Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 9 - Evidence - Meeting of May 27, 2009 - Morning
DAUPHIN, Manitoba, Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 9 a.m. to study the federal government's constitutional, treaty, political and legal responsibilities to First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples, and other matters generally relating to the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada (topic: issues pertaining to Indian Act Elections).
Senator Gerry St. Germain (Chair) in the chair.
The Chair: Good morning. I am Senator Gerry St. Germain from British Columbia. As chairman of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, it is my pleasure to welcome you to these hearings.
First I wish to acknowledge the Treaty One First Nation on whose ancestral and traditional lands we gather today, lands where my Metis ancestors also settled before Manitoba entered into Confederation.
Please allow me to introduce the members of the committee who are present. On my right is the vice-chair, Senator Sibbeston from Northwest Territories. Next to Senator Sibbeston is Senator Lovelace Nicholas from New Brunswick. On my left is Senator Lillian Dyck from the province of Saskatchewan. Next to Senator Dyck is Senator Elizabeth Hubley from Prince Edward Island.
Honourable senators, elders, guests, members of the audience, our mandate on this committee is to examine legislation and matters relating to Aboriginal peoples of Canada generally.
On April 1 of this year, the committee decided to launch a study to examine issues related to Indian Act elections. The committee is looking at outstanding concerns related to the two-year term of office for chiefs and council, as currently prescribed in the Indian Act.
The Senate committee is here in Dauphin, Manitoba, to seek the views of First Nation leaders and citizens regarding what changes, if any, should be made in these areas to strengthen nations in a political and accountable way.
We are on Treaty Two lands. Our role as a Senate committee is to consult and listen to what First Nation citizens have to say and to work together towards finding better ways to help First Nation communities determine better governance relationships for citizens and their government.
It is important to note that 252 First Nation band council governments conduct and hold elections in accordance with the Indian Act. This is roughly 40 per cent of all First Nations in Canada.
The committees' election study is primarily concerned with these First Nations whose election procedures are governed by the Indian Act. The other 350-plus First Nations select their governance leaders as a result of self- government agreements or follow a leadership selection mechanism such as hereditary or clan.
To discuss this topic with us this morning, our first witness before us, colleagues, is Chief Norman Bone, chair of the West Region Tribal Council. He is also Chief of Keeseekoowenin Ojibway First Nation. He will speak on behalf of the tribal council and as well on behalf of his nation.
It is nice to see you here, Chief Norman, and it is nice for me to be home. The floor is yours.
Chief Norman Bone, Chair, West Region Tribal Council, and Chief, Keeseekoowenin Ojibway First Nation: Thank you very much. It is an honour to be able to talk to Canada through this process, and we hope that our information will be heard fairly. Sometimes individual presentations from different areas get lost in the general picture of Canada. I hope that our information is recorded so that we can have input in giving us direction.
I am sorry for starting out that way, but I want to welcome you. Yes, it is Treaty Two area, which is the Interlake area. That is east of us, west of us to the Saskatchewan border, and down south to Southwestern Manitoba. Approximately 19 reserves participate within that area. Most of them are Ojibway.
We also participate through three tribal council areas, Interlake Reserves Tribal Council, West Region Tribal Council and also Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council. That is all also within that Treaty Two area. We are, as I said earlier, Ojibway people within this territory, but we also have the Dakota people on the southern side of Treaty Two areas.
I know we have some of our own internal disputes from time to time about whom the territory actually belonged to, but as far as we remember, there was an original agreement. Our oral history practice within our community is that this area was entered into treaty. We made treaty with the Ojibway back in 1871, just east of here at the Manitoba post. It was a second part to, I guess, the Treaty One discussions that happened at Fort Garry or further east. But I welcome you to this area and I am glad to participate.
Our information will be similar to the Treaty One presentation that you heard. I do not have an additional document to present to you. However, in reviewing their information and knowing the work that we do along with Treaty One, in general, our positions will be very similar.
We are definitely interested in looking at making changes to the Election Act, or the elections and time frames and all of that within the current Indian legislation, the Indian Act. I think Treaty One pointed to section 78. We are supportive of, or at least I am supportive of proceeding that way.
We do not want to see First Nations getting lost in various other pieces of suggested legislation. That happens from time to time. We see that as an emptying out of the house or an emptying out of the Indian Act legislation, which makes it ineffective over the number of years.
On the interim, I am quite sure the leadership must have said earlier in the last century that when you are talking about the Indian Act, at this point in time we would use that as an interim measure to make some changes for ourselves or to promote changes for ourselves within our communities.
We want to point out that prior to treaty making, we had the authorities to be our own government. We were responsible for all aspects of our lives. Shortly after treaty was made, we were proceeding that same way. However, I guess things have changed from the larger society or from the federal government or federal systems, which have had negative impacts on us.
Actually, I think many of you know the stories of the reserve lives that we have had in the past 100 years and what happened to governance. Our ability to be in control of our lives was watered down. This time, what we would like to promote, and we have another century coming up, is that we rebuild First Nation governments, but we do that ourselves, that we work at that ourselves rather than it being handed down or instructed by another authority. We recognize ourselves as a sovereign people related to or coming from the fact that we are indigenous as people to this land and that we entered into treaty. We will still maintain that in the next century, hopefully over the next century with the educating of our children, that we would move in that direction to ensure that we are in charge of our lives, not only locally in our reserves, but at all the different levels at which we participate.
We participate at the regional levels, like the tribal council levels, the provincial levels and the national levels, but we want to maintain the ability to speak for ourselves, even at the international level. We want to maintain our ability to speak for ourselves at all of those levels right to the international level.
I know it is a problem sometimes for Canada, but we have maintained and we will continue to maintain our sovereignty in reference to how we function within this country that is known as Canada.
We are disappointed that the rights of indigenous people were not supported at the United Nations level, were not supported by Canada, and we would like to see Canada supporting that in the next short while in whatever way we can. We certainly support that. We have always maintained that we have the ability to govern ourselves and the lands around us. We did it for thousands of years. Some drastic changes happened in the past 100 and some odd years — 135 years in this part of the woods. As First Nations, we need to get back to participating on an equal level with the federal and provincial systems.
We are not supportive of just being recognized as board members of various types of organizations within Canada, within the provinces, although that seems to have been the trend over the past 100 and some odd years. We are more than just a board of a tribal council area, more than a board of a certain program service area. Again, I guess I could be repetitive in voicing that we have the ability to be our own sovereign people and we maintain that.
I will go back to the Treaty One presentation, the Treaty One document that was presented. In closing, we would like to see an expansion or the ability to make some headway for ourselves in terms of elections through the Indian Act. I think that is where we would come from in our presentation to support that. Without repeating what I said earlier, I simply think the Indian Act would be an interim measure that we would look at for making some corrections.
We are not in opposition to accountability and transparency; we are supportive of all of those measures that in general Canada is concerned about. We have never opposed any of that. Sometimes it appears that First Nations are opposing it, but we are definitely not in opposition to that.
Our membership wants to know what is happening within our governments, and we will provide that information. We do whatever we can to try to provide that information for them.
In closing, I know that I am representative of the Keeseekoowenin area First Nation. I know a couple of other chiefs will make presentations specifically on their reserves, but in general, from the discussions I have had with those chiefs and also with chiefs of Treaty One, our approach that we want to move on is very similar. We need to maintain the authority at our level as chiefs and councils.
I am not sure how much time I had, but I think that is where I will stop for now.
The Chair: You will have time later if there is anything you want to add.
Are you involved in the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, AMC, process?
Mr. Bone: Yes.
Senator Sibbeston: I would be interested in your experience, in your views regarding elections under the Indian Act, this two-year provision after which there are elections. What is your experience in that regard?
Mr. Bone: My experience directly with the two-year time frame has been working seven days a week, 365 days a year during that time frame. We would like to see a longer time frame for terms. I know, and checking with my committee, they have not decided yet whether it will be three or four years.
Part of the discussion we would like to entertain for ourselves is contributing to this process or other processes to determine that. We did not want anybody else to come and give us directions, saying "Here is your new term." That is what happened in the past 100 years. We were given a two-year time frame.
The four-year time frame, if we looked at that, and favouring that at the outside, would I think give the council, the staff and the community more stability, more time to be able to plan in a walking process, not trying to plan while you are running. For two years, you are moving pretty quickly. If you want to maintain your political support, it throws things off. However, if you can sit down with your membership for four years at a time, the plans for community development would be much smoother and also less controversial.
I know that with the two-year time frame, especially if it is unchanged, our community has been fairly consistent in having leadership for long periods of time. Not very many quick changes have happened in our community, so they valued having the same leaders within the community. I think it means better planning or a feeling of stability within the community.
My personal experience is that I was involved there for 10 years in the 1980s, and then again just recently for another 10 years. So I have been the chief there and been involved in chief and council for 10 years already.
When I look at the trends from my community, when the community elects the same, there is not very much change in council and chief. To me, that is a concern by the membership wanting to make sure that they maintain a degree of stability or the same approach that is being used by that particular leadership. I do not know whether I answered your question.
Senator Sibbeston: Yes. I come from the Northwest Territories, so the situation there is I am sure fairly different. Every area has got its own unique way.
What would you say the state or situation of Aboriginal people is in this area, your reserve and the other areas around here, in terms of people making a living and so forth? If you could tell us that, it would be helpful.
Mr. Bone: Well, the state is fairly critical. I live an hour out of Brandon. We are not very far from urban centres. However, my community is still at the stage of having to haul water to our houses. Mind you, we are doing it a bit differently. We are hauling better water to our houses. We are using mechanical equipment to do that now. We are not going down to the river anymore, but we have that kind of a system that is available for us. We are still doing that.
We still have a high unemployment rate within our community. We are an hour away. We are trying to look at an exhaustive approach about community development on-reserve. We are also looking at developing or participating off-reserve. On-reserve we are looking at planning. Off-reserve, we want to participate. We have experimented in the last year. For example, we did an employment; we created I think 18 new jobs working outside the reserve within a radius of about 150 kilometres from our reserve.
