minister Nault has stated in his presentation before the standing committee that he believes modern government should practise the politics of empowerment. We had no input into this legislation, nor did we agree to its implementation. As a sovereign nation we don't believe in another government imposing its will on us regarding self-government. This is not empowerment. This is unilateral imposition of a government's authority to divest itself of trust responsibility. We were not allowed to study the bill before it was first introduced last year. It was thrust on us, and either we accepted it or we didn't.

Á (1150)

This is why we appear before you today, to state for the record that we reject it categorically in its entirety.

Chief Justice Antonio Lamer has ruled in the Supreme Court of Canada, in the Sparrow decision, that:

...even in these rare cases when the minimum acceptable standard is consultation, this consultation must be in good faith, and with the intention of substantially addressing the concerns of the aboriginal peoples whose lands are at issue. In most cases, it will be significantly deeper than mere consultation. Some cases may even require the full consent of an aboriginal nation....

It is safe to state for the record that Canada does not have the full consent from us or other treaty first nations it requires to impose this legislation. There are, no doubt, statistics available on the precise percentage of first nations who have been adequately consulted on this bill. It is safe to state that the percentage of first nations not consulted exceeds the small percentage of those who have been consulted. We won't belabour the point.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Mr. Steinhauer.

Mr. Joseph Steinhauer (Treaty Technician, Saddle Lake First Nation): [Witness speaks in his native language]

What we have introduced in our presentation, after Councillor Large's initial comments, is what we believe is a viable alternative to Bill C-7. This is our answer.

A Cree governance framework? For the last 50 years the Saddle Lake First Nation has worked extensively on a written form of Cree law, or nehiyo weyasiwin, that is based on the law of the Creator and natural law as we understand it. Combined with these laws are our tribal customary laws that have been in place for centuries. Our framework is complete, and our people are prepared to support it as a means of governing ourselves. We are ready to break the shackles of the Indian Act.

Our tribal constitution is the base of all other policies and laws that we will pass and insert that will help our people deal with the many socio-economic problems we are currently experiencing: policies and laws that deal with land use, health education, child welfare, economic development, policing, tribal justice, housing, administration, etc.

The point we are making here and now is that these developments have come about from the grassroots level—from the people, not from Ottawa, not from any other government. It has come about from our own people. This is true Cree governance—not a bill that comes from Minister Nault telling us what is good for us.

There exists a sociological concept in academia called institutional completeness that refers to the extent to which a racial, ethnic, or national group has created the organizations and other institutions that enable members of that group to meet their daily needs without having to turn to others outside the group. The Saddle Lake First Nation has come far in reaching the goal of institutional completeness that would give our government the power and authority to assert full autonomy within our jurisdiction. The legal term is intra vires.

Utilizing those institutions that are designed to meet the needs of our people, we see the need to complete the picture of institutional completeness by creating community-based institutions in the areas of a full health care and hospital system, a court system, peacekeeping, commercial enterprises, tribal government, etc.

In the words of one of our past leaders who had a vision of self-determination for the people—it was my father, whose name was Eugene Steinhauer: “In our case of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation, our right to have our own laws within our territory has never been taken from us. Thus we as the people of Saddle Lake can put in place laws to govern ourselves without outside interference by the non-Indian governments. The core of this plan is to adopt a framework of nationhood.”

The term nation-building has been mentioned in previous presentations to you here this morning. Our land base is our country. Our members are its citizens. We have a definite economy that can be healthy and productive. We have a political system, a financial system, a partial legal protection system, and many facets of social services. These are all raw materials, which when properly orchestrated can produce positive independence within the Canadian system.

In brief, this presentation to the standing committee on behalf of the Saddle Lake First Nation has provided some sound reasoning into why we oppose and reject Bill C-7. A political position has been provided that clearly rejects the First Nations Governance Act. We have provided grounds for that rejection in that it violates our inherent treaty rights and devolves the fiduciary obligation of the federal government. We have also provided what we believe to be major shortcomings to Bill C-7, which are lack of federal accountability and a double standard that exists. Other major shortcomings of this legislation are inadequate consultation and inadequate time to realistically consult with first nations on what will definitely have major political and social impacts into the future.

Á (1155)

In 1983, a special parliamentary committee on Indian self-government recommended that:

the right of Indianpeoples to self-government be explicitly stated and entrenchedin the constitution of Canada.

The empty box of section 35 has yet to be filled, yet the federal government is insistent on imposing Bill C-7. The committee went further by stating that:

Indian First Nationgovernments would form a distinct order ofgovernment in Canada, with their jurisdiction defined byconstitutional amendment. Such an approach is to bepreferred over the proposals advanced by the Minister of Indian Affairs in his discussion paper entitled The Alternative of Optional Indian Band Government Legislation.Those proposals envisage Indian governments merelyas municipal governments and maintain the paternalisticrole of the department.

This is coming from a parliamentary standing committee much like yours:

The Committee rejects the minister'sproposals and does not support amending theIndian Act as a route to self-government. The antiquatedpolicy basis and structure of the Indian Act make itcompletely unacceptable as a blueprint for the future.

In summary, the point we are making here is that the federal government would be making a serious mistake by passing and imposing Bill C-7 on first nations. Furthermore, the bill will not improve the socio-economic conditions our people are facing at the grassroots level. Unilateral imposition of federal legislation without realistic input from the very people who will be affected is not the answer.

In conclusion, the Saddle Lake First Nation leadership, whom we are representing here, has provided for the standing committee's benefit a few final statements that we believe can improve the lives of our people, as opposed to implementation of Bill C-7. They are as follows.

First, a complete halt of implementation of the current suite of legislation before the House of Commons. In solidarity and unity with the leadership of Treaty No. 6 territory, we seek a direct meeting with Prime Minister Chrétien and his cabinet to recognize Treaty No. 6 nationhood realities.

Second, implementation of a treaty-based, nation-to-nation bilateral process to recognize first nations as one of three constitutionally recognized orders of government in Canada. This will require constitutional amendments.

Third, that the Indian Act be abolished upon implementation of first-nation-driven governance frameworks.

And finally, resource sharing of Canada's vast wealth and resources as a prerequisite for an economic base to support true indigenous governance systems.

The previous presentation mentioned a lot of the statistics regarding the resources that are pulled from this country by Canada every year, going as far back as whenever the resources were first pulled.

It's interesting to note, and it has been noted before by first nation leaders, that Canada enjoys a standard of living that's third in the world, but amongst first nations we're 66th. That gap is not going to be changed by Bill C-7.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the standing committee for the opportunity to provide our views on Bill C-7. The Saddle Lake government will continue to do everything possible to kill this bill, because in our opinion it will not serve the best interests of our people.

Again, we thank you for your time.

[Witness speaks in his native language]

Â (1200)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we have nine minutes.

Mr. Vellacott, five minutes.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Thank you. I appreciate Joseph's and Eric's presentation. Eric mentioned putting the federal government of Canada under third-party management. I have some sympathies with your position. I think spending got way out of control, as did the unaccountable kind of stuff many decades back here, so it got the wheels spinning. I was thinking, the opposition parties have these opportunities from time to time to bring forward a motion on a given day in the House—supply days, we call them—and each party can suggest something. Maybe at some point in the future we'll see a Canadian Alliance supply day to put the federal Government of Canada under third-party management. I have sympathy for your position.

I agree there are serious flaws in Bill C-7. I guess if I understood what Joseph was saying towards the end, you're saying stay with the Indian Act until self-government or self-determination agreements are worked out. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

Mr. Joseph Steinhauer: I'm not answering any more questions. I think I've represented the position of the Saddle Lake First Nation.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Okay.

I appreciate the comments that were made with respect to the Cree governance framework. I'm wondering if you've looked at Bill C-7 in terms of all its intricacies. Do you think it would allow for adapting or inserting your Cree governance framework in there? Then you'd have it covered off on an interim basis until...you know, self-government agreements--Nisga'a and others--take a while to implement.

I guess my question would be whether there is any possibility that by inserting your own Cree governance framework into Bill C-7 you would have it covered off on an interim basis until you arrive at self-government agreements for your nation.

Mr. Eric Large: We have no mandate to be advising or making recommendations to the government. We just state our position. We initiated this work way before this bill and other bills came before the attention of the standing committee, so we cannot compromise our position statement that was delivered this morning.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I respect that.

Thank you.

The Chair: If you wish to use some of the time to make closing remarks, you're welcome to do that.

Mr. Eric Large: No, thank you. We just thank you for hearing us out.

The Chair: We thank you very much for having agreed to present at this time. If we fall behind schedule later this afternoon, you will have been very helpful. Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we will suspend until 1 o'clock.