Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 41 - Evidence - June 19, 2018
OTTAWA, Tuesday, June 19, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 8:59 a.m. to study on the new relationship between Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
Senator Lillian Eva Dyck (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning.
I would like to welcome all honourable senators and members of the public who are watching this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples either here in the room or listening via the Web.
I would like to acknowledge for the sake of reconciliation that we are meeting on the traditional, unceded lands of the Algonquin peoples.
My name is Lillian Dyck. I have the honour and privilege of chairing this committee. I am from the province of Saskatchewan.
I now invite my fellow senators to introduce themselves.
Senator Tannas: Scott Tannas, Alberta.
Senator Doyle: Norman Doyle, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator McPhedran: Marilou McPhedran, Manitoba.
Senator McCallum: Mary Jane McCallum, Manitoba.
Senator Boniface: Gwen Boniface, Ontario.
Senator Pate: Kim Pate, Ontario.
Senator Christmas: Dan Christmas, Nova Scotia.
The Chair: Today we continue our study on what a new relationship could look like between the Government of Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples. We welcome today Kim Baird, from Kim Baird Strategic Consulting. Welcome, former Chief Baird. And we welcome Cora McGuire-Cyrette, Executive Director, Ontario Native Women’s Association; and Courtney Skye, Advisor, Ontario Native Women’s Association.
You have the floor, ladies. After your presentations, the meeting will be open to questions from the senators.
Kim Baird, Owner, Kim Baird Strategic Consulting: Good morning. Thanks to the committee for the opportunity to contribute my thoughts on such an important matter. I spent a lot of time thinking about this, so I’m happy to share my musings.
My English name is Kim Baird and my ancestral name is Kwuntiltunaat which comes from my great great-grandfather at Tsawwassen.
My background and experience come from being the former Chief of Tsawwassen, where I was responsible for leading the negotiations and implementation of our modern land claim agreement along with self-governance on the West Coast of Canada near Vancouver. It’s sad to see there is no B.C. representation in the Senate today. I can’t help myself.
The new framework in our community that replaces the Indian Act has already enabled billions of dollars of economic development on Tsawwassen lands. According to a CBC article in January, Tsawwassen had the largest increase of assessed value from the B.C. Assessment authority in the whole province of British Columbia last year.
So when thinking about what a nation-to-nation or a new relationship looks like, my experience is very much informed by our approach, which has been a controversial approach to some.
We don’t have historic treaties in the vast majority of British Columbia, so it is a completely different political, legal and relationship context for First Nations on the West Coast.
Based on my experience, though, as a former chief and as someone who advises First Nations on some of these issues through my current consulting practice, I think that a nation-to-nation relationship should include several principles which I’ll quickly run through.
One is reconciliation of all inequities. I think reconciliation needs to happen at the legal, political, socio-cultural and economic levels for First Nations. I don’t think unsustainable communities can ever be self-determining or sovereign if they don’t participate on a level playing field.
I think there needs to be respect for Aboriginal rights and title. Respect is more than just referring to this in political speeches, in my opinion. This respect has to be reflected in laws, in policies, in the operations of government and in the courts. Denial of rights should no longer be a federal strategy in the courts.
First Nation jurisdiction is also a critical part of reconciliation. If First Nations aren’t able to govern their land, resources and people, other accommodations just aren’t adequate enough, in my opinion, at least in the long term.
So things such as Impact and Benefit Agreements for major resource projects don’t go far enough, in my opinion, to resolve issues of jurisdiction. Neither do the First Nation institutions. They are great capacity-building initiatives, but they don’t address underlying First Nation jurisdiction adequately enough, in my experience.
Another principle is respecting the proper assessment and respect of capacity. Many government officials come to Tsawwassen to learn about our experience. I think capacity must be built on both sides about reconciliation and nation to nation. First Nations obviously need to contribute to these discussions, but they can’t feasibly train the public service on these matters. A lot of people are coming to Tsawwassen. It’s a good problem to have, but it does put a strain on Tsawwassen’s capacity.
It’s important that it has to be a collaborative approach. First Nations and the Government of Canada will have to co-create a framework of how to proceed and also at a pace that is suitable for each community.
We also have to think about there being an appropriate time frame for developing this new relationship. Renewing or creating a nation-to-nation relationship will take time, and there must be a process agreeable to all involved. Governments and First Nations should have a similar vision about these elements or how things will operate in the short term while this new relationship is evolving. In my opinion, a shared vision of what a roadmap looks like for developing this relationship would be helpful for managing everyone’s expectations.
A big principle is respect of First Nation culture and world view. The big problem with modern treaties is some of the legal positions that First Nations are forced to agree to. For example, in Tsawwassen, we couldn’t agree on the constitutional status of our lands, so we agreed to disagree. We agreed it is no longer section 91 of the Canadian Constitution, but we can’t agree what section it does belong to.
A large part of the challenge is trying to reconcile First Nation communities, who all have different languages and cultures, with the Government of Canada through the use of colonial instruments that had no Indigenous input into them.
If you look at land title as an example, fundamentally not only do we need to agree upon what Aboriginal title actually is, but then we need to figure out how to reconcile it.
We must find ways that respect our differences and don’t try to force First Nations to use an instrument that doesn’t fit their community, yet create ones that are reliable for everyone involved. Even for those of us in modern land claim agreements, who are willing to be under the framework of Canada, there is plenty of room to improve upon these sorts of legal instruments.
If we take land registry at Tsawwassen as an example, we registered our lands under the provincial land registry because B.C. amended its land title legislation to recognize the land ownership instruments we created under our own jurisdiction. That’s just one example. There are likely other innovations that could happen in these instruments, for example, and the only thing holding us back would be the limits of our creativity.
Updating federal negotiation mandates is also an important aspect of this. Mandates for treaty or other reconciliation agreements need to be updated to allow for sustainable First Nation communities and respect First Nation culture. These arrangements need to be more than just reducing Canada’s legal risk and more looking over the long term of whatever agreements get made at how they can evolve over time, in my opinion.
I also think an important principle is respect for First Nation self-determination choices. There’s a lot of negativity about the modern land claim and self-governance model, but there are many still pursuing this approach, which appears, in my opinion, to be the only working model of a nation-to-nation relationship. That’s not to say it couldn’t use improvements, but it wouldn’t make sense to abandon comprehensive agreements, in my view.