That was the first year we have done that in an organized way, and we went through some learning curves as a result. What we are trying to promote within our community as it relates to employment is that there are only so many jobs you can create within a 5,000-acre reserve, 140 homes. It is about 600 people. You can do only so much development there. Therefore we are trying to participate outside of that.
We have an interpretive centre set up at Clear Lake, which is a tourist area, and we have created some employment there. Also, we are participating in the construction of buildings and repairs outside the reserve. We needed to do that in order to create more work for ourselves, because it just does not happen if you only put your blinders on and look at developing on-reserve.
The Chair: What is the population of Keeseekoowenin?
Mr. Bone: The number is about 600, I would say. I did not bring my fact sheet.
The Chair: What river are you on?
Mr. Bone: Little Saskatchewan, also known as Minnedosa River. It drains out of Riding Mountain National Park into the Assiniboine.
The Chair: It comes out of Riding Mountain?
Mr. Bone: Yes.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: In the event of a corrupt election, do you think the recall should be modified, or does the old system work?
Mr. Bone: It is hard to answer that from our experience because we never experienced a problem with a corrupt leader or corruption within our community. I do not remember any appeals or anything happening within our area, and being there involved in leadership for long periods of time. However, I do believe that some kind of system, if you need one, has got to be done right at our level. It cannot be left to somebody outside further away from us. I think that our community has to participate in designing or working in that appeal system.
Right now, I think what we have to do is write letters. I know a couple of questions were raised out of the last election, but it went up to the minister, which I understand was our connection to the minister. That is part of the process. I think that the information or the resolution to that would have to be done directly in connection with us right at the community level. I do not mean only, but also the Chief and Council, and also your membership and the grassroots people that participate in the election.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Do you have mail-in ballots?
Mr. Bone: Yes.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: How does that work for you?
Mr. Bone: Well, it won all my elections. Just kidding. It worked positively that way, I guess.
There have been some difficulties with mail-in ballots. Regarding responsibility, I know that all the people who participate in the elections have to make sure that they have their new addresses in the system, so it is a bit more chaotic, I think, when you have to do it every two years. I could see it evening out if it were done over a three-year or four-year period. I think it would be less of a problem, because then you could maintain. As a community, we are trying to maintain the connection with all of our people in terms of where they live. I think I answered your question.
Senator Hubley: You made an interesting comment when you said, with regard to changes to the Election Act, that we should not be emptying out the Indian Act. I am wondering whether you might share with us from your experience the importance of the Indian Act to your community; or, on the other side, are there things about the Indian Act that bother you?
Mr. Bone: We have used the Indian Act as a guide in a sense over the past number of years. We have not gone outside of that to create anything new for ourselves. We are simply trying to make the current Indian Act work in our part of the country.
The Indian Act directly connects us to a process of treaty. I know there are probably some changes to the strategies that were considered 100 years ago for the implementation of the Indian Act. The Indian Act is like the old story about the sword with two sharp edges. We can use the Indian Act to our advantage. I guess we can also cause some problems for ourselves by using the Indian Act. However, we have not had major difficulties with the Indian Act, although that is not because it is ideal. The act is not ideal. It is all we were given. It is all we had to deal with in terms of maintaining our existence as a sovereign people or as an indigenous people of this country.
The act is a link to ourselves and to our treaty, even though it is not a positive link, viewed by some, or a negative link. It does connect us to who we are as indigenous people.
Senator Hubley: Thank you. That clarifies it, because I did not hear anything in your presentation to say that you felt that the Indian Act should not be there or that your vision for your community was not in step with it, or that the act was not sort of interfering with how you wanted to carry on the day-to-day operations within your community.
Your elections now are held every two years?
Mr. Bone: That is right.
Senator Hubley: On a fixed date?
Mr. Bone: I think with the exception of that item, I guess you just reminded me of why we are here again.
If we wanted to change that, for example, to go to four years, I think it could be done. Reading the Treaty One material, I think they suggest making some changes. Section 78 I think was one way that we could possibly support moving along with that. It would not require a whole new legislative exercise or another piece of legislation to make some positive changes for ourselves.
Senator Hubley: What is the date of your term? When your term is up, what do you do? There was some suggestion that it might be easier to make a transition on the fiscal years. That is, as your year-end comes around, every two years you would have your election on or about that time. There would be an answering for the previous governance, and then looking forward to the next two years. I am wondering, do you choose a date to have the election, or is it just in two years, well, I think we will have an election in a while?
Mr. Bone: No, we have been using the system, and our election falls on March 31. April 9 is the official take-over date I think of council every two years in our community. I guess we have accommodated that for ourselves; we have adjusted to that, and it fits within the fiscal year.
Yes, it does have some problems, for example if a different council is approving the last budget for the coming year. However, we have found ways and I guess we have survived it. I think the spring is a time to start new initiatives, so it kind of falls in line with that.
At our AMC table, they supported the whole concept of having elections all on the same day, all the 64 reserves, and I am leaning more towards that. I would be promoting our date at that table.
Senator Hubley: Of course.
Mr. Bone: It is also in line with hearing the teachings of elders talking about when things start new, and that is in the springtime. If we would line up with that, our official date for the start of a new council every two years is April 9.
Senator Hubley: Does your fiscal year finish at the end of April?
Mr. Bone: March 31.
Senator Hubley: It ends, okay.
Mr. Bone: Yes, so it works; it fits right at that time.
Senator Dyck: You said that you have been on council or been a chief for the last 10 years?
Mr. Bone: Council initially, and then chief. The first term I was council and then after that I was chief.
Senator Dyck: You were chief for how long?
Mr. Bone: For eight of the ten years.
Senator Dyck: It sounds as though this system under the Indian Act is working well for you, that you really have not had any experience with problems, with appeals or anything along those lines.
Mr. Bone: No.
Senator Dyck: Does it work well for you?
Mr. Bone: It appears to work well for us.
Senator Dyck: How many of your membership would be on- and off-reserve, about?
Mr. Bone: We have 600 on, 400 off.
Senator Dyck: Is your voter participation high off the reserve?
Mr. Bone: Pardon me?
Senator Dyck: Have you got a high turnout from the off-reserve population?
Mr. Bone: Yes. I think 300 or 400 people participate in the election, if I remember the numbers from the last election.
Senator Dyck: I do not know whether you have talked to other chiefs who might have had difficulty with mail-in ballots. Do you think there is something about the way you do your mail-in ballots that is maybe better regulated or somehow makes it so that there is no question about the validity of the mail-in ballots?
We have heard in a number of presentations that the process for mail-in ballots was such that people were not sure that the mail-in ballots had actually come from the people they were supposed to have come from. The system was subject to abuse. Maybe your system is set up in a better way.
Mr. Bone: Well, we contracted with an electoral officer. I guess that is key. It seems like the electoral officers we have contracted with for a number of years must have been doing their work right. During our election time or shortly after, we did not have a pile of concerns raised either with us or at the community level in reference to that issue. We did not run into that in my community. There were I think some problems as a result of some people not getting their ballots in time, but from what I understand that is linked to people providing their new address information to the system. I am not sure how we do that, but I guess it is the responsibility of the electoral officer. The people we have associated with that are participating in elections. In my community, it is a matter of constantly telling people to contact the electoral officer. In my community, who the electoral officer would be is posted, and the telephone numbers are available.
Our responsibility as co-electors participating in election would be to advise those people off the reserve to call the electoral officer and provide their information.
Senator Dyck: I think you mentioned something about there being some minor appeals at one time that went to the level of minister. Did that take a long time to resolve, and did it interfere with the work of the council members or yourself as chief?
Mr. Bone: No, the last one did not. There was one. In the previous election, there was none, but in the last election, there was a concern related to, I think, an administrative matter at the band. However, that process did not interfere with the election itself. I think the electoral officer took the advantage of gathering all the information from the Manitoba region, the Ottawa office, and us in order to resolve it.
Senator Dyck: Thank you.
Mr. Bone: It did not change the election or anything.
The Chair: Who trains your electoral officers, chief?
Mr. Bone: Well, the last one we hired was an RCMP, so maybe the RCMP trained him. I do not know. I am just kidding.
I am not sure who in this region does the training of electoral officers. I think Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, INAC, does that. Certainly we were not involved in training electoral officers. We have not used one. In the previous years, another guy with one of our communities was our electoral officer, but we did not provide any training for that.
The Chair: A big question for me is whether you are getting more off-reserve people now. Many of them are going to the urban centres to seek work. There are the Corbière and Gull Bay or Esquega decisions. Have you any suggestions? I know a First Nations band in Northern Alberta that is drafting a constitution right now, and they are going to allow one councillor to be off-reserve, and they are going to let everybody vote, but so that they control their own destiny on the reserve.
Do you agree with that principle? Do you think it should be wide open, that anybody should be able to run? In these hearings, we have heard that people living off-reserve are making decisions by way of voting that are negatively impacting those who are penned in, the people living on-reserve. I would like your view on that.
Mr. Bone: I support the participation of all of our people from my community participating in the elections. I support the concept of their participating at the council level, even at the chief level. Over the years, we have allowed that to happen. Of course, now it is part of the practice that we live with. We were never really opposed to it, because we always take the position that we are responsible for our people off- and on-reserve, wherever they may travel.
With them participating, I know the off-reserve agenda, for example, would be taken on in my community by me and the councilors. When we develop or look at shaping our portfolio systems, we have to start looking at that. We have been doing that, but as a whole of trying to include our people through that process. They call all of our councillors anyway. They call me. My community is small enough that we still can do that; we can still be in touch with each other throughout the country. A thousand people are connected via membership through Keeseekoowenin.
I think we would be best, if we develop that, like the discussion of the constitution or the discussion of a process for ourselves. I think it would include us, because we are not excluding; we have never excluded off-reserve people from participating.
