Crown-Indigenous relations minister, Marc Miller, has been touring First Nation communities in Northern Ontario this week.
He told Sudbury.com on Jan. 17 the tour was a chance to hear first hand the challenges and achievements of each community he visited, including making stops in Wahnapitae First Nation and M’Chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island to meet United Chiefs and Council of Mnidoo Mnising.
Miller said that while there are always unique issues in Northern Ontario, the challenges aren’t dissimilar to threats facing all the First Nations and communities in Canada, such as cost of living inflation, mental health and addictions crises as well as the housing and infrastructure gaps that exist across Canada.
“If you compare a non-Indigenous community to an Indigenous community, the gaps are clear,” he said. “Chief and council community members often want to talk about housing, infrastructure, and work that needs to be done by the federal government.”
Miller added that while work to this end has been completed, it will take time.
“It needs to continue through the next few budgetary cycles,” he said. “Any government that wants to lead this country needs to make sure that we're living up to our obligations to Indigenous communities.”
He said those communities also want to talk about historical grievances and renewal of the treaty relationship “that Canada was built on.”
Miller said, as a country, Canada has not respected the treaties.
“There are negotiations ongoing to solve those claims that I'm a part of, and that's something that is often top of mind, because they do come with a financial component that is significant, an unpaid bill. The federal government has contributed to the lack of economic development in communities,” he said, but he hopes that visits to communities to talk and tour will make the treaty relatives on both sides flourish.
Part of that is a question made of two words: Land Back.
“The land hasn’t gone anywhere, said Miller, “It's just controlled by people that probably shouldn't have had it in the first place.”
He said that in reality, the land has been “controlled and manipulated”, and exploited by “relationships of power that the federal government and provincial government leadership of the day wielded on Indigenous peoples.”
One way that land will be given back, said Miller, is through federal addition to reserve frameworks. An addition to a reserve is a parcel of land added to the existing reserve land of a First Nation or that creates a new reserve. Land can be added adjacent to the existing reserve land (contiguous) or separated from the existing reserve land (non-contiguous).
Because of the complexities of the framework, the work does take a great deal of time, he said.
“Obviously, it’s very slow and broken process, and it probably is one of the worst ways to get land back, and yet is one of the few ways that we have a recognizable policy perspective,”
Miller said, noting that he and Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hadju are currently tasked with the reform of legislation, allowing the federal government to move forward to support Indigenous communities.
“It's quite honestly not as fast as I would like it, or anyone else would like, but it's something that needs to move,” he said. “It's about who controls the land, and governments are notably bad at ceding control.
Miller told Sudbury.com that “when it comes to the compensation and improper payment of treaty obligations that have gone unfulfilled in this area of the country since 1850, that's about the federal government finally paying some long overdue bills.”
He said additionally, it’s important to work with communities to support self-determination.
“It’s an issue of respect and relationship,” said Miller. “We have to work with Indigenous communities to make sure governance structures are supported in Indigenous communities, and that they have all the necessary tools, which is the environment that surrounds them. And so the courts have moved quite aggressively in Canada in the last few years, we're catching up to them, making sure that when we talk about issues that are so intimate and intricate to people, like land, and identity, that we're at the table listening, and that we are moving, not only to reform our policies, but to move in a more respectful way that steps away from that relationship of power, and often abuse that has existed.
Miller said that treaty relationships should go far beyond financial obligations.
“It’s about how we govern ourselves and our relationship between and among Indigenous communities and the federal government and the provincial government.”
Those obligations include acknowledging the continued trauma caused by residential schools, as well as supporting the future of First Nations, particularly with economic development support.
“We know the federal government hasn't been the best partner in terms of getting documents into the hands of survivors,” said Miller. This has changed of late, he said, as the now fully funded National Center for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg, an organization independent of government.
It will ensure that survivors don’t have to “face” the federal government, said Miller, making it an easier proposition for those who are looking for information or closure.
“It's a group of people that they (survivors) can trust to get some answers as to their experience, and any type of information can provide an element of closure,” he said. But there are challenges in the release of documents as well; namely, the sheer volume of them.
“We released thousands and thousands of documents that we shouldn't have been holding on to, but there is still archival work that needs to be done,” said Miller. He notes a challenge to that, however, also comes down to time. “To have all this information in one central location, in a user friendly format, where survivors don't have to go through a whole process, taking forever to get even a small piece of information, will take time, but things are progressing,” he said.
He said that survivors are entitled to closure, and the government has to keep working to make sure that information is not held back unduly.
That, and those documents may open avenues of compensation for survivors.
“There are things that are moving, but it's still very much an incomplete puzzle in terms of making sure that we're compensating people properly for the harm they've suffered at the hands of the federal government.”
Miller said that another conversation he’s been having with First Nations and Indigenous communities centres on the future, “whether it's wind farms, sustainability projects, or simply closing that capital gap that exists between Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous communities.”
Closing “gaps” also extends to what Miller refers to as key drivers of “under-development.”
“Whether that's an education gap, whether that's an infrastructure gap, a gap that should never have been there in the first – particularly making sure communities have clean water – the entirety of cabinet needs to focus on fulfilling that obligation or fiduciary obligation to serving Indigenous peoples.”
He said these endeavours will also require the partnership of individuals as well as private capital, and also, provincial governments.
But Miller said that anyone who is watching what is going on in Indigenous communities now is excited for the future. “There are exciting developments and some really exciting projects around the country.”
Miller will continue his tour in Sudbury today before flying to Vancouver on Wednesday.
Jenny Lamothe is a reporter with Sudbury.com. She covers the diverse communities of Sudbury, especially the vulnerable or marginalized, including the Black, Indigenous, newcomer and Francophone communities, as well as 2SLGBTQ+ and issues of the downtown core.
