Conference Report

Treaty No. 6 Territory Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Teachers Credit Union Place March 26-27, 2008

Introduction

“As Long as the Sun Shines” was a first-of-its-kind national event consisting of a national Treaty Elders Gathering and a national Treaty Implementation Conference. The event was held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in the Traditional Territory of the Treaty Six First Nations in March 2008. The National Treaty Elders Gathering was held from March 24-25, 2008 at Wanuskewin Heritage Park and was hosted by the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Center. The Treaty Implementation Conference took place from March 26-27, 2008 and was jointly organized by the Assembly of First Nations and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. This event brought together Elders, First Nations’ Chiefs and political leaders from across the country, federal representatives and various speakers with expertise on Treaties and Treaty implementation issues. The conference delegates discussed Crown-First Nations Treaty implementation issues in all regions of Canada from pre-Confederation Treaties of peace and friendship to the diverse Treaties entered into between the Crown and First Nations from 1867 to the present day. The purpose of the conference was to provide a national forum to share perspectives on options for advancing Treaty implementation in all parts of the country. The conference objective was to start a process for developing a joint First Nations-Crown action plan to address Treaty implementation issues. This conference was borne of the work under the First Nations~Federal Crown Political Accord of May 31, 2005 and a commitment made as part of the specific claims reform process in November 2007 between the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. This conference

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was developed as a first step and delivered in partnership between the Assembly of First Nations and Indian Affairs and Northern Development with assistance from the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.

Conference Highlights

The Conference was co-chaired by Perry Bellegarde, councilor from Little Black Bear First Nation (Treaty 4 territory) and Michèle Audette. The Co-Chairs welcomed and thanked the Elders, Chiefs, federal representatives and all the delegates. Co-Chair Bellegarde acknowledged the prayers and ceremonies of the Elder. He reviewed the agenda and encouraged the participants to share their perspectives and ideas about Treaty implementation. Elder Harry Blackbird of Makwa Sahgaiehcan First Nation was asked to provide an opening prayer. In the plenary sessions and discussions in small group sessions, First Nations leaders and representatives of the Crown had an opportunity to engage with one another. They shared their knowledge and understanding of Crown-First Nations Treaties, fundamental aspects of the Treaty relationship and their views on what is needed to ensure Treaty implementation. Throughout this historic event, revered Treaty Elders from Treaty regions across Canada met with each other and with the conference participants. They provided guidance to the participants, conducted prayers and ceremonies at the beginning and end of each day, and throughout the conference shared many teachings and knowledge about Treaties, the Treaty relationship and Treaty implementation. Treaty Elders identified many understandings that they hold in common about the nature of Treaties, the significance of the Treaty-making process and the spirit and intent of core Treaty commitments jointly made between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. Treaty Elders explained the spiritual, cultural and legal significance of the Treaty protocols and ceremonies in which the Treaty parties engaged. These protocols and ceremonies in each Treaty territory formed an integral part of the Treaty-making process and were necessary to the validity of the Treaties. Tribal Chief Joe Quewezance of the Saskatoon Tribal Council expressed his thanks to the Elders for the ceremonies and prayers they had conducted during this event and welcomed all of the participants to a place that has long been an historic gathering place for First Nations tribes for thousands of years. Chief Quewezance expressed his belief that the event would undoubtedly be recognized as an historic gathering. He reminded the delegates that they had been charged with finding common understandings and moving forward with a contemporary implementation framework for our Treaties. Discussions would no doubt be complex and intense but the delegates must never forget that the people they represent at the grassroots are often the

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knowledgeable people who have kept the history of our Treaties. The Elders who are still with us, he said, are unfortunately a valued resource that is fast diminishing. Chief Quewezance encouraged the delegates to use the Elders’ understanding of the Treaties that were left to them to carry forward from generation to generation. Chief Lawrence Joseph of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations thanked the Elders for their prayers and the Chiefs for being resilient, strong and determined to keep the Treaty promises alive and well. He said that the old people and the young people who had come to the conference came with hope and with great expectations. He said “You come here hoping that there will be no more grandstanding, no more dialogue - let’s get on with drafting an agenda that will implement Treaty.” He called on the conference to produce an action plan and encouraged the participants to examine the work of the FSIN in developing “Ten Treaty Implementation Principles”. He stressed that in this work, the Treaties themselves are not negotiable. Chief Joseph spoke very highly of the work of the Chiefs and the federal representatives involved in developing the proposed specific claims resolution legislation, and of the support of the Prime Minister for that work. He suggested that that process be looked at in developing a vehicle to go forward with the task of implementing Treaty promises. “We have waited too long. We want to get moving. We have been studied to death and every study that has been made about us has articulated and substantiated that we are getting a raw deal. We are getting a raw deal from the Treaty promises that were made. …. I am pleased that the Minister of Indian Affairs is here to actually listen to us. And I really respect the fact that he made time to come and sit with us and hopefully will take home to his colleagues in government that we need to do something and that the way to do it is to sit together based on mutual respect, mutual understandings and to acknowledge and respect the prayers of the Elders, the nations and the leaderships for equal opportunities for social and economic development.” Chief Lawrence Joseph National Chief Phil Fontaine of the Assembly of First Nations said that Treaties are a matter close to the hearts of First Nations and are central to their identity as the First peoples of this land; and they matter in 2008 because Treaties go to the heart of our nation-to-nation relationship. Treaties confirm the fact that the First peoples are nations and always have been nations. The National Chief said that Treaties are a legal reality, are enshrined in s. 35 of Canada’s Constitution and their relevance has been continually upheld by the highest court of the land. He stated that Treaties are a political reality, they are the founding documents of this nation and that without treaties, there would be no country called Canada. Treaties are the basis of First Nations’ relationship with Canada and they provide the means to renew and guide that relationship. He advised resisting calling our Treaties ‘historic treaties’ because they

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are not historic, but rather living documents, shared agreements and sacred promises to one another. National Chief Fontaine restated the call of First Nations for Canada to endorse and honour the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He said recent events in northern Ontario demonstrate the relevance of understanding Treaties and the Treaty relationship. He explained that Chief Donny Morris and several other members of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (a signatory to Treaty No. 9) were sentenced to 6 months in jail for trying to prevent a mining exploration company from drilling in their Traditional territory. National Chief Fontaine expressed support on behalf of all First Nations for the struggle of the KI leadership and its people. He said that, during the conference, First Nations have an opportunity to participate and engage with their Treaty partner on important matters such as the words of the Treaty, the spirit and intent, roles and responsibilities and the mutual benefit of treaty. “Treaties should be for all peoples. Our Treaties were not designed to ensure that one party dominates the other. The Treaties were not designed and negotiated to have one party impose its will on the other party. The treaties were not negotiated nor designed to have one party deprive the other of its rights and interests. Our Treaties were not negotiated and designed to have one party impoverish the other party to these sacred agreements.” National Chief Phil Fontaine The Honourable Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian Affairs and Nothern Development, spoke about the important role of Treaty relationships, their role in shaping Canada’s history and the ongoing importance of Treaties to our shared future. Minister Strahl spoke of his conviction that working together in partnership is the only way real progress will be achieved and said his presence at this conference was an indication of his commitment to work collaboratively. He emphasized the importance of Treaty implementation as the means of achieving the mutual goal of a better quality of life for First Nations in Canada. He said the Treaties are the highest expression of a respectful relationship between the Crown and First Nations — a living, breathing relationship that compels us all to work together to find common solutions and to make real headway on real challenges. He said that in addition to the jointly developed legislation to address specific claims resolution, the conference responds to the commitment in the Political Agreement to explore and examine Treaty matters. It also draws on, and seeks to further, our shared investments in things like Treaty discussion tables and the work of the Manitoba and Saskatchewan Treaty Commissions.

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“All Treaties reinforce the important role First Nations play in the Canadian confederation. And they consolidate the ongoing political and economic relationship between the Crown and First Nations. As such they not only anchor this longstanding relationship, they are also an ongoing building block of the Canadian federation. One of the great achievements of the Constitution Act, 1982 is section 35 — the recognition and affirmation of Aboriginal and Treaty rights. The courts have interpreted the role of Treaties as instruments of reconciliation between First Nations and the Crown. This acknowledges that they are not a one-time legal or contractual statement of that relationship. Implementation of the Treaty relationship must be based on the original understandings of the Treaty signatories, including the First Nations' understanding of the spirit and intent.” The Honourable Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Michel Roy, Assistant Deputy Minister of Claims and Indian Government, said the conference is a building block towards achieving greater mutual understanding and appreciation of historic Treaties and historic Treaty relationships. He suggested that Treaties are central to understanding the relationship between Treaty First Nations people and the Crown. They play a primary role in Canada’s nation-building and are part of the bedrock of the Canadian federation. Reconciliation and Treaty renewal based on a shared tradition of federalism can achieve greater First Nations autonomy through negotiation of self-government arrangements. He suggested Canada and First Nations need to build on the success of the specific claims process and continue to work together to raise public awareness of the importance of historic Treaties and their role in the Canadian federation. Commissioner Bill McKnight of the Saskatchewan Office of the Treaty Commissioner identified the compilation of oral histories from Saskatchewan First Nation Elders and a very well received public education campaign among the past successes of the OTC. However, he said the number of successes in respect of Treaty implementation falls very short of the original belief of both Treaty parties and the lack of implementation was an injustice to all people in Canada. He also believes that the likelihood of fundamental success in the near term is remote. He identified the continuing existence of the Indian Act as a major impediment to progress. Nevertheless, he said, we can’t let challenges get in the way of continuing to work towards true Treaty implementation. Commissioner Dennis Whitebird, of the Treaty Relations Commission of Manitoba described the mandate, the accountability structure and the work of the Commission. Past work has included the compilation of oral histories and public information campaigns. He described an ongoing research program with priorities determined in consultation with First Nations. He said there were ongoing discussions about holding a Treaty Day at the Legislature. Commissioner Whitebird spoke to the concept of

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reconciliation that is part of the s. 35 case law and mentioned that the concept of reconciliation was known to First Nations long before Europeans came. He spoke hopefully of the prospects of reconciliation. Chief Ovide Mercredi said that while the Treaties addressed matters relating to livelihood, they are about much more than livelihood. He said when the Treaties were made, our ancestors guaranteed for us for all time our own society and that the way in which we live as a people will never be abandoned and it will never be destroyed by the government. He said when our people made the Treaty they never surrendered our title. They never gave up our land and our resources and that is why, even today, when people come to our land looking for our resources, we will stand in their way. He spoke about the conflict between Platinex and Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug and asked: where was the federal government in its role as Crown? He then urged the conference to call on the Parliament of Canada to pass a resolution to free the political prisoners - the Chief, council members and community members of KI - who recently had been sentenced to a six month jail term. Michael Coyle, University of Western Ontario law professor spoke to several significant recent developments and events in Ontario, from the Report of the Ipperwash Inquiry that looked into the death of Dudley George to the conflict between Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug and Platinex. As several other speakers, he stressed that the Treaties were made between peoples and were fundamentally about peaceful co-existence. He noted that while it is clear the Treaties were always intended to be renewed, the written versions do not say what should happen if one party damaged the environment or threatened the economic well-being of the other party. He noted that typically provincial laws fail to mention Treaties and he suggested that there was a need to review all provincial laws for their compliance with Treaties and Crown duties to consult (like the review process that took place before the Charter came into effect). Chief Lawrence Joseph and Howard McMaster described the work of the FSIN and the Treaty Elders who have produced a publication called the Treaty Elders of Saskatchewan and a booklet that summarized the FSIN Treaty Implementation Principles, which were symbolized by a tree. In this work, ten principles have been articulated to guide Treaty implementation arising from the Treaty-making process and the history of First Nations over three periods. This work states a vision: “…that we will live on the land, as we have always, where our Peoples will be self-determining and economically independent, where will walk in health and happiness with strength, unity, balance and according to our oral traditions as sovereign Nations, as bestowed by the Creator and as affirmed by the Treaty.” Chief Allan Claxton of the Tsawout First Nation spoke about one of fourteen Pre-Confederation Douglas Treaties entered between the Crown and First Nations on Vancouver Island in 1852. He described the great importance traditional hunting and fishing activities continued to hold in his family and community. Chief Claxton told the

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conference that at the direction of the Elders, and based on their knowledge, the leadership has taken action on Treaty implementation. The Tsawout First Nation has filed a legal action for Douglas Treaty implementation. The First Nation is asserting a commercial right to the fishery for the present and what has been lost since the signing of the Treaty. The community is also undertaking a number of development initiatives including assuming authority over various tax measures. Sharon Venne, lawyer and activist, spoke about various matters touching on international law and Treaties. She explained how international law, past and present, supports the international status of Treaties including a UN Treaty study and provides guidance on Treaty implementation. She outlined several options for urging Canada to properly implement Treaties as a matter of international law. She suggested First Nations could press for the establishment of a UN Centre on Treaties to monitor implementation. Ms. Venne emphasized that Treaty implementation cannot be treated as a policy decision, because Treaty implementation is an international legal obligation of the State of Canada. Dan Bellegarde, President, Treaty 4 Governance described the work of the Treaty 4 Governance Institute relating to Treaty Implementation. He emphasized the importance of focusing Treaty implementation activities at the local level with support from regional, provincial and national organizations. He described the Treaty 4 Proclamation and Convention, which talks about the Inherent and Treaty rights of First Nations in Treaty 4 Territory and sets the groundwork for the development of a Treaty 4 government. He said the first Indian Act, adopted after Treaty 4, was a breach of Treaty because it breached the recognition of the inherent right to self-government. Mr. Bellegarde stated: “First Nations believed that we would live as we chose according to our customs and traditions, without interference and with recognition of our right to govern ourselves. This is an important understanding from our perspective of the Treaty-making process, different from the written understanding, of course, by our Treaty partners, the Crown.” Jim Sinclair, Treaty 4 spoke of his experiences in constitutional reform discussions that taught him the importance of First Nations unilaterally asserting their rights and challenging Canada rather than simply talking about rights. He stressed the importance of First Nations developing and adopting their own laws, and not accepting the imposition of laws from the outside. He described how this approach has been used to assist Treaty 4 First Nations people charged with offences under Canadian law relating to the exercise of their Treaty rights, and how he relied on laws passed by the Treaty 4 Chiefs Council to do so. Chief Irvin Starblanket, Treaty 4 described the importance of the work of Treaty 4 Governance Institute and the value of having a physical office devoted to Treaty rights protection and implementation. He described the aspirations of Treaty 4 to assert their Treaty rights to share in resource development in their traditional territory. He

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spoke of the sacredness of Treaty, the Treaty guarantee of livelihood and the issue of mutual benefit to both First Nations and non-indigenous people. Regional Chief Rick Simon explained the history of court battles in the Atlantic, following the enactment of s. 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 to prove the existence, validity and continuing relevance of the Pre-Confederation Treaties between the Crown and the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy nations in what are now the Atlantic provinces. Despite significant wins at the Supreme Court of Canada in Treaty cases such as the Simon and Marshall cases, today there is not one commercial fishery operating in the Atlantic under Treaty. The federal response involved mechanisms to provide entry into the commercial fishery but not as a Treaty implementation measures. Regional Chief Simon stressed the challenge for First Nations of responding to federal negotiators who have the same mandate and playbook for negotiating with First Nations. He concluded that there is a need for a consistent Treaty policy on the First Nations side. John Paul, Executive Director of the Atlantic Policy Congress (APC) spoke of a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision, Sappier and Gray, in New Brunswick, which acknowledged the First Nations’ right to access the forest resources. He said natural resources are inherently tied to the identity of Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy peoples and their rights. Mr. Paul noted variable approaches have been taken to Treaty issues by provincial governments and this influenced the processes that First Nations had been able to engage in to deal with Treaty implementation. He described the range of negotiating processes, bilateral and trilateral, taking place in each Atlantic province. He explained how the APC had established a regional Treaty Committee that started by focusing on litigation but now is primarily concerned with the various negotiation tables. This Treaty Committee acts as a way for First Nations to share information and communicate best practices. He noted there are diverse perspectives within the APC as a group of 30,000 people and there are different concepts nation-wide as to what needs to be done in terms of Treaty and Treaty implementation. In the end, he said, implementation comes down to things that are going to last such as fishing licenses, jobs and other measures that will assure the moderate income guaranteed by Treaty. Chief Fred Sangris (Akaitcho Dene) described his selection and his subsequent training by Elders as a traditional leader. This training included learning about Dene values and laws, the history of Treaty 8 and the Treaty relationship between the Akaitcho Dene and the Crown. As the Treaty continues, the Dene continue to live with their traditional laws and Chief Sangris was taught that the Treaties are about sovereignty. He said that they were not about giving up anything; rather the Treaties are about people coming to our land, to coexist and to live side by side. Chief Sangris said the Elders instructed him that the Treaties are for the future generations to continue the peace and friendship and good cooperation. The Treaties were not to permit our people to be crushed or pushed aside or gotten rid of in their own homeland. The Akaitcho oppose any form of extinguishment policy and therefore have no intention of

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pursuing a comprehensive claim. The Akaitcho group has started a framework agreement and is seeking recognition of their sovereignty as a necessary aspect of Treaty implementation. Ron Lameman of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations began by saying that what our forefathers were thinking about at the time of the Treaty was that the implementation of Treaty would be here as long as the sun shines. He said the question must be asked: whose version of the Treaties are we going to implement? The version of our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers who came with a vision of ensuring a prosperous and healthy future for all generations, whereby each party through Treaty would live side by side, benefiting equally from the bounty of Our Mother Earth or the one-sided version of the Crown that is intent on eliminating the ‘Indian problem’ by turning our nations into municipalities with taxpayers. He said First Nations feel that the original spirit of the Treaties now only lives in our hearts and has been conveniently forgotten and set aside by the other party to the sacred Treaty relationship. Mr. Lameman suggested a course to resolving the issue of conflicting interpretations was for the Crown party to take a more serious look at the sacred Treaty relationship and the benevolence of our ancestors. Jerry Saddleback then made a presentation in the Cree language on the work that the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations is undertaking with Elders to document their oral histories, the creation story and traditional laws and values. Chief Roland Wilson, West Moberly First Nation –spoke of the Treaty 8 Traditional territories in North-Eastern BC, located in the heart of the largest economic resource extraction boom in Canada out side of the Alberta Tar Sands Development. He presented on the efforts of Treaty #8 First Nations over the past seven years to engage at every level of negotiations for the protection of Treaty Rights under Treaty # 8 including negotiating Impact Benefit Agreements. He used interactive satellite imagery to highlight concerns of First Nations in the Treaty-8 Territory of British Columbia when their traditional territories are faced with massive resource development challenges from Forestry, Oil and Gas, Mining, large scale hydro electric facilities, pipelines and wind-farms. Chief Willson expressed his concern about the current and future industrial plans for the local ecosystem and beyond. His presentation focused on contaminants and the cumulative impacts of human activities in the Peace River area, which affects the entire Arctic Ocean Drainage Basin. His message was one of “A Critical Balance”, which focuses on the constant struggle to keep the balance between development, economic and business opportunities, the protection of the Treaty rights and self preservation. Regional Chief Rick O’Brien described the experience of the Yukon First Nations who are part of the Yukon ‘Umbrella’ Agreement with modern Treaty implementation. The biggest challenges have centered on establishing the intergovernmental relationships with the federal and territorial governments that the Final Agreement envisioned. While intergovernmental relations have fundamentally changed since signing the Agreement, there are persistent problems such as DIAND continuing to be put forward

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as the place of contact with the federal government. Other examples were given of how the federal government has failed to make the shift from treating the Yukon First Nations as Indian Act bands. While the parties agreed to review progress in implementation after five years and nine years, no action had been taken by the federal government following the five-year review. The nine year implementation review and the review of the financial and transfer agreement (the FTA), which is primary vehicle for funding the self-governing Yukon First Nations are now completed. Sean Smith made a presentation on behalf of the Kwanlin Dun First Nation, which entered a Final Agreement and Self-government Agreement with Canada and the Yukon in 2005. Kwanlin Dun supports a recommendation for an independent body to perform audits of implementation progress. Kwanlin Dun First Nation has concluded that the relationship between Aboriginal governments and the federal, territorial and provincial government in the area of land claims negotiation and implementation is a deeply political one and does not see this situation changing in any significant way without an independent body mandated to measure progress on implementation. Fred Kelly made a presentation in which he explained that the Treaty provision “As long as the sun shines” is an invocation of sacred law. He described the creation story of the Anishnabe and provided an overview of some aspects of Anishnabe legal traditions. He said this includes four orders of law: sacred law, traditional law, customary law and temporal law. He provided an explanation of each of these. Temporal laws are made by humans, but must be consistent with sacred law under Anishnabe legal traditions and understanding. He suggested that what was envisioned by Anishnabe in terms of the Treaty relationship is the way to reconcile sovereignties and is also consistent with international law. In this understanding, the Treaties were not meant for one people to subsume or subjugate the other. The Treaties were meant to ensure the peaceful co-existence of two sovereignties, two peoples living side-by-side. Throughout the conference, participants said there had been many powerful speeches and presentations and the speakers were inspiring. During the afternoon of the second day, Conference Delegates decided to engage in plenary discussion. Conference Co-Chair Perry Bellegarde responded to a request to read a statement that had been prepared about the jailing of leadership and some community members of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug in Northern Ontario (the Statement is included as Appendix B to this Report). Many of the speakers spoke about the importance of unity and mutual support among First Nations on Treaty implementation issues. One speaker stated that jailing First Nations people for defending their Treaty rights would not contribute to the resolution of Treaty issues and several speakers expressed their support for the KI leadership. It was noted that many studies and much money had been spent on Treaty issues and it was time to develop a strategy that would lead to action. In addition to the sharing of natural resources in First Nations’ Traditional territories, there is a need for legal protections for ancestors and sacred objects in the earth. A speaker noted that the slow pace of Treaty implementation appears to affect

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modern agreements as well as the original Treaties. More than one delegate stated it was important to combine indigenous and non-indigenous knowledge and ways of communication to address Treaty implementation issues, while exercising caution before deciding to sign agreements with the Crown. A Chief said he was tired of talking to bureaucrats and that there was a need for a First Ministers Conference to deal with the priority issues facing First Nations. Another delegate said things are paralyzed in some areas but each First Nation needs to adopt its own constitution and laws as Treaty 4 speakers suggested.

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Small Group Discussions

In a significant show of the continued relevance and importance of Treaties, close to one thousand people attended the National Treaty Conference and approximately 700 hundred participated in small group discussions. Participants in small group discussions were asked to reflect upon the presentations made during the plenary sessions and to participate in several facilitated small group discussions. Over the course of the conference, the small group discussions were organized around a series of questions: · What issues and concerns do you have about the implementation of historic

treaties? What existing or new opportunities could be used to address these issues and concerns?

· Why is it important to distinguish between historic treaties and other First Nation treaties and agreements?

· In what areas do we need policy adjustments? · What shared principles should guide treaty implementation? And how do we ensure

that these shared principles are consistently interpreted by all parties during implementation?

· How can we deal with the different definitions of treaty at the First Nations, Canadian, and International levels? What existing or new opportunities could be used to address these issues and concerns?

· What issues and concerns need to be addressed to move forward with a common approach to Treaty implementation? What existing or new opportunities could be used to address these issues?

· In what areas are we dealing with different assumptions and interpretations between the Treaty partners? What existing or new opportunities could be used to address these issues and concerns?

· How can we build upon existing opportunities to support the implementation of historic Treaties? For example: Treaty Commissions, Enabling tables, Treaty Protection Office, Treaty Secretariat, Treaty Gatherings, etc. What other processes/opportunities for Treaty implementation do we need to consider?

· How will differences of interpretation or disputes be addressed during the implementation of Treaties?

· What needs to be done: National Framework for Treaties. The small group discussions, the presentations made by the various speakers and the plenary discussions have been summarized in this report into two sets of key messages: “Treaty Implementation” and “What Can We Do to Ensure Treaty Implementation?” These conference outcomes represent a summary of the discussion throughout the conference and do not necessarily represent a consensus view of the participating organizations or governments (whether federal or First Nation).

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Treaty Implementati on – Key Messages

1. “We Are All Treaty People” - The Contemporary Significance of the Original

Treaties Treaties are living documents that establish principles to guide the ongoing relationships between the respective signatory peoples. This means we should stop using the adjective “historic” to describe the Treaties that pre-date the modern period of ‘land claims’ and self-government agreements. These original Treaty agreements (that began in 17th century and extended to the early 20th century) are foundational documents that have anchored the relationship and should guide the relationship now and into the future. These Treaties represent mutual and ongoing commitments to live together in peace and to share the bounty of this land. So-called “historic” Treaties are the original foundation and building blocks for the formation of Canada. All people who live in Treaty Territories on Turtle Island enjoy the benefits of Treaty and accordingly are Treaty peoples. In this sense, “We Are All Treaty People” with Treaty rights and Treaty implementation responsibilities. 2. Distinctiveness of Treaties and the Distinctiveness of Nations Each Treaty is unique and reflects the fact that each Treaty First Nation is a distinct nation and has a unique history of relations with the Crown and the non-indigenous people represented by the Crown. Treaties acknowledge the distinct identities and origin of the Treaty signatories and their continuing relationship into the future. 3. Nation-to-Nation Treaties, Treaty-making and the Treaty Relationship Manifest

the Equality of Peoples. While each Treaty and Treaty relationship is unique, there are several understandings that First Nations hold in common about the nature of Treaties, the significance of the Treaty-making process and the spirit and intent of core Treaty commitments jointly made between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples:

· Treaties and the act of Treaty-making manifest the equal status of the Treaty parties as nations and as peoples with distinct cultures, languages, and ways of life. This is the meaning of the mutual respect and recognition that is inherent in all Treaty-making between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples whether we are talking about the older Treaties or modern claims and self-government agreements.

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· Central to all First Nation-Crown Treaties is the mutual and reciprocal guarantee of the equal right of each people, each Treaty party, to live in peace and to survive and prosper on Turtle Island for all time.

· All Treaties, as agreements between nations, reflect the inherent sovereignty of First Nations and their equal status as self-determining peoples. This is supported by international law and has been most recently confirmed by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

· The Treaties were primarily made through the oral exchanges that occurred between the parties at the time of Treaty and in accordance with the protocols, traditions and laws of the First Nations who controlled and governed their territories; territories which the newcomers wished to enter and share. These reciprocal oral Treaty commitments were further validated through First Nation ceremony that invoked the Creator consistent with First Nations’ legal traditions. Treaties are therefore infused with a spiritual meaning as well as legal significance flowing from First Nations law and accordingly, reflect the equality of the Treaty Nations and the immutable relationship of First Nations to Mother Earth, to the living beings on the land and the inanimate objects on and under the land.