We have a problem providing them with resources, however, because they do not understand that we are funded only for on-reserve membership in our community. So we always have to go through that kind of an education exercise with many of our people who are just reconnecting with us at the community level.
I think if there is a better communication system available that says that in Canada, I think it would really work well in our favour, or else if we make agreements with First Nations where we are going to serve our people, let us say for all those people who live in Winnipeg, if we do it through some kind of coordinated approach, that is definitely an option to take a look at. For example in Brandon or Dauphin or any of the urban centres where we would do that jointly as band councils, chief and councils, I think it would best serve those people. They would feel that they are part of us. Right now I know that some people feel disconnected with us at the reserve level. There is a feeling that they are not being serviced by us.
In a sense we cannot service them, because we do not have the money. However, one suggestion I would like, one of the routes I would like to go down is if we could work with other leadership and other levels of government to set up a service centre for ourselves in an urban centre.
The Chair: Some First Nations have a larger off-reserve population than their on-reserve population. I think that is the exception rather than the rule.
Mr. Bone: I believe that. I only know what I know in terms of my community, and it is the other way around.
The Chair: Yes. In theory, your entire council, your entire electoral body could be off-reserve in those cases.
Mr. Bone: That is a possibility just down the road; with some communities that could happen, yes.
The Chair: Do you think we should recommend that this be taken into consideration in the process of developing your constitution? I believe it should be outside of the Indian Act. I believe there should not be legislation. We would like to make recommendations based on the information that we accumulate right across the country, so that when you are deciding what structures you should have, you would be able to use this information.
Eventually what is here today is not necessarily what will be here tomorrow. For example, you have 600 people. Theoretically, if a major construction boom or something happened in the Brandon area, most of your people could leave the reserve and go to work off-reserve. I do not know whether it is a concern of yours, but it is a concern.
The band I referred to in Northern Alberta has only 38 members on-reserve and about 120 off-reserve. They are drafting their constitution in such a way that those who live on-reserve hold the majority of councillor positions, although off-reserve people will have the right to vote.
Mr. Bone: Yes, I definitely agree that your recommendation has to be profiled such that it has to have a direct link to our land. I am not sure how you would do that. If we participate in creating our own rules, which is what we are favouring at this point in time, I think we would try to look after that interest that way, in terms of ensuring that we are directly connected to the land.
You mentioned all the members of council who are not on the reserve; I think you will really have a disconnect, and you will have to prioritize. Some priorities will be raised differently, other than if you are living right on the land within the community.
A recommendation has to come forth from this exercise that says that there has to be some kind of direct connection to our land. I know we are seeing the value of it now. We believe that our existence is directly connected to the land. Will the new people living off-reserve maintain that same thinking?
The Chair: The other thing that concerns me is the question of how you win the confidence of the people. I know there is a lot of apprehension and fear that chiefs are just trying to lengthen their terms so that they can control the show longer. We have had presentations. I have been in this file for 16 years, and I know that in 99 per cent of the cases, the intentions of the chiefs, they are frustrated because they cannot get any economic development or anything going. By the time they get anything going, they are back into another election campaign, trying to maintain continuity.
I do not know whether anything could be crafted, because one size does not fit all. First Nations are very different right across this country. The people on the East Coast are completely different than the Haida in Northwestern B.C., for example. We have got to think about that. I was wondering whether you had any thoughts about it. The last thing this committee wants to be seen doing is imposing anything on anybody. Yet, we have to come up with ideas, hopefully, that will help all First Nations be able to develop electoral structures that create more continuity and more stability. I would ask for your comments on that, chief.
Mr. Bone: That is what is spoken about. We are making those changes more because of corruption. I do not think it is all about that or only about that. It is about sound community development planning. From a business perspective, we are looking at planning within our community on- and off-reserve in two years, and I would challenge anybody in Canada to try to do that for their community in two years. That is what it is for me, and that is what it is for some of the chiefs I talk to.
You have to have that four-year term, or three- to four-year term, where you could look at creating some sound plans for your community. That would create more stability within your own community, I think. If you are trying to do that within the two-year time frame — I joked earlier about being involved seven days a week, 365 days a year, but that is how I survive politically. I have to work seven days a week to ensure I am in touch with my community for planning processes or participating that way. I think we need to build a system that would create that stability. I think if it is a longer time frame for terms, then that is what it should be.
We do hear in the news from time to time about corruption. Yes, there is some of that around, but not everybody should be painted that same picture. That is not where I am coming from: promoting a longer time frame for terms is related to sound planning, sound business planning. You need to do that.
If you try to hire a consultant, for example, to help you work with your system, that will take you a couple months itself. When you try to measure those time frames within the two-year time frame, you definitely do not have enough time to do it.
The Chair: Would you see an ombudsman or somebody that the rank and file could go to? It could be by region.
Mr. Bone: Yes, I think we could do something like that, by let us say your tribal area or something along those lines. I think that if there are appeal mechanisms or something like that, if you are looking for those kinds of things, or looking to make recommendations, what I would do is keep them as close to the First Nation as you can. Then I think the answer would formulate in terms of that, because they know first-hand what is happening within our communities. The people from my community know exactly what is going on there. They also know what is going on within the neighboring reserves. Our families are hooked up through that whole connection. West Region Tribal Council, for example, is a combination of families that are broken out to nine different reserves, so we have a network that is in place already.
I think if we are looking at some kind of recommendation, it has to be kept very close to the First Nations people, to be able to make the changes, suggest changes in reference to the problems around leadership.
Senator Hubley: I think it has been answered very well in most cases. I did have a question on consultation and how you keep in touch with the members of your community, especially those living off-reserve. Is it done just at election time, or do you have ways to consult with them on an ongoing basis?
Mr. Bone: Are you going to ask how my platform survives? The answer is that my community is small enough that you can do it within the home visit program, telephone program, in terms of those kinds of connections. That is how I maintained my support. That is how the councillors from my community maintained their support. The more time we sit with our people in their comfortable setting, let us say their own living rooms and kitchens, the more we will succeed in doing it. Mind you, it is a longer process, but that is only part of it.
The second piece would be putting in systems in the administration, the way that you do business for band meetings or issue meetings. That is another process.
Having people involved, even clearly my size, the promotion of using our membership on committees to assist advisory managers or advisory capacities to all of our programs is another way. If we instill that within the community, my approach is simply that you are sharing the responsibility of delivering service or monitoring services with the memberships with that exercise.
Senator Hubley: Do you have annual meetings as a council that are open to the public, where there is perhaps a discussion or an opportunity for people to bring forward suggestions?
Mr. Bone: That is the standard practice, yes. We have not practised them as much as we should have, but that is the answer. The answer is annual meetings, meetings via workshops on issues. I think that is the process, yes.
Senator Hubley: That issue was raised quite often, and the need for people. How do you do that consultation program? How do you let your membership know what is happening and get their input on that? With most people, it seemed to be an important feature that had to be in place.
Senator Dyck: I will continue in the same vein of talking about the on-reserve and off-reserve members. You were saying that in order to get funding from INAC, your members have to reside on-reserve. Is there a section of the Indian Act that says that is so? Does it actually say how long a person has to be there? I was thinking there are probably situations where a family or a person goes back and forth. Does it happen that people living on-reserve go off and then come back?
Mr. Bone: I guess the formality is what they have to work at within my community. For example, students go off to university or college. There is a constant flow back and forth by young people. Once they turn 18, they are off to university and college. However, there is a connection with that group fairly regularly. One way is administratively through our programs. For example, we have about 35 college and university students from my community, and that connection would be maintained fairly regularly with a post-secondary counsellor. There is a connection there, too.
Senator Dyck: Would they be considered to be on-reserve when they are off-reserve?
Mr. Bone: Well, we view them as on-reserve, yes. Their numbers are rolled up, because their original residence is on the reserve.
Senator Dyck: Is the decision yours, then, rather than some legislative section within the Indian Act?
Mr. Bone: Yes, that is correct.
Senator Dyck: That would be for people who are pursuing post-secondary education?
Mr. Bone: Yes.
Senator Dyck: What about someone who left to move to Dauphin to get a job in construction, as an example?
Mr. Bone: We have that scenario now, actually. Their families would still maintain a home on the reserve, because some of the family is left at home if they are operating outside, so there is a connection that way. However, some people moved off and have not been in the community for 20 years or so. They have given up their residence to somebody already within the community maybe 20 years ago. The link that we have with those people is more of an effort on our part to be in connection with them, by knowing what their address is or by knowing where they live, and also by meeting them either informally or formally. That is based on our own initiative. It is not part of legislation anymore that connects us to that.
Senator Dyck: In terms of counting on-reserve people, it sounds like it is more related to housing or accommodation rather than the actual person, for example how long they have actually lived in a home that has been part of their residence at some time in their life.
Mr. Bone: Yes, it is a link to housing.
Senator Dyck: That is not defined by the Indian Act; it is defined by each band chief and council internally. Is that right?
Mr. Bone: That is right, yes, as far as you can tell from our point.
Senator Dyck: If you are getting funding from INAC, would you not want to count more of the off-reserve people as on-reserve, because that would mean that you could get more funding from INAC?
Mr. Bone: That is our challenge.
Senator Dyck: If it is under your control to say they are.
Mr. Bone: Yes. I guess we view it as under our control. We have lobbied to try to get more money for housing, for example. We have not had any successes with that. I think you have heard the stories, and you may know those stories. If you cannot get any more homes on-reserve, how can you attract your people living off-reserve who want to come home?
Senator Dyck: It sounds like INAC is saying that because those people are not there, INAC will not give you the funding. Therefore, in a sense, INAC is still the body that is in control.
Mr. Bone: That is correct, yes.
Senator Dyck: Well, I am an off-reserve member. I have never lived on the reserve. My mother was a band member who lost her status. I have lived in small towns, in communities and cities my whole life. Membership is an interesting question, because do I decide, because my family on my mother's side is there, so that makes me a member. You are saying that membership is related more to the home as opposed to the community connection; or it is actual residency there?
Mr. Bone: I am not sure I understand, but I know we have not divided that, thinking in terms of only the home.
Senator Dyck: My suspicion would be that this issue of definition of on and off-reserve will probably get more complicated as time goes on, because you are having more people leave, maybe some coming back during recession, and more people marrying out.
Mr. Bone: I think you are right. You also have to look at the distance you are from the urban centre. The closer the reserve is to an urban centre, I think at least in our area, the more people want to have a home on the reserve if they are working in Brandon, for example.
Senator Dyck: I know I belabored this point, but I think it is very important with respect to election regulations, as time goes on, with respect to issues about the Gull Bay decision.
The Chair: In your view, does the current election system under the Indian Act provide for the accountability of chief and council to their community members? We have been hearing that the relationship of accountability is between the chiefs and INAC, as opposed to between the members. Have you got a view on that? I am not trying to put you in a corner. It is just something that has come up. In our recommendations, that would be a good enough reason to take this right out of the Indian Act and let you control your own destiny, as far as I am concerned. I will let you answer, chief.
Mr. Bone: Yes, you are right. We spend a lot of time reporting to Indian Affairs or First Nations and Inuit Health Branch. Doing that kind of accountability that way has become a job unto itself. It gives the optics that we have to be more occupied with ensuring our accountability with Indian Affairs or the federal departments and gets us away from being accountable to our membership and participating that way as a priority, rather than what has been happening to us.
I recognize that over the past 100 years, in our community anyway, the shape that we have become is managers of Indian Affairs, or their assistants in that sense. The natural way of things happening is that, yes, we are definitely going to be preoccupied with being accountable to Indian Affairs, or whatever department we are dealing with. However, the trend for us is to move towards being accountable to our own membership regarding the money that we receive on their behalf.
There is no objection around setting up those kinds of processes or practices. We are doing that, shaping that continuously with the help of our audit firms or different community planning consultants we hire.
The Chair: Thank you very much, chief. This was enlightening. Sometimes you have to go out of the big city to hear the real story. We appreciate your taking the time. Your presentation was excellent, and we thank you for responding. Have you anything else you want to say before you go?
Mr. Bone: Just one more thing. If you could organize these kinds of sessions directly within the First Nations, or our reserves, I think it would be greatly appreciated. Then you could hear directly from our people within the First Nations and take a sample. There are 64 reserves in Manitoba. I am not sure how many you will go to as part of your process, but definitely you would hear similar comments or concerns from our membership directly. Thank you.
The Chair: That is good advice. Thank you very much.
Colleagues, our next witness is from the First Nation of Waywayseecappo, which is very close to where our other presenter was from. It is an hour and a half south of here. I have been on Waywayseecappo First Nation lands. It is a beautiful, beautiful area with rolling hills and rivers. We have with us Chief Murray Clearsky.
Welcome, Chief Murray. Please proceed.
Murray Clearsky, Chief, Waywayseecappo First Nation: Thank you very much for inviting me to sit down with the Senate and voice my concerns about this election, election code and the Indian Act election. I appreciate this.
At one time, I was in Ottawa and I met some people from the standing committee, and they wanted me to get a bunch of information together and come to Ottawa and present myself with the concerns I had regarding our First Nation communities, as well as an election process.
This was going back three years. I have not followed up. Like Senator St. Germain says, it is a full-time job trying to stay ahead of INAC and all the problems that we have in our communities.
With that, once again I thank you for inviting me. I hope we have a good discussion and I hope it goes somewhere.
The Chair: Was that it?
Mr. Clearsky: That is good enough.
The Chair: You are like Winston Churchill. Your speeches are powerful and short.
Mr. Clearsky: Unless you want me to tell you a bit of my history.
The Chair: Let us open it up to questions. There is a litany of them, so I will start with Senator Dyck.
Senator Dyck: Is your First Nation under the Indian Act provisions right now or have you gone towards the custom method of election?
Mr. Clearsky: The Indian Act.
Senator Dyck: It is a two-year term.
Mr. Clearsky: Right.
Senator Dyck: Do you find that that works well for you? Have you had a litany of problems with appeals?
Mr. Clearsky: Oh, yes. The Indian Act is not to our favour. Maybe in my presentation I should have given you a bit of history about myself. I was elected to council back in 1984. I was in council for four years. And then after a four- year term, what I did there, I was elected chief. That was back in 1989. I had been chief since then right up till six years ago. Then I had a couple months off and got elected for a Dakota band, which was Birdtail Sioux. I became chief there. Then I went on, finished what I was doing there.
They had elections in Wayway, and I was re-elected back in Wayway. For a period of six months, I guess, I ran the two communities. I was a chief of both reserves, and went on from there, and I have been chief since. This is for Waywayseecappo alone, without counting the two years I spent in Birdtail. I have been a leader of one community for 23 years.
Regarding the process of this Indian Act election, I, too, would like to see something different. One reason is that it splits up our communities big time. Even our elders are worried now, and I hear that from our elders. I speak my language. I talk to my elders that way, and they talk about different things. I sat with some elders here about two weeks ago, five elders, one from each nationality or different native tongue. They all spoke. It was the Dakota, Cree, Ojibway, Dene and Lakota. Anyway, I sat with them. I think there were 10 of us chiefs who wanted this to happen, and we sat.
They made us aware of what is happening and what is going to become and how things have really started. There is a lot of truth to that. In fact, it kind of freaked me out after I left there. There was some good stuff that they told us to be aware of. One elder spoke about the election process.
Senator Dyck: Really?
Mr. Clearsky: This took place in Fort Qu'Appelle, in our Treaty Four territory. I am a Treaty Four community member. We have a governance house in Fort Qu'Appelle. We have a big teepee there. That is where we had our little summits with Treaty Four. We usually have five elders with pipes.
I got brave enough and asked why the five pipes. I hold a pipe myself. They told me I could have brought it but not be part of the head table or whatever. It is not really a head table in this case; we all sit on a floor. He said that for all ceremonies we have happening, whoever puts the ceremony on is one pipe. He usually has four helpers, and they are all pipe holders. That is why we arrive at that five. It is either five or fewer.
There were a lot of things. The other thing the elder told me is that this election process started from Bill C-31, but he said it goes further back. He said our elections used to be only two weeks. Those were good times, good days. Nobody really had a chance to get wound up and get after anybody else. This is kind of how he explained it. All of a sudden it is 79 days, he said, and that is no good. By the time you get to go up for election, everybody is fighting, which is true. I have experienced a lot of that.
I do not have a very big family. I do not get in by family size. I get in I guess by the good deeds that I do for my community and whatever else that I do. People that are on social assistance in my community, a majority of them are because of lack of employment. I send a bunch of boys usually to go hunting and spread the meat and whatever they bring home amongst the elders first and then people who are on social assistance. I do a lot of stuff like that in my community. I help out for whatever. If somebody passes away, I am there for them, for the family. I have been like that all my life and always helped. I do not like to see any First Nation member suffer, or try not to. If I can accommodate them somehow, I will do the best I can.
I guess those are some of the reasons why I have been there a long time. Whether community members are from my community or from another, I treat them all the same until they get into trouble. Then I have to exercise my rights as a leader.
Getting back to that elder, he said, "The way I see things, we are going to be municipalized. It is coming; it is being forced on us." He said, "Look at the housing, look at everything. They are supposed to provide us with housing, but they do not." We have got to apply. We have to hire a consultant to put the package together in order to qualify for housing for our communities. It costs anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000 per unit for a consultant to put this package together for that community. By the time that package goes in, it has got to be I would say a good two inches or three inches thick of information with all the feasibility studies and you name it. I think our community has been studied enough.
Every time there are a few dollars someplace from INAC, they want to do a study, and we get nothing in the community.
To me, it is not right how we have been treated. We always say we have rights as treaty people, treaty rights, but the loops we have to go through to prove those rights are not fair to us. There are other things that we want to do for our community but really cannot get going because we are too busy proving ourselves.
The same thing is true for our land claims. Why do we have to find the proof that we have this claim? It is the government that should have to come up and say here is the proof that you do not have it. It is the other way around for everything.
We do not have the money to continue doing that, continue paying people. The people we pay to do this research for us are non-treaty, because we do not have the qualified people in our communities. Sure, we will give you $10 million. Out of that $10 million, we would be lucky if $4 million comes to us. Out of that $4 million, we have to hire qualified people to do the research and so forth for us, so we are back to square one with hardly any money for our communities.
I will put it out there. My community gets $12 million a year from Winnipeg — not from Ottawa, from Winnipeg. When it leaves Ottawa, it is supposed to be $18 million, but by the time I get everything — and this is education programs, everything — it is around $12 million. I am not afraid to say that.
This has been happening to our communities for years. Look at that big glass building they had in Winnipeg for INAC. They rented that whole building from a friend. I know that. We used to protest in that building, for different reasons. Now today, I guess they must have got wind of that and they are leasing it from a different organization. Now they are cut down.
I am just covering parts and parts, if you do not mind. I am not really in detail on one subject; I am just jumping all over. You guys can piece it together.
Today they are on Higgins Avenue there. It is an older building. Somebody got wind that they were leasing from a buddy of theirs and that is where they are now. Their staff is cut down. Every time we try to get hold of our FSO, our funding services officer, we cannot get a hold of him because of lack of staff. For me to do something, say my housing or whatever, I have to go through him. That delays.
The same thing happens with the regional director general. For example, I have some education issues that I want to deal with in my community. I was supposed to have an advertisement in the paper for new teachers for this coming fiscal year. I am waiting. I have to meet with INAC before I can really post them. In our education system, our teachers are getting $10,000 to $16,000 less than a teacher who teaches off a reserve. Yet we are expected to educate our children with a good education. I am not calling those teachers down, but they are getting the bottom of the pail with the little funding that we receive. That is not fair to our communities. I have my own band-operated school.
That is why the other communities are going with Frontier. They are combining their school system with other organizations because of a lack of funding.
For post-secondary, there used to be a cap on it, but now they lifted cap but left the money the same. Every time you apply, the answer is that there is no more money.
My community gets $540,000 a year for post-secondary, and I have got 27 students in post-secondary. You try to divide that into them, and the hassle I get, it is not very good. I guess that is why some of them are so involved in the band politics in our communities. Those would be off-reserve people. You know, it is a way of getting to you. But it is not our fault. We are carrying out the duties of INAC and trying to do the best we can with that little bit of money that we receive for post-secondary education. There are a lot of issues.
We have the same thing with our buses. They give us $60,000 a year to buy a bus that is worth $120,000. We have to bank that $60,000 for two years in order to have enough to purchase a bus. Things like that are just not fair to us.
Our membership starts calling us down, saying that we do not give a damn about our children's education, and so on. We go through all that. We go through a pile of stuff that comes from our communities.
We have our band meetings and I put everything on the table, but how many people in my own community know how to read an audit? Very few, you know. You could tell them anything. They tell us we have another set of books, stuff like that.
I want to go back to INAC and this last investigation that they had with our department here in Winnipeg. You know, the community suffered for that. Nothing moved other than the few dollars that we are getting per month. Any new proposals that we tried to submit we could not because it is under investigation. Somebody buggered up there, and like I stated, we suffered. First Nations suffered here in Manitoba.
Now they have a posting or they did have a posting for a new regional director general, and we were dealing with the RDG that was there regarding my school. It was kind of like it was never done. I and a few other staff members kind of dreamed this one up and we were going to run it by INAC, having a pilot project with a different organization so that I could access some provincial dollars to offset our shortfall on different areas in our education program. That is what I wanted to talk about, to see if I would get the support of INAC.
There is a school division within 30 miles of my community, so I got in touch with some of the people from there and I said, "Why do we not put something together and take it to INAC, and see if somehow you people can hire my teachers through the province? I will throw in the difference to bring them up to power as far as wages are concerned." Same with the other stuff. I wanted to do this as a pilot project. Those are things I wanted to talk to them about.
Anyway, all of a sudden they put up this posting for a new RDG, and we are dealing with a former guy that was there. I went back to him there two weeks ago and he said, "No, there is no sense meeting with me because I am out of here." I guess he did not make the cut. So we are back to square one, and I have to hire some teachers. Some of the teachers are leaving. I have 16, and 8 of them are leaving. That is half of the teachers. Some of them are first-year teachers. Of course they get the experience and so forth and then it is time to move on. It makes it better for them wherever they are applying.
Anyway, those are some of the things. To me, our community has become kind of like a training centre for non- treaty people. I hate to say that, but it is true.
There are the consultants and some of the lawyers. The lawyers that we hire have gotten better over the years. Way back 20 years ago, they were not very knowledgeable about the Indian Act or treaties. I see a big difference now today.
Getting back to that election, the two-week process was a hell of a lot better than it is today. As far as I am concerned, I do not think off-reserve members should — well, I guess I will put it this way: they do have a right to have some say in our communities, those who belong to that community, but I do not think they should have any influence on any other to vote. I guess what I am saying is, to me, if they want to vote like the way it was years ago, they should come to the community and vote. There should be no mail-out ballots, no ballots going here or there.
We are having a lot of problems with those ballots. You do not know who the hell is signing them or who is filling them out. I could swing a bunch of ballots to a certain phony address and fill them out and send them back. There is no control over that.
During the last election in my community, one of the candidates brought in 25 ballots. She said, "They were all mailed to me." What proof do we have? That is the same person who did not get in and wanted to appeal. I do not think it is right to have mail-out ballots or mail-in ballots. If they want to vote like the way it used to be, come and vote in our community.
This 79 days, that is a no-no. The province and the federal government do not have 79 days, so how come it is happening in our First Nations? That is not right. It just causes a big issue. Maybe it is a way of setting us up. They have been setting us up for quite a few years. Maybe it is a way of setting us up to do away with First Nations. Maybe they will kill off each other and there will be no election. That is the way it is. We are slowly being faded out as First Nation people.
With Bill C-31, second generation people are not treaty. How many purebred Indians are you going to find in our communities? That is where they are ending up, a lot these things. That is what that elder says. We are getting cross- bred and we are going to end up like Senator St. Germain. The blood line is what I am talking about. Then all of a sudden they will have no treaties. They will say to us, "You have got no right." Do you know what I am saying? I hope they get to a position like he is in, but I was referring to the blood lines.
Anyway, that is what has been happening and that is what our elders have been saying. Give it 20 years. I bet you there will be hardly any treaty Indians. That is what the elder said.
Anyway, next question. Sorry I took so long.
The Chair: That was an excellent answer.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: You bet.
The Chair: That was one of the best presentations we have had.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Yes.
The Chair: Other than of course the presenter before you.
Mr. Clearsky: Oh, okay.
The Chair: I have been to Waywayseecappo. He has got a fully modern school and it is impressive. You have instruction in your own language too, do you not, in the school, if I recall?
Mr. Clearsky: Yes. We have an immersion program of our Ojibway language. We teach it from kindergarten to Grade 4, but again there we are running out of money. There is no money to hire. We subsidize that teacher and also the books and whatever for that immersion program.
I sat on the education resource board in Winnipeg on behalf of the chiefs in Manitoba. Going back, I believe it was about four years ago, or three years ago. Anyway, $5 million was set aside for Native language. Maybe you are not familiar with that.
The Chair: Yes, I remember.
Mr. Clearsky: Somehow we were kind of slow accessing and getting our proposals in for it. Next thing we knew, we heard that Canadian Heritage took a big portion of that money. We ended up with $280,000 out of $5 million. There was a Dakota immersion program as well as the Ojibway and the Cree. We had three immersion programs happening, and that is what we ended up with. To this day, that is what we have and it is gone.
We do a bit of consulting with our neighbours to the south, around Minneapolis. They have these conferences in that area regarding the Chippewa and they have the immersion program. Then they go to the west, to the Dakotas, okay, Lakotas. We try to consolidate everything between all the First Nations within that area. But we do not have a hell of a lot of money. In fact, we have got nothing.
I sit on the board of the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council chiefs — I am a member of the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council, DOTC. Just the other day one of the teachers came in wanting a donation — you know, whatever little monies we had from each community that are supposed to go our communities. We ended up giving her $5,000. That is all we could scrape up between us, between the communities, without jeopardizing our programs in our communities.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Do you think there should be a fixed election date?
Mr. Clearsky: Fixed election dates?
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Do you agree with the four-year term?
Mr. Clearsky: No, I do not.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: You do not?
Mr. Clearsky: No.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Disregard my question.
Mr. Clearsky: No, I will answer it. I am in favour of three years, but not four. It is a little too long. If you are doing a good enough job for your community, you should not have a problem getting re-elected. It is just the process of these elections happening time after time. That is where the problem seems to be. It is the election people feuding.
I think three years would be long enough. It would be nice to be in there forever like a senator's position, but we cannot have our ways. No, three years would be good, I think. A three-year term is good, but I do not like the 79-day process. That is almost three months. A two-week process would be good to get nominated, campaign for one week, and then the next week you put your name in.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Yes, exactly. The reason I am asking you this question is that many people have said that four years is good because, in the case of a new chief, they have to get to know the system. They have to have a plan. A lot of them have said four years is a good time to prepare for all this. Many of them have concerns about fixed election dates. Your chief comes in and gets the deficit from the old chief. That is why I asked this question.
Mr. Clearsky: Well, I have no problem with that either, but there should be a clause in there that the former chief and council to work with the new chief and council until say a month or two months after the election. There should be that transition period.
That happened to my community. When I got voted out there about six years ago, we had everything. You name it, Wayway had it. We had a motel, gas bar, grocery store, whatever. I got voted out. I got divorced. People getting involved in my personal life was the reason I got voted out, you see. Anyway, they were involved in it, so be it. Then a new chief and council came in. They had all this business and everything to look after and had no experience in doing any business like that, so everything just went downhill. We have a junior hockey team. We have all that in my community, and everything just went downhill. There was a free-for-all; you might as well call it that. Whoever kind of scared up the young chief at that time could say, "I am going to take this; I am taking that." They were not even accountable to the community.
I, as a past leader of that community, really did not have say because I had respect for the new chief and council and because I was already a chief of the neighbouring reserve. I was a chief as well. If I was not a chief, I guess a lot of things might have happened. Maybe it was a good thing I became chief in another community.
I really did not like coming back to the community, seeing what was happening to my community because of things missing, no accountability at all. As I stated, it was a free-for-all.
That is why I entered into a tribal council. We had always been an independent First Nation, once I became chief. Later, after all of that happened, I got voted out. Therefore I told my council that we would join a tribal council, whether it is West Region or DOTC.
Going years back, the elders told us that we are one of the founders for DOTC way back. So I said okay, I will do a presentation to the tribal council and we will go from there.
One reason we entered or teamed up with DOTC is that I did not want to see my community go through that again if I am not there, you see. I wanted them to have some kind of guidance. If I ever get booted out, the tribal council has enough knowledgeable people that would come along and assist the new chief and council, if I am not there. It was very bad to see what I experienced from my own community, what they were going through.
It is funny. Not that many people were really killed, but it was very bad in my community. People were mad, and if I had not gotten re-elected after that two-year term, something very bad would have happened. That is how bad it gets in these elections. It is getting worse.
The Chair: As I said earlier, I have been to Wayway and I saw the infrastructure. You had just taken over again as Chief of Wayway I think when I was there. You could see the remnants of the problems that arose with a change of leadership and a lack of business acumen. It was an interesting observation. That is why I think it is so important that the continuity and the term extension be considered by First Nations, not by us. We accumulate the information and make recommendations so that they can take control of their own destiny in a better way.
Senator Dyck: I was thinking we should actually just have a circle. I was very interested in what you were saying about the new chief without the knowledge of how to run businesses and there was no accountability. How would you suggest that accountability be put in? I am not quite sure how you would be able to improve the situation under that kind of circumstance. Is there some way that would improve it through the elections process itself?
You also suggested that that is why you joined a tribal council. Does belonging to a tribal council allow any kind of formal mechanism to help out, or is it strictly a voluntary kind of thing, if a chief is directed to do something a certain way? Could you explain that, please?
Mr. Clearsky: You are not forced or obligated to stay within a tribal council. However, whoever is elected would have some kind of common sense and ask for some direction. It is kind of the route I was hoping for. For any newly elected chief, there are CEOs. The CEO can come out and do a presentation to the new chief and council and tell them, "This is how much money we get; this is what our tribal council does; and we have these qualified people. If you need help here or there, we are here."
I know it was pretty tough for the newly elected chief and council of an independent band. Some of the council members who were elected never handled any more than a welfare cheque, and then they get in there and handle $12 million. They start thinking, "Hey, there is lots of money — we have lots anyway — let us spend it." There has got to be something, some clause in there.
I am not very well-educated myself, but good enough that I understand what is happening, and I could see. I use the guidance of my elders a lot, and they guide me along.
I go to these ceremonies. I hang up our traditional flag at these ceremonies. I go to them and I pray for our people that way, for my community as well as everybody else. I have been doing that for years. But during my divorce time, that time about six years ago, I kind of forgot about things. I just let everything go and said to hell with the world. Then I recovered and they gave me a chance, I guess, a second chance, whatever you want to call it. That is where I am now.
Senator Hubley: Your presentation has been lovely and your answers to the questions have given us a lot of information.
Perhaps one of the more interesting things I heard, which I had not heard previously, was how you feel the relationship an off-reserve member has with the band, especially when it comes to the financial issues and their right to vote. I said right to vote, but I am wondering whether you might just clarify that for us again. I think there is an area that we do not want to talk about: we respect, or we try to respect, individuals' rights, however they feel them; but, in fact, we may see that the importance of that right is not conducive to the better government of the band. What I am saying is that an off-reserve vote can sometimes sway. They may be in another jurisdiction.
My second question is this: If you moved to Winnipeg as a First Nations person and you bought a property or you established yourself, you would go on the census. In other words, they would come around and you would then appear on the voters list. Can you vote there or can you not vote there?
Mr. Clearsky: Yes, you can vote there, but it is an expense of the community.
Senator Hubley: It is at the expense of?
Mr. Clearsky: The First Nation.
Senator Hubley: The First Nations community. In what way, sir?
Mr. Clearsky: Are you talking about in a provincial election or a federal election?
Senator Hubley: It does not matter. I think what I was trying to ask is whether voting in a place is a resident's right because you live in a certain area, or is it attached somehow to your culture?
Mr. Clearsky: No. To me, if you are living in Winnipeg, if you want to vote for someone in my community, you come to my community and vote. Why should I take the ballot and all these people to accommodate you in Winnipeg?
That is the way it used to be years ago. You came to the reserve to vote. You paid your own way to come and vote, you know. If you are that interested, show us your part, do your part. Come to my community and vote. I do not believe in setting up ballot boxes in each city, in each town. Some of those people had their reasons to move off because of lack of housing or poor housing, but that is their choice.
Sure, I realize that our housing is not the best, even though it goes through the CMHC program. If you want to live in Winnipeg or in Ottawa, obviously you are doing well for yourself to live in those areas. I am very proud of you; I am happy for you. But if you want to vote in my community, then come down and vote. If not, well, so be it.
I lived off-reserve for many years. I moved back to my community 1981. In 1977 or 1978, I got a letter from the government saying that I had been off the reserve for so long that they were not going to recognize me any longer as a treaty Indian. That was in the 1970s, and I remember that letter. I was living in Saskatchewan all those years. I showed that letter to a guy who used to be an MLA from Regina. He said, "You write back and just tell them who you are and what is going to happen here." I am a descendant of the first chief of my community, way back.
They are going to start kicking people off the reserve because they have not lived there for a number of years. Anyway, that is the letter I got, and I wish I would have kept it, but I was young then and, you know, enjoying life.
At that time, I did not come back to vote. I said so be it; whoever gets in, well, the people living on the reserve have a better idea of who they want than I do out here. The problem here is that if you have relatives off the reserve, you have to get ballots out and get them to vote for you. That seems to be a big thing.
Senator Hubley: Yes, it does.
Mr. Clearsky: To me, if you have to use outside voters and not the people who are living in the reserve to vote for you, you should not even be there. That is the way I look at it. Of course, I am a different kind of a politician here.
Senator Hubley: We also are looking for a fixed date. Is there a date in your calendar that the elections are held every two years? Does it come at the end of March, or April 1? Is that the tradition?
Mr. Clearsky: No, not ours. We have ours now in February, every two years.
However, going way back, the older people have told me that in my community it used to happen in the fall. Then something happened — the chief got sick or had a battle with somebody or something — and the election date kept getting moved back. Now it is in February.
Also, with the new election process, the 79-day process, INAC sends you a list of people that can run your elections, and you have to select from that list. You have to pay out of your band funds to pay these people to run the election, which is probably anywhere from $8,000 to $15,000, yet they get the envelopes and ballots from INAC; they Xerox everything there. So why do we pay so damn much money for them to run an election and all they do is mail these things out? Things like that should not be. Before, when we had the two-week election, we would pay somebody maybe a $1,000 and this helper and that was it. Like I stated, getting to the 79 days is a no-no.
Getting back to this election, ours was supposed to be the first Friday of every February. INAC's people that we had to pay buggered up on the election, so they moved it back two weeks. So now it is in the middle of February. I said, "We have no chief and council for those two weeks? It is not my fault; it is not our fault here. What are you going to do? We have to have a chief and council, signing authority to continue payroll, continue on with business." They told us to sign a bunch of cheques and postdate them. The other alternative they suggested was making me a co-manager for two weeks. They did that to me, I think it was about four years ago. I am registered as a co-manager for INAC. If anybody goes into receivership, I can go in and put in my bid and be a co-manager for that community.
Yet I have never been through the process they have to go through. I am not an accountant. I will admit that. Yet this is what they came forth with.
Those are things that we as First Nation communities have to go through, and we go along with it because we have no other choice. Maybe I have to take over for that new senator that you guys appointed.
The Chair: Unfortunately, my recommendation did not carry the day.
Senator Hubley: You used the term "municipalizing." Could you explain that to us? What I think of as a municipality might be the same or quite different for you. Why do you use that term?
Mr. Clearsky: That term is similar to a municipality. That is what the elder was referring to.
Senator Hubley: Okay.
Mr. Clearsky: We will be put into blocks, like Ward 1, Ward 2. That is what he said. And that is how the voting system is in that municipality.
To go a step further, he said we will be paying tax. As I said, two weeks ago I met him and then we had our assembly, some place along the line. I hear one of the communities is already implementing that tax on their people.
Senator Hubley: It has to do with the tax structure and taxation and such?
Mr. Clearsky: Yes. However, we are supposed to be tax-free. There is no agreement anywhere that we, as First Nation people, are supposed to pay tax to live in our own country. Right?
Senator Hubley: True.
Mr. Clearsky: I would like to see that letter where the Queen released us to the government. I asked for that letter and nobody ever showed me that letter where the Queen said, "Okay, I am leaving my little Indians behind, and the government, the Crown, takes over." I would like to see that agreement. I always asked about that agreement. To this day, nobody has ever shown it to me. Maybe the Crown has no jurisdiction over us Indians; they just assumed they have.
The other thing is that we bought some land just outside of Brandon to develop economic development projects for our communities to employ our opportunities. Three communities purchased that land to benefit our reserves and others. However, somehow we got put aside, pushed aside. Somebody gave jurisdiction to the provinces over gaming back in 1987, I believe, without consulting with the First Nations, without the First Nations' input. Many of those issues have been passed on to the provinces. That should never have happened.
I would like to see a process put in place so that we First Nations people can appeal those decisions that were made. It is not fair to us.
Back then, not much was happening in our communities to really benefit our communities. No bank wanted to lend us money, unless the government had some money coming. However, today we are trying to get ahead in a lot of this stuff. We understand the business; we understand the concept of the white man's world today. That is why I would like to see an appeal process for many of those issues.
When we met with the province, I believe about a month ago, Dave Chomiak, the provincial NDP leader gave us direction from the higher-ups that we have got to try to get more casinos out for Manitoba, because they promised us five, but we only got two. The higher-up he meant was Ottawa; someone in Ottawa is steering the NDP provincial leader here, and I would like to speak to that person. Chief Bone, Chief McKay and I spent $4 million to purchase some land between the three communities, just outside of Brandon. There is a big economic venture there to benefit our First Nations, to try to get them off social assistance.
However, every time we try to do something like that, we get shot down, whether by our own people or by the province. Jealousy is a big thing within the First Nations. Jealousy is what kills us, divides us. Of course, somebody puts a little bit more gas in the fire and divides us even more.
Am I speaking too long?
The Chair: It is good; you did well. Both you and the former witness have really enlightened our organization. We want to thank you.
I was thinking that a lot of corporations, and I realize they are not elected, have immediate past presidents, immediate past chiefs, and they refer to the immediate past presidents. If I am the president of a corporation and I decide I am going to retire, I become the immediate past president and am often held in a consultative way. I am wondering whether that has ever been thought of in this context. I know it is different, because if I become president I am picked by the board of directors, generally, and I do not have to get elected. There is no confrontation.
If you went to a two-week pre-election period again, as opposed to 79 days, maybe something like that could work. I know from being at your place exactly what happened. My expertise is not First Nations. Before I entered this realm of my life, I was a businessman. I know how business is conducted. I still sit on boards and conduct business.
Thank you very much again, chief.
Senators, we now have with us Chief Derek Nepinak from the Pine Creek First Nation.
Chief, if you would like to make a few opening comments, we would be obliged to receive them, and the senators I am sure will have some questions for you.
Derek Nepinak, Chief, Pine Creek First Nation: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests; thank you for coming to Western Manitoba to the land of the Anishinabe.
I am the Chief of Pine Creek First Nation. I will make some brief comments here, and I am going to be very frank and open. I do not mean any disrespect in the things that I say; but sometimes the things I say come from the dark corners of my heart and they are not always pleasant to hear, but I say them with all due respect.
When you are speaking with me, you are speaking with someone who has walked successfully in two different worlds. Now, I say that, and let me explain a little bit about that. When I was a little boy, when I was an infant, my mother gave me a great gift, and that was beyond the gift of life: she gave me to my great-grandparents, my Anishinabe grandparents in Pine Creek. I lived with them until I was ready to go to school.
Now, we know that by the age of five or so, who you are going to become has already been forged. To me, that was a tremendous gift.
I went to school. I went to the best schools that Canada has. I graduated first class with an honours degree in Native Studies from the University of Alberta, under the tutelage of people like Dr. Frank Tough. Then I went to the University of Saskatchewan, and I graduated with a law degree from the University of Saskatchewan. I also took the Intensive Program in Aboriginal Lands, Resources and Governments from Osgoode Hall University under Shin Imai. So my education is there. I have also worked on a master's degree in the Aboriginal Governance Program with Dr. Paul Chartrand, which many of you might be aware of.
Although I was just recently elected into the role of chief in Pine Creek, I have the educational background to go with it.
In terms of the Indian Act — and I know we are here to discuss election reform — I sit on the governance committee at the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. In January of 2009, we passed a resolution stating that, notwithstanding other Canadian jurisdictions, we are going to proceed with discussions on election reform, such as common election day and extending the term.
Now, when we say "notwithstanding other Canadian jurisdictions," essentially we are saying that we will take an inherent rights approach to political development.
I say "political development" because our development as indigenous people in our own land cannot be viewed in isolation. Our political development cannot be viewed in isolation from the economic factors, the social factors, and the cultural factors that affect our development as people. I say that in reference to the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development, which states that all people have the right to participate in and develop their own ways politically. We are peoples as First Nations peoples in Canada.
I find it very interesting that Minister Strahl would then send a letter saying that they are sorry that we are not going to participate with them, and they are going to deny us; they are going to pull out of the process. Then a few weeks later, you guys come around.
I am not sure whether this process was planned in advance of the perceived collapse of our partnership with INAC and the discussion of common election, or whether you had planned this process at some time in the past. That is a question I would like to put forward.
The Chair: Very quickly, I can respond to that. The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Affairs definitely is not an arm of government. It is part of government, but it is not an arm. It is part of Parliament, a parliamentary body, but it is not directly attached to government. In my case, I happen to be of the party of government. This was brought up before by some of us who have been on this committee for a long time and who have been concerned about governance. We have heard the concerns about terms and set election dates. Actually, I heard it most emphatically through Grand Chief Ron Evans, but I had heard it right across the country. Our study then is coincidental; it is not driven by government in any way, shape or form. I can assure you that at this table there is greater representation by the official opposition than there is government.
We operate at arm's length. We make recommendations, like we did on specific claims. These people created such a good report that the legislation virtually mirrored the report that was drafted by the senators at this table. Be assured that this is not something being engineered — not that the minister is opposed to us being here, but it was this committee that made the decision to study the subject.
Mr. Nepinak: Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate it. It was not without a bit of concern that we anticipated your arrival here. So thank you for that.
I will try to focus on the Indian Act legislation. I am a new chief. I am very well aware of the Indian Act. I have studied it thoroughly in the past. I know that at its genesis in 1876, it was the culmination of colonial legislation on Indian people in the various colonies that are now Canada. Since then, it has transformed over time to subjugate political development of First Nations people. We know that strategic amendments have been made in the past to undermine the authority of women in the political development of First Nations people. We know amendments to the Indian Act have been made to undermine economic ventures of Indian people.
We are very well aware that there are considerable challenges to the way it has developed. If there is any way to get out of it, I am sure many of us would choose that road.
Coming into leadership, I feel like I am a bit of a living paradox here because I feel very much in pursuit of independence for our people. However, at the same time, in order to pursue that I have to jump into the Indian Act and become an Indian Act chief. I think the two concepts are a little bit oppositional. In our election we had in December, 600 votes were cast for chief. I received 190, which was 58 more than the person below me. That is less than a third of the popular vote. Can I walk around and call myself the leader of Pine Creek, really? I can call myself chief because I won the election, but can I call myself leader?
In our communities, we call Indian Act chiefs ogemahkan. Ogemah is the root word and means leader, but when we add "kan" to the end that is artificial; it means "artificial leader." That is how we interpret it in Anishinabe language.
Regarding four-year terms instead of two-year terms, I think I would like to see longer terms. I think that they can be effective. But it has to be at the behest of the community. None of these processes can be top-down; they have got to be grassroots initiatives. I have expressed interest and have spoken to Ron Evans about this: I would be more than willing to be a participant in conducting consultation within Pine Creek. As a leader, I think it is my responsibility to bring these options to the community and engage in dialogue on them. And yes, a longer term is definitely necessary in order to be effective.
As a new chief, I have two years. I am already almost one quarter of the way through my term. Although changes have been made in our community that I hope are for the better, the changes we make are very slow and they are incremental, because we are working within a bureaucracy that is very slow-moving. As quickly as we want to move, many of the processes and the reporting requirements and the way money moves within the department slow down our process and progress.
I am all for a common election day. I think that there should be processes for a common election day. I do not mind that at all. I think that if we were all elected on the same day, we would become more effective regionally and more effective provincially, at the AMC table. And I think we need to be effective that way, because it seems to be regionally and provincially that we can make the most noise in our pursuits.
I do not have much more to say, other than to answer specific questions people might have.
The Chair: I would like you to comment on the accountability aspect, and the question of recall. How do you see that?
Colleagues, is this an appropriate question? Are you comfortable with that question? Obviously, they are.
Chief, do you have a comment?
Mr. Nepinak: Sure, yes.
The Chair: Because that is one of the aspects that we see as part of the package.
Mr. Nepinak: Right. Accountability can mean many different things. When I think of accountability, I think of what I am doing to make sure that I am accessible and I have answers for community members who come to see me. That is how I express my accountability in the community. I have taken many steps and I have worked very hard to make sure that I am in my office as often as I can be. Even though many of the responsibilities are outside of the community, I always have an open door and people come and see me whenever they want. That is how I express accountability.
Now, if we are talking about financial accountability, I know this has been discussed and I know that certain people within leadership have expressed issues around accountability in First Nations communities. Part of the impetus for these times of processes is that there has been a lack of accountability, some people might say. I strongly disagree that there has been a lack of accountability in the communities. I know that not one dollar makes it into our communities from Indian Affairs unless we do $2 or $3 worth of reporting. And every time we spend a dollar in a way that it was not supposed to be spent or it has not been spent effectively in the eyes of Indian Affairs officials, they take that dollar back. So it costs us. Every dollar spent wrong costs us another dollar. It is an arduous system, a system that is laden with bureaucracy. There is no way to be unaccountable to the dollars, you know.
However, in terms of accountability of the people, we are stretched very thin as Indian Act chiefs. One minute I will get a phone call about a band member who needs a new door because his door has been kicked in. Then the next minute, I will be talking to Hydro about multi-million dollar developments in the western part of Manitoba. We are spread very thin. We have a very wide range of responsibilities. Certainly, if you take a very close look at every single thing we do, you will find issues of accountability, because we are spread too thin.
Senator Hubley: I have a question on the common election day. You said you were in agreement with moving to having one date for your band elections. I am wondering, because that is one of the main features we are looking at in our study, whether you would elaborate on the ways that you see that this would be of advantage to you.
Mr. Nepinak: Certainly. Common election day, as I said, will make us more effective regionally and provincially. The reason I say that is because whenever we hold an assembly, there are always new chiefs at the table. I was the new chief at the table in January at our AMC assembly. At our more recent one last week, there was other new chief there. Therefore everybody is becoming oriented to a new process every time we come around the table. Then sometimes long-time leaders who have been involved in initiatives for a long time get ousted in an election back home, and then we are back at square one again.
I think if we had a common election day, everybody would come to the table with a fresh perspective, with the optimism that we can move forward together.
I guess in many ways, what we might be looking at here, what we might be discussing is more effective government at a provincial level, at a regional level. It might be construed as maybe giving up some of our local autonomy, some of our local power and politics, but I do not think it is. I think that we are only ever going to be as strong as the political will of the people who vote for us at the grassroots level in our communities. That is, we are aware as leadership that that is where our power comes from. If we have any power as leaders, it comes only from those people who vote for us in our community. It will always be that way, and we always have to be aware of it. We cannot allow a four-year term or a common election to empower our regional and provincial processes to the point where we forget about where we come from, because that is a risk. We do not want to see our provincial body become accountable only to itself. We always have to maintain that grassroots level recognition of where our power comes from.
Senator Hubley: Could you also comment on the 79-day election period?
Mr. Nepinak: I heard briefly about the 79-day election period, but I am not quite certain what that entails. In our election, the nominations were held in early November and then the election was mid-December. I am not sure about the 79 days that you are referring to.
Senator Hubley: It was mentioned a couple of times, with reference to the Indian Act, I think, that the election period would be 79 days, which is long by most electoral standards these days. I was wondering whether you felt that was a necessary length of time to be prepared for an election. The two-week period was also mentioned. That seems very fast, I guess, given today's ways of communicating with people. Do you have any length of time that you feel would be suitable?
Mr. Nepinak: In terms of administrative processes, I think the date the election is called and the date the election happens are inconsequential to a politician, because every time we step up to the mic when we are in our community or when we are speaking regionally or provincially, we are campaigning in some way; we are relying on our people to believe in the things we say.
