Senator Francis: It’s nice to see you all. This is for Mr. Obed. One of my deepest concerns with Bill C-5 is that it would grant cabinet — for a period of at least five years — sweeping authority to fast-track projects deemed to be in the national interest based on a broad and non-binding list of criteria. Among those criteria are the interests of Indigenous peoples, but the legislation makes clear that these are discretionary, not mandatory. This creates a framework in which Indigenous rights could be treated as optional or subordinated entirely, particularly if a government invokes a sole call compelling its substantial public purpose, such as economic development, as a jurisdiction.

Are you concerned that this bill risks giving both current and future governments the legal latitude to approve major projects without meaningfully upholding the duty to consult, accommodate or obtain consent from Indigenous nations?

Mr. Obed: Perhaps I’ll start. Thanks for the question.

I was in this building, in committee, a number of times on Bill S-13, which was a bill that passed in the last government, in relation to the Interpretation Act. It was the insertion of a universal non-derogation clause. We don’t see a non-derogation clause within this legislation based on, I believe, that good work, so I would hope the government would not imagine that it can ignore and infringe upon our constitutional rights based upon a piece of legislation. If that is its intent, there will be incredible opposition in all forms from those affected.

The challenge we as Inuit are finding with this bill is that we want to support it — we are in agreement on the objectives; we want to stand with all Canadians and build our economy, to build one economy, and build major nation-building infrastructure projects — but the words that are meant to be inclusive of Inuit or of Indigenous peoples, broadly, seem like they have just been thrown around as if they don’t have meaning. The problem is that they have incredibly deep meaning within the fabric of the Constitution, the Supreme Court and the legislative status of these terms in Canada.

I think that’s where we’re running afoul of our shared intent.

Senator Francis: Thank you. National Chief, would you care to respond?

Ms. Woodhouse Nepinak: Thank you for the question.

I say that First Nations need more time. We need time to meet and to go through this legally, properly, ethically and politically. We need time to have a conversation among us, and we haven’t had that time. Our leadership will be meeting September 3, 4 and 5. We were to meet in the midst of July, but because of the forest fires, we had to make sure we weren’t taking up hotel rooms. Our leadership stepped up and proposed moving that to September.

Thankfully, we think of each other. In this moment, I ask you all to think of many of those people who haven’t had time. This is going to affect their rights. We need to give them the summer. Many of our chiefs are fighting wildfires. We ask for time.

We’re not asking for a lot, I don’t think. We have been down this road before. If we give ourselves time to talk to each other, debate, discuss and talk about amendments or whatever people decide — maybe some people don’t like this bill altogether. We haven’t even had that conversation. Let’s respect each other. Thank you.

Mr. Chartrand: I come from a different perspective on this. As I said, my government has had a lot of discussion on this around the table. We are talking toward the future. People should come to the realization, as Indigenous governments or a Métis government, that we don’t just sit and talk about our issues, about what we need or what is going to make things better for us; we look at the country and the province, and we ask ourselves where this country stands. Where is it at?

This country is already facing some financial crises right now, as we speak, without Donald Trump getting involved. That we know. This country is in deficit and is trying to fight its way out of it, but it will potentially find itself in a greater financial challenge in the very near future if things don’t change.

So we have asked ourselves the question around cabinet: How do we do our part? I agree 100% with the concerns you hear from the National Chief Woodhouse Nepinak and from President Obed about the trust that is being asked of us to be saying to give up some potential aspects of the methodology of how we have learned or gotten so far in this country when it comes to consultations, partnerships and the inclusion of Indigenous people.

You look at procurement. It was announced over 20 years ago in this country. Procurement is finally making some headway in the last, probably, five years. It’s changing the economy at scale for our people and giving us opportunities to get jobs, create companies and form opportunities of competition. But now we’re looking at a situation where time may not be there. That’s what our cabinet is talking about: Is time an issue of concern that should be a concern of all? Our position is “yes.”

When World War I and World War II happened, they came out of the blue, very quickly. All of a sudden, we had to amass our people. They came into our villages and communities to ask us to volunteer in great numbers, which we did. We fought for the country we believed in. Now, we’re in a state in our history where we are under threat. We can’t take the rhetoric from this madman from the south lightly. His actions are crumbling his own economy; you can see it happening. It’s going to get worse instead of better. He is going to have to blame somebody, and he will sure as hell blame us, his neighbour. He blamed us for fentanyl, and we are 1% of the fentanyl trade going through.

When you start looking at time, we are saying to ourselves that we need to have trust again. You heard the question from the Yukon senator, stating it doesn’t take rocket science for them to put a proper consultation process in place, written in form, so that we, the private sector and the government understand. That should be easily done. Establishing this First Nation, Métis, Inuit advisory body could be done overnight by sitting down with the leaders and coming to terms as to how that would work, what authority it would have and whether it would be applied for just giving advice, or is it going to have authority and powers?

It can be done, and more has to be done for sure in the context of government coming in for more clarity; that’s for sure. From our side, we’re watching carefully. I’m worried about the economy in this country because if that economy is not working well, I know damn well my people will suffer. I know damn well they will cut programs that we took decades to get to. We took decades to get housing. It’s the first time we have had housing in probably 40 or 50 years. We just got it about seven years ago. Now, it will be gone?

We finally got money for education for our kids — $5,000 for a bursary for universities. Will that be gone now? We just started to invest in the future of our people. It will be all at risk by what is happening right now.

Time is of the essence, yes, but trust is everything, so if they want us to be giving our full support, give us something more clearly in place that can be done by the stroke of the pen of the Prime Minister. That can be done quite quickly. So let’s get that done. But time is not on our side, I’ll tell you that.