Aboriginal Affairs - Issue No. 13 - Wednesday, October 24, 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); Bill Belsey, MLA; Val Anderson, MLA; Dave Chutter, MLA; Rod Visser, MLA; Mike Hunter, MLA

Unavoidably Absent: Blair Lekstrom, MLA; Dennis MacKay, MLA; Gillian Trumper, MLA

1. The Chair called the Committee to order at 1:03 p.m.

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

3. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions:
    · John Winter, British Columbia Chamber of Commerce
    · Bruce Bennett, British Columbia Chamber of Commerce
    · Peter Lagomeire
    · John Macdonell
    · Steve Abbott
    · Candy Gonzales
    · Howard Lloyd
    · Greg Van Dolah
    · Ben Meisner
    · Mike Shepherd
    · Rick Berry
    · Sonny Beck
    · Craig Hooper
    · Darcy Gabriele

4. The Committee recessed from 4:07 p.m. to 6:33 p.m.

5. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions:
    · Robert Slaven
    · Ron Thiel, Chairman, Prince George Treaty Advisory Committee
    · Don Callaghan
    · Gary Dow
    · Roy Olsen

6. The Committee adjourned to the call of the Chair at 7:52 p.m.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE
ON ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS



CONTENTS

		Page

Presentations		397
	J. Winter	397
	B. Bennett	400
	P. Lagomeire	401
	J. Macdonell	402
	S. Abbott	403
	C. Gonzales	405
	H. Lloyd	407
	G. Van Dolah	409
	B. Meisner	412
	M. Shepherd	414
	R. Berry	415
	S. Beck	415
	C. Hooper	419
	D. Gabriele	421
	R. Slaven	422
	R. Thiel	423
	D. Callaghan	426
	G. Dow	428
	R. Olsen	431

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

J. Les (Chair): Good afternoon and welcome to everyone. My name is John Les. I'm the MLA for Chilliwack-Sumas, and I am the Chair of this committee, which is the Select Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs.

Before I ask the other members of the committee to introduce themselves, I will briefly describe what we're doing this afternoon. The committee was appointed by the Legislature at the end of August to make recommendations, ultimately to the Legislature, with respect to the questions we should ask in the referendum on treaty negotiations that the government intends to conduct next spring.

When we're talking about a referendum, it's important to be clear that we're not talking about whether treaty negotiations should be conducted. We are very cognizant of and supportive of the aboriginal rights that are included in the Canadian constitution and that are in fact constitutionally protected.

The terms of reference of the committee and other information about the process are available at the information table, which is at the back of the room. We are eager to hear views from a range of British Columbians. As part of that process, we're hoping to build interest and support for the treaty process. We've publicized our hearing process and a call for written submissions on radio and in newspaper ads throughout the province. Written submissions will be accepted at our office at the Legislature in Victoria until November 2.

This is the fourth week of hearings that this committee is conducting. The hearings are being recorded, and they will be transcribed by Hansard staff, to my left. Following these public hearings, the committee will prepare a report, which is due on November 30. The report will be tabled in the Legislative Assembly or, in case the Legislature is not sitting, it will be deposited with the Clerk, as I said, by November 30. Once the report is submitted, it will be a public document.

I will now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves, starting with Mike Hunter to my right.

M. Hunter: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name's Mike Hunter. I'm the Member of the Legislative Assembly for Nanaimo.

D. Chutter: Dave Chutter, MLA for Yale-Lillooet and living just outside of Merritt.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): Hi there. Paul Nettleton, MLA for Prince George–Omineca.

R. Visser: I'm Rod Visser. I'm the member of the Legislature for North Island. My home is in Campbell River.

V. Anderson: Val Anderson, MLA for Vancouver-Langara. That's south Vancouver.

B. Belsey: Bill Belsey. I'm the MLA for North Coast, and I live in Prince Rupert.

J. Les (Chair): To my left is Kate Ryan-Lloyd. Kate is the Clerk to this committee.

With those formalities out of the way, we will get right into the presentations. The first one I have on the agenda for this afternoon on behalf of the British Columbia Chamber of Commerce is John Winter.

J. Winter: I am the president of the British Columbia Chamber of Commerce, and with me today is a director of the B.C. Chamber, Mr. Bruce Bennett from Mackenzie. In addition to being a director of the chamber, Mr. Bennett chairs the Northern Interior RAC and is also, along with myself, a member of TNAC, the Treaty Negotiation Advisory Committee. The chamber is a membership organization representing some 27,000 businesses and 126 chambers of commerce throughout the province.

Treaty negotiations are one of the most critical issues, if not perhaps the most critical issue, facing British Columbia today. As such, the B.C. Chamber of Commerce welcomes the opportunity to make this presentation to the committee. The B.C. Chamber of Commerce has a number of long-standing policies on treaty negotiations and has shared them with both levels of government in the past. They cover the issues of process, title and outcomes. Our positions are a matter of record, and I have attached them today for your reference. I won't touch on them in any great detail because they're not specific to the referendum. You are, however, welcome to peruse them, and I hope they can be of some assistance as you search for the question.

We understand that government has made a commitment to going forward with a referendum in order to revitalize the treaty process. We are not convinced, however, that the referendum will in fact revitalize anything. As government seems determined to proceed, the chamber feels it must, therefore, participate in this process in the hopes that we can have a positive influence on the outcome and that we can then get on with the expeditious conclusion of the time-consuming and costly process.

This is a brief presentation, you'll be glad to hear, because the mandate of this committee to seek a referendum question is really quite narrow in its scope. In approaching this issue, this chamber has a number of serious concerns, which I will share with you. At the conclusion, we will provide only one specific recommendation in regard to a potential question for the referendum.

First, there are some serious challenges facing this process. The first one, in our view, is the fear factor. Treaty negotiations and aboriginal rights are extremely sensitive issues. A referendum that relates to such issues is fraught with the danger that it could act as a lightning rod for unjustified animosity and negativity toward aboriginal people who are trying to resolve the issue surrounding their status as Canadians. This concern alone presents a great challenge to government. They must consider only questions that will not foment discontent and fear.

Secondly, there is the need for expeditious conclusions in this process. The process of treaty negotiations and the uncertainty that surrounds them have for some time severely curtailed British Columbia's ability to attract investment, and this will continue. It is difficult for a business to justify investing in British Columbia if it is unclear what the ground rules are or who the landlord is. It has consequently been a longstanding position of the chamber that serious negotiations should proceed without undue delay. This referendum process will create such a delay.

Then there is the overall complexity of the issue. Due to the incredible complexity of the issues at stake, this referendum may not lend itself to simple yes-or-no questions. In considering the many problems that the B.C. Chamber currently has with the process of treaty negotiations, we are at somewhat of a loss as to how to encapsulate any of these issues into just one question and to keep it straightforward enough to be of value ? one that would present a viable solution, based on a simple yes or simple no.

Unless government is prepared to embark upon a serious and a very lengthy and costly process to ensure that the public fully understands the issues, then the questions must be kept as simple as possible if the information gathered is to be of much value.

What are the issues at hand? The chamber has a number of strong positions on aboriginal treaty negotiations. I'd just like to outline some of these concerns and provide, very briefly, a perspective as to why most do not lend themselves to a referendum question.

First, the matter of aboriginal title. The nature of aboriginal title is one of the thornier issues facing treaty negotiators. It is clear from Delgamuukw that such title exists. What is not clear is what the term aboriginal title actually means. What does it include, and who decides what it includes? The B.C. Chamber of Commerce would like to see a clearer definition of what constitutes title. This, however, is too complicated an issue to be encapsulated in yes or no questions. Furthermore, title is not to be considered in the referendum, regardless of whether or not it is an important issue.

Outcomes. The B.C. Chamber has a number of concerns with respect to outcomes. When the treaties are completed, will they be final and certain? How will aboriginal lands be governed? Will it be a municipal-style government, as advocated by most third parties, or will it be something more — a new level of government with a new set of laws that generate even greater complexity for businesses? What will the eventual cost of resolving treaties be, and who will bear that cost? These issues are also too complicated to boil down to a simple question, and they, too, infringe on the issues of aboriginal rights and title and so, in our view, are out of bounds for referendum purposes.

Process. Let's look at process, the third main area of chamber concern. Here, how is consultation conducted? Is the process open enough? Do interim agreements serve the greater good? Although these issues do not concern aboriginal rights and title, they're extremely complicated and often very divisive. We can see referendum questions on this issue being phrased only in the most general of terms.

What is our position on the question? Given the above, the B.C. Chamber of Commerce believes that the only questions that could be valid for a referendum are those surrounding the issues of process. Even then, the questions would have to be so broad as to provide only the most general of guidelines for government. We, in fact, can see only one real question that can give government strong guidance from the public, and that question would simply be: is the process working?

The B.C. Chamber proposes this question for four reasons. First, it is a simple question that doesn't require a great deal of education and prior knowledge of the issue and thus will not cause undue delays in interpretation. Second, it is a neutral question. It's objective about the process. Third, it allows the public to present an opinion to government by which they can choose a course of future action. Fourth, it recognizes that some form of negotiation is required to settle the issues. In other words, it will let government know if there is a serious need to overhaul the process or if a simple refinement is required. The direction provided by respondents to such a question would allow government to make the decisions that they've been elected to make and for which they should be ultimately held accountable.

In conclusion, the B.C. Chamber of Commerce has outlined for you today a number of concerns about treaty negotiations, the vast majority of which cannot be addressed through this referendum process. We believe that the government should make this referendum as simple as possible and use its result as a springboard. It must take responsibility for resolving these issues quickly and move forward regardless of what the outcome of the referendum may be. Government must show some leadership in this very critical area.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, John. I'm sure you'll take a few questions, if there are any.

J. Les (Chair): Does anybody have any questions they would like to pose to John?

M. Hunter: John and Bruce, it's a pleasure to see both of you again after our work together at TNAC in past years.

I wanted to focus on section IV(B), "Outcomes," of your presentation. It's not clear to me, John, why you have concluded and why you feel that issues of outcomes — whether it's governance, finality, certainty, the cost or who will bear it — infringe on the concept of aboriginal rights and title, which we have said is off-limits. We're not going to ask questions about rights that are already part of the Canadian legal framework and the constitution. Why do you feel that those particular outcomes would be infringing on aboriginal rights and title?

J. Winter: We talked about a number of these things titled "Outcomes" as infringing upon rights or as being very complicated and deeply involving issues. From the perspective of the outcomes, many of the outcomes would in fact be issues that we think are far beyond the current level of today's electorate to render any worthwhile or constructive comment.

Being around the TNAC table for the last five years — being involved in discussions in a peripheral sense, clearly, but certainly involved to some extent — these are issues which are very difficult to grasp and which I think will engender a great deal of emotional as opposed to rational response.

I worry about the outcome of something like that, because it does tend to get into the rights issue. There will be certain overlaps. It wasn't intended to be quite as black and white, perhaps, as the wording may suggest. From our perspective, it is certainly an issue that's far too complicated for a referendum question.

M. Hunter: Having gone through some of the legal discussions over what finality and certainty mean, I understand that point. If we are looking, as we are, to get guidance from British Columbians on basic principles, not the details in terms of the basic principles — I think everybody understands that in negotiations details are as details become — would you not agree that finality and certainty are concepts that people understand in regular language?

J. Winter: I think our concern about including questions about finality or certainty is that those are showstoppers. It has been made very clear by first nations communities that this is not something that's on the table. I think it's important that we make sure that the material gathered through a referendum process is in fact something that's going to be of value to negotiators, to people involved in the process.

By asking the question that we're suggesting here, if the answer is no, if they're not happy with the process, then maybe we have to go back and do some homework and find out what the process really should look like to get to this point of finality, to get to this point of some kind of certainty. If those aren't the right words, then find the right words. At this point in time, I don't think the economy can take a whole lot more of this ongoing delay. Ten years without a treaty is a long time to go and a big price to pay.

M. Hunter: If I might, John, I assume that's why your focus in your paper is on focus. I've just scanned your appendix on that. You do spend a lot of time talking about it. It is presumably a major concern, and that's why you've gone toward that issue as the question you're suggesting. Is that the truth?

J. Winter: We want to ensure that whatever information government gets back from the question or from the referendum is in fact actionable and that it's very specifically actionable.

V. Anderson: I appreciate you listing areas that should not be in the questions. I think it's an important help to have that put forward — very much so. Looking at a single question, I wanted to just try one that came to my mind in response to yours and see whether it's leading in the same or a different direction to what you have put forward. Having done it quickly just on the spur of the moment, it would go: do you wish a renewed process of negotiation of the three parties involved to arrive at a positive solution?

J. Winter: I guess that would be putting words in people's mouths. It would suggest that what has gone before isn't working. "A renewed process" would suggest that we are going to look at something else. I think that our question is about as neutral as we could come up with. It was intended to be that way specifically. I think "renewed" would be a valuable word, but I think it's leading.

V. Anderson: Why I've suggested that is that I think we have heard consistently from all parties, including the Treaty Commission itself, that the process today is not getting the solutions in the time frame that anybody is happy with. That's why I wondered.

J. Winter: I'm not sure that's going to be solved by the question, and I guess that would be our perspective. In our view, there are a number of reasons that the process today isn't working. One of those is what we determine to be a lack of commitment by the parties to make it happen. I think that without that commitment, it's doomed to be what it is.

V. Anderson: Just to follow that up, in other terms: do you wish a renewed commitment from all parties to resolve things?

V. Anderson: A stronger commitment? What I'm trying to get is the direction in which we'd like to….

J. Winter: That's a directional comment, and I'm not sure that the referendum should be doing that. I think

that as much neutrality as you can enter into it would be the direction to go. Bruce, do you want to comment?

B. Bennett: Not really, John. I think you're correct. Having sat around the tables over the last nine years, as I have, I think we do need a stronger commitment to get things done. I was very disappointed in the offer that we made here locally to the Lheidli. I felt it was a very, very weak offer and was not at all surprised that it was turned down.

B. Belsey: Thank you for your paper, John. Given that the concern in having this referendum, as I understand it, is to strengthen the position of the negotiators for the province so that they may have a clear mandate for the negotiations and hopefully speed up the process, the question that you're proposing, whether it comes back with a yes or no, would still leave us with the problem of how to strengthen their position. Do you have anything?

J. Winter: I guess that's the leadership I was referring to. I believe that government has been elected to provide that kind of insight. How it gathers it is perhaps another issue or another question. If this were the question that went forward, once we determine that the process is working or isn't working, then we find ways to fix it or find ways to keep it going.

I think your question would be in terms of the mandate. The answer would be that the current mandate isn't working, if people were distressed with the current state of affairs, or that the mandate is working, depending on how they answer it.

We struggled with this, quite frankly, and we're not as happy with it as we might be. I think our concern is expeditious resolution of the process, just getting on with it, because we've got ten years behind us that I don't think any of us can be very proud of. We therefore felt it important to keep this question as simple, as straightforward and as actionable as we possibly could.

B. Belsey: I appreciate your question, and the four bullets that follow it are very interesting. I'm sure we'll take a long, hard look at them. Thank you very much.

J. Les (Chair): John, if we were to take up your suggestion and in fact ask that question, what would your response to it be?

J. Winter: I would say a loud and resounding no. It's not working, and we'd better find a clear-cut way of fixing the problem very quickly. I don't think we have the luxury of a lot of time.

J. Les (Chair): Perhaps a more specific question, John. I was interested in the part of your presentation when you talked about the potential generation of an even greater complexity for business. With your chamber hat on, I would like you to elaborate on that a little bit.

J. Winter: Your government, to its credit, has done some amazing things since taking office in June with respect to making the business environment more conducive and receptive to investment, whether it's taxation, the Labour Code or whatever. Red tape and regulation is perhaps equally as important as any of those other two.

There's another level of government beyond the local level or the municipal level in which businesses need to operate — no matter who owns them — as employers and as contributors to the economy. Having to serve another master in terms of levels of government is going to complicate things. I'm concerned that we could be undoing an awful lot of the good work that the deregulation process could in fact undertake in the next couple of weeks or months or even next year.

J. Les (Chair): I don't think we have time this afternoon to get into a lengthy discussion on that topic, but could you put your mind to it, John, and perhaps over the next several days develop a separate paper on that issue? Speaking for myself now, I would really like to see you maybe elaborate further on that aspect.

J. Les (Chair): I think it could be quite useful to the committee. Other people have speculated, as well, that we could be adding greatly to the administrative complexity of the province, which would be a real break on the economy going forward.

J. Winter: We would hope that through the resolution of the treaty process, this would provide a wonderful opportunity for the aboriginal community to get into the business world and work with our business community in a partnership way, in a way that is only going to add value to the development of our economy, to the GDP. If we get another level of government, we see that as another barrier to that kind of partnership happening. We want to make sure, at least if there is a level of government, that there's some ability to marry the regulatory environment that may exist from the level of government.

V. Anderson: Just to follow up on that particular question, John, I'm wondering if you've had an opportunity to look at the proposed community charter in regard to this. It does propose a different kind of government organization for all municipal governments. I'd be interested in whether you've had a chance to look at that and see if it moves in the right direction or not.

J. Winter: I can only comment, Mr. Anderson, that it's what the information available on the community charter to date doesn't say that worries me more than

what it does say. Again, I look at this charter as having very high potential for undoing a lot of the good the deregulation process would be doing. I'm very concerned about what the downloading of the regulatory environment may in fact do to business. We'll end up with winners and losers if we're not careful, and that would be unfortunate.

D. Chutter: With regard to your question on whether the process is working, I view that as perhaps more of a technical question requiring a lot of understanding of what's happened in the past, maybe beyond the understanding of the general public. To answer that question, we have to be clear as to what we're working toward. In other words, what principles are we working toward or trying to fulfil in terms of coming to a negotiated settlement?

Is there not any overriding belief or value that you could put forward that you've experienced in your many years of involvement at the TNAC and the RAC tables that could come as a question in a referendum? Perhaps it's just a general principle or value of sharing community, sharing the land, the type of question that would allow negotiators to guide the process and determine whether the process is working or not.

J. Winter: We're focusing on a results-based question, I guess. We're asking people what their observation is with respect to the results to date. That, in a nutshell, is what the question is. The results, I think people would generally agree, have been less than satisfactory.

I think that by force-feeding any issues beyond that into a question, we'll begin to polarize people into areas that perhaps they're not — I won't say competent — qualified, at least, to offer a perspective on. There are constitutional issues involved that are a given, and I don't believe that is clearly understood among the people of British Columbia. I think they will probably disassociate themselves from the process if they don't find this kind of meat in the question, whereas the question that we're proposing allows them to at least offer an opinion.

As I said earlier, it is then incumbent upon government to fill in the blanks and put forward a course of action that will resolve the whole issue. It's our view that that's what you people have been elected to do.

The next presenter — and you'll possibly have to pardon my pronunciation — is Peter Lagomeire.

P. Lagomeire: I think it's time to get the United Nations involved. There's been too much damage done in the past to the indigenous peoples of North America — people like me, for instance: 4620272501, LaGuff reserve. That's 4,500-and-some acres of land gone, and who's using the resources? Israel's war machine.

We don't get anything for our resources. They transfer our resources through Ralph Klein, and it's the biggest oil field in the world. What do we get? Nothing. Nothing for the oil and gas. It's just a waste of energy to transfer that oil and gas to Israel's war machine through free trade while I draw welfare in Prince George, B.C. It's a waste of time and a waste of energy. We need to stop having free trade with countries that fight war all the time. Spend the money at home.

When I walk by the Overwaitea store, I smell the food, but I can't buy it, because I don't have enough money. It's wrong. Share the resources. Countries in the world that fight war, or people like Bin Laden or Yasser Arafat — cut 'em off from the resources, no resources from Canada at all. What good are all our resources if we're constantly transferring them to foreign people from foreign countries, and they fight war all the time, looking for more oil and gas? It's disgusting.

We need access to our local resources as indigenous people of North America, not people like Ralph Klein that transfer the resources to foreign countries and foreign cultures, and all they do is buy more weapons, like Bin Laden. We're downtown here on $690 a month on welfare or old-age pension or whatever. You pay $495 a month, and then you've got a $118 gas bill, a $118 fuel bill. You can't even pay your payments. The money's going out of the province. A million dollars a minute goes across the border.

We're talking about settling land claims. Where's Wolverine? There's been so much damage done in the past, it's unreal. That's all I've got to say. It's just disgusting. If you'd like to ask me some questions, go ahead.

These are the people. This is my dad at Frog Lake reserve and my mother at LaGuff reserve. This is all the land. I've got all the papers, serial numbers and everything, but we're not allowed to have access to the resources because the resources are, God knows, transferred to somebody else. They take the resources across the border and charge 19.3 percent on the other side of the border. Meantime, Mr. Campbell wants to cut the welfare. What do we end up with? Nothing but misery in our own country — nothing but misery.

Bin Laden is out there fighting war. What's the difference between Bin Laden and Peres? Nothing. They're both fighting war. They're both taking our resources. Cut 'em all off. Give them no resources at all if they want to fight war. That's it.

Give the indigenous people of North America royalty for the resources — at least 5 percent on the New York stock market. If we're shipping $1 million worth of resources across the border every minute, God, we should be able to eat at least instead of living on welfare.

You say: "Go out and get a job." As soon as the American companies or the German or English or Jewish companies get control of the resources, they go across the border and downsize. Where are we? We're out of work with no resources. We can't touch the resources. Now we haven't got access to the resources.

MacMillan Bloedel — the white-collar crime companies — should be charged with stealing, just like if you steal a car. When you steal a car and you get caught, you have to give it back. MacMillan Bloedel should have to give that land back to B.C. MacMillan

Bloedel sells the land to some big company, and it's gone. Then they say: "You can't come on that land. It's not yours." Pretty soon they're going to say: "Hey, that water's ours too. That water's not yours, because we've got the logging rights."

Some companies got cutting rights for 200 years forward. Big companies — that's what's wrong with this country. They can hire the people in the States and cut us all off work, because they got the cutting rights for 200 years. The government should take the cutting rights back from these big companies. These big companies are bigger than the governments. Thirty million people with so many resources around us, and we're on welfare because we can't touch the resources. We haven't got access to the resources. We're living on reserves.

To me, a reserve is just a concentration camp. It stops us from having access to our local resources. I've got to admit I'm angry, eh? A guy like me — it would be better to give me $20,000 a day for the oil we've got in the Cold Lake–Primrose Lake bombing range, instead of transferring it to somebody's war machine. I would be spending my money in Prince George, but I can't spend my money here because I only get $697 welfare and my bills are $800 a month. There you are. That's about it.

Meantime, the resources go across the border at a million dollars a minute, 24 hours a day, and we're all sitting here. No wonder we've got pain in our stomachs. You can't transfer your resources to foreign cultures and foreign countries. It doesn't matter how you vote then. You can vote any way you want. They'll just go across the border and downsize, and you're stuck with the bill.

Gordon Campbell will probably be gone, if he lasts another four years. He'll be gone, and another small-c government will come in and get elected. They don't even care about globalization or global laws, you know. That's why I'm saying get the United Nations in here. Settle it once and for all.

Don't let people get greedy. MacMillan Bloedel should be brought to court. Gustafsen Lake, now…. Indians in B.C. couldn't even vote in 1965, and all these logging companies got almost all their land before 1965. Authoritarian democracy. Now they're saying: "We don't want to share." If we're going to share, let's stick share right at the stock market at New York City — 5 percent royalty for the indigenous people of North America.

Make America the richest country in the world overnight. Everybody would have money to buy food; nobody would be hungry. You know what I mean? Share the resources. You say: "We can't share the resources." Why can't you share the resources? Why should the Caucasian immigrants' children control all the resources and the indigenous people live in Canadian concentration camps?

Ralph Klein doesn't make America rich; he makes us poor. He transfers our resources to Israel's war machine while we live on welfare. Look at Israel — sixth-largest army and air force in the world with no resources. Where do you think they get their resources from? North America. Who pays for it? I do. But we're not making America rich by transferring resources to them because they just buy weapons.

That's why I say that anybody who's at war today — cut them off resources automatically. No resources for anybody that's at war. That includes Bin Laden, Simon Riesman, Preston Manning, Peter Lougheed — all of them. They're the ones who transferred our resources, and what do we get for it? Nothing but misery.

You could have people come to Canada and spawn like the French did in Quebec, and then what've you got? "Well, we voted. You know, we voted." You gave us chicken pox too. Let's face it. It's not the first time chicken pox is in North America. It's the sixth time, you know. I'm just angry. Excuse me. I guess it's over. You want to ask me any questions?

J. Les (Chair): Okay, that'll be just fine, Peter. Thank you for coming this afternoon.

P. Lagomeire: Well, I think Ralph Klein should share the resources in the Cold Lake–Primrose Lake bombing range instead of violating our human rights.

J. Macdonell: Thank you for letting me speak for a minute here. This is my first time speaking before a committee like this. I may not be quite as articulate as some other speakers that might be here.

J. Macdonell: I have two questions and three concerns, if that adds up to anything.

J. Les (Chair): All right. Well, just keep in mind that we are here to listen to you, not you to us.

J. Macdonell: The first question is: what sort of referendum will this be? What will the legal implications of it be? We go through the process, and we have a referendum. Whatever the final questions on the referendum are, when the public, like myself and others, answer them, will the government be bound in any way by this? What will the implications of this referendum be subsequent to that stage? I think that's something that I personally and possibly the public at large would be entitled to know before entering into the referendum. What will the implications of it be afterward?

The next question is: what effect would this have on previous agreements already made with aboriginals or natives, such as the Nisga'a treaty? I'm not fully up on all of the treaties that have been settled, but I'm aware that the Nisga'a have had an agreement made, and I think there have been some agreements made down in the lower mainland. Will this unwind those agreements, and do we have to sort of start fresh again?

J. Les (Chair): Just let me quickly address those couple of things. First of all, the Nisga'a agreement is today the law of the land, so it does not change. Any other treaties that exist in B.C. — and those are at least a hundred years old — also are the law of the land.

With respect to your other question about what the effect of the question would be — and I think I'm paraphrasing your question slightly — I can't answer that, because we haven't framed the questions yet. We cannot anticipate what the effect of the questions will be if we don't know what the questions are. What we need to know from you is: what are the subject areas that you feel it would be appropriate for us to develop questions around?

J. Macdonell: Okay. One sentence you'll hear from me, what I think the subject matter should be, is not so much what effect the question would have on me but how committed the government is by this referendum. Is it in any way legally binding? Is it under B.C.'s Referendum Act? That's all I'll say on that point. I don't want to belabour it any further.

J. Les (Chair): Well, it's simply this. We have not framed the questions. We have not made our recommendations to government. We have not completed our report. It would be presumptuous of any of us, I think, to suggest the answer to your question. Let's move on and get into some of those other areas you might like to address.

J. Macdonell: Okay. Under the principles for treaty negotiations, one of the principles here that we guarantee to the aboriginals or natives is continued access to hunting, fishing and recreational opportunities. My concern would be that hopefully in the end, the same laws regarding those types of things — hunting, fishing and recreational opportunities — would apply to natives and non-natives. Let me skip down to my next items and then the overall goal, saving that to the end.

The existing tax exemptions for aboriginal people being phased out. This may be beyond the jurisdiction of this committee or this government. I wonder if support from the Department of Indian Affairs should also ultimately be phased out. They provide funding for housing, I believe, on a province-by-province basis. I think they provide for other services, as well, for the aboriginals.

It has perhaps been good that they have been there. I wonder if the moneys saved, if this could be arranged with the cooperation of the federal government — and that's the Department of Indian Affairs of the federal government, not provincial — could somehow then be used to help defray the cost of land supplements here. It could be an offset or partial offset.

My last item, really, is the ultimate goal. Maybe that should be a key question on the referendum. What is the ultimate goal that we try to achieve? My feeling personally is that the ultimate goal should be that the aboriginals become citizens with equal rights and responsibilities as non-natives. They'd have the same taxation, the same privileges — no more, no less.

My feeling is that if they were full citizens with equal rights, equal responsibilities, it would work a long way toward bridging the gap that exists between the non-natives and natives. It would, I think, raise the acceptance of each other, because they're seeing each other on an equal basis now. There's no sort of special status for one or the other. It would raise the cultural self-esteem by their being full participants on an equal basis in our society.

With that ultimate goal in mind came the earlier questions I had: phasing the tax exemptions out; perhaps phasing out the support from Indian Affairs and using that to offset the cost; with the continued access to hunting and fishing, perhaps making it on an equal basis with the access to hunting and fishing that non-natives had — ultimately, at least. I guess those were my main concerns: the two questions about the consequences of this referendum and then these three other concerns regarding the phasing-out of rights.

The ultimate goal would hopefully be directed toward producing a non-special status for either side here, and we're always equally treated without any taxation privileges. I think it would do a lot toward increasing the respect for each other.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. This might be helpful to you, John — and for anyone who's interested, for that matter. On the back table we have a copy of our terms of reference, which lays out why it is we're here and what it is we're attempting to do. Beyond that, there's lots of information. There's also a one-pager that provides for you the existing principles guiding the treaty process from the point of view of the provincial negotiators.

I think that information might be very helpful to you in terms of sorting out what it is we're doing and how it is we're attempting to do it. In fact, I would suggest, John, that if you have some further thoughts with respect to principles that should in your view guide the treaty process, you might submit those to us by way of e-mail, fax or what have you.

We'll be going over the written submissions as well as the oral submissions, which are being recorded here by way of Hansard, once we get back to Victoria in a week or so and start doing our work in terms of writing our report. Again, I think that information might be very helpful to you and others who are not clear in terms of what it is we're doing here.

S. Abbott: Good afternoon. I guess I'm going to cut to the chase. I'll use a scary word right up front for all you politicians: accountability. What I would like to see

is a process — and I think I have one — that would bring accountability into the self-governing process, so we don't have a government that represents only a portion of the people inside of their jurisdiction or they don't play fairly in terms of people's rights and freedoms protected under the Charter.

If we had two options on this question, option 1 being that if individuals would like to opt out of the self-governing process, but they would like to have their settlement — in other words, the self-government of first nations…. If they don't bring their people together and convince them that there's going to be a good, solid, sound government throughout this process to represent them equally and fairly, if they don't win them over and basically their electorate, and the people that they are representing opt to stay within the provincial system of government — if they would even have that option — it's going to generate accountability on the self-government side. It'll also generate a lot of accountability on the provincial side, because now it puts them in competition for who is going to represent these people.

I've noticed a lot of discrepancy from aboriginal peoples that are status but don't live on reserve. When they go back to reserves, they don't get the same representation as the people who do live on reserves and say they're related to the right family with the right name. There's a lot of single women out there that are status women who, if they are not connected to the right families with the right names, don't receive fair representation with their self-government.

Now, if the provincial government were to lay it on the table, they know roughly…. I'm sure you know how much it costs. You take the population of the band. You figure out how many acres of land, and you figure out how many dollars there are going to be in the settlement. It's pretty easy to do the math and figure out how much that is per capita.

If that offer was left open to the individual members — that if they didn't want to be part of the whole self-governing thing, if they didn't want to have to try to move back to the reserve or onto the lands to try to get their fair share of the settlement, if they wanted to stay in the community but didn't want to give up their right to the revenue and to the resources…. We know the bands are using their numbers in order to get their settlement.

If they're a member of the band, whether they live there or not, they're using their number or they're using that individual to get a certain percentage of a settlement from the province. Yet if that person is not able to benefit from that within self-government, then I think there should be an option open where they can take an either/or settlement. Either they settle with the band, or they settle on their own. It's probably going to sound complicated for you to draw that into the system, but it creates a level of accountability that you're not going to get in any other way.

If the chief, the band council and the system of government are not going to represent these people, they can just walk out the door. They can rejoin society. Pretty soon you might have a reserve or a land claim, and you've got two people sitting there. If they're not representing their electorate, they're not going to represent anybody. They have to always work hard, and they have to always be accountable to their people, or they're not going to have any people left. I'd like some comments.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you, Steve, for your presentation. Does anyone have any questions of Steve?

V. Anderson: I was wondering. I thought Steve had two areas of concern. Did I miss one of them?

S. Abbott: Well, John Winter addressed one of them fairly clearly. As far as I see, when these land claims are settled, it's on finalization. As a taxpayer, I've asked this question many times also, and I always get some grey answer.

The scenario is, for instance: what happens if you settle a land claim, and ten years down the road the money runs out? They haven't established any industry. They haven't been able to get themselves up and running inside of their own mandate. Who's going to come in and pick up the pieces? Is this a one-time deal? When they settle this land claim, are there rights to partake in any future land claim if this one doesn't work out for them?

If it all falls down, who's going to pick up the pieces? Is it going to be the taxpayer coming in to clean up the mess? That's one of the big issues I want to see. I want to see some kind of a finalization clause where they relinquish their rights to land claims and self-government after they receive their settlement if and when that happens. Then that's it. It's a done deal.

In the private sector, if we make a deal with the province, if it's paid out and it's done, we have no fantasies about thinking we can come back and renegotiate the thing ten years down the road. As a taxpayer and part of the free enterprise–minded people of the province, I want to see some guarantees in there which basically say that. I don't mind. I think this is a great institution. If the land claims settlements would work, if these people would become self-governing and would operate and run their own lives and resources, I think it would be the greatest thing since sliced cheese.

There have been many failures. Look at Alaska. Look at what happened with all their land claims settlements. They were, at the time, much larger. There was a lot more cash involved, and their land was settled in a fee simple manner where they were able to sell the land or resources if they needed to. I don't think any of them are intact today. I think most of them have all gone broke. So what happens?

It's not like it's not going to happen. It's not that far off of a question. I'm sure you guys have talked about it, and I'm sure it's been talked about among them. The taxpayer doesn't know. I've never heard anything. I've never heard anybody stand up and say: "What happens if this doesn't work?" You settle all these land claims, and then ten years down the road everybody's coming back saying: "Oh, we got a raw deal." What exactly

V. Anderson: I just want to comment. I think it's an interesting connection, putting finality and accountability together. The finality depends on the accountability of all three parties, not just one party. To put them together makes for very interesting discussions, I think.

S. Abbott: You've got a lot of work cut out to create a question that will answer and solve the issue once and for all. It's going to be hard to put it into one question. I just thought the accountability side of it might be a way to do it. It's hard to create a forum that's going to work over years and years and years and that's going to generate positive influences on the system instead of negative.

C. Gonzales: My name is Candy Gonzales. I'm from the Spallumcheen Indian band in the Shuswap nation.

Since 1871 Indian people have been fighting for the right to govern themselves and control their own land and territory. For 130 years B.C. has basically ignored it and put it off through the Indian Act and provincial laws such as hunting and child welfare. To me, there are only 4.4 percent of the people in Canada that are aboriginal. I'm sure that's a small percent in B.C. I don't see how one question can fairly answer aboriginal and Indian people's rights. If we're a small percent of the population, there is the majority of non-native society that see us negatively because of this.

I moved to Prince George in 1999 and have met up with a lot of prejudice and negativity towards Indian people and myself. That's the most I've met in 20 years of my life. The majority of non-natives I have talked to think Indians will take their lands, houses and towns through this treaty process. This is totally wrong, but that's the present ideology I'm meeting up with and the mind frame towards Indian people right now.

I'm not 100 percent knowledgable about agreements, but as far as I know, the B.C. treaty group has not made any agreements since their start in 1990. The Nisga'a agreement, which was made outside of that treaty process, received less than 2 percent of their traditional lands. The idea that the majority of society has? We don't want your land. We don't want your houses.

We want a right to govern ourselves and to access our resources for our kids and to earn our own livelihood. We've been dependent on government for so long. They've helped perpetuate that with the Indian Act and with all the laws. The Nisga'a finally received an agreement in 1998, and that is 117 years after B.C. joined Confederation. That's a long time of fighting.

I'd be curious to know how many times the B.C. and federal governments have dragged their feet on following any agreements through, because there have obviously been none to date in B.C. The Douglas treaties and Treaty 8 were before Confederation. Even though it has taken 11 years to make a treaty, I believe that's not really a long time, considering how long it's been that's led up to this and how many repercussions it's going to have on the Indian people that are signing them.

I would like to know how much money the government has made off of Crown land resources in Indian traditional territories, because that's the big issue, I believe, with non-native society. They think we have been taking money for so many years. Really, the governments, both provincial and federal, have made more than enough in all the resources that you're still harvesting from traditional lands.

I believe this referendum is prejudicial and is helping to perpetuate the negative stereotypes of Indians holding out our hands for money. How can we progress if we have no land base to call our own and no resources to establish independence from government? We have no financial security to live on.

