Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue 9 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Monday, October 6, 2003
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 11:35 a.m. to study upon key legal issues affecting the subject of on-reserve matrimonial real property on the breakdown of a marriage or common law relationship and the policy context in which they are situated.
Senator Shirley Maheu (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: It is a pleasure for me to welcome you here today. You have travelled here to be with us, to share your knowledge and interesting background on the subject that we are discussing. I also welcome those that are listening on radio, television and those that will read this meeting on our Web site.
I would like to introduce Senator Beaudoin, a member of the committee and former Dean of Law at the University of Ottawa. The matter of human rights is one of Senator Beaudoin's subjects of primary importance, after justice, of course
In our June, our committee was authorized by the Senate to begin this important study. I would also like to introduce Senator Joyal, former minister and a member of this committee as well as the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
We have received the mandate to examine the interplay between provincial and federal laws in addressing the division of personal and real matrimonial property on-reserve and, in particular, the enforcement of court decisions; the practice of land allotment on-reserve and, in particular, custom land allotment; in the case of marriage or common law relationship, the status of spouses and how real property is divided on the breakdown of such a relationship; and possible solutions that would balance individual and community interests.
Ms. Jacob, please proceed with your presentation.
Ms. Bev Jacobs, Co-author of Matrimonial Property on Reserve: I am a traditional Mohawk woman from Six Nations and a lawyer. I will specifically speak to Hodinohso:ni culture and the relationship that culture shares with Canada.
First, I will outline a framework of my presentation. I will be speaking about our people prior to the period of colonization. In our language, it is called O:gwe ho wen hya, which means ``our way of life,'' or ``our way of doing things.''
Second, I will speak to our relationship with Canada and the Two Row Wampum Treaty. I will also look at the violation of the Two Row Wampum Treaty as a result of the actions of the government of Canada, specifically the Indian Act and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. I will then examine a concept called, Eurocentric Diffusionism.
The first part, O:gwe ho wen hya, goes back to the traditional roles of women in our community and the roles of the community members. Ours is a matriarchal society, which means that our women determine our identity through our clans and our nations. I am a Mohawk woman and Bear Clan, which stems from my mother, my grandmother and so on. My daughter and my granddaughter are now Mohawk Nation Bear Clan.
Our relationships and our responsibilities include being the caretakers of the home, the nurturers and the teachers to the community, as well as establishing and creating the relationships within the community. We have a responsibility to our children to understand and teach the roles that they have in the community.
Language is also important to our people because it establishes our identity as a people. Our ceremonies establish our relationship to the creator and our relationship to our surroundings, including those things that we can and cannot see.
All of these things create our way of life. In Eurocentric language, that would be called, ``self-determination.''
Next, I will discuss the creation of the Two Row Wampum Treaty. My ancestors were responsible for creating this treaty with the French, the British and the Americans; and Canada is responsible for this treaty as a result of taking its responsibilities from Britain. The treaty created two separate nations.
The responsibility and the principles within the Two Row Wampum Treaty are that we live together on this land. We are to live together and respect each other's way of life, yet live as separate nations.
The Two Row Wampum is made out of wampum beads. It has two lines of purple beads; they represent the relationship between each nation. The meaning of ``Gus wen tah'' is the river of life; so when this treaty was made with colonizing nations, the responsibilities between each other was to respect each other, to create a friendship and to trust one another. The two nations agreed to this relationship.
On the one side of the belt is the one line, which represents O:gwe ho wen hya. It represents our way of life and our way of doing things, the way that we would float along in our canoe on this river of life.
On the other side of the belt were the colonizers' Eurocentric values or their beliefs, traditions and language, things that belonged on their ship. That was the idea behind the Two Row Wampum and the creation of the relationship between each nation.
Canada has violated he Two Row Wampum Treaty. The violation has been imposed and enforced on indigenous peoples through the enforcement of a Constitution that had no involvement of indigenous peoples of this country.
Among these laws was the Indian Act. It is one of the most racist pieces of legislation that exists in Canada, and it has created the most genocidal acts against Aboriginal indigenous peoples. It has changed and impacted our way of life. It has impacted our self-determination. It has changed O:gwe ho wen hya. It has created language and words that do not describe our way of life, such as ``rights'' and ``self-government.'' Those were not terms within our language. Those are English words that were created to describe indigenous peoples' lives and they have been imposed on our way of life. That language that has been created is different for Hodinohso:ni people because as Hodinohso:ni people, we would describe them as ``responsibilities.'' They are more responsibilities than rights, the responsibilities that women have in their roles within the community as leaders and as mothers.
There is also this dichotomy of individual versus collective, which was never part of our way of life. The words ``individual'' and ``collective'' are a creation of a Eurocentric government.
As a result of this, this is a term that has been coined ``Eurocentric diffusionism.'' There is a quote to which I will refer. It can be found in the paper that Ms. Eberts and I have submitted to the Senate. It is a quote presented by Robert Williams. Eurocentric diffusionism is a product of colonization, and Robert Williams described colonization as follows:
European colonization in a New World normally required displacement of one cultural group in favour of another cultural group seeking to exercise self- determining rights over the same territory and resources. The exploitive goals of European colonization thus entailed a form of racial discrimination, denying equal rights of self-determination to those different peoples colonized by the colonizer.
This is what I am talking about concerning the violation of the Two Row Wampum Treaty. Those rights were originally ours; we already had a legal system, a social system, and things that defined who we are as a people already existed.
Justice Berger also described what I call Eurocentric diffusionism. He said in 1979:
Man put his unique stamp on the world around him. His values, ideas, language and institutions exhibit his understanding of himself and his world. These things are his culture. Any people seek to ensure that these things are transmitted from one generation to another, to ensure a continuity of the beliefs and knowledge that a people hold in common. We sought to erase the collective memory of the native people — their history, language, religion and philosophy — and to replace it with our own.
Another description of Eurocentric diffusionism is:
Taking from models based on consumer societies, the market economy, an alleged intrinsic goodness of the modern (Western) social organization, they tend to establish a mythical, indisputable superiority of the culture (in particular of the political culture) of the so-called free world, Western Judo-Christian paradigm, and to consolidate as the conventional wisdom the notion that other conceptions in those areas are backward and obsolete, and for that reason, inferior and, if at all, of negligible value.
