THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON ABORIGINAL PEOPLES
EVIDENCE
YELLOWKNIFE, Monday, September 10, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 8:59 a.m. to study 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, everyone. I would like to say what an honour and privilege it is to be here in the Northwest Territories on the traditional lands of the Indigenous peoples here, which, reading through the briefing book, I see it is a very complex region.
I do not know whose land we are on. In this area, there are many sorts of overlapping territories. It is the homeland to First Nations, several Metis groups, several First Nations groups and some Dene people as well. I hope I have not missed anyone.
I acknowledge that we really are on the traditional lands. It is lovely to be here as opposed to holding meetings in Ottawa, which is also on unceded Algonquin territory, but we are in very special place to feel connected to the reality of Mother Earth.
Before we begin, we have to pass a motion. Is it agreed that photography and filming be authorized during this meeting, senators?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Then we can proceed.
We have a number of panels this morning. Our first witnesses are Duane Smith, Chair and CEO of Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, accompanied by Bob Simpson, Director of Government Affairs.
Mr. Smith will deliver some remarks and then we will have questions from the senators. Mr. Smith, you have the floor.
Duane Smith, Chair and CEO, Inuvialuit Regional Corporation: Ublaami. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity, and I apologize in advance to the interpreters if I am going a bit fast. I know my presentation is long, but I think we have a lot of important points that we are trying to bring across.
I will try to skip across portions of it, assuming that you can look at it and/or it is understandable as it is presented to you.
I hope your travels to Yellowknife are uneventful and that you have been able to take in some of your surroundings. In speaking with my friends and colleagues from other countries, they are always surprised that here you can fly all day and still be in the same country.
As I will talk about in a few minutes, part of a new relationship between Canada and Inuit and the other Indigenous group within this territory will necessarily be the acknowledgment that Inuit and other Northern peoples are far from Parliament Hill. Just as the West needed the railway to be connected to the heart of Canada’s government in the early days, the North also needs to be built into the nation on modern terms. In this day and age, we need modern and reliable technology and transportation infrastructure to participate fully as equals. The standards are higher now than they used to be. I am sure you would like to fly on the safest planes, have reliable heat and power, and enjoy the fastest Internet when you visit us. Businesses, researchers, investors and Inuvialuit all need those things as well, but let me get on with this opening.
For those of you that I have not met, and I have met some of you previously, my English name is Duane Smith and I am Chair and CEO of Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. With me here is Bob Simpson, Director of Government Affairs. Geographically, we have flown 1,100 kilometres south to be with you today, just to give you a sense of how far we are, yet still in the same country. I keep saying that.
I will give you a brief background on our organization so that you understand our context and then address the topic of this study.
The Inuvialuit settlement region, or the ISR as it is referred to, is located in the Western Arctic segment of Inuit Nunangat, or Inuit homeland is what that means, which includes the lands, ice and waters of the Mackenzie Delta, the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean.
There are six communities within the settlement region. Aklavik and Inuvik are located along the banks of the Mackenzie River. Paulatuk, Sachs Harbour, Tuktoyaktuk and Ulukhaktok are located along the coast of the Beaufort Sea. There are currently nearly 6,000 Inuvialuit beneficiaries that reside in the ISR, in Canada and beyond.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, resource companies were coming into our settlement region to look for oil and gas. This was being done in a very unregulated way. We were not engaged, involved or consulted as this evolved and decided to take action.
As a result, jumping ahead to 1984, the Inuvialuit Final Agreement was signed and given effect by the Western Arctic Claims Settlement Act on June 25, 1984. The IFA, as it is referred to, was the first comprehensive land claims settlement agreement north of the 60th parallel and only the second in Canada’s history at that time.
Thirty-four years ago, Canada operated under a different set of policies and attitudes than it does today. This includes what was expressed in the IFA and what could not be mentioned at all. Many of our rights in known resource areas as well as the offshore area of our region, for example, fell into the latter category.
In relation to modernizing our relationship, while we have needed to do a lot of historical study to figure out how we all fit in this country together, no person and no peoples can be stuck in time. The relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada must always be evolving.
On maintaining distinctions-based approaches, there are some recent approaches that should continue. Inuit and Inuvialuit First Nations and the Métis Nation are distinct peoples. We each have our own challenges, histories and governance structures. These distinguishing features have impacted the form our agreements have taken and the way implementation has been and needs to be carried out.
Principle 10 of the principles respecting the Government of Canada’s relationship with Indigenous people says:
A distinctions-based approach is needed to ensure that the unique rights, interests and circumstances of the First Nations, the Métis and Inuit are acknowledged, affirmed, and implemented.
Inuit from the four Inuit regions of Canada have signed the Inuit Nunangat Declaration on Inuit-Crown Partnership. Under this structure, our land claim organizations have been active participants in the development of Canada’s Arctic policy framework. We also contributed to the work of the Review of Law and Policies project. These are important venues for ensuring the federal government, our partners under the IFA, has the proper guidance for its work toward achieving the objectives under the agreement.
Recommendation 1 reads:
The IRC respectfully requests the Committee include in its report the recommendation to continue to invest time and intelligence in the Inuit-Crown Partnership, the Arctic Policy Framework and the Review of Law and Policies and that Canada continue to approach this work through a distinctions-based approach.
Taking a determined view of our land claims agreements along with this evolving relationship, our approach to our agreements must continue to evolve. They are documents that are meant to last forever, living documents evergreen, or whatever you want to call them.
As I have noted, when Canada sat at the negotiating table with the Inuvialuit, it operated under a policy that excluded the discussion of a number of Indigenous rights in the offshore and known resources. Land claims agreements negotiated after 1986 were not subject to the same policy limitations.
The Beaufort Sea is not an uninhabited place. It is a major component of our settlement region, as is all the oil and gas that is stranded, which stymies development and creates dependence of the region on government. Industry is allowed to do this under Canada’s legislation.
The December 20, 2016, joint Arctic leaders statement, which instituted the offshore development moratorium, was issued with only 20 minutes’ notice. Ships continue to make their way through our waters releasing grey water and other effluents along the way. Vast sections of our region are vulnerable to the unilateral application of conservation areas without any kind of implementation plan, compensation or resourcing. This is not an example of a mutually respectful relationship among parties to the agreement.
If the IFA is not approached from a modern perspective with a view to how Inuvialuit rights should be treated in line with today’s laws and morals, it will break.
As I have also suggested to the Prime Minister, a better process of accountability of the federal departments that have responsibilities to proactively work with us on the implementation of our Inuvialuit Final Agreement is required. When I say “our,” it is the federal government’s as well as the Inuvialuit’s. Departments are ignorant of this requirement and have policies that do not reflect their obligations and in a lot of cases contradict. This is why I have also proposed an IFA 101, if I can refer to this land claim as an example. There needs to be a lot of education across the country in regard to how Canada was built and its Indigenous relationship.
Recommendation 2 reads:
The IRC respectfully requests the Committee include in its report the recommendation to come to the table and work with Inuvialuit and other older land claims agreement holders to determine how to properly evolve their agreements.
When the IFA was negotiated, attention was not paid to what it cost to operate the governance structures under the IFA and continue to provide government programming in our region. The IRC, for example, receives $40,000 annually, which covers participation at the meetings of the IFA implementation coordinating committee. In comparison to other land claims signed later, this is a fraction of what is seen as necessary to carry out the functions of a land claim organization. With this, we are left to implement our treaty, and again our treaty, in isolation of our partner, Canada.
Where land claims agreements holders must undertake some functions of government in order to ensure our beneficiaries get to enjoy the basic services I referred to earlier, a reasonable level of core financial support is necessary.
Recommendation 3 reads:
The IRC respectfully requests the Committee include in its report the recommendation to update the inadequate implementation funding in older land claims agreements.
In addition to the level of funding, the form of funding can be a constraint upon or a catalyst for implementation under Canada’s housing initiative. Under Canada’s housing initiative, for example, we are not able to prepare a long-term plan and take advantage of economies of scale because the funding is committed on an annual basis.
I digress for a minute here. The coastal communities that I referred to only receive one ship a year for resupply. If we miss that ship’s sailing, the materials will not get to that community in time for construction. This does not work with the demands of the northern logistics schedule. The same goes for early childhood education programming, environmental research and economic development initiatives. In order to operate effectively, the IRC needs longer term financing arrangements which will allow for better planning, consistent offerings and better outcomes.
Recommendation 4 reads:
The IRC respectfully requests the Committee include in its report the recommendation to extend longer term flexible funding arrangements to land claim agreement organizations with established track records of financial responsibility.
On building the Arctic into Canada, as noted previously, business and government operate at a different rate of speed and standard of sophistication than they did even five or ten years ago. We no longer put an agreement in the mail and hope it gets there. We scan and email it first with the original to follow.
The Arctic is behind, though, when it comes to certain key pieces of infrastructure. The CRTC declared Internet a basic service. According to CRTC then Chairman Blais, the future of our economy, our prosperity and our society require even our remote Arctic communities to be connected for the 21st century.
We need high-speed Internet with built-in redundancy in our communities. This will make available online education and e-health services in our coastal communities. This has already found success in Ulukhaktok, where three students fully graduated from high school by accessing online services or distance education. Most students require upgrading as their schools do not provide those classes.
We also need a secure and affordable source of cleaner energy than the imported fuels we are still using in our communities today. Given our common objectives of mitigating the immediate impacts of climate change and releasing families from the crippling costs of imported energy, Canada needs to come to the table with us to find a way out of the cycle of pollution and poverty. This cannot be achieved through small, disconnected pots of funding. It needs to be done through partnership, a vision that looks at the advantages and benefits not only for our region but how it complements Canada’s growth and identity.
Again, I will digress for a minute. The energy source for my community where we both reside has to truck its energy close to 2,000 kilometres. It was 3,200 previously, all the way from Delta, B.C., but a plant was developed in northern B.C. so that the energy now gets trucked from there, which is only 2,000 kilometres. This does not make sense when we are sitting on 9 trillion cubic feet of gas in my region alone and vast millions of barrels of oil. We are suggesting to work with us to develop this gas so we have a clean and homegrown source of energy.
The third piece that Arctic Indigenous communities need to graduate from outposts to Canada’s North is the marine infrastructure. We know that our Arctic coast is unprepared and vulnerable from a national security perspective. The Inuvialuit are the only people consistently present and able to respond on the ground in a timely way. We also know that a functioning deepwater port is key to supporting a variety of industries, including natural resources and tourism.
Finally, the Inuit regions need to be afforded the opportunity to realize efficiencies and modernize air transportation to and from the North.
Recommendation 5 reads:
The IRC respectfully requests the Committee include in its report the recommendation to engage directly with capable Indigenous parties to develop long-term plans for the development of key pieces of infrastructure, namely, connectivity, energy, air transport, marine infrastructure and the management of national security installations.
With that, those are my comments today. Quyanaq which means thank you in one of our dialects, and I am open to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Smith. It was a very comprehensive overview. The floor is now open for questions.
Senator McPhedran: We really appreciate the time and attention you are giving to come and speak with us today. The dialogue is very important.
I want to check in with you about what I heard as a connecting theme through almost everything that you were saying this morning, and that was shifting to much more direct control, participation and sourcing what you need or what your communities need out of what is actually more available to you.
The oil and gas reference is the most obvious, but I was also hearing about the education of students and the skill building. Presumably that is part of a strategy to keep young people in your communities.
Could you tell us a bit more about a retention strategy and longer-term planning for greater self-sufficiency?
Mr. Smith: You have touched on a few items. I will try to address them as best that I can. If I do not, then just clarify.
We are recommending that there be improved relations directly with ourselves and the Crown. Our region and our organization have demonstrated the ability to implement the activities when we are working more directly with each other rather than going through other parties.
We have invested significant amounts of our own resources toward improving education within our region. The only problem we have is that we do not control the delivery of education, so we are working around the peripheries of it trying to give support.
We have put what we call family support workers right into each of the communities to give assistance to the students as well as the teachers and the parents on counselling, guidance and support, but we know for education that attendance is the most significant factor. A lot of the kids in the North, by the time they reach grade 10, have probably missed a year or two at least of school for various reasons.
We put a lot of emphasis on our education foundation where we provide support to students going to post-secondary. We piloted with the regional education system the e-learning I referred to earlier, where science can be brought into the community from outside the area where they are taught over Internet. Again, the bandwidth is so limited and restricted, it does not allow for enhancement of these services to be brought into the community.
That is why I was making reference to the CRTC recognition that there is a need to modernize Internet service and make it equitable across the country so that everybody is taking advantage of what that provides to begin with and working with us on developing energy at home. We want to be taxpaying citizens. We want to work. We want to be a part of society. We do not want to be a hindrance and/or dependent on support services. Rather, we would like to be contributing, and one of the ways for that is to develop the gas that we are sitting on in our region.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Thank you for having us here in your territories. Has your relationship with the municipal and territorial governments changed over time, and how would you like to see it changed?
Mr. Smith: In relation to the municipal services, we provide supports to them. We advocate for their needs as well to give them the tools and the capacity required for them to deliver the services they require. On occasion, we will work with them to provide gravel services because the gravel sources for the communities are on our private lands. We have to work with each other in regard to those needs.
We continue to stress not only to the municipal but to the territorial government that they need to inform us, as one part of our final agreement, what their long-term gravel needs are. They are supposed to give us a 20-year plan. We have never received that. It is difficult for us to reserve certain stockpiles of that for those municipalities when we do not know what their needs are.
As for us and our relationship with the territorial government, it is difficult at times I would say. We are going on 35 years of this agreement. They are signatories to this Inuvialuit Final Agreement as witnesses. They have obligations as well for implementation. Again, it is like any federal department. We have difficulty in their recognizing what their responsibilities are at times when they have their own agenda and their own mandate that may even conflict at times with our final agreement.
I hope you ask the same question of the other presenters throughout the day to get their perspective as well. It is very difficult at times dealing with the government when they want to maintain control and under our final agreement we have the ability to take on more responsibility. That is the situation, where it is at.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: I would like to say that I am from a First Nation in the East and we have the same problems. Our relationship has not improved. I am just trying to find out how it is with all the First Nations we are to visit this week. I know it has not changed but I wanted to know your perspective on how it could change.
Mr. Smith: With the Inuit-Crown partnership that has been in place for over two years now, we have made vast strides because we are dealing directly, if I can say, nation to nation, with the prime minister’s office and the various federal ministers. With that, we have been able to get the housing funding directly for all the four Inuit regions and we are implementing that.
We have been constructing housing for the last couple of years now. We have done it with a higher quality, a lower cost and ahead of schedule. On average, we are building these things $50 less a square foot. If you do not know the cost of operating in the North, that is significant.
It is an example I would like to use where we could work with each other better and achieve the goals that we want to see. It has taken us quite a while to get there. We have had to put our own data together, and my colleague, Bob Simpson, is very good at getting this data for us.
We have shown to the federal government the housing needs that were required. That is why we were able to get the funding. Like I said, we made a submission to the Treasury Board, not only ourselves but the other three Inuit regions, for a longer term funding plan so that we could properly plan the housing implementation in our region rather than on a year-by-year case. It is difficult if you do not know whether or not you are getting the funding. Then you hear about it and you have missed the shipping season, so you have to wait until next year.
Again, you also have to lay the gravel pad the facility will sit on a year in advance so that it can settle properly because we reside on permafrost, so it will sink, heave and shift because of the permafrost. I hope I have answered your question.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Yes, you did.
Senator Christmas: Thank you, Mr. Smith, for being here today. I appreciate the great distance that you have had to come to see us.
You mentioned in your presentation that this is the 35th year of the land claims agreement and that it was the second major one in Canada. Your second recommendation spoke about properly evolving these agreements. I noticed one comment you made, that there were a number of rights in the offshore and other resource sectors that were not considered during the land claims agreement in 1984.
Could you elaborate now with these new realities how this agreement should evolve and how those areas that were excluded should now be considered, discussed and resolved?
Mr. Smith: Where we reside there are very vast reserves of oil and gas. At the time the National Energy Program was implemented we had a free-for-all, if I can put it that way, in regard to companies exploring both onshore and offshore.
At the time in the 1970s all of the Inuit in the East and ourselves were negotiating our rights together. Because we were being impacted so quickly our group decided we needed to advance our negotiations. We broke off and decided to negotiate because of impacts we were experiencing already.
There were certain conditions that the federal government put in place. If a company already had an SDL, as they are referred to, or a significant discovery licence for oil and gas either onshore or offshore, that area was off limits for discussion at all. As well as on the offshore, any resources, be it renewable resources, were limited for discussion at the time.
Like I pointed out, two years later, there was a shift in policy where offshore rights were allowed to be discussed among parties that expressed their rights in that area. We have never been able to revisit that issue in regard to our region and what we think our rights are on the offshore.
We have had discussions recently with some of the ministers, but we are not at the table or at that stage yet. That is the case of our area or our region. By the way, the area that I am representing is almost a million square kilometres, just so people get the sense of the size we are talking about here. The four Inuit regions represent around 38 per cent of Canada alone, and we represent I would say 9 or 10 per cent of the size of this.
Senator Christmas: If I am hearing you correctly, your second recommendation is about evolving the land claims agreement. What you are suggesting is that the development of offshore resources in your area should be a part or should become a part of your land claims agreement.
Mr. Smith: What I am suggesting is that we sit down with Canada and negotiate what we think our rights are on offshore resources, either renewable or non-renewable.
We are not suggesting the development of it at this time, but that would be entertained because we actually developed ourselves one of the gas wells on land and it was providing our community the gas that it needed, but it has run dry as it was expected to.
That is why we are suggesting we need to develop another site. We are sitting on 9 trillion cubic feet of gas, proven reserves of gas. We know there is more out there but we need the investment. The return will be there, like I say, from everybody being employed and taxpaying citizens.
Senator Christmas: The obstacle is that Canada does not recognize your rights to those resources, either offshore or onshore? Is that the obstacle?
Mr. Smith: The way it works within the oil and gas industry and Canada’s regulations is that if a company explores and finds oil or gas of any significance, they will file for a permit or a licence from the federal government. That is what I was referring to. It is called an SDL, a significant discovery licence. Some of them have been sitting on those resources for 50 years.
This is Canada’s wealth being held hostage, if I can put it that way. The federal regulations allow Canada to direct a company to develop, but no minister has ever exercised that section of the regulations to tell them to develop.
Senator Christmas: Some of these licences predate the land claims agreement.
Mr. Smith: Oh, yes. The exploration started in the late 1960s. That is where a lot of the original vast reserves were found on the offshore.
Senator Christmas: I could go on, but I had better give others an opportunity.
Senator McCallum: I am Cree from northern Manitoba. I lived in an isolated community but not to the extent that exists here. You have done amazing work despite all the obstacles that have been placed in your way, so I commend you for that.
I was looking at recommendation 2 as well to determine how to properly evolve the agreements. What I have been reading about is that assimilation is still continuing. The government fluctuates between self-determining and going back to assimilation. They cannot seem to get out of that pathway.
When you look at the divergent political cultures that exist between Eurocentric and Aboriginal issues, some of them for Eurocentric are that money is capital but for Indigenous people nature is capital. Power is concentrated in the hands of a few for Eurocentric and for Aboriginal it is broadly based. Then you can look at individual ownership versus collective ownership and at land in production, it is owned individually versus collectively.
We have that divergent political culture that exists and has never been ironed out. I would call it power imbalance. How would you make progress in these areas? Do you think progress can be made and if so, how could we move forward?
It seems like two languages are being taught. Self-government to government means their mandates. Self-government to Indigenous people is self-determination. There is a language difference. It comes up and it does not seem like there is respect of the English language based on our traditional languages. I am wondering how we get out of that rut.
Mr. Smith: I will try to work my way backward, if I understand everything you are asking.
I am very supportive of the federal government right now pursuing Indigenous language legislation. I think that is a significant start. It is 150-plus years overdue, but it is a strong demonstration internationally of how Canada’s relationship with its Indigenous peoples continues to evolve.
I will give you an example of the structures within our region. We have what we call co-management bodies that manage the wildlife and/or the marine resources. We have a fisheries joint management committee. We have a wildlife management advisory council. These are co-management bodies made up of the Inuvialuit, the territorial government, as well as federal government representation.
They know the mandate already because it is negotiated under our land claim. When they sit down, they do not say I am here to represent so-and-so. They sit down together to come up with a game plan, a work plan that they would implement for that year based on the budget they have.
It is the same with our screening, our environmental impact screening committee and our environmental impact review board. Those are created under our final agreement as well and the structure is the same. It has Inuvialuit representation, GNWT representation and federal representation. They will look at proposals and activities that are taking place on the land to evaluate the level of impact they may have or not. If it goes to a review board process, it also has to negotiate with ourselves, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, to minimize the negative impacts and other areas in regard to training and employment benefits that would come to us if there is a development activity of that scale.
There are processes where we work with each other, but there is always room for improvement on other areas where departments do not fully recognize their role and their responsibility for implementation of the land claims. I suggested that to Justice Minister Wilson-Raybould and she established a committee of six ministers that are reviewing the policies of the departments to see how they may complement, reflect on their responsibilities or contradict their role and responsibility under implementation of the different land claims treaties across the country.
I am hoping that comes out soon so that everybody can have a look at it and evaluate how they plan to improve the relationship that each department is supposed to have with the different land claim organizations on implementation of those rights.
Senator Tannas: I appreciate very much your being here, sir. I have a number of short questions for clarity, some for my own understanding and some for the understanding of others. The first one is really easy.
Recommendation 1 says in part that “. . . Canada continue to approach this work through a distinctions-based approach. I am not sure I know what that means.
Mr. Smith: Inuit specific, an Inuit-Crown partnership to work with us because our rights may differ geographically and issues will be different.
Senator Tannas: I want to ask about the gas well that you had. What were you using it for? Was it for heat? Was it generating electricity or both?
Mr. Smith: It was everything. It was providing power to the communities. We also put in a distribution system so people could run their appliances off gas as well as heat their own homes.
Senator Tannas: It is all plumbed. It is all piped. Everything is ready to go. All you need is the gas well.
Mr. Smith: It is still used but the reserve is running dry. The gas reserve is running low so they truck in propane to offset the need for power. Then, when the roads are closed during the fall and the springtime because we have ice crossings where we have to cross the river, access is limited. During those times of the year they will switch to run on gas, but it is only used as a reserve now.
Senator Tannas: This is not one of the things that was caught accidentally or otherwise in the moratorium that Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama signed, is it, the one you got 20-minute notice of?
The replacement well that you want to drill will be onshore, right? Does it need special licensing? Is that part of the problem or is it a money problem.
Mr. Smith: No. It is a financial issue. It is the need for investment for the initial stage.
We have worked with the territorial and federal governments to do the study and evaluate the different types of development required for any of these wells. We looked at about six or seven different sites. Two of them have economic potential for development, and that is what we are pursuing now. The study has just been completed so we are looking at how to go about the next steps because the company owns the rights to the development of that oil. We have to see if they are willing to sell that first of all.
That is the stage we are at and that is why I am saying under certain regulations the federal government has the power to tell a company to develop but has never exercised that certain section.
Senator Tannas: You mentioned the Internet bandwidth. Is it a technological issue? I am not overly familiar. I presume it is satellite Internet that you are using. It is not land based. It is not on a line. Is it a wireline or does it come through satellite?
Mr. Smith: No. Everywhere in the North is satellite based. Recently the territorial government with federal funding put in fibre optics down the valley, as it is referred to, right to my community, but no one is hooked up to it yet.
Senator Tannas: It is the last mile of fibre that you need.
Mr. Smith: It is just in my community. Then we have the other five that do not have that ability. The bandwidth in their area is still slow and is satellite based. It is the cost again for us to be hooked up to the fibre optics.
We did a cost analysis. It would cost us $12,000 a month for our building to be hooked up to that. That is the problem you run into when a company has a monopoly on the service.
Senator Tannas: There is a company that controls the fibre to your town.
Mr. Smith: In partnership with the territorial government.
Senator Tannas: That sounds a lot like Alberta.
Mr. Smith: It is difficult, yes.
Senator Tannas: I have one more quick one question.
As the children in your community grow, and Senator McPhedran asked this as well, are they staying? Are you satisfied that kids who want to stay in the community, be successful and have a good life are able to do that? If not, what do you see in the future that you need to make sure that that is happening, if indeed there is a problem?
Mr. Smith: Unfortunately, they are not staying. We keep track of where each of our beneficiaries resides. The number leaving the region is growing quite quickly because there are no opportunities. There is no employment. The economy is stagnant.
The moratorium also basically took us out at the knees and made it look like there was no future for any activity. People are not going to stay. If you are not able to develop the biggest resource you have within the region, then you know there will not be any jobs in the future. We are doing what we can to give all those kids the opportunity to get the highest education they can get because that is part of our role and our function, but we cannot make them stay.
Senator Tannas: It is interesting. It is a paradigm shift to say that consultation needs to happen on stuff that is being proposed, but consultation sometimes needs to happen on stuff that they will stop doing, right?
Mr. Smith: Yes.
Senator Pate: My questions are linked somewhat. I am curious as I was just travelling with the Special Senate Committees on the Arctic. We heard horrifying numbers about the number of young people being taken into care and then being taken out of communities, as well as the number who are not attaining grade 12, much less vocational or other post-secondary education. Often when some of those who get their grade 12 go to enroll in post-secondary education down south they have to repeat sometimes one or two years because of the inadequacy of the quality of education they are receiving here.
I am curious as to what the picture looks like for you in your region and your community in particular and what kinds of things you suggest this committee might recommend to assist in that process.
Mr. Smith: I thought you were already referring to the data from my region actually because it is exactly the same. That is why I was saying when kids supposedly graduate from grade 12, they have to go back for upgrading. A lot of the communities do not have science. They do not have biology. They do not have the qualified teachers that can provide that in a lot of these remote communities. That is why I am making the emphasis, at the very least, to improve the bandwidth to the communities and the security of that service so that the education system can better utilize it.
I use the example that somebody is sitting in South Africa or somewhere can be providing your classroom with science through that service. They do not have to be there, but if that person is willing and able to teach kids science through that process then we need to have the ability to do that.
In regard to children in custody, yes, a lot of that is still taking place. We are trying to work with Minister Philpott more specifically in regard to alleviating that within our region at least. We want to take on that responsibility, but we need the investment in a facility to provide that service.
I am of the strong belief that our kids need to be brought up in and exposed to their own culture. We have seen some of these older kids with a loss of identity and the struggles they go through. That is where suicide comes in. We want to be more proactive, come up with mechanisms and work with the federal government on how to alleviate these and come up with proactive approaches that we think would work. We need the initial resources to get that pilot underway.
You just need to go to the auditor general’s report on this territory a few years ago in regard to children in custody. The fact that they could not even locate some of these children is telling in itself. That is why we want to take over that role and function, with our kids at least, so that they are at least provided a secure place to remain within the region so that they are closer to who they are.
Senator Pate: Coming back to bandwidth, when we were in Iqaluit one comment was made that the federal government had offered $50 million per year to increase the Internet access but they had estimated that they needed $150 million to basically redo the entire process in that area.
You mentioned the fibre optics and the monopoly that companies have on it. To redo that would then generate a payback, if you will, further on down the line but you need the influx of resources upfront.
Have any of those sorts of discussions been happening with federal government from your perspective of your organization?
Mr. Smith: We put in our own proposal, but it does not look like it is getting the support that we had hoped. We put in our own proposal to basically improve telecommunications within our area, at least for the majority of communities. There is no such similar investment within this area that I am aware of, but it is definitely something that is needed.
Another example is the quality of airstrips in the communities. We have had so much rain this summer that the airstrips in one community are so soft that the types of aircraft that can land there are now restricted. If there is a medevac requirement, that type of plane cannot get in there. You can only have one of the more cumbersome type of plane go in, a Twin Otter, which is time consuming. I am not sure if you are familiar with those, but it is the only aircraft that can go into that community right now based on the conditions of that type of infrastructure.
I am suggesting that there needs to be a better vision of the federal government in its relationship to the Arctic and how it should be investing not only in the bandwidth but in other infrastructure needs as well as waving the flag. More and more foreign ships are coming into our area on a regular basis and there is no Canada to be seen. For the most part, the fleets are aged. They are 40-plus years of age. We know the other ships are coming but time is ticking. We need those patrol vessels. We want to see them up there as well, but it is a sovereignty issue and we are at the very edge of it.
The Chair: We have time for one or two questions on second round, but I would like to ask a question before we go there which I think relates to some of the materials that were raised by Senator Christmas and Senator McCallum on recommendation 2.
You talked very briefly about how in some cases the IRC, Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories work together on land-based programs, which is your wildlife. You also have a self-governing agreement in principle. In such a self-government agreement, is there a specific way in which the three parties can work together more harmoniously so that you are able then to fully express your own sovereignty as an Inuit people?
Mr. Smith: Very simply, the will has to be there.
The Chair: The will from whom?
Mr. Smith: From the governments. Some of you have made that reference. As governments change, the approach changes.
With the territorial government, as I pointed out, we are going on 35 years and we still do not agree on certain interpretations of what the final agreement says and/or have a lack of desire to give up responsibility for the implementation of those types of services. That is why I say the will has to be there. If it isn’t, then we will be another 35 years. Hopefully not, but that is the unfortunate reality of it.
Senator Christmas: Going back again to recommendation 2, I am trying to understand now what is the next step. What is the next logical step or the best step for the IRC to take in terms of updating or evolving your agreement?
You mentioned in your presentation that you have the Crown-Inuit Partnership and the Arctic Policy Framework. I assume the land claims agreement has some kind of coordinating committee. Are any of these processes the ways in which you can take the next step to evolve your agreement, or is something else needed?
Mr. Smith: The federal government and the different departments that have responsibility need to be held more accountable. That is what I suggested again to the Prime Minister. That is why I also made the recommendation to Justice Minister Wilson-Raybould to do the review on the policies. We are waiting to see what the findings, the outcome and the recommendations themselves will be.
If you are not holding yourselves accountable within your different federal departments on what they may or may not be doing in regard to implementation, then you are failing at your responsibilities. We need to be sitting down together more often to develop an implementation process. There is an implementation committee but the representation of the federal government is so far down the pecking order it is like telling a story going around the table and what comes back is probably something totally different by the time it reaches whoever is the superior they are reporting up to. Mr. Simpson and I have been attending those for over a decade, and a lot of the stuff on that agenda is still on the agenda.
I think it is going in the right direction with the approach this government is taking in regard to a direct relationship with us so that we can come up with mechanisms to start to improve the issues. There needs to be a plan in place so that there is a schedule rather than it being ad hoc as we go here.
The Chair: Perhaps I could ask a supplementary question. Should there be someone appointed who is responsible for that type of monitoring, do you see yourselves doing that or should there be someone independent somehow of the department or, as some would say, other than the auditor general to ensure that this is ongoing?
Mr. Smith: You must have read some of our other recommendations because that is exactly what we have recommended.
The Chair: Maybe I am psychic.
Mr. Smith: Some person or body within the Office of the Auditor General should have that role and function. We have been doing it ourselves. Our day-to-day job is implementing your land claim. We have been doing it alone for most of those 34-plus years.
I am putting so much hope into it, and I know a famous person named Mandela said that hope was not a strategy. I am putting a lot of emphasis on the justice minister’s report that will come out on how to restructure and revise those policies to make sure the federal departments are held more accountable.
You are correct. There needs to be somebody that monitors that on a daily basis. We have suggested that it be somebody within the auditor general’s office, if not higher up in the prime minister’s office.
The Chair: To follow up on that, would you then say that your group has to be part of the decision making as to who that person or that office should be?
Mr. Smith: I would think so, because we would probably be dealing with that body on a regular basis to ensure that we are being held accountable as well when it comes to implementation. It works both ways. We have to develop that working relationship with each other so that there is clarity on how we are going about implementation.
Senator Pate: I have a supplementary question. You mentioned that auditor general recommendations have talked about accountability for a decade. Would it be your recommendation that it be in the prime minister’s office as opposed to the auditor general’s office, given the importance of the nation-to-nation relationship at this stage?
Mr. Smith: My concern with it being within the prime minister’s office is that it has its pros but it has its cons. If it is a proactive prime minister who wants to see results on a regular basis and report, then yes, but politicians change and it will be at the whim of whoever that prime minister may be to have that person in their office reporting on that subject matter or not.
If it is at the auditor general’s office then it is much more arms length. I would hope it would be more secure in its stability, not be influenced one way or another, have a clear mandate for implementation and be consistent.
Senator McPhedran: It is almost a yes or no. The Special Senate Committee on the Arctic is also in town today. Will you be presenting to them as well?
Mr. Smith: Yes.
Senator McPhedran: Good. Mary Simon’s Shared Arctic Leadership Model picks up on a number of points that have been made. Is it not being implemented or in your opinion is it not enough?
Mr. Smith: I would say both.
The Chair: I am sorry, senators, that we have run out of time. I regret that not everyone had a chance on second round.
Thank you, Mr. Smith and Mr. Simpson, for appearing this morning and for the testimony
For our second panel this morning, I would like to welcome, from the Dehcho First Nation, Grand Chief Gladys Norwegian. She will make some statements and remarks, following which we will have questions from the senators.
Grand Chief Norwegian, the floor is yours.
Gladys Norwegian, Grand Chief, Dehcho First Nations: I will try to talk as clearly as possible and as loud as I can. I am saying this because when I was sitting at the back, I could hardly hear the questions that you were asking and I could hardly hear the person that was presenting before me.
Good morning.
[Editor’s Note: The witness spoke in her Indigenous language.]
I would like to start off by saying that I am very new to this platform, to this gathering, new in every which way. I am new as the Grand Chief of Dehcho First Nations. I have only been in my position for a month. I will try my best to represent my region. However, I am here as their messenger. If I make any mistakes, they are mine and not the people from my region.
As I was listening to the previous speaker, I was thinking that I do not have any notes. I do not have any PowerPoint presentations to pass around. However, that is truly okay as we are oral people, and it is for people around the table to go away with what resonates with you and leave the pieces that do not work for you.
I believe we are here to answer to five questions. I understand I have a document showing what you have heard so far. You have heard from the Aboriginal organization of First Nations people. We are now at the point of answering five questions, but we want to ask: What is it going to look like for us in the future? We are done with the past. We are done with now. What is it going to look like for us going forward? If we are going to work with those five questions, you around the table have to make sure that our people are there, are listening and are addressing where we are and where we are going. In many ways we spend a lot of time in the past. We do not mention where we are. We need to go forward by asking what it looks like for us.
As I came in here this morning, I was looking around and saying that this was not a setting that I would feel very comfortable with. I was told just to look at it like a conversation, and that helped me in many ways.
Let me begin by giving you a bit of context. Many of you are not from the Northwest Territories. I heard somebody refer to the complexity of being here in the Northwest Territories. Yes, we were told we are from the same Athabaskan language group. However, each one of us in each region does things differently. It is not because of the terrain. It is just that it is the culture we have come to know.
I would like to give you a bit of context by saying to you that our Dene world view is different. It is different from Western society. It is different from other First Nations. It is ours and this is what it looks like. Our world view is more of Mother Earth, the environment, the plants and everything else that goes with it. It does not depend on us as human beings. One of the reasons why I say it does not depend on us as human beings is that if we were erased and were no longer here for whatever reason, everything else would go on without us.
Therefore, as human beings we have come to learn to respect that and all that comes with it. One thing that really underlines the principle of respecting his relationship is following the natural laws of Mother Earth. That is the perspective we come with. That is the perspective that our forefathers believed. That is the perspective of our ancestors. As you all know, we have moved away from that perspective for one reason or another. We have a history of residential school and other reasons why we are now where we are today.
I gave you that context because when I think about the five questions we are to respond to, those questions are just the peak of an iceberg, let’s say. We need to really pay attention to the details below the water and what they look like.
For example, before I became grand chief I worked in education for many, many years. We made every effort to teach Aboriginal culture and language in school. A lot of times our language classes would offer beading, so we would say to them, “that is just the tip of the iceberg.” Yes, the art of constructing a project is important, but the deeper value is that it teaches patience. It teaches that once you start a project, you see it to the end. It is all of that and a lot of times that is missing.
When I say the five questions are just the tip of the iceberg, I think that is what I am referring to. We need to really understand what it is that we as a First Nation want to accomplish, want to see going forward and want to see for our future, the future of our generation.
A lot of times we spend way too much time on history. When I saw those five questions I was happy that we are now here. However, it is not easy. Those are very complex questions. Those are questions we need to look at for at least a year and really come together as communities to think about. Now that we have a chance to address what it is we really want, we need the time to do that.
I am not really sure if you are aware of my Dehcho region. Some of you might be. Some of you might not be. We are one of the last regions to settle land claims along with Akaitcho. I understand that it has taken 19 years to get to where we are, and we still have not come to a very clear picture as to how to see this through.
I am thinking of where this process is at right now. Where do we go from here? What would be the best fit for us as the Dene people of the Dehcho region in which most communities are very, very small and isolated? How do we come together to make sure that everybody is happy and everybody is content with how we are to move forward?
I do not know if I have all the answers for how we go forward. All I know is that we really need to think about it. You really need some sort of an idea from us as First Nations of the Dehcho to make sure that we have the input and it is what we want to see moving forward.
When I was looking at the questions it said something to me that we need to do, something that we need to take away. How can we collaborate? What are some of the principles of moving forward? Those are questions that I am kind of thinking are not going to make it easy to say to a dominant society that this is what we like.
What does nation-to-nation relationship look like? When we say nation-to-nation relationship we talk about and think about equality. What does equality look like when it seems like we have been treated as second-class citizens? Is it possible to have a nation-to-nation relationship?
Like I said, there are more questions to your questions than anything else. What I know, going back to our world view, is that before contact we had a very solid world view perspective. We had education. Our teachings started from conception to passage into manhood or passage into womanhood. We made sure we gave the right tools. We followed, we monitored and we mentored our kids until they were able to prove to us that they could get out in the world by themselves using those tools.
We have moved away from that, and now we see that a lot of our young people are not very confident with our perspective. Nor are they with Western society. A lot of our people seem to appear to be lost, and those are the kinds of people we are working with as well.
What does it look like for us in the future? I do not want to sound negative but when I think about it, it is very bleak. As the previous speaker alluded to, a lot of our young people are not ready to go into Western society. Back in my day we used to say it is because of our first language. It is no longer so. A lot of our young people do not speak the language. During my day in education, a lot of our young people used to be referred to as non-standard English. A lot of our kids appear to have that non-standard English and therefore are not succeeding in the western system as well as they should be.
There are a lot of areas we need to improve before we can really say what it looks like for us in the future. We need a lot of training. We need to do it ourselves. We need to restructure, and I am thinking that is what we are doing in the Dehcho.
When relooking at the last offer on the table, with me being a new person in the position we want to restructure, to relook at everything that is in front of us, and to make sure where we can put our efforts to make sure we are doing the right thing for our young people.
I have a newspaper here that I was reading in which an article seems to sum it up for me in the Dehcho. It says:
Across several important files, the Liberals have tried to reconcile their belief in their own superior virtue with their desire for worldly success by insisting that they were not obliged to choose between them because in fact, no choices needed to be made. They could be both saving the planet and for building pipelines, both Aboriginal reconciliation and for resource development, both for progressive social values and for free trade.
In a sense we want to hang on to our culture and language. That is what we are. We are a First Nation. We have a world view. We want to make sure that we still have that for our young people. At the same time people need the wage economy. Some people think development is the answer. We are environmentalists. We want to protect Mother Earth but at the same time people say there is a happy medium. For me, it is difficult to even think about what is a happy medium.
We are struggling all over the place. We are struggling there. We are struggling with the educational system. We are struggling with the way things are being done for us. We are trying to take back what we used to have in this day and age.
With that, masi chok.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Grand Chief Norwegian.
Senator Tannas: Thank you very much for your comments. I am glad you feel at ease to just talk without a PowerPoint presentation because we came to listen. That is what we came to do.
You gave me an epiphany, and I want to thank you for it. Because you talked about Mother Earth and that Mother Earth provides and continues even if you do not. I think that fundamentally differentiates the colonial culture from your culture. I think it is why I have been amazed. I will confess, we have had dismal success in getting a chance to talk about the future.
I have come to the realization that it must be some kind of a cultural thing. I think it is. I think that you could sit any kid down in a city from my culture and ask, “What do you want for your future?” You would have to shut them off. They would be able to talk on that ceaselessly. We are having real problems getting to that. Instead of thinking there is something wrong with that, it is not that there is something wrong with that. It is different, and thank you for pointing that out. It helped wake me up this morning.
I want to ask you a question, though, because I come from a little town down south. My town is close enough to a major city that we are getting people in that are replacing those that are leaving. If you just go a bit farther away from the city, small towns all over are shrinking. We have great technology, fibre optics and excellent hospitals. We have everything you could imagine. We give it to our kids in those communities and they leave anyway for the city. I do not think this is a phenomenon that if we had all the money in the world would help with the exodus of younger children toward the cities. In fact, the more technology they get, the higher-speed Internet they get and the more they see, the more they are going to move.
My question is: How do you see in the future this mobility and how to retain the culture? I talked about small towns in Alberta. If they move to the city, it is not a giant change for them. They are not leaving themselves behind. They are leaving their parents and their aunts and uncles behind maybe, but they are not going to a wildly different world and leaving culture and everything behind. They can pick up all the cultural touchstones when they get to the city.
I am not sensing that any of that infrastructure is in place now so that as your kids go somewhere, wherever it is they are going, Vancouver, Calgary or whatever, do you think in the ideal future there will be some way in which the culture survives within the person and within the community wherever they are rather than it having to be exclusively in the community? Could you comment on that? Am I going down a wrong road?
Ms. Norwegian: During my experience as an educator one of the comments made by an elder was that we could never take back living on the land. We were a little upset and thinking if that is what she is saying then what chances do we have.
We put our heads together and we were thinking about it. Again, it is not the act of living in the bush without electricity. If it is instilled in you, when we are making a campfire or making a fire, it is not just making a fire. You need to know what kind of wood to use. If you want it to burn throughout the night, you need to make sure that you use greenwood. If you do not want ashes in your eyes, you need to use a certain type of wood. If you are to be cooking, you use a different type of wood. You make sure that you do not make your fire right in front of a tree or you will have a forest fire.
As I have said, if we make sure that we instill a world view it is all about creative thinking. It is all about analytical thinking. If that is instilled within them, they will not recognize it right away, but no matter where they are they will be able to apply and make use of it anywhere or whether in the midst of Toronto. They need to make sure that they know who they are and that they can make it with their base, their foundation.
In my experience a lot of the especially young women are coming back to the communities. What we have started is an Aboriginal language mentorship. A lot of them are coming back wanting to learn about the language and wanting to learn about the culture. In particular one said, “I felt very lost up to now and now I refreshed what I already know.”
They already have it. If there are programs to help them ensure that they do not get lost in the system and that what they come with is important, then programs and land-based programs especially will certainly help them to stay grounded and to have their identity.
Senator McPhedran: Congratulations on your election, grand chief.
I am hoping it will be okay with you if I ask you a rather personal question. It is on the theme of women’s leadership, which is really where your answer took us.
Your answer had a focus on young women’s leadership, but may I ask you: Why did you decide to make the shift from being an educator in the way that you were and now to the role that you have taken on? Why did you decide that?
Ms. Norwegian: I have retired from education. Like many of our people I had moved away from the very small community which I come from. Right now that community consists of only 80 people. Even though we have 145 on our band list, only 80 live back there.
I moved away at the age of 13 and started going to school. It took me away from home. I would come home every summer for two weeks or ten days, but never lived back there.
When I retired from education I said to myself, “I am going to go back and live back in the community.” A lot of my friends said, “Wow, that is going to be a very simple life and something to get used to again.” However, while I was there, some of my members had said they were looking for a change and asked me if I would consider running for chief. So I thought about it.
I do not know if it is true in your situations but a lot of time, people let you in, kind of throw you to the wolves and expect you to swim on your own. I made sure that all the people who had supported me continued to support me and thought about some of the skills to bring to the position of a chief.
I thought to myself it is not a job. It is a vision that you want to put forth for your members. As I thought more about it, I thought even though I was an educator I was a leader in many senses and could bring all the skills and the experience to the position of the chief. Therefore, I stepped up and did a term as a chief.
A similar situation happened where people asked whether I would consider being a grand chief. One thing that was brought up to me was that we seem to be a region where we are ready to kind of fall apart because we have not settled our land claims. People said to me, “If you do step up to it, it is going to be a lot of work.” I do not look at it as work. I am looking at what is the best decision for our future kids.
Senator McPhedran: I have a very quick supplementary question to that. What is the change that people have asked you to be a change leader for? You said they wanted a change and they approached you. What does that change look like?
Ms. Norwegian: What does change looks like? I do not want to use the word but the closest word I can think of in English is that people are concerned. The key word is our land. We have gone through a process where in the time of my dad’s leadership they looked at the land. We still thought of the land as our way of life. Things are starting to change. Now we are looking at it as a commodity. We are looking at it differently.
It is a concern in the way that I would like us to really seriously think about what we really want. I want to explore what change looks like. I do not really have a good grasp but it is not only up to me. It is up to the people as to what change looks like for them.
I have experienced as a chief that they asked me to run for chief because they wanted change. I realized that I had to work really hard because they were not ready for that change. I cannot take it any further by myself. Everybody has to be on board.
The kind of change I was envisioning was not quite the change or the change was coming too fast. We need to slow down and really reassess what it is that we are striving for. It is the same thing. People are ready to move forward in the Dehcho region, not quite knowing how to move forward, the answers to these five questions or exactly what it is that they want to emphasize.
The land always comes back. The future of our kids is always a priority. It is holding on to those two areas and making sure that we do the best in those two areas.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: I too would like to congratulate you.
You talk about the future, and my question is: What do you see in the future for your people with the federal provincial governments? Do you see a future that you would like to see?
Ms. Norwegian: First off, the future that I would like to see is a very independent First Nation, whatever that looks like in this day and age. My concern is that we need to govern ourselves. We need to be independent. We need to be happy.
One of our Dene laws is be happy. During my younger days I used to think that that is simple. Obviously I did not quite understand it. When you think about it the underpinning, it is for all of us as human beings to be happy. If you are to take a position, be passionate about it, be happy and everything else will fall into place. People have been thinking about it when they said be happy. Just make sure that is what is driving you from day to day.
I am not quite answering your question, but it has to be different from what it looks like now. Using this as an example, like I said this morning, made me feel uneasy seeing how formal this presentation is. If we can meet halfway for something like this, if we can wear our casual clothes and meet in a tent somewhere to talk candidly to each other, that would be what I am envisioning.
It should not be that there are only French interpreters when we recognize other languages in the Northwest Territories. We do not see nine other booths set up here. We need something different, but I cannot put my finger on it.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: I totally agree with you, and thank you for your answer.
Senator McCallum: Thank you for your teachings, and congratulations.
I want to support the information you gave about our land-based teachings. I lived on a trapline and fish camp before I went to residential school. The teachings I got from there were already in me when I was five. When I came out I thought I got them from residential school but then realized, no, it came from elders. That has really shaped my path probably in the last 10 or 15 years. I really tried to go back and see. I wanted to support your statement. It is absolutely true. I only spoke Cree when I went back. I am just regaining my Cree.
I listened to you talk about and-based education. The land does not belong to us. Would you say that is part of spirituality? The greatest damage that residential school and oppression from government did was taking away our spirituality which included our language.
I am going toward the economic development that is needed for independence, but we have to protect Mother Earth as stewards of the land. I think the greatest clash right now for me is how we accomplish that when we need the money to get on in this world? How do we resolve that? I do not expect an answer. I am just asking questions. Perhaps you are going to invite us a year from now to look at that and at some of the questions that have been asked.
A few other people are looking at the issue. They are saying the economic wealth of Canada does not just belong to a few billionaires. It belongs to the whole country. How do we divide those resources for everyone in the country so that we can have a good quality of life? Do you have any comment on that?
Ms. Norwegian: It is difficult I guess to emphasize success. What does success look like for us as a First Nation and for everybody? The land and our relationship with the land are important. If anything, if we want to talk about success, we must make sure that we still have that base for us. It is very difficult.
We need to continue to hang on to the relationship with the land, the spirituality of the land. I have a hard time even thinking exactly what I am trying to say. Sometimes it is really difficult, and those of you that have a first language know that. Some of the concepts you want to express in English are removed so many times that you can only find the closest word in English to describe it.
Sometimes I wish everybody could understand Dene Zhatie. I do not think I did a very good job in answering or in making a comment on that.
Senator Christmas: Thank you, grand chief, for joining us and voicing your people’s world view and your concerns.
I was struck by your comment that young people today seemed lost and not ready for Western society. Some have told us as a committee that in order for First Nations to become true nations again it must be based on identity, culture and language.
As an educator, what changes do you think have to happen to prepare our young people for their future? You mentioned land-based education, but do you think language revitalization also plays a role?
Ms. Norwegian: You see, that is one of the things that is so different in speaking the English language. I guess in my mind when I say land-based it encompasses the culture, the language and everything. I guess I should have said language is really important.
Yes, it is the area that we need to make sure we do not lose sight of. We need our culture. We need our language. Even when saying culture and language there is no “and” in our language. Dene Zhatie is together. There is no culture and language.
Definitely I sometimes think of those of us that have gone to residential school. I still think that I have my language. I am still fluent in my language. However, when talking to elders, it is not quite the traditional language that I thought I still understood.
As long as I can speak it, it helps me to understand the concepts, principles and values of our culture. Yes, it does. It is going to look different for our youth that have never spoken the language. Yes, we need our language for sure.
Senator Christmas: I have a supplementary question. Can you help us? To us it seems like you are a window into your people, into a Dene people. How do you see a future in which young people are able to speak in their language? As an educator, what steps need to happen to make the language strong again?
For instance, the Government of Canada is now thinking of bringing into Parliament an Indigenous languages act. What can the government or what can Parliament do to strengthen the language of your nation?
Ms. Norwegian: You know we were told here in the Northwest Territories that we have had language legislation since I am not really sure how many years ago. I am not really sure legislation is what made a gain in more of our people speaking the language.
I think we are on the right path. Two years ago we had a language revitalization program partnered up with University of Victoria. We launched that very costly, very complex and very difficult program. However, the people that were instructors, the people that worked with the students, made every effort to speak the Dene Zhatie as soon as they stepped into the classroom.
Mind you, there are courses where you cannot do it like the methodology course which involves a lot of different methods of teaching if they are to become teachers. Every effort was made in mentoring them. They had a mentor. They had an elder that mentored them. The instructors came in and spoke the language.
I was honoured to be able to be one of the instructors, although I was still chief for my community. I will tell you. I experienced it. It is not easy to be able to talk the language without any English words. It is very tiring at the end of the day when you are so used to speaking the English language.
That is a good approach. There is talk about doing another one. Some of the first cohorts now at the University of Victoria went into education to be teachers. Some of them continued with the language revitalization work. Whether by going into linguistics or whatever area they went into to help the next cohorts, if there is to be another program, it is very costly.
Senator Pate: I join the chorus of congratulations to you and thank you for your leadership, not just in your community but in coming here and meeting with us. I appreciate that.
Given that you may not have been able to hear it, I asked the previous panel about the issue of the number of young people in care from your community. When I say your community now, I am thinking more broadly of the area that you are now grand chief for.
If there are plans, what are some of the ways to try to prevent more young people ending up in care? What recommendations could we be making to assist in that process from your perspective as part of your focus on the youth and the future of young people?
Ms. Norwegian: I have to admit that I do not know the statistics, the data on that. However, what I can speak to is my experience with people that are on income support.
I think collectively we can come up with the best possible solution to keep our people from not going on income support. The reason I am saying that is because of the efforts we made in my small community of 80 people. I think that it can be done. It is just the system needs to make sure that they support the efforts being made at the community level.
Going back to your question, I guess I am saying that we can put our heads together. Not knowing the statistics, I am sure that they are high. It seems like there is a high percentage for everything negative in the Northwest Territories. That is an area we need to research to make sure that it does not continue or that we have a preventive program where we can.
The bottom line is that we as a First Nation need to step up to the plate to make sure that we are doing our part in preventing anymore of the things that are happening that we do not agree with.
Senator Pate: I have a quick supplementary question. When you are talking about income support, do you mean people on social assistance?
Ms. Norwegian: Yes.
Senator Pate: I do not know if you have had a chance to look at some of the recommendations around basic income like old age pension, child benefit and sort of a guaranteed livable income as opposed to a situation where social workers are policing income. They are actually doing the work of providing services. Has any of that information been introduced?
Ms. Norwegian: Not to my knowledge, no.
The Chair: We have come to the end of the allotted time, but before we conclude I would thank Grand Chief Norwegian very much for her presentation. I found it very helpful.
Senator Tannas, I think the comment you made was also very succinct. We have been trying to get people’s visions of the future and, as you said, we have not been exactly successful.
I think your presentation this morning, grand chief, was very enlightening in that we realize it is up to the individuals and as individual people not everyone in their own personal growth is ready to move forward because we do not know ourselves yet. In many Indigenous communities, you put it as we are trying to find a balance between the two world views. How do we maintain the values of traditional lifestyle as we move forward? It is very necessary as we move forward to ensure that we continue conversations like this and involve the community people.
I normally do not like to say anything personal, but I found it very enlightening this morning. I find it hard to articulate because we do not normally talk in those kinds of terms. I do not know my own language. My mother was a residential school survivor, so she was taught not to speak her language. Consequently, I do not know my language and I do not know my own culture.
What has kept me sane was going back to that. What kept me sane coming to the Senate was my occupation as a scientist because it is bringing to wherever you are the values that you have.
When you were talking about culture, you talked about the Dene way as being creative and analytical. Most people do not see spirituality as being analytical. As a scientist, the analytical part of me is highly developed. I have always been a scientist from the moment I was born. That is what has kept me able to cope.
Wherever I am, I always go back to okay, I am a scientist. What should I do? How would I act in this situation? What should I think? How should I go about it? Now I will be thinking, if I were a traditional Indigenous person in a modern world, I still have those values and I will use them in the modern world. The modern world is vastly in need of those values. We are told that it is the Indigenous values that will save Mother Earth because the economy will not profit. The dollar values will not save the world. We see that with climate change and so on now. It is not just a matter of nation-to-nation government. It is a matter of saving humanity.
I cannot believe I just said all that.
I want to end this with, and it is hard for me to say because it is Cree and it is multisyllabic, my colleague and friend here could say it much better.
[Editor’s Note: Senator Dyck spoke in Cree.]
I thank you. I respect you. I see you all as my equals.
Ms. Norwegian: I have just one last comment. When I looked at the first question it said, “What does an ideal future look like for you and your descendants?” I jotted down the structure of our Dene Zhatie which is referred to as South Slavey. Very little words had been borrowed from the English words. That is the ideal future that I hope to see.
The Chair: We are running a bit late. Our third panel this morning, from the Norman Wells Land Corporation, Sherry Hodgson, President, and Ethel Blondin-Andrew, Incoming Director, who is very well known politically.
Welcome, ladies. The floor is yours. After your presentation, there will be questions from the senators.
Sherry Hodgson, President, Norman Wells Land Corporation: Good morning. Thank you very much for extending an invitation to the Norman Wells Land Corporation. My name is Sherry Hodgson. I am president. Ethel Blondin-Andrew, as you mentioned, is very well known and is a new director of the Norman Wells Land Corporation as of September 4 of this year.
I will just go through a little introduction of where we are. The Norman Wells Land Corporation is one of the seven registered designated organizations in the Sahtu that represents the Sahtu Dene and Metis of Norman Wells. Our mission statement in Norman Wells is to achieve social and economic self-sufficiency for the participants of the Sahtu Dene and Metis land claim agreement through strong self-governance, fair access and benefits, good long-term financial management and re-establishing cultural identity of its members to their ancestors.
Norman Wells Land Corporation is one of the corporations that signed on to the land claim agreement 25 years ago. This is my second term as president as of September 4. I have just been acclaimed into the position again this year.
Norman Wells Land Corporation has signed and initialled a self-government agreement this year with Canada and the GNWT. We are very proud of that. The issues that I have to discuss are in regard to the self-government agreement in principle and the things that fall there within. Together, we hope to work toward completing a final self-government agreement that works for all governments. Thank you.
Ethel Blondin-Andrew, Incoming Director, Norman Wells Land Corporation: My name is Ethel Blondin-Andrew. I met some of you before. Those of you that I have not met, I will come around and shake your hands after we are done, in the interests of time. It is a sign of respect for our people to always greet visitors. I am glad that you are here.
Sherry is my president. As Sherry mentioned to the Chair, she is originally from Saskatchewan. Sherry’s husband is my nephew. He is a very successful businessman in Norman Wells who employs a lot of our people. He is a demonstration of what I want to see our country look like: resourceful, smart, talented, hard working and educated.
I use David Hodgson as an example because you get what you get out of life if you get up at four o’clock in the morning, work hard, work all day and make a good life for yourself. That is what I want for my kids.
My children are 49, 47, 44 and 46. This is their world now. In this world where Sherry and Dave operate out of our community, they are involved in both politics and all the different kinds of things that they do to help our community. It is amazing.
Sherry and I interrupted our fall harvesting of moose, caribou, sheep and making dry meat to come here. We have people that are doing that right now in our stead. We own an outfitters camp called Canol Outfitters. In that outfitters camp, all the hunters give us the meat and we pay it back to our people. We both participate in that. It is our way of giving back and it is our way of making sure that people are tied to their food source, the traditional food source.
Anyways, that being said, I just want to ask what an ideal future looks like for our descendants. I want our descendants to have the same access to the land that we have now. I want our descendants to know that they live in a complex world and are educated. They have two ways of knowing. They have the ways of knowing of a modern world where they have science, technology, engineering and math on one side. They are strong in that because that is where you make money. Your earning power increases in those regions. On the other side, they are strong to their land and strong to their culture. They are totally engaged on that side. They are centred.
A two-year-old Dene girl or boy can walk into the room. If they know love, if they know their culture and if they are centred, they can own that room. You can feel the power of that child. I want that power to belong to all of our people. Our people should not have to go through any of the scoop processes. They should not have to go through residential school. They can be the strongest people in our territory and on our land. I really feel strongly about that.
What do we need? We need equality of access. We need people in our area to be strong in and of themselves, strong in the institutions they build and strong in the future that they design and carve out for themselves. Equality of access is really important, as is access to equality of rights as well. Our people should not have to prove that they have a right to be here in their own country on their own land. They should not have to bear the burden of proof that they have the right to build a future for themselves, that if something happens on their land they are engaged and they are engaged in a respectful way, or that they have full participation.
Our people should not be beggars in their homeland. Where Sherry and I come from there is an oilfield which was built in 1921. Let me tell you a story about big C consultation and how you engage people. There is a chief named Albert Wright who signed Treaty 11. In 1921, they found seepage and Imperial Oil wanted to set up an oilfield. They went to Tulita, where I was born, and said, “We want to do a treaty.” The government came in. Chief Albert Wright, who is a Mountain Dene, said, “No, you cannot do treaty without the Mountain Dene. They are out in the mountains now. I will go with a dog pack and a dog and take my goods and inform them.”
He took his dog and walked up into the mountains. He looked for them, and they had gone over into Yukon for a spring hunt. What he did was notch a bunch of posts. Every so many miles he notched a post and he said, “The government wants to do a treaty with us.” In Slavey we call it sómba náahze. They wanted to exchange money with us for certain things.
When the people came back over the mountain, according to his traditional knowledge and his knowledge of the land, they hit the first post. They hit the second post. They hit all the posts. To this day, there is still one post up on the Keele River. I have seen it with my own eyes. It says to me, a man with his dog pack went and walked in. Those people found it, came back to town and did Treaty 11 in 1921. That started the oilfield. That began.
When we talk about a process of decency, of sharing and of engagement, it is all about that kind of thing. We have technology. We have all kinds of ways and means to be able to consult people in a respectful manner. There are no excuses if you think about the totality of that man’s reality and what he dealt with. That is what he did. If you ever get the chance to go up the Keele, stop there. You will see that post there. There is a monument there now. It says to me big C consultation means a lot of things. It does not mean just getting the message out. It also means accommodation.
Accommodation is really important. We have done a lot of consultation. We were here just recently. We talked about access to resources and we talked about a review of legislation with the territorial government. What happened is we ended up talking about what you do when you have a significant discovery licence and companies do not work on them. Shouldn’t we just change that system, turn it around so that we don’t have to lock up our lands for someone that may have a commitment at a later date? It is stuff like that that comes.
What does the ideal future look like for you and your descendants. The way I see it is that we should not have the burden of proof. We should not have to prove that we belong here. We should not have to prove that we have the right to exist. We should have equality of participation and equality of access. Just like your credit rating, we should have a Triple A credit rating on our education. Our kids should be strong in the land and in their cultural ways, the two ways of knowing, but they should also be competitive. I am really big on that because we do not live in a world now that is just one thing. We have a diversity of ways of surviving.
I want to see my people fully employed, not just at the entry level. I want to see them in the good jobs. Until every job in the North is filled by Aboriginal people that have the education, that have the merit to be in those positions, I am not going to rest easy. I am always going to be pushing to make sure that happens, not just with governments but in industry as well.
I know that we as an organization are constantly pushing. It used to be that jobs were good and there was nothing wrong with that. Yes, being part of getting a contract was good. Now we are into equity participation. We want to own it. We want to build it. We want to make it ourselves. That is where we are at now. That is what will make a better world.
I don’t want my kids to have to ever deal with the enormous struggle of having to prove you have the right to be there and having to prove that you should have access to all the means of getting to where you want to go. Despite all the hardships, they have done very well. Sometimes we want more for our kids than they want for themselves because we know what it feels like to want, to not have. We know that. They don’t. They don’t really. I think there is that.
Another thing is: What does a new relationship mean to me or to us as people? The rules have to change. There can be engagement and that engagement has to be significantly different from what it is now. Aboriginal people want to be players. They do not want to be invited to the game. They don’t want to be given a ticket, told to sit here and have a good time, and when it is over they are gone. There is more of a desire to have permanence, a desire to have a long-lasting effect.
Sherry, do you want to say anything on that?
Ms. Hodgson: What can I say that will add to everything you just commented on?
What does a new relationship mean to us? Ethel is right. A lot of change needs to happen in terms of legislation itself and in terms of coming in, sitting in on meetings and being a part of the What We Heard report that are coming out within the N.W.T. and Canada. Maybe more participation from the Aboriginal or Indigenous side would help with a new relationship by making changes to all aspects from the health to education, to industry, to mining legislation and to everything out there. That would be one part of relationship change.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: It says, “What does a strong, vibrant Indigenous nation look like to you?” We have a land claim in our area. When I left Parliament after 18 years of being there and learning the other way of knowing, I came back and I went to work for my people. I was the chair for our land claims group for nine years till May 31 of this year.
One thing I experienced was that we are always begging for money. If we are to establish anything as governments at all levels, we need to ensure that it is affordable and that there are resources available to maintain that project, that infrastructure or that service. We are so bad at that nationally, all governments. We fight about O& M, operations and maintenance, all the time. It is like it will run itself. No, it will not. If we are to have self-government, we need the resources to do that.
The minute they are finished negotiations the self-government entities are struggling for money to feed themselves, to keep themselves going. That is so wrong. I really believe it is wrongheaded and I really believe that we need the resources. We need to have legislation to ensure anything that has to be built or maintained will not get approval unless there is an attached O& M to it, unless there is an allotment that says these people will not be struggling and fighting to get money to run these projects and/or these entities, whether they be governments or institutional bodies of government.
Running a government is not cheap. It is not free. That is crazy thinking. We use our land claim as a guide. It is the best guide we have. Right now five community self-governments are being negotiated. One is finalized. Norman Wells has just signed an agreement in principle. The fight is constant. Why does it have to be a battle? Let us work together. We are not working together. It is like let’s fight together and see if we can reach a solution. It is a bloody process. There are winners and losers.
We are undaunted. My view is that no decision is not a decision. We have a tendency to take a bit of risk and we have a tendency to move ahead because we are in a resource development area. We have had oil and gas since 1921. We have an oilfield agreement. We looked at buying Norman Wells, the one third that Imperial Oil owns, but we could not get enough information to ascertain the value and the lifespan. We could not get enough information to determine whether or not it is a good buy. You are not going to buy something if you do not know what it is worth.
Another thing about this is that the Government of Canada has taken millions out of the Sahtu from uranium over in Great Bear Lake. The Manhattan Project needed uranium. Where did they go? They went to Great Bear Lake and produced uranium there. They carried it across the lake, down the Bear River, up the Mackenzie and all the way out to Port Credit, Ontario, and wherever else it went.
Then, when they wanted oil and gas in 1921, they did the treaty and they got that out of our area. That has been going to the government ever since. The Government of Canada owns one third of Norman Wells. That is their Crown asset. I am interested in what they might consider doing with that. I want to know if there is any inkling of putting it out there so that Indigenous people can have an equal footing economically or resource-wise. Is there any efficacy to doing that for the federal government?
I have often thought that and I am wondering if that is a possibility. That would be a bold and big move because essentially the real wealth of the Norman Wells oilfield has left the country. It has not stayed in that area. It has not made our people richer like it did in Hobbema where the people got the money. What happens with it is different story, but for us in Norman Wells the wealth left the country. We are not saying that we are against development. We are saying it is a complex world and things have happened that have not worked to our favour.
Then there was Canol. During the war they needed a pipeline. They got access to our land and went right through. My father, my uncle, my cousin and my husband’s uncle all went with the people that surveyed the land to put the pipeline through. Then the war ended and the pipeline ended. In the 1970s they expanded the oilfield. Sahtu has given. We have given to Canada. It is time for Canada to look at that honestly and think of in what way.
There is one way. We want the Mackenzie Valley Highway. We want the highway to go through. We are nickel and dimed to death. We get $20 million here. Now we are to get the Bear River Bridge, but let’s get the road done. Let’s give those kids access to what every other child has who drives five minutes to go to a hockey arena. Our kids have to wait until winter season and drive out on the winter road to other places. It is amazing what that infrastructure does. It empties the town. Families who have five or six kids cannot fly their kids out during the winter. It is too expensive. Those kids never get a holiday. They never get to see West Edmonton Mall, Yellowknife or anywhere. That is what we do and those are some of the things we want. We want good education, good infrastructure and to be able to govern ourselves.
