Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 18 - Evidence - February 28, 2017
OTTAWA, Tuesday, February 28, 2017
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 9:03 a.m. to study on the new relationship between Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples.
Senator Lillian Eva Dyck (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning and welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. I would like to welcome those watching our committee this morning here in the room or via the Web or CPAC.
I would like to acknowledge for the sake of reconciliation that we are meeting on the traditional lands of the Algonquin people.
My name is Lillian Dyck, from Saskatchewan, and I have the honour and privilege of chairing this committee. I will now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves, starting on my right.
Senator Tannas: Scott Tannas from Alberta.
Senator Beyak: Lynn Beyak from Ontario.
Senator Enverga: Tobias Enverga from Ontario.
Senator Boniface: Gwen Boniface from Ontario.
Senator Pate: Kim Pate from Ontario.
Senator Christmas: Daniel Christmas from Nova Scotia.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Sandra Lovelace Nicholas from New Brunswick.
Senator Watt: Charlie Watt from Nunavik.
The Chair: Thank you, senators. Our deputy chair, Senator Patterson, has just entered the room.
Senator Patterson: Good morning. Thank you.
The Chair: Today we are continuing to study what a new relationship with First Nations, Metis and Inuit in Canada may look like. We continue our look at the historical context of these relationships.
Today we have before us James Igloliorte, Retired Judge of the Provincial Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, who is an expert on the relationship between the Crown and the Inuit of Canada. Mr. Igloliorte, you have the floor, to be followed by questions from the senators. If you would proceed, please. Thank you.
James Igloliorte, Retired Judge of the Provincial Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, as an individual: Thank you.
Ullakut, illonase. Kuviasukpavunga maneligama Ottawame. Nakkumek. Kujunnamek.
[Translation]
Good morning everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about my report on the relationship between Inuit and the Government of Canada.
[English]
On April 17, 1982, I was here in Ottawa as a guest of then Labrador MP, the Honourable Bill Rompkey who incidentally had been my high school principal in North West River, Labrador. That April visit was to attend the repatriation of the Constitution of Canada by Queen Elizabeth II at a ceremony at the Parliament Buildings. I recall the pomp and ceremony of this momentous occasion in Canadian democratic history. I'm grateful today to you, as I was then to Senator Rompkey, to witness Canadian history being made.
As the Charter was refined shortly after that, it was gratifying to learn how the fight to include Aboriginal rights and women's rights, of course, into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was shoehorned by the persistent forebears to those beneficiaries of today's modern treaties. To see today that there are provisions for a federal government assessment of how effective the implementation process is working, and furthermore, to observe today that this Senate standing committee wishes to hear of the incidents of this forged relationship is sufficient proof to me that a serious effort is being made to change past institutional norms.
In September of 1982, before I started law school at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, our fourth child, Justin, was born. Naturally, he was named after our present Prime Minister, who was just then a boy, in honour of the invitation that I had received earlier that year. So your invitation to me is in fact just completing a personal circle in our family begun some 35 years ago.
I want to throw another date at you now, a date that has had great impact on the Inuit of Labrador, who call themselves Nunatsiavimuit, people of our beautiful land — the creation of our territory in 2005 following negotiations between Canada, Newfoundland and the Labrador Inuit Association.
For the 30 years before the land claims agreement was signed, Inuit had joined in, as you recall, that great worldwide movement where the aspirations and frustrations of indigenous peoples were being vocalized, possibly spurred on by such things as the challenge to the American establishment against the apparent folly of the Vietnam War. Social unrest in those days seemed to be rising in every corner of the world, including ours, and it was gaining a foothold in the challenges to the Canadian relationship with the Inuit of Labrador as well.
In Labrador, Inuit chose the path of seeking legal precedent and negotiations to pursue a formal process of treaty resolution. The newly formed Labrador Inuit Association pressed for many years to enter into negotiations to establish a comprehensive land claims agreement. In 2005, the agreement, as you are aware, was finalized, and it gave the parties the chance for the promotion of a strong and self-reliant Labrador Inuit homeland, the improvement of social well- being and economic prosperity for Inuit, and provided for all parties certainty in resource developments.
One of the legal incidents arising from the Labrador Inuit land claims agreement, or LILCA, included a newly named Nunatsiavut, meaning our beautiful land, government, which had self-government provisions of authority over such areas as culture and language, education, health care, social services, housing and environmental protection. We also gained law-making authority and some specific taxation powers.
Another incident was the creation of the Labrador Inuit Settlement Area, whereby Labrador Inuit obtained specific and defined rights in their homeland, such as harvesting of plants and the use of natural resources occurring within it.
A third component of the LILCA was the establishment of the Torngat Mountains National Park concurrent with the signing of the Nunavik Inuit Land Claims Agreement in 2008. These two national parks occupy the northern tip of the Labrador-Ungava Peninsula and the Inuit from Nunavik and Nunatsiavut have jointly and historically occupied this region, where many people have family ties on the Quebec as well as Labrador side of the peninsula.
Prior to and during the arrival of the Moravian missionaries in the mid-1700s, small groups of Inuit occupied lands from the tip of the northern Labrador at Killinek, and extending southward in the myriad fjords and wildlife-filled inlets all the way down to Gross Water Bay near Happy Valley-Goose Bay. These more northerly peoples were eventually settled by the religious and colonial pressures of Moravians at 0kak, Nutak and Hebron. In the mid-1900s, this church and the provincial government, touting health, service provisions and other reasons, forced the relocation of Inuit to communities even further to the south. That history has been described by outsiders as well as Inuit, and it left a traumatic consequence to the families who had lived up there and still exist now to the present time.
As outlined in the land claims agreement, the establishment of the national park has had the effect of bringing some of these same Inuit, 50 years later, back to an ancestral homeland at the southern entranceway to the national park, and these are just for brief summer visits. Since the establishment of the base camp in 2007, Parks Canada and the Nunatsiavut government have consistently brought elders and youth who grew up in the region to attend cultural events in the summers.
For the elders, these short forays back to the familial lands is a reminder of the wild and beautiful home they once occupied, and the trauma of the years of relocation is heightened by the memories they retain. However, even these bittersweet events do bring some degree of healing to the participants.