Eurocentric diffusionism has affected O:gwe ho wen hya. Our way of life has not been accepted as real and worthwhile. When we look at those definitions and what has happened as a result of colonization, we are looking at the violence that has existed against indigenous women since colonization. We are also looking at the patriarchal values that have existed since the Indian Act.
Our Hodinohso:ni had a traditional self-government, through the chiefs and the clan mothers. In 1924, the Indian Act was enforced at gunpoint against the traditional chiefs and the clan mothers; it forced them out of their own building.
As a result of the processes that exist in the community, we are now dealing with internal oppression. What is happening in the communities is we have learned very well what the oppressors have done to our people and, in turn, are using that within the communities themselves.
Now we are dealing internally with violence against women. As a result, we now have to figure out what to do with this piece of legislation. That system has created these violations against many generations of indigenous women. My partner, Ms. Eberts, will finish.
Ms. Mary Eberts, Co-author of Matrimonial Property on Reserve: Thank you for not only inviting us to speak but also for taking on this important job.
In 1999, the Native Women's Association of Canada began a lawsuit under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms invoking a number of international human rights conventions against Her Majesty the Queen.
The purpose of the lawsuit was to obtain a court ruling that found that it was against the Charter of Rights for one group of women in Canada, defined primarily by race, to be living in a domain that was beyond the law. That lawsuit has been going on since 1999 and Ms. Jacobs and I are co-counsel to the Native Women's Association in that suit.
When the case began, there was no policy activity at federal level of government concerning this issue. There had been some critical writing that decried the lack of protection and access to the law by women living on reserve, and also the international community had showed great interest in the problem.
We are pleased to note that this situation has changed. A policy process within the federal government has begun and committees such as this are bringing focus to our dire situation. We believe that this committee can serve as both a watchdog and an inspiration for the activities of the federal government to bring forward a solution to what can be called a ``scandal.''
It is indeed a scandal that the most vulnerable women in our country are the ones who are currently placed outside of the rule of law. That is a factual assessment based on Statistics Canada and recognized by the highest court in the land.
Let me offer a few comments of a more legal and technical nature. The 1986 decisions in two cases Derrickson v. Derrikson and Paul v. Paul made it clear that provincial family property law does not apply on reserve land. These decisions excluded Aboriginal women living on reserve from three kinds of protection. One is most often mentioned in the course of describing work like your own and the policy work of the federal government; that is, the division of matrimonial real property on marriage breakdown. However, there are very important interim measures that also are beyond the reach of Aboriginal women living on reserves: Orders of possession or occupation for the matrimonial home is one class of such protection; protection orders, and non-molestation orders to keep an abusive or violent spouse away from the home.
Since 1986 there has been a wealth of provincial legislation aimed at providing mechanisms to protect women and children from violence in their homes. All of these are now beyond the reach of women living on reserves because of the constitutional problem.
In making your recommendations, please do not overlook the importance of interim relief. The occupation of the matrimonial home and non-molestation orders are crucial to the stability of the children in a marriage breakdown situation, and allow for the protection of both women and children, even before the issue of division of property is reached.
We most respectfully ask you to remember that it has been 17 years since on-reserve women have lived without the same protection as other Canadian women, and time has had an impact on these women.
A generation of women has been raised to expect absolutely nothing by way of protection on the dissolution of marriage; thus, they may be all the more willing or able to be forced to accept less in any wholly negotiated solution, especially one that is entirely community based.
Second, women who might now be the leaders and elders of their communities may already have left because there was no protection for them when their marriages broke down. Often, leaving means not just going around the corner or down the street; it means going to Winnipeg, Vancouver, Toronto or other large urban centres where they are beyond the leadership cadre and the ability to exert leadership in their communities.
We ask that when the Senate considers its recommendations it include the right of Aboriginal women to be fully involved in the process of reaching a satisfactory solution in the community. The idea there is one set of rights for individuals and one set of rights for the collective and they are necessarily in conflict is something that bears more consideration. It is a false dichotomy because the absence of strong women is harmful to the community. Any regime that leads to the exile of women as a result of matrimonial disputes, because the machinery is not there to let them stay in the community is not just a harm to the individual women, it is a harm to the whole community. There does not have to be this dichotomous thinking of the individual on the one hand and the community on the other.
There is a great deal of merit in looking at a medium-term and long-term solutions. We know that it has been announced policy of the Government of Canada that it wishes to and is open to negotiate treaties or self-government agreements or land management agreements with native or Aboriginal communities. Yet, as we note in the paper, the pace of that enterprise is exceedingly slow and the conditions that the federal government expects from the indigenous communities in order just to get to the table are sometimes too high. If we leave a solution to the lengthy negotiating process, then as long as that process is incomplete or unresolved nationally or with respect to a particular community, the women in that community will continue to live without the benefit of law.
Without disrespecting the autonomy and the wholeness of the Aboriginal communities, looking for an interim solution is a course of action worth looking at, either through installing some machinery in the Indian Act itself or through adoption perhaps simply of provincial property law in the interim. However, an interim solution, it should have a sunset, so that the presence of an interim solution does not relieve the federal government of its obligation to be at the tables.
I should like to address one last point, and that is the legacy of the Indian Act itself and what that brings to any course of action designed to remedy the present void.
I understand the present land tenure rules in the Indian Act as one part of a colonialist project designed to force assimilation of indigenous peoples and to make their lands available for development by white settlers. The Bagot commission in 1844 recommended that Indians should be encouraged to have a form of land tenure which would allow individual ownership of plots of land and would allow their holders to trade them amongst themselves with a special land register for Indians. This is no more or less than a training school for indigenous people in the European attitude toward land. This training school was adopted and installed or inserted into the Indian Act. That is part of the land tenure system in the Indian Act; it is semi-individualized and semi-privatized.
Within the Indian Act there was compulsory and voluntary enfranchisement. When men were compulsorily enfranchised for daring to take on higher education, and other reasons, they were given land, when women were compulsorily enfranchised, they did not get land. Once that land was reduced to the possession of a Europeanized individual, it was no longer part of the collective land.
The Indian Act, over the course of its history, is full of mechanisms that were used by the state to separate the communities from their land and to make the land available to Europeans who wanted to exploit it.
The semi-individualized form of land tenure represented today by the Certificate of Possession was grafted onto a form of communal land holding which the Indian Act created. The Crown held title, and it would deal only with the band as a whole concerning major decisions such as surrender. This form of decision-making began with the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and its original intent was to protect indigenous lands from the influx of exploitive settlers. However, it rapidly developed to the point where the government of Canada was nothing but a monopoly broker for the diminishing holdings of indigenous land. The Indian Act put the Crown in the position where only the Crown could deal with native land. Today one can trace how the Crown, by legislative enactment, made it easier and easier for land to become available to white developers.
However, the requirement for collective consent to the transfer of land was put into the legislation, and it was one of the elements of the communal land tenure under the Indian Act. The Indian Act created communal land holding; it does not have anything to do with pre-contact communal land holding. Therefore, while this committee looks for solution to the problems created by the Act, I urge you let that solution not be in the long run expressed in the language and with the ideation of the act that has already created so many problems. The act has been the machinery used by the Crown to mediate its dealings with Aboriginal people over their diminishing reserves of land.
From the very beginning, the Indian Act has excised women from a role in band and reserve communities. In 1869, Indian women who married non-Indians were, by legislative decree, told that they lost their status. That situation lasted 135 years, and the solution, Bill C-31, that was brought about in 1985 is an imperfect and flawed fix, leaving much devastation in its wake.
There is a Charter challenge to Bill C-31 on behalf of the Perron family, Mohawks from Tyendinaga that challenges the second-generation cut-off of that legislation.
What we have is a population of women who have been excluded from governance, and decision-making. The land holding system created in 1869, even excluded them from land holding.
Only recently do we have women on the reserves women who have begun to get back, through changes in the Indian Act, some of the former position that they had in their communities. These are the women who are coping with matrimonial decision-making concerning matrimonial property.
Depending on the community, the leadership may or may not be sensitive to the interests and the needs of these women. Many Bill C-31 women are living in communities that are not their home communities, others have just won their hard way back home but may have to leave again because of these rules. We have set, at pages 19 and following of our text, some of the intricacies of present-day determination under these rules.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. I am very tempted to say, ``So much for a matriarchal society.''
Senator Beaudoin: Ms. Eberts, it is a pleasure to see you again. I am very impressed with your knowledge of this subject.
Ms. Eberts: Even though I did not always agree with you. That is very kind.
Senator Beaudoin: Jurists do not agree on everything.
I agree with you that this situation is scandalous.
There is something I really do not understand because of the constitutional amendment of 1983. With the constitutional amendment of 1983 Prime Minister Trudeau made a fantastic effort to create equality between Aboriginal men and women. I do not understand how the law that is applicable on reserves does not comply with that constitutional amendment. That is scandalous, and indeed, the situation of women on reserves is terrible. Perhaps the Indian Act will be corrected, but there are so many corrections needed for the act that I wonder if we should not have a new act altogether.
You have written on matrimonial property on reserve. It is very interesting. What do you suggest that we do? Is it possible to save the Indian Act by amendments, or is it necessary to do something else in the field of legislation?
Ms. Eberts: I assume you are speaking about section 35 of the Constitution Act and, in particular, subsection (4). This is one of the sections that the Native Women's Association relies upon in its litigation against the federal Crown. We have been served with a motion that states that there is no Aboriginal right that would support access to fair matrimonial determinations or protection on reserves. That motion has already been served upon us and it has been scheduled for a hearing in a meeting in the Federal Court October 21. The official position of the Crown is that section 35 does not help us. The way section 35 has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada is wrongfully narrow. It is wholly activity based and does not take into account the holistic worldview and seamless way of looking at the community that Professor Jacobs has discussed.
As for the lingering and very serious inequalities of women on reserve, part of this problem can certainly be laid at the door of the Canadian Human Rights Act and the exception from that act, for so long, of the Indian Act. That situation has created a ``no-go'' zone for human rights where Aboriginal people in this country are concerned.
As far as the broader solution is concerned, we were discussing this morning that we would write a book about the Indian Act because there are so many things wrong with it.
My own view as a white person is that I should not be the primary person to express my views on that subject. Part of this country's problem is that European white people have been for too long dictating what should happen to Aboriginal people. I feel that I should speak about what could be done to make the burden we have placed on Aboriginal people lighter within the same framework, but I also feel that we need to honour the wishes of Aboriginal people concerning the framework. I will defer to my colleague to answer the rest of your question.
Ms. Jacobs: The Indian Act is one of the most racist pieces of legislation that exists in Canada and it should not exist.
Senator Beaudoin: The whole act? Your answer pleases me please continue.
Ms. Jacobs: Yes, the whole act. However, a possible solution is to ensure that the nations that exist in Canada are properly consulted in what should happen within the Aboriginal community. All indigenous peoples in Canada are not the same. Therefore, when you try to put a piece of legislation in place of the Indian Act, it may be different for every nation. There may be some nations that want to keep portions of the Indian Act, and so, there is a possibility of incorporating various portions of the Indian Act within the legislation. Part of the long-term goal is to look at the needs of each individual nation. We must ask what each nation is looking for when it comes to issues that have been created by the Indian Act.
The reserve system did not exist until the inception of the Indian Act. The treaties determined the land and the traditional territories of each indigenous nation. We have been trying, for too long, to fit into the Eurocentric paradigm.
Why do we not move to an indigenous view of how things should be done and how things need to be changed in order to accommodate our way of life?
Senator Beaudoin: I see the Indian Act as paternalistic. The spirit of the statute seems to be the spirit of another century and inadequate for the problems we face today. In that sense, it is obsolete. My first reaction is to adopt a new legislation that is inspired by the Aboriginal nations. I know it is a big undertaking, but it is important.
We must comply with section 35 of the Constitution, most especially with section 35(4). My impression is that Aboriginal people are living in an era of legislation that is not even constitutional. They are equal and all of the laws should state that fact.
We do not have a choice with section 28 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and we have amended many federal statutes. We should do the same thing with the Aboriginal legislation because of the amendments of 1983. We have no choice but to do so. It is unconstitutional if we do not comply.
You know much more than I do about the Indian Act, but I know enough to conclude that it is inadequate for the era in which we live. Perhaps we should ask the Indians what it is they want and create another statute for them.
Ms. Jacobs: We have a piece of legislation called the First Nations Governance Act, which is supposed to be new legislation, however, the federal government unilaterally created it.
Senator Beaudoin: Did the federal government consult with the Aboriginal peoples?
Ms. Jacobs: Their language indicated that they had consulted with Aboriginal people, but they used their own processes to decide who would attend these meetings and who would be the ones to agree with the First Nations Governance Act. If there is new legislation being created, then must be proper consultation.
I come from a traditional family in the Hodinohso:ni Confederacy. If there had been proper consultation, our chiefs and our clan mothers would have consulted, and they were not.
Senator Beaudoin: We are obliged to consult them. We have a fiduciary duty toward the Aboriginals that begins with consultation.
Ms. Jacobs: That is correct.
Senator Beaudoin: I do not want to take too much time, but I am scandalized by this situation.
Ms. Eberts: When apartheid was ended in South Africa, it was not a unilateral act of a white government that continued to regard the Black population of South Africa as its children. The end of apartheid in South Africa was a fully national decision made by all of the communities in South Africa. The white leadership led where it could lead and where it was legitimate for it to lead, and the Black leadership led where it was legitimate for Black leadership to lead. The whole country was involved as a matter of national priority. It was not one legislature passing a new act in order to tell the Black people where their new place in society existed.
There have been many studies and many consultations, large and small, adequate and inadequate. The most recent large consultation was the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Its report, as you all know, was titled ``Gathering Strength'' and is ruefully now called ``Gathering Dust.''
There is no legislative or political will at the level of federal government to admit that it has been operating its policies incorrectly for over 100 years. What we need to do is work with Aboriginal people in full partnership in the spirit of the original treaties.
We do not need another piece of federal legislation. I say this as a white person whose family came here in 1803 and stole land in what is now Essex County from what is now the Walpole Island First Nation. We need to go back to where we took the wrong turn as newcomers and sit down and renegotiate a new national bargain. That process will be much bigger than just passing a new piece of legislation.
In the meantime, in order for the communities that are going to be coming to the table and negotiating to be as strong as they can be and have as much of the women's leadership as they can have, please fix the matrimonial property dimensions of the Indian Act as a first priority.
We have some sort of blueprint for broader consultations. We just do not have any political will in this country to do the right thing.
The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Eberts.
Senator Joyal: We seemed to have developed a consensus that the starting point should be section 35(4), the section that affirms the equality of rights for Aboriginal women and men. We seem to agree also on the fiduciary responsibility of the Crown, which was touched on briefly by Senator Beaudoin.
I would like you to expand on your statement that section 35 is too oriented on an activity-based definition. The last Supreme Court decision involved an interpretation of section 35. I will read paragraph 45 of the Powley decision handed down on September 19, just a few weeks ago.
Although section 35 protects ``existing'' rights, it is more than a mere codification of the common law. Section 35 reflects a new promise: a constitutional commitment to protecting practices that were historically important features of particular Aboriginal communities.
That statement seems to me to be, as you said, ``holistic.'' It seems to approach Aboriginal communities as a whole, as a society, and not just oriented toward property titles, as you said. That seems to be the way the Supreme Court has interpreted it insofar as the Powley decision relating to the Metis people is concerned. The court seems to have recognized the Metis people as an Aboriginal nation at par with the other Aboriginal nations. It seems that the court wants to give to section 35 a much more comprehensive approach. In other words, the court in section 35 recognizes their pre-contact features as Aboriginal societies.
I think it is a very important step in the definition of future negotiating positions, because we might, as Senator Beaudoin said, want to redraft the Indian Act. I think there is some kind of consensus, as the Dussault and Erasmus commission proposed.
However, we have to start with a common point and, according to the way the Supreme Court has interpreted section 35, that common point seems to be the status of Aboriginal societies before European contact.
In your opinion, is this enough in terms of parameters to help define an approach that would lead to some positive resolutions?
Ms. Eberts: I will start with some technical observations concerning section 35 jurisprudence, and then I will turn to my colleague for her comment.
The development of jurisprudence on section 35 has proceeded on a case-by-case basis. In the years since it was enacted, section 35 has most often been invoked as a defence to charges or other proceedings relating to specific activities, including fishing or harvesting ocean products, hunting, logging and bringing materials across the border, and they have focused on one community.
The cases have all focused on a particular claim by one community with regard to its historical practices; in the Powley case the right to hunt moose in a given area, in another, the right to bring trade goods from what is now New York into what is now Canada, and in another, the right to harvest certain fish or whatever. Therefore, doctrines have developed around these activities and the doctrine of the Supreme Court of Canada is oriented toward discrete activities or practices, and Powley was no exception to this because it involved moose hunting.
All of these cases involved huge battles of the historians and the anthropologists to determine whether a particular way of harvesting eggs off of kelp was something done historically by that nation, for example. This has defined section 35.
In the Perron case, Ms. Jacobs and I have argued that section 35 supports the right of all Aboriginal people to belong to a nation. This is getting closer to a state of being, or a way of being in the world, instead of just a particular activity that was done prior to European contact.
In the native women versus Canada case Canada is arguing that section 35 does not protect any right of Aboriginal women. We are going to argue that there is an Aboriginal right for women, upon the breakdown of a family, to be honoured, provided for and respected. That is not a specific right intrinsic to one nation at one time in one place; that is something about what it is to be Aboriginal.
All we got in the Perron case, by advancing our section 35 argument that everyone has a right to belong to a nation, is the right to advance it further, to go to the next stage of argumentation. I expect that all we will get from our motion in the matrimonial case, if we succeed, is the right to take the argument further.
As long as section 35 is activity based, limited to one nation and set in history, it will not fulfill the promise that you have identified and that many people from the Trudeau era and those negotiations identified.
Another very difficult aspect of the Supreme Court's present jurisprudence is that, although they say that self- government can be an activity like the other activities, it has said that it will recognize nothing under section 35 that interferes with Canadian sovereignty. Only things that are consistent with Canadian sovereignty can be found to be Aboriginal rights under section 35. I will use the Mitchell case about importation of certain trade goods from the United States to illustrate that point.
Ms. Jacobs: The basis of section 35 with regard to the concept of equality is that nations are supposed to be equal when they begin their relationship. However, indigenous nations are not equal at the outset in Canada's current reality and that has to do with the concept of Canadian sovereignty. We have indigenous sovereignty and Canadian sovereignty, but they are not equal. According to Canada, indigenous peoples are subjects of the Crown. That does not mean that they are sovereign people. Therefore, the problem with which we start right from the beginning is that there is no equality, because there is no recognition of indigenous sovereignty.
The other issue with section 35 and the concept of existing rights and protecting practices that are important features of the Aboriginal community is pre-contact existence. Pre-contact existence means sovereignty and self- determination. It means that indigenous people should be sovereign and govern themselves.
There are traditional governments that have existed since contact. That means that they are post-Canadian existence, because they always go into this pre-contact idea that we did not exist since Canada has become Canada. What happened with the nations that have continued to exist?
The Mitchell case came from the Mohawk community. The sovereignty of the Mohawk people has been diminished by the imposition of these limits on the community and on nationhood. Section 35 law is creating definitions within the legal system that have already been established in indigenous communities through their language and identity. Everything that happens as a result creates this inequality that existed right from the beginning.
Senator Joyal: How would you define the Crown's fiduciary responsibility in a way that the respect of the self- determination autonomy of the Aboriginal nation would be properly taken into account in the management of the responsibility by the Crown, and specifically in relation to the matrimonial issue?
Ms. Eberts: A recent Supreme Court of Canada decision has held that the idea of the fiduciary responsibility of the Crown does not govern Canada's legislative activities. Mr. Justice Binnie wrote the case and it involved two nations from British Columbia. I am referring to Wewaykum Indian Band v. Canada. Wewaykum held that the fiduciary responsibility of the Crown is a concept that the Supreme Court is only willing to apply to the actions of the government and not to its legislative activity.
We ran up against that in the Perron case because we had argued in our memorandum of law in Perron that the fiduciary responsibility of the Crown would impel proper legislation that would restore women, and others who had lost status under the old act, to their full position in the communities, rather than just one generation at a time.
The federal Crown argued and the court accepted on the basis of Wewaykum the proposition that fiduciary responsibility applies only in the actions of the federal Crown, and in particular, the very narrow concept linking the fiduciary responsibility to its management of land.
Where a court is able to attach the fiduciary concept to management of land, it will do so, but when it cannot, it will not. In the matrimonial context, we are not dealing with the Crown's actions with respect to management of land; we are dealing with a legislative and constitutional regime that is hostile to the protection of these interests.
In the present debased view that our Supreme Court takes of fiduciary responsibility, as it does section 35, any principled argument based on fiduciary responsibility will run up against that brick wall of Wewaykum.
If you regard the federal government more largely as a fiduciary, you might as well go a tiny step further and start interrogating the prospect of the federal government's responsibility as the other partner in all of the treaties. There is a long-standing relationship that the federal government has largely let go ``off the rails.''
If you are trying to deal with the narrow jurisprudence of the Supreme Court based on the Indian Act, one must go back to the proclamation of 1763. That is where you find the real fiduciary relationship.
Ms. Jacobs: The concept of fiduciary duty means that the federal government is accountable to the indigenous Aboriginal peoples. They have never been accountable. There has never been a process whereby the federal government has what they have done with the money, and lands that they have sold. There is a case at Six Nations where we are trying to find the money that has been in the control of Indian Affairs.
If there is any fiduciary duty or responsibility of the government, their responsibilities and duties must be questioned. There should be a definition of what that responsibility is when it comes to sovereignty and issues within the indigenous communities. There should be a definition of what the relationship will be with Canada when it comes to that fiduciary duty. There is a time frame where that sovereignty has been taken away from indigenous peoples. There has never been an accounting of the money and land that has been stolen. All of the money should go back to the Aboriginal community. That was rightly theirs from the beginning. In the first place, responsibility must be defined.
Senator Joyal: I agree that the federal government has not assumed its responsibility. The federal government has responsibility to the indigenous peoples under section 91(24) of the Constitution Act. The federal government has legislated the Indian Act. This legislation is subject to the Charter and to the Constitution. It is either subject to section 28 of the Charter, which established a principle of equality for men and women in our Constitution or, if the Charter does not apply, then to section 35, because the Government of Canada concurred in enacting section 35. The Government of Canada bound itself willingly to section 35(4) of the Constitution.
In plain reasoning, when the government legislated the Indians in the broadest terms, that is Indian, the Inuit and the Metis, it must respect the principle equality of Aboriginal men and women. When we encounter a situation like the one you have presented it is in breach of the Constitution.
It seems to me that for the Government of Canada to push the issue in the context of a broader discussion or negotiation is to avoid its immediate responsibility. The Government of Canada has a constitutional responsibility and has bound itself to equality. What more do people expect than the respect of those provisions in our legislative activities?
Ms. Eberts: I absolutely agree with you, Senator, and you used the term ``immediate,'' which is an important concept. There are several places within the constitutional documents where this responsibility reposes. Section 15(1) of the Constitution states:
Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
If a population of women that is identified by race and by a race-related place of residence, and does not have the benefit of protection under the law in respect of the breakdown of a marriage then those women do not have equality before the law. They do not have equal protection and the equal benefit of the law. If the federal government has to provide that because it has the legislative authority under section 91(24), then it cannot rely on the jurisdiction of the provincial government under property and civil rights.
The federal government must provide the equal protection and benefit that has been legislated. The Supreme Court has been reluctant to force governments to pass legislation but you do not have to wait for a Supreme Court case on this matter. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is supposed to be self-applying. Governments are supposed to apply it to themselves. Therefore, the constitutional command is very clear, under section 15. If you need to go there, add section 28. The same kind of protection is also found in section 35 (1) and section 35 (4), two strong constitutional commands that face the federal government in respect of this issue indicate that there must be immediate action, no matter what it does in the long haul. Government must repair this void now.
I completely agree with you that the command in the Constitution is clear.
Ms. Jacobs: When we speak to the Constitution and Canada's relationship with indigenous people, I think about how that piece of legislation was created without consultation with indigenous peoples. You begin a conversation or a discussion about a piece of legislation that was created unilaterally and that magically governed Indians.
I was taught that right from the beginning, the original relationship has been violated because of that process. Therefore, when you talk about fiduciary duty of the government, equality and what should be done within the Constitution, I think of the relationship that was established before the Constitution even existed and the recognition of those separate nations as sovereign peoples. The relationship between the nations has never been recognized and the treaties are not recognized. In my opinion the sections to which you refer were created to define a separate definition of ``indigenous peoples.''
My concept is bigger than that and the existing solutions are bigger than the Constitution or the Charter.