I like to teach people to feel their power, own it and express it. We have power through our land claims. We have power through our treaties. We have power because we occupied that land for Canada all this time. Against all hardship, we have been there.
I think about the Inuvialuit, my cousins way up on the coast. There is a story too. I am sure Duane Smith spoke to you already. It is fascinating. I taught up there when I was young. We are keepers of the land. It is all about that. We have done our duty for Canada. We are like an uncertified army. We have maintained your sovereignty and we think the tides have to turn. Anyway, I am getting carried away. Pretty soon I will have us on the moon. They are actually doing that. They flew around with a couple of our kids, the NASA people who were looking environmentally.
There is another issue. The contamination from the different sites in Norman Wells is huge. There are six man-made islands that were not there when I grew up, and those man-made islands have to be reclaimed. There is not enough money in the budget put forward to do the reclamation and cleanup. There isn’t. We need to look at that. We seriously need Canada to address that. We need to own that. Our people need to be doing that.
Last winter, we lost a contract to a group from Quebec. I have nothing against Quebec, but give us a break. We need our own contracting. We have our own people with equipment. If we need expertise, we are just like everybody else. We can hire it. We can do that.
Anyway, Sherry, back to you.
Ms. Hodgson: Again, what can I say that can add to everything that Ethel has commented on?
With regard to infrastructure, we do need the Mackenzie Valley Highway. She talked about the communities emptying out when the winter roads are open. That then is a bonus for the kids, but it is also a loss for them because they cannot then attend school and there goes their education. It is probably one of the reasons why, when they hit grade 12, they have to upgrade themselves for a year or two to be able to get into any university. There just seems to be walls that come up for them in terms of education, in terms of health and those types of things. The infrastructure will not only create employment, jobs. It will also help with the additional issues that are there for all remote communities. We are very much in support of moving forward on that.
I do not have as much history as Ethel has with regard to the Sahtu. I am very grateful to have learned a lot from her over the years, and I am very happy to say that. With regard to what does a new relationship mean to you or what are the principles that could guide the development of a new relationship, as was mentioned we just signed off on our agreement in principle on self-government. Our community of Norman Wells is a little different. She mentioned the five communities having self-government. Norman Wells is a little different within the demographics the way they are. We are being forced to have an exclusive self-government, which means that we will be working side by side with the Town of Norman Wells. They will have their bylaws and we will be governing our own citizens. How we will do that is to be determined in the future, but it is one of the only communities in the Sahtu that will have that type of self-government.
The future for that government will be worked on. As I mentioned, we are doing this exclusive Aboriginal government model, but we are not the majority in the community of Norman Wells. We will only be allowed to develop and enforce our future self-government laws on to our own citizens while the Town of Norman Wells will still have its bylaws. Of course we would like to be a part of being able to do that.
In the past, we have had problems moving forward within Norman Wells. We are hoping that we can move in a direction that will work well for all of us in the future. I am wondering if the template for self-government in Canada’s perspective is being used within Norman Wells as it is with all other communities. Can we find a different way of doing that so that we can have self-government that will work for the Norman Wells people and be different from that in the other communities.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: It talks about what strong, vibrant Indigenous nations look like to you. To me, strong Indigenous nations start with well-educated healthy individuals, healthy children, healthy young men and women, healthy families and healthy communities. By well educated I mean not pushing people in the easiest direction with the least return. It is challenging people.
I am very lucky that I went to a leadership school. In fact, Sherry and I stayed out at Trappers Lake with Bishop Croteau. He was a supervisor of the leadership school that I went to. That leadership school was mostly Indigenous youth and most of them are leaders. They have been premiers, MPs, MLAs and negotiators. The intention has to be that it is not left up to guesswork. It is not left up to good intentions. If you want that result, you have to plan for it, design it and implement it. You cannot leave the future of young people and our communities up to a perhaps or a maybe if things go right it will turn out okay. You have to be more deliberate than that. We have to deliberately plan to make sure that our young people are educated and that they have what it takes to survive in a very challenging world.
We also need people that are well. A lot of drug and alcohol issues are happening. It is becoming more sophisticated. Now we have cocaine. Cocaine is rampant in some areas. In this community of Yellowknife it is and in other areas as well. It has reared its ugly head. I am a non-imbiber. I am a non-participant in drugs. It is very deliberate. It is not because I am a saint but because I know we have to set an example. We have to lead by example. We have to teach people that they have to care for themselves.
In our area, we don’t have any kind of alcohol and drug programming. We don’t. There is a real vacuum up here. We wanted to do an On The Land program. We have not done that yet because we are so busy trying to tread water and keep doing all the things we have to do on land claims, on self-government, on running our programs, on education and on health. All these things are important, but we really need to have healthy people to build a healthy community. I was asked once how we build capacity for self-government. You have to educate your people. Your people have to be well. They cannot be in a broken state. People that are broken cannot function properly. You are not getting 100 per cent from them.
It is amazing. I have seen people with addictions that can function, but think of this: What would they be if they did not have those addictions? They would be geniuses. They would be on top of the world. If they can function broken, what can they do if they are not broken? That is my view. We need to build capacity, human capacity, cultural capacity and financial capacity. We need to build a system of government.
How do these nations interact with the Government of Canada? The Government of Canada is one level of government. There are other levels of government we have to deal with, I think primarily with respect. I do not think it can be a colonial and paternalistic relationship anymore. I am sure you have seen that all across Canada wherever you have talked to Indigenous people. We have to be a relationship of equality, sharing, respect, giving our best and not whittling down every opportunity until it is unrecognizable. That happens. In my lifetime, I have seen that. We need to deal with each other in a much different way than we have before. I read Jody Wilson-Raybould’s presentation in B.C. on the framework of recognition. It was very interesting on being proactive, taking it to the next level and not just staying where we are in the status quo. Yes, it is intense. It is hard. Of course it is going to be. That is the way it is when you reconcile things. It is not easy. We are not doing it because it is easy. If it was easy, it would have been done already.
On what steps Indigenous people need to take to get a new relationship, they have taken many steps. I am not sure they are all the right ones but many steps have been taken. If you want to do a good tango, you have to have a good partner. It takes two to tango. If your partner is a, sorry, shitty dancer, then I do not think what comes out will be very attractive. We need to be in sync. We need to work together. We need to decide what will work for us.
What can Canadians do to contribute to a new relationship with Indigenous people? That is a really loaded question because there are many Canadians who are doing that. I see them every day. We interact with them. We know people from industry that are made of gold. We know there are stinkers too. We know people from government that are just awesome, and we know there are those that do not want to cooperate and are intransigent. It is not obvious. It is very subtle like systemic discrimination. We know that.
What do we have to do differently? How can Canadians help? They have to learn and understand. Many of them are doing that. How many Canadians are driving to Tuk, all the way to Tuk, because there is a road there? Going to the people and being with the people is really interesting. Maybe we are being driven together because our country is going through some changes. Our neighbours are getting a bit interesting. Let’s put it that way. It is driving Canadians together to try to come to some understanding about who we all are. I think it is a good thing, but we need to allow one another to recognize that we are not perfect. We are just people. Our people, our elders, always say that. We are all the Creator’s children. We do not know one day to the next what our destiny is so we try to work together as human beings. That is a prayer that we use. Just be human, just reach out and just share. Canadians are good at that, but we are just like everybody else. We have our weaknesses too. That is a very difficult question for me.
Share the opportunities. I have seen that happen. A lot of Canadians, business people even, reach out. Some of our people that have had bad experiences will disagree. It is their right to. Other people that have had good experiences will applaud the results.
That is a little bit of everything. I do not know if you want to add anything to it.
Ms. Hodgson: I have a couple of comments. There are a lot of challenges within our own communities on what we feel a relationship should be and could be with governments.
Ethel mentioned earlier that we treat our kids differently or in a way that would maybe not help them understand so much the wants that we had when we were kids. That is why we treat them the way we do, but what we forget is that these kids also have different types of wants today with the social media, the Internet and what they see there. Maybe we could think a bit about utilizing or using that mechanism and tool to help educate them or get messages out to them as well. They are our future. They are the ones that will be moving forward, sitting in the chairs around these tables and making decisions for their children. I just hope that any of the decision making we are making today will help them in their futures and the futures of their children. That is about all I wanted to say about that.
What can Canadians do to contribute? That too is a huge question, as Ethel said. I do not honestly have an answer. I haven’t even thought about the question itself to a degree where I could have an answer for that or input, I guess. On the steps that we as Indigenous people need to take to get to a new relationship, I think we are on the right path. I think we are moving forward, getting together, having meetings and understanding one another and the wants of the people I represent or we represent, as well as Canadians as a whole.
That is about all I wanted to say.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you both for being here. Thank you for being strong women leaders and what that means for the country and for a lot of youth as well.nIf you are comfortable commenting on any learnings that each of you have drawn from that, of being women leaders, I would be very happy to hear that for sure.
My question is fairly specific. Drawing from the more general nature of what your comments have been, can I just ask you how you feel about and whether it is useful to you the recent 2017 report that Mary Simon did at the request of Minister Carolyn Bennett, where she put forward a shared Arctic leadership model engagement? Have you found that useful?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: I know Mary Simon quite well. I have not studied in detail the report. I have not had access to it. It is not that I cannot get access to it. I have not been involved in any groups that have done anything. I know her views on what we should be doing in the North. I know that we need something on leadership. We need something because a lot of the leadership have not had the deliberate design, training, assistance or resources to develop. I know that is what she would be definitely wanting to do.
I am not sure if you want details. I would not be able to give you details, but I know for sure that Mary Simon is a big proponent of women leadership and of dealing with issues in the North. I would say that yes, she would be a very good person to help leaders in the North.
Senator McPhedran: The report is available online. I wonder if I might just ask, and it is really a favour, if you could make the time to take a look at it and if you could let us know, after we have left town but at your convenience, if this going to be useful for you. I mean you are strong women leaders. You are setting the way. You have a fascinating corporate structure with the Norman Wells Land Corporation and the ways in which it is non-profit and the kind of community leadership that it envisions.
I have one last question. I am feeling confused because I have heard both of you talk about what I am hearing as a new self-governance agreement. How does that relate to the 1994 agreement with the Sahtu? Obviously you need something new, so can you help me understand what the new agreement will do to improve upon the 1994 agreement?
Ms. Hodgson: I could be wrong but I think it is chapter 16 of the Sahtu Dene and Métis Land Claim Agreement that allows for the community to negotiate self-government within each community and how it will be improved upon.
First of all, the Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement prevails when it comes to the self-government that is being negotiated within each community. We are hoping that it will help to improve the communities within their own directions of governance within each community.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: There is a difference. The self-government agreements are community based. Sahtu is not homogeneous. It is a mixed community. Norman Wells has a very high non-Aboriginal population. Tulita is different from Deline and Colville Lake is very isolated. Fort Good Hope is a fairly big community. It has a mixture of Metis, Dene and non-Aboriginal. It is different in that way and it only deals with one community each at a time. They each have a different agreement.
The 1994 agreement is a modern treaty that covers all of the Sahtu. It has institutional bodies that apply to all of them like the renewable resource councils, the Sahtu Renewable Resources Board, the Sahtu Land and Water Board, and the Sahtu Land Use Planning Board. I am trying to think of some of the others. It will come, but the idea is that the institutional bodies have a different function and they apply to all the communities.
The self-government agreement does not deal with land in the way that the 1994 agreement does. The 1994 agreement designated all the lands: the fee simple lands, the Sahtu lands and all different designations of lands. The landowner, so to speak, is the Sahtu district land corporation. They deal with the land.
The Sahtu SSI organization is a blanket organization. It deals with seven land corporations and financial institutions. They have a very different purpose. Self-government is going to actualize. I always think of self-government as three things: land, which in this case it is very limited, resources and jurisdiction. Jurisdictionally, it will be taking over things like marriage or divorce. Some of the jurisdictional areas will be held by the self-government. Over time that will evolve. It will roll in. What they did in Deline they had the community charter, the band and the SSI land corporation. They rolled it all into one. It is called the Deline Got’ine government now.
They are still part of SSI because the laws of the 1994 agreement have paramountcy. They are paramount to the self-government laws. The self-government laws give fuller expression to the details in the community jurisdictional areas that people are involved in, what they take from the territorial or federal government and what they do with it. Whereas the 1994 land claim has an implementation side. That blanket organization, big organization or umbrella organization is an implementation body. It implements the provisions of the claim. That is what it does.
They are two very different functions, but eventually what happens to the money held in trust when all the entities become actualized? That is the $114 million question, right? That is the trust we have and that is the principal that cannot be touched. You need a double vote to take the money and give it to the claims. You need what you call a double majority vote. Even those provisions make it different.
Senator Pate: Thank you very much both of you for all your works. I am going to come back to something Ms. Blondin-Andrew talked about in terms of building capacity for young people. We first met several decades ago when working with young woman who brought us together, a young Indigenous woman who to this day struggles with the addictions and the legacy of her life. It brought to mind the question that I was asking others as well but, particularly for you, how do you see your involvement, the work you are talking about and/or what recommendations we could make to try to turn that around?
I do not know how many young people from your community are in care, what plans you would have to reclaim those young people or what kinds of recommendations from us might assist that process. We know all too well the devastation even when young people look like they are starting to succeed and how strong the pullback is when they have very few resources available to them.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: I understand where you are coming from, Kim, and I really appreciate it. The last time we met was in Kingston Penitentiary. We were not inmates. You were working there and I was there to see the way in which the programs were dealt with. It was awesome. I was really happy that you were made a senator.
I carry the burden of the relationship I had with that particular individual to this day, but there is a good side to that. In a sense we both feel we failed, right? There are some things that even we cannot fix, but there is a good side to that. We dealt with a number of young people in care that we dealt with. One of them became an MLA and became a minister in the B.C. government. We win some; we lose some, but we never quit trying. From where we come from it is a really big concern of ours. When all our children are brought back we do the best we can for our kids in our own area. It is not always easy. If you have a family that is broken, it is harder. If you have a community that is broken, it is harder. That does not mean you don’t try.
There are good people out there. Like I said, the most powerful person in the world is a two-year-old kid that is loved, culturally fortified and can own a room. I know when a kid that size is stronger than me emotionally and love-wise. I can spot them. That is what we want to see. We want to find a place.
What do I recommend to you about that? Up here, I think that is what we are working on under self-government. We take each of those areas and we are better able to respond to you once we get to that jurisdiction. I always see things like this. What is the immediate need? What is the interim need? What is the long-term need? The long-term need is resources. We need to have a better tracking system, don’t you think?
How can human beings fall off the map of our community so that we do not know where they are? How can people that are 50 or 40 come back and say I am your sister or I am your brother, and nobody knows? I have had people come to me in the last couple of years saying I am from your community. I am sure you don’t know that, but I was adopted, taken away, given to care or whatever. We try to keep track. Because it is smaller up here we know those people. In places like Manitoba, Ontario and B.C., I am sure it is a nightmare.
We cannot stop. I cannot stop caring about those people on the east side of Vancouver just because I am from the North. My heart is there. I have always carried that, and that is not going to change.
The Chair: Senators, we have come to the end of our time here.
Thank you, ladies. You answered our questions very well. You went through them very methodically.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: Excuse me, but I did not answer Marilou’s question. I fudged it politically, but I will get back to her.
The Chair: Thank you. You gave us excellent testimony that will inform our report.
It is our pleasure now to have before us as witnesses the Honourable Bob McLeod, Premier of the Northwest Territories, accompanied by Mike Aumond, Secretary and Deputy Minister, Executive and Indigenous Affairs.
We welcome you. You have the floor. Following your presentation, there will be questions from the senators.
Please proceed, Premier McLeod.
Hon. Bob McLeod, Premier of the Northwest Territories: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, committee. Welcome to the Northwest Territories and welcome to Yellowknife. We always call ourselves the diamond capital of North America. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today on elements that you may want to consider in your report on new relationships between Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples.
The Government of the Northwest Territories can only be effective if it is responsive to the needs of our population, which is about 50 per cent Indigenous as a whole. Like the current Government of Canada, we recognize the importance of continuing to work to improve these relationships and to evolve the way Indigenous and public governments work together in the interests of our residents.
A majority of the 33 communities spread out over the territories has a majority Indigenous population, which may be Inuvialuit, Dene or First Nations, Metis, or in many cases a combination of these peoples.
The Government of the Northwest Territories has evolved as a public government alongside the recognition and implementation of Indigenous rights in the Northwest Territories. The Government of the Northwest Territories delivers programs and services equally to Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and communities while recognizing the inherent right to self-government and supporting the negotiation of agreements to implement the land and self-government rights of Inuit, First Nations and Metis populations.
The conclusion of Indigenous land resources and self-government agreements is a priority and has been one for some time. Settled agreements in the territory currently include the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, the Gwich’in Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement, the Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement, the Salt River First Nation Treaty Settlement Agreement, the Tlicho Agreement and the Deline Final Self-Government Agreement. Additionally, there are currently over 14 active negotiations across the territory.
Self-government law-making powers are concurrent with those of the Government of the Northwest Territories and extend to many social program areas such as income support, social housing, education, child and family services, and early childhood education.
At this juncture, Northwest Territories self-governments, like many self-governments in Canada, have not yet exercised their social envelope jurisdictions. The Government of the Northwest Territories supports the implementation of self-government and is committed to working with Indigenous governments and Canada to support building capacity and the transition to self-government jurisdiction, authority and responsibility.
The GNWT is also committed to working with its treaty partners to find innovative approaches that meet the interests of those self-governments that seek a collaborative relationship with the Government of the Northwest Territories on program and service delivery that does not necessarily include the exercise of jurisdiction. We believe we have an understanding of the importance of doing this work well, and we think it is something the Government of Canada will consider carefully as it develops a framework around the recognition of rights.
In 2012, this government recognized that it was time to formalize our commitment to engage with Indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories, and we worked with them to develop Respect, Recognition, Responsibility: The Government of the Northwest Territories’ Approach to Engaging With Aboriginal Governments. This document reinforces recognition of constitutionally protected rights, the inherent right to self-government, as well as Aboriginal rights agreements, which we believe is fundamental. It also encourages mutually respectful relationships and the creation of bilateral government-to-government relations that now exist with nine Indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories.
Indigenous governments are defined through the GNWT intergovernmental relations policy as those governments that have negotiated or are in the process of negotiating self-government agreements with the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Government of Canada.
The 2014 devolution agreement is an example of our government-to-government relationship. Indigenous governments were parties to negotiations and the devolution agreement and signed a groundbreaking agreement that included extensive resource revenue sharing, partnership and participation in intergovernmental council where public and Indigenous governments cooperate and collaborate on matters related to lands and resource management.
The Government of the Northwest Territories is also reflective of the Indigenous population directly beyond our relationships with Indigenous governments. More than half of our legislature is Dene, Metis or Inuit. Our cabinet is also representative. We work to ensure Indigenous people are hired by our government through priority hiring practices.
Through our integrated government system, language, culture and self-determination are acknowledged through programs and services that are delivered as efficiently as possible across mostly small remote populations.
It is important to note that our integrated system emphasizes the importance of Indigenous culture and tradition, though we constantly strive to improve in this area. Examples include that our health and social services system has placed a new focus on funding programs that are based on the land.
Our school systems have integrated cultural programs that are based on either the Dene or Inuvialuit traditions and that all students participate in regardless of background.
We have a traditional knowledge policy with significant obligations, particularly around environmental management actions and decisions. We recognize and fund the support of nine Indigenous languages.
The Government of the Northwest Territories has committed to and continues to implement the relevant calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and supports other efforts to address social and economic gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Northerners.
This integrated system took time to build and deliver programs and services that reach all of the communities that need them, that meet national standards, that address this reconciliation, that encourage a vital economy, and that allow diverse populations to thrive despite the challenges of remoteness and the intergenerational trauma that resulted from residential schools and other colonization.
This system means that there are only two reserves in the Northwest Territories, and even those reserves receive housing, education, health and social services and community services the same way as other communities.
A challenge we have when the Government of Canada focuses its attention on Indigenous peoples is that funding is often focused on reserves, so Indigenous communities in the North are not eligible. We focus territorial funding on Indigenous peoples, but there is more work to be done and a need for economic opportunities that can be fuelled by projects that address our infrastructure deficit and help to diversify and strengthen our economy.
Our government sees value in the federally announced principles respecting the Government of Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples as they reflect the spirit of our own commitment to working with Indigenous people and governments in the spirit of respect, recognition and responsibility. However, we have some concerns about what the principles and the expected recognition of rights framework could mean for our public government.
Working together, our main goal in the recognition and implementation of Indigenous rights is to work together with Indigenous governments to ensure all residents, no matter where they live in the territory, continue to enjoy equal access to quality of programs and services.
It is important that policy direction around Indigenous governance and reconciliation has a consideration for the jurisdiction of the Government of the Northwest Territories and the devolution of responsibilities most recently with respect to lands and resources. As I stated previously, finalization of negotiated land claim or self-government agreements is a high priority for our government. It allows for communities and residents to move forward with self-determination and create certainty that allows for economic development.
One of the challenges of the current federal engagement with Indigenous peoples is that it has created uncertainty and has slowed the process of negotiation. Whether or not it was intended, a lot of promises have been heard by Indigenous governments about new opportunities for broader negotiations without clear mandates. Another challenge is that Indigenous governance models in the Northwest Territories often exist within regions or communities with mixed populations, some First Nations and some Metis as an example.
We support self-government and the clarity it brings around funding, accountability and governance. As Canada is moving forward with the important work of reconciliation, it is critical that the federal government is mindful that the solutions identified must provide similar clarity and ensure quality services are available to all.
I do not raise these issues to suggest that we do not see the value in finding opportunities for Indigenous governments to be more engaged in government program delivery, but the federal government could learn from us and should talk to us about the potential challenges that can arise.
Ensuring there is clear accountability confirmed with any changes in funding, planning for capacity and funding, and considering the impacts on all residents should be considered in any changes to service delivery. I believe the Northwest Territories is an example of how a real partnership with regional and community Indigenous governments based on mutual respect and recognition can lead to increased political self-determination and economic participation for the North’s Indigenous people.
Reconciliation is an ongoing process, but we think the Northwest Territories is well on its way and there are some lessons we can share. I thank you very much for taking the time to listen to my presentation. I am happy to open the floor up for questions and discussions.
Senator Tannas: I appreciate your taking the time to speak with us today.
I want to make sure that I understand what might be the subtext. Do you and your government have concerns about the Canadian government embracing UNDRIP and what it might mean? Is that what you were talking about in some of your references here?
With a population that is strong across so many different peoples, do you think that it is especially problematic for you or is it easier for you?
Mr. McLeod: First of all, we do not necessarily have concerns with UNDRIP, as long as it is implemented consistently across Canada. As a government, we have been constantly questioned about why we do not take much more of a leadership role in implementing and using our own devices. We have always said that we have to be consistent. We do not want to get ahead of Canada. We do not want to get ahead of the other provinces.
We have said publicly that we do not really have any issues with that. What we have concerns about is the fact that as a territory we were not getting any information of the discussions that the Government of Canada was having with Indigenous governments. Obviously, we were thinking the worst that could happen. Because of the fact that we provide services equally to all people, we were concerned that funding would be taken away from our government to deliver programs and services. We do not have any economies of scale here. We are very small population, spread over a very large area. We have about 44,000 people spread over 1.5 million square kilometres. If you start divvying up the pie, it makes it very hard to run a hospital or a school.
That is where our concerns were. We have had a lot of discussions with the Government of Canada. More recently, they have given us some comfort in the fact that they are saying they are not looking to do that. They are looking to increase funding for delivery of programs and services to Indigenous people. That gives us a lot more comfort. They said they would involve us in the discussions on a larger scale, so that helps as well.
Senator McCallum: I was looking at the statement you made where it is a challenge because the Government of Canada focuses its attention on Indigenous peoples on reserve. The second statement was that working together, no matter where they live, there is a continuation of equal access to quality in programs and services.
Do you have any stats on the health status of the Indigenous people whether they are on reserve or off? Between them and between non-Indigenous people, is one group more healthy than another?
Mr. McLeod: Yes, we keep stats. Generally the stats of people in the smaller communities are significantly lower than those of people that live in larger centres. For example, there is less employment, higher rates of addiction, higher rates of illness and so on. If you compare people living on reserves with people in larger centres, I do not know for sure but I would probably hazard a guess that it would find the same kinds of trends.
Also, it is harder to deliver services in smaller centres. We have 33 communities and five large regional centres. To deliver the same level of services to the other smaller communities is a very significant challenge for us and, I am sure, the other Aboriginal leaders.
Many programs announced at the national level can only be accessed by bands that live on reserves. A good example is, I think it was, the $4 billion Aboriginal infrastructure fund that was announced. The Indigenous bands in the Northwest Territories were not allowed to apply for that. We have a lot of those kinds of things, especially on housing.
Senator McCallum: The reason I brought that up is because when there is equal access for a large group of people the inequities come out. Equal access does not mean that you have a healthier population. It means that some that need more help do not get the higher level.
Is there any way in the system that would help you to address those inequities?
Mr. McLeod: The best way I could describe it is when you compare it to off reserve in southern Canada. If you are off reserve and the poverty level is low and if you need services like aid and so on, it does not matter if you are Indigenous or not. You can access it properly. You can access it and you get the same level of assistance.
The way I see it is that the best way is to provide better education, more economic development, more opportunities for jobs and those kinds of things. That is the best route out of that situation.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Welcome here this afternoon.
In your presentation you said that there is respect for land and resources. Could you tell me what percentage of resources are going to First Nations?
Mr. McLeod: Right now on resource revenue sharing 25 per cent of what we collect goes as shared with the Indigenous governments that have signed on to devolution.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: This would not be with the smaller communities that only have 80 people in their communities.
Mr. McLeod: The ones that have signed on are mostly the regional governments. We are starting to see more community self-governments, but the ones that are negotiating community self-governments are also part of the larger regional land claims. The money goes to the larger collective and then they decide what to do with that money.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: I just have one more short question. You also mentioned that you are negotiating with Indigenous people, but are they sitting negotiating as equals at the table like we are now? Do you find that the government is dictating on how First Nations should self-govern?
Mr. McLeod: That has not been our experience. The Aboriginal governments that have negotiated self-government agreements have been very knowledgeable. They have researched the best practices across Canada and other countries. As some of them explained it, they negotiate for what they feel is the best parts of other agreements and try to negotiate to get a deal on that basis.
If you look at the ones that have been negotiated, I think most of the Indigenous people that are part of those self-government agreements are pretty happy with what they negotiated.
Senator McPhedran: Welcome, and thank you both for taking the time to be with us.
I would very much appreciate if you have any feedback or observations for us on Mary Simon’s proposal for shared Arctic leadership, the report that was commissioned by Minister Carolyn Bennett and was released as available online. What is your sense of that? Is it helpful? Do many of the points that she makes mesh with where you already are or plan to go in terms of leadership in the Arctic?
I have two more specific questions somewhat related to that. First, were you involved in any of the regional round tables that were held in 2017 and earlier this year that grew out of the report from Mary Simon, and do you have any observations from that experience?
My second question is about the funding of where we are, the legislature. Where does the funding come for the actual operation of government here?
Mr. McLeod: We actually go back a long ways with Mary Simon. Mary Simon is very well known in the North. She was also the Arctic ambassador and so on.
We were very concerned with the mandate that she was given and the report that she wrote, primarily because we feel we live in an area where the economy has never been fully developed. Most of our communities have very high unemployment. Our economy is constantly being interrupted by southern people who think they know better more than we do.
It started with trapping, where our people had a pretty good life from trapping. They were independent. It was sustainable and so on. Now it is very difficult to continue to maintain that way of life.
Over the years the federal government has found it very easy to appease environmental rights groups. When the pressure got too hot, they created a national park or more protected areas, usually in the Northern territories. You can check the records, but we feel we probably have the most protected areas anywhere in Canada.
We are having a hard time to maintain 45 per cent or 47 per cent of land available for development. I am not including the lands that the Aboriginal governments have. The Aboriginal governments are probably the largest landholders in the Northwest Territories.
We had concern with a report to recommend creation of more protected areas that would reduce the number of opportunities for sustainable development. We told Mary Simon that. We wrote to Mary Simon and told Minister Bennett that. With the moratorium on oil and gas in the Beaufort as well, I felt that if I could add that to the protected areas it would increase the percentages significantly. Now we have had opportunity for communications to improve. We have a new minister responsible for northern affairs. He has visited us and is very familiar with the North, so we have had some positive discussions.
Our biggest concern is that our GDP, our gross domestic product, has reduced significantly. Nunavut and Yukon have recovered from the 2007 downturn in the economy. We have not. Our GDP has dropped from $4.7 billion to about $3.8 billion. The biggest loss of jobs has been in the resource development sector, where we have lost over $1.2 billion in our GD and we have lost about 800 jobs.
It is very difficult in our economy because we have had four mining projects approved. Only one has gone ahead. We have had a $16 billion pipeline project that took six years to go through environmental assessment. As soon as it got approved, the price of natural gas dropped from $11 an MCF to less than $2 an MCF. The project is on hold. A couple months ago the pipeline proponents dissolved their coalition. Now we have a certificate of conveyance and public necessity but nobody to build it at this point.
On the funding side, 70 per cent of the budget of the Government of the Northwest Territories comes from the federal government. The rest is from resource revenues, fees and so on. That is where we are at.
Senator Christmas: It is a pleasure to be in your territory, Mr. Premier.
I am interested in learning more about the devolution agreement of 2014. I assume that the agreement involved the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Indigenous governments here. Does it also involve the federal government?
Mr. McLeod: Yes.
Senator Christmas: Has that devolution agreement made a difference? Has it improved things here in the territory?
Mr. McLeod: First of all, devolution has been going on since 1967 when the Government of the Northwest Territories moved from Ottawa to Yellowknife. We say the easy programs were devolved over the years. The most difficult ones were the land and resources aspects and took the largest part of 2014.
The Government of Canada negotiated with the Government of the Northwest Territories. We have had a number of attempts over the years where we thought we had achieved devolution, but it always came down to a critical mass of Aboriginal support.
At one time when Prime Minister Mulroney came and was prepared to sign off on the Northern Accord the federal government required 100 per cent Aboriginal support. Everybody knew that was impossible to achieve.
We have seven Aboriginal governments that have been negotiating land claims, and it came down to what that 100 per cent would mean. If one was out, did that mean we could not get devolution?
At the end of the day when we achieved devolution we had five out of the seven supporting us. That was good enough for the federal government to agree to devolving resources and land. With the intergovernmental council, all the settled land claims and the Government of the Northwest Territories, we all agreed to work together to manage the land. I wouldn’t say collectively, but we try to be consistent with land management.
There are still some outstanding commitments that have to be dealt with in the transfer devolution. It has allowed us to work better with the participating Aboriginal governments. Maybe it is Murphy’s Law, but as soon as we achieved devolution the economy went sideways. It still hasn’t picked up totally.
We need to diversify our economy. We have some regions that are having some difficult economic challenges right now.
Senator Christmas: I have a second question, Mr. Premier. As you know, the Prime Minister and Minister Carolyn Bennett stated their intentions to introduce the rights recognition framework. I noticed in your comments that you had some concerns about the rights recognition framework. I understand the Prime Minister will introduce legislation this coming fall with the goal of having it passed before the election is called.
As senators, we will obviously be dealing with that piece of legislation. What concerns does the Government of the Northwest Territories have with the proposed rights recognition framework?
Mr. McLeod: A number of them are process, and we do not really know what is actually meant by a number of the processes that are being described.
For example, some land claims have been in negotiations for 20 to 25 years. We work very hard in this 18th assembly with the federal government to make new offers. We think we are pretty close, and suddenly all the discussions open up even further.
If I was negotiating, I would wait to see where we get the best deal. Is it better to wait until we find out what they meant? For us, I would be very surprised if we didn’t wait until we knew exactly what was in there before settling some of the long-standing claims.
We don’t know what the Daniels case and some other court cases really mean. We know that in some cases the federal government has taken money for health programs and giving it to an Indigenous government that has settled land claims. They do not realize, or maybe they didn’t realize it at that time, that some of these land claims had beneficiaries that live all over the world. We have to take into account when we are funding that the programs are going outside of the Northwest Territories.
As I said earlier, we are unsure. We have comfort in the Government of Canada saying that they are looking to increase funding for programs and services. We get comfort in that. When it comes to rights, we hear that we will not need to negotiate land claims anymore or self-government because they will just use the treaty. We have Treaty 8 and Treaty 11, so that will be the basis for recognition of all our rights. They don’t need to continue to negotiate.
It is very early days yet, so we do not know exactly what will mean either.
Senator Pate: I am curious about what you were saying in terms of the percentage. Following up on some of the last questions and given the percentage that comes from the federal government, have you looked at any of the options like guaranteed livable incomes or basic income models? From what you are saying, this is one of the last to recover from the economic downturn.
