Aboriginal Affairs - Issue No. 9 - Thursday, October 11, 2001

2001 Legislative Session: 2nd Session, 37th Parliament
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS
MINUTES AND HANSARD

Present: John Les, MLA (Chair); Paul Nettleton, MLA (Deputy Chair); Val Anderson, MLA; Blair Lekstrom, MLA; Bill Belsey, MLA; Dave Chutter, MLA; Mike Hunter, MLA; Dennis MacKay, MLA; Gillian Trumper, MLA; Rod Visser MLA

1. The Chair called the Committee to order at 10:04 a.m.

2. Opening Remarks by John Les, MLA, Chair, Select Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs.

3. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions:
    1) Ben Leboe
    2) Westbank First Nation:
        Mick Werstuik
    3) Neil MacPherson

4. The Committee recessed from 12:17 p.m. to 2:01 p.m.

5. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions:
    4) Don Cromarty
    5) Richard Hogg
    6) Aaron Dinwoodie

6. The Committee recessed from 3:11 p.m. to 6:32 p.m.

7. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions:
    7) Rev. Daniel Croft
    8) Lance Johnson
    9) Dwight Wendell

8. The Committee adjourned to the call of the Chair at 8:02 p.m.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE
ON ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS



CONTENTS

		Page

Presentations		229
	B. Leboe	229
	N. Werstuik	237
	N. MacPherson	245
	D. Cromarty	246
	R. Hogg	250
	A. Dinwoodie	251
	D. Croft	256
	L. Johnson	261
	D. Wendell	266

Chair:	* John Les (Chilliwack-Sumas L)
Deputy Chair:	* Paul Nettleton (Prince George–Omineca L)
Members:	* Val Anderson (Vancouver-Langara L) * Bill Belsey (North Coast L) * Dave Chutter (Yale-Lillooet L) * Mike Hunter (Nanaimo L) * Blair Lekstrom (Peace River South L) * Dennis MacKay (Bulkley Valley–Stikine L) * Gillian Trumper (Alberni-Qualicum L) * Rod Visser (North Island L) * denotes member present


Witnesses:	Rev. Daniel Croft Don Cromarty Aaron Dinwoodie (Central Okanagan Regional District, Area G) Richard Hogg Lance Johnson Ben Leboe Neil MacPherson Dwight Wendell Mick Werstuik (Councillor, Westbank First Nation)

J. Les (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is John Les. I'm Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. We're pleased to be meeting in Kelowna this morning. Before I ask the other members of the committee to introduce themselves, I'll just make a few remarks about what the committee is doing and what it has been asked to do by the Legislative Assembly.

The committee was established in late August by the Legislature, and it was empowered to examine, inquire into and make recommendations with respect to all matters and issues concerning questions that the government of B.C. should submit to voters in a referendum which will be held in the new year. We want to give all British Columbians a say on the principles that should guide B.C.'s approach to treaty negotiations, while ensuring that constitutionally protected aboriginal rights and title are respected. Copies of the committee's terms of reference and other information about the legislative committee process are available at the information table located at the door as you come in.

We are eager today to hear views from a range of citizens. In this process we help to build interest and support for the treaty process. To this end we have widely published our hearing process and a call for written submissions in both radio and newspaper advertisements throughout the province. We'll be accepting written submissions until Friday, November 2.

We've had about five of these public hearings so far with a handful yet to come after today. The hearings are being recorded and transcribed by Hansard staff, who are to my right. The transcripts will be available on the committee's website. If you're interested, the website address is www.leg.bc.ca/cmt.

Following the public hearing process, the committee will prepare a report of its observations and recommendations to government. The report will be tabled in the Legislative Assembly, or if the House is not in session, it will be deposited with the Clerk by November 30. The report will be a public document once it has been tabled or deposited.

I'll now ask the committee members to introduce themselves, starting at my far right.

R. Visser: My name is Rod Visser. I'm the MLA for the North Island, and I live in Campbell River.

B. Lekstrom: Good morning. My name is Blair Lekstrom. I'm the MLA for Peace River South, and Dawson Creek is my home.

D. Chutter: Good morning. My name is Dave Chutter. I'm the MLA for Yale-Lillooet, and I live just outside of Merritt.

D. MacKay: Good morning. My name is Dennis MacKay. I live in Smithers, and I'm the MLA for Bulkley Valley–Stikine.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): Good morning. My name is Paul Nettleton. I'm the MLA for Prince George–Omineca, and I live in Fort St. James.

G. Trumper: Good morning. I'm Gillian Trumper. I'm the MLA for Alberni-Qualicum. I live on the Island, in Port Alberni.

V. Anderson: I'm Val Anderson. I'm the MLA for Vancouver-Langara and live in Vancouver.

B. Belsey: Good morning. My name is Bill Belsey. I live in Prince Rupert, and I'm the MLA for North Coast.

M. Hunter: Hi, I'm Mike Hunter. I'm the MLA for Nanaimo, which is where I make my home.

J. Les (Chair): To my immediate left is Kate Ryan-Lloyd. She is the Clerk to the committee. In the back of the room with the information table is Tamara Little, who is a consultant to the committee.

With all of that out of the way, we are ready now to hear from our first presenter this morning. That is Ben Leboe.

B. Leboe: My name is Ben Leboe. I am a resident of Lake Country here. I'm a financial and management consultant in the Okanagan Valley. I believe that all of you have my speaking notes. Time is relatively limited, so if I ramble right through them, you'll understand, and you can refer to the notes at your leisure.

J. Les (Chair): I think, Ben, it's fair to say we probably have a little bit of extra time, so don't feel you're under any pressure.

B. Leboe: Just to set the scene, I was born, raised and educated in British Columbia. I've lived here my entire life except for a couple of years in Alberta and a couple of years in Ontario, where I was with the federal government in Ottawa. I have a perspective that I would like to bring to the committee. It's not unique, and I don't present my perspective as any solution. Just as a person who has observed the process and am wondering what's going on, I would like to make a few suggestions to you.

The reason I'm here is that I don't think the process that the B.C. government is using to settle land claims and treaty negotiations is working. It's been an on-and-off process for many years now, and I don't see any results. I see the referendum process as an absolutely important step to bring forward some kind of consensus in the province as to which way the government should go.

With that direction, perhaps the government will lead the way. In my view, it seems to be that the government has not been the leader but rather has just been paying the bills, allowing the process to proceed, and is not demanding performance by the people who are involved in negotiating on their behalf.

I see the referendum as a rare and unique opportunity to give the policy-makers in the B.C. government guidance from the voters. By the very definition, if you have a referendum, you're going to have an answer whether we like the answer or not. Of the 100 percent of the people who vote, if the question is a yes or no, you'll be absolutely certain there will be more than 51 percent saying one or the other — unless there's a tie, which I would doubt. We have this opportunity, and we can ask questions, I hope, about a wide range of issues relating to the aboriginal claims in British Columbia.

The other reason I'm here is that in my normal daily life, I hear conversations about the treaty process or, basically, the land claims issue. These topics of conversation come up during family outings, or you hear on the radio about some situation where a gas line is being stopped from being built in the north or lumber is being taken out of an unorganized area without a permit. Generally we hear that there is a cloud over the province because of the lack of settlement of these land claims. This is not only unique around the family. I hear it in general meetings. If I go to business meetings, I hear the same issues. That's one of the reasons I'm here.

The other reason I'm here is to provide a few suggestions for you in terms of the actual referendum questions themselves. I think this is a great opportunity to encourage the government to put some questions on the table that should be asked, some old questions that may have been avoided in the past. In too many cases, I think, people are afraid to ask the basic questions. What are we really trying to accomplish? What are the provincial responsibilities to accomplish that?

I have a number of concerns on the whole process, and these are more unanswered questions as far as I'm concerned. I present them to you because I think some of the solutions or answers could come out of a referendum.

I looked up a little bit of information on the website and so on, and I see that the B.C. Treaty Commission was established some time ago. In looking at its original terms of reference, they said that they would settle all Indian land claims by the year 2000. Obviously, that hasn't happened. As a matter of fact, I don't think they have settled one.

Another concern I have is that the government doesn't seem to be clearly identifying its responsibility. The B.C. government has joined with the federal government in getting involved in land claims. When I grew up and when I went to school, I always thought that the Indian responsibilities were pretty much an affair for the federal government. British Columbia would look after the native population as they came off the reserves or as they became just general common citizens or arrangements with the province.

Throughout all my life until recent years, the federal government was the one responsible. If there were land claims, they were the responsibility of the federal government. Now I'm confused. I see the B.C. government at the table. I see them offering land. I see the Nisga'a agreement, where the B.C. government put in land and the federal government put in money, or the reverse. I'm confused as to who is responsible for what.

Another thing I see in the province is that everyone involved, both the private sector and the public sector, seems to be making exceptions or special deals to bribe the aboriginal people to keep from objecting to the ongoing commerce of the day. Whether it's a blockade at the ski hill, in some logging town or in the oil patch, these things seem to be in the news frequently.

I was speaking to someone in the oil industry recently, and they said: "Well, Ben, for many years, the oil companies have just paid particular Indian bands to come and watch what happens, and they will be quiet. They require advisers. We have got around the problem by paying individuals — band members, perhaps a chief, maybe some of the other people — to observe what we're doing. So long as they get money…." This was in the Peace River area. "We periodically pay them to go down to Calgary to see some of our executives; we'll fly them down there, put them up." In a way, it's a bribe to keep them quiet. It hasn't settled the issue, but it's a bribe.

Similarly in the forest industry. Someone was telling me recently that for every new cutting block, you have to have an archaeological review. In the normal turn of events, the Ministry of Forests goes out and gets a contract for someone to take an archaeological review. In many areas of the province these contracts go to contractors who in turn hire natives so that they'll be pleased to be on the payroll. It's another way of bribing them to be involved in the process. They have little or no knowledge of archaeological elements. They're strictly there as a bribe.

Another problem I have personally is that I've read about and heard about on the news this unpronounceable Delgamuukw case; I apologize for the pronunciation. For many years this was a big issue in Terrace, Prince Rupert and that area, I think. The B.C. Supreme Court came down with some settlement. I don't profess to understand it. Then later the province seemed to appeal it. I was confused as a citizen as to whether the province wanted to win the case or lose the case. The messages coming out from the province and the elected politicians of the day were confusing to me. I still don't know the answer. I don't know where it stands. Everyone involved in the issue seems to interpret that case as a very important case, and they always interpret it in their favour. I have not heard a definitive result from that case. So that's a question. As far as I'm concerned, I still don't know what that case settled.

The other broad issue is the fact that throughout this B.C. Treaty Commission process there are significant financial and human resources which are being

applied to this process, and the process, as I mentioned, appears flawed. It has no results so far. And there seems to be a built-in incentive for them to continue forever. They have continuing budgets for staff, hiring lawyers and experts, expense accounts, amounting to millions of dollars. This has been going on year after year.

I think there's a real need to reallocate those funds. If they're not doing the job and we have to deal with it, the province should find a workable mechanism and get on with it and reallocate the money to health, education and the other economic development needs of this province. In the current situation I can see that going on in perpetuity with no results — another reason I welcome the opportunity for a referendum on some questions relating to these matters.

Another general concern I have is that there seems to be an uncertainty and failure to defend the B.C. interest, the provincial interest, against threatened claims and civil disobedience. Our provincial government seems to be unsure of itself and whether it should be trying to accommodate the aboriginal claims or whether the federal government should be. I alluded to that earlier. It is indicative that there is no clear statement of principles coming from the province, and hence whenever there are concerns raised by individuals relating to these land claims or claims for resources, the province steps up, takes a role, sets out special conditions for consultation without really admitting that there is a claim and whether it's valid or not. I'm sure they believe there's a valid claim, because they have to respect the people who are petitioning for certain land rights and resources. However, they seem to be unclear as to how to respond to that claim.

Another concern I have is that for many years, as I mentioned, British Columbia seemed to have taken the position that land claims were a federal issue. I read some quotation somewhere in one of the documents that up until the mid-1980s, the province was steadfast in its determination that when they entered Confederation in 1871 or thereabouts, the Indian land claims were to be assumed by the federal government unless stated otherwise. That seems to have carried on for a hundred years or so. In recent years — the last decade — British Columbia has stepped up and said for some reason we will also assume responsibility for activities and decisions which were taken over a hundred years ago. That's confusing to me.

Another item that's confusing to me is how we, as a group of citizens, can have a treaty with our own government. I read about the Nisga'a treaty, and they called it a treaty. I have always been led to believe that a treaty is between two governments or two countries in essence. I don't see a border around the Nisga'a area. It's strictly an administrative zone determined by some legislation, an act of parliament I guess, in Canada and in Victoria. We talk about a treaty process, and I say: a treaty with our own citizens? I can see an agreement. I can see settlement of issues like land claims, claims for resources which might be unresolved and have been unresolved for years. But a treaty seems to be an anachronism which may have preceded the time when we were hardly a country. Now we are a country. I don't see any other countries there to have a treaty with, so that's confusing to me. I'm sure the lawyers would have a better explanation for that.

The other concern before I get on to my suggestions for questions is that B.C. seems to have taken on the role of trying to solve many socioeconomic issues relating to the Indian claims area. I can see British Columbia responding if there is a specific claim of resources or land that for some reason should have been awarded to a particular group in years past. To me, that is a matter of fact. It should be determined on the facts and settled. When it comes to whether or not the province should get involved in determining the development and enhancement of the native Indian reservations or bands and their roads and systems, in a special situation unrelated to other provincial needs, I think they are going down a slippery path and overlapping on federal government responsibilities. I'm sure Ottawa would be more than pleased to have them do that, and seems to be. It is confusing to have a province getting involved in specific areas and specific special needs which should be the responsibility of the federal government.

Those are kind of brief reasons, and they're not necessarily all-inclusive. These are some of the things that came to mind when I thought about this question and how I would come to you and give you some suggestions for the referendum questions. Obviously, my questions are not inclusive either. They may overlap and would have to be refined by someone much better than myself.

Before I get to the first question, I would like to suggest that when the referendum takes place, there should be some kind of preamble with the voting package to reinforce the fact that this is a British Columbia referendum, not a national government referendum. It's only related to B.C.'s role and approach to possible treaties. Other issues regarding the future of Indians in Canada — things like the Indian Act, equality and their status in Canada — are clearly federal responsibilities. In doing so, the referendum questions should also be strategic and capable of a yes-or-no answer. They shouldn't be confusing. John Q. Public like myself should be able to read the question and form an opinion based on our general knowledge as citizens and our views or our vision for the province. Every individual in the province has a unique background and a common understanding of the province. They probably also have a vision for the province they would like to see. I would like to think that your questions, when they're finally put to the voters, are relatively straightforward and clearly answerable by yes or no. I'll quickly go through the half dozen or so questions I've posed.

The first one relates to the issue that British Columbia got involved in, in arranging the Nisga'a treaty. The first question is: do you want B.C. Indians to have some form of self-government? That's a fairly clear question — a yes-or-no answer. And if yes, we should have some method of asking the citizens. We've

already approved the Nisga'a agreement in British Columbia, so they could say either the method approved for the Nisga'a or a government under the Municipal Act, which is already there. We don't have to deal with it. They can involve other citizens in addition to band members or with some kind of a unique form, which seems to be the direction that people are going. But I have no idea.

Second question: should B.C.'s Indians receive some services, resources and responsibilities that are different than those provided to all other B.C. residents? A simple question of principle. If people believe they should be differentiated and that there should be special circumstances for B.C.'s Indians, I've suggested that they ask the question: should they be related to health and social services, economic development, land, resources or taxation?

The third question that I've suggested is: do you want B.C. to return to its pre-1986 negotiating position which held that all Indian land claims against B.C. were settled when B.C. joined Confederation in 1871, except those resolved by agreement in 1924 or determined by the courts? This relates to my earlier comment that it seems to me that the province has switched positions. This is a great opportunity to ask the citizens of British Columbia whether we think that's a good idea or not. If the citizens believe they should revert to that position…. I must remind you that the position was that land claims were solely the responsibility of the government of Canada. If we take that position and people want the province to take that position, my follow-up question is: should B.C. assist the government of Canada — voluntarily, not because it's legally required — to settle these claims by providing cash, resources or land?

Question 4 is a general question of principle as well. In order to make the final settlement of land claims by B.C. Indians, would you support amending some law, government services and resident obligations to apply on the basis of race and ethnic origin? In other words, would you like to perpetuate a situation where our sales tax is levied to an aboriginal if they're off the reserve, and if they're on the reserve, they're exempt — same with provincial taxes and other situations regarding health and social services that are available to our citizens? It's a relatively straightforward question. Do we want to make exceptions based on historical origin, or do we want all citizens of British Columbia to receive the same common services? This is not to say that individual citizens don't receive different services — of course they do — but they could come from the same general provisions in law or in terms of administrative practice.

Question 5 has to do with the fact that they haven't accomplished anything yet in this process. Are you in favour of setting a deadline for negotiations, after which any outstanding issues will be litigated? If yes, how many months do we give them from the date of claim to a deadline — six months, 12 months, 18 months, two years or longer? If we give our negotiators a mandate, let's tell them what we want them to do and accomplish. If they can't accomplish it normally during negotiations, you determine that at some time you have to say that the people involved do not want to settle. Let's go, and if there is a legitimate claim, we will defend it in court.

The same goes for budget. I have got No. 6 here: should B.C. put a cap on the cost? The cost of any settlement is cash and non-cash; non-cash would be land donated or other roads built or whatever. If you do want to put on a cap, a simple way, I thought, would be to ask how much per registered Indian we are negotiating with. Each claim seems to be represented by a group of people who have some type of organization, first nation unit, aboriginal, band or whatever it happens to be. A common denominator would be what it is going to cost per person involved. Do you want to spend $25,000, $75,000, $225,000 or over $225,000 per person that you're dealing with? That's a legitimate question for the recommendation to the government so that the government has some guidance as to where we're going.

Question 7 relates similarly to the previous one regarding cash. Should we put a cap on the Crown land to be used in any settlement? I understand that if we add up the total number of people involved in possible land claims, it might amount to about 5 percent of our population. Does that mean that at the end of the day, we're going to give away or allocate 5 percent of our land base to this group? Is it going to be any? I didn't put "no," because if someone answered this question they should know that Crown land should be used. It's obvious. If they say yes, should we give them five hectares per person or 15, 45, over 45? Let's set some parameters and give the government some principles.

In preparing the previous questions regarding allocations per person, I thought we should also ask this question, No. 8: should any B.C. settlement provide identical benefits for the people involved who are living on reservations or off? The reason I pose this question is that I saw in the Nisga'a information on the website that there were 5,000 people involved in that negotiation, and only half of them were in the territory they were involved in or living on the reservation or their lands. Does that mean that someone who left that community one generation ago, one year ago, one month ago and who went into the mainstream of the province living in Vancouver should receive the same benefits as those people who have basically the highest stake in the claim, probably instigating the claim from, in that case, the Nisga'a area? That's the question.

I'm sure you have literally hundreds of other questions being presented to you for information. As I mentioned, mine are not all-inclusive, and they may overlap. They may have already been answered in government policy, in which case I'd be pleased to read about it and hear about it. Those were some of the areas that came to mind, as just someone who is an interested citizen. I have no specific skill or expertise in this area; it's strictly a common perspective. I'd welcome any questions, if you want.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Ben. Please don't apologize for presenting a layperson's point of view. That is precisely what we are here to gather. It's important for us to understand the degree to which the knowledge around the treaty process is permeating the public of British Columbia. Clearly, there is work to do there. Thank you for your presentation and your thoughts. I have some questions from Gillian, Bill and Mike.

G. Trumper: Thank you very much for your presentation. Some of the questions that you raised make me ask you: how do we get the information out so that when taking part in the referendum, people are making whatever their questions are from knowledge? I've been involved in treaty negotiations for some considerable time. One of the things we have found is that the work that has been done to try to inform the general public — Joe Q. Public, as you put it — doesn't seem to have gotten through. They don't seem to have an interest until it specifically affects their particular area of interest. How do you see a better job being done in getting that information out?

B. Leboe: I think part of the answer lies in the fact that the questions should be on principle and not related to any specific legal or technical direction that the government might like to take. That's the first part.

The second part is that I took advantage of some of the written material on the website from the B.C. Treaty Commission. They produce pamphlets, brochures and so on, especially relating to the Nisga'a agreement. I found that they were self-serving, and to some extent I'm not entirely convinced they were absolutely accurate. They would make leading statements like: "The taxation issues have been resolved, and they will be blended into the normal taxation rules of Canada over this particular time." When you looked closely, there would be exceptions and so on.

I would like to see relatively little so-called education or pronouncements from the province relating to the questions. If the questions are ones of principle, I think the citizens can read the question, if it's plain, and answer the question on the basis of principle.

I'm reminded of a President who's still alive: President Reagan. When he came into office, he was questioned about not reading all of his briefing books. We'd had other Presidents like Carter, who had studied them diligently. His answer was: "Well, after all these years, if I don't know what I want to do and the principles I want to apply, I shouldn't be here."

I think the government underestimates the know-ledge and general compassion of our citizens. If the questions are not technical, I think there's no education, because presumably we're not trying to ask about particular issues but only principles. We all should have the ability to answer a question on principle.

B. Belsey: Ben, thank you very much for your presentation. From my point of view, it's one of the better ones that I've seen. You included an awful lot of points that we've heard from a number of others, but you've got them all in one presentation. I think you've done a very good job. There is one thing, though, that I don't see in your questions. I'm just wondering if it's something that you haven't thought about or maybe overlooked. That is the finality of treaties. Do you have any comment with regards to the finality?

B. Leboe: I'm assuming that with all the public pronouncements so far, that's a clear issue. If someone has a claim and you settle the claim, that's it. I didn't have any question about that. I just made that assumption.

M. Hunter: Thank you, Ben, for your presentation. I found that your questions actually did reflect the thought process that you set out in terms of your concerns. I appreciate the logical consistency of what you presented to us.

I had a question about two of your questions. Question 2 and question 4 seem to address similar issues. Am I right, or did you have separate thoughts in mind in drafting those two different questions?

B. Leboe: No. I think you're correct. I apologized at the beginning that some of my questions may overlap. I didn't consider this to be a Pulitzer document. I just sat down and tried to focus my thoughts for an hour or so and say: "If I were given the opportunity to appear, why would I want to appear, and what would I want to have the province tell their elected leaders?"

B. Leboe: No. I'm sure that if some of those elements were ever brought to a final referendum question, the drafters, who are much more skilled than I, would frame the question and combine them.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Ben, for your presentation. Early on in your presentation you made reference to your own confusion on the position of the province with respect to our obligations in and around the treaty process. You referred to the pre-1986 position of the province. We have a summary that makes reference to the case law as it has evolved since 1982 within the context of the Constitution Act of 1982. I think it might be useful for you to review that summary on how our position has changed since 1986 and where we go from here. Again, I thank you for your presentation and recommend that you read that material, which might assist you in terms of your confusion around some of these issues. A comment more than a question.

B. Leboe: Thank you. I appreciate it, and I will take a look at that. In response, it's probably something I missed in terms of the development of provincial policy in this regard. That's not to say that it wouldn't still be a valid question because, as you know, policies in Canada change notwithstanding particular pieces of

legislation or an element…. If we think the policy should change as a province, we would then have to look to see what legislative or even constitutional changes should be recommended to change that. I don't think we should be hamstrung by any particular outside force. I appreciate that point.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): With respect to policy change, there has been a change in the federal government's policies in and around land claims and the role that the province plays with respect to the treaty process. However, in the case of the province I think it's not so much a change in policy as a matter of case law evolving as it has, particularly since the Constitution Act of 1982 with respect to obligations and rights that flow from that constitution. That has evolved, continues to evolve and does in fact impact us in a very real way with respect to our obligations in and around the treaty process.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): It's something that is a given and something that we have to keep our eye on, as well, with respect to future negotiations.

B. Leboe: I appreciate that. You know that I'm not a lawyer. We had a government that said it could legislate anything — change you from a man to a moon, probably. If it's a question that is out there, and the province wants to take a strong stand and put the total responsibility for native land claims in the hands of the federal government, I'm sure they could do it until the Supreme Court tells them otherwise. Specifically, put that case to them. Go right up to the Supreme Court. If you told me that one of the cases you showed me was a case resolving that question and not just a comment from some other case and some other issue, then I'd say, "I give up," if I was inclined that way. Believe me, when I put these questions forward, I'm not suggesting that I would vote one way or another on any of them. They were just issues that I seemed to think are unresolved in the community. Thanks very much for your advice.

V. Anderson: Thank you, Ben. I really appreciate that you have given us sample questions, because they have been in very short supply. A lot of concerns have been brought to us, and it's the questions that we've been looking for.

V. Anderson: Yes, exactly. Thank you. Since they're dealing with questions of principles, I wanted to follow up on a principle in a couple of these. One had to do with question 4, and let me just give a scenario.

In the early settlement of B.C. I know, for instance, there were a number of Scottish people who came and settled on land here. I expect that because of confusion in registration and a variety of other things, part of their legal entitlement to that land could have been questioned by someone else who came along later and wanted to challenge it, saying the land belonged to them instead of to the McLaughlins. When that other person challenged the McLaughlins' right to that land, are you suggesting that that's a race question rather than a legal question of entitlement?

B. Leboe: With regard to a specific claim for land like you've described, that would just be a question of civil disagreement based on the facts. It would have nothing to do with race or cultural origin, in my view. If the person who was making the claim said, "I had that land" — not someone 200 or 300 years ago, but "I had a claim to that land" — then that would be a question of fact. If they were claiming it on behalf of some of their distant ancestors, then it would be related to origin or cultural heritage, because they would then have to demonstrate that there's a linkage and that it was based on some general usage. It would matter depending on the claim.

V. Anderson: If my great-grandfather had land and I was to dispute that — I'm three generations away from him — why would that be based on his culture rather than on the fact that he was on that land at that particular time?

B. Leboe: It wouldn't necessarily. If you said, "This is my grandfather's claim. Here is the evidence that he had possession and had some kind of title" — in the last 100 years you'd have a title — then it would not be related to culture or origin. However, if it was a broader claim to say, "My ancestors in general were in the area," then I think it has to do with origin.

V. Anderson: I'm just questioning, because I think the principle of the question here is very important. I could hear on one hand that people of a community whose ancestors settled here and had claim — and then there was a dispute of those claims — can have history to document that. It's oral history; it's maybe not written history. It may be both. When they come, that's discarded because they happen to be aboriginal rather than somebody else, who happened to be Scottish in my illustration. I'm just suggesting that the principle of entitlement is the same principle and is one that needs to be questioned.

B. Leboe: I would not differentiate between whether they were Scottish or aboriginal in that regard, and if it was a principle of disentitlement….

V. Anderson: That's why I would question the wording in question 4 — to apply to race or ethnic origin but rather to apply to proving historical validity of ownership, something along that line.

B. Leboe: Yes. When I framed question 4, I wasn't thinking of land at all. I was talking about land claims generally. Coming out of this seems to be special circumstances. For example, today if my children go to the local school, they're entitled to all of the benefits provided by that school. If I went to that school and was of a certain cultural and ethnic origin, specifically aboriginal, I can go to special events. Later on I may have some of my tuition covered, and my family may be able to maintain a tax-free status if they have an address on a reserve or whatever. That's what I meant in terms of the overall land settlement. Do we want some laws or government services that ultimately are directed differently to citizens?

B. Leboe: I differentiate between the land claims and the services that we provide as a government.

V. Anderson: I would take that, because Mr. Hunter asked a similar one between question 2…. Again to clarify principles, I think it's very important that we don't confuse our principles here. In equality of services we do have by legislation and by practice, within our community, a great many services provided to seniors with government funds and government legislation which are not provided to other citizens in the community. We accept and agree that that's the way it should be. What I'm wondering is: when we do have some services that are provided to special groups and not to other groups in the community because we justify that particular group, then I'm not sure.…

B. Leboe: That's a good question, and that's the question I'm raising as a principle. I didn't raise it on seniors because that wasn't your question, but since you're asking about aboriginals, I think it's a good question. Should we have special rules and regulations, administrative practices, based on race and ethnic origin? You said it's been accepted for age. I'm saying that's a good question, and since we're dealing with aboriginals, let's ask the people whether or not we should be doing it for that as well.

V. Anderson: I just wanted to clarify if it's in the same context. It's not a loaded question; it's just a straightforward question.

D. MacKay: Ben, like yourself, I take the aboriginal issue seriously. You've obviously spent some time doing some research on it. That's obvious from the questions you've asked.

I was elected this first time around as an MLA. I got interested in the political field because of what happened up in the neck of the woods that I live in, which is Smithers. We were impacted by Nisga'a and Delgamuukw. I had a great interest in what was taking place up north. I wanted to make sure that we were getting represented up there, because I didn't feel we had been represented in the past. That's why I'm here as an MLA now.

I won't go into some of the things here, because we're running over time. I was going to talk to you about Nisga'a and Delgamuukw, and I wouldn't mind talking to you later, if I could.

One of the things I wanted to ask you about was finality, which Bill Belsey has already covered off. You expect that finality would come out of any treaty.

D. MacKay: When you started talking about the treaties, it begs the question…. We have a segment of society in a multicultural society…. Canada is multicultural, and all the other societies mix well. We mix with one another. We continue down the road trying to create treaties. Maybe they should be agreements, as you suggested. We continue with the treaty process, which is going to continue to segregate the native Indians from the rest of the population of Canada. We've just gone through 130 years of that. Are you suggesting that we should perhaps do away with treaties and sign agreements and get rid of this treaty process so native Indians can become Canadians, which is what their interest and desire is?

B. Leboe: Well, I question that last assumption. My answer is that that's a good question for a referendum. I'm not here to tell you what I would do or what I'm recommending, but that is an excellent question for a referendum because it's a fundamental question. I would hesitate to get too far into federal affairs in a referendum.

The point is that if it's a B.C. referendum, it should be B.C.'s interest in B.C.'s position. If our B.C. government wished to hear from our citizens on that question, it should be a question, because then they could go to Ottawa and say: "Get rid of the Indian Act. Don't do any treaties. Introduce a concept of equality like Pierre Trudeau might have recommended 25 years ago, or whatever it was, and go from there."

D. Chutter: Thanks, Ben, for what I feel is a very good submission. I appreciate you focusing on our purpose here, which is questions on principles. That's great. Just to clarify one point and ask a question on another, on your second page you mentioned that B.C. seems to be trying to resolve too many unrelated social and economic issues. Your feeling is that to date, it's been far more complex than it has to be. A lot of these other issues could be dealt with either by the federal government outside of the negotiation process or perhaps by the provincial government outside of the process, whether it's health or education or whatever. Is that your intent there — let's simplify this focus on land and resources?

B. Leboe: That's absolutely my intent — and specific claims that are provincial responsibilities. For example, if there's a claim for some Crown land levied against the province — yes. To my knowledge, that should be identified and segregated from whether or not a community needs a road, like many communities, or a bridge in the Okanagan or special health services and so on. We have institutions set up to provide these services to all of our citizens in the province. Implied in my question is that I'd like to have British Columbia stick to its own knitting and deal with it and have the presence of mind to stay out of issues which are not our full responsibility.

We wouldn't have a provincial minister now trying to introduce new security measures for Canada, because security is a federal issue. I think some of these issues that the provinces have gotten themselves into are someone else's responsibility; and if they're not, there will be litigation and we'll be found otherwise. I'd like to throw in this comment; I was thinking about it as I was thinking about my notes. There seems to be a claim for the land under the B.C. Legislature. I'm saying: "Fine. Bring it to court." And if we lose as a province, what do we lose — a building? We can move the Legislature to Kamloops. It's not a big deal. It's a matter of fact.

If someone has a legitimate issue for that land, either we end up leasing the Legislature back from someone who owns the land until we can relocate or until the building falls down, or we make other arrangements. It's a matter of fact. I consider that question to be fundamental. B.C. should stick to its knitting and not try to solve everyone else's problems as well.

D. Chutter: That leads to my next question of trying to make it less complex. On question 1 you've asked: "Do you want B.C. Indians to have some form of self-government?" There are two points to that. Do we need to deal with that? Is that making the whole thing more complex?

B. Leboe: Absolutely. Look at the controversy around Nisga'a. I read the papers, and I went and got a copy and read the agreement and all the rest of it, just out of interest. I couldn't believe that our national government and the provincial government were basically incorporating a self-contained kind of government with no proven economic base, no tax base and a limited population.

I'm in a small community called Lake Country. We have 8,000 or 9,000 people, and we're struggling. We did have a vote two or three times to incorporate. It's a struggle, even with 8,000 or 9,000 people in an area close to a metropolitan city like Kelowna. I think it is irresponsible for our governments to let loose a self-contained governmental unit like this with no oversight from the province. It doesn't fall under the Municipal Act. It comes under some kind of very firm agreement called a treaty. If many of you were voting on it today, you might not have voted for it. I have implied from some of the questions here that perhaps that's why you're even MLAs today. It did go through our Legislature, and we have to live with it. But let's not make the mistake again, and let's not confuse those kinds of issues with claims on provincial assets.

D. Chutter: I'll do just one follow-up, if I could, Mr. Chairman. On that same question you asked. If the same is approved for Nisga'a, that causes me to think: does the public know anything about Nisga'a? The Municipal Act may be changing. Are those three questions not about principle but more about specifics? Should they even be in there? You were very clear: let's keep with just principled questions.

B. Leboe: I believe they're principled in this sense: it's a principle to allow a group which I cannot join to create their own government in northern B.C. That's a principle. That's the Nisga'a. In reference to Ms. Trumper's question, the Nisga'a was given to every citizen. I received two or three pieces of mail, as did every citizen, on the Nisga'a agreement, summarizing what it was. Media, parliamentary debates in both Ottawa and British Columbia…. There's a principle involved. People understand that there's a self-government up there in which, unless you're a member of that group — I don't understand totally how you become one, but I understand that you probably have to be born into it, or their chiefs would allow you to join — you can't participate. I think citizens understand that, and that's a principle. We all know what municipalities are, because most of us live in one. The last one is some other form. That's why I thought it was a valid point of principle.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you, Ben. We've gone quite a while with you this morning. I think that's in some way a reflection of the thought you put into it. We very much appreciate your coming this morning and sharing your ideas with us. You can be sure that we'll be weighing it all very carefully.

B. Leboe: I appreciate that, and I thank you very much for your attention. I think this process is an excellent one. If it goes through to fruition and you ask some difficult questions of principle, we will learn some of the views that could bring this province together and help kind of push our governments to solve some of these issues. As I've mentioned, if you keep doing the same things, you'll end up with the same result. The results aren't evident, so let's change and do something different. Thank you very much.

J. Les (Chair): The next presenter is Mick Werstuik from the Westbank first nation. First of all, thank you for your patience, Mick. We went a little overtime with the previous presenter.

M. Werstuik: No problem. Good morning. I have to apologize. I may have problems speaking clearly, because I just had a wisdom tooth pulled yesterday.

M. Werstuik: As you know, my name is Mickey Werstuik. I am an Okanagan nation member. I am a councillor for the Westbank first nation, which is part of the Okanagan nation. The Okanagan nation is a vast area, which extends below the 49th parallel. There are seven other bands that make up the Okanagan nation.

The Westbank first nation, as part of the Okanagan nation, is a very progressive community, as a lot of people more than likely know by reputation — which we take pride in. We have five reserves totalling approximately 6,000 acres, and our membership is approximately 600. We also have a non-native population of approximately 8,000 people who live on our reserves and also a lot of business which goes on within our reserve boundaries.

As any historian will tell you, the Okanagan nation has never ceded, surrendered or sold our rights to the land. We've never signed any treaties with the British Crown or with British Columbia or any other government body. To date, there is no legal interest in conveying our ownership to the land. That ownership is not recognized by British Columbia, by Canada or by basically anybody. We have never been compensated in any way, shape or form for the loss of our lands or resources, and there has been no reconciliation.

The history of our people is well-known. Just as any native in North America — in B.C., anyway, in particular — we have never been conquered. We have been conquered by disease, by an industrial society coming in and taking over and by government policies of trying to assimilate us into the general populace of Canada. It's still ongoing today. There has been statutory discrimination, and racism has deeply affected us for generations and continues to affect us.

Despite all of this strife, we've continued. Our people have always been here, and we will always be here. The people today still fight for the same rights that our people have for over a hundred years, since colonization. There will be future generations, because we pass these strengths on to our next generations for them to continue to struggle and fight. This is going to be ongoing forever.

What has remained constant through all of this is our claims to the land. We claim we have property rights, which we do have. Nobody recognizes them, though, but we do have property rights. While there are many social issues that we face due to the legacy of colonization and ethnocide, that's a constant.

Today non-aboriginal people in British Columbia have a problem, because our property rights have been ignored for such a long period of time. Our property rights need to be reconciled with everybody else's interests — non-native interests — in the land. That has created the denial of our interests, because our interests compete with every other British Columbian's interest in the land — the very property we sit on. We have an interest and we have a right to this land, but nobody recognizes that.

Just a little history on how our band has been involved in the treaty process. Basically, from prior leadership, we've been involved from the onset. Back in the Socred days when Bill Vander Zalm was in, there was a committee set up to deal with the land question in B.C. A tripartite process was set up, and that eventually led to the B.C. treaty process — the B.C. Treaty Commission — which would resolve land claim negotiations.

One of our former chiefs was appointed under the Socreds and was on the Premier's advisory council on aboriginal affairs that travelled around the province to hear what people had to say on aboriginal issues. Basically, the same sort of thing that's going on today was done back in '86 or so. The major issue they heard from aboriginals and non-aboriginals alike was settlement of land claims.

Though the previous NDP administration had significant influence in modelling the current treaty process, I think it is fair to say that the treaty process has become cumbersome and bureaucratic. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent, and the general public don't see any results for the moneys that have been spent. There are reasons why this is the case, and the reasons need to be addressed by the government and first nations, between us.

The Liberals are promising a new era in British Columbia. Running up to the election, one of your party platforms was the referendum on treaties. It's obvious that there are a lot of non-native folks who are concerned about the treaty process. There are also a lot of native folks concerned about this for opposite reasons.

Sometimes public concern is expressed about a lack of education. This is hard to believe. There is a significant amount of information and opportunity to learn about the land question and treaty negotiations. People may be using this as an excuse that they are not informed, but in reality most probably understand why land claims must be settled and are afraid of the truth.

Most British Columbians know what property rights are. In fact, all free and democratic societies are based on the free market principle of protecting property rights. Because we have property rights as aboriginal peoples, the public and its government have a legal and moral conflict. To deny our property rights would be to recognize your rights, and to deny your rights would mean recognizing ours — quite a conundrum for a society that is based in part on the political philosophy of protecting property rights which, by definition, must include our property rights.

The Liberal government comes in and says: "When we get elected, we'll put in this whole treaty process referendum." This is, we respectfully submit, very dangerous. As you have heard from many aboriginal groups, the aboriginal peoples of British Columbia are not in favour of a referendum. That is reiterated by our chief and council. The Westbank first nation is not in favour of a referendum.

British Columbia is going to be judged by the rest of Canada and the international community and, most importantly, in the market by how it is dealing with aboriginal property rights. The business of British Columbia is dependent on the reconciliation of these property rights, our aboriginal title and the other interest in the land, the Crown title. How much economic activity takes place in B.C. will depend on whether there is a fair and equitable settlement with first nations. This is a blunt legal and economic reality of the situation we are facing because of the whole question.

In this environment British Columbia cannot afford to have a majority population vote no on a social and legal justice in a referendum that would tell the rest of the world that non-natives in B.C. are going to try to finish the job their forefathers unconsciously tried to do. This is denying Indians our property rights. This is politically and morally unacceptable and therefore economically unwise, as most British Columbians participate as workers in the economy and are not leaders. It is up to the leaders to show direction and not to pander to misplaced populism that is the breeding grounds for intolerance and racism.

If for whatever reason a referendum turns racist and confrontational so that the underlying question of property rights becomes obscured in ethnocentrism and racism, B.C. risks being thrown into a native and non-native conflict that has not been seen for many years. It is misguided, we respectfully submit, to think the referendum can be used as a process to educate the public about treaty issues. There are other ways to do this. As we have said, the public knows. What they want is our property rights limited. It is the government's job to show how leadership is going to do what is right and not be swayed by mass opinion.

There was a reason why the settlers were not allowed at the treaty tables in the past. The Crown was negotiating with the tribes. The legitimate interests of the Indians needed to be balanced with the interests of the settlers that were being permitted to occupy what is now Canada. The reasons why the settlers were not negotiating at those tables all those years ago have not gone away. Competing property interests — that's the underlying thing. The referendum would be evidence that these conflicts that kept the settlers from the table are still with us.

Westbank, along with other first nations in British Columbia, embarked upon treaty negotiations with a sense of hope and optimism. Westbank filed a statement of claim in December '93, and Westbank has been negotiating in good faith since that time. Over the years we have become disillusioned with the inability of the table to address fundamental issues of property rights in a forthright and fair manner.

This brings us to the treaty process, which you promised during the election campaign you would review. There are more important issues in addressing and settling land claims than pursuing the potentially socially divisive referendum. The treaty process does not have to be restructured. The first thing you need to do is focus on the treaty-making process itself.

At the end of the day, first nations and other governments want treaties to become constitutionally protected so that they are enduring and cannot be tampered with. However, the same finality is a scary concept for first nations. We have everything to lose and only one chance at it. If we don't get it right, we're had, so it's very scary for us to be in this process.

However, there is a way to build toward constitutionally protected treaties and provide the certainty that we all now need. Today first nations have reserves that have been set aside for their exclusive use and benefit. These reserves are currently governed under the Indian Act, which is basically a wardship system of federal administration.

I tell a lot of people I may be elected politically, but for the most part my job is to administer Indians on behalf of the federal government. That is my job. Even though I was elected by my community, I take and administer federal policy. Under the Indian Act, I'm basically just an Indian agent on behalf of the federal government.

This is no basis for the modern governance of our existing reserves or a suitable platform from which our peoples can mount treaty negotiations, although we have been trying. Our own institutions of government have been restricted over the years and need to be re-established with legal and political legitimacy to give meaning to government-to-government treaty negotiations, and I emphasize government to government.

First nations must, at the very least, have their governance systems in place with clear rules for membership, citizenship and established mandates for achieving settlement. The first step in reconciling aboriginal title and Crown title is by rebuilding aboriginal government. The second step is identifying the land areas, which are the basis of settlement, land selection. Finally, the third step is to confirm the relationship between the aboriginal governments and the Crown through a treaty that becomes constitutionally protected.

Self-government negotiations, we submit, do not have to be exclusively part of the treaty process and are part of the broader push across Canada to rebuild our first nations. Self-government for aboriginal people ac-ross Canada is already part of the Canadian constitution.

If I can go off topic here with question 1 of what was said there, that cannot be a question that can even be put to the citizens of B.C., because we have a constitutionally protected inherent right to self-government. That cannot be determined by a referendum by the citizens of this province.

B.C. treaties can ultimately confirm this constitutional status but cannot hinder it. We have to be careful that what we put into treaties in the name of certainty does not overly restrict us in the future. All we might have is increased uncertainty. As you may be aware, a couple of months ago we received a letter from the Premier, Gordon Campbell, offering to negotiate with Westbank a municipal style of self-government.

Westbank is currently in the process of ratifying a bilateral self-government agreement with Canada for

our existing reserves that is premised on the basis that self-government is an existing inherent right. The self-government agreement is not a treaty but a mechanism for better government on reserves today. It provides for a community constitution that is enforceable in court and sets out how our government operates — its powers along with the checks and balances. If you would like, you can see what our constitution entails on our website, which is www.wfn.ca. Our self-government agreement is on there too.

Modern aboriginal government has municipal and non-municipal elements to it. It is important for the provincial government to understand that a form of government that first nations require and are developing goes beyond that of a municipality.

The inherent right to self-government can be exercised by our people in a way that minimizes uncertainty and conflict and provides a platform for resolving the land question. If British Columbia chooses not to participate in the re-establishment of Indian government on reserve prior to treaty settlement, then the simplest solution is for Canada to negotiate bilaterally. Those first nations seeking to exercise their right to self-government and become more responsible in their own affairs would be better placed to settle the land question.

The next issue was brought up earlier too. It's the taxation issue. Taxation is part of a broad discussion on the nature of the fiscal relationship between aboriginal governments and non-aboriginal governments. This fiscal relationship is a national issue and will not be solved exclusively in B.C. The land question and the issue of certainty in British Columbia is a property rights issue, not a taxation issue. It is not a taxation question. To link taxation to the land question is contributing to the uncertainty and why we have no settlements. That has basically been, through our negotiating table, one of the hugest issues. We will not forgo our taxation rights. We want those rights to be protected.

One of the principles of the treaty process is that any party can bring any issue it wants to the negotiating table. This is an important principle. However, all parties must be mindful that if some issues are raised that are not relevant to the underlying land question, then all parties risk failure of the big question. If B.C. wants certainty over property rights, then the position of the provincial government over taxation must be modified.

The next issue is interim measures. We need to make progress on specific issues that can undermine the relationship between first nations and the Crown. This one, for instance, hits close to home for us. A first nation has a specific property rights issue — in our case, it was access to timber — so they can put some loggers to work to build the local economy. In the past the province said that they wouldn't deal with these types of issues unless we had an agreement-in-principle under the treaty process. However, because of positional bargaining or perhaps structural problems with first nations government, the first nation cannot realistically expect to complete an agreement-in-principle for years. How can we resolve that issue if the only way you'll talk to us is if we have an agreement-in-principle, but we're not going to reach that agreement-in-principle until the future?

The result is that you have some communities that are frustrated by the process. Westbank is finally finalizing an interim measures agreement on forestry at this time, and it is very important that these agreements meet the interests of first nations, recognizing that there is a lot of work to make modern treaties a reality.

Again, rather than trying to make everyone and every issue fit within the treaty process, deal with specific issues and establish interim measures in order to minimize uncertainty and conflict. This will also maximize the potential for regional economic growth and investment. As part of this new practical approach, deal with the issues on the basis of what is of concern to the region at that specific first nation. Above all, stop using specific issues in order to coerce first nations into agreeing on two provincial positions that do not meet the legitimate interests of first nations. If the legitimate interests of first nations are not met, then there will be no certainty for the future.

This brings me to our final point. Presently the only community within the Okanagan Nation Alliance that has been part of the B.C. treaty process is us, the Westbank first nation. Many legal experts we have talked with suggest that Westbank does not have the authority to negotiate for any part of the Okanagan Nation territory. This is a collectively held right by the nation. This is the view based on the interpretation of the Supreme Court decision of Delgamuukw back in 1997. This issue of the appropriate unit to negotiate what it can negotiate needs to be reconsidered. It also needs to be considered in the context of interim measures and capacity-building initiatives such as self-government — especially at the tribal level, not the band level.

Our primary recommendation to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs is not to risk economic, political and social uncertainty by asking a question to the citizens of British Columbia that would put native versus non-native. Whether a question that is legally as well as morally correct can be crafted that would not drive an even greater wedge between the native and non-native communities remains to be seen. This is quite a task, and we must not get it wrong — for all of our sakes. Your best option is to find some way to avoid asking the question at all.

Notwithstanding the corner you have painted yourselves into with regards to the referendum, there is a need for the provincial government to reconsider its approach to treaty negotiations — most importantly, its positions and expectations out of the process. Leadership is required, not rhetoric. Social justice needs to be achieved, as our basic property rights need to be respected. We are not going to solve all issues that exist between our communities through treaty negotiations. What is required is the proper respect for property so that we may develop our economies and take our rightful place in the Canadian Confederation.

In summary, we ask the committee to consider the following: recognize that first nations may wish to negotiate bilateral self-government agreements with Canada with input from the province, where self-government would facilitate negotiation capacity within that first nation. Taxation issues should not determine treaty success or failure and are a national issue. Focus on interim measures as a way of solving problems, building trust and encouraging private sector investment. Negotiators must be flexible to address the needs and concerns of first nations.

In closing, if you talk with your own treaty negotiators in Victoria, most will probably — under their breath or privately — admit that the points we have made here are correct. If you must have a referendum, we urge you to act with extreme caution. In the eyes of the broader community of nations, you will be judged on how a majority sought to deal with a minority that has been unjustly denied property rights through colonization.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Mick, for a very fine presentation. Given what your jaw must feel like, again I want to recognize your tenacity in being here today. A question from Paul Nettleton?

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Mick, for your presentation. It was thoughtful, informative and helpful to us. I hope you're providing us a written copy.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): It's in Hansard. It's just nice to have it in writing, because we sit down in November, of course.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Mick. You made repeated references to property rights. You also suggested that the province has failed to recognize those rights. I think what you're trying to say is in fact that those rights have yet to be defined. I would expect that they would be defined in some future treaty in terms of the Okanagan Nation and their claims to property rights. Is that not the case?

M. Werstuik: For the most part, basically it falls on deaf ears. For the most part, the province has a hard time trying to consult with us when it comes to the land question itself, because there are all these processes in place.

In the past the province has already granted these tenure interests into property that we consider ours. That's how we say that the province does not recognize our interest. You come to us and provide a letter saying that "we'll listen to input from you" on property that we consider we have a legal interest in, not having any other mechanism to reconcile that interest or even deal with it.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): But you are negotiating with respect to those interests, those property rights. That's where we're headed, is it not?

M. Werstuik: One of the issues that was brought up is Westbank being the only member of the Okanagan Nation. Within the treaty process there could be an undermining of everything there, because we as one band cannot negotiate the rights of other bands, of the Okanagan Nation as a whole. That's where that old colonial divide-and-conquer mechanism is basically breaking up the nation as a whole into these individual bands, and these individual bands are protecting their own interests.

The negotiations have to go on with the proper people. If Westbank negotiated a treaty and settled a treaty, there could be any other band within the Okanagan Nation as a whole that could say: "No, you cannot negotiate our rights to that collectively held interest. You cannot negotiate those away."

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): But treaties are how we get there in terms of defining those rights, whether they involve compensation or what have you. That's where we're headed. I think we can agree on that.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): My question to you, Mick, would be this. You have stated in your submission that you, the Okanagan Nation and presumably Westbank, are opposed to the referendum and opposed to what we are doing with respect to that referendum. My question to you is: what is there that we could ask? How can we formulate a referendum question that would affirm property rights or interest in property from your perspective?

M. Werstuik: I said that you're asking the wrong people. You're asking the settlers to make a determination of their own property rights. They have their own interests which they will protect, as any property owner will. You can't ask a person who owns a piece of property: "Do you want to have your basic title to that property undermined by someone else's interest?"

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): What I'm asking you, Mick, is how we can ask a question that affirms your claim.

M. Werstuik: You're still going to the question. As I said, you're asking the wrong people. That's why we're opposed to the process. You keep trying to say: "How can we ask the question?" We're saying: "Don't ask the question, because you're asking the wrong people."

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): While your response isn't helpful, I understand your response, and I think your submission is very helpful on a number of points. There was some recognition in your submission that in fact a part of this process involves an educational component. I think you would agree that that is important and can be helpful.

M. Werstuik: Well, yes. There were some comments made earlier that if a person had a little more education on the history and some of the court cases that have gone on since the statements of '86 — like how the province's position has changed and why it has changed — then they would see, more or less, why the province had to change in some cases and couldn't stick to those policies of the past. Those were totally shot down in court cases between now and then.

J. Les (Chair): Mick, a question, if I might. The B.C. Treaty Commission has recently reported that the treaty process is not going well. Where they originally anticipated that some 30 first nations across British Columbia would be in the treaty process, we're now roughly at 50 and counting. We see that perhaps as a difficulty.

Then listening to you this morning, in terms of the Okanagan Nation and the Westbank band being one of the bands in the Okanagan Nation, I think I heard you refer to that as perhaps a divide-and-conquer type of situation. Could you help me understand what the causative factor is here? Is it the overt choice of the Westbank band to deal in the treaty process individually? Or do you feel that somehow the policy of the federal and/or provincial governments has been to single out certain bands and not want to deal with, in this case, the Okanagan Nation in its entirety?

M. Werstuik: Well, I think it basically goes back to the principles and stuff that were negotiated in the past. The Westbank first nation got into it thinking that these were going to be fulfilled. We were one of the first to get into it. That's why there wasn't a buy-in, because some of the issues that came up, like taxation, was one huge issue that cannot be negotiated here. That's one of the reasons you don't have a buy-in from the nation as a whole.

J. Les (Chair): I understand that my line of questioning here is perhaps a little bit to the side of what is the core focus of our meetings, but you said the Westbank band made a decision to get into the treaty process. Going back to that point in time, presumably the other bands within the Okanagan Nation were either not interested, not ready or what have you, so the Westbank band council made the decision to go ahead.

J. Les (Chair): You decided not to wait for or include the other bands. Why?

M. Werstuik: I'd have to look back in history for why. Based on the principles, we thought — I think I can speak on behalf of what happened back then — we were getting into something that would be beneficial, with optimism for the outcome. Basically, that could be used as a sort of pilot to promote other first nations, based on those principles agreed upon when the Treaty Commission…. Hindsight is 20-20. Looking back, we would more than likely not have got into the process.

J. Les (Chair): Your statement that hindsight is 20-20 is valid. If we could go back 125 or 130 years, knowing now what our ancestors obviously didn't know then, we might have done things differently, I'm sure.

M. Werstuik: Well, the job was done properly every place east of the Rockies, except for British Columbia. If you look at even the old writings from the Indian commissioners at the time, they recognized that the native people had a legal interest in the land so they had to get that interest extinguished. That was their goal when they did the treaties in the past: the Selkirk treaties, the numbered treaties and stuff like that. They admitted and realized that they as the Crown had to get this question settled so that there were no conflicts between the settlers, the native people or any companies like Hudson's Bay. They had to basically get the native people to extinguish their rights to the broader lands, so they set up the numbered treaty areas where they settled on certain rights within those areas. That's just basically looking at history and stuff like that.

J. Les (Chair): Sure. I'll just pose one more question here. It has to do with the effect of the Indian Act over the last 125 years. In other provinces of Canada treaties were settled, as they were in a couple of areas in British Columbia as well. I would argue that those treaties haven't done too much in terms of allowing first nations people to move forward. Treaty-making in and of itself, as treaty-making was done many years ago, isn't necessarily a stand-alone solution. It needs to be a much more broadly based effort on behalf of all parties, it seems to me, to allow the conditions to evolve that we're all trying to achieve.

Anyway, I guess that's just rhetorical on my part. You needn't respond. I have other people who want to pose questions to you.

G. Trumper: Thank you for your presentation. It is very thoughtful and has given us a lot to think about. You've answered the question that I had on the education issue. I just want to thank you for a very thoughtful presentation. You've certainly given us a lot of thinking to do.

B. Lekstrom: Thanks, Mick. I agree. I think your presentation was very good. I have a couple of questions regarding the referendum, certainly recognizing your opposition. You've stated that very clearly. I believe it's fair to say the referendum is going to go

ahead. I'll give you a perception I have. You stated that the treaty process isn't working, and I think that's a fair statement from both sides. I'm looking at this as our ability as British Columbians not to find out whether British Columbians say we should or shouldn't negotiate treaties — as I think many people thought the process might have started out that way…. It's: what do you want us to negotiate? The fact is that by law — you've stated that very clearly, and I agree — we have a responsibility to negotiate these treaties. Their rights are enshrined in the constitution.

How I'm looking at this process is: tell us what you want to negotiate on behalf of British Columbians so that we can bring some finality to this not just for the province and first nations but for all of us together. That's more of a statement on the referendum, knowing that it's going to go ahead. I take some pride — when I ran for the position of MLA, you put your integrity on the line saying, "I will do this" — that I'm certainly going to carry through. If I didn't believe in that, I wouldn't have put my name on it.

M. Werstuik: That's how come I said you guys painted yourselves in a corner. You used it as a platform, so now you've got to….

B. Lekstrom: That's one piece of it. I'm looking at it as a positive, although there is fear out there. I agree. I wouldn't disagree with you. It may go the wrong way.

We do have a big job because the wording of the questions that are put forward, I think, are very important. It can be skewed either way, but the referendum is going to carry on. I know that you oppose it, and it's a tough question to ask. The way or the questions we could put forward based on something….

I just want to go to the issue of self-government. You talk about bilateral negotiations with the federal government. What type of government do you see would be appropriate to meet your requirements? I have a municipal background. I was mayor of Dawson Creek for a number of years and carried through. I'm sure you have a good reflection on how that system works. Do you see it reflecting in any way, shape or form to something similar to that?

M. Werstuik: For native self-government anyway, like I said, there are municipal principles to it like taxation. With our band, we do taxation on our lands. We have agreements with the regional district to provide services and everything like that. Because of how our governmental process is, we can't be limited to just a municipal-style government. Our jurisdiction crosses all forms of legislation. We go basically from municipal-style zoning bylaws all the way up to federal legislation. It's quasi-municipal, quasi-provincial. It's taking all the levels of government and putting them all together into something that can be exercised on basically what is right now, as it is, reserve lands.

M. Werstuik: Yeah. Our band has been involved in the self-government negotiations for umpteen years now. Like I said, visit our website. We have the actual self-government agreement on our website and also the constitution which was developed by our community. That dictates finances and basically how we, as chiefs in council, give mechanisms to them to keep us in check. As it is now under the Indian Act, there is no recourse, basically. We could be tyrants until the next government gets in, and they can do the same.

M. Werstuik: But there's no recourse for our membership to do anything about that in our constitution.

B. Lekstrom: One final question on the issue of taxation. Certainly this is a learning experience, as well, for us. Both sides can take it as that. Your view on taxation is that right now I go out, purchase something and pay tax — PST, GST. At the end of the day, do you see the final agreement as being somewhat different for first nations, where they wouldn't contribute, which in essence helps build our society?

M. Werstuik: That's something that's going to have to be negotiated at a later date, basically, between the first nations and the feds. Like I stated, that is one of the main issues at our table for us in B.C. We cannot agree. What's basically stagnated negotiations with us is that the taxation issue keeps on getting thrown in there, the whole formula of 8-12-and-20 or whatever it is. You say bye to all your taxation benefits. You become a taxpayer like everybody else. I'll just keep my personal stuff out of it.

B. Lekstrom: I thank you for your presentation. It's certainly my personal goal that at the end of the day people quit caring about what people are and start caring about who they are. I think we'll all be better off.

V. Anderson: Thank you very much for your presentation. It's extremely helpful and challenging. It's always important to try and think in somebody else's frame of reference. Thank you for that.

We've discussed a fair bit today about principles. You mentioned earlier and we discussed certain principles in place upon which the present treaty negotiations had been developing. I'm wondering if, maybe not now but later, you might share with us which of those principles that were used originally are still valid and have proved to be valid in furthering negotiation and whether some of those principles serve to confuse the negotiation and not be valid and therefore should be discarded, in effect. I'm wondering whether in the discussion there has also come to the fore principles that were not listed and that should be added. It would seem to me that that would clarify both why we have succeeded in some areas and failed in others in present negotiations and would also give some guidance as to where a new set of negotiations might move forward, from your perspective. I think it would be very helpful

if you would, in your thoughtful way, be able to share that with us at some later date.

D. MacKay: Mick, thanks. I'm going to see if you can clarify a question for me, but before I do that, I'm just going to perhaps give you a little background as to why I'm a little bit confused about this land claim issue and why it's so confusing to a lot of people. If you go back to Joe Gosnell, who is the chief from Nisga'a, he made the comment that as far as the air, the water, the bugs, the fish, the land…. He said: "It belongs to the natives, lock, stock and barrel. It's all ours." That's one concept out there that defines to me what land claims is. In other words, the natives are laying claim to the whole of the province — actually, 110 percent or 115 percent of the province. That's confusing to me. I gather that means they own the trees and all the royalties that come from lumber that's cut on there and the minerals that are taken from the ground and the proceeds from any fish sales. The whole economic base of the province of British Columbia, if you listen to Joe Gosnell, is owned by the natives.

Can I ask you: what is your interpretation of land claims? Can you define to me what property rights are? When you talk about property rights, are you basically saying the same thing that Mr. Gosnell did — that the whole province belongs to the natives, lock, stock and barrel?

M. Werstuik: Yeah, until there's a termination or there's something negotiated in which we relinquish that title to it. So far to date, that has not happened. We have not been compensated in any way, shape or form.

Like I said when I was going through the little history lesson, in the treaties that were done in the past, that was the goal of the Crown. They even state in their correspondence between the Indian commissioners and stuff like that that their goal was to basically say: "The native people have the title to this vast area here. We've got to limit that; we've got to rein it in. We'll give them certain areas, and for that we'll compensate them. Once they've done that, then they will relinquish all claims and stuff like that to any other…."

To date, that has not happened in B.C. So why should native people limit themselves to something that hasn't even had a limit put on it?

D. MacKay: Just to follow up on that. If you look at Treaty 8, which covers the northeast part of the province, that treaty was signed off 102 years ago and doesn't have a whole bunch of relevance in today's society. I think there are some attempts now to reopen that treaty, because the natives feel they weren't treated properly during that treaty process that happened 102 years ago. As I look into the future to another 100 years from today, what's to stop any treaty that is signed today from having a few generations down the road saying: "The treaty that we signed in 2001 isn't relevant — 100 years from now — and we've got to go back to the people, because we weren't treated fairly"? I don't understand how we sign these things off. I just wonder if you can….

M. Werstuik: That's how you get into the whole legal question of everything. That's why there are court cases basically challenging what the ideas of what those treaties were in the past and how those principles should perpetuate on and on. In the past there were a lot of expectations and misunderstanding of what was actually there. Like I said, there's one kick at this. We have to do it to protect ourselves, and the province has to protect itself, and Canada has to protect itself too. It's got to be done right — once.

You can look into the future. There will be challenges, just like there are challenges to the constitution in the other piece of legislation. There are challenges to that continuously. So in the future there will be challenges to treaties.

M. Werstuik: Well, it's just like any piece of legislation. It's never going to be final. It's always going to be challenged.

D. Chutter: In my view, a big value of this process that we're going through in the referendum is its education value. Today and ongoing right up to a referendum next year, there's going to be tremendous education. I think that's needed, because there's a lot of concern for the unknown. Specifically, a concern that's been brought up is: what do the aboriginal people mean in terms of their claim to the land or interests in the land — the fear of the unknown as to what that means? I don't think questions in a referendum have to be divisive at all. It all depends on what the question is and how the wording is formulated. I think questions could possibly have a preamble that would provide a tremendous amount of education at the moment of dealing with the question.

To try to address that uncertainty or fear of what is meant by the interest in the land in a question, many aboriginal leaders and members have suggested that they support the concept of sharing land, sharing communities, with the general public. Is that a principle you could support?

M. Werstuik: Like I've said, basically it's too far gone now. As it states in Delgamuukw, the cases are all here to stay. It's not like the native population of the province is going to own the whole province after negotiations are done. We're all going to have to live here. We're all going to have to coexist.

I think our band has been really progressive in that, because we're involved with our neighbouring communities. We're involved with them, and what we do on our reserve affects what happens elsewhere. I can't speak on behalf of other bands. I can only speak on

I don't see us basically thinking that we're going to up and take every chunk of fee simple land and tell people they don't own it anymore and "bye, see you later." There's got to be some sort of means by which there can be reconciliation of the lands and those interests.

D. Chutter: A follow-up comment, if I could, is that I think there has to be tremendous education on the part of the public, the non-aboriginal public.

M. Werstuik: Well, there is a huge fear factor in most of the public thinking that their own personal property is in question. That was one of the things put on the table: no fee simple lands are off the table. There's this huge fear out there that they're going to get uprooted and moved somewhere else if the treaty is ever settled.

Also, I've worked lots in the forest industry. A lot of the people in this area think: "Oh well, if there's anything settled here, you guys are going to take over, and we're going to be out of work and everything like that." That's not the fact. In a lot of cases — well, in our case anyway — we don't have the capacity to do all of these things, and we do work with our local community a lot. We cannot segregate ourselves just to our reserve boundaries.

D. Chutter: I think that is my exact point too. It needs to be communicated, and I would urge you to use this vehicle to communicate that to the public of B.C. To me, that one message alone could have tremendous positive impact on the whole negotiating process, and it would support buy-in by the public.

B. Belsey: Thank you, Mick, for your presentation. I'm looking forward to getting a hard copy of it, because you have an awful lot of information in there that I would like to see.

I have a couple of questions, and I would like you to continue on with my history lesson here. Why did we have only one treaty, Treaty 8, settled in the province? Why were there no other ones settled?

M. Werstuik: Treaty 8 was an adhesion treaty, which just basically came into effect. I guess there were more — McLeod Lake was one — but that was based, I believe, on the mandate given to Governor Douglas at the time. Basically, there was no more money from the federal government to complete the task at hand, which was to get relinquishment of the rest of the province.

B. Belsey: The federal government ran out of money at that time. There was no more.

M. Werstuik: I'm not too sure, or else the governor of British Columbia at the time figured there was no need. Basically, it was said it was a federal responsibility. For the most part, when the treaty process was going on, I don't think B.C. was even part of the confederacy at the time.

B. Belsey: I'm wondering if you have in mind any kind of time frame in which you would like to see treaties completed. Would you like to share that with us?

M. Werstuik: Oh, it's been ongoing for over seven years, and nothing beneficial to the actual grassroots people has ever come about. It's a lot of money expended for no results. Time frame is a huge question. Like I said, there are a lot of other interests which are going to be affected by treaty. Every land tenure within the surrounding area is going to be affected somehow. There's going to have to be some sort of consultation between the Crown and the other affected third parties.

B. Belsey: Do you think it's possible to settle this in five years, in ten years, in two years?

M. Werstuik: Well, you could just look back to Nisga'a. That was over 100 years of ongoing negotiation. It would be nice to see something come out, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Basically, accelerate it. Well, I'm not too sure. Basically, in our case we kind of know what we want and where we are going and stuff like that, so it would probably be a lot shorter process for bands like ourselves. For other ones that haven't been in the process and haven't really sat down and figured out where they're going and what's really valid, that would take a lot longer.

B. Belsey: I didn't really want to put you on the spot. I just wondered if you had some ideas. I thank you very much.

J. Les (Chair): Just one more question from me. In terms of the question of self-government, the terminology "municipal-style self-government" is sometimes used. If we just put that aside for a minute, is there a discussion available around delegated or non-delegated self-government? You sometimes hear people suggesting not to worry too much about exactly the label that you put on it. But in some way, shape or form, to fit within the context of the Canadian constitution, it will need to be a delegated form of government.

M. Werstuik: That's why our agreement was negotiated basically. It was a negotiation on what delegated authorities we would be able to exercise on our lands. Westbank is not going to be delegated authority when it comes to defence and that kind of stuff. Those are national issues. The things that you can basically take care of at home are the things that….

Through our agreement we basically had draw-down powers at a later date, and if our government gets up to a certain level and we see that we can take over these different authorities, we can draw that power down from the federal government. For the most part, all of the authority is basically mirroring

either the provincial or the federal government authorities. There's sort of a meet-or-beat clause in there, especially when it comes to environment and those types of issues, where we would accept the provincial or federal guidelines; but if we take measures that exceed that, then we can use those.

J. Les (Chair): I have to ask one more question. I hope the committee members don't mind. As we move forward in the future and we negotiate treaties across British Columbia, a concern that has been expressed is that the province may become, from an economic perspective, administratively very complex. Bureaucratic and regulatory complexity are not necessarily synonymous with robust growth. Have you any comments on that? I think it's a legitimate concern that needs to be thought about.

M. Werstuik: I haven't. We've never even come close to being…. Well, the only one that has come close is the Nisga'a, where they administratively can do things upon the land. If the authority mirrors the other provincial standards or whatever, then there shouldn't be too much bureaucratic mess.

J. Les (Chair): No. Just to clarify. I guess where the concern really shows is where you have comanagement regimes that are set up, where it's essentially a duplication that gets put in place. As opposed to one or the other responsible for a certain activity, it becomes both coincidentally or in parallel or what have you. The Nisga'a agreement, for example, has numerous cases of that. When that came to the forefront, a lot of people raised their eyebrows and said: "What kind of a bureaucratic morass are we taking the province into?" I think it's a legitimate concern that needs to be thought about.

It seems to me that in negotiations you always want to give some thought to where you want to end up. What do you want the economic landscape of the province to look like — in this case, in a bureaucratic or regulatory context? If you have some thoughts on that in the future, I'd love to hear them from you.

In any event, we've taken an hour of your time under somewhat adverse conditions on your part. We appreciate that very much. I think you earlier said: "Please be very cautious." You can be sure that we will be. We will try to be cautious in every possible way as we move forward in the months ahead.

N. MacPherson: Good morning. After listening to the last two speakers, I think what I've got to say today is going to sound pretty inadequate.

N. MacPherson: I'm not prepared to the extent that they were. I was very impressed. My first impression is that whatever comes out of these meetings, what we're hearing today is, in my mind, very positive — people presenting very solid opinions and good discussion.

What I did want to say was that in September of this year I wrote to the Premier. I said I thought that the native issue was the most difficult but probably the most important item on the government's agenda. I'm really pleased that these hearings are taking place.

In my letter I also said: "The best service the provincial government could provide, both for Canadians and British Columbians, is to make sure that in this province, at least, there is a debate on treaty negotiations and land claims and that the facts are put on the table for all to see." We've had discussion about how that's going to be done. I don't know how it can be done, but I think this is really important. I'm including the federal government.

Many of the Indian leadership have already made it clear that they do not support the majority of Canadians having any input into a matter that relates to minority rights. I understand that concern; I think everybody really understands that concern. I think there is a big "but," and that is that when it involves tinkering with and perhaps even end-running our constitution and setting up senior third levels of government for groups that expect nation-to-nation status and turning over to the groups huge areas of Canada, then the majority of Canadians do have a right to have some input.

Originally, in my letter to the Premier I said I didn't really think it mattered whether there was a referendum or not as long as discussion and debate took place. I think I've changed my mind on that. In order to involve British Columbians, there has to be a referendum. Without direct participation, I think British Columbians may not really come to grips with the implications of our federal and past provincial government policies.

It's much easier to leave it to somebody else to figure things out. Remember — and I think this was mentioned by the previous speaker — that these policies are being entrenched in agreements and can probably never be changed — constitutionalized. I don't understand the legal aspects of that.

If Canadians and British Columbians agree with where we're going, that's fine, but let's make sure we all know where that is. I do support a referendum. I would reiterate what I think has already been said. I hope the government can help to ensure that the public gets good information, so it can make good decisions, good choices. I think a lot of politicians and lobby groups over the past years have tended — I think one can say, even seriously — to bend the truth to further their particular agendas.

I'll move on from that. How we got from the federal government position in 1970 on obligations to and visions for the native population to its present stated policies is a huge subject and way beyond what we're discussing today. The courts have come down with some rulings during those years, including suggestions to our politicians that they negotiate rather than litigate. This the politicians have done, making agreements with and commitments to the natives well be-

yond anything that the courts have ruled they were entitled to. I think we're faced today with the probability that if we carry on with our present course, we will have 50 new mini-provinces, municipalities, or whatever we'd care to call them, within British Columbia.

I recognize, too, that we have what I think is a real problem, and that is that we have a native leadership which has huge expectations that include things like inherent right to self-government, aboriginal title to traditional lands — is that all of British Columbia? — nationhood status, special rights to resources, justice systems, cash settlements and so on. These expectations are absolutely reasonable, given the position of our federal and previous provincial government ministers. They appear to have completely supported all or most of these rights, so it's difficult to turn back time.

Perhaps I'm suggesting that there might be something like three options. One would be to continue but speed up the existing treaty negotiations, using the existing parameters as evidenced in Nisga'a, Nunavut or any of the major treaties that have already been signed. I suppose we could consider option 2, which has been talked about here today, which is for British Columbia to go to court to determine if it has any obligation at all in discharging native claims or is responsible for any of the costs or provision of land for these treaties and, until that is decided, withdraw from negotiations completely. Option 3, which is perhaps more what we're talking about today, would be to continue with the treaty negotiations but with a new and fully transparent set of parameters. Some of the suggestions we've already had are far more detailed than mine. For example, is self-government limited? To what level? Should it be municipal-level? Should it be subject to provincial or federal regulations?

The transfer of fee simple ownership of reserves to the bands — I think that's probably almost a given. I don't know, but I assume it is. What is the aboriginal interest on traditional lands? How is it to be defined, and could we consider defining it as per the Supreme Court and Appeal Court rulings in British Columbia, because those are British Columbia decisions?

Agreements to be final and binding — that's been discussed. Cash settlements, if any, should be payable, at least in part, directly to band members. Settlement of overlapping claims, if any, prior to negotiations — I don't know whether that's possible. The possibility of rationalization or the phasing-out of some reserves that clearly are not economically viable and some method of dealing with those band members who are on reserves and simply wouldn't have any economic chance of survival as an independent entity…. That's all I have to say.

D. MacKay: Neil, just on the issue of whether or not we can resolve the overlap of land claims before settlement. You will recall that was a commitment made by a previous government. Obviously, they didn't listen to themselves. They didn't do what they said they were going to do, because Nisga'a was signed with overlap issues still unresolved, and they are still unresolved as of today. That concept is great, and I support that concept. If there are going to be overlaps they should be resolved, but they should be resolved amongst the natives themselves. We shouldn't be interfering in what were territorial lands. That was an issue that I think the previous government handled badly, and it has left a bad taste and distrust in the treaty process, plus the lack of public consultation or public input prior to the treaty being signed. I just wanted to make that comment.

I have no further speakers for this morning, so at this point we will recess for lunch until 2 p.m.

J. Les (Chair): I'll call the meeting back to order. Our first presenter this afternoon is Don Cromarty.

D. Cromarty: I hadn't planned on making a presentation until this morning, when I listened to the first part. I'd just like to share some of the experiences that I've had. To introduce myself in our traditional way, I'm Don Cromarty. My great-grandmother is Alice Joseph, chief of the hereditary band of the Skwah band in Chilliwack, which borders on John's town.

For the past seven years I've been the aboriginal relations manager for the utility and have worked with the Secwepemc people in the Cultural Education Society, the Ktunaxa-Kinbasket people in capacity building, the Okanagan nations in various areas, many of the bands in the Chilliwack area, the Squamish nation, Williams Lake, Prince George area. I've had a lot of experience in getting some understanding of: how did we get to here, and what are some of the things we should be doing?

What are some of the things we should be doing? I was on a presidents' council for employee diversity several years ago and championed the first nations cause, of course, because of my background and my family. It's been very good. I enjoy that work. I guess one of the things that comes to mind is: why aren't there more first nations people here participating? I think it boils right down to trust. It's sort of a standing joke: "I'm from the government. I'm here to help you." That trust isn't there. It's taken me many, many years to get the trust of the communities just to work with them. Even if it was employment and different benefits we're bringing, there's still a huge trust issue. I guess that's been generated over a hundred years.

The things I think of sometimes — the decisions we're asking a lot of the people to make…. I know your committee has a huge job. These are the principles that should guide B.C. in making these determinations. But

not many people really understand how we got to here. What has happened? What's caused this dilemma that we're in and the mistrust?

I had prepared a cultural education for the employees of the company I was with. I've since retired. It was just to bring an understanding of the different issues and for non-natives, perhaps, to understand and listen to it. I could tell by the questions this morning that committees such as this could well receive that cultural introduction. Some people are very high in knowledge, and others are very low in knowledge. That brings a lot of suspicion into it.

I've been working for the utility for many years, and I've paid taxes on every cent I earned. There are only special cases where the tax is a benefit. If you were in an Indian band out in the Chilcotin or out in the Northwest Territories, very few have the property that Westbank and the Okanagan Nation has. They're poor.

I was working in Creston with the Lower Kootenay band and asked a councillor: "What are the challenges?" This lady says: "You know, the government has decided how much money I get, what kind of house I get, where I live. Now things are being turned around, and they're asking us to make decisions on education, as everything's being downloaded on the band." In working with them on capacity-building and how they're going to make a decision on what you decide, how are they going to trust that they're going to get a good end of the deal? There aren't a lot of natives on this committee that I see. Of course, there are probably not a lot of MLA natives either. To get input from the 5 percent that's going to be judged, I don't know how you do that, except by involving them in some of that.

It says in your brochure that you have the power to appoint subcommittees. If you want buy-in or even understanding or reading it, it's not always the B.C. assembly of chiefs or the assembly of chiefs in Canada, but the people on the ground who are mothers and fathers that are going to be affected the rest of their lives. They're going to be asked to vote for these things, or maybe they won't.

The other issue is: how do you feel you're going to get a good deal, when 95 percent of the province is voting — I wouldn't say against — whether they should give more to 5 percent? They may not even understand their plight or…anything to get to know the people.

I hope I'm not veering too far; I'm just expressing an opinion. I'll go back. I was working on a project in Malaysia, working in their culture and learning about their prayers and what you can and can't do. That was very difficult for us till we understood the culture and the people somewhat. When I came back to Canada and did some work with the first nations, I found it harder to get trust here and for them to understand our meaning. They thought I was from another side of the fence or something like that. That's just an example.

I don't know how you'd get that understanding to committees like this, to the public, to industry, to British Columbians. It's going to very difficult and a huge job. In order to get a fair hearing, that understanding needs to come forward somehow. In which scale and what time, I don't know. All I can speak of is some of the experience I've had.

The other thing. Now they're really going to be singled out as they, the first nations…. "Okay, now we're voting on what you should and shouldn't have, and you're going to have more than me. That's my grazing land, and those are my trees." It's going to be really difficult, as you've probably been listening to for a long time. But when you're on the bottom of every statistic in Canada, as first nations people are — more incarceration, sickness, the works — how do you get up and be proud of who you are and what you do? We need to instil in the kids…. As one chief said, we need to give them a new memory in their trying to get up and have a place as a full partner in British Columbia.

That's really what I had to say, sharing some experiences I've had. I've found very many nice people. I've gone to elder conferences and most of the functions, trying to learn who they are. As the natives would say, I've been assimilated into the culture, and that's true. Any questions?

M. Hunter: Thank you, Don, for sitting there and telling us some of your views. I know it's not always easy. You hadn't planned it, and that makes it doubly appreciated.

You made a couple of remarks that we've heard before, but they are nevertheless valid. You talked about the trust and the concern about the majority voting on issues that affect the minority. I would put it from the other side. In my community, in Nanaimo, which I represent, there is no trust on the non-aboriginal side about how governments have gone about the business. In our area, which is being advertised as being closest to the first urban treaty in British Columbia, to the extent that Nanaimo is urban, people get very concerned. It's not because of the notion that we have to reach arrangements with our aboriginal people in Nanaimo, but because nobody claims to know what's been going on.

It's important that we leave with you the clear understanding that this referendum, in its own way, is exactly what you talked about: building an understanding amongst people that there are going to be some questions asked. The context of the referendum is important. It's something that none of the members of the committee talked about this morning. Alongside the plan to hold the referendum is a commitment from the Premier and from the government and from each one of us on the government side of the House that we are going to deal with the land claims issue. We are going to push ahead and get treaties in place. If there's one thing that's been consistent throughout our hearings so far, whichever side of the table or whichever angle of the circle you come from, everybody's saying: "We've got to get on with this. We've got to get on with our lives."

The issues you talked about from an aboriginal perspective…. I have some knowledge, having worked

in the coastal seafood business for a long time. Aboriginal people have played a huge role in that industry's success over half a century. I do have some knowledge; I don't claim to have it all. None of us can. I just wanted to give you that perspective.

I think it's important that we use people like you, who have a lot of knowledge and a lot of context. The message needs to get out there that the context of this referendum is one of positive moving forward. It is not trying to set one British Columbian against another — quite the opposite. I'm taking my responsibility here very carefully. We're trying to talk about principles that all of us as British Columbians hold and to examine what they are.

I don't think what you talked about on the aboriginal side, while it might be shaded a little bit differently, is much different than what I'm hearing from my non-aboriginal constituents and from the aboriginal constituents to a lesser degree. It's that we don't know what's going on. I think that whatever your ethnic origin is, building future relationships on that basis is just a recipe for no progress or disaster. I just wanted to give you that perspective. Thank you for yours.

G. Trumper: Thank you for your presentation. You raised a point about people within the community knowing what was going on, rather than the leaders. An interesting thing happened this morning. We tried to notify as many people as we could, but we certainly met a group of people who said they didn't know anything about it. They were probably some of the people we would like to hear from, because they are not the leaders of the community. They are the everyday people. Whatever happens, they are going to be affected whether it's in health or educating the children or whatever it is, whether they're aboriginal or non-aboriginal.

My question to you, because you've travelled around and worked with a lot of groups, is: how do we get the attention of those people to be able to participate in some of the discussions? First of all, I believe this is the most important issue in British Columbia right now: getting through and getting the treaties settled. All sorts of things stem from not getting on with it. It affects a huge number of people. You're quite right. Here we are representing government and talking to the various people who are prepared to come forward and make a presentation. But how do we manage to get the attention of those who would find this a bit daunting to come forward and speak of their concerns in everyday life and how it could or could not affect them?

D. Cromarty: It is a very big job, but it's a very important job. There is no change. When you go to serve a community; you get on the ground; you get in the field and the grass. You go out there and talk to them. If that's the input you want, there are 196 communities. So you start figuring: "Boy, 196 communities — there are a lot of trips out there." It's going to affect those 196 communities, and some are easy to get at and some not so easy to get at.

What I did in a very large project we had with several communities is go and ask the chief and council if we could arrange a meeting, and that we would like to talk to the people and explain the process — what's happening — and then let them make the judgment. You might have a little show-and-tell, a display of "these are the meetings we've had, and this is our resolve." Some communities will not let you talk to them; others will.

A lot of times, as industry, we get it in the neck for the sins of our past. You've got to expect that. You need to take it and respect the community, whether they give it to you both barrels or not, and then get on with the business. Make the attempt and the offer to go out there. Hopefully, you could stay unpolitical. Work through the chief and council. I'd generally work with somebody who works for the band in each community. So it might be the housing manager; it might be the nurse or something like that. With the blessing of chief and council, they may or may not attend, but they'll either accept you or not accept you. That's how you get onto the ground. You have to go into the Sugar Cane reserve or the small communities that really don't have the means to come to Kelowna, and just go through it. It's a lot of work, but so is this.

If we were working on a project from Hope to the mouth of the Fraser, for instance, that would be 56 bands. That's not bad; that's easier to get at. The Stó:lo nation, with 17 to 18 bands, maybe 26 — that's manageable. The Ktunaxa-Kinbasket, say, five communities — you could bring them all in at once. The Secwepemc, 70 communities, and different places like that…. You would just make an offer; as many first nations as you involve, the better. You can never go with too many people in a community. It's the same thing to go into a small town like Hope: how do you do this? Sometimes we have a bean feed and invite the community in and share that issue with something else important to the community. Maybe the chief and council want to address the community on other issues. So we just become facilitators with someone from your committee who would relay the message to other communities. Are you going to go to the Queen Charlottes? Are you going to go up north? Those are the kinds of issues that need to be addressed. At least it's an attempt to get on the grass-roots level and talk to the people.

G. Trumper: I'll just follow that up. Where I come from, which is Vancouver Island, I probably have a reasonable relationship with most of the 14 bands in my area. I've known them a long time. The everyday people who are not in the band council tell me their problems and their concerns. That's for me to relate those to. It's third party; that's not them. It's getting their concerns that we're really interested in hearing about, so that whatever comes out at the end of the whole works when we get the treaty, we'll have something that represents them all and is hopefully making things better for all.

D. Cromarty: Many communities have a lot of differences. The Okanagan people and the Ktunaxa-Kinbasket and the Secwepemc people and the Shuswap are all very proud of who they are, and they have their own way of doing business. You need to learn that way of doing business with them if you want them to listen to you and get respect. That takes a while. You've got to start somewhere. Well, you don't have to. This is just me talking.

When I made the recommendations to the president's council on what our obligations are as a company in B.C. and what we should be doing, I went out and looked all over the province and just about everywhere on Treaty 8 to find out what other companies are doing and what's happening out there. I went back and made a recommendation. They just said: "Go do it." There's no textbook. The chief and council change often. The people voting on the ground stay the same. Very often you'll have new councillors and new chiefs, as we do in municipalities. In my view, the bands are becoming municipalities in their operation and how it goes. I stay away from the political end of the community and just try and help where I can.

V. Anderson: I appreciate it, because you've been there and done that in a number of different places. We're getting two messages, and I'm wondering how to put them together. The one message which you're bringing is the slow and sure one: talk to the people. Be where they are; get across the province. Then we're getting the other one, saying the province can't get ahead financially, the bands can't get ahead financially unless we get at it really quickly. Someone was saying to us yesterday that from both the band and the non-band communities, because it's so slow, people are getting discouraged. They're going to give up on the process. We have this urgency to move quickly and at the same time the urgency to go slowly and do it right. Do you have any suggestions as to how we can put those two together?

D. Cromarty: I don't want to speak for other bands or other people, but only for myself. Like in most things that you see, it's quite complex. You've got to break it into small pieces. You've got to put it into manageable places.

Signals will soon come out as to whether the community wants to listen to you. They may just say: "No. I want no part of it, and you can't even talk to my people." Is that worse than not doing it? I don't know. If I had an opportunity, I'd go and talk to some people I know and say: "How can we put this in your traditional territory?" It won't be the same in every one. Some will say: "Forget it."

I'm not sure what the message is, other than the message you're delivering here now. It could take quite a bit. You'd have to go to the Cariboo, Vancouver Island, 13 communities. If the message was whether you trust us or don't trust us, tell us your feelings. I guess it's overwhelming to start with. Most things like that are worthwhile.

B. Lekstrom: Thanks a lot, Don, for what you've had to say. Just a couple of questions. On the issue of trust that you bring up, trust is something that both sides have to earn. It takes some time, and I think it's pretty clear that there is some lack of trust probably on both sides of the table and justifiably so in many cases. Part of the process we're involved in here is hopefully to rebuild some of that trust and get it back.

You mentioned something in one of your references when you were talking about these are my trees or these are your trees. I think the key is — and I am going to ask: how do we get to the point where these are our trees? Really, I think that's what we're after as all British Columbians — not "I don't own the trees; you don't own the trees." The resource has to work for us to help build our society as a whole, not a better society for one sector or the other. How do we get to that point? I know there's no simple answer to that, and it's a tough question. I use trees because you referenced it in your topic. How do we get to: "This is ours, not mine or yours"?

D. Cromarty: Because we're speaking to so many different communities, there's no one answer for that. The very beginning is to start somewhere with an action where you go to their community. Don't call them down to Vancouver to these meetings. When I did a project on band land, everything was on band land — food, meetings, ceremonial stuff. You take it to the band land and don't call them out.

When we first started with one community, there was a tape recorder on the table and they were saying: "Okay, you say something, and we've got it right here." To build that trust, it took a long time, a lot of things, and we had to do what we said we were going to do. If we said something, we stuck to it. A little while later that tape recorder came off the table. To build trust is, like you say, a long, long issue. If we haven't done a very good job over the last 125 years, perhaps we better start rethinking it, get into the communities, understand them and take part in their functions. That's getting back to the pride issue where you get to more "we" than "them." I certainly don't have the answers for every community.

D. MacKay: Thanks, Don. Are you starting to feel like you're in the hot seat?

D. MacKay: Don, to go back to your opening comments, you said your mother was a hereditary chief.

D. Cromarty: Only when I was about six or seven. Then we moved off reserve. My dad is native; my mother is non-native. We moved away, so I was on a kind of big journey. You may find it humorous, but I felt that I was on a journey from the Creator to go back and help my people when I was at a stage in my career when the kids left home. My life changed, so it was time for me to go back and work with the people. Trust begins at the table. Trust goes across. You know right away if you're talking to someone who really believes what they're doing and what they say.

When I went back, I talked to all the elders and put my family tree on the wall. They remembered my dad from 1906. I found different things like that, so it was quite a journey I was on. While it took me quite a while — years and years — it paid off in that it allowed me to work with a lot of communities.

D. MacKay: You're starting to answer part of my next question. You've jumped ahead of me here. I guess you could qualify for native status, or do you have native status today?

D. MacKay: Can you explain to me what it was in your life that changed for you, that made you…? You've obviously had a good life. You've worked, you've travelled, and you have a family. What is the difference in your life as opposed to other natives who live on reserves and can't seem to get out of the rut that they're in? What made the difference in your life? Was it education?

D. Cromarty: I don't think it was education. It was probably my parents. My dad had asthma, and the doctor told him to move north; it's too damp down there. Life sort of evolved. I don't understand and can't speak for every person on reserve. You know, when you're in the Chilcotin or someplace and you've got this cheque coming in all the time, it's easy to get not the golden handcuffs but handcuffs on, so there are no challenges. It's a safety net for some people to stay there.

When I first started working with Ktunaxa-Kinbasket people in the Kootenays, there was a young native man who had hardly ever left the reserve. We're putting men on the moon. Now, how do you understand that? He had a sense of protection in the reserve system. I'm not a psychiatrist or anything, but I'm just saying that you run into these things. If you're saying to a young person, "We want you to agree or sign this treaty…."

I think it was mentioned this morning that a lot of communities don't have the capacity, in many ways, to govern themselves. Some communities are very good; others are very poor. It depends, like any business, generally on the management, because they need to be run like a business. It's hard to understand. When I was a boy growing up in school, we used to fight an awful lot because of my ancestry. It's really hard to express that to other British Columbians who really haven't experienced that. When you're in grades 1 and 2 and 3 and get beat up every day, you fight back. You learn to fight back, and you get very tough at it. How people come to be like we are is really hard to say.

The reserve system has failed us. When the Indian land was turned into reserves, there was no provincial vote on it. They said: "You're going over here." Now everybody's voting on what to do with the Indians again. How did the Indians get their name? Christopher Columbus landed on the other side of the ocean and thought he was in India: "Oh, I see a bunch of Indians out there." From there it gets worse.

It's a lot of things. If we try to understand how we got to today…. How did we get to today? Three natives out of five in a family died because of the pox. If you looked at the statistics of 100,000 people pre-contact, it went right down to 20,000. Now it's climbing back up in all of B.C. So the land was inhabited. You guys may know all this stuff. I hope I don't rant on too much. It's been interesting.

J. Les (Chair): Any other questions? Thank you very much, Don, for coming today. Do you get down to Chilliwack much at all?

R. Hogg: Mr. Chairman and committee members, I applaud you for coming to Kelowna and circulating throughout the province on this important question of land claims. I'd like to make it very clear from the start that I'm opposed to land claims and any type of separation in this province. I think the answer is a strong and unified province, beneficial and fair to all. Unfortunately, this caught me a bit by surprise, and I didn't really have a proper presentation. I'm just a layperson, and my comments will be quite brief and in generalities.

First of all, I would like to dispel the myth of the terminology "first nations." The Indians at the time were not a nation. They were tribes and bands, so I think that's inappropriate terminology. Also, it needs to be questioned, even in British Columbia, whether they were the first to inhabit this province. But we must accept that they were here earlier than we were.

In the early part of this history, most natives lived in small villages. There has been quite a difference in languages amongst them, so it's very questionable how well they socialized with one another. I think, and I'm just surmising this, they probably were quite zealous in guarding their rights in the villages.

At the time when the western settlers swamped and overwhelmed North America — and I can only refer to British Columbia — there was an abundance of resources and a small population. The case today is much different. We're actually faced with dwindling resources and a very large population both native and, if I can use the term, white. Consequently, we're getting into many conflicts of interest.

I think the native population was simply swamped and overwhelmed by the migration of western people, and they simply lost the land. At the time, in the early history of B.C., they set up a reservation act for their reservations. Personally, I don't think there was too much wrong with it at that particular time.

I have to ask the committee: what would you do when you saw there was a large increase in population of Caucasian people? Their modes of living were completely different from the natives. I mean, transportation and the Industrial Revolution took place, and here we have native groups that could not speak the language. They still lived in their normal, usual, basic style of living, and I think it was quite appropriate to set up reserves at the time.

For instance, you have rights-of-way on the streets, and you had certain laws. Native people could not speak the language, and you couldn't allow them to hunt in your city, so the government at the time set up reservations for the native people and cities for the whites. I think that was appropriate at the time.

J. Les (Chair): Mr. Hogg, could I just interrupt for a moment? All of that is perhaps interesting, but as government we have clearly taken the position that we intend to conclude treaties with first nations. We feel we are required to do that. The constitution of the country talks about the rights of aboriginal people being recognized and affirmed, so that is the law of the land. It is not a question of whether we should negotiate treaties. It is a question of how we do that. That is what the committee is interested in discussing. How do we negotiate treaties? What are the principles that should underlie that process?

R. Hogg: Well, it was my understanding that you wanted questions for the referendum…

J. Les (Chair): With the proviso that we are committed to negotiating treaties and that we are interested in discovering through that process what should be the underlying principles that guide the B.C. negotiators at the treaty-making table.

R. Hogg: Well, unfortunately, I disagree with that. As an individual, I personally think that the reservation act of B.C. is outmoded. We should move for unification of people and incorporate the native people. The native people today are living almost like we are. They're not living like they were 100 years ago. They're employed by our corporations. More and more, we're working towards the integration of society.

To go forward with further treaties and further land claims, we're asking for segregation and disharmony and disunity in the province. That, I think, is a dangerous thing, and I'm opposed to it. I'm sorry if my comments don't stay in line with what the committee wants, but as an individual, I'm just speaking my mind.

J. Les (Chair): You're certainly free to do that, but I wanted it clearly on the record what our mandate is and what the intentions of the provincial government are. That is, we must move forward in treaty negotiations. This process that the committee is about is trying to determine what questions we should pose to the people of British Columbia that they can respond to in a referendum, all of that with a view to moving forward with the treaty-making process.

R. Hogg: As I said earlier, I'm opposed to it. I'm for the strength and the unity of the province that is beneficial and fair to all.

R. Hogg: I think that's what the referendum should be based on, not segregation and separation.

The next presenter is Aaron Dinwoodie of regional district fame. He's famous in other ways too, of course.

A. Dinwoodie: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My presentation will be fairly brief. My name is Aaron Dinwoodie. I'm a director on the Central Okanagan regional district, of the west-side electoral area G. My background in local government is as Chair of the Westbank TAC for four years, sitting as a member of the UBCM aboriginal affairs committee for three years and presently chairing it. To be very clear in the Hansard today, I'm here making these comments just as a local government elected member from my own electoral area.

With regard to principles and the focusing on the mandate so well put by the Chair with regards to the treaty process, some of the things that I'd like to have on record here today include working together to see if we can get some of the principles of comprehensive assessments within the B.C. treaty process with regard to financing and funding formulas. I'll give some examples of situations where local government and the province are actually partners in these particular financial institutions with respect to funding services that are received by both non-aboriginal and aboriginal people.

The community charter process is going to really restructure the way local government does business in British Columbia. I know the Municipal Finance Au-

thority is watching that closely. A lot of us in local government, with regards to our financial officers, are watching very carefully not only that we maintain a triple A credit rating with our MFA rating in Moody's in New York but also that our funding formulas on the ground in our own community can keep pace with populations and achieve the principles of equity that are here in the process.

Financial funding formulas. These will be more important for more urbanized bands who are on the fringes of urbanized areas and whose population uses these particular services. One, the local-provincial relationship to the regional capital hospital funding. We're very concerned that there's proper assessment in those areas. Also, with regards to the local-provincial regional transportation formulas, as the province has a fairly large stake…. Often over two-thirds of the funding for those regional transportations systems comes from the province and one-third from the local areas. The local areas usually, in those agreements, receive a dollar for dollar from the fare boxes back out of those regional transportation systems into their coffers.

In addition to that, the local-provincial splits on education funding with regard to the rural tax levies and the municipal share of the education funding, which usually winds up around 30 percent as opposed to the province's 70 percent out of the general revenue fund…. I think it would be very important to see where the linkage is where section 83 taxation powers, when they're taken on by first nations and the Indian Self Government Enabling Act, comes into process with the province with regard to how these assessments are done and how they're taken into consideration with the treaty process.

Those are a couple of the things I wanted to bring to the committee's attention. If we can wind up with a proper assessment as we're moving through treaties and also link to those other mechanisms that are outside the treaty process such as taxation, Self Government Enabling Act, etc…. As we're talking about referendum questions, if we can state that the basics of common equity within land use and reciprocal land use…. If we can talk about comprehensive regional servicing assessments and about community economic development that not only looks at the whole community as a region but also takes in together the linkages between the first nations local community relationships…. It seems that in local government, when we work with our first nations neighbours and work in the areas of coordinated land use servicing and economic development, we find common planks that are equal to us in all our communities.

As far as a questionnaire — and I'm saying "questionnaire" rather than "treaty referendum" — question, you've probably heard all around the province that there's a degree of nervousness or people feeling antsy with regard to it. I think why that is, is that a lot of British Columbians realize how important it is to kick-start our economy and how important our resources are with respect to that.

The two speakers prior to me mentioned it quite well. In local government we've been out in community-to-community forums since our MOU with the provincial government almost seven years ago. In most of these meetings that we have in our local communities, we usually average, at least in this area of the Okanagan, about 100 to 200 people in the room. Usually about 90 percent of them have no knowledge whatsoever on what the constitution of the country states or even the process that we're involved in. Most of the comments that you hear in those rooms are: "Why are we in this? Why can't we all be equal? Why can't this be settled with the stroke of a pen in two sentences or less?"

A lot of the comments that then moved after Nisga'a, after the $6 million marketing/propaganda…. Those are my words, but a lot of the words reflected by the public during that was that if we had spent the $6 million incrementally across the board provincially on comprehensive, ongoing education during the process, it would have been money better spent rather than on, let's say, sales pamphlets at the conclusion of the process.

The point I'm trying to make is that we have a tough enough time in local government, sometimes in communities, getting a community to realize the public health need for a skating rink or a swimming pool or some basic core infrastructure with a library — going to the poll on somewhat of a very simplistic community issue. You can imagine that same group of 200 people going into the room and trying to get their minds around the 31 substantive issues in the B.C. treaty process, a Canadian constitution and 135-plus years of history. It's quite unbelievable.

I'd like to make just a couple of recommendations or possible suggestions for the committee to think about. Rather than having a referendum that's geared to yes or no questions, which the level of education may be difficult in, maybe an educational questionnaire that helps you steer the mandate and that gives options — that through the nature of that questionnaire and how those questions are asked, with the options, helps people somewhat steer and go towards common sense rather than to vote with no knowledge. Instead of getting boxed into a corner — "I don't know on this, so because I don't know I'm just voting whatever seems negative or no" — they've got options that help them positively steer outcomes that are going to result in a positive benefit in their community.

Another component that I think is very important is the urban versus rural. I've heard a lot of people in local government say: "Well, beyond Hope, why should we even bother going to the poll; why should we even participate? Once the lower mainland has scratched its X, it's all over, folks. They out-populate us." I hope there's some thought with regards to how to define the urban versus rural, the sheer numbers in populations of British Columbia, in the outcome of how this particular process will go down. I think that'll give confidence to a lot of British Columbians who live in, let's say — let's not use Hope; let's use Chilliwack

because "beyond Hope" doesn't sound all that great to the communities that live beyond Hope — the communities north of Chilliwack. Maybe there can be a component that weighs urban versus rural.

There has to be a regional perspective as well. In the province as we move into the Peace and move on the other side of the Rocky Mountains or move into the Kootenays, within the more narrow valleys, or the Okanagan or into the bowl of the lower mainland, the amount of available land for land tenure issues in those different areas and the different servicing issues are going to be a little different. You've probably heard a little bit of that before. There can be a bit of a regional perspective, an urban versus rural, so communities feel that the weighting of their vote counts. I think that's pretty important.

A couple of other things I know that local government has been rassling with for years. Intergovernmental dispute resolution processes — things that don't build bigger and better processes, but things that are very clearly defined and will lead to better relationships in the future that, let's say, don't build whole new industries after the treaty process but do put proper mechanisms in place for dispute resolution. I think that's really important. While on that subject, also very important is the overlap process. After all these years of being in that grey area of having a voluntary process to deal with the overlaps, I think we've got to find something that can tighten that up a little bit.

A final note to conclude. It's with regard to the B.C. Treaty Commission, and I know this is a little bit outside the boundaries. A lot of literature has come out over the years, and it's usually labelled "the keeper of the process." I think what would really help the B.C. Treaty Commission, the process and the general public's view of the process is if we can have some recommendations to at least have an assembly of people within the B.C. treaty process that would comprehensively give the public some confidence that their issues are represented within the B.C. Treaty Commission as well. A lot of people, when they take a look at the B.C. Treaty Commission setup presently, feel that maybe the interest group is managing the shepherding of the process. That's something that, done properly and well thought out, can put a lot of confidence in how the process transpires over time. Those would be my comments.

M. Hunter: Thank you. You've covered some ground that I think is new to us. I appreciate that. My mind does expand from time to time.

I wanted to ask you about the second suggestion you made, which was to give some consideration to urban versus rural regional issues. What kind of understanding of our mandate have you made that recommendation on? I guess the corollary question is: is there anything in your experience that would suggest to you that values and principles are different in urban areas of B.C. versus rural when it comes to the principles that we're supposed to be looking at, which we'll be asking British Columbians about? I want to make sure I understand why you would make that suggestion to us. Is it because you misunderstand us, or am I missing something in your experience that has led you to that suggestion?

A. Dinwoodie: I'll cut right to the chase: the power of perception. Humans are a very perceptive breed. I'll give you an example, and I'll use local government as an example.

In the Union of B.C. Municipalities, the lower mainland always has a perception that they can't get a proper weighting within our organization. As you move out to the lower towns and villages, every village, even if it has 300 people, has a mayor and a full set of councillors. By the time you go through our 182 members, the rural weighting in our Union of B.C. Municipalities outnumbers the urban centre. It's exactly the opposite population of the lower mainland, so the lower mainland always has a somewhat uneasy feeling that rural British Columbia, with only one-point-something million people, outweighs them at their own convention voting against them. This is just the reverse in the referendum. When the populace of B.C. goes to scratch their X, the urban village in the lower mainland contains a higher vote weighting, prior to ever getting to the ballot box to have their impact. Does that make it fairly clear?

M. Hunter: Yes, I understand. As I perceive it, what has always been said is that people in metro Vancouver have less of a concern about this, because it's fairly clear to most of us that land is not going to be a major currency of any settlements with the aboriginal populations in the lower mainland. You do get different perceptions. I can understand the weighting issue in that instance, if you use that specific example. But if I were to select a principle — and this is me speaking, no suggestion that this is going to be a question — equality of opportunity is a principle on which the government of British Columbia would proceed to instruct its negotiators in land claims. Do you think the values of metro Vancouver/Victoria are different than Prince George/Tahltan?

A. Dinwoodie: I think the working relationships in communities across B.C. are as different as shoe sizes to shoes and feet to people. I think they're really that different. The working relationships between local governments and bands are equally different. A case in point: the Westbank first nation here in the Okanagan and the regional district have an incredible working relationship. We work together and in fact sit on a lot of the same committees working out our infrastructure issues. That's not the same all across British Columbia. Also, population weightings in some of our member communities and towns are 50 percent aboriginal people and 50 percent non-aboriginal people. In those particular communities your voting percentage on this particular issue is going to be much different than in

communities where you have a 94 percent non-aboriginal population versus a 6 percent aboriginal population.

In addition to that, the urban issues will be much more of a servicing nature. Water, sewer infrastructure, recreation complexes, adjacent land use, services to town centres, regional libraries, transportation systems and hospitals will be much more of a focus of equity within funding formulas there, rather than when you go out to a much more remote area where it's a large land mass and a much different population split. Does that help?

M. Hunter: It's very interesting, Aaron. Thank you. I'm not sure I agree with everything you said, but you've given me some food for thought. Thanks for that.

G. Trumper: Thank you, Aaron, for your presentation. I see you haven't managed to solve the problem of urban and rural representation since I left UBCM. It's still there.

You made some comments on how you would see the questionnaire. A concern, I guess, as to how the questions would be framed that are on principle and not the detail of it. You talk about the urban-rural area — Vancouver, for instance. For 50 percent of people there, English is not their second language. How do you address that issue?

A. Dinwoodie: I think you'd have to address it within your own community. I'll give you an example. I grew up in Southeast Asia as a youngster, and I was schooled in the Philippines and Hong Kong. Essentially the culture, how that is understood and how you communicate in those languages around those principles, is very important. I don't know, in the dynamics of how your committee has been set up, what thought processes have been put into what your communications will be with regard to that particular issue, but that's something I'm glad you've brought up to me as a question. I'm really kicking it back to you from someone who grew up over there.

I heard a native gentleman get up earlier and talk about being in school and being picked on. I know firsthand about that from exactly the reverse, being the only white kid in the school. Essentially, my business partner was born in Hong Kong as well. I think the thought process you have to put into that is what your comprehensive communication is going to be with British Columbia. Take a look at our population splits, our cultural splits and our language splits. We're going to have to find a way to put a communications program in this province so that our cultural blanket comprehensive can understand what we're doing and where we're trying to go before we try to go there.

B. Lekstrom: Thanks, Aaron, for your presentation. You touched on something earlier in your presentation when you referred to a questionnaire versus a referendum. I've heard some discussion around that issue, and I'm just looking for your views on it. You felt that the referendum — maybe I'm putting words in your mouth — put some kind of fear in the population that it's actually a referendum.

Can you go into a little more detail? Do you think there would be a difference? What we're doing in the process, I believe in wholeheartedly. We're trying to get the views of British Columbians so that we can base the negotiations on the principles that they need us to negotiate on their behalf. Your views on the word "referendum" versus a questionnaire…. Is there some issue there that we could possibly look to, to gain first nation support by opting for a different name?

A. Dinwoodie: With regards to questionnaire versus referendum, I'm not really suggesting that you change the name "referendum" to "questionnaire." It's more a case of format.

Let's use an example of water and sewer infrastructure and Cryptosporidium. A lot of times when you have a very expensive undertaking for water purification in a community, if you've got no immediate threat to your water system, it's a much tougher job to convince your electorate to put away money on a reserve basis over a period of time to ramp up your financial capacity to take on that particular challenge. When you go to referendum under those particular conditions on a long-term approach, sometimes it can be more difficult with your population to gain positive assent on that particular situation. You add Cryptosporidium into the mix with that particular thing, and all of a sudden what will enter into the discussion is: "Why are we going into a referendum at all? Why isn't this a public health issue? Why aren't we pulling the lever?"

Okay, I know that's a bit of an example, but that's part of the business that local government does. We're in partnership with the province and the federal government when you get into the issue of water. Once again, in this particular process, because of section 35 of our constitution, we're in the same alignment of partnership with the federal government, the provincial government, our first nations and communities.

With regard to why I've suggested a questionnaire, I believe your process will allow you, by formatting it, to create a lot of that public education within your own process. So you're not having to waste a whole pile of funds marketing it and using propaganda, which a lot of the public of B.C. has made clear they get upset by. It's an opportunity to use your very process as part of the tool of education, to help not only steer your mandate but also educate the public of British Columbia at the same time. As MLA Trumper has mentioned, also really be aware of our cultural mosaic in British Columbia so that we communicate that properly.

Aaron, you've been fairly involved over the last number of years on the treaty advisory committee in your area. You haven't touched too much yet on your observations of the treaty-making process as it has unfolded to date — pro and con. Would you just spend a

A. Dinwoodie: Yes. The treaty process for a local government representative…. I think it's very important that you have an interest to be there and that you're prepared to spend a lot of time reading. It can be extremely taxing on a local government representative as well as on the resources of the local government.

Sometimes when you get into stage 4 of the process and you're asked to comment back at both the RAC table and the TAC table, the resources that you have to go around the local government building from the planning departments, the engineering departments, the administration departments and the financial departments to get the information put together prior to reporting back uses an incredible amount of local government resources.

We actually met with UBCM, with the Hon. Geoff Plant and the Hon. George Abbott, with respect to the $366,000 worth of comprehensive provincial TAC funding. What would be really interesting would be to do a comprehensive review of what the matched resources would be departmentally in the number of local governments across the province to the amount of resources that actually get committed by local government to participate in the process. I think it would be a real eye-opener.

As far as the local government representative, when you enter into stage 4, if you're a TAC rep or a TAC Chair or a RAC rep, or if you're a fortunate individual involved in all three, you can wind up spending three or three and a half days of your week at some cases. I've heard of people spending more and people spending less. That really does take a lot of time away from your electorate.

To give an example, it is very, very difficult to stand before any electorate — whether you're a regional district director, a first nations chief or a first nations councillor — or in front of each other's respective memberships after four, five, six or seven years in the process, with 18 to 20 banker's boxes full of paper and 400 binders apiece, and face each one of your membership with the six-digit bills that you've rung up putting together those boxes, and say: "We're not quite there yet. We haven't got anything initially." That is incredibly difficult.

I think we've got to find an incremental results-based process that can actually take chunks off in bites and provide some doables to the communities, both first nations and non–first nations. I think that is going to instil more confidence in British Columbia. I think that's going to — especially if we focus on land use, servicing, resource tenure and economic development — help put down building blocks so that all communities, first nations and non-first nations alike, can see some doables out of the box. Then we can get down and do some of the fine detailing further on. I think what we did is build a monster process that somewhat choked on itself.

D. MacKay: Just following up on that, Aaron, you talked about all these file folders in the boxes and the six-digit numbers. Do you see any purpose in that? It's been mentioned several times now that perhaps a time frame allocated to the process might speed things up. I just wondered how you felt about that.

A. Dinwoodie: I think a time process is one part of the components, but it's really a design of having an incremental process that you can build a chapter at a time rather than trying to put together the whole book at once.

In addition to that — I'll speak quite openly on this — in some ways in the incremental process it's amazing what gets done on the ground locally, between local government and the first nations, as far as the progress that gets made. I've seen it in the room many times before, where someone from the federal government might feel that it's going in the direction of job reduction on Ottawa's side, and you see those feelings come into the process as well. In fact, I've been there many times in the room, where all of a sudden you can see that the idea on the table is going to mean three or four fewer positions across the bridge in Hull, Quebec, and the feelings come to the forefront. We've got to find a way to streamline and edit that stuff and realize that's what we're trying to facilitate: governments that can do business on their own two feet, do it productively and do it the streamlined way without being handcuffed.

To just share a couple of experiences with you. Sitting in a room in the west side with 200 people one day, a councillor of first nations stood up and said, "Hey, look. I just want to do business. I want to sell my cows without a minister having to sign a piece of paper saying that I can sell my cows." I think that really brought a lot of reality to the room that night.

Someone else said, "You know, I've been looking at the floor and I haven't looked up, but when I hear a baby cry in this room, I just want to know that that baby, regardless of where they come from in this community, has equal access to the education system, to the health system, to all the opportunities in this community that a community has to offer." I think those are the basic things that we're trying to accomplish here, without creating a 100-year industry to get there.

B. Belsey: Just one question, and it's a common thread that we've heard through a number of presentations — the finality of treaties. Can you offer some of your thoughts on where we should go with finality?

A. Dinwoodie: Finality is a very tough question, because I think you'll have different groups from all over this province, not only on this process but on other processes, who'll be back in front of one level of government's counters or the other. I think you're dealing with human nature with regards to that. With finality, if we don't readjust the process, which Chair Les just mentioned — I think he was trying to direct me into how onerous and burdensome this process has

been…. If we don't cut it down and get down to some simple basics and go through some doable segments, we don't have to ever worry about getting into finality, because we'll choke long before we ever get there. Finality is a principle that people want because, I think, what people want is common equity. When they go to bed at night, they want to know they're the same as everyone else. When they wake up in the morning, they're the same as everyone else. They have equal opportunities.

I think that's what a lot of people perceive as finality. It's reaching common equity within our society. That's one of the fundamentals that makes people feel good about themselves when they're out in society. Bringing up that process to get some doable steps that we can walk through and at least get one step at a time behind us is what's going to get us to finality a lot sooner.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Aaron. We appreciate you taking time out of your usually busy day to share your thoughts with us this afternoon.

A. Dinwoodie: I have a lot of confidence in your panel that I see before me here. I think we're in good hands.

J. Les (Chair): I don't have anyone else scheduled right at the moment. Is there anyone else that would like to make a presentation at the moment? Otherwise we'll take a half-hour break for coffee and reconvene at 20 to four. That's what we'll do.

J. Les (Chair): I'd like to reconvene the meeting of the committee. The first presenter we have this evening is Rev. Daniel Croft.

D. Croft: By way of introduction, I'm the Rev. Daniel Croft. I'm speaking as a private citizen, but we're informed by who we are and where we are in this world. I speak to you as a private citizen and as a clergyman of the Anglican Church of Canada. Some of you will know that we have some experience with native claims and rights in terms of courts and things like that. In addition, I have a bachelor of arts in native-white relations from the University of Victoria, so I speak to you as someone who knows more than just a little bit about native rights in terms of treaties and referendums as well. I speak to you about the referendum in specific.

I do not support the referendum on native treaties by the Liberal government in the province of British Columbia. I respectfully submit that putting a referendum forward on the issue of native treaties is not a move forward but a move backwards. What it will essentially do is place another level into an already slow process. What we'll be doing is placing the people of British Columbia into that process along with the federal government, the B.C. government and the native people as well. Governing by referendum is an interesting way of governing, but that is another issue. If we wanted to pursue referendum on a number of things, that would be another can of worms. I do not support a referendum.

Specifically, I do not support referendum for native treaty rights for these reasons. One, a referendum on native treaties could cause divisions which will be difficult to overcome. Treaty negotiations are slow at best. Further divisions will make them even slower, if not impossible. Two, the idea of a majority voting on the fate of a minority is distasteful. South Africa comes to mind. Canada has a proud history with respect to human rights, except when it comes to native peoples. Residential schools are but one example of this experience.

Three, rather than speeding up the treaty process, it will be slowed down by proceeding through the court rather than through the treaty process. I believe that the native people will take this referendum through the court system, asking if it is constitutional. I realize that the government is honour-bound, because of the election promise, to hold this referendum. However, in order to save face, the question which could be asked could be: do you uphold human rights for all people? I want to thank you very much for your attention.

B. Lekstrom: Thank you, Rev. Croft. The question on the referendum and the issue…. Certainly, it's very well discussed throughout this province. I put it to you because I interpret it somewhat differently than many people. If we were voting on the actual treaties for individual negotiated settlements, I would see that that would be forcing the majority on the minority. I'm viewing this — and I guess I'm looking for your wisdom and your views on it — as a way to try and get things back on track. I believe that for eight years things haven't operated effectively through our negotiated treaty process. I view this as trying to hear from British Columbians, aboriginals and non-aboriginals alike, to give the government some direction as to what they would like to see. With that, I don't see the majority forcing something on the minority. I'm just wondering if I could maybe get some more in-depth views from you on that.

D. Croft: I would agree if everyone knew and understood all the issues about the native peoples, but I don't believe that is the case for the general public. I don't believe most people would know exactly…. One of the problems is that there are so many different bands of natives throughout British Columbia that have different circumstances. I have a problem with people voting on things that they don't understand. Education, which I heard about this morning, is of great importance. I think that was one of the best things I heard this morning — that education was

needed and that we need to do that. However, to have people vote about something in ignorance is, I think, having the majority voting its will on the minority. It would be a vote that would be voted on an emotion rather than on what the true issues would be.

B. Lekstrom: If I could just possibly follow up with that. The issue of this referendum is basing it on principles, though. I know there is some ability for both sides to get out there and let people know this isn't about whether we should or shouldn't negotiate treaties. How do you educate people on principles? I believe that's instilled in them. That's what we're asking. I'm putting a lot of faith in the people of British Columbia that the principle issue will be addressed.

D. Croft: That's something I try to do every week: teach people principles and teach them how to make decisions about people that are just and that work to uphold the human rights of all people. If we indeed do that, then we're working in a way that it would move forward. But I'm not entirely convinced that that would be the case. I hold my reservations on that.

G. Trumper: Thank you for your presentation. You talked about principles and people not understanding. I'm sure that with your background, you obviously know what the principles are that we started the treaty process on, which has been very slow and ponderous. In looking at those principles, do you have an opinion on whether they are the right principles or whether there are other principles that should be involved and applied?

D. Croft: The young gentleman this morning, Mick, spoke about the principle. The guiding principle was extinguishing the rights to the land for the native people. That was the guiding principle of the governments. I heard that loud and clear this morning. I believe that that, again, is the concern of most people. They're worried about losing their houses; they're worried about what the property rights of natives are. That's what I was speaking about as being the emotional part of this discussion. That's where a lot of people will vote from — that feeling, that emotion — instead of from the head and an understanding of all the issues of where that might be leading us.

G. Trumper: If I could just follow that up. You talked about education, and I happen to believe that's one of the most important components. How do you see the issue of being able to inform all people, native and non-native, on the issues around treaties? I've been involved in it for quite a while, and we haven't done a very good job — nobody, all parties.

D. Croft: No, and I think we might need to step back from the whole process of what we've done in the past. I spoke about the Anglican Church. The Anglican Church has been sued, and we're moving through the process of the courts, which hasn't been productive for the native people in terms of justice. My belief is that out of $7 million, they've got 2 percent. The rest of it went to the lawyers and to the system, so there's no justice in that.

The treaty system is another approach that has been used for centuries now, and we need to look at that and think about where we are and what we need to do in terms of reconciliation. One of the things that is being set up — and I think the referendum will contribute to the division — is that people are going to be taking sides rather than coming together and saying: "We have this problem. We've inherited it. How can we come to reconciliation rather than having two camps or three camps arguing about what's best for the native people?"

One of the problems has been that the government, especially the federal government, is the party that has taken care of the native people. Well, they don't want that. They want to be self-governing people who have self-respect and live their lives as they see them within their culture. I don't see how moving through this kind of system will be helpful in that process. We'll come out at the other end as different parties, different people, rather than as a bunch of British Columbians who are working together and trying to produce a better world.

M. Hunter: Thank you, Rev. Croft, for expressing your opinions. I respect the points of view you've put forward, and I'm sure you know there are a lot of people in this province who are quite concerned about what we've said we will do on the referendum.

I want you to know I respect that point of view, but also — as I've said earlier, and I don't know if you were in the room — I think it's important, especially to a person like you who reaches out to other people and, as you said, educates and informs them every week, that you do understand the context in which the referendum is going to be held. That is in the context, in my view, of trying to lead us out of the wilderness.

I mean, that context is very clear. We are going to negotiate treaties with aboriginal people who wish to do so and enter the process. I've said that from my perspective in my community, if you look at the majority of people who live in Nanaimo — which is where I'm from — the concern about what has happened in our community in negotiations is one of lack of knowledge.

People feel they've been kept in the dark. I would submit to you that if it is indeed true, as I think it is, that the understanding is that we need to move forward on a long-term new relationship with aboriginal people, that's not the foundation on which to build it. I just wanted to say that so you have some feel, from at least my corner of this process, for why I was supportive of the referendum and, of course, continue to do so.

Having said all that, you have been kind enough to suggest a question to us. I wanted to pursue it. I'm not quite sure I understand what question you're getting at, because the concept of human rights is pretty broad. What was in your mind when you were thinking…?

D. Croft: I was rather facetious with that question, really. My point was that the referendum question can be posed in such a way that it can bring people together. The question that I used there was a question to which most or all people can say: "Yes, I uphold human rights for everybody."

I realize I'm not coming here with rose-coloured glasses and thinking: "Well, they're not going to have a referendum because I speak." No. I wanted to express my opinion so that you could hear the concerns of what might happen. One of the things that might happen is that the natives might just say: "We're not going to negotiate anymore." That might be a reality. They might go to court.

When you pose the referendum question, which I know is going to happen, think about it in terms of bringing people together. I heard some of that this morning. That was my concern: if there's going to be a referendum, then it needs to be a question that will bring British Columbians together and not cause the divisions that I see the possibility of in such an exercise as this.

M. Hunter: If I may, I wouldn't disagree with that conclusion at all. You said your question was a little facetious; I don't think it is. Finding the right question or questions that avoid the divisions, which I think we're all conscious of…. Certainly we've heard lots of people say that this is a risk. Let's accept that at face value.

My suspicion is that if we asked the question as you put it, people would say yes, because people do believe it, or they don't want to be saying that they don't believe it. But what are we talking about in human rights? Are we talking about equality of opportunity, equality before the law? Was there anything other than facetiousness in your mind when you posed that question? I suspect there was, and that's what I'm trying to get at.

D. Croft: One of the things that has happened in the past is that native people have not experienced their full human rights. We need to be very clear on that. We are trying to provide a province, British Columbia, that provides human rights for all people. Some of the living conditions on some of the reservations throughout this country are Third World situations. We need to be aware of that. I think in the back of my mind, that was there as well.

B. Belsey: Thank you, Rev. Croft, for your time and for bringing forward your point of view. There are a couple of areas we have heard about in the past three weeks that we've been working on this process. One is trust-building, and the other is aboriginals off reserves and how they will be impacted by treaties. I wonder if you could maybe offer your point of view on, first of all, how we build the trust that is necessary so that we can move ahead with treaties. Have you got some ideas on how we do that?

D. Croft: First of all, you don't have the referendum — but I understand we are going to have that. One of the parts that has been missing in negotiations is that there hasn't been a lot of information being passed. They're quite secretive. They're between the native people, the federal government and the provincial government.

You might hear about some negotiations going on through the grapevine, but there's not a lot presented to the public, the native people themselves or the people of the province. That might be one.

I know it's difficult, when you're negotiating, to try to pass on information, but you need to be aware that trust-building comes from people being open and sharing how they feel and what's going on with them. Anyone who's married or has a relationship with someone knows that it's when you get together and talk about what's gone on — what the hardships have been, what the joys have been, what the day has been…. Those kinds of things build trust. We haven't been doing that.

One of the problems is that natives are on reservations, and we're separate from that. This committee has been a part of the beginning of the process of getting together and talking about who we are and what we're about. If you had regular committees that went around and talked about native issues and concerns and talked to people about what's going on in the province, those kinds of things would be quite helpful in terms of trust-building.

B. Belsey: How do we include the aboriginals that live off reserves in treaties?

D. Croft: I talked a bit about treaty negotiations and different bands. The Westbank band would be a good example. They're in negotiations with the provincial government. If they decided that the off-reserve people were to be included, that would be a part of their negotiation. I think that would be the level where that could be decided. Part of the problem with the treaty negotiations has been that the British Columbia government has drawn the lines on some of the things that Ottawa has decided it won't move on and on some of the things the natives decided they won't move on.

Sometimes, in order to make negotiations move forward, you have to drop those lines and begin again. That might be another way of trust-building as well. Go back to the treaty table and drop all the pretences and the lines that have been drawn, and start all over again. That's a difficult starting position, but it certainly helps when it comes to relationships with people, and that's what we're talking about — different people that are represented by the federal government, the provincial government and native people. But they're all people. If we can get together and begin to talk by dropping those lines, then I think we've moved a lot further ahead.

B. Belsey: You mentioned at the beginning of your reply that the inclusion of aboriginals living off the

reserve should be the decision of the first nations themselves, the bands and the councils.

D. Croft: I think it's a part of the negotiation system. Each band decides what it's going to accept. I think that's the place to decide that. If the federal government decides that everyone off the reserve is not going to be counted as people who are on the reserve as soon as they move away, there's a line drawn there already, so that ends discussion on that. But does it have to? I'm not sure it really has to.

I think that's been in the past. In order to begin again, I think we need to start thinking that if we want to move forward on this, then maybe we can move around some things. I believe Mick was talking about interim agreements. If we can't agree on this, let's just move around it and talk about it later.

J. Les (Chair): If I might just follow up on that last thought, the question of non-reserve aboriginal people is a very large question. It relates to about 50 percent of the aboriginal people in the province.

J. Les (Chair): It is one that we do have to keep an eye on. Speaking for myself, I'm not sure that's a question that can be left for individual band councils to resolve. Those urban aboriginal people, if I can refer to them that way, perhaps need to be consulted as well. As a matter of fact, I would strongly suggest that they should be.

On a slightly different topic, the whole mission that we're about here, negotiating treaties, is an exercise of considerable enormity, I would submit. It's going to affect all British Columbians. Given that there is a lack of knowledge, would you not agree that we need to devise mechanisms to involve British Columbians and to engender some discussion amongst the public so that they do become better informed? That would be my first question.

Secondly, I hesitate to denigrate the average citizen of British Columbia in terms of their lack of ability to come to a just conclusion as to what we should do in the treaty-making process. Maybe I'm somewhat optimistic; I plead guilty if so charged. In my public experience over the years, my feeling has always been one of pleasant surprise, at the end of the day, in terms of what the broad public will suggest or decide or do. I have a lot of faith in people to do the right thing, provided that the information is suggested to them in an appropriate manner and with the appropriate set of facts.

You mentioned earlier, for example, the notion of private property being on the table. Clearly, one of the principles that has been operative so far is that private property is not on the table. Granted, it still rears its head once in while. I'm not sure what exactly fosters that kind of discussion, because it has been clear from all sides that private property is not on the table unless there is a willing-seller–willing-buyer relationship somewhere.

Those are just a couple of thoughts. I wonder if you'd respond to those. Being in the profession that you're in, you might have some insight. Have people really gone that badly off the rails that they're incapable of coming to a just and good position on something of this magnitude?

D. Croft: I believe that if they're presented with the right information, with all the information, they could come to a just and right decision. But I don't believe that a lot of people have concerned themselves with getting acquainted with the native rights issues and treaty issues and how a treaty is negotiated. I don't believe the person on the street really understands it.

When I speak about native rights or native justice, a lot of people aren't too happy about that. I take that as meaning that they're not interested in that aspect of justice. That's my personal take on it.

D. MacKay: Just to follow up a little bit on the same line that John started on, you mentioned toward the close of your comments that what's been in treaties in the past is the secretive nature in which they've been conducted. I just have to look at Nisga'a to know where you're coming from. I hope we don't go down that road again, because that Nisga'a treaty was all done in secret. Nobody in this room, I would suggest, understands what's in that treaty today. Even if you studied it with all the appendices and everything else, it'd be a pretty difficult one to understand. That's because it was done in secret.

We're not asking people to vote on the treaties themselves. The treaties are going to happen. We're not asking people to vote on what's in the treaties, but if we have one or several guiding principles that the majority of people in the province can agree on…. After all, 95 percent of the population in British Columbia is non-native. We can't exclude the majority of people in this province. If we can find some principles that the majority of people will agree on, they might…. I don't know how many there's going to be. Let's just say there are five principles. Do you not think that process would speed up and bring us to a quicker conclusion to the problem we face today? Remember, we're not asking people to vote on the treaty itself. That's going to be too complex. Unless you're actually part of the treaty process from day one to a conclusion, you're not going to understand everything in it. Just the principles — that's all we're asking the people to look at. Give us some guiding principles.

The treaty negotiators represent the people of British Columbia, and they have to have some guidelines so that they don't keep coming back to the government and saying: "Can we go over here?" These are the principles; stay within them. Do you not think that would give everybody an opportunity? Without that, that distrust is always going to be there. If we haven't included the majority of people in the province in this final process and given them some chance to tell us

what those principles should be, that distrust is going to be there forever. If we include them — by giving us what the principles should be — from the start, I just see things moving along at a lot quicker rate. That way, we would have involved everybody in the province.

D. Croft: No. Just two points. One of the things is that you're dealing with people of different cultures. Our take on something is going to be totally different than the Nisga'a take or whatever. There's always that. The other point is that the principles might make it clearer to the people in terms of what you're trying to accomplish. I think that would be a positive point.

The other thing I talked about was governing by referendum; if you have one referendum, the people expect to do it again and again. That's the other part of that. It's sort of niggling in the back of my mind. People are kind of intuitive in those ways. They think: "If we have one referendum on this, why shouldn't we have another one on something to do with this or if something comes up?" I could see people pushing for that again. That's why the referendum is sort of a red herring in all of this. I think it's a danger that needs to be explored.

The questions and the principles that you present need to be quite clear, as in any referendum. Quebeckers found that out. We'd need to know that this is the referendum you're having on native treaty, and this is it. I think that needs to be made clear as well. If it's an instrument to come to a clearer decision or guiding principle of where you want to end up, then you need to be clear on what the question is and that it's only this time. You need to be clear on the treaties as well and who they're negotiated with, and at the end — and maybe even in the middle — come out with a working document to say to people: "This is what we've come up with."

I could see it as an instrument with the guiding principles and an understanding that the referendum won't be many; it'll be just the one. I see a danger in that, because people will expect more referendums, and so you have elections and referendums. That niggles at the back of my mind. That needs to be clear as well.

D. MacKay: I think our New Era document and the commitment we did make to the people of British Columbia during the election was that this is a one-time referendum. If we get re-elected to a second term and sometime during that second term we decided to have a second referendum, I think that would be in very bad taste. That's where the distrust comes in. I would suspect that probably wouldn't happen.

D. Croft: There have been movements in the past in British Columbia that have called for referendum on many different things as a way of governing within the election. So there is an election and referendum as well, like the United States where they're voting on initiatives as well. We need to be careful about it.

D. Chutter: Thanks, Rev. Croft. I'm a little concerned that your conclusion on the opposition to referendum is based on — in this case in your submission — three rather negative interpretations, one being that it could be divisive. That depends on the type of question, so it doesn't have to be divisive perhaps. One is the majority voting the fate of a minority, which doesn't consider the compassion of the majority, the compassion of people. Another one is that it will slow the process down and work it through the courts. In fact, the objective is to speed up the process by bringing people together, by engaging the public, by education, etc. That is my concern.

There was a ray of hope in a comment you made that the goal of the referendum question should be to bring British Columbians together. I think those were your words — in other words, build a relationship. If the question or questions were worded with that objective — and there was some knowledge built up by the public starting at this point in time through to next year when the referendum would happen, through an education process and more meetings or whatever, through a proper preamble to the question at the referendum time and just focusing again on principles — can you see a positive to the referendum, positive to asking the people of British Columbia questions on principle that would build relations and bring us together to work forward?

D. Croft: That would be the hope. However, I have laid out what some of the negatives are. We've become a very litigious society, so I would think that the third option would probably come about almost on the eve of the referendum itself. Being realistic, I think that probably would happen.

As we work through it — to answer your question — there is hope if those things were put into that referendum and it were presented. If people were educated, that would be a wonderful start. The beginning really is having people come to know the issues, treaty negotiation, the history of the people in their communities. A lot of communities have native people who live right in the midst of them, and they don't know their stories. They don't know who they are, where they've been, what their history is, where they hunted, where they lived, who their ancestors were. We know a lot of the history of who we are, where we've been, the people that have settled this area, but we don't know the history of those people before that. So that might be another beginning of having the native people explain who they are and how they use the land where they are, and have people actually listen to that. That would be a very positive start of the process as well.

B. Lekstrom: Maybe one follow-up question, and certainly I'm taking advantage of having you speak to us in dealing with the first nations. I agree. I believe the general population has formed a lot of views, right or wrong. You can answer this or not, and I probably

wouldn't ask it of other presenters. Can we be sure, when we talk about our land and bringing it back to ours instead of mine or yours and so on, that we talk first nations…? Can we be sure, if we look back in history, that we're dealing with the first nations of this land? I would ask you, in the wisdom that you have, to try and overlook the "us and them" and get back to "we." First nations is quite a connotation. Can we be sure that we're dealing with first nations, or is there a possibility of prior inhabitation?

D. Croft: No. I believe they are the first nations, but they, like us, came from somewhere else. They came across, just the same as we did. I guess they were the first Europeans, so they were the first ones out and the first ones in, but I believe they were first here.

D. Croft: Yes, and when I began to write this this afternoon, I thought: "Well, should I write a 5,000 word essay or just get to the point?" That's all the history and stories of the peoples we're speaking about that we need to explore and that the general public needs to explore as well. When we come to that point, where people understand where we come from and what our story is, then it's much easier to do the business that we want to do — the negotiating of treaties or whatever it is. We come to a point where we are "we," and it's not their land or our land. It is all of our land.

That's what I hope will happen, because ultimately, whether we agree on this point or disagree, we're all looking for the same thing in the end — that the natives receive justice in terms that they actually can say: "When we met with the federal government, with British Columbia's government, with the people of British Columbia, we met and we found justice." I think we're all working towards that. It's just that we see things in a bit of a different light in terms of the referendum, in terms of some other issues maybe. The reality is that we're all working through the same thing, and I hope you find hope in that. Once we get through all of these exercises, I think that's where we want to end up.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): Rev. Croft, I'm a little disappointed that we didn't hear from you perhaps something in terms of the role of faith with respect to treaty negotiations, given your expertise and your commitment to your vocation, and perhaps something in terms of the relationship of first nations with respect to the Creator and creation, which is a very special relationship as I understand it. Furthermore, I would have thought that a man of faith would tend — you talked about hope — to see hope for all of us in terms of the treaty process, beyond what we're doing. I hope in fact that that's something you've given some thought to, and perhaps you might want to share some of your thoughts with us.

D. Croft: Well, I have hope and faith that the processes will work out. But the thing is, we need to come together in that process. I don't always see that. You talked about faith and the Creator. Sometimes the natives talk about the land as being their gift. Sometimes we don't always think of it in those terms. We think of it as being something that we own. There's that difference. We as a society are starting to move back towards that original idea of the Creator and someone who has given us the bounty of the world, of the Earth. There's faith that we're not moving away from the idea of the Creator and the one that has given us all these gifts. The natives have also sort of moved away from that as well. Perhaps in this journey we can recover the idea of faith in the Creator and come to a better understanding of who we are together. The real joy and faith in that is that perhaps we are halfway around the circle and are moving closer to the Creator in terms of understanding the world.

Negotiation for the treaties is the real link to that. How we get there is really the challenge. We have to have faith, because at this point it seems impossible. People talked about deadlines, and I thought: "Deadlines?" For native people that is just not part of the culture.

So we need to come to that idea. We have spoken different languages, and we need to come together and think in terms of a Creator, a faith where land is ours, not mine or yours. We've taught the natives well. They've adopted some aspects of our system that don't always serve either of us.

Well, thank you very much for coming this evening. If you'd still like to submit that 5,000 word essay, of course you're welcome to do that.

L. Johnson: Well, we're not going to keep it down to 5,000 words. I'll tell you that.

L. Johnson: Actually, I just wanted to thank you for asking for public input regarding the proposed B.C. treaty referendum. I didn't realize it was already carved in stone that there was going to be one.

I would just like to point out that I'm not an activist or some left-wing radical. I'm just an average late-middle-aged businessman from Vernon, B.C. Like most people in B.C., I'm very concerned about the business atmosphere in B.C. as well as having a good working relationship among all of B.C.'s peoples. Most people in B.C. with whom I have talked are very concerned that the referendum will make this a race-oriented issue and will only exacerbate any animosity that already exists on the land treaties settlement issues.

I have to ask myself why a business-friendly government would want to inflame a potentially volatile situation. I go back to the Supreme Court of Canada's

Delgamuukw decision. It states that aboriginal title and rights have to be proven on a case-by-case basis. This means on a nation-to-nation basis with Canada. It also states that aboriginal title has to be reconciled with Crown title and that negotiation is the best way to achieve this goal.

At this point it's questionable whether the current B.C. treaty process is even legal, because it is not based on Canadian law. It is contrary to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision on Delgamuukw. We are currently spending taxpayers' money on a possibly legally flawed process, and in my opinion this is unconscionable.

A negative vote in the referendum would result in further damage to the provincial economy, because it would be telling the world that B.C. is not recognizing aboriginal title according to their own law as affirmed in Delgamuukw. This has the dangerous consequences of economic sanctions against B.C. by other countries, especially by other Commonwealth countries that have honoured the British Crown obligation to their indigenous nations around the globe.

The referendum vote itself is an embarrassment to B.C., and a negative vote would be even more of an embarrassment. It would put the government in a position of being forced into negotiations without a mandate. This will leave the court system as the only option for the settlement of land title issues. Most business people feel that this not only is an extremely expensive process for the taxpayers but also has a very real potential of a much larger settlement for the aboriginal nations.

I would like to quote from Maclean's magazine, September 3, 2001, page 24: "In 1995 the accounting firm KPMG provided a detailed analysis of the potential economic impact of land claim settlements and said the province can expect about a 3-to-1 return for every dollar spent. KPMG estimates the net financial benefit to British Columbia would be between $3.9 billion and $5.3 billion over 40 years. With continued uncertainty, however, the realization of this benefit remains remote."

Now, if this was looked at as just a business venture by the taxpayers of B.C., the return on investment is exceptional. Please don't be offended by this, but in the August 6 issue of Maclean's magazine, on page 48, they refer to "the major weakness of a rookie Premier, Gordon Campbell, too nervous to back down from a dumb campaign pledge, that being to hold a provincial referendum on Indian land claims…. The native people say they will block every highway in the province. They will. He will learn."

I sincerely hope that the tragic events of September 11, 2001, in the U.S. have taught us that we must work harder to understand each other and become more united as brothers and sisters in the human race. Events of September 11 and the current economic problems in this province give this government an excellent opportunity to graciously back away from its treaty referendum pledge and instead proceed with a treaty process that will expedite the land claims title issues so that all B.C. peoples can reap the benefits, non-natives as well as natives.

M. Hunter: Thank you, Lance, for taking the time to come from Vernon to present your views. Again, I appreciate it. Obviously, as you heard me tell the last speaker, I disagree with the conclusion you've come to.

I don't want to take too many potshots at the Toronto press, but Maclean's doesn't always know what's going on in B.C. So I just made that observation.

I just want to make an observation and maybe repeat in a different way what I said to the previous presenter. In your second paragraph you say to people that concern that the referendum will make this a race-oriented issue…. I would submit to you that because the aboriginal land claims issue is based on the fact that we have groups of people of different ethnic origin, it can't be anything but race-based. That's part of our problem. I would submit that what we are trying to do — and what I'd like you to hear — is get the heat out of that issue by asking people of British Columbia about principles that they think apply to human relations, never mind the race. That's what I think the objective is about.

L. Johnson: I heard you mention principles before. Okay, you tell us what sort of principles you're looking for in this. First of all, as you know, the aboriginal peoples have said that not only are they boycotting this, they will boycott a referendum.

I have difficulty with even the term "referendum." Is it not more of a plebiscite than a referendum? Is this going to be binding? You know as well as I know that if you have 5 percent of the population that is aboriginal and they are not going to vote in this, and then you have a referendum mid-term…. We should have it as soon as possible, if you're going to have it. What percentage of the people are going to come out — maybe 30 percent? So if 15 percent of those people vote against some sort of settlement with the aboriginal people, do they dictate for all the rest of us what's going to happen? I think this is a slippery slope that the government really needs to re-evaluate — whether they want to get on or not.

Basically, Delgamuukw says that you have to settle with these people, does it not? You have to settle with these people. It says that negotiation is the best way to settle with these people. Why bring about an atmosphere that is going to be inflamed, that is going to irritate a lot of people and that can certainly bring disruption to the province? It's certainly not a business-friendly atmosphere, as far as businesses coming in. They don't want to come into a province that has these issues being fought on the streets and on the roads.

I think it's a very, very serious issue that the government has to re-evaluate. You're going to have to have treaty negotiations with these people. That's declared by the court. My opinion is, very seriously, that

this is going to be a long, drawn out, bitter fight that's going to end up in the courts anyway, unless you get into negotiating with these people. I sincerely believe that the courts are probably going to award the aboriginal peoples a lot more than what they would get through your negotiations. I think it is circumspect on your part to expedite the process and to try to negotiate as quickly as you can with these people.

D. MacKay: I just wanted to follow up a little bit on Delgamuukw. Delgamuukw said that the aboriginal rights exist in British Columbia, but they didn't define what aboriginal rights are. That part's up in the air right now. They haven't defined it; they haven't told us what that is. So the question I have to ask is: what are aboriginal rights? Then I'm going to go back to your….

D. MacKay: That's why we're asking the people: what are the aboriginal rights that you're willing to give up as a Canadian or a British Columbian?

L. Johnson: Don't you feel that it would be better to be sitting down with the leaders of the aboriginal nations and asking them what they consider the rights to be?

Don't ask me what the rights of the aboriginal people are. I wasn't there when we abrogated the rights away from the aboriginal people. There were no wars; there are no conquered people; there are no treaties. We abrogated the rights away from the indigenous people in this province. We all know that. We all know that it was wrong. It is now time to rectify that, to try to bring peace and harmony so we have a good business climate in this province. We do not want animosity; we do not want the roads closed down; we don't want problems.

As I said, if we have learned anything from September 11, it should be that we are all in this world together. We don't need to make divisions between us. We have to learn how to live more harmoniously together. I'm not alone in this. I came as the person who was selected to speak for a whole lot of people in this. A lot of people feel that this is very risky by the government, that it's going to create a tremendous amount of animosity between aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples. We don't need that. We don't want it. I don't think you do.

The referendum — is it a binding referendum? Referendums are supposed to be binding. Whatever you put in there, if it's rejected, and the people say, "No, we do not want to settle with these people," what do you do? Now you don't have a mandate. The federal government is going to say you have to settle with these people. The courts are going to say you have to settle with these people. Then what do you do? I think you're possibly backing yourselves into a pretty scary corner.

If everything comes out and everybody says, "Let's get on with the settlements; let's do the right thing for these people," fine. I think we all know that's probably not going to happen. There's going to be that very vocal minority who go out and vote on the referendum. The native people are not going to vote on the referendum; they're going to boycott it.

D. MacKay: I just want to expand a little bit more, Lance, on what you said there. You said that what we should do is ask the aboriginal people what their rights are. I have to ask: to the exclusion of 95 percent of the other people in this province?

Your comment talks about nation to nation, and I assume you're talking about Canada with the different native bands.

L. Johnson: No, I'm not talking about the native bands. I'm talking about the native nations.

D. MacKay: The native nations and Canada, to the exclusion of the province of British Columbia.

L. Johnson: Delgamuukw says that it has to reconcile with Crown title. Of course the province has to be involved. The province owns the Crown land that's up for negotiation. Is that not true?

L. Johnson: So of course you have to be involved. But do you not feel that if you go into this…? You're going to have to get into negotiations. Is that all agreed?

L. Johnson: We're going to have to negotiate these treaties — period. Okay? I've been involved in a few negotiations in my life. If it's nothing more than just with your own family, it certainly creates a better atmosphere if everybody goes in with a positive head space, as opposed to people coming in all bitter. I just don't think it's a good atmosphere for negotiations. I think the referendum, to be very honest with you, is not a good idea. I think it's very, very bad. I think it's especially bad with the timing that we have now.

D. MacKay: Just to follow up on that. You talk about a better atmosphere within the family if you have a disagreement and everybody sits down to discuss it. It creates a better atmosphere, I would suggest, if everybody knows what the issue is and what the options are. The people of British Columbia should have the right to tell the government of the day what their options are. What are the principles? What are we willing to give up in this province to satisfy these native land claims? Until we include the people of the province…. We can't do it without consulting with the

D. Chutter: Thanks, Lance. You said: "Instead, proceed with a treaty process that will expedite the land claims." I think the negotiation process has been going on for about eight years, costing about half a billion dollars, without a lot of success. I'm suggesting that that's perhaps an easy statement to say but hard to do. I believe that in 1997 the recommendation of the Select Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs was to do exactly what we're doing today: go to the public with questions on principles in a referendum. That's based on the knowledge and the wisdom of that committee at that time.

The other comment. It's bothersome to me as an individual to hear criticism on any subject without following that up with a viable suggestion or alternative. What can you suggest as to how we might proceed to expedite land claims that would actually work?

L. Johnson: Do you not feel that doing away with the referendum and getting into the land claims treaty negotiations with the first nations people would be more expeditious than doing this? Let's go back one step further, Dave. From what I have read, one of the real risks of this referendum is the $500 million that has already been spent. If there is a negative vote on that referendum, what happens to that $500 million, of which about $160 million has already gone to the aboriginal first nations people for their legal costs? I'm led to believe that if this comes out to be a negative vote, that whole $500 million is gone. That seems like a pretty big waste as far as I'm concerned.

D. Chutter: To conclude my comments and my question, I fully agree with you that going into an issue such as this with a very positive position can have very positive outcomes. That's where I'm coming from in going through with this referendum.

D. Chutter: There are many positives to going to the public with a referendum on the principles. It engages the public in an education process that is already started. And we're being educated today.

L. Johnson: No, no. You said you're going to put the principles up — okay? What are the principles that you're going to put on the referendum?

D. Chutter: What we're doing here with this committee is inviting your suggestions as to what questions should be asked in a referendum on the principles of negotiation.

L. Johnson: You have to understand where we're coming from. By answering that question, you've already presumed that we're in favour of the referendum. We are not in favour of the referendum. I can see no positives at all coming out of a referendum — none.

D. Chutter: Yes, and I've asked you: what is your alternative to expedite this land title issue?

L. Johnson: As I mentioned, it's to do away with the process, to do away with the referendum and to get into the treaty processes as dictated by Delgamuukw that we have to do. It creates a better business atmosphere if we're negotiating. Certainly, it creates a better atmosphere between the native and non-native people to think that the negotiations are going on. As you say, it can certainly be a long, drawn out process, and I think the faster we get into the process, the better off everybody is going to be.

J. Les (Chair): Just one more question, Lance. Taking as a given for the moment that you're opposed to the referendum process, if we were to move forward from that and enter into further treaty negotiations, could you tell us what principles you would like to see reflected in treaties that are concluded in British Columbia?

L. Johnson: I would have to go with the gentleman who was before me. I think we want a just and fair treatment for all peoples of British Columbia — period.

J. Les (Chair): That's a very simple statement — not a lot of depth there. Could you maybe dig a little deeper?

L. Johnson: Well, I'm not sure I totally understand your question. Again, you've come up with these principles. I have not worked a tremendous amount with aboriginal people. I'm a fairly voracious reader. I've tried to read everything I can about it.

L. Johnson: I'm not sure that I'm in a position, to be honest with you, to say I want to see this or I want to see that. I'm more in a position to tell you what I do not want to see.

L. Johnson: I don't want to see relationships straining. I don't want to see animosity exacerbated.

J. Les (Chair): I know, but now you're veering off track again. Back to treaties and what they should look like and what principles they should reflect. I realize I'm possibly putting you on the spot, but those are things that all British Columbians are going to have to reflect upon — right? There are going to be many treaties signed over time in the province, and you and four million other British Columbians, and perhaps more in the future, are going to have to in some way approve of those treaties on an ongoing basis.

L. Johnson: In a simplistic way, I want to see aboriginals have the right to decide their destiny, controlled by them. There are, for sure, some horror stories — mismanagement of funds and everything else — and there are also some wonderful stories of good business management, making good money. It's going to be a learning process for everybody, but I think we have to start with a basic concept that you have to start negotiations at that time, sitting down and deciding what the aboriginal people want and what the government can offer.

L. Johnson: Basically, what they can offer is an expeditious treaty process that is less costly, less antagonistic. I feel that's what they have to start with, with the negotiations. I don't know everything that the aboriginal people want. I know that they are, based on Delgamuukw, in a pretty advantageous position as far as going to court over the settlement. That's what I have said before. I have a feeling that if this goes to court, which the aboriginal peoples have said they will do…. They will boycott the referendum, and they will go directly into the court system process.

J. Les (Chair): Yeah, we've been there already. Again, I'm going to bring you back. You said that the B.C. government should come to the table and settle treaties and bring its position to the table. You haven't elaborated too much on what that position should be.

L. Johnson: Is not the main issue land? Are these not land settlement issues? Is that not what we are negotiating?

J. Les (Chair): You should take a look at it. You'll find that it's about a whole lot more than just land.

L. Johnson: Okay. But is that not basically what the aboriginal peoples are after: their land and the right to their land?

J. Les (Chair): In part. I say again that if you have a look at the Nisga'a agreement — unfortunately, that's the only modern example we have — you will find that it's about a whole lot more than simply the land.

J. Les (Chair): You started out by saying earlier this evening that you're a business person. I think we covered this ground earlier today with another witness who had a business background as well, and I posed the question there too. What about the administrative complexity of the entire province of British Columbia over time?

If you look at the Nisga'a agreement, one could perhaps become somewhat fearful of the absolute complexity of the regulatory environment that we may be looking at. I don't want to be fearmongering here, but I do believe it is a valid issue that we should consider. If you're concerned about the economic future of this province, I think that is a very valid question for you to take up and to give some thought to.

L. Johnson: So, John, what is your solution, then: to have a referendum, and that's going to eliminate this?

J. Les (Chair): I'm not talking about the referendum at this point. I'm asking you to consider the principles that should underlie the treaty-making process in British Columbia. In that context — and I'm only putting this out; I'm not suggesting one way or the other that this will find its way into this process — do we need to work towards a regulatory environment that is simplified as opposed to increasingly complex? I suspect you would appreciate what a very complex regulatory environment would do to the economic future of this province, particularly when the same regulatory environment or the complexity of environment does not exist in other jurisdictions.

L. Johnson: I might be inclined to agree with you, as long as we are not distressing ourselves with dark imaginings that this is going to be an incredibly complex and regulatory process.

J. Les (Chair): I would again invite you to read the only modern treaty we have to refer to, that being the Nisga'a agreement. When you look at the various areas of required comanagement and co-jurisdiction, I think it's worth taking a look at it. When you have an appre-

hension that I might be guilty of some dark imaginings, probably I'm no more guilty of that than you are in anticipating that the referendum process will, of necessity, be a negative process.

L. Johnson: I will concede that point. Unfortunately, one of the problems of being old, as I am getting to be, is that you have an opportunity to be disillusioned by your fellow man a fair amount.

L. Johnson: As I say, I think that for those people who would be more in favour of reasonable treaty settlements, there would be apathy. There would be no voting — okay? The aboriginal people will not vote. What you're going to do is get a small, vocal minority voting on a referendum that is not necessarily going to reflect the whole feelings of the people of B.C. but can definitely affect how the rest of us are going to be affected by the process.

As I said before, I think it's a real slippery slope that the government is getting on. They just have to be extremely careful with it.

D. Wendell: I'm sorry; I didn't realize that this committee was meeting until I opened the Capital News an hour ago.

D. Wendell: I'm impressed that you guys are lasting this long — since eight this morning or something?

D. Wendell: You must be tired. I'll try to be brief. I think I'm just going to be joining on to Lance in some ways. Thoughts of September 11 are hanging over all of us, and I thought that they do connect to this context very clearly. I want to articulate the ways that I think they do.

One of the things I notice that commentators such as Rex Murphy, on CBC last night…. He definitely got my blood boiling.

D. Wendell: One of the things he doesn't seem to say, and nobody seems to be saying, at least not enough…. I'm a high school teacher, and I know that the kids really don't have much context. They don't understand the background of the situation here at all, so they're wondering: "Why is everybody so mad?" It seems to me pretty clear that the biggest cause is the fact that 55 years ago, if you were asked to take a map of the geography of the Middle East and draw the borders of Israel or name the Prime Minister of Israel, you'd be pretty hard-pressed because there wasn't one.

Israel was created from land that belonged to other people longer than the English have been in England. The root cause of what's going on in the Middle East, it seems to me — it's the one that people, both moderates and radicals, keep bringing up — is that that land was taken from the people who rightfully, in the eyes of pretty much all fair-thinking people, it belonged to.

J. Les (Chair): I could very easily get into a debate with you on that, and I don't want to.

D. Wendell: I'm sure. I was about to say that considering the misery that the Jews were put through in Europe in particular, if they demanded that they have a homeland of their own, it's hard to deny them that. So I see it as being an enormously complex issue, all right, but I think we are blocking out the root of it.

Some of you may have backgrounds in psychology. As a teacher, it's just a minor for me, but I was very fascinated with a concept called cognitive dissonance, which I'm sure some of you are aware of as business people too, perhaps in advertising. We shut out what isn't consistent with what we want to believe. It tends to be what is in the interests and to the advantage of us and our group. I really think nobody's asked: "Well, who does this land really belong to?" We deep down inside ourselves are dealing with something that we're not proud of. We're sitting on land that didn't belong to our ancestors either. This line of reasoning has to be followed, whether it seems comfortable or fertile to you right now — or to any of us — or not.

Because of presentations done in my school, I have spoken with a couple of the local native leaders, whom I won't name because I don't want to attribute to them things that they might not be comfortable with and that were spoken in a strictly social and not formal context. They keep saying: "Look, we're the moderates." Believe me, there are warrior councils out there. If I were a young native man, I might very well be thinking about what it would take to hijack an airplane. I don't think this is beyond our reach, and I don't think this is unimaginable.

What I'm leading up to is that I don't think a referendum is a good idea, because its outcome is probably, from the pollsters, pretty much known to the people who are proposing it and to the people on the other side too. That may explain why the native people are ready to boycott it.

I really think this is a place, as the elected representatives in what is not a direct democracy but a representative democracy, where it's time for statesmanship. It's a time for you to be able to say: "Now, we have worked at this full-time. We have studied it in great

detail, and we were elected because the people who elected us trust us to manage business that they can't possibly be knowledgable of in detail. Sometimes we'll have to make decisions that we're going to have to answer to our constituencies for later." They may not always be popular. I think that a decision against holding a referendum would be a wise one.

You were asking Lance what principles he suggested should be embodied in any future treaties, even if he didn't favour having a referendum. I thought there were some things: negotiating as equals and good faith bargaining, like you would say happens between labour and management in a situation where there are no forms of coercion being exerted. There are no hidden agendas. Even though they may be a small minority, they have some rights here that have to be respected not just legally but morally.

Since I was a teenager, I've thought that it's not farfetched to say — this is just an example — that the native people's culture would very much graft onto both the federal and the provincial parks systems and the running of them. They would have maybe a generation to train young people to do wildlife management and tourist interpretive centres and all that kind of stuff. There are definitely ways they would maybe take some terms that are different than just money and the promise of future employment and education and a way of life that would make the core of their culture endure. That would be the thing that would keep their honour and their pride, and then maybe these warrior councils that are meeting without the approval of the band-elected officials would gradually dwindle away.

I think the rest of British Columbians are looking for an end more than any other thing, even if it's 30 years. They would be willing to put up with that, I think, if they were told: "That's going to be the finish of it. There will be no more treaty money. We will have paid off a treaty at $4 million a year or something." I don't know what it would cost, but we will have paid it off. They will be people who will sink or swim, the same as the rest of us. There will no longer be a patriarchal sort of relationship between any level of government and them. They will just be a component.

I know this would lead, perhaps, to some more complex levels of regulation and things like that for a while, and I can see how business people would be made nervous by that. But I really do think that the potential for a small minority to disrupt the community, even in violent ways — and it has happened in Canada already — overrides whether or not there's an environment for market transactions and profit. It can short-circuit that completely. Politics does take precedence, even over business.

I think I'll just end by saying that I'm very strongly of the opinion that northern Ireland people, people in the Balkans, people in the Basque province of Spain, which is a very small minority — you see where I'm leading — definitely have a period just before the fertilizer hits the ventilators. They definitely have a period when they're saying to themselves: "It can't happen here." I know that some of you are students of history and that you're intelligent people. If there's any other lesson that stands out more, I don't know what it is. The lesson is: "Oh yes, it can."

I really think this is a time that calls for statesmanship on your part. Maybe this isn't entirely what the majority of British Columbians think they want. You're the people who are the experts. You're on the spot. I think you can see that you're negotiating with the moderates in that community, compared to what potentially is out there. I hope that all connects now.

G. Trumper: Thank you for coming here at this late hour after a busy day. We appreciate that. You're a teacher?

G. Trumper: One of the issues that's been brought up time and time again through the meetings we've been having is that there is a feeling by those who have made presentations to us that both aboriginal and non-aboriginal people don't have enough knowledge about treaties. By the aboriginal community, I mean not just the leaders but the general population within their communities and also the non-aboriginal — John Q. Public, I guess.

As an educator, how do you see that being addressed? I've been involved quite a while in treaty negotiations at the local level, and we haven't done a very good job of informing people on the whole issue of treaties. How do you see us doing that?

D. Wendell: The history teacher at my school has had a couple of the local chiefs in pretty much every year. I suspect that needs to be moved down to the junior grades. I don't know whether you could make it a compulsory part of the curriculum.

They have to speak for themselves, I think. That would be one thing. It's in the textbooks, but it's different when they show up with their own most articulate people and make their case. You see that this is a real, live human being and that maybe he did go to a residential school and has felt beaten down by what to him is essentially an alien culture and that it's hard for him to adjust to what is a different world. That's one that occurs to me immediately. They've got to be in the school at least sometimes to speak for themselves.

On the reserves, I've long believed in the potential to make up courses in native literature and particularly in public speaking because, again, it grafts onto their culture. They were not a written culture; it was orally transmitted. They were not just storytellers; they were great orators. Maybe you've read Chief Seattle's speech, for example. It's very sensitive.

I think ecology education on the reserves grafts onto their culture. They understood the network of relationships in the environment long before European people did. They didn't have a word for it, but they understood that the wolf, though he may have seemed cruel, kept the caribou strong because he killed the sick and the weak and the stupid. The herd, overall, benefited by that. They understood that long before we did

Those are the things that occur to me immediately. I don't know. If I had time to play with it, I might come up with some others.

J. Les (Chair): Dwight, I've got to say that I'm disappointed in your presentation. I'm not going to be antagonistic to you at all. You're a schoolteacher, and yet you may have made the most inflammatory presentation to this committee that we've heard so far.

J. Les (Chair): If you're concerned about what happens to treaty-making in B.C. over the years to come, then I think it behooves all of us to adopt a somewhat different attitude and approach and not be talking about, for example, if I were a young aboriginal person, I'd be looking for a jetliner to hijack. I don't think that's useful, particularly coming from a teacher.

D. Wendell: No. It's not original to me, you know. I didn't hear the jetliner, but as far as acts of terrorism and sabotage, yeah, I've heard that from native people — not from the moderate and the mature but from the young and the immoderate. It's not original to me.

J. Les (Chair): We've had some thoughtful presentations made to this committee by aboriginal people over the last several weeks, and for that I am grateful. We need to work together on this process, and it is an enormous process.

When I asked you, for example, what principles would be important to you that you would see underlying the treaty-making process in B.C., you referred to a couple of process issues such as treating each other as equals. I think the only substantive principle type of issue you brought forward was that there would be an end date in about 30 years, at the end of which negotiations would be finished and complete and everybody would sink or swim, to use your words.

Are there any other underlying principles that you would see to be important to the treaty-making process?

D. Wendell: I think they are ones that have already been mentioned a number of times. Transparency — the more that not only the aboriginal people and people in the government but the voting citizens of British Columbia know the positions being taken by the parties in that…. Even if it gets printed in eight-point type in the backs of most newspapers, at least it's there. I would hope it would get more play than that. Transparency is a big thing. That's the lifeblood of democracy.

J. Les (Chair): Any other questions from committee members? Thank you for coming.

Seeing no one else, it is 8 o'clock, and we will therefore adjourn. We will meet again tomorrow in Cranbrook.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE
ON ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS