:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's good to be on Algonquin land this early in the morning.
[Translation]
I wish to thank you for giving me this opportunity to appear before you and talk about Bill .
This bill is the final step in the ratification of the Yale First Nation Final Agreement. It crystallizes nearly 20 years of negotiations, consultations, compromises, accommodations and creative solutions. This agreement represents the aspirations of the Yale First Nation people for future generations. It contains the blueprint for self governance within, and protected by, the Constitution of Canada and will provide a future free of the constraints of the Indian Act.
The bill before the House contains a number of key elements, some of which I would like to highlight today.
Yale First Nation will receive a capital transfer of $10.7 million; $2.2 million to promote economic development; one-time funding of $1.4 million and annual funding of $1.25 million to implement the agreement. Yale First Nation will receive an addition of 1,749 hectares of provincial crown land to its existing 217 hectares of reserve lands. It will control these lands by using its law-making authorities set out in the final agreement.
Yale First Nation members will have the right to harvest fish in accordance with agreed-upon allocations set out in the final agreement for food, social and ceremonial purposes in a designated area of the Fraser River. The commercial fishery is set out in a harvest agreement, which does not form part of the final agreement. It provides for fishing licenses to be issued to the Yale First Nation by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
[English]
Mr. Chair, some neighbouring first nations have raised concerns regarding this agreement. I will now outline the steps that have been taken to address those concerns.
Sixty-nine first nation bands and related organizations claim asserted territories that intersect with the Yale First Nation's asserted territory. In January 2008, Canada and B.C. jointly invited each one of them to review what was then the Yale First Nation agreement in principle and convey any concerns regarding potential impacts the agreement might have had on their claimed interest. The vast majority of these bands and organizations have not raised any specific concerns with the Yale First Nation final agreement.
For those who did raise concerns, consultation meetings were conducted. During the course of these consultations, several accommodations were made, including within the final agreement itself. A brief summary of those would be as follows. Concerns were raised by the chief of the Chehalis band regarding a harvest area that included the eastern shoreline of Harrison Lake. With the support of Chief Hope, the Yale First Nation harvest area was adjusted to exclude the shoreline.
Next, Spuzzum band members expressed concerns during their consultation meetings regarding the access to a provincial crown land area, Frozen Lakes, which was offered as part of the land package that would eventually become Yale First Nation land. Yale First Nation agreed to add treaty language identifying these lands as open to the public.
Finally, during consultation with the Stó:lo Xwexwilmexw Treaty Association and the Stó:lo Tribal Council, we heard that their claim to aboriginal rights to access fishing and cultural sites in areas that will form Yale First Nation lands could be negatively impacted by the Yale First Nation final agreement.
Further, they strongly advocated that they required unfettered access to those lands and suggested that we remove all Yale First Nation reserves north of the town of Yale from Yale First Nation lands.
Regarding the timing of consultations with Stó:lo, Canada and B.C. shared the draft final agreement with Stó:lo in April 2009 and with the remaining overlap groups in July 2009. Throughout the remainder of that year, Canada and B.C. negotiated additional treaty provisions regarding access to Yale treaty lands in an effort to balance Stó:lo concerns with Yale's interest in concluding a treaty.
After meeting with Stó:lo to explain the changes made, the revised final agreement was shared with all 69 first nation entities in January 2012. The final agreement was initialled in February 2012.
A number of accommodations have been made.
The final agreement was amended to include a unique access provision to allow “reasonable public access” to Yale First Nation lands. When concerns were raised by the Stó:lo that the grounds for reasonable access might be too subjective, the parties agreed to a further change. This included the addition in the final agreement of objective criteria by which to consider access requests.
To address a Stó:lo concern regarding the scope of access that would be considered, the parties agreed to include in the final agreement first nation traditional purposes as a basis for the exercise of reasonable access.
Finally, the Yale First Nation proposed a long-term binding agreement with the Stó:lo that details an inclusive process to identify individuals and sites where access would be agreed upon, thus allowing those individuals access and use of Yale First Nation lands without requiring them to request access. The proposed agreement also includes a dispute resolution provision. As I understand it, this offer is still available to the Stó:lo.
Finally, Mr. Chair, I would like to respond briefly to a bill amendment proposal made by the Stó:lo representative at this committee earlier this week. The proposal would place a new requirement on Yale and Stó:lo to conclude a common understanding regarding a very significant portion of Yale treaty settlement lands before those lands could form part of the treaty.
The Yale-Stó:lo disagreement has been ongoing for decades, and I have, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, no reason to conclude that it will be resolved shortly. In fact, as you all know, I'm sure, the independent mediator appointed to seek a resolution confirmed this.
The Stó:lo proposal would also cover an area where a number of current and long-standing Yale reserves are located. It is not at all clear how the proposal could address the uncertainty created by such lands, including: current Yale reserves having a conditional status; who would own and manage the lands; and how long it might take before any actual certainty in the area could be achieved.
Mr. Chair, this fundamental and substantive change to Bill would require the B.C. government and Yale to rewrite a five-year agreement, causing a delay of years.
The chief commissioner of the British Columbia Treaty Commission has identified how the B.C. treaty process is intended to work and that overlapping claims cannot result in a veto by one first nation over another first nation's effort to move ahead with a modern treaty, and improve the life of their members.
Yale has incurred loan debts over 20 years of good faith negotiations and should have the opportunity to benefit from its negotiated treaty. It is time, I suggest, to move forward, not backward, and to help create greater opportunities for the Yale First Nation and others who live and work in the surrounding area.
The Government of Canada, the Government of British Columbia, and the Yale First Nation remain willing to continue the consultation process, at least up to the effective date of the final agreement in 2015.
We are willing to receive any new information not previously considered and to continue to engage with the overlapping first nations to seek a neutrally satisfactory solution.
[Translation]
But Mr. Chair, this agreement is about reconciliation with the Yale First Nation. It will bring certainty to the Yale First Nation's rights and titles, and it will provide greater opportunities for the local economy, to the benefit of all Canadian citizens, First Nation or otherwise, who live in the area. It is the foundation for rebuilding a relationship and supports the realization of a better future for the Yale First Nation.
I ask that my colleagues join with me in support of this vital demonstration of our government's commitment, and the commitment of all Canadians, to completing the unfinished business of settling treaties in British Columbia.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, and thank you department officials for coming before us. As I indicated in my speech in the House last night, New Democrats will be supporting this bill, with reservations.
We heard a very eloquent testimony from Stó:lo. We have before us a treaty which has unresolved issues. As all of the briefing documents and the 1991 framework agreement, signed in British Columbia, indicate, the look is toward first nations resolving overlapping and shared territorial disputes with some assistance from the B.C. Treaty Commission, but as we can see, in this case that hasn't happened.
Although the minister is indicating it will provide certainty, I would indicate that it may provide certainty for Yale, but it will not provide certainty for communities in the area, because Stó:lo has clearly indicated that they are going to continue to push their case forward in a number of ways.
With regard to the issue around overlapping and shared territories, Minister, you referred to reasonable public access. You did talk briefly about a couple of elements around reasonable public access.
Could you elaborate on what reasonable access looks like, and why it says “public” and not “Stó:lo”? It doesn't specifically note Stó:lõ access. What will happen if access is denied? What does that dispute resolution look like if access is denied?
:
Thank you, Minister, for being here today, and thanks also to the officials.
Minister, before I begin with my questions, I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge all members of the standing committee. It has been a very busy year. I would extend the opportunity for you to comment briefly on some of the hard work that's been done here at committee.
We had an opportunity on this matter to listen to representatives from Stó:lo, and I appreciated very much the B.C. Treaty Commission, which is operating in the middle of some palpable tensions concerning in particular a section of land. I took the opportunity to ask some rather technical questions about watermarks and rock points, matters that get down to those tensions in so many ways. In your presentation, you have outlined the potential and the hope for some of these matters to be resolved and the mechanisms by which they will be resolved.
However, I need to clarify the record on the basis of their testimonies just two days ago, and I want to revisit quickly a couple of points, if you'll indulge me.
First of all, the Stó:lo representatives referred to the Yale First Nation as Stó:lo. In your view or that of departmental officials, is this accurate? What is the significance of this affiliation for the purposes of the B.C. Treaty Commission process? I think it bears out in other work the B.C. Treaty Commission might do.
:
Thank you for being here, Minister.
As you know, we have some concerns, and I think that even in your opening remarks, where you said that the final agreement was amended to include a unique access provision to allow reasonable public access to Yale First Nation lands, like my colleague, I don't think that quite addresses what we heard here at committee on Tuesday. There are serious concerns with respect to how this bill meets the processes laid out at this time in Canada. There are serious concerns that the Department of Justice's narrow view as a strength of claim analysis, which many have called the first-past-the-post system, doesn't really deal with the overlapping shared territory issue. A sort of gentleman's agreement in terms of access or having to have permission to access is still, I think, viewed as not dealing with the issue in quite the same way as we saw with Eeyou, where there was actually shared territory out there on the map.
I mainly want to know how we go forward on this. The B.C. commissioner has sent you a letter with four recommendations, the first of which is how you assure the section 35 rights. I just want to know how you think you're going forward. There's a Senate committee report which says that the federal decision-making processes and negotiation mandates need to be revised to accord federal negotiators sufficient flexibility and authority to engage in open, genuine, and interest-based negotiations, and that the B.C. Treaty Commission should be provided with the resources to make sure they can appoint dispute resolution services or assist first nations in the resolution of overlapping claims within the B.C. treaty process.
I think the process as it is right now...even the chief commissioner was clear that the red light, green light that happens in terms of what's possible in the multiple approvals doesn't really give them the ability to do their job.
In its imperfection, this bill will go forward, but where are we going to go from here? What have we learned from this process such that this doesn't ever happen again, where something comes to Parliament without these overlapping rights being satisfactorily dealt with?
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Minister, members of Parliament, support staff, and other parliamentarians, thank you for this opportunity to speak to you at committee. I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to study Bill , the Yale First Nation treaty bill. It's been 17 years in the making, a long and expensive negotiation with Canada and British Columbia through the B.C. Treaty Commission process.
We have dealt with many difficult issues over the negotiation, but with good faith and honest negotiations. At no time did any one party attempt to make a slick deal of any sort. There was respect for negotiators around the table.
At one time we called our treaty a fish treaty because we depend so much on the fishery resource. We always have. It's a big part of our life. But we found that we can't rely totally on the fish anymore. Times are changing. We worked on this treaty with the young people in mind. Therefore, I call it “the treaty for the youth”. They are the ones who will have to implement this over the next number of years, should it be approved, and they will have to live with it. We have many very capable young people growing up, coming to work in our office and other places in the community. They're very capable. I'm confident that when the time comes to implement this treaty and carry on from there, they will be able to do it.
Treaties are about land, power, and money. Certainly the land is the key issue here. We have to have water with land. We hope to harness some of that water for hydro power in the future. Other resources on the land are the timber resource, gold and other precious metals, gravel, and of course wildlife, and fish in the Fraser River. These are very important to us and the future of our people.
As for the power part of this treaty, we are working towards building our self-government. We have a constitution that has been ratified by the people of Yale First Nation. The young people I talked about will have an opportunity to build this government from the ground up. They'll have a constitution that they actually took part in to follow on all the issues that we had to deal with.
The Yale First Nation government will not have a lot of duties, but they are important to us. The government will govern our land. They will govern the fishery resource, along with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We will decide who can fish and where they can fish within the Yale area. I'm talking about the Yale people, nobody else. We can't suggest for a minute that we will tell anybody where they can fish, only the Yale people.
Of course we'll work with the federal government, DFO, the fisheries. The government will create a membership act on who the Yale people will be, or are. The Indian Act will disappear. I will certainly be relieved. After 34 years of being chief I found that doing business through the Department of Indian Affairs is quite slow and restricted. Self-government is great. I think it's good for us. We'll finally be able to look after ourselves.
As for the money, there's not a lot of money involved in this treaty. As I said, it's been a long, expensive negotiation and we do have a large loan to repay, but I'm looking forward to the economic development part of the settlement.
We would really like to provide some jobs in the outlying area, not only for the Yale First Nation people, but for our neighbours, the non-first nation people. We look forward to joint venturing with the businesses in the communities in the outlying area. Certainly, the implementation dollars will help us get set up to work with our new responsibilities. The fiscal finance agreement will be outside the treaty.
I would like to say a few things about our neighbours in the towns of Yale and Hope, and the outlying area, the Fraser Valley Regional District. We've met many times with these groups, and they have supported the Yale treaty since day one. We have a very close relationship with the regional district, area B, and the mayor of Hope, and the small community of Yale. We work closely with them. We grew up with them, and we expect good things in the future working side by side with them.
As for the first nation neighbours, we've spent a fair amount of time dealing with them. To the north of us are the Spuzzum and Nlaka'pamux nations. We have a very close relationship with them. They're very much like us. The formation of the land is very similar. They're in the Fraser Canyon. We'll continue to get along with them. We've always had an understanding of a boundary between Yale and Spuzzum, which we call Five Mile Creek. That's always been understood. We saw no need to put it in writing, and we haven't, at least to this date. It's clearly understood that there's a boundary between Yale First Nation and the Spuzzum Indian band. They are not in the treaty process.
To the west of us, up towards Harrison Lake, we have the In-SHUCK-ch people, our neighbours. We have trails up and over the hills that come out at Harrison Lake. We've met with the In-SHUCK-ch people many times, and we've determined that we do not have overlap concerns with any of the many Indian bands of the In-SHUCK-ch.
We've also met with the Chehalis, who are up in that same direction. The Chehalis are a separate nation. They're not Stó:lo people. They're a unique group of people. We've met with them and we have agreed that yes, we do have some shared territory, but they have said they do not want to hold up the process while we make up some sort of an agreement. We will at some point make an agreement in writing on how we will share the territory between Yale and Chehalis. As the crow flies, it's not really that far.
At the moment, with the Chehalis group, we have a handshake type of agreement. We've agreed that the Chehalis people may come up and camp on our land and fish in the Fraser River. In return, they have agreed that the Yale people can go over towards Chehalis and hunt and gather plants and pick blueberries. That is a really good historical agreement, at this point a handshake, but we will put it in writing. This is the type of arrangement we would like to do with all our neighbours.
We have the Spuzzum to the north. We have the In-SHUCK-ch and the Chehalis to the west. To the south of us are the Stó:lo people.
The closest Stó:lo Indian band would be the Union Bar Indian band. It is a very small community. They have a river frontage like we do. They have found that they're having the same problems that the Yale are having. Many neighbours are encroaching on their land and fishing in the Fraser River. They have some really good fishing places. They have some good land to camp on. They have streams to get water from. It's a nice territory, but they have the same problems we have.
I have not been able to talk to Chief Andy Alex of the Union Bar Indian band at length about this issue, although he said he'll talk, and these are his words, “at the appropriate time”. That has yet to happen, but I look forward to the day.
As for the other Stó:lo Indian bands, over the last 17 years we've attempted to meet with them. In many cases we were successful in getting a meeting, but they would not deal with the issue at hand. They wanted to negotiate with me and the Yale First Nation for our territory. Well, our territory wasn't on the table. What I was agreeable to do was to work out some sort of an arrangement for the Stó:lo people to come up and camp on our land and fish in the Fraser River. That's what I'd like to have discussed, but they would not deal with that. They wanted to negotiate some of the Yale land away from us. That certainly was not on the table.
We went through that for many years. As we concluded the negotiation of the treaty, the federal government arranged for a mediator, Vince Ready. He's a very well-known mediator. We agreed to this. For a year we attended mediation sessions to make an arrangement so that the Stó:lo people could come on our land, camp and fish, and enjoy the territory, but they had other ideas. They wanted to add on to the Yale treaty some provisions for the Stó:lo to come on our land. That was not on the table either. We would never.... It's impossible. It doesn't make sense. They wanted to add some Stó:lo clauses in the Yale treaty. That wasn't agreeable to Yale.
We found that the mediation was going nowhere. We were not agreeing on anything that would help us get along in the future. Myself, I came to the conclusion that I should be talking to the grassroots people. They're the ones on the ground. They're the ones who would be camping on our land and fishing in the river, not the grand chiefs. I don't believe the grand chiefs could have done an agreement with Yale. How could they bind 10,000 people to an agreement? I think it would be difficult. Anyway, it didn't go anywhere. The mediations stopped.
We hope to get on with concluding this treaty.
I am looking forward to questions regarding the Stó:lo in the next part.
I would like our negotiator Rob Reiter to say a couple of words about the treaty.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am legal counsel for Yale First Nation. I'm also legal counsel at several closing tables across the country on comprehensive claims.
The issues you see before you today aren't specific to Yale. In B.C., about 150% of the province is overlapped with competing claims by first nations. This is not something isolated to this treaty. What's unique about this treaty is the lobbying that was done by the Stó:lo.
I want to make it very clear that this treaty has been an exercise in compromise. We have, with respect to our neighbours, contracted our ambitions with respect to land to avoid overlaps. We have retracted our statement of claim over traditional area with respect to the Harrison so that we would not overlap with Chehalis or the In-SHUCK-ch people. We will only receive 1,966 hectares of an area that was claimed as 104,000 hectares. Of those 1,966 hectares, 266 are existing reserves. We have intentionally avoided selecting lands that abut the reserves of our direct neighbours—Union Bar, Spuzzum, etc.—to avoid that overlap.
We have intentionally put in a clause, which is not found in any other treaty in Canada, that provides for reasonable access to any aboriginal group, because there are others that we overlap. That reasonable access turns on coming to do your traditional harvesting, leaving the land as it was, and respecting whatever occupants are there keeping law and order. This isn't the case right now under the Indian Act system. There's a lot of lands being abused. There's a lot of garbage. I'm told there are illegal activities. That can't go on for the health not only of the Yale, but also for the non-natives living in the valley.
This treaty is a mechanism of law to address that. It provides a small amount of land. It provides access to the general public. There are huge chunks of land up in the mountain that are open entirely to the public for recreational purposes. The only lands we would like title to are those lands that are the reserve lands. They were set up historically as reserves for us over 100 years ago through an Indian commission, exclusively for Yale. There are about 16 reserves. You really have to ask yourself why an Indian reserve commission would set up a reserve for a group of Indians. Clearly, they were the only Indians there.
There's been a lot of disruption in the Yale area. Yale was the colonial capital. The terms of union were signed there. There was a drastic influx of non-native people, and a lot of the native people who were indigenous there died as a result of exposure to smallpox, influenza, etc. The bottom line, though, is that the one main staying factor is that the Yale people are there. They're on those reserves. They weren't granted to any other Indians. Their direct neighbours, Union Bar, miles away from them, aren't claiming any of those lands. The people who are claiming them are in some cases 100 kilometres away.
You would have to ask yourself why people who are geographically that removed would be claiming lands up the Fraser River when they weren't there; otherwise, they would have been granted reserves. Their neighbours aren't claiming it. It boils down to that there aren't any reserve lands or further lands outside of the reserve system in Chilliwack or Mission. Hope is where there is a very sparse population. It's the only free lands, other than going up into the Harrison. There's great fishing there. Historically, when Simon Fraser came through in 1803, he saw two huge Indian villages, strongly guarded, which governed the fishing and salmon trade.
We, in this treaty, at the insistence of the DOJ and the AG of B.C., have put in a clause for reasonable access. We put it in the treaty; no other treaty has it. We tried to engage the Stó:lo for two years with a mediator. All they told us is that we are Stó:lo, which is not the case historically. Yale is not a Stó:lo. They are Nlaka’pamux; they're Thompson Indian people. They're not part of the Stó:lo, which are lower down the river system. You have a different language group, different culture. That land, prior to European occupation, was exclusively possessed by the Yale. The AG of B.C. and the DOJ have done risk analysis on their supposed claim. It is weak.
Notwithstanding that, we provided the provision for reasonable access if there are any interests and rights at all. That is not good enough for them. It has to be unlimited access, it has to be uncontrolled access, and that quite frankly undermines the whole rationale for doing the treaty.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank my colleagues on this committee. I'm not a regular member of this committee, but the Yale First Nation is in my riding of Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, and I would tell anyone who wants to see one of the most beautiful parts of British Columbia to make their way up to Yale and the Yale First Nation territory. It's a beautiful drive. Fraser Canyon is a beautiful part of our province.
Chief Hope, it's good to see you again. Going forward, I'm sure that you look forward to spending more time in your first nation territory and less time in Ottawa.
I did want to talk to you. You would have read the testimony from the meeting on Tuesday. It's very similar to newspaper articles that have been going around in Chilliwack, Hope, and the Fraser Canyon for a number of months now, where the Stó:lo grand chiefs, while not perhaps endorsing it, have certainly indicated that there's a real threat of physical violence should the Yale treaty be allowed to proceed.
What's your reaction to that sort of provocative language? They've also struck a war council, for instance, and things like that, which we're not used to seeing in first nation to first nation relationships. Could you give your reaction to those comments and let us know what you're planning to do to ensure that your people are safe and that there isn't an unnecessary escalation in your territory?
:
Thank you, Mark. It's good to see you again.
I should share with the group that I saw Mark at the graduation ceremonies on Saturday in Hope. I was surprised. He was a long way from here, and he was there within 24 hours.
Regarding the violence, I don't appreciate that sort of language. It makes no sense. I don't believe that it will get us anywhere. We can't make progress when somebody makes those kinds of comments.
What I did note in the session here the other day with the Stó:lo is they were saying that they will not, I guess, attack Yale First Nation people. That's the first time I've seen that. I've always assumed that any violence they did would be towards Yale First Nation people, but they finally admitted that no, that's not the case; the violence will be directed at, as far as I could understand it, the Fisheries and Oceans officers. I'm sure they can look after themselves, but....
I'd like to share with the committee what we hope to do starting this year and into the future. We've been working on a map with the RCMP, as well as with the fisheries officers. We've put every fishing site in the area on a GPS map. We've put the trails and the fishing campsites on a GPS map. We've done that so that if there is an emergency or a problem somewhere in the area, we can direct them to the location. We would both know the area, and they could get to the problem or the emergency in a very short period of time.
We're also going to share that map with the Hope search and rescue group, the Yale volunteer fire department, and the ambulance service, so that when there is a problem the appropriate agency could go directly there. The Fraser Canyon is a really wild bit of country. There are no street lights. We only got cellphone service in the canyon this past year. There's very little...well, you're all by yourself at times, way out in the middle of the canyon.
That's what we hope to do. I think that will have a positive effect on the people who come to fish, camp on the land, and enjoy the scenery and the river.
We have the officials joining us again from Finance and from Justice.
Colleagues, we will now proceed to clause-by-clause study.
Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of the preamble and clause 1, the short title, are postponed until we call them at a later point in time.
It has been suggested, and I am seeking consent on this, to consider all of the clauses, from clause 2 to clause 25, together.
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: I call the question on clauses 2 to 25 inclusive.
(Clauses 2 to 25 inclusive agreed to)
The Chair: Shall the short title carry?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the preamble carry?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the title carry?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the bill carry?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall I report the bill back to the House?
Some hon. members: Agreed.