Senator Joyal: I agree with you that in two or three areas we are far away from ``normalization'' of the relationships of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples of Canada because of such a long history of deceptions. I agree that in 1867 Aboriginal people were not among the Fathers of Confederation. You have only to look at the Confederation portrait by Mr. Robert Harris to see that there were no Aboriginal leaders present at the table.
Now we are at an important crossroad in the evolution of the relationships. Thus, we find ourselves before the courts because that is sometimes the only forum that is friendly to the Aboriginal people; and yet, it is not an Aboriginal forum, as you would probably say.
Still, this forum sometimes has, as you said in reference to Wewaykum Indian Band v. Canada and in the description of the Two Row Wampum Treaty, a narrow interpretation of what we feel would be a remedial concept of re- establishing that respect.
I am almost tempted to suggest that we take the best of the inclusions in the Constitution, even though it is a non- Aboriginal document. In 1982-83 some Aboriginal leaders took part in the discussions for the first time. We have at least opened a small door. Perhaps that door is not wide enough for all our aspirations, and yours especially that are all encompassing. We are doing the minimum at this time in an effort to restore human dignity to Aboriginal women. At the same time, we regret the paucity of the means available to us but we have to use those means in the best possible way so as not to mar the broader picture that we want to repaint of Canada's future.
That is my crippled way to approach the problem. It might not be the perfect way but if we are to come out of this committee with an immediate solution that we will press for adoption, then it is the only premise that we can adopt in order to move forward.
I am not trying to excuse and justify everything; I am just trying to be realistic in terms of what we have to do to enable Aboriginal people to continue to state their objectives. We wish to continue to work with those of good faith, like Ms. Eberts, who tried to develop the best of her aptitudes and talents to help Aboriginal people move forward. That is one of the only solutions I can suggest, unless you have a better one to suggest to us.
Ms. Jacobs: These are questions that I never thought I would be able to answer. The Canadian legal, social, and educational systems are all institutions that were created by the Eurocentric value system. We have been forced to fit into this system that is a different value system from our own. We have a different belief system and I refer to the Two Row Wampum Treaty.
There has never been recognition of an indigenous system. Europeans, whites have never considered to work within our system. You are telling me that it always has to work your way.
Senator Joyal: I do not mean to sound as negative as you put it.
Ms. Jacobs: That is what I am hearing. That is what has affected our people all along; we have had to follow and be forced into a process that has never included us in its creation. The solution would be to have the indigenous peoples run the show.
Ms. Eberts: To sum up the approach that you have described, a scientific friend of mine would say that using the Charter of Rights and the Constitution, section 35, to force the repair of the Indian Act in this respect is a necessary but not sufficient condition. It is a necessary element of trying to keep faith in the short-run with the indigenous peoples. In the long run, I believe that only changing the paradigm will be sufficient, but we will not be able to change.
Perhaps your committee, while recommending a short-term, necessary solution, could also turn its mind and its voice to the sufficiency of a long-term solution that would involve paradigm change; that would involve keeping faith by putting the recommendations of the royal commission on the front burner; and that would involve a lot more priority being given by the Canadian state to the flowering of a new relationship with indigenous partners, instead of the one that has been framed up two centuries ago and before.
If your committee were to make it clear that this kind of change needs to happen on many levels in a serious way, but that we can effect what the sailors would call ``running repairs,'' then that might a very good contribution.
The Chairman: I would like to thank the witnesses. I totally understand Ms. Jacobs' position.
We still have to look at what is possible in the short term, keeping in mind it is certainly not the solution that you would be looking for, and possibly not the solution we should be looking for as well.
We will now hear from Ms. Panasse-Mayer. Please proceed.
Ms. Panasse-Mayer, Past Chief of the Nipissing First Nation, as an individual: Thank you for the invitation to speak about matrimonial real property. I am here as an individual interested in this issue. I have also participated in many meetings as a First Nation chief with many First Nations male and female groups and organizations.
I come from Nipissing First Nation, located in Sturgeon Falls in Northern Ontario. It is near North Bay. Our First Nation stretches between those two towns. I am married with three male children and come from a family of 10. I am a former Chief of my First Nation, a position that I held for nine years, and before that I was a councillor for eight years.
Nipising First Nation is one of the 14 First Nations who opted into the First Nations Lands Management Act. We did that in order to create our own land management codes outside of the Indian Act regulations. The result of this legislation demonstrated that, given the necessary economic resources, and putting the decision-making authority into the hands of the First Nations is the most effective way of achieving positive results.
Our First Nation felt that we could manage and make decisions about our lands as it affects us specifically. The First Nation will, in the very near future, develop the matrimonial real property law in its membership as per the land management framework.
Within the First Nations Lands Management Act process, we saw how complex matrimonial real property issues are, and came to an understanding of how much time and attention will be required by the First Nations to address matrimonial real property issues in a meaningful way. We developed a model for matrimonial real property, which I recommend can be used as a tool to carry out this work.
The development of matrimonial real property is an important issue and needs to be addressed. I also believe the issue must be discussed by First Nations people themselves and not by another entity. First Nations have to take the lead role in developing these laws that will affect their lives forever. First Nations have distinct cultural and political identities, as you have heard from different witnesses such as the Mohawk nation.
There are many reasons why this issue needs to be given more time and the First Nations people must understand what this will mean to them. For example, the First Nations people must carry out more research, not the government. In this way, I believe that we will be able to get a true picture of what First Nations people want and need. There is also a need for more public education and awareness on matrimonial real property and on the legal rights on reserve. All of that must happen also.
I have read the presentations of the witnesses that appeared before you and agree that there is, in some regions and communities, an urgency to resolve these issues. The best way to move on this issue is for the federal government to work with the First Nations to develop an awareness of this issue and to give necessary financial support to First Nations to begin discussions with their membership.
We live in a democratic country, do we not? This is a democratic country, yet many Canadian citizens remain indifferent or lack awareness of First Nations issues and the abuse and suffering that has resulted from the policies of the Indian Act. The Indian Act is a violation of our basic human rights and demonstrates clearly the domination of one race over another.
The Indian Act gives the power to the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs and other government officials. The Indian Act legislation entrenches discrimination and patriarchal attitudes, as well as social control over the First Nations by the people in power. For example, the legal provisions for the division of matrimonial real property on reserve when a marriage breaks down does not at this time exist under the Indian Act and, for the most part, impacts severely on women and children.
In the end, children have suffered the most from the intrusive government policies. Matrimonial real property is really a First Nations community issue that impacts the whole family unit and all of the community.
Yes, there is a political side that overshadows the work that needs to happen, and yes, we need to change attitudes.
The review of matrimonial property laws that are found in the First Nations Land Management Act should be looked at in more detail and used as a template with First Nations across the country. The bottom line is that First Nations people affected by this have to take part in the process. It cannot be a quick fix and one that fits all nations in this whole process.
That is my short presentation to you. It is as precise as it can be, coming from where I sit as a First Nations woman. I am not speaking on behalf of any First Nations group or my community itself. I came here because I am interested in this issue and I believe that there is a different way of doing business with Canada.
Over the years in my political career, I have heard that it is time for change. People say it but it has not happened. That is where I am coming from when I discuss the time for First Nations to start to talking about what affects them, not somebody else's idea of what should be done in their First Nation community.
Senator Beaudoin: The first witnesses who came before us made the distinction between ``possession'' and ``property.'' As a matter of fact, the property is vested in the Crown in right of Canada. What is on the reserve is only possession. You are using the word ``property.''
Is it part of the Constitution of one of the nations or are you using the word in a general way?
We have to change the system but there is one thing that we cannot change immediately; that is the property vested in the Queen in right of Canada.
What do you have in mind, is it property or possession or something else?
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: I have worked with the 14 nations that took on legislation to run their own lands. It took us 14 years to have the legislation passed. It took us 14 years to convince Canada and other people within Parliament that we able to look after our own lands. First Nations have to do their own development in terms of what is good for their community.
The Indian Act was not written for First Nations but to protect Her Majesty the Queen. It has done nothing for us. We have to start looking at the bigger picture, which means more dialogue between First Nations and the Government of Canada. The government must begin to understand the way we feel about our land. Land in Nipissing is held differently than land held by the Mohawk people in the south. We have different cultural beliefs concerning our land.
I know it is a complex subject and it seems like an impossible task, but it is not. First Nations have to regain their authority to develop ideas on how they can produce land and matrimonial property laws. In First Nations' communities, mother, father, grandmother, grandchildren, everyone is included in the well-being of the people.
When we discuss our land and other issues, we realize that each person involved has an equal opportunity. There is not an issue between men and women. If you are a member, you are a member and you have equal rights as a member. That is how our First Nations sees itself.
Senator Beaudoin: I understand that the structure of the different nations may vary.
I need to understand what you do when you agree on a text, on a law, what do you do to give it force?
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: Under land management, the authority came through government with the legislation to be able to give authority to First Nations to do that. That is what I assumed would happen in this new legislation.
First Nations people have to have a chance. Many First Nations people do not know this whole issue exists. That is not their priority. Their priority is housing, infrastructure for their community, feeding their children and other things.
I had a discussion with the department about translating these committee documents into the Ojibwa language, because many First Nations in Northern Ontario use only their primary language. They need to have this information translated in order to understand the issue.
There are many more things that have to happen within the communities. If the communities do it themselves, then they can speak their own language to the people and talk about this issue.
Senator Joyal: How many members are there in the Nipissing First Nation band?
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: We have 2,000 members.
Senator Joyal: Last week we were told that there are two or three matrimonial codes that have been adopted to provide for matrimonial breakdown.
Do you have such a set of rules?
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: The Nipissing First Nation Lands Management code was just passed. Under the framework of the legislation we have agreed that within 12 months of the land code coming into effect, we will develop a matrimonial property code. They are working on it, but it is not finished. The consultations of the community on and off-reserve will happen. All the processes that necessarily have to take place will happen.
I believe that the other First Nations have covered all the areas that need to be discussed based on their First Nations needs.
I think it could be helpful if this committee could look at the documents and invite people from those communities to discuss how matrimonial property was developed, specifically for their communities which is what land management was about. We took it on out of necessity. However, at the beginning of lands management, matrimonial property was not part of the scenario at that time. After a court case that forced us to take matrimonial real property on to be able to get legislation, then we took it on, even though we know it involves a horrendous amount of work.
We had to take on the challenge of doing the land management work, which took us a very long time. Consultations sometimes are not as easy as we think, and we do not want to force people, so we want to have enough time to give explanations and have discussions, and more discussions, if necessary. We are going to live with this for the rest of our lives. Why do we have to hurry?
If we are going to live with this for the rest of our lives, we should spend time, have good discussions, make sure that everyone involved understands the subject, and then have a vote. The people at Nipissing First Nation agreed on how to run their lands and voted on the legislation to develop the code.
Senator Joyal: How do you deal with the issue of deciding who should own the property, whether the women stays on and keeps the children, and spreading the assets and everything that is involved in a marriage breakdown or common law situation breakdown?
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: In times of stress, I suppose, the norm in Nipissing is that whomever gets the children, whomever has custody of the children, will live in the house until further discussions between the families come to a different solution. Usually a relative of the persons who is close to them can help to try to settle some of the disputes. That is usually the normal way it happens in Nipissing. It does not normally go to a court process. It involves, as I say, the family unit plus the community.
I have 75 relatives in my immediate surroundings. If I were to divorce my husband, someone would come forward and ensure that the children were looked after. That is mainly because the children have no say in the matter. If the parents have a dispute, the children cannot intervene, of course, so relatives usually do.
Senator Joyal: Once the main issue of the children has been determined, what is the next step? Who will occupy the residence, and in whose name will the residence be transferred? What kind of arbitration or mediation process do you follow?
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: There is not a process; it is just a way of doing things. If it were my girlfriend, her older brother, who she is close to, would try to help settle the dispute between the husband and the wife. There is no permanent way of settling disputes. Every family does it a different way on their own to ensure that the children are taken care of.
Senator Joyal: I understand about the children, but when it comes to the house, to the residence, how does your tradition approach the settlement of that property? In other words, who will stay there, and who will be entitled to stay there and raise the children? How do you approach that issue of mediation? Will it be the husband who leaves the residence, or would it be the wife who leaves if the children stay with the father. I am trying to understand the approach you follow.
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: It is simple for me because I have seen it happen. I have not been through it yet, thank the Lord, but I have seen families sit together and talk about what needs to happen and how the children have to be taken care of. I have seen the husband leave to ensure that the children have a continuance in their home. I have seen women leave. The circumstances are all different
If the wife wants to leave because of other circumstances, then that is her prerogative, and she sometimes takes the children with her. Even though we do not want that to happen, they have the prerogative to say, ``If I am leaving, the children are coming with me,'' even though the husband could probably have custody of the child. They have to go to family court to do that process, but he still has property of the house. Sometimes it does not work that way. The circumstances are all different. Right now, the process is random. The family members have a discussion with someone who tries to mediate and they try to arrive at some type of settlement.
Senator Joyal: You do not have a set of precedents that you would follow to try to find a line of approach to the settlement of the various issues that are raised? I wonder what you do if the husband is violent to prevent him from going to that house? How do you alleviate the fallout from a breakdown?
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: We are lucky to have a police service that is able to help with those issues. I know there is not one in every community, so how we would be able to touch on that issue I do not know. That is something that needs to be looked at in a longer process.
I would like to suggest to the Senate that this process should be ongoing and involve First Nations themselves. We need to find a way to have the people speak from and through their communities.
Senator Joyal: I listened very carefully to your brief presentation. At this point, only 14 First Nations have opted for land management as a way to assume responsibility.
We have been told that there are 632 First Nations. If we have to wait until a majority of First Nations opt for a land management act, it will be a very long way down the road before we can expect that this situation would be addressed in a satisfactory way.
What would you suggest to us to fill the gap?
Should we adopt interim measures that could be replaced by First Nations' rules when they opt in and have completed their consultation process?
As you say, it might be long, but at least we know that we will arrive at the point in time when the issue will be addressed. At this point, we are faced with this issue for the vast majority of First Nations people, and women, especially. What is your recommendation at this point in relation to that problem?
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: To my mind, there are not enough hard, real facts on the table to be able to say that one-half of the women from First Nations are treated unfairly. I do not know that. I cannot say that. To me, there are two sides to a story, and I have to know the whole story before I can make that type of decision.
I think what could possibly happen right away is that the government start working with the First Nations, so general people, such as my aunt and my little sister, understand this issue. People are just starting to talk about matrimonial property.
Other communities are not talking about matrimonial real property. Believe me, they are not. It is not even in some of their languages, so how are they able to talk about it and understand what this means? All they see is that the government will do one more thing on their behalf and God knows what will happen. One more time, they will not have a say. That is what I believe.
I do not think there is an interim solution. People must understand and have a say in what is going on.
Senator Joyal: That is your suggestion and the approach that you will recommend?
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: I recommend moving with the First Nations right away. It took us 14 years. It should take less than 14 years if we work together. It was that part of the picture that took us 14 years. We were ready in four years, but the rest of the time we spent trying to convince people that we were capable of doing the work on our own. We can do the work.
The Chairman: In listening to your explication of the way your consultations took place, I am reminded of the old Quebecois family council, which still exists with many Quebecois families. Was that a premise of your research and consultation issues? It sounds like the family council.
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: Our First Nation communities are much different and we govern differently from the cities. There may be 15,000 constituents in a ward. You cannot remember all their names. However, in my community there are 2,000 people, most of whom are related to me. You think differently because you have to live with these people every day of your life. There is a different way of governing. They will cry for a while, they will demonstrate, but they will go away like the squeegee people in Toronto. You do not know them so they do not affect you as much as we in our communities.
The matrimonial property discussion must happen within the community because it has to do with how we feel about our relationships within our community and with the land. We are placed on a reserve. This is what is left. We have to fight for the rest. However, that will come another day.
[Translation]
Senator Ferretti Barth: Your tribe has 2,000 members. Of those, how many women live on your reserve?
[English]
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: Of 2,000 members, approximately 51 percent are women. Women are doing well in Nipissing.
[Translation]
Senator Ferretti Barth: Therefore, women have some decision power on the reserves. Are they forced to leave the reserve after a divorce?
[English]
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: No, they are not forced. As I said earlier in my discussion about a resolution process, our cultural way is for someone in the family to step in to help create a decision for the couple who are in dispute.
[Translation]
Senator Ferretti Barth: Can the women in your tribe own property?
[English]
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: Yes. As long as you are a member of Nipissing First Nation you can apply for land. A member may be a man or woman. There is no distinction between a man and a woman. If you are a member of the First Nation, you have all the rights of anyone else in the community.
[Translation]
Senator Ferretti Barth: In your presentation, you recommended an amendment to the First Nations Governance Act. You suggested the government should consult the various tribes to find a common ground, in order to adopt a piece of legislation that could meet all the needs of the First Nations members.
[English]
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: Yes, that is correct. I would like to see the federal government work with First Nations, not dictate to them. This is what needs to happen. It is not an impossible task. All of our people are well educated. They are very smart. They could discuss this issue, decide when and where the vote will take place, and make the appropriate decisions. We know that we have to be 10 times more accountable than anyone else to make sure our people are in agreement without question in terms of these kinds of changes. When we do consultation, we talk about consultation on-reserve and off-reserve. Even though the people may not live on-reserve in the immediate future, should they move back to the community they will have had a say ahead of time on the content of this law.
[Translation]
Senator Ferretti Barth: You mentioned in your presentation that your community has to be well organized, that your members communicate well with each other. Do you share your knowledge with communities that are less organized?
[English]
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: Yes, we do that within our own territorial group. We offer to discuss issues such as land management and the reasons why our community wants to take on land management. In Nipissing our people waited for a long time for this issue to be resolved. From the time we started talking about it to the time we passed the legislation, 14 years later, some people almost forgot about what we were doing. People started to question why it was taking so long.
If people question whether we can manage our own lands we have to go back to the government and tell them that we can indeed look after our own lands.
The capacity of each community is different, so I cannot say that the capacity of one of my neighbours is better than that of another. We share many things among communities, including housing and other policies that we have developed over the years with other First Nations.
[Translation]
Senator Ferretti Barth: You say that, in your reserve, many of your members are well educated. Do you think that this level of education allows your reserve to approach problems in a more flexible and equal way?
[English]
Ms. Panasse-Mayer: Yes, I do, and many First Nations people are well educated. We hire people to help develop work that needs to be done. In our community we started other processes, but we have hired First Nations people within our community to deal with those processes because they understand how people feel about the land, which is very important in our community. It is better to utilize people who understand how our people view the land rather than teach that to others who see it differently.
The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Panasse-Mayer, for your presentation. It will be very helpful to us in our future deliberations.
The committee continued in camera.