This whole discussion about reconstituting nations, I don’t know that necessarily works for everyone. This was not a historic practice for the Coast Salish. Our decisions were made very locally. Tsawwassen’s broader cultural group is the Coast Salish Nation. There are 54 First Nations. Could we do some things in aggregate? Absolutely. Of course, we’ve seen other models such as the First Nations Health Authority and some delegated agencies. I’d love nothing more than to see the Coast Salish Nation manage our part of the Salish Sea. But other things, such as program and service delivery, would not be tenable, in my opinion.
This is why I believe one of the fundamental issues is that self-determination needs to start from local communities and at the grassroots to establish what our needs are and what our path forward might be.
Support and investment in First Nations developmental work is extremely important. We need internal reconciliation in our communities. We need to re-establish functioning governance and governments that have legitimacy with our people. This requires much work at the grassroots level.
This is tough developmental work. At Tsawwassen, 94 per cent of our members participated in our vote on the treaty, and 70 per cent approved the treaty and our constitution, which set out our new forms of governance. Our community worked very hard to understand what we were taking on through self-governance.
Ultimately, to find a way forward, we’re going to have to find more conventions on how to agree to disagree so that we don’t get hung up on the fundamental value differences between Indigenous ways of governance and the institutions of Canada and other provinces.
For now, most of us are still stuck within undesirable colonial systems. We need to advance within this undesirable system until there’s an alternative. That alternative has to be tenable for everyone. In the meantime, much can be done on developmental investments, whether they be economic, infrastructure, governance, education, health or other community development investments.
Although the work ahead may seem daunting, it is possible. We now have examples to look to where we can learn the good and the bad of what’s happened in places like Tsawwassen.
I’ve left you with some preliminary thoughts on this matter. Sorry for taking up so much time, but I’m very opinionated on it. I’m happy to discuss any of these elements you’d like to discuss, and again, I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.
Cora McGuire-Cyrette, Executive Director, Ontario Native Women’s Association: Good morning.
[Editor’s Note: The witness spoke in her Indigenous language.]
I’m Cora McGuire-Cyrette, Executive Director for the Ontario Native Women’s Association. Thank you for inviting us to be here today.
I also want to recognize the Senate and your courage in speaking out against the inequalities for Indigenous women with Bill S-3. I want to acknowledge you for that.
I want to speak a bit about ONWA and who we are. We’re one of the oldest Indigenous organizations in Ontario, potentially across Canada, being around since 1971.
We have approximately 80 staff right now delivering over 21 projects, and we participate in 120 committees across the province. Additionally, we have 41 grassroots councils that comprise our membership, as well as an additional 13 Indigenous women’s organizations that are incorporated, just to give you a scope of the work we do here in Ontario.
I also want to state that we don’t speak for Indigenous women. We believe that is a colonial practice and that women speak for themselves. We’re here today to speak for issues. ONWA speaks on behalf of Indigenous women’s issues, and we want to acknowledge that during this process.
We would like to also go back and speak to women in communities and report back to the Senate in the fall, after we have a dialogue with women on how they want to participate within this nation-to-nation dialogue. We’re willing to do that work over the summer. I want to state that at the beginning.
There are three issues we would like to bring to your attention here today with respect to the relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples. The current nation-to-nation approach lacks a meaningful gender-based analysis and inclusion. A distinctions-based approach ignores the realities of Indigenous women. The current NIO structure for engagement doesn’t meet the needs of grassroots women or people in the communities as well. This will create community division, and it is creating community division. We need unity in facing division.
We welcome a new relationship with Canada and Indigenous peoples. Our colonial history, together with the laws and practices, is well documented but commonly not understood. Colonialism imports patriarchal ownership and power over Indigenous women and their children. We need to decolonize these actions, and we need to do it from each individual person. It needs to come from internal and then move external.
Beginning to take deliberate action to prioritize gender-based analysis truly addresses the broad harms of colonialism. Indigenous women need safety in order for this to occur. When you’re doing a gender-based analysis, Maslow’s teachings, which were stolen from Blackfoot, really look at, once you get beyond the basic needs, the need to address safety. That’s really where we are within the context of Indigenous women right now.
Indigenous women are impacted by many forms of systemic violence and are targeted by violence, as well, by all communities. Marginalization is demonstrated in their overrepresentation and poor health outcomes, homelessness, poverty, violence, homicide and criminalization. This violence prevents many Indigenous women from being meaningful participants in the governance discourse and taking up their roles and responsibilities in their life and in their families.
RCAP, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, acknowledged that pressing health and social problems cannot wait. Whole communities suffer substandard housing, unclean water and other risks to health. Canada’s Constitution makes room for Aboriginal people to take charge of these matters right now, if they want to, without waiting for other governments to transfer authority.
The immediate needs and safety within communities cannot be made reliant on lengthy treaty negotiations, nor should action on meeting the urgent human needs in communities be seen as a surrender of exercising self-government in the future. The surrender of Indigenous sovereignty is not a precondition to having access to basic human rights and safety.
Fundamental to transforming Indigenous communities is ending the cycle of violence experienced by Indigenous women and children. You can measure the health and well-being of any community by measuring the health and well-being of Indigenous women in that community.
Women are centre to our community. Women give birth to children in our community. If you want to make change in a generation, you need to provide love, support and kindness, and provide her with agencies in her life to address her needs, all from her own self-determination.
RCAP identified the first steps in making change. Aboriginal leaders should make a firm public stand against violence within their work and communities to develop zero-tolerance standards and policies.
In Ontario, there is the Joint Working Group on Violence Against Aboriginal Women. It was over 10 years in the making.
Back in 2007, I coordinated a conference of community women who wanted to be advocates for change in our community. We asked women about violence, but we didn’t only ask them about that. We didn’t want to relive what they already knew. We needed to know what the solutions are, what needed to happen, and what we could do together as a community to be able to address that violence.
Ten years later, we had the strategy and the $100 million announcement to address violence against Indigenous women in Ontario. That was 10 years in the making and the result of a lot of hard work from Indigenous partners who all agreed to put aside their differences to focus on saying, “Yes, we’re going to do something. We’re going to work together. We’re going to honour the voices of women and children to address this violence.” As a result, we have the Family Well-Being Program.
We need to re-establish balance within families, and fundamentally re-establish that balance within our communities and our leadership as well. Indigenous women need to be safe in order to meaningfully exercise their rights to participate in decision making.
Earlier this year, we met with Minister Bennett, and we asked her for assurance that Indigenous women’s unique perspectives would be included in the new relationship. She made no firm commitment. Minister Bennett has repeatedly stated that it will be up to communities to determine what comes next, but in reality, there is no transparency.
There is no transparency when it comes to how communities will be afforded the time and the capacity to heal from the past and to vision themselves and how they will overcome from elected band councils on colonial decision-making bodies and beyond reserve-based governance models. Indigenous communities must be able to move beyond colonization.
We must focus in on healing. We’re focusing so much on division. There’s more that unites us than divides us.
We need to be empowered in order to increasingly recognize the urbanization and how we’re deeply connected to our territories, even though we’re in urban communities and rural communities.
The current distinctions-based approach ignores the realities of Indigenous people who hold rights to mixed-identity rights holders. For instance, the child of a Metis mother and a First Nation father must now choose which rights framework to work under.
There is a need to change how decisions are made in communities. That may include changes to the NIO structure for decision making. It’s not about taking away from the conversation. It’s adding to the conversation. That’s something that we always get questioned about when we’re talking about inclusion of Indigenous women in decision-making authorities. We’re not trying to take away from the conversation of those rights-based conversations about our distinction of our leadership in communities. We need to add to. It needs to be a plus conversation.
In May of this year, ONWA withdrew our membership from the Native Women’s Association of Canada. As a founding member of NWAC, we honour the important work our organizations have done in over four decades to address the well-being of Indigenous women. As an organization, ONWA has grown to understand how the colonial results and silencing of Indigenous women is a form of violence. Their voices are often excluded, their priorities unheard, and grassroots women are usually spoken for.
We’re approaching an opportunity to transform how communities and organizations relate to our people. For ONWA, that meant no longer being complicit in the silencing of grassroots women by perpetuating the idea that any one organization can speak on behalf of all Indigenous women and their aspirations.
The rights of Indigenous women have been affirmed both because they are Indigenous and because they are women whose individual rights must be upheld with their collective rights. Section 35(4) of the Constitution affirms Aboriginal rights to both men and women. So does UNDRIP’s Article 44.
We would like to take this time and opportunity to fully engage our membership to provide a safe space to have a gender-based discussion on decolonizing in Canada. We want to bring grandmothers, mothers, children, trans and two-spirited people together in a healing and transformative way.
It’s time to stop viewing the gender-based violence experience by Indigenous women as separate and distinct issues of governance and decision making.
The provinces also need to be involved in this conversation and dialogue. We need to do it together. There is strength in working together to address this issue. Meegwetch.
The Chair: Thank you. We’re now looking forward to questions from senators.
Senator Tannas: Thanks to both of you for your presentations.
I’d like to start out with a question for Ms. Baird. You’ve got a success story to talk about, and, as you say, you’re getting lots of attention—or Tsawwassen is—from others that are looking to learn from the success that you’ve had and avoid some of the pain that maybe went into that.
Another witness recently talked about the idea of an agreement between Canada and Indigenous peoples that everybody could agree to, a set of principles maybe that just focused on rights and entitlements for individual people, recognition, reconciliation, entitlements that would flow to individuals as a start and then, once that has been somehow agreed to, something that is more localized. You talk about the fact that at the end of the day there is a real need for localized government.
Is there anything that we could agree to across the country that would resonate with all Indigenous peoples? Are there certain principles that we could maybe start out with that Canadians could sign on to and that Indigenous peoples could say, “Yes, those few things we can all agree on”?
Ms. Baird: It’s a complex question. I think ultimately that’s what the Constitution tried to do in recognizing Aboriginal rights, but they weren’t defined. I think the biggest challenge is having an agreed-upon definition of what Aboriginal rights and title are.
So, in absence of that clarity or certainty, that’s where a lot of the conflict comes from, in my opinion, in litigation in the courts. All the cases in British Columbia you see are about filling that empty box, whether it be fishing rights, hunting rights or consultation rights.
I think it’s worth trying. I don’t know if there is consensus among Indigenous people as to what those rights are, especially if you go from a historic treaty nation to a First Nation that doesn’t have any treaties. With respect to their asserted rights versus undefined rights in a historic treaty, everyone has a different view of what their rights actually are because they aren’t defined.
In my view, that would be the biggest challenge to overcome in trying to do a national framework to have agreement. But I do think that it’s fundamental that we come to agreement on recognition and respect of Aboriginal rights and title.
Senator Tannas: Thank you. In your particular case, you had 70 per cent of your membership vote in favour, and 94 per cent who actually voted. Did I hear that right?
Ms. Baird: Right.
Senator Tannas: That includes people that don’t live in the community.
Ms. Baird: Yes.
Senator Tannas: Those are very strong numbers. In the 30 per cent, was there any skew where the people not living on the community were overrepresented in that 30 per cent?
Ms. Baird: I’d have to look at the demographics of the actual breakdown of the vote. People on reserve were concerned that people from away were making decisions on things that would impact them. But my view is that Indigenous rights belong to the collective and to everyone, no matter where they live.
For the most part, I think it was a strong result in the level of engagement. But we worked really hard to get that result. We frequently engaged with people where they lived. We did constant community development work on and off reserve for 10 years leading to the vote. So it took an incredible amount of work to get that kind of participation.
Senator Tannas: What percentage of the population of Tsawwassen is on reserve versus off?
Ms. Baird: About 50 to 60 per cent on, depending on whether it’s fishing season or not.
Senator Tannas: Thank you very much.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you to each and every one of you for being here with us today.
I want to ask a general question and invite individual responses. Before I do that, I’d like to begin by asking Ms. Baird a question about the nature of the Tsawwassen agreement model.
It has now been eight years or so, or six years —
Ms. Baird: Nine.
Senator McPhedran: — that you have to reflect back on that incredibly intense time as a young leader who made history. When you think about the agreement now, do you see it as a model, a foundation? Where do you see it growing for your own communities, but also given the way in which there’s a significant level of interest in what and how you did? I think the “how” is often as equally important as the outcome.
Just to be a little clearer, one of the themes that we’ve had here from previous expert witnesses has been about the portability of rights, the whole nature of on-reserve, off-reserve, and I’m looking for models. When you’ve broken new ground with this final agreement, is there any prospective you think about? Is there a next step? Is there something you would do differently? Is there an area of strengthening that you think is particularly important?
Ms. Baird: First, I would like to step up for a second and acknowledge the Algonquin territory we are on. My elders would rightfully scorn me for forgetting to do that, so I would like to acknowledge that.
I think the biggest takeaway from the Tsawwassen experience for me personally was that we spent 12 years negotiating the agreement and we rarely refer to it. We spent 18 months creating 23 laws to replace the Indian Act, and that book of laws is tattered. So the self-governance component of the transformation is really the most important part of it. It’s not the land or the cash; it’s the governance.
But with the shared territory issues, we had 40 overlaps because we are in an area of the Lower Mainland, at the mouth of the Fraser River, that was a fishing camp for most of the Salish First Nations in the summer. We were in court with our neighbours, and we have been criticized for settling for too little, but at the same time, we had 40 people saying we claimed too much. So it’s a super challenging issue dealing with portability of rights if you are infringing on someone else’s core territory.
I think there needs to be a lot of evolved thinking about how the interface of historic treaty rights, modern land claim treaty rights and asserted Aboriginal rights and title pre-treaty all fit together and how they are all prioritized within the Canadian Constitution. I’ve had some people who contain Douglas Treaty rights say their rights go with them wherever they are in the whole country. If they go to the East Coast, people there might not agree that someone from Vancouver Island has rights there.
So it is complicated and requires further discussion, I think. But again, my biggest takeaway is that the internal developmental work for governance law-making is the transformation of our community. We design things to allow for economic development, and the economic model has borne out better than anticipated. It’s taking longer to build things, but the values increase dramatically.
The developmental side of things will take more time. We are evolving democracy, which will take more time as our community sorts out the priorities for its way forward, but those are our decisions to make now. You had a very broad question, so sorry to meander a bit.
Senator McPhedran: No. Thank you. It’s very helpful. One supplemental to that is for the evolving democracy that you just described and for some of the contested territorial questions that you also described, is there any role for non-Indigenous forms of government in that process? Or is that an internal process?
Ms. Baird: If we don’t create that, then the laws of general application apply. So conceivably, disputes could go to Canadian institutions. It’s kind of an abstract question. I would have to think about that a little more.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you. And then I have one more general question, if I may, to all of our expert witnesses.
You are leaders. We’re sitting here with three strong women leaders from Indigenous communities in Canada. What would you say to us about the nurturing of the next generation of leaders? What are the mechanisms for the support and engagement of youth in leadership and also the role of women leaders, so young women among the youth leadership? It’s really a question about moving forward. What kind of planning is in place? What kind of additional programs, mechanisms and resources do you see as essential for your next generation of leadership and the generation after that?
Ms. McGuire-Cyrette: We need to have safety. When you look at where we currently are in Canada, we have a national inquiry and we have Indigenous women and girls overrepresented in human trafficking and sex trafficking across Canada. We are a hub for this work, and the violence continues to escalate, and the over-incarceration of Indigenous people and girls in the prison systems and every aspect of justice. We cannot make change until we address the problems of trauma in our communities. We cannot continue to go down this road that we are currently on to give hope for our children and youth.
So until we start to address sexual violence — I’ve spoken to many youth about life promotion and suicide and looking at the connection between sexual violence and young Indigenous children, looking at that link as well as the overrepresentation in human trafficking and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. We need to begin to heal. We need to acknowledge the violence that’s going on. Children need their parents. They need their moms, and they need to have safety in the home. We need to reconcile that parenting relationship that was disrupted by the residential school system. We never did recognize or reconcile the relationship that was disrupted, those roles and responsibilities that were disrupted as a result of the residential schools. The children in that role and the connection of mom to child were interrupted and never reconciled.
So until we begin to do this reconciliation work from a healing perspective — that’s what we talk about from that gender-based analysis — my grandchildren are going to be sitting here saying the same thing. The stats will continue to get worse. My goal in life is to have this world be a little bit better than when I arrived. And if we all work together to acknowledge that communities have developed outside of First Nations and that we are together — it’s not either-or. There isn’t a division. We need to look at how we need to work together to address these wrongs, and we have to do it from healing.
Ms. Baird: I think it’s such a complex issue. Gender inequity is ingrained in this country generally and then overlaid into laws that were imposed on First Nations. While the country is trying to improve its gender equity issues, the Indian Act still remains, hundreds of years old.
I think a key important issue for Indigenous people and all Canadians is education about the foundation of these issues, just like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report on the treatment of people at residential schools. There is a whole apparatus that was imposed on Indigenous people and produced the economic and gender-based inequalities, and this has led to this treatment of Indigenous women as disposable in society because of all these institutions that neglect them. That’s my opinion, anyway.
So I think education is really important so that everyone understands that the inequality is still there. I think a lot of people don’t understand that it is there and why it’s there. I try to do my part through the three daughters I’m lucky to be the mother of, but I also try to mentor young women and young people generally who want to stick their necks out and take on a leadership role. It’s not easy to be a leader in Indigenous communities. Especially for a woman, you are putting a big target on yourself for speaking out and using your voice. So all the levels to change that need to happen from what we do as leaders to how we help others.
Courtney Skye, Advisor, Ontario Native Women’s Association: I would just add that one of recommendations that Ottawa put forward following up from the internal report on the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls inquiry was the re-establishment of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation with a trauma-informed and gender-based lens, which I think is really important. I consider myself a human rights advocate, and one of the most important things that have impacted me about UNDRIP is that our children have a right not only to basic necessities but to their aspirations.
I meet a lot of Indigenous youth. I look much younger than I am, but I meet a lot of peers and Indigenous youth, and they are highly motivated. I see them pursuing jobs and education, and they are driven to careers that are aimed at healing their communities. Many of our best and brightest are now reinvesting themselves into healing communities. Imagine if that potential was directed somewhere else besides healing from trauma. They have so much more to give to us. They have a right to aspirations that are beyond healing their communities. They have more to offer, and they have a right to that.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Christmas: Thank you very much for coming today. Congratulations, Ms. Baird, for all you have contributed to nation rebuilding; and my congratulations, Ms. McGuire-Cyrette, for speaking to issues and for all the services and programs you have provided to Indigenous women.
