Evidence of meeting #8 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was going.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:35 p.m.
Chief Commissioner, BC Treaty Commission
For 10 years it is, but then what do you do after 10 years? Do you have to start over again and renegotiate that?
It doesn't make sense. Let's make it part of the treaty.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Commissioner, you mentioned in your report that there was a discrepancy in time. I'm always interested in time management things. I heard you say that one agreement took four days to be finalized, and another was 16 months.
Were they the same kinds of agreements, or were they totally different, at either end of the spectrum? Could you help us understand that?
12:35 p.m.
Chief Commissioner, BC Treaty Commission
The four-day agreement was a final agreement, so it had a much bigger impact. That was when the House of Commons dealt with and enacted the Maa-nulth Treaty. It took four days to do that in 2009. They enacted it in 2010 or.... Anyway, it was four days.
In that same year, 2010, you have another treaty group come together and they shake hands on something. They have to bring it back into their systems because their lawyer has to check the commas and make sure they're in the right place, and then they bring it back so everyone can initial it--only initial. There's still time to change this thing, because you only initial it. Once it's initialled, the community gets to vote on it. Once they vote on it, only then does it go to the provincial legislature, and once the legislature votes on it, only then does it come to the House of Commons. In the case of the initialling, it took 16 months for that handshake and agreement to do whatever it was doing.
12:40 p.m.
Chief Commissioner, BC Treaty Commission
I think they lost the agreement. Nobody wanted to admit it. I don't know; it was crazy.
So something so important took four days and something of less importance.... I mean, it's just as important because it's part of the process, but it wasn't a finished deal yet. As I said, now the community has an uphill challenge to convince their members to ratify this to a yes vote. Right now they're asking why, if it's so good, it took 16 months to bring it back.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
Thank you.
I suspect it has something to do with the people who were dealing with it. We in this House have several lawyers, but we don't let them get bogged down in the same way that lawyers might at a different point in the process. Having been involved in some of these negotiations, I know sometimes that once lawyers get a hold of documents, and especially if there are court precedents that are being set or contributing to the inertia.... I'd be interested in your suggestions as to how we might overcome that. Not only is that an issue at this committee, it's an issue that government fights with, or it fails to be able to provide people with services because of the problems that lawyers get us involved with. They're there to ensure we're all protected, but the inertia that's sometimes created is problematic.
12:40 p.m.
Chief Commissioner, BC Treaty Commission
Most definitely. This is why we're coming to you and asking for your support in the whole process of recommitment. We feel there is inertia because they don't hear anything different. The bureaucracy doesn't have anybody telling them.... There's an urgency. We're losing billions of dollars. We have first nations communities into which we have to continue sinking billions of dollars because of the inertia.
So if we had the message coming down right from the top, from the Prime Minister, the premier, and the first nations leadership—and it has to be from the first nations leadership, too--saying, “Yes, we all commit to this”....
We've been at this for 20 years. Let's take advantage of what we've learned, and let's look at how we can get real benefits to come out of the investment we've already made and the investments we're going to make as we go forward.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Thanks very much.
I would like you to give an example of where a contentious or shared area has actually worked. Is there a best practice from how this ended up being codified in treaties of both neighbouring bands? How does it work when it works well?
12:40 p.m.
Commissioner, BC Treaty Commission
I think the best example is that of Maa-nulth and Tseshaht. They both claimed territory in Barkley Sound and the Broken Group on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Maa-nulth had passed their treaty and there was a year and a half until the implementation date. It was so bad that the two chiefs would be in the same room but wouldn't talk to each other. I know, because I live on one of those reserves.
It was to the point where the Tseshaht had gone to court and had tried to stop the treaty and had lost. I approached them and said, “Why don't we sit down and see if we can find a solution? We'll help mediate it.” In six weeks we put an agreement together, an accord. We don't argue about where the boundary is. That's a no-brainer; we'll never win it. Nobody will ever win it, because they won't agree on whose boundary line is the correct one.