I agree with Pete when he said that the money is still going out of a lot of Indian lands. That side isn't advertised. The side that's shown in media is all the money that you spend on Indians every year through DIA, and that's not the whole picture.

The question is not how a referendum question should be asked. It's why. Why is the provincial government still ignoring the main issues of Indian rights to self-government? The referendum question is going to fail, because there are so many people that have been negative against Indians for years. You can go out on the street, and you'll see an example of where the Indian Act has led us — drunk people, prostitution.

I wasn't going to come here because I was scared. I'm not an academic, but I think it's important to say something. I want something better for my children than I have grown up with. I really don't think this is the answer. One is education of society, maybe through first nations courses. I went to one — I'm going to the university here — and non-native people that have taken it said: "I didn't know that."

It's been in history for so long that people today ignore it and say: "Whatever. It happened 200 years ago. We shouldn't have to pay for it, because we didn't do it." How long has society benefited from Canada, and how long have native people not really received anything back? I'm not saying I want money. I just want the chance to own land, not be federally owned, and to figure out how to economically and educationally better myself, my family and my nation.

I was looking at your paper where it says that tax exemptions would be phased out. That's another thing that is a mistake with society. They think that we get tax exemptions up the yin-yang and that we are handed money all the time. Really, the only time you get tax exemptions is if you're on a reserve and you're buying the goods on a reserve.

If you look at the majority of reserves in B.C. and Canada, there are not many stores where you can buy things. Even phasing out tax exemptions, I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not. It's not a big amount of money that we save. Once I go back to a reserve that has a store, I'm not saving money. I just think it's wrong where they have the interim measures in your BCTC.

You're still taking resources out of lands. As far as I know, no agreements have been made for interim measures to stop provincial or federal people or society from going into reserves and hunting, fishing, mining. I would like to see a report on how much money you get from traditional lands that are in dispute and how much money you spend on DIA to natives. That's all I have to say.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Candy. I want to say, on behalf of the committee, that we very much appreciate you coming this afternoon and making a presentation. We know, and several other people before you this afternoon have said, that it's a somewhat intimidating process to make a presentation to a committee like this. We don't intend it to be that way, but having been on the other side of the table myself years ago, I know that it inevitably is that way. Thank you for your courage in coming forward.

I wanted to ask you a question, if you don't mind. You said a few minutes ago that you would like the chance to own your own land. How am I to understand that? Do you want the option to individually own land, or did you mean that in the collective sense?

C. Gonzales: For reserves, no matter what, it's federally owned land, and fee simple is not allowed. I want some kind of process put in place where, if a band signs a treaty, they will have the ownership. It doesn't seem like it's there. I know I can go into society and buy a house and land in Prince George. Speaking for my band, if you're a band, you're not allowed to own the land. If you are, you can't really develop it. I'm not sure if the laws have changed.

J. Les (Chair): I suspect they probably haven't changed too much. What you are looking for is the ability for the band to own the land outright as opposed to what I thought might be your other suggestion — for example, that you individually might be able to own land fee simple. That's not what you were talking about?

C. Gonzales: You can own the land of your band, but you don't really own it. For my band, you get two acres of land, and you can build a house, but at any time — I believe it's the same as provincial law — if they need to make a road or train tracks or something, they can just take your land.

J. Les (Chair): There is that kind of process provincially, for sure, but if they need your land for a road, for example, then they have to expropriate. In that process, of course, you get compensated for the value of your land.

C. Gonzales: I just don't understand why they would have to make it right where your house is if you had been there for a while.

V. Anderson: I appreciated your presentation, Candy. It comes from the heart as well as the head. Sometimes it's difficult to mix those two together. A phrase you used stuck in my mind. If I heard you right, you said, in effect, that you're tired of being federally owned. Could you explain that? I don't want to try to put my own words in your mouth.

C. Gonzales: The federal government, through the Indian Act, says who's a status Indian. For example, my mother obviously went with a Mexican. If you mix blood, you slowly lose your nativeness. That's a regulation set by the government. They regulate if you're status, if you can go to school and if you can see the dentist — everything — and it's getting cut back a lot. I've noticed you can only go to the dentist or optometrist 600 bucks worth a year or every other year. It's still really regulated.

Yeah, the government still owns Indians. It's strange to say, but up to not very long ago if I were to get a degree, which I'm doing now, I would lose my status. I believe Pete said that up to 1960 we weren't allowed to vote or we'd lose our status. There are a lot of laws that are still in the Indian Act — so some kind of law besides the Indian Act. That's a big issue.

V. Anderson: Follow that through, then. So often when we hear about treaty land, we're talking about land, but if I hear you right, you're talking about something much broader than land. It's a question of owning yourself. An extension of that is that the moment you are on Indian lands and want to make a will, Ottawa's involved in that, as well, which isn't true if you're not on Indian lands.

C. Gonzales: I'm not sure about that one. I guess it's a new one I've just learned from you.

V. Anderson: I think that dimension is helpful. It's helpful to understand what the real issues are that we have on all sides.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Candy, for your presentation. It's very helpful to us to hear of your experience and also your hopes for the future. That's important not only for yourself but, as you mentioned, your children. I think it's great that you're attending UNBC. Is that the case?

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): Certainly, that's the key for young people, whether they're on-reserve, off-reserve, native or non-native. Education is increasingly important.

You should also know, Candy, that we as a committee are very committed to the treaty process. That's why we're here listening to your perspectives but all the while with a mind to the task that we have before us in terms of drafting recommendations for questions of principle that can be put to a one-time provincewide referendum to expedite the treaty process.

We see the treaty process as part of the answer to some of your concerns and hopes for your future and the future of your children. We see that as being an opportunity for us to do something positive and good so that we can prosper together, natives and non-natives alike. We are hopeful. We're excited about that, and we appreciate your willingness to do what you've done today and share your perspectives with us. Thank you for doing that.

H. Lloyd: Thank you. Welcome to Prince George, and welcome back to Paul again — a hard-working MLA.

H. Lloyd: As a former MLA, I think I know what you're going through a lot of times here, particularly on such a difficult issue as this. In 1978, when I was in the Legislature, we had the band come over from…. It's the band that was in the controversy about the land rentals near UBC; I should recall the name. In any event, they expressed all the sentiments that you've heard, particularly from the last speaker — that the Indians didn't have very much control over anything.

The federal government had signed away a lease on the golf course for 90 years without their permission, and they were locked into long-term rentals. They couldn't really develop anything. They said: "Never mind giving us something special. Just give us the same rights as the white people have so we can do something with the land we supposedly own or control." I think it goes along with what Val was saying earlier — that perhaps individual ownership would be quite important to them.

I have a lot of empathy for the native people. Over the years, as a logging contractor, I've worked with many of them. You get to understand a lot of their problems. They're particularly hard-working and resourceful people. I guess they're kind of on the bottom of the ladder.

One of your other speakers here this afternoon, John Macdonell, was expressing some of the concerns that everybody has, not just the native people. He was concerned about the resources and where they're going and who they're controlled by.

When the natives speak of losing control of the cutting rights or timber on their traditional lands, I guess a lot of the rest of the citizens up in this end of the province feel the same way. I know that what you're here for today is to discuss this referendum question, but there are a lot of things you could take back to your government that I think need looking at as well. Timber tenures and controlling the resources are some of those.

I'd like to give you a written presentation later. I just made a few notes. I wanted to see what I could pick up in the meeting here today. One of the speakers from the chamber of commerce, and some others, mentioned a question: what type of government would this self-government entail? I feel that's one of the questions that should be on the referendum. I don't sympathize with the comments of the chamber of commerce that the citizens of the province aren't knowledgable enough to make their own decisions on these things. I think they should be given an opportunity to express their feelings on several of these issues that have come up here.

Native self-government was mentioned before. Whether it would be a municipal or a regional district concept, they do have the powers to pass their own bylaws and regulations. They're subject — at least, they have been subject…. I'm not just sure where you're going on your new municipal authority bylaw here. They have had the power to do practically anything within their own boundaries, subject to the approval of the municipal affairs department of the province. Whether that would be adequate for the natives, I'm not sure, but it seems like it would give them a fair amount of control over their own land and their own particular area.

I have had a lot of concerns expressed to me over the years about this concept of a first nations government with powers similar to a province, subject to negotiating with the federal government and the province of B.C. I don't know if I understand the concept correctly or not, but if we're looking at setting up individual governments in every one of these band areas, it's going to really balkanize British Columbia.

You're not going to be able to travel anywhere. I had thought at first that the first nations groups would present some form of a united government, but I understand the concept now is that they'd like to have full control on these — it won't be reserves, I guess, in the future; it'll be land grants — land grants.

If they can make laws and control all of the natural resources there — fishing and wildlife — it's going to make it very awkward for citizens of the province to travel from one area to another. You're going to have to check everywhere you go. Personally, I feel that's kind of a dangerous concept, and I think it would create a lot of hardship and ill feeling.

I wish they would take a little longer and harder look at the municipal type, and perhaps, if you are going to loosen up and give them more control, as you've mentioned there, that would seem to be an ample situation. I would think that would be one of the natural questions you should ask people: what form would you be in favour of giving these people — a municipal,

regional district type or a separate, almost provincial type? I would think that should be one of the questions.

Rather than going into individual small reserves, it might be better to make smaller provinces. If there's any legitimacy at all to the Maritime provinces having four provinces in an area smaller than Vancouver Island and less population than Vancouver Island, then certainly B.C. could be considered for quite a number of provinces. If the Indians were a majority in those areas, then they could pretty well form the government. I think they'd have a lot more local control that way.

I know how the provincial government feels about the control coming all the way from Ottawa. Well, the people up in Prince George and north of here feel that we're an awful long way from Victoria too. Rather than set up a bunch of individual native self-governments, I think it might be more effective if we had more provinces. The United States has all those states. Instead of 12 provinces, they have the 52 states, I believe.

Local people do have a little control of what is going on there. I think that when Peter Pearse had the royal commission in Prince George on forestry, he was saying that not too many people in British Columbia realize the size of our province.

He said when you're standing in Prince George, you're as large as the next four adjacent states across the line there — Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California. He said: "What would people feel like if they were living in Washington and being governed from the southern part of California?" I think that's something we can bring back closer to people and make more meaningful for them and perhaps give them more local control of their resources. That would be the first one, anyway: what type of government? I would suggest that should be one.

The next one is: how big are the native land claims themselves? They had a panel at the civic centre here a number of years ago, and they were discussing the land claims and the size of the land claims. Someone was concerned about some of the land claims that had been given in the Northwest Territories. I believe it was the federal negotiator who said: "Well, you should have seen what they were asking for. We cut it way down."

Maybe that's not really a realistic way of looking at it, then. I believe less than 6 percent of the province is privately held, including all the towns, cities, airports and everything else. The rest is Crown land. I'm not sure what percentage would be fair to give to the first nations people. They're less than 5 percent of the population. Would 5 percent be fair? That would be as much as everyone else in the province has now, with all the other citizens combined.

One of the things that's kind of confusing to a lot of people is the land claims themselves, the percentage of land claims that are under negotiation. You see these maps with the different areas laid out on them, and they overlap each other's claims in a lot of areas. They have been said to be up to over 100 percent of the land base.

Is that really realistic or not? I wonder if it wouldn't be worthwhile to ask the first nations groups if they could meet between themselves and decide their exact areas and decide what is fair. If the rest of the province only has 6 percent, how much should they be asking for? Should they be asking for 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent?

Before you start any negotiations, you usually try to have a reasonable base to start from. It seems to me that a lot of these negotiations have proceeded for a lot of years but without any solid tangible basis, and that's where a lot of the time seems to be wasted.

This would be an aside to the particular referendum question, but I would think it should be incumbent on your government to think about having a judicial inquiry on the Crown land of British Columbia, not just for native people but for all the other citizens of the province as well. I don't think we're some kind of socialistic state. Why can't anybody go buy a piece of land anywhere in the province? I think it's probably easier in China and Russia than in British Columbia. Why does the Crown own all this land? Don't they trust the people with it?

A lot of it has been frozen in provincial forests. You can't make application for it. At one time the boundaries on provincial forests related to where the trees grew. Now they've got the province painted from one end to the other as provincial forest. It's not really tied down. The Forests ministry has control of who applies for land outside the municipality. I think it's about time that they had a full hearing on the Crown land.

What is Crown land? Does it belong to the people, or does it belong to the government, or does it belong to the Queen? Forest companies always tell us that they're operating on Crown land. That's the public land, but as some of the other speakers have said, you can't get access to any public land that's held under long-term tenures.

I would think that for the native as well as for the other citizens, it's pretty important that you tie the resources to communities. I understand that they're talking about loosening up some of the tenures now. In the last negotiations on the tariff business, I understand they're talking about taking off the requirement that local manufacturing be done with the resources. I think that's very dangerous. I think that could leave a lot of communities completely without an industrial base. It has happened in B.C. already.

When you're looking at the native request to consider timber tenures for themselves or cutting rates, if it's traditional land, then I suppose they consider that as private land, so they probably feel that they have first claim to it. I can understand them being very concerned that the major licensees are putting long-term tenures over the entire area.

I think it's pretty important that we get these things out in the open. I appreciate Premier Campbell's promise that this is going to be an open government and that most of the issues are going to be discussed in public. I appreciate that. As I said, I'll try and put a written brief

in to you later. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. If you have any questions, I'd be willing to try and deal with them.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Howard. It's always great to see you and hear from you. I was just thinking as you were doing your presentation — that's not to say that I wasn't listening; I was, but I was also thinking — that 20 years ago the province's approach to land claims and treaties was quite different from today, as you know. In fact, it was under Jack Weisgerber as minister responsible for aboriginal affairs, in 1990 or 1991, that it in fact really began to move towards modern-day treaties as we know them today.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): When you were a member, things were quite different. The position of the Crown was quite different. It will be interesting to see where we go over the next ten or 20 years as well. Certainly, we feel that what we're doing, Howard, is important with respect to providing guiding principles to provincial negotiators over the course of the next few months and years as we move ahead with respect to the treaty process. We'd certainly like to hear any thoughts you have in terms of those guiding principles. Again, Howard, thanks very much for your presentation.

H. Lloyd: I appreciate what you're saying. It's quite true that before Jack, it was just considered a federal responsibility, and they kept ducking and dodging from it. I think it first opened up in Fort Nelson, particularly on the reserve there where they had mineral rights, of course, in the earlier days. They had to grant that to the natives. That was kind of like a door opening for them. I do hope that you get all this, and good luck to your committee.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Howard. We'll be looking forward to your written presentation.

G. Van Dolah: I want to thank you for hearing from me today. Just a little background. I'm a councillor with the district of Vanderhoof. I also sit on the Prince George Treaty Advisory Committee, and I sit at the table with the province and the federal government on the treaty negotiations with the Carrier Sekani. Some of my interest is based solely on the fact that I've been in the process, on how effective it's been to date and that type of thing.

I don't have a clear question for you today. I definitely have some insights of my own in terms of what some of the difficulties have been. If I were sitting here today and saying to myself, well, if we are going to come up with a question for the referendum, personally, I'd obviously want to know what the objectives of that referendum were going to give me when sitting at the table with the first nations negotiators. One of the problems is not having a lot of clear, concise information from the government. I also believe that the people who tend to deal with these treaties after they've been signed are the people that are in the local government. One of the concerns I have is this. We talk about it, and you talked about it today. It caused me concerns. We talk about a three-party agreement, and we're talking federal, provincial and the first nations. Local government, in a lot of respects, is not perceived to be within the framework of the negotiations.

To that end, during the time I've spent with the Prince George Treaty Advisory Committee, an offer was made to the Lheidli T'enneh. We found out about the offer not as part of that team but in terms of the province looking at us more or less as somebody that they will tell what's going on. In terms of being part of that process, there's not a lot of input and that type of thing, and that creates a lot of concern for me. I haven't looked at the new community charter to see whether or not those kinds of situations are going to resolve themselves.

I also look at my community of Vanderhoof and the surrounding communities, and Saik'uz is an important community around Vanderhoof. The longer this process goes on, the more divisive it becomes between the communities themselves, between our community and Saik'uz. We're waiting to see what's going on, just like they are. We're waiting for the economics that drive these things.

One of the concerns I perceive — and I kind of say this mildly — is somewhat from the standpoint of regionalization: the south, where the main emphasis of the population is, and the north, where we don't have a lot of population and the taxes that drive those. We have the land, and they've got the money.

In those situations, I would perceive that we need some type of a question that's going to address this. Everybody south of Hope is probably more inclined to say: "Let's just give them cash." I doubt they're going to look at giving them North Vancouver. We're more along the line: "We have land, so we're going to give that up, because it's not as populated." Those kinds of situations create some concern. It creates a concern for the province, because there are people in the south that maybe have or maybe don't have the opportunity to understand what people over all are losing.

I have somewhat of a concern about the educational process around this, about having a population in the province that is going to be up to speed in terms of this treaty question or these referendum questions they're going to have. How are we going to spread the word and those types of things so that people can make a decision based on those goals?

I'm going to need that as an individual who's going to sit at a table and say: "This is how we're going to work with you." They're driving my mandate or driving the provincial government mandate. I don't know how that word is going to get out to the people throughout the province. Forums like this are good,

but they're just that. They're not going to get every person involved in that process.

I also believe there should be something in a referendum question that deals with time — time lines, deadlines. "We should be dealing with this," versus "We can virtually sit here until the cows come home and say that we're in a treaty negotiation." Sooner or later, if we can't reach something, maybe it's going to have to go to litigation on certain situations. I don't know. All I'm saying is that deadlines are an important factor for the economy and also for the people so that we can start getting on with business and get this over and done with.

I also believe it's a good start — people like yourselves. I like to see people going throughout the province and getting information, but I think it's going to take some out-of-the-box thinking. I don't think you can go back to where you're going to go and write these questions and think that you're going to come up with ones that we're necessarily all speaking and talking to. I don't think that you're actually going to come up with and resolve the answer for what kind of questions and how we're going to proceed.

I think it's something that we really need to be considering. I wouldn't necessarily say that what we've done to date is not working. The problem is that it's just so darn slow in how it progresses. That's probably as big a problem as anything. In that respect, I think some out-of-the-box thinking is something we've got to do.