Have you had an opportunity to look at some of the results coming out of Ontario, out of Manitoba previously and out of other countries around the world where these sorts of initiatives have been taken? If you have, what are your plans in that regard?
Mr. McLeod: It has been raised in our legislative assembly by some members that have put it forward. We have had anti-poverty round tables and this is something that comes up constantly. Basically, it comes down to whether or not we can afford it or whether the majority of people agree with the policy of having everybody get a guaranteed income.
I don’t think we have been there to gauge the public perception of that approach. We think the income assistance program works fairly well. We have a basket and we adjust it. It is very expensive to live in the Northwest Territories. I don’t think we have looked at it in enough detail to decide, but it has been discussed and it has been raised.
Senator McCallum: You said that 70 per cent to 80 per cent of your budget comes from the federal government and that you expend some of this on the people on reserves.
Mr. McLeod: That is right, yes. It is 70 per cent of the budget for the Government of the Northwest Territories.
Senator McCallum: I am looking at the provincial system. There are jurisdictional issues between the provinces and the federal government. The provinces do not want to expend money for people who are treaty. They are given funding for that but they have not, and that is for insured services.
Health Canada provides services for the non-insured programs. It sounds like you are going beyond what the provinces are doing. Is that right?
Mr. McLeod: Just for the two reserves, yes. We have one in Hay River and one at Salt River, outside of Fort Smith.
Senator McCallum: I am getting at trying to correct the cross-jurisdictional issues. The provinces have not really met with Indigenous people to correct them.
It seems to be working here, but there seems to be concerns that come with it, especially with a non-insured like dental or mental health. I understand that you do not have any mental rehab centres up north, which pushes people into insured services. That puts people into a category that is not given to the province. Do you understand what I am saying?
Mr. McLeod: Yes.
Senator McCallum: That creates a problem for the provinces and I guess for your government as well. Do you handle that in a certain way or have you been able to address it? Are there special issues coming out of the relationship you have that seems to be different?
Mr. McLeod: That is an area we have struggled with over the years. More recently, we have been working with the two bands. That would be a good question to ask Chief Fabian who is appearing right after me because he knows the issue firsthand.
We tried to deal with it as a government in the old days when a commissioner was running the show and dealing directly with the two reserves. More recently, we had a tri-party committee involving the Government of Canada, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the band, whether it be the Salt River First Nation or the Kátl’odeeche First Nation meeting to try to work these jurisdiction issues out.
For example, in Hay River they had built 10 houses that sat empty for 10 years because they were on IAB lands. We could not do any work on them because we had to get somebody to give us jurisdiction. Only recently we have been able to work it out with Government of Canada and the local band.
It is an issue. It is not a case of anybody benefiting more than others because we have been able to step in to fund small amounts. I think Chief Fabian would do a much better job of answering that question.
The Chair: I would like to follow up with questions posed by Senator Christmas and Senator McCallum.
Here in the Northwest Territories, to me, you have a very complicated system of governance. You have the Government of the Northwest Territories. You have the federal government as a partner. You also have different regional corporations such as the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. You have two self-governing agreements and, what did you say, nine bilateral agreements. You have some reserves and First Nation treaties.
You have worked out a model whereby they all fit together somehow. I am wondering if Mr. Aumond could make us a flowchart as to how they all work together. Perhaps then we might be able to sort out the questions of jurisdiction.
I am thinking devolution has occurred with five out of the seven groups that have land claims. Now we have two more that are coming up. If they settle their land claims agreements, will they then be asked to sign on to the devolution agreement? If they do that, will it be of greater benefit to them?
There are many layers of complexity here. I hope I am making some kind of sense.
Mr. McLeod: I guess the best way to explain it is that we want everybody to sign on to devolution. Those that have not signed on feel that the GNWT is an administrative arm of the federal government and that they have a treaty with the Queen. For whatever reason they have chosen not to sign on. The Akaitcho government has not signed on but the Deninu K’ue band has signed on. Everybody has different reasons for whether or not to sign on, and obviously we would like to see everybody sign on.
It is still open. The federal government would only keep available benefits, such as the amount of money for signing on, open for two years after the devolution agreement was signed on, and then they would fall off the table.
The Chair: I have one final question. With regard to signing on to devolution, what would you say is the primary benefit? Would that be the resource revenue sharing aspect of it?
Mr. McLeod: There were financial benefits, revenue sharing and annual funding to deal with environmental cleanups. Where funding would be available for environmental cleanup, they also have to participate in the clean-up work being done.
Quite a number of sites were not transferred because they had environmental liabilities. I think 700 of them remained with the federal government.
The Chair: On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for taking the time to appear and give your wise words of wisdom to the committee.
Mr. McLeod: I really appreciate the committee coming to visit us. We find that we benefit quite a bit as well from committees coming to visit us to get a better understanding of the North. We really appreciate it. Thank you.
The Chair: For our fifth panel we have two witnesses before us: Chief Roy Fabian of the Kátl’odeeche First Nation; and from the Northwest Territory Métis Nation, Garry Bailey, President.
Chief Fabian, perhaps you would like to go first and then we will hear from President Bailey, after which we will have questions from the senators.
Roy Fabian, Chief, Kátl’odeeche First Nation: I am hard of hearing. Anyway, my name is Roy Fabian, Chief of the Kátl’odeeche First Nation. I have a statement but I also want to ad lib a bit after I read it.
The Kátl’odeeche First Nation is a Dene Nation. As Dene, we develop our integrity, language, culture and capacities based on our deep and respectful relationship with Mother Earth, the land. For us, the land is a manifestation of the Creator, of God, so this relationship is also a Divine Relationship.
Over time immemorial, through this deep and respectful relationship, we the Dene developed our societies which were rooted in self-determination, sustainable land management practices, land and wildlife use protocols, and relationship protocols with surrounding First Nations. All our institutions are based on long-standing beliefs, values, knowledge, skills and capacities.
It is based on these premises that the Dene in the N.W.T. made two treaties with Canada, Treaty 8 and Treaty 11. We have a treaty relationship with the British Crown and thus Canada. Kátl’odeeche First Nation views this treaty relationship in the same way it views its other relationships, based on mutual respect, recognition of self-determination, and a strong and inalienable connection to the land.
In 1969, Canada introduced a white paper to undermine the treaty relationships with all the First Nations across Canada. This approach naturally was met with strong opposition and resistance by all First Nations across Canada. The Dene chiefs realized that the written version of the treaty did not reflect what was agreed to by the Dene in Denendeh. The result was the Paulette case ruled upon by Judge Morrow in September 1973.
The Paulette case was a caveat to freeze 450,000 square miles of land which were the lands within N.W.T. covered by treaties 8 and 11. Judge Morrow ruled that a caveat could be filed on the 450,000 square miles of land based on his findings that the Dene did not extinguish their Aboriginal title to the land through treaties 8 and 11. In his ruling he also said that the Dene oral versions of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11 have to be honoured.
The Supreme Court of Canada in appeal did not grant the caveat of 450,000 square miles based on a technicality, but the court did not address the Morrow ruling on extinguishment and adherence to the Dene oral versions of treaties 8 and 11. This ruling is now protected under Canada’s Constitution Act, 1982.
The treaty relationship between Canada and the Dene has to be reconsidered, keeping in mind Judge Morrow’s ruling of 1973. Although Canada developed the Indian Act to administer the treaty relationships based on the notion of extinguishment and on a colonial world view, in the N.W.T. the Dene did not extinguish their Aboriginal rights or title.
This hearing is about a new relationship between Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples. In the case of First Nations and the Dene people, it is about treaty relationship. For KFN, it is about concluding Treaty 8 negotiations.
Treaty 8 was about sharing the land with the newcomers, but there were no follow-up negotiations on how that sharing would occur and how jurisdiction over the land would occur. Canada has imposed its vision of what a shared relationship looks like through its comprehensive claims policy, but that policy does not accommodate KFN’s view of its rights and titles within its own traditional land territory. For clarity, KFN has not and will not extinguish its rights and titles.
The question is: What do we now need to negotiate? KFN has put forward a few key issues that must be negotiated to reconcile its relationship with Canada. These include KFN’s rights within its traditional territory in relation to harvesting of fish, wildlife, plants, trees and other renewable resources; use and occupancy of the land; management of the lands and resources; governance and self-determination on and off the Hay River Dene Reserve; Aboriginal title; and such other matters as the parties may mutually agree to address.
KFN is particularly concerned that Canada does not respect KFN’s jurisdiction within its own traditional territory, based on its long history of land use and occupancy. Nor does Canada respect the application of traditional protocols in KFN’s relationships with its neighbours. These matters need to be addressed.
In summary, KFN is seeking a revisiting of the spirit and intent of the Treaty 8 and a clarification of the nature of the relationship that was established through that treaty, based not just on the text of the treaty but on the oral version of the treaty as articulated by Dene elders during the Morrow case.
The Kátl’odeeche First Nation is seeking a resetting of the relationship between itself as a self-determining First Nation within a distinct traditional territory and Canada. We are prepared to enter into good faith negotiations to achieve this outcome.
I said I would ad lib a bit at the end of my prepared speech. I have been involved in treaty negotiations for my whole life. My great-grandfather signed Treaty 8 in 1900, so I grew up learning about treaty. I got involved in 1978 when I became band manager for the Kátl’odeeche First Nation. Basically, I was probably one of the first Dene band managers in the Northwest Territories at that time.
Since then I have been involved in Dene politics. Over the years we saw all kinds of developments. We mentioned the white paper. I want to let you know the white paper was not completely abandoned by Canada. The white paper was implemented when the Government of the Northwest Territories was established. If you look at the relationship today with First Nations it is all based on the white paper. The goal of the white paper was to turn First Nations reserves into municipalities.
If you take a look at the claims process, every claim is trying to make it so that the First Nations will become municipalities. Based on that Kátl’odeeche First Nation left the Dehcho process, which we were involved with, because they started negotiating a comprehensive claim. We do not want to negotiate a comprehensive claim because it is about extinguishment of rights. We do not want to extinguish our rights.
One of the relationships we have is called a fiscal relationship. That is something we have been involved with. Even though we are on the reserve, we do not deal with Indian Affairs when it comes to funding for health, education and housing. It all goes to the Government of the Northwest Territories. That was done based on the 1969 white paper. We were never consulted. We never agreed to that relationship. So, today, there is no fiscal relationship with Canada. It is with the Government of the Northwest Territories and that has to be dealt with.
We are in the process of writing a letter to the Auditor General raising the whole issue that Canada has given the Government of the Northwest Territories money for First Nations based on treaty and Aboriginal rights. That money is not being administered by the Government of the Northwest Territories based on treaty and Aboriginal rights, and that is not based on the integrity of the treaty. We must deal with that issue.
For me, we don’t have a problem with the Indian Act. The Indian Act was to administer the money or the obligations Canada has with First Nations. That is what the Indian Act is, but unfortunately they unilaterally developed the Indian Act. As First Nations, we should be sitting down with Canada and negotiating the Indian Act. It should not be done unilaterally by Canada. It is a nation-to-nation treaty relationship. If that is the case, then we should be negotiating the Indian Act. If we did negotiate it, it would better reflect how we see the world and it would better meet the needs of us as First Nations people.
I just want to say that for us as the Kátl’odeeche First Nation, we want a direct fiscal relationship with Canada and not through the Government of the Northwest Territories.
Garry Bailey, President, Northwest Territory Métis Nation: I would like to welcome you all to our territory.
As President of the Northwest Territory Métis Nation, I will give you some background of the Northwest Territory Metis people, how long we have been here, where we have been and where we are today with the process we have been working on.
The Indigenous Metis of the Northwest Territory Métis Nation have a distinct history culture and way of life separate and independent from the Dene people with whom we have relationships. The Indigenous Metis help to establish Fort Resolution in 1786, which is the oldest community in the Northwest Territories, among other N.W.T. communities.
The Métis Nation was the backbone of the Hudson’s Bay Company trading posts throughout the Northwest Territories and beyond, including old Fort Rae, Fort Resolution, Fort Smith, Hay River and area, Rocher River, Fort Reliance, Fort Fitzgerald, Salt River, et cetera. Languages spoken by the Indigenous Metis include Chipewyan, Cree, French, Slavey and Michif.
The Northwest Territory Métis Nation has constitutionally protected Aboriginal rights. Our Aboriginal rights are based upon our inherent rights as Indigenous people organized as sovereign nations prior to government control.
The Indigenous Metis historically and today continue to harvest wildlife, fish, migratory birds, trees and plants in harmony with other Aboriginal people. It should be noted that treaty rights of Aboriginal peoples in areas do not trump the Aboriginal rights of the Northwest Territory Métis Nation. No Aboriginal group has a priority harvest over another Aboriginal group.
The Northwest Territory Métis Nation is comprised of Indigenous Metis from the three communities of Fort Smith, Hay River and Fort Resolution. Those three community councils that we have form the Northwest Territory Métis Nation. We figure we have an estimate of 3,000 members.
The Northwest Territories Métis Nation is mandated to negotiate a land claim agreement/treaty and self-government agreement with the Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories and to seek the recognition of Aboriginal rights.
The Northwest Territory Métis Nation is recognized by GNWT and Canada as an Aboriginal government. Despite this admission, government does not provide core funding to the Northwest Territory Métis Nation like it does to the First Nations. To date, Canada has not provided funding to the Métis Nation to deliver programs and services mandated by the Daniels decision.
The Northwest Territory Métis Nation is a party along with the GNWT, Canada and seven other Aboriginal Indigenous groups to the Northwest Territories Land and Resources Resolution Agreement, 2014. The Métis Nation participates in the intergovernmental council with the GNWT pursuant to a bilateral agreement with the GNWT. The Métis Nation leadership and the GNWT cabinet meet at least once a year pursuant to our MOU.
On land claim agreement and treaty negotiations, the Government of Canada did not engage in an historic treaty negotiation with Metis people. The exclusion of Metis people from the negotiation of historic treaties created a division between Métis Nation members and First Nations.
From 1972 to 1990, the Northwest Territory Métis Nation participated in the joint Dene and Metis land negotiations. Elsewhere in the N.W.T., Dene and Metis negotiated a single agreement with the Sahtu and the Gwich’in.
With the collapse of the territory-wide Dene and Metis negotiations, the Akaitcho First Nations initially decided to pursue a treaty land entitlement negotiation that did not include the Metis of the South Slave region. The treaty land entitlement negotiations are only for the First Nations who signed historic treaties. Some First Nations people in the N.W.T. mistakenly believe that treaty rights of First Nations people who have signed treaties have a priority over the Aboriginal rights of Metis people.
The Metis land claim agreement/treaty commenced with the signing of the framework agreement between the Northwest Territory Métis Nation, Canada and the GNWT in 1996, which set out the stage for the negotiation of a land claim/treaty. The failed Dene 1990 agreement formed the basis for the Northwest Territory Métis Nation Land and Resources Agreement-in-Principle.
On July 31, 2015, the Northwest Territory Métis Nation, Canada and GNWT signed the Northwest Territory Métis Nation Land and Resources Agreement-in-Principle. The AIP sets out the substantive basis for the negotiation of the Northwest Territory Métis Nation land claim/treaty which includes the following: continuation of Metis traditional wildlife, fish, plants and tree harvesting throughout our agreement area, including gifting and trading; Metis land ownership, including land in the communities as well as rural lands; capital transfer and resource revenue sharing; consultation for oil and gas exploration and mineral exploration and development; requirement for the negotiation of impact benefit agreements; commencement of self-government and co-management negotiations; and involvement with management of heritage resources, protected areas and parks.
We have outstanding issues with the Metis land claim treaty negotiation. We have been actively negotiating a land claim agreement/treaty with the Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories. There remain fundamental outstanding issues that are posing a barrier to complete our agreement in a timely manner including quantum comparability with N.W.T. land claims of the Sahtu, Gwich’in and Tlicho and other offers to Akaitcho and Dehcho; capital transfer amount; land quantum, surface and subsurface or surface land and generalized interest of royalty share from the agreement area; Mackenzie Valley royalty sharing percentage; scope of the agreement area; recognition of harvesting rights; expansion of the harvesting area to be consistent with the extent of Indigenous Metis harvesting rights; and land selection within Wood Buffalo National Park.
In addition, the Northwest Territory Métis Nation seeks a process and resolution of outstanding issues related to Wood Buffalo National Park. We would like to advance reconciliation of past wrongs within Wood Buffalo National Park and provide for the recognition of Aboriginal rights within Wood Buffalo National Park.
In 2016, the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs and the Premier of the Northwest Territories appointed Thomas Isaac as the Minister’s special representative regarding the Akaitcho Dene and the Northwest Territory Métis Nation negotiations in the Northwest Territories.
In 2017, Mr. Isaac released his report and included the following: government should focus on negotiations on core principles, including addressing reconciliation of Aboriginal rights in negotiations; generalized interest for royalty sharing may be preferred with less land quantum; government should negotiate Northwest Territory Métis Nation’s harvesting interests north of Great Slave Lake; a work plan provided for an expedited negotiation process; and Wood Buffalo National Park, Parks Canada, to continue engaging with Aboriginal groups and address reconciliation.
On May 24, 2017, Canada and GNWT tabled a revised offer with four package options: capital transfer; land quantum, including surface or generalized interest in royalties option, Dene and Metis royalty sharing rate; and an expanded harvesting area.
On June 17, the Northwest Territory Métis Nation tabled a counteroffer. To date, the government has not provided a response to the counteroffer.
On June 29, the parties entered into a revised work plan which provides a negotiator’s draft of a final agreement in 18 to 24 months, which includes resolution of the fundamental issues.
Canada must take steps to bridge the wide gap between the offer to the Northwest Territory Métis Nation in comparison to the Akaitcho.
Reconciliation and redress are required for Wood Buffalo National Park. The Métis Nation has historically relied upon the lands in Wood Buffalo National Park for family, community and trading purposes prior to the establishment of Wood Buffalo National Park in 1923. We have called upon Parks Canada to take steps forward toward reconciliation and, in full accordance with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, propose the establishment of an appropriate trust fund that recognizes the losses from the removal of the Metis from Wood Buffalo National Park and the losses from the ban on our fur trapping and harvesting opportunities, as Canada has done in other situations to attempt to address the past wrongs.
The expulsion of Indigenous Metis from Wood Buffalo National Park resulted in a loss of way of life, food source, income and trapping, cabins, livelihood and traditional way of life for our members. The loss of trapping continues to this day. The consequences of the expulsion have not been fully appreciated or acknowledged to this day by Canada. Parks Canada provided harvesting arrangements for First Nations members for the continuation of their trapping and harvesting interests to the exclusion of the Indigenous Metis members. Action is required. Canada must take steps to redress the expulsion of the Indigenous Metis members and provide restitution to the Northwest Territory Métis Nation in accordance with the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Northwest Territories Métis Nation seeks reconciliation with Canada with respect to the historical treatment of the Metis in Wood Buffalo National Park, the advancement of reconciliation and the implementation of the UN declaration. These are key government objectives.
With the developments respecting harvesting in recent years, Parks Canada has taken a non-enforcement approach in respect to harvesting by Indigenous Metis members in Wood Buffalo National Park. The non-enforcement approach provides uncertainty for our members. We note that a UNESCO mission report noted Indigenous resource use is not a threat to Wood Buffalo National Park.
Action is required to address harvesting. Canada must take steps to recognize the harvesting rights of Indigenous Metis members within Wood Buffalo National Park, including the recognition of a Northwest Territory Métis Nation identification card. Any recognition of harvesting rights must happen now as the final agreement is not concluded and will take at least five-plus years to complete. The recognition of Aboriginal rights is a key objective of your government.
I now have answers for the questions you put forward, if you would like me to go through that.
The Chair: I was just about to say that you have answered all our questions fairly thoroughly. We have about 20 minutes left, so it would probably be best if we had questions from the senators at this point. The will likely ask questions about the questions that you have already answered. Thank you very much for that comprehensive review.
Senator Tannas: I just have a couple of questions for you, Mr. Bailey. I saw the number 3,000 Metis members across Canada. How many are resident in the Northwest Territories?
Mr. Bailey: It would be hard to give you an exact answer because we have not received funding so that we could do a full-blown enumeration process. We received a bit and we are on the start of it. With the intake we have gathered, it is roughly 3,000. We do not know whether or not they are approved yet.
It still needs funding so that we can go through our genealogy. We have a genealogist verifying all of our members and they have to be Indigenous to 1921, the reason being the date of 1921 is when the last treaty, Treaty 11, was signed. The government refused to go to 1900 or something because they wanted to make sure they caught all the Metis in the Northwest Territories.
Senator Tannas: The idea is that 1921 would have been when the Metis would have made a choice. They would have either accepted status or not. Is that the idea?
Mr. Bailey: No. The Metis were refused status. I have mentioned the white paper. That is all part of it. I mentioned how they came here in 1899-1900. They signed treaties with our ancestors, our relatives, but did not offer it to the Metis. That is where we are today.
Our people are accepted as being Metis and are proud to be Metis. We have fought long and hard to get to where we have today, as you can see. The Daniels decision has come out. We are now recognized for programs and services. However, we are still not being honoured, I guess. Daniels has not been implemented even though the Senate committee has made recommendations to Canada to actually come up with some funding programs for the Metis people.
It is important to note that the Métis National Council are being represented. They are recognized by Canada on a nation-to-nation basis, and we are not. We are not affiliated with the Métis National Council and never have been. Maybe they have been way in the past before my time, but now you have to have universal voting. There are some politics there but they do not allow us to be part of that.
Because they received the funding, they don’t acknowledge the Métis Nation. They get away with having all that funding and Canada still refuses to have a nation-to-nation relationship with us. That is a problem for sure. We are hoping to get it fixed so that we can actually start doing our own work for the Northwest Territories.
We are unique. We are different from outside of the Northwest Territories. We have smaller communities and different needs. There are a lot of needs here that are different from those in Alberta. There they have lots of numbers. Here we do not. It is problematic. We need to be looked at directly.
Senator Tannas: In terms of numbers, you are not sure how many are here in the Northwest Territories
Mr. Bailey: I would say there has to be probably 2,500 here.
Senator Tannas: The vast majority of the 3,000 are actually here.
Mr. Bailey: I say 3,000. There may be more. Who knows?
Senator Tannas: Chief, you mentioned an interesting idea of using the Indian Act, going back to what you said, for its original purpose and renegotiating it from the point of view of a road map or a collaborative agreement on how to apply treaties.
Would you see the 11 different or however many treaties there are as a multiple negotiation or as one? The modern treaties are not included, but how would you see that? It is an interesting concept, one I had not heard about.
Mr. Fabian: I am involved in the AFN and other processes that I know. This is not something anybody has ever thought about. I have always felt that the Indian Act was simply to administer treaty obligations. Yet, it was unilaterally set up by Canada. Rather than sitting down with us and saying what sort of treaty relationship is it going to be, it was based on extinguishment and colonization.
The treaties are really important. In Treaty 8 and Treaty 11 there is a distinction of territory. Treaty 11 territory is Hay River and north and around the Great Slave Lake and north. Treaty 8 is only a small section in the Northwest Territories south of the Great Slave Lake.
Our traditional territory has been ours since 1900. We signed the treaty in 1900, so that distinction needs to be made. There is clearly differences in dates. You cannot apply the tradition of one treaty territory to other treaties. That is where there needs to distinction.
Senator Tannas: Thank you, Chief Fabian and Mr. Bailey, for the education. I appreciate it.
The Chair: Before we move on to Senator Christmas, President Bailey, I was curious about your definition of who is a Metis person in the Northwest Territories.
You talked about genealogy. Could you be more precise than that? The Métis National Council was talking about genealogy but tracing it back to the Red River settlement area. Do you have an historic element to that as well in your definition? To me, it sounded more like DNA or a blood quantum definition.
Mr. Bailey: No, it is not quantum for sure. I do not agree with that at all.
We identify as one of the Aboriginal people of Canada. Being one of the Aboriginal people of Canada includes Metis. We have Chipewyan, Cree and Slavey ancestry. We can tie our bloodline to our three communities to be Indigenous to the three communities of Fort Resolution, Fort Smith and Hay River.
The Chair: You have the communities.
Mr. Bailey: We are not talking down by Red River, though. We strictly stick to the South Slavey, which is where we are from. Like I said, we helped form Fort Resolution in 1786. It was formed by Metis people and is the oldest community in Northwest Territories. Those are the people we are.
We are spread out in Fort Smith, Hay River and Yellowknife. Actually we have a lot of members here. We are using a genealogist to verify all of our history there.
Senator Christmas: I have a question for Chief Fabian. I am not sure if I understand correctly, so just bear with me.
It is quite obvious that your First Nation was a signatory to Treaty 8 and that you had a relationship with the Crown. Somewhere along your history you were allocated federal reserve lands. Is that correct?
Mr. Fabian: Yes.
Senator Christmas: You never had a fiscal relationship with the Government of Canada, so all of your fiscal resources had come through the Government of the Northwest Territories. You are not governed by the Indian Act, although you have a treaty relationship and although you have reserve lands.
Mr. Fabian: Yes, it is interesting. If you take a look at the history of the Northwest Territories, the Hay River Reserve was created in 1974. That is when we took a reserve under Treaty 8. The Government of the Northwest Territories was being created at about the same time.
The Chair: That is what I was wondering.
Mr. Fabian: Right, and so when Canada implemented the white paper on the Northwest Territories, they lumped us into that and we never had any fiscal relationship with Canada.
I personally wrote a letter to CMHC asking for housing on a reserve. I got a letter back saying that all your housing money is being given to the Government of the Northwest Territories. As a bit of education, all those announcements of money that has been given to First Nations in the south does not apply to us. I remember several years ago $840 million for housing in Canada’s First Nations. I could not get a cent out of that because of the agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories. We are raising the whole issue of this fiscal relationship. We never agreed to it. We never agreed to that set-up. It was just done.
Back in 1974, the elders were experts at treaty, but they did not really understand the government process. When they were dealing with government, they thought they were dealing with Canada. Because the Government of the Northwest Territories was thrown in there, they did not know they were dealing with a sub-government.
It was these kinds of issues over the years. It even took me awhile to figure out what the relationship was. Today, clearly the relationship is with the Government of the Northwest Territories. Everything comes from them. They are not based on treaty rights. They are not based on our Treaty 8. This needs to be dealt with. If there is to be a new relationship, as a First Nation in the Northwest Territories we asking for and want to have a direct fiscal relationship with Canada. If you want to negotiate it through the Indian Act, fine, but it needs to be dealt with.
Senator Christmas: Chief, I am just flabbergasted.
Mr. Fabian: Education has not worked for us. There are big gaps in health. Housing is a big issue. They built six houses on the Hay River Reserve. One of them is 16 years old and the other is probably about 12 years old. They have never been assigned.
They are sitting empty because Northwest Territories Housing Corporation has a policy that people have to buy the houses. All the people that could own a house on the Hay River Reserve own a house because they have jobs and everything to do that. The rest of the people fall between the cracks and these six empty houses are still sitting there.
Senator Christmas: Chief, do you know of any other First Nation that is in the same situation that you are?
Mr. Fabian: There are only two reserves in the Northwest Territories. There is the Salt River First Nation and Hay River Reserve, so there are only two reserves. All the rest of the communities are not reserves, and that is why the white paper can be applied to them. The relationship is really cloudy.
Senator Christmas: Cloudy is a polite word.
Mr. Fabian: There is no clear relationship. What is a relationship? What is the treaty relationship among non-reserve First Nations? What is it supposed to be?
Everywhere else everybody has reserves except for in the Northwest Territories. For example, there are people paying taxes for their land. In my neighbouring community I have a friend that owes the Government of the Northwest Territories tens of thousands of dollars because he has to pay taxes on his own land, on Dene land. Under the treaty Canada was obligated to provide land so that we could live, but they did not fulfil it.
When they implemented the white paper, they did not want to provide land to First Nations. Now, if you look at some of the agreements, First Nations people are agreeing to paying taxes. I am a colonized Dene. I have different views about these things. I really believe that the treaty relationship and even the new treaties have to be renewed with all First Nations in the Northwest Territories.
Inherent rights are supposed to be inalienable. Aboriginal title and rights are inalienable. Yet Canada negotiated these new agreements that alienated their title and rights. That needs to be dealt with. That is why there are still two groups. They are having a hard time because they do not want to extinguish their rights. Canada is insisting that we extinguish our rights. We left the Dehcho First Nation because we are not going to extinguish our Treaty 8 rights.
If I was going to renegotiate a treaty as a colonized Dene, am I going to do a better job than my great-grandfather that negotiated Treaty 8? Here I am today. He was a totally thriving independent Dene. Today, me, I am dependent and not so thriving. I cannot renegotiate that treaty better, so I want to stick to it. We need to define it. We need to figure it out and what the relationship is.
It is relationship and nothing else. For us, our whole idea of relationship is with the land. To me, relationship with the land is synonymous to relationship with God. Lots of stuff is not being included in this process. The whole interpretation was one-sided. Our views and our world view were not even considered in the process.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: My first question to Mr. Bailey is a short one. Do the Metis peoples here have a land base?
Mr. Bailey: Yes, we do. We identify throughout the whole Northwest Territories as our traditional territory.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Do you actually have a place where the Metis live, build their homes and whatnot?
Mr. Bailey: Yes, we are living in Fort Resolution, Fort Smith and Hay River. We have negotiated interim management, an IMA, so we actually help manage and have say over portions of the South Slave area.
We are trying to finalize our claim so we can actually be recognized with the land base. Right now government has basically just been sloughing us off. They are saying that we are negotiating a self-government agreement and until then we do not have rights to self-government, the lands and resources. They cannot continue to do that when there are some incremental things that they could do today.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Thanks for your answer. My next short question is for Mr. Fabian.
You mentioned here that Canada does not respect your jurisdiction traditional territories. The land base has a long history. Could you expand on that?
Mr. Fabian: Yes. Kátl’odeeche First Nation signed Treaty 8 in 1900. When we signed Treaty 8 there was no scrip given to any Metis in Hay River because there were no Metis. The Kátl’odeeche First Nation was exclusive, the First Nation there. We had protocols with surrounding First Nations. There were relationships among the First Nations. In our case it was Deninu K’ue and the people there. Even today we have an agreement with the Deninu K’ue First Nation drawing an economic line between us.
That is to the east. To the west we have another agreement with the Ka’a’gee Tu First Nation that clearly defines what the economic line is between the two of us. Everything in between is KFN traditional territory. It is exclusive.
I cannot remember the name of the court case that talked about historic land use and occupancy. We have to be able to prove that we had historic land use and occupancy. We have done that. We even presented it to Canada, and they still refuse to acknowledge that KFN’s traditional territory is exclusive.
The Chair: Senators, I regret to say we are out of time.
President Bailey, did you wish to say something?
Mr. Bailey: I am not going to comment on the last comment, but we have our views as well.
Your question number reads: “What does an ideal future look like for you and your descendants?”
Number 1 for us is the ability to continue our traditional way of life. Number 2 is recognition of Indigenous rights and right of self-government. Number 3 is equitable treatment on the same basis as First Nations in our communities. Number 4 is federal funding of self-government programs and services unique to our unique needs. Number 5 is best education opportunities for youth and adult learners. Number 6 is full employment for members. Number 7 is reconciliation measures to address the expulsion of the Metis from Wood Buffalo National Park. Number 8 is full benefits of any resource development within our traditional territory. Number 9 is reaching a land claim agreement/treaty with the government for the recognition of our Aboriginal rights with equitable capital transfer amount, land quantum and sharing of mineral royalties.
This has to happen. Obviously, you can see the divide between the First Nations and Metis. This has happened to us. For 119 years we have been left out, forgotten. They say we weren’t there. We were there. We have been here. As you can see, in 1786 we formed a community. We have a land base. We can prove that. We can prove Aboriginal title. We can prove all that stuff.
The government needs to have flexible mandates so that they are not locked down. They have to make it fair and equitable, no matter what. Look at the final claim offer we have been offered. The Akaitcho, our neighbour and our cousins — my mother is an Akaitcho citizen — offer is double ours. We have to live in these communities. I have to sign on to an agreement that my Metis people will be proud of and say, “Good job, Garry. You guys did good.” No, they will not be happy if you sign into something like that because they are forcing us into it. Like Chief Fabian said, it is a public system. That is what a lot of these comprehensive claims are.
It is moving a bit, but we need your help so that we can get an equal deal. We need to get programs and services today. We need to get recognition of lands back in Wood Buffalo National Park and compensation today. We should not have to wait for a land claim.
I wanted to point that out. That is what the government needs to do if they are serious about reconciliation. Reconciliation for the Metis goes for me. We are the ones that really had hardship. We have been left out for 119 years and it is time to recognize us. We are the descendants. We are the same people. We got the right to self-identify as Metis people. I do not have to say I am an Indian because I am not a full-blooded Indian. I am half and half, but I was here. My people were here.
The Chair: Thank you. You have made your case very clear. The answers you provided to our questions become part of our official testimony and evidence. Everything that you have here will actually be considered and taken into account. It is not disappearing anywhere.
On that note, I am sorry that we only have so much time. I would like to thank Chief Fabian and President Bailey for their testimony this afternoon.
(The committee adjourned.)