Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 12 - Evidence - Meeting of October 24, 2005 (afternoon meeting)
PRINCE GEORGE, Monday, October 24, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 1:03 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: Good afternoon. We have a witness this afternoon from the West Moberly First Nations, Chief Roland Willson.
Welcome, Chief Willson, and please proceed.
Chief Roland Willson, West Moberly First Nations: I represent one of the seven First Nations located in Treaty 8, B.C. I know there were discussions earlier on this. Treaty 8 territory is located in the northeastern part of B.C. I know maps are being pulled out.
Lisa L. Patterson, Analyst, Library of Parliament: There is a map behind you on the wall, too. It is not in a convenient location, but if you want to put your finger on where you actually are on that map, it might help a little.
Mr. Willson: Our area takes up one third of the province. The province has unilaterally changed the boundary on us, and we are having discussions on that right now.
The Treaty 8 territory, if you are unaware of it, covers about one third of Canada. It covers Alberta, the province of B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, northern Manitoba, and a little bit into the Northwest Territories.
My area is hugely responsible for a lot of the revenues that are coming out of B.C. right now.
The northeastern part of B.C. is the hot spot for oil and gas right now. The first two coal mines developed in B.C. in the last 15 years, I believe, have just occurred in West Moberly territory. Pine Valley Coal Mine is the first one that was opened, and Western Canadian Coal is the second one that was opened. They are both around the Tumbler Ridge area. The coal mining sparked the rejuvenation of Tumbler Ridge — actually in all of B.C. We have 30 applications right now for new coal mine tenures in our area, all around West Moberly First Nations. It is a shared territory with a bunch of interests in it. Our traditional territory is Treaty 8. We have areas of interest that we practise our traditional ways of life on and continue traditional ways of life. We are very active on the ground — hunting, fishing, trapping.
We can get into discussions around what the true intent and spirit of the treaty was. We believe it was around economics. One of our rights was trapping. At the time of the signing of the treaty, trapping was one of the primary industries of Canada. Our whole area was developed around that premise of trapping.
The Hudson's Bay Company came in. Not many people nowadays trap to earn a living; rather, they trap to sustain a way of life. It is a tradition. We were trapping before the Hudson's Bay Company came in, to provide pelts and food and sustenance for our people. They continue to do that, not so much to make money, but to continue a way of life.
It is rather a hollow treaty promise right now. It was set up as an economic means in the treaty; however, the primary economics of North America right now is no longer trapping. It is a resource development.
I might be jumping around a lot. I apologize for that.
Our primary interest is creating and maintaining our way of life. We have a mission statement, which can be found in our written document, that we abide by. The mission statement was set forth by our community. Through a number of meetings, a number of years ago, we went from the standard INAC governance model that is provided through the Indian Act. We have created our own governance. Actually, our governance model is being used right now with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada as a best-practices model. We have high levels of accountability, high levels of transparency. We are accountable and responsible to our nation.
I will give you some background of who we are. We are the smallest of the Treaty 8 First Nations. These are old numbers, I apologize for that. We are up to a whopping 190 members now, and we are growing fast. In terms of the demographics, we have approximately 89 people living on reserve, 37 males and 28 females.
The unemployment rate right now is about 1 per cent to 2 per cent. That is being primarily created through negotiations with industry, trying to access opportunities from resource developers coming into the territory, sitting down and negotiating with them through responsible and proper methods.
We can credit almost all the success of West Moberly to our governance model. We have a very strong governance model. My personal belief is that nations that are not being fruitful lack in governance structure. There is no sustainability. There is no certainty.
The community has to be certain of how it is going to conduct its business, regardless of the chief or the leadership. The community has to know that their future is going to be well represented.
My guidance is given to me by my membership through mandates. My position is the only elected position in my council, in my community. We are a family-based organization. We have four main families. They determine through a process of elections or they appoint the councillor and then the membership in the whole determines who the chief will be. Through that, they set the mandate, they set the accountability structures. We have complete transparency. We open our books to our membership and anybody that we are in partnership with, to create a level of trust with them.
I am not sure what else I can get into.
We believe that we need a handup, not need a handout. Handouts do not work. Indian Affairs and the Indian Act were created for handouts.
My personal belief — and I speak, I believe, on behalf of my community — is that as wards of the state we are looked at as welfare recipients. The whole system, the whole structure is developed that way. We were gathered and put on reserves, placed off to the side, and we were told that we would be taken care of. For one reason or another, our membership, our people, our elders believed in that. They sat by and allowed things to happen. We have had large- scale developments in our territories that have resulted in no opportunities to the First Nations.
We chose, through our governance structure, to become active, to sit down and negotiate with the people in our territories. We stopped depending on Indian Affairs to take care of us. We determined that in order to be in control of our destiny we needed to make that decision, and we needed to get off our butts and get moving, to capture these opportunities.
As such, we have entered into relationships with coal mining, oil and gas companies, and forestry companies. West Moberly has joint venture licences with Canfor for 250,000 cubic metres of volume. We have agreements in place with Tembec, Canfor, LP. The largest OSB plant in the world is located in Fort St. John.
We are a part of opportunities to provide wood services to the mill. Forty per cent of the revenue is locked. Fifty per cent of the province's revenues right now — which allows B.C. to improve roads and infrastructure and donate money to these countries that are having issues, which I agree they should be doing — comes from our backyard, and not just West Moberly's backyard but Treaty 8 territory, and with relatively little involvement from the local First Nations out there.
We have an MOU with the Ministry of Energy and Mines on consultation. It is the only one of its kind anywhere, an understanding that the fiduciary responsibility lies with the Crown and that there is a duty to consult with the First Nations. The only ministry that has taken that up is the Ministry of Energy and Mines, and it was primarily driven by industry.
I was sitting in the back listening when Chief Justa Monk was speaking. The question was asked, “Do you have any contact with the people from EnCana?”
I have presented to CAPP, the Canadian Associations of Petroleum Producers.
It is not hard to understand who controls the government. The government gets their money through resource development, from the revenues generated from that, from the taxes collected off the lands. If industry is not happy, then government is not happy, because it affects their cash flow.
We are very well aware of that. We try to do business with respect, honour and integrity, but if push comes to shove we do shove if we have to. We choose not to. We would rather sit at the table and negotiate and develop working relationships with people. However, a lot of times when you present yourself in that meeting, it is taken as a sign of weakness, and people tend to try and take advantage of you.
We have sat down with companies and have entered into meaningful discussions on relationship building and have an interest in participating and supporting the development. We are not opposed to development. The development has to be sustainable.
There was also a discussion about mining, mining as a non-renewable resource. That is true, mining is a non- renewable resource, but it is also a primary driver of the B.C. economy right now, and that driver is coming out of our backyard.
Whether we like it or not, that development is going to happen. The small community of West Moberly has not and probably will not ever stand in the way of the province and its need for revenues, to stand on the world market as an entity that can compete with the United States, China and Japan in resources.
However, it should not come at the expense of anybody else. When Bull Moose and Quintet were developed, not one member of my community went to work there. We never saw a penny of any of the resources that came out of there. I suppose we saw it through the returns of the welfare in our community.
Chief Justa Monk explained that development happens and that no benefit comes back — except that we collect welfare in our community. I have to agree with that one. When we first came on, our status was not very good. We had high unemployment. We had high levels of alcohol abuse in our community. Drugs were a problem. Those issues are still there, but through our workings we have developed programs to create awareness for that.
The Chairman: Chief Willson, on page 6, you have a very good outline of the things that have worked well for you. This is exactly the type of information that our committee is interested in.
I would ask you to briefly elaborate on some of the points that you have here, because I think it is very relevant.
Mr. Willson: On the topic of what has inhibited the West Moberly First Nation, I have covered some of that. There are social problems associated with families, drugs, and alcohol abuse, and that is relevant in all communities, not just in First Nations communities. I was driving around here with my daughter last night, and at a 7-Eleven there were non- Native people standing outside drunk. She asked me, “Why are they there?” We had a discussion on that.
It is relevant, it is there. It is an issue. We are aware of the issue. We are trying to put things in place to deal with the issues. We are trying to create a level of awareness about other options out there. We have created opportunities that people could take advantage of in a positive way.
Something else that has inhibited West Moberly is Indian and Northern Affairs of Canada. I do not see them being useful. They do not provide us anything but a high level of bureaucracy. We do what is required from Indian and Northern Affairs, but we do not depend on them. It is very frustrating when you are trying to get something done and you have to approach them. They are not there to be helpful. They are there to limit their access to risk. It is a very frustrating process dealing with people from Indian and Northern Affairs. They change policies and then throw us on waiting lists. They do not inform us of the changes in policy and then when we violate the policy, they put us on a freeze list and come in and wag their finger at us because we are not abiding by the rules that they have set forth, which they have changed and have not informed us that they have changed.
Something else that has inhibited us is the various funding providers — which result in no end of troubles. There are all these opportunities out there; for example, you can apply for funding through Aboriginal Business Canada and Indian and Northern Affairs. We do not hold our breath waiting for them, however. We submit our applications, but we figure out other ways of moving forward with that. Anything we have accomplished has not come about as a result of any help from any of these organizations. We have done it all on our own, which is better, because we have learned through trials and tribulations of falling flat on our face and picking ourselves up and brushing ourselves off not to depend on anybody but ourselves with that.
We are always bumping heads with the Province of B.C. We have a treaty that is signed with the federal government. The federal government signed the treaty with the First Nations and then they gave all the land to the province. We go to meetings. We sit in the negotiations and listen to the federal government and the provincial government bickering back and forth about who has responsibility over the Indians. None of them wants it, so they limit their access to it. Court cases come down and become precedents for how you are supposed to conduct business with First Nations.
When we look at a ruling, we say, “This is what this court says.” The province and the federal governments say, “This is what the court does not say. As such, we will operate with you based on what the ruling does not say. It says we have to do this, but we do not have to do that, and we can limit our liabilities to you, our exposure to risk in this way, by limiting that and focusing on this.”
The courts have determined that going to court is not the way to conduct business with the First Nations; rather, governments should be sitting down and negotiating with them. Time and time again, the First Nations have taken the province to court, as well as the federal government to court, doing the same thing over and over again. I do not believe it is in anybody's best interests to do that. It does nothing but make the lawyers rich and cause hard feelings between the First Nations and government.
Lack of capital is something that has inhibited the West Moberly First Nations. Opportunities come to us very fast. The world of business moves in a blink of an eye. A New York minute is a New York minute for a reason. We have to be able to gather our senses and be able to act on opportunities. Our nation is the smallest of the nations in Treaty 8 and our funding is generated through per-capita revenue, so we do not get very much.
Justa Monk said that he gets $98,000 a year for economic develop. I would be happy with that. We get 10 per cent of that. We get $150,000 a year for social development, which every year we send back, not allowed to utilize. We get about $10,000 a year for economic development. It costs about $40,000 to put a strategic plan together. In terms of an economic development strategic plan, it takes about five years to actually get the thing in place and get it moving, and you can only stretch $10,000 so far. In order to get economic development, you have to have an economic development officer, and I do not know anybody in this room that would work a year for $10,000, or five years for $50,000. We have to subsidize that, and those are monies that we have to generate outside of what we get from Indian and Northern Affairs.
I will now address what has worked for West Moberly. I have already said strong governance structure. You have to have a strong governance structure. It all comes back to governance. If your governance structure is not in place, your leadership has the ability to go awry. I am held accountable for my actions. If I do not perform, I no longer have a job. I cannot hide money, I cannot squander money. Our governance structure is not perfect — in fact, we are reviewing it right now and making recommendations to changing it — but it is the best thing that we have. It is superior to any Indian and Northern Affairs has, or anything in Indian Act.
A committed team is important. Everybody that works with us is committed to working with us. We allow business to be business. We try to keep the politics out of business. Politics is the quickest way to wreck anything. There is a process that we have to go through and once the process of consultation is done and it is deemed that the project is something that we could live with, we hand it off to the people that we have in place for economic development and allow them to take over. We set the ground rules for how they are to operate and conduct business, and as long as they do not violate it, we allow business to be business.
Transparency of financial information — I have already spoken on that — and accountability are other factors that have worked well for us. We have set band general meetings. We bring in the financial auditor and allow the membership to question. We have to be accountable for all the organizations that we are involved with. We have a number of corporations that have been structured.
What advice would West Moberly First Nations give others pursuing economic development activities? I will generalize here: Say what you mean, mean what you say, do not play games. Do not come in and pretend you are my friend to get something from me. I will not do that to you, do not do it to me. Treat me with respect. Honour my community and come with a level of integrity, and you will receive that from my nation. I am as capable as anyone of throwing a chair across the room, but I do not want to throw a chair across the room. I would rather move my energies towards something positive and meaningful. Pounding the table is the standard way everybody believes First Nations operate. I do not think it is. I think there is a better way. If it takes pounding the table to get somebody to talk to me, I will do that. If I have to throw a chair, I am completely capable of doing that, but I do not want to do it. Basically, make sure your house is in order. You have to be able to know where you are at all times and where you stand. Your community has to know what is going on. There have to be open lines of communications and they have to be identified lines of communications.
The Chairman: You have provided detailed information with respect to the way you operate and the approach that you take. You have given us a lot of information about the way you conduct business.
Senator Christensen: I am interested in the very small number of people that you have in your band and the very low unemployment rate.
You were saying that the councillors are appointed from the four families. Are you elected from those four councillors, or are you elected separately?
Mr. Willson: I am elected through the membership, not through the four councillors.
Senator Christensen: So there is an election for the chief and then the four?
Mr. Willson: Yes, two separate processes.
Senator Christensen: How did the community get so involved? It sounds quite successful. As well, we have heard so much today and in other places about education being a key problem in getting the community and the young people involved.
How did you overcome this? Do you have good role models that your young people follow?
Mr. Willson: I do not know that I would say we have overcome those issues. When we prepared for this meeting, we were focusing around the questions that were presented to us at the time. We have our challenges; we have a high dropout rate. However, because of the industry structure, 17 year old kids can pick up a power saw and make $60,000, $70,000 a year working in the oil patch. We spend a lot of time focusing on that. We tell them that that will not last forever and that once they have finished running a power saw and their body is all beat up what will they do. We face those challenges all the time. It is an ongoing pursuit. We have gone through significant changes. We are where we are at because of things that have happened in the past and our community has decided that that is not what we are going to do anymore.
Our governance structure came about because of a lack of accountability. There was mismanagement of funds. We were a typical First Nations group, when you just took a quick glimpse at us. We were $300,000 in debt. We owed Health Canada a bunch of money. We were bordering on third-party management. Our leadership was not as honourable as they should have been. We had outside influences pressuring us. We had a lack of responsibility from Indian and Northern Affairs. There were accounting procedures that were supposed to be followed that were not adhered to that were about to go on. Our community finally agreed that we could no longer have our destiny placed in somebody else's hands, that we had to take control.
Senator Christensen: How long did it take you to turn that around?
Mr. Willson: We are still working on that. It is an ongoing process. I do not think we will ever finish it.
Senator Christensen: You said that you had other ways to raise capital and that you get $10,000 a year from the department. What other ways did you look at? What about bonding and things like that? Is that an issue that has come up?
Mr. Willson: We had very little when we started. We built ourselves on the work and goodwill of our community. We always conducted business in a certain way. People enjoy coming in and talking with us, so we levered that into other positions.
We would enter into agreements, people would promise us things and once we signed the agreement off, they would walk out the door and that is the last we would ever see of them. We would go and get them, bring them back and say “You guys said you would do this.” We would hold them accountable.
It is an ongoing process. We negotiate opportunities; we structure corporations in order to create revenue streams that come in. My analogy would be that we are trying to develop a table that has more than four legs on it. If you have a four-legged table and you kick one of the legs out, the table becomes very unstable. We are trying to create streams of revenue that come in to the band so we can send kids to school. Our education budget from Indian and Northern Affairs was $60,000 a number of years ago. That only allows us to send a couple of kids to post-secondary institutions with that. It does not go very far.
We have increased that amount to $250,000. We tell the kids that if they want to go to school they must develop a career plan. We tell them that we will not support going to school to become a professional student. If they deviate from their career plan, we say to them, “Look, guys, you said you were going to do such and such, and you are not doing it. What are you doing? You are not just going to spend money to spend money.” We tell them there are people who want to go to school who are more than willing to be accountable for what they are doing and that we will stop supporting them and support the more willing ones. We tell them they must be accountable to us just as we have to be accountable to them.
Senator Christensen: Where did you get your financing for the joint venture?
Mr. Willson: Through negotiations. We have a joint venture force licence. We create revenue streams through that. We have entered into agreements with companies, for example, such as EnCana and Burlington. When they come in, we try to negotiate impact benefit agreements. They are going to be operating on our territory, so there should be some benefit coming back to us.
We ask for monies for our culture programs, education programs, et cetera. We have an open-book policy, so any monies that are given to us for those things we are accountable for. We bring them in and show them what we are spending the money on. We have joint management committees, account committees, where everybody sits at the table and we submit a proposal for two students to go to forestry school. If they agree with it, they give us the money, we move forward. It is all through negotiations and leverage.
If they want access to the land, they have to come and talk to us.
Senator Christensen: It is what Senator Campbell was talking about.
Senator Zimmer: Chief Willson, I found your presentation very accurate, fair, honest and progressive. One thing that caught my attention was this: We always talk about renewable resources and non-renewable. Of course, the non- renewable are mining, oil and gas, and pulp and paper. One that has caught my attention was the wind project. How realistic is that? A lot of organizations want to get into that but they forget one thing. They do not have any wind where they are. Is that a revenue generator for you, whereby wind power can be very fruitful? Is it fairly realistic or is it just a pilot project?
Mr. Willson: I wish I could do a PowerPoint presentation, because I would show you some really interesting pictures. Our area, as I was trying to explain, is oil and gas rich, is coal rich, coal bed methane, forestry rich. When the province of B.C. shut down in forestry, northeastern B.C. just kept churning away. They just kept working.
Wind energy is something new. B.C. is the only province that does not have wind energy. Wind energy rates being recorded in northeastern B.C. are the highest in Canada, and we do not have one wind tower up there. It is the most consistent wind energy that there is.
Not only that, the whole area is one of the hot spots with geothermal energy. We also have the most amount of sunlight. I do not understand that, because it is not very warm up there sometimes, but on a day-to-day average it has the most sunlight anywhere. The opportunities up there are huge.
Wind power energy is expensive. We have to negotiate with B.C. Hydro on it. I do not know that it would be a big revenue stream for West Moberly, other than the contract work that comes out of it. We are looking at options of partnering with the wind energy projects. One of the projects being proposed in our back yard is worth $500 million. That is a lot of money and it is a big project. We love the thought of renewable energy. We are running out of gas. By 2080, the easily acceptable natural gas that we are enjoying today will not be there. They will have to find alternative means for it.
To me, renewable energy is where it has to be.
Senator Zimmer: I commend you for taking that direction because it is the future and those are the things that we have to look at, not only to generate revenue but to be environmentally friendly and do things that are of the future. I commend you for looking towards that project.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Chief Willson, I just have a question related to education. Once a person in your community graduates, does the individual work in the community or outside the community?
Mr. Willson: Through our agreements, one of the primary things we try to negotiate is opportunities for employment.
Right now, anyone who wants to work can work. A lot of times, they do not want to do what we have to offer for them, so there is only so much that we can do. People have to take control of their lives. We have opportunities. Our nation is the biggest provider of our community for employment in the community, but we have opportunities out there. We have negotiated opportunities for them. It is just a matter of somebody deciding what they want to do. We strongly advise people to put career paths together and focus on something.
We are looking at all kinds of issues.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Once they graduate, where do they want to work? What I am trying to get at is whether they want to work in the community or outside the community?
Mr. Willson: Our community is lucky, because we are right in the middle. We are not isolated like some communities. Nevertheless, the First Nations communities are very tight knit. They are family oriented. Family support is very critical to that.
Right across the hall here, there is a First Nations services centre here. One of my members is going to school down here right now, and he can go to that centre and get support with that.
Some of our people do not want to leave the community; they want to work right in the community. However, because of our geographical location, we do not have opportunities on reserve, so we have to send people away to go to work.
On the issue of trying to protect our way of life, we have to balance allowing development into certain areas, knowing that it will be detrimental to our ability to hunt.
We are not allowed to eat the fish out of the Williston Reservoir. We just did a plutonium contaminants project. Neighbouring us is an area where the moose are contaminated. We know the moose are eating contaminated plants. The fish in our lake are being extirpated. There is no more lake trout. The lake trout have to be restocked.
We are trying to protect that, but at the same time, our families need to eat. We need to understand that the economy of B.C. and Canada and other countries depends on the resources that come out of our backyard, and we have to find a balance there. If people want to go to work, we have to tell them that they have to leave the community, that because there is not work they cannot stay.
So, there is always a balance. Some want to stay; some want to go. It is like the bird in the nest: At some point in time, you have to kick the bird out of the nest and make it fly. You hope it will not fall flat on its face, but if it does, you pick it up and brush it off and help it to get going again.
The Chairman: I want to thank you, Chief Willson, for your time and for the information you have given us. We wish you well.
Mr. Willson: Thank you very much. Hopefully, it was useful.
The Chairman: Unfortunately, we only have half an hour per witness, but it does give us an eye and an understanding of people in different parts of the province. Even though the time is short, I have no doubt that it is still worthwhile hearing from all our witnesses that are scheduled today.
Next, we have with us Thomas Smith, who is a councillor and economic development officer with the Tlowitsis First Nation. Please proceed, Mr. Smith.
Thomas Smith, Councillor, Economic Development Officer, Tlowitsis First Nation: I am here representing the Tlowitsis First Nation. My tribe's traditional territory is basically the mouth of Knight Inlet and the eastern portion of northern Vancouver Island. It seems strange that I had to come up here to address this committee, but Vancouver was already booked up.
My people thought it would be a good idea for me to address the committee, because we have been having some problems in relationship to economic development. Hence, when the media release came out, it hit us at home.
My First Nation is a small tribe, consisting of 350 people. They are basically disenfranchised from their own community. There is no community site. They are all over the place, from Vancouver, Port Hardy, Campbell River. In other words, we do not have a set community, which makes it very difficult to do things.
Our original homes were shut down in the late 60s, but the site itself was still too small for any kind of growth. There was no school or anything there. Our people had to move to different areas to have their kids go to school.
Our First Nation has been involved in all kinds of economic initiatives. I have been on council for over 20 years, and we have spent a lot of time and money hiring professional people and trying to develop programs to develop economic benefits for our community members.
When it comes to financing proposals, there is usually a lack of capital of developed projects. There is a lack of money to finance any projects of any significant size that would develop jobs and revenue for our First Nation.
For us, working with Indian Affairs is a nightmare. They seem to have their own world inside their ivory tower in Vancouver. Acquiring any monies from the department has proven really difficult for us. We do not know whether it is because we are a small First Nation or that the process makes it difficult to access funds for development of programs or projects.
For us, it has always been a constant delay in decision making by government officials that have ended up adding cost. We can never get people to answer phone calls — and this has gotten worse in the last four or five years. All we get is voice mail. They do not answer letters. The regional director general has no time to meet with us to discuss important issues.
Somebody mentioned Aboriginal Business Canada. Some of the other funding organizations, which are supposedly based on First Nations economic development, are just as difficult to access funds for our programs or for developing economic projects.
We have been working on a destination resort within one of our reserves on Vancouver Island. We submitted a business plan to the department under their major business program. It was supposed to take six weeks to get to their review committee, but it took us six months to get to the review panel. As well, we had to spend an excess amount of money answering questions.
I have a package here with me. This little section is a business plan. The remainder is the stuff we have had to deal with the department about, or whomever it was, telling us that we did not know what we were doing or whatever the case may be.
In terms of what we do with INAC, I do not know. It has been a real problem for us to even move forward. We have had some terrific ideas, ones that would have created a lot of employment and high-paying jobs, blending in with the regular community in Campbell River. For some reason, we just cannot seem to make that last step to get things off the ground.
Right now, a financial group is prepared to invest $3 million into our resort package, but for some reason that does not seem to tip the scale with the department and their programs.
We are trying to move on, however. We have submitted this proposal and have gone through the review panel, which says that our package is deficient. We have expended most of our economic development money on this; as well, we have borrowed some money out of our own revenue accounts in Ottawa to keep this thing going. We are now in a bit of a predicament because we have spent more money than we actually have in our account. As a result, we have some outstanding bills with the legal people, among others.
We would like to see decisions get made more quickly by the department. There is no need to have to wait for six or seven weeks for a simple decision. I do not know why the process is so complicated. My First Nation is under a custom hereditary system, and when we make decisions, it does not require a lot of time. When we get an idea and we work it out, we make the decision and we move forward with it.
In terms of sending the band council resolution into the department and getting that done, and then all the other information that goes along with it — it is a waste of time and benefiting no one.
Our First Nation would like to see the Indian Act changed, where First Nations have more flexibility to do what they believe and want to do on the reserve rather than having to go through the long process of surrender, head leases. That takes two years. By the time you get to actually developing any kind of a business proposal, a package, you have to spend three or four years. The last chief raised this issue also. It takes two or three years before you can get to the point where you can negotiate or talk to any joint-venture partners to develop something. It would be a lot better if we did not have to go through the process of asking some bureaucrat in the department whether we can do this or that. There will always be something. They will raise some policy or other, and we have to go through it and they have to walk us down the line. We always get page after page of timelines. We have to get them to do this and that before we can move forward.
Once again, it takes time and money. As I said, we are a small First Nation, just like many others, and are limited in our monies to be able to do all these different things. It would be desirable to have a one-stop shop, where all the things you need in the department for any kind of economic development are right there, rather than, later in the process, after doing a lot of work, having somebody throw another piece of paper at us instructing us to do this or that, which ends us taking another six or seven months. The process is mind-boggling.
One of the things that frustrates me personally is with respect to the financial programs to assist First Nations, be they Industry Canada or Indian Affairs programs. They never seem to take into consideration the fact that most First Nations have limited capital or resources. The programs I refer to ask for commitments of cash dollars that we just do not have. Twenty-five per cent — they want cash. We have no equity because we do not own the reserves. If we want to make improvements to the reserve, we have to go through the surrender processes to have equity and stuff on our reserves. As a result, we are always limited.
The whole process needs to be changed, because it is hurting the communities and their ability to become self- sufficient and move forward with economic development programs that suit their needs and their area.
We believe we are a pretty progressive First Nation. In fact, around the boardroom we tease people by saying that we should call ourselves “Panasonic,” because we are away ahead of our time.
For example, we started projects 20 years ago, such as resort developments and wood manufacturing on Vancouver Island, among other things, that other people are just doing now.
We would appreciate whatever this committee could do to put more focus on the needs of the First Nations to be able to move forward without mountains of red tape. The process is a killer.
Right now, we have a development that we feel is going to provide enough jobs and generate a substantial amount of revenue. My First Nation's long-term goal is to purchase our own property, develop our own community. That is another area in which we have had a problem with Indian Affairs. Our people do not have a community to live on, but the Department of Indian Affairs no longer wants to assist in creating additions to reserves.
We are in a treaty process, so you sit and wait until that happens. However, some of our community members need a community now. It makes it very difficult to govern our people when they are all over the place. They really do not feel like they are part of the community group, even though it is a proud heritage that we carry.
Thanks you for the opportunity to present to the committee.
Senator Campbell: You said that you are in the treaty process; correct?
Mr. Smith: Yes.
Senator Campbell: What is your hope on that?
Mr. Smith: I am waiting for my retirement bags, actually.
Senator Campbell: I am trying to understand. You said that, for instance, somebody was willing to invest $3 million. How big was the project?
Mr. Smith: Our total package — a $6-million project.
Senator Campbell: I take it the private sector is prepared to $3 million in; is that correct?
Mr. Smith: Yes.
Senator Campbell: Who owns the land?
Mr. Smith: The land is reserve land.
Senator Campbell: As a nation, do you have the ability to go out and raise the other $3 million?
Mr. Smith: What we were looking at doing with the department was this: There is a program whereby the department would kick in 25 per cent and we would come up with the cash and equity on our side. The requirement is at least 10 per cent cash, and the other could be in equity. That is how we were working it. We were requesting $1.5 million from the department.
Senator Campbell: And that has not happened?
Mr. Smith:. No. We have tried to meet with the regional director general and the minister for a discussion. There have been so many delays, the result of which has added cost to the project, over and above what we have already spent, and nobody wants to discuss it.
Senator Campbell: You said you have been doing this for 20 years — resort building, wood products, and the like. I am trying to understand. Do you own the resorts?
Mr. Smith: We are talking about owning this one, yes, the one that we are talking about.
Senator Campbell: With respect to the other ones, were you basically setting them up and getting them running?
Mr. Smith: No, we have not really had anything. I may have misspoke, or not made myself clear. We have been working on different proposals but have never had a chance to make one work, due to the fact that we have trouble trying to raise the capital and program dollars.
Senator Campbell: It must be difficult to do this when you do not have one central location where your people are at?
Mr. Smith: It is. It is very challenging.
Senator St. Germain: Where was your original land base? Was it right by Campbell River?
Mr. Smith: No. Our original village was right at the mouth of Knight Inlet, about 60 to 80 miles north of Campbell River.
Senator St. Germain: I know it. That was the original land base. That is still your reserve lands, is it?
Mr. Smith: Yes. We have 11 reserves, totalling 467 acres, but they are little pockets. They are isolated and spread all over the place. The largest one we have is 260 acres, but 200 of those acres are on the side of a mountain, so it is not worth anything. You cannot even grow good trees on those 200 acres.
Senator St. Germain: Is it on the Knight Inlet side of the strait?
Mr. Smith: Yes, it is.
Senator St. Germain: Has there been any thought on the island of bringing all of the native bands together? The Northwest Tribal Treaty Nations made a presentation to this committee this morning. It seems to me, dealing with DIAND, they divide and conquer. Really, you are held hostage to them on everything that you do.
I do not think there is any simple solution. Government after government has tried to deal with this. We went through RCAP and we have been through a litany of studies and commissions that have made recommendations. The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.
Has there been any thought process?
One of the things that has come up, especially with small communities — and I was talking to one of our assistants the other day about where are we on this study. One of the things that came up was the fact that, when you have small populations, half of the population is youth and, of the other half, half of it is elders. It reduces the talent pool, because you still do not have the numbers. It does not matter who you are, whether you are Native, non-Native, or whatever.
It seems to me that if you were able to form a working alliance, whereby you had common causes to go to the government with, do you think that would improve the situation, or am I dreaming in Technicolor?
Mr. Smith: Your glasses are a little rosy. We have tried to do the things many times. Clash of characters is more of an issue than actually developing some kind of strategy like that.
I come from the Kwakiutl, and there are some pretty headstrong people there. Each time we try to work together, there is always something that seems to set us apart. Usually, it is money.
In terms of the some of the other groups and what they want to do in the future and how they want to develop, it is difficult, because they are all going in different directions and at different paces. Even trying to bring other people up or slow down to sort of keep it more on an even keel is difficult.
We once belonged to a treaty organization that was comprised of 11 members. Right now, only four are left. We are on our own. We used to belong to the Hamatla Treaty Society. However, because we wanted to move forward and other people did not like the way we wanted to do things, they asked us to leave.
Some people just do not want to move forward. I guess my little tribe just cannot wait. We would like to move forward; we would like to take advantage of the opportunities that are here now.
Senator St. Germain: Has any of the latest legislation that has gone through Ottawa — for example, the First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, among others — helped you at all, or has it only helped those groups that already have an economic base?
Mr. Smith: I do not know if it really helps us, because we are caught in a Catch-22 situation, in the sense of not having a community. You have to have community meetings to do certain things — for example, the surrendering of land to create a head lease so you can put improvements and developments and partnerships on the land. To day that, there needs to be a community meeting to approve that process. Otherwise, you really cannot do it.
With our package here, we tried to circumvent that process by subdividing the property and issuing the CPs, where we would hold the CPs in trust so that we could move on with the development and begin construction. Later on, we would look at going through the surrender process and put it in the proper perspective for that.
First Nations should have the flexibility to do things and not be hindered by the Crown telling us that the land is still held in trust. It can still be held in trust, but First Nations should be able to develop on the land. It does not make much sense.
Senator St. Germain: Do you have any land on the island itself?
Mr. Smith: We have reserve at the mouth of Adam River, and that is where we want to place our resort development.
Senator St. Germain: How big is that piece of land?
Mr. Smith: It is 48 acres.
Senator St. Germain: Are you asking for an enlargement of that? Are you seeking other lands?
Mr. Smith: Not at this particular time; but it is basically one of our land selections in the treaty process.
The Chairman: If there are no further questions, thank you, Mr. Smith, for your presentation and thank you for coming so far to appear before our committee.
Without question, the information you presented, particularly with respect to your experiences with Indian Affairs, will be noted.
Mr. Smith: Thank you very much.
The Chairman: Our next witness is Gordon Sebastian from the 4 Nations.
It would be interesting for you to start your presentation by telling us who the 4 Nations are.
Gordon Sebastian, Executive Director, 4 Nations: The 4 Nations are Kwadacha, Takla Lake Band, Tsay Keh Dene and the Gitxsan House of Nii Kyap.
Before I begin my presentation, I want to make sure that you understand the points I want to make. The first point is on page 3 of my written submission, the third paragraph down. Let me quote:
The conduct of the federal and provincial governments in this matter has clearly set up economic barriers that infringe the instructions of the Supreme Court.
I will be supporting that point throughout my presentation.
The second point I want to deal with is the terms of reference of the Senate committee and basically ensure that you understand the mistrust that the Aboriginal people have.
The third point I wish to make can be found at tab 4. At tab 4, you will see a January 6 draft consultation and accommodation agreement. It is between the 4 Nations and the Northgate Minerals Corporation and Subsidiaries. I think you know who those people are. I am certain Mayor Campbell probably knows who they are.
Just before I begin my presentation, I want to do an overview very quickly, so that you will understand what it is I will be explaining to you.
Tab 4 is an example of what the 4 Nations have been doing in an attempt to work with corporations. You will see the problems that we are having, the barriers that have been set up by the government as I get into that. I will refer you to page 12 of tab 4. I will refer to the headings.
Paragraph 8 — “Environmental Monitoring.” That paragraph reads, in part:
For any future field work or monitoring to be completed on archaeological or environmental studies that are required for the Project application, Northgate will invite each of the 4 Nations to appoint a member to participate in field work...
Hence, we will have participation in that sort of work.
Paragraph 9, on page 13 — “Advisory Committee.” We were hoping to set up an advisory committee, which would be relying on policies that the Gitxsan people have developed — the oil and gas policy, the forestry. Very specifically, we have a water policy. There is no other water policy in North America, and I think you can understand that.
On page 15, paragraph 10 — “Benefits Task Force.” We will be looking at employment and training opportunities dealing with employment and training of our young folks. In terms of “Business Opportunities,” further down on the page, we are looking at getting into supplying, for example, food with mining corporations. We have people with airplanes — so that type of business.
On page 16, there is a heading entitled “Education and Scholarship Opportunities.”
Finally, on page 17 — and this one really supports you in terms of your terms of reference, so I would like you to mark that one. Paragraph 11, on page 17 — “Joint Approach to Resource Revenue Sharing.” I would remind senators that on Kemess South, the federal government received $1.3 billion in taxes and the provincial government received $35 million in taxes.
In terms of decision making, I would ask you to turn to tab 1. On page 12, you will see the “decision-making process of the wilphl Gitxsan.” You will see who the wilphl Gitxsan are. The Sim'oogit is responsible for the well-being of the wilphl Gitxsan as a result of his traditional training and life experiences. The paragraph sets out how and why the high chief or the Sim'oogit makes decisions on the lands.
Next, I would like you to go to page 8. On page 8, there is an overview of the Gitxsan society. It sets out, for example, on the right side of the page the Ayookim Gitxsan, which are the laws, how we have conducted ourselves for 10,000 years. Near the bottom, the Yuuhlimox, which is the training of a chief, how to make decisions related to the laws. You will see the definition there.
On the top left-hand side there is the Gwalax yee'nst — and I know Senator Sibbeston is going to be able to say all of these words when I finish today — which refers to the inheritance. The inheritance of the people we are talking about includes the lands, the resources, the fish, the streams and that sort of process.
At tab 3, where you will see a joint resource management authority. This is a structure that we have presented to both governments; however, we have not had a response from them.
I will now begin my presentation. I wish to thank you on behalf of the 4 Nations, including Simogyat Mo'ot, representative of the Gitxsan House of Nii Kyap.
My presentation is specific to the 4 Nations ability to participate in the economic development in northern British Columbia. The 4 Nations are Tsay Keh Dene Band, Kwadacha Band, Takla Lake Band, and the Gitxsan House of Nii Kyap.
The goal of the Senate Committee is to gather information on the involvement of Aboriginal communities and businesses in economic development activities that are beyond the narrow prescriptions of the government's specific programs and policies. That is taken out of your terms of reference. Those words are very exciting and provide hope for the 4 Nations.
You have heard story after story today of the government programs and specific policies. Usually, the narrow prescription of government bureaucrats is to create solutions and force the Indians to fit into that mould. The problem with those bureaucrats is their lack of knowledge of the Aboriginal people that they are trying to fit into the moulds they create.
Why is acquiring an understanding of 4 Nations society so vital? In the Gitxsan December 11, 1997 decision, which both governments seem to have forgotten, the Supreme Court of Canada stated that before reconciling the pre- existence of Aboriginal society with the sovereignty of the Crown, an understanding of Gitxsan society as described by the Gitxsan must first take place. By understanding the 4 Nations societies' from this perspective, a reference point is created from which reconciliation can commence. By reaching this understanding, the pre-existence of 4 Nations societies to the sovereignty of the Crown will have a substance and concreteness from which reconciliation can be measured against.
At this time, I would ask you to turn to tab 1.
On the first page of tab 1, you will see a map on the right-hand side. On the left is a photo of one of our communities in the Gitxsan territory, and on the right is a photo of one of our streams. It looks to me like it is the Findlay River.
I would ask you to turn to page 4, where you will see a map of Canada. On the left side you will see British Columbia, the yellow portion being the map of the Gitxsan territory. This is what we have gone to court on and we have proved that we own that. We have gone to court since and we have proven that we own this territory. At least on the fact of it, we have a very good claim of title, a very good claim of rights.
On page 5, you will see that the yellow portion is all coloured in. You will that there are nine watersheds on the Gitxsan territory. Up on the right-hand side, on number 8, is the Sustut watershed. In that particular watershed, there are eight family territories. Those are not reserves. Those are territories that own the gold, the trees, all the mining resources. On the right side of that sharpest point you see there is the Kemess mines. With regard to the 4 Nations, we are all joined on that particular area. We are all connected. Right to the top of us, we have the Tsay Keh Dene and the Kwadacha, and to the right side of the orange portion is the Takla Lake Band.
If you were to find time to read the rest of the information under this tab, you will see that the structures of the Gitxsan on page 8, which I have referred you to the way, the way the Gitxsan are connected to the lands. The other 4 Nations are connected similarly.
Let me now refer you to page 12, the decision-making process of the chief. It reads:
The simigiget are responsible for the well being of the wilphl Gitxsan. As a result of traditional training, life experiences, and an acquisition of a high level of understanding and insight, the Chiefs, together with others of high status and maturity determine the pathway the wilp must navigate to insure its well-being and sustainability. The members of the wilp depend on them exclusively for correct decisions which are critical for the well-being and livelihood of the wilp.
This is something new for you. In order to understand how Gitxsan society operates, this is not a band council where you operate by BCR, where there has be approval by someone in Ottawa. This is something new for you, and I hope you spend some time taking a look at that tab.
Let me talk about the legal authority for you as a Senate Committee to act.
The 4 Nations strongly urges this committee to recognize court decisions that favour Aboriginal interests in the resource development in B.C. This Senate committee can play a large part in forcing governments to go beyond their specific programs and policies to accommodate 4 Nations interests in economic development activities.
As you know, the law in B.C. recognizes that 4 Nations have a strong prima facie claim of rights and a good prima facie claim of title in the lands and resources of B.C. The 4 Nations are organized and poised to implement paragraphs 166 to 169 as laid out by the Supreme Court of Canada in Delgamuukw.
As a result, the 4 Nations urges this committee to go beyond specific programs and policies — those are your terms of reference — by implementing the three aspects of aboriginal title as laid out by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Paragraph 166 reads as follows:
The manner in which the fiduciary duty operates with respect to the second stage of the justification test...Three aspects of aboriginal title are relevant. First, aboriginal title encompasses the right to exclusive use and occupation of the land; second, aboriginal title encompasses the right to choose —
“Right to choose” is what that reads, which is very interesting. If you have any authority or anything that can force the government to start accepting that point, we will be well on our way to taking part in economic development.
I shall continue to quote that paragraph.
— what uses lands can be put, subject to the ultimate limit that those uses cannot destroy the ability of the land to sustain future generations of aboriginal peoples; and third, the lands held pursuant to aboriginal title have an inescapable economic component.
This paragraph, 166, is what the Senate committee could use. You could have this paragraph printed on a T-shirt and you could wear it on Parliament Hill or Victoria. In that way, you would be going beyond your programs and policies to accept something new.
I will give you an example of how this barrier by both governments operates in British Columbia.
Both governments have left the 4 Nations out of the process regarding the Kemess North expansion project. Northgate Minerals Corporation is in the business of metal mining and mineral exploration in Canada and is the owner and operator of the Kemess copper and gold mine in north-central British Columbia and is the holder of mineral tenures in the area in and around the Kemess mine. Northgate is proposing to expand the Kemess operations by adding a new open-pit mine. The site of the new open-pit mine is north of the existing Kemess Mine, within the Northgate mineral tenures, and it is within the lands of the 4 Nations.
The 4 Nations rights and title recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada in Delgamuukw has clearly been infringed by economic development by the mining industry in B.C.
I now refer you to paragraph 167 of the Supreme Court decision in Delgamuukw. You will have to wear a large T- shirt to add this next paragraph on there.
Paragraph 167 reads as follows:
What is required is that the governments demonstrate —
Now, this is a very interesting instruction by the Supreme Court of Canada that has totally been ignored by your government.
— (at para. 62) “both that the process by which it allocated the resource and the actual allocation of the resource which results from that process reflect the prior interest” of the holders of aboriginal title in the land. By analogy with Gladstone, this might entail, for example, that governments accommodate the participation of aboriginal peoples in the development of the resources of British Columbia, that the conferral of fee simples for agriculture, and of leases and licences for forestry and mining reflect the prior occupation of aboriginal title lands, that economic barriers to Aboriginal uses of their lands (e.g. licensing fees) be somewhat reduced...
Even the court is asking you to reduce your barriers.
The conduct of the federal and provincial governments in this matter has clearly set up economic barriers that infringe the instructions of the Supreme Court of Canada. Both governments refused to negotiate a process that includes the participation of the 4 Nations.
I will refer you to tab 2. Now, Tab 2 is the consultation protocol that we sent to both governments, months ago, and they are afraid to get into discussions regarding this consultation protocol. In their own documents, they say they have to consult with First Nations. First Nations have to participate. Hence, we have sent them a process — this is tab 2 for you to read — and they have ignored it. I will explain why they have probably ignored it.
If you go to page 10 under tab 2, you will see there that if the province wants to issue permits for exploration, then the province will have to recognize the tenure of the First Nations into the land, the water, the lakes and rivers, lakefronts and riverfronts, including — and we named all the lakes — Duncan Lake, all the lakes in the area, Findlay River, all the creeks, all the lakefronts and riverfronts, the airport that Kemess uses, Thutade Lake and watershed streams, and exclusive tourism, guide outfitting, and hunting rights and title.
Under the paragraph headed “revenue sharing,” we require $60 million a year and $15 million upon signing this agreement.
There is a heading “mining restoration and reclamation” on page 12. We have numerous examples in our territories around here where once the resource is taken out of the land, the land is kaput; there is nothing left. The streams are shot, the fish habitat is gone.
There is then a paragraph entitled “other issues related to accommodation.”
Honourable senators, in addition, the 4 Nations have suggested the accommodation by both governments of a 4 Nations resource management authority. The purpose of the resource management authority is to “manage and regulate all land and resource activities on traditional lands in the best interests of the 4 Nations involved and the territory ... has responsibility for and regulatory authority over all minerals and mining exploration, production, completion and distribution activities on traditional lands, including environmental monitoring, restoration, compliance and enforcement, geophysical operations, construction, and so on.
This resource management authority is a unity of all the 4 Nations, that is, the Gitxsan, the Takla Band, the Kwadacha, and the Tsay Keh Dene, totalling about 15,000 people. The Gitxsan are bringing into this union about 12,000 people.
Now, the authority for this resource management is in paragraph 168 in Delgamuukw v. The Queen. Let me quote that paragraph:
Moreover, the other aspects of aboriginal title suggest that the fiduciary duty may be articulated in a manner different than the idea of priority....First, aboriginal title encompasses within it a right to choose to what ends a piece of land can be put.
We have heard that before.
...This aspect of aboriginal title suggests that the fiduciary relationship between the Crown and aboriginal peoples may be satisfied by the involvement of aboriginal peoples in decisions taken with respect to their lands.
In 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada made these suggestions.
The 4 Nations and Northgate Minerals Corporations are entering a relationship recognizing that before any economic activity occurs on 4 Nations traditional lands, these prima facie interests must be accommodated.
In terms of traditional uses of the land — and this is what Ken Stowe, the President of Northgate Minerals, negotiated with us. This is what we have come to in terms of traditional uses.
4 Nations “traditional uses” means the way in which 4 Nations use the lax yip and Keyoh for traditional purposes, including and not limited to physical structures such as campsites, picnic sites, smokehouse sites, permanent and temporary residences, medicinal areas, burial sites and other traditional purposes pursuant to 4 Nations culture, language and laws.
You can see how important tab 1 is now.
At tab 4, it is interesting to show that the following headings alone were agreed to by Northgate Minerals: “environmental monitoring,” “advisory committee,” “benefits task force,” “employment and training opportunities,” “business opportunities,” “education and scholarship opportunities,” “joint approach to resource revenue sharing.” They understand that billions of dollars of resources leave our territory, which your courts have found that we have a very strong claim to, a very good right in. The B.C. Supreme Court say that the Gitxsan have a prima facie right and title in these lands, but there is no policy. Two of the negotiating tables do not rely on these to set up any policies at all. We are told again this year, wait, we have a new relationship that we want to implement some time in 2006. I have waited a long time. As you can see, I only have about two black hairs left, so I hope something happens before they change.
Honourable senators, the challenge of this committee is to go beyond the narrow prescription of the governments' specific programs and policies in a real way. That includes the involvement of Aboriginal communities and businesses in economic development activities.
As 4 Nations we are trying. However, the economic barriers being tossed up by both governments in this situation are puzzling. This is confusing to a large corporation like Northgate Minerals. We are trying, we have setup a relationship, and then at the same time we have both governments refusing to allow the First Nations to participate in the environmental review. We sent a budget of $3 million to both governments for our participation in environmental review of Kemess South project. They told us that we can have $40,000. From the perspective of 4 Nations, this is just plain greed. It is the only reason why the governments have this barrier up.
I suggest, honourable senators, that you deal with the mistrust, you deal with the implementing of the law, you deal with the perception of greed that the Aboriginal people see coming from both governments, because Northgate Minerals has really shown that they want to deal with this situation. We do not have that coming from the government.
When you read the three paragraphs that I have set out in my speech, you will see that sustaining the lands is very important. The Supreme Court has recognized that sustaining the lands for the First Nations people is very important.
In this photo here, on the right side is the Kemess South. There is a tailings pond there. You will see the water that holds the tailings pond. You can see the trees sticking out. Those are 40-foot trees sticking out. I do not think any one here would like to take a drink of that water or take a bath in it. I do not think you would even want to go near it.
On the left is Duncan Lake, and that is the lake that the Kemess North wants to stuff full of tailings, and they say that it is environmentally safe. The Department of Fisheries has a no-net loss compensation where they would take the fish out of there and put it into another lake. We know that the genetic diversity of fish is such that they will not survive. When fish are born in a certain habitat, that habitat is the only one they can live in, and that is where they go back to. If you stick them in another lake, they will not survive.
Thank you.
Senator Campbell: Mr. Sebastian, I have asked this of other people who have come before us: Is this your land?
Mr. Sebastian: Right.
Senator Campbell: The Supreme Court recognizes that this is your land?
Mr. Sebastian: That is right.
Senator Campbell: I do not understand, then, why if it is your land it is not your rules.
What you are saying to me — and maybe I am missing something. If I am a miner and I find minerals on your land, I do not get your permission, I have to get the federal and provincial governments' and what you have to say about your land is secondary?
Mr. Sebastian: That is right. The way you can deal with it is having your laws accommodate our interests, and those are our interests, our ownership in the land.
Senator Campbell: You say it is going to take $3 million to do an environmental study?
Mr. Sebastian: That is correct.
Senator Campbell: They say they will give you $40,000?
Mr. Sebastian: That is correct.
Senator Campbell: How about you telling them, you do not get to come on my land?
Mr. Sebastian: That is what we are saying. They are not going up there.
Senator Campbell: What can they do if you say that? What can they do to you?
Mr. Sebastian: Of course, they will get an injunction.
Senator Campbell: How can they get an injunction when there is a Supreme Court decision saying that it is your land? The injunction is invalid.
Mr. Sebastian: That is correct; that is right. So what can we say? No one recognizes these laws. The Supreme Court of Canada made a decision. The Supreme Court of British Columbia made a decision. However, we do not have any recognition of that by our courts.
Senator Campbell: So, they get an injunction against you, you do not get an injunction against them?
Mr. Sebastian: That is correct.
Senator St. Germain: Have you reached an agreement on territory?
Mr. Sebastian: No. We tried back in 1996. This was during our court case. Just before the Supreme Court made a final decision, we were in negotiations and the province walked away from the Gitxsan table because they did not want to recognize tab 1, which is who and what the Gitxsan are all about. We wrote it in English as best we could so that you can understand who the Gitxsan are.
They would not recognize that, so they left our table. That is why we do not have an agreement, because they do not want to understand and accept that the Gitxsan and the 4 Nations have their own societies.
Senator St. Germain: Is New Hazelton in your area?
Mr. Sebastian: Yes.
Senator St. Germain: So you have Kitwanga?
Mr. Sebastian: Yes.
Senator St. Germain: I know where you are.
You have been at the table for quite awhile though, have you not?
Mr. Sebastian: That is correct. We have 32,000 square kilometres of territory.
Senator St. Germain: You are adjacent to Nisga'a?
Mr. Sebastian: That is correct.
Senator Campbell: Why would they care about how your society has functioned? Why is that even of interest to them, when you are dealing with a land treaty?
Mr. Sebastian: It is about how we make our decisions.
It just goes to an understanding of how we operate and how we have our land tenures, how the inheritance is moved when people pass on and how the tenures continue. They need to know that because that is what they are infringing, and they do not want to know that because then it brings in compensation.
If we were to send a bill to the government right now, just in terms of just this infringement here at Kemess North, that would bankrupt the province.
Senator Campbell: Not even talking about Kemess South?
Mr. Sebastian: That is right. We have not talked about Kemess South. Northgate is very clear, it is on the table, that we are going to get to Kemess South when we are finished with Kemess North, because there is a lot of damage there. There is a lot of reclamation.
Senator Zimmer: Mr. Sebastian, just to continue with Senator Campbell's line of questioning. Let me get this straight: They can get an injunction against you and be successful, but you cannot against them, is that correct?
Mr. Sebastian: That is correct.
Senator Zimmer: What is the reason for that?
Mr. Sebastian: I suppose the bigger community has to survive. The rich people need more money over the rights of us. We have looked after these lands for 10,000 years.
The Supreme Court of Canada could have given us absolute title. There is no reason for them not to do that. We are getting that now from the lower courts. The Supreme Court of B.C. recognizes on the face of it that we have rights. In your court system, that puts the burden on the province. They have to prove better title. If I tried that argument in court — if they an injunction we have to prove better title — that is not going to fly in your court.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Sebastian, for your presentation.
Our next witness is Mr. Jim Angus from the Gitxsan Nation.
Jim Angus, Hereditary Chief, Wii Aliist, Gitxsan Nation: Honourable senators, thank you for allowing me to make a presentation to you today.
[Mr. Angus spoke in his native language.]
First of all, I want to thank the Lheidli T'enneh First Nations for allowing us to be on their land, for allowing us to visit this beautiful area.
It is with the honour of the Gitxsan Nation that I speak to you, the members of the Standing committee, today about the issue that is very important to the Gitxsan Simgiigyet. We want to stress to you the importance of resource extraction on our territories, more specifically, oil and gas.
We have watched in disbelief as the provincial Crown has extracted every viable tree off our territories with no regard for the future or the sustainability of the land itself. We have Gwalyeinsxw and this is our most important asset, as it is everything that is on the territory above and below the ground. It is our local oral history, our crests, our names, our totems, our songs and our dances. All of these must be passed to the next generation and never diminished or be destroyed irreparably. Your Supreme Court recognized this in Delgamuukw in 1997, and it said further that we have the right to decide what uses the land may be put, that there is an escapable economic component and that we have the right to earn a modest living.
Today, I will focus on the right to choose to what uses the land may be put. Firstly, as Gitxsan, we are organized by Huwilp, meaning house groups. I believe one of the attachments to the document that Mr. Sebastian presented you today has a map on it. Every area on that map has a Huwilp name on it, a chief's name. In the courts of B.C., for three years our people spent the time to prove to the courts that we existed pre-contact, still exist today, and that Gwalax Yee'nst will exist for many more years to come. It is unchangeable. It is a structure that is very complex and it covers every area of our lives.
Pre-contact, we had a welfare system that worked very well. We had a system that counselled people in need, and that system worked very well. We had a support system that supported the different chiefs as they went about their business at hand. That worked very well. That system still exists today, and it will exist for many decades to come.
Each group has a Simoogit, a chief, and a wing chief that provides leadership based on the collective needs of the house group. We are collectively responsible for 33,000 square kilometres of lax yip.
Some of the words in the documents that you are seeing were “land” and “territory.” I prefer “lax yip,” because the definition of land and territory falls short of our definition of lax yip. Anywhere you see those words, adjust it.
We have organized into nine administrative watersheds. We have been advancing sustainable watershed planning for 15 years and more and recently have sought to implement policies about the lax yip that reconcile our societal interests, rights, and title with that of the Crown.
As Simoogit, we work together to ensure sustainability of our lax yip, for thousands of years. We work together as chiefs in different watersheds to ensure sustainability of no matter what it is that exists on our lax yip.
We have created policies, and the first policy, dated 2004, is the Oil and Gas Ayookw, or laws. At that point, we realized what was happening. Oil and gas development has started all over our territory, all over, and that is to us a very, very, very serious concern. The Oil and Gas Ayookw articulates our interests with respect to our Aboriginal rights and title to all Gitxsan lax yip as recognized by the various courts and maintained in our feast hall by the use of our Ayookw.
In the feasts, any business that happens in the feasts is witnessed by the chiefs of the other clans, so that the business at hand in that feast hall is witnessed by these people. It is set up in such a way that it is complex, and support systems are devised and set up in all areas for the individual chiefs.
We are an oral society. In our struggle within the courts, we had to get the courts to recognize and accept the fact that our history was oral. It goes back to this 15-year quote that was made on developing policy and on oil and gas. We have only started to write these things out in the last number of years. Traditionally, it was by way of our adaawx — oral history — to our people, the history of the Gitxsan.
The blanket that you see me wear has a history. It has a crest on it. That history can be told. The history of the Gitxsan people as we know it in the court is adaawx; it reflects how the particular house relates to all areas with regard to the feast, naming the people, the land, the material and the things on the land, the name, the history of the name. Gwalax yee'nst — there is a map with names on it. The names of the chiefs remain the same. They have been, still are, and always will remain the same, for a long, long, long time. My name, Jim Angus, is Wii Aliist. When Jim Angus is gone, some other person will become Wii Aliist. It will always be Wii Aliist on that territory.
This policy is an effort to reconcile interests with that of the Crown with respect to oil and gas activity, which is a non-renewable therefore non-sustainable resource. The decisions made about land development must be done with and in respect of the Gitxsan Huwilp. In order to achieve consensus, which is our basic tool decision, made collectively, there must be proper information and understanding on both sides.
Some of the shared principles of the policy are as follows: Gitxsan sovereignty, rights and title to surface and subsurface areas; the Gitxsan have a right to benefit economically from the development of the lax yip; individuals, governments and companies wishing to propose development activities on Gitxsan lax yip must incur costs of engaging the Gitxsan decision makers on specific projects and activities; all oil and gas activity must be approved by the Gitxsan Huwilp; all favourable decisions made by the Gitxsan Huwilp must have revenue sharing and other economic benefits as part of the discussions and negotiations; the cost of all activities being, during and after will be incurred by the project individual government or company, including reclamation of the site; and the process is designed to reconcile our interests with the government.
Mr. Sebastian spoke at length about reconciliation, and that is one area that is totally lacking with respect to how the government treats us — as per the court rulings that have come down. The governments, as far as I am concerned, are way behind with their policies and laws, and they have not reconciled their policies with regard to the court rulings that have been coming down for the last number of years.
We are interested in meeting with all government agencies to have detailed discussions about the policy. We see the need to understand each other more and ensure that decisions made about resource development on Gitxsan lands are accommodating Gitxsan interests.
The issues as far as we are concerned are as follows: no consultation and accommodation of Gitxsan interests — which is a serious situation that we get into with respect to development and the different companies; more resources to ensure that there is both enough and current information to make informed decisions with respect to land use, planning and management; inadequate policy to fulfil government's fiduciary duty with respect to dealing with the Gitxsan rights and title; and finally, the government is unwilling to discuss issues such as compensation, economic opportunities and Gitxsan decision making.
Our recommendations are as follows — and in our mind this is one of the more important areas in our presentation to honourable senators today: necessity of government implementing policy that acknowledges the current legal responsibility towards First Nations — which refers reconciliation; accept the Gitxsan decision-making process and use it as a starting point of resource activity on Gitxsan land, Gitxsan lax yip; accept and deal fairly with Gitxsan policies as presented with respect to various resources and their management on Gitxsan lax yip; provide funds to the Gitxsan and work in joint ventures to implement sustainable watersheds — the important word being “sustainable”; and finally, implement economic opportunity strategies that benefit and meet Gitxsan interests in resource management planning and revenue sharing. In that area, one of the most important things in my mind is resource management.
The Gitxsan people have to be responsible for management of our resources on our lax yip; it is a must.
As I have sat here throughout the day, I have heard in the various presentations talk about the unemployment situation that we face in our communities. In my community, there are points throughout the winter — January and February — where, because of seasonal work, unemployment is at 95 per cent to 98 per cent.
For those of us who are fortunate enough to have jobs, it is a very uncomfortable situation at Christmastime for those of us who are out buying gifts for our grandkids and our children knowing full well our neighbour, say, or the individual down the street is living on next to nothing. That has to change. We have to change the situation of our people. We cannot continue to live as we do.
In closing, we have made collective efforts for many decades, as most of you know. We have gone to the courts in B.C., we have gone to the Supreme Court of B.C., and we have gone to the Supreme Court of Canada.
It has been a long struggle for our people, us Gitxsans. It has not been easy. I have seen many of our people pass on to a better world and a lot of us try our best to step into the shoes of those that have guided us.
We are here to send the message that we are willing to work with whomever wants to operate on the Gitxsan lax yip and can do so by utilizing policies to the fullest extent in cooperation with a Gitxsan Huwilp.
[Mr. Angus spoke in his native language.]
One of the things I said in my language is that, as we walk our walk as Gitxsan people, we walk amongst very sharp rocks but that we must keep going, to ensure that we leave a better world for our grandchildren, great-grandchildren and the unborn. We have to change the way our First Nations people of this country live. We have to. It cannot be left as it is.
In closing, let me say that I am one of the fortunate people in my nation who did not end up in a residential school. I went so far as the train station to be shipped to Edmonton to go a residential school, but 15 minutes before the train arrived I and a few others decided that we were not going to go.
Thank God for that, because I was able to connect with my parents and, probably more important, to my grandmother and her sister, and the grandmother and her brother on the other side of my family, and learn the tradition of our people, learn about culture and understand the language that I speak.
It is with that, honourable senators, that I thank you, I thank you, I thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Chief Angus.
You referred to the 33,000 square kilometres that your nation is responsible for. You raise the issue of the importance of governance and control over lands in order to be successful as a nation in the area of business. This is the area we are looking at. We are looking at issues of Aboriginal people getting into business and being successful, and how they can be successful. This issue of governance, this issue of control over lands is fundamental to that. In that regard, you have provided us with information that will be very useful in our study and the work that we are doing.
I want to thank you for that. I also want to thank you as a hereditary chief of your nation for the presentation you made to us.
Senator St. Germain: Chief Angus, you said that we cannot continue to live as we have in regards to the children. Senator Sibbeston and I, who have been on this committee a lot longer than most, along with Senator Christensen, agree with this, which is why we are here. I do not think there is any simple solution.
Mr. Angus: No.
Senator St. Germain: This is not a question of entrapment or trying to corner anybody, but you spoke of a better world for our children, our grandchildren and the unborn of the Aboriginal community. This is really what this is all about. This is what we are trying to figure out — as you said, why, at Christmastime, there are those who have while others do not.
I lived that. My father was a Métis construction worker, part Indian, and in winter he never worked. If we made it through December, we were awfully lucky. Hence, I know what you are talking about.
You said you are fortunate not to have gone to a residential school, and obviously something happened in your life that made a difference, that you are gainfully employed.
Could you help us in writing this report, to give guidance to others?
There is leadership, there is education, there is governance, and governance means land entitlement and what have you. Is there anything that you could tell us that would help us an elder and as a hereditary chief?
Mr. Angus: Thank you for that question. I made that statement with respect to being fortunate because I was fortunate enough to learn the values, the very foundation of who we are as human beings, of honour, trust, respect and humour.
My grandmother always said, “I know you will not understand what I am saying, but sit down and listen. Some day in the future it will make sense.”
When I was 15 I used to think, “My goodness you must think I am dumb.” However, even at this age, I am only now starting to understand some of the things she said. That is the value of the connection between the youths and the grandparents of the children.
In today's society, we are all too busy as grandparents. The kids are all too busy doing different things. Our First Nations people are losing their language, and they are not connecting to the parents, and especially not connecting to the grandparents.
The other little comment my grandmother would make to me is this: When you do something, you fuss over it.”
[Mr. Angus spoke in his native language.]
That phrase means that you have to be very particular about it, put your best foot forward, no matter what you do.
It was those types of comments that stuck to this poor little brain of mine, and I am going to try my darnedest to convey that to the youth. I do not think that refers to First Nations people only. I think we, as a general society, need to be teaching our great-great- and so on children.
Senator St. Germain: I enjoyed your presentation. We have learned from it. We are still learning — some of us have children older than you are — or at least I am still learning.
Thank you.
The Chairman: I thank you very much, Chief Angus, for your presentation and for the honour of your being before us here today.
Quite a number of the college students have come in to listen to this committee, so I have no doubt they will have also benefited from your presentation.
Mr. Angus: Thank you.
The Chairman: I will just mention that there are some students in the audience who are in a First Nations Studies program, as well as some political science students. Mavis Erickson is the instructor; she is also a lawyer.
Honourable senators, our next witness is Mr. Harry Pierre from the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council.
Harry Pierre, Tribal Chief, Carrier Sekani Tribal Council: Good afternoon, honourable senators. I am going to say something in my own language.
[Mr. Pierre spoke in his native language.]
I hope you as a standing committee will listen to what I have to say.
We were governing people at one time. In each community there was a whip. I am not sure if there was ever a female whip; it may always have been a male.
If there were a murder in the community, maybe with another tribe, the whip from both communities would get together. They would say: “We must bring this in front of our people. We cannot have this amongst us. We are hunters; we have weapons. We do not want to see any accident happen.” A potlatch gathering, a dinner, would be organized. At the gathering, the whip from one community took the talking stick, and would say: “We are here for a very important thing — to settle a murder. It involves your family and it involves your family. I want you people to line up out here. Five or six speakers would line up on each side, the victim's and the accused's side. The whip would say, “We are not going out this door until the matter is settled.” That was the way things got settled.
The families would get together. A child would be taken from one side to the other side. The child would cry. The grandmother from that side brought the child back. “We don't want to see this child cry forever. So, you will be slaves for the next six winters, or maybe seven winters.” That is the way it happened.
The one family would take care of the victim's family. They took care of their everyday needs. If they needed some fuel for housing, or food dried or fish dried — we did not have electricity at that time — it was all taken care of. It was very time consuming preparing these things. You can still hear some elders talk about the grease of mountain bears — which was a delicacy for us.
Then, three or four years into the sentence, the victim's family put up a potlatch. We are going to give out tea and we are going to talk about something unique. The whip was given the talking stick, and talked about how things were going, finally talking to the family that called for the potlatch. He said would to that family, “I think we are here for a purpose. What is it?” They would say, “We are here to forgive that family that killed our son two, three, four years ago. We are prepared to forgive him. They served us well; I think we do not want to get too lazy. We want to do some of the things ourselves. That is how murder was taken care of.
Wedding ceremonies were very important. These things were all talked about.
A long time ago, people were taught how to be warriors. Some of those stories are still around; one of the grandmothers wrote a book about this.
All that was taken care of. In our territory, one chief took care of nothing but war.
We had a chief for the general well-being of people. If a family became orphaned, for example, if the woman died, the family was taught how to survive, how to sew clothes, how to care for the children, how to care for a house and how to prepare food for the winter. If the man died, two or three people were assigned to the family. They taught them how to use the land, how not to overhunt in one area.
They kept the waters clean all the time. They even tried to clean the waters by doing some sacred things — which I do not want to share with you people. Maybe you would like to call on us someday to do that.
All aspects of our land were taken care of. Even when the berries did not grow in our territory, we knew how to fix that. Our people knew how to do that. Everything was taken care of, including the well-being of the elders. The whip would say, “This man has no extended family. He will stay with such and such family this month, and next month he will stay with that family. The following winter, he is going to stay with this family.”
Hunters were praised for their abilities. Anybody that was good at anything was praised in our territory.
We never went into another's territory to hunt or trap or fish. We only entered another territory if we were invited. We were invited to fish at Babine when salmon did not come up the Fraser River. We were invited.
Everything is sacred to us, everything. Even the words I say are sacred, the days are sacred, everything is sacred.
We had our own religion. Our creator created all the water. Our creator did a lot of things. Our creator was born because his mother drank water with pine quill in it and she became pregnant. When the child was born, he grew very fast.
I myself was not lucky. I did go to residential school. I stayed there from 1951 to 1957, and I still remember my number, which was 12. What bothered me in the residential school the most was that we had to milk cows — there was a large dairy herd — twice a day, once early in the morning and then again around dinner time in the evening. We never got to drink any fresh milk; we only got skim milk.
We raised a lot of chicken and hens. As well, we had something like 1,200 herd of beef cattle. We butchered a lot of beef in the fall time, but we never got any beef. Maybe we go the brains or something like that, whatever they did not want, that is what we got, but the rest of the beef was put in cheesecloth and we put it on a train. They said it was to go to another mission; I do not know how true that was.
We used to make hay, more hay than the residential school needed. They used to sell that hay, too.
It was the same with hogs. We raised a lot of hogs. We would never get to eat pork. It is the same story with eggs. We took a lot of eggs — twice, three times a day we collected eggs, but we never got any eggs. The same with hens — we never got any chicken meat.
All they did was make slaves out of us. There is no real accountability when it comes to First Nations.
A lot of the speakers before me talked about revenue sharing. Revenue sharing would make a world of difference in the First Nations lives. In terms of our young people on your streets doing drugs and alcohol, we could take them back and bring them back to our community and hopefully heal them.
Discrimination in Canada is rampant, as you well know. If you do not believe me, then go up to Blueberry Hill, for example, and see how many First Nations are there. The same with federal prisons — which are half full of First Nations, maybe more than half. Most of them are First Nations.
We do not like the way the federal government is trying to assimilate us, trying to make us be White people that we are not.
Salmon is coming back into our territory some time in June. We hear thunder. For no reason, we hear thunder. We hear the elders say that it is the salmon, salmon turned towards the mountain. That is what they mean.
Three weeks later, when we hear thunder and lightning on our lakes, there is salmon in our waters. The amount of thunder refers to the amount of salmon coming back. We know that.
A lot of people think that First Nations do not learn how to take care of their children. They were just never given the chance. They are picked on by the judicial system, which takes kids away — another form of assimilation. I do not like to use these words, but that is what is happening. It is no use talking about it behind backs.
The self-governing system in our territory was very powerful until about 1950. In 1950, the Indian Affairs came into our lives. In Taché, the last person who built his own house was a Mr. Felix, who is dead. They built their own house out of logs; they had a team of horses. We went there in our idle time. We helped out. In fact, I am one of the ones that made the shingles. I was just young person at that time, very young, but I was told to go there to learn how to work.
We were out playing, and someone said to us, “You are not going to play all your life. Go and watch how to make shingles. Watch he does it.” So we went there, sat and watched, and it was not long before we figured we were better than Harvey. We told him we were better than him. He said, “That's good.” I want to see how long you can keep it up. I want you to keep it up right till the day you die,” he tells me.
I was looking at him. Harvey was an older man, and I understood what he meant.
A lot of people tried to punish their kids to teach them how to work to stay on the land, and they call that abuse. They would not let them raise their children. They are charged and go to jail for it.
A lot of our First Nation young girls were apprehended up in isolated communities, put into a place like Prince George, 14- and 15-year-old girls. They went out looking for their own First Nation friends. Sometimes, they did find them, and most times they found the wrong person. They end up abusing drugs and alcohol. After that, it seems as though they were no use to anyone.
That is what child apprehension is doing to us now. In fact, sometimes I get so mad I just tell the judicial system just to leave us alone and let us do our own thing. We used to have our own judicial system.
The people's court — even if you break a window, you had to go to the family and tell him that you did it, and that family made you pay for it, not in cash, but with labour, because they knew you did not have any money.
These are very important teachings that we had.
Nowadays, someone is charged, they go to jail, where they get three square meals a day, and then they are back home and have done their time. I do not think there was any real punishment there.
Our people were very proud of who they were.
I see boxing and I see hockey and I see all kinds of sports nowadays. In the past they had sports, too. Some nights they would be out snowshoeing on the land. They would race. They would have equal weighted packs, and they would race.
Sometimes, they competed either coming back from the trap line or going to the trap line.
That is all I have to say.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for your recitation. Are there any questions?
Senator St. Germain: Thank you very much, chief, for coming here and giving us your heartfelt delivery.
You said that, in the 1950s DIAND, the Department of Indian and Northern Development, came into your lives. Could you tell us what changed then?
Mr. Pierre: Yes, they came into the village of Taché, which is the village I came from. They told us that we could hunt moose any time we wanted to, which we were doing anyway. They said they were going to identify each and every one of us just in case we get lost in the lake or something, so they fingerprinted everyone. Nobody knew their rights. I do not want to mention the Indian agent's name — maybe he is related to you, I do not know.
Senator St. Germain: I do not think so, but you never know.
Mr. Pierre: Indian Affairs fingerprinted everyone, even a blind man.
The following year, they came up to our village. As you know, we use dogs. We train them; they are good for packing. They came up and shot all our dogs. They talked about a dog disease going around and that that was how the 1918 flu came about. They said it may be coming again and as such they were going to kill all the dogs to make sure we do not get it. We had to start all over again. In fact, somebody to had to go up to Takla Landing to get some dogs to replenish the dogs in our village. Things like that happened to us.
I went to residential school in 1951. That is what I meant when I said my whole changed.
Senator St. Germain: Colleagues, I guess the question that I asked is mainly for background, because if we do not know what happened to these people, we may be never ever be able to solve the problems that they face today in our society.
Thank you very much, chief. I really am honoured. Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for you presentation.
Mr. Pierre: I am sorry I could have made a better presentation; I was standing in for somebody.
The Chairman: We have heard from all our witnesses.
I wish to spend a moment, while the students are here and other people are here, giving a background about the Senate and our committee and how we work — just as an educational moment.
The Senate is a part of the Parliament of Canada. As you may know, Parliament consists of the House of Commons, whose members are elected. Every four years or so, there is an election. The successful candidates go to Ottawa, where they represent all the different areas of the country. There are 308 members of Parliament.
The Senate is the other part of Parliament. There are 105 senators. We are appointed by the Prime Minister. We represent our regions. We are responsible for reviewing all legislation. All proposed legislation that passes through the House of Commons eventually comes to the Senate.
We give all bills the same treatment. Each bill is given three readings. We eventually pass a bill, or amend it, if we think it is worthy of that. It is a process of the Parliament of Canada that bills originate in the House of Commons and, once passed, go to the Senate.
We are sometimes referred to as the chamber of sober second thought. As you see, we are all a little older and maybe a little wiser than the younger House of Commons members, and so we use our experience and wisdom to review all proposed legislation that has come from the House of Commons and eventually pass the bill or amend it.
This is how the laws of Canada come to be.
Apart from reviewing legislation, the Senate also has quite a number of committees, one of which is this committee, the Aboriginal Peoples Committee. Our committee deals with bills or legislation that deal with Aboriginal issues.
There have been quite a few bills that touch on Aboriginal people. When I first came to the Senate, in 1999, we deal with the Nisga'a land claim. In more recent years, there has been a self-government agreement for the Westbank First Nation, not too far from here, in the Kelowna area. Last spring, there was a bill dealing with the Labrador Inuit. There is also federal legislation from Indian Affairs that deals with different matters.
Our committee also undertakes studies. At the moment, we are dealing with the involvement of Aboriginal people in economic development. We travel around the country, and we see that Aboriginal people are getting into business. This is a phenomena, a very positive thing, and so we wanted to study this subject, to see how it is happening and why it is happening. While there are areas of our country where Aboriginal people are doing very well, there are other areas in which Aboriginal people are not doing very well. We wanted to look at the factors that lead to success as well as those factors that stand in the way of Aboriginal people getting into business.
It is for that reason that we are here. We started this study last November. We heard quite a few witnesses in Ottawa. We heard from academics. We heard from government people, including Indian Affairs, Natural Resources, and the Auditor General's Department. We have also heard from the AFN, as well as Metis and the Inuit organizations. Hence, we wanted to visit the various regions across the country, to hear from leaders and people who are involved in business, to hear firsthand about their experiences.
This is why we are here today. We decided to begin in B.C. Where we are today is far from Ottawa, so we decided to come to northern British Columbia here to hear from Aboriginal people in this area. Tomorrow, we are going to Vancouver to hear from Aboriginal leaders in that area. Following that, we are going to Kelowna and then we are going to Calgary. That will end this week of hearings.
Later on in the fall, we will be going to Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Then, early next year, we are going to be going into Ontario and Quebec and then eventually probably end up in the Maritimes, where Senator Lovelace Nicholas is from.
I will just introduce some of the senators that are here today. We have Ione Christensen, who is from the Yukon. We also have here with us Sandra Lovelace Nicholas, who was appointed just recently. She is from New Brunswick, the eastern part of our country. We also have Rob Zimmer, who was recently appointed, too. Senator Zimmer is from Manitoba, where all the buffaloes roam, I think. With us also is Larry Campbell, whom you may have heard of. He is from Vancouver. Also with us is Gerry St. Germain, who is from B.C., too, but originally from Manitoba. I am Nick Sibbeston, and I am from the Northwest Territories. I have been a senator now for about six years. I chair the committee.
I am so pleased that students and other people have come to see us and see the work we do. We honestly work hard and we try our very best. Through our Senate committee, we are hoping to shed light and be of service to our country.
e will report in about one year's time from now. Our work will probably be interrupted with an election some time this spring. Our committee cannot travel during an election. During an election, our work ceases, until a new government is formed.
We will continue working and traveling throughout the country, and so in about a year's time from now we will prepare a report; so keep an eye out for it. We will be making a report with recommendations to government about the services it provides to Aboriginal people can be improved.
Likewise, it is a two-way street. First Nations also have to do their part and become interested and do whatever they need to do in order to get into the business around.
We will have recommendations that will likely apply to government as well as Aboriginal peoples of our country.
With that, thank you very much again.
The committee adjourned.