· The oral history of the Treaties and Treaty commitments, reflect the true meaning and spirit and intent of Treaties. Unfortunately, the written Treaty documents controlled by the representatives of the Crown undermine and distort the original commitments and the true spirit and intent of Treaties reflected in the respective oral histories. This is a barrier to full and proper Treaty implementation.

· Implementation of the sacred Treaty commitments must reflect the essence of the agreement of the Treaty parties in each Treaty: namely, to share the Creator’s gifts in this land, to share equally in all the benefits flowing from the lands and to allow each people to pursue their ways of life in peace and friendship in this land without fear or threat of domination or subjugation by the other.

· For many reasons flowing from First Nations legal traditions and spirituality (including their sacred responsibility to care and provide for generations not yet born), the First Nation Treaty signatories would not have the authority, and could not and did not surrender to another people the Creator’s gifts or their inherent sovereignty as a people.

4. Treaty Interpretation Issues Are Inseparably Linked to Treaty Implementation Treaty interpretation issues are inseparably linked to Treaty implementation issues because Treaty implementation necessarily depends on Treaty interpretation. Treaty interpretation that respects both Treaty parties equally necessarily requires an understanding of the oral histories that form an integral part of Treaty-making. Treaty interpretation that respects both Treaty parties will also require an understanding of

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the traditional First Nations laws that governed First Nations Treaty signatories as they engaged in Treaty-making. The traditional law of First Nations peoples has spiritual, moral and legal aspects that are inseparable. The Treaties entered into from the late 18th century to the first half of the 20th century were, and are today, regarded as sacred documents by First Nations because of the ceremonies that accompanied the act of Treaty-making and because spirituality, morality and law are fused under First Nations cultural traditions. Unfortunately, this is not understood by non-indigenous people. Non-indigenous people tend to see Treaty as an inherited obligation only and don’t feel its sacredness. Non-indigenous people do not understand or fail to acknowledge the benefits they enjoy because of Treaty (the Treaty benefits include for example, peace with First Nations, the opportunity to share the land, etc.). These non-indigenous Treaty benefits reflect the spiritual values and legal traditions that First Nations people brought to Treaty-making. Therefore these same spiritual values and legal traditions must be a reference point for Treaty interpretation of First Nations’ Treaty rights and benefits. Modern day agreements (claims and self-government agreements) have their own interpretation issues. Yukon First Nations feel their agreements are read and understood according to the narrowest of interpretations; and rather than legally established “platforms” for enabling and facilitating the achievement of agreements’ many objectives, the Yukon First Nation-Crown agreements are too often understood as the “ceiling”, the upper limit, of what governments are prepared to do to meet their legal obligations. First Nations also maintain that Canada has failed to take clear steps to ensure that its legal and fiscal obligations are being met system-wide and in a way that reflects an intergovernmental relationship. First Nations say that too often the jurisdiction and powers of their governments are forgotten or ignored and their jurisdiction interpreted in the narrowest way possible. 5. Differences Between Original (‘Historic’) Treaties and Modern Claims and Self-

Government Agreements The original Treaties do not have implementation plans while claims and self-government agreements contain or have complementary implementation plans. The original Treaties were based on sacred protocols (for example, the Treaty # 6 Sacred Bundle and pipe stems) while modern day claims and self-government agreements are policy-based and negotiated within, and constrained by, federal policies and procedures. The knowledge of ‘historic’ Treaties and what they mean is passed on from one generation to the next, and retained by the grassroots First Nations people while claims/agreements are determined by the written word.

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6. Honour of the Crown How the government interprets and acts on the principle of the Honour of the Crown was problematic for many participants. The issue of the Crown’s good faith and its obvious resistance to acknowledging inherent and Treaty rights is regarded as an indication that the Crown does not operate under the principles of sacredness of Treaty, spirit and intent. In this view, the Crown has not acted with sufficient honour to uphold the Treaty relationship as evidenced by the development of the national economy from which only non-indigenous people have benefited. Clarification is needed regarding the concept of the Crown in today’s context, given that First Nations made Treaty with an undivided Crown but the concept of Crown was subsequently divided into federal and provincial. 7. The Relationship between Treaty and Policy Throughout the conference and in small group discussions, First Nation delegates were adamant that Treaty and Treaty relationships could not be treated as policy matters because of the sacred nature of the Treaties, their constitutional status and their international character. The phrase was often used “Treaty is above policy.” In this view there is an important distinction to be made between establishing a national operational framework to ensure substantive commitments and spirit and intent are implemented, and a policy that would attempt to interpret, or worse, constrain or distort the substance of the original spirit and intent of the Treaties. 8. Treaties are fundamentally about mutual respect, peaceful co-existence

between equal peoples and mutual sharing of resources and the benefits of Treaty by both Treaty partners.

There were several themes and concepts that delegates referred to repeatedly throughout the conference when explaining their understanding of the essence of Treaties and Treaty-making. These included: mutual respect, sharing, peaceful co-existence, respect for distinct ways of life, assuring the security and health of the people, equality of peoples, acknowledgement of First Nations as nations with laws and distinct systems of governance, the international status of Treaties, the importance of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for Canada and the urgent need for measures to address Treaty implementation and prevent conflict and the criminalization of First Nation people asserting their Treaty rights. 9. Where We Are - Treaty Implementation From a National Perspective While there have been some successes such as maintaining the promise of peace, and the progress made in Saskatchewan and Manitoba in the area of public education and the recording of Elders oral histories and knowledge, the successes in Treaty implementation are considered far from adequate in all regions. Even First Nation

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successes in the Supreme Court of Canada have not led to comprehensive rights-based implementation plans to respect the rights upheld in those cases. Despite this disappointing record, the Treaty parties remain convinced that working together is essential. It is the sacred responsibility of both Treaty parties to make the Treaty partnership work and to make it work to the benefit of both parties - which has so far too rarely been the case. The Treaty partnership must work to ensure that First Nations share equally in the economic wealth of this land, to realize Treaty rights to be educated to a level to sustain one’s family and community, to ensure the provision of health services to secure physical, emotional and mental well-being. Both parties agree that a national action plan or framework needs to be developed to ensure Treaty implementation in manner that will not convert Treaties into policy but will manifest the spirit and intent of the Treaties and the joint commitments of mutual respect, recognition, and sharing based on a nation-to-nation relationship.

What Can We Do To Ensure Treaty Implementati on?

Presenters and delegates were asked to consider and share their views on what can and should to be done to ensure Treaty implementation. They were asked to share their views on implementation mechanisms, shared principles to guide Treaty implementation work and views on what a national framework for Treaty implementation might look like. Key conference messages on how to improve and ensure Treaty implementation are set out below. Public Education There is a lot of misunderstanding about Treaties due to a lack of education. More public education in all forms for indigenous and non-indigenous people should be undertaken in schools and with the general public on Treaties. Public education can increase awareness, promote mutual understanding and breakdown prejudice and stereotypes. Public education would help ensure non-indigenous people and their governments understand that they are also Treaty beneficiaries. Public education efforts in school systems would also ensure First Nations children learn their own history and culture and acquire knowledge about the contemporary significance of Treaties. Public education efforts should include course development, First Nations developed curriculum reflecting First Nations history and culture, federal funding for First Nation teachers and broader education jurisdiction/control by First Nations. The media have an important role to play in public education but have also contributed to misinformation.

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Overcoming Differences in Understandings of Treaty Throughout the conference, it was often said that we cannot understand the true meaning of the Treaties and the Treaty relationship without incorporating the understanding of Treaty Elders. This includes understanding the importance of ceremony and the sacredness of Treaty and the spiritual guidance of our Elders. The oral history and traditional knowledge of the Elders is critical to moving forward with Treaty implementation and to understanding the sacredness of treaties and that the Creator was a party to the Treaties. While Treaty parties agree that Treaties are agreements for peaceful co-existence, First Nations and Canada have different interpretations and understandings of key aspects of, and the spirit and intent of the Treaties. Many feel the task of overcoming these differences is an extremely difficult and challenging one. This issue was a topic for small group discussions and some comments about what needs to be done to address differences of interpretation are set out below:

· There is a need for First Nations people to define Treaty amongst themselves. · There is a need to promote cross cultural awareness and kinship to educate

both sides. · There must be a balance between the oral versus written interpretations. · There must be recognition of First Nations autonomy, jurisdiction and

sovereignty. · Recognition of First Nations at the United Nations would help. · One of the problems is that Canada fails to recognize the validity of our

Treaties and laws; instead, their laws are applied on us. · We need to understand that original people’s sacred Treaties/laws were

affirmed by the Treaty making and are applicable in all levels. · We should quit defining Treaty from a legal framework. The issue needs to be

understood from a cultural, languages, and spiritual framework. · A joint process of consultation should be developed. · The Crown Treaty party needs to understand the basics of First Nations

relations with the land and the Creator to bring about better relations. · Treaties should be explained in schools in order to teach our young people what

Treaty is, and to love our Treaties. · Current offices of Treaty Commissions could clarify this issue on resolving

Treaty discussions. · The federal government must clearly state its position. · The Treaty relationship has to be understood from both sides. · We must recognize responsibilities and obligations of both sides. · We need to create formats to address these situations. · Nationwide Treaty implementation discussions need to be established. · Politicians need to be educated. · Curriculum has to be developed to reflect Treaty knowledge and understanding.

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· Change INAC’s organizational culture – less about bureaucracy and colonization. Treaty Implementation Mechanisms (New and Existing) Potential mechanisms to facilitate Treaty implementation were discussed such as Treaty Commissions, Treaty Secretariats, Treaty Gatherings and mechanisms devoted to monitoring Treaty implementation and auditing the flow of Treaty benefits. A national Treaty office with regional or nation-level Treaty offices to support First Nations was one proposal. Many feel that Treaty implementation discussions should take place according to Treaty territories rather than being organized based on provincial boundaries. The need for balanced representation (a balance of First Nation and non-indigenous representation) on such bodies was an issue often raised. It was observed that such bodies need better community-based information, organization and power sharing so First Nations can elect/appoint their own members to protect and implement Treaty. There were several speakers and participants who strongly supported some form of independent monitoring of Treaty implementation either through a national body or one at the international level through the United Nations. Treaty Commissions Treaty Commissions currently operate in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and with that experience, conference participants considered what role Commissions could and should play. Some believe there is a role to play for a National Treaty Commission to act as a clearinghouse of information and a coordinating body for all Nations across Canada. Others suggested that there should be a Chiefs’ resolution to establish regionally sensitive and effective Treaty commissions with full agreement and consent of all levels of government as an integral part of any national framework. Some said a Treaty Commission should be a potentially neutral “without prejudice” forum. Below are some the characteristics or elements considered important for a successful Treaty Commission:

· should structure work based on a government–to-government relationship · must be high profile supported by the political will of the parties and have

continuity · must be independent and have “teeth” · must not be a victim to jurisdictional games · provide public education · act as a collective or corporate memory of Treaty knowledge.

Exploratory/Enabling Tables In the discussion of exploratory or “enabling” Treaty tables, the most common comments were 1) that these tables had been seriously under-funded for years; 2) that discussions needed to be rights-based; 3) the honour of the Crown must be upheld; 4) broader jurisdiction for First Nations needs to be recognized; 5) the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples should be respected in these discussions; and 6) there is a continued role for the Governor-General as the representative of the Queen.

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Treaty Secretariat Some believe a Treaty Secretariat, developed with the involvement of Elders and other knowledgeable teachers, could fulfill technical support and public education functions, and could assist with legislative development, policy frameworks, and strategies. Others do not believe a Secretariat office would affect change and may duplicate existing services and split already scarce resources. The need for truly balanced (indigenous and non-indigenous) representation was noted. The problem of relying on provincial boundaries rather than Treaty boundaries was again noted. Some feel strongly there should be no pan-Aboriginal, pan-Indian or pan-Treaty approaches. Distinguishing between pre-Confederation, numbered and modern Treaties was considered important. The name “Forum for Treaty Fulfillment” was suggested rather than “Secretariat”. Any Treaty implementation organization should not make all Treaty the same or attempt to remove the differences between Treaties. Treaty Gatherings There was strong support for Treaty Gatherings within each Territory. Treaty Gatherings provide a means for Elders’ knowledge and the practice of ceremony to be passed on to youth. They are regarded as an important means of bringing people together. There was some support for National Treaty Gatherings, but many feel organizational focus should remain at the Treaty level (meaning also organizing along Treaty Territory boundaries rather than provincial boundaries). Options for Shared Principles Discussion over the two days brought forward several suggestions for guiding principles for a national framework to support Treaty implementation:

· Treaty implementation should reflect the core values and purposes of Treaty-making – mutual respect and protection of peoples, mutual recognition of sovereignty, mutual benefit and sharing of the Creator’s gifts, the equality of peoples.

· Treaties are not historic documents but are living, breathing documents that are meant to ensure the relationship between the two parties is renewed and discussion about the relationship is ongoing.

· The Treaties are about continuing a relationship of mutual respect, of ensuring a livelihood that is not limited to hunting, fishing and trapping but about sharing all resources and benefits of the land and of Treaty.

· The Crown must follow and enforce the many court decisions that have ruled that Elders’ oral testimony is as good as written documents.

· There needs to be continuity of government involvement and of the sacred aspect of Treaty. This means government officials working on Treaty matters need greater awareness, for example, through required indigenous studies.

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· Treaty implementation work requires respect for traditions and beliefs, (Creator’s law, ceremonial law, natural law, grandfathers’ law) and rights to the land.

· Peace and friendship. · The Treaty has spirit and life for all time. · Ensure the honour of the Crown is upheld at all times. · Sharing of resources. · Respect, trust, honesty. · Equality - Both parties are equals. All governments (including indigenous

governments) must mirror the spirit and intent. · Treaties as rights not policy. · All laws must recognize Treaty. · Recognition of First Nation sovereignty. · Protect seven generations ahead. · Consistency in Treaty implementation. · The importance of educating non-indigenous people - All beneficiaries of Treaty

must know the spirit and intent of Treaty (Treaty education).

Options for Policy Adjustments A number of options for policy adjustments to support Treaty implementation were suggested but a caution was frequently expressed that Treaty cannot be subject to policy:

· Canada should change its current position and support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in November 2007.

· Treaty is above policy. This means Canadian and First Nation policies should be seen as equal and federal-provincial laws must reflect, not interfere with, Treaties.

· Acknowledge Treaties as ‘living documents’. · We need to develop new governance processes that acknowledge Treaty areas

and chief assembly organizations. · Properly fund the existing Treaty Tables so that they can plan for multiyear,

sustainable workplans and can get the job done. · An external and independent review of policies affecting Treaty

implementation should be undertaken. · Federal and provincial governments should undertake comprehensive reviews of

their legislation (for example, those dealing with mining, forestry and other resource regulation) to ensure these are compliant with the protections set out in section 35. This should be a legislative requirement (in the same manner that these governments are required to ensure that their legislation is Charter compliant).

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· Federal and provincial governments should implement the Treaty process into regulations, policies, and all dealings with Aboriginal peoples.

· Improved follow up and implementation of court decisions and immediate First Nations involvement (including all other parties involved).

· Policy is currently dictated by INAC. First Nations need to come to the table as equal partners.

· A natural resources sharing policy is needed to ensure self-sufficiency and to pay for services and meet ongoing funding needs. Both parties need to develop policies relating to natural resource sharing.

· Meaningful consultation with Treaty signatories. · Changes are needed to policy in a number of areas: negotiation costs;

Community development; education/skills training; religion/spirituality; housing; health; education; taxes and hidden taxes that First Nation people should not be paying as a Treaty right.

· First Nations need to and want to develop the policies that affect them and their children in all areas: for example, “Bill C- 31” (membership, citizenship left to the First Nations), education, law development, land use, resources, revenue sharing.

· Housing and economic development transfer payments need to be revisited to ensure First Nations acquire self-sufficiency and sustainability for generations to come.

· The issue of affordable and safe housing is a significant issues in First Nation communities. Many First Nation people are living in substandard housing and with day to day challenges are not able to focus on important Treaty issues. Housing is a Treaty right and has to be dealt with.

· Gas and tobacco rebates are insufficient to ensure the participation of First Nations in the economy – provinces are still benefiting beyond their rightful amount.

· We need to reformulate the social agreement to include First Nations, so that Treaty prosperity can be shared with First Nations as the Treaty intended it to be. This would address many of the short falls in service delivery and First Nations policy development.

· The government should adopt the recommendations and findings of United Nations Rapporteur Miguel Alfonse Martinez in his ground breaking UN Treaty study.

· Do away with status cards and go back to practice of issuing Treaty cards. The Queen had given Treaty cards to the Indian people – Treaty rights were more recognized at that time. We need our Treaty rights to be recognized again.

Potential Legislative Review, Renewal and Action Throughout the discussions a number of suggestions were made that would require legislative review and action. These include:

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· Federal and provincial governments should undertake jointly with First Nations comprehensive reviews of their legislation (especially those dealing with mining, forestry and other resource regulation) to ensure these are compliant with the protections set out in section 35. This should be a legislative requirement (in the same manner that these governments are required to ensure that their legislation is Charter compliant).

· Recognize the Inherent Jurisdiction of Treaty Nations and eliminate the Indian Act.

· Treaties need to be supported by a system of law by both sides. · Federal legislation could be enacted to set up a federal Treaty Implementation

Office with a mandate to educate all federal departments and to facilitate Treaty implementation.

Dispute Resolution Several suggestions were made about how to resolve disputes that arise respecting Treaty implementation, including:

· A joint process should be established between the Crown and First Nations to address conflict situations over lands and resources early to prevent prosecution and imprisonment of First Nations asserting their rights.

· Consultation should be used as a means of resolving differences. · Third party mediation was used in traditional times. Today, however, ‘neutral’

bodies have problems and issues themselves because of carrot/stick funding from Canada. These bodies are supposed to be neutral but are under threat. They need truly independent and balanced representation.

· Use international observers. · Phase out or modify INAC. · An independent national body to monitor and report on progress in Treaty

implementation (both the older Treaties and the modern Treaties). First Nation Initiatives Participants identified a number of actions that First Nations could take on their own or collectively with other First Nations, such as:

· First Nations could establish their own Treaty protection tribunal to assert their rights as sovereign nations.

· First Nation communities and citizens need to rally around First Nation leadership and stand up and create a movement to affect change and so that First Nation voices will be heard and gain more international global support.

· First Nations need to establish alliances and keep these issues in the media to generate even greater political support.

· First Nations need to develop their own policy perspective.

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· First Nations people need to decolonize their own minds. The slogan was offered “Act Indian, not Indian Act!”

· First Nations communities need to enact our inherent and Treaty rights through our own policies and implementation. There is a need for consensus among all the language groups within a Treaty territory. A more unified approach by Treaty groups could be achieved through actions such as holding our elections on the same day in order to become a stronger and more visible political force.

Other Potential Elements for a National Framework Other suggested elements for a national framework that do not fit neatly within the categories above, are:

· Holding an annual Treaty Day in Parliament. · A Treaty audit should be conducted to assess resources taken as measured

against benefits accruing to First Nations. · Implement the results of this conference and measure progress.

Closing Thoughts

Rod Bruinooge, M.P. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in his closing remarks said the two day conference provided a deeper understanding of what we can accomplish together including achieving a better quality of life for First Nations. He asked the delegates to keep in mind our desire to engage and said that structuring a process to flow from these discussions would require all of the leadership. Mr. Bruinooge mentioned the positive example of the specific claims renewal process and said the Treaty Conference is a key step in this process. He called on the Treaty parties to identify a workplan with practical outcomes. National Chief Phil Fontaine noted in his closing remarks that a key message from this gathering was we must never forget, and must always honour, the spirit and intent of the Treaties. The National Chief thanked all of the participants including the federal officials who attended. In looking forward, he said First Nations need to move to a different type of relationship with federal Crown, and that the conference heard that Canada had missed a very important opportunity respecting the opportunity to express support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He reiterated AFN’s support for the people and leadership of KI. He said this gathering was so important because for the first time, First Nations had Elders, Crown representatives as well as Chiefs together to consider all of the important matters relating to Treaty implementation, roles and responsibilities, mutual benefits and the

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special and historic relationship that exists between Treaty people and the federal Crown. Chief Lawrence Joseph said he sensed there was a lot of anger among First Nations and rightly so. Nevertheless First Nations must still respect their promise of peaceful co-existence. This meant that First Nations were again giving Canada a chance to come to the table to do something strategic to implement Treaty promises. He said First Nations will talk to Crown representative but will not live in poverty. He said the people who signed the Treaties did not agree to live under other’s control or to live in poverty. It was an honour to hear from Chiefs from across Canada and to hear and take guidance form our Elders.

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Appendix A

Speaker Presentations

Welcoming Remarks by Tribal Chief Joe Quewezance Saskatoon Tribal Council March 26, 2008 First of all, a very good morning and I want to thank the Elders who lifted their pipes in ceremony this morning, and secondly, I thank Elder Blackbird for the opening prayer and to the Elders of all Treaty territories who have come far to share with us their knowledge and their history, the oral history that was passed on to them by the leaders who have signed on our behalf. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Chiefs from all the Treaty territories for coming to join together historically to discuss our direction in Treaties. I also want to acknowledge National Chief Phil Fontaine, FSIN Regional Chief Lawrence Joseph, the Honourable Minister Strahl, Minister Carole Skelton and some of the provincial Ministers who are present as well and certainly to Commissioner Bill McKnight. Thank you for your presence. I also want to be saying that I am very honoured today to have been part of the ceremonial party that came in and carried the sacred bundle and our eagle staffs. I bring greetings on behalf of the Treaty 6 Territory and on behalf of my tribal council who occupy offices on the outskirts of the city of Saskatoon. We occupy a reserve that was the first urban reserve here in the province and likely in Canada. Welcome to each and everyone of you. We are assembled here today in Treaty 6 Territory to convene what will undoubtedly become an historic gathering. This land has been a historic gathering place for First Nations tribes for thousands of years. It is a testament to the importance of this location. We hold for the people of Saskatchewan. We like to share with you the historic park of Wanuskewin which has a rich history reaching back five thousand plus years into our history; a history rich with stories and events that shaped and defined our current context as First Peoples of North America. This gathering is an important next step to defining that context. Chiefs, leaders and delegates will be called upon to advise and direct the work to compel the contemporary interpretation of our rights, Treaties and consensus approach to outline a framework for the government-to-government relationship guaranteed in the Constitution. Important issues like resource revenue sharing, land claims, economic development and social determinants of health and First Nations government services to members living in the Treaty territory of course will be deliberated

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Chief and First Nations leaders, you are called upon today to reconnect with the understanding and the philosophies of our great Treaty leaders of the past. In Saskatchewan we always note some of the leaders that signed on behalf of Treaty 6 - Chiefs like Mistawasis, Chief One Arrow, Chief Poundmaker. The leaders who understood the meaning of self-determination, self-governance and who saw well into the future, laying the framework of the Treaties we now have. Today as Chiefs and First Nations leaders, I remind you that a vacant or a shared jurisdiction is a lost jurisdiction. These discussions over the next few days are critically important, our position and resolve must be united, strong and focused. These discussions will be complex and intense. We are charged with finding a common understanding in the moving forward with the contemporary implementation framework for our Treaties. I encourage you to draw upon the strengths of those who came before us and laid out the foundation for preserving our way of being First Nations. Today you will be charged with a very heavy responsibility. Draw upon your cautious consideration of moving forward in a positive way. Never forget that the people you represent at the grassroots are sometimes the knowledgeable people who have kept the history of our Treaties and the Elders that are still with us. That resource is fast diminishing. I encourage you to use the understanding of our Elders of the Treaties that were left to them to carry forward from generation to generation. Welcome to our Territory. May the Great Spirit be with you over the next few days. (Prayed in indigenous language.) Welcoming Remarks by Chief Lawrence Joseph, Federation of Saskatchewan Indians March 26, 2008 Good morning to all of you. (Chief Joseph said some words in his indigenous language). I want to bring greetings to all of you, but most importantly to say welcome to all of you who made the time to be here to witness this historic event. It is probably the first time in Canada’s history that the federal government and the First Nations people of Turtle Island have sat down together and asked each other, let’s see what we can do together. This is historic and I want to congratulate the Elders for their prayers over the last two days and also the Chiefs who have been resilient and very strong and determined to keep their Treaty promises alive and well. I just want to acknowledge the Chiefs that are here from right across Turtle Island. Welcome to Treaty 6 Territory, the council members that are here, and also the Senators from the various Treaty territories. We thank you for your service and say welcome to you. Megwetch. The forgotten people of course. Sometimes we don’t remember the great people who laid their lives down for this great country who did not have to go to war, were not

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even subject to conscription under the Treaty. I want to say thank you to our veterans. Stand up please, comrades, if you will. (The participants applauded the Veterans.) It is my extreme privilege to welcome the National Chief of our great organization, the Assembly of First Nations, Grand Chief Phil Fontaine and also acknowledge the Tribal Chief, our host chief for this Territory in the City of Saskatoon, welcome, Chief Joe Quewezance, and also the visiting Chiefs from all the various Territories, welcome. The two people who are actually Commissioners, the honourable members who are members of both sides that are kind of mediators or saviours if you want to call them that – the Honourable Bill McKnight the Treaty Commissioner for the Saskatchewan Region and the Honourable Dennis Whitebird, Treaty Commissioner for Manitoba Territory, my colleagues on the national Executive and some of the Regional Chiefs are here, welcome gentlemen, and my colleagues on the FSIN executive. I know Chief Glenn Pratt was here and on their behalf I want to say welcome to Chief Morley Watson, Chief Guy Lonechild, Chief Lyle Whitefish, and all our Senate and all our veterans and our staff. We welcome you with great pride to our Territory to acknowledge the work that has been done not only in this area but nationally to bring this great event together. The Members of Parliament, the Honourable Carole Skelton - Thank you for being here and the Honourable Ralph Clark, newly minted, newly elected Member of Parliament for the northern region, who is a First Nations person from Muskeg region and the Honourable Minister for Métis and First Nations Relations in Saskatchewan, the Honourable June Trowdy is here also and her staff, the Deputy Minister Ron Crow, and all of the staff from the province, welcome. Warren McCall, the MLA for Regina who always shows up where Indians gather, welcome. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great privilege to welcome you here. Of course, I want to acknowledge the Elders here who lived through the era of government control. Some of you are still bearing the wounds and the frustrations of the experience through many broken promises and the Treaty. You are here. We thank you for your oral history of process. As you know, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations 61 yrs old and throughout that time you have given us the information that we require to put together what is known as the Ten Principles of Treaty. It is all based on oral history, based on your knowledge as the Elders this region. That is certainly going to be a foundation document not only for this region but hopefully for the Government of Canada, the Government of Saskatchewan, municipal governments and First Nations governments right across the country. This is an historic event. I want to say that the old people and the young people that I am very pleased are here, come here with hope, come here with great expectations. You come here hoping that there will be no more grandstanding, no more dialogue, let’s get on with drafting an agenda that will implement Treaty. That is what this

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conference is all about. We’ve had many, many discussions and many, many conferences, many, many Treaty Gatherings. They are wonderful Treaty Gatherings with very, very strong and determined speakers and very knowledgeable speakers telling us what it was like. Now it is time to pull all that information together and let’s get to work. I’m too old for meetings ladies and gentlemen, I am tired of meetings, let’s talk about this tomorrow or at the next meeting. I want this meeting to produce an action plan. An action plan so that our people don’t have to wait anymore for those promises that are made many years ago and made with great faith and made with mutual respect The Treaty was actually made under very strong, determined, religious and spiritual leaders. And today, we have a Treaty Bundle here, something that has been with us ever since Treaties were signed. I always say without the prayers of the Elders and without the knowledge of our sacred relationship with Mother Earth, we are very weak. And let me tell you today, it is very, very unfortunate that because of the greed of the newcomers, Mother Earth is bleeding. Mother Earth is hurting. Mother Earth has been violated. Mother Earth needs to be respected and that’s where the Treaties are born. Check out the Ten Principles of Treaty and you will see what I am talking about. My friends, I want to say to you today that I am extremely encouraged that this government, last June 12th the Government of Canada, the Prime Minister of Canada (and I wish he was here because I am going to praise him just this one time) stood before all Canadians and he declared standing beside our National Chief, “justice at last”. I was there to witness that event. He was referring to all the lost lands, all the lands that had been stolen, all the lands that had been taken from us. He said I will set aside a reform bill, a reform process, to put together a specific claims reform and we’ll also set aside $250 million to look after specific claims, to clear out the backlog. He also said we will also assign a very senior Task Force to actually implement this process. And I notice some of the members of the DOJ are here, so welcome. I thank you for being here and also a member from the Prime Ministers Office. And there is my honourable friend, the Regional Chief from the B.C. Region, Shawn Atleo who co-chaired the process along with Bruce Carson and worked with myself and the legal people from the AFN. We put together legislation that is going to compel the Government of Canada bureaucrats, the senior level bureaucrats so that they can’t come to our meetings anymore and say, “I don’t have a mandate to talk Treaty”. That’s all you hear. I don’t have the mandate to talk Treaty. So that is the reality, but with this legislation, if it goes through, they will have a mandate to talk Treaty because it is supported by legislation. There’s also a fund to address the backlog of claims that have been there for many, many decades. My friends, I am hoping that the Government of Canada, with the blessing of the Elders, Chiefs and government will look at that process (process to develop the Specific Claims understanding) as an example where two bodies the Government of Canada and Chiefs will sit together based on mutual respect and form and find a vehicle that will carry that forward to actually implement Treaty promises.

