Aboriginal Affairs - Issue No. 18 - Thursday, November 1, 2001

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

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS



CONTENTS

		Page

Presentations		539
	A. Reynolds	539
	R. Nursall	543
	L. Marcil	545
	P. Brabazon	547
	B. Lloyd	549
	A. Hartford	551
	C. Eidsvik	552
	M. Griswold	553
	H. Silver	554
	R. Kellerhals	555
	D. Berkshire	556
	B. Assu	557
	G. Payne	557
	M. Cullen	557
	J. Henderson	558

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


Witnesses:	Bill Assu Dan Berkshire Patrick Brabazon (Atrevida Group) Mike Cullen Chris Eidsvik Michael Griswold (President, Gulf Trollers Association, Area H) Alex Hartford (North Island Concerned Woodlots) John Henderson Rolf Kellerhals Bruce Lloyd (Councillor, Village of Port Alice) Lyssa Marcil Dr. Ralph Nursall Gordon Payne Anthony Reynolds Hugh Silver

J. Les (Chair): Good evening, everyone. My name is John Les. I'm the MLA for Chilliwack-Sumas. I am the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs.

It's a pleasure to be here in Campbell River tonight. We've had a fairly long day today. We started out this morning in Nanaimo, spent the afternoon in Port Alberni, and we're pleased to join you here in Campbell River this evening. We are a little bit later than we were scheduled, but the bus driver didn't want to break the speed limit, so what do you do?

Before the other committee members introduce themselves, just a couple of things about what we're doing. The committee was established at the end of August by the Legislature. Our instructions are to examine, inquire into and make recommendations with respect to all matters and issues concerning questions which the government should submit to voters to implement the government's commitment to give all British Columbians a say on the principles that should guide B.C.'s approach to treaty negotiations through a one-time provincewide referendum, while ensuring that constitutionally protected aboriginal rights and title are protected and respected. Copies of the terms of reference and other information about the committee's process are available at the information table at the back of the room, where Dorothy is.

The committee is eager to hear views from a range of British Columbians, and through this process we hope to build interest and support for the treaty process. We've publicized our hearing process and have called for written submissions. Written submissions will be accepted until tomorrow, as we are now almost at the end of the public phase of our consultative process.

The hearings are being recorded and transcribed by Hansard staff to my right. The transcripts of the hearings will be available on our website. The address for that is www.leg.bc.ca/cmt. Following the conclusion of the public hearings, the committee will prepare a report of its observations and recommendations. The report will be tabled in the Legislative Assembly or if the House is not sitting, the report will be filed with the Clerk of the Legislature. Once the report has been filed with the Clerk, it will also be a public document at that time.

I'll now ask the members of the committee and staff to introduce themselves, starting with Val Anderson.

V. Anderson: Good evening. I'm glad that we're able to join you. I'm Val Anderson, MLA for Vancouver-Langara. That's south Vancouver.

G. Trumper: Good evening. I'm Gillian Trumper. I'm the MLA for Alberni-Qualicum.

K. Ryan-Lloyd: Hello. My name is Kate Ryan-Lloyd, and I'm Clerk to the committee.

R. Visser: Hello. I'm Rod Visser. I'm the MLA for this area. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome all my colleagues to Campbell River and also to introduce Deb Lloyd and Ted Skwarok. They're at the back. They're my assistants here in Campbell River.

D. MacKay: Good evening. My name is Dennis MacKay. I'm the MLA for Bulkley Valley–Stikine, which is in the northwestern part of the province. I live in Smithers.

B. Lekstrom: Hi. My name is Blair Lekstrom. I am the MLA for Peace River South, the northeastern part of the province. My home is Dawson Creek.

J. Les (Chair): With those formalities out of the way, we're now ready to start hearing the various presentations. I have a number of people here on a speakers list. It looks like we're going to have a fairly busy evening in terms of the number of presentations. I am going to have to hold everyone to the 15 minutes per presenter that have been allotted.

A. Reynolds: Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. My name is Anthony Reynolds. I farm outside Courtenay. I was executive director of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples that submitted its report to the government of Canada four years ago. This gave me the opportunity, in the company of some of the best minds in the country, to consider the fundamental problems at the core of the relationship between aboriginal peoples and those who came later. The commission came to the clear conclusion that there are solutions to the dysfunction in the relationship and that those solutions are attainable and affordable, but I speak today as an individual, not necessarily reflecting the views of the commission or of any other group.

Before talking about solutions, I want to emphasize to you my view of the extraordinary opportunity that this government has before it to make a large contribution to the future stability and prosperity of the province. I want to suggest to you that parties on the right of the political spectrum are generally better equipped to resolve longstanding social conflicts. They can implement solutions that are generous and just and that meet the legitimate aspirations of the aggrieved party, while persuading the self-interested majority that those measures are right and appropriate.

It took the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney to settle most of the major land claims in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories and to bring the

new territory of Nunavut into being. They did so because their approach was to give people the resources and tools to be responsible for themselves and let them get on with the job rather than keeping them victims of handouts and dependency.

I want to propose a new deal that would be fair for first nations and for all British Columbians, but it will require far-seeing leadership on the part of the government. It will require you to embrace solutions that go well beyond what you thought were acceptable when you were in opposition. It will require you to fly in the face of the cherished but simplistic notions of some of those who are your natural constituency and who put you in office, but you are now the governing party, and you've given every evidence of your willingness to act as a government and make tough decisions. You can set a course now which may well be controversial and may even be seen by some groups, perhaps, as a betrayal. But by the end of the mandate you will receive the thanks of the great majority of British Columbians.

Before setting out the principles of this deal and the suggested wording for the referendum question, I want to put forward some facts that define the situation we are in.

Fact 1: the Supreme Court of Canada has stated that aboriginal peoples have rights on lands they have traditionally occupied, and consequently those lands cannot be unilaterally disposed of without their concurrence. It recommended that aboriginal people's land rights be determined by negotiated treaties.

Fact 2: the alternative to treaties is to require first nations groups to go to the courts to determine the status of their lands.

Fact 3: resolution of land claims through the courts could take years, perhaps decades, during which time the legal status of large portions of the province will be undetermined, thereby significantly deterring investment, development and jobs and exacerbating tensions between scores of communities. Moreover, the courts are poor instruments to come up with acceptable solutions. They define winners and losers, but the winners and losers still have to live together. Court rulings do not allow for the negotiated outcomes that give everyone a chance to be heard and a stake in those outcomes.

Fact 4: a treaty must by definition be entered into willingly by both parties, both having a full understanding of its implications. You cannot impose a treaty. That means it must contain provisions that are sufficiently attractive for both sides so that each will forgo its optimum package in exchange for what is attainable.

Fact 5: aboriginal peoples today control less than one-half of a percent of the land mass in Canada below the 60th parallel — that is, in the ten provinces. The sum total of their lands in the provinces can be fitted into one Navajo reserve in the American southwest. If aboriginal peoples here controlled the same proportion as their cousins in the United States, their lands would be between eight and 30 times as large as they are today.

Fact 6: the constitution of Canada affirms and protects the existing rights of aboriginal peoples. The royal commission report points out that in the absence of any legislation that specifically extinguishes aboriginal people's rights to exercise the functions of government, that right remains an existing right and is thus protected in the constitution.

Of what, then, is an enduring solution made? Simply put, aboriginal peoples need adequate land and resources to be fully self-sufficient and the authority to govern their lives and communities. Return wealth to them, recognize their authority to be responsible for themselves, and then bid goodbye to all special programs and all special rights, save those available to all Canadians.

First and foremost, an effective solution requires an allocation of land and natural resources to aboriginal peoples sufficient to enable individuals to generate incomes on a par with other Canadians and, from those incomes, to create an adequate tax base to finance their institutions of education, justice and governance. Is it not far better to enable communities to access income-generating resources, to earn their own way in the world and to live with the consequences of their decisions than to have them continually dependent on government subsidy, with someone else always to blame for their condition? Institutions are far more accountable for their activity when the resources they spend come from the taxes of the people they serve than from some distant government.

How much is enough? That will depend on many factors: the nature of the resources at hand, the geographic location of the community, its size and the kind of activity it can be reasonable expected to engage in. Let's not forget the fact that 80 percent of Canada is still publicly owned land. There are lands and resources sufficient to give aboriginal people a fair and generous opportunity to become self-reliant.

The other crucial element is the right of aboriginal people to govern themselves with respect to those activities that define the identity of individuals and communities and their daily well-being. The constitution of Canada affirms that right. Institutions of governance that touch the lives of people must reflect the culture and values of those people if they are to be effective. Researchers at Harvard University found that those Native American communities that were able to rebuild their institutions of governance to reflect their cultures made far greater economic and social progress than those who remained with institutions designed by Washington.

Self-government should encompass education, culture, health and social services, policing, civil law, aspects of the implementation of criminal law, land and resource management, and economic development. Most of those areas will require working agreements with other levels of government, as no jurisdiction in Canada can afford to operate in isolation. The Canadian and provincial governments would provide the same kind of support for aboriginal governments as they do respectively for provincial and municipal governments today.

None of this can happen overnight. There would have to be transition measures. Not all aboriginal communities will want to embrace this degree of responsibility now or perhaps ever. An effective treaty process can establish different degrees of self-government for different peoples and timetables for implementation that reflect differing stages of readiness.

Those of us who came to this land later can rightly expect things to be different in the future. Our rights and our ownership of lands would be confirmed by the time-honoured instrument of treaties. Citizenship and rights would no longer be two-tiered: aboriginal and other. The wastage of lives and talent and the enormous drain on the resources of this countries because of past policies of denial and deprivation would, over time, come to an end.

For such a solution to be achieved, the provincial government will have to stand up to those of its supporters who expect it to impose a solution that erases aboriginal lands and governments and assimilates aboriginal people. Aboriginal leaders will have to stand up to those who insist on full retribution for past injustices and a huge and disproportionate transfer of wealth. If the government does the former, it has every right to expect the negotiating partner to do the latter. If you and they do, we will find a new partnership emerging based on pride and respect and mutual responsibility.

I would like to suggest that the question you put to British Columbians that will help bring this to pass would be the following: do you agree that treaties (1) should provide first nations with sufficient land and resources to enable them to attain the same standard of living as other Canadians and have the same capacity to finance their public institutions; (2) should recognize first nations authority to govern themselves in ways that are consistent with their culture and confirm their responsibility for those matters which affect their daily lives, their well-being and their culture; (3) should confirm that all citizens are to be treated equally by the governments of Canada and British Columbia with no special rights or privileges other than those defined in the treaty; (4) affirm that the lands recognized as first nations lands, the monetary compensation agreed to and the rights confirmed in the treaty are definitive and final unless both parties agree to change them; and (5) commit the three levels of government — first nations, provincial and federal — to work collaboratively in those areas of related authority for the benefit of all citizens? Thank you.

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

R. Visser: Thanks, Anthony. One of the things we've heard about continually as we have been travelling across the province is involvement of local governments at the municipal level in the negotiations. In order for treaties to be lasting, there has to be closer, at-hand involvement. Do you see a role for more?

