THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, October 9, 2024
The Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples met with videoconference this day at 6:50 p.m. [ET] to examine the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, 2021 by Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
Senator David Arnot (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[Editor’s Note: Portions of the proceedings were presented through an interpreter.]
[English]
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Honourable senators, before we begin, I would like to ask all senators and other in-person participants to consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents. Please make sure you keep your earpiece away from all microphones at all times. When you are not using your earpiece, place it face down on the sticker placed on the table for this purpose. Thank you all for your cooperation.
I would like to begin tonight by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Anishinaabeg Algonquin Nation and is now home to many other First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples from across Turtle Island.
My name is Senator David Arnot from Saskatchewan, and I am Deputy Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples. In the absence of our chair Senator Francis, I will chair the meeting this evening.
I will now ask committee members in attendance to introduce themselves by stating their names and province or territory.
Senator Boniface: Gwen Boniface, Ontario.
Senator Pate: Kim Pate, Ontario. I live here in the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg.
Senator McNair: John McNair, New Brunswick.
Senator White: Judy White, Ktaqmkuk, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Mi’kma’ki.
Senator Greenwood: Margo Greenwood, British Columbia. Originally from Treaty 6 territory.
The Deputy Chair: Today, we will continue our study to examine the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, 2021, also known as the UNDRIP Act. Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples recognize this act. The committee is hearing from witnesses to further refine its study topic.
I would now like to introduce our first witness, Dr. Wilton Littlechild, International Chief for Maskwacis First Nation. Chief Littlechild, thank you for joining us today.
He has been with us all day right from the early morning to the evening here. We have enjoyed his advice to us today. We really look forward to this testimony with our witness here. Dr. Littlechild has a few minutes to make a presentation, and then we’ll have questions from the senators.
I now invite Chief Littlechild to give his opening remarks.
Wilton Littlechild, International Chief for Maskwacis (Hon), as an individual: Thank you very much.
[Indigenous language spoken].
Thank you very much. Let me please begin by thanking Great Spirit, our creator, for yet another great blessing.
Your excellencies, I am respectfully presenting for your consideration four Calls to Action to advance true reconciliation. I have submitted to the secretariat in advance detailed rationale and respective written details for the following Calls to Action: first, the urgent need to establish a national council for reconciliation; second, for Canada to support, endorse and adopt the Organization of American States, or OAS, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; third, for Canada to be a champion for a United Nations, or UN, international convention on Indigenous languages as an outcome of the UN International Decade of Indigenous Languages; fourth, for Canada to adopt as a signatory the Commonwealth Sport Declaration to advance reconciliation in partnership with Indigenous peoples.
Honourable senators, it is truly a great honour for me to join you as you engage with so many on an important study regarding the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. With your permission, I would like to present a perspective from lived experiences as a former student of the Indian residential schools era, as an international chief and as a former member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, or TRC.
The four Calls to Action are, in my view, key to your consideration on implementation. In the available time, with your permission, I hope to illustrate how they come together as a human rights-based approach, in particular, as a treaty rights‑based approach.
For one who began on a journey in the mid-seventies on a statement of principles on treaties and treaty rights, I was at the United Nations in August of 1977 with delegates from around the world to bring the voice of our spiritual elders and leaders concerned about treaty violations. During the 27 years of negotiations in Geneva, I was tasked to present officially all preambular and operative paragraphs for debate. I was also one of five drafters of the OAS declaration as invited by and based on 25 responses from member states. It builds on the strengths of the UN declaration, and both declarations must now be read together in our region when considering implementation.
For six and a half years as a commissioner on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the largest court-ordered consultation of Indigenous peoples in Canadian history, we concluded with 94 Calls to Action. From those, we agreed to 10 key principles for reconciliation. I believe these are solutions for consideration going forward on a path of restoring respectful relationships. The initial purpose of our elders was to seek recognition, respect and justice for peaceful coexistence.
Eventually, our goal became one of peace, justice and reconciliation. The court-ordered mandate was difficult as we learned from over 7,000 testimonies that it is a spectrum. Where there have been great harms done and there is an out-of-court settlement, yes it is important that the truth be known but equally important are an apology and an opportunity for forgiveness. Then as you begin to feel justice, there is healing, then you can move on to reconciliation.
Peace, peace building or peaceful coexistence has been an underlying foundation for our search for solutions. Indeed, recently, we have been involved with a new international declaration on indigenous peoples’ peace building.
Since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report was presented, many segments of society, as referenced in my written submissions, have undertaken good practices to advance reconciliation. They have, as in the TRC Calls to Action, taken the UN declaration and used it as a framework to implement acts of reconciliation, or as I have often said, ReconciliACTION.
Admittedly, my bias has been to use the power of sport to advance reconciliation and lift up the pioneering leadership of the National Hockey League through the Edmonton Oilers’ land acknowledgment of Treaty 6 territory and the Government of Alberta’s recognition of Treaties 6, 7 and 8 and Métis and Inuit people.
More can be done, for example, to implement UN Declaration Articles 3, 31 and 37 through the Commonwealth Sport Declaration as recently adopted at the pre-Olympic conference of sports ministers in Paris.
There are many other good examples in my submission, like the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, but are they are mainly unknown. That’s why there is an urgent need to establish the National Council for Reconciliation. One of its mandates was to monitor all these good initiatives and report them so we can learn from each other across Canada.
The assaults of the Indian residential schools as part of a legislated assimilation were not only on families, community and spirituality but also on our languages. I applaud Canada for adopting federal legislation, unique in the world, but we can do more as one Indigenous language dies every two weeks somewhere in the world. What we need is a champion to save our languages. I know there is early resistance, but I would ask states this: Why do you want to keep killing our languages?
Have you ever heard a language die? I have. At one meeting at the United Nations, we asked an elder to open the meeting with a prayer. He said:
I’m very honoured that you would ask me, but I want you to listen very carefully to the sound of my voice. I want you to listen very carefully to the words I’m going to use.
Then he went on to say a prayer for us. About a month later, I received a call, and the person on the line said, “The old man died.” I said, “What old man?” He said, “Do you remember the old man who prayed for us at the UN? He died.” It was like somebody took a fist and hit me right in the gut because I heard an Indigenous language die.
As I have said, we need a champion for our languages. Through both houses of Parliament, we urge our Canada to lead on the establishment and adoption of an international convention at the United Nations. Start perhaps with the CANZUS group. The CANZUS states include Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Then go globally to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, during this International Decade of Indigenous Languages.
Finally, there is synergy between treaties, truth and reconciliation and the UN declaration. The Supreme Court of Canada, in their February decision this year, gave us a very positive way forward. The late Lord Denning, in the British courts, also gave us a path forward on the Constitution in 1982. Now, our own Supreme Court has done likewise, and I paraphrase what they stated: In keeping with Canada’s commitment to implementation of the UN declaration and in response to the TRC Calls to Action, we can similarly decide to act on the above-stated calls to improve and strengthen our implementation and thereby also advance true reconciliation.
Hiy hiy, marsee, thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Dr. Littlechild. We will now move to questions from senators.
Senator White: Wela’lioq. In my Mi’kmaq language, that means thank you. Thank you so much for sharing. Thank you for the whole day. So wela’lioq. I want to pick your brain a bit. I’m a relatively new senator. The UN Declaration Act Action Plan involves the federal government consulting with Indigenous communities during any legislative process. But we are hearing time and time again in various committees a lot of concerns that consultation is not happening, even though we know it should be happening.
I would love for you to tell us how you see the role of consultation, as well as the notion of free, prior and informed consent. That will help us as a committee to steer forward with our next round of legislation.
Mr. Littlechild: Thank you very much, senator. Yes, this is a very important question. I would like to focus your attention on Article 19 of the UN declaration. Article 19 calls upon us, before any legislation or policy changes are made that might impact Indigenous peoples, to not only consult but to seek to obtain their free, prior and informed consent.
Now, some people don’t like that article because it calls for more than consultation to happen. In this instance, you are saying — and I agree — not enough consultation nor even any consultation has begun. That really puts us backwards in a sense of what Article 19 calls for.
Yes, there is a legal duty in Canada for consultation, but Article 19 calls for us to go beyond consultation and seek the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples.
“Free,” of course, means without any duress. “Informed” means you need to inform the Indigenous peoples, tribes or nations of both sides of the question, both the pro and the con of the proposal. Then based on that, “informed” decisions can be made.
By the way, Article 18 calls on Indigenous decision making to also happen. If you look at both Articles 18 and 19, guidelines are there for us on how to go forward with not only consultation but to include Indigenous peoples in decision making with their free, prior and informed consent — not manufactured consent or under duress but with free will.
Those two articles, in my mind, zero in on that very important question. It is a difficult question because someone may say, “We consulted you.” When we ask how, they say, “We phoned you,” “We sent you a letter,” or “You just didn’t respond, so we have consulted you enough.” That’s a negative approach to it. After all, this is about a human rights-based approach.
I urge us to go beyond the duty of consultation and look at what Article 19 calls us to do, which is to seek free, prior and informed consent.
By the way, consent is not a new notion in these discussions. In my area of Treaty 6, for example, in 1876 and 1877, our forefathers already understood the importance of consent. It’s in our treaty. Treaty 6 has the specific word “consent” right in the treaty going back in 1876. Looking forward to today, it has been couched as “free, prior and informed consent.” Not only is it a legal requirement by the courts; it’s an international treaty obligation to get our consent and not just consultation.
If there is disappointment in the lack of consultation, there is probably greater disappointment in the lack of consent. Hopefully, that answers your very difficult question for many, senator, but it’s an important question, and I thank you for that.
Senator McNair: Dr. Littlechild, thank you for being here today.
When I say “today,” I mean all of today. I have seen you in the building and sat in a meeting earlier today. One of the things that you discussed in your comments tonight and earlier today was the OAS declaration, the 25 member states and I think the enhanced principles that I believe you feel should be adopted by Canada, and they have to be read or used in conjunction. Could you elaborate on that a bit?
Mr. Littlechild: Yes, currently 27 years of negotiation at the United Nations. What my elders instructed me to seek to obtain at the UN, we couldn’t accomplish all of it. Of course, some states said, “We don’t have any Indigenous peoples in our country, so we don’t have to do this.” Or some said, “Well, all of us are Indigenous, so we don’t agree with this.” They took those kinds of positions.
After 27 years, because of the way the UN operates, contrary to the International Labour Organization, or ILO, Conventions, for example, there’s a two-year time limit. The UN operates by consensus. During that process, we couldn’t agree to everything. We went forward with what we could get, for example, in Article 37 of the UN declaration. We went to the American declaration. An opportunity came up in the United States to celebrate the 500-year anniversary of our discovery; some say a 500-year anniversary of Columbus getting lost, thinking he had landed in India. That’s our name, “Indians.” That gave us another opportunity to build on the strength of the UN declaration.
There are four additions that are really helpful for us in terms of implementation, and that’s why I say we need to put the two together, the UN declaration and the OAS declaration, side by side. Article 37, for example, on treaties, it calls for honouring, respecting and enforcement of treaties. Enforcement is a word that’s not very often focused on.
The OAS declaration says the same thing but goes on to say “in accordance with their true spirit and intent” and as understood by Indigenous peoples. That’s an improvement to Article 37 on treaties, for example. It’s not new in the sense that the Supreme Court of Canada has also said the same thing already. We’re just adopting, in a sense, or implementing what the Supreme Court of Canada has said into the OAS declaration Article 24 on treaties.
A crucial difference and importance is that it must be as understood by Indigenous peoples and according to the true spirit and intent. That’s one clarification and strengthening of the UN declaration.
Another one is, for the first time under international law, the OAS declaration recognizes in a specific article the Indigenous family. The Indigenous family, as a unit, includes our kinship and our extended family concept. Our extended family has not been discussed or even heard about at the UN level, but it was agreed to at the OAS level.
Indigenous laws — we have sacred laws, traditional laws, customary laws, customary international law. These are now also specifically included in the OAS declaration: Indigenous family, Indigenous law, treaties, and lastly, very important for me — crucially important — is the recognition of Indigenous spirituality. Those are the four fundamental improvements on the UN declaration, they strengthen the UN declaration and are actually an advancement of the UN declaration, which we build on. That’s why I encourage us to look at the OAS declaration side by side, and then you’ll get a full picture of the desire of our elders way back when we started in 1974.
Hopefully that answers your question. Those are essential improvements we can adopt here in Canada. Canada was at the table like this every single session, and I was there, at the OAS. Yet, they resisted adopting these improvements. I would urge us to advise Canada through government or Parliament to look at that OAS declaration and look at the solutions there, and let’s adopt those. That will advance reconciliation probably, I would say, easier or faster but better. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Senator Pate: Thank you very much. I echo the thank you for being with us and for your life’s work. It’s an incredible contribution and to our collective benefit for this country and internationally.
The question I have is drilling down a bit. It’s something that you’ve provided great advice on, how we work on this internationally and put pressure on Canada. I’m now thinking within Canada, an area I’ve worked for most of my life, how do we actually develop appropriate supports for First Nations, Métis and Inuit in this country? In particular, I end up focusing on folks who are too often failed by every other system and end up in our prison system. A number of First Nations that I have the humbling responsibility and honour to work with right now are trying to engage in a self-governance process whereby they’re not constrained just by correctional authorities that currently exist but that they can define and develop their own resources and have the resources reallocated to them that currently go into provincial and federal corrections.
Do you see additional mechanisms that exist that could be drawn upon by these First Nations and other Indigenous governance bodies to try to argue those claims and to bring their people home?
Mr. Littlechild: First of all, let me thank you for all the work you’ve done. I know of your historical contributions with the prison systems and also with addictions.
To go to your question, there’s an opportunity to look at an alternative situation. Let me give you one alternative situation.
In my community, we have an RCMP detachment right on the reserve. We also have a healing lodge. Some call it a minimum security prison; others say it’s a penitentiary, but it’s catered to Indigenous inmates as a healing lodge. When we look at those two, the relationship with the RCMP, for example, and we look at the prison system as another situation, we are currently developing a better relationship going forward in those two areas.
We have developed a treaty-based police act. In that police act, we include very specific culturally relevant elements in the legislation that will improve the justice system, in our view, in terms of recidivism. Many inmates tell us that they heal in prison because elders come in and advise them through our cultural teachings and cultural ceremonies. That’s a very specific addition to the current penal system, I’ll call it, which is an improvement in a sense because it includes us in that whole justice scenario.
A third element of that is our own court system. For example, there’s a Cree court in Saskatchewan where the Crown prosecutor, the defence counsel and the judge all operate in Cree, and so does the court clerk and so on. That allows us to introduce our laws into the process to consider, for example, our Cree law. Sometimes our brothers and sisters in the prison don’t quite like that because it’s more serious in a sense of teaching than the Criminal Code would do.
We have an opportunity to look at an alternative like that where we create space for us to recapture our jurisdiction over justice. That includes our laws, our policing and our legislation. In that way, a court process and the healing for inmates who are on the wrong side of the law but are healed because of our cultural teachings while they’re inmates.
I think that’s a positive situation. All we need to do is create that space. Some say there’s no room for that, but I think we need to look at making room for those kinds of opportunities. If we want less crime and less violence, that’s one of the ways to do it. Hopefully, that answers your question.
Senator Pate: Yes, thank you.
Senator Coyle: Thank you again, Dr. Littlechild. What a treat it is for all of us to have all of this time with you. It feels like we’re really lucky today.
These four Calls to Action to advance reconciliation — because we want to advance it, we don’t want to be stagnant — let’s take it further, as you have said, and let’s do whatever we can to get on that pathway to restoring respect for rights and respect for relationships.
My colleague has asked you about the OAS. You’ve spoken about Indigenous languages, you’ve talked about the Commonwealth Sport Declaration. What I’m curious about with each of those three — the OAS, the Indigenous languages and the Commonwealth Sport — I’m glad you’ve raised them with us. Who is carrying the football or who has the puck? I know you’re a sports guy. Who would you direct us to in terms of who’s really driving the effort in each of those three areas so that we can find a way to support and plug into efforts that somebody or some organizations are already pushing for? I imagine you’re in there yourself.
Mr. Littlechild: Yes. Actually, I don’t want to signal myself, but I have been involved with all three. Let me go backwards, in a sense. Let’s begin with the Commonwealth Sport Declaration.
I drafted a UN sport declaration not knowing that it was going to go to the Commonwealth Games Federation at their annual meeting in Africa. They looked at that declaration and agreed with it to the point where they called it the Commonwealth Sport Declaration. So it’s out there now.
Recently in Paris, just before the Olympics, at a pre‑conference for the Olympics, 56 ministers of sport came together in Paris to look at all interested areas as ministers of sport. I want to applaud and thank Minister Qualtrough for her appearance there for Canada. Fifty-six ministers of sports have adopted the Commonwealth Sport Declaration.
Curiously, those Commonwealth nations are also a group of nations that do not have a bright history in relation to Indigenous peoples — all of the Commonwealth countries. It was very positive for them to take this, through their ministers of sport in their governments, and adopt this sport declaration. It was a seed planted at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, went to Africa, was adopted, went to Paris and got more adoption. Now we’re asking Canada to become a signatory to that sport declaration because they haven’t agreed to do that. Why not?
Senator Coyle: Do you know why not?
Mr. Littlechild: No, I asked the same question. Our minister was there, present. I don’t want to speak for her, but I thought she was on our side in terms of adopting the declaration like the 55 other sports ministers did, and yet we said no.
I urge again to consider children. This is for children. They have a right to play and to have fun. Why would we not support that as a signatory to show the world that, yes, we care about children? Yes, children do matter. Admittedly through a biased initiative, but as we often say sport has the power to gather us together. Sport has the power to call us on to work together in unity. Sport speaks a language that children understand. Why wouldn’t we use that declaration to advance reconciliation in partnership with Indigenous peoples? Again, it’s a call on us to work together. We want to work together, but Canada says, no, we cannot work together at this time.
Senator Coyle: Is it you individually or you with others who have asked the minister to sign this?
Mr. Littlechild: It’s me with others.
Senator Coyle: Is it an organization or a group of individuals?
Mr. Littlechild: It’s a group of organizations.
Senator Coyle: Are they sports organizations? Indigenous organizations?
Mr. Littlechild: Yes. Some are sports organization, others are Indigenous.
Senator Coyle: It’s good to get more detail so we can ask intelligent questions to follow up.
Mr. Littlechild: Yes. I think I provided you with the declaration in my written submissions. If I haven’t, I’ll make sure you get it.
Senator Coyle: Thank you.
Mr. Littlechild: I’ll go to the other one in terms of the international convention on Indigenous languages. Again, as I said in my opening comments, why would we not support that? Which means to me, why would we want to keep killing our languages? That’s what we’re doing by not supporting this.
Yes, I know and applaud Canada. At least here we have federal legislation on Indigenous languages, but why don’t we use that model and share it with other nations that have Indigenous peoples whose languages are dying and help them?
There again, we’re resisting, from what I understand. The UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the UN Permanent Forum — both international fora for Indigenous peoples at the UN — advanced the call for states to establish this convention. It went to the Human Rights Council, and the resolution that’s actually currently being debated as we sit here tonight — there’s a resistance, yes, I know, by other states as well, but including Canada. I just feel that with the experience we have as leaders in the world, I’d like to see us take that bold step even further. Let’s save those languages because I don’t want anyone to go through the experience I did to hear a language die. That convention is important.
The American declaration — like you said, I responded to that earlier. I hope they’re not rigid positions by Canada not to support the OAS declaration, not to support the international convention or not to support the sport declaration. I see them as powerful ways to help us to advance reconciliation. That’s really the sole and main purpose behind this: to help us on a journey of healing, recognition, respect and peaceful coexistence. All of those come into play as an outcome of supporting those three calls. Thank you.
Senator Boniface: Thank you very much. I had the privilege of hearing you this morning as well, and I’m very grateful for the information that you shared and for your presence here. Thank you very much.
I wanted to talk just briefly on the community-to-community building and reconciliation that can be done. I happen to live in a small city in Ontario that borders Rama First Nation. We work collectively with a number of people in the community on a reconciliation round table.
Part of that began because I believe a lot of the local work will eventually make its way up in our young leaders into the national level, so it goes both ways. I’m wondering your perspective in terms of community-to-community relationship building and whether or not you have any models that you have seen that would be more effective or most effective.
Mr. Littlechild: Thank you for that. Let me begin with this example. We as Indigenous peoples in tribes and nations have gone through that initiative as well. For example, we had four traditionally warring tribes come together in an act of reconciliation and declared from now on we’ll have peace together. That’s Indigenous peoples together, among ourselves, agreeing that from now on we go forward working together in peaceful coexistence.
Now, if you take that model and non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples at the community level, interestingly the same thing is happening at the local level, which is very encouraging. Like I said before, it is not known because the council is not in place to share that information. But there are good things happening between neighbours, non-Indigenous and Indigenous.
I gave you an example, my neighbourhood town city where Blackfoot and Cree made treaty years ago. It is called Wetaskawin in English but it is a Cree word, which means having good relations or sharing land. As you will remember, I think Mr. Chair, senators, in a book and the work you did on the implementation of treaties, the word Wetaskawin is in that report. It explains what that means with us and our neighbours coming together not only to share land, but really everything in terms of neighbourhoods, being good neighbours.
So there are some pockets of progress in those areas. I think you will find that throughout the country. But where the council is able to bring those together, put it on the table and show, I think we would be pleasantly surprised that yes, there are better relations happening out there. It is because of the local engagement.
Our neighbour mayor, his worship — I won’t name him — but when he came in front of us in the truth commission, he said I was born in Wetaskawin and grew up there all my life. I became a mayor of the city. I did not know that 15 kilometres down the road there was a residential school. The mayor of that city did not know there was a residential school 15 kilometres away.
So I’m proud of his courage to admit that because that spoke for a lot of others who didn’t know about that. Why are these Indians the way they are, why can’t we all just get along, comments like that. But that admission I think zeroed in on, okay, let’s go forward given what you have just said. Let’s develop a path forward together in reconciliation.
Faculties of medicine, for example, are teaching traditional medicine as an act of reconciliation in universities. The academic community has done a lot in advancing reconciliation, again unknown.
But the main question I’m hearing from you is what can we do locally, neighbour to neighbour? There are good examples out there, whether it is in the justice system, by working together, whether it is in business relationships or even activities, sporting activities, for example. We share, for example, ambulance service, fire services, policing service. Whoever is closest responds to an incident. I think those are good acts of reconciliation where we agreed to go forward together in a good way instead of traditionally in a negative environment.
Senator Boniface: Thank you very much.
Senator Osler: Thank you for being here, Dr. Littlechild. I was a physician prior to coming to the Senate. In your last remarks, you spoke about some of the work faculties of medicine are doing. That was a nice link because I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts on the progress on the implementation of Article 24 of UNDRIP, which is the right to health, the right to traditional medicines and the right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Could you share your thoughts on how progress has gone on the implementation of Article 24?
Mr. Littlechild: Let me reference the World Health Organization declaration on health for Indigenous peoples. That particular declaration of the WHO expands on that right for public health or private health care. But what is added to that is what is the Indigenous perspective of health? It is a holistic perspective.
When we talk about health, it is not only the physical health of an individual, we talk about the mental and emotional element of health. We talk about the spiritual and cultural element of health. So it is more holistic in a sense. We call it a medicine wheel. There are four elements to the medicine wheel. That’s the perspective that we want to put into Article 24 so that can be utilized by others to their benefit.
There is also the World Health Organization declaration in 1999 that recognizes the treaty right to health. Now, the treaty right to health has been referenced through a medicine chest clause in the treaty. So if you take that treaty right to health, combine it with the Geneva declaration by the World Health Organization and place it together with Article 24, it allows hospitals to offer service to a patient or a client in a language they can understand because many times our people don’t understand the medical terms that are being used. So the alternative is let’s do it in our language. Give a patient a choice. Do you want to go to mainstream health care or traditional? There is an option there.
But the main thing is to look at the Indigenous holistic perspective of health. It’s not just physical illness, it’s a holistic approach. Let’s use that as a model. The faculties of medicine can then use that in their teaching of medical students to have that as an option going forward.
Senator Greenwood: This is a logistics question. I know that you have a flight very soon and I’m really worried that you might not make it unless you leave right away.
Mr. Littlechild: Is there a question?
Senator Greenwood: I’m sorry.
Mr. Littlechild: It is true. I do have a flight to catch, and I apologize for that.
The Deputy Chair: There is one question I was going to ask. Maybe you could follow up in writing. You raised it before. You were the architect for Bill C-29, the National Council for Reconciliation Act. You created a civil society mechanism. My question is why did you use that model? And what was your vision for the National Council for Reconciliation?
Now I recognize that you are time constrained and you don’t have time to answer that now. But if you produce something in writing, that would be very helpful.
Sir, I thank you for your precise, concise and compelling answers to the questions put forward. Thank you for attending today. You have a number of reasonable recommendations, in my opinion, and constructive solutions that would promote and advance reconciliation. As many have said, we really revere your presence here today, the help you’ve given us and your work. You are challenging us to make recommendations that would promote what you are advocating for. I hope all of the recommendations show up in the report we complete in aid of this work. Thank you very much, sir. Safe travels home. We’ll be back to you because I’m sure you will be able to us on other issues.
Mr. Littlechild: Quickly, chair — if you look at the bill or the act now, my approach was, “Let’s build solutions into the legislation.” There are a lot of solutions in that bill on how to implement those solutions by legislation. It is a very solution‑oriented bill, or act now. Yes, I will respond in writing.
Thank you all for this opportunity.
[Indigenous language spoken].
Thank you, sincerely.
The Deputy Chair: The time for this panel is complete. I want to formally thank Dr. Wilton Littlechild for joining us. If you want to make any further submissions, please submit them by email to the clerk.
Colleagues, I would now like to introduce our next witnesses: Paul Irngaut, Vice-President, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated; and Itoah Scott-Enns, Director, Planning and Partnerships, Tlicho Government.
Our witnesses will provide opening remarks of five minutes and then we’ll move to questions and answers. I now invite Mr. Irngaut to give his opening remarks. Please proceed, sir, with interpretation.
[Interpretation].
Paul Irngaut, Vice-President, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated: Good evening, honourable chairperson and members. My name is Paul Irgnaut. I am the Vice-President of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, or NTI.
NTI represents Nunavut Inuit under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, and our mandate is to ensure governments live up to their responsibilities laid out in the agreement and respect our constitutionally protected rights.
Our modern treaty, which is the largest in Canada, was signed by the federal government and Inuit leaders over 31 years ago. It contains language that shows, in many ways, our negotiators were ahead of their time. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted years after the signing of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, and the declaration affirms many of the rights that were negotiated into the agreement by Inuit leaders over the decades leading up to its signing.
Canada endorsed the declaration in 2016. A year later, in 2017, Canada and Inuit created a permanent bilateral intergovernmental forum named the Inuit-Crown Partnership Committee, or ICPC. The ICPC is designed to create a collaborative space where Canada supports and works with Inuit to resolve significant and long-standing issues and, as a result, enhance the relationship between the federal government and Inuit treaty rights holders.
At NTI, we see the United Nations Declaration Act, or UNDA, the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement as well as the ICPC are working in parallel to achieve the same thing. All of these instruments are intended to make transformative and systematic change.
There have been some successes in implementing UNDA. Thirty-one years after the signing of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, we are making significant progress towards establishing Nunavut fisheries regulations.
In order to protect the safety and security of the Inuit, we have been working on strengthening our relationship with Canada on matters of national security, which also recognizes Nunavut Inuit’s contribution to Arctic sovereignty under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.
We recognize that some action items will take time to implement, such as a significant commitment for an Indigenous Health Equity Fund in Budget 2024. We are developing plans while we await funding.
I will now continue with my presentation in English.
[English]
Several federal institutions have expressed a desire to enhance access to federal services in Inuktitut. This positive development can stand as an example for other government agencies so that Nunavut Inuit can receive all government services in Inuktitut.
Natan Obed stated:
The implementation of the national action plan is currently proceeding in an ad hoc, disorganized manner that largely depends on the personal disposition of individual federal ministers and senior officials. . . .
I would contend that the successes in implementing UNDA are the result of some ministers and senior officials committing to the ICPC process. The ICPC is a viable pathway to realizing the systematic change envisioned by UNDA.
Nunavut Inuit see great value in the United Nations Declaration Act. It is a continuation of the work that Inuit have put in for over 50 years. NTI looks forward to strengthening our working relationship with Canada resulting from our collaboration on implementing the United Nations Declaration Act.
Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. I will invite Ms. Scott-Enns to give her opening remarks.
Itoah Scott-Enns, Director, Planning and Partnerships, Tlicho Government: [Indigenous language spoken].
Good evening. My name is Itoah Scott-Enns. I am the Director of Planning and Partnerships for the Tlicho Government. My nation is from the Northwest Territories, and I am a descendant of the treeline people.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you today on the implementation of UNDRIP. As a modern treaty nation, the implementation of United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or UNDRIP Act, is an important tool to helping our treaties come alive. Our modern treaty context is an important one for the Government of Canada to uphold and understand.
In recent years, the Government of Canada has taken a distinction-based approach, but we have said as modern treaty nations, we are a fourth distinction. We need a unique approach as a modern treaty because Canada has very specific obligations as the Crown to uphold our rights, jurisdictions and the agreements we have negotiated and that are protected by the Canadian Constitution.
Article 37 of the UNDRIP Act clearly states that Indigenous peoples have the right to the recognition, observance and enforcement of treaties, agreements and that member states must honour and respect such treaties. It also states that the UNDRIP Act is subject to treaties by stating, “Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as diminishing or eliminating the rights of indigenous peoples contained in treaties . . . .” It is crucial that the UNDRIP Act be used as a tool to uphold and make our treaties come to life but not overshadow it.
There are some key priorities for the UNDA Action Plan that are important to Tlicho Government. Chapter 5 is focused on modern treaties. Originally, that chapter did not exist, and then we worked together with other modern treaty nations to ensure it was included. Some of the priorities in that section include removing barriers to the full exercise of jurisdiction for modern treaty nations; federal, provincial, territorial and Indigenous collaboration; the establishment of a commissioner for modern treaty implementation; and training for government officials to ensure that modern treaties are respected and upheld, as well as the collaborative fiscal policy process.
On removing barriers to the exercise of jurisdiction, my nation is coming up on 20 years since our modern treaty came into effect in 2005, so we’ll be celebrating next year.
As a self-government, we are at the point where we’re ready to take on more responsibilities, take over programs and services and start exercising the jurisdictions that we have inherent rights for and that are outlined in our treaty. There are two key areas that we are working on negotiating with the Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories right now. One is education and the other is early childhood, which to us, are actually one and the same.
For us, one of the key barriers to implementing our jurisdictions is that because this is still new for all governments involved, there are not clear policy frameworks for implementing this, especially for providing the fiscal resources and establishing the funding frameworks for Indigenous governments and modern treaty nations to implement our jurisdictions.
We’re hoping that the Department of Finance has a very important role to play in supporting these visions. We don’t have a ton of engagement with the Department of Finance, and we hope to see more involvement with them in the future. We expect Canada to use all available levers to influence provinces and territories to ensure that jurisdictional barriers are addressed in a timely manner. That was a commitment that was made under the Modern Treaty Implementation Policy.
For us, implementing our jurisdiction over education and early childhood is not just about implementing our treaty, but it actually has really significant impacts on the ground in our communities. I think that’s something that’s really important for everyone at the table to understand. For us, this is not just a matter of government process, but we have children who are getting left behind and, under the current systems that are failing them, attendance is low, our graduation rates are low. We have kids who are struggling in the Western and colonial education systems that they’re trying to learn within.
So for us, we know that we’re better positioned to support our families and educate our kids, so that’s what we’re trying to achieve. The delays in trying to work through the administrative, policy and bureaucratic processes hold up our ability to cause change in our communities and really be there for our kids.
On the Indigenous-federal-provincial-territorial collaboration, because the Government of Canada takes a distinctions-based approach that focuses in on First Nations, Inuit and Métis, we do not have a seat at the table. They have a regular forum that meets on a regular basis with the premiers and cabinet ministers and then leaders of national Indigenous organizations, but we are not represented by those national Indigenous organizations. Only the Tlicho Government has the authority to represent the Tlicho. We are a treaty, so we expect a bilateral Crown-nation relationship with our government. We are working with Canada to find solutions to ensure that modern treaties and self-governments are properly represented in those forums. Important decisions get made at those tables and important discussions happen, so we need to have a seat at that table and a voice.
For the Commissioner for Modern Treaty Implementation, it’s been a priority of our government and our colleagues from the Lands Claims Agreements Coalition for over 20 years now. Since we founded the Land Claims Agreement Coalition in 2003, we’ve been advocating for a commissioner role to ensure that Canada is fulfilling its obligations to implementing our modern treaties.
We are glad to hear that we are anticipating that the legislation that we co-drafted to establish the commissioner for modern treaty is expected to be tabled tomorrow in Parliament. That’s very significant and exciting news for us. We’re hoping that the legislation will be passed through expeditiously because, for us, it’s a really important mechanism to help ensure that Canada is fulfilling its obligations, to ensure that there’s accountability. The commissioner will report directly to Parliament. For us, we’re really happy to see that the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations made it a priority to see that happen.
On training for government officials, under the UNDA Action Plan, Canada must take a broad approach to implementing modern treaties in a way that fulfills the spirit and intent of our treaties and upholds the honour of the Crown, but if federal government officials don’t even know that modern treaties exist or what’s in them, that’s a very hard thing to do. We need to ensure that public servants across the government understand what the treaties are, what’s in them and what their responsibilities are to implementing those treaties and fulfilling those obligations.
A lot more needs to be done. We know that Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, or CIRNAC, has been making efforts to educate public servants on Canada’s Modern Treaty Implementation Policy, but there’s a lot more to be done to ensure treaties are respected and upheld across all departments, not just departments like CIRNAC, whom we engage with regularly.
The collaborative fiscal policy process, I cannot emphasize enough how much this process and the resources that come out of it mean to my government. The collaborative fiscal policy process was something that we developed. It involves self‑governments from across Canada, so we sit at the table, I think, with 26 other governments and we work collaboratively with CIRNAC to ensure we’re getting the fiscal resources needed to implement our self-government agreements.
In recent years, we’ve been working on three key priority areas, and the UNDA Action Plan included specific commitments with a March 2024 deadline to complete the co‑developed proposals on infrastructure phase 2, lands, resources and treaty management and Indigenous languages and revitalization. Obviously, we’re past that deadline. It was not met. Those three priority areas, we did a lot of technical work together to build an expenditure-need model and a funding model and put in a proposal to the government. We are waiting for news, and hopefully good and important news.
On those three areas, the phase 2 infrastructure is an evidence‑based model. It’s a product of intensive collaborative work between all the Indigenous governments around the table, technical and fiscal experts. We’ve worked closely with a reputable engineering consulting firm, Kerr Wood Leidal. It will break the cycle of chronic infrastructure gaps as well as build and manage the assets needed to support healthy communities and benefit future generations. It will start to close the gap between Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous communities so we have comparable infrastructure to our non‑Indigenous community neighbours and help begin to address the historic chronic underfunding of infrastructure in Indigenous communities.
Lands resources and treaty management. Our connection to the land is core to who we are as Indigenous peoples. Our language, our history, our culture all comes from the land. Having the resources to take care of and steward our land is really important not just to protecting and taking care of the land, but also our ability to be active contributors to the Canadian economy. It’s through those resources that we’re able to support economic development within our regions and ensure that we’re able to see important projects. There are lots of opportunities in my region around mineral resources, so we want to make sure we’re able to build those economic opportunities for our own people. Having resources to implement our treaties around land resources and treaty management is key.
It’s also an evidence-based model. The development of the model involves a ton of work. It looks at benchmarks from other governments, evidence and data pulled from all our communities. We’ve put at least three-plus years of really hard work into that model.
I should also mention for the collaborative fiscal policy process, that process is not funded. Our participation at the table is not funded. We invest our own resources, and as Indigenous governments we’ve invested significant resources because the process matters so much to us and the outcomes have tremendous impacts for our government and allow us to cause change and do good things in our communities.
The last priority area is Indigenous language revitalization. I probably don’t need to explain to you guys the importance of that. Residential schools, that’s one of the first things they took from us. I’m the first generation in my family who is not fluent in my language, so having the resources to keep our languages alive is critical to who we are as Tlicho people.
Our languages are critically endangered for many of the Indigenous governments around the table. Some of my colleagues come from communities who have only two fluent speakers left in their communities. I am fortunate that I have more fluent speakers left in my community, so I still have the opportunity to hopefully learn. But the resources we’ve built for the Indigenous language expenditure-need model are based on best practices for Indigenous language revitalization programs. We looked at what they do all around the world in Indigenous communities and use that to build a model that would allow us to take immediate action in our communities to implement programs that would help keep our languages alive.
We applaud Canada’s recognition through the Indigenous Languages Act that the rights of Indigenous peoples, recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, include rights to Indigenous languages, but now Canada must do its part to fund our language revitalization in accordance with Article 13 of UNDRIP, which requires states to take effective measures to ensure that Indigenous language rights are protected. Indigenous languages have been chronically underfunded since always, so that’s a really urgent need.
There has been some progress on the UNDA Action Plan’s Modern Treaty Partner priorities, but there remains considerable work to do, so we can’t yet point to clear victories, although I will say we’re very pleased about the commissioner for modern treaty implementation act that will be tabled tomorrow. The fiscal priorities will have tremendous positive impacts directly on the ground for our communities, so having that come through is really important to us.
I hope that this information helps you in developing your recommendations to the Government of Canada.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much to both of our witnesses. Is it okay if I ask a question to each? I’m going to start with our first witness, Mr. Irngaut from NTI.
I believe I heard you talk about progress on government services being provided in Inuktitut. These are federal government services. This has been a long, hard fight. Could you elaborate a little bit further on that, such as which services? When do they start and where are they being offered? Is it in Iqaluit or beyond Iqaluit?
Mr. Irngaut: Thank you for your question. As you heard from the second witness, our language is declining in Nunavut too, especially with the younger people. Even though there’s education from kindergarten to Grade 1 or 2 in Inuktitut only, it’s still declining quite a bit. That’s why one of our priorities, priority 11, is the provision of Inuktitut language within federal services in Nunavut.
The creation of the Inuit-Crown Partnership Committee is vital, that they look into these things, especially the language of Inuit within Nunavut. That’s one of the priorities that this committee came up with, Inuktitut revitalization, maintenance, protection and promotion. We need to work with our regional representatives to promote this.
Of course, the federal departments, especially with the Canadian Heritage Indigenous language branch, there are three main things that we want to see. One is that all Inuit regions have equitable access to federal funding resources to support Inuktitut, strengthen it, maintain it and, like I said, protect and promote it.
Second is the joint assessment of financial needs to meet Inuit language priorities and goals.
The third one is the structure and the message of delivering federal Inuktitut policies and programs supporting Inuit in all the aspects that I mentioned — strengthening, maintenance and promotion — as well as to support Inuit priorities and goals. I hope I answered your question.
Senator Coyle: You’ve talked a lot about the preservation of the Inuktitut language, education, et cetera. I thought I heard you say that federal government services themselves were being offered in Inuktitut. Did I hear that correctly or am I incorrect? I know there’s been a push because we’ve heard many people from Nunavut make the case that services are being offered in French and English, where, actually, Inuktitut is a much wider spoken language than French, for example, in Nunavut. Are some of the federal services now being offered in Inuktitut?
Mr. Irngaut: Some of the services are being offered, especially some of the federal services like CIRNAC because they’re based in [technical difficulties] so their services are offered in Inuktitut.
We’re looking at more of our future, educating our students and providing services like that for Inuktitut. There are some services being provided by federal departments, but that’s why we’re working towards creating this working relationship with the ICPC to create some of those services that can be made available to Inuit.