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We have waited too long. We want to get moving. We have been studied to death and every study that has been made about us, has articulated and substantiated that we are getting a raw deal. We are getting a raw deal from the Treaty promises that were made. There was “RCAP”, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and very little if anything has been implemented. There’s the Penner Report. We also had the Lynn Report, the justice report that very clearly said we have not been treated equal as others. There’s the Justice Reform Commission of Saskatchewan, the Stonechild Report, the Romanow Report, and the Kirby Report. All of these reports have included statistical information and have told Canada and the world that the First Nations people of Canada have had a raw deal. I am pleased that the Minister of Indian Affairs is here to actually to listen to us. And I really respect the fact that he made time to come and sit with us and hopefully will take home to his colleagues in government that we need to do something and that the way to do it is to sit together based on mutual respect, mutual understandings and to acknowledge and respect the prayers of the Elders, the nations and the leaderships for equal opportunities for social and economic development. Thank you to the Elders who met for the last 2 days. I had the privilege of sitting with them and some of things that they talked about, no one but Elders could articulate these realities because they lived it – the two views of Treaty they say, the spirit and intent and the written Treaty documents. Ours is the oral tradition. Ours is what the Elders have passed down………………. And on the written context, the Treaty marginalizes the reality and the promises made. They put caps on funding. That is not what happened under Treaty. The importance of indigenous languages, culture. That has got to be part and parcel of every Treaty understanding. Sacred relationships with Mother Earth as I talked about and many others and it is our responsibility, all of us, because as Chairman Perry Bellegarde mentioned we are all Treaty, beneficiaries of Treaty. It doesn’t matter who you are, so long as you are part of Turtle Island, now called Canada, you benefit from Treaty. I always say before contact, we had a perfect system in First Nations country. We had our own governance structures. There were no hospitals, no jails. Women were in charge. No taxes. Hardly any sickness. Very little disease, no diabetes but you know my friends we had a crappy immigration policy. It’s not too late to fix it. We can work together. I hope that those visitors who are here from the Government, you will walk with us; you will work with us because we owe that to our children and to our children yet unborn. Megwetch. God Bless. Welcoming Remarks by National Chief Phil Fontaine Assembly of First Nations March 26, 2008 Good morning to all and I wish to express my thanks to Elder Blackbird for his very kind offering to all of us; I recognize all of the sacred items that are before us, I want to acknowledge the Elders, Senators from FSIN, veterans, Chiefs, Honourable Ministers, Members of Parliament and to all of you brothers and sisters. First of all I wish to express to all of you here on behalf the Executive of the Assembly of First

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Nations, our thanks and appreciation for joining us here for this extremely important gathering. I want also to thank Chief Lawrence Joseph and the FSIN for all of their hard work in making this gathering possible and also thanks and appreciation to Tribal Chief Joe Quewezance and the Saskatoon Tribal Council and the host nations that make up the Tribal Council for their very warm welcome to all of us. We are here to talk about a matter that is close to our hearts as First Nations and central to our identity as the First peoples of this land - our Treaties, the lifeblood of our nations. Prior to contact, Europeans and our people were in separate worlds. In one world, distinct nations were making laws, selecting leaders, educating their children, developing their economies, lands and resources and entering into military alliances and trading pacts. Meanwhile in Europe much the same was happening. Each world was home to many nations each with its own laws, languages, cultures and citizens and social and political systems. This First peoples of this land - the Cree, the Anishnabe, the Haudenasaunee, the Dene and all the others - were and are nations. It is the nations of these two worlds that entered into Treaty with one another. By that very fact of Treaty-making, it is clear that the Crown viewed our people as part of nations for only nations enter into Treaties. Today Canada is gathered with us today, again, to talk about these agreements. Why Treaties matter. First of all, I join Chief Lawrence Joseph in expressing our thanks and appreciation to Minister Strahl for all of his efforts and indeed for being a part of this very important and historic gathering. Our people have been calling on Canada to honour and implement the spirit and intent of the Treaties. The Assembly of First Nations alone has more than 300 resolutions calling on Canada to honour and implement the spirit and intent of our Treaties. Some might wonder why in 2008, Treaties still matter. They matter because Treaties go to the heart of our nation-to-nation relationship. They confirm the fact that we are nations and always have been nations. Treaties are a legal reality. They are enshrined in s. 35 of Canada’s Constitution and their relevance have been continually upheld by the highest court of the land. Treaties are a political reality. They are the founding documents of this nation. Without treaties, there would be no country called Canada. They are the basis of our relationship with Canada, to renew, to guide that relationship. The international community recognizes the significance of the Treaties and Treaty-making. Article 31 of United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples calls on all governments to respect and honour the Treaties. Here I must restate the call of First Nations across the country, calling on Canada to endorse and honour the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples. I say this with no disrespect to the

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Honourable Minister Chuck Strahl for he is very well aware of our position, as indeed the government has known for sometime our position on the Declaration. You all know that Canada was one of four countries in the world that opposed the Declaration and one of those four, Australia has now endorsed the Declaration. This now further isolates Canada on the international stage and only serves as a stain on Canada’s international reputation. There is nothing for Canada to fear in the Declaration indeed there is much to celebrate. I am hopeful, as I am sure you all are that Canada will follow Australia’s example and move to approve and affirm human rights for all its citizens including the First peoples. Clearly, our Treaties matter. I often resist calling our Treaties ‘historic treaties’ because they are not historic - they are living documents. They are our shared agreements, sacred promises to one another. Treaties are not ancient texts as some would like to believe. Some Treaties are less than 100 years old. Our grandparents or great-grandparents could have been involved in these deliberations that brought forward these Treaties. Anyone who wonders if Treaties are still relevant need only look to recent events to see how and why they can affect us to this day. We saw a vivid example just last week. In Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation community in northern Ontario, 6 members of KI including Chief Donny Morris and his Deputy Chief were sentenced to 6 months in jail for trying to prevent Platinex, a mining exploration company from drilling in their traditional territory. They were protecting their ancestral lands from unauthorized development and they were sentenced to jail. This is a shameful and serious matter. Last week, I traveled together with Grand Chief Stan Beardy and Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler to visit Chief Morris and his council in jail in Thunder Bay. We had a very good visit. We were very encouraged with the determination of Chief Morris and his council to stand their ground. Theirs is a simple matter at least in their eyes – they believe that they have a right to say ‘no’ to development. Indeed this is a right that all First Nations have in every part of the country. This is our right. And quite clearly, this is a case a very clear case where the federal and provincial governments failed to meet their legal duty to consult and accommodate First Nations’ interests prior to approving projects that affect the lands and the livelihoods of First Nations citizens. Yet these same governments will protect private financial interests by jailing our people who defend their rights. A similar jail sentence was just handed down in the case involving the Algonquin First Nations communities near Charbot Lake Ontario. These decisions ignore the duty of governments to engage with our people and further they criminalize legitimate dissent. That reflects a lack of understanding or worse, contempt for Aboriginal rights and Canadian law. Yes, we all know that the law must prevail. And the highest law in this land says that the governments must deal with our peoples openly, honestly and fairly when it comes to our traditional territories. It is interesting to note that just a few weeks ago, Chief Donny Morris had expressed a keen interest in taking part in this

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gathering. It was clear then and even more clear now that he is a strong advocate for our Treaties. He is willing to put himself on the line to ensure that Treaties are respected and protected. By the way I should point out that of the council members that were sentenced to this harsh, unfair sentence, one is a grandmother of seven, seven grandchildren. When we went to visit her because we had been instructed by Chief Morris and his council to ask her to purge the contempt, she said no. She said, as well as the other members, the only way that they would seek leave to appeal this sentence, if the contempt was set aside, that there would be no conditions for their sentence to be enforced or imposed. We all recognize that the decision to seek leave to appeal is a matter that rests with Chief Morse and their council and their legal counsel. We asked them for their legal permission to speak to their legal counsel to see if there is any way that we might be able to assist and support them. So those discussions have taken place. We haven’t been informed as of this morning what the outcome of those discussions is. But clearly Chief Morris and his council will not move away from their position. This is a matter that was so badly managed from the start by the mining exploration company, Platinex that chose to ignore the rights and interests of KI to those traditional lands. A provincial government, the Province of Ontario had issued the permit to the company to proceed to drill on the land, relying on an archaic piece of provincial piece of legislation that is 135 years old, based on free entry, an archaic and antiquated piece of provincial legislation and both of these interests completely ignored and dismissed the rights and interests of KI. As I said, in this case, they said ‘no’ and we support that decision. But they made it very clear that KI is not opposed to development. They are opposed to this development. They are opposed to this one but they’re not opposed to development as a general statement, provided it respects and honours their rights and interests. They also support the right of other First Nations to undertake development of their choosing. This was a very generous statement on the part of Chief Morris, knowing that he’s behind bars. And I say this knowing that a good number of our communities and our citizens are involved in mining in various shapes and forms. Over 50% of First Nations in northern Ontario are involved in mining and exploration. We have to respect all of us the rights and interests of those people including the right to engage in development of their choosing. That is so very, very important to note. I make one final point on this issue. There’s been no national resolution or statement on this issue but I have no doubt present here, the nations that are represented in the important and historic gathering will join me when I say to Chief Morris and his council and his community that we support you in your struggle and we will stand with you always in your struggle. Spirit and intent – this is the context for our work over the next couple of days. Our goal in the most basic sense is to talk about how we give life to the original and intent of our Treaties. Today in the modern sense in 2008, I know that some would say that

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work is easy, because we don’t need to be concerned about the spirit and intent of the treaties. They argue that the Treaties say what they say. And if the Treaties only speak about for example cows and plows, then cows and plow it is. This is clearly not the case. First Nations negotiated Treaties in good faith and signed their clan symbols based on their understanding of the results of these discussions. There are many examples we can point to. When the Anishnabe negotiated Treaty 3 at Northwest Angle in 1873, they hired their own interpreters to keep a record of the deliberations. This record now known as the Paypom document shows there are a significant number of differences between what was agreed to and what was signed. First Nations, our people should not be penalized for operating on good faith. Our people often consecrated these historic and sacred Treaties with a pipe ceremony or a prayer. They are not simply contracts. They are not real estate transactions. They are sacred agreements. They were intended to guide our relationship so long as the sun shines and the rivers flow. And that means Treaties can evolve based on the original intentions of the two parties who entered into Treaties. Our Elders negotiated and entered the Treaties to ensure that future generations, indeed 7 generations and more would be respected and protected. This is what First Nations mean when we say the spirit and intent of the Treaties. We have important work ahead of us for the next two days. We are going to talk about our Treaties. We are going to talk about the words of the Treaties and what those words mean. We are going to talk about the spirit and intent in the modern sense of that reference. We are going to talk about the roles and responsibilities of both parties to our Treaties and we’re also going to talk about mutual benefits as it was made clear to us by Chief Joseph there’s not one party to the Treaty representing one interest, there’s two interests, two parties and these parties represent the interests of all. The benefits that flow from Treaties should be for all peoples. Our Treaties were not designed to ensure that one party dominates the other. The Treaties were not designed and negotiated to have one party impose its will on the other party. The treaties were not negotiated nor designed to have one party deprive the other of its rights and interests.Our Treaties were not negotiated and designed to have one party impoverish the other party to these sacred agreements. Sadly and unfortunately that has been our history with respect to our Treaties. One party has attempted to dominate and impose its will on our people with no good reason to do so. There’s absolutely no reason that in a country as rich as this country is that a people, our people should be as poor as we are. No good reason. We have an opportunity here during the next two days because our partner, the other party to these historic and sacred agreements is here to participate and engage with us in talking about all of these important matters – the word of the Treaty, the spirit and intent, the roles and responsibilities, the mutual benefit of Treaty. These are so very important to all of us. We will be listening, observing. We will be witness to some very important discussions. We look forward to your advice and guidance, always. Megwetch.

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Welcoming Remarks by the Honourable Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development March 26, 2008 Thank you for your warm welcome and invitation to visit Treaty 6 Territory. I am deeply honoured to be here with you this morning and to take part in this important gathering. This conference has come together thanks to the efforts and the commitment of a lot of people. First and foremost, I want to extend my deepest appreciation to Elder Harry Blackbird for his opening prayer, and to all the Elders here today for the pipe ceremony held earlier this morning. I share their desire to see a fruitful and peaceful process unfold during this conference. I take great encouragement from knowing that, although we may come to these talks from different perspectives, we are united in our mutual respect and shared commitment to a brighter future for First Nations people. I'd also like to express my gratitude to our hosts — the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and Regional Chief Joseph — for your hospitality and the climate of goodwill surrounding this event. Always nice to know that when you meet with Chief Joseph you are going to get straight talk with some really good jokes sprinkled in! I know you have a busy agenda in front of you, but before you get down to work I'd like to talk briefly about three key things. First, I want to emphasize the importance of working together in partnership, as I'm convinced that's the only way we'll make real progress. The very fact that I am standing here talking to you at this conference is an indication of my commitment to work collaboratively. Second, I want to demonstrate that, together, we are making meaningful progress on valuable initiatives that are making a measurable difference in the lives of First Nations people. Finally, I want to l to talk about the treaty relationship — about its role in shaping our history and its importance to our shared future, enabling us to continue moving forward together to achieve our mutual goal of a better quality of life for First Nations in Canada. Whether we are Elders, policy makers or political leaders, no matter which part of the country or constituency we represent, I know that's the real reason every last one of us is here. As much as our discussions over the next two days will revolve around historic documents, legal interpretations and current government policies, all of us are driven by our determination to see healthy, productive and prosperous First Nation communities from coast to coast.

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So, let's start by talking about the proven benefits of working in partnership. I feel very strongly that the work we have done together has yielded substantial results. Consider what we have accomplished. Two years ago, this government implemented a Plan of Action for Drinking Water in First Nation Communities. At that time 193 drinking-water systems serving First Nation communities were deemed high-risk; today, that number stands at 85 and continues to fall. Great strides have been made in improving the quality of family services available in First Nations communities. For instance, under a tripartite agreement reached last year, a prevention-based child-and-family services model is being implemented for Alberta First Nations. Discussions are underway with other provinces to reach similar arrangements. We signed a landmark tripartite agreement in B.C., subsequently ratified by Parliament, that allows participating First Nation school authorities to develop their own curricula, creating a future firmly grounded in their rich history and culture. Here in Saskatchewan we're also working with First Nations to get results. We've signed Treaty Land Entitlement agreements with the Sturgeon Lake and Muskoday First Nations; in the past two years we've added over 58,000 acres to reserves. And just last week my colleague, the Honourable Carole Skelton announced funding for an Aboriginal Skills and Employment Partnership project that will provide training and skills development opportunities for 1500 First Nations and Métis people in northern Saskatchewan. The negotiation, settlement and implementation of claims and agreements with Aboriginal groups is proceeding steadily. Parliament has passed into law the Nunavik Inuit Land Claims Agreement Act, which gives force and effect to the Agreement settling the last major Inuit land claim in Canada. And we have reached an agreement with the Grand Council of the Cree, putting an end to years of controversy over the implementation of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. We have transferred more than 150,000 acres of land to Manitoba First Nations as part of their Treaty Land Entitlement. And we have reached an Agreement-in-Principle with the Bigstone Cree Nation in Alberta regarding their Treaty Land Entitlement claim, including the transfer of 140,000 acres of land. And we are just getting started. I also recognize how important it is that we achieve a fair and lasting resolution to the sad legacy of Indian Residential Schools. I am extremely proud that our government has worked closely with former students and Aboriginal organizations to implement the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. I am confident that this historic Agreement, in particular the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the statement of apology to which we have committed, will play an important role in the on-going journey toward healing and reconciliation.

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Our government has made clear its commitment to reconciliation. We remain determined to address the serious concerns of First Nations. I don't think any initiatives to date make this point clearer than the announcement made last summer jointly with the AFN, of a new Specific Claims Action Plan. The Plan was the outcome of our resolve to speed up claims settlements — to provide justice to First Nation claimants and certainty for government, industry and all Canadians. Our determination to conclude these claims was further reflected in the introduction last fall of Bill C-30, the Specific Claims Tribunal Act. This legislation, developed with the active involvement of the AFN, will create an independent tribunal to accelerate the resolution of specific claims across the country. These measures represent a historic breakthrough in the previously intractable logjam of specific claims and are an important symbol of stronger relations between Canada and First Nations. Canada recognizes that historic treaties are an important element of nation-building. But they are far more than stark legal texts. They are the highest expression of a respectful relationship between the Crown and First Nations — a living, breathing relationship that compels us all to work together to find common solutions and to make real headway on real challenges. I strongly believe that the Political Agreement National Chief Fontaine and I signed last November reflects the true spirit of this relationship, enabling us to continue collaborating on issues beyond the scope of Bill C-30. Which brings me to my third point, and the purpose of these proceedings. This conference responds to the commitment in the Political Agreement to explore and examine treaty matters. It also draws on, and seeks to further, our shared investments in things like treaty discussion tables and the work of the Manitoba and Saskatchewan Treaty Commissions. While on the topic, I would like to take a moment to congratulate Commissioner McKnight on his reappointment to lead the work of the Saskatchewan Office of the Treaty Commissioner. Both the Saskatchewan Treaty Commission and the Manitoba Treaty Relations Commission, under the guidance of Commissioner Dennis Whitebird, have done excellent work in strengthening the Treaty relationship. The next two days provide a significant opportunity to maintain our momentum. We are here to share understandings, to find common ground and to renew our shared commitment to work together to realize the benefits envisioned in the treaty relationship. To quote the FSIN Exploratory Treaty Table: “Treaties provide us with a shared future. Treaties prevented war and guaranteed peace; treaties defined and shaped relations

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between nations through enduring relations of mutual respect; and treaties guaranteed the shared economic bounty of one of this planet's richest and most productive lands.” I fully share these sentiments and am equally determined to build on the hope and ideals of historic Treaties. There is no question that it is in the best interests of all Canadians to move forward together in a spirit of partnership and put our joint energies into building a better future. All treaties reinforce the important role First Nations play in the Canadian confederation. And they consolidate the ongoing political and economic relationship between the Crown and First Nations. As such they not only anchor this longstanding relationship, they are also an ongoing building block of the Canadian federation. One of the great achievements of the Constitution Act, 1982 is section 35 — the recognition and affirmation of Aboriginal and Treaty rights. The courts have interpreted the role of Treaties as instruments of reconciliation between First Nations and the Crown. This acknowledges that they are not a one-time legal or contractual statement of that relationship. Implementation of the treaty relationship must be based on the original understandings of the Treaty signatories, including the First Nations' understanding of the spirit and intent. The key to the success of this evolving process is to keep the lines of communication open as we strive to address outstanding and, admittedly, sometimes contentious issues. I know there are going to be challenging moments. It is no secret that we have had differences in the past, which has led to litigation to get clarification on many Treaty issues. But we all know this is not the most productive way to move forward. I believe that historic differences must be part of the dialogue. The onus is on all of us to approach these discussions with open hearts and open minds. We must continue to work together to raise public awareness of the importance of historic treaties and their role in our federation. All Canadians need to appreciate the value and necessity of maintaining this important relationship, to First Nations and to our country as a whole. Ultimately, we need to remember that we can make a difference and remain committed to making Canada a better place for each and every member of our great nation.

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I am here because I believe profoundly that this goal is within our grasp. I am convinced we can achieve more harmonious, respectful and productive relationships that lead to a higher standard of living and quality of life for First Nations, indeed, for us all. The genuine desire to do just that, so evident in this room today, gives me hope — no, confidence — that we will succeed. We must, if we are to realize the benefits of the historic Treaty relationship. Ladies and gentlemen, there is no question that these are complex and challenging issues that we are dealing with here. But as we continue our journey together into the next century, I'd like to draw on the wisdom of Chief Poundmaker, a chief of the Plains Cree in the mid-1800s. He said: We all know the story about the man who sat beside the trail too long, and then it grew over and he could never find his way again. We can never forget what has happened, but we cannot go back nor can we just sit beside the trail. Acting in concert with you, we have made progress — finding practical solutions to real challenges; we have not sat beside the trail. And this same spirit is at work here at this conference. I have no doubt that your expertise and open attitudes will ensure a constructive conference. I look forward to the results of your deliberations and to the ideas and recommendations you generate. Most of all, I look forward to continuing along this shared path to a promising future that benefits First Nations and all Canadians. Thank you.

PANEL: APPROACHING TREATY IMPLEMENTATION Seniour Assistant Deputy Minister, Michel Roy, Claims and Indian Government Indian and Northern Affairs Canada March 26, 2008 I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Elders and the spiritual leaders who are in the room. I know that your attendance for the next two days will help set the right tone for this very important conference I would like to express my sincere thanks to host region and host Treaty group, Treaty No. 6, the FSIN and the AFN leaders and staff, the presenters, the facilitators, delegates and of course to my colleagues from Indian and Northern Affairs. I really appreciate the hard work and dedication of all concerned and your interest and commitment to addressing historic Treaty issues. This conference provides an important opportunity for dialogue and exchange. It is a building block towards achieving greater mutual understanding and appreciation of historic Treaties and historic Treaty relationships. While our views of historic Treaties may differ in some respects, I think we all agree Treaties are central to understanding the relationship between Treaty First Nations people and the Crown. Historic Treaties played a primary

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role in Canada’s nation-building history. They are part of the bedrock of the Canadian federation. Treaties create a fundamental and ongoing political and economic relationship between Aboriginal people and the Crown. Treaty-making spans Canada’s modern history - dating from pre-Confederation to the present day. There are 70 recognized historic Treaties signed between 1701 and 1923. These Treaties reflect the vision, interests and responsibilities of the signatories of those Treaties. They also frame much of Canada’s geo-political and economic development. The military and trade alliances set out in pre- Confederation Treaties established ongoing relationships between colonial governments and Aboriginal people. Post-Confederation Treaties expanded these relationships to the west and north. The over 20 modern Treaties negotiated since 1973 continue to shape relationships and reinforce Aboriginal peoples role in the Canadian federation. The importance of Treaty is reflected in our ongoing efforts to create meaning and understanding both in relation to our Treaty past as well as the future of the Treaty relationship. Tools for addressing historic Treaty issues have included – Treaty discussion tables, Treaty Commissions, research, public education, commemoration and specific claims. Treaty discussion tables are an important element of our joint work on historic Treaties issues. Canada and Treaty First Nations are active at four Treaty tables: two tables in Alberta under Treaties 6 and 8 bilateral processes; Anishnabe-Aski discussion forum in Ontario representing Treaty 5 and Treaty 9; Saskatchewan Treaty table with the FSIN representing Treaties 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10. The objective of these tables is to develop a shared understanding of Treaty through structured discussion and identification and research of Treaty issues. In this regard, the Treaty table participants seek to exchange and discuss their views on Treaty implementation issues. Such discussions are characteristics of the larger Treaty relationship. It is in this context for example that the work of the FSIN-Canada discussion table is of particular interest. Phase I of its work focuses on the identification of the common understandings underlying the Treaty relationship. These joint discussions, facilitated by the Saskatchewan Office of the Treaty Commissioner (OTC), resulted in the OTC publication of the Statement of Treaty Issues in October 1998. The Statement captures the exchange of the parties’ views and perspectives on historic Treaties in Saskatchewan, on Treaty implementation issues and the broader issue of the Treaty Relationship. It also set out a number of common understandings or principles. These provide helpful context for our discussions to date. They are also useful in guiding further joint work to revitalize the Treaty relationship. The Statement of Treaty Issues set out a forward-looking approach to relations between Canada and First Nations. It is as relevant today as it was in 1998. I believe this conference is an example of the kind of respectful and supportive discussions the Statement advocates.

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As one of the key avenues for addressing historic Treaty issues, Commissions do much more than just support Treaty discussion tables as important as that is. They have also helped to move critical Treaty issues forward; for instance, the Saskatchewan Commission played a key role in work leading to the 1992 Treaty land entitlement agreement for 28 Saskatchewan First Nations. Commissions have also been instrumental in capturing and sharing our understanding of Treaties with the public. The Saskatchewan OTC runs a successful and innovative public education program and in addition has developed a Treaty Resource Kit for Grade K-12. Since 2005, the Treaty Relations Commission of Manitoba has been hard at work fulfilling its mandate. Its work includes Treaty research and advancing discussions on Treaty related issues. The Manitoba Commission has also focused effort on increasing public understanding of the importance and role of Treaty-making. The Commission is commended for its effort to spread the message that we are all Treaty people. And we heard that message again, and again this morning. Co-operative engagement with historic Treaty First Nations is not limited to the work of discussion tables and Treaty Commissions in the Post-Confederation, numbered Treaties. In Eastern Canada, home to the Peace and Friendship Treaties Canada is working with the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet First Nations to design a process unique to this region in an effort to enter discussions on self-government and land with negotiations on Treaty and Aboriginal rights. A framework agreement between Canada, the Mi’Kmaq and Nova Scotia was entered in 2007.Tripartite exploratory processes are underway in NB, Prince Edward Island and the Gaspé region of Quebec. The Douglas Treaties completed on Vancouver Island between 1850 and 1854 are also part of Canada’s Treaty-making history. Some Douglas Treaty First Nations have chosen to participate in the British Columbia Treaty process which is open to the participation of B.C. First Nations with existing Treaties. Through the B.C. Treaty negotiations, historic Treaty groups can clarify land and resource rights issues and establish modern self-government arrangements. While much has been achieved through our work at present, I think it is safe to say that we all recognize that much more remains to be done. Differing views on historic Treaties’ rights and the nature of historic Treaties have impeded progress at negotiation tables. While evolving jurisprudence can inform our work and advance mutual understanding it can also create challenge and uncertainty. The tools we have to deal with historic Treaties issues cannot address the range of subject matters brought to table by historic Treaty First Nations. We need to fully realize the promise of Treaty captured in section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982, which recognized and affirms existing Aboriginal and Treaty rights. The courts have interpreted section 35 and the role of Treaties to be the means to achieve long-lasting reconciliation and the Crown. The concept of reconciliation provided a useful framework for moving forward with the objective of renewing our Treaty relationships and making practical progress on key issues. We really believe that reconciliation of the interests of First Nations with those of Canada and the provinces and territories support economic and social transformation.

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Seen through the lense of reconciliation, Treaty renewal based on a shared tradition of federalism can achieve greater First Nations autonomy through negotiation of self-government arrangements. We are committed to a Treaty relationship that includes consideration of broad outcomes in terms of improved quality of life and strong intergovernmental relationships. It is now time to consolidate what we have learned individually and cooperatively on historic Treaties. We need to build on the success and commitment of the specific claims process. We need to ground our understanding of Treaty based not only on what we bring into our framework for the Treaty relationship but what the other parties brings to an understanding of Treaties and the Treaty relationship. We must continue to work together to raise public awareness of the importance of historic Treaties and their role in the Canadian federation. We can achieve more harmonious respectful and productive relationships between all parties. We must do so if we are to realize all the benefits of the Treaty relationships. Thank you very much. Commissioner Bill McKnight Saskatchewan Office of the Treaty Commissioner March 26, 2008 Thank you very much. I want to say good morning to you all. I want to thank the Elders for their prayers. It’s a good way to start these discussions. It lets us come forward with a good heart. It lets us understand one another in a better manner. I want to welcome the Chiefs, particularly Chief Joseph and Chief Fontaine for the work that they’ve done in putting forward this conference. I want to welcome Chiefs from outside the Province of Saskatchewan, Chiefs from Saskatchewan to which Treaty implementation is so important and I want to say good morning to my colleagues on the panel and I want to welcome you all to Treaty 6,my Treaty Territory. I want to give you some historical background on the Office of the Treaty Commission in Saskatchewan. I want to highlight some of the accomplishments of the OTC in respect to Treaty implementation. I want to identify some of the keys to success to the work of the Office and I want to outline the major challenge to the Treaty implementation and I want to conclude by sharing what direction I plan to lead the OTC over the next three years. I want to begin by telling you that I have only been the Commissioner for the last nine months and my thoughts and my objectives are shaped by other experiences that I have had during my life and also on the information and guidance of others who have been involved in this much longer than I have. I come to this position with some definite points of view. I believe that Treaty implementation is important and I intend to share some those thoughts with you today. I just want to say at the outset that when I was appointed, and I was informed again this morning that the documents have been signed to continue my appointment.

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I hope that’s true because some of the things I may say today may keep Chief Joseph and Minister Strahl to change their mind as my masters. The Office of the Treaty Commissioner in Saskatchewan is different. It’s not the same as Manitoba. It’s not the same as other structures, which are put in place throughout Canada in order to implement Treaties. The Office was started in 1989 when the FSIN and Canada made a decision to create an independent and impartial office to make and provide recommendations on Treaty implementation, particularly with Treaty Land Entitlement and education. The first Commission was headed by Cliff Wright, a very popular former mayor of this City of Saskatoon. And he focused on Treaty Land Entitlement. It was able to put forward an agreement which involved 28 First Nations in the Province of Saskatchewan initially and some 500,000 acres of land and some $1 billion in transfers to First Nations. It was a groundbreaking success and it did and still does bode well for Treaty implementation in Canada. Based on this success, the FSIN and Canada decided to renew the Office and from 1997 to 2002, the extension was made. The extension has now been made. The new mandate has been agreed to by FSIN and Canada. The extension is to the year 2011. Judge Arnot was the Commissioner from 1997 to 2007 and there were many accomplishments. I want to touch on a couple of them. Context papers were examined at the Treaty table. Those papers included child welfare, education, shelter, health, justice, Treaty annuities, hunting, fishing and lands and resources. He also oversaw the development of a book called Treaty Implementation: Fulfilling the Covenant, which was published just last year. But from my perspective, the cause of Treaty implementation is most significantly advanced by two other accomplishments. Treaty Elders in Saskatchewan is a book by Harold Cardinal and Walter Hildebrandt. This document provides a solid foundation for moving forward with Treaty implementation. This book for the first time documents the First Nations’ understanding of Treaties. It was written by first class authors and it reflects the Treaty Elders relationships and their beliefs and the basis on which we can move forward. The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations was instrumental in facilitating this book and it is being used to develop Treaty principles, which as I understand it, will guide FSIN in their decision-making with respect to Treaty matters. We in Saskatchewan are truly fortunate, truly fortunate, to have this foundation to build upon and I want to compliment the FSIN and the Elders who gave so freely of their time to provide us with this document. It’s also available in your local bookstore. It’s worth reading, particularly the governments of Saskatchewan and Canada.

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The other major accomplishment I believe over the past ten to eleven years was in the area of public education. Commissioner Arnot and the Treaty Table have fundamentally changed the views of the people of this Province when it comes to understanding and advancing Treaty implementation. Although it’s true that many other factors influenced that change of views, the other factors being the demographics of the province, the economy and the discussions that took place when the establishment of the Speakers Bureau, the strategic alliance was formed with CTV and there’s also the placing of the resource Treaty kits in every school in the Province of Saskatchewan. I believe that it has fundamentally changed the understanding of the people of this Province and it is the beginning of true Treaty implementation. Based on advice of the Elders and the parties of the OTC, it communicated one simple message – “we are all Treaty people”. If you understand that phrase, the fundamental changes that are going to be achieved could be much easier. An example is the Province of Saskatchewan has made a commitment to have Treaty education mandatory in every classroom of this province. I believe that’s a first in Canada, and they should be complimented. At the start of my comments, I indicated, that I would like to talk about Treaty implementation accomplishments. I will speak of those challenges in a moment but I want to identify some of the key successes of the past and the future. First let’s be clear. The number of successes in respect of Treaty implementation falls very short of the original belief of both parties who signed those Treaties. As a matter of fact, the lack of implementation is an injustice not just for First Nations but it is an injustice to all people in Canada. And second, I believe the likelihood of fundamental success, and ordinarily I am very optimistic person, in the near term are remote. And third, we can’t let this challenge get in the way of continuing to work towards true Treaty implementation. Nor can it prevent us from building on what we learned in the past so we can go forward to the future. Because we don’t all agree at the Treaty Table doesn’t mean we should cease discussions. We should continue to have dialogue. We should continue to explore ways of going forward, not giving up and saying it can’t be done. With that as context, I want to describe a few of the opportunities which I think are before us. I want to refer particularly to Saskatchewan. The Office of the Treaty Commissioner is independent. It’s neutral. It’s impartial. It’s there to facilitate the implementation of Treaty. There’s a good understanding and the support and the wisdom of the Elders is there as a foundation. As a matter of fact, the support is the only reason we exist as a Treaty Commission, we exist at the pleasure of two parties. We exist at the pleasure of Canada and the FSIN.

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First Nations in Saskatchewan through the FSIN, which by and large are united, organized and strong and focused on Treaty implementation. We have a Treaty Table. It’s not an exploratory table. It is a Treaty Table at which parties come to advance Treaty implementation and the Province of Saskatchewan comes to that table enthusiastically and seriously. The attitude of the parties is realistic. It’s not fatalistic. They are deeply committed to making progress both incrementally and systemically, both short term and long term. But in the end, there is tenacity and there is determination. In the short time that I have, I want to identify one of the difficulties that I see and one of the impediments to Treaty implementation. It is a fundamental dilemma. On the one hand we have the Treaties. These are sacred understandings. They were created by the Creator, the First Nations and the Crown. So you have a basic understanding of Treaties, the Elders tell us that it is about three things: getting along with others, living together on the land and making a living. That seems pretty basic and pretty reasonable to me. But on the other hand we have the Indian Act. With these two things, we are faced with a dilemma, a paradox, fundamentally irreconcilable. To be more precise, the Indian Act is a barrier to Treaty implementation; the barrier that I see is that of the Indian Act if we are going to have true Treaty implementation. I understand that there is great fear on both sides of the table to get rid of the Act. I don’t say throw it all out. When you look at accomplishments between Canada and First Nations it has been legislation that has gone forward that was not found in the Act at the time. I am being quite parochial when I talk. I believe that Saskatchewan has an opportunity with the strength of the FSIN, with the counsel of the Elders to go forward in taking pieces of the Act and putting in a Treaty perspective. So if we are going to listen to our Elders, getting along with others will continue to be one of my priorities so that we will continue to have talks and discussions and we will continue to have public education. Living together on the land, it is my intention to continue efforts so that we can discuss items of mutual interest. Some of those could include education and child welfare. The Elders said that Treaty implementation is about making a living. Therefore I intend to focus on skills development and economic independence but there is an impediment and I reinforce that, I truly believe it is the Act. Because 135 plus years ago, Canada found it important to treat with First Nations in order to open up particularly western Canada to economic activity, then surely it is important today that we implement Treaties for the continued well-being of not just First Nation people but for all citizens of this great country. Thank you for your attention. Commissioner Dennis White Bird Treaty Relations Commission of Manitoba March 26, 2008 (Spoke indigenous language). Greetings to all of you today. I am very proud to be here to pay our respect to our relationship. I am very proud that the Assembly of First

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Nations has carried their duty and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians to bring us together to share in that relationship. I want to thank the Elders for their continued support, for their spiritually, for their sharing of their knowledge, and indeed, the sharing of their lives with us. I want to thank the leadership for their commitment to work towards Treaty implementation. I want to thank the ladies for carrying our nation and bringing our nation forward. I want to thank the youth for the legacy that you have to carry forward into the future. I also want to thank all our honoured guests from all levels of government in this room. We are all Treaty people. I want to thank our veterans for their commitment and those who have given their lives for our land, for our life and for our freedom. In Manitoba, there are seven numbered Treaties represented within the boundaries of the Province of Manitoba. The first of the numbered Treaties began in 1871 with Treaty No. 1,2, 3, 4, 5 as well as Treaty 6 and 10. The Dakota Nations do not have any post-Confederation Treaties but they do have a long history of relationship with the Crown, and their territories extended into Manitoba; and we have given recognition to that relationship. The Treaty Relations Commission’s mandate created through a Memorandum of Agreement between the Crown and the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. I was appointed by Order-in-Council n 2005 and my office was given a five-year mandate to function as an independent, impartial office to strengthen and rebuild and enhance the Treaty relationship through public education, facilitation and research. The Treaty Relations Commission has the privilege of working with Treaty Elders Advisory Council appointed by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. The Elders represent all nation languages in the province – the Anishnabe, Anishithiniwa, Dene and Dakota nations. They also represent each of the numbered Treaties, Treaty adhesions and Dakota nations together. The role is to advise and to guide the work of the Commission and the Commissioner. The responsibilities and contributions in each of our mandate areas have been invaluable. Our public education campaign consists of a speakers’ bureau made up of Elders and other professionals who do presentations on the Treaties to a wide of variety of First Nation and non-First Nation schools, organizations and other interested groups. Other public education activities include the development of our Manitoba Treaty Resource Centre which houses a collection of published, unpublished and multi-media sources, which are made available to teachers, students, researchers, and the general public. In the past year we have also had a bus advertisement campaign and poster series campaign based on theme that “We are all Treaty people”. It is getting a lot of positive feedback from the First Nations and non-First Nation communities. In terms of providing facilitation services for discussions regarding Treaty related issues, we have created a number of invitations including to work on Treaty Land Entitlement in Manitoba, with the federal, provincial and First Nations governments.

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Our research mandate began with the Manitoba Treaties oral history project in partnership with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, which is a province-wide oral history research project on the Treaties and the Treaty relationship. The project began in the fall of 2006 and since then we have interviewed over 140 elders through a series of Elders’ focus groups, community forums and individual interviews conducted in the individual Treaty and Dakota regions. Throughout our travels, we have been blessed by the wide range of local knowledge, teachings and Treaty oral histories. At each session, Elders described where the people came from, some of the traditional laws to them given by their Creator, and their traditional names for themselves and their traditional territories, the ways of life they were given to follow and how they relate to others. It has been a rewarding experience to sit with throughout our territories in the Province of Manitoba. The Elders explained the relationship between the people and all living things and how people lived on the land, their relationships are also strongly evident in the existence of the memories, stories of traditional knowledge, traditional territories and landscapes, transportation routes and other significant sites including sacred sites, burial grounds, hunting, fishing, trapping territories. When the Elders talk about livelihood they did not narrowly restrict to hunting, gathering and fishing subsistence. They addressed livelihood in an inclusive manner making it clear that livelihood at the time of Treaty negotiations and today refers to all manner of making a living and life itself. Livelihood consists of resources, skills, accessing and learning skills through education and tools including transportation, trade routes, commerce and other means to keep the people healthy and strong. The Elders explained that First Nations Treaty rights are over and above inherent rights. Among the Anishnabe Treaty rights are – (spoke an indigenous language) – meaning something that is on top of what is already there. The Elders we have worked with so far have provided with us with many new insights and invaluable teachings. The oral history project drives almost all other TRCM projects. It provides the knowledge from the Elders that is so crucial to the TRCM’s work. Our first report will include a text of Treaty Elders’ teachings, of our visits throughout the Province of Manitoba. Soon after we commenced the oral history project, we developed a multi-year research strategy based on Treaty research priorities. The Treaty parties - the Crown, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs - have identified common issues and common concerns, through many meetings. Out of this consultative process, five research priority areas were identified which include livelihood, Crown-First Nation Treaty relations, Treaty provisions, implementation and interpretation, First Nation traditional knowledge and practice. Within these priority areas, we have developed fourteen research projects and three of which commenced this past year.

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The historical atlas is another huge undertaking that is intended to cover the entire Province including seven Treaty areas, five language groups and, of course, the Dakota populations. We have received many pieces of valuable information from our Elders and of course all of the information that they provide to us will be compiled into textbooks that will be made into a curriculum for our teachers in Manitoba. And we know that from our meetings to date, we have also met with the Province of Manitoba to amend the curriculum, to make Treaty education mandatory. I believe we are moving forward on that. We have also met with the provincial government to look at a Treaty Day at the Legislature. And none of these initiatives is new to the Province of Saskatchewan. It is something that they have already achieved in the milestones that they have put forward. In fact, the Treaty theme - “We are all Treaty people” was brought forward in this province. In the accountability structure of the Treaty Relations Commission in Manitoba we have to ensure that we have accountability towards the federal government and accountability towards the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. In anything we want to do, we have to go through that process. We have a technical team that is made up of all the parties. We also have a joint steering officials committee and we provide the details to them. Our campaigns have been very successful. They have been worthwhile. We have been able to provide a lot of Treaty information. In terms of reconciliation, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People has given us reconciliation. Our First Nation people, as I have learned from our discussion throughout Canada, I recall a young native lawyer talk about reconciliation from British Columbia and she talked about the potlatch and the ceremony that’s held in the longhouse and the person that is hosting the potlatch goes through a reconciliation process by himself and secondly to his family, to his people in the community and to his nation before the actual ceremony begins. In our communities in the Prairie Provinces, we have a reconciliation process that is very similar to that ceremony, which is the Sundance. That Sundance comes to us in our dreams and through our persons and to our families, to our nations and our communities. Reconciliation is not new to indigenous people. We have had it before in the past, before European contact. So it should be easy enough to fall into that pattern of reconciling. The Canadian courts have also reconciled and they have made it known that there is Aboriginal rights, there is Treaty rights, there is title. We need to work on that. One of the greatest messages that our Elders have given us is that we need to be united. We need to have some common messaging throughout as we relate to Treaty

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and that there are very two distinct Treaty interpretations, one that is oral and one that is in the written context. I have also stated that there is recognition and affirmation in section 35. There is recognition in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 in terms of ownership of land and the rights that we have. There is recognition in the British North America Act of 1867. There is recognition in 1930 in the Natural Resources Transfer Act. Those were conditional. Those conditions were that you have to provide hunting, fishing and trapping to the Treaty Indians. The condition was you have to provide land to the Indians to settle Treaty Land Entitlement. It is very specific recognition and the province accepted that right, so we need to move forward. Lastly as a final message, we have to take ‘historic’ out of our language. These are not ‘historic Treaties’ as we have heard from the National Chief. These are living treaties. We have to dust these Treaties, we have to take the dust off them and start to bring them to life, and bring that spirit, bring that intent back. Thank you very much. Chief Ovide Mercredi, Misipawistik First Nation Numbered Treaties National Spokesman March 26, 2008 (Mr. Mercredi began by speaking a few words in Cree.) I thank you. I want to recognize all the Elders that came from their communities and those who have taught us how important it is to keep the Treaty memory alive and never to surrender our Treaty rights. I also want to recognize the National Chief and the strong message that he gave to the government and I want to endorse, as much as I can, the position that the Government of Canada must take, meaning, they should ratify the Declaration of Indigenous Rights. I want to say, and I want to be as honest as I can be, and tell you what I feel inside and I want to say that when they do that, then I will believe that they will honour the Treaties too. I also want to say to the Treaty 6 Elders and the Chiefs in that important Treaty that was signed at Fort Pitt and Fort Carlton, that I was extremely honoured when the carrier of the bundle asked me to bring in this bundle to this gathering. I want to thank them for that privilege. I am a member of Treaty 5. It was signed in my community in 1873. One of the negotiators is a direct ancestor of mine, on my mother’s side. We are still waiting for our school in my community the Misipawistik First Nation. This is 135 years later. We are still waiting for a Treaty promise.

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I want to say to the people here that the Treaties are not about livelihood. It is about that but it about much more than that. When the Treaties were made, our ancestors guaranteed for us for all time, for all time, that the way in which we live as a people will never be abandoned and it will never be destroyed by the government. And when our people signed the Treaty and made a commitment, they made a commitment to the white people that came looking for the Treaty that so long as the Treaty is honoured, we will live in peace among them. The Treaty is about peace and co-existence. And I am proud to say that we have never broken that promise of peaceful co-existence with the Canadian people or their governments. But I don’t think Chief Morris feels that way today. It’s quite obvious to me that someone forgot to protect his right to peaceful coexistence in this country. And I have to ask myself, what is the difference between what China is doing to Tibet and what is happening to those people from northern Ontario in the hands of the Government of Ontario? Where is the Government of Canada in all this? Where are they? Why are they so silent when they know that there has been a breach of justice done and nothing is being said, not in even in the Parliament to correct that problem. If anything, my friends, we should all demand that, before this conference is over, that the Parliament of Canada passes a resolution to free those political prisoners. I know that we have rights to hunt, to fish and to trap and other rights to sustain our people like gathering rights, but the most important thing that we must remember about the Treaty is that our ancestors guaranteed to us our own society, our own society, not just the right to go hunting, fishing and trapping. And we know what has happened to our people. We have seen it in our own lifetime. We have seen how the Government of Canada has completely ignored the Treaty and why so many of our young people across this country are not able to go to university, because the funding is not there to support the Treaty right to education. So I ask you, I am asking you, to think about this. When people say to us we will have a dialogue, we have been having a dialogue for 135 years. It is not a dialogue we need my friends. It is for the government to be honest, the federal government to be honest, and the provincial governments to be honest and to respect and honour the Treaties. That is what we need. I also want to say to you that when our people made the Treaty, they never surrendered our title. They never gave up our land and our resources and that is why, even today, it is in our memory as if it was just yesterday, that when people come to our land looking for our resources, we will stand in their way. Why? Because we believe, as we should, that our ancestors never surrendered their natural rights to the land and resources (spoke in Cree language).

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I believe in everything I say because it is based on the oral traditions of our people. And when I was a young man, just a small little lad, I remember one of the Elders in my community saying to me, yes this is the reserve but the land we own is like this, waving his hand, saying that we own more just the reserves, that we have rights beyond the reserve boundaries. I say to you, I speak loudly today, because I want people to remember that if the federal government continues not to honour the Treaties that they are in fact breaching their own sovereignty because if the basis of their sovereignty my friends is the Treaties we made with them and if they don’t honour the Treaty, if they make a fundamental breach of those Treaties they are putting into doubt their own sovereignty as governments. And this is what I am saying; we cannot be timid about this. When we talk in our groups, we have to among other things, consider how we challenge Canadian sovereignty. What right do they have to continue exercising territorial integrity, when the basis of that is supposed to be the Treaties they have not respected and honoured. They have none. They have none (Cree language) We did not throw it away – we still have self-determination as a people. And when the Treaty was made, we did not surrender our freedom. We did not give up our free will. We did not say, now that the Treaty is signed, you can now run my life. In none of the transcripts about Treaty, even in the written form, in the English language will you have seen or heard any of the Treaty makers say to the Canadian government now I surrender my life to you. You can now run my life and my people. They did not say that. And today, we are 135 years after the fact in my community still waiting for the government to honour the Treaty right to education. For over twenty years now, twenty years we have been waiting for the government to increase the funding for post secondary education and we have not seen it. Why? Because they say to us, that the Treaty right to education is not respected by government. We don’t believe we have an obligation under Treaty; we’re just doing it as a matter of policy. And that is my last comment, that whatever we do here, whatever we do, whatever we say, whatever strategy we develop that we never put the Treaty into a policy. The Treaty, my friends, is above the policy. The Treaty is above the federal law. It’s even above the mining legislation that imprisoned one of our Chiefs. It is even above the Constitution of this country. Because it is about nation-to-nation and it is pre-existed the Constitution as it is today. Thank you. Professor Michael Coyle, University of Western Ontario Ipperwash Inquiry Report March 26, 2008 Anim! It is an incredible honour to be part of panel of leaders and to be here at this, never mind this is historic meeting, it is a meeting that so many Elders who care about the Treaties and have paid so much attention to these Treaties and so much more

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attention than the students in my law class. And this to me sends a very clear message to those of us who are not Indians in this country. That message is that you care about the Treaties and will continue to care about the Treaties and that they be implemented fairly. The only bummer here is speaking right after Chief Mercredi. I won’t even attempt to match his eloquence. But I come from the east and from the other side of the Treaty table and as has been pointed out, I am part of a people that benefits from the Treaties in Ontario, in southwestern Ontario with the Anishnabe. My people have benefited from the Treaties. My people have obligations under the Treaties. So perhaps it is right that I too should be here on this panel. I come as I said from Ontario and I worked with the Ipperwash Inquiry. The Ipperwash Inquiry you might know was an inquiry into the reasons for the death of Dudley George and the Inquiry Justice Linden concluded in the end that the reason that Dudley George died was mainly because of a dispute about Treaty rights. Justice Linden in his report said the most important issue in Indian-non-Indian relations in Ontario at least and I think this is true for all of the country today is Treaty rights over lands and waters. You have heard that Ontario is a very difficult place to be talking about Treaty rights. You’ve heard about the Chiefs and councilors that are in jail. You also know that it is about 2 years since the occupation began at Caledonia, a dispute about land rights involving the Haudenasaunee and the Ontario is also the place where the Ipperwash Inquiry just issued its report on the need to deal with Treaty rights. There is a real sense of urgency I think coming from Ontario about this issue. What I want to talk about briefly is the reasons non-Indians should care about Treaties, the reason that is urgent that we do more about implementing the Treaties and a couple of thoughts for your discussions, ideas that might be building blocks in the action plan that I know you hope comes out of this meeting. Regardless of what Treaty we talk about in this country, there are certain things we can say about all of them and why they are significant both to Indians and non-Indians in this country. First of all, as National Chief Fontaine mentioned, the very fact that the Treaties were signed between peoples is a recognition that each were respected as peoples. This is very important. In Canada, we have a history that says not just that every individual is entitled to good housing, to good water, et cetera. In Canada, we have a history of separate peoples being recognized as having the right to continue their societies, continue their cultures, and continue their economic and social well-being on their traditional lands. That is the first item I mentioned in terms of the significance of the Treaties themselves. They reflect a respect for Aboriginal nations as peoples. They had to, or a Treaty would not have been signed, and they reflect as