A. Reynolds: I certainly do, and in fact, as I'm sure you're aware, there are some very good patterns of relationship between local governments, municipal and aboriginal governments in the province already. Whether they have a role formally at the table as part of the negotiating party, I'm not sure. Municipal governments are creatures of the provincial government, and as I'm sure you're aware, some first nations people even have difficulty negotiating with the provincial government. They think their negotiations should be solely with the federal government. I'm not sure whether it should be a four-party negotiation, but certainly municipal governments and leadership should be closely involved in some fashion.

D. MacKay: Thanks, Anthony. I'd just like to follow up on the governance issue. You mentioned it several times in your presentation. It's an issue that has come up several times from different parts of the province.

I'm more familiar with the Nisga'a treaty, because I live in the Smithers area. I've seen what the Nisga'a treaty did and their style of self-government. They actually have 19 areas of authority that exceed provincial and federal jurisdiction. I wonder: do you support that sort of self-government, or do you support a delegated style of self-government, whether it be under the community charter, which is coming down the road for municipal governments, or something like the Nisga'a, where they actually have powers that exceed municipalities, the province and the federal government in some jurisdictions? Have you thought of that?

A. Reynolds: Well, I'm not sure how they could have powers that exceed the federal government's powers.

Two points. First of all, in the constitution, the right to governance…. It can't be a delegated government. It's a right that is protected in the constitution. They have a right as an order of government in Canada.

Your second point is a good point. However, consider this. If in fact the Nisga'a had — say in education or in some other field as they do — final authority with respect to certain issues, but that final authority could in fact be overturned by Victoria or by Ottawa, then you're really not in the question of governance. You're in the question of constant negotiation.

Now, quite clearly, for those things to be effective, there will have to be — in the education area — very close collaborative arrangements between the Nisga'a and Victoria or between future aboriginal governments and the provincial government. In those specific areas where they have jurisdiction, if that jurisdiction can be overruled by Victoria or by Ottawa…. Well, imagine the situation you would be in if the authorities that the province had were not in fact final authorities. They could be overruled by Ottawa. That's not the case. Ottawa cannot overrule you in the areas of the constitution where you have prime authority. If they do, you'll take them to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court will bat them down.

Is it self-government we're talking about? I think it has to be. Otherwise, it's really just administrative arrangements.

M. Hunter: Thank you, Anthony, for the thoughtful brief. Obviously, your exposure to the royal commission has left you with a lot of knowledge, and I appreciate your sharing that with us.

I'm going to take issue with your right of self-governance, but we're not going to debate that tonight. Just to let you know, I don't think that…. I would argue with you at another place and another time.

I wanted to ask you a question to fully understand what you're saying. On page 3 of your brief you say: "Simply put, aboriginal peoples need adequate land and resources to be fully self-reliant and the authority to govern their lives and communities."

I'll tell you why I have a problem with that. My crystal ball is no better than yours, but I see the world shrinking — September 11 notwithstanding. I don't know of a community on this planet that can claim to be self-reliant. Can you explain? Am I wrong? Do you mean self-reliant? What exactly do you mean by the term? If that's the objective you're asking us to pursue, I think we'd better be clear as to what exactly it means. Does it mean that I can live in isolation from the rest of my fellow human beings?

A. Reynolds: No. I'm talking about reliance, not self-sufficiency. You are self-reliant. You provide for yourself and your family. Your government is self-reliant. It raises taxes; it has its jurisdiction. It works collaboratively with other people. It's not self-sufficient. You cannot live in isolation; no government, no people, no community can. If they do, they choose to forgo the future of their people.

What I mean by reliance is the capacity to stand tall, to provide for yourself, to govern yourself, to have the tools to make life useful, to earn your own way, to be able to protect your people and the things that are of value to you, recognizing always that you've got to be part of a larger community or you'll die.

V. Anderson: My question was somewhat the same, because we have been advised consistently to make the question very simple, very clear and very unambiguous.

On the first question you have there, I understand the intent: to have the same standard of living as other Canadians and the same capacity to finance their public institutions. None of our municipalities, for instance, have the capacity themselves to finance their public institutions. So that if you're setting up…. There has to be a means of relationships as well as separation.

V. Anderson: Somehow that has to be clarified, because in the common thinking at the moment, when you have self-government, you're thought of as being completely internally dependent. At the same time, the other part of it is that you have the same standard of living.

That's quite different in different parts of our province. It's quite a difference between Newfoundland and here. So what does same standard of living mean? Is there a simpler way of describing that?

A. Reynolds: I'm sure there is, and you will have many very capable experts around you helping you to draft these questions. The problem you face is just the problem you identified. This is a very complicated issue, and how do you draft things in a way that people can grasp without being completely confused? I would suggest that any questions you put would probably need a preamble, which I haven't tried to do, although there is some material here that would explain the question a bit.

On the issue of financing the public institutions, I mentioned in my comments that I think any future aboriginal government would have to have the same kind of arrangements that provincial and municipal governments have for interdependency with other governments. Now, in this province, we don't benefit from — I've forgotten the technical name for that term — equalization payments across the country, but the poorer parts of the country do, and we can contribute to that as part of being Canadians.

These are very technical questions and ones which obviously can't feature in a question like this, but they need enough of a resource base to be able to generate revenues to pay a substantial part of their own way. I'm not speaking for aboriginal people at all, but my view is that you need to raise a lot of that revenue from your own people, whether you call it taxation or you call it something else. But no community is going to be a reliant and proud community if it can't pay a substantial part of its own way.

One of the things we have in Canada is a broad agreement that the public services that are available to Canadians across the country should more or less be equivalent. That doesn't always hold, but in order to do that, we have programs, as I've mentioned, at both the federal and the provincial level that try to make things a bit fairer. I think those would have to come into play.

On the question of the standard of living, I guess what I have in mind is that the people in the aboriginal community, through their earned wages, their earnings from business — I don't mean through government programs of handouts, because I think those should go — have the opportunity to earn the same level of living that their neighbours in the same area of the country have. At the moment, if you look at the statistics, you'll find that there's a huge disproportion there.

V. Anderson: Just to follow that one up more, words have different meanings to us, and that's part of our problem. When we use the word "nation" and "nations within a nation," we find that difficult. Normally, the interactions between federal, provincial

and municipal governments are contained and written out because they are levels of government within the same system.

In popular imagination, when we talk about these other nations, the aboriginal nations, they're considered to be a level of government outside the system rather than inside it. So the built-in relationships are not there. In every case, for every agreement and every item, there are just multiple arrangements that would have to be made, rather than the overarching federal or provincial ones that come automatically across the country. How do you see those? Is it a change of wording in conversation, to say that we're not really inside and outside but that we're all inside but in different ways? Like we're all Canadians together.

A. Reynolds: You know, the Americans have less of a hangup on this wording of nations than we do. The Americans refer to their aboriginal people as domestic nations in their legal language. In the aboriginal context, "nation" has assumed a kind of cachet, a sort of cultural-societal linkage.

I remember watching Gosnell speak on television when the Nisga'a treaty went through. He said: "We now feel ourselves wholly a part of the Canadian nation." The great majority of aboriginal people and the great majority of their leadership do not see their future outside the Canadian family. There are some who talk about that. There certainly are. There are some people who pursue a different line, but the great majority of the people that you will be negotiating with see themselves as part of the British Columbia and the Canadian family but with a different order of government.

I think you were right in the controversies of an earlier time — in the lead-up to the Nisga'a treaty. You were correct: the Nisga'a treaty was not just assigning municipal powers. It was, in fact, a different order of government being created. But that may be what's needed here.

J. Les (Chair): I'd like to pose just one more question. I think it's a bit of a follow-on from a couple of the earlier questions, when you talked in your paper about requiring an allocation of land and natural resources sufficient to enable individuals to generate incomes on a par with other Canadians, etc.

I tried to draw some analogies to other communities in our province. For example, for purposes of illustration I would compare Oak Bay and Campbell River. I think it's fair to suggest that perhaps Oak Bay is not a resource-dependent community in many ways. Is there a tendency to make an assumption that aboriginal people necessarily have their future tied directly to resources as they're commonly understood, as opposed to, for example, education, which I would argue is another resource?

A. Reynolds: Absolutely. I think that will depend enormously on where those communities are. There are communities close to Vancouver where I'm sure their earnings are currently on a par with the neighbours down the street. We're not members of that community. They have access to a resource which is real estate, and they're doing very well, thank you very much. There are other communities where indeed their future will not be in the resource industry. Their future will be in some kind of tourism or manufacturing or knowledge industries.

I think what we do have to recognize is that aboriginal people choose to live a little differently — not all of them, but the majority. They choose to live in a system which is different than mainstream North America. It is a much more collectivist environment. They regard their land and the resources related to it as in common ownership rather than individual ownership. They may pursue individual opportunities that those resources…. You find very few aboriginal people saying: "Just give us the land, and we'll break it all up, divide it among ourselves and go our own way as individuals." They choose to organize their economic and social life differently than we do. For that reason, ownership of those resources is quite crucial to their economic future.

J. Les (Chair): Ought the option be available to them to organize themselves economically as you and I do?

A. Reynolds: If they want that, but they don't give much indication of wanting that.

J. Les (Chair): We have heard some first nations people express that. The question simply is: should it be an option?

A. Reynolds: Yeah, but not the majority of the people that you're dealing with.

J. Les (Chair): In the interest of time, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you for your presentation.

R. Nursall: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm pleased to see you here. I feel for the strenuous day that you must have put in already. I hope we're not too hard on you this evening. I must say I'm very pleased to have heard Mr. Reynolds's presentation, and I would like to express my support for most of the things he has said so far.

My name is Ralph Nursall. I've owned property on Cortes Island since 1977 and resided there since 1988. I retired from the University of Alberta as a professor of zoology at that time. In the period 1990 to 1996, I was regional director for electoral area I in the regional district of Comox-Strathcona and Cortes. It was a two-term period. I remain active in Cortes organizations, particularly the Cortes Island seniors building society, which is concerned with living conditions and home care for seniors, and the Friends of Cortes Island Society, which is a registered charity and environmental support group.

administrative centre for the Klahoose first nation, which has been in treaty negotiations with British Columbia and Canada since October of 1994. There is a Cortes Island local advisory committee of which I'm a member and which has kept a watching brief on these negotiations since 1996.

I'm not formally presenting the opinions of any of these organizations here, but neither am I simply expressing an individual independent point of view. The things I'm going to suggest are widely agreed to in my community. I think a large percentage of the population of Cortes Island would agree with the things I'm about to say. In the submission that you will receive from me, I give some evidence of that.

Now, with what would these people agree? Certainly they will agree with the last part of the mandate of your committee, which is that treaty negotiations shall continue. That in itself, for all intents and purposes, it seems to me, makes your committee redundant, as I will attempt to show. You're a remarkable luxury for a government that is intent on reducing costs and making redundant as many people as possible. Nevertheless, your terms of reference do not allow you to consider whether or not to hold a referendum.

Cortes Islanders would agree with the part of your mandate that suggests that negotiations should be principled. This means that your chief duty will be to determine what principles should be proposed in a referendum. That should be easy, unless there are to be pages and pages of detail that prejudge the outcome of negotiations.

I think the principles should be these. First of all, fairness — fairness to all parties. Secondly — this is really a requirement — inclusion and full enfranchisement of the first nations people within the structure of the constitution of Canada. The third principle that I would urge is that conclusion and agreement in the negotiations be reached in a timely fashion. All of these are obvious.

The first, fairness, is the most complex. It is in that principle that your committee must not lose itself. Determining fairness is the task of the treaty negotiators. All citizens of Canada should be treated equally. It's not easy, since each of our multifarious groups has justified perceptions of its own rights and privileges. I see Canadian equality as having sort of a slightly lumpy surface in which tolerance for the incomprehensible requirements of that group over there and the rather strange needs of that bunch over on the other side have to be balanced against the strict and absolutely righteous rules that I wish to follow. There are differences of opinion in what is the way to conduct one's life.

We the European settlers and those who followed are the agents, in many respects, of our own difficulties. There was no zip-lock perimeter defence around North America when the first Europeans arrived nor when this was followed by a flood of immigrants. By and large, the Europeans were greeted by the natives with a cautious curiosity, but that didn't last long, as sort of an imperial, Christian arrogance dictated lesser status to those whose land was overrun. Guns and germs, hoes and Bibles — the invaders reduced the natives to a traumatized minority separated from their connection with the land now.

As a barely significant minority, Indians can be treated with disdain. There's even a category called status Indian. By pretending to look after them using western cultural standards, we derogate them. To some it comes as a surprise to find that the aboriginal inhabitants of this continent are people of intelligence, spirit and a sense of self. When we allow this spirit and wit to express itself fully, Canada will benefit immensely.

Now, I confess myself startled by the requirement in your mandate to give all British Columbians a say on the principles that should guide B.C.'s approach to treaty negotiations. We've had that opportunity, and we moved on it. In December 1990 the British Columbia Claims Task Force was established by agreement between the government of Canada, the government of B.C. and representatives of first nations in British Columbia. The task force comprised two persons nominated by the government of B.C., two persons nominated by the government of Canada, two persons nominated by the First Nations Congress and one person nominated by the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. That gave the task force a non-native majority which was put in place by the two governments that represent all the citizens of B.C.

The task force was required to report within six months, and its report, which is here, appeared in June 1991. The substance of the report comprised 19 recommendations that set out the necessity of mutual trust, respect and understanding. Among other things, it proposed a treaty commission to coordinate, mediate and report publicly on negotiations. It set out a six-stage process to be followed in negotiation. It described broad details of process — for example, financial, public information and educational requirements, the responsibilities of first nations and the importance of interim measures agreements, which are time-limited restrictions and regulations for land and resource use to allow the process to continue without the alienation of land or resources. For a document developed in so short a time — six months — the task force report is remarkably wise and has served exceptionally well as a guide for active treaty tables. I'm hard put to think of additional principles or procedures to be added to its recommendations, nor can I suggest any of the ones in here which are irrelevant or unnecessary.

The Treaty Commission itself has taken its job as keeper of the process very seriously and quite effectively. In 1991 the B.C. Claims Task Force did the job that you are being asked to do today, and it did so without the preconceptions that limit your work.

J. Les (Chair): If I could just interrupt you for a minute, Ralph. We're going to try and keep you to 15 minutes, more or less. We've got about five minutes left, and I see you've got quite a stack of paper there.

R. Nursall: There's more than I'm giving. I've got the whole description of the committee here.

I suppose the select committee could publicize the task force report and ask for specific modifications to it. The result of asking for modification would be simply to show disagreement by this person or that group with this phrase or that clause. The likelihood of any of those sorts of suggestions representing a new, broad, agreed-to principle seems to me to be staggeringly small. Nor is it the case that the governmental parties are without advice.

Consider the activities of TNAC and the RACs and TACs and LACs. There's the Treaty Negotiation Advisory Committee, the regional advisory committees, the treaty advisory committees and so on. The first three of these committees were designed to advise federal and provincial governments in treaty negotiations and are supported generously by the treaty negotiation offices. The first nations negotiation teams are on their own. Many have shown themselves to be remarkably effective in mobilizing resources. Local advisory committees are few in number. They're generally voluntary, relying on local support and chiefly interested in watching and commenting publicly on progress at the local table.

The reason for the select committee to listen to me is to hear evidence on the topic of the nature of questions that should be used in a one-time provincewide referendum on the principles that should guide B.C.'s approach to treaty negotiations and to receive recommendations thereof. In the most limited fashion, I have presented evidence to the effect that a referendum on this matter is unnecessary. As a matter of opinion, I believe that a call for referendum on principles of negotiation is misleading. It's not at all clear that the public is deeply disturbed by the current process, although it's certainly puzzled by its slowness.

There have been nearly ten years of negotiation already with varying degrees of success — but advancement, nonetheless, in many cases. The slowness of the process and the lack of success, where that is evident, has been caused almost invariably by the timorousness of the governments — especially the provincial and its lack of respect for the process itself, as shown by the failure to give its negotiators authority to reach conclusions and its failure to keep the line ministries from impinging on sensitive areas.

The question of a referendum is a political knot woven by someone sitting in the dark, which we're not allowed to unravel by pulling on the end which is labelled "this tangle is unnecessary." The only possible face-saving measure that I can suggest to you is to recommend a nice, hearty-sounding question and spend all the money the referendum will cost with gritted teeth and the best smile you can muster.

Here's an example of what a referendum question might be. "The province of British Columbia shall, in concert with the government of Canada, proceed as expeditiously as possible to negotiate with participating first nations treaties to establish, declare and define the rights of the first nations and their members to the use of land and resources and their rights, privileges and duties as citizens of Canada under the Constitution Act, as well as financial settlements agreed upon by the parties in open, frank and fair discussion, using the recommendations of the B. C. Claims Task Force as a guide to procedures. Answer yes or no." In fact, in short, that referendum question says: "The rules are set. Get on with it." Thank you.

D. MacKay: Ralph, if I could just ask a question. You mentioned fairness, inclusion, conclusion and agreement in a timely fashion. When you said that, were you suggesting that perhaps there should be a time frame imposed on these negotiations? We've been there for ten years, and we haven't had them signed off yet.

R. Nursall: No, you can't set a time limit to things like negotiations. These are extremely complicated matters. One of the problems we have found — I know this as a witness to the negotiations that have taken place at the Klahoose nation treaty table — is that the negotiators from the government are forced to go back and forced to go back. It takes an infinitude of time, practically, for any sort of answer to come back. The first nation appears with a set of proposals. They're ready to negotiate; they're ready to compromise. They want to discuss this. It's accepted, and it disappears. This happens time after time.

The matter of the interim measures agreement. For years and years first nations have been asking for interim measures agreements to be set at the various tables, and the provincial government in particular simply refused to accept that. They would not, up until just recently, set interim measures agreements. So there was always the danger of alienation, and there was the alienation of land and resources when these measures were ignored.

The next presenter is Lyssa Marcil. If I mispronounce any names, I hope you will forgive me.

L. Marcil: Good evening. First things first. I would like to take the opportunity to welcome you all to Campbell River. I hope your stay here is enjoyable as well as educational, although, looking at your crazy schedule, I imagine you won't have too much time to enjoy Campbell River for all it has to offer. I mean, Rod lives here, and he doesn't even have free time. I would also like to thank you for the chance to appear before you tonight.

I have found that this government has been very accommodating towards British Columbian youth and has truly listened to and taken into consideration what they have to say. I find it's usually quite the task to get adults to listen to me. I mean, it's hard enough just with

my father. I appreciate the fact that you are here now and value what I have to say. On that note, I will now take the time to introduce myself and share with you my ideas and opinions.

My name is Lyssa Marcil, and I'm a grade 12 student at Timberline high school here in Campbell River. Originally from Kindersley, Saskatchewan, my family and I moved here about 12 years ago. We're still here today and not looking back. I'm sure a few of you can sympathize with that, as I noticed some of you pioneered from the Prairies yourselves. Anyway, I consider myself to be very actively involved within the community as well as very aware of its issues. I'm here today to offer the committee my perspective on treaty approval, the referendum announced in your platform and the steps I believe you should take when approaching these matters.

First and foremost, I believe this government is very competent in its decisions, and so far I believe the B.C. Liberals have taken steps in the right direction when it comes to treaty processes and other aboriginal issues. However, as I'm sure you agree, imperative action is necessary to make these processes more effective. I believe the referendum on aboriginal affairs is a must and that everyone in B.C. — native, non-native, young and old — deserves a voice in the treaty negotiations and in the Legislature.

I first really started reading about treaties and aboriginal affairs only about three weeks ago in preparation for this presentation. I knew a little about processes before, but it really was only opinions that I had gathered from other people. I learned a lot in these last few weeks, and I noticed some common characteristics in the way things have been dealt with throughout the years.

The first thing I noticed about treaty processes in B.C. is a lack of non-native British Columbians being involved in the negotiations. Sure, there are the treaty negotiation advisory committees and regional advisory committees and so on, but these committees consist of only 31 people, which I came to believe are mostly native.

As well, I can't imagine those 31 people being able to speak for the entire population of British Columbia. That's why I think the referendum is a good idea. Now, don't get me wrong. I want to clear something up before I continue. I'm not a racially prejudiced person, and I'm not some little white girl that doesn't know what she's talking about. I find this a common misconception about anyone that openly supports the referendum.

I believe in equality and that everyone deserves a chance to speak out about things that are going to directly affect them — and their taxes, for that matter. I established the anti-racism group, Humanity Against Hate, here in Campbell River. I know what racism is, and trust me, it's not expressing a valid opinion.

Anyway, as I was saying, I believe the referendum is a great way to finally get people's outlook on British Columbia treaties, but you already know all this. That's why it was part of your platform — right? I'll move on to the purpose of my presentation tonight. I know you guys love it when people cut to the chase, especially after a long day like this.

I've read your platform and positions extensively. What can I say? I'm a Young Liberal through and through. I notice you haven't set out how you're going to prepare for this referendum. I know you're here tonight to get North Island citizens' positions on questions to be asked, and I guess every one has been on the referendum altogether. That's really great and everything, but I think there needs to be some more planning involved before the ballots come out.

If Rod Visser has taught me anything, it's to be prepared. Wait — maybe that's the Boy Scouts motto. I'm not sure. Nevertheless, I think it would be beneficial for all of us to have some background on issues before we vote. That way, we can make honest, informed decisions and have opinions from every spectrum under our belts.

Think about it like an election. We hear from many different parties and people with all sorts of answers to our issues. Then when it comes time to vote, we usually pick the side we agree with the most and thus feel like we really have a say in how things are going to happen.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this the reason you wanted to have the referendum in the first place — to make all British Columbians feel included in the treaty process? I feel as though giving people some prior information will really make sure their choices are instructive and, for that matter, final.

If people have a chance to get some information and the background on the subjects in question, they won't backlash against any decisions made. However, I'm not making any promises. It's like anything in life. If you want to make a valued decision, you do your research first. All right, you get my point. Research is a valuable tool.

How should you go about educating British Columbians on a topic that, I don't know, 80 percent of the population know practically nothing about? I'll make your job easier. I'll give you my recommendations on what I think should happen.

First, open meetings and debates should be held in all communities across British Columbia. Everyone should be invited: non-native, native, youth, seniors, business people and government officials — representation from all people of British Columbia. MLAs should attend as well.

I'm not trying to make more work for you guys. Trust me. I know how daunting your schedules are already, but I think this would be a great way for you to inform us all on the Liberal platform and why you think a referendum is a good way to go. You can also hear the opinions of your constituency and address individual issues. If there was one thing the former government of B.C. was good at, it was excluding public opinion.

Pamphlets containing material on referendums should be mailed to each household in B.C. with a legal voter. I know this is probably a huge task, but what better way to inform the public than attacking their

mailboxes with official information — right? If you wanted to achieve the same results on a smaller scale, you could send the same type of info to all constituency offices and press in the community.

The press would love it, I'm sure. No offence to you guys — I mean, I know there are media folks in the room tonight; I myself work for the Campbell River Television Association — but I think the press has done a pretty good job of telling us all the downsides of the referendum. This way, they can view it from both sides of the coin. I guess we can leave it up to them to write on it or not.

Finally, I think the government should consider allowing all people to put out their opinions publicly on what they think of the referendum. As well, the government themselves should put out information on why they think a referendum is a good idea. In the back few pages of this presentation, I've added a press release that appeared as a full-page spread in our local newspaper, the North Islander, on October 27, 2001. I believe the rest of the audience has received it tonight as well.

I think the Liberal government should do the same — a simple ad stating simple facts on why, again, we want to institute a referendum. I'm not sure of too many people who wouldn't like to hear about a referendum that's going to create jobs and some much-needed extra earnings in our pockets.

In conclusion, I want to thank you not only for being here today but for taking steps to do something about these treaties that are tying up our province so badly. Did you know that in 1990 Pricewaterhouse quoted: "The cost for not settling land claims and treaties in British Columbia is roughly $1 billion lost investment and 1,500 jobs in the forest and mining industry"? I imagine those numbers have skyrocketed since then, that being almost 12 years ago.

This is not something you want to pass on to younger generations. Speaking for the future taxpayer, I can tell you the basic opinion among my generation is simply this: take care of business. Wait. I might be getting things mixed up here again. That might have been a song.

On a new note — no pun intended — I really have faith in the government and that the decision they make will be for the betterment of British Columbia. Thank you very much for this opportunity, and I hope you have an enjoyable evening.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Lyssa. It's good, once in a while, to see people of your age group making presentations as well. We certainly appreciate your interest in these matters, and we hope that your enthusiasm for getting involved spreads to other people of your peer group.

V. Anderson: Thank you very much for coming. Following up on the comments you just made, what kind of conversation or reaction or comments do you have from your peer group about this issue? Are they talking about it as a concern? What is their interest?

It's been suggested earlier today that one of the groups we should really target the question to are the young people who are the future generation.

L. Marcil: I agree with that completely. So far I haven't experienced too many opinions as to what should be done. It's kind of difficult, among my peers, to find people who might be interested in politics and what's actually going on.

From the people I have heard from, it's simply that we would like something to be done about it. There are lots of things I've heard from older generations, of course. From my peer group, it's basically that it's about time things are dealt with. Whether that action is through a referendum or any other means, it needs to be dealt with.

For all of our presenters this evening, the briefer you are, the better we're going to like it. We have about a dozen speakers left to go, and we can't possibly go that late, so we'll see how we do.

P. Brabazon: Well, I'm like your bus driver. I, too, will try to maintain the speed limit, but we'll see what we get.

My name is Patrick Brabazon. I am the secretary of the Atrevida Group, which is an incorporated society with a membership that is concentrated in the Powell River area but extends south to Victoria. With regard to the proposed referendum on the principles of treaty negotiations, the Atrevida Group would like to make the following submission for your consideration.

The undersigned officers of the Atrevida Group are members of the North Island regional advisory committee for the Sliammon treaty negotiations and are well acquainted with this treaty process — its strengths and weaknesses and the issues covered with respect to Sliammon.

If you'll see the footnote, I am not speaking for the regional advisory committee. I make that clear.

We do not dispute the requirement for a treaty. We are not anti-treaty. We do seek a fair and forward-looking agreement that would allow the people of this community — Sliammon band members and their neighbours — to move onward together. Our experience on a regional advisory committee together with an analysis of the Sliammon and Sechelt agreements-in-principle and the Nisga'a final agreement have led us to believe that we are unlikely to get such a document.

None of this is to say that the status quo is acceptable either to us or to the native people. It certainly is not. To continue with the current arrangements for the governance and accommodation of our aboriginal neighbours would be an insult to them and to ourselves. Things must change. Unfortunately, they must change within the constraints of section 35 of the con

stitution of Canada and what has become the treaty process in British Columbia. Given that we cannot today design a new process, let us examine the old with a view to patching it up.

It is our opinion that the basic flaw in the treaty process lies in the mandate given to various negotiating teams almost a decade ago. It is apparent to us that a government that did not respect the opinions of British Columbians crafted this mandate. This disregard for public attitudes and public facts was compounded by a selective reading of judicial opinions on the subject of treaty requirements. Had the government of the day chosen to solicit the support of British Columbians through a carefully crafted referendum question, it might well have overcome the doubts and concerns of the people, and therefore your committee would probably not be seeking submissions today. However, they did not do so, and you are receiving the benefit of advice from those who have been ignored to date.

If the purpose of the referendum is to engage the people of British Columbia in a search for a solution to the status quo, a solution that would serve the greater community and would indeed allow us to move onward together, then the problem of local issues cannot be ignored. We believe that the current mandate does not permit the provincial negotiating teams to give due consideration to local matters. We acknowledge that the negotiators do listen to advisory committees, but we are also aware of the constraints upon them in representing our community at the table. We are aware that Powell River is not singular in its concerns for local issues, so we offer as our first subject for a referendum question: should local issues have a significant place in treaty-making?

Now for some thoughts on self-government. In most discussions of the background of treaty negotiations one will sooner or later hear the name Delgamuukw. The reference, of course, is to the legal case Delgamuukw et al. v. Regina, often cited by persons committed to one side of the question of treaties, that which would assign the maximum of political power and economic benefit to the collective formed by the band or first nation. That a careful reading of the decision offers even more support to those opposed to such an agenda is conveniently ignored and then forgotten. With regard to the question of the style or substance of post-treaty governance for any band, let us dispense with Delgamuukw by quoting from the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. The justices said: "The errors of fact made by the trial judge and the resultant need for a new trial made it impossible for this court to determine whether the claim to self-government had been made out."

With this, the court ordered a new trial, a trial that was precluded by a decision of the provincial government to accept the arguments of the appellants and move quickly to treaty negotiations on the basis of those arguments. Thus, the mandate of the treaty negotiation teams has allowed for the acceptance of a band government which may possess powers to enact laws that supersede those of both British Columbia and Canada. In chapter 12, section 22 of the Sliammon agreement-in-principle, we find that should a Sliammon law conflict with federal or provincial law, the Sliammon law would prevail. Other examples may be found in chapter 11 of the Nisga'a Final Agreement and chapter 1 of the Sechelt agreement-in-principle. Our next question, then, would ask British Columbians if they agreed that laws created by treaty governments should supersede those of British Columbia and/or Canada.

An additional concern is the apparent willingness of the federal and provincial governments to yield to such local governments the power to levy taxes that the constitution clearly states are the purview of the senior governments. The Nisga'a Final Agreement, chapter 16, and the Sliammon agreement-in-principle, chapter 17, both refer to yielding federal or provincial tax revenues to the local government. Both provide for taxation by a government that is not accountable, since the franchise would be restricted to Nisga'a and Sliammon people. With the above in mind, we are able to suggest to the committee that a suitable third question for a referendum would refer in some manner to the taxation powers of governments established by treaty. It may be offered in two parts: (1) should such a government be able to levy a tax on those who are denied the right to vote and (2) should British Columbia yield up provincial tax room to such a government?

Our last point concerns the problem of finality or, rather, the lack of it. The regional advisory committee has visited this one many times, with the membership seeking assurance that the final agreement would indeed be final and that all would then clearly understand the basis for future cooperation among the people of Sliammon, other local government and the senior governments. It is to the credit of the negotiating teams that on this issue they were quite forthright with us: final does not mean final. When asked by a member if the province could assure her that in 30 or 50 years there would be closure, the reply was no.

While chapter 2, "General Provisions," of the Sliammon agreement-in-principle implies that the final agreement will indeed be final, chapter 16, "Fiscal Relations," provides for ongoing financial support, and section 1 therein provides for ongoing renegotiation of fiscal agreements to determine how future funding will be provided to the Sliammon. The Nisga'a Final Agreement, chapter 15, is equally vague. In both cases it appears to be the attitude of British Columbia that while it would be nice if the post-treaty government could pay its own way, the senior governments will overcome any financial distress with additional funds. This is not the case with other local governments. Should a municipality be unable to pay its bills, the province would indeed have to bail it out, but the price in both dollars and political capital would be high and could even include the demise of that local government. No such sanction is provided for in the documents discussed here.

We believe that the people of British Columbia are expecting that any treaty will provide for the certainty

of an end to open-ended financial support of native governments and an assurance that such governments would be required to demonstrate at least the same fiscal discipline required of other local governments.

We further believe that requiring anything less is demeaning not only to non-native people but also to the very people the treaty is intended to assist. Surely we should grant them the same respect we offer to ourselves. You can do it. An unforeseen crisis will be provided for. Therefore, our final question would ask if any treaty should provide for absolute closure with regard to future funding arrangements, in a manner similar to arrangements for other local governments. In the considered opinion of the Atrevida Group, the questions which relate to the matters raised here would go far to obtain the support of British Columbians for the treaty process.

Any questions? I see none at this point. You've covered the points very clearly in your presentation.

B. Lloyd: Good evening. I'm Bruce Lloyd. I'm currently a councillor at the village of Port Alice. I would like to thank this government and this committee for giving its citizenry the opportunity to make input into aboriginal policy. I think many agree that the whole field of treaty-making has unnecessarily become an ivory tower process for lawyers, bureaucrats and many others who have quite aptly been collectively referred to as the aboriginal industry. Though I say that candidly, it is, however, not without due respect for all sincere individuals who are slowly trying to rectify past land and tenure injustices which native peoples have encountered through the years.

I make this presentation based on the premise that you as a legislative committee are serious about your role in trying to eventually establish an end with certainty to all the protracted conflicts of our past here in British Columbia. A much-desired end with a certainty will give a reasonable amount of potential for wealth creation to aboriginals, but at the same time not leave the rank-and-file non-aboriginals of this province paying in perpetuity towards the ongoing maintenance of a constitutionally entrenched hodgepodge of enclaves. These would leave the taxpayer perpetually paying for special benefits to a rapidly growing minority who deem such their right for an eternity. In other words, we British Columbians want to provide a reasonable potential for our aboriginal peoples to make livings, but many of us do not wish to burden our own progeny forever with the outworking of such things.

I speak to avoid such fiscal disasters as Nunavut, the Yukon treaties and most recently, I believe, the Nisga'a treaty, which promised the world, so to speak, and yet only seemed to create massive and expensive out-of-scale bureaucracies that draw more and more from the dwindling funds provided by the taxpayer.

As one who has completed formal academic studies in this realm, maintained a keen interest in all avenues of treaty negotiations — I'm currently the TAC rep for my village — I would ask you to move slowly, carefully and justly in all your deliberations of the multitude of concerns that are presented to you. You know better than I that there are many voices telling you to climb aboard this bus or that bus. Your mandate is to catch the right bus — the one that will bring all of us safely to the right terminal. That means that the native leadership is only one of the many groups that are to be listened to. Under the past government, seemingly totally entrenched in their status and politically correct manner, you would have thought that the native leadership was the only voice out there needing to be heard.

One who has criticized this process here tonight is a chief from just south of here, who is best known for his constant allegations to the effect that anyone who doesn't fully agree with him and his particular group's total agenda is ignorant and in error. He even made claims that a referendum will bring out the racists. I believe it may well do so, but I marvel that this same chief, only a decade or so ago, stated openly of non-aboriginals: "We should have killed you all."

I suggest we may encounter natives and non-natives who are as racist as he showed himself to be with that lamentable perspective, but despite such stuff we the citizens of B.C. will be able to draw from many positive contributions the balance of people of British Columbia will share in this process. Most just want a reasonable share of justice for native peoples but one that doesn't swing the pendulum so far as to bestow way more than a fair share on a tiny minority, approximately 3 percent of our population.

Let me get to the point in my presentation here tonight. What I want to give you are just a few pragmatic ideas which you may or may not choose to pursue in your quest to mould a more just society where all, not just some, will benefit.

Firstly, I believe it is necessary for the treaty process to clearly and loudly differentiate between the land claims treaty process and all other government pursuits to rectify any past and ongoing injustices. Different things such as the much ballyhooed efforts to address the residential school scenario must be dealt with in the courts or other venues so as to remove the possibility that the treaty process is improperly regarded as a cure-all for every social ill.

The NDP, the native leadership and others have successfully manipulated, in my opinion, a significant portion of the public to think that the Crown should eternally make lottery winners and land barons out of aboriginals and their offspring because of some of the past injustices their forebears have endured. This is both illogical and unrealistic. Redress for these historical injustices, which are real and serious, should be similar to the redress for Orientals and other particular groups as dealt with in past and ongoing processes. The courts and commissions are the places for these. Again, the treaty process need not be a catch-all.

Secondly, I congratulate the B.C. Liberal government for its reasonable instructions to negotiators which state, I am told, that the model of governance for native peoples to be negotiated will be along the lines of something akin to regional or municipal government. This is still fully in line with the Canadian constitution, I believe. I stand to be corrected by anyone in this crowd tonight. We know this is and will be a sticking point when contrasted with the Nisga'a, Nunavut and Yukon models, etc., with their wasteful and unreasonable largesse, but it is absolutely necessary to provide affordable and functional government to both native and non-native taxpayers.

The aforementioned models will be horribly burdensome to maintain in both a financial and a pragmatic manner, and many believe they are doomed to failure through lack of realistic opportunities to fund them, let alone 50 or so more of them here in B.C. The overlap and maze upon maze of variables in constitution, size and design make for serious questions as to their viability and sustainability. I adjure you to continue to uphold this municipal-style standard for the good of all citizens.

Thirdly, in my ongoing discussions with various treaty negotiators and commission bureaucrats, I've been made aware of the lack of evaluation given to the many enviable benefits provided by the federal government to aboriginal peoples under the Indian Act. These are sometimes errantly referred to as treaty benefits in some cases. Although it is more a federal matter, I recommend that the billions spent on such things as free and full universal health care; full dental care; post-secondary education, often including books and tuition; vastly improved low-cost housing; as well as such things as cost-free travel warrants be officially valued as part of the government's benefit side of the treaty-making equation.

In short, those who bargain for the government should be instructed to demand at the treaty table that there be a due fiscal acknowledgment and factoring in of these formerly neglected but now quite generous programs which aboriginals have benefited from in the last few decades. I can see here that there have been times when they've fallen short. The provincial negotiator I asked of this simply stated that the NDP had not instructed them to do so but stated that he saw my point as reasonable.

Fourthly, were you aware that despite the much-publicized treaty process being committed to "openness, consultation and paced deliberation," there was a situation earlier this year that found the Nuu-chah-nulth agreement's regional advisory committee sitting in a room for 90 minutes to view the hurriedly negotiated Nuu-chah-nulth treaty for the first time before it was quickly presented by the past NDP government to the press as a fait accompli.

The Union of B.C. Municipalities and numerous other groups have longstanding commitments from the senior governments which guarantee that such injustices will not take place. I hope that this committee strengthens and enforces treaty process principles of this nature and, even more importantly, that they ensure that such sacrosanct promises will be upheld even to the point of firing any bureaucrats and negotiators who fail to follow such rules fully.

Fifth, I simply call for a strong reiteration that extinguishment of title in all claimed lands is fully released in exchange for established treaty lands as was and has been continually promised to the citizenry. I adjure you to continue to uphold this logical mandate with our provincial negotiators. Anything else is just a nonsensical semantic game that plays into the hand of eternal jurisprudence.

Sixth, the principle to be entrenched in all modern B.C. treaties that there be an accurate accounting and publishing of all the additional costs to the taxpayer of implementing the newly established institutions and bureaucracies that arise as a result of the treaty process. It is a sad commentary on the past government and the major media that although there was a strong suggestion that the Nisga'a agreement was going to cost the taxpayer less, in fact the post-treaty regular administration cost funding to the Nisga'a was substantially increased and, it would seem, will continue to be so. The red herring item is the fact that after 12 years Nisga'a individuals will pay income taxes, which hardly makes up for the inevitable increase in costs to the taxpayer and which will surely be the ongoing result — all propaganda to the contrary.

Finally, as almost an aside, I would just outline to you the extreme irony I have found in many, many references to the lost investment we citizens should supposedly be grieving about in B.C. with regards to the lack of certainty for investment purposes we have heard so much about in recent years.

The aboriginal industry, various ministries and the Treaty Commission, among many others, continually broadcast and write to us of the need to settle treaties so that we'll not miss out on the approximately $1 billion in investment that we are supposedly missing due to the lack of treaties in B.C. It sounds like something to consider — that is, until you look at the cost of settling these treaties and even the most conservative cost estimates. It is estimated conservatively, based on a track record with no one volunteering to take far less than the precedence in Nisga'a — outside the process but still a template; indeed, many demanding far more — that the probable cost of treaty-making in B.C. will be somewhere between $25 billion and $50 billion, if not more.

Although we should strive for treaties primarily for the certainty and because the Supreme Court has told us to do so, we should not consider for a minute that there will be any fiscal advantage to doing so. Do your own math based on the $1 billion or so we have already spent on Nisga'a and the structures to bring in 50 or so more at similar costs. We are not looking at fiscal returns, to say the very least. The whole lawyer game is out of control.

In summary, I've tried to share my knowledge on this issue with you. I will leave my paperwork with you and hope you will read and consider it. I've drawn on my two academic diplomas and a baccalaureate

degree with readings as diverse as Ormsby's landmark British Columbia: a History as well as Robin Fisher's Contact and Conflict and everything in between. If there is anyone on this committee who has not read Mel Smith's exposé on the aboriginal industry, Our Home or Native Land, with its step-by-step documentation of the ongoing building of a quasi-legal monstrosity in this country, then I suggest you force yourself to read it. Even those who disdain it recognize much that is in it as very accurate.

I shall remain a longtime subscriber to the Treaty News and look forward to reading at least a bit of positive and, more importantly, fiscally realistic change that I can perhaps attribute ever so slightly to my appearance here tonight.

I admonish you that we the taxpayers are counting on you to do your important duties with the utmost diligence and then follow through to ensure that both ours and your contributions are respected and implemented. Thank you.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you, Bruce. I suspect it would be safe to say you have some opinions on the matter.

D. MacKay: Bruce, just a comment on your presentation. Now that you've got your wind back and you can talk, you may want to respond to that. I wanted to touch on the uncertainty or the distrust that is out there in the treaty process. I think you touched on it very briefly and very well in your presentation to us tonight. You talked about the Nuu-chah-nulth treaty and the fact that you're sitting on a TAC or RAC, and you were not even consulted. You were given 90 minutes to look at a final….

B. Lloyd: I don't sit on that committee. I'm on the North Island. That is what used to be called the Nootka, the Nuu-chah-nulth, and that committee is not in my area. I was made aware of this very serious infraction of what I believe to be the rules of the treaty process by some of my peers within the UBCM community. We've all considered that to be very serious. I ran it by Trevor Proverbs. I hope I'm not cutting you off here, but I think it's important to articulate. I ran it by the provincial negotiator recently. He said that he could not assure me, in front of 30 people in the room at the UBCM convention, that it wouldn't happen again. I'm asking for a head on a platter if such a thing happens again. We're signed into agreements, and you're signed into agreements, and native peoples are signed into agreements. We all have to expect the treaty process to be followed through on the principles it was established upon. It hasn't been. Only because of cheap politics by the previous government did such a thing happen. It was a travesty. Sorry to cut you off.

D. MacKay: That happened with Nisga'a as well. I took a great interest in Nisga'a and was never able to find out what the process was all about. I'm dismayed at the result of the Nisga'a treaty. That's why there's distrust out there. It's because of the way things were handled in the past. You've covered it well in your presentation. I'd like to thank you for it and the thought you put into it.

B. Lloyd: My family were dirt farmers, stump farmers, in Powell River. My grandma taught us to respect all people and told us that everybody's outhouse stinks. If someone thinks that I'm a racist here tonight, I'll try to tell them otherwise. I wish the best for the native people, but I want it to be something for all of us, something affordable. I don't want to get them cheaped out. I just want the best for us all. I hope that everyone here tonight feels the same.

A. Hartford: Good evening. Thank you for letting me speak on treaty issues. I represent the North Island Concerned Woodlots, and I want to say that we support the need to settle treaties.

Before I put forward our position, I feel I should explain what a provincial woodlot licence is and why the NICW was formed. Woodlot licences are small-scale, family operated and community-based forest tenures. They are regulated in a manner similar to tree farm licences, but because of their much smaller scale, they are operated in a completely different fashion, often with very different goals. In this case size does matter, and small becomes very important. The background package I've given you will explain how provincial woodlot licences are important to the province and the communities where they operate. I won't go into detail on these points.

Provincial woodlot licences consist of private land contributed by the licensee married to Crown land to form the licence area. This private land is very important in considering what a woodlot licence is. The province created a provincial woodlot licence program to offset the real shortage of private forest land in B.C. and to mimic the intensive forestry carried out on European private lands. In B.C., private and Crown lands have been linked with a licence. The highest standards of forestry are applied equally to the combination.

Woodlots have a 20-year renewable licence, and it is the expectation of both the licensee and the Crown that these are multigenerational tenures. In other words, the families, in committing their private forested lands to the woodlot program, have made a commitment to manage their land and the Crown land given over to their care beyond the working life of the

Given such a quick explanation of what a woodlot licence is and the close attachment a woodlot holder develops to their woodlot, you can imagine our dismay when six licensees in the Campbell River forest district found out in January of this year that our woodlots were put on the table by the local treaty society, now the Hamatla Treaty Society. Our dismay was not with the treaty society. In fact, they made shrewd choices. These woodlots have excellent forests and are managed to the highest standards. Our dismay was with the government and the treaty negotiators, because they did not remove us from the table immediately.

We feel strongly that these are not suitable land choices and that woodlot licences should not be on the table. We know that other suitable land options do exist in this area: fee simple lands with willing sellers, untenured Crown land, tenure holders obligated to return Crown land through the 5 percent takeback policy and tenure holders willing to return Crown land for other reasons.

A paper called "New Era Promises for Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Treaty Negotiations" lists as one promise: "fully protect private property rights and resource tenure rights in treaty negotiations." The North Island Concerned Woodlots supports this promise. We want to see treaties settled, and we believe that with this promise as a guiding principle, first nations and government treaty negotiators will have our support and the support of the Federation of B.C. Woodlot Associations and the 800-plus woodlot licences in B.C. With this principle in place, the land portion of treaty settlements can go ahead.

In summary, the North Island Concerned Woodlots members feel strongly that treaties should be settled upholding the principle that private property rights and resource tenure rights are fully protected. With our tenure secure, we will offer our help to first nations as they build their forest capacity and fully enter the forest economy.

Treaty settlement should be a win-win situation for rural communities. We have lived side by side for many years, and treaties should bring us closer together, not push us apart. First nations are our neighbours, and we look forward to working with them.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, Alex. I want to thank you for providing the background information as well. It's going to be very helpful to the committee.

G. Trumper: Alex, thank you for your presentation. I just want a point clarified. You've stated that woodlot licences are partly private and partly Crown. They're joined together. You're saying that what has happened is that the woodlots have been asked to be put on the table. Does that include the private land?

A. Hartford: No, the private land would not be part of it. It's the Crown tenure part of it.

A. Hartford: Yes. But you see, in our consideration, the two have now been welded together and are managed exactly the same. The Crown portion depends on the private portion and vice versa in order to be a sustainable economic unit.

A. Hartford: The Crown portion is 400 hectares on the coast, and the private portion is whatever you want to contribute.

I think you can see that it's possible for a woodlot licence, or several, to be completely consumed by a treaty, whereas tree farm licences and other larger resource tenures, should they become some part of it, might only be a very small percentage of their holdings. That's why our small size makes some difference.

C. Eidsvik: Good evening. I'm a local chartered accountant in Campbell River. My family has lived in northwest B.C. for over 75 years in the Nisga'a treaty area. I moved to Campbell River about ten years ago.

I'll give you a bit of background. Two years ago a group of us got together and held a non-binding referendum on the Nisga'a treaty. Our question was very straightforward to anybody that wanted to vote. It was: "Do you support the Nisga'a final agreement as it stands today?" The response was overwhelmingly 97 percent against. No one did.

The type of people that voted. First nations people came in their traditional garb and had their picture taken at the vote. Elderly people came and voted. A good example of an elderly couple that came and voted…. They realized that we had used private funds to handle the referendum, and they offered to donate money to help pay for our costs. I ask you: when was the last time someone walked into a polling station at a provincial, federal or municipal election and offered to donate some money to help pay for the cost of the election? I don't think it has happened. People want to vote on this issue.

We had a big turnout in some of the small communities. In one of the communities over 50 percent of the voting population showed up to vote on this question. It was on the North Island. We held a referendum without any government assistance. There was no government advertising to announce dates, times, polling stations. We had only nine polling stations in North Island; the provincial election had 91. We announced the referendum only three weeks in advance. We had a great turnout, and 97 percent of the people voted against it. What it really came down to was that for everyone who came and voted, their big concern was that they wanted referendum questions that dealt with equality for all persons regardless of race.

I'm going to go through some of the economic issues that you'll see occurring just in our small area in Campbell River which don't make things equal based on race. Let's take a look at employment income. Let's say, for example, you work over at a shopping mall called Discovery Harbour or, for example, you work at the Capilano Mall in West Vancouver. I work alongside you, and you happen to be a status Indian. We both work the same number of hours. We both work the exact same job. Now you will get a paycheque that will be significantly higher than mine because there'll be no taxes on it. How can we have a society that is equal when people are taxed differently for the exact same work? I suggest that all persons should pay taxes equally, regardless of race.

Let's look at the Nisga'a treaty. There's a 12-year window on the Nisga'a treaty for not paying taxes. The 12-year window can easily be extended to 20 years by using the tax system a little effectively. So you're going to have businesses in the northwest that will not pay taxes for 20 years. They're going to compete hand-in-hand against the taxpaying businesses. That works out to a cost advantage for the non-taxpaying businesses of up to 20 to 50 percent of their net profit. How are two businesses going to compete against each other? Obviously, there is a big advantage to the Nisga'a group. I suggest that all persons, groups and corporations must pay taxes on an equal basis and compete with the same rules and regulations regardless of race.

Let's take a look at some investments in real estate. Campbell River is a really good example because we have a shopping mall that is partially owned by one of the bands. In Campbell River there are four shopping malls. The competitive advantage that the native-owned shopping mall has over the malls is 10 to 20 percent of their costs. It's solely based on taxes: B.C. capital tax and corporate income tax. If you think the cost advantage is not a very big deal, when you find time tomorrow and you're having coffee just before breakfast or something, try and stroll over to the Ironwood Mall.

C. Eidsvik: Oh, that's too bad. Sneak over there tonight if you can because that shopping mall is almost empty. It has emptied out since the other mall has opened up with its significant cost advantage over everyone.

Getting back to the tax holiday, there should not be a tax holiday for the Nisga'a treaty for the same idea. If you settle future treaties, no tax holidays. Put everybody on the same foot. Make everyone equal.

Other types of government assistance. Let's look at the malls in town again. There is a liquor store located in the Campbell River mall, the one where you are right now. There is a lease left on it for about three years. The other mall opened up and wanted to get the liquor store in the mall. How they did it is they had to pay a significant exit fee to get the government to move the liquor store to the other mall — a large exit fee. That exit fee was factored into the rent. The government, through other means, is helping out first nations. That's okay, but we have to do it to everybody. Those advantages need to be available to everyone, not just a specific person based on race.

Collection of taxes. This is going to be a fun one. Say we finally have everybody agree to collection of taxes. We're all equal on it, so we all start to pay taxes. My question to you is: can Canada Customs go onto reserve land and seize assets to collect their taxes? I don't think they can. We may have them paying taxes, but you may not be able to collect them. I think that if we want to have an equal and a fair system, we need to be able to collect taxes fairly from everybody, and everybody needs to pay taxes fairly.

D. MacKay: Chris, I just wanted to comment on the referendum you conducted. I have to tell you that two and a half years ago, in my previous life before I was elected as an MLA, I conducted a similar referendum in conjunction with the municipal elections. We had more people vote at the referendum than voted at the municipal election. The two buildings were back-to-back. We had a larger turnout at the referendum issue, and 93 percent of our people said no to Nisga'a on the same question that you put forward here. We had a very similar turnout and a very similar response, and it's the distrust because we didn't know what was going on for people who have no clue what Nisga'a was coming down the road with. So there's a lot of distrust out there from both sides: the native and the non-native population. I just wanted to let you know that I did the same thing.

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

M. Griswold: Mr. Chairman, committee members, I'd like to thank you for this opportunity. My name is Mike Griswold, and I've been involved in the commercial fishing industry. I've been a commercial fisherman for 30 years. I have been president of the Gulf Trollers Association, Area H, over several mandates there and have been for the last three years. I am currently sitting on the Fraser panel and have sat on that panel since 1985, since the inception of the Pacific Salmon Treaty.

I don't want to digress too far from fish, but fish just happens to be the most significant portion of land claims to date there, in my life. It happens to be that currency which the federal government plays like they have a lot of in the settling of these treaties. They have been somewhat cavalier in how they've gone about allocating fish in the treaty agreements right now. What's happening is that there just does not seem to be

I work on the Fraser River, and there are 93 bands that live alongside the banks of the Fraser River. Each and every one of them has an existing land claim right now. The land claim that is there for the Musqueam and the Tsawwassen, the initial agreement right now, what they're asking for…. Basically, if it was broadcast throughout all the user groups there in the Fraser River — and that's also in Johnstone Strait and all the south coast — we'd be starting to look at a run of having up to about 25 million. The problem is that's 25 million just for aboriginal use. That negates any use whatsoever for the non-native portions.

Now, I am non-native. I have rights. They have been established there through various court actions that other fishermen groups have taken to try to establish positions there vis-à-vis their harvest of fish, their harvest rights. However, the federal government has been somewhat neglectful of those rights when it comes to making these allocations.

My number one concern is — and it seems like a facetious question: should a whole resource be there for barter in these negotiations? You really honestly have to ask yourself, because quite frankly, if we are using these templates right now, that's exactly what will happen. There will be no fish left for the existing commercial fisheries.

If that answer is no — and I don't know if that's the proper question to be asking in a referendum — well, then how do you get our rights involved? I am appreciative of the Attorney General's New Era document. I have to admit that I haven't read it all, but somewhere along the line the rights of the stakeholders have to be enshrined in these negotiations. To date we've heard about the Nuu-chah-nulth; we've heard about Nisga'a. We're starting to hear about what's happening in Musqueam and Tsawwassen. What's happening is that the agreements are brought to you fait accompli. You have a right to comment on them, but that's the offer that's on the table.

Now, I would say that it would be of significant importance to this commercial fishing industry, if there is to be a commercial fishing industry in the future, that the federal government has to have its feet held to the fire. They cannot make these unilateral allocations here.

They have done it in the past in the form of pilot sales fisheries there on the Fraser River. The management of the Fraser River is a godawful mess. It has gone from simplicity in itself, which has provided wealth to a very integrated fishery, to what has happened now — the most segregated fishery now in British Columbia. We have fishermen here in Campbell River and Quadra Island — native fishermen — who have made significant investments in boats and what not, whose investments have been lost because of federal treaty negotiation mandates. That's not right — robbing Peter to pay Paul.

We have established those rights there. One of the rights that has been established is through an umbrella fishermen's organization there, through the Gladstone case, but there still seems to be some question as to the rights of Canadians versus the rights of aboriginals. It is my feeling right now that maybe these negotiations are about how you correspond those rights. I don't know if that is entirely possible right now, but there is legal determination in that. I haven't given it a lot of thought, but I think it might be worth considering that a referral to the Supreme Court might be in order when these rights do come in conflict. I think that it maybe absolves you of that political responsibility, but it also gives…. I foresee legal action, regardless.

In summary, I would like to see treaties settled. I have been living with this uncertainty in the management of the Pacific salmon fishery since 1992. There has been a steady erosion of our opportunity. There has been an incredible erosion of the non-native harvest rights there. I don't want to see us go on any longer like this. We need to be able to rebuild this industry and put it back on a sound footing. I do believe that treaties will have that bearing as long as there is this recognition of rights and recognition that stakeholders have that right to participate in how these events, which shape their lives, take place.

I also wish to state that when these treaties are signed, they should be final. We can't go back to the table again after this.

M. Hunter: First of all, Mike, thank you. I'd like to acknowledge your contribution to fisheries management in this province. I will declare an interest. I have known Mr. Griswold for far too long.

M. Hunter: I'm trying to understand what you're asking with respect to a specific economic activity being incorporated in the referendum question in. You yourself said that your question, "prepared to cede control of whole industries in treaty negotiations," may not be the question that grabs the mind.

Is it fair for me to ask you — I don't want to put words in your mouth — if you are suggesting that the province of British Columbia needs to pay more attention to the rights that exist amongst non-aboriginal people to fish in this country?

M. Griswold: I was trying to lead in that way. Yes, I most certainly was. Especially during the treaty process when the province, during negotiations, sees it coming off the rails through some sort of federal initiative, I would hope that they would be able to put it back on the rails as far as maintaining those rights of non-aboriginals.

H. Silver: I have little doubt that I will be able to be the briefest presenter that you have heard.

H. Silver: I hope that you will find my presentation to be useful and meaty and quite direct. First, congratulations and thank you to this provincial government for having the fortitude, the guts, to be going through with this public consultation and referendum process. I bring no advocacy positions to this presentation. I hope to give you what you invited me to give: suggestions for the questions that ought to be on a referendum.

I think the questions should focus on the principles to guide negotiators. These principles should be applicable to all the treaties being negotiated, and the principles must be unchanging for the full duration of the Liberal tenure in Victoria. There must be no hope that by holding out, things will get better.

The format of the referendum questions should be that of a statement of a principle, followed by the more or less standard opinion-sampling technique of five boxes to tick one of, varying from "I strongly agree with this principle" to "I strongly disagree with this principle." There's nothing wrong with 12 to 20 — quite a few, in other words — of these questions on the referendum.

I believe you need to engage a professional opinion-polling company toward these statements in such a way that there is no unintended bias. People tend to like to agree to positions. I think you will need ballot control to avoid the risk of ballot-box stuffing.

First, "I support the treaty-making process as necessary for fair treatment of natives and for the removal of uncertainty that is impairing development and economic progress." It's sort of a general opportunity to recognize that this referendum process is a good one. This treaty-making process is a necessary one to support.

Second, I go into native government issues: "I support the establishment of native-run governments on communally native-owned lands with broad jurisdiction — i.e., the Nisga'a model — throughout B.C." Keep in mind that these are not my opinions. These are statements that ought to be on the survey, issues and public opinions that I think the negotiators should know as they enter into the process.

"I support the establishment of native self-governments but only within the roles and jurisdiction of municipalities."

"I support the mandatory requirement that all the provisions of the Canadian body of law — federal and provincial, the constitution, the Bill of Rights and criminal law — apply to natives, to native self-government and to native-owned lands." Let's have one set of laws for this country.

"I support provisions that promote the integration of natives into Canadian society so that they can earn the standard of living and the respect they want."

Alternately, another statement: "I support the principle that natives are entitled forever to special status based on the present benefits plus whatever more can be negotiated."

Another position: "I support the extinguishment of special status for natives by a one-time buyout payment." Natives would then be Canadians just like all the rest of us.

Another question: "I support the principle that the treaties must be affordable." Now, this is easier said than defined. One approach would be to limit the annualized cost of a treaty to the same percentage of the annual B.C. government budget as the number of natives affected in the entire B.C. population. This could be a kind of progressive thing that you kept in mind as each treaty was negotiated. Provided you do, you'll find yourself at that objective in the end.

Lastly, "I support that each treaty must bring closure to all the issues raised during its negotiation."

J. Les (Chair): I don't think so, but thank you very much for your presentation.

J. Les (Chair): Probably, so far, which leads me to my next comments. At this point, we've exhausted all of the people who had previously registered to speak tonight. I have six people who have registered at the door this evening to speak. It is now quarter after eight. This meeting will end absolutely no later than quarter after nine. It was previously advertised to end at nine, but I realize we arrived a little late this evening. At quarter after nine this meeting will be over. At 9:30 we will be on the road heading back to Victoria, where we have to get back to tonight. I'm sure you'll understand why I'm not going to carry this on after quarter after nine. If we can't get to everybody, I apologize in advance, but that may just end up being the result. The first presenter, then, who registered this evening will be Rolf Kellerhals.

R. Kellerhals: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, committee members. Incidentally, I did register four days ago by e-mail and tried again two days ago. I still didn't get a reply. However, thank you for the opportunity to address your committee. I spent most of my life as a civil engineer working on many first nations projects among other things. I have spent two years working for Tom Berger on the Mackenzie Valley pipeline inquiry, so I've had a bit of exposure to first nations issues.

In my latest incarnation, I am a partner in one of the seven woodlot licences on Quadra Island. I strongly support the submissions made today on behalf of the concerned licensees by Alex Hartford and the previous submissions that have been made to you by the B.C. Federation of Woodlot Associations. My objective with the present submission is to address the broader topic of what type of agreements with first nations we should strive for and what the referendum question might be. The existence of ill-defined native rights and

grievances cannot be disputed; neither can the need to try and resolve these issues.

The Nisga'a treaty is one possible solution — at least, in the short term. From the point of view of the general non-native B.C. public, the main drawbacks of that solution are the length and complication of the treaty, the fact that it's almost cast in stone with impractical provisions for future change and the fact that it perpetuates the existence of different classes of people with different political rights. The local non-natives have additional problems with Crown tenders that were put on the table whether they liked it or not.

If the negotiating process with the first nations is to be changed, it's not changed drastically. We stand to end up with over 100 Nisga'a-like treaties sometime in the very far-off future. Each one will be somewhat different from the others, and almost all of them are assured to contain some hidden time bombs that will create worse problems than what we face now with having no treaties.

The alternative which I would like you to consider is to go for simpler, essentially commercial agreements through which the first nations might be given lands, rights, tenures, etc., in exchange for their ill-defined native rights, but all of this on a voluntary basis between willing parties. Similarly, the issues around self-government should be addressed through provisions in the Local Government Act. This does not preclude that the Local Government Act might be amended to develop new forms of local government more suited to first nations settlements, the key being that any such new forms of government would be available to non-native settlements too.

If this alternative approach proves to be unacceptable, one needs to consider seriously whether the fallback option of letting the courts settle issues surrounding aboriginal rights is not preferable to more Nisga'a treaties. I tend to believe that this is the case, even though the risks are just frightening.

In order to implement the above approach, I would like to suggest a referendum question along the following lines: do you agree that all outstanding treaty rights be settled through transfers of lands, rights and funds, funded on a commercial basis, between willing parties, and that all self-government issues be determined by reference to the Local Government Act?

J. Les (Chair): Thank you, Rolf. Are there any questions? I see none, so thank you again.

D. Berkshire: Thank you for this opportunity. I find myself having once again prepared something in rather a rush. My name is Dan Berkshire. I've been a member of the treaty advisory group NIRAC since 1995. Although I'm a spokesman for a number of groups and interests, I'm here tonight presenting my own thoughts and opinions and recommendation concerning the question or questions to be included in a referendum on the principles guiding British Columbia's future approach to treaty negotiations.

What I'm about to say is after long reflection and experience on where I have seen the process go to this point. Earlier tonight there was mention of a particular clause in the Sliammon proposed agreement in which, when there is a conflict between provincial and federal laws with those created under the self-government of the Sliammon, the Sliammon would prevail. At least, that is what we've been led to believe. That same direction is seen also in the Nisga'a treaty, and I greatly fear that we are setting the stage for future conflicts.

I believe the most important question is that which addresses the issue of the form of self-government to be included in the treaty negotiations. My question is: are we to be communities equal within one nation or communities divided into separate nations? The following is from my heart and is by way of explanation of where I come from in terms of my thinking.

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, I believe a community divided cannot long endure. As a species, we have been in nearly a steady state of conflict with each other, based upon a perception of race, creed, religion or culture. Witness September 11, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Palestine, and on and on back through the centuries. Until we break this cycle, we will never be truly free or prosper as the family of man.

With a background in geology, I perceive time differently than the average individual. I see history measured in terms of millions of years, not days, years or decades. With this perspective, I am acutely aware that this planet is ever-changing and fluid. This includes the very rocks we stand on and the atmosphere we breathe. What we take for granted as permanent is in fact a symphony of continuous change and evolution.

The appearance of man, measured by geological standards, is but a blink of an eye in the history of this planet. In the history of the species known as hominids only one, known as Homo sapiens, has prevailed to the present era. In that, we are all one — of one people, of one family.

The science of genetics tells us that we are all migrants and descendents from one community existing in Africa about 100,000 years ago. In the course of our migrations, we have waxed and waned across this planet, occupying nearly every environment and every land mass. Over time civilizations, like the cultures and religions they were based upon, have arisen and fallen like the waves upon an ocean shore.

Over the last 20,000 to 30,000 years there have been at least three and possibly four distinct waves of migration to North America. The term "since time immemorial" is therefore meaningless to me. Each migration affected, altered and modified the physical characteristics and, presumably, the cultures that predominated within each previous migration. In the end, we are all one. If we are to survive as a species in the long term, we are going to have to live together in recognition of this one indisputable fact.

I have not addressed specifics other than the question, and I've told you how I believe so that you can understand what my fear is in terms of future conflict that we may be setting the stage for.

B. Assu: Thank you for this opportunity. I want to talk about two items. It was mentioned just a few minutes ago about the affordability of treaties. Let's examine the one treaty that has happened so far: the Nisga'a treaty. It's common knowledge that the cash component of the Nisga'a treaty is $190 million, and it's also common knowledge that if you factor in the land and the resources, it's approximately $500 million. Those two numbers sound like an extremely expensive treaty. I beg to differ. Let us not forget that the committee sits here representing the provincial government, which by the way does not pay 100 percent of the cash component. The federal government is responsible for a larger proportion, but that is another story.

Let's break down those two amounts. The $190 million divided by the total population of Canada, some 30 million-plus — that's not very much. I believe it's $6 and change per capita. The $500 million divided by the 30 million-plus total population of Canada is $16.50. I want to draw everyone's attention that the cash component of the Nisga'a treaty is paid, I believe, over 15 years. The $16.50 per capita is a little over a dollar a year. The $190 million by 15 years — remember it's $6 and change — is some 42 cents. If someone wants to talk about the affordability, it's beads and trinkets.

The other item I want to mention, separately from British Columbia, happened just recently in Quebec. The Quebec government and Quebec Hydro have signed an agreement with the Cree of Quebec for $3.5 billion to be paid over 50 years. Some $70 million price tag over 50 years. Let's break that $70 million down again — like the Nisga'a deal — divided by the total population of Canada, 30 million. That's $2. An expensive deal? I think not.

We in aboriginal country all around Canada and the north are aware of what goes on out there. As to my friend, Mike Griswold, I don't want Mr. Griswold's licence or his vessel. I will leave that for him to decide what he chooses to do. I'm no longer in the fishing industry. I got out of it in 1980, because I saw problems. I don't ever wish to go back.

On a sadder note, in British Columbia, like many other provinces and territories, there are suicides happening not just to our youth but to adults. Last year my nephew committed suicide through no fault of his own but out of frustration — right here in beautiful Campbell River. I don't wish that on anybody. If we're going to deal realistically and rationally with this overall larger picture, we must also be cognizant of what happens at the grass-roots level.

Now, as to affordability, have a clear look at it and the numbers that I present. You don't need a calculator to figure it out. Thank you.

G. Payne: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for finding the time to hear me. One of the previous presenters said he was going to be the most brief, the shortest one. I'm going to compete with him.

I propose that one of the questions on the upcoming referendum be this: do you favour providing the native citizens of British Columbia with ownership title to as much as 5 percent of the province's territory? My rationale in proposing this is that the figure of 5 percent has consistently been used in government publications and advertising. It is justified on the grounds that British Columbia's native population constitutes approximately 4 percent of the province's total population.

The postulation that the percentage of land owned by natives should be based upon their percentage of the total population is seriously flawed. This is revealed in an undated publication of the B.C. Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs titled The Effect of Treaty Settlements on Crown Leases and Licenses, in which the statement is made that about 5 percent of land in B.C. is privately owned or land owned in fee simple and registered under the Land Title Act. If I correctly understand the intent of aboriginal claims negotiators, as above, the 4 percent of our citizens who are natives would receive title to almost the same amount of land as is presently held by all entities combined.

My second point that I would like to see on a referendum is: do you agree with the recommendation of the B.C. Treaty Commission that negotiations aimed at achieving treaties should be deferred in favour of negotiating interim measures agreements? The following statement appears in the 2001 annual report of the Treaty Commission: "Our expectations for comprehensive treaties were unrealistic." This, after nine years of very costly negotiations which have failed to bring about even one treaty. All that has resulted are contracts to fund a variety of native activities and some unknown number of agreements under which, pending a signing of the treaties, natives have a virtual veto over land development and resource exploitation. That's my presentation.

M. Cullen: Thanks for the opportunity to speak as well. I'll have to start by saying that I agree with Mr. Assu and that $500 million spread out over the people of Canada is not a lot to pay if it's spread over a lot of

years. I'm a commercial fisherman, and the reality for me is quite different. I'll explain to you a couple of details on that. Then I have a very quick question I'd like to pass out to you that I'd like to see on the referendum.

I'm a member of several boards in the management of the prawn fishery. I sit on the sectoral committee and have for quite a few years. We were just approached this year in Nanaimo, where we have our meetings, with some of the things that are on the Nuu-chah-nulth treaty. Some of the things being offered to them are four prawn-fishing licences that are being bought out of the commercial fleet. Well, that sounds good, but then we hear that the Nuu-chah-nulth are not interested in using those commercial prawn licences in the commercial fishery. They want to split them into various allotments of traps. Each licence, I should explain, has 300 traps now. They want to split them into 50-trap groups and put them on a large number of boats, 50 traps each, and fish during their own season. That's pretty scary to us.

Look at the way the Fraser has gone with the salmon. I'm also a salmon troller. The native bands there — the Musqueam — and up the river have food fish allocations, and they have pilot projects as well. The food fish allocation this year was ridiculously large. As a commercial salmon fisherman I only got to fish for five days, and I caught 500-and-some fish. Only one of the five days was in a place where there were any fish; the rest of it was a waste of time.

There's a big problem differentiating between food fish and pilot sales — i.e., commercial sales. I don't have any problem at all with Mr. Assu's suggestion that the people of Canada should put forward money, if that's what's necessary, to try to settle treaties and that everyone should pay equally. Then if the natives want fish, they take some of that money and buy licences and fish with the rest of us. If you set up exclusive fisheries, they become totally unmanageable. When you look at a salmon on the table, how do you differentiate between one that's caught as a food fish and one that's caught in a commercial fishery? You can't tell the difference.

What's going on up the Fraser River now is a dog's breakfast. An awful lot of fish went up this year, and they didn't let us, as trollers, fish to any amount, yet we passed native fishermen fishing off the river at night totally uncontrolled. Fisheries has no idea what's going on. They're out there in skiffs with half a net out, pulling fish into an open boat — no lights, no Fisheries people to be seen. They tell us it's controlled. They have no idea how many fish were caught this year. They don't want to know, and they don't want to touch them. I just think that if we're going to be fair about this whole thing, everybody should pay. The natives should buy into whatever they want, whatever resource industry it may be, and after that you're a Canadian.

The question that I'd like to see on the referendum is this: "Native bands/people enjoy exclusive access to fish stocks for food and ceremonial uses. Should native bands/people have priority access to fish stocks for economic purposes before all other duly licensed Canadians?" That's it.

J. Henderson: Good evening. I guess you've had a long day. I won't keep you too long. I have absolutely nothing written, but I'm here speaking on behalf of myself, a concerned citizen and a first nations person.

I sit on numerous boards, and I have done for about 22 years. I've seen the ups and downs, the good and the bad. I also donate a lot of my time in this community, where you walk side by side with a non-native person, working to benefit all who walk the streets. I see a lot of benefit in treaty, because the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

There were a few speakers tonight that basically tore business apart, and I don't think that belongs at this table — comparing one business over another business; on reserve or fee simple properties; pay taxes or don't pay taxes. I think that belongs at another table because it pits one against the other, one business against another. I think it was wrong to hear that today. I want to say that and be truthful about it because this was not the place for that. I'll have you know that one of the largest contributors to taxation in this town is Discovery Harbour shopping centre. I know that. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to prove it.

I've been involved with business throughout my life in native communities from the North Island to the interior to Ottawa. I've seen what government has done to first nations people. They've pitted us against one another. We hear the concerned fishermen coming forward. I am a fisherman too. What do we, as first nations people, do when the laws of this country divide and conquer native and non-native alike? Where do we go? You have licence schemes developed by the government of Canada that separate first nations people. One has a benefit, and the other doesn't. How do we address that in treaty if we're all going to be assimilated into the non-native world?

Yes, we want to hold some rights and, I think, deservedly so. Those rights should stay with us in all aspects — culturally. It's what our history is. You can't take that away from us. You already did that once. Don't do it again.

You talk about this, and I came here tonight to listen. I wasn't going to say anything, but it's hard not to say anything when you sit here and basically get blamed for the problems of today's world. That's not true, especially in this day and age. We've got a war of lumber markets, we've got a war of fish, and then we've got the September 11 war. First nations are caught right in the middle of it right now with a referendum.

What's the benefit of sitting here and talking to you? There probably isn't going to be a benefit because we are a minority, not a majority. We talk about only taking up 4 to 5 percent of the land, if we need it, at the

end of treaty. I've read a lot of the documentation. I've sat there, and I've read through it all. After treaty it's only about 4 to 5 percent of the total land base.

What good is a licence if there's no fish to catch anyway? We can negotiate for licences to fish alongside our counterparts in the non-native community and not have any opportunity because of mismanagement by government, whether it's provincially or federally. I'm not here to spread lies; I'm here to tell you the truth, because that is the truth. I've seen it this year. Thousands upon thousands of fish go by — no opportunity for the fishermen.

Bill Assu talked about suicide. It's right before our eyes every day. People are trying to commit suicide. Why? No opportunity. My own nephew is doing videos in school to show the hurt on first nations people — 14- and 15-year-old boys doing videos about the treatment they're receiving in the school system today: the abuse, being called names. I cried watching that video because if he's thinking that and did a video, obviously there's something wrong with the system today.

It's change we want. How do we get that change? We surely can't get it with a referendum. We can have it with an open, honest treaty where we can deliberate with one another, government to government. That's how we resolve things. We can't get it talking to the rest of the world about treaties, because we'll be right back to the Indian Act, where we are today. That's as real as I'm sitting in this room.

I'm on my second meeting in the last few nights, talking about changing first nations abilities to survive in this country — Indian Act changes. It's not nice to have something develop which, in the end result, we've got to accept regardless of what we say. If we say no, it's still going to be implemented. Those are facts. It's like a treaty. Our wishes, our demands will never be implemented. There'll be resolutions that deal with those platforms that we can all basically understand, but really first nations people will not see the resolution they want — that is, the level of opportunity that everybody else in the country has.

If you understand how difficult it is for first nations to participate economically in this world today on reserve land…. You can't take your land and go to the bank with it. You can't do it. If people think that we have the opportunity to do that in business, I beg to differ. I've had the experience. I've gone out and negotiated on behalf of first nations people where it's cost millions and millions of dollars in legal costs because of policies that are struck by the government — Indian Act policy, doing business on reserve. That's the cost. We bear that cost as people.

I just hope that what I've said helps and makes you realize who we are as people. We are part of the community; I'm part of this community. I'm part of Campbell River's community in a big way. I donate my time anytime I have an opportunity to any sector of the community. Whether it's cancer societies or cystic fibrosis societies, first nations people participate and try to become part of this community. It's always been difficult. But we're here to stay; we're not going away. We're here to try and make a better community for all of us, a better world for all of us, and open the doors for the economic wealth that's out there.

All we want to do is be able to create opportunities for our students who are coming out of schools. We can get all the education we want, but the village is only so big. Where are we going to put them to work? It's a tough world out there.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity and hearing me out. I know it was difficult to get on the list here tonight. I'm sorry I've kept you a little longer than you wanted to be.

J. Les (Chair): Thank you very much, John, for coming forward. Let me say this. You wondered earlier whether there would be any point in you having anything to say and whether it would make a difference. Let me assure you that although sometimes we find it difficult to listen to one another, as you have this evening, it is still very, very valuable for us all to listen to one another. I think that is one constant that we've experienced throughout the province. Not often enough do people get together in forums like these and discuss honestly and openly and with candour the issues that are before us. I want to commend you for coming forward and assure you that indeed what you have to say is important.

I have two perhaps more technical questions. You mentioned first off that perhaps the question of taxation belongs at another table. I don't know whether you meant not at the treaty table or whether perhaps questions like those belong at a table other than each of the individual treaty tables. Secondly, you said you can't take your land to the bank and put a mortgage on it. Does that indicate to me that you would be interested in a system where you were better able to economically integrate your land into the economic system around you?

J. Henderson: If you understand the rules and regulations with the new Indian Affairs policies that are coming down, there is a new land act that first nations are accessing. First nations can control their destiny by having their own abilities to deal with the lands, whether it's leasing lands or developing business on those lands. That's something that's going to be provided for economic opportunity for first nations people to better themselves in the future. It gives us a little more control over our lives rather than having the government of Canada do the very costly business for us.

On your question of taxation, the reason I addressed that is because you've got one business community attacking another business community on taxes, not knowing the business at hand and how difficult it was to get that business off the ground. That's why I brought that issue forward. We do pay tax and in a big way in this community. I just want to be clear on that. I don't think it was meant to be, but it seemed

like it was a personal attack on the Discovery Harbour shopping centre, where I was one of the managers in that area to get that development off the ground. I just wanted to clear that up. Thank you.

J. Les (Chair): Okay. Any other questions of John? Again, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

That concludes the hearing for this evening. Wouldn't you know — it's about as close to 9 o'clock as you can get. I appreciate your assistance in keeping us on schedule this evening. We've heard quite a number of very thoughtful presentations here in Campbell River. It'll be the committee's job now to hopefully distil all of that into some recommendations to the Legislature, in which you will see your thoughts reflected. Thanks again and good night.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS