THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON ABORIGINAL PEOPLES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, September 27, 2017
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 6:45 p.m. to study the new relationship between Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
Senator Dennis Glen Patterson (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Good evening.
I welcome all honourable senators and members of the public who are watching this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples either here in the room or listening via the Web.
I would like to begin by acknowledging, for the sake of reconciliation, that we are meeting on the traditional unceded lands of the Algonquin peoples.
I am Dennis Patterson from Nunavut. I have the privilege of being the deputy chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. Our chair is paying respects to the late first Aboriginal woman senator in Canada, Senator Chalifoux, whose funeral is tomorrow in Edmonton; so I’m honoured to chair the committee tonight.
I’d like to ask my Senate colleagues to introduce themselves.
Senator McPhedran: I’m Marilou McPhedran, an independent senator from Manitoba.
Senator Mégie: Marie-Françoise Mégie from Quebec.
Senator Christmas: Daniel Christmas from Nova Scotia.
Senator Pate: Kim Pate from Ontario.
Senator Boniface: Gwen Boniface from Ontario.
Senator Raine: Nancy Greene Raine from British Columbia.
Senator Enverga: Tobias Enverga from Ontario.
Senator Doyle: Norman Doyle from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Tannas: Scott Tannas from Alberta.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, colleagues.
Today we continue our study on what a new relationship between the Government of Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples of Canada could look like. We continue looking at the history of what has been studied and discussed on this topic. Tonight we’re delighted to welcome Elder Fred Kelly, Elder Verna Porter-Brunelle and Elder Claudette Commanda.
I’m going to suggest that we hold our questions until we hear from everyone, colleagues.
I now ask Elder Porter-Brunelle to begin tonight, please. The floor is yours.
Verna Porter-Brunelle, as an individual: Thank you very much. It’s an honour to be here. I would also like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional unceded lands of the Algonquin Nation. I’d like to acknowledge the elders who are with us today, and I’d like to acknowledge the members of the Senate committee and other indigenous representatives.
I’m from a little town up north called Gogama, which is between Sudbury and Timmins. I’m a senator on the provisional council of the Métis Nation of Ontario, and my husband, who is with me tonight, and I live in Huntsville. I sit on two committees. I’m on the nuclear waste committee and I’m also an elder on the justice division.
I represent the Metis people, and we are a proud people.
Today I would like to share some thoughts on reconciliation from the perspective of the Métis Nation of Ontario, MNO. Unlike my colleagues who are doing this through their head, I have to write things down. I’m sorry. It goes right through.
I look forward with great hope for our Metis people in Ontario. We have vibrant communities, engaged and educated youth, a rich culture and a desire to plan for our further generations, our youth. We are a proud indigenous people with deep historical roots in this province.
But there is a need for reconciliation. The Metis story is one of a people that still struggles under the weight of past and present colonial policies by government actions. For far too long, our people were neglected and their rights denied by federal and provincial governments.
As one example, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, the TRC, dedicated an entire volume of its 2015 final report to the experience of Metis within the residential school system. Quoting from that report:
The Métis experience of residential schooling has been overlooked for too long . . . . There is no denying that the harm done to the children, their parents and the Métis community was substantial. It is an ongoing shame that this damage has not been addressed and rectified.
In my own life, I was in my thirties before I was able to connect my Metis roots. My family would not admit that we were Metis, and I’m sure part of it was that my father would not have had a job.
In those days they hid being Metis, and we didn’t belong with First Nations and we didn’t belong in the White community or non-indigenous communities. So it’s a personal story about struggling to find our roots and pick up on our heritage.
The dark past — some of it still very recent — continues to impact our people and our families to this day. Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 recognizes the Metis as one of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada and constitutionally entrenches Metis rights and other claims against the Crown.
When we talk about reconciliation, we need to remember that the Supreme Court has held that reconciliation requires that these protected rights and claims be determined, recognized and respected through negotiations between the Crown and the Metis.
Since 1982, despite section 35’s promise, governments have refused to formally negotiate with the Metis. This has led to the Metis turning to the courts to seek justice. In a series of cases over the last 15 years, including the MNO-led watershed Metis rights decision in the Powley case of 2003, as well as the Manitoba Metis Federation Inc. case of 2013 and the Daniels case of 2016, the Supreme Court has recognized Metis rights and claims and has urged that negotiations with Metis begin.
Today, the Métis Nation of Ontario and the federal government have started to take steps towards real reconciliation.
On February 3 of this year, the MNO and Canada signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Advancing Reconciliation. In this memorandum of understanding, Canada has committed to working on a nation-to-nation, government-to-government basis with the Métis Nation through bilateral negotiations with the MNO, and to advancing reconciliation and renewing the relationship through cooperation and respect for Metis rights and ending the status quo.
The MOU establishes an exploratory discussion table between the MNO and Canada with the goal of arriving at a framework by the fall of 2017.
I’m hopeful that this new relationship with Canada, after waiting over 150 years, will allow us, on a government-to-government and nation-to-nation basis, to work together to improve the lives of our Metis people in Ontario and across the homeland.
I need to stress how important it is for Canada to move forward with this framework agreement and subsequent discussion. There is urgent need for action and progress on many fronts. As an example, not very long ago, the MNO launched a commission on Metis rights. My husband was one of the commissioners. As part of this process, commissioners travelled to 29 of our communities across Ontario to seek their input and recommendations on a way forward.
A draft report has been prepared and a number of priority areas were raised from these sessions.
Health and wellness was a big one that came out through our communities. The current federal system provides no access for Metis, yet the province has been a long-standing partner. This is an opportunity to invest and enhance.
The MNO’s chronic disease surveillance and other research has consistently shown significantly higher rates of chronic diseases and risk factors among Metis people in Ontario. Clearly, Metis people in Ontario are falling through very large cracks in the existing provincial and federal health care. There is an urgent need to work together to develop a distinct, Metis-specific health and wellness framework.
Another thing they figured was left behind is our education and training. The MNO is working with all levels of government and colleges, universities, school boards and shareholders throughout the education system to ensure that Metis students have every opportunity; that they see themselves reflected in the school, and throughout the curriculum; and that they and all Canadians respect and recognize the integral place of the Métis Nation in the history and contemporary fabric of our society.
The Métis Nation of Ontario has been an outspoken advocate for the Aboriginal human resources strategies that have been in place since the early 1990s, and these programs have made measurable differences in the lives of our families.
The MNO looks forward to working in partnership on the design and development of a long-term distinction-based success strategy that reflects Metis population realities at the national and provincial levels.
The third most significant thing that the commissioners found was housing.
Safe and adequate housing supports Metis individuals, families and communities in achieving their highest potential. Access to adequate, stable and affordable housing is known to contribute to positive health, education and employment outcomes. Since many, many Metis lack adequate, stable housing, success in these areas becomes difficult and, at times, unattainable.
For our seniors, making a move from their home and a way of life into long-term care facilities or seniors’ homes can be very challenging. We need to find ways to ensure that these experiences are as positive as they can be and that our people feel at home and accepted and can practise their way of life in these facilities.
As we move forward with the Canada-Métis Nation agreement, we must acknowledge that good, stable housing provides a foundation for positive health, education and employment outcomes of our communities. In working together, we can strengthen that foundation and thereby improve outcomes in our priority areas.
The MNO has worked very hard at telling the story of our people so that our history can be better understood by federal and provincial governments and the Canadian public. This understanding is essential if we are all to move forward in reconciliation.
The MNO has released almost 100 root ancestry packages that have been made available for download through the MNO website. These packages include information on some of the Metis root ancestors in Ontario, along with their descendants, that connect directly to our historic Metis communities. These are family trees and supporting genealogical information for those trees all the way from the original root ancestry from the historic community up to the 1900s. This is important work to provide useful resources to support applications for citizenship or harvesting for section 35 rights.
