Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you very much.

Questioning goes first to MP Zahid.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses today.

Given the time frame for the handling of the comprehensive claims, it seems possible that the financial state of the claimants could fluctuate, especially where the debt load is concerned. How does the current comprehensive land claims system accommodate for the debt amounts of the indigenous communities involved with the claims? Do you have any suggestions for how the comprehensive land claims process may be further updated or refined to better address the financial standing of these communities before, during, and after a claim has been processed?

[Joe Wild]

The funding that's currently provided is a mixture of loans and contributions that are not repayable. We've been aware for a number of years now that there are issues around the accumulation of loan debt, particularly as some of these processes have continued on for so many years.

We are looking at ways in which we can address the issues associated with loan debt. I think that there is certainly a fairness concern. The original intent or the original thinking behind this was that loans would help to ensure that everyone at the table would have a certain discipline in moving the negotiations forward. I think there's a clear recognition, based on the experience over the last 20 to 30 years, that that's not the case. The loans don't actually provide any real incentive to move things along more quickly at the table. In some ways the issues are more specific around how we've approached mandates and the kinds of bases on which we've had discussions.

I think the totality of what we want to reform around that particular process includes even moving away from the nomenclature of claims and talking about them more from a recognition perspective. I think we understand that we need to do some real analysis around whether or not there's a different approach that we could be taking on funding that would address the loan burden and the fairness issue around that loan burden.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

As we know, the claims process incorporates claims by dozens of indigenous communities across Canada, and as a result, the process must incorporate and be sensitive to the values and the needs of the communities that are involved in that. Does the claims process for both specific and comprehensive claims have mechanisms in place to deal differently with these respective communities? Do you have any recommendations to improve the flexibility of the claims to increase the efficiency and satisfaction level of the claims?

[Joe Wild]

They are very different processes, and they are very different types of discussions. Again, I don't like the label of comprehensive land claims. What we're really talking about are treaty negotiations and self-government negotiations under that rubric, so that really is about self-determination. I think the way we would want to frame that work today, and the work we are trying to do, is to frame it as recognition of rights and self-determination. I think that's what we're trying to do there. Specific claims is a different category altogether, in which you're trying to address the historical wrongs of the government and figuring out what is the best way to compensate for those wrongs. They are two completely different processes with, I think, two completely different methods of negotiation and dialogue around how we're trying to approach them.

I do think that for both we are in the middle of trying to figure out with our indigenous partners how we want to actually reform these processes so that they work better for everyone. I think we recognize that they take too long. Whether it's a self-determination dialogue, whether it's a specific claim negotiation, it takes too long. They are too adversarial in the way we have approached them in the past, and we are trying to find ways to reform those processes.

With specific claims in particular, there is a partnership we have with the Assembly of First Nations as well as a number of other indigenous groups, including the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs and others from across the country, where we are trying to develop together what will be the reforms that are necessary to that process in order to put it on a footing that is more commensurate with the type of relationship we're striving to achieve with indigenous people.

At the same time, the work we're doing through the rights recognition and self-determination tables is, I think, piloting ways in which we can have a completely different approach to the question of self-determination and how to expedite agreements in a much more efficient way to enable them, whether it's first nations, whether it's Métis, whether it's Inuit, to take on areas of jurisdiction and responsibility that they want to take on sooner than having to wait for a 15-year or 20-year process.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I'll share my time with my colleague, Mr. Amos.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Wild, thank you for recognizing that we are on unceded Algonquin territory. My Algonquin constituents would look at some of the issues that are currently being discussed with the federal government as they have a specific land claim process, but there's also an ongoing discussion around their proper role vis-à-vis Parliament Hill, Supreme Court, and lands proximate to downtown.

How would you characterize that type of discussion in relation to the comprehensive land claims and the specific claims? Is it some kind of sui generis process? How would you describe that to the people of Kitigan Zibi?

[Joe Wild]

Certainly the negotiations we have under way with the Algonquins of Ontario is a comprehensive land claim dialogue. There is also interest in having a self-government agreement as well, but the focus has been on resolving the land claim first. Separate from that, a discussion is going on with Kitigan Zibi that is under our new process part of rights recognition and self-determination dialogue that we have started with Chief Whiteduck.

Again, I think our approach to those dialogues, while originally fairly distinct, are now coming together in that the approach really is one of sitting down and trying to have an interest-based discussion, hearing what the indigenous community is saying are their priorities and interests, and then working together to develop the kinds of mandates we need to be able to be responsive to those interests. That's really the focus of how we're trying to have those dialogues now, whether it's under the kind of old comprehensive land claim policy or whether it's under the recognition of rights and self-determination tables.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

That ends the time allocated.

I would encourage you to look for hand signals once in a while. Thanks.

MP Kevin Waugh, please.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Auditor General was just here talking about the eight recommendations. How are you doing on the eight?

[Joe Wild]

Steve Gagnon can provide you with an update.

[Stephen Gagnon, Director General, Specific Claims Branch, Treaties and Aboriginal Government, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

As Joe just said, we're putting a lot of our eggs in the working group we have, being facilitated by the AFN. I can't tell you that things have changed drastically yet, but I can tell you that I think it has been a constructive and productive process. We are working at it, but we haven't made or received recommendations yet on how to move forward. I think things are going well, but it's anecdotal at this point.

I don't have much more, but I do think things are going well.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

But you can't really give us an update. It's going well, but you have nothing to report, which tells me it's not going well.