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well a respect that the other side could be expected to live up to its promises. Otherwise why enter into an agreement in the first place? It’s already been mentioned that Treaties were the constitutional basis of nation building in Canada. I want to touch on a point that Ovide just mentioned, that whatever treaty we talk about – we know that each Treaty was intended as an agreement of co-existence. No Indian leaders signed a Treaty on the understanding that it would lead to the destruction of their people. Every Indian nation signed a Treaty because they felt that that was or could be a healthy basis, of co-existence with the newcomers in this land. And that is also what the representatives of the Crown said at the Treaty negotiations. This will be the basis on which we both will be able to live together on this land and that is true of all the Treaties regardless of the fine print. The last important symbol about the Treaties, or important message from the fact that there were Treaties signed at all, is that all of them as our motto here says “As long as the sun shines”, all of them were intended to provide for the long term well-being of both peoples. All of them were intended to last long into the future from the time that they were signed. Therefore in the Aboriginal cultures that I am familiar with, Treaties were always intended to be renewed; it was always intended that you would come back to talk about how are things working out, what do we need to change. Unfortunately, most of the English written versions of the Treaties, the older Treaties, all of them that I can think of, don’t say anything about what should happen in the future. What should happen in the future if, for example, the actions of the non-Aboriginal people damage the environment or take away the ability of First Nations people to live in their traditional ways or threaten their economic well-being. The written version of the Treaties don’t talk about how to address these issues although it was very clear that both sides said the Treaties are intended to provide for both sides’ long term benefit. That creates a challenge. And that creates an urgency for all of us today. The reason it is urgent that we think about Treaties is first of all, obviously, there are and there have been misunderstandings and disagreements about the meaning of the Treaties. We’ve heard about the importance of the oral promises that were made and we know in many cases they were not reflected in the written documents. So we knew all along there would be disputes about what the meaning of the Treaties really is. Secondly, the Treaties didn’t really provide for the future very well - the written versions of the Treaties that the Crown has anyway. So we knew there would be disagreements about how we move forward a hundred years later. Thirdly, for most of Canada’s history, and this is still true in almost all of Canada, and unfortunately, this is including Ontario, there is no plan for implementing ongoing Treaty rights on the non-Indian side of the table. Somebody mentioned the Mining Act

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in Ontario today. There’s no reference to Treaties in Ontario’s Mining Act. You can look at whatever statute you want that the provinces pass. I looked at the Ontario Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act. I looked at Manitoba’s Forest Act and Alberta’s Forest Reservations Act. Again and again, I could find no reference even to a Treaty in those acts. And yet decisions are being made about the land and resources under these acts all of the time. There’s nowhere in these acts that direct people to think about how Treaties relate to decisions that are being made under these acts. I know that we have made great progress in having Treaty rights enshrined in the Constitution of Canada but that won’t mean a lot unless things are done on the ground and unfortunately, on the non-Indian side that means in the law to provide that Treaty rights will be respected. That’s one main thing that we need to think about. How will we make sure that, in particular, provincial laws because they’re making decisions all the time about forests resources et cetera, how will we make sure that those decision-makers have to think about Indians and Treaty rights before they decide to let people in to cut down the trees or to explore. This is normal for non-Indians to think about these issues. When equality rights were entrenched in the Constitution for women for example, the government took three years to look at all of their laws, to change them, to make sure that they provided for equality for women in every respect, pensions, etc., etc. We haven’t done the same thing for Treaty rights and we need to. We need to from the non-Indian side not just because it is a good thing to do but because the Constitution requires it. The Supreme Court of Canada has said recently in Haida and Mikisew that the Crown has a duty to act honourably in defining and implementing the rights set out in s. 35. So the government has a duty to define what the Treaties mean, acting honourably and working with First Nations and it has a duty to act honourably in implementing the Treaties. The Ipperwash Inquiry found that we have very little of those mechanisms in Ontario. There are no statutes in Ontario for example that provide that Treaty rights are to be considered when decisions are being made about lands or resources. There is no permanent forum. We’ve got a couple of commissioners at this table who preside over forums in Manitoba and Saskatchewan but there is no permanent forum in most of the provinces in Canada for people to talk, as equals about what they think the Treaties mean. Instead people are charged for catching what the government thinks are too many fish or for preventing resource development. That isn’t the right way to do it. There should forums, there should be regular meetings, there should be laws that change and there needs to be a plan developed between the First Nations and the Crown to make sure that the Treaties are renewed in a way that can provide for their original purpose which is to provide for the survival and health of First Nations societies, First Nations cultures, First Nations economies. It was always known that that was the purpose of the Treaties and we need to sit down and to work very hard, perhaps starting today to think about how we can make that right turn and make sure that the non-Indian side of the table puts measures in place to implement that.

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The last two brief things that I want to mention, apart from the need for a plan on the non-Indian and the Indian side to make sure that Treaty rights are thought about when decisions are being made about traditional lands and resources, there are two other things to think about. One is the problem of memory on the non-aboriginal side of the table. And this will be a problem for those government representatives here. Most Canadians don’t know about the Treaties, don’t know about the significance of the Treaties. They think that this is just a matter of social policy or providing favouritism to Aboriginal peoples. It is all of our obligation to make sure that non-Aboriginal minds, eyes and ears are cleared of those misconceptions so that they can understand the Treaties help to provide the national economy that Canada has today. The Ipperwash Inquiry mentioned, as Commissioner Whitebird mentioned the idea of a Treaty Day and I think that would be a good start as well. You’ve all been very patient and I can see that it’s time to close. So chee megwetch. I will be listening with an open ear myself.

LUNCHEON KEY NOTE PRESENTATION

FSIN TREATY IMPLEMENTATION PRINCIPLES Chief Lawrence Joseph FSIN March 26, 2008 Good afternoon to all of you. I feel a good spirit of cooperation among the leadership across the country and certainly the Committee who put together the agenda picked some wonderful speakers to remind us what Treaty is all about and what their experience is, politically and legally. I was very interested to hear the lawyer speak about the fact that there is no mention of our Treaty in any of the pieces of provincial legislation. So we have a big task ahead of us and that is what we want to talk about today, the fact that we don’t have recognition under Canadian law, certainly provincial. The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations is 61 years old. Sixty-one years ago, the leaders of the past got together and decided we have to work together because without unity, without cooperation among our tribes, our nations, the government is just going to pick us off like sitting ducks in a wide-open pond. I won’t go through the list of former leaders that were there in the formation of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations but one of them is represented by Leona Tootoosis, the daughter of the late great Chief John Tootoosis, one of the originators of the organization known as the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations. Dave Ahenakew was a nephew of Alan Ahenakew, a Chief for forty-four years. These people got together in spite of the fact that it was illegal at the time to meet together and illegal to leave the reserve without the permission of the Indian agent. They got together, took up collections, they didn’t have travel money, or per diem money but they were so determined to find a way to pull the Chiefs together so that we can

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survive not only as nations but actually articulate the Treaties as intended by our teachers, the Elders who are still here. I really thank you, the old people. I want to acknowledge the Elders. Merci. Masi Cho to all of the Elders who are here and still sitting here supporting us. As long as the sun shines, the river flows, the grass grows – these are the three principles we were told. The old people said go ahead and negotiate with the Queen’s representatives but the Treaty will stand. As long as the sun shines, the rivers flow and the grass grows. In the white man’s language that literally means – “until hell freezes over”. These things are living, breathing documents, the Treaties are sacred and I want to acknowledge Chief Ovide Mercredi for nailing it down, the way it should be and nailing it down the way that the Elders told us and we are very gratified that a lot of the speakers, the National Chief and many others have done so. It is amazing that this message, the same message, the same interpretation about Treaty is spoken nationally. It doesn’t matter which Treaty you go, from Treaty 1 all the way to 11, it is the same language – the Treaty will last as long as the sun shines, the rivers flow and the grass grows. We are together in this. And the fact that the government was here this morning to sit with us, the Chiefs that I talked to so far this morning have said basically they have no choice, absolutely no choice but to actually come to the table and say okay Chiefs what is it we are talking about when the spirit and intent of Treaty. As I mentioned, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations is sixty-one years old and many, many years of testimony from leaders of the past, Chiefs, council members, Senators, and yes, Elders, you have given us your teachings. You have blessed us with your wisdom. You have given us instructions, solid foundations from which our future generations will grow and survive and thrive. This is the culmination of what is known as the working principles of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations. Incidentally, we have given us this to the national assembly and it has gone national. We have put together a team to put together the working guidelines. It articulates clearly what the old people, the Elders have spoken about. It is a book that they put together and we thank the Treaty Commissioner, Judge Arnot for putting together, with the assistance of Elders and Senators what is known as Treaty Elders of Saskatchewan. I encourage you to find that book, read it and learn from it and make sure your Chiefs and your children read it because it is all there. It articulates clearly in the English language and we’re in the process of translating this into the various linguistic groups, including Dene, all of the languages across Canada as much as we can. Every step of the way, as one of the serving Chiefs, my privilege to serve as the Chief of the Federation, I always try and scope out a good cross section of not only, wisdom but experience. I was very privileged at the guidance of the Chiefs of Saskatchewan to put together a Task Team to respond to Judge Arnot’s book. We put together this group that is sitting in front of you. Leaders, warriors, actually servants, sometimes without any rewards or any thank you’s. I would like to introduce the Task Force that I put together minus one person; Rodney Soonias is not able to be here today.

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I want to introduce to you former Chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, also former National Chief and now Senator, Dr. David Ahenakew; a former leader when he was a Métis person, back with us now where he belongs, Jim Sinclair; a very grounded spiritual person, academic and former Chief of the Waterhen First Nation Sid Fiddler. The technical team we have that work with us. Although she did not work with us as necessarily as a technical person, she did provide some very strong spiritual guidance for us, Leona Tootoosis. What we want to present today is the document that was produced by this group, ratified by the Chiefs in Assembly. This is not a legal paper. Unfortunately, a lot of the studies and a lot of the work that is prepared for us are based on legal documents, based on the white man’s law. But this document that is being prepared for your information here, is not a legal paper. There is absolutely no attempt by this group to explain or justify in terms of the Canadian legal or political system. None whatsoever. What he Elders have told us (spoke Cree language). Use that and put that in a context paper. And that’s what we’re tying to present here. Validity is based on First Nations oral history, tradition and culture. That’s what I am talking about because our Elders did not create libraries for people to go to. Our Elders still do pass on their information in the oral context and this is where the Treaty Elders of Saskatchewan book was created. Certainly, the working guidelines, the paper we are going to present today is based on oral testimony. The experience of leaders and also the technical…..Our spiritual connection to the land, Kikawinaw Askiy,in fact we are the only nations in all of the world, that call this earth, Mother. This is our very, very sacred relationship that we have with Mother Earth and it determines our relationship not only to the land, but also to each other as First Nations people and our Treaty partners. Here in Saskatchewan we are proud to present to you the tree, the Treaty Tree. I call this a foundation document. When I became Chief, I instructed our technicians to get moving, we have enough information to put together a foundation document where Chiefs can actually take this not for negotiation purposes, but as guiding principles when they negotiate their rights. Chief Ovide Mercredi was very articulate today explaining why we have to use our principles because we understand that nobody knows about Treaty. It is the best-kept secret in Canadian history. They don’t teach it in schools. They don’t teach us much of this in our universities and today we are going to actually introduce our version of the document known as a foundation document. The tree that we utilize is symbolic because the tree represents growth that begins in Mother Earth. Everything and anything that is alive grows from Mother Earth. Mother Earth is the connection that the Creator made for us to survive and keeps it there. This morning I said Mother Earth is very much damaged and we are the keepers of the land and we certainly have to get to work and ensure not damage any further. The Treaties guide to implementation, the whole issue of this conference is to find a way how we can work together, strengthened by our Treaty principles, by our Elders prayers, our traditional ceremonies, our symbolic things that we have here. The

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strength is in unity, so that no Chief has to stand alone when he talks about Treaty. This is our guide, our road map, our document, a foundation for Treaty implementation. I want to remind you that Treaties are not negotiable (indigenous language) We have no right to negotiate any portion of that Treaty understanding, the spirit and intent of the Treaty needs to be articulated in such a way that the white man will understand. Because our Elders that signed the Treaty were not stupid. They were not stupid enough to say, okay I will make a Treaty with you and I will agree to live in poverty. I’ll make a Treaty with you, I’ll agree to fill up your prisons. I’ll make Treaty with you so I‘ll agree that you will run my life from womb to the tomb. No, they didn’t say that. What they said is we will lend you the six inches of the topsoil, that’s all but the rest we will share it, come on in, there’s lots here. We’ll share. However, in time governments start building fences, and start building governments and territories and they took over what is not theirs, and today we have to beg for our portion for those rich resources they talked about this morning. The principles are reference points from which we decided to follow a certain course of action. Clearly, we have a prescribed reference process that our experts developed for us and this was endorsed by the Chiefs in Assembly here in Saskatchewan, and looked at by all the technical experts, as many as we could find, and by the legal people and they couldn’t find anything wrong with it because we are right. The Elders are absolutely right (indigenous language) Our vision, (indigenous language) is that we will live on the land as we always have (indigenous language) Where our peoples will be self-determining and economically independent. That was the original plan (indigenous language) Self-determination without any requirement for us to ask permission from any foreign government. We will be economically independent. We will have the resources to be able to thrive just like everybody else. Where we will walk in health and happiness, with strength, unity, balance and happiness and in accordance with our oral traditions as sovereign nations. We talk about health and the promise (spoke indigenous language) the four areas under health. You will retain your spiritual health, your ceremonies, number 1. You will also retain your physical health (indigenous language) number 2. We will help you maintain your mental health before we drive you crazy. We will also make sure your emotional health is looked after. There will be no caps. That is the promise. We would walk in happiness and strength and unity. I always remember my uncle when I was just a small kid and there were about five dogs sitting there having a meal. He said in your lifetime you will see our people like this and he threw a bone and the dogs were fighting among each other, trying to get that bone. My friends, the Government of Canada has succeeded somewhat, not entirely, to teach us how to fight with one another. They divided us and conquered us and they give money to the loudest and squeakiest wheel and leaving the quiet ones behind. This assembly hopefully will bring all First Nations together in a mission, all

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First Nations leaders together so that no child will have to go hungry ever in this Canadian country. All this vision statement our Elders have clearly told us was bestowed upon us by a higher power, greater than any one of us and affirmed by the Treaty. And that is the basis from which we put together our mission statement. The next statement again taken from our Elders and also leaders from the past, is the mission statement. What is the purpose of this particular document? The mission is clearly in fulfilling our Treaties that our governments and institutions will serve and benefit every citizen of every First Nation in a fair and just manner based on our distinct cultures, laws and customs according to the spirit and intent of Treaty. That is a very loaded statement but we understand exactly what the Elders have told us. And this is the document that clearly specifies where we get off and where we stop. No one in any Treaty Territory has the mandate to stray from that mission or that vision and no one, no matter how grand a Chief you might be or how grand an Elder you are, has any right to negotiate anything less, than what we have articulated in our context paper. It is our foundation document and I am very privileged to present it to you. And you can find this document at www.fsin.com. That is my presentation for my part and I will introduce our Chief of Staff of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, Howard McMaster. Howard McMaster, FSIN Chief of Staff March 26, 2008 (Spoke indigenous language) I guess that’s pretty good for a Blackfoot to speak Cree. I will try to summarize our principles, what we have used and what Chief Joseph indicated is our Tree of Treaty. We consolidated the Treaty Elders of Saskatchewan and the guidance that they have given us. The best way that we felt we could explain what oral history means to us is to give you a basis and a diagram that perhaps may help. And part of this diagram of this Tree of Treaty is to set up timeframes. There are two handouts, one is a copy of this tree and the other is this small book which is the full version of our Treaty principles. We are pressed for time now so I will just use for the most part this Tree. We’ll zero in on the first four principles. What I want to explain here is the timeframe. If we look to the bottom of the tree, the creation is from when we were first put on this land. And the second timeframe is 1492 when Columbus landed here. And that’s the beginning of the middle part. And the third time frame is on the top part of that tree which is the Royal Proclamation of 1763. I will go in order from the bottom up and the reason I want to do that is we want to tie in our nationhood and sovereignty. Our nationhood and sovereignty existed centuries and thousands of years before colonization. And the first four principles I think explain exactly what I mean. In other words, with the coming of the colonizing powers of Britain, France, Spain and those countries beginning in 1492 we were already a thriving society and our belief was in

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fact was a belief in Mother Earth and our role as stewards of this land. The combination of Mother Earth, what is below the ground level and what is above the ground ‘keesic’ which is sun, air, water, sky and wind, the combination of those as well as the trees, the plant life, the insects below the ground, the combination of the two is really what ‘Pimachihowin’ that’s our livelihood. This existed thousands of years before the first colonizers came here. The second one is that we occupied North America as sovereign people before other people came to these shores and that’s a fact that cannot be debated. The third one is the most significant part of we are, because prior to colonization we were a thriving society. We in fact had our own laws, we had our own institutions and we had our own jurisdiction as well as our own traditional Territories. And because we are on this land, it is there for us to use, given to us by the Creator. So what number three says is that we must have respected those and respected each other as people because Mother Earth is lent to us by the Creator. The fourth principle is the Treaty and other political accords (we had our disagreements among tribes but I believe that there were times when we respected one another as well, respected our territories, did our own institutions and respected our jurisdiction. And that occurred of course before colonization. So the first four principles summarize that we existed for thousands of years and the best way to describe that is the trunk of the tree and as we go into the second bow or middle bow, this was from 1492 to 1763 (almost 300 years) probably for the colonizing countries a period of confusion. We were here already. We had our own way of life. It wasn’t until 1763 with the Royal Proclamation that Britain realized they needed our consent when it came to our lands and resources. For us, that particular document signified because they had to get our consent, it must have meant that we were nations. And the reason why we believe we were nations is that trunk of the tree. It originated thousands of years before the Royal Proclamation. So 1763 is the first realization by colonizers that we had nationhood and sovereignty. And of course from1763 until now is what I would call very recent Treaty history – the peace and friendship treaties, the numbered Treaties, the Douglas Treaties have all occurred since 1763. Number six in particular the First Nations and the Crown in fact affirmed that we had nationhood and that we had sovereignty. That enabled us to go into the Treaty process. Number seven is that our sovereignty will continue forever and we will continue to define our nationhood. It is our belief that we always had that. Number eight is our Treaty has international stature. It was eloquently described that the UN Declaration recognizes our indigenous rights. Four countries did not sign that.

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So it is our belief that it is indeed unfortunate that our indigenous rights are supported by 144 countries except the four, and most recently Australia signed on. Number nine is the spirit and intent of Treaty. The spirit and intent of the Treaty relationship is more valid than the written text and will last “as long as the sun shines, the rivers flow and the grass grows”. To First Nations Treaty was a relationship, a partnership of sharing together and living together on this land ‘pimastisiwin’, the Cree term. To the Europeans or colonizers it was more of a real estate transaction. This has been documented in many different papers. One in particular I was reading in National Geographic when they settled in Jamestown shortly after 1492, our Indian brothers were roaming the territories around Jamestown and North Carolina. After a period of time, fences started appearing. What that meant now is that instead of being able to roam freely across commonly held lands, lands that they could commonly secure their livelihood and benefits, now fences cropped up and they were now interfering in someone’s private property. Quite simply a landholding system came into being. We were then in a situation of trespassing. It was no longer the ability to use land as a nation for common use. Our rights were now being carved up by fences. It confirms that in fact the onset of colonization brought a new definition of land and that definition is based on real estate and private ownership. One of the elders confirmed as far as spirit and intent, that we continue to govern ourselves, independently based on our history, culture and language. We all had our various beliefs, different tribes across Turtle Island and we respected each other for that. In fact, we did not give up our way of life as Chief Joseph has indicated. There are various points of view that say and confirm that ‘iskonikan’ is really what we saved for ourselves in order to continue to live on this land. The next part is some of the Treaty promises. There are various interpretations. One of the speakers in the panel said that recent governments, federal and provincial, have gone to laws and legislation. So in a sense, our rights are being defined by someone else. A natural extension of that is the academics, the universities and everybody believes that they solely now are going to define our rights. One of confirmations from the Treaty Task Force is that this is not what it is. We know what are rights are. Our rights are confirmed by our Elders. We don’t need academics. We don’t need someone else’s law because the minute we use somebody else’s law, federal legislation, we also almost have to face their courts, their judges, their lawyers to define our rights, and it’s totally out of focus. Our belief is that if we continue to believe in our Treaty, we should be developing our own laws and our own institutions. The Elders have also confirmed that the promises, accords and covenants are irrevocable and inviolable when made with the Creator, ‘Wiyohtawimaw’. The last point on spirit and intent, we believe certainly and confirmed by our Elders that we were speaking the truth’ tapwewin’. It was also our belief that the Crown was

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speaking the truth but we somehow question that maybe that was not totally occurred. The Elders have confirmed that we have certainly tried to live that way. That’s the advice they give us. We have to believe in our oral testimony. The last point is an ongoing obligation of the Treaty according to spirit and intent. One very strong point, an absolutely unanimous point by the Treaty Task Force was the covenant was in fact three parties. It was our agreement with the Creator as First Nations and the Crown, a bilateral relationship. When the Treaties were signed, they did not contemplate that the Crown would divide itself n between federal and provincial Crowns. Our belief is still that there is only one Crown. On our side, the First Nations side, ours is based on ceremony, protocol, the pipe, Sweetgrass because of our connection to the Creator. One of the things if we look to the Crown unfortunately, they’ve introduced a couple of different words, that the Task Force says that doesn’t belong in our language and that is the use of the word ‘trust’ and the use of the word ‘fiduciary’. When you use those two words it implies that somebody is higher than us. What we have to somehow fulfill that trust. Somebody is taking care of us. What they said is more natural is an equal relationship. The trust so-called obligation, of the federal government, the fiduciary obligation is more of an ongoing obligation and regardless of which Crown it is, the ongoing obligation is a Treaty obligation. The complete presentation and principles are in this book (FSIN Treaty Implementation Principles) and we are available to make presentations of these principles. We have made presentations to various forums across Canada, as well as our own First Nations in Saskatchewan.