Senator Coyle: Ms. Scott-Enns, you gave us a very comprehensive report. Thank you. It’s very helpful, the detail that you provided and your explanation around some of the bureaucratic barriers and other things. It was helpful for us to understand.
Did I hear you correctly when you said you would like more involvement with the Department of Finance? Could you unpack that a little bit more for us if, in fact, that is what you said? Direct involvement, is it?
Ms. Scott-Enns: Correct, I did say that. Yes. Typically, our engagement on the development of almost anything is with CIRNAC or possibly other departments, depending on the subject matter. Around exercise of jurisdiction in particular, we’re working with CIRNAC, but Finance Canada is not at the table. What we’re told is that they will come in if and when we have, I guess, a model complete, and then they can start their analysis.
What we’ve been trying to say is that Finance Canada needs to be more proactively involved because at the end of the day, they help make the decision about what gets through. We need to understand their perspective and thinking on what needs to go into the development of what we’re creating together so that we can ensure that, as it goes through the system, it’s also co‑developed by Finance Canada, they are on board and understand what we’re trying to achieve, support it and have input from the start.
Senator Coyle: Okay. Very helpful. Thank you. Makes sense.
Senator Boniface: Thank you very much to both of you for being here.
My first question is for Mr. Irngaut from Nunavut. You mentioned fishery regulations. I’d like just a little bit more information on that because that is a contentious issue in some parts of the country.
Mr. Irngaut: Yes, thank you for that. As you know, when Nunavut was created, all the fisheries regulations were from the old government, when we used to be the Government of Northwest Territories. We have a good working relationship with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or DFO, and we’re slowly trying to create the Nunavut fisheries regulations.
We have a working group that has been working over a number of years to get the process going and have these agreements worked out. We have a pretty good working relationship with DFO at the moment.
As you know, we have issues with the allocation of licences in Nunavut. It has to do with adjacency. The fishers in the South have 100% because they’re adjacent to their fisheries, but up here, it’s different. It’s not 100% that goes to Inuit. We’re working towards hoping in the future to have at least close to 100% or even 100% allocation of licences for Inuit firms in Nunavut.
We’re working towards that. We need to benefit because this is one of the things that can really help Inuit in the future when it comes to fisheries and development resources in Nunavut when we’re allowed to have our own fisheries and create jobs for Inuit in the fisheries industry.
Senator Boniface: Can I follow up on your comments around national security? The North is so crucial in that regard. I’m just wondering, what is that looking like? Is it looking like a framework-type agreement with the government or with the Canadian Armed Forces? How is that taking shape? If you can just give us a few comments on that. Thank you.
Mr. Irngaut: As you know, sovereignty is crucial. There are two communities in Nunavut that exist because of Arctic sovereignty because Canada wanted to create the High Arctic as part of Canada. We’ve already helped Canada with the sovereignty issue by just being up here and creating modern treaties with the government.
Security and defence are very important to us. As you know, it can be very difficult. It’s a straight line to Russia. It’s critical that our Arctic is protected and we work closely with our government, with National Defence and modernize our defence in the North. The lines have been modernized, but more needs to be done. These modernized Coast Guard and warships that come up North help create sovereignty for us. It shows that the government is working with Inuit to help our national security. It’s imperative that they work closely with our Canadian Rangers. As you know, they are the first eyes and ears of anything that happens up North. They’re critical to the support that they provide for national defence.
Senator Osler: My question to both witnesses will be the same question. Perhaps I’ll start with Ms. Scott-Enns.
It’s the same question I asked the last panel. It’s about Article 24 and the right to health. Specifically, the right to traditional medicines and the right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. I would appreciate hearing from both of you — starting with Ms. Scott-Enns — your thoughts on progress on the implementation of Article 24 and the right to health.
Ms. Scott-Enns: Thank you for that question. That is such an important one because, as you know, there are a lot of social challenges in our communities, and we have a lot of issues with mental health and addictions.
As a government, we’ve been working hard to fill the many service gaps that exist in supporting those areas. There are a lot of service gaps right now. The Government of Northwest Territories is responsible for most of the health services in the region, but because there are gaps in aftercare and recovery in mental health treatment facilities and treatment for youth, we are working hard to fundraise resources from different sources and have taken on delivering programs and services ourselves.
We’re also just more effective at it. We know our people, we know how to work with them, we know what they need and they trust us. We have a Department of Healing and Community Wellness, which is doing amazing work but they are severely underfunded and piecemeal together money from contribution agreements. Direct bilateral funding that is sustainable from the Government of Canada would be huge.
We are also getting the Indigenous Health Equity Fund resources. All of those dollars will go towards mental health and addictions programming.
We are not even at the point of being able to think about how to create bigger-picture programs of wellness that are looking at things like traditional medicines. We’re really focused on keeping our people alive. One of the best ways to do that is through connection to the land, so we’re really looking at a lot of on-the-land healing programs.
Senator Osler: Thank you.
Mr. Irngaut: Thank you for that question. One of our priorities is the improvement of health equity for Inuit and furthering the advancement of Inuit self-determination over health services. We worked with the departments through ICPC.
NTI developed a request for a proposal for a feasibility study for an Inuit health ombudsman. That’s what we want to create. That would address Inuit health issues in the health care system in the North. We plan to fund this through the anti-Indigenous racism fund so that we can have a meaningful understanding of the health issues that are facing Inuit. We have received funding of over $14 million a year for 10 years for the Health Equity Fund. That began this fiscal year, 2023-24. We have proposed to our board of directors to move funds in the future for this.
Our key message would be to create an ombudsman for the health equity fund so that we can see exactly what is needed. We’ve done stuff in the past, especially during COVID or tuberculosis, or TB. TB is a big issue up here. As you know, it’s cold up here, and TB has been around for a long time. You’ve probably heard horror stories about people being brought South for treatment. We have parameters for TB patients during COVID and during treatment of TB. We provide support to families in that sense.
We are slowly trying to get our understanding of the health issues that are facing Inuit, and we will get there if we can create this ombudsman. Thank you.
Senator McNair: Natan Obed appeared before this committee and stated that with respect to Indigenous languages we are largely still struggling from the lack of strength within the Indigenous Languages Act and hoped that Inuktitut would gain official language status. We heard from Terry Teegee from the Assembly of First Nations regretting essentially the same thing that at the same time as we are celebrating Indigenous languages, they are not sufficiently protected.
Ms. Scott-Enns, you have talked a little about some of the struggles in your own community. You talked about the best practices model that you have adopted. Could you elaborate on that a little, and also could you let us know whether you think the Government of Canada — and I think I know what the answer will be since Finance Canada is not at the table yet — but whether the Government of Canada is committed to providing adequate long-term funding for Indigenous language initiatives?