Probably the closest thing to a question that I would come up with, in kind of finalizing this, is: who do you want to be part of your negotiating team? Who do you want as the province of British Columbia to sit at that table? Obviously, we're going to have federal, but I think local governments also. It would be a question that I'd like to see put forth. Thanks.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you, Greg. You've challenged us to think outside the box. I guess I'd throw that back into your lap and ask you: have you done any outside-the-box thinking? If so, have you any thoughts to share with us?

G. Van Dolah: It's a difficult question. I don't envy you. I've been in the process two years now. That's not a lot of time that I've been in the process, and every time we've thought about all this. From one standpoint, the first nations people want to deal directly with the provincial negotiators, but in the same respect, not dealing with us is going to create some problems in the end too. It's a difficult one. I don't have answers for you today, but it's going to be an accumulation of what you have probably done throughout the province and going from there.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Greg, for coming. It's great to have representation from Vanderhoof. Vanderhoof is well represented. I know something of your background, working in the resource sector as you do and being a member of the community and your family for many, many years. You're certainly familiar with the issues in and around Vanderhoof as they relate to your relations — that is, relations with Saik'uz next door — and the importance of working together and moving forward together.

A number of the points you made are very helpful. You made reference to the involvement of municipal government. That's something that we will take to heart in terms of the tasks that we have before us — how that might be addressed — because that is clearly an issue. You also talked about the timeliness of treaty negotiations and the impact it has on communities like Vanderhoof. That's another issue with which we have some real concerns.

As much as anything, Greg, I'd like to say thanks for making the trek. I know that the weather hasn't been all that pleasant. Thank you very much.

M. Hunter: Greg, thank you for your presentation. I found it very helpful and to the point. I want you to know that your point about local government resonates with me, being from Nanaimo. You could be sitting there as the mayor of Nanaimo, and the words would be the same. I just wanted to make that observation.

I had another comment on the issue of whether people are up to speed. I'm having some difficulty with that concept, because a number of people have made the point. In a different era but not that long ago, on a subject arguably of pretty serious importance to British Columbia and Canada, we all voted on the Charlottetown accord in a referendum. I'm not sure that people were educated. They were certainly bombarded by propaganda. I just leave that as an observation out there. If we're clever enough to design questions that deal with people's values and principles, I think that some of the edge goes off that. That's my personal view.

I wanted to ask you a question on the time lines and deadlines in that observation. Do you think that the idea of approaching these negotiations bit by bit — deal with the easy stuff, get those interim arrangements in place and leave some of the more intractable issues until later — is a solution? Do you think that would speed up negotiations? Would it remove the incentive to reach agreement? I'd be interested in your comments from your perspective.

G. Van Dolah: You're asking me if I think that having an interim agreement and all these other multiple things, doing the easy stuff first, or doing the hard stuff first. If that's what you're asking me, I don't dispute that there's probably a necessity for having interim agreements over certain situations to keep people moving in the right direction. It also takes away, though, from the fact that we're not moving ahead in terms of negotiating a treaty. We're negotiating an interim measure. That's postponing the timeliness of that type of situation.

There's probably a tremendous number of areas that we readily agree on. We spend a lot of time on those things that we readily agree on, and then where it really fails is where we don't. From that standpoint,

that's where the breakdown is. We spend years on this stuff that we readily agree on.

We're talking languages in a lot of respects. When things come back even to the Prince George Treaty Advisory Committee, we're talking about words — how it's worded. In terms of the overall scope of things, it's fairly well established. People have agreed, more or less, but it gets down to cash and land. That's when people start to break down.

There are other issues around subsurface rights, fish, hunting values and those types of things that aren't easy things to negotiate either. In the same respect, the stumbling blocks are land and cash. It seems like we get to there, and that's where it stalls. Then because it does stall, we start doing interim agreements to keep people at the table and motivated.

V. Anderson: Thank you very much, Greg. In the latter part, you were talking about how we negotiate agreements. It seems to me that one of the things I've heard is that the people who have been at the table, who have volunteered their life, are very tired. Some of them aren't sure they're going to live long enough to get there, which in itself is very discouraging.

The other part is that the whole process of negotiation has in part been mandated to us by the courts, who said that court decisions are not the best way to make the kinds of interpretations that are needed, so they gave us the process. Have you a suggestion how that process might be improved to get at the solutions we want in a better way? If so, that might be a good principle.

G. Van Dolah: I guess I'll come back to more community involvement. We live next door and we have communities next door to the people we're negotiating with. I don't think that our knowledge and understanding of what happens in our areas is getting on to the negotiators. We do not understand, and we aren't privy to the mandate of the provincial negotiators.

We ask: "Can you tell you us what the offer is and where you're going and what's the maximum?" We're not privy to that input or prior to any type of negotiation. We pretty much sit at the table, looking in from the outside. If there's something that really starts to bother us, then we can call a caucus and talk about it. Whether that information ever really goes back and forth and is negotiated…. It's not.

I think the short answer to your question is that we need more community involvement with it. Negotiate strictly from a provincial perspective? They're not the ones that are going to live with this treaty. We are.

V. Anderson: Two questions come out of that. I'll ask them separately, and you might answer them together. It seems to me that the more community involvement, the more time and discussion everything is going to take across the province. That may be a good thing, so I'm not saying we shouldn't do that. On a time frame, would it take longer?

The other part of it is this. Could it be that all parties have come in to what is a new process, after a hundred years, and that the process itself is not coming in with a mandate from any party? It is trying to discover together a mutual mandate.

G. Van Dolah: I guess I'd disagree with the timeliness of it. I think your first part, in terms of the timeliness of including community, would be short, just from the standpoint that we have insights that provincial negotiators and politicians in Victoria may not necessarily have in terms of what we're dealing with. I don't say for a moment that individuals like myself aren't going to reach consensus with provincial people when we go to those meetings. I'm just part of the team, and I just want to be treated as part of the team, and I'm not today. In reality, I don't think that I'm looking at something that says to people: "I'm going to be the one that holds you guys up" or that type of thing.

I'll put a question out to you, and then I'll answer your second one. You reach a treaty in the province with one of the first nation bands and what not. How well do you think we're going to react to it if we don't agree with it? How well is it going to be, then, in terms of negotiations? What is it going to look like on that side of the thing?

The second question, I think was…. Just paraphrase really quickly what your second part was again.

G. Van Dolah: There's no doubt about it. Historically, there are probably some mandates to try to reach some kind of consensus together and come together, but that's not what I see — what's happened in the past. We're horse-trading right now. We're only to give you this amount, and you're going to give us this amount. It takes so much time to finally come together. That's all part of negotiations.

As far as even concerned citizens sitting on a treaty advisory committee, we give out a settlement or something to one of the first nation bands, and we say: "We know this is not going to be accepted; it is not even going to be close to being accepted." I mean, we are so polarized on each end. I don't know where that is. You ask: "What can you do?" No answer. I don't know. Historically, there are mandates creating consensus, but I think we also need to have mandates that are going to be doable.

V. Anderson: I have just one more question. Are you suggesting that instead of a provincewide mandate to negotiate, there should be regional negotiation of neighbours with neighbours at least somewhere in the principle?

G. Van Dolah: I would be mildly supportive of that. I can say today that, yes, that sounds right, but what that means when we all of a sudden write it down as policy and procedure might make me say

something different after I see what you're saying. To me, it sounds like exactly what we need to be doing to try to resolve some of these issues.

V. Anderson: Perhaps you would write that down for yourself and then send us your answer to it.

G. Van Dolah: One of the reasons I'm also here tonight is that we do have a council meeting today, and I'm going to talk to them about at least having some type of position that we will try to address to you by November 2. That was part of this.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Greg, for coming this afternoon and giving us your point of view.

The next presenter is Ben Meisner. I must say that it was a pleasure talking to you this morning at 8:30.

B. Meisner: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, Madam Clerk. I have, over the past 15 years or so, spent more time on this particular subject than on any other subject I can think of. I'm deeply interested, because I grew up as a young person near a native community. I lived side by side with them and went to school with them, so I have an interest. I also have an interest as a resident of British Columbia to ensure that we have fair and equitable treatment for the other 95 percent of the people of this province.

I've made some notes, and I wish I could have put them to paper to bring to you today, because it's important for me that I make myself well understood. The question you are seeking today is: what question should be addressed in any land claims referendum? All the people that I have talked to over the past 20 years — be they aboriginal, civic leaders or average rank and file — say they want finality.

They want a finish to the whole process. They want it over and done with. That's the feeling you'll get anywhere. You could step out on the street when you're finished at five and ask people what they want. They'll say: "We want it over. We want finality to the matter, but we want finality under these circumstances." When it's over, it's over, I'm constantly told.

There should be no special status tax-wise. People are afraid to comment that there should, for example, be no hunting or fishing privileges that exceed those of the remainder of the population. There should be no special form of government that exceeds perhaps municipal powers — no form of government that exceeds the provincial form, or, for that matter, exceeds the federal form in some degrees. There should be no reopening of the land claims at a future date. When we have concluded the treaty agreements in British Columbia, it should be equal to all people of British Columbia, and it should bring with it finality.

I have watched as it's been a political football that has been passed around the province, perhaps more extensively in the last ten years than previously, dealing with a fair settlement, or what has been deemed to be a fair settlement in the works. To suggest — and I am not taking this out of the text — that 95 percent of the population is about to swallow up 5 percent of the population, the aboriginal population, is poppycock, just rubbish.

It's simply not going to happen, for several reasons. There is a common thread amongst the people not only of British Columbia but of Canada: we must settle the issue. That's an issue that people constantly refer to. We must settle the issue. There is a feeling that the natives have been wronged over many, many decades. They want to right the past, and they want to move on to the future.

However, having said that, there is a real risk in the distant future — and I'm not talking in perhaps the next two or three decades — that if we don't resolve the issue in a reasonable manner, it will come back to haunt us. It has done that in a host of countries the world over, and we're not immune to that kind of thing.

The importance of your committee, as you travel around the province looking at this as a fresh start, is a reasonable approach to what should take place that reflects the wishes of all — 100 percent of the people of the province. It's so important.

The process has been slow for a reason. There has been no cut-and-dried policy; it has been a wing-it policy. The negotiations have been dealt with, with far too many issues. Some simplification is in order, and perhaps when we look at the referendum, we're going to have to address that.

We can talk about land and cash. Then we get into a rehash of a host of other things, things that the people of British Columbia think will be over and done with when they have a settlement. It's important to remember that. That's what they'll be looking to you, as a committee and a government, to bring to them: finality. The negotiations that we have had to date have not included that.

There have been sidebar agreements. There have been different agreements. There has never been one instance where people of aboriginal descent in the province have been asked to express their interest of what they see is a settlement that is fair to them — not to the bands, not to the hierarchy, but to them as individuals as to what they see is a fair settlement in the province with respect to land claims.

The average band member has never enjoyed the luxury of stating whether they want an individual settlement, whether they want the band to settle on their behalf, whether they want a particular chief to be able to administer or whether they feel the elders should be able to administer some new form of law. Unless I have missed this, not once has anybody asked that from the individual band member.

I take everybody back to this. Fifty years ago we placed the native population in a position where we said: "Big Brother will do this best for you." We said: "We will get that, and we will be able to do things for you in a more proper manner than you." We established the Department of Indian Affairs. We said: "The policy of the native people in Canada is such that they'd like to be governed by their own chief and their

own elders." We have never asked the individuals whether they feel they themselves would be capable of handling any sort of settlement and whether they themselves would accept a kind of settlement that might be offered to them by the province.

To suggest that if we're going to give the average native person X number of dollars and land and that they are going to throw it away in the following minutes or so — as they did with the Métis population in the province of Manitoba ? is simply not true. It's not going to happen, and I think we should give the average individual far more credit.

What do I say — because I don't want to delay time — that you should do or you should look at in terms of a referendum? Perhaps two or three questions. One, we should address the individual in the aboriginal community in the province as to what they want. Perhaps we could get rid of a pile of these things that we're negotiating, the off-shoots, by saying to the people: "What would you settle for?" After all, the benefits from any settlement should flow directly to them or indirectly to them, and they haven't been going there in the past — hence, the reason for their situation today. Two, we must address finality. Three, above all, we must also ensure that when we present the information to the public, it is an exact case of what will take place. In the past people have been reluctant to come forward and speak about the treaty process because there's a feeling that regardless of what they say, it won't be accepted, and the real cost of the treaty process is not as it is shown.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Ben. Are there any questions from committee members?

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Ben. I think we get a chance to go at this again tomorrow morning on your show, don't we?

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): In any event, it's good to hear your thoughts. It's interesting to hear the thoughts of someone involved in your industry. For the most part, when we meet people who are involved in the industry you're in, we're asked what we feel, what we've seen, what we've heard. I'm not sure how many years you've been in the business you're in, but I know it's a good number of years. I'm sure you've seen a lot and heard a lot.

You referred also to your childhood experience with respect to the neighbourhood in which you were raised. I think what we understand from your presentation — and I think it was well presented and made crystal-clear — is that you'd like to see the whole question of finality addressed. I think that's a sentiment we've heard throughout the province as we've travelled. We understand that people really want the treaty process to move forward. They want to know where they're at with respect to the whole question of finality.

Finality. Of course, for those of us who choose to live and work in the north, we understand the impact of uncertainty as it relates to the treaty process and the impact it has had on the resource sector here. We've seen a real unwillingness of folks to invest and reinvest in the north because of difficulties associated with uncertainty and the lack of finality in and around the treaty process. That's something I thought was very helpful: to again emphasize the importance of finality.

The costs of treaties. We've committed to the whole question of affordability, but again I think it's important, as you've pointed out, that people understand the costs and that that be made very clear. During the debates on Nisga'a, which I'm sure you and many in this room followed, it became clear to us — we were sitting as opposition at that time — that the government members and the ministers, for that matter, didn't really have a handle on the costs associated with that particular agreement. We need to do our homework when we're attempting to convey to people the costs associated with any given treaty.

The other thought that comes to mind — and you may want to comment on this, and with this thought I'll shut up, Ben — is that though I know that people tend to focus on the costs, whether it's land or dollars, associated with treaties, there's also a considerable loss in terms of opportunity costs. It has been estimated somewhere in the range of $1 billion annually because of, again, tying to the whole question of uncertainty. That may be something that you want to comment on in terms of weighing the costs in the front end with the lost-opportunity costs.

B. Meisner: Well, there has been a benefit. You must appreciate, Deputy Chair Paul Nettleton, that there has been a benefit to those people negotiating to delay settlements in many cases, because we're looking to see who might come with the best settlement, and we'll follow in behind. I mean, that's an old negotiating process that is very often done. I think it's being enjoyed in the same manner today. That is, let's see who hits the longest ball, and we'll follow him to the next plate. That has happened. There's no question that has happened.

How you rush that policy up, I don't know — short of doing what you're doing. I happen to believe a referendum is an excellent idea in British Columbia, because it establishes once and for all — not through polls, not through people buying ads in newspapers and stuff, but by the people themselves — what they think should be done. That speaks for the aboriginal and the other community as well. I don't think for a moment that the non-aboriginal community is going to gang up on the aboriginal community.

I think there's a sense of, "Let's get it over with. Let's get the settlement there as quickly as possible," but I think there is a very strong sentiment in the province to hold a referendum.

V. Anderson: Ben, I wanted to put your last two comments together, the one about finality and the one that whatever agreement is arrived at will actually be fulfilled, if I understood your last part.

If we put that in the context that across Canada — not so much in B.C. but somewhat in B.C., in the Douglas treaties and Treaty 8 — there has been the feeling that over the years, right back to 1762 or whatever the date of the royal commission was, there were statements of agreement and intention in place that were fairly specific. There was an attempt to implement these in a variety of ways. The courts have said that we haven't done that. When we thought we had finality, the second part of it didn't. People in context on all sides of the question at this point are asking: how can we do it differently from how we have historically done it in order to put those two together, or can we?

B. Meisner: Mr. Anderson, I can say this: we've come a long way in terms of how we write constitutional law or how we write law in agreement — a long, long way over the past 100 years since back to those times when we wrote that. Quite clearly, if you read any of the three agreements that were put together in the old North West Territories, as it was known, or the Yukon or, for that matter, in the Nisga'a treaty, you will find specific language that deals with the right to reopen should somebody else negotiate a better process in Canada. That, sir, leaves no doubt in my mind that you can reopen the treaty process at some future date if somebody else gets something better than you achieved. That language was put in there for a reason — leaving it open-ended in order to negotiate. I point you in the direction of all three of those agreements written in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon to get that language. I can't remember what pages they are, but certainly they're there. I could reference them to you, if you wish.

B. Meisner: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for having me.

M. Shepherd: Mr. Chairman, ma'am, gentlemen, as soon as I open my mouth, you'll know that I'm not first nations. I think you can also tell that I didn't grow up here, but Canada is my chosen country, and I love it very much.

I have a major concern when we come to the treaty problems that they're having. I've heard people here saying we should treat people like neighbours or we should deal with individual bands, but when I listen to people like Matthew Coon Come or, before him, Ovide Mercredi, I find people saying that we are separate nations. I find people saying: "We will negotiate with you nation to nation." That frightens me, because I believe that we should have one Canada and one law and that we should all be able to negotiate our problems within that framework. It would appear to me that there are some people intent on having a situation that places us in an us-and-them framework.

When I look at what happened after Pik Botha sent his people over here to talk to us about how we dealt with our Indian problem, I become very concerned. South Africa set up the apartheid system, and I see us falling into the same mistake, falling into the same problem. That is — and I use this term in a sociological sense — we are either setting up homelands or ghettoizing a percentage of our population.

When I look at it from that kind of perspective, I begin to get really worried. Questions begin to arrive like: should we even be thinking of setting up a situation that might be viewed as apartheid? We then get to an area of government: should first nations get the right to make their own laws? Are we going to fragment this country so badly that we have law upon law? Like the gentleman said before, we pass through this people's area and this people's area and this people's area.

If we get to the situation where the first nations are developing their own law systems, will they, because we have put ourselves into this us-and-them situation, be held responsible in law to their laws or to our laws? Conversely, will the rest of the population be held accountable under their laws or the laws of the land? I don't know. I see these things beginning to gather speed. I wonder whether I'm stupid and I'm so far out in left field or whether this is actually going to begin developing.

When we create this us-and-them situation, how do we begin financing this? Ben said you can go out in the street and ask the people. I get the same things. I get into it with my friends. The question always comes down to: if we're dealing government to government, where does their source of income come from? Are they responsible for their own education? You notice it's they, they, they, all the time. Are they responsible for their medical and for their infrastructure? It gets really dirty. I become really worried about this.

We also get to the situation of finality. If we create this series of separate mini-states, as the…. I'm not sure which organization it was. Was it one of the chief's organizations that was saying that they want to negotiate on a nation level? Then we would be expected to fund these foreign governments. That's basically what we're creating. We're splitting up the confederation if we deal nation to nation. I become really concerned.

It might be said: "What do you know about this situation?" I came to Canada twice. I worked here in the seventies and I lived on reserve. I also helped set up the native education program in this town. I came back in the nineties, having built my family and gained more education, and again I went to live on reserve. I do have some firsthand knowledge. I understand the plight that the people are in. What I want to put to you is that at all costs, we must avoid creating an us and them. Whether we are first nations, whether we are fourth-generation or fifth-generation Canadian, or

whether we have chosen to come and live here, I think the magic word is that we are all Canadian.

R. Berry: Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Rick Berry, and obviously I'm a white person. I'm a bit of a redneck. I also believe that individuals are the ones that are responsible for their own futures. They're the ones that make the decisions that affect their lives, which gives them self-respect, which gives them dignity, which gives them drive.

I believe the question on the referendum should be: who do we deal with? I believe we should deal only with the individuals. If there are 100 people in a tribe, deal with the 100 people. Ask them what their dreams are, what their hopes are. Maybe some of them want to be doctors. Maybe some of them want to be lawyers. Maybe they don't want to live on the reserve anymore. Maybe they want to give their cheque back to their leader. Let them make that decision. That way they're responsible. They can't say: "Well, someone else screwed me."

It also gives them self-respect. Maybe they want to be doctors or lawyers. Maybe they want to live in Prince George and have a house and raise their family like everybody else. It'll give them the head start they need. It'll help them assimilate, if you want to put it that way, to our society. They have to if they're going to survive. Let's give them the opportunity, as individuals, to do this.

Chiefs? So what. Indian Affairs? So what. Let's get rid of them. Let's just deal with the individuals. If an individual wants, for example, to save $50,000 a year for ten years to set up a business and buy a house, at the end of it, it's over. It's finished. Let's do it. Money doesn't seem to be the object here. If we're going to settle this, let's finally settle it. You have to do that with individuals. You won't do it through the bureaucracies, because nobody will be happy. The people that are supposed to benefit, which are the individual natives, won't benefit from it. Bureaucracy does.

A few years ago I spoke at a Terrace rally. It was an anti-government rally, actually, against the NDP. On the way back from that rally, I had the most encouraging discussion. I mentioned at the rally that the Nisga'a treaty wasn't fair to the native people themselves. When I stopped in Fraser Lake to get a coffee, a young native walked into the 7-Eleven, took a double take of me and walked back out. I went outside, and he came up and said: "Sir, were you the one on the radio last night? Were you complaining about the Nisga'a treaty on TV, at the rally?" I said: "Yes, I was." He said: "Will you please continue?" Beside him were eight or nine other native children who all lived on the reserve. You could tell he wasn't happy being there. He has no hopes and no dreams. He's got no future. If you deal with the individuals, you have a future.

That's about all I really have to say. That's the question I would like on the referendum: do we deal with the individuals?

J. Les (Chair): Thank you, Rick. Any questions, or are you going to get off easily as well? No, Paul wants to talk to you.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): This is on another, totally unrelated matter. Now that we've got rid of the NDP, what are you doing with yourself? It's nice to see you again.

S. Beck: Sorry, Paul. I said I wasn't going to do this, but I've been sitting in the stands since it started. I've been in the process since it started, and this is how I got involved. Just to give you a little bit of background, I was appointed by the district of Fort St. James to be their representative at the treaty advisory committee and also to sit on the regional advisory committee. I found out I couldn't be active in that unless I was an elected official. I went out in 1996 and got myself elected so I could be in this process.

You see before you a dedicated person. I travelled all the way from Fort St. James today just to sit and take notes and be able to get my feeling to you people before the end of November 2. In sitting here today, great concerns from the public, great concerns from the committee…. I'd like to give you my perspective as past chair of the Prince George Treaty Advisory Committee, having sat at many tables and been part of the negotiating team with the province of British Columbia.

One of the major problems is that we've got, as has been expressed before, three parties there. As I've said, I'm an elected official. I'm also the vice-chair of the Bulkley-Nechako regional district, and I also sit as a director of the North Central Municipal Association. You can see I cover a wide area. It's unfortunate that Mr. Lekstrom isn't here today, because he knows of my speeches.

The concern I have is that there are just the three parties. As an elected official representing communities or municipalities, we sit there — and as Greg Van Dolah has pointed out to you — with very little input. At the end of the day — and I've told all governments this — you're going to go back to Victoria and you're going to go back to Ottawa. You're going to leave us with the issue. Quite frankly, the whole problem is that the governments have not educated the public as to what the process of treaties is all about. I've expressed that at every meeting — every TAC meeting and every RAC meeting. You both have your agenda, and it's a hidden agenda.

That agenda has been given to you by the province of British Columbia or by the government of Canada, and you will not share that agenda with the people that

you're working with. Canada does not share their agenda with B.C., and B.C. does not share their agenda with Canada. Right off the bat you've got a bumper zone, so when we do get to final negotiations on a topic — whether it be resources, sub-resources or whatever — each one has an out. They say, "Well, my mandate doesn't allow me to do this," or the other government says: "My mandate doesn't allow me to do this." So we've wasted a whole day on arguing as to who is going to make this decision.

I can recall going to Vancouver and sitting there on the twenty-seventh floor of the Scotia building, having flown from Prince George, with my luggage still in my hand and going to a meeting where we fought for four hours over one word — whether it should be capitalized, whether the first letter should be capitalized, whether it should be put in this font or that font, brackets or squares around it. Four hours. It cost my treaty advisory committee, my budget, $800 to get me there. This is the type of negotiation that frustrates you as a so-called member of the treaty negotiating committee.

Now, these things have never been expressed before. These are the things that you've got to address when you put together your referendum question. Listening here today, the whole thing is that whether it's a marriage or whether it's a council or whatever it is, if you lose communication, then you have created barriers.

I stepped down this year as the chair of the Prince George Treaty Advisory Committee for one reason: I lost confidence in the people that were doing the negotiating on behalf of the province of British Columbia. I've never stated that before. That is the reason why I stepped down this year. I cannot sit — nobody should be able to sit — in an organization where they don't have complete faith and trust in one another. I lost that faith in how the negotiations were being developed with the Carrier-Sekani tribal council with the negotiators we had.

I might add for you that being there for seven and a half years, we went through probably seven to eight negotiators both provincially and federally. If you know the nature of the first nations people, they build everything on trust. Now, how can you build trust when you're changing the people constantly? That's something that you've got to be cognizant of: when you put your negotiators in there, make sure that they're in there for the long term. Some of the best negotiators that we had are today deputy ministers in the government. I can think of two, and they were extremely good people. I guess the government of the day saw that they were extremely good people, and they still survived the change of an election.

In summarizing, I would hope that the question or questions that this referendum comes forward with will address what we're attempting to do in treaties. Today we've heard words of finality and words of percentages of land mass, and we've heard the costs. I urge you, when you go back from the meetings here…. I am going to submit a copy, Paul, of my feelings, having been there.

Sitting here looking at you gentlemen, I must say that we've had community-to-community forums with first nations and with municipal governments. In seven and a half years I've missed one treaty meeting. I never missed a main table; I never missed a working table. It's surprising that I never saw one of you people at any of those meetings. To say that the treaties are not open…. I'm pleased to say that I've seen more people at this meeting today than I ever saw as the chairman of the Prince George Treaty Advisory Committee or at any of the open meetings, where they are open. This treaty process is open if you want to take the time to make it open. Thank you very much.

P. Nettleton (Deputy Chair): Sonny, I have to say thank you not only for coming as you have today from Fort St. James but also for agreeing to share your experience. Your experience is considerable, and it's important and helpful to us. We look forward to some of your written submissions. You related your experience with respect to wordsmithing and the costs and frustration associated with that, and I think that says it all in terms of the current process. I just wanted to say thank you, Sonny, for sharing your thoughts with us.

B. Belsey: Thank you, Sonny, for your presentation. We've heard, in two or three of the presentations today, the idea or concept of dealing on an individual basis. With your experience at the various tables, I'm wondering if you would like to add something to this thought.

S. Beck: In my dealings with first nations people — and this is community to community — and when I talk to the chiefs, they'd rather talk to the mayor and council of the adjoining community than they would to government, because we're decision-makers. We don't have to go back and have it reviewed by another board. We are the board. They would much sooner deal with us in that direction.

Another thing that I know there's some concern about is self-government of first nations. Here again, the federal government did an extremely bad job of all of a sudden hitting us with Bill C-49. I'm sure some of you are familiar with Bill C-49. If it hadn't been for a TAC meeting and some individual coming up unannounced and giving us his interpretation of Bill C-49, it would have gone over our heads.

I might just point out to you that from that conversation…. My sister and brother-in-law have lived all their lives on the Musqueam reserve, so I'm very familiar with the program there. When I made them aware of Bill C-49, their lawyers got on the ball and researched it, and they went all the way to the Senate with it.

There are some concerns about Bill C-49, which is their system of self-government, of a selected few — that the aboriginal lady is not addressed in this thing in

a favourable manner. We have to be very careful when we put legislation in place.

B. Belsey: I might carry on. What we've heard from two or three people this afternoon is that dealing with individuals may be a better process. I have no opinion on it whatsoever. I'm just trying to get an understanding of it a little bit more.

S. Beck: I would think that's an avenue you want to really address. When you say "talk individually…." You talk about the first nations, and I've heard today that they don't have any revenue coming off their resources. Well, I'd like to make it known that in Fort St. James we have the Nak'azdli Indian band that has a working agreement with one of the local sawmills. It's a wonderful agreement for both parties. There's security for wood supply and economic growth for the first nations. That wasn't done through government. That was done through face-to-face negotiations. There's great merit to that.

My main concern when I was chair of the treaty process, at any main table or at any side table…. At the side tables it's similar to Woodward's directors getting together and saying what they're going to put in their Christmas sale flyer. They sure as hell aren't going to invite Eatons there to hear what they're going to put in their sale flyer. These working tables, even though they're behind closed doors, are discussing stuff that will come out at the main table, so there is no secrecy there.

When you get the first nations people working with local government or local industry…. Talking about working together, I have a couple of mining companies that would be very interested to scratch the earth if they knew who the earth belonged to. We've talked about economic loss. There's an economic loss. They have talked to the first nations. They've got the first nations on board. They haven't got governments on board. I think there's a great avenue for the committee to really look at, and I will be stressing some of that in my submission to you. This is an avenue to be looking at.

V. Anderson: Thank you, Sonny. You have expressed, out of your own experience, a long history. We have heard words like "finality" and a lot of words that get repeated over and over again. They have a whole variety of meanings. We've also heard that we should think outside the box. Are there some crucial themes that we haven't been hearing that we need to deal with? Might they be the crucial one or two themes which, if we came at them anew, might start us on a new track?

S. Beck: Well, I think when you use the word "negotiate," you're looking at a give and take. Somebody's going to give a little bit; somebody's going to take a little bit. It's a meshwork. When I hear "negotiations," I think of labour. I have been under the B.C. Teachers Federation, but they don't call themselves a union. I've never been in negotiations with a labour force, but I know they give things. I don't think there's any finality other than a two-year term or a three-year term — whatever they're negotiating on. In talking to the first nations and listening to Canada and B.C. and their negotiation, there's going to be mistakes made on both sides on the give and the take. How are we going to correct them if we can't reopen the negotiations? I think there has to be a mechanism in place to make sure that if there has been a mistake made — it'll show up, you know, within three or four years — we can go and correct that mistake.

R. Visser: Thanks, Sonny. One of the things we're trying to get a handle on is that there is a perception — and you alluded to it and talked a lot about it — of the tables not being open and the general population not feeling included. Do you have any suggestions on how we might overcome that? That's part of our job here. When you go back to a side table, main table, the 197 meetings that you have to process, how do we deal with that in the big picture?

S. Beck: I guess it goes to the old saying NIMBY — not in my back yard. Until the weight is on that foot in that particular community, you're not going to get any input. That's the cruel state of the whole thing. As the chairman, I was asking that question at every meeting. How do we educate? I took negotiators through our local schools. I took them into the industry world to have industry ask questions. I don't know that answer. I wish I did know that answer. The process might go faster if we knew that answer. Canada doesn't know it, and B.C. doesn't know it at the present time. That's another one of your great…. How do we get this message across?

As the member of the chamber of commerce stated, our province right now is suffering. One of the reasons it's suffering is that it's a global market, and if industry sees the least little bit of conflict, there are other areas for them to invest their money. They're not going to invest it in our province. We've got to make a clear trail for these investments. How we do it? God, I wish I knew the answer.

M. Hunter: Sonny, I want to drag you back to that openness, with a slightly different question than Rod asked. You repeated the complaint we heard earlier about the three parties and communities and municipalities being left out. You were there but with very little input. Later on you talked about the process being open if you want it to be. Are you saying two different things? Can you clarify for me?

S. Beck: I'm still saying the same thing. Just for clarity for the people behind me, the treaty advisory committee is made up of elected people. You must be elected to sit at the treaty advisory committee. The regional district of Fraser–Fort George, in the Prince George area, is represented. The regional district of Bulkley-Nechako is represented. You have communi-

ties — we have a boundary — from Mackenzie down to McBride, Valemount, Fort St. James to Burns Lake. It has extended into Houston.

You've got input at the main tables from these elected community people on the question of the day, whatever that might be, but they ask for our input when we don't know what their mandate is. We know their mandate is to get land claims settled, but we don't know what their whole mandate is. It makes it very difficult for us to express our concerns.

One of our concerns is: at the end of the day, is self-government or government for the first nations people going to be similar to that of municipalities? Their boundaries are going to lie next door to our boundaries, and we don't want a chicken farm built right alongside a highly classed residential area.

Some people have a thing about self-government. You know: what rights do they have? But municipal governments have different rights too. We call them bylaws. The bylaw in Fort St. James on dog control is different from the bylaw in Prince George. They're going to have bylaws that are going to be a little different than ours, but that's not to say it isn't good self-government. That hasn't been brought forward.

M. Hunter: Can I just follow up, Mr. Chair, for a moment, if I might? Sonny, would you support the treaty advisory committee representatives being involved in the development of the mandate and strategy of the provincial negotiator?

S. Beck: I think that's the mandate the UBCM has got with the provincial government, but I don't think the provincial negotiating system takes much heed of that.

S. Beck: If you went back to the UBCM agreement with the government of the day, you'll see that mandate is there.

J. Les (Chair): Sonny, we've had two treaties that have gotten to the point of being negotiated to the agreement-in-principle stage — Sechelt and Nuu-chah-nulth. Both of those went back to the first nations involved and were not ratified. What does that indicate to you?

S. Beck: It was brought up earlier today that the first nations individual doesn't have a say. Well, that tells me that they did have a say. Their chiefs and their council initialled the agreement-in-principle, but when they took it back to their people, they said no deal.

The first nations individuals do have a voice, but you've got to understand the system of the first nations. They have their council and chief. We went through this in one of the cases that I sat on. We were almost at an agreement-in-principle, but because of the Indian Act, they had the right either to have an elected chief and council or a hereditary chief and council.

We were just about at an AIP, and the body of this particular first nation didn't like what the hereditary chief and council were doing. They stopped it. That was the end of the negotiations, and they're still in abeyance. Can you imagine the time spent not only by the province and Canada but by myself? I'll tell you — whew!

J. Les (Chair): You say that indicates that the first nations people involved had a say, but my very point was what you were driving at towards the end. Perhaps that say should have come much sooner in the process.

S. Beck: Definitely. But maybe something was said during the process in particular, because we're talking chapters here. Every segment of the treaty is in a chapter, and in this particular negotiation there were 18 chapters. This didn't surface until we got into about the sixteenth chapter. I think it was under governance — how the band was going to be governed. Now we're talking federal mandate, not provincial mandate, because it's under the Indian Act. Where does that leave us as negotiators, both provincewide and civic? There are so many questions out there left unanswered.

J. Les (Chair): That whole question of who speaks for a band, whether it's an elected band council under the Indian Act or a hereditary chief and council — perhaps that needs to be….

S. Beck: Well, you see, that's federal. Every band has that right. A band has the right to be governed by a hereditary chief or by an elected chief. They have that right.

They got the majority that said: "No, we don't like what's going on here, so we'll hold an election." That's what they did: they held an election. The hereditary boys were out, and the new chief and council were in. They didn't like the process. We spent four and a half years of process. Don't think that didn't disturb me a bit.

S. Beck: You're welcome. People ask me why I'm in this process. I don't want to tell you how old I am, but I've spent 55 years living in the Burns Lake, Houston, Smithers and Fort St. James area. These are heavy native populations. I have played ball, danced and eaten with these people. When I was in business, I hired and fired these people. It's unfortunate that for some reason we've got a process that isn't working to look after these people. That's my closing comment.

C. Hooper: I'd like to thank the Chairman and panel for this opportunity to speak about my thoughts on the principles of this referendum. My name is Craig Hooper. For the last 30 years I've been a forest technician and forest resource officer for the B.C. Forest Service in Vanderhoof. I'm not affiliated with any political group, interest group or first nations group.

I'm here because of my respect for the native elders I've come to know through my field of expertise, which is aboriginal heritage trails and cultural heritage resources. I'd like to share with you a little of what I've learned in 30 years of doing historical research and working in the forests and along the lakes and rivers of the central interior.

The first nations people have been occupying this land base for about 7,000 years. If you let the width of this room equal the amount of time they've been occupying the land base, then the amount of time the Europeans have been occupying the land base would be about the length of this piece of paper.

I'd like you to envision in your minds — an eagle's eye view, if you would, up there in the cool fresh air — this whole vast expanse of the interior plateau, the rolling hills and countless lakes framed by rivers and snow-capped mountains. Try to visualize it as it was a little over 200 years ago, when the first European came down the river that flows just a few miles from here. You could still drink the water from that river, which the natives called the Lhtakoh. Imagine the country unspoiled, rich with game and fish. Along the rivers and lakes that these people travelled in their cottonwood canoes are the villages, resource utilization sites and fishing and hunting camps of the aboriginal people.

Now imagine through this green world of sub-boreal forest a vast network of trails linked across the landscape like the webs in the salmon nets that the natives wove of nettle fibres and willow bark. At each junction of the web is a village, a camp or a place where things as basic as food or as exotic as spiritual power can be obtained. Every creek, mountain and river has its Carrier name. I see the first nations world that they developed and the present-day world almost as two parallel universes. The first nations world that you've envisioned, I hope, has the world of concrete cities, asphalt highways, railroads, farms, logging roads and white place-names transposed upon it like one layer on another layer.

Both worlds are important, but we now have the tools — D-8 crawler tractors, scrapers, skidders, plows, hoes, feller-bunchers — to make this paper possible, to make these wooden walls possible. If used incorrectly they also have the potential to destroy forever the evidence that allows us to understand and respect that other universe, the first nations world. My job with the Forest Service is to ensure that proposed timber harvesting plans manage and conserve cultural heritage resources.

In my travels through this modern layer and through the forest I keep bumping into the evidence of that other world: archaeological sites, hundreds of them, along river and lakeshores; the telltale depressions of semi-underground winter lodges; food storage pits, or cache pits as they're called, used to store dried food, thousands of them, more than 2,000 at one site alone: Chinlac on the Stuart River. Lithic material, rock flakes of obsidian, basalt, jasper, even jade, from thousands of years of tool and weapon making are exposed by the archaeologist's trowel or even visible to the naked eye.

In the spring the interior natives gathered cambium from lodgepole pine trees as both a tonic and a food. A large patch of bark was removed, and the pulpy cambium layer, sweet with sap, was gathered, leaving a distinctive scar on the living tree — a precisely datable record of traditional aboriginal forest use that still exists today along rivers, lakes and the ancient trail routes. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of these living, culturally modified trees still in existence. The oldest cambium-stripping scars on pine in B.C. date to the year 1715; the oldest in this area, to the late 1700s. The oldest bark-stripping scars on coastal cedar date to the year 1467.

When Alexander Mackenzie arrived here in 1793, he found the native people living in organized societies, managing the land through a complex family and clan system led by noblemen called duneza in Carrier. The natives guided and fed Mackenzie. They drew maps for him on hide and bark and led him to the Pacific Ocean. The natives, especially the women, were extremely adept at drawing maps for the early explorers. The first nations people worked extensively with the early mapmakers and surveyors, little realizing that within the space of 100 years they would be mapped out of their own cultural landscape.

To give you a picture of how the original Indian reserves in B.C. were drawn up, I'd like to take you to Pleasant Street in Victoria. You've probably been there and visited the Victorian cottage called Point Ellice House, which in 1892 was the home of Indian Reserve Commissioner Peter O'Reilly. Imagine Mr. O'Reilly leaving Victoria in 1892 headed for the interior, sort of like you folks did. From Quesnel he proceeds on horseback with his crew to Stoney Creek on Nulki Lake. Vanderhoof will be built seven miles north of here on the Nechako 20 years later. Soon the sound of train and steamboat whistles will echo down the Nechako Valley. He works for Joseph Trutch, the B.C. government's point man on the "Indian question," who generally felt that the best possible course of action was to relieve the first peoples of as much of their land as possible and by force if necessary. The settlers were coming; the immigrants were coming. The Indians were in the way.

O'Reilly was not big on advance notice, and he arrived in Stoney Creek village to find only 22 of the 186 band members there. The population of the village reflected the effects of the smallpox epidemic that swept the interior plateau in 1862 as a result of infected blankets from Bella Coola being sold by white traders to natives at Anahim Lake. O'Reilly, who could not speak Carrier, met with Chief Paul Koelcho, who did

not speak English. Through an interpreter O'Reilly somehow stated his purpose and in three days rode off to Fraser Lake, having staked out the Stoney Creek reserves that are presently in place today — three days.

As O'Reilly's survey crew hacked though the alder and willow, chopping axe blazes on trees, laying out the rectangular boxes of the reserves, their survey lines conferred a spurious legitimacy on the legality and ethical correctness of what was, even by the kindest definition, theft. The natives had never ceded the land. The B.C. government had never declared a military conquest. And because of politicians like Trutch, no treaties were ever made. O'Reilly would produce tremendously persuasive, self-validating documents — maps — that disempowered and dispossessed the indigenous people and empowered the colonists. In the U.S.A. they like to say the west was won with six-guns and Winchesters. In Canada, because the natives were so important to the fur trade, it was really won with cartographers' pens and surveyors' transits. To quote geographer Kenneth Brealey of UBC: "Such is the power of modern cartography that it can turn Indian nations into museums and historical chance into national destiny."

As I did my historical research over the years, a very disturbing pattern started to emerge. It was sort of a constant collusion between the federal government, their Indian agents, the provincial government of B.C., the church and even corporations to coerce, deceive and cheat the aboriginal people. I won't run through the litany of injustices that you no doubt are familiar with, but I'd like to give you some local insights.

A few kilometres from here in Prince George, on the Fraser, what is now Fort George Park was once the Indian village and reserve. In 1913 the Indian agent W.J. Macallan, who in theory was responsible for the well-being of the Indians, orchestrated a sale of their land and houses to the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. The natives were supposed to move to another reserve at Shelley but didn't want to go. Agent Macallan then decided to accelerate the move by conspiring with the railroad crews to burn down the houses of people who were away on the fall hunt.

In 1926, when the province of B.C. introduced trapline registration, the Indian agents and some game wardens systematically deprived Indian women of their hereditary traplines and turned a blind eye to white inroads on native lands.

In 1936 searchers found the huddled bodies of three young Indian boys frozen to death on the ice of Fraser Lake. They'd been trying to run away from Lejac Residential School. The incident was kept quiet.

In 1952 the federal government Indian agent, R. Howe, and the government of B.C. conspired to cheat, betray and expel the Cheslatta Indians from their traditional villages along Cheslatta Lake. Although the officials had known for a year that the area was to be flooded, they did not tell the natives until a week before the dam was closed — without the benefit of a provincial water licence — and the actual surrender of the lands did not take place until two weeks after the water was rising. Most of the surrender documents were forged, and the signatures of the natives counterfeited.

Why do I bring up these injustices of the past? Because in this referendum I see a return to that darkness. Are these occurrences a thing of the past? In 1955 in Vanderhoof, a native woman that I know well took her ten-year-old son to confirmation ceremonies with the Catholic priest. The family and the white priest went to a restaurant for lunch. They were refused service. This was one of several restaurants that would not serve Indians. The restaurant owner who refused to serve her and her family is still in Vanderhoof. I see him driving around. He's getting old, but I'm sure he'll be around to vote on your referendum.

Just two years ago in the Vanderhoof shopping mall, this same woman — who was the recipient of the Order of Canada, an honorary degree from UNBC, and was Vanderhoof's woman of the year — was having a conversation in a Carrier language with her lady friend who's also in her eighties. They were ejected from the mall by the security guard who, when later asked why he did it, replied that he couldn't understand what they were saying, so he assumed they were drunk. This intellectual giant, with his deep understanding of aboriginal issues, will be voting in your referendum along with thousands of others who know nothing of aboriginal history or treaty issues and couldn't care less — people whose negative stereotypes of an entire race are formed by their observations of a few street drunks and whose closest contact with natives or native issues is driving through a reserve with their windows rolled up and their doors locked.

It was just a few weeks ago in the Supreme Court that Premier Campbell's attempt to overturn the Nisga'a treaty, financed by his own money, came to an end with the judge ordering him and his cohorts to pay court costs to the natives. Supreme Court Judge Paul Williamson made the observation that Mr. Campbell was motivated less by public interest than by partisan politics. It is my contention that this referendum was the same: a political manoeuvre designed to pander to a certain element of voters. Your political party would use as political pawns the people suffering on reserves where an aboriginal male aged 13 to 18 is ten times more likely to commit suicide than a non-aboriginal youth; a female aboriginal, 20 times more likely to commit suicide; and where alcohol addiction, unemployment and despair are endemic. To use these people as pawns in a political game was irresponsible.

You say you want principles to conduct your negotiations. You want a mandate. You already have it from the highest authorities in the land. Aboriginal rights are guaranteed under section 35 of Canada's constitution, as is their inherent right to self-government. The Supreme Court of Canada in 1997 declared that aboriginal title exists. The fiduciary responsibility between the Crown and aboriginal peoples clearly states that aboriginal interests must be placed first. Learned judges have stated time after time that negotiation and treaty-making, not litigation, is the most desirable way to resolve aboriginal land issues.

That native woman I spoke of is lying in a hospital bed in Vanderhoof right now. She's frail and she's old. She still lights up the room with her smile, her eyes still dance when she laughs, and she still has hope for her people. She'll probably never get to participate in your treaty negotiations because the B.C. government has stalled and stalled and is stalling still. Most of the elders that live close to the land are gone now, and the youngest generations are a ticking social time bomb, a human tragedy for which history and the world are probably going to judge us harshly.

What you'll discover, when you sit down at the end of this process, is that there are no questions you can ask on your referendum that don't expose it for the political charade that it is. Any negotiation has to be based on a certain degree of faith — faith that the other party will treat you fairly. The referendum process will destroy any faith the aboriginal people have in the process, and you will be doomed to failure.

Members of the panel, I hope that after you have pondered this issue, you will have the courage and conscience to tell the people of B.C. that you have decided this referendum is expensive, redundant, unfair, divisive and totally counterproductive. I hope history judges you well. Thank you.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you. Any questions? I don't think we have any questions. Thanks again.

D. Gabriele: I think this is a very important issue with very long-term consequences. I wish there was more time to really study the issues.

I just finished going through the Delgamuukw decision, and I thought there were a lot of issues there that were left up in the air, undecided. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what the legal status is. I think that we are in the position where we are facing radical changes to how our society operates without having information about it. I think that not only do we need a referendum, but we actually need a public process that raises the issues, the level of public awareness, so that there can be an informed referendum.

As I was reading through that decision, there was one statement by Justice La Forest that I thought I could agree with completely. He said that the decision should ultimately be in accordance with the sovereign will of the community as a whole.

I feel that what I'm looking at now, looking at the Nisga'a treaty, is in my view taxation without representation. They have a form of self-government that's going to be funded by the general taxpayers, and we're not going to participate. It actually is creating a new form of government which has the ability to levy a tax on me. My progenitors came to Canada long after this was settled. Now, we see from that decision that native oral tradition has to be recognized as equal. Reading through that decision, I could see that British written tradition looked like it was being discounted, and native oral tradition was being elevated above that. It was hardly even equal in that decision. I'd like to see a process that really does due diligence and makes that available to the public in some form so that we can have an informed referendum.

In any settlement I think the rules should be the same for all people. I'm not particularly worried that the native government and the Nisga'a get more powers as long as other municipalities have the same powers.

Another issue that really concerns me is that the federal government claims 100 percent authority to deal with this problem. In the Nisga'a example, it looks like the taxpayers of B.C. are picking up 95 percent of the cost in everything that we contribute.

Another issue that has really extremely annoyed me is that during the Nisga'a process, we were told by the government of the day that there would be a referendum on it. It's the law in British Columbia. That was the reason why we didn't have to worry too much about the lack of public participation. Then the referendum never occurred. We were told it's divisive or whatever.

I've looked at the paper today. I hope you've seen it; I don't want to read it. A local native chief gave a list of reasons why the referendum would be bad. I think that every single reason is a good reason for having a referendum. Every question and answer that he raised was a good reason for having it.

Another issue that I believe is critical here is the issue of economic development. I believe the Nisga'a treaty is structured in a way that economic development there is impossible, except for maybe a few insiders. I don't think that economic development is even remotely possible when it's based on socialist principles. I don't think there's a hope that they will ever generate economic development. What has to be done communally can't be done. Just a basic principle of economic development is private property, individual responsibility and individual initiative. That seemed to be precluded in that settlement. I hope that's not a basis. We kept being told by the politicians of the day that was not going to be there as a basis or a template, and now apparently it is.

Economic development could be done simply by putting business integrators on each reserve or close to each reserve. The cost would be less than the total cost of this Nisga'a treaty, and you get economic development. This is not going to do economic development. These negotiations for communal property will not create economic development. There isn't a hope that they will. If you structure settlements on those bases, all we're going to have is continuing taxpayer liability. Whatever rules we do use to negotiate, they should result in the same rules for all the people of British Columbia to live under. I don't believe that we should have race-based rules. That's all I have to say.

That appears to be all of the presenters that we have on the speakers list for this afternoon. We have other people registered to speak later on. At this point I

J. Les (Chair): Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call this meeting back to order.

R. Slaven: Good evening, everyone. Just a bit of a note to save Hansard some work. I neglected to bring an electronic copy of my remarks, but I can e-mail them to you later, so I can save somebody some typing.

First, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Robert Slaven. I've only recently moved to Prince George, but before that I lived for almost 30 years in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. However, I've resided in this province long enough to get degrees from two B.C. universities, and I have many relatives here, thanks largely to having twice married B.C. girls. I've always placed close attention to this most intriguing part of Canada.

I'm also no stranger to contentious policy issues regarding our first nations. Almost three years ago, while an elected member of Yellowknife's city council, I founded the Friends of Democracy. This was a society that led a successful constitutional challenge to the electoral boundaries of the Northwest Territories. Yellowknife, the capital, was severely underrepresented in the Legislative Assembly, while many smaller and primarily aboriginal communities were severely overrepresented. Our aim was not to reduce the representation of the smaller communities but, rather, to provide for more equitable representation for the residents of the N.W.T.'s largest municipality. The judgment we received from the N.W.T. Supreme Court provided exactly that.

Some, at the time, thought that I was some kind of red-necked racist trying to promote non-native supremacy over legitimate rights of first nations. As you'll learn tonight though, that is simply not true. I'm merely one who wants to see public policy carried out in a manner that is fair and just for all.

When Liberal leader Gordon Campbell started talking about a referendum to ratify the Nisga'a treaty, I was surprised that he seemed to believe that the constitutional rights of our first nations could somehow be subject to the simplistic process of a referendum. Even with a carefully crafted question, the very idea struck me as being about as useful as having a referendum in 1938 Germany on Jewish rights or in 1942 Canada on Japanese Canadian rights, for that matter. If we allowed the majority to rule through simplistic yes-no questions on important issues of minority rights, then we would probably still have slavery in the American south or bans on Asian immigration to Canada.

I was especially disappointed that Mr. Campbell and his Liberal colleagues — including, presumably, the very members I'm addressing now — are persisting in this view even after more than four years to reflect upon the matter. While the referendum now is purportedly to help determine the principles that should guide B.C.'s approach to treaty negotiations, I cannot possibly imagine what meaningful questions could be drafted by this learned committee.

During the election campaign Mr. Campbell repeatedly said that the referendum would deal with principles of certainty, equality and finality. To tell the truth, the biggest reason why land claims and treaty negotiations have not yet been certain and final in Canada is either because, as in B.C., no treaties were made to justify the occupation of the land by non-natives or, where treaties were negotiated, the federal and provincial governments have repeatedly violated those treaties and failed to live up to the promises therein.

As for equality, well, I've learned that it's futile to try to argue with those who regularly ask: "How come those Indians get all these rights and us white people don't?" Any thought that aboriginal Canadians have been treated at all fairly in the last century or two is quickly dispelled by even the most casual reading of our history.

So to the mandate of this committee. I understand that your mandate is not to consider whether there should be a referendum. However, as I said earlier, I cannot imagine how any reasonable questions on this matter could possibly be drafted. I'm confident that any questions that will appear on the referendum ballot will be either so overtly racist as to be untenable; so devoid of substance as to be motherhood questions that would garner a large, meaningless yes response, which could then be twisted into a perceived mandate for the Liberal government to have carte blanche to stymie the treaty process; or so contrived as to be of the, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" variety, where neither a yes nor a no answer is reasonable or appropriate.

I hope there are enough fair-minded British Columbians out there who will recognize that treaty and land claims negotiations are not suitable subjects for a simplistic yes-or-no question on any aspect of the negotiations. However, I am concerned that too many of them will just stay home on voting day, thereby skewing the results of an already skewed process.

Therefore, I am now calling upon fair-minded British Columbians to make sure they show up at the polling stations on voting day, whenever that turns out to be, but instead of voting yes or no to what is sure to be a meaningless and/or insulting question or questions, I encourage them to spoil their ballots. We do not have a "none of the above" choice here, unfortunately, and it appears that eating ballots is frowned upon. However, spoiling ballots is perfectly legal. If the number of spoiled ballots in this referendum is substantive, then perhaps this government will get the message.

To make it easier for people to spoil their ballots, I've prepared stickers, samples of which are affixed to your printed copies of my remarks. They read as follows: "I believe this referendum is unfair, unjust and

unconstitutional. Therefore, rather than voting yes or no, I am affixing this sticker to my ballot so that it will be counted as spoiled." I encourage people to print similar stickers to use on their ballots or, if they wish, to send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope at 1313 Manson Crescent, Prince George, B.C., V2M 4A4. I will also post my remarks and sample stickers on my website at www.robertslaven.ca.

I appreciate the work you're doing as elected representatives, and I also appreciate the work of the committee staff, having worked as a research officer at the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories for a number of years. I understand that this has been a difficult time and that your work, in fulfilling your mandate, will be an extraordinary challenge. I do hope that there might be a way for you to draft a question or questions that could make this referendum a meaningful exercise in advancing negotiations with the first nations of this province, but I'm afraid I'm not very optimistic about your chances of doing so — hence my presentation and my proposal tonight.

I thank you for your patience, and I wish you the best fortune in your public service as elected officials.

R. Thiel: My opening remark is a little off. Instead of "good afternoon," we'll say "good evening." My name is Ron Thiel, and I'm the chair for the Prince George Treaty Advisory Committee. PGTAC represents the municipal governments in the area from Burns Lake in the west to Valemont in the east, Mackenzie in the north and Hickson to the south.

It must be said that we truly welcome this opportunity to provide input into the review of the treaty process. Our committee represents local government and community interests in a substantial region of the province. The economies of this region are predominantly dependent on the natural resources of the area, and therefore any treaty negotiations implicating these resources are of great interest to us.

Although we do support the present treaty process, given the numbers of first nations in this region, we share some very wide-ranging concerns which must be addressed in this process. We hope that the referendum will establish solid principles that will guide B.C.'s approach to treaty negotiations and that it will be an opportunity to clarify our direction and facilitate the establishment of treaties that are fair and equitable to all peoples. Although municipal government has in the past eight years or so been provided the opportunity to have input to the treaty process, we often find that our input, which truly reflects the position of the majority of the local people, is given little consideration.

The Prince George TAC feels that there are a number of key issues which should be addressed in the referendum process. These issues are considered to be important in establishing strong principles and direction for treaty negotiations. The PGTAC feels it is essential that the people of our region as well as those across the province have direct input and are given fair consideration as to how these important issues are addressed and dealt with in the process.

The importance of treaties. One of the questions the referendum should ask is: are treaty negotiations of significant importance to the citizens of this province? This might be scored on a scale of one to ten or ranked against other priorities on the provincial agenda. The answer to this question will help to establish the importance of the treaty process and may give some direction to the priorities on the government agenda. It will also provide information as to whether or not the citizens of this province support the development and establishment of treaties.

Fairness and equity. According to the PGTAC, the most important issue that must be addressed in the treaty process is that in the final outcome it will provide fairness and equity in the allocation of resources for all peoples of the province. Conversely, if the citizens feel there are valid reasons for providing preferential access and allocation and certain resources to some of the population while not to others, this must be clearly identified. That is to say, should there be one set of laws and regulations in regard to the allocation and use of resources for all, or should preferential treatment be afforded to one segment of the population?

Discussions with the non-aboriginals living in our region indicate this to be the issue of greatest concern. We can see that the courts in the past have allocated to the aboriginals the right to the use of resources for sustenance, barter and ceremonial uses. However, it is a different matter when allocations of resources are being considered for commercial sale and profit, a position that is not available to the non-aboriginal.

Every effort must be made to ensure that the treaty process works towards achieving fairness and equality to the greatest degree possible. Otherwise, there is a good possibility that the non-aboriginals will not support the process. The referendum must definitely formulate a question that addresses this issue.

Time limits and costs of negotiations. In eight years the current process has yet to produce a signed treaty. It seems evident that the past process has lacked time lines to drive the participants towards results. There is also substantial concern over the cost of negotiations and the prospect of spending as much on negotiations as we spend on the eventual settlements. Since the cost to the first nations of the treaty process will be deducted from the overall settlement, the longer the process goes on, the higher will be the demands for cash settlements.

A referendum question should ask if citizens support a framework of time lines which set definite deadlines for achieving certain milestones and final treaties. Do we need to define a new or revised process that incorporates time lines and emphasizes cost-efficiency?

Relating to interim and treaty-related measures, a process of interim and treaty-related measures has been put in place to assist the first nations in progressing economically until such time as the treaties are

signed off. The PGTAC feels that these interim and treaty-related measures should be included in the calculations of the final treaty benefits to the aboriginals. In other words, they should be treated as an advance against the final treaty settlement. The referendum question should seek input on this issue.

Governance. It is timely to remind the province that the Union of B.C. Municipalities and our member local governments support the province in exploring, as an option, a municipal style of government for first nations under the treaties. The referendum should ask the citizens of B.C. whether they support this municipal model or prefer an alternate model for native self-government. We look forward to receiving more information in regard to the provincial government's new approach to first nations self-government and wish to continue our involvement in the policy discussions.

Land quantum. Given that treaty settlements in the north will in all probability include substantial entitlements to land and given the resource dependency of our northern economies, the people in the north should, through the TAC and RAC process, have a say in the amount and location of land that might be made available for treaty settlements. The referendum therefore must include a question addressing this issue.

Subsurface rights. Similar to previous comments on the allocation of resources, royalties from mineral rights should also be considered as a benefit of all Canadians. Subsurface rights are often an unknown value, and it is impractical to establish subsurface values without extensive and expensive field investigations. Given this circumstance, a valid referendum question would ask citizens if they support the inclusion of subsurface rights in treaty settlements.

Comments regarding the referendum process. Advanced notification. Our member municipalities are taking a strong interest in the referendum process. However, we have had comments from some municipalities that the advertisement and notification for these hearings has been inadequate. Please consider the circumstances of a community such as Valemount, for example, which is over 300 kilometres from the nearest public hearing location. A generous amount of advance notice needs to be provided to enable them to prepare for and present a submission to you.

Regional tally of results. The PGTAC has expressed the position that the results of the referendum should be tallied and reported on a regional basis. We feel that this approach will rightly empower the citizens of this region to represent themselves in the treaty process. For example, the regional response to questions on issues such as land quantum will be very important to establishing the degree of support for the amounts of land that might be included in treaty settlements.

Role of the PGTAC beyond the referendum. Our committee has asked me to seek clarification from you as to what our role and the role of other treaty advisory committees in the province will be in the future treaty process. It is important to our member municipalities to have ongoing input into the treaty process either by means of the TAC or by another similar process. We strongly feel that the position of municipal governments in providing input in developing treaties must be maintained and be given full consideration.

Conclusion. In summary, I must reiterate that the issues of equity and fairness in the management and allocation of all B.C. resources are of utmost importance. Through discussions and input from the people in our communities, it is quite clear that for the most part, there is general support for the treaty process. Every effort must be made so that in the final outcome, the process achieves fair and equitable settlements for all Canadians. It has been our position all along that resources should not be used as bargaining chips to provide additional benefits for first nations that are not available to other B.C. residents in order to consummate the final treaty agreement.

The openness of the present process and our ability to discuss issues directly with the first nations have been beneficial to us. A position of trust and understanding has been developed between municipal government and the first nations. On a regional basis, we have explored areas of common interest and understanding of certain issues to which we both agree.

Once the treaty process is completed, we are the ones with the most at stake. We will have to live together as good neighbours. Let us not slip backwards and lose the positive progress that we have made to date in the overall treaty process.

On behalf of the Prince George Treaty Advisory Committee, I would like to thank your committee for this opportunity to have input. If any of you have any questions for me, I would be glad to respond at this time.

I apologize for not introducing Martin Taylor at the start. Martin is a recent employee with the regional district of Fraser–Fort George. I'm not sure what his position is. Thank you.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Ron, for that presentation. Let me ask you. You referred to the ability you've had to interact with the first nations from the TAC perspective. That's of interest to me, because in my previous life, as you know, I used to sit where you now do, and I found that very beneficial as well. It is true that at the end of the day when the treaties are done, the federal and provincial negotiators will go home, and communities will work and live with each other. Can you perhaps elaborate a little bit from either a municipal or a regional perspective on the relationship that you were able to establish with the various first nations in your area?

R. Thiel: Yes. The Lheidli T'enneh, which is the local band in the Prince George area and one of the bands we work with, feel very strongly about a position of openness, of putting the facts on the table and working together, knowing full well — and we have discussed this with them — that there's going to be a requirement for give and take on both sides. That is understood, and it's respected.

We have had the opportunity to invite the native negotiators and some of the people from some of the bands to attend some of our PGTAC meetings, particularly when the election was going on and we had a little bit of free time when the province and the feds weren't available. We did have some very good discussion, and it is very interesting to see, on many issues, how very close we are in agreement. Yet when we sit down with the province and the feds, that closeness or similar thought does not get expressed. It does not come across as well as it does otherwise.

Just to give you an idea. I'm also a member of the B.C. Wildlife Federation in Prince George. A number of years back — I can't remember, but three or four years — the natives throughout the province made a concerted effort to meet with members from the B.C. Wildlife Federation and with people who hunt in the area, etc. They had a meeting here in Prince George, and there were probably some ten chiefs from throughout the province. The issue of wildlife and management of wildlife and the resources and sale of wildlife came up. At the end of the day, it was amazing how much consensus had been reached between the two groups, knowing full well that if we want this process to work, we've got to be in agreement with it. The comment — no slight on the province here — was made that maybe just the two groups should deal on this, and when we hammer out the treaty, we'll send it in to the feds and the province and have them endorse it.

M. Hunter: I'll just say, Ron, that I really appreciate your brief. I find this logical, and there are a couple of fresh ideas. I was particularly interested — and you don't need to comment — in your idea of regional reporting on the referendum. I'd like to think about that.

In light of what you just said about your membership in the B.C. Wildlife Federation and your comment in the paper about not using resources as bargaining chips, did you take a position on the federal offer of fish to the Lheidli-T'enneh?

R. Thiel: Yes, I did. In fact, I also sit on the NIRAC as a member of PGTAC. When the first offer was put forth by the province and the feds to the natives, we were aghast at the fact that fish were already thrown into the bargaining when the natives hadn't even discussed this yet. They hadn't even made a request for fish, yet the province was already giving away extra benefits to the natives with one of our resources, in a position that they could commercially sell it nationally or internationally. They have done the same or are leaning in the same direction with migratory birds.

Time limits and cost of negotiations, particularly time limits. I read into your brief that you believe that setting some time lines would be an incentive to get a deal. If that's correct, how does that square in your mind with the idea of interim and treaty-related measures? Do you not think that interim measures might be less than an incentive to reach a final deal? I'd appreciate your ideas on that.

R. Thiel: I support the interim agreements and treaty-related measures. I think it is something that is needed, because we all know that these treaties are not going to be signed off next month. I think there is a need for the natives to have some way to build an economy and sort of get on their feet through the process. It's a learning process. It's going to be quite a while before they can become self-sufficient and self-reliant and control their own self-government. I think this is a step.

Let's take the forest industry. One of the problems there is that they are being given timber, and logging companies are purchasing this timber off them. It is also putting other people out of work. It's a catch-22, and for a lot of the logging and forest communities in the north here, with the economy the way it is already in B.C. and a soft lumber market and everything, it's a major problem. They can see that the more of these agreements that are signed and agreed to, the more they are going to suffer in the long run.

The third-party compensation is one thing that really must be looked at. At the current time it isn't. We've asked and sent a number of letters to the provincial government asking for input from the previous ministers, etc., on these issues and some agreement that the third-party interest will be addressed in the process — the people that are going to end up as the losers in the process.

D. Chutter: Ron, you mentioned that your group has a great working relationship with the local aboriginal groups, but when it comes to discussing issues with the province or the feds, it's not so great. Yet on page 5 you mention: "We strongly feel that the position of municipal governments in providing input in developing treaties must be maintained and be given full consideration." I take that to mean that you're happy with your role, your involvement, in the treaty process. Could you clarify that point?

R. Thiel: Okay. From the PGTAC perspective, being at the table is crucial. Municipal government must have input into the process. The thing is that when we do have input and we feel very strongly on specific issues…. For example, way back at the beginning of the process, there was understanding in this area and consideration that the three or four main issues in the overall treaty process were going to be land and money, first off, and the second would be the wildlife and fish resource. Many people live in the north and the Prince George area because of the outdoor recreation, the hunting, the fishing, etc. Non-aboriginals are very protective of these rights. You hear time and time again: "Well, when this process is all done, I hope you still have some hunting and fishing for me."

The way the concept is being set up right now is that…. Let's take fish, for example. The first step is conservation. You've got to maintain the species, etc. The second step is allocation to the natives. The third step is the people with quotas and fishing boats, the fishing industry. Your recreational fisherman is down on the lower end of that. When you start looking at allocation of large numbers of fish and the number of bands that still have to go through the process, the guarantee of fish for everyone just is not there.

Although a lot of people are not pleased with the Nisga'a agreement, one of the smart moves they did make there with the fishing industry was to provide the natives with fishing capabilities. They bought them quotas, and they bought up boats. That was part of the overall settlement. I did put that forth to some of the bands locally, and they are not averse. They're prepared to talk about buying quotas and existing boats. Now you've got people out fishing under the same rules, the same legislation, etc. So it's fair to all sides when you're fishing on a commercial basis.

The other thing the natives feel quite strongly about is that if you do have a poor run coming up the river for some reason or other — some catastrophe happens, and most of the fish don't make it up — then they can be in a position to go to their supply from the ocean for their sustenance allocation. They can still maintain the sustenance requirements. They may not have commercial sales, but at least they will have their fish food.

V. Anderson: I'm impressed with your conversation that you've had locally with the aboriginal people. Are there any specific principles that you have in common as a result of that discussion which would give us a heads-up as to the kinds of principles to put forth?

R. Thiel: Looking at the overall treaty process, I can't remember the number, but I think there are somewhere in the area of about 28 to 30 different chapters that will constitute the overall treaty. As I just alluded to, there are four definite tough questions to deal with.

With the Lheidli T'enneh we have gone through 11 different chapters at this point. They are to the point of review by the general public for final addressing, and then they will be ready for agreement-in-principle. On a lot of the things like access — I really must commend some of the natives on how open and willing they are to allow things that they've argued for years are their aboriginal heritage and rights — they're willing to compromise to make the process work.

For example, one of the areas I have always thought the natives should have more input into is the management of the resources like wildlife and fish. For the most part they have very little input, and I think some of those issues are probably dealt with better on a regional basis. I have a real problem when somebody in Victoria allocates how many moose can be killed up in the Prince George area without any input from the B.C. Wildlife Federation or the hunters or the Guide-Outfitters, etc. I think from a regional perspective, you can get a much better understanding. As stewardship in a program, you'll probably get a lot more support and a lot more accommodation from the groups involved in dealing with those resources. I'm not saying you take it entirely away from Victoria, but I think you've got to look at regionalization of a lot of the issues. Thank you.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Ron, for your presentation this evening.

D. Callaghan: Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. Thank you for taking the time to listen to my few words.

I think we all realize that no thoughtful person would say that we do not have a great problem and that it must be resolved fairly. However, due to some of my background, I'm terrified that we may end up with an agreement which in the final analysis may end up causing us more harm than the terrible state we're in today. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm advocating that we go into this with wide-open eyes and a great deal of consideration. I am completely for an agreement. There are many things that have to be done. However, this is a very, very traumatic thing that has happened in our society. If it should ever back up and blow up in our face, we always have to remember that at one time they had the Olympics in Sarajevo because it was such a nice quiet place.

I have a son who is a member of the McLeod Lake Indian band. We've never adopted him or his twin brother, but this goes completely within my family. I think I'm trying to be as objective as I can.

I served a term in the regional district of Fraser–Fort George. I was involved when the McLeod Lake treaty adhesion program was being undertaken. I attended and got a flavour of what was happening there. On the periphery, of course, we were all watching the Nisga'a agreement as it came down. In my case I just followed it through the agreement-in-principle. When the treaty advisory committees were first established, I chaired for the first two years in the regional district of Fraser–Fort George. We set up, basically, the ground rules for it and got our feet a bit wet there. I was also on the regional caucus, where I got to see the ministerial negotiations side of things.

One thing that has followed me all the way through this process, and I think it follows everybody, is the way that they were raised and their experiences as a young person. In my particular case, this has really come home and stayed with me. I was born and raised in a small town in southern Ontario. I have absolutely no idea why, but the geography of the town was such that it was divided by a river. We had the east hill and the west hill with, theoretically, the Protestants living on the west hill and the Catholics living on the east hill. I grew up with King Billy, and why he did or did not cross the Boyne River. The municipal cemetery had a chain-link fence down the middle of it, so the Protestants

would enter and be buried on their side and the Catholics would be buried on the good side. I was raised as a Catholic. Within three blocks of my house there was an elementary school that I have never been in. We used to fight going back and forth to school with the Protestants. We didn't know why. I didn't understand any of this, but then again I didn't really question any of it. This is the way it was. When I left that community and went on to university in the Maritimes and was able to stand back and look at the way it had been, I was astounded. I was part of that. Fortunately, that community has made tremendous strides. The chain-link fence is gone and things of this nature.

I came to realize that when you divide people into groups, you're setting the foundation for racism. You're setting the foundation of mistrust. You're polarizing a community. Anything along those lines has to be done very, very carefully. We have to know that there can be a very bad side. To refer back again to Ireland, if you look at how they ended up with those counties in the north and the rest there, on paper it all makes perfect sense. In reality, it's insane.

One of the first things I noted as I became aware of the land claims process is that there seems to be a fundamental problem, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Following it through and being involved and things, I came to the opinion that when the process….

Let me digress a bit. When the process started, the provincial government had the Nisga'a court case running over here. It had gone through to a decision by the then Chief Justice — I can't think of his name; I'm sorry — that was ruled in the province's favour. They established a commission to set out the framework for a land claims settlement. That commission received various submissions. As I understand it, that was the basis on which this land claims process has gone ahead. Looking that over, it looks to me as if the submissions were primarily looking at the past in which he said: "This was wrong and this was wrong and this was wrong." These things are wrong. It was corrected by going back and trying to correct this and correct this and correct this. Where it had this tremendous failing is that the whole thing should be directly oriented to try and stand here looking forward and saying: "How can we as a people go forward?"

It's been said that history is the evolution of thought. We cannot go back. In my short term in politics, one thing I came to recognize was that when somebody came up and said something to you, you had to listen to what they were saying. You also had to ask yourself: "Why is this person saying this to me?" Maybe I'm a cynic, but everybody has a point of view — very legitimate. Everybody has a cause one way or another. There's something being said.

One of the things that truly bothered me in the land claims process was that at one time the ministry contacted me as the chair to say they were sending a speaker up to speak to a closed-door session of the TAC and of the RAC at the Simon Fraser Hotel. I was told this gentleman — and I'm sorry, I can't recall his name — was the leading academic on land claims in the world. I went because of the position I was in, but I thought I was going to be listening to an academic give some speech on how this is going to solve the entire problem of our community. I was in for quite a shock. As it continued, I kept asking myself: "Why did the ministry send this gentleman to speak to us? They must know what he is saying." He made ten points. To tell you the truth, I can't remember them, but the first point that he made floored me.

Now, he spoke on land claims in Australia, New Zealand, Russia, eastern Canada and western Canada. I'm paraphrasing him, but what he said was that as a group, the non-aboriginal community supporting land claims as a solution to the current problems is, as a group, no different than the non-aboriginal community who supported residential schools as the solution to the problem, who supported reserves as the solution to the problem. It is merely the populist idea of the day. Here was a man sent by the ministry who is telling us in a closed-door session at the Simon Fraser Hotel that the thing isn't going to work.

I asked how he defined the problem. He said in western Canada, basically, the law came first. The aboriginal population were isolated off into the reserves. The white man came in. Indian Affairs attended to their needs. In the first stage, Indian Affairs displaced the man as the head of the household. In the second stage, the head of the household became dysfunctional, and today the head of the household is displaced, dysfunctional and bitter.

I believe it was Judge McEachern who ruled in the court case where he said — this was, I believe, in the common-law section of the question — that land claims are merely an expression of money. There are terrible social and economic problems, but the problems must be addressed directly. They can't be addressed by money in one form or another. I believe that was the basis for which he denied the common-law claim.

What I'm saying is that everybody is working hard to try to come up with a permanent solution. I come back to the point: is this solution, in the final analysis, going to work?

The next thing I did in pursuing this was start to ask the negotiating people that I'd met, formally and informally….

I would ask them what they thought of the process: "Why did you get involved in the land claims negotiation?" With the exception of a gentleman who was a member of the city council on the coast and was involved in the Nisga'a and one person who was involved in the land claims federally, to a person they basically said: "I took on a job to negotiate a settlement." I said:

"Is this settlement going to do what we want, what we're looking for?" To a person, they said: "I took on a job to negotiate a settlement." One, an attorney, said: "It pays a lot better than a pension, and it will last just as long." I don't even believe that our negotiators truly, deep down believe that the process we're following is anything more than a process we must go through to see that it's not going to work, and that would be an absolute tragedy.

One other point. I asked at the regional caucus if I could speak publicly on this while we're still there. It became very obvious that the ministry's representatives did not have the resources to meet the requirements of the negotiators. As one person put it, the negotiator said: "I need a representative here and here." The ministry person said: "As long as you're prepared to accept cardboard cutouts. I have one person that I have stolen from somewhere else, and now you want him in two places at once. You cannot do it."

In the negotiations that I had any part of, a term emerged called the flora and the fauna. My understanding of that was that at every set of negotiations, a tremendous amount of time was tied up in debating the same issues — different words — with each individual negotiation. A good portion of the expense on both sides was tied up in this.

One final point that I take a great deal of exception to. If there were a main table negotiation occurring in this room today and if, for example, Mr. Backhouse, who had been the mayor of Prince George for a considerable period of time and has a fair standing in the community, had something that he would wish to say, he wouldn't be allowed because non-aboriginals are not allowed to speak. Conversely, any member of the band can speak at any time. We've got an unfair balance in this thing, and I hope it's addressed.

One final point. I'm very sorry that the current government decided to abandon its court case. It was expressed in the paper that it didn't make any sense for the government to sue itself. My understanding was that there were very profound legal questions. Was there the authority within the provincial and federal governments to create what could be construed as a level of government at the level that it did? My understanding of the court challenge was to answer that question. It wasn't a case of someone suing the government. It was the basis of that whole negotiation.

That's about it. Thank you very much for listening to me. I have left a letter to the editor that I wrote some time ago. I brought it along. It's just the ramblings of an individual, but strangely enough, in all the letters to the editor I've ever written I've never had such a response as to that one. The most shocking thing occurred at a chamber of commerce luncheon in which an attorney of the city came up and said: "What are you trying to do, start a revolution?" He referred to the letter, and I said: "Well, these questions, if valid, should be asked." He said: "We took it up at a partners meeting, and we're of the opinion that your position is very valid." I would like the committee sometime, at its leisure, to take a look at that. Maybe we won't make a mistake. Maybe this will mean that we as a society, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, can go forward as a people — and a peaceful sort of forward.

G. Dow: Mr. Chairman, members of the Select Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and members of the general public, my name is Gary Dow. I wish to thank the committee for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you on this matter.

I'm just an average person; I do not represent an organization, association or group. I try to follow this issue as much as possible through reading newspaper articles, listening to news, listening to people's opinions on radio talk shows, at work and social gatherings.

I believe that forging economic and social agreements with aboriginal people is one of the most important issues for British Columbians, next to the softwood lumber dispute with the Americans. It's important that the issue of native land claims is dealt with in the short term rather than in the long term, like the former government did.

Not only is it important for economic stability but also to deal with the divisiveness, anger and distrust that are continuing to build between natives and non-natives. The native leadership has such distrust in non-natives that they do not wish British Columbians to have a say on the issue of land claims. The federal government, through their chief negotiator, believes that having a forum for us to speak on this issue would bring out the divisiveness and hatred. I feel that not allowing or limiting our ability to say will do the above. You must build confidence in the treaty process. Building that confidence is in the act of doing, through encouraging public participation in the treaty process. That is why I've written my viewpoint on the referendum question and am submitting it to the committee.

The former NDP government followed a process in that they allowed the public to observe but could not comment. They did not have the faith in British Columbians being able to add constructively to the process. It was appalling for the former government to follow a process that disallowed people who were starved or who were waiting to voice their concerns and actively participate or add constructive comments regarding the negotiations with the aboriginal people the ability to do so.

What the Liberal government is doing through the committee is commendable, but if presenting my opinion on a referendum question and then voting on it is all the participation I will have, this would be unacceptable. I have read articles and heard people speak about issues of native land claims. From this, I believe

that we in this community are constructive to the process in reaching social and economic agreements with aboriginal people. The issue of native land claims is so far-reaching, so complex and so involved that if we only have a vote on some question or questions to develop guidelines for negotiations, we'll have an unfulfilling result. On an issue that is so important that it'll affect British Columbians in some way, we should have the ability and the opportunity to participate in the process.

This referendum is going to be the only time the public will have to comment on these talks. This committee is limiting our discussion to what questions we should have in a referendum. After British Columbians vote, that is it. There will not be any other time that we'll have an opportunity to comment on this issue. That is not right. I, for one, have a lot of positive ideas and could add to the productivity of the discussions, and I am sure that a lot of British Columbians do as well.

At the same time, I have concerns in regard to the direction the talks have gone. I know that each native band council is supposed to have individual natives' best interests at heart, but what I've been hearing is that the talk centres so much on large issues of land and cash settlements. Once settled, it will take years for the benefits to trickle down to the individual native. What's missing are talks on the here and now. There have been two economic development agreements signed out of 49 bands, but where are the talks in regards to social and economic development programs? Who is standing up to say that the individual natives should receive a house and property — such as you and I have — in part of a cash settlement? Not the native leadership, because they believe in the collective rather than the individual. I cannot say this in a vote, in a referendum.

I cannot say that the revenue from the resources on land governed by a municipal-style government, as a form of native self-government, can go toward infrastructure for municipalities such as developing roads, sewer and water programs. Revenue could also go toward creating economic development, educational and social programs. A one-time vote in a referendum will not allow me to say this or demonstrate this in a committee format where I can put forward my ideas.

I'm not going to sit here and criticize your efforts without proposing an alternative. I believe that there should be a referendum, but not now. I would like to propose the following: that a regional constituent committee on native land claims be established. This committee will be made up of the same representatives as those in their regional advisory committees but also draw on the general public in those particular regions of the province. The committee's mandate could be to develop the guidelines in the land claims negotiations for consulting with the public in their region of the province.

This means that each region has its own committee, but it would be an offshoot or a subcommittee to the RAC. Once each committee has completed its mandate through public consultations, representatives of each committee can meet, along with the reps from the RAC and your committee, to collate and discuss the results. From those results the guidelines for negotiations can be derived and a referendum question can be written up.

2. The public will have an outlet to discuss their concerns, bring forward positive suggestions and have a way to be involved, not spread hatred.

3. The public would support a referendum on guidelines that they would be involved in formulating, rather than a referendum that we supplied with suggestions for a question.

4. British Columbians can demonstrate that we are not out to suppress native people nor a forum to spread hatred, but a way to express our desire to elevate them so that they can enjoy the same level of prosperity as the rest of us.

Through the establishment of a regional constituent committee on native land claims, the public can be better educated on the native way of life so we can build an understanding when developing these guidelines. You cannot do all that in a vote on a referendum.

The native leadership will have our federal and provincial governments and the native people believe that non-natives cannot be trusted and should not have any involvement. To them, it is only a federal, a provincial and a native government negotiation. We are all in this land together, native and non-native alike. Together we can build a strong partnership in economic development, educational opportunities and social justice. We can share in the economic prosperity of this province in protecting our environment and building a balance of harvesting our forest and fish stocks and preserving them for the future.

Non-natives can learn from the native people as well as they can learn from us. I cannot demonstrate this, nor can any other British Columbian, in a short, one-time, 30-day referendum campaign and vote that's the only chance I will have to provide input.

Conclusion. If British Columbians are to have faith in our government on this issue, then our government should have faith in us — faith in the fact that we would act responsibly, respectably and prudently in consulting the public by providing a forum for discussion in the treaty negotiations.

The way to find solutions to problems or difficult issues is through communication. From communication comes understanding. The establishment of a regional constituent committee on native land claims will create a forum for discussion in order to build understanding of the issues and an understanding of the native way of life. Through this the guiding principles could be developed that will forge this partnership between natives and non-natives in the treaty negotiations.

It is important that British Columbians have a forum for discussion, a way to participate or at least a way to

state our position collectively. This is necessary in order to set the native population at ease about non-natives having their say — that we are not out to suppress their rights or prevent them from enjoying prosperity in this province, but the opposite. This will build confidence in the treaty process and each other. It is important to put an end to the distrust and divisiveness that are already out there. This is the greatest threat to any success made in negotiations.

I congratulate the Liberal government for keeping all your promises. It is a welcome sight to happen as we enter the new millennium. I don't think the confidence that your government is working so hard to instil in voters toward our government and our politicians will be shattered if the referendum is delayed until British Columbians have their forum to develop those guiding principles.

If the Liberal government will be having a referendum in the spring no matter what, then my only suggestion for a question is: do British Columbians want to see the creation of a regional constituent committee on native land claims so they can participate in the development of the guiding principles for native treaty negotiations?

V. Anderson: Thank you. I appreciate your very specific suggestion with a question that deserves real consideration. I thank you for that. I happened to be one of the members in '92 that voted in favour of the treaty process. A major plank of that was to be the public's involvement in consultation, which unfortunately didn't take place. We're in the context now of ten years of it not happening and frustration having built up. If we were starting fresh, this would be much more feasible than it is at the moment. Have you a suggestion on how we can overcome the context which we've been creating in order to try to do this?

G. Dow: My suggestion would be through the RAC. I know the makeup of that committee. There could be a way that the public could put comments into them and participate in them, but they have to be made more available to the public, and they haven't been. I had never heard of them until I went on the British Columbia website and checked it out as my research into understanding the process of this committee.

That can be done probably as early as spring. The referendum could be put off until next fall. This whole committee process could be done in three months. Let the public sit down and be educated on this. Have workshops on the different aspects of the issues. People are so unaware of the issues and how much it affects them that they need that information. At the same time, they would be able to supply suggestions.

I'm sure that during your whole time of going around the province and listening to people, people do have a lot of suggestions. They've got a lot of ideas. A lot more could come out if these different regional advisory committees were made more available to the public. I think, even through them, they could probably have some of the representatives and draw on some of the interested people to sit down together and maybe work up some workshops or seminars to get people more aware of the issues and more involved and get their opinions coming out. This could be done. You don't plan on even having the referendum till spring. If you put it off until the fall, it won't cause too much of a problem.

V. Anderson: Just to clarify your suggestion — if I hear you right, you're suggesting that instead of what we've done here, which has brought a fairly significant number of people out to express their opinions, this could be done simultaneously by each regional committee in the province, and so within a month or so, each of these could come together and bring a collective from all of the different regions of the public's involvement?

G. Dow: That way, with the public having more understanding of the issues, they can bring out more ideas that help build the principles and bring all these together. Then you can have a referendum on that. The more the involvement of the public and the more aware they are of the issues, the more they're going to support something.

The natives, as well, can participate. Instead of being on the opposite side of a referendum, they can be a part of it. The public can go out there and find out what their way of life is. What is it about them? What sets them apart? What makes them a part of us? Then you're able to bridge those gaps together. That way you can have the natives supporting the whole process as well as non-natives supporting it, and the natives aren't going to be feeling: "Oh no, if they have their say, they're just going to push us back to the Dark Ages."

That is not our intent. It may have been way back in the 1800s, but we're into the new millennium. We reach out to people. We help to bring them up, help them to enjoy the prosperity that each of us has. I think that is important, and I think all British Columbians believe how important that is. By allowing us to have a little bit more participation and say, I think the natives are going to feel a little more relaxed and feel good about it. Then when you do have that referendum on what has been derived from this new process, you're going to see a greater amount of support, more positive than in the pre-process, and you're going to see the whole economy become more stable and positive. Things will really advance a lot better.

V. Anderson: If I can just follow up on that, it seems to me you're suggesting that instead of whatever we do out of a referendum and going back to the same kind of process we've been doing, there's another process ahead of that that might change the other one, where the people of the province come together in these forums and their views are taken forward and that becomes a new process by which we might proceed.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Gary. It seems to me you got over that nervousness pretty well.

R. Olsen: Good evening. My name is Roy Olsen, and I was born and raised in British Columbia. I've been a working person and a taxpayer for over 30 years. I'm a concerned citizen and a proud Canadian.

I understand the terms of reference for submissions at this hearing are limited to — and I'm quoting the newspaper article — "those matters concerning questions for a referendum on principles to guide the provincial government approach to treaty negotiations." That is what I wish to speak to, but first of all I want to thank the committee for taking the time to travel around from community to community gathering input and for giving me an opportunity to speak here tonight.

Observations. As a working person with family and household responsibilities it is difficult to stay fully informed about complex issues such as this one. Consequently, some of my insights and/or opinions are perceptions based on what I read and hear in the news media. However, I do try and supplement this by reading the occasional book as well as published reports on a topic. As I understand where we are today, from a layperson's perspective, the courts have ruled that first nations people in B.C. have inherent rights and land title that remain to be dealt with and settled and that the federal government, the previous provincial government and first nations people have already agreed to a list of principles to guide the treaty negotiations process. The federal government and first nations people are not very comfortable with any tampering. I personally am mindful and respectful of those concerns. However, I think it's healthy to take a fresh look at something that is obviously not working.

In addition to the legal obligation to settle outstanding land title issues, I believe there's a moral issue as well. A lot of media discussion and information published by proponents of the treaty process cite social problems currently being endured by first nations people both on and off the reserve, such as high infant mortality, high levels of drug and alcohol abuse, high levels of unemployment and higher than proportional rates of incarceration. These are measurable as well as miserable problems. I believe that most Canadians, like me, are caring and compassionate people. When we read or hear about problems like these, we want to do something to solve them. Even if we don't involve ourselves directly, we don't mind our tax dollars being spent doing so.

However, as a working person and a taxpayer I feel betrayed when issues such as these are held up to appeal to my conscience and justify spending my tax dollars, and then years and hundreds of millions of dollars later there's no progress in resolving any of these problems. In fact, there are no tangible results in the process that has been touted as the vehicle to resolve these problems — namely, the treaty process.

I think this is one of the many reasons that working people such as myself were dissatisfied with the previous government. My perception is that the only people benefiting from the treaty process are lawyers, academics and bureaucrats. The treaty process appears to be about perpetuating the process. Working people and taxpayers such as myself, who pay almost the entire cost of this exercise, find it extremely frustrating.

I noted with interest the comments in the Prince George Citizen recently by Tom Molloy, a federal negotiator, that referendums such as this one "subject the rights of minorities to the majority, and because the issues are complex, it is difficult to deal with them in the broader population." I resent comments like this, because they imply that those of us in the broader population are ignorant. Mr. Molloy was also quoted as saying that a referendum can bring about a lot of hatred. In answer to that, I would like to say that the frustration of watching a process that's costing hundreds of millions of dollars and apparently achieving no tangible results can bring out a lot of hatred too.

Recommendations. My suggestion, as an additional principle to guide the provincial approach to treaty negotiations, is to add an accountability factor. By this I mean to lay out specific quantifiable and measurable objectives and communicate these clearly to the public. Demonstrate clearly how any items agreed to in the treaty process contribute directly to achieving the objectives. For example, on the issue of self-governance with respect to education, current measurables could be identified and objectives established. Then an agreement could be entered into, specifying how the objectives would be achieved. Of course this is a simplification, but I believe taxpayers want as clear a picture as possible of what the end results are supposed to be.

We the taxpayers don't want to find ourselves ten years down the road and a billion dollars later hearing that none of these social problems have been resolved and that we are still responsible for fixing them. I recently obtained a report from the B.C. Treaty Commission entitled Looking Forward, Look Back. The report, among other things, talks about slim agreements, which they say can be signed so that benefits begin to flow earlier rather than later to first nation communities.

While the commission was talking about certainty over land and resources with respect to these slim agreements, I would like to suggest that the province look at adjusting the process so that interim agreements can be reached and perhaps implemented on specific means of dealing with social problems that have been identified. In other words, if agreement is reached with respect to land, money and/or resources, it should be tied to a specific social objective or objectives. Right now the social problems that have been

identified and touted as a major justification for this entire process are held to the end and subjected to a kind of trickle-down effect following the transfer of land, money and resources. In other words, the end of the treaty process, if there is one, is just the beginning of addressing these social problems.

In closing, I'd like to say that as a working person and a taxpayer I'm concerned about the financial burden that we're placing on future taxpayers. I see no difference between handing down debt and handing down liabilities. I'm concerned about the demographic shift characterized by the decline of middle-income taxpayers, and a minimum-wage society won't be able to afford the commitments we're making.

Once again I'd like to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to express my views.

V. Anderson: I'm just trying to hear if I understood rightly your concerns here. At the present time, if I hear you right, you're characterizing the process as one that is trying to solve lands, finances and governments in order that eventually we might solve education, health, homelessness and other problems.

V. Anderson: I may be overextending, but in a sense you would like, at least in part, to reverse that.

R. Olsen: I'd like tie the two processes together so that as we transfer things, the responsibilities and the opportunity to resolve these problems take place at the same time.

V. Anderson: Let me word it differently. The aim is to get good education, good health care, good homes, and find a process to put those priorities first. The other is the means of doing these, rather than the reverse.

R. Olsen: I'm not necessarily saying they should be reversed. I'm saying they should be done at the same time.

M. Hunter: Could I just put it in my words and see if you agree? You're talking about performance-based negotiations. Is that a fair summary of where you want us to go?

M. Hunter: You do something, then you measure the progress, and then you move to the next state.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Roy. [Applause.] That's the first applause we've had today.

I have no other presenters on the speakers list. We do have a few minutes left. Is there anyone else who is just itching to make a presentation? If not, I will adjourn the meeting, and we will reconvene tomorrow in Kamloops. Thank you all.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE
ON ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS