Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 3 - Evidence - Meeting of December 8, 2004
OTTAWA, Wednesday, December 8, 2004
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 6:24 p.m. to examine and report on the involvement of Aboriginal communities and businesses in economic development activities in Canada.
Senator Nick G. Sibbeston (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: We are honoured tonight to hear from Professor Jon Altman, who is with the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at Australian National University. Welcome.
Please proceed, Mr. Altman.
Professor Jon Altman, Director, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Australian National University is in Canberra, Australia. It is Wednesday morning here, so good evening all.
I direct a research centre, which was established in 1990, that looks at indigenous economic policy issues. Increasingly, the issues that we look at are also social policy issues.
Our centre is multidisciplinary but mainly social sciences-oriented. Our centre has about 20 academic staff, as well as a range of stakeholders, including the federal government here in Australia. There are also some state governments, which I think you call provincial governments, that have an interest in our activities. We also, of course, work with a diverse number of indigenous communities, committee organizations and regional organizations.
Our main focus is to document the socioeconomic situation of indigenous peoples in Australia, to analyze the causes of what is unquestionable indigenous disadvantage in this country and to attempt to provide policy advice through evidence-based research to a range of stakeholders, including government, public sector, private sector and indigenous communities and organizations.
I am very honoured to have the opportunity to talk to your committee as it embarks on its inquiry, which obviously will be challenging and taking you across a huge part of Canada. I hope I can provide some assistance in terms of how you might proceed.
Bear in mind that there is nothing worse than the foreign expert, particularly one that is so far away. Clearly, I have some familiarity with the Canadian situation. We have many Canadian scholars visit here. I have quite close contact with the Canadian High Commission here.
I hope I can provide in this discussion some of the best practice that occur in Australia, particularly in terms of research and methodological approaches. Again, bear in mind that all the international comparative social indicator research that I have seen suggests that Canada has been far more successful in the way that it has interacted with its indigenous peoples than Australia. In some ways, you are seeking some advice from the poor cousins from Australia. Nevertheless, I would be happy to give any assistance I can.
The Chairman: I would like to introduce the senators we have here this evening.
On my right, is Senator Gerry St. Germain, who is the deputy chairman of this committee. Senator Buchanan, who is a former Premier of Nova Scotia, is also here. We also have with us Senator Pearson from Ontario, and Senator Watt, who is from Nunavut. Senator Léger is from New Brunswick; and Senator Len Gustafson is from Saskatchewan.
We are very interested in hearing what you have to say. Although we have just begun undertaking this study, we have heard from a number of witnesses already. We have not begun our travels throughout our vast country, but we hope to do so later this winter. We will travel to Yellowknife, as well as to Inuvik in the Beaufort Sea, where the temperatures can drop to minus 40 or minus 50, and that is without the wind blowing. That would be a good introduction to that part of the North. I do not believe it get that cold in Australia.
Mr. Altman: Especially not at this time of year.
The Chairman: Please proceed with your presentation?
Mr. Altman: My understanding is that your inquiry is looking at the involvement of Aboriginal communities and businesses and economic development activities throughout Canada.
As in Australia, Canada, obviously, has enormous indigenous diversity, both in terms of where people live and the sorts of economic activities they engage in. You also have enormous diversity in the characteristics of indigenous communities, with some indigenous people living in very remote discrete communities, as in this country. Others, of course, are living in a much more integrated way in major cities.
The way I read your terms of reference, your focus is more on the discrete, more visible communities that are probably outside your major metropolitan areas. One of the opening comments I would make in relation to your terms of reference is that it seems to me, in addressing what is a key issue of indigenous socioeconomic disadvantage or marginality, we often conflate issues of socioeconomic status — which we tend, in both our countries, to assess via official statistics on socioeconomic indicators — with issues of economic development and issues of business development.
Conceptually, I would see issues of socioeconomic status as being the most broadly constituted set of parameters that one can utilize to differentiate peoples, in very much a statistical sense that often does not reflect people's living arrangements or social reality.
Some of the differences between indigenous and non-indigenous people — and I am sure that in your country, as in Australia, most of those social indicators would show that across the raft of indicators, be it employment, income, education, housing, and health, indigenous people are worse off. We need to recognize that often these sorts of statistics are very broad brush, if you like. In some ways, in the policy sense, they do not actually help us focus in on the economic development situation of particular communities.
Again, looking at the issue of economic development, we have to recognize that this is a highly contested term, depending on both the perspective on economic development one might want to take and on what cultural perspective one wants to define economic development from.
In the literature, the extent of that diversity is reflected in the writings of people like Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, who sees economic development as a process for expanding the real freedom that people enjoy. That notion of economic development is at one extreme of a hierarchy of definitions, with the other extreme being far more mainstream notions of economic development that do focus very much on indicators like people's employment status, their income levels, and the extent to which they are able to have a livelihood that is independent of welfare dependence or the state.
Business, of course, is just one element of economic development. Indigenous peoples, like non-indigenous peoples, are predominantly employed for their livelihoods, and the majority are employed across public and private sectors. Many indigenous people are also employed for community-based organizations.
We need to be aware that, in focussing on the issue of business, we are looking both at the linkages or articulations with indigenous peoples with businesses as employees, but also as people who run businesses, which can be small, family-based businesses. Certainly, in official statistics in Australia, these sorts of businesses tend to be reflected in statistics on self-employment, as distinct to indigenous interests in larger-scale enterprises. Although, I suspect in Canada, as in Australia, you do not actually have very many instances of indigenous interests either being whole owners or joint venturers in large enterprises.
To begin with, I thought it would be useful to talk a little bit about that spectrum and also to reinforce the fact that both in Australia and in Canada, there is enormous diversity that is linked, as we know, with the nature of colonial history and the colonial impact. Also, it is important to recognize that there were variations in pre-colonial economic and social formations in both situations. Similarly, in both countries, there is enormous variability in the resource bases that indigenous peoples can utilize and, also just in ecological variation.
Your comments, Mr. Chairman, referring to the extreme climatic conditions in terms of some of the communities that you will be visiting are probably matched in Australia by another extreme experienced by some of the indigenous communities here that, for a range of historical and colonial reasons, have actually been established in desert regions that are clearly very arid, often very hot. In terms of linkage with the main stream economy, they have enormous difficulties.
In terms of conceptualization, the way I am trying to increasingly conceptualize indigenous economies — and this is a model that I have recently discussed with Professor Peter Russell, which is partly why he thought it might be useful if we had a bit of a conversation. This model is what I call, in the Australian context, the indigenous hybrid economy. It has three sectors: the market sector, the state sector and the customary sector. In many policy discussions on indigenous issues, we tend to stay too focused on the market sector, often referred to as the private sector; or we sometimes focus too much on the state sector, which can be the public sector — a sector that provides services to indigenous peoples and communities — but also be the sector that provides people welfare support.
In these conversations, we tend to overlook the customary sector, which in many indigenous communities is economically significant, in terms of livelihoods. It is also a sector where many remote indigenous communities in particular have some comparative advantage. The customary sector, in many remote areas — and in Australia we also find in some not-so-remote contexts — remains vitally important to people's livelihoods, but it is also a sector that articulates with both the state and the market. In other words, customary activity can actually have value in terms of market exchange. It can also have value in terms of delivering public services, and in Australia that occurs very much with regard to natural resource management activities that are often provided by indigenous people participating in the customary sector, and of course the customary activity is also often underwritten by state support.
I know that in Quebec there is a very well known and I think quite robust scheme called the Income Security Program. In Australia, we have a similar scheme, entitled the Community Development Employment Projects scheme — CDEP — which often is provided to people who live in country, participate in customary activities and get a level of support from the state.
I am sure that, later on, we will want to talk about success factors in relation to indigenous economic development. I am happy for us to tease those sorts of issues out. I thought I would make these few opening remarks. If there are any questions or comments that senators have, I would be happy to engage in a discussion across the Pacific.
The Chairman: Senator St. Germain will take my place, as I must leave.
Senator St. Germain (Deputy Chairman) in the chair.
The Deputy Chairman: Thank you very much, professor. We will get right to the questioning.
I will just ask you one question. In dealing with its indigenous people, has Australia, as a federal government, assumed the fiduciary responsibility for the indigenous people of Australia?
Mr. Altman: It has, to some extent. In Australia, in 1967, there was a referendum to amend the constitution. That constitutional amendment deleted a clause in the Australian constitution that said that the federal government did not have a role in indigenous affairs and that these were measures were only to be dealt with by the states and territories. Basically, since 1967, the federal government has been able to become engaged in indigenous affairs. Certainly since the early 1970s, the government has become increasingly involved in indigenous affairs.
In terms of fiduciary duty, that is quite a complex issue in Australia because, unlike some of the state governments, the current federal government refuses to, for example, make an apology for what is being called in Australia the stolen generation of indigenous people that were taken from their parents as state policy from the 1930s right up to the late 1960s. In that sense, one of the reasons that the federal government has given for not actually making a formal apology is that it does not want to accept fiduciary duty or potential claims for compensation. Nevertheless, all the state and territory governments have in fact made such an apology.
While the federal government here runs significant indigenous-specific programs at the federal level, each state and territory also has responsibility for service delivery to its indigenous citizenry. That is done again through either indigenous-specific or what we call mainstream programs. One issue that has come up, and there was quite a significant inquiry here in 2001 by the Commonwealth Grounds Commission, was the extent to which states and territories met their service delivery obligations to their indigenous citizens on an equitable needs basis. That inquiry, run by an independent authority here that actually allocates taxation between the federal government and the state and territory governments, was actually quite critical of states and territories, saying that it certainly was not clear if they were in fact funding their indigenous citizens to the extent that they should, given the extent of indigenous need and the location of many indigenous people in remote parts.
For example, in places like the Northern Territory, there was certainly emerging evidence that there was not the necessary investment in remote schools and health services. Again, in relation to your inquiry, there is certainly emerging evidence that, in terms of economic support programs, there probably was not the investment going in that one would like to see if one wants to build an economic base and give people an opportunity to participate in economic development where they live on the land that they own.
Senator Buchanan: Professor, I find what you have just said very interesting, if I understand you correctly. Are you saying that the prime responsibility for Aboriginal peoples in Australia is state government, not federal government?
Mr. Altman: I am certainly saying that to some extent. It is a shared responsibility, but through the Commonwealth Grants Commission process that we have here, which is our process for fiscal distribution of income taxation, which only the federal government can levy under the Australian constitution, each state and territory puts in a bid to the Commonwealth Grants Commission for resourcing. In that resourcing bid, there are a range of factors called disability factors. One of the disability factors used is the proportion of the population that is indigenous. The basis for arguing that having an indigenous proportion of your population that requires additional funding under this fiscal equalization process is that the socio-economic indicators show that indigenous people are in greater need.
The federal government has a range of programs that are indigenous-specific. The federal government also has what are called mainstream programs that should service indigenous Australians. However, certainly states and territories are expected to provide a range of services to indigenous Australians as if they were state citizens. This is an issue that is continually debated. Arguably, it is a hot political football that is tossed backwards and forwards between the federal and state territory governments about which one is meeting its obligations properly and which one is not.
That would not surprise you probably.
Senator Buchanan: It does not.
Mr. Altman: These are hotly contested issues. Recently, for example, there was a report that was done by the Northern Territory government for national circulation. It was by a state-level or provincial-level government. It documented the shortfall in indigenous housing Australia-wide and that the extent of indigenous overcrowding and calculated that an additional investment of $2 billion was required. It was put to the federal government that this shortfall needed to be addressed not only because there was a shortfall, but also because the rate of indigenous population growth would just make the situation worse and worse in the future. The response of the federal government was that it would invest in indigenous housing and infrastructure but that it would like to see the states and territories take the lead role first.
Senator Buchanan: That is rather different from the situation in Canada because the prime responsible role constitutionally in Canada is federal. The secondary responsibility is provincial, although over the last number of years provinces have taken more of an interest in Aboriginal affairs than over maybe the last 50 years or so, but still the responsibility is federal under our Constitution. It is a much different situation from the one you have in Australia.
It is interesting though that over the last 20 years in my part of Canada, Nova Scotia, we have seen more economic development in indigenous Aboriginal communities than ever before. We have some areas of Nova Scotia where very aggressive chiefs and councils have become involved in activities that have escalated over the last years to a point where economic development is almost number one in some of those areas — in the fishing industry, for instance, in mussel farming, oyster farming, general aquaculture of every kind. In some areas, economic development is at a point where — I can name one area — they are at present and have been for the last two years developing a large shopping centre area, an industrial area, service stations, restaurants, hotels, general big theatre area, which is different from what we have seen in our province for many years, and we are pleased that this is taking place.
However, most of the responsibility, again, for whatever economic assistance has been given is federal.
Senator Pearson: I wish to pick up on your comment about demographics, because I got the idea that you have a similar development in your country as we do here, which is that the demographics among our indigenous people is the opposite to what it is among most of the rest of the country, that there are an awful lot of very young people. Therefore, my question has to do with what is happening in Australia around the training and preparation of young people for economic activity, because that seems to me to be something that is absolutely crucial.
Mr. Altman: Certainly, the situation sounds very similar. The demographic pyramids are the exact opposite of each other. While in Australia we are worried about future population of working age to support the aging population, with indigenous peoples, the under-15-year-olds represent are about 40 per cent.
As far as the demographics are concerned, we do not have good statistics here, and I think you have similar difficulties with Statistics Canada. We only included indigenous people here for the first time in 1971. At that time, the indigenous population was enumerated at 115,000 but obviously missed many people. In the latest census, 2001, the indigenous population has grown four-fold, to 460,000, over a period of 30 years. Certainly projections suggest that the growth rate is very rapid, in the range of 3 or 4 per cent per annum, particularly in the more remote parts.
There is a real issue in terms of some projections that my centre has made in terms of unemployment rates for example. The official unemployment rate here at the moment for indigenous people nation-wide is 20 per cent, but if you take out the CDEP scheme, which includes 36,000 indigenous participants, all of whom are defined while participating in the scheme as employed, then the indigenous unemployment rate is approaching 50 per cent. In the future, all our projections suggest that it will actually increase, unless there are some significant changes.
Education in this country is also a significant issue in relation to the indigenous population, and there are obviously a number of education programs that target indigenous young people for participation in education. Nevertheless, there are some real issues there, particularly in relation to those indigenous people who reside in the rural and remote sectors, where often supply of educational facilities can be limited, particularly at the post-primary level, and where there are issues about the nature of education. Even if people received normal, mainstream educational qualifications, if they continue to reside in these remote areas, what would they actually do with these qualifications in terms of employment opportunities? That question is being hotly debated here at the moment because some indigenous spokespeople are suggesting that opportunity needs to be provided for indigenous children from remote areas to migrate, to take up schooling opportunities in urban centres. This is quite an emotive issue, because other indigenous people are saying that this is reminiscent of the stolen generations and indigenous youth being taken away from their home communities and being fostered out with non-indigenous families and, if you like, losing connection both with their communities and with their custom.
One of the things that is clear in this country — and, again, my centre has done some work on this statistically — is that on the basis of need there is definitely under-investment in indigenous education. Similarly, over the last one or two decades, there is a sense that indigenous educational attainment, particularly in remote areas, has, if anything, gone backwards rather than forwards. This is due to issues related to economic opportunity and opportunity for activity in a remote community, and there is a sense that, if one can provide meaningful employment and activity in these contexts, young people basically lack the incentive and motivation to continue at school. In some remote contexts, the nature of the indigenous family and social relations does not actually make it easy for parents to force their children to go to school.
There is high absenteeism, in part, because of an element of indigenous culture that seems to remain quite robust, and that is which is a real respect for the autonomy of the individual. Unlike in our society, that tends to permeate down to teenagers and young children whose parents are quite reluctant to be forceful in sending them to school. Sometimes, parents turn to the authorities and say: ``We do not have the influence on our children. Why do you not intervene?''
Frankly, in these communities, it can be difficult to put authorities to force children to go to school. If you force children to go to school, they can be enrolled and participate in the classroom but not learn anything anyway. Sometimes, there are arguments about attendance levels versus educational outcomes.
These are very difficult and contested issues. I should not overstate the extent of the problem — although the media here and some indigenous leaders and advocates do focus on, for advocacy reasons, the very bad extremes. However, at the other end of the spectrum, in terms of indigenous participation and higher tertiary education and indigenous qualifications, arguably one of the success stories over the last 20 or 30 years has been a far greater enhanced participation by indigenous people in those mainstream institutions.
In some ways, there are two extremes. There is the remote and the rural context, and sometimes in an urban context, where you have high absenteeism and suggestions that numeracy and literacy might be going backwards. At the other extreme, there is a far higher participation of indigenous people in tertiary education.
One of the debates here amongst people in the educational arena is the issue of what form should education take. In this country, one of the long-term debates has been in relation to bilingual education, whether people should in fact learn in their Aboriginal languages as well as in English. The second debate has been about how to match the educational inputs people will acquire that will equip them to live in the communities where they want to reside. There has been a reluctance to provide vocational education to young people, to allow them to participate in natural and cultural resource management activities, which people seem to be interested in doing — participation in fishing industries and in the harvesting economy. As well, the arts economy is vibrant in these communities. Hence, there is a lack of match, if you like, between some of the employment and economic development possibilities in the Aboriginal community context and what the mainstream educational authorities are willing to provide in terms of education.
Senator Watt: Welcome, Professor Altman. I should like to have some clarification. What do you mean by customary economy? Is that a collective economy, the term we use here in Canada?
Mr. Altman: Not quite. The customary economy can be collective, but it can also be individual. It refers to the non- market activity, the production for use that indigenous people participate in. In Canada, particularly in your part of the world, the most prevalent form of customary economy would probably be harvesting. Hence, customary economy relates to people participating in productive economic activity that is not reflected, for example, in social indicators about people's income levels. Nevertheless, it is the sort of economic activity that people might spend the predominant part of their working life in.
In parts of Australia, we have, for instance, in the tropical savannas, people that still have vibrant harvesting economies where they actually utilize game as a significant part of their dietary intake. In other parts of the country, in the coastal communities, but particularly in areas like Torres Strait, which is where a slightly different indigenous minority live, the Torres Strait islander people participate in customary harvesting of fish and marine species like turtle and dugong.
The interesting thing about customary economic activity is that it can also make its way into the market economy. Hence, people, for instance, may fish in the customary economy, but they also may fish in the commercial market economy. They may use the same techniques but sell their fish and make cash income.
Part of the thing I am pushing strongly with this notion of customary economy and the notion of the hybrid economy that has three sectors rather than two sectors is that there is a significant non-market component of the economy where many Aboriginal peoples continue to engage, often to a greater extent, than they might in formal employment or business activities.
Sometimes, these activities are undertaken by individuals in terms of their hunting or fishing activity; sometimes, they are undertaken by groups; and often they are undertaken on land that is collectively owned.
In Australia, that sort of activity would often take place on land where people have inalienable land rights and native title rights. In Australia, under Australian law, people also have rights under common law to harvest species for their customary or non-commercial use. If they want to harvest species, or indeed other resources for commercial use, often it is more contestable in terms of people's legal property rights and resources.
Senator Watt: I would like to have a bit more appreciation of what are the similarities between Canada and Australia in terms of dealing with the Aboriginal people.
You said that the Aboriginal people do have rights to the land and to the resources. When the Europeans first came to Canada, a deal was signed between the First Nations people and the government of the day. The government acted on behalf of the Crown and signed treaties with the Aboriginal people. A modern agreement was signed for the first time around 1975.
Was the situation similar for Australian Aboriginal people, the indigenous people? For me to understand the situation better, I would like to know the Australian history.
Mr. Altman: In terms of fourth world situations — like New Zealand, the United States, Canada and Australia — Australia is probably the only one that never had treaties. There were never treaties between indigenous groups and the colonies or the Crown. People had their indigenous rights denied until recently.
Changes only began to take place after the 1967 referendum to which I referred. After that, there was a series of laws that provided indigenous people with land rights, but these were generally federal in relation to the Northern Territory or state in relation to some of the states. These laws gave some recognition of the injustice done to indigenous people and allowed them to have ownership of areas that had been reserved for them by the Crown. These reservations have been put in place for the protection and preservation of indigenous peoples first; they have also been put in place as places for their assimilation. These reserved lands were, through a series of laws, transferred to Aboriginal communal title.
Some of these land rights laws were significant. In the Northern Territory, through the return of reserved land and through a claims process that was put in place that allowed Aboriginal people who could demonstrate traditional ownership of unalienated Crown lands to claim those lands back. About half the Northern Territory has been returned to Aboriginal ownership. That is an area of half a million square kilometres. That is a significant area.
Indigenous rights were only recognized here for the first time through a high court judgment in 1992. Previous to 1992, a doctrine called Terra Nullius had dominated in this country. That doctrine purported that when the colonizers first came here the land belonged to no one, even though there were indigenous people living here. That doctrine was overturned by the Australian High Court and a form of native title was recognized in common law. In other words, there was a possibility to recognize a form of indigenous title that preceded colonization.
Subsequent to that, the federal government passed the Native Title Act in 1993, which provided mechanisms for indigenous people to claim land. That act, which responded to the high court Mabo judgment, was as much about validating non-indigenous ownership of land as it was about providing a mechanism for indigenous people to claim land that remained unalienated.
Nevertheless, a complex claims process has been put in place. The National Native Title Tribunal has been established, which, in concert with the federal court, hears claims to land and makes determinations. If people can show that they have had continuing connection to land that has never had an extinguishing event — land that has remained unalienated Crown land since the colonization of Australia — they may then have a legal determination that they own that land.
While there is much criticism of the Native Title Act, because many claims have been unsuccessful, under that process about 5 per cent of the Australian continent has been returned to indigenous claimants since 1993. Today, about 20 per cent of the continent is under indigenous ownership.
The problem, however, is that there is not a correlation between where indigenous people live and where they own land. The majority of the indigenous population lives in the more settled parts of Australia, in the southeast and southwest, where there is not much land available for claim, or where there has not been much land there returned to people.
Another problem that still needs to be teased out through the legal system is that land rights and native title rights have tended to be returned to indigenous people but without property rights in commercially valuable resources.
There is a fundamental difference between Australia and Canada. In Australia, the Crown owns all subsurface minerals, whereas in Canada the landowner has ownership of those subsurface minerals. For example, on Aboriginal land, Aboriginal people do not have property rights to minerals that lie under the ground.
There are provisions in land rights legislation that allow commercial developers to make resource agreements with indigenous peoples to utilize those resources. The basis for negotiating those agreements does not recognize legal property rights and resources. That does not just extend to minerals; it also extends to fishery, forestry and other resources.
Indigenous people do have legal rights in resources for customary use. It is partly for that reason that I believe in the future the intersection between customary and commercial property rights will increasingly allow indigenous people to have a lever in terms of getting access to resources.
At the moment, there is a fair bit of policy despondency in this country. People are wondering why it is that, give their land rights and title rights, indigenous people have not been able to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and integrate into the market economy more successfully. Part of the reason is that while they have the land back they do not have the resources. Another reason is that, even though they have land back and even if they got the resources back, there are enormous shortfalls in terms of people's health status, educational status, employment experience and so on. Not only are their enormous legacies of how far behind our indigenous people are, but also, even if they could actively engage on a level playing field, that playing field is not level for resource rights.
I should emphasize that, like in Nova Scotia, we do have examples here of success where indigenous interests have in fact been able to utilize leverage that they have in relation to mineral development on their lands. They have been able to negotiate agreements that provide them with opportunities for employment, training and setting up enterprises. The resources are provided by mining royalties and privately negotiated agreements with resource developing corporations.
These sorts of success stories are the exception rather than the rule.
Senator Gustafson: I have a supplementary on the mineral rights. Are they controlled by the government completely?
Mr. Altman: Yes. There are only some very small residual situations in New South Wales, where there is private ownership of coal that dates back to alienation of those resources in the nineteenth century. Generally, across Australia, minerals are owned by the Crown. However, there is a proviso there in the right of the states or territories. Again, it is a slightly complicated landscape in this country because we have states and territories and they are slightly different jurisdictions.
We also have one prescribed mineral, which is uranium, that the federal government maintains control over in relation to the Northern Territory because it is a potentially significant mineral, one that they do not necessarily want the territories to have ownership. Generally, however, full ownership of minerals resides with the Crown, and all resource developers get is the lease to exploit those resources contingent on the payment of a royalty to the Crown.
One of the very progressive things that happened here in relation to royalty rights is that, in the Northern Territory, as far as back as 1950s, a decision was made by the federal government — again, only in relation to the Northern Territory — to reserve all royalties raised on Aboriginal reserves at that time for the benefit of Aboriginal people. In some situations, there is actually a statutory reservation of certain royalties payable to the Crown in favour of Aboriginal peoples.
Senator Gustafson: What is the number of Aboriginal people? Second, what would be the average wage?
Mr. Altman: In terms of numbers, Australia-wide, there is currently estimated to be approximately 460,000 Aboriginal people, which represents 2.4 per cent of the Australian population of 20 million. I think your population is about 31 million; ours is 20 million. I think Canada is about 9.9 million square kilometres; Australia is 7.7 million square kilometres. We are a slightly smaller country in terms of geographic jurisdiction and population.
As in Canada, though, the geographic distribution of the indigenous population is almost the exact reverse of the non-indigenous population. Even though it is only about 35 per cent of the indigenous population that lives in what we call rural or remote regions, there is only about 2 to 3 per cent of the non-indigenous population that lives in those areas. The non-indigenous population predominantly lives in the metropolitan cities on the southeastern and southwestern seaboard, so the vast hinterland of Australia is, again in proportional terms, predominantly populated by indigenous peoples.
In terms of income, social indicators suggest that the individual income of indigenous adults averages about 60 to 65 per cent of non-indigenous adults. However, these figures come from the national census, and there are some problems with census data. For example, the highest income category in the census in Australia is an income of about $85,000- plus. It does not tend to pick up the non-indigenous people that are particularly well off. In the averaging, if you like, what we find is that income differentials are reduced.
The other thing that those income figures do not reflect is the demographic structure of families. Individual income for an indigenous person might be 60 or 65 per cent of that for a non-indigenous person, but the dependency ratio within that household is likely to be much higher because there are many more dependent young children in an indigenous household.
Senator Buchanan: Professor, if I understood you correctly, what you said was that, in Australia, mineral resources are owned and regulated by government.
Mr. Altman: Yes.
Senator Buchanan: However, the landowner does not own mineral resources in Australia.
Mr. Altman: That is correct.
Senator Buchanan: That is the same as here. All mineral resources in Canada are owned by the provincial governments, not by the landowners, including oil, gas, natural gas, coal, et cetera in the provinces.
Senator Gustafson: Not in Alberta.
Senator Buchanan: In the Province of Nova Scotia, we own all mineral resources.
Senator Watt: It is not like that across the board.
Senator Buchanan: Is it not? That is too bad. In Nova Scotia, all mineral resources — coal, metal resources, oil, gas — all resources are owned and regulated by the provincial government, not by the landowner.
Second, we mentioned the agreements here in Canada with our Aboriginal peoples. Those agreements are based on treaties going back mainly to the 1970s and the early 1980s. Again, I can speak for our part of the country, and we have had a lot of experience with that over the last number of years. One individual, whom I know very well, Donald Marshall, was able to get the ball rolling to ensure that those treaties were agreed to mainly by the federal government.
Those treaties go back to 1752 in Canada, original treaties signed by the British Crown back then. It is interesting to note that in Canada — maybe Saskatchewan and the rest of you are different, but we are move advanced in Nova Scotia than they are — in our province Crown land for the most part is owned by the provincial government. That is why the provinces have been very much involved in the agreements with the various Aboriginal groups and the First Nations over the last 20 years.
I suppose that is not much different than in Australia. Well yes, I guess it is, because in Australia you have a different system of dealing with your Aboriginal peoples.
Mr. Altman: Most of the resource agreements that are undertaken in Australia are between the resource developer and the indigenous landowners. Certainly, there is a governmental interest in that agreement, and under land rights law, say in the Northern Territory, the federal minister for Aboriginal affairs is actually a signatory in any agreements between a resource developer and indigenous interests. It is partly to ensure that that agreement is a fair agreement.
In Australia, there are also organizations or institutions that have a legal role to represent indigenous people in those negotiations. However, state and in some cases federal governments have an interest in those agreements, because they obviously see those agreements as being beneficial in terms of regional growth and development.
My understanding in Canada — and maybe I should have clarified that — is that there is some difference between the provinces. Certainly, my understanding is that, in Alberta, for example, the oil and gas fields, the actual right in the property, is held by the native peoples on whose land those resources occur. Of course, having ownership of property like oil and gas reserves is only of value in terms of either negotiating for their exploitation or having the capacity to exploit those resources yourself. It is fair to say that, in general, indigenous peoples in both Canada and in Australia have not had the capacity to exploit those resources.
In Canada, I think there is an oil and gas company that either participates in the exploitation of resources or is at least a joint venturer in some exploitation of oil and gas reserves. The key issue I was trying to highlight is that my understanding was that having rights in subsurface minerals, again in those provinces where that exists and certainly in the United States, gives people a much better bargaining position when they are negotiating with resource developers. In Australia, all people have the right to veto development or the right to negotiate over development. The fact that those minerals are on their lands does not give them any greater leverage than that.
Senator Buchanan: I am glad you clarified that, because we are advanced in Nova Scotia where the provincial government controls and owns all mineral resources. Western Canada came into Confederation long after we did.
Senator Gustafson: We believe in sharing the wealth.
Senator Watt: Could you illustrate what an Aboriginal entrepreneur has to do to get a permit, whatever its nature and size. How does the Aboriginal person access the capital requirement? Is it risk capital plus the capital that he needs. Does your government assist in this? How is that person dealt with in negotiations with financial institutions? Could you elaborate on that from your experience?
Mr. Altman: The issue of indigenous access to both capital and banking and financial services has been the subject of a recent inquiry by a parliamentary joint inquiry by the Senate and the House of Representatives, which is your House of Commons. There is quite a large report on that. An indigenous entrepreneur can gain access to capital to some extent depending on where they are located and the nature of the enterprise that they want to participate in. We have a number of assistance schemes in Australia, including a business loan scheme, a business grant scheme and an organization called Indigenous Business Australia that operates on a larger scale, although in mainstream terms they are small to medium-sized enterprises, developed with indigenous joint ventures. They put capital into such enterprises. There is potential for indigenous business people to gain access to capital contingent on them having a sound business plan and on presenting a business plan that has a degree of potential commercial viability.
The issue that you are raising is whether people who live on indigenous-owned land are able to use that land as collateral to raise business financing from the business or commercial funding sector. That is an issue in Australia. Certainly there was reluctance on the part of the major banks to provide commercial capital for indigenous venture if that venture were based on indigenous-owned land.
Again, this is a fairly hotly contested issue in Australia because there is a provision under most land rights regimes to lease land for up to 99 years. Some of the major tourist destinations in Northern Australia, Kakadu and Uluru National Parks, are located on 99-year leases from Aboriginal landowners back to the Commonwealth. The fact that it is leasehold land has not limited the ability of developers to raise equity capital for development on that land.
There is recognition now that if an indigenous entrepreneur were to come up with a good idea there could be difficulty in getting either a venture capitalist, private equity investor or a joint venture to come into the deal unless the enterprise clearly has a very high cash flow to repay loans over a short time frame.
Those kinds of enterprises, as we all know, are fairly rare. Most people have to look at a prolonged period of eight, 10 or 25 years to raise the needed capital. As well, they need to have the capacity to sell the business if they want to exit it for somebody else to take up. The transferability of enterprise when it is located on Aboriginal land is an issue in terms of whether there is a market for those kinds of enterprises located on Aboriginal land. This is clearly an issue for the banks also.
One of the naive responses in Australia to this problem is to recommend freeholding the land, instead of giving people communal and alienable title and allowing people to subdivide it and sell it. Intergenerational equity issues aside, the problem with that is that there is not a demand for that land because of where it is located, which is often in remote areas. The mere subdivision of land will not give a commercial banker the kind of security that they require because if somebody forecloses on that commercial loan to build a house on that piece of land, they will not be able to realize the value of their loan by trading that land. To some extent, where most Aboriginal land is located, the issue of whether the land is communally and inalienably owned or whether it is privately and individually owned is a bit of a non-issue because there is not the demand for that land in real estate terms.
Clearly, there are some exceptions, for instance with some pieces of land that have potential for commercial development for cultural tourism or for environmental tourism. There is opportunity for land in those situations to be utilized for enterprise.
My argument would be that, in those rare situations where land actually is potentially profitable, a 99-year lease should provide sufficient security for a commercial developer to use that as the basis for making a commercial loan.
Senator Watt: Do they pay tax?
Mr. Altman: Yes. There is no tax exempt status for indigenous people anywhere in Australia. It is interesting that Australia now has a goods and services tax, much like Canada has. In the past, some Australians who used to run the line that some indigenous peoples were just a drain on the public purse and never paid taxes are now proven to be wrong. All indigenous Australians now pay tax like everybody else each time they purchase a good or a service. Of course, the differential between what they might receive in terms of state support and what they pay in taxes might be different. There is not any jurisdiction in Australia where there is a tax-exempt status.
The Deputy Chairman: Does that include land, professor? Do they have to pay tax on their land holdings that are established as reserves.
Mr. Altman: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Have your indigenous people sought a form of self-government in respect of their own lands?
Mr. Altman: Yes. This is a form of aspiration that many indigenous groups in Australia have articulated. It was being pursued through an indigenous national representative organization called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission — ATSIC — that, in April 2004, the federal government announced it was about to abolish, which it has done in the aftermath of the October 2004 election.
The national indigenous representative organization that was representing indigenous groups that were seeking self- government has now disappeared and the mechanisms for people to gain self-government for regions where generally people are the majority of the population has declined somewhat. Nevertheless, in Australia we do have one jurisdiction where people have a form of self-governance, and that is in the Torres Strait where there is now a Torres Strait Regional Authority — TSRA — that has jurisdiction over a region just to the north of Australia, north of Queensland, called the Torres Strait. It is the area between Australia and Papua New Guinea. That TSRA has the role of administering all federal resources that are allocated to Torres Strait and their people. However, it does not have the right to make laws in relation to Torres Strait or to their people or to other people living in the Torres Strait. You do not have a level of self-governance that, say, you have in the United States with the Navajo Nation where will is capacity for the Navajo Nation to make laws to have a Navajo judiciary and those sorts of institutions.
In terms of Australian self-governance in that jurisdiction, the Torres Strait, the indigenous population is in the range of 6,000 or 7,000 people scattered across many islands and it is fairly limited as one might envisage as being self- government.
Senator Watt: In connection with Senator St. Germain's question, do they participate at the federal level? You talked about one jurisdiction. Is that where they put their concern and deal with the diversity? How is that representation actually taking place within the federal government?
Mr. Altman: Historically, since the 1970s there were nationally elected indigenous representative groups going back to what was called the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee in the 1970s, and then the National Aboriginal Congress from the late 1970s into the 1980s. From 1989, there was the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, the nationally represented indigenous organization that had elected membership. That organization also had control over fairly significant indigenous specific program funds in the region of $1 billion per annum.
That organization also had 36 regional councils that had elected indigenous representatives. The nation was basically divided into 36 jurisdictions that represented those regions. It is that institution that has recently been abolished by the federal government here, in part because it had the view that this institution was not successful but also because there was a certain issue in relation to some of the indigenous leadership of this organization that the Australian federal government, and to some extent the Australian judicial system, had some concerns over. My personal view is that, rather than dealing with some of those individuals that the Australian federal government had problems with, it demolished what was a very significant and innovative institution.
The Deputy Chairman: Thank you, professor.
If there are no other questions, professor, we would like to thank you as a Senate committee for having taken the time and answering the questions put to you in such a straightforward manner. You obviously have great challenges to deal with, as we have here. It is very enlightening for most of us here to hear the challenges that you face. Hopefully, we will be able to reciprocate in possibly answering questions for you people as we go along the way in establishing our comprehensive land claims in this country. Maybe we can share ideas, to better the cause of all indigenous people across the world.
We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. If you have any closing comments, we would love to here them.
Mr. Altman: Thank you for the opportunity to appear here this evening. It is terrific to share ideas across the continents. If there are any questions that you would like to follow up with me, and if there is any literature that we can help you with, I would be pleased to help. I do get the impression from Canada, from the United States and from New Zealand that the research organization that I run, for whatever reason, is a bit unusual, in that it does focus on economic development issues as they pertain to indigenous people. In that sense, I feel it is very much incumbent on us to make our research materials available. Many of them are available through our website and many of our research publications can be readily downloaded. I know that your staff are aware of our website and what is available on there, and you are very welcome to use that material. I hope it is helpful to you.
As your inquiry progresses, if there are any issues that either I or my staff can assist with, we would certainly be very happy to assist you.
The Deputy Chairman: Before adjournment, I would like to inform members that there will be a meeting of the committee at 9:30 a.m. next Tuesday to discuss future business. Bill C-14, the Tlicho bill, may be before us at that time — that is, if we get the order of reference from the Senate.
Senator Buchanan: Are you saying, Senator Gustafson, that in Western Canada resources such as coal, gold, oil are owned by the land owner?
Senator Gustafson: In Saskatchewan, for instance, every second section of land was owned by the land owner, both under the ground and above the ground.
Senator Buchanan: Incredible!
Senator Gustafson: A lot of unformed farmers were offered $1,000 by some big company for their mineral rights, and they stole them.
Senator Buchanan: It is just the opposite in the Atlantic provinces.
Senator Gustafson: The CPR got a lot of rights, too.
The Deputy Chairman: Honourable senators, if there is nothing else, there will be options being put before us by our researchers next Tuesday.
Senator Watt: If we do not have that bill, what will be happening?
The Deputy Chairman: We will be discussing future business and there will be options here.
The committee adjourned.