My first question will be for Ms. Baird. I’m curious, in the land claims agreement, why you didn’t think that your lands should be classified as section 91 lands. Can you elaborate on why that determination was made?
Ms. Baird: A lot of debate in British Columbia has been whether lands should remain under federal jurisdiction. We don’t think they should remain under federal jurisdiction; we think they should be within our jurisdiction. The province thinks that once it is removed from section 91, it falls under section 92, provincial jurisdiction. We don’t agree. There is a kind of vacuum in the Constitution about that, but to us it seems obvious and it would make sense that jurisdiction over our lands would be in our section of the Constitution.
Senator Christmas: Forgive me for making this too simple, but what I hear you saying is that neither section 91 nor section 92 could properly encapsulate what Aboriginal title is.
Ms. Baird: I don’t think jurisdiction over Indigenous lands should fall to the provincial or federal government. That’s the simplest way I can put it.
Senator Christmas: I appreciate that. Given that, obviously you heard the Prime Minister’s announcement in February that he is going to embark on what he calls a Recognition and Implementation of Rights Framework. Other people have called it a rights recognition framework.
What are your thoughts about the Prime Minister’s announcement and this new approach to dealing with rights?
Ms. Baird: It seems very ambitious, but necessary, to analyze the interface of Canadian law and policy on Indigenous rights and to try to do something that no longer denies the rights and title of First Nations or Indigenous peoples. I guess the different rights frameworks are going to provide some complexities because of case law and what have you, but I think it’s important. I think it’s going to be challenging to define what those rights actually are.
In my earlier statement I mentioned that there is a big divide between what is being said at the political level and what happens in the public service or, further, in court, where governments are still advancing denial types of premises.
I think it’s important. It will be an ambitious body of work, but I think it needs to get done.
Senator Christmas: Ms. McGuire-Cyrette, I was very excited when I saw this document, the Urban Indigenous Action Plan. I notice that you are one of the partners in the action plan. Could you give us a summary of what the plan is all about and why your organization decided to be a part of this?
Ms. McGuire-Cyrette: Yes, definitely. This is where we have a partnership and we implement a community development approach. It’s about going out and asking communities what they want to see. This is a model that we see works consistently when you work with communities to find out what solutions work for them in their communities and support them with that. What will work in a northern, remote Nishnawbe Aski Nation territory will be completely different from what works in Toronto or Thunder Bay or across Canada.
The action plan is about looking at government — provincial government, specifically — as a partner and how we can work collaboratively to support unity and to support communities through policy frameworks and legislative reviews, and to do it together so that it’s actually a community-up approach as opposed to the hierarchical model of government down.
We take a community development approach in terms of the community’s needs, aspirations and empowerment. Everything comes up, which is how the strategic framework worked. Women told us about the violence they were experiencing. It took 10 years to see it actually formulate into a program, the Family Well-Being Program, which looked at supporting women in a healing journey.
That’s the same approach within the action plan, namely, to have it endorsed within political institutions and government processes to work with us and with communities on implementation of any changes across the province, so any type of new policy reviews — the Child and Family Services Act, for instance — to get communities to participate in that and to have communities guide and lead the process with our government partners. It’s more beneficial and it has a better impact in terms of outcomes as it relates back to communities.
Senator Christmas: Having gone through the development of the Urban Indigenous Action Plan, what do you see, as an organization, are some of the key needs that urban Indigenous people have in Ontario?
Ms. McGuire-Cyrette: Reclaiming our voice. We see consistently, time and time again, that Indigenous women’s voices are silenced. This is something we have learned through colonization: silencing of women in current institutions, such as the prison system. There is no engagement, dialogue or empowerment, and yet we actually see some positive health outcomes within that justice system. It is disheartening that, due to stable housing, you are able to address health issues within an expensive, colonial, violent system.
But at the same time we need to go back and start the healing process. It all begins with healing. When we can empower and honour a woman’s voice — not to judge her but to support her — that’s when change comes into play. We have to reclaim our voices.
Senator Christmas: Thank you.
Senator McCallum: Thank you for your presentations.
It is always so encouraging to hear the voices of those who are out in the field and to hear what is being accomplished. Indigenous people are incredible.
How did you start to establish internal reconciliation? I worked in Manitoba as a health professional for many years, and I worked with organizations at the community level on my reserve. It was difficult to generate change in the community because people tend to stick to the same way of doing things. It’s almost like a fallback; sometimes there is fear when you need to take responsibility for your own decisions.
You’ve done such a great job. How did you start that dialogue?
Ms. Baird: Well, I didn’t really know that’s what I was doing when I started out. I was 22 when I was first elected to council. I noticed extremely dysfunctional governing structures.
By the time I was 28, I became elected chief, and I spent my whole time in leadership trying to improve our rules to try to satisfy the community the best I could. I started with the Indian Act, then went to the First Nations institutions, the First Nations Land Management Act, and so on. I took on bylaws and tried to take on the jurisdiction we had under the Indian Act.
It seemed no matter what we tried to do, it was not adequate because there was no legitimacy with the structure. All that suspicion against the Indian Act system was kind of embodied by chief and council. The moment I was elected a member of the council, I was treated much differently — quite poorly, actually — because there is a complex role for chief and council. No matter who comes into that position and what they are trying to do, while some power is afforded to the position, there is a complex, sort of abusive relationship with that institution as well.
As a youth, my idea was to get direction from the community on where they wanted to head and how they wanted to head there. The treaty process was a viable option to try and address land claims. It was only by going through that process and not really having a roadmap to follow that we found out eventually that the jurisdiction and the new governance structure were really the prize of the agreement, that self-determination, namely, the ability for us to take the risk that we could do better than the federal government had done for us and to take that leap of faith in ourselves for that.
It took a lot of work to sort through what our laws and our governance structure would look like and how we could include more people into decision making in an affordable way. There were a lot of nuts and bolts to examine before our community felt comfortable enough that we had a basis to proceed.
That would be my answer. It’s not really something I can put any bow on, though.
Senator McCallum: As Indigenous peoples, we’ve had to be caregivers. You answered a bit of that with Senator Christmas. We’ve had to have the role of caregivers at a time even today of trauma and conflict. We can get stuck in that role as caregivers. To move on to self-care and self-determination, we need to take on a different role. Part of that, you said, was we need safety and a voice.
Is there anything else that you see as a framework of safety that could make that progress from being a caregiver into a self-determining people? Do you understand my question?
Ms. McGuire-Cyrette: Yes, 100 per cent. There is this word gichi-ogimaawi, an Ojibway word of what my ancestors call “leaders in the community.” We had two Indigenous women’s leadership forums over the last couple of years. Out of my entire career, that was probably the most heartfelt work I have ever done with women in community. Looking back at it, it was because women united and came together, and we asked women what leadership means. What does Indigenous women’s leadership look like? What does this mean? No one in the room said it was politics. It was gichi-ogimaawi, which is leaders. It was about communities and family because it’s outside of self. That is, individually we are safe and healthy and we’re working on our healing journey.
I’ve learned from my family that my trauma story is not my identity. I learned that being raised by residential school survivors. Looking back at my grandparents who raised me, they never let their trauma own them and be their story or their identity. They acknowledged it and accepted it, which is a difficult part of the healing process, namely, to acknowledge and accept so we can move on and take a chance or a risk of trying something new. That’s the work we have been doing and what we have seen. When talking with women, it’s moving beyond the fear and the trauma. That’s where the reclaiming of your power begins to take place. Doing everything that we can to support them on that journey is important because that’s where the change happens.
There is also connection with her children. We did a project on resiliency and Indigenous women. A lot of people talk about it, but we wanted to find out what this looks like today. We found out that women will not work on themselves or address their violence or their health and well-being until that role and responsibility of the mother and child is protected. When you have the overrepresentation of children in today’s current residential school system, called the Child and Family Services Act and child welfare, there is a gap. You’re looking at only the apprehension of children and placing more expectations on the mother to address stuff that’s outside of her ability. How can she ever address systemic poverty and social injustice to be able to protect her responsibility as a mother and to take up her role in the family? We can make change for empowerment to take place. We have to do it from that perspective.
We have to support women taking up their role in their family and roles in leadership in their communities. One way to do it is through the funding of Indigenous women’s organizations. I’m not referring to ONWA; I’m referring to autonomous women’s organizations across Canada. First Nations women’s councils do not get funding. If you want to do any type of Indigenous women’s work in Canada, you need to be a charity or do a patchwork quilt of funding agreements and project-based funding. We manage about 40 different agreements to keep our doors open. You become really good at writing proposals to do this work or you become a shelter.
None of the work for women is ever preventive. It’s never about healing. All of the work is about crisis and after the violence occurs. When we’re talking about looking at reinstatement of the former Aboriginal Healing Foundation from a trauma-informed culture-based analysis, that’s not what we’re referring to. We are referring to implementing the UNDRIP through the reinstatement of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, which gives rights to Indigenous women’s organizations and addresses violence that has occurred in their lives. That’s what we want to see. We want to see that core funding that supports women’s work in order to make change in our communities and that gives space for women to be leaders in their communities.
Senator McCallum: When you were doing all this work with women, there would still have been that ongoing violence in the homes and what was happening there. How did you deal with those two together to provide safety for women?
Ms. McGuire-Cyrette: Talking with the women, we began to realize the concept of “safe space” and what that means. We were told that safety comes from an individual perspective and that we actually can’t create that safe space. We can create safer spaces and respectful places that give her the autonomy that she needs to come out and disclose and talk about the violence. We have done work on poetry nights, for instance, and spoken word. During those forms of art-based healing therapies, women are able to talk about the violence they have experienced in their lives. They are able to express that and be supported. We have done land-based healing. Connecting back to land is part of our identity. We need to look at multiple forms of healing, not only the psychological aspect of social work. That’s one piece. We need to recognize that there is cultural healing and religious healing. We have to recognize that individuals have their own spirituality and determination, and we have to be able to support them along that and recognize that there is a balance between both.
Senator Pate: Thank you to all of you for your leadership as Indigenous women leaders and the demonstration for and with other Indigenous women in your communities.
I still want to call you Chief Baird, but former Chief Baird, or maybe you will be chief again. In the work that you did, I’m curious about a couple of things going forward. You were incredibly young. You still are an incredible leader and looked up to in your community.
What initiatives were already in play? What energy were you able to initiate? For instance, some of the economic initiatives as well as some of the programs, the child welfare initiatives, some of the educational initiatives. What development still needs to happen? If you were in our chair, what are the recommendations you could make that would assist you and your community to go forward?
What is the interplay with the federal government? For instance, some of us are very interested in things like reinstating strong national standards around social services, education and guaranteed liveable income. What is the potential interplay there? I’m wrestling with that, so I’m now lobbing it over to you to help us wrestle with it as well.
Ms. Baird: That’s an incredibly complex question. The biggest barrier was that the federal government tended to interfere with what we were planning. They wouldn’t get out of our way; and often they weren’t very helpful. Some of the most offensive things I can imagine in my career happened at the negotiation table with levels of government.
But I don’t offend easily. If I did get offended, I was able to plug my nose and continue on to a place where we pretty much have autonomy and very little federal interference.
It’s a relief that when the different bills have been contemplated, as far as fiscal responsibility and those things go, we don’t have to worry about that anymore because we’ve established our own relationship with the federal government and have agreed to the standards.
There is a role for the federal government to ensure that there is a minimum standard of a safety net for Indigenous people across the country in whatever province they are in. I think that the continued erosion of communities by the apprehension of children, until that’s resolved, we are continuing to pull apart the fabric of our societies. That requires holistic, wraparound services for Indigenous families wherever they are, in their community or urban settings, and there are lots of experts who know what needs to happen. It’s accessing the resources in an easy way. That has been the challenge, and even that is improving.
So some of this focus on outcomes rather than just covering the legal risk, that’s the shift that is happening and needs to continue to get a handle on what the gaps are and what the disparity is and come up with strategies to overcome them.
From my perspective, it’s investing in something that will pay back Canada I don’t know how many fold.