Our most recent election was called in November, but I began to campaign in late September. I was completely on the outside looking in and I had the time to put in to go campaigning.
Now, for an incumbent, it might be better to have a shorter time frame to work within, because we are stretched so thin. As I said before, you can dedicate more of your efforts as you get closer to election time. Therefore, it might make sense for an incumbent, but for someone who is just running for election, who has no involvement currently, I think the time frame is inconsequential, because you are going to be running and building your campaign platform all through a term anyway.
The Chair: For clarification, section 4.1(1) of the Indian Band Election Regulations states:
At least 79 days before the day on which an election is to be held, the band shall provide the electoral officer with the last known addresses, if any, of all electors who do not reside on the reserve.
That is the 79 days.
Senator Hubley: That is what that refers to.
The Chair: I guess this triggers the campaign; it is like dropping the writ. Is that right? Is that how you would see it, chief?
Mr. Nepinak: Yes. I say that having not received a list of mailing addresses for our off-reserve voters last election, however.
Senator Hubley: I want to go back to my previous question on the common election day for a moment. In your answer, you talked about bringing in all of the new chiefs and starting off with that positive anticipation of things to be done, and you also suggested provincial and federal voices. Does that mean that by looking, by joining other nations and having a common, making some decisions within your own group to take it to the provincial government and then take it to the federal government, that you see a stronger voice for yourselves?
Mr. Nepinak: I think I am of that opinion, but my opinion is informed a lot by what I have seen. In the Northwest Territories, for example, I have seen tribal councils be very effective in their impact on the MacKenzie Valley pipeline discussions. An individual band is not always effective, but when you come together at a tribal council level, and the voice of all the community is heard, I think it is more effective.
Senator Hubley: I wanted to clarify that with the tribal councils, having sort of the one-voice approach would be of benefit I think to each of the bands.
Mr. Nepinak: I think so. I agree that coming together and working collectively will always advance our cause more effectively. I think there is a critical point, though, where you have to ask whether your interests as an individual band or community interests are being undermined at the cost of the collective. I think there is a critical point somewhere, although I do not know where it is. I do not think we have explored that enough.
Senator Hubley: We have been talking about the four-year term. Some of the chiefs we have spoken to have not quite gone to the four-year term; they say maybe three. They find that the work required of them is very onerous; it is almost a burnout situation where they do not feel they have the energy even to do another year.
You are new to this position, but you certainly have experience within the tribal councils. Is that a factor? Is the work that is required of you and the expectations and the responsibilities that you have to administer as a chief so onerous that you really could not go on for another year? Does the shorter term seem to be more manageable? The situation does not necessarily relate always to what is the most effective way of governance.
Mr. Nepinak: My feeling on that is that the position of leadership in the community is a huge responsibility and it should not be undertaken lightly. If you are going to sign up for this, you are going to sign up for the good and the bad.
Personally speaking, I had a lot of opportunity as a young First Nations person. I am young in terms of my role right now, a young First Nations person, a law graduate who has received national awards for my writing and so forth. I had a lot of opportunity in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Saskatoon to make a decent living for myself, but I forwent that so that I could be in the service of my people. That is what we are talking about here I think. We are talking about being in the service of your people, and whether you do that for two or three years, it is a very onerous job, like I mentioned before. Our tasks are very demanding.
I think you have to be healthy; you have to maintain a balance in your life somehow. I participate in ceremony, I live a clean lifestyle. I think that is critically important to maintaining health. You have to pray; you have to have people in the community praying for you. It is an onerous task, but if it is three years and you are elected, you sign up for three years, and you should not walk away from that.
Senator Hubley: Because you are a new chief, and you certainly are familiar with other ways of governance, do you see putting in administrators that would handle, or do you have that now, or is it all done within your chief and council? Do you have a staff besides chief and council?
Mr. Nepinak: Yes. One of the big questions in First Nations governance is where do you draw the line between politics and administration. We do have chief and council, but we also have an administrative team. My personal position is that you have to let the administrators be the administrators, because they are also in leadership roles in the community. Whether you have an education director, health director or social development director, these are leadership roles in the community, and you have to give them the discretion to make the decisions. The decisions they have to make are for the betterment of program and service delivery in the community.
I cannot involve myself every day in those processes. I cannot make the financial decisions every day for every program and service being delivered. I cannot intervene in individual issues around social development. That is not my role.
From what I have seen, sometimes chief and council become too involved in these administrative processes, too involved in program and service delivery. I think that leads to a demoralized state within your administrative body, because all of a sudden people do not know what they are supposed to do. I think there has to be some delineation of the two roles.
Senator Dyck: You obviously have the background, both traditionally and academically, to understand all the various ins and outs of the Indian Act. In your view, for elections, what would be the preference, to stay with the way things are under the Indian Act, or to move towards the so-called custom code, which would be regulated, in essence, by INAC during the approval stage? Or do you see a separate system that might have existed pre-contact? What kind of election system do you think would be the ideal?
Mr. Nepinak: Well, as we sit here in Dauphin, we sit here within a new political and economic infrastructure built from the ruins of what was here before. The ruins are represented by who we are today. The ruins that I am talking about are our political, economic, social, cultural systems that were here for tens of thousands of years, and we have seen them quiet for 100 years or so, maybe a little more than 100 years. I like to think that we have been asleep. I guess we have not seen them destroyed or anything like that; they have just been quiet, and they are reviving themselves.
I view electoral reform as an exercise of inherent rights of First Nations people. I think it has to happen at arm's length from the will of the federal government — at arm's length, but still in partnership. There is an onus on the federal government, Minister Strahl's department, to help fund these processes. For far too long we have been sitting at the margins of economic growth in Canada, and it has come at great expense. We do not have the money in our communities to fund these processes towards political development.
I believe there is an onus on the Government of Canada to help fund these processes, an onus borne from our inherent rights, an onus borne from treaty recognition of our inherent rights to self-government, and an onus borne from international covenant, such as the one I mentioned before, the international right to development, which includes political development of indigenous people.
I hope that answers your question. We are pursuing a process, as I said, an inherent rights process, but we need money to do that. We need money to get the message into the community so that the grassroots people can participate fully in the process.
Senator Dyck: It has been suggested that the Indian Act be amended by removing the sections regarding elections. In your opinion, would that be the best way to proceed?
Mr. Nepinak: I think we may arrive at a point where we add a new election regulation to the existing Indian Act. To me, that is less than what we had hoped for. However, we cannot completely remove ourselves, based on our elections, from the Indian Act. I do not see any way that that can happen, because the Indian Act is comprehensive legislation.
Even if we do legislation outside of the Indian Act to do our elections, what is the federal authority? What is the federal jurisdiction that will affect the rest of how we operate? Will there be an entirely new piece of legislation that is as comprehensive as the Indian Act? What will the net result be?
Sometimes we talk about that. A couple of chiefs have mentioned that it is kind of a cart-before-the-horse process. Maybe we should be talking about comprehensive self-government and election reform as incidental to that process, as opposed to putting all our eggs in the election reform basket.
The Chair: Just for clarification, with the modern-day treaties, are their election processes outside the Indian Act? Do you think that if for example the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs decided that they were going to set up a constitution and an electoral process with a chief electoral officer and so on they could operate and yet maintain the fiduciary responsibility of the Crown through the Indian Act, just excluding the elections process?
Mr. Nepinak: That is a good question. As I said, the election processes in the comprehensive claims that are being settled today are part of a bigger initiative, a grander-scale initiative within the AMC right now. We do have a constitution and amending formulas that we have been discussing recently. However, I am not certain that our constitution or the function of the AMC right now could be looked at as comprehensive in nature. I do not know whether it could be considered a comprehensive land claim in the same light as in other regions further west.
The Chair: Could it be done at the treaty level, as opposed to at the AMC? You are part of Treaty Four, is it?
Mr. Nepinak: Yes.
The Chair: That segment of Treaty Four, or tribal councils, I do not know how you do the amalgamation, but let us use Treaty One because it is simple. The seven bands are all in the southern part of Manitoba. I use this only as an example. Do you not see being able to create a structure in an entity like this that could operate outside the Indian Act for electoral purposes?
Mr. Nepinak: If we are working from within the treaty framework, I think that is the preferential route. I think Treaty One represents the best-case scenario because they all are within Manitoba's boundaries. Our Treaty Four boundaries transcend provincial boundaries, so we have several bands in Saskatchewan as well. How would those issues be addressed in that type of process?
In my short time in leadership here, I have not seen much strong treaty-based perspective. I have not seen the formalization of our organizations around treaty. I believe that we need to move in that direction. Absolutely, I believe that.
The Chair: Have you any other closing comments, sir?
Mr. Nepinak: In closing, as I said before, I am very glad that you are here to hear us out. I look forward to the recommendations that come out of this process.
I do believe that this is an inherent rights process, and it will be an exercise that we undertake as First Nations people here in Manitoba. I look forward to your recommendations informing us, as well as informing the federal government regarding what should happen. It is an inherent rights process, and we will proceed here in Manitoba based on the framework that we establish.
Meegwetch for coming to Dauphin and safe travels.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Regarding your initial question, when we do a report in the Senate, we report it back to the Senate. When we report it back, we normally ask for a response from the government. That is an indication of how arm's length we are. We ask the government to respond to our report. By virtue of that, we can gain some sense of where the government is. I wanted that just for clarification.
The last thing I am going to say, after listening to the three chiefs, I think INAC creates a bird, a big dark bird that has a red head I think on it. With all due respect, these birds are the lawyers and consultants in many cases. If it takes you $2 to $3 of consultation and legal fees to get $1, it does not make sense. This is aggravating to me, but I can see how it can happen. I think the other prior witnesses laid that out. To me, that has to change, because this is penalizing the people on the ground in our First Nations communities across Canada.
(The committee adjourned.)