In concluding, now more than ever Canada must fulfill its obligations to the Metis people in Ontario and continue to work with us on the path to real reconciliation. If we continue down that path together, then very confidently we’ll make significant improvements in the lives of Metis people and all Canadians far into our future.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much.
Now I’d like to turn to Elder Claudette Commanda, please.
Claudette Commanda, Executive Director, First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres: Hello. Good evening.
[Translation]
Good evening everyone.
[Editor’s Note: The witness speaks in her mother tongue.]
My spirit name is She Who Dances with the Eagles or Dancing Sky Eagle, but my English name is Claudette Commanda. I am an Algonquin from the community of Kitigan Zibi. I was born and raised in my community, and I welcome each and every one of you here to this beautiful territory of the Algonquin people, the Anishinaabe, Omàmiwinini.
My government name is 073079202. That means I am recognized under the Indian Act as an Indian. But I know who I am as Anishinaabe, and I’m speaking to you as Anishinaabekwe. I’m very honoured that you have invited me here to speak.
I didn’t prepare any reports or statistical data or studies. I will share with you my lived experiences, my expertise, my knowledge and the wisdom that I carry from my ancestors and relatives and the work that I do at the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres.
I thank the elders that I sit here with, Elder Kelly, Elder Verna, and each and every one of you here.
I apologize that although I’m saying that I did not write any paper, nevertheless I have to put notes down because I tend to forget every now and then. So I do have to reflect on my notes, because you see I do suffer from the big M, and it’s not the golden arches of McDonald’s; it’s called menopause. I have to reflect on my notes every now and then. I apologize. Please bear with me.
I pray that I speak passionately and that I’m heard compassionately, because what I’m going to be speaking to you about tonight is coming from that First Nations perspective, the Anishinaabekwe perspective, and in my role as executive director.
I looked at the theme: new relationship with First Nations. There are many, many important topics. Many. To choose one over the others, we just can’t do that. We just can’t. Every subject matter, every element, is important: housing, water, education, employment, training and health. These are all important, absolutely.
I wrote down three important subject matters that I would like to share with you: languages, land and treaties. Each of these three must be honoured and validated, and each of these three aspects of our being and our rights do contain all the other necessities of life, whether it’s housing and health or access to employment and training.
I want to educate you, share with you, about who I am as Executive Director of the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres. Who are we, this organization? We were born out of Indian control of Indian education. Our organization has been in existence for 45 years. We have the mandate to promote, protect, revitalize, preserve and maintain First Nation languages.
We have been doing this for 45 years. Our grassroots people are those language champions. They are those language advocates. In 1972, our organization was mandated to deal with the legacy of Indian residential schools, the loss of language and culture. We built our education systems, our curricula, on the preamble and on the foundation and the pillars of language and culture.
Our organization is national; it’s non-profit; and we have a membership of 55 cultural centres. These cultural centres can be found in every region and territory in Canada. Very diverse, because we know there are many diverse First Nations languages and cultures in Canada.
The cultural centres are mandated to deliver, or to develop and then to deliver, very specific cultural and language education programs and services for their communities. Very grassroots driven.
Our elders guide the work that needs to be done. They lend their wisdom.
We continue with that role and mandate to promote, to protect, to preserve, to revitalize languages and culture. We continue with the role and the mandate to deal with the legacies of Indian residential schools and now with the child welfare system, because we know there are intergenerational trauma impacts that flow from Indian residential schools.
Our language work consists of language immersion; curriculum development; teacher training; historical archiving; curatorship; cross-cultural awareness; networking; multimedia technology; and the collection, archiving and protection of oral histories. We play a fundamental role in education at the band level as well as at the mainstream level.
We serve as a second-level support system for schools: developing curriculum, training teachers, developing language resources and language teachers. We know our communities need language teachers, and our fundamental goal is to ensure our children have their birthright to their languages.
Language is life. Our languages are living, and if our languages die, we die spiritually and culturally. Our languages contain our laws, our ceremonies and our ways of life, which you call culture. Our languages contain our identity as First People.
Niin Anishinaabe. Niin Anishinaabekwe.
I am a human being. I was created that human being Anishinaabe Omàmiwininiwak, of the hunters and gatherers or the paddlers.
When we say anishinaabemowin, that is our word in the Algonquin language that we use for the word “language,” but it means more than language; it means we are expressing and we are living who we are in that nation that we come from, that attachment and connection to the land.
So our cultural centres are deeply connected to this fundamental belief that our languages are so important and they must survive for the future of our children.
The government must respect and appreciate and validate our languages. They must see, understand and appreciate that our languages are the first languages and the original languages of this land that we call Canada.
Our languages were born here, created here in this land called Canada, or what we refer to as Turtle Island. We cannot go anywhere else in the world to find our languages. They are here. They are here in this land called Canada, or the United States or Turtle Island.
So it’s really fundamental that we continue the work on language retention and language survival, because our goal is that we strive and work to see our languages be restored in a very healthy, vibrant and original state.
We are funded by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs through the Cultural Education Centres Program. We did a study this summer on language fluency, and we began that study by looking at the First Nations population in Canada. According to the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs’ First Nations profile, there are 973,937 status Indians, and in our role as the First Nations Confederacyof Cultural Education Centres, we work specifically and only with status Indians on reserve, but we’re starting to do a lot of work off reserve as well.
The population of First Nations from those 50-plus cultural education centres is 421,838. That’s 43 per cent of the First Nations population. So it’s almost half of the First Nations population across Canada that we provide programs and services to for our languages and culture. Through our languages and culture, we provide our bands with cultural competencies that find their way into other programs such as health, justice, policing, education and employment.
In our membership of the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres, we have 30 languages with an array of dialects that are represented through our centres. We are funded $5 million on an annual basis. Our program is proposal-driven, and it could be taken away at any time. We continue to advocate for adequate funding and resourcing for our communities and our languages.
So if you take the population of 421,838 with the $5 million, that equates to $1.50 per First Nation for our languages. That being said, it is important that our languages be valued. They’re worth much more than $1.50, absolutely.
We look at the issue of land. We know as First Nations people we have that deep connection to our land. Our land is who we are. Our ancestors walked this land. We’re connected to our ancestors. But we need to have the right to jurisdiction of our land and the title to our land, not just those reserve lands but our ancestral lands as well.
We all know that the treaties are that special sacred relationship. There is the spirit and intent of those treaties, the sharing and coexistence of the land and the natural resources. The treaties were based on our laws. They contain that spirit. They contain the spirit of our ancestors, the spirit of Creator, the spirit of our prayers. They contain life. And they contain that special relationship between First Nations and settlers.
So to conclude my sharing of knowledge, if we are going to move forward with a new relationship between First Nations and Canada, it starts with truth, and “reconciliation” cannot just be a nice word or a warm, fuzzy, feel-good word — it can’t. Reconciliation is about the truth, and it must be action. It must be action-oriented.
To move forward in a new relationship, all Canadians need to know the past. Start with that truth and know the past. As First Nations people, and in particular when I’m speaking about the nation I come from, the Anishinaabe, the Algonquin, we are oral history people. We are always reflecting on that past because of our oral history, and we take that oral history from the past and we bring it to today and we ensure we move forward into the future with it. So it’s important to know the past. Canadians must know the past.
You must understand the future, but before doing so, you must understand the present. Know the past, understand the present, and see the future by seeing the future based on the premise of truth and reconcili-action, and hearing the voices of First Nations people and ensuring we are always at the table and that we have a viable, valued voice at the table and with decision making, because our communities, our elders, they are the champions, they are the experts. We have the solutions.
If we look at the issue of suicide, child and youth suicide, the healing will come from our culture and our languages, those programs that are so necessary for intervention and prevention. That is why our languages must be validated and the work we do as cultural education centres must be inclusive of all aspects of community life, and the Government of Canada must include cultural education centres in all of its programs and policies that they will create. Thank you. Meegwetch.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, professor. I think your prayer that you would speak passionately was answered.
Now I’d like to turn to Elder Fred Kelly.
Fred Kelly, as an individual: Meegwetch, Mr. Deputy Chair. To the honourable members that sit in the hallowed chambers of the Senate, I congratulate you on your appointments. I honour you and I extend my greatest respect as one to another. We have reached the stage, each and every one of us, where the younger generations look up at us as experienced people in life, calling us “senators,” sometimes calling us “elders.” Let me clarify my own position.
I’m referred to as an elder, but an elder has a connotation of a person that carries wisdom and some knowledge. I pretend no knowledge. I pretend no wisdom, but people call me an elder. I’m honoured by that.
So I extend my greetings to you from the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty 3, of which I am a citizen.
Before I go any further, I want to acknowledge our ancestors of Turtle Island — all ancestors of Turtle Island. They are with us yet to this day. I also wish to acknowledge your ancestors, those of you that come from ancestral lands across the pond. I acknowledge the ancestors of this beautiful territory upon which these institutions stand. May it be that the vision that those ancestors had for our respected nations come to fruition, come to reality. I acknowledge the Inuit. I acknowledge the so-called Indians of the Constitution. I refer to them as indigenous people of Turtle Island. I acknowledge the Metis, all my brothers and sisters on this day. I also acknowledge the future generations who are also here with us already, though we do not see them, and they are listening.
So it is a very humbling and very sincere occasion; we must concentrate on what I am about to tell you, for the institutions that have encroached and been imposed upon our peoples have not been very pretty.
I went for a walk today just to see what Ottawa looks like now in this 150 years since Confederation, which moves me to wish you all a very happy birthday. As a neighbour, I will even cut a piece of cake and enjoy that with you, and I will have a cup of coffee with you to celebrate as I would be a neighbour.
I say that not so much in jest but to remind you that Canada, since Confederation, has been built upon the myth that there are two founding nations, the French and the English -- no formal recognition of the indigenous nations that were here initially.
It would appear that, in the 150 years since, we would have at least acknowledged that in a formal way. Yes, we fought tooth and claw for recognition of our treaty and Aboriginal rights in section 35, and I was part of those negotiations. We acknowledged the other institutions, of which I was held a prisoner from the age of four and a half, at a residential school, incarcerated for no other reason than that I am an Anishinaabe and to kill the Indian in this child. And you nearly succeeded.
But I am pleased to tell you — and there will be a book coming out by that very title — that I recovered somewhat from that, and I am happy to tell you that this fight, the incursion, without offending anybody in any of your personal beliefs, the Catholic religion and the Catholic residential school in which I was incarcerated almost succeeded in taking away my language, in taking away my spirituality, in taking away my culture, in taking away my relationship to the land. I’m happy to tell you today I am a born-again pagan. If pagan simply means a non-believer, I’m proud to be that. But that doesn’t mean I’m a non-believer in everything. I believe in all of you. I told you I respect each and every one of you. I respect your families. I respect your communities. I respect your children.
The time has come. In 1965, I had the privilege of leading the first march of its kind in Anishinaabe country in Canada; at a time when civil rights burnings were taking place, we had our march.
At that time, I spoke to the non-Aboriginal people, who I will refer to as non-Indian people, as “your people” and “our people.” Since then, there has been a lot of intermarriage between your people and my people. I can no longer refer to them as “your children” and “my children.” I now refer to them as “our children,” our future generations. These are the roots of reconciliation.
Let me tell you as well that, in terms of reconciliation, our people do not define. At best, we might describe in literal terms, but the highest level to us is living, living the word. So reconciliation is something that we have always lived by with respect to the lands, the trees, of which I am an integral part because we’re all interconnected. And I wish to speak to you then. In front of you is a diagram because we are an oral society, and we are pictorial. For the most part, we are following that tradition.
So, to me, I would have to speak to you by virtue of the rock paintings, the painted visions, and give you an interpretation. So I hope my words being scant and being few, that the spirit of what I wish to tell you therein lies the profundity of what I need to tell you. It is simple. It is basic, something that was intended by our ancestors when we welcomed the people from across the pond. It was predicted that they would come, and here our people to the east had already expected that they would be here in about a month or so, one moon, about four months later. But, already, we had Vikings here. Long before Columbus, we had Vikings; we had people. Those were the founding relationships of trade and commerce off the Grand Banks, and we got along well.
Later, it came to be that when the different colonial powers were trying to seize supremacy over Turtle Island, they fought, and they looked at us as allies. So we had allies. We had alliances.
Then came the period when there had to be some formal relationship, and I wish to tell you it was Chief Pontiac, Anishinaabe, that instigated the Royal Proclamation of 1763 that promulgated the process of treaty relationship. So we entered into treaties, and, at that time, the instructions that were given to the colonial powers, the superintendents of Indians affairs were told, “We must get to know their numbers, their laws, their institutions.” Already, there was a recognition that we were not simple savages, uncivilized, but, rather, we had our systems. And indeed we did. But because they were very different and distinct, let me tell you something about it. There’s a reason why I refer to my diagram as reconciling sovereignties. I do not define reconciling, but, rather, I will explain by the living word.
Sovereignty is a French word, and I do not speak French. If I tried that, I would kill that particular language because I am simply not capable of speaking that language, beautiful language as it is. So I try my best to speak the English language, and I hope my point is well received.
In the history of mankind, no unilateral action has ever resulted in freedom, and that’s what happened after the treaties because, with the Confederation that came with the initial provinces, there was no involvement. There was no consultation, no partnership with the original peoples. We were considered as part of the terra nullius. In terra nullius, a discoverer can occupy that land by virtue of the fact that there is there nobody there other than animals, and that is what we were considered. I’m proud to be a brother and sister to these beautiful animals and all life that is here.
So we had our systems, and they endure to this day, though you do not see them because they’ve not been allowed. We somehow have to exercise our inherent freedom by virtue of permission through legislation under the Indian Act and other pieces of legislation, which was not the intent. The intent and spirit of our treaties was, in fact, the reconciliation of sovereignties, and we refer to that as bimaadiziwin.
Fast forward to a Supreme Court case. I use that because that was a pronouncement by the institutions of Canada. Judge Williamson, a Nisga’a, said, “The purpose of a treaty is to reconcile sovereignties.”
Our people said that. The Canadian system is based on peace, order and good government. The United States is based on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Ours is based on two Anishinaabe words —bimaadiziwin gizhewaadiziwin.Bimaadiziwin is “life” that permeates every little thing, even the smallest grain of sand, the smallest insect to the biggest galaxy. Gizhewaadiziwin essentially is “kindness,” but it means more than that. It incorporates everything that is the way of Gitchi Manitou, which is God the Creator Almighty. By whatever language or term you refer to your supreme being, to us it is Gitchi Manitou.
Gizhewaadiziwin, you see the root word, the way of the Creator. It includes, not exclusively, but it includes what I refer to as seven grandfather teachings. But in true law —
[Editor’s Note: Mr. Kelly spoke in his native language.]
— the law society and the business society of our people. It includes all of those things, and it includes the seven laws of Creation. I use the word “law” not loosely but formally, because these are not platitudinous principles; these are laws of life: love, kindness, sharing, truth, courage, respect and humility. These are laws, and we have to live by those.
And our system does not differentiate between the inanimate and the animate and does not differentiate between the secular and the sacred. They are fused into one —
[Editor’s Note: Mr. Kelly spoke in his native language.]
— which means sacred law. That is our constitution. Because a constitution, in simple terms — and I have a simple mind; I have to use simple terms — simply means the supreme law of a people.
Are we to assume that our peoples, having survived all these generations, thousands and thousands of years, did not have any law? We did, and that’s what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about recognition; I’m talking about respect. I respect the laws of Canada as I implore you to have respect for our law.
But are we at a standoff when I’m talking about that? This is where reconciliation talks — so now I will go through so that I do not sit here talking to you all night long when my seven minutes has already expired, probably.
But let me tell you this: When I was negotiating a self-government agreement with Canada, they wanted us to write our constitution. Our constitution is oral; it must not be written. The very act of writing our constitution is in itself unconstitutional. As my good sister points out, the language is unwritten, and is Anishinaabe.
Your laws must be understood and interpreted in either English or French. Our law is no different. It must be interpreted, must be understood, adjudicated, in the Anishinaabe language insofar as the Anishinaabe Nation is concerned.
I am telling you that because that’s what sacred law is, and sacred law isn’t the domain of the Creator exclusively. How do we know what the Creator is thinking? That’s why we’re always in ceremony, so that we can determine what the messages are through our own institutions, and these are institutions of governance, how we regulate ourselves.
On the one hand, when we were asked to write this constitution, the ones that are telling us that are telling us from the point of view of a constitution which is not inherent but rather delegated from Great Britain.
The Pueblos, Maoris and other nations do not have written constitutions. England, which delegated its constitution to Canada, does not have a written constitution, yet to get past that hurdle, we have to write ours. It cannot be done. Many things cannot be done, but yet there’s a way, and that’s what I want to talk to you about.
This law comes from the Creator and our ancestors. So you have a history, and you believe in case history, precedence; we have our laws and our history, which are as legitimate and valid as everybody else's. I’m not telling you, so I implore you to recognize that; that is a fact.
From that, Canada was born. It was pointed out to you that Canada originates from indigenous peoples, the Haudenosaunee Iroquois Confederacy. With all due respect and love and honour to them, beautiful people. We have treaties with them as the Anishinaabe Nation.
As the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty No. 3, you’ll notice in the diagram the keyword is “in.” Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty No. 3. We are part of the larger nation of Turtle Island, Anishinaabe Nation that ranges from the East Coast to the Rocky Mountains clear down to the Carolinas. That’s the Anishinaabe country which we shared with the Haudenosaunee and the Sioux-speaking peoples, many nations.
I carry a pipe which they had at treaty in 1701 with real nations, not First Nations as community or bands under the Indian Act. So these treaties endure.
We are part of that large nation, and thus we refer to ourselves as Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty No. 3.
I am a citizen of that nation. I’m a former chief of that community. I’m a former grand chief of the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty No. 3, and I continue to advise the national chiefs to this day because I had the honour of being called upon to help with the formulation of these institutions or organizations, and they still endure. I met with them again last night.
From Canada, then you have Crown governments. The federal, provincial and other levels of government — territorial and municipal governments and institutions.
Across the way where we are, we have a traditional government. That’s why, in my territory, the Grand Council Treaty No. 3 is the traditional government of the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty No. 3, and we have laws.
But being oral, as I said, we cannot write the constitution. But there are four levels of law: the sacred law, which cannot be written; the traditional law, which cannot be written either; Anishinaabe law, and parts of it can be written. The part that is written gives us the privilege to write our laws in French or other languages so that we can get along with other people.
From these governments, there are the Crown laws. On the other side, we have —
[Editor's Note: Mr. Kelly spoke in his native language.]
— which means essentially law. That means law in itself as well as the process of exercising jurisdiction. That’s the law-making and the exercise of jurisdiction.
Now, if we say that we’re not part of Canada because we haven’t been invited, even though we welcomed the hoarders, and even though we have treaties, you’ll notice that the treaty — and I was also there in the negotiations of 1982, the Canadian Constitution, that referred to the treaty and Aboriginal rights. The word I tried for was “guaranteed” in addition to “recognition” and “affirmation.” It’s just as well.
Here’s the interesting thing. I want to share this with you. You would know this. After that was made, that was supposed to be a new relationship. After how many new relationships have we started over the period? Starting with our own treaty in 1873, starting with when we welcomed you, starting with the Royal Proclamation of 1763. How many new relationships have we started? Then 1969 was supposed to be another new relationship amongst us. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was supposed to be the marking of a new relationship; the statement of reconciliation, and so on. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is supposed to be a new relationship. But as my good sister pointed out, these must be points of action, why they’re called “call to action.”
I was there at the intimate part of those negotiations because I was part of those negotiations, alongside then National Grand Chief Phil Fontaine, Kathleen Mahoney, Bob Watts, Charlene Belleau, me and a host of lawyers. After 1982, we created an industry. After that, what does it mean? Is it an empty box or a full box? I thought I knew what I was doing. All of a sudden, lawyers started to create sections within their law firms dealing with section 35. Shortly after that, and with the Crown starting to fill the box through their pronouncements, it started to be filled. Now there is the doctrine of consultation, finally. But consultation within the circumscription of existing policies and case law. We created a billion-dollar industry for law firms, but our people are still living as they are, as was pointed out.
I’m not here to talk to you and remind you of those. Those are facts you know about. I’m sure your ears ring with the horrendous stories you’ve been told, and I’m not about to belittle them. Given that, my proposition to you is to listen to a fact. I implore you to educate the other chamber. As much respect as I have for the current ministers, it’s above the ministers. It is the Canadian government, as a whole, on a nation-to-nation basis — not minister-to-chiefs only, political leadership. It is nations, in the true sense of the word.
I will speak about the laws that exist on the Canadian side and the laws that we have. While I do not have any particular knowledge or wisdom of my own, I am relaying to you historical fact as was inculcated to me by the elders of the ages and what they intended when they said, “I will tell you what the Creator told us when he planted us on this earth. He gave us laws that we must live by.”
So you have your laws. We are not at a standoff. We have a situation that calls for action. What is that action? This is where the action is, and it’s not hard, political willingness being in place. I call it “the harmonization of the administration of laws.” Canada’s laws will not be negotiated with us. Nor are we interested in exercising federal or provincial jurisdiction. We’re interested only in exercising our own jurisdiction, and to do that we have to get along with you. So we will harmonize the harmonization. We will harmonize the administration of your laws and our laws and how they get along. That is the point of contact. That is the point of reconciliation, because ultimately what happens is freedom, sovereignty and reconciling it. The practical aspects of all this are the practical aspects of inherent right and self-government — not the platitudes and the statement but, rather, the practical aspects. That is, how will your laws and our laws harmonize with one another in terms of practical administration, in education, in child care, in all of those? It also means that we must have effective self-governments, as we’ve always had throughout the ages. We shared many things with you, but now comes the time again to implore and to ask for inspiration of those seven laws of Creation. First, love — I don’t mean romantic love and we walk away hand in hand, arm in arm, hugging one another all the way to the horizon. I’m talking about love in the sense that the Creator mentioned, that we are brothers and sisters. In my language, “family” means:
[Editor's Note: Mr. Kelly spoke in his native language.]
The translation of that is “hearts folded into one heart.” That’s what we are, by way of the Creator. So love, kindness, being to one — not hegemony, not subjugation or subordination, but equal partnership. That’s what respect is: love, kindness, sharing. In our traditional law, there is no concept of extinguishment or surrender, as is said in the treaties. In our language, we agreed to share. That is a law.
If our people had understood that, those treaties never would have been signed because there was no proper interpretation. I repeat: love, kindness, sharing and respect. I also mention to you the others: love, kindness, sharing, respect, truth, courage and humility.
With that, I have overextended my seven minutes, but I hope I have made it clear. We can talk for days and days on this, but I would implore you, as senators, if you’re looking for the answer, if you’re looking for the solution, it is founded on those seven laws of Creation and the practical aspects of our reconciling of sovereignty, as begs the Canadian Constitution as it does. You understand what I’m talking about. I’m not talking platitudes; I’m talking terms of practicalities. You understand that. It’s above party politics. It’s above politics. It has to do with —
[Editor's Note: Mr. Kelly spoke in his native language.]
-- life. It has to do with —
[Editor's Note: Mr. Kelly spoke in his native language.]
— the seven laws of Creation and others. Meegwetch, Mr. Chair. I’m sorry that I overspoke.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, Elder Kelly. I didn’t think for a moment of interrupting you. It was very much appreciated.
I’d like to turn to some of our colleagues to ask questions, beginning with Senator Tannas.
Senator Tannas: I’d like to thank you all for being here, for speaking from the heart and for providing your wisdom. We’re near the end of the first phase of our study. We talk about what this new relationship would look like, and our motivation for doing this is exactly as you said, Elder Kelly. There have been many times that we’ve been at this point, or it felt like we were at this point. That is, where everybody is willing, there are the right people with the right intentions, and we wanted to try to make some kind of a contribution. The contribution that we felt was important was to try to provide some clarity for what the future would look like. What does perfection look like for your descendants?
I’m a believer, and I was inspired to support this study on the basis that if you want to get somewhere, you have to start by saying, “Here’s where we are.” If you’re in the swamp, you can’t say, “Oh, I’m in a beautiful forest,” when in fact you’re in a swamp. You can’t do that. You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t acknowledge where you are.
But just as important is to say where it is you’re going to go. I have felt that there’s a lot of information that tells us we’re in the swamp, but there is not clarity to me, as a senator who has been on this committee for four and a half years, who told Canadians, Albertans, and got 350,000 votes to come here because I was specifically committed to this. It’s not clear to me, after all this time, where we’re going.
What does it look like? What does your children’s children’s children’s day look like? How do they interact in Canada? Where do they live? What is it that you want? If you could, give us what’s in your heart and mind for your descendants and how they would live in Canada perfectly. If everything worked out, if everything got negotiated and fixed and it was all ancient history and behind those great-great-grandchildren, what does their life look like?
Anything you can give on that would be greatly appreciated.
The Deputy Chair: Maybe I’ll ask each panelist if they’d like to answer that very visionary question, beginning with Elder Kelly, please.
Mr. Kelly: How long are you giving me, Mr. Chair? Don’t answer that.
To me, it seems in my view the matter is identity. I believe that your children know who they are, because you taught them. You raised them.
Our people live in a myth. Our people are subjugated in a myth. The Indian Act determines. If you want to get past the Indian Act, people seem to have difficulty with what happens beyond the Indian Act. I can tell you. Freedom. Loosening the chains.
I had the honour of talking to Nelson Mandela when he was here. I gave him a jacket that he wore proudly. He invited me to South Africa. I told him, “It must be nice to be free, because we are fighting for the same thing here in Canada, even to this day.”
He said, “You will achieve it, but don’t forget that when you achieve freedom, you must be kind to your people who imprisoned you.” And that is the challenge. Can we be as kind?
But being of a certain identity, I am Anishinaabe, with laws, with all that identity means. I don’t mean that as platitudinous, because when you know who you are and where you come from and are a full participant in this country, you have that freedom. You are free to express yourself and to participate on the basis of your particular laws and your particular ways of life. This is what we see is happening.
So we ought to talk about what happens after the Indian Act. You will see that what I’m talking about here is the practicalities of all the laws, living together with you in peace and harmony. I believe that’s what we’re after.
Again, I just do not have a vision over here where I can say we’re going to walk off into the horizon living happily every after. We’re going to share our challenges. We’re going to share our successes.
So if you get away from those pieces of legislation, start with that identity, of removing that enforced membership under the Indian Act, the one that determines who is going to be a Metis, who will be an Indian, who will be an Inuit. Who determines whether you’re going to be a Canadian, Mr. Senator? Your citizenship code does that for you, and you enjoy that.
That’s the beginning. I won’t go any further than that, Mr. Chair, because I want to make sure that other people have an opportunity to express themselves. But that, to me, is the crux of freedom that I’m talking about.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. Elder Verna, would you like to try to answer that challenging question?
Ms. Porter-Brunelle: Yes. So the question was how we see our children, our descendants.
The Métis Nation of Ontario next year will be 25 years old, so we’re very young. We don’t have the expertise that my two colleagues have, so we have a long way to go yet. We have some rough roads.
Like Elder Kelly said, we have to know where we come from in order to know where we’re heading, and the Metis people have had a hard time knowing where we’re going because we’ve been shamed and we didn’t have the freedom. We were in hiding. Who wants to be related to Louis Riel, who was hanged? So we went into hiding, and it’s taken a long time for us to come out and admit who we are.
The education system has come forward and has documentation now where the students can self-identify whether they’re Metis, First Nations or Inuit, which has been a big help. They’re finally coming out of the woodwork, the closet, whichever way you want to put it. So it has helped us.
I think that’s going to be a big step, to know who the Metis people are and where we came from.
I was at an elders gathering in Edmonton a couple of weeks ago where there were 4,600 people, and I remember saying to someone, “You didn’t mention Metis much in your speech.” One of the friends I was with said, “Well, if it wasn’t for us, you wouldn’t be here.” It was a First Nations lady.
So we honour where we come from, but we’re just coming out now to say we are from our First Nations people and we’re proud to have European blood with us. So I think teaching our young and making them proud is a step.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. Professor?
Ms. Commanda: What a loaded question. How do you respond to that in 60 seconds? How do we talk about since time immemorial in 60 seconds or seven minutes? How do we explain identity?
I really appreciate Elder Kelly, because he hit it right on the nail. Identity. Identity is so important. Especially, too, when he spoke about being a full participant in a country.
What I could add to this, where do I even begin? There’s so much that needs to be said. What do we envision for our descendants? What is it going to look like in the future? First of all, the only perfection is with the Creator, number one.
What we would like to see, or what my vision would be, is where our children could live in this country, their country of birth, where they were created and where they are created; where they can live in a peaceful country; where they are respected for who they are; where they don’t have to worry about racism; where our women and children don’t have to be worried about disappearing or being murdered; where our children are respected for who they are.
And we’re all Canadians. All Canadians would celebrate First Nations culture, ways and identity. Come and join with us to learn who we are and celebrate that.
It is true what Elder Fred said; we are not a myth, but unfortunately, we’ve become a myth, or we’ve become a very lucrative business. Native spirituality has become a very lucrative business. I’m sure you’ve heard of the bookDisrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation. That’s what we’ve become, a billion-dollar industry, yet we are the poorest of the poor. What we see for the future is that our children do not live in poverty, because we never had poverty before. We didn’t. Poverty was introduced on our shores in 1492, and it’s worse today.
So if there’s a $10 billion myth, $10 billion to First Nations, then we would certainly be the richest of the rich, but instead we are the poorest of the poor.
I want our children to live in peace and harmony, to have sustainable housing, to have access to employment and training and to have jobs, where they will be full participants in their country. We live together in mutual understanding and respect, and who we are, our spirituality and our identity, is not a myth, nor is it for the taking with cultural appropriation, because today we are dealing with cultural appropriation. We are dealing with new-age concepts and practices that are introduced into our ceremonies and our teachings, and our children have to deal with this. They don’t understand it if I as an adult don’t understand it.
So I want to see a future where there is not the cultural appropriation of our spirituality and where our children will live their birthright without having to beg for who they are, in the same sense as I said earlier. Why are we begging for $1.50? Our languages are worth much more than that. Where our children can live in a society in which they are accepted, because the reality is that racism is still here in this country and our people are not accepted, and we’ve got to deal with that.
We have to action out racism and oppression, and we have to action in the inclusiveness of respect and living with that spirit and intent of our treaties and that coexistence, mutual understanding and respect, where our children not only have a place in their communities but a place in Canadian society as well.
I’ll tell you from a personal note. I’m 61 years old. I’m a mother of four and a grandmother of 10. I’ll tell you, sometimes it’s hard. It’s hard to walk out in society; I feel like a total stranger in my own homeland because no one knows who we are. Many come from afar from different countries. They don’t know who we are as the First Peoples of the land that they’re coming onto. We don’t exist. I can’t be like that anymore. I don’t want to feel like a stranger in my own homeland, and I don’t want my children or my grandchildren to feel this way.