Our first project was Tsawwassen Mills. The year it was being constructed it was the largest private capital project in the whole province. If you think about the millions of dollars of tax transactions that the federal government is benefiting from now, whether that be sales tax, all the people employed there and how they are trying to nickel and dime us in our fiscal negotiations because they’re worried we might get ahead with the amount we get transferred, it’s ridiculous.
The lack of resources to help us succeed when we got to the finish line of becoming self-governing was foolhardy, in my opinion. That’s an area that governments can focus on to ensure that communities willing to take on these risks to become self-governing, to make a change in the outcomes of their communities, are fully supported until it’s working.
Those things would be helpful. We took advantage of all the opportunities that were available, but we were lucky that I was re-elected with enough time frame to have that continuity of leadership to get somewhere. If we didn’t have sustainable funding toward community development, I had to make that a priority for our community so that we could engage with everyone and succeed.
We are lucky we did, in that the Indian Act framework, with two-year terms, is untenable. There are systemic barriers. If there is a way the federal government can fund longer-term community development initiatives, that is going to be where change happens.
Of course, wellness, health and wraparound services to help families overcome the traumas, whether it be residential school, or some families I’ve met are in their third generation of kids being removed, and they’re targeted. They expect that to happen from now on. It’s complex, and I think that the apprehension of children is one of the most critical things that need to be resolved.
Senator Pate: Do you know of any communities that have managed to fully decolonize the criminal justice responses? As you know, and as has been mentioned, women, particularly Indigenous women, are the fastest-growing population in the prison system. Have there been communities you know of where they have managed to stem that tide? The question is prompted by your last comment, and it’s very much linked to the removal of children, both in terms of women’s responses and the multi-generational impact on young women.
Ms. McGuire-Cyrette: I’m not aware of any. I definitely agree with that approach. When you’re looking at reconciliation with Indigenous women, that’s what that reconciliation will look like. The amount of violence that she has experienced in her life from every part of our community, from Canada and from our communities, has led to the current situation.
We need to look at how to do that, and through that community development approach of working with women, to find out those answers.
Ms. Baird: In Tsawwassen’s case, we’ve agreed to be in the framework of Canada — the Criminal Code applies, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies — so some will argue that we will never be decolonized because of that.
That being said, we look seriously at how to ensure that we can change outcomes in relation to those issues through more community and culturally sensitive processes. There has been experimentation with circle sentencing and other dispute resolution forms. We have a judicial council within our self-governing framework that, in theory, can be used to deal with some of these issues.
Criminal justice is not on our top 10 list of things we’ve been working on. That’s something that will evolve over time. We don’t have any influence over the Criminal Code in which First Nation people are overcharged. We can try and develop a better relationship with the police force that services our community, but it’s way too big an issue for our one community to resolve. But we do the best we can with the sphere of influence that we have.
Senator Boniface: I was caught by your term “wraparound service,” which is a term they use in New Zealand as well. I wonder if you see other jurisdictions that this community should be looking to in terms of the type of progress they’re making or not making.
Ms. Baird: On children and family matters?
Senator Boniface: I’m struck by the fact that you’re narrowing in on the point that until the child welfare system is addressed, you can’t have true reconciliation; there is a continuation of issues with residential schools.
Have other jurisdictions anywhere in the world made some efforts that we should be looking to as a committee that would ultimately help the contribution to the nation-to-nation relationship?
Ms. McGuire-Cyrette: Actually, when referring to that, it’s part of what we see as a gap.
For instance, we have the Aboriginal Healthy Babies Healthy Children Program in Ontario that is bridging that gap to provide that wraparound service delivery.
Recognizing that an early-learning program is focusing the majority of its attention on child welfare issues is where it comes away. We are reconciling that parenting relationship. It’s a very intense program that has a one-year wait list.
So, in order to begin to finally do that preventive work and that early childhood education, what’s preventing that is that crisis response. Being able to stabilize families and to ensure that bonding can occur after birth with baby and mom, that needs to be protected before you can even begin to do that preventive work and to do the parenting programming and to do that early childhood education and all of those pieces.
We are doing it here in Ontario through the Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Strategy, but that’s only an Ontario-based strategy. It’s not national. So that provides that wraparound programming and service delivery.
Ms. Baird: One of my clients is the First Nation that is tackling this head on. I was involved in authoring a report on things they could do locally to try and reduce the number of kids in care. It looked at wraparound services and preventive measures really trying to prevent removal of children. To do that, as soon as you start looking into why there are problems in the home, a lot of it has to do with this multi-generational impact and traumas of residential school and other colonial impacts.
There are other jurisdictions that have done a bit better, and it gets pretty granular, the things that have succeeded. It’s case conferencing and those sorts of things where the individuals are working for the whole family to stay together rather than a risk-averse remove the child sort of thing.
It leads me to believe that better checks and balances are needed on individual social workers who have this immense power, power greater than the police’s or the minister’s, that impacts Indigenous families.
There are other jurisdictions that we should look to for best practices, but I also think a made-in-Canada solution is needed as well.
The Chair: Before we move to second round, I would like to follow up on the question that Senator Tannas posed.
In your presentation, Ms. Baird, you said, “We need internal reconciliation in our communities.” I was thinking about chief and council. Probably some chief and councils are kind of embedded in the old colonial model where they’ve been told essentially what you can’t do. The Indian Act is always telling you you can’t do this and that and always putting forth obstacles, and yet you managed to somehow engage your community so that you had such overwhelming support for moving ahead.
Was that partly because at that time you were young, you were female, and you were approaching it in a way that wasn’t embedded in the old style of thinking?
Going forward, then, if that’s the case, how would you encourage other communities to move forward, given that in today’s demographics we have a very young population and we also have a large number of young women especially who are becoming educated and getting post-secondary degrees? They are getting degrees at at least twice the rate of young Indigenous men.
How do you think that is going to affect moving forward to a new relationship?
Ms. Baird: I think the key is safe spaces. My colleague here is referring to safe spaces for women from a violence perspective. You need safe spaces to communicate your views on First Nation political issues without feeling like you’re going to be reprimanded or face some blowback for acknowledging your opinion on some very emotionally charged issues.
I think that was the key. We created a lot of safe spaces for people to be able to engage on these matters, and we had high expectations that our people, no matter what education level, could engage on things like the constitutional status of our lands.
It becomes an issue of accessibility of language and that kind of thing, so I think openness and transparency and those sorts of things. I have no idea whether it had to do with my age or gender. You’d have to ask my community about that. Ultimately, establishing a long-term vision and establishing better ways of problem solving as a community were key factors of our success.
The Chair: What about the role of elders in establishing that vision? Do you think your elders played a big role in moving forward?
Ms. Baird: Yes. We created advisory bodies to our negotiation team. They were a cross-section of the community, from youth to elders, hunters, fishers, off reserve, cultural practitioners. Some of them were opposed to what we were doing, but they still participated and gave us guidance, which improved the agreement we negotiated and also improved our internal structures that we developed as well.
Our elders are pretty key, especially in some of our traditional teachings in how to ensure that our Coast Salish culture is wrapped around and our world values and our governance structures, yet taking on a modern context.
So there were a lot of discussions, and I was very lucky that I was able to go to our elders for advice almost any time. Their role was invaluable, although the formalized role is harder to achieve than the informal guidance.
Senator McPhedran: Ms. McGuire-Cyrette, you referenced human trafficking and sex trafficking several times.
Ms. McGuire-Cyrette: Yes.
Senator McPhedran: I’d like to come back and zero in on that for a bit partly because I’m from Manitoba, and indisputably we have a hub of sex trafficking in the city of Winnipeg, and indisputably the vast majority of those being trafficked are Indigenous youth, all genders.
We also have at least discussion at this stage with the current government to legalize prostitution. I want to ask you about whether you draw a connection between the sex trafficking of Indigenous youth and the legal framework in our country around prostitution.
Do you see anything happening where there’s a model for some better protection and better prevention of the sexualized exploitation of Indigenous youth?
Ms. McGuire-Cyrette: Great question. The work I’ve been doing for approximately 10 years now is around sex trafficking, human trafficking and prostitution, the entire sexual violence spectrum.
Recently, we’ve actually engaged with over 1,000 survivors of human trafficking in Ontario over this past year. Prior to that we wrote a position paper on sex trafficking of Indigenous women and girls. We were also part of assisting Ontario with its strategy. Within that, ONWA was successful in securing the Indigenous Anti-Human Trafficking Liaisons. The liaisons go into communities, recognizing the differences in the community from a community development model, to work with the community to begin to understand what is going on in each community.
Lots of communities are just starting to understand and identify what human trafficking and sex trafficking are. With respect to the question about prostitution and human trafficking, we’re talking to many survivors, and we recognize and honour that it is an entire spectrum. There is no clear line or anything definitive when one crosses to the next in that it really is a spectrum.
Regardless of where the woman is at, we support her along that journey, whether she is self-identifying as working in the sex trade or has identified that she’s been trafficked. Typically those words are really not what the women are telling us.
I’ve helped four women exit human trafficking in the past couple of months here in Ontario, and it boils down to safety and crisis right at the very beginning of all of the work we’ve been doing. You need to have survivor champions in order to do this work because they understand and support each other. The experiences of women who have been trafficked and the level of trauma that they have suffered is so immense that you cannot begin to even hear that story. I’ve been gifted with some of their stories; they’ve shared them with me, so part of my responsibility is to honour their stories and to bring forward what they have tasked me to bring forward.
Therefore, we recognize that non-judgmental services are needed, regardless of where this sexual violence is occurring. We need to honour and support them from the front-line services from police to hospitals to paramedics to front-line support. Those front-line service providers need to provide services regardless of who they are or what lifestyle they are in.
That’s what we’re seeing right now. They’re not getting the same quality standard of care because of their situation. It’s not happening. We’re seeing consistently across Ontario that the health care system is discriminating against these Indigenous women and girls.
Additionally, you have to look at child abuse laws for anyone under the age of 18. There is child abuse and the sexualization of Indigenous girls from birth. Some of the stories I’ve heard have been that these women have been abused from birth all the way through and from the entire society.
So when you’re looking at Halloween costumes, sexualizing Indigenous women from cultural regalia, and looking at the sexualization and the ownership of the Indian Act on women, there really is an entire system that is contributing to where we are right now. We have to have a comprehensive response to address it.
In Ontario, we finally have a strategy to look at services to address this. ONWA is currently piloting a crisis response program out of Thunder Bay. We’re already seeing that we’re actually serving the entire province from one small project. Communities are finally starting to understand human and sex trafficking and the signs of it happening in their communities. Now they’re saying, “Now what, now that we know what it means?” Now you have all of the disclosures coming out, and we need to have non-judgmental programming and services ready to go. We have to support the woman where she’s at. She has that right.
Ms. Skye: ONWA submitted a brief to the House of Commons on human trafficking last week. They just finished their study. That’s a new publication that we have that we can also share here if you’re interested in it.
I also want to talk about the important distinction that ONWA has made. Affirming the rights of women and valuing women is actually at the centre of what we’re trying to do when we’re addressing human trafficking and sex exploitation. The reason why women are vulnerable or continue to submit to exploitation is that they have no real or acceptable alternative but to submit to that exploitation.
We need to provide real alternatives for women to access and recognize their own value and worth. That is what is critically important. What we’re trying to do with our programming is provide those alternatives and other places affirming Indigenous women and meeting their safety needs first and foremost, regardless of where they’re at, and for all women, not just for people who are trafficked or who are sex workers. We value them all. And we see their contributions to our communities and their worth as Indigenous women.
The Chair: On behalf of all the senators, I would like to thank our witnesses this morning: Kim Baird from Kim Baird Strategic Consulting, former chief of Tsawwassen; and from the Ontario Native Women’s Association, Cora McGuire-Cyrette, Executive Director, and Courtney Skye. Thank you very much for your testimony, and thank you to the senators for all their interesting questions.
Senators, this is our final meeting before the summer adjournment. I want to thank all members for their hard work, both on our current study and on the bills that we looked at in this last session, such as Bill S-3 and Bill C-45. I think our committee has been extremely successful in being able to hammer out better deals for Indigenous people in Canada. I’m sure that communities out there are thanking us.
I wish that you all have a great summer.
With that, we shall adjourn until the fall.
(The committee adjourned.)