Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples

Issue 3 - Evidence

OTTAWA, Tuesday, March 11, 1997

The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 9:30 a.m. to organize the activities of the committee.

[English]

Mr. Denis Robert, Acting Clerk of the Committee: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We have a quorum. As acting clerk of your committee, it is my duty to preside over the election of a new chairman. I am ready to receive motions to that effect.

Senator Watt: I move that Senator Pearson be the Chair.

Mr. Robert: It is moved by the Honourable Senator Watt that the Honourable Senator Pearson be Chair of this committee. Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?

Honourable Members: Agreed.

Mr. Robert: I declare the motion carried. The Honourable Senator Pearson is elected Chair of the committee. I invite you to take the chair.

Senator Landon Pearson (Chair) in the chair.

The Chair: Thank you very much. This will be a short meeting. I am pleased to have this opportunity to serve. I regret the departure of Len Marchand, and I realize that taking this on is a great responsibility, not being an aboriginal person myself. However, I believe I have good support from my colleagues here, and we will be working together.

I assume that Senators Andreychuk and Watt will remain on the steering committee and that Senator Andreychuk is my Deputy Chair.

Senator Andreychuk: Yes.

The Chair: The three of us will meet together to have a discussion about our plan of action.

I thought it would be useful to know what is in the House of Commons, quite aside from our own Bill S-12. There are several bills in the house related to our committee, and we will circulate a list of them. I also asked to be given a sense of the priority they hold so that we have some sense of how soon we will be dealing with them. Many of them are fairly minor amendments.

The first two are at the report stage. Bill C-50 has not yet had second reading. Following second reading debate, Bill C-51 is in committee. Bill C-75 is awaiting second reading debate. Bill C-79, which is the First Nations Land Management Act, was referred to the House of Commons committee after first reading but before second reading, and they are holding hearings currently. It would then come back for second reading. That is the modifications to the Indian Act.

That gives us a sense of what is coming down the pipeline, so to speak. We have very little idea how many of these we will address in the next two or three months, but I thought at least you could put this in your file as something coming forward.

If there are some minor amendments that make a difference to the First Nation that has proposed it and therefore has a little priority, I think we should be prepared to push on it a bit. I hate to see things disappear simply because no one thinks they are quite important enough except for the First Nation that is proposing it. We will be looking at the ones that are minor amendments because they may be useful for the people most directly involved.

The last time we met, Senator Andreychuk, we talked about several other things which we need to think about.

Senator Andreychuk: There are several issues. I do not have the list of identified issues with me, but I will bring it to the steering committee. One was to continue to determine what we do on the royal commission, and another was to bring back the land claims commissioner of British Columbia for a report. We were also planning to bring back officials from DIAND to determine what they have done on the individual cases as a result the aboriginal veterans report and the fact that the government has not responded to Senate on that report per se.

There were one or two other issues. One might have been the Yukon. We listed them, and I can get the list for the steering committee.

The Chair: We can get the list and then look at how to arrange our meetings.

This Tuesday morning time slot has been selected for us, as well as Wednesday afternoons after the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, or at 5:15.

Unfortunately, I will not be here next Tuesday morning. If we decide to go ahead with something, Senator Andreychuk could be the Chair. After that, I will be here regularly.

Senator Tkachuk: Where would you put Bill S-12 on the priority list? All the other bills are in the House of Commons and will not be coming down the pipe for a while.

The Chair: It probably becomes the first thing we consider.

Senator Tkachuk: Could I make a suggestion for the committee to consider? We have some testimony from previous meetings that were conducted last year, and we could bring a motion to the committee that we take the minutes of that previous testimony and adopt them as part of this committee. I do not know if we must go through the Senate or if we can do it in committee, but, if we could do that, we would get right into the bill.

Senator Andreychuk: We have to agree to accept that.

Senator Beaudoin: This is a question of procedure.

The Chair: I am informed that we need a motion in the Senate to be permitted to have the papers from the previous session introduced into this session. We will determine the appropriate procedure.

Senator Watt: It does not seem to make that much sense.

Senator Beaudoin: The usual procedure, as far as I know, is a motion in the Senate.

The Chair: It could be fairly quick. We could possibly do it this week.

Senator Beaudoin: It is not controversial at all.

Senator Watt: Not now, but perhaps it will be when it gets into the Senate.

Senator Andreychuk: If you know something we do not, tell the Chair.

Senator Watt: That is the problem. I do not know.

Senator Andreychuk: In another committee when I tried to circulate something, they said that all you had to do was simply circulate the information and then it forms part of your committee deliberations. I was going the formal route, and they were telling me not to do it. Perhaps we can determine how to do it.

Senator Gigantès: I did not quite catch that. What was the problem with circulating the documents?

Senator Andreychuk: I wanted minutes of a previous committee put into the committee hearings of the committee in which I was sitting. I wanted to do it in a formal way. I was told that all you had to do at any time is lift from the record any previous hearings and circulate them. They form part of what you are studying.

Senator Tkachuk: We did that in Standing Senate Committee on National Finance. There was a study begun previous to prorogation on the federal transfers to the provinces. I got up in the house and moved it be part of the testimony, and it was done. It was fairly non-controversial.

Senator Beaudoin: You could easily solve the problem this morning. Simply ask the experts at the table. They will settle the point right away.

Mr. Robert: We can prepare a motion, and the chairman could present it.

Senator Beaudoin: It is very simple, subject to confirmation.

The Chair: We all know the rules are not always as clear as they seem.

Is there anything else at this stage which someone wishes to mention?

Senator Beaudoin: I have a question. The aboriginals would like this committee to go ahead with the report on the veterans. What was the reaction of the government on that?

Senator Andreychuk: We have received nothing.

Senator Beaudoin: There has been no reaction yet?

Senator Andreychuk: Not us to formally in any way, and not yet to anyone, as I understand it.

The Chair: That is another issue on the list, how we pursue that or continue the exploration that was started previously.

Senator Gigantès: Let us have some lawyers write the reaction. No one will understand what it is, and things will be simpler.

Senator Beaudoin: You lack confidence in lawyers.

Senator Tkachuk: That is what we did in the royal commission.

The Chair: If there are no other matters, we will adjourn.

The committee adjourned.