The introduction of bringing youth to the Torngats, as the base camp is now called, concurrent with the elders who can exchange their experiences and stories with them, transmits a pride of culture when they leave the communities further to the south where they, of course, like all young people, enjoy instant data and communications and they have to slow down to speak face to face with elders. They also gain valuable insights into the trauma suffered by their relatives and some recognition of the value of the healing power of the land and of the remote camp experience.
The base camp is located on Inuit land and borders on the south of the national park. This has allowed the establishment of a business model where Inuit operators capitalize on this tourism opportunity. While it's true that the Inuit of Nunavik and Nunatsiavut use the base camp for valuable cultural and social purposes, and that its infrastructure allows important research activity from any aspect of Canadian research and international research, the expectation we had that the base camp would be a model for economic prosperity has sadly not materialized.
The Torngat Mountains National Park has indeed helped Inuit strengthen and renew their ancestral ties to a beautiful part of northern Labrador. Parks Canada has, with a cooperative management board comprised of local Inuit partners, made great strides in preserving Inuit cultural and archaeological artifacts and sites, yet there is a missing piece of adequate financial support from the federal government to make the base camp a sustainable financial operation.
In financial terms, it is far from a going concern. This pillar for the success of the park and Inuit business needs a serious injection of federal funding through Parks Canada spending in order to reach its potential as providing the necessary support for Inuit business potential. The other pillars of cultural experience and identification and preservation of Inuit culture are on solid ground. If there were a commitment for strong financial support of a tourism opportunity, the challenge for Inuit economic developers in Nunavik as well as Nunatsiavut could be met through the ongoing communications already existing between the parties. They work well together, they know each other and they trust each other. They need financial assistance.
Another topic of importance to the members of the Labrador indigenous community is the settlement, as you may have heard in recent months, of a class action lawsuit between survivors of the Labrador residential schools and the Government of Canada. Remember that a few years back the apology given by then Prime Minister Harper to the other residential school survivors to the exclusion of people in this province was short-sighted and hurtful.
It has taken 10 agonizing years for the matter to reach a final settlement to benefit the plaintiffs, the law firms and government, and any person closely following the case would have tied this settlement, in part, to a change in the attitude of the federal government at the highest level. The air of optimism in indigenous people across Canada resulting from election promises, but being translated into visible actions and consultation by the Prime Minister himself along with the necessary cabinet ministers, important cabinet ministers, with Inuit leaders and communities, has become for us a real and palpable message of hope, particularly to the Labrador Inuit.
The incidents of that case, as I stated, call for a cash compensation to Inuit and other indigenous groups in Labrador, and further, incentives to allow for commemoration and healing not only for Inuit themselves but between the Crown and the three indigenous peoples of Labrador. Recent policy directives from all government departments that have responsibility toward indigenous people is a heartening change for the betterment of relations. In this incentive, the honour of the Crown could not be more forcefully or clearly explained to Canadians. These two interactions by the Government of Canada and the Nunatsiavut Inuit, being a transfer of Inuit self-government powers and the settlement of a painful legacy of residential schooling, speak clearly as to how a maturing Canada can best approach its relationship building with us. The land claims implementation is thankfully a process that is subject to periodic review.
In the short time since the LILCA was implemented, Inuit are proud of the accomplishments in social, health and cultural preservation. Under the umbrella of the Nunatsiavut government, the communities themselves have the autonomy to make fiscal and management decisions in which all the Labrador Inuit community leaders meet periodically, and people share and interchange ideas, hopes and frustrations. All beneficiaries who live outside the land claims area retain access to the programs, benefits and government participation in a process called the Canadian Constituency.
Contrast this form of community governance with one where historically either a religious body ran the affairs of the community or a largely foreign provincial government presence took that role at one time.
I don't have any personal or governance experience to offer you with respect to the daily workings of the two levels of Inuit community governance, that is, the central Nunatsiavut government and the community governments. Suffice to say, as an outsider looking in, the question to ask is always, by you as well as me, whether the Inuit themselves are growing in capacity, experience and practice to manage their own affairs without outside interference but with outside help.
The preferred approach is to work together in providing tools to the Inuit government and to evaluate progress, as Inuit do and as you are doing; to measure the level of responsibility in social, educational and cultural activities; to ask whether elected officials and residents feel a sense of pride and accomplishment over time in their efforts at capacity building; to allow people to learn from their successes and mistakes; and of course to work hard at building respectful, trustful relations.
A single Canadian can create a singular Canada. The actions of a Prime Minister who signals, not with words but by action, that change is possible, and a young indigenous graduate returning as a social worker to her community to build a life there and to work in the community are ways that we can measure the value of these accomplishments.
Nation-to-nation respect and trust signals the level of commitment both sides should have for each other. As we move forward with implementation of the land claims agreements and the Senate committee uses its powers to examine and appreciate indigenous peoples across Canada, the reconciliation process, healing and commemoration can all happen.
In my introduction I had described how our son Justin received his name, but I didn't tell you how he got his second name. It's Peter. It was not then a tribute to Justin's father, the Prime Minister at the time, Pierre Trudeau. In fact, there's a more Stuart McLeanesque scenario that happened, and I will describe it to you.
On the night that Mom was to deliver baby Justin, I read their favourite Little Golden classic, and strangely enough, it was called Peter and the Wolf. So, of course, when we said, "Mom and Dad chose the first name Justin. Who do you want the second name to be?'' their answer was Peter, because he had captured the big, bad wolf.
I want to thank you so much for your attention. I'm happy to answer your questions if I can. I appreciate the invitation to appear today and your kind respect as well. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much, judge, for your comprehensive yet concise overview of the Inuit in Labrador. We will now begin the first round of questioning, starting with our deputy chair, Senator Patterson.
Senator Patterson: I'd like to welcome Judge Igloliorte and thank him for his good work in the Qikiqtani region with the truth commission. That was a significant, historical event for the Inuit of Qikiqtani region and Nunavut.
Sir, in examining the question of the relationship between the Inuit and the Crown and building a new relationship, which we're studying, I think we have to recognize, as you pointed out, that the Inuit of Northern Canada — and I include Nunatsiavut and Nunavik in that description — have all settled comprehensive land claim agreements. Nunavik was the first, and Senator Watt was pivotal in that settlement, then the Inuvialuit of the Beaufort Delta region, the Inuit of Nunavut and finally, most recently, the Inuit of Nunatsiavut.
The Inuit are the envy of many other Aboriginal peoples for having settled these comprehensive claims, as you've described them. What is the place for Inuit and Canada in negotiating a new relationship since they've got a pretty solid foundation to build on with all these comprehensive land claims agreements?
I'm going to try to summarize what you said. These land claim agreements are promising. They give Inuit a lot of tools. We know the Inuit of Nunavut have had to sue the federal government for implementation of their agreement and reached a significant settlement last year. You referred to policy directives from government departments recently who have responsibility towards indigenous people as being a heartening change for the betterment of relationships. For the Inuit to improve the Crown-Inuit relationship, is getting government departments to respect the comprehensive claim agreements the main thing we need to do? Is that the big challenge here, and is that what you were referring to when you said the new policy directives are heartening?
Mr. Igloliorte: Senator, I think we recognize that what we're all trying to do in our capacities is to address the needs and build sustainability within the communities. Whatever way that appears to offer the path to that end is what we should be pursuing.
For the Inuit of Labrador, at least, we worked long and hard, elected and negotiated a settlement where, within it, there were self-government provisions; and in those self-government provisions, we thought that if we negotiated them with the Government of Canada and the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, then we would find our own path to building that sustainability and peaceful and prosperous communities for Inuit.
We placed our hopes on that process, so we're not about to abandon it. My main point is that when you review the implementations, when you review what has happened, the direction things are taking, then we feel that is the way to address those needs.
Senator Patterson: Thank you. You talked about the actions of a prime minister signalling not with words but by action that change is possible. As I'm sure you followed, the Prime Minister came to Nunavut this month and made an agreement with the Inuit leaders of Canada, presidents of the land claims organizations and the president of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada. Now, some observers have said, "Well, what was in that agreement?'' It was an agreement to meet. I think there was a commitment to meet three times a year, once with senior cabinet ministers, once with the Prime Minister. Some have said, "Well, those are encouraging words, but we have yet to see any actions, and the jury will be out about what that leads to.''
Would you say this is a good start and all we should expect of Canada is an agreement to sit down at the highest levels with Inuit leaders and plan a course forward together? Is that what reconciliation should mean for the Inuit and, I suppose, for other Aboriginal peoples of Canada?
Mr. Igloliorte: It's a change in direction, isn't it? I think that from our perspective, our responsibility as leaders — and I'm speaking for political leadership — is to continue to hold government ministers, the Prime Minister himself and the entire body of the Canadian government to a test where we are able to say words are followed by actions. I think that's really our responsibility to continue that aspect of it. But yes, in my mind, clearly in the past year, there seems to be a change and a thawing of the relationship.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Welcome here this morning. Do you think the government is living up to its fiduciary responsibility to indigenous peoples at this date?
Mr. Igloliorte: From the Labrador Inuit perspective, that was really the test I was looking at during the entire process of the residential schools case. It had gone on for ten years. There was a fair bit of acrimony between the sides. There was apparently not much movement but a lot of pushback from the parties.
I wasn't part of the discussions; in fact, I wasn't called as a witness. My residential school history was too good. I was successful, and I appeared to be not the kind of witness that should be called in a case against the government to make them feel bad so that somehow there could be some compensation.
I will say that that switch of rancour seemed to be turned off at some point, and at least a settlement was reached quite quickly. Personally, I saw that as a signal that along with the compensation, the potential for an apology to Labrador residential school survivors, and then the promise that there might be some commemorative and healing components to the agreements, and I've been asked to be a part of that delivery, it seems to be one of the ways that we could look at an improved Inuit-to-government relationship.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: I feel the government is being negligent. Do you think the only recourse would be for indigenous people to take the government to court for negligence?
Mr. Igloliorte: I'm recognizing Justice Sinclair here. When you go through a lengthy process of examining what happened in the reconciliation report arising from the residential schools agreement, there are many ways to urge Canada to work hand-in-hand in building trust relationships with Inuit and with indigenous peoples generally. As a judge, I would be the last to say that your only recourse is court. For most judges, that's the last thing we want to see. We prefer to see trust relationships resulting in either negotiated settlements or settlements that people can work on.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Thank you for your answer.
Senator Enverga: Thank you for that presentation. I have learned a lot from you today.
My question is with regard to your statement that the question to ask is whether Inuit themselves are growing in capacity, experience and practice to manage their own affairs, without outside interference. I'm surprised with that. I was thinking there is a lot of Inuit leaders who would be able to manage or be a leader and to make a more productive community. Can you elaborate on what kind of leadership and attitude you are expecting the Inuits to have, please?
Mr. Igloliorte: We saw on CBC this morning that there's a story coming from Labrador with respect to child welfare, that many Inuit children from Nunatsiavut region are being sent to Newfoundland island, and the last recourse, of course, for child welfare officials is to send these children outside of their own communities for safety and to be fostered.
The first question reporters are going to ask is: Tell us the answer. What's the answer? Do they want to know a one- liner, and somehow or another you are the person to deliver that answer so that all of these problems are solved?
My view is you have to take the position that, as an outsider, you have to ask: Is the community working hard with their partners, the Canadian government and provincial government? Is there capacity within a self-government leadership to start to address these questions, which took a long time to result in the kind of behaviour and practices and trauma that has resulted in families being unable to take care of their children? They have as much hope and love for their children as you and I do, but they have a lot of traumatic issues they've dealt for the community to reach this point.
I'm saying, don't think that there's a bullet that will solve the problem. Ask whether the people themselves are being provided the support and services to reach their own attempts at working on the question. Is the number of young people being educated as child welfare workers sufficient? Are they providing programs with the assistance of both the province and Canada to work together on these issues? That's all I meant.
Senator Enverga: With the questions about the capacity, experience and practice to manage their own affairs, are you saying that one of the solutions is autonomy, self-governance? Is that the solution for the community?
Mr. Igloliorte: It's not the only solution. Clearly, self-government doesn't mean you isolate yourself from the province or Canada. Self-government means you use any resources when you have these challenges to try to work on them, and building trust between the levels of government, in some ways nation-to-nation, is much preferred to either one side or the other saying that they can handle the issue.
