44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 23, 2023
- 05:16:21 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
You are us; we are you. We all belong to the same people. We all bleed red.
I've had this debate with many. My best friend is first nations. My best friend's brother is a chief. When I live in my northern area, where Mr. Zimmer's from, in the northeast, where I grew up, where all my family still exists, we have great dialogue because we talk to each other. We haven't lost our ways with first nations where I'm from. It's about going back to that table and talking to one another.
I'm going to say this in a statement here, and I'm not going to...because of embarrassment. I have a friend whose child has a treaty card, and if you want to use blood quantum, it's 10% blood quantum. I'm almost 100% blood quantum, but I'm Métis. My great-grandfather wanted us to be free people. We will not be put—as he said—onto a farm or into a cage. We exerted our rights back in the day, and I'm learning that, but now I'm learning to speak up and hear my voice. I am my ancestors' voice now. I speak for them who were silenced, and that's why I'm a passionate person.
I consider myself a warrior, but a warrior who needs to build peace. Blessed are the peacemakers. That's how I see myself, and I hope other first nations see themselves as that, as well as others.
As we've seen, in other parts of the world, there's great strife going on. I hope we never see a Canada like that. I want to be building. I want my children and my children's children to be a part of a great Canada.
310 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:18:06 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
Thank you.
I'm going to have to jump in and move to Ms. Idlout for her six minutes.
19 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:18:11 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
Qujannamiik.
I'd like to give Grand Chief Joel Abram a very quick response to the great testimony that Dean Gladue just shared with us. I don't know if you've been hearing it in my interventions, but I hope that there's solidarity among first nations, Métis and Inuit. When I heard your testimony, I didn't hear that you want a strong sense of solidarity with Métis. I wonder, having heard Dean speak, if you could share your reaction to that.
88 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:19:12 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
I don't really have an issue overall with Métis people, but our real issue is in Ontario and specifically with the Métis Nation of Ontario, where they're having real claims to consultation rights and harvesting rights within our homelands. We know their objectives are about land, and this legislation is tied to that.
I'm not a lawyer, but we did speak with several about this issue. I understand that the Supreme Court of Canada has made it clear that the foundation of section 35 rights in Canadian law is about our presence in our homelands before Europeans came here. In other words, it's our pre-existing relationship with land over which the Crown now exerts jurisdiction that is the very foundation of section 35 rights in Canadian law. We can't speak about section 35 rights without speaking about land, because without that relationship with land there would be no section 35 rights.
Even in the Supreme Court's 1996 decision in Van der Peet, these were the words of Chief Justice Lamer:
...the doctrine of aboriginal rights exists, and is recognized and affirmed by s. 35(1), because of one simple fact: when Europeans arrived in North America, aboriginal peoples were already here, living in communities on the land, and participating in distinctive cultures, as they had done for centuries. It is this fact, and this fact above all others, which separates aboriginal peoples from all other minority groups in Canadian society and which mandates their special legal, and now constitutional, status.
More specifically, what s. 35(1) does is provide the constitutional framework through which the fact that aboriginals lived on the land in distinctive societies, with their own practices, traditions and cultures, is acknowledged and reconciled with the sovereignty of the Crown.
Recognizing that section 35 right to self-government is necessarily about land because there cannot be section 35 rights without that pre-existing relationship with specific homelands.
The Supreme Court, in Powley, did say that there were Métis nations in Ontario that had section 35 rights. We're not asking Parliament to ignore that, but no court in Canada, including its top court, has ever recognized Métis rights to self-government anywhere in Ontario, let alone across the entire province. When it comes to Métis in general, we don't have an issue, but we know that, specifically in Ontario, the Métis Nation of Ontario is vastly overreaching in terms of what kind of recognition they're going to be getting. That's our major concern.
If Canada had consulted with us, then it would have known that. In fact, [Technical difficulty—Editor] Canada has run fast in the other direction without discussion or answers. It's been acting as though we do not already have well-established treaty relationships with it. It has turned its back on a covenant chain and the process agreed to through it to resolve disputes by meeting in council and discussing issues and concerns among the treaty nations. Not only has Canada not consulted, but it's breaching fundamental treaty obligations by refusing to sit down with us [Technical difficulty—Editor] to hear our concerns and engage in reasoned dialogue. The only thing that we have is this process here, today.
There's a recent decision from the Supreme Court in Quebec that talks about the covenant [Technical difficulty—Editor] chain and the dispute resolution process. That case involved two individuals from the Mohawks of Kahnawake, where the discussion of the covenant chain applies equally to our first nations in Ontario.
611 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:22:54 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
I'm sorry, Grand Chief Abram, but we're losing your sound quality, so I'm going to stop here for a second. Sometimes with buffering or other things, the technical stuff I don't understand, it might get better. Give it a pause here and we'll see if the interpretation either catches up or comes back.
Can you resume? I apologize for cutting you off there. Please resume now.
71 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:23:22 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
If you're going to legislate something—
8 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:23:24 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
I'm getting a no. Give me a second.
9 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:23:26 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
How about now? I'll slow it down a little bit.
11 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:23:32 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
I wanted to interrupt him anyway, John.
7 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:23:34 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
The connection has destabilized—if that's a word—since we started, so it's getting a bit choppy. There's about a minute left.
27 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:23:44 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
Sir, I wanted to interrupt him anyway because I want to ask Dean a question.
15 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:23:50 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
We're going to end there.
Ms. Idlout does have a question for Mr. Gladue, so we're going to go over to her.
There's still about a minute and a bit, Ms. Idlout.
35 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:24:01 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
Qujannamiik.
Dean, thank you so much for sharing your story. One of the sections in this bill talks about the three Métis nations seeking self-governance in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan being “authorized”. With your being in British Columbia, could you describe how we could better understand how they came to be authorized to negotiate these as collectivities, what that looks like for you and why you support those three nations in that way?
78 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:24:53 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
First of all, as I said, we're all cousins. I have cousins. We have cousins throughout.... When we look at the different Métis settlements and the Métis traditional communities, a lot of our families started there and then they'd spread out again and again.
My mother's family ended up in the community of Kelly Lake in northeastern British Columbia, which is a known Métis community as well, but it's still trying to get recognition to this day. We've been involved with that. Métis in B.C. are saying, “We've been here. Where are our rights to be heard and voiced, and our services?”
I always say to people that evidence-based land is a whole different debate, but services and programs to help our people—making sure we're getting culturally sound programs and that our children are learning their language and their culture—we're still struggling with that in B.C. In fact, there's a bill coming through for education right now, Bill 40, that is going to take that all away from us again. It's cultural genocide in different ways.
That's why I'm a passionate person for my nation. This is the voice my ancestors wanted. Some were shut down in different ways. Some were jailed, some were shot and some ran. Some of their houses were nearly burnt throughout history. My house won't be burnt because I have fire insurance.
Voices: Oh, oh!
260 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 05:26:23 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
With that, we are going to need to end this round. Unfortunately, colleagues, that's the amount of time that we have.
There is a brief in camera discussion we need to have, so I'm going to suspend. We'll need to clear the room. I need our members online to get back into the closed session as quickly as possible. It's a question of where we go next, because it's our last planned week of hearings on C-53, so there's a question I have to put to the committee on that. We're going to suspend and then resume in camera as quickly as possible.
Thank you to both of our witnesses for joining us. I really appreciate your making time to be here with us today.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
137 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
