Keep us posted. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much to our witnesses for coming all the way here to meet with us today. We really appreciate it, and it’s wonderful also to know that your community is online here in solidarity with you, and I want to thank them for being here as well.

It’s important for you to know — and I think you’ve got that sense from my colleagues — that we’re here to listen to you and to support you. We’re not here in any way to put any obstacles up. You’ve had enough of those over the years, right, but in spite of those obstacles, it’s quite a story that you’re here to tell us of what you’ve been able to achieve already, even without this bill that we’re now examining.

You’ve actually answered most of what I was going to ask you, in answer to Senator Sorensen, but you’ve spoken about the economy and the effort you’ve put in there, social and physical infrastructure, the importance of the businesses, jobs, property tax, et cetera. You’re doing all kinds of amazing things in your community. I’m just wondering when this is passed and comes into effect, can you tell us if there are any big differences that are going to be made for you and your community? Is there anything that you have not mentioned to us already that you would like us to know that we haven’t asked you about, but that you want to say now, “Okay, so we really want you to pass this bill so that . . . ”

I think the biggest part of this, now that it’s a self-government treaty, is the recognition of our ancestors, my members today, the future generations that we are, Aboriginal peoples of Canada, and that should never have been taken away from us.

So the identity?

Identity is big, but also the fact that we will govern.

We’ve made provisions with the province in regard to the fact that right now, right across the country, First Nations — the RCMP will not enforce any of our bylaws or any of our self-government laws because nobody is going to prosecute them. So, in Saskatchewan, we’ve managed to negotiate a deal with the province, and they’ve amended their legislation, the Summary Offences Procedures Act, and now they’ll recognize our laws as well. It’s important to have our laws recognized because we have over a million tourists coming into our nation, and with that being said, some of them will be non-First Nations and some will be First Nations, but we have to make sure that we have the ability to actually prosecute those laws as well and enforce them. That’s another thing — it’s a first in Canada, as far as a provincial government actually working with a nation, to look at prosecuting and enforcing our laws.

We’ve always said, “If we’re going to be getting involved in self-government, then why do we want to have toothless laws?” We have to make sure our laws can be prosecuted and enforced.

We also have the Community Safety Officers, also referred to as CSOs, now. We have two under a Community Tripartite Agreement, or CTA. We have two RCMP officers living in the nation, but we’ve also now added five community safety officers, and community safety is very important to our elders, and so we have got this pilot project right now with Canada and Saskatchewan. Like I said, besides giving us the five community safety officers, they’ve also now amended legislation in Saskatchewan to make sure that our laws can be prosecuted and enforced. Again, it was something that was driven by our elders in regard to community safety. So now we have CSOs driving around.

Now with self-government coming, September 1, we can create any laws, and they can actually be enforced.

That’s important. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, chief and councillors and Mr. Long, for being here.

I’m understandably supportive of the bill, and when I read through the treaty document, it is kind of like a dream come true. Mr. Long knows that we toiled in all kinds of different ways a number of years ago, but we never got anywhere close to the richness of this. So congratulations to you and the Government of Canada.

I don’t have any specific questions about this, although I would invite you to say a little bit more about the community safety officers and the constructive link with the province. But let me come to what is my question: You have achieved pretty remarkable success in taking your nation from a pretty struggling set of circumstances to a degree of prosperity and a degree of autonomy and discipline and the like, and my question is whether this or something similar to this is relatively easily replicable by other nations? Or, do they have to have gotten to a stage where you are of advanced thinking and imagination about how to deliver the governance of your nation? And this might even be a question for the minister, but how easily replicable is this so that we can see these kinds of developments, not just in other Dakota nations, but in hundreds of First Nations across the country?

I think there’s a lot of interest. We’ve gotten calls from other First Nations in the country that have seen the self-government treaty. They think it’s the right direction to go. I know in Saskatchewan that Muskeg Lake has now started a table here in Ottawa, and I think Councillor Eagle and Councillor Royal, you were at the meeting there where I think the Saskatoon Tribal Council — they’re all very interested in proceeding with a similar treaty. The other part of this would be for the Saskatoon Tribal Council — all seven of our First Nations all have land codes, and the pilot project with the community safety officers is a pilot project with Whitecap and Muskoday First Nation in Saskatchewan, and every one of our nations in the Saskatoon Tribal Council are all interested in having community safety officers as well. With all the training they get, they have about 80% of the responsibilities of an RCMP officer.

Describe that a little bit more to Senator Coyle, because you were talking about community safety officers, where they come from, who handles that, the provincial side of the equation.

All the training is done provincially, and then they have to get certified. They can’t carry firearms or anything, but it’s all about keeping the peace, so that’s their role in the community. The positive thing is that the community can mandate what the safety issues are in our nation, and that’s very important, because a lot of times, sadly, with the RCMP — and I’m not taking a shot at the RCMP at all, but a lot of times they’re regional and they have limited human resources and they have a large region to cover, so they’re not available at all times in the nation. Every morning we get a report from our CSOs, an email letting us know what is going on in the nation. That’s really important.

As far as the process with other First Nations, we’re hoping that this is just the pilot and that it’s going to be open to other First Nations right across the country, and hopefully we’ll have other provinces that are prepared to look at what Saskatchewan did in regard to the enforcement and prosecution of local First Nation laws.

Your nation, for example, has had stable leadership for quite some time, and you are clear representatives of that. But the point of the Land Code, there are some prerequisites to really move into this area. You know what they are. The Government of Canada knows what they are. There could be guidance for others; if you want to move to this, this is the platform that you have to build first?

For the Whitecap Dakota First Nation, once we went down the pathway and developed the Land Code in our nation, we were willing to share that with other First Nations. You can also create a land code that is very restrictive and could be worse than the Indian Act. You have to be mindful of the laws you put in place. You have to want to be able to move at the speed of business. You want to make sure that any of the laws that we create allow that to happen.

It has to have been a frustration that the Indian Act shackles on development required you to be more imaginative than the typical business might have had to be in Saskatoon, or wherever, to find some economic successes. This is a comment more than anything. It is nice to see that falling away so that you can have autonomy in advancing, wisely, the use of your land for success.

One of the things that we had to explain to business as well is that if you are in the city of Saskatoon, and the University of Saskatchewan and Preston Crossing, all of those businesses are on leasehold interest lands because the University of Saskatchewan cannot relinquish its ownership of the lands. When you explain it in that regard, it is very similar to the business. Then making sure that they understand there is also infrastructure, but in order to invest in infrastructure, you also need to have development levies where other jurisdictions have development levies if there is a new area of their jurisdiction, or municipality or city where they are going to build. They would have levies on the businesses to pay for a certain part of the infrastructure, so making sure that those are in place as well.

All of those mechanisms are in place. That has led to the limited success that we have today. We have done this without being a signatory to a treaty or having the same land base. That is the other big concern. Our treaty brothers and sisters got 128 acres per person, and as Dakota, we only received 16 acres per person. There is a big difference in the land quantum.

Part of this self-government treaty as well talks about a future reconciliation treaty that would deal with that as well down the road.

You got a postage stamp of a postage stamp. Thank you.

Thank you, guests, Chief Bear. It’s an exciting day, especially on National Indigenous Peoples Day. Being a committee member, I feel so proud to be here with you today.

I wanted to say congratulations. The people back home are probably anxiously waiting for you to get back. Do you have any ceremony or celebrations planned? What are you going to do after this goes through?

We will work it out with our community for sure as far as having a community celebration. We have to get this work done first. Hopefully, you will move this forward for us tomorrow and then we can take some good news home to our people. It would be great, especially in the month of June with National Indigenous Peoples Day and moving this forward. Absolutely, we will work with the community on it, a community celebration and ceremony.

Well done. We will look forward to seeing what happens next. Thank you.

Thank you. I am sorry I was late. The chamber is interesting right now, a number of things going on.

I want to thank you, Chief Bear, for being here. I know that you were not at the House. You look healthy right now. I know that getting here was a bit of a chore.

There is a lot in this bill that is monumental. The first thing I want to ask you is about finally being recognized as an Indigenous nation in Canada, and at the very same time getting to walk away from large parts of the Indian Act.

My first question is about the negotiations with the federal government and the process that you undertook in recognition of your nation. That is something that stands out for me. It was just the preamble. It was not even the best part of the bill.