Ms. Scott-Enns: The way we approach developing our fiscal models, we put a lot of technical work into it to make sure it is evidence-based so that when we go to the Government of Canada to say, “We need funding to implement our treaties and our self-government agreements in this area,” we are not just making up numbers willy-nilly. We have done a lot of work to develop the model in a way that is based on evidence and data and really factors in a lot of context given the diversity of context around the table with 26 Indigenous self-governments. When we develop those models, often what we do is look at other places where we can get data and benchmarks to inform the development of a model. On things like land resources, treaty management and infrastructure, we can look directly at data from provincial and territorial governments to help inform how we develop these models. There is data out there. Information exists about what positions you would need to fulfill certain functions as a government.
But for Indigenous languages it is a little bit different because they don’t exist, because our languages are struggling so hard in every community. So we have to come up with a bit of a different approach to develop that model. So what we did is because we don’t already have a system that is thriving to look at and say this is what we need and how to do it, first off, we had to focus in on language revitalization. There are a lot of needs for Indigenous languages beyond language revitalization. If you look at our other witness here, they are fully bilingual. My government is also fully bilingual. My Tlicho Assembly operates fully in our language. There is a whole fiscal resource need around operating as a bilingual government. We didn’t even get to start looking at that part. Right now, we are focused on keeping these languages alive. So the model focused in specifically on revitalization.
To look at what programs we should have in our communities to keep languages alive, we hired a contractor to do research for us to look at what they have done in Hawaii, what they have done in New Zealand and what they have done in certain communities in Canada that work. Some of the best practices include things like preschool language nests, adult immersion programs and mentor apprentice programs. So then we built out to cost out exactly what it would cost each of our nations to deliver those programs. To be honest, I think the first number that came out was almost $1 billion. We came up with a number about how much it would cost all of our nations around the table to deliver those programs, and it was a significant amount of money. What we kept hearing was fiscal restraint, fiscal restraint.
So to try to get something, which is better than nothing, we whittled down the model to focus on adult immersion and I think the language nests. But there was originally a full suite of programs built into the model.
That’s how we came up with building the model around language revitalization programs.
Senator McNair: Still waiting for Finance Canada to get to the table.
Ms. Scott-Enns: At this point, the way the fiscal process works is CIRNAC brings it into the system and I think the central agencies start doing their analysis. I don’t know exactly where the holdup will be, but the language one is one that we had nearly done a long time ago. I cannot emphasize enough the sense of urgency around that one. We have had governments around the table who lost one of their five fluent speakers in the time that we have been working on this. So really the timeliness of getting those resources is so important for language probably more than any of the other ones. The impacts are huge.
Senator McNair: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. Senator Boniface on second round.
Senator Boniface: I’m actually fine. Senator McNair asked my question.
The Deputy Chair: All right.
Senator Greenwood: Thank you to both of you for being here this evening. I just wanted to clarify with you, Mr. Irngaut, in your opening remarks you talked about that you have a treaty and that UNDRIP has informed the Inuit treaty partnership. Did I hear that right? Or your relationship has been informed by UNDRIP? You also talked about other ways that UNDRIP has informed the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. Then you talked about UNDRIP being important to Nunavut fisheries and the use of language and government services. Did I understand that correctly?
Mr. Irngaut: Thank you for that. As I indicated earlier, through the Inuit-Crown Partnership Committee, these are one of the things we have started discussing. As you know, because Inuktitut is not recognized by Canada — it is only English and French — so it is very hard to get Inuktitut recognized federally. With this committee, we are working towards creating — and protection of Inuktitut. Our next meeting with this committee will be in November. For sure, this is one of the subjects we will bring up again.
The departments need to understand who they are working with, especially in the North where the majority of the language is Inuktitut. But because it is only English or French, it is very hard to change their minds sometimes, especially the bureaucrats. With this committee we are slowly getting there, but, as I indicated earlier, we need to do a lot more. Thank you.
Senator Greenwood: Thank you. I would invite you to elaborate on, I know you mentioned two priorities, education and early childhood. I think I can kind of guess why the emphasis. Could you elaborate a bit on what you mean by “early childhood”? What does that look like in your community, in your area? And why that?
Ms. Scott-Enns: It is funny because we have had so many conversations ourselves about this distinction with early childhood and then education as if they are two different things. You know, to be honest, those jurisdictions are named separately within our treaty, but the reality is that the Tlicho perspective of both of those is that they are one and the same. When we started talking about what it looks like to implement those jurisdictions, they go hand in hand.
For us, education includes all the early childhood programming that you do, starting in pregnancy, in the womb. It includes things like healthy programs and working on maternal health and birth work programs. It includes healthy family programs, bringing together opportunities for mothers, parents and their children to connect with healthy lifestyles. It includes daycares, preschool programs and learning centres for our young kids. The Western understanding of education became focused in the Northwest Territories on junior kindergarten to Grade 12. But for us, education starts in the womb, so early childhood and education are things we are working on together. Part of the tangible programs that we are looking to take over immediately include things like the daycares and the healthy family programs.
For some of those, they don’t necessarily require us to pass laws as those implementations and jurisdictions. Some of them are program transfers. It is us wanting to take over the programs that already exist. That’s another area where Canada does have a lot of work to do in order to create the policy framework to support us to take over those programs and have access to the funding we need to do that because those policy programs don’t currently exist.
Senator Greenwood: In that regard, I don’t know your self‑government agreement, and I’m going to talk about early childhood. That’s that I’m most familiar with. There are Brighter Futures programs, Canadian Association of Public Schools International, or CAPS-I, maternal child health programs, early learning and childcare, Indigenous and non-Indigenous programs. Are those the kinds of programs you are talking about, saying that your nation would take those programs over and govern for yourselves?
Ms. Scott-Enns: Right now, many early childhood programs are delivered by the territorial government in the Northwest Territories. For instance, funding for daycares goes to the Government of Northwest Territories which then sends us funding. Instead, we want that money to come directly to us. We have some bilateral agreements for early learning and child care, the Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care, or IELCC, funding. But one of the things that we have also realized is that the way many of those funding programs are developed are often from a Western framework of thinking. If you look at something like early childhood and our Tlicho vision for what early childhood should be, it is a holistic vision.
It is not enough to just take the funding that currently goes to the Government of Northwest Territories and hand it to us because we are not looking to implement the same programs that the Government of Northwest Territories does because they don’t work for us. We are trying to build our own vision and do our own programming and services that are rooted in our language, culture and way our life. In order for us to do that, it requires all governments involved to have a totally new lens on how they fund programs because the funding programs and frameworks are designed from a Western approach and not from a holistic Indigenous approach to program service delivery.
Senator Greenwood: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: The time for this panel is now complete. I wish to thank both witnesses for coming today and helping us. It has been very informative to have you here. Thank you for coming. I say to each witness, if there is anything you want to add in a subsequent submission, please submit them to the clerk by email.
(The committee adjourned.)