So when we do mediation processes with them, we talk about the disputed territory and how to co-manage that area. The success was that we ended up putting together a committee that meets at least once a year to discuss anything that's going on in that disputed area, whether it's hunting, fishing, gathering, or even up to and including economic development. It ended up that they respected all Nuu-chah-nulth laws as part of the agreement, and they collaborated with the elected and hereditary chiefs and with the elders. At the end of the day, I would not go so far as to say that it's been tested yet, but their first meeting will be taking place, if it hasn't already, this fall. I haven't heard about any gunshots, so I'm assuming it's working. I'm pretty optimistic about it.
The other one that had some success was the Tsawwassen one. That was a different process but with a similar end result. Their fight was with the Cowichan Band on Vancouver Island and their fishing territory. Once again an accord was reached between those two nations. I did hear one of the chiefs screaming about the other one fishing when they weren't supposed to, just a couple of weeks ago, but they have a process to resolve it now.
That's what we envision. I always remain optimistic. We have a nation in the north that's really fighting over the same issues. They're all the same types of issues. We run into some difficulty when there is a treaty nation and a non-treaty nation. That becomes a little more difficult. The non-treaty nation thinks their only success will lie with the courts, which up until now hasn't been the case. The courts have always ruled in favour of the treaty. They won't stop a treaty. That gives us more influence on the ability to mediate a settlement.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
David Wilks Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to go back to Sophie if I may. This is probably straying off a little, but perhaps you'll indulge me, Chair.
One of the great benefits that I see from a treaty for first nations is that they are recognized as a form of government. When we redesigned our new office at the Regional District of East Kootenay, we created a chair for the Ktunaxa to come to the table when that happens.
What do you see as the impact for first nations coming to regional government tables?
12:45 p.m.
Chief Commissioner, BC Treaty Commission
For the whole region, I think the involvement of the first nations, given the history that this is the only place they've ever been--this is their traditional territory. It gives the kind of solid planning and understanding of the land. So it's definitely a support for the decision-making that goes on at that particular local government level.
I'm glad you brought that up. It kind of goes back to a question that was asked earlier in terms of the readiness of the local government and the provincial government to implement treaties, because we've also heard that while we're planning it very well with the Ktunaxa table, it has thrown the Maa-nulth regional district into a bit of an uproar, because they don't have enough room right now to include the Maa-nulth. They're trying to find out how they can do that. When they settle a treaty, there's a period of time in which the first nations government does not have to participate in all the other local governments.
How long was that, two years or something?
12:45 p.m.
Commissioner, BC Treaty Commission
I'm not sure, but three of Maa-nulth have already joined the regional list.
12:45 p.m.
Chief Commissioner, BC Treaty Commission
I know. That's why I'm saying that, because they chose not to wait. I think they can wait two years or three years, something like that. Maa-nulth chose not to wait. They said “No, we want to be part of the regional government now”, and then the regional government said, “Yes, we want you to be part of it, but we don't have the resources; we don't know how this will happen.”
Again, this simply all goes to good planning. We're doing that in the southeast corner of British Columbia. We're anticipating the day when the first nation is going to be a part of the regional government. In fact, we're not going to wait until then; we'll slowly build it in--and we have. There are lots of land-use decisions that have included the Ktunaxa.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
Thank you very much.
Thank you, committee members, for keeping your questions short enough so we could get to that final round.
Thank you to the witnesses. We appreciate the work you're doing. I think you've sensed that we understand the complexity of your responsibilities. We want to honour and thank you for your continued contribution to your communities and to the country in your efforts. So thank you so much. We wish you well, and we're going to do what we can to assist you in your efforts.
Thank you.
12:45 p.m.
Chief Commissioner, BC Treaty Commission
Thank you very much for having us here.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
Committee members, we're going to suspend for five minutes. We're going in camera for a committee of the whole discussion on future business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]