Senator Enverga: You mentioned training and leadership. Do you prefer to have your own self-education, learning from the roots and the culture, rather than learning from people outside the community
Mr. Igloliorte: I can't speak for the Nunatsiavut government, but I think it's clear that this is a process. At this stage, what the Nunatsiavut government is saying is there are obviously good precedents in this country, this province and around the world for us to properly educate people like doctors or social workers or whoever they may be. Right now we're not looking inward to address the issues, at least that's the impression I have, but they're saying, "Let's become part of the Canadian community. Let's educate ourselves to those standards. Once we build capacity, then if we can use the strengths we have within our own culture, we'll move to that.'' They're clearly in a transition period when any assistance, the norms for Canadian education and support, are what we want. at this time.
Senator Pate: Thank you very much for all of your contributions, not just here at the committee but the work you've been doing for your lifetime.
In reviewing Creating Healthy Communities recommendations of the Qikiqtani Truth Commission, there were very clear links made between mental health issues, suicide, substance abuse and prisons to the government policies of the day, of the 1950s to 1975.
It struck me that one of the plans that's in place now, that's just been recently announced, is to build a new prison in the North. You've already spoken very articulately, as does the commission report, about the need for more services and capacity within communities for substance abuse, for mental health issues, for addiction support programs and services and education services generally, yet building a prison will actually draw resources potentially out of those areas. Historically that's what has happened in most parts of this country. Certainly, when it comes to indigenous peoples, it has resulted in the over-incarceration of indigenous peoples. Instead of applying those resources there, could you comment on the possibility of those resources being invested in communities so that individuals are actually having the supports in their communities in terms of health care, social services, education, programs?
In addition to that, could you speak more generally about the role of nation-to-nation discussions in developing the kinds of national standards that would increase those preventive initiatives and therefore alternatives to prison, if you will, at the back end but also at the front end, providing options so that more people aren't being marginalized, victimized, criminalized and institutionalized?
Mr. Igloliorte: When you are a judge, you often hear a lot of statements. One of the myths that's always repeated about prisons is that one third of the people should never be there, one third of the people who are there should be there and the other third should always be kept in there. It's that kind of thing that you hear from the public about how that system works.
In using the child welfare system as an analogy in making sure that the community is safe, obviously civilization as we know it to this point has said that we need these facilities to house different kinds of individuals in their interactions with law and the norms.
Just as prisons alone are not the solution, there are other ways of addressing these kinds of issues that have to be employed. I don't appreciate or understand very much about the policy decisions that go into that. I'm simply saying that there are probably always pressures on governments to approach the problem in one way or another and that it's within the authority of governments to make decisions based on priorities. I would say that better brains than mine make those kinds of decisions for many reasons.
Suffice to say that when you're looking at people's behaviour in the context of criminal behaviour or mental issues, then you have to use whatever possible resources you can to try and address specific matters coming before you, and you leave it to government officials to make those other decisions about the broader society. I'm not confident in saying anything more than that about what might be the way to address that.
When we were asked to work on the Qikiqtani Truth Commission, it started off, as many people know, as a huge outcry against what was felt to be a legacy of Inuit feeling that, in the past, the RCMP had done a great disservice by killing sled dogs. That led directly to some of the issues that Inuit were facing today.
When we sat down as an executive committee to decide whether we were going to address that issue alone, we realized that there were many deeper background matters that we had to look at, so we expanded the terms of reference with the Qikiqtani association and the NTI to really look more carefully at the entire government-to-Inuit relationships that occurred at the time. It was a much more interesting story, and it put aside to some degree what might have been a very fractious debate about whether these incidents happened and whether they led directly to the occurrence.
The point I'm making is that unless you know all of the background of what happens in any community, it's very rare to try to find a single answer for it.
Senator Pate: Thank you for that thoughtful response.
I'm thinking both in terms of your experience as a member of the community and as a judge. When one of the few resources available is a jail, in my limited experience, too often behaviour will be characterized as criminal or will be characterized as requiring a removal because that's the only resource available. I'm curious as to your perspective in terms of whether you see that and whether that fear is unfounded when I look at things like an announcement of a new jail, in the absence, seemingly, of similar announcements for appropriate mental health care, health care, social services, including addictions and the like and educational services.
The last time I was in the North, it was the place that women and children who were being removed from violent situations were being placed, largely because it was the only resource available and not because anyone believed that the women and children needed to be in jail.
Mr. Igloliorte: When you're an Aboriginal judge and you work in your own community, you're usually labelled as a bleeding heart because you never apply the same harsher standards as a rule against the people who you see coming to you, particularly Aboriginal people.
I agree with you that in our society, thankfully less than in some other societies and countries, that is usually the first resort and not the last one. I'm sympathetic to your perspective. I agree that what you're saying is absolutely true, and I leave it to people who have that kind of power and work in those areas to address them the best they can. For me, all the components must work together.
Senator Pate: Would you agree, then, that those kinds of national standards or some of those directions may be appropriate as part of nation-to-nation discussions?
Mr. Igloliorte: I agree with you.
Senator Sinclair: Good morning, Jim.
Mr. Igloliorte: Good to see you again. We were appointed, I think, in the same year. We met each other the very first year we were appointed as judges. It was a long time ago.
Senator Sinclair: You've been far more successful than I have.
Mr. Igloliorte: We won't go into that debate here.
Senator Sinclair: Let me congratulate you on your work.
This area that you've been asked to come forward and talk about is an area that I think is one that Canadians generally, and members of this committee I think, would probably agree we can learn a great deal more about than we have information around.
Let me begin with a general question, if you don't mind, and it has to do with Inuit self-determination or Inuit self- government. Are you able to talk for a few minutes with us about your understanding of what Inuit forms of self- government were like traditionally, historically speaking? How did Inuit people govern themselves? Following that, how will that benefit the conversation today?
Mr. Igloliorte: I was born in 1949, the year of Newfoundland's Confederation with Canada, and in my own Inuit community of Hopedale in northern Labrador, things were already beginning to change, in my young eyes, because I only ever knew a governance of the community through a Moravian Church system, which had come to Labrador in the mid-1750s. That church brought over, for the most part, missionaries from either Germany or that area of Europe. These were people who were quite scientifically minded. They were happy to come and work amongst Inuit. They learned the language, they translated the Bible into Inuktitut and they used Christian Protestant norms to bring order into the community.
For example, when there were any issues between families in the community, my grandfather, who was a church elder, would go with a few other mature, mostly males, and speak to the individual who might have had some issues either with his own family or whatever the case may be. I can recall as a young boy that that form of control, that form of bringing harmony, was the main idea of any of the processes used. It was to bring harmony between people.
It's similar to what's referred to as a circle sentencing process. Rather than saying that the matters should be resolved by jail, no jail, probation, you bring all the parties together to disclose how the incident that brings the whole matter to the court has affected everyone. You go through various iterations of the same issue so that, over time, you leave it for a while, you come back to it again, and then you have another opportunity to allow different people impacted by this to provide their statement and to have the people at the centre of the whole matter to continue to explain to each other and to their family and community members how they can work to resolve the matter.
That was generally how the Inuit would have worked out their matters in the times that the Moravians were present. Prior to that, I only know what I read about. For the most part, you lived in small, family, nomadic groups. You interacted with other people in camp settings, not community settings. I guess if there were differences, they were violent, and if there were not differences, then people respected each other's relationships. That was the kind of traditional work that I saw.
Of course, as you know, when we became judges, then we were part of the way the Canadian system worked and the province worked as well.
Senator Sinclair: Given that experience, what implications does that have for a dialogue today about a nation-to- nation relationship? What would a traditional form of Inuit self-government look like that would be involved in a relationship with Canada?
Mr. Igloliorte: In the Nunatsiavut government experience, of course, we're moving to different areas of authority. At the present time, we have authority in culture and child and community welfare. We have authority to make decisions about resource developments, health and education. I think there will be a point when the government itself feels it's ready to start formally moving to the justice area. That point has not yet been reached.
I really haven't heard any of those discussions as to how the Nunatsiavut government may move with respect to matters involving justice. From my perspective, because you're in small communities and everyone knows each other, of course, the model that allows that kind of interaction and to look at the impacts on people and to slow down the process of writing a decision on a case is tedious, but, as you and I know, in the long run, it has a much better outcome.
Senator Sinclair: Maybe I should make it more open-ended. Do you believe that the traditional culture and language of Inuit people have a place in the future for Inuit self-government or Inuit self-determination? If so, how important is that?
Mr. Igloliorte: The fact is in Nunatsiavut, as Senator Watt knows and Senator Patterson is aware, the use of the language is becoming less and less every day. The first challenge is to assure recapturing the language. It demonstrates a great deal of how your culture works. The first step would be making sure that everyone is reeducated into the Inuktitut language. Thinking about how using and leaving your language impacts your norms and how the community works would be a secondary step.
Senator Tannas: Thank you very much for being here. Thank you also for your service to the country, your province and your people.
I want to take a different road and try and get some personal reflections from you. Where do you live now? You have four kids. Where does Justin live?
Mr. Igloliorte: Thank you very much. Thank you for your interest in that. We have four successful children. The oldest is an engineer with Husky in St. John's. He's a naval architect. The second is a teacher of art at Emily Carr over in Vancouver. Our daughter is an art history professor at Concordia, specializing in Indian Arts. Justin became a chef. He now works in the mine in northern Labrador where the Voisey Bay nickel mine is. He's quite happy doing that.They're all married. We have four grandchildren.
My wife says she had been following me hell, west and centre for my career, and once I retired, it was time to reciprocate, so we live in St. John's, known for its balmy weather and sunshine. I have borne my cross, I try to tell her, but it hasn't worked so far.
Senator Tannas: With that in mind, I guess what I'm wondering is, given that three out of your four kids are not living in Labrador, not likely to return there, and grandchildren are going to do the same — maybe, or maybe they'll go back there. I don't know, but let's say for the moment they don't — what do you see to be the principles of the relationship between the government and your Inuit descendants?
Mr. Igloliorte: What was the last point?
Senator Tannas: Down the road, if we're looking forward rather than backwards at how things unfold, what principles would your Inuit descendants, who I suspect will be strong Inuit people—just not geographically—want to see in their relationship in the future, 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now, with the federal government?
Mr. Igloliorte: Thank you. I missed the word "descendants'' at the end. My wife and I have always believed that the biggest challenge that any couple has is to raise children and to raise them in a safe and loving home. So we decided that, above everything else, above language, above culture, above ties to my home — and, of course, she's from Newfoundland, so she's a Newfoundlander — we essentially said that what we want to see is a successful family.
I recognize that when children grow up, they have to make up their own mind about what they want to do and where they want to go, so in no way have we ever stressed that one part of your culture is more important than the other. You go where you need to go in order to get an education or determine your life as you see it to be a successful, sustainable life.
They, of course, have pride in culture, as you can see from two of our children who are in art. They emphasize Inuit art as much as they can in their work and what they do.
With respect to how governments approach people, I think it should be to the Inuit government; the Canadian government and the Nunatsiavut government have to build those trust relationships. It's the Nunatsiavut government who says we have this beneficiary population. They have these desires. They want to stay in their communities to build sustainable communities, and we can work together for them to reach their goals. But when it comes to determining what individuals do, I think they will carry their culture within them wherever they go and whatever they do. So it's really asking ourselves what we want to be as Canadians and not necessarily as a group within a particular part of Canada.
Senator Tannas: If I may, I was struck by your comment about your wife and staying in St. John's. There's a great story in Alberta of a fellow from Los Angeles whose wife is from Edmonton, and he announced that they were compromising and living in Calgary. Your comment reminded me of that.
Just so that I'm clear from your answer, it sounds to me that as we look forward, if we're talking about this government-to-person or government-to-nation relationship and all of the mechanics and issues and principles around that, your thinking is that we focus on the territory and the people within the territory, and if they're not in that territory, that they're on their own. They've chosen to go on their own.
Mr. Igloliorte: The way the self-government provisions work is that I'm still a beneficiary, my children are still beneficiaries, and so are my grandchildren. They receive the health and social benefits that anybody else can. The desire, of course, is to have people stay, if they wish, within their region and their communities; and many are doing that, and many young people are being educated and returning to the communities.
As long as the self-government provisions call for all members to receive a basic level of health care and services as they wish, then where you live is really part of how the land claims negotiations came about. So the incidence of being a beneficiary comes from that, but the government, the central Inuit government, of course, is defined within the land claims area that came out of the negotiations. These are communities within Labrador. They have their representatives from the community level as well as the Nunatsiavut government level. It is they who decide the provisions and the incidence of membership.
Senator Christmas: It's an honour and a pleasure to meet you, Justice Igloliorte.
I have a great interest in what the future relationship between the Crown and indigenous people will look like, but I don't want to miss a more practical question. You mentioned that there's an Inuit base camp just outside Torngat Mountains National Park. In your comments, you mentioned there is a need for some financial resources to make sure that this base camp achieves a level of economic prosperity. Could you elaborate on the needs of the base camp? What was the original vision of the base camp, and why at this point haven't we been able to achieve some of those expectations?
Mr. Igloliorte: I sit as a board member on an economic development Inuit organization called Nunatsiavut Group of Companies. I wasn't on the board from its inception, but it started around 2009 or 2010, and I probably came on in 2012. What we have accomplished with some funding in a trust called the Labrador Inuit Capital Strategy Trust is to acquire a number of businesses. We, for instance, bought a small, local airline called Labrador Airways. We joint- ventured on a larger purchase of Universal Helicopters, Newfoundland and Labrador, with assistance from Paul Martin's CAPE Fund. We operate a marine vessel that services the north coast of Labrador out of a Newfoundland community called Lewisporte, and we used to have a couple tugs and barges. We're trying to divest of them now. Essentially a construction company. We're trying to build sustainability through this economic development. One of the businesses we have is to run the base camp in the southern corner of the Torngat Mountains National Park.
Another position I've held is to be the chair of the Cooperative Management Board for Parks Canada, running Torngat Mountains National Park from its inception in 2006 until a couple of years ago. I stepped down and now we have a very capable young Inuit woman from Kuujjuaq who takes on that role.
In any event, we worked with Parks Canada to develop an idea. Naturally, for many years the Inuit government talked about the formation of Torngat Mountains National Park. It was decided, rather than to put the park base camp facility within with park lands, that we would just put it at the edge of the park lands but in Inuit lands so that the business opportunities might grow for Inuit, because then we would have jurisdiction over how it was built, what was built and have Parks Canada as a partner in making that work.
We tried one other site. That didn't work. It was too wet. Then we found a beautiful camp location, and we probably have a website, so all you have to do is punch in Torngat Mountains National Park and you'll see the facilities.
It takes a huge capital outlay, and as base camp operators, right from the beginning, we have not been able to make any money. One of the reasons is because we thought it could be run as a national park is run; that is, people will come because it's there and they like the wilderness. But we realized very soon that we've got to have people with very deep pockets to come that far north, to come to a remote place in order to make this a paying, viable operation.
We have 90 per cent continuous Inuit employment because we have to have polar bear monitors. We have to have an electrified fence around the camp. We bring in elders in the summertime, along with youth, to have cultural experiences.
It's a beautiful, wild place, and you have to fly from Goose Bay to Nain, which is the northernmost Inuit community right now. From Nain you fly to an old U.S. DEW Line site called Saglek that is still in operation as part of the agreement between Canada and the U.S. to ensure that they still have that presence in the North. We get permission to use that paved airstrip. And then you have to fly or take a boat another eight or nine kilometres to where the base camp is located. "Remote'' doesn't really describe that location.
The point is that we can only operate from the end of June to the second week of September with the limitations we have in weather and ice conditions and the end of the spring thaw and the onset of summer.
There was an original agreement that Parks Canada would spend X amount of dollars in helping develop that, and they've had some fantastic success in bringing up writers and CBC people, and you've heard them tell the stories about the national park and all those gatherings. But, frankly, they go up there on the cheap. So what we really need is to turn that around into a tourism experience.
The Inuit government can bring in, of course, the cultural activities if they wish, but we need to have Parks Canada work with the Inuit to really redesign the program as a tourism destination. That means bringing in people who go to Fogo Island in Newfoundland. This is a situation where quite a wealthy lady came back to her home, built this fabulous hotel where movie stars come quite regularly, apparently, and spend $1,800, whatever the case is.
The vision that the Nunatsiavut government has, and Nunatsiavut group of companies, is to try to make that operation work financially. If Parks Canada, which has been extremely helpful on the archeological and cultural side, could be given a loosening of the purse strings to inject more money into the camp, then that would work well.
Senator Christmas: It certainly sounds like it has tremendous potential, and of course worldwide there's a great interest now in indigenous tourism and the so-called authentic experience. It certainly has the potential.
I was very intrigued by a comment you made several times in your presentation about describing the Crown or government relationship with the Inuit as one of building trust. I found that very interesting because very rarely do you see Crown and Aboriginal relationships being termed in that way. From your viewpoint, on this whole concept of building trust between the Crown and the Inuit, can you expand on what you mean by building trust? What do you think are some of the main obstacles that work against building that trust?
Mr. Igloliorte: I think it stems from the historical relationship, first of all. Labrador is not an independent territory. It's part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. You can read about this in research done at Memorial University, particularly by academics who have talked about that earliest history when Newfoundland joined Canada. In those days, as you know, the guy who used to be known as the oldest living Father of Confederation, Joey Smallwood, made a deal with the then Government of Canada that everyone would recognize that for Newfoundland, there were no Aboriginal people; they were all Newfoundlanders.
The beginning of the history means that Canada did not exercise its fiduciary obligation and say, "We will offer you directly the programming you need that we give to other indigenous people across the country.'' What happened was the money was channelled into the Newfoundland government and then it trickled down to the Labrador communities through a department of the province of Newfoundland. Therefore we start off with this historical issue of very little reason to have trust in the Government of Canada in dealing directly with Inuit.
Then the land claims agreement comes along, where there's a negotiated framework for that relationship. My interpretation of what the Inuit government is hoping is that, as time goes on, the priorities of both levels will begin to mesh through the trust relationship. That's essentially the point I'm making there. It has historical roots.
Senator Watt: [Editor's Note: Senator Watt spoke in Inuktitut.]
Mr. Igloliorte: Thank you very much.
Senator Watt: I'll quickly translate what I'm saying. I basically said thank you for being here, and it's nice to be able to talk to someone who has a wide range of knowledge in the field of law.
As you know, there are a number of different issues confronting us and some decisions have to be made. Certain decisions have already been made in the past which at times become problematic when it comes to the point of implementation.
On that account, I'm going to be asking you questions related to the well-being of Inuit and having a treaty with the Crown, and where we need to go in order to rectify the problems that have been created since we have gone through the modern treaty. There are a number of areas on which I will be asking you questions.
First of all, extinguishment, surrender and release is a concept called upon by the Crown if Aboriginal groups are going to put themselves in the position to arrive with a modern treaty. What is your interpretation of that aspect, knowing the fact yourself, as a first inhabitant of this country, being asked to surrender, extinguish and release, whatever that might be?
Mr. Igloliorte: I recognize that you and many other people from Nunavik have a great deal of experience in direct negotiations with the Crown. You have sweated and cried the tears for many years to try to reach the stage of trying to find a way to allow, first of all, self-government provisions, and second, as you explain, a method to ensure that resource development becomes more certain in the area.
In the experience of the Labrador Inuit, I doubt if we would have had an early land claims agreement if the Voisey's Bay nickel mine had not come along. So it was the desire of the financial and commercial pressures at the time which made both Canada and Newfoundland say that if we want access to this very rich mine that's going to be there for 30 or 40 or 50 years or longer, pumping money into our economy, then we had better sit down and take indigenous people of Labrador seriously in their desire to negotiate. So that was the catalyst for that decision.
As you say, some of the concepts that were applied in order for Aboriginal people, indigenous people to reach that kind of agreement with the province and the Canadian government was that you give up rights that we need in order to develop the land and we'll give you your self-government wishes.
For you, a particular reason that has been a huge issue, for you who was originally at the table in those days talking about those kinds of things, would have been the same as the Labrador Inuit Association presidents from the past. Of course, we didn't see that as a fair and trusting way to reach an agreement with indigenous people, the original people from the territory.
The outcome, of course, in most land claims agreements is that, along with self-government provisions, along with provisions that allow the governance of health services, some form of taxation and all the rest of it, there is an agreement of what is retained by the indigenous people in small areas of their original land of how much ownership you can have. For anyone who works in a governance capacity or represents the entire group, that must have been a bitter and difficult pill to swallow.
There is a saying that you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate, especially when it comes to those high-level negotiations involving lawyers of all experiences. It comes down to you have to do the best you can. You have to have your side ready to fight that fight as much as you can and to give up as little as possible when reaching those accommodations.
Even though these are written negotiations and they have been agreed to, it doesn't mean that as time goes by there couldn't be some accommodation from one side to the other. I suspect that's really where the hope lies, that Canada recognizes that if you want to build sustainability, you've got to be able to make sure that it also means financial and economic sustainability. Otherwise, as you said, the problems will always be found in the communities. You'll never be able to fight them the same as if you have all the commercial background and backing behind you.
Senator Watt: Thank you for your answer. We have an opportunity now that we did not have before, having a Prime Minister that is quite keen on making some improvement in the life of our people. We should be thankful for that. At the same time, there is a problem in front of us that we have to deal with. We have to be able to find a way out in terms of coming up with something that is workable in the future.
As you know, if you're talking about government or governance, you need two things to be effective — having a legislative authority and financing money. Those two cannot be separated. That is very important.
If there is going to be a meaningful government-to-government, nation-to-nation successful conclusion of a deal between the First Nation or the Inuit or the Metis, I tend to feel in some ways that we might have to go back and revisit what we have concluded in the past. I'm not only talking about the modern treaties. I'm also talking about the old treaties that were put together many years ago.
I think the opportunity is there, and if we don't take advantage of this opportunity, I don't think that opportunity is going to be around for very much longer. All it takes is one election and then it's out the window.
When the time comes to make a concrete recommendation to the government, those are the main, fundamental issues that we need to address: Ability to be able to have legislative authority plus being able to access financing. Those, in a sense, are qualities that could be transformed into different ways of interpreting it.
Would you share that view, if that's the direction that the indigenous people across the country are willing to go forward on?
Mr. Igloliorte: Yes. When you're appointed as a judge — and I think Justice Sinclair knows this — you always feel that you are a judge. There's a natural reticence to act like a politician. You just kind of cannot make that change.
I know who the politicians are in Labrador, I know what their aspirations are, and I will speak to them. You won't hear me coming back and saying this is how I expect that I should be supporting this.
You're absolutely right. I believe that one of the great hopes we have for the North is a commitment to infrastructure spending because in our communities, in housing and in transportation and in communications and connectivity, we are quite far behind the poorest community in the rest of southern Canada. So that definitely is an area that needs to be worked on. I'll leave it to you, and you as senators, to continue to push that message.
Senator Oh: Thank you for being here. Why is it important that the culture and traditions of the Inuit and Aboriginal peoples are incorporated into the Canadian justice system?
Mr. Igloliorte: Your language and your culture defines who you are, and it gives you the pride and the self-esteem to stand up within a country. Clearly, for all the indigenous people in Canada, reaching into the strengths that your culture offers you and that traditions and language offer you is really the best way to maintain all of the outer regions, in this case, for indigenous people of Canada.
Not everyone is interested in coming into the mainstream and leaving their communities, particularly people who try to make a living day-to-day. They want to have that support and strength that they get from being among their own people, yet being proud to be Canadians.
So I wholeheartedly agree with you that culture and tradition is vital to indigenous people of Canada.
Senator Oh: What are the benefits and challenges that you have personally encountered?
Mr. Igloliorte: Essentially, in coming from an Inuit community, what you recognize is that there's always a homeland for you to come back to. That is where your roots are; that's where you gain your strength. Although there are many challenges of stepping outside of that comfort zone, I think that it's important to be able to express your personal wishes and dreams as well. Sometimes it means acting as an indigenous person in the rest of the country but demonstrating that you have that strength of culture behind you.
The Chair: We will now turn to second round. We only have 15 minutes left, so please keep the questions brief.
Senator Enverga: Actually, judge, I would like to follow up from Senator Tannas' questions.
My question is with regard to being able to manage yourself. Is it possible that the reason communities cannot manage themselves is that the real leaders, the ones who are professionals, migrate somewhere else? They sort of meld into the general Canadian population. Is it possible that it's true that the reason Aboriginal communities or other communities don't survive well is because the people who have learned the white language — the white culture — don't want to come back anymore? Is that possible in your community or any other community? Could it be one of the causes of why there's really no self-governance?
Mr. Igloliorte: We have hundreds of Aboriginal communities across Canada: Metis, First Nations and Inuit, and every experience, every community, every level of development is different for each area.
I can only speak for the Inuit of Labrador, and the self-government provisions have allowed Inuit in Labrador to emphasize education to try to bring forth a level of health services as much as possible and to try to regain control in social care, taxation, governance and management of their communities back to their own place.
This is where I think you build the pride and the ability for each community to sustain itself, so the answer is clearly to work hard at education so that when you allow the community to have some form of economic activity, to learn how that best can be achieved and to learn how to achieve peace and harmony within communities, this is what keeps people there and brings them back, even though they may go away for education for a while.
It sounds, when you phrase it that way, that it's a real problem, but in fact many communities, especially indigenous communities, are working hard to change that perception of what's been happening. I can give you many examples in Labrador of young people who are being trained and returning back to the communities. It's not just one direction.
Senator Sinclair: There's a whole area of conversation that we could have about the importance of international experience of Inuit, given the state of northern borders and the circumpolar conference influence over at least the recent history of Canada. I wonder if you might share with us your thinking about what we can learn as a committee from the experience that Inuit people have had in northern Canada with Inuit people in other parts of the world.
Mr. Igloliorte: Yes. I'm not a participant in that body. I know friends who, of course, have travelled to other areas in the North where different kinds of Inuit societies live. My understanding is that, as in all exchanges of similar cultures in different places, it's a very positive one, it's an empowering one and one that is very important for Canada to demonstrate that its Aboriginal people, Inuit specifically in this case, can be part of a much larger Inuit community. Apart from that, I really don't have any personal experience.
Senator Watt: I have two more points that I would like to raise. One is the question of title.
As you know, under the modern treaties, when it comes down to the question of land, they classify our access — our titles — to the land as fee-simple rights. That is, in a sense, the same as an individual Canadian. One person or family, in order to have a property, normally goes under fee simple. So the same concept is used in the modern treaty.
Do you have any solution as to how to improve that aspect in order for us to have a good feeling amongst ourselves that we are, in a sense, recognized within our own homeland? That's the first question.
Mr. Igloliorte: The only thing I ever learned as an Inuk growing up was that everyone had access and owned the land. Inuit before me in Labrador actually believed that the rocks and everything that grew on the land had a spirit and sometimes could swallow you up or other times it could sustain you.
Then to try to learn in law school that there are all these concepts of ownership and the way that you can encumber property and own land, which you assumed that anyone could use, was a huge leap for me. I can't possibly say I understand it yet.
The point you are making, of course, is a political one. It's one where people who determine, through their governance, how their relationship with the Crown works is always settled by negotiation. All I can say is that the more learned, educated and forceful people you have on your negotiation side, the more likely you are to change the views of people who have a different view of wanting to own what's in and under and above that land.
From my perspective, as Inuit, we gain our strength from looking at the land and being on the land, and it's a completely new area of challenge when you're talking about interests who want to take what is beneath the land for commercial purposes, at least for the level of commercial purposes we have. I can't offer you any guidance in that area.
Senator Watt: This was alluded to by Senator Sinclair in regard to international components of our responsibility as senators and as second sober thought.
Over the last seven years, I've been hammering out domestic rights and international rights of the Inuit people at the international level, and I have succeeded in getting legal interpretations from the law firms to describe what the domestic rights are versus international rights.
When you look at the Canadian boundary and the Arctic sovereignty issue, there are certain parts of the geographical areas that are not under federal government jurisdiction, and is not in any state's jurisdiction, for that matter, which is occupied by the Inuit.
How do we deal with that issue? The approach I have been taking over the last seven years toward all government is willingness to enter into an agreement arrived at with a treaty at the international level. This way, our Canadian government could be more secure, especially when the matter is being dealt with at the international level where a lot of interest is coming from the international communities wanting to access the raw materials.
Not only do we have an interest in that area, but we definitely have to be directly involved and be part of the decision-making. I would not say that the government is reluctant to deal with you, but being silent on the matter, even though they know that there is a potential there for the Canadian government to go into partnership with the Inuit from the Arctic. It's still not there yet, so I'm still pushing it. I want your opinion on that.
Mr. Igloliorte: My only opinion is to encourage you to keep fighting and use your Inuit counterparts and the strength you get from their political pressure across the country. I'm sure they share the same views that you do — the Inuvialuit region, Nunatsiavut, Nunavik, all the regions. In many of these cases where changes are made to policies, internationally and nationally, it's from pressures from people like you, and because ideas that work are being tried by people like you. I encourage you to keep that up.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: This relates to a question Senator Watt asked earlier. At any point in the negotiations, was there a take-it-or-leave-it attitude on the side of the government?
Mr. Igloliorte: I was part of the negotiating team as they were closing up the long years that had occurred between Newfoundland and between Canada and the LIA. That was in 1996. I was not completely aware of the entire history that started many years before that.
As I explained, one of the catalysts for the final signing appeared to be the pressure that if they wanted certainty in resource development, then there was going to have to be give and take and possibly more than either Newfoundland or Canada wanted to give, but it was negotiation. We had had an experienced, trusting lawyer. Of course, he followed the advice we gave him, but he also gave us insights into how the proceedings were going.
To the specific point, I never heard it, but I dare say that it was brought up more than once. But as negotiations go, any number of things are stated, and any number of ways that you want to frame questions are determined, and eventually, obviously, there's a breakthrough that all people can live with. So not knowing the answer to that question for sure, in negotiations these things very likely come up, but because we are happy with the self-government provisions to the degree that we can now work within them in the communities, I suspect that was not an impediment to a successful negotiation. I dare say it was said, but it obviously did not determine the outcome.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: The reason I am asking is there are negotiations going on right now with the Sisson mine project in my area, and according to the agreement, if you don't take this, we'll take this away from you. That's how the negotiations went. Thank you.
The Chair: We have come to the conclusion of our meeting. On behalf of all the senators of the committee, I would like to thank Judge James Igloliorte for appearing before the committee. Thank you for the wonderful synopsis you gave us of the history of the Inuit in Newfoundland and Labrador.
I wanted to make one comment. It really struck a lot of us when you said that, as a judge you have a reticence to act like a politician. As a scientist, I agree with you and sympathize entirely. I know that every senator sitting at the table within their own profession likely feels the same way.
As the Senate, of course, it is our job to do sober, second thought, and we do try to maintain a position that a judge would have and to take all factors into consideration.
(The committee adjourned.)