My grandfather William Commanda was the chief of our community, and about 55 years ago he said, “I want to see a time when my granddaughter can live freely and be accepted in Canada for who she is as one of the First Peoples here, where she’ll be respected and doesn’t have to become a grandmother and demand the same things that I am demanding for my grandchildren.” And here I am now, 55 years later; I’m a grandmother and I’m still demanding and fighting for the same things that my grandfather fought for 50-plus years ago. We can’t go on like this anymore.
To go back to this, the vision is that it’s premised on the identity for our children, where they are loved and respected. Therefore, they themselves have that place, their self-determination and their nationhood or sovereignty, where all Canadians will come to understand that, will come to understand first sovereignty or self-determination in our nationhood and that our First Nations children are those first citizens of Canada. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, all of you. I want to thank Senator Tannas for asking a tough question that was I think very well answered. Senator Tannas was a driving force behind this study, so that’s appreciated.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Your dream for the future is that your children will have their own identity. We know that identity necessitates the survival of language. You just said that you are given a $1.50 per person for language classes. You had to have a lot of imagination to try and maintain that. What measures did you take to ensure the survival of certain languages? You can’t do everything, but we are talking about the survival of certain indigenous languages.
[English]
Ms. Commanda: Yes, we must be very creative, and we are very creative. Absolutely. Thank you for that question.
What kind of message? Community volunteers. Community members stepping up to the plate, such as our elders and language speakers, to volunteer their time to develop and to deliver programs.
An example I’ll give you is our centres having a language nest, where elders, youth and parents gather at a community centre or in a classroom, and it’s the exchange of language, where the elders are giving their teachings and speaking their languages. That’s one example.
Another example is the sharing of best practices amongst all our cultural centres. Sharing those resources and ideas amongst one another and sharing those recommendations with one another, helping one another out. That’s another form of creativity or meeting those very important fundamental needs to ensure that our languages continue to survive.
Reaching out to our leadership and asking our leadership to support us in the work that we do and to support the need for adequate funding. We leave the political side of matters to our leaders, but we draw upon our elders to help us ensure that we are on the right track of maintaining our ancestral knowledge and our language speaking and to develop resources, volunteers and donations from community members, as well as donations from other sources.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Did you think of other measures the committee could suggest to the government to help you in this so that the work is not done entirely on a volunteer basis, or is there any other method you could suggest?
[English]
Ms. Commanda: Absolutely. Yes. If the committee could help the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres to encourage, or I guess — maybe the word “force” is too strong, but basically to encourage the federal government, the Canadian government, to see, understand and validate our First Nations languages and the importance of how funding is needed. Absolutely.
First, take our Cultural Education Centres Program out of the proposal-driven funding stream because it could be taken away from us at any given moment. It is year-to-year. Mind you, they have been funding it for the last 45 years, but the funding has stayed the same. But we would like the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs to see the value of their own program, the Cultural Education Centres Program, to take this program and turn it into a permanent program with adequate core funding for each of our centres and to increase funding on an annual basis.
If the committee could support us with advocating for a permanent program and increased funding — more than the $5 million. That’s one wish.
The other is for the federal government to understand that the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres needs to be at the table. We need to have a viable place with a voice and decision making at the table for the language legislation. I don’t understand why the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs doesn’t understand or see the value of who we are as cultural centres, and we should be at that table on the development of language legislation.
The Department of Canadian Heritage has certainly reached out to us and is speaking with us, and they see the value of the work that we’re doing as cultural centres, that we need to be at the table of language legislation and the development of language programming and the need for resourced language funding for our cultural education program and services. So that’s another wish.
But if there’s any way that you can advocate to the federal government on our behalf that our program needs much more than that $5 million. It absolutely does. So our cultural centres can develop more new programs, because right now we have to maintain the same activities on an annual basis because we can’t do any more than what we can do because the funding never changes. Mind you, we’re very appreciative of the funding we have. Absolutely we are. However, we can do more with much more funding, and we should not strain our elders with their time. They certainly help us. We appreciate them, but they must be compensated too.
[Translation]
Ms. Porter-Brunelle: Thank you for the question. With regard to the French language, for the Metis Nation, our language is Michif. We call it a “broken” language.
[English]
I will continue in English because my French only goes so far. In the Metis language, we speak Michif, which is what we used to call a “slang French,” or, pardon me, but it used to be called “bastard French,” which was a very derogatory word, as well as “half-breed,” which is what we were called.
The Michif language — we ask our elders. Our elders are the ones who hold the language. So we get our elders and families involved. We do a lot of interviewing. We also got equipment and started taping our elders, even in the cooking classes, and they showed us how they cooked and they translated into the Michif language.
We encourage our language. We try to bring it up whenever we can. A few years ago, we secured some funding and we publicized a Michif dictionary which has words in English, French and Michif, and we find that Michif and French are very close. It was like slang French, as I say. So our dictionary is available.
We have an office here in Ottawa. Our head office is here in Ottawa, so everyone is welcome any time to go to the office and pick up any information. We have these little dictionaries available as well. Anyone who speaks French will be able to tie in to what I’m saying.
So funding would be a great thing, if we could also get funding for our language. We encourage it. We try to teach our children as much as we can with the Michif language. A lot of people don’t know that the Metis have a language of their own, but they do.
Mr. Kelly: I have my particular views on that. I also want to touch upon what the previous senator pointed out, and congratulations for heading out and being so evocative on this issue of studying and learning what it is we have to do with practical means.
In that context, and also touching on the educational aspects, one of our chief negotiators in 1873, in Treaty 3, said this, and I believe in that statement he made lies part of the answer to your particular question: What are we leaving to our children? What do we see for our children having as a future?
Listen to these words very carefully, what he said — that’s the translation now, for certain. Chief Sakatcheway said, as he got up to shake the commissioner’s hand, “If you grant what I ask you, the time will come when we will ask you to lend us one of your children, one of your sons, one of your daughters, to come and live with us, and we will teach them that which is good of our ways. And then we will lend you one of our sons and one of our daughters, and you will teach them that which is good and they will come back and tell us what they have learned.”
That to me is the partnership and sharing that I was talking about. Today we see that in the form of integration. Particularly we see that in young children before they are old enough to hate and they get along well with one another.
I may get sentimental because we’re talking about children here, but in terms of the methodology under which I learned traditional education, everything that I know about traditional medicine and traditional law I learned from my mother and my grandmother, because my father died when I was four and a half and immediately captured by the residential school system, which proposed to take away everything I had learned up to that point.
Our children learn through a system of andragogy, not pedagogy. And I ask this question rhetorically: When each one of you escorts your grandchildren and escorted your own children to school, did you abdicate your responsibilities to teach your children at the door? You continued. Ours were taken away, and we never had a chance to have a determination as to what was going to be taught and how it was going to be taught. So talk about methodology, where a concept is introduced to you, even at a very young age, and you think about it. It doesn’t explain to you. You think about it and then you ask questions. And I asked many questions about many concepts that were explained to me in the Catholic religion, and I got beaten up for asking those questions because I was a non-believer by asking those questions. Case in point: What is the blessed virgin? I’m not talking about dirt or filth or lust here. I’m talking about how is it, how can this be. It’s in the Bible and the catechism. Believe it. But how can it be? Can you not understand this thing? Well, no, I can’t understand because I’m at that certain age. I don’t even know what the heck sex is all about or procreation. Well, that’s dirty, you have a filthy mind, you’re of the devil — those kinds of things.
When I asked my mother these kinds of questions, she tried as best she could to explain to me what marriage was about. I was told my parents are married under pagan laws and their marriage is not valid. I am illegitimate.
Give me a break.
So you see, what we were talking about here is that when you teach the children in their language what that word means, they look at it and experiment with it, then they come back and ask questions, and the parents are involved. As much as we need volunteers nowadays, the parents were there, fully involved in the education of their children — not institutionalized.
There is a place for institutionalization, of course, but in those institutions, it seems to me, now that we have brought in — and in 1974, we were one of the first communities to bring in our own education to administer that when I was chief. What we talked about at that point and what we still need to this day is a system of governance —management — and we need quality to be determined by us that will be in harmony with, to the senator’s point, what is being taught in the mainstream — not necessarily assimilated but on an equal basis.