[Stephen Gagnon]

When we started this work we focused on four major areas: claims over $150 million, public reporting, funding for negotiations, and the use of mediation. The context, as I interpret it for a lot of things that were in the Auditor General's report and other reports, was that in 2007 when we launched Justice at Last there was promise of more co-operation. Once we got going, Canada went into its shell and didn't talk to people anymore. Most of the recommendations in the Auditor General's report and others were that we needed to get out there and start speaking to people, start communicating, start listening.

We have been doing that. I think we have made progress. It's self-serving for me to say that I think it's going better. I'm hopeful that my colleagues on the first nations side would say there is better communication now than there was. That was a major first step for us to get that kind of thing going.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Can the lack of trust between the two groups ever be repaired? Let's start there. I was part of the tour we made to Vancouver, Winnipeg, Belleville, and Quebec City, and wherever we went, that was the number one issue. They do not trust the federal government, and I don't know if that can be repaired.

I want to know your views on it because it was the topic of conversation.

[Joe Wild]

I absolutely think it can be repaired. I think it's about a couple of things.

One, I think it is about approaching the relationship from the right perspective. That means approaching the relationship from the mandate that we've been given as public servants from the Prime Minister to renew a nation-to-nation relationship based on recognition of rights.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Yes. What is nation to nation? Can I ask that? Because the Premier of Quebec has said he would like an explanation of what nation to nation is. You have provinces and territories in this country that have no idea what nation to nation is, yet the Prime Minister is going around this country talking about nation to nation.

What is nation to nation? Can you fill us in? The premiers of this country have no idea what that means.

[Joe Wild]

I wouldn't characterize all premiers as being in the same basket in terms of their understanding of nation to nation, based certainly on the conversations that I have with my provincial colleagues.

Nation to nation is, I think, getting at the idea that you have to approach this relationship based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership. It means that there is a concept of indigenous nations. Some of that has been severely disrupted through the actions of past governments when the Indian Act and the band system were established in this country.

It really is about how you work with first nations as they work through their own processes within their communities to figure out whether or not there is a larger collective than a band that speaks on behalf of the section 35 rights holder of that community. That collectivity is what we would recognize as a nation. We're not prescribing what that collectively means.

Obviously, there's been work done on this in the past. There was a royal commission, an aboriginal peoples report done in the 1990s that talked about it being around language groups. That may be one possibility. There are other possibilities as well. We're not precluding or closing the door to any concept. We're saying that we think our role as a government is to support first nations, and having that dialogue internally. They can then work out within their communities what they think those groups would be that represent larger collectives of rights holders and that they want to recognize as being their governments for the purposes of having a nation-to-nation dialogue with Canada and with a province or territory.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

In Winnipeg, we were talking about the additions to reserves, the process in Manitoba, because we were in Manitoba at the time. It also affects my province of Saskatchewan.

Where are we on these treaty land entitlement claims? How many of them are outstanding? You've talked about time here. Time seems to be precious for years but.... What is the average time required, then, for resolving some of these claims?

[Joe Wild]

I will have to get back to you on the numbers around the treaty lands entitlement. I don't have those numbers at my fingertips, nor do I have the average time it takes to resolve them. I can say that we've made significantly more progress in Saskatchewan than we have in Manitoba. I think we are continuing to look at ways in which we have to do things in order to ameliorate the processes in place in Manitoba, in particular.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Good. There seemed to be a lot of frustration in the province of Manitoba. We certainly felt that and yet, in my province of Saskatchewan, it seems to be a little bit more reconciliation, if I might say so.

Well, it's interesting. I know the Auditor General's office follows them very closely and I applaud you for that.

One size doesn't fit all. There's the other thing. You're talking about doing things quickly and more efficiently. Be careful with that. I understand. We went to places where there are agreements that have gone on for 30 and 40 years, but sometimes when you do it quickly, and the auditor did talk about that, you miss something. When you go quickly, you're going to miss more and then we're going to have more issues. There has to be a balance.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

The questioning now goes to MP Romeo Saganash.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to welcome all three of you.

I am originally from the region where Canada's first modern treaty was signed, in 1975. It took about one year of negotiation despite all of its complexity. In 1974, we signed an agreement in principle of about 14 pages, and in 1975, we signed the final agreement, which had about 500 pages.

As for the negotiations that concern us, it's not a matter of complexity in my opinion, but rather a matter of political will and good faith, as is often the case.

You said in your statement that it takes about 15 to 20 years to conclude a modern treaty. Why then have the negotiations with the Innu and Atikamekws in Quebec now gone on for over 30 years? How do we explain this delay, where negotiations last almost twice the average time?

[Joe Wild]

You are correct. I don't have a good reason to provide that explains why the negotiations with the Innu have taken 30 years.

In my time in this position, I would say that has been one of the biggest challenges, to unpack why it takes so long in some communities. I think some of it has been the way that we had approached the fundamentals of these discussions. There has been a lot of criticism about the comprehensive land claim policy, as being a policy about rights termination, and I think we've had issues, in that we haven't been able to approach negotiations from a truly interest-based approach. Negotiators were going out with pre-defined mandates and pre-defined policy frames, so that when a community would present things that would diverge from that, it would bring everything to a halt, while negotiators went back and tried to sort out whether or not they could get a change to mandate, in order to address the interest that was put before them.

I think that the approach we're trying to take now is to start with a blank page. With some fundamental understandings around the UN declaration, particularly around section 35, and what it means to take a recognition approach, let's work together to build what would have to then be the mandate that I would go and seek from cabinet. I think that will make things go significantly faster because it means that we will have had a more thorough conversation about what the actual interests are from the indigenous group's perspective.

I don't have a good answer for how we've gotten to the 30 years that we have spent with the Innu. My hope is that we will not have to spend another 30 years.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Could it be a question of mandate or a lack of mandate in this case?