Of course we need standards, and we need the finances. Those are some of the things that we need.
So what I’m talking about here is jurisdiction to control those things and control them with you, with your children, in the words of Chief Sakatcheway— where you can have your children come to our community, and we will teach them that which is good, and vice versa, and we can interchange. That way, in the next 150 years, they don’t have to wonder what it is we were talking about or what it is we seek.
Meegwetch.
Senator Enverga: Thank you for a very important presentation. We were listening really intently here and with great interest.
My question is more in line with the question of Senator Tannas. We always talk about real reconciliation. We talked about real work or real things to do. If you notice, we have a lot of distinguished senators right now with the “blood of the eagles” — with the blood of indigenous people — and if the people from the great First Nations now were the government, what is the first thing you’re going to be doing so we can have real reconciliation? If you’re in government right now, you have the power and everything. What is the first thing you would be doing to ensure that there will be real reconciliation?
Ms. Commanda: Take our people out of the control of the federal government.
Senator Enverga: That controls them?
Ms. Commanda: When you look at section 91.24 of the British North America Act, 1867, it states all Indians and Indian lands are the jurisdiction of the federal government; that is, you create laws such as the Indian Act, and you create a ministry to administer the Indian Act. I always hear my elders speak about this; they’re saying we have our freedoms and our self-determination, but when we look at it from Canadian law, we are a controlled people — a legalized people — because our identity is found in this Indian Act, and we become a legal “Indian.”
We’re a controlled people. We’re wards of the Crown, because we’re still under section 91.24.
It’s the process of decolonization, first, whereby our First Nations — to go back to this word of jurisdiction, the jurisdiction to the right of our land, our nationhood or sovereignty, and our self-determination, where our laws and government will be recognized and valued or validated as part of Canadian life or Canadian society. But more important, you have to dismantle these institutions and systems that continue to control and oppress First Nations people.
In a sense, you can say “to take us out of this Indian Act.” But what will replace the Indian Act? We need to ensure that the federal government lives up to its judiciary obligations that it owes to First Nations people, because it created that fiduciary obligation under that section 91.24 and also in the treaties; there are obligations there that the federal government must honour and respect.
See the value of those treaties, because they’re very sacred. They’re living documents. The treaties must be honoured.
You must dismantle these institutions and these systems that oppress the people. We must no longer be a controlled people. We must be a people to restore our places in those original states that we were in before colonization. I know we can’t go back to the essence and the originality, but we certainly can become, live, maintain and enhance freedoms, sovereignty and self-determination where we have that jurisdiction to decide, to determine, to speak and to live it.
Ms. Porter-Brunelle: First of all, I want to apologize for the cough drops and the water. My husband and I share everything, and he shared his cold with me this week. He’s in the back coughing, and I’m doing this.
I want to thank you for the question. With all due respect to my comrade here, we want the federal government to recognize us, because for so long we were the hot potato. The provincial government didn’t want us and neither did the federal government, so they kept tossing us back and forth, because Metis did not exist, right? Even though we were in the Constitution, we weren’t recognized. So we want the federal government to finally recognize us, and that’s why we went to the Supreme Court over all of this.
There is a difference between being controlled and being recognized. With all due respect, Claudette, yes, you were controlled. We want the government to recognize us and to help us with the things that I brought up, like education and housing. We have to fight for everything, for our children to go to school. Our housing is terrible. Like I said, we’re only 25 years old. We’re still a young nation, but we’ve come a long way in those 25 years. We’ve been to the Supreme Court three times and won every case.
We’re looking for funding for our Michif language. A lot of people didn’t know we had a Michif language. So we looking for funding for our students’ education.
The health system really needs help, because as you all know, diabetes is very big among Aboriginal peoples. What’s happened now is that people cannot afford the strips to take their blood tests. So instead of doing two or three strips a day, they do one, because they can’t afford it. So they end up in the emergency room. That’s not helping; that’s not helping our emergency system or our people.
So we need funding.
The wish list the commissioners did by going to the 29 communities across Ontario took them four months. It’s a long way from Fort Frances and all the little places in between, every day in a hotel or motel. The next day was to travel to the next place, sit down and listen to the people. The next day was getting in your car and travelling to the next place. Ontario is quite large, especially in northern Ontario, where you travel five hours before you hit another place.
Some of the things they brought forward were that health, education and housing were some of the big issues they have, especially in northern Ontario where travel is a long way. Taking a train, bus or airplane is terrible. To fly from Timmins to Toronto, you may as well go to Florida. We need help in that way from the federal government. We’re coming with a wish list within the next couple of months, and we’re going to present it like Santa Claus and hope that we can get some of these wishes obtained for the Metis people.
The Deputy Chair: Senator, could I ask you if you would make the results of that work available to the committee through our clerk? I think that would be very valuable to us.
Ms. Porter-Brunelle: It’s in the draft mode right now.
The Deputy Chair: I understand that.
Ms. Porter-Brunelle: I will speak to the office in Ottawa and we will get it to you.
The Deputy Chair: When the time comes, that would be appreciated.
Senator Enverga: Is it possible for that letter to be part of our project so that we will be able to support them?
The Deputy Chair: Yes. We have time to consider that report during the period of our study. That would be appreciated. You can communicate to all of us through our clerk.
Ms. Porter-Brunelle: I’ll get the address. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much.
Looking at the time, I’d like to move on to Senator Pate, please.
Senator Pate: Thank you for all of you. My head is going in every which direction. When that happens, I’ll come back to something that is a little more comfortable for me to ask, and it comes from your response to the last question, Claudette. I say this with humility and I don’t mean any disrespect. Is it possible to decolonize in an incremental way? I ask that in part because of your comment about the need to decolonize and dismantle institutions and ensure that Canada lives up to fiduciary and treaty obligations and the negotiations that happened pre- and post-Confederation.
One of the areas that I always think of when I think of this is an area that I know better than other areas, which is when we talk about our so-called criminal justice system and the fact that we seem to have no end of resources for police, courts and corrections. We know that indigenous peoples are overrepresented, a word that isn’t adequate to describe the area that I worked in most recently after working with young people, where 39 per cent of the women’s federal jail population are indigenous women and 43 per cent of girls in youth custody are indigenous.
So all kinds of resources are being put into those sectors, but I would suggest we could make policy decisions very differently and incrementally. Last week, I believe it was Mr. Sanderson who was before us, and he suggested we start with, say, pardoning 80 per cent of the indigenous people who have been criminalized and demand that those resources be in the community. I may be misparaphrasing or I may have misunderstood, because he said a lot of things that I don’t pretend that I fully comprehended. He was very insightful, as you have been.
I think of things being done now, like special courts, special institutions and new justice committees on reserves. None of that, to my mind, is decolonizing. They’re all about reinforcing the current system, not really decolonizing any of those. Even some of the calls to action almost presume the continuation of the current system.
I’d be interested in what your views are about whether we could reapply those resources. Could communities be supported to have those resources to provide education, health care, housing and clean water in those communities instead of, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer said in 2010, spending $348,000 a year to keep a woman in prison, for instance? What could communities do with it? It strikes me that is one way we could start incremental decolonization, but I don’t in any way mean to be disrespectful if that is an ignorant or uninformed starting point. I would welcome all of your comments on that.
Ms. Commanda: Thank you, Kim. I appreciate that. Sorry, Senator Pate, I appreciate that.
Senator Pate: We’ve known each other too long. Call me Kim.
Ms. Commanda: I’m absolutely a firm believer in small steps and big gains. I’m a firm believer that we cannot expect decolonization to occur overnight. It took 500 and some years to be where we are today with colonization, and especially when we look at the last 150 years. So it’s going to take time, but we need to do it in small steps because our communities also need to adjust to the changes. I am a firm believer that it has to go right down to the community level and let the communities pour in those resources to develop, implement and manage those very specific programs and resources that are needed.
If the government continues to use a pan-Aboriginal or pan-indigenous approach, it’s not going to work; it’s not. First Nations are First Nations, Innu are Innu and Metis are Metis. We’re separate, different people. Even amongst the First Nations there’s diversity there. It’s important to take into consideration the diversity within the nation or communities, the diversity of community needs, the diversity in the level of where the communities are, their sustainability and their infrastructure and the diversity of the resources. So really, we must pay close attention and consideration to diversity.
I want to add to what I said earlier about what we want to be: We do not want to be a controlled people. We do not want to be controlled by the federal government, or any government, for that matter, period. But importantly, we want the federal government, yes, to honour the treaties, to fulfill its fiduciary obligation and responsibilities to First Nations and to share the wealth of the land. The wealth of the land and the wealth of the country are generated from the resources of First Nations people.
The federal government can do that. I believe the federal government can do that, but there has to be the political will, and there also has to be the will of the Canadian people to see that First Nations people need to be respected as equal citizens in this country. There has to be that political will. There has to be what I’ll call the citizens’ will, as well. By removing First Nations as a controlled, people because we are under that Indian Act, the federal government still can maintain its fiduciary obligation and responsibilities to us, and by doing so, that’s a form of decolonization. It absolutely is, to see and understand that no longer should there be legislation that is going to define a people and that’s going to set criteria for how one becomes an Indian or a registered member of a community. We determine that through our citizenship and through our own laws.
The Deputy Chair: I don’t want to interrupt anyone, but we do have one more senator who would like to be heard from. Can you wrap up, professor?
Ms. Commanda: Yes, Senator Pate, I do believe that decolonization can take place, can happen and can be successful in small steps, absolutely. We have to start somewhere; we have to. And if we have to start small, then so be it. It could happen. It could be successful.
The Deputy Chair: Senator and Elder Kelly, I know you’ll understand we need to be brief at this point, please.
Ms. Porter-Brunelle: I’ll make this fast. As I said in my opening, I am an elder on the justice committee and I’m the only Metis on the committee. So what I’m pushing for is that when somebody is charged and is going to jail, they have something, like a form, so that they can self-identify whether they’re Metis, First Nations or Inuit, and we can put resources into the jail system. If they’re Metis, they have someone to go to. Right now there is nothing. There is no way at all of saying who is who. They are just all Aboriginal people and they don’t care.
The other thing we’re pushing for is the Gladue system. Each one is an individual, diversity needs. It’s not because that person is bad. Their grandparents were residential. Their parents were residential. They were never brought up properly. What did they do? They hit the streets. They stole a car, whatever. They’re not hardened criminals. We’re trying to stop sending them to jail. We’re trying to train police officers, lawyers, judges, before they get into the jail system. I have lots more to say, but I’m going to cut it off there.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much.
Elder Kelly.
Mr. Kelly: Perhaps my comments could be in the form of rhetorical questions as well, return them to you.
Do you feel, as senators, that Canada was decolonized? I ask that by way of a rhetorical question. Do you feel, as citizens of Canada, that you are free? Do you feel that you are capable and have the requisite decision-making powers? Are you autonomous? Are you self-governing? Do you have an identity? Are you free, which is what sovereignty really means, the inherent right to self-determination?
If you feel confident and if you are comfortable with that, we have had nothing less and we seek nothing less but that basic and fundamental freedom. Is decolonization possible? Not only is it possible, it’s mandatory, as human beings, because freedom in this day and age requires an effective governance system and effective decision-making process, institutions that are free from forced decision making. Aren’t those fundamental rights? Aren’t those consistent with the United Nations declaration? Aren’t those consistent with the calls for action under the TRC? Are those not consistent with treaties that I’ve been trying to explain? Those are the answers to whether decolonization is possible. It has to be. Meegwetch.
Senator Christmas: I want to thank the three of you for coming here this evening and for sharing your wisdom and knowledge with us this evening. I also want to thank Senator Tannas for his question.
I was profoundly struck by the answers from all three of you. I’m probably the newest senator here, and I’ve been at a number of these hearings the last several months and I’ve heard from several witnesses, but I think I can say with some confidence that your vision of the future describes things that are of the heart or of the spirit and don’t necessarily come from government legislation or government programs. I was so struck by that, that the answer was our identity; the answer was the seven teachings of love and kindness and sharing and respect. And the problem was racism, which is the opposite of the seven teachings.
I was really moved and struck by your vision for your grandchildren, and I’m a grandfather of two as well. So I really appreciate how you cast a vision for the future.
Those answers struck to the very core and the very essence of the indigenous issue in Canada, that if we can deal with those issues of indigenous identity, if we can deal with the issue of the seven teachings and their opposite, racism, then I think we’re on the right path.
If I may, I want to give the context for a question that I wish to present to Elder Commanda. You talked about suicide, and you mentioned that healing will come from our culture and our language. Can you elaborate on how our culture and our language can deal with probably the worst manifestation of colonization, which is, in my mind, suicide?
Ms. Commanda: Thank you for that question. In 2002, the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres did a report for the federal government on healing, on the power of language and culture for healing our communities, the holistic health of the individual, of families, of communities and nation. Our research identified, demonstrated and highlighted how language and culture are so fundamental and vital to healing, intervention and prevention, reclaiming, restoring, revitalizing teachings, a nation’s teachings, their ceremonies, their ways of life.
For some communities that have lost their ceremonial knowledge and ways, we found neighbouring communities with the same language-speaking people and brought those elders and those ceremonial people into the communities. Therefore, that community that was suffering and needed healing was able to recover, to revitalize and restore their culture and ceremonies.
Today, we’re dealing with the child and youth suicides that are rampant in our communities, which is a national tragedy and disgrace for Canada. In the same way that murdered and missing indigenous women is a national disgrace. We still have that report and nothing has changed. Our ancestral knowledge doesn’t change our ways of life. We still have that report, and unfortunately it was never utilized by the government. We reached out and said, “We have the answers. We have the solutions. We’re here to help you to develop your health programs, your healing programs or whatever programs you have.” But they did not utilize or take our report into consideration.
Today, with the current situation of youth suicide, we still have that report. Our communities, our cultural centres, it’s all about the essence of the language, just the fact of when you bring children in and give them that sense, to see themselves as valuable.
Let me give you an example, if I may. There’s an Algonquin community that is suffering from dysfunctionalism due to residential schools and the child welfare system. You see the legacies of this. This community, very rich in their language, very rich in how to live off the land, but they did not have their ceremonies or that spirituality. They were dealing with drug and alcohol abuse, family violence. Two young men from the community said, “We can’t live like this anymore. We’re going to look for the drum.” And they left their community and came elsewhere and found the drum, and they learned those songs; they sang those songs. And they brought the drum back to their community and they offered it to the children, to the youth.
Those children have something now to look forward to, and they started to play their drum. They started to learn. Those young people, these young boys, they go out now and they are singing sacred honour songs. I can tell you, oh, my God, it gave them self-esteem. They’re so proud of who they are. Now they’re saying, “We Algonquin people, we have our own songs, too. Let’s go learn them.” They see the value of education. Education is so important. They see the value of that.
First of all, it’s reclaiming, then recovering and restoring identity, language and culture.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much.
We will seek to get that report, and you’ll help us to do so, I’m sure.
Honourable senators, I’d like to thank Senator Christmas for summarizing so very well for all of us here how valuable and inspirational your testimony was tonight. From the heart, as he said. We also appreciate Senator Tannas, as we began our dialogue following your excellent presentations, asking the fundamental question: What is the vision of the future? This is the fundamental question we’ll have to tackle.
I know this was very valuable for all of us tonight, and I want to thank you again, andSenator Christmas put it way better than I could. Very inspiring and valuable insight you gave us tonight.
With that, I’ll adjourn this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples.
Qujannamiik. Meegwetch.
(The committee adjourned.)