PRESENTATION WORKSHOP IMPLEMENTING TREATIES: A DIVERSE CHALLENGE

Dr. J.R. (Jim) Miller, Ph.D., F.R.S.C. Canada Research Chair in Native-Newcomer Relations and Professor of History, University of Saskatchewan March 26, 2008 A key issue in determining how Aboriginal-Crown treaties are best implemented is the nature of the Treaty agreement. Although there is a tendency to focus on territorial Treaties, such as the Numbered Treaties of the West and North or the Pre-Confederation Treaties in Ontario, Canadian Treaties have in fact fallen into five separate categories over the four centuries since contact on the Atlantic and the St. Lawrence. Throughout our history the Treaty relationship has included: commercial compacts; Treaties of peace and friendship; territorial Treaties; comprehensive claims agreements (after 1974); and modern negotiated Treaties. Implementing and maintaining each type of treaty had its own challenges, many of which are relevant to today’s evolving treaty relationship. Because Europeans’ primary reason for making contact in the northern woodlands was trade, the first type of Treaty was agreements to establish commercial relations. Both

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the French in Acadia and the St. Lawrence watershed, and the English in the Hudson’s Bay Company lands to the north made these agreements for similar reasons and in identical ways. In both cases compacts were made through Aboriginal protocols, practices that First Nations had long employed to facilitate inter-tribal trade. These protocols included welcoming ceremonies, speeches of friendship, feasting, giving gifts, and smoking the pipe together. From the First Nations’ perspective, by participating in these rites with European fur traders they were bringing the newcomers into their kinship systems to make it possible to establish commercial ties with them. Annually, these ties would be renewed by participation in the rituals when the parties met at a trading post or in a forest location. The use of these Aboriginal protocols was essential for the maintenance of trade ties. In the fur trade especially, good relations with First Nations were critical because they were the suppliers of the pelts that Europeans sought. Challenges arose to these agreements when the parties lost interest in trading with each other. When that happened, for example, a First Nations trading captain would signal dissatisfaction by not leaving his pipe behind when he left after a visit, and he and his colleagues would not return. The lesson here is that trade treaties work when the parties’ needs and objectives are compatible. This is a lesson for twentieth-century Canada, for in British Columbia resource companies and First Nations have been negotiating agreements to permit resource extraction while Treaty talks are going on in BC. Alongside commercial compacts Treaties of Peace and Friendship emerged in the early post-contact years in eastern Canada. In fact, to describe the emergence of a second category of Treaty in this way is eurocentric. From the perspective of First Nations, there was no distinction between commercial ties and friendship treaties. As a Five Nations diplomat put it in 1735, “trade and peace we take to be one thing.” There was no distinction because one traded with one’s friends, who were newly created ‘kin,’ and no one else. For Europeans, however, there was a distinction, and in the eighteenth century it was a difference that mattered. That period was dominated by wars in which First Nations were critically important as allies: a series of French-English wars that culminated in the Seven Years’ War that ended in 1763; the War of the American Revolution, 1775-83; and the War of 1812-14. In the diplomatic interludes between the wars and during the hostilities both Britain and France sought to establish and hold relationships with First Nations because of their importance as fighters. Treaties of peace and friendship were made using the same methods as with commercial compacts: Aboriginal protocol. The use of formal welcomes, speeches of friendly reassurance, feasts, and gifts continued to be used, and in this period the annual giving of presents assumed greater importance. Annual presents from a European ally symbolized the yearly renewal of the relationship of Crown and First Nation. Again, both French and British administrators proved adept at carrying out

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the techniques of forest diplomacy that were necessary with these kinds of agreements. A key element with Treaties of Peace and Friendship were records to preserve the agreements. The Europeans used written documents, of course, on which First Nations leaders often ‘signed’ their names by inscribing their totems. Both sides also used the First Nations’ wampum, the belts of woven shells that recorded agreements. No message sent from one side to the other would be regarded as credible unless the messenger carried a wampum belt with which to introduce it. At a council no speech would be taken seriously unless it was accompanied by wampum. For the First Nations who were party to these Treaties, wampum was their record of what the two sides had agreed. Later they would take out the belts and ‘read’ them to their European allies, especially if the partners seemed prone to forget their undertakings. The challenge to implementing Treaties of Peace and Friendship arose from the fact that their purpose was to further the strategic cause of one side or another. As long as both European and First Nations continued to find their objectives compatible, they would be able to implement their agreements satisfactorily. But if the objectives of one side changed, then these pacts fell apart. Among First Nations the biggest challenge was differences of opinion within their organization. With the Iroquois, the interests of the Mohawk were often different from those of the Seneca because of the two nations’ geographic locations. On the European side, a good example of what could go wrong flowed from the Treaties between various Mi’kmaq bands and the Crown in 1760-61. Their trade clauses said that Britain would maintain “truckhouses,” subsidized government trading marts, to which the Mi’kmaq were to bring their products. After a few years, however, Britain lost interest and the truckhouses closed. It would not be until the Marshall decision of 1999 that the Mi’kmaq saw these Treaties restored to vitality. Territorial Treaties were an indirect product of the era of Treaties of Peace and Friendship. The Seven Years’ War led to Britain’s promulgation of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, and that Proclamation, of course, proved to be the foundation of Territorial Treaties that were made between 1764 and 1923. The Proclamation recognized some sort of First Nations’ property rights west of the colony of Quebec and the Proclamation Line, the height of land west of the American seaboard colonies. More important were its provisions for acquiring those lands. The Proclamation said that, if a First Nation wished to dispose of lands, only the Crown could acquire them, and only at a public meeting called expressly for that purpose. The aim of those regulations was to prevent freelance land speculation that in the past had caused friction between First Nations and settlers. The Royal Proclamation’s rules for making Treaties about territory were implemented in two series of Treaties in Upper Canada (the future southern Ontario) between 1783 and the middle of the nineteenth century. Initially, in Treaties negotiated prior to the War of 1812, First Nations were compensated with one-time payments, expressed in

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monetary terms but paid in goods. In Treaties from 1816 onward compensation took the form of smaller annual payments, or annuities. The provision of reserves and recognition of continuing hunting and fishing rights were incorporated into Treaties in 1850 with the two Robinson Treaties. From that point onward Aboriginal-Crown Treaties were distinguished by a bundle of terms: annuities, reserves, large areas, and recognition of gathering rights. While the requirements of the Royal Proclamation were not always honoured in the Upper Canadian treaties, this treaty-making protocol was well established as a precedent by Confederation in 1867. Upper Canadian precedent became Dominion of Canada practice in the West in the 1870s. The motives for making the Numbered Treaties were many and diverse. So far as government was concerned, most of the leaders who ran Indian policy after 1867 were from central Canada and knew the Upper Canadian precedents. When Canada acquired Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1869-70, it had to accept a clause in the agreement that said that Canada, not Britain or the Hudson’s Bay Company, was responsible for dealing with any Indian claims that arose. Furthermore, Canada had nation-building ambitions that required that it quickly build a railway across and settle farmers on the prairie lands, something it could not do if the West was aflame with Indian wars. Finally, there was the issue of cost. Canada had learned in the 1869-70 Red River Resistance that ignoring local inhabitants cost more than dealing with them in advance. Canada could not afford to fight a series of western Indian wars in the 1870s, as the Americans were doing. In that decade the Americans were spending more each year on wars in the West than the Dominion of Canada’s total annual budget. And what about the western First Nations? Why did they agree to Territorial Treaties? The first thing to note is that not all did willingly. Leaders like the Plains Cree Chief Mistahimusqua (Big Bear) did not trust Canada, and stayed out until starved into Treaty in December 1882. Most other Plains leaders, though, were open to making Treaty. The major reason was that western leaders recognized that their peoples were in a weakened condition for which Treaties might provide help. Their strength had been sapped by decades of on and off warfare between the Cree and Blackfoot, a lengthy confrontation that ended only with a Peace Treaty in 1871. They had also been weakened by the latest smallpox epidemic, which swept through the region in the 1860s. Moreover, they were aware that the foundations of their economies were being undermined. In northwestern Ontario Anishnabe groups were finding their seasonal employment with the Hudson’s Bay Company drastically reduced, as the company changed transportation methods to rely more on American railways and steamers, and less on York boats operated by First Nations and Métis. On the prairies the problem was that decades of overhunting were seriously reducing the herds of bison on which Plains peoples depended for every aspect of their lives. Some First Nations in the West had already begun to experiment with gardening as a response.

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Finally, western First Nations knew from HBC personnel and missionaries about external dangers. They knew that thousands of non-Native immigrants would soon be coming to western lands. They also knew from their kinfolk to the south that the alternative to finding a way to live with these newcomers was to fight them. And they had seen as well that such a course of action in the U.S. was highly destructive. Consequently, most western leaders were open to negotiating Treaties. They were familiar with non-Natives and negotiations from their two-century-long dealings with fur traders, although they did not appreciate fully that a different kind of newcomer would be negotiating now. Most thought that they could take these newcomers, too, into their extended kin system by Treaty and establish a mutually beneficial relationship with them through the Canadian government. They also expected that through that same government they could get assistance with education and learn to farm. Finally, their perception of the Crown was positive, in marked contrast to their view of the ‘Long Knives’ [American government] across the ‘Medicine Line’ [Canada-U.S. boundary], in some cases because of their experience with the Mounted Police. All these considerations led most Chiefs to enter negotiations. The seven Treaties that resulted between 1871 and 1877 gave Canada peaceful access to a vast Territory stretching from the Lake of the Woods to the Rockies and from the U.S. border to a point roughly halfway up the present Prairie Provinces. In return, western First Nations got initial payments and annuities, reserves, educational facilities, recognition of gathering rights, assistance with agriculture, and in the case of Treaty 6 provisions to protect them against famine and epidemic disease: the medicine chest clause and the famine clause. After 1877 Canada lost interest in making Territorial Treaties until the desire for access to northern resources stimulated another phase of Treaty-making between 1899 and 1921. Then another set of Treaties dealt with lands from northern Ontario west to the borders of Yukon on terms similar, though not identical, to those in the original seven Numbered Treaties. After that, with the exception of the so-called Williams Treaties of 1923 in Ontario, Territorial Treaty-making ceased. The biggest challenges in implementing Territorial Treaties – whether Upper Canadian Treaties or the western and northern Numbered Treaties – has been the different understandings the two sides have had of the agreements. Put simply, Canada has taken a legalistic view, seeing these Treaties as contracts whose terms are embodied exclusively in the government’s written texts. First Nations, in contrast, see them as covenants involving three parties – Crown, First Nations, and the deity – and hold that everything that said in Treaty negotiations is as much as part of Treaty as what was written in the government’s version. From that profound difference enormous problems have arisen. After 1923 Canada reverted to the attitude it had displayed between 1878 and 1898: it was not interested in making more treaties. The reasons for this stance were many

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and complex, too numerous for treatment here. Suffice it to say that for half a century Canada ignored requests from First Nations to make new Treaties or to adhere to existing ones. Two things forced Canada to change its position. First, from the Second World War onward southern entrepreneurs showed increasing interest in getting access to northern resources such as oil, gas, hydro, uranium, and base metals that were often found on First Nations’ and Inuit land where there were no Territorial Treaties. Second, Aboriginal peoples increasingly organized themselves into effective political organizations that represented Natives’ views and defended their interests. These two new forces came together in the 1970s to spark a return to Treaty-making, now along two distinct paths. First, the challenge that the James Bay Cree and Inuit mounted to the James Bay hydro project of the Quebec government raised questions about developing Aboriginal lands where there were no Territorial Treaties. Second, the Supreme Court of Canada in the 1973 Calder or Nisga’a decision upheld Aboriginal title as something enforceable in law. These important developments – coming close together in time as they did – forced both governments and economic interests to pay attention to the unextinguished rights of Aboriginal peoples who controlled lands rich with natural resources. The response by the federal government was the creation of the comprehensive claims resolution process in 1974, and by the federal and provincial governments jointly the decision to enter into negotiations with the Inuit in the eastern Arctic, the Nisga’a of the Nass Valley, and dozens of First Nations throughout British Columbia through the BC Treaty Commission (BCTC) process. Comprehensive claims agreements are modern treaties, and are explicitly protected by the 1982 Constitution’s clause that recognized and affirmed Aboriginal and Treaty rights. Separate treaties have been negotiated for Nunavut and the Nisga’a Lisims government. And, finally, the BCTC process has now resulted in two Final Agreements. The challenges of the final phase, the era of comprehensive claims and separately negotiated Treaties, have arisen mainly because of the provincial governments. Where there are provincial governments involved, as in British Columbia, negotiations have been difficult, protracted, and controversial. On the other hand, agreements in the Territorial North, while not easy, have been achieved more often. Since Canada is a federal state and abolition of provinces is impossible, it would seem that the only solution is more public education about the need for and benefit for all of Modern Treaties. In conclusion, Canada’s experience implementing treaties over the past four centuries shows that the challenges are many and diverse. Some of the difficulties arise from the different type of Treaty in question; others from conflicting understandings of what the agreement was. In the twenty-first century the challenge is to provide more and better education to Canadians about the benefits of Treaty-making.

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Update on Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) Situation in Northern Ontario by Grand Chief Stan Beardy, Joe Mackay and Mark Anderson March 26, 2008 Remarks by Grand Chief Stan Beardy Grand Chief Beardy began by speaking indigenous language. I’ve been sitting here all day listening to the discussions. I want to share with you a story, a situation not in a far away land, but a situation right here in Canada, in Ontario in a little community called Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI). I want to share with you the situation with KI because for the few hours we’ve been talking about partnership, we’ve been talking about Treaty relations, we’ve been talking about respect , we’ve been talking about Treaty-making process, nation-to-nation, government-to-government relations. I have up here with me people from KI at a community level. I have asked them to share with you what really is happening on the ground. The situation I am talking about is called Anishnabe Aski Treaty No. 9 and KI is the location where we signed an adhesion to Treaty No. 9 in 1929-1930 and on the same principles we’ve been discussing here - nation-to-nation respect, cooperation. And yet today, as I speak to you the Chief and Council from KI are sitting in jail. They are sitting in jail because they stood up for what they believe in – their God given right to be on the land, to live on the land, to exercise their Aboriginal and Treaty rights. And I bring it to your attention because if it can happen to us in Northern Ontario, that the rightful leaders, the elected leaders of a community can be locked up for six months for standing up for what they believe in, stand up for who they are, I think it is possible in the year 2008 that it to happen to any of you, to any of us. I think it is very important as we gather here as all the nations across Canada, that is known as Confederation that we take action not only with what is happening in Northern Ontario but I think we need to remind the Government of Canada that they have a responsibility to us as a Treaty partner. So we are asking ourselves in Northern Ontario with Nishnawbe-Aski, where is the Government of Canada today? How come they are silent? How come they are just standing by just watching this to take place? With that I would like to ask Joe Mackay to share with us some of the activities that is happening with the community, the fear, the anxiety and how it impacts their everyday living, their operational end of running a community. Remarks by Joe McKay Megwetch Stan Beardy. Greetings to everybody. First of all, I would like to extend my thanks to the First Nation on whose traditional land I am. I am glad to be here. I welcome everybody, Elders, Chiefs, and all the delegates that are here. On behalf of the Chief and Council of Big Trout Lake, originally called Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug I wish to extend their thank you for all things that you are doing and your prayers for them and for your support.

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As you realize, our Chief and Council, our Chief Donny Morris, Deputy Chief Jack McKay, Head Councillor Cecilia Begg, Councillor Samuel McKay, Bruce Sakakeep, Darryl Sainnawap, Enus McKay and Evelyn Quequish are in jail. As we were discussing I was thinking along same lines, isn’t it kind of strange to talk about Treaty implementation when the Chief and Council of KI implemented what they understood to be their Treaty right, one of the other Treaty partner threw them in jail. The federal government itself has been silent all along. We talk about Treaty implementation, how we’re going to do it. If KI is trying to implement Treaty, the one that they signed with the governments and this is how our Treaty partners are going to treat us, what is it that we are talking about here? All we’re talking about Treaty implementation among ourselves, where’s our partners? And what guarantee will we have that they will no longer throw our leadership in jail because they are implementing their Treaty rights? In our community right now, there are only about three council members left, and about eighteen working group members that support the remaining three councillors. And we call our Chief and Council in exile. We still honour them as Chief and Council because they did not bring this amongst themselves but it was at the direction of the community members like myself, when we say ‘no’ for anything, any mineral or mining act to happen in our Traditional Territories. It was people that said ‘no’ and the personal decision was made by those council members if the people wanted them to stand up to this. There was an election prior in November and people, those that were running for council, had to remember why and what is the mandate of this community, and what we’re up against. We were sued for $10 billion. Although they brought it down to $10 million, that still doesn’t matter to us. It is something that we believe in. They might say that it is 40 kilometres. Actually it’s about 17 kilometres from that lake where we live off, where we practice our traditional harvesting, gathering and hunting. This is where spawning grounds for fish are located, and this migration routes for caribou, geese and ducks. It would have a profound effect on our community members. Not only us, but there is a community down the river from where we live. It’s probably about 30 kilometres from where we live. It’s called Wapekeka First Nation. They will be impacted by this. It’s just not going to be a little mine, once it happens. It’s going to be an open pit. It is going to be located right close by the lake. It is going to have a profound effect on our people, our children and our grandchildren. This is why we are fighting for it. That’s why the Chief and Council are willing to go to jail. But we still support them because they are the Chief and Council elected. We have to honour and respect these people that are there right now. We stand by them because we put them there, we the people of KI. We are the ones that put the Chief and Council in there. It was our mandate. It wasn’t the Chief and Council themselves but us, the people spoke unanimously and said ‘no’, we will not have any mining activity in that Traditional Territory, especially close to the lake. What the Chief and Council that took upon selves, okay to go to jail.

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I want to talk about this contempt of court. We have a copy of the transcript, of the court proceedings if you want some or want more information, there is a table. I want to read a couple of things from Judge Smith’s reasoning. It says at paragraph 43 of his reasoning why these people are going to be thrown in jail. It says: “In this regard, the issues involved in the sentencing hearing have a much broader degree of relevance than just to the community of KI or the contemnors. If two systems of law are allowed to exist - one for the aboriginals and one for the non-aboriginals, the rule of law will disappear and be replaced by chaos. The public will lose respect for, and confidence in, our courts and judicial system. ” I want to remind people a few years ago the former Indian Affairs Minister, Bob Nault had initiated a court case against Pikangikum First Nation from Northern Ontario. He took them to court and Pikangikum First Nation fought him in court and they won. Bob Nault, the former INAC Minister was found in contempt of court. Nothing ever happened. He was never thrown in jail, he was never fined. Nothing ever happened. To me what Judge Smith founding his reasoning is a total disregard for their own laws. There’s two law systems in this place. I know it. People know it but we just kind of struggle along. Even in southern Ontario, in the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation dispute, all the natives got fined, thrown in jail and three non-aboriginal people never got fined, never got sentenced to jail. They were released. Their cases were thrown out of court. And to me, that’s two legal systems – one for the aboriginals and one for the non-aboriginals. And I believe that’s not the way it should be. We believe in the court systems. Why do you think the Chief and Council risked themselves to be thrown in jail because they believed in the court systems but the court system let us down. Not only the Chief and Council but the community members themselves, the Aboriginal community itself. I believe that’s one of things you find very disappointing is the lack of support from our Treaty partners. Chief Donny Morris has to relay a message to our band office for me to be able hear from him. Prior to lunch, he passed on a message. He said “AFN and I need to work together. “ We have not heard yet from their lawyer. Phil Fontaine said their lawyer would get hold of our lawyer that we would work together. He said as of this morning, we have not heard from their lawyer. We’ve had issues with AFN but Chief Morris said he is willing to work with AFN as long as AFN works for KI. The other thing we want to point out is and I don’t know if the Chief Phil Fontaine wants to dispute this, but the lawyer from Platinex that is suing us for $10 million, they paid for Phil Fontaine to fly to Winnipeg to sign an agreement with the Mining Association of Canada. And we, as KI, do not agree with them. We are against that. I think it is very disrespectful if a Chief, if his word is not being taken. And we stand right now today, KI, we do not fully support the AFN because it does not look out for the First Nations. If the Grand Chief makes agreements with the same companies that are trying to have our leaders thrown in jail, where is our advocacy going to be taken. Who is going to do it for us? Who is going to do it for KI? The members of the community, all of them, are willing to go to jail if need be. Everyone will go to jail. They said that. They already said that. We’ll go to jail just to prevent what is happening. Yes, we are living in Canada, called the land of the free but as long as you are not in the way you are free. But if you get in the way, you are not free anymore. Your freedom is taken away from you. These

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people have families. These people have families. They have children. They have homes to look after. They don’t have furnaces. They run by wood. We’re just saying, we need your support. There is going to be a resolution sometime. We want the Chiefs in Assembly to endorse. If you can find it in your hearts to stand with us. It will be given out tomorrow. I thank you for everything and the time that you’ve given us to be here. God bless everybody. National Chief Phil Fontaine responded to some of Mr. McKay’s remarks as follows: Mr. Chairman, as I mentioned in my presentation this morning, my position and the position of the Assembly of First Nations is very clear regarding KI’s dispute. We stand with the community. I was able to commit to our position when I met with Chief Donny Morris and his council where they are incarcerated and we have stated very publicly our position for support for the community. As I said today, KI has the right to say ‘no’ to development and every First Nation community has that same right. We’ve expressed that position very, very clear. In terms of the suggestion that I would actually call on Platinex to pay my way to Winnipeg to endorse an agreement. That is absolutely not true. I wouldn’t take a penny from Platinex or any mining or exploration company that is trying to exploit a First Nation community. That’s not the case, and never was the case and I’m going to speak to Mr. Mackay, face to face and explain that to him. That is the last thing I would do. Any suggestion that I would sell off a First Nation community in favour of an interest such as Platinex is a complete misrepresentation of my position or the position of the Assembly of First Nations in this regard. I hope this is clear to the Assembly here and once again, I reiterate our position that our position is in support of KI. We’ve made that very clear to Chief Morris.

PANEL PRESENTATION - IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES AND OPPORTUNITIES Chief Allan Claxton – Historic Douglas Treaties in BC March 26, 2008 Good Afternoon everyone. Thank you to Treaty 6 for hosting this meeting and to our partners. My name is SXED,QEL,A'NEW . That’s in our traditional language Sencoten and means “the ownership of a reef net fishery territory and a deer trail. My Dad took me out to teach me how to hunt and fish as formerly and have passed that on to my own son and he has become an even better hunter and fisher than myself, especially since I became Chief. To clarify, I am the Chief of the Tsawout First Nation. We signed Treaty in 1852, part of the five Saanich bands that were signatories around that time. Our community is on

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Vancouver Island, about 20 kilometres north of Victoria, only a couple of minutes from the Victoria airport. We are also known in our language as ‘the salt water people’. I feel oftentimes growing up that I was born in the wrong generation because I so envy the stories I hear from my Dad and my grandfather who jumped on their canoes and paddled out in our Territory, hunting and fishing. They would not be out for a few hours, they would be out there sometimes for a whole summer or the whole season. We are a very seasonal people. We used to follow the salmon, the deer. Thinking of myself and my name, as a boy I would ask if I could bring some of my buddies with me. He’d say sure. Then at the start he would take us up to the top of the trail and he would say three or four of you go down below and that’s where all the deer are, and I’ll stay up top here where there’s no deer and you guys spread out and begin to move down into the valley. So we did that, many times and every time we came back to the camp, there’d be another deer hanging there in the camp. What we were doing was driving deer up to my Dad. He was very sly in teaching us how to hunt. A little bit about the Treaty with James Douglas who came to the area. The story goes that Douglas was over at Mount Douglas Park which was named after him. The Chiefs were curious at that time at what was happening, so they sent a young messenger, a kid about thirteen years old to run out to Mount Douglas Park to find out what was going on. James Douglas and his men shot and killed the messenger. He then could hear the war drums and everything else so he moved to Fort Victoria. From there, that is where the Douglas Treaty was initiated. There are fourteen individual agreements on the island. We are one of them. There’s five Saanich bands, all signatories. There are a number of First Nations in the Greater Victoria area. We are not part of the new Treaty process. We say, and our Elders say, we signed a Treaty in 1852 so why should we have a new one. There are other First Nations that are in the Treaty process and trying to have their Treaties side by side a new Treaty. That’s fine, that’s their prerogative. There’s some that want to throw out the Douglas Treaty and sign a new one. And that’s fine too, that’s their business. There were the typical signatories with the ‘X’. I don’t know how they distinguished whose signature was which “X”. I guess they were able to do that. The Treaties all pretty much say the same thing. Ours says we can hunt and fish “as formerly”, our village sites and enclosed would be protected forever. We’ve always had to fight for these rights. We believe that when the Treaties were signed, it was government-to-government. We weren’t giving up the land because we were signing a peace Treaty because of the incident that happened back then. I will move on to where we are at now. It was about two years ago the Elders were having their annual Christmas gathering and we as Chief and council thought we would sit in with them. They got right to the point three years ago. They said; what are you

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doing about Douglas Treaty implementation? They said look at us, we are not getting any younger. We’re not going to be here forever and you are going to need our information if you are going to move into Douglas Treaty implementation. So, we said, okay, let’s move it ahead. We tried to move it ahead as the five First Nations of Saanich but it was not moving fast enough. The next Christmas they said we are still here and since then, we’ve lost three more Elders. They are not guaranteed to be here for a longtime. My dad has been one of the last fluent speakers of our language, who knows the names of the Territory. That’s how we get our Saachnoton names at times, the land and what was happening on the land at that time. We are protectors of the land and protectors of the rights that go with that. Just after a Christmas we filed a legal action for Douglas Treaty implementation. We took a small step. We are going after the commercial right to the fishery and that’s not just for the fish that are there now. We’re also going to go after what’s been lost since the signing of the Treaty because there are no more Cohoe. The sockeye are becoming very slim. With global warming, it’s getting tougher and tougher to catch a fish in our Territory. We need to have the ability to go not go after the salmon when the resource is scarce and go after something that will create revenues for us. The other things that we have done in my community is we have put up pillars. We have taken over property tax from the municipality. That money stays in the community. We’ve taken over the GST, that’s approximately $1.3 million that stays in the community now. We took over the sewer treatment plant, and we are developing more tax bylaws and creating more revenues so that we can move ahead on things, that our community, especially our Elders deem are priorities. Just two weeks ago we began construction of an $8 million sportsplex for the Elders and the youth. We are trying to move ahead and be proactive but we still need the teachings of our Elders to do this properly, Sharon Venne - Identifying Opportunities for Moving Forward March 26, 2008 Hello to everyone. Thank you for inviting me to speak at this meeting. It’s always a little intimidating to speak when there are so many Elders here who have taught me so much over the years. I thank them for that. I wanted to speak not about any one specific Treaty, but more to deal with the obligations and duties of the State of Canada because implementation issues involve the obligations of States and nations. Treaty by its very nature is entering into an obligation of international law which was voluntarily undertaken. The Supreme Court of Canada recently said in the Haida case that there was a pre-existing sovereignty and an assumed sovereignty of the State of Canada. I say that again - pre-existing sovereignty and an assumed sovereignty. I think that is very important to keep in mind

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because Treaty implementation is not a policy decision. It is a legal obligation binding on the State of Canada. I use the term “State of Canada” very deliberately because Canada is not a nation-state. No one should call Canada a nation-State. Canada is an artificial entity created by the British Parliament through the British North America Act. Canada achieved its independence by an act of Parliament. Canada did not exist independently, outside of these legislative actions, which is very different from the indigenous nations. We exist under international law based on the legal norms set down by the law of nations. So these Treaties that were negotiated with the sovereign, the British Crown were negotiated using international legal norms and they were negotiated using commonwealth legal norms, which are the fundamental frameworks for the establishment of the state of Canada. These international legal norms and commonwealth legal norms contain the customs and the principles that dictate how an implementation process needs to take place. I know the federal government officials; they wring their hands about this. They say, you know, we don’t know really know what to do about the implementation of Treaties. We don’t really know what kind of guidance we need to have. We really want to do it but we’re not really sure how it should be done. What you need to do is look them in the eye and say you have failed in your education system because in their education system they should have learned that. It is not the responsibility of indigenous peoples to educate the non-indigenous people. They should educate themselves in their own legal norms. So in these international legal norms and in the commonwealth legal norms, there are provisions and principles about how to really go about implementation of Treaties. I reiterate it is not a policy decision. It is a legal obligation, on the State of Canada. Canada cannot say they don’t know because there are lots of commonwealth countries who have gone through the exercise of decolonizing themselves from the British system and have in fact dealt with Treaties. There are all kind of examples if they wanted to look. The problem is that Canada has not wanted to look. As you are well aware, the state itself does not really follow international legal norms in relation to indigenous peoples because they do not follow the Conventions that have been set down by the international community. I refer to the UN Study on Treaties. The Special Rapporteur who undertook this Treaty study in 1989 and finished it in 1999, concluded in his final report that the Treaties continue to maintain their original status (as international agreements) and are fully in effect and consequently are sources of rights and obligations for all the original parties to them and their successors (Canada being a successor State) who shall fulfill their provisions in good faith. The Special Rapporteur concluded that Treaties negotiated in North America and other parts of the world are in fact international Treaties and indigenous nations

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are the subjects of international law which is really important when you are talking about Treaties. So, Canada is a state. We are a nation. We are descendants of nations. Principles of Treaty implementation are very well entrenched both in international law and within the commonwealth legal system which Canada has built itself upon. Canada at this time has been deciding not to take it upon themselves to look at the international legal norms and instead it tries to divert the discussion and talking about what kind of policy development should be done. A policy development is not an implementation of the Treaties. So what can be done in relation to the Treaty implementation by the State? I am not talking about indigenous nations. What can the State do? The State can examine its own legal framework to see if they conform and comply with the principles of Treaties that were made with indigenous nations. Canada needs to fully implement the legal requirements of the idea of fully informed consent. If they had implemented that idea of fully informed consent, we would not have had the discussion earlier about the Chief and council in Northern Ontario. It is not a consultative process but is fully informed consent which is a principle of international law in relation to Treaties. They can begin the discussions to return 51% of the revenues and wealth of the First Nations’ lands and territories which were not surrendered or given away at the time of the Treaty- making – just an example of what they could do in good faith. Ensure there is an adequate prevention process rather than using the municipal law of the present state. I am talking about international norms and the municipal laws of the State. So Canada has municipal laws in relation to international law and the municipal laws are being used against indigenous people right now, which in itself is a violation of Treaty itself, I might add. In evidence the most recent case is what happened in Northern Ontario. Finally, if you want an effective Treaty implementation process in the country, you still have your international remedy. If Canada is not really interested in promoting and putting in place effective Treaty principles related to Treaty implementation, you still have the option to go to the United Nations and ask the United Nations to put in place an effective centre that is going to deal with Treaty violations because you have that right as a nation. You have been recognized by the UN Study. Now before everyone gets into a panic and says it is probably not possible, let me just give you the example of South Africa. South Africa was in the same legal position as Canada. It was created by the British Parliament through a law. It was enacted through the commonwealth. And when the issue of apartheid came to the international stage, the United Nations moved to have a centre developed against apartheid. All of the people who violated the apartheid trading with South Africa were put on a list and there was a report every year made to the UN about the violations under apartheid. It was that political pressure, economic pressure on South Africa that made them change their position and their relationship to black people in South Africa. Because if you think

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those people all of a sudden came to love black people, that’s a lie because they were forced by the international community to recognize them. That center and the process of the way the center was set up can be a very effective mechanism for Treaty violations. Indigenous peoples should push because if the state is not prepared to recognize the principles of international law regarding Treaty implementation and you should exercise your rights as nations to go the United Nations and use that process. Thank you very much for listening to me and I hope I added something to the discussion.

PANEL - ORGANIZING FOR TREATY IMPLEMENTATION IN TREATY 4 TERRITORY

Chief Irvin Starblanket, Dan Bellegarde and Jim Sinclair Dan Bellegarde, President ,Treaty 4 Governance Institute March 26, 2008 Greetings to the Elders leaders, delegates, guests and First Nation citizens who are here today. I am going to set the context for this presentation and will ask Jim Sinclair to come forward with a very good description, an example of the development of First Nations’ laws, a way of implementing Treaty and then Chief Irvin Starblanket to round off with a general description of some of the developments in Treaty 4 Territory. The Treaty 4 Governance Institute organizing for Treaty implementation in Treaty 4 Territory means that the Treaty 4 Chiefs Council has supported the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, and the FSIN and the AFN in their efforts to implement Treaty at the regional and national level and we’ll continue to do so. There’s no question about that. However, we do believe that there is a part to play by the Treaty 4 Chiefs Council, the Treaty 4 Governments on implementation of Treaty in our Territories at the local level. For without the local level support and involvement, then there isn’t much chance for achievement of regional or national Treaty implementation. The doctrine of Aboriginal rights is well understood - rights arising from our ancestors’ nationhood, use and occupancy of the land, use for tribal sovereignty. I am not going to talk too much about these. These are things that are part of everyone’s understanding – the Royal Proclamation of 1763, unilaterally asserted Britain’s sovereignty over what is now North America but it also acknowledged Aboriginal rights and led to the Treaty-making process. First Nations believed that we would live as we chose according to our customs and traditions, without interference and with recognition of our right to govern ourselves.

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This is an important understanding from our perspective of the Treaty-making process, different from the written understanding, of course, by our Treaty partners, the Crown. They assumed Treaty gave it complete sovereignty over the First Nations. A complete sovereignty took the form of the Indian Act. In 1874 and 1876 when Treaties 4 and 6 were being negotiated and signed off, the federal government was pulling together the first consolidated Indian Act and this was the first breach of Treaty. It was a breach of Treaty because it breached the recognition of the inherent right to self-government which is manifested in the Treaty-making process and is part of it. So that is the initial breach. The Indian Act was applied to Treaty 4, immediately after, in 1876. Everybody knows it is assimilationist, racist and paternalistic. The critical element here is that it replaced the governance processes of First Nations. It controlled lives as Chief Joseph said from womb to tomb, defines all the elements of governance. The Indian agents controlled our lives. The Act creates a trust relationship and someone this morning mentioned that you cannot have a trust relationship if you want true self-government. You cannot have a trust relationship if you want a Treaty relationship. They are quite opposite to each other. I want to go into the Treaty 4 governance model very quickly. The Iron Nations Alliance was a precursor to the Treaty-making process of 1874, just to indicate that Treaty- making was something that First Nations did prior to the Numbered Treaties. It was not a new concept to us. We entered into Treaties with other First Nations - in this case, the Iron Nations Alliance were the Assiniboine, Cree and Saulteaux in the southern part of Saskatchewan and Manitoba (that was around the mid 1800’s), Treaty 4 in 1874 and various adhesions. Then in the 1980’s, there’s the land claim. Perry Bellegarde, Eldon Bellegarde, Ron Crow were all very familiar with this land claim. They carried it through. Eventually it became the catalyst to bring the Treaty 4 First Nations together again, after 120 years of Indian Act administration, which separated the bands from each other (just through the various elements of governance that the Indian Act forced upon us). So we living in our separate little silos and our little communities and not considering working together. The land claim brought us together and in 1989 we had a draft protocol called the Treaty 4 Proclamation and the Convention which was ratified in 1999. It is a collective process involving 34 First Nations: 27 in Treaty 4 Saskatchewan and 7 in Treaty 4 Manitoba. This creates some difficulties. It crosses provincial boundaries that were not there at the time of Treaty-making but are a reality now we have to deal with. We have two Treaty Commissions: one operating in Manitoba, one in Saskatchewan. We have a statement of Treaty principles from the FSIN. Hopefully Treaty 4 Manitoba agrees with those principles. I am not sure if they were ever consulted, same as Treaty 6 in Alberta. I hope they agree with the principles. I am not sure if they were ever consulted on those principles. A united approach to inherent

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and Treaty rights – that means to jointly advance self-determination, a framework to develop governance capacity and a framework to negotiate self-government. The Treaty 4 organizational structure and systems are critical because they have a major impact as well on Treaty implementation. First Nations are a primary order of government. It’s not the FSIN. It’s not the AFN. It’s not the tribal councils. It’s the First Nations who are a primary order of government and also the primary level at which Treaty implementation must occur. The FSIN did not sign Treaties. The Tribal Council didn’t. The First Nations did. The First Nations are willing to delegate some responsibility. They are not going to delegate the responsibility of implementing Treaty on the ground. They organize into larger political administrative bodies - the council of Chiefs. It’s the seniour governance unit. The rights and powers of First Nations will not be compromised. The Treaty 4 Proclamation and Convention is critical. It talks about the inherent and Treaty rights of First Nations in Treaty 4 Territory and sets the groundwork for the development of a Treaty 4 government. It talks about the principles and values, jurisdictions, sovereignty and discretion, individual and collective rights of First Nations, the mandate and structure of the Treaty 4 entities, the governance and working relationships. There’s the Treaty 4 Proclamation and Convention. I have a couple of copies available. It was signed in principle that inherent and Treaty rights are the basis of our social, political and economic development. So we’ve taken the position that there are two pillars here to the revitalization of our communities, the inherent right to self-government and the implementation of the Treaty right. One depends on the other. This is the general structure of the Treaty 4 governance model to fulfill the mandate of the Proclamation. It does have a number of elements to it. I must tell you though that this particular model is there. It has been approved and it is ready to go. They will continue that. But they do require a Treaty 4 Treaty Rights Protection Office. In fact I believe that every band office, every tribal council office, every federation office and every AFN office is a Treaty Rights protection office and should be called that. We should call the Little Black River band administration office the Little Black River Treaty Rights Protection Office. Even so, it would still need some central organization to provide research, education, advocacy function. It has to be funded by Treaty 4 First Nations. I don’t believe that an advocacy office like the Treaty 4 Rights Protection Office can be funded by the Crown. It has to be ours. It has to be under our control. It cannot be at the discretion of the Crown. It has to work across provincial boundaries and accountable to the Treaty 4 Executive Council and Treaty 4 Chiefs Council. That’s a quick introduction. I would like Jim Sinclair to come forward now and make a presentation to us on development of First Nations law. Jim Sinclair, Treaty 4 March 26, 2008

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I am really proud to be here. It’s been a long time since I faced an audience quite this large. For many years, I was involved in the constitutional discussions for a long time. I know what it’s like to be in front of people and I know what it is like to be criticized as leaders when you have to do things. But that’s a job, a task you take on when you are a leader. I worked with Treaty 4 for a number of years as Co-Chair. We had developed what we called a proclamation, a Treaty 4 Proclamation which is a manifesto on how to govern ourselves. We worked on hard on that. We said that we would make our own laws. We were tired of someone imposing their laws upon us. The reason we did this was at one of the constitutional discussions, some of us were sitting with Prime Minister Trudeau and talking about letting us exercise our rights. And Trudeau was the kind of man that always didn’t stay in the background. He spoke up and told you what he felt. He wasn’t afraid to do that. And he said to us very clearly – “You go home and you exercise your rights. You go home and you challenge us. Don’t come here and cry about your rights” and I never forgot that. He said: “You must take things into your own hands. You are the protectors of your Treaties. You are the protectors of your rights. You are the ones that have to protect those rights and we will support you.” I never forgot that because it was really important to me and I heard much the same thing from Prime Minister Mulroney. I was also involved in section 35 and I know there has been a lot of discussion about section 35. There was talk about the fact that maybe we shouldn’t have that. The great John Tootoosis who I really respect, when we traveled around to the different regions of Saskatchewan talking about the pre-constitutional discussions that we’d have and what we would do. John was very strong on Treaties. He was one of the strongest people I met to talk about Treaties. He spoke fluent Cree and fluent English and he was very clear to me. He said, I don’t believe we need our Treaties in the constitution. I asked him why and he said we don’t need them there because they stand alone. They stand alone. We don’t need to talk about the Constitution. That’s Canada’s constitution. We have our own and they are Treaty and Treaty rights. I never forgot that as well. However, I thought that where we could have further protection and further recognition, we should have section 35. And of course today, people are using section 35 as part of the way, as part of the structure to implement our rights and I think it takes its place in that part. We also talked this morning about the laws. That’s what I am here to tell you about in my few minutes. When the Supreme Court of Canada makes laws, we sit back as Treaty people and wait for Justice to interpret those laws even when they are directly supporting our rights. And when Justice interprets the law that the Supreme Court made, you notice that they are watered-down. They stick on the fringes of what the

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court said and talk about their version of our rights and what that court case, that judgment meant. That’s a big mistake. When that Supreme Court makes a decision, why do we not interpret what that decision means for us? Why do we let someone else interpret that decision? That’s what lawmaking is all about. It’s not about sitting back and letting someone else impose something on you. It’s here right now that we can make those laws and exercise our rights through those laws. A Treaty is not something, as someone said this morning that is history. Treaties are present. They are here today. I tell people they should be for Christians, like the old family Bible. When you take it out, the pages are all worn and they’re hard to read because you look at them all the time. Our Treaties are pristine, sitting on the walls never touched. In fact, some of them are encased. It is time we took those treaties out and start to define and interpret them ourselves. That’s our job. That’s your job as young people who are now coming into this world, coming in as lawyers and professors to make sure that interpretation is done right through our Elders and through our communities. Based on that, I really feel we have to make laws. I’ll tell you why. I am talking as a community person. When you go to court, for hunting or trapping, you go there alone and stand in front of a judge. That judge sentences you or convicts you based on the white man’s law on previous cases. They’ll use all those cases where they won against us because nobody could afford a lawyer. What I do when I go to court for people I go there not as a lawyer because I am not a lawyer in the first place but strictly as a person who knows about Treaty. I tell that judge very clearly that I am here on a Treaty basis. In order to do that, our tribal council made two laws. We didn’t want to get too deep because we don’t have this big justice system. One was to make sure the game wardens don’t come into our house and our homes and start digging in our freezers and taking out the game and telling us you’re going to go to jail, you’re going to go to court because you shouldn’t have this here. The next one we made in our Treaty 4 Territory is that we will hunt and gather on private lands, on farm lands, in forests. And we will do that because we have the right to do that. But we will do, we will honour the safety rules. We will not shoot near a person’s house, we will not spotlight, we will not trample the farmer’s crop. We will not do that. On that basis, I have been in court three times already and I haven’t lost a case yet. But I haven’t won either; simply because the judge doesn’t want to deal with Treaty rights. Neither does the prosecution. Therefore they throw the case out rather than address that issue. That’s what we have working for us. Because when you make a law and you go before that judge, we stand there with the support of our people. Who is the judge going to throw in jail? Is he going to throw that person in jail when he comes there with a law made by our council and our people? He’s got to throw us all in jail. That’s what lawmaking is all about and I challenge you to start making laws based on your Treaty rights. Move on that at the community level and let the leaders move at this level and together we’ll meet sometime and we’ll have something made by our people and for our people. Thank you very much.

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Chief Irvin Starblanket, Treaty 4 March 26, 2008 I want to acknowledge the Elders, the spiritual leaders, the Chief of the AFN, the Chief of the FSIN, my fellow Chiefs and leadership, relatives and friends. In Treaty 4, we have a Treaty Governance Centre that is key to any Treaty developments and implementation. We have a building where we house different organizations. We even house Indian Affairs in it. That’s a key, having a physical structure for Treaty implementation. We have a long way to go before we get practical methods and we all talk about practical methods to address Treaty implementation. That is for us to determine; through your organizations, through your tribal councils, through different organizations at the local levels, through your own developments of your band. I don’t like to say ‘band’ myself. I don’t like the connotation from the Indian Act of any kind. In Treaty 4, we have a number of projects that we are looking at. One of them is on natural resources. We have in southeastern Saskatchewan around the Estevan Weyburn area large deposits of oil and gas. We want to get ourselves involved in that because we’ve never given up those natural resources. It was never on the Treaty table at Treaty time. Canada, Saskatchewan, the governments of today have recognized our land ownership prior to Treaty and during Treaty time. If we owned the land, then we must have owned all the resources above and below the ground. If you want to assert jurisdiction in those areas, I would advise you to do so. We have great sand hills which cover a large area around Swift Current north and east and west. We have large potash developments in Treaty 4 Territory. So we are going to reclaim those natural resources and develop our own source revenue from those possible agreements. We have been consulting with various legal people regarding the duty to consult. We are forcing governments to consult with us and accommodate. Remember - don’t just have them consult you, but also accommodate. That is part of development. We are also trying to work with our ICFS. A lot of us are short funded in those areas. A lot of us have problems. A lot of us have very unique problems to our communities. We are trying to organize throughout Treaty 4 Territory to address those. I am direct descendant of a Treaty signer in Treaty 4. When I talk to Elders, there is a sacredness of Treaty that is always talked about. Those Treaty rights are gifts from the Creator. That is what I was told because we did ceremonies at the time of Treaty. The Creator was invoked for the guidance and direction as to which way to go. Visions were had. Ceremonies were done. That is why we call them sacred today. The Creator gave us those, to enlighten us, to pursue those. When we look at Treaties overall, we talked about livelihood. We didn’t go with hat in hand, begging for handouts at the time of Treaty. We had everything. We had full

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livelihood and survival of our own. It was the non-Indian people who came to us and wanted live amongst us and wanted to share the land with us. We’re not beggars when we talk about rights so we should be proud of who we are as Treaty peoples. The other thing is mutual benefit. There was a study done on who benefited most from Treaty in Saskatchewan. It was not First Nations people. It was non-Indian people that benefited most from Treaty and it was supposed to be mutually benefiting both parties. There was supposed to be a brother-to-brother relationship, as one of the principles of our Treaty implementation. When you talked about justice, the Indian jurisprudence as a lot of you said, should be advocated. Right now, the justice systems we encounter are all adverse to the implementation of Treaty rights. We have to turn that around and develop our own justice system. We cannot copy something that has been oppressive to us in the past. Don’t go that route. That’s a non-starter. Develop our own systems. It is all the assertion of sovereignty and jurisdiction based on the principles that we understand about Treaty implementation based on the principles that the FSIN developed, that the Task Force so diligently worked at. Thank you very much for listening. Elder Frog Lake Treaty Six Pipe Stem Bundle Carrier– This bundle comes from 5 generations ago, represents everything, our culture and spirituality; we have passed on to our young people at home- our language is a spiritual language; we have lived in peace, believe in peace, if we lose our culture and language, the people here may see what happens in other lands, where hundreds or thousands of people can die in a single day, I am a believe in culture, lets not waste any more time, lets do it, I can believe it but we must understand one another and empower our leaders. Without our support they cannot do anything for us. Let’s change our attitudes and work together. They throw peanuts at us to fight over. We can change.

PANEL – LESSONS LEARNED FROM REGIONAL INITIATIVES

Presentation by Regional Chief Rick Simon Atlantic Policy Congress March 27, 2008 I am very pleased to have an opportunity to organize ourselves as the Atlantic and talk about some of the challenges we are having in Maritimes around this whole notion of Treaties and peace and friendship and policy. It’s a whole gamut of issue that we have to deal with based on the fact that we’ve always been insistent on that we’ve had Treaties and Treaty rights. Although it took the courts to prove it over many, many years of trying to get our Pre-Confederation Treaties validated, that at one point from the point of the view of the Government of Canada were not worth the paper they were written on. It was just old documents and it was something we thought it was good and the government thought we were crazy. For those who know our history, we’ve gone through a lot of ups and down over the years –even our relationship with

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the Assembly of First Nations. Talking to my friend P.J. Prosper earlier, explaining to him it’s funny how hindsight is 20/20; because back in the early 80’s when they were trying to repatriate the Constitution, we didn’t see eye-to-eye with this national body, the Assembly of First Nations and we actually pulled out of it. We felt that our Pre-Confederation Treaties were with the British Crown. For Canada to have some say over that notion or some involvement in the matter, we thought was a terrible thing and we didn’t want anything to do with it; nor with the Assembly of First Nations who were intent on repatriating the Constitution. It’s funny now because it was the repatriation of the Constitution and s. 35 in 1982 that recognized the fact that there were Treaties and that opened the doors for us to access the courts. And it’s so funny because it’s almost like without s.35, as P.J. was saying Government very easily could have passed an Act that extinguished our treaties, and s. 35 and the repatriation of the Constitution that we were dead set against in the end served to strengthen our argument and move this whole thing forward in the whole area of Treaties so sometimes how things come full circle, you have to look back and chuckle at some of that stuff. In the Atlantic we are unique. We do have five provinces that we’re all connected to the Treaty relationship. We have three tribes that are signatory to our Treaties – Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy. We’ve had some really good court cases in relation to Treaty. I will provide a quick summary overview and talk along the lines of the political aspect because my friend John Paul as the Executive Director of the Atlantic Policy Congress is going to get a bit more into the real challenges we’re facing, the technical challenges. But I do want to say, with five provinces, we’ve worked together, we’ve gone to court, starting back in 1985 with Simon case. I am very closely connected to the Simon case because the individual who went to court at that time is my brother, James Simon. So I’ve always watched with interest that we have Treaty rights. We always used to have this joke, especially in Nova Scotia, when the Treaties first came out as recognized in the Simon case. Originally the Government of Canada said okay you’ve got a Treaty right but it only applies to James Simon and his immediate family. So we just kind of laughed and said okay, I’ve got a Treaty right. Subsequently, in going back into the courts, we proved that the Treaty applies to all of us, and all of the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy nations. We’ve had some other major court cases. One you’re very familiar with. I have spoken to many AFN Assemblies about it - the Marshall case. Under Marshall we went to court to prove that we had ability to fish commercially without a license without the Fisheries Act applying and we were successful. You’ve seen the results. I have told many Assemblies that never in the history of the Supreme Court have they reacted to Treaties. Well, they reacted very negatively to us because who has ever had a Marshall I and a Marshall II. They went back in and they reacted to industry. They went back in and they totally overlooked the fact that we had established that we had the right to fish commercially and they restricted it and they used all sorts of issues, like conservation. It was all designed around to please everybody but us as the Treaty signatories. It was a terrible situation. And even today, eight, nine years later, there’s

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not one commercial fishery in the Atlantic under Treaty. We’re under a commercial fishery. Their response was licenses as John Paul will talk about. But no one is fishing under Treaty and that is what we went to court for, and that is what we won on. So, in some ways it’s forced the Government of Canada to sit down with us and talk about what does this Treaty relationship mean, and us being five provinces, each province has taken somewhat of a different approach. Nova Scotia is engaged in what we call a made-in-Nova Scotia approach. New Brunswick has engaged under a bilateral relationship with the province. PEI is organizing under some sort of tri-partite mechanism and the Gaspé region of Québec is organizing themselves. We’ve all come to an approach that suit the immediate needs of how we do business within our respective provinces but we can’t lose sight of the fact that these are Treaties are not provincial in boundary. They’re the Mi’kmaq nation, the Maliseet nation, the Passaamaquoddy nation. It’s very interesting, even in Newfoundland, they are members of the Mi’kmaq nation but according to the Government of Canada, the Treaty does not apply there. So it’s a non-recognition of their rights in Newfoundland. To try to support them, we’ve tried as the Assembly of First Nations to hold a national Treaty conference in St. Johns a number of years back to highlight these are our people, they are signatories to our Treaty and the Government of Canada needs to recognize them. As an example in Newfoundland, at Conne River, they got recognition to get into the Indian Act and now that they’re there, they are in a self-government negotiation to get out of the Indian Act. So they had to get in, to get out. That’s just an example of how we’re trying to do things and dealing with the existing mechanisms that are there. That’s a good example of this conference that we are trying to get a national Treaty policy so that we all know the rules of the game and we’re all playing the same game. But there are certain things we need to keep sight of. I look at some of the discussions I have had in the past and conferences I have heard that within the federal government they hold all the cards and none of their cards are any different for any table across this country and we need to understand that. We need to realize that. We need to stop thinking that we’re going to out-negotiate government and get a better deal. And that’s another example of why it is important that we have some uniform consistent Treaty policy in this country. Right now, it is unfortunate but it is “dog-eat-dog”. At end of day, we may negotiate things that are better but are they as good as they could be? I doubt very much that’s going to be the case. So that is the groundwork for the common experience that ties us together in the Atlantic – this whole notion of Treaty rights and Treaty policy. Thanks for listening. Presentation by Mr. John Paul, Executive Director Atlantic Treaty Policy Congress March 27, 2008 Thank you and welcome. It’s a real opportunity to come to this event and speak about some of our experiences from the “far east”.

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Some of the background that comes to mind has been talked about at this session, is really about federal policy in terms of the denial or even the existence of Treaties in the Atlantic and in Québec. And only through courts, through litigation up to the Supreme Court, has the issue come to a head in terms of the federal government now begins to realize that we exist and that they have to deal with us in terms of Treaties. It’s ironic, I looked at the map in the package here, it is dated 2007 and it kind of forgot two pieces of tribes that are a part of our Treaty, which are the Gaspé peninsula in Québec and Newfoundland. It implies a continued sense of denial in terms of where our Treaties are and where they apply even in today’s context in 2007. Over the years we’ve had forums with Chiefs, with legal advisors, with organizations to really talk about how important, how sacred the Treaties are and how important they are to our identity as Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy people and how important it is to our future in terms of where we end up as a people. The Marshall decision is a high water mark in terms of where we’re going to go and where we’re going to end up. It created a great sense of hope in terms of what the potential of Treaties could be and hope for our people, that there really is a future for who we are as Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy people. There was another recent decision, the Sappier and Gray in New Brunswick, that also acknowledged our right in terms of access to the natural resources, the forest resources. You can see the vein of natural resources that are inherently tied to who we are as Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy people and our rights that we see and believe as tangible things for our people in the communities, now and in the future. I think one of the interesting dynamics that has occurred is the variable approaches from the federal government, the Chief Federal Negotiators, from provincial governments. Some of them we can’t stand them in the same room with us, but others we work with, and some of the First Nations relationships have very diverse perspectives in terms of what it means, and what our expectations are, in terms of the our end game is in terms of negotiations or dealing with the Treaty relationship as it exists. Different groups are taking different approaches in terms of how we proceed with the whole Treaty issue. The Atlantic Policy Congress is a policy research organization and we bring together all the Chiefs in the region every couple of months to talk about these issues and talk about issues that impact us all across our territory. The Chiefs established a regional Treaty Committee that really focused on litigation and information sharing on all the litigation going on. Today it’s really about all the negotiations going on and a way to share information and communicate best practices on your dealings with the federal government and approaches that they take in their individual communities. We include the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy. We include five provinces which is a very unique dynamic in dealing with the federal government and we also have links

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to the United States through our Passamaquoddy brothers in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. I think there are diverse perspectives even within us as a group of 30,000 people. There are different concepts that are either nation-wide as tribal perspectives from a different provincial environment and influence in terms of the province you’re in. Individual First Nations, individual leaders and communities have very different perspectives as to what’s important and what needs to be the focus. Everybody has interests, every community as individuals or collectives have specific interests, specific and priorities and specific perspectives as to what needs to be done in terms of Treaty and Treaty implementation. In terms of the provinces, in Québec, there’s a Mi’gmawei Mawiomi Secretariat that was created shortly after the Marshall decision and they’ve established a tripartite process with a political accord in 2000 that laid out the ground rules for exploratory-type discussions in terms of the Treaty, land claims, and now moving towards self-government. In New Brunswick we have a Mi’kmaq-Maliseet relationship, bilateral agreement which we just signed in 2007. The relationship in New Brunswick has not been a good one and anything forward is improvement. So our Chiefs really realize that in terms of the relationship with the provincial government, which have never been all that great but if you can get them to do something to create a relationship. Now they’re working on a more tripartite approach in terms of dealing with the relationship. In Nova Scotia, for sometime we have had a tripartite process and now we have the Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative including the signing of a framework agreement in 2007 which details the issues that are going to be dealt with under negotiations. In PEI most recently, the government signed a Mi’kmaq Partnership Agreement that basically continues the dialogue and identifies the issues, sets up tables between the communities and the MCPEI to discuss issues on an ongoing basis and sets out a process for dealing with issues. Newfoundland and Labrador is creating their own way of dealing with issues and the denial of them and really looking at getting into the negotiation of self-government in 2003. There’s also the off-reserve framework which is currently trying to define self-government in Newfoundland. Some of the key challenges that exist in terms of implementation is the federal policy framework and self-government negotiation process and the mandating mechanisms. They exist to ensure consistency across the board to ensure that the federal interest which includes every federal department is protected in the process. Another issue is the recognition of Aboriginal title, and recognition by either government in terms of what it means, and how do you exercise it and gain benefit from it.

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There’s the federal comprehensive claims process which dictates extinguishment or even today modified extinguishment in terms of making it part of the deal. There’s the federal self-government policy which articulates the federal interest and which basically protects and ensures consistency of practice across the federal government - to manage expectations and the outcomes relating to self-government negotiations. There are unique processes that are outside the policy and there are mandates that people believe are outside the policy but everything no matter what has to come back to one process and one group called the federal cabinet and they approve every mandate, every activity and I can tell you the policies are part of their considerations. There is very considerable linkage between policy and negotiations in issues sorting because issues keep getting mixed up in terms of what you are trying to do and what you are trying to negotiate in terms of linkages to basic services – like education, social, health, housing. Those things always get mixed into where we’re going. We also look at clarity in terms of what we see as Treaty recognition and full implementation of all the rights. What we’re looking for in terms of our tribe is uniformity and application of Treaty rights across, and within, provinces. We look at non-First Nation public education issues to ensure that all our kids in primary schools know what we are talking about when we talk about Treaties. As well as First Nation public education and engagement to make sure that our people will clearly understand what it is we are talking about and what it is we are trying to do. Also we are trying to deal with the key provincial political processes and interests to maintain peace. It’s about transition to results-based negotiations and looking at the cost and the viability of implementation of these Treaties. It is about trying to create real First Nation interim measures and benefits where people can see what Treaties are going to be. Then today there are other current First Nations program financial pressures in housing, health care, social, child welfare, and others. These create other pressures which will influence negotiations and Treaty implementation in the community. The way forward is relationship-based as per our Treaty relationship as equals and to focus clearly, to understand implementation, the vision, the real costs and the real timetable. There needs to be a sorting of issues to promote fundamental changes to all citizens equally in a set realistic timeframe. It’s not technicolor. Some of our Treaties took thirty-five years to finalize. Hurry up and get it done is not an answer to create a solution. We really need to look at that and look at a realistic timeframe, to know what we’re getting into in terms of this issue called implementation and the

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recognition of these Treaty rights that we all know we have. There’s a great need for community level engagement and agreement on implementation of what specific rights when. I always tell people you have to really see it in a tangible way, to grasp it in your hand to really understand what implementation is all about. You have to be able to see it and be able to explain it to your kids, your people. It’s about taking an issue and looking at it to ensure that it creates long lasting forever benefits. That it’s not a dollar. It’s not a consumable. You can spend it today. You can spend it tomorrow or next month. It needs to be stable and long lasting. That means looking at an implementation plan that is approved by all parties, that sets plans that are realistic, sets timetables and sets resources. Resourcing of these activities is not negotiable because if you think it is you’ll always only implement 20%, or 50% but never 100% of what it is you’re trying to achieve. There is a great need for federal treaty policy clarity on the end game - is it extinguishment, assimilation, what are the real final outcomes in terms of government intention is? Policy based on Treaty relationship as defined in Treaties. As I saw in one of the notes this morning, policy needs to be driven through the lense of Treaty so we clearly understand how it relates to us as Treaty people. There does need to be public engagement and dialogue on Treaty implications that is based on reality because the worst people, the people who will misunderstand us. They need to clearly understand and be engaged, that implementation will not destroy the economy, that will not destroy their land, that will not take away their house, that will not destroy a future for their children. It’s got to be based on real information and it does have to apply country-wide. And it has to deal with all the interests in society. One of the things we have been doing for the last four to five years is Treaty education. I believe today it is key to our future (whether you do it through a Treaty Commission or some other vehicle) to get to end the game of implementation. I want to talk a bit about the Marshall decision and the Marshall response. This was all based on a Supreme Court decision that we have access to a commercial fishery and they had clarification a month later in terms of well, we had access but it had to fall within the Fisheries Act. We were always wondering in our minds. We advocate it (the response) is not treaty-based even though there is a Supreme Court decision telling us it is treaty-based. The response has never been implemented as a Treaty implementation but what it was because of the public fervor that occurred and the potential demise of one of the largest industries in Canada, that the response was very clear - create peace. Peace costs. It cost $600 million to create that peace. It created some access for some communities but not all our communities. It did create benefits in terms of licenses, capacity, and economic development in some cases but not all our communities. It is not Treaty-based. We have non-derogation and interim agreements. But in reality, implementation comes down to things that are going to last, and there are things that are going to last. We have over 1200 licenses that are

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forever. We have an economic and financial return of $45 million per year. That can last forever. We have 1700 jobs that can last forever and we have incomes there that can last forever. Our goal is to get to a “moderate livelihood”. What that will be from my perspective is the average income for families in Atlantic Canada and I hope that goal is achieved for all our communities. I thank you for your time and patience. Chief Fred Sangris, Ndilo Yellow Knives Dene First Nation, Sovereignty and Treaty Relations, (Treaty No. 8 North West Territories) March 27, 2008 My name is Chief Fred Sangris and I am one of the groups from the Akaitcho Territory, which we call Denedeh, the same place as Chief Bill Erasmus. In the Northwest Territories, there are 5 regions and many Dene groups, 29 communities, 8 different languages and most of the regions in the NWT have settled land claims, comprehensive claims settlement through the comprehensive claims policy. My journey started around 1965 when I was just young, 8 yrs old. One day, three Elders came into my home. I was very afraid of Elders because I always see Elders as the RCMP, like men in power, men in authority. So when those men came in 1965 into my home and they talked to my parents and I had no clue what they were talking about. Once, they left, I asked my parents, what did I do? I felt that I was in trouble. But they said no, they’re here to carve a career for you, they’re here to say where they are going to take you. In that small village of about 200 people, there were three children chosen at that time to ensure that in the future there would be good traditional leaders. I was one of those children that were chosen. The other children older than me were my cousin Eddie Sangris. The third one decided to become a pilot so he’s flying the plane today. He’s probably the one flying you back and forth. But we are very traditional. That’s the way I was brought up. When I was ready to go to high school, my parents said that was enough, you have to learn about who you are, your culture, you have to learn about your language (because already I was speaking English). At that time, we were taken out on the land. For years and years, we lived out on land. I traveled with sled dogs. I’ve traveled with snowshoes and I’ve learned to work with other Elders. My job at the time was to learn a lot from Elders and to learn about Treaties, to learn the histories of people, not only our people, but all Aboriginal people wherever they are, to learn about their homelands and where they are, to learn about what their Treaties are all about, what their rights are. And I was one of those young people who were brought up in the very traditional way. So if the Elders said we don’t want you to become too educated on one side, because what will happen is you will fall down. If you don’t hold onto your other half, there will be imbalance and you will not be lead your people in the future. The young people will not follow you and the old people will not listen to you. So our job as traditional Chiefs in the Northwest Territories we have to balance our culture with our modern way of life today.

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Today in Akaitcho, we have about 2500 people. We have the Chief of Dettah here today. We have four communities that have been working for a very long time (Deninu K’ue, Dettah, Lutsel K’e and Ndilo) on the Treaties that were made 108 years ago. So as traditional leaders, we have been working together as our forefathers were working together. Today the Akaitcho Nation we are working towards Treaty implementation negotiations. We have been for quite sometime. Even though Canada does not agree. Canada has set up many roadblocks in front of us. We’ve taken every road block apart and continue our journey through it because the spirit and intent was so powerful. As traditional Chiefs we are reminded in our work everyday that we wake up, that this is the path that we have to walk. Our Elders Council works with us. In the Northwest Territories, there are many comprehensive claim settlements but in many of those comprehensive claim settlements at end of day you have extinguish all your rights and that is something that Akaitcho does not believe in. We had made Treaty. Our forefathers had Treaty. Today, as children we don’t have authority to give up that Treaty. We have no right to do it, as leaders. It was the forefathers that did it and it is for the future generations. Our job is to make it work, and to make it happen and that’s what we’re pursuing. A hundred and eight years ago, July 25th, 1900, Treaties were made in the Northwest Territory on the shores of Great Slave Lake with Chief Dragis of the Yellow Knives Dene taking the lead to talk about Treaties. And with 26 other Chiefs guiding him and with him, they were talking Treaties. With the Akaitcho Dene in the Northwest Territory, Treaty is not new to our people. Our people have been making treaties for hundreds of years, have been making Treaties with the Dene over the mountains, we have been making Treaties with the Cree to south and we have been making Treaties with our neighbouring tribes. So for hundreds of years, we had to work in peace and friendship and in cooperation with everyone. We were builders and Treaty-makers. So when the Crown came to the shores in July in 1900 the Elder leader, Emile Dragis, he already knew the concept of Treaty meeting. So he and the twenty-six Chiefs agreed that he would be the only spokesperson and the only one who would talk and negotiate Treaty. Treaty 8 of 1900 is a stand-alone Treaty. It is not an adhesion to any other Treaty. It is a Treaty that was negotiated by the Chief and the other remaining Chiefs acting as advisors. Those Treaties have become very good Treaties today. As the Elder said at that time, they are for the future generations, to continue the peace and friendship and good cooperation will continue with our people, in that our people will not be crushed or pushed aside or gotten rid of in their own homeland. So he put those words very powerful - that the Treaty was made and agreed to. He got one of the people from his village and told the young man to go to every village on the Great Slave Lake, go to every river and every community, tell all those people what the Treaty meant and tell those people to teach their children about that Treaty so that when those children grow up one day they will understand what the Treaty

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means, because we know that the newcomers who come here they cannot be trusted. They write things down but they cannot be trusted. So the man went to every village and talked about Treaty. That’s the same old man who in 1992 I interviewed. He was now an old man. When that Treaty was made he was just a young man, he was 17 or 18 years old. He was telling me what he heard about that Treaty and what he’s told all the villages. Before he passed away, he said here’s my words on what took place. And that the Treaties were all about sovereignty. They were not about giving up anything. They were about people coming to our land, for people to coexist and live side by side. And as the Treaty Commissioner said from this day on, with this Treaty you will be free people as you always have. You will continue your way of life as if there is no Treaty. Nothing’s been changed. So, with that we continue. To this day, the Akaitcho Dene in Northwest Territory along with our counterpart the Deh Cho, we are the two remaining regions but very, very strong on Treaty. So strong that the Government in the Northwest Territories classify us as unorganized communities. When the Treaties were made, there was 480,000 square miles of land that was identified as for our people. Today there is still 480,000 square miles of land that we continue to use and occupy. In 1959 the Government of Canada came to our village and said you must go on reserves, we’re here to talk reserves. Our leaders told them we can’t because we follow the caribou. The caribou does not know anything about law or about fences, that you can’t go on this side or that side. Our people are free people, they have traveled in search of food, in search of trade and so on. Sir Franklin in 1820 was one of those early explorers who came to our village and our people were the ones who guided him up North to the Arctic Ocean. So we have a long history there but as I said the Government of NWT doesn’t really want to recognize our Treaty because to them it is a problem. If you have Indian people owning 480,000 square miles of land, for them to get control is very hard. So every year they do an audit report and that little dot at the bottom says unorganized community. They classify us as an unorganized community but we told them you were born in 1967, your government was born in 1967 and you’re a creature of the federal government. So we have been here for ten thousand years and have traditions and self-government and we still have sovereignty. Our governments are very old. You may not understand the concept of the traditional way we govern but we governed our people for thousands of years. We managed. We have society. We have traditional laws. We have laws that we follow today. We have ceremonies that we do today. We have come along way. The land claims in the North, the policies are extinguishing the rights of many of the groups up there. The Atkaitcho Dene are not going to pursue any comprehensive claim because we don’t believe in giving up the Treaty that our forefathers have set out for us. As we were told by the Elder that we have no right to give up that Treaty. Our forefathers made it for the generations and it is for future generations that we have to carry it on for.

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As the Treaty continues, we still live with those traditional laws and we continue that. We may be different from the governments and the Government of Canada the way they do, and the Territory and the municipal administration. But we continue to be very active in Akaitcho. We continue to go to court. We haven’t lost a lot of cases because it’s all based on Treaties. We continue to pursue that. The Akaitcho group has started a framework agreement in 2000. We’re still pursuing the Treaty implementation negotiations. We told Prime Minister Paul Martin that you’re looking for a model, we have the model. Stop telling people you are looking for a model. Tell people we have a model here and we are going to build it. It is called Treaty implementation negotiations. We have it, we have the model and we are moving forward with it. And this could be the one that breaks the trail for many of us with Treaties that are there. And as Paul Martin said many years ago, when he was Prime Minister that he is pursuing the Treaties, that he wants to work with people on Treaties but one thing that he told me and it is still in my mind today, he said the Crown told me that she won’t give us full sovereignty because she’s worried that her Indian people in Canada are not treated well and that their land business and their Treaty has not been taken care of in a good way and until all those things are taken care of, the Crown does not want to give us full sovereignty as a State. So I am still working with Canada, with the negotiations team to make that a reality. If ever there’s going to be a model, I think a Treaty implementation model, the Akaitcho agreement may be one in Canada. Masi cho. Thank you. Ron Lameman, Beaver Lake Cree Nation Councillor & Treaty Six First Nations Bilateral Process March 27, 2008 Mr. Lameman began by speaking his indigenous language. Good morning to each and everyone, Chiefs, National Chief, councillors, Executive members and the rest of us here. I especially want to thank the Elders for their prayers and their guidance and we also want to thank the hosting nations here and since we are also from Treaty 6, we feel right at home in this part of our territory. In thinking about what I was going to talk about today, I thought about the title of this conference, the theme “As long as the sun shines” and Treaty implementation. In my opinion this is what our forefathers and our people who were present at the time of the Treaty were thinking about, that the implementation of Treaty would be here as long as the sun shines. First of all, the question must be asked, and I am sure it’s in the minds of all of us here today, whose version of the Treaties are we going to implement? The version of our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers who came to Fort Carlton and Fort Pitt with a vision of ensuring a prosperous and healthy future for all generations, whereby

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each party through Treaty would live side by side, benefiting equally from the bounty of our Mother Earth; or the other short sighted and one-sided version of the Crown as represented by the Government of Canada, whose only interest today is to do away with the Indian problem by turning us all into taxpaying individuals and our indigenous governments into quasi-municipal style governments with the authority to tax not only their outside interests but also their own citizens. We at Treaty No. 6 at the western part will never believe that our ancestors ever relinquished or sold this land because it has always been the belief of our peoples and especially our Elders and our spiritual people that we can never sell our mother. There are many reasons for this belief as will be pointed out by my brother and colleague - Jerry Saddleback who I’m sharing my time with. He’ll be making a presentation on the work that we’re doing. One of the paramount reasons among these was the fact that no one has the authority to sell or relinquish what has given life and sustenance to all since the creation of Nistamiymakan. Our Creation Story as handed down from generation to generation took place just south and west of here, in a place now known as Cypress Hills. Another very important reason is that all this land is sacred, since our peoples were nomadic and lived according to the seasons and the movement of the buffalo and the other animals. Our ancestors were laid to rest wherever the people were at the time of their journey into the spirit world. As such the bones of our ancestors are all over this place called Turtle Island. That is why we honour them wherever we travel and show the respect for our Mother Earth where we all came from and where we will all return when our journey here is done. It seems to us that the original spirit of the Treaties now only lives our hearts and has been conveniently forgotten and set aside by the other party to the sacred Treaty relationship. This has been done in a very systematic and devious manner all in the name of progress and to make way for the transnational and multinational corporations, who are raping and pillaging our Mother Earth. This is being done while we her children of this beautiful Turtle Island, are expected to live on the table scraps while our means of sustenance is being destroyed on a daily basis, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. At least in my part of the country, they are going full tilt, even as we speak here. It is time for us to wake up collectively, and to realize this is not being done for our good or for the good of those yet unborn. All we have to do is look at what has happened to the other colonized people of world, such as in the continent of Africa. The indigenous peoples of Africa have been colonized in some cases for over 1000 years. The after World War II, when most of the riches and resources have been extracted from their part of Mother Earth, they were given back their countries back and granted so-called independence, when in actual fact, they no longer have the means to sustain themselves without the multi-billions of dollars of foreign aid. That is why we are getting so many people of these people from the Third World because their part of Mother Earth can no longer sustain them. And yet we as the other Treaty party have no say as to who and how many can come into

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our country. I believe the last I heard they’re still allowing in 250,000 people a year into our country here. We believe the smoke and mirrors of the Government of Canada must be set aside and that a more serious look must be taken at the sacred Treaty relationship and the benevolence of our ancestors. Because our ancestors took in the ancestors of the other Treaty party and gave them hope and a second chance at a good way of life when they were fleeing feudalism and starvation in the old country. The indigenous peoples of Treaty No. 6 territory want nothing more and nothing less. We collectively need to revisit the original spirit in a realistic manner by giving the necessary resources to the Treaty tables, and perhaps creating others. Instead of funding these Treaty tables to fail, more should be done to ensure that our side of the Treaty is told for the benefit of all. More side should be done to ensure that our side of the Treaty is told so that everyone will know. I would like to greet the Grand Chief, the Chiefs and the delegates. Jerry Saddleback delivered his presentation in an indigenous language and cautioned that the Elders wanted delegates to refrain from any written documentation of the powerpoint preseentation.

IDENTIFYING COMMON GROUND AND

OPPORTUNITIES FOR TREATY IMPLEMENTATION Regional Chief Rick O’Brien on behalf of Grand Chief Andy Carvill, Council of Yukon Indians Implementation of Self-Government and Land Claims Agreements March 27, 2008 My First Nation is not part of the Yukon Umbrella Agreement but I am giving a presentation on behalf of the communities in the Umbrella Agreement. And Sean Smith is giving a presentation on behalf of an independent First Nation that happens to be my First Nation. Congratulations to Mike Smith who has been re-elected and to Sean Smith who will be presenting on his behalf. At this conference, there will be a lot of lessons learned from our land claims and self-government agreements and their implementation. In the Yukon, we have been actively involved in this process for some 35 years. So, when I heard Ovide Mercredi say they have been waiting 135 years for our school and we’ve just been at this for 35 years. We’re brand new. We have modern day agreements. So it makes me think how many more years are we going to work before we actually see the fruit bear from our agreements. I will share the time I have with you today with Sean Smith. He is from

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the Kwanlin Dun First Nation. Sean will be presenting on behalf of my Chief and his Chief, Mike Smith. Chief Smith has his own perspectives about how well our agreements are working and how well they are benefiting the citizens of his First Nation. As you may know, there are four Yukon First Nations in Canada. The Yukon signed the first four Yukon Final and Self-Government Agreements in 1993. These agreements settled the First Nations’ comprehensive land claims and established them as a new order of government. Since 1995, we’ve had seven more First Nations come on stream and have brought into effect. Today eleven of the fourteen are now self-governing. These agreements were the first modern settlements to include associated self-government agreements. The self-government agreements flow from constitutionally protected treaty provisions and their signing marked the beginning of the new era of government-to- government relationships between the signatory First Nations, Canada and the Yukon. This new relationship moved the self-government Yukon First Nations from a position of dependency to what we call ‘partner’, working to build self-reliance of their citizens and ensure their well-being. We did not want to live under the Indian Act under the Yukon so when we signed these agreements that took us away form the Indian Act. We are no longer part of the Indian Act. And you’ll find that it continues still to be part of the problem throughout our presentation. This new intergovernmental relationship dramatically altered the governance landscape in the territories and makes it unique in Canada. When we talk about this uniqueness, something that the federal government and the Yukon has been working on is to promote these agreements as the model but the model has to be a working model before I want to sell it to you. I want to be sure this is something you can buy into if we feel it is working properly, something we can promote with Canada. But is this relationship working as it was originally envisioned by our First Nation leaders? Simple answer: yes and no. Let me explain. There was uncertainty at the signing of our agreements as to how well they would work to achieve the results the parties intended. Knowing this, the parties agreed to review progress in the implementing the agreements after five years and nine years. No action has been taken by the federal government after a five year review. The report was somewhat shelved. The nine year implementation review and the review of the financial and transfer agreement (the FTA), which is primary vehicle for funding the self-governing Yukon First Nations are now completed. Overall the reviews found that the self-government experience has been positive. However there are systematic issues that have limited the success of implementation and will impede ongoing success if they are not addressed. Most of the problems that

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have arisen can be corrected if the agreements are implemented according to their terms. In addition to numerous operational matters, two issues of overarching concern were identified in the reviews. First the final implementation funding is somewhat inadequate. Second, certain federal policies and practices are inconsistent with the commitments made in the agreements. Underlying these issues is the need for Canada to acknowledge and take ownership of its role in the relationships created by the self-government agreements. This includes the recognition that the agreements are with the Government of Canada and not with DIAND. Often federal departments other than INAC view the agreements as being between INAC and the First Nations rather than the Crown and the First Nations. At times, departments tasked with providing aboriginal programming fail to take into account the existence of self-governing Yukon First Nations altogether. And this is where it becomes a problem. We don’t have reserves in the Yukon. We’re not under the Indian Act. So whenever we come to a national gathering we like to remind people that we’re not exempt from some of the problems and we all experience the same problems in our communities. We ask for your support whenever we’re talking at the national level to say, it is First Nation communities. We in the Yukon would very much appreciate that because then it would be inclusive, because when they develop the policies we are excluded because of the word ‘reserves’. We have settlement lands. This plays out in the policies and programs that exclude self-governing Yukon First Nations completely or that attempt to apply the same policies and programs to bands and self-governing Yukon First Nations without considering the difference in the relationship with the Crown. The current fiscal arrangements are a piece-meal assembly of Indian band transfers supplemented by implementation funds with no clear reference to self-government agreements or final agreements responsibilities. Again they reflect the Indian Act approach and fail to recognize what constitutes self-government. Agreements fail to take into account the increased jurisdiction, responsibilities and accountability of self-governing Yukon First Nations. As well, funding continues to be based on Indian status rather than First Nation citizens and it is restricted by federal policy that says all no self-government obligations have to be met within existing federal program expenditures. That creates a problem for some of our communities because we don’t discriminate. We don’t follow how Bill C-31 is structured. If your kids are beneficiaries, they become our citizens and we become responsible for those citizens no matter where they go across Canada, according to our Constitution. If they are in Vancouver, they are entitled to the same programs and benefits that are citizens are entitled to that are living within our settlement lands. So it becomes a problem with funding. It must be remembered that final agreements and self-government agreements are paramount to policies.

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The review of the financial transfer agreement concluded that the self-governing Yukon First Nations gross expenditure base (what we call GEB) was established without reference to all the factors in the self-government agreements under s. 16.0 including the principles of comparability of the provisions of service by all governments. Original financial arrangements were established arbitrarily by INAC on a take-it or leave-it basis without reference to the real costs of implementing the obligations contained within the agreements. All three parties agreed a yardstick to measure the expenditures needs of the self-governing Yukon First Nations - one that fulfills the commitments in the agreement - must be developed. An exercise to develop this yardstick is currently nearing completion. Future financial agreement negotiations need to be based on this properly constructed GEB. Despite the issues identified in the review, the benefits of self-government have been demonstrated by self-governing Yukon First Nations. We are building some of the most accountable and efficient governments in Canada and we’d like to feel that. We don’t to argue, if you bring that to us, we’ll agree. Programs are being streamlined to meet the needs of individual communities. Accountability measures have been established and government institutions are maturing. When we talk about accountability some of our First Nations in the Yukon have everything on a Web page including their expenditures where the money is going, so their citizens can access that no matter where they are. They log on to the Web page and see exactly how the money is being spent, where the investments are going. The continued success of self-government is very important for all parties as well as to the country as a whole. For us in the Yukon we are at a point of no turning back. There’s no turning back for us with these agreements. This is like cards, like a poker game. The cards were dealt. We’ve got to make the best of our hand. Yukon First Nations expect Canada to live up to the commitments made in our agreements. However to achieve success the parties need to address the systematic impediments that lead to the key findings in the review. Canada must acknowledge and take ownership of its role in the new relationships created by the agreement. Again our agreements, and we say it over and over and over may be one day it will fall on the right ears, our agreements are with the Crown and not with Department of Indian Affairs. Canada must take clear steps to ensure that its legal and fiscal obligations are being met system-wide including revising its policies and practices where they are inconsistent with our agreements. The federal negotiation mandates must reflect the commitments made in these agreements and that’s part of the problem. Every time we go to the table, the negotiators will say well I don’t have the mandate. You know you go to the table and you nod your head and say you understand, you understand. Well how come everybody understands, and we’re not moving. Who can we talk to that can make a difference if everybody understands, so that we can actively implement our agreements and start moving towards self-sustainability. Canada needs to recognize and address the

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fundamental difference between Indian Act bands and self-governing First Nations. It is something we say over and over and over again. And lastly Canada needs to develop an effective policy for implementing Treaties. And this needs to be done in collaboration with the parties to these Treaties. The reviews are now complete and deserve a meaningful response and action. This is the message the Chiefs of the self-governing Yukon First Nations and their senior officials delivered in Ottawa in February and will continue to deliver until it sinks in. We had a delegation go to Ottawa. We established with the Minister a Yukon Days event in Ottawa. My hat’s off to the Minister. I think it was a successful event and we made headway. Again, I would like to thank you for your attention. I would like to thank the Chair for doing a magnificent job. I don’t have a blanket for him. Thank God. He’s not my type. Now I turn the microphone to my colleague Sean Smith. Sean Smith (on behalf of Chief Mike Smith) March 27, 2008 Good morning. I would like to begin by thanking all the grandfathers and grandmothers who went before us and help us get to where we are today. [Spoke in his indigenous language]. I thank the First Nation peoples here within their Traditional Territory. Thank you for letting me walk on your land. My thanks to the conference organizers for the opportunity to speak to you today. Chief Mike Smith extends his regret that he was unable to attend this important conference. However, I am pleased to present his remarks on his behalf. Three years ago, February 19, 2005 was a historic day for Kwanlin Dun people. It was a day that will be remembered by our people for generations to come. It was the day we signed our Final Agreement and Self-Government Agreement with Canada and the Yukon. Our journey to reach the agreements we signed was very long and very difficult. It is a path we have shared with many other Aboriginal people – in the Yukon, in the rest of Canada and throughout the world. Our success in the Yukon is twofold: we have reached long-lasting agreements that will benefit generations to come; and we have done so peacefully. Kwanlin Dun’s journey to settle our land claims has been longer than most. We are the Yukon’s largest First Nation. We are a people of diverse cultures and backgrounds. We live in the most populated part of the Yukon in an environment that is far-removed from the one known to many of our ancestors. We have witnessed the best and worst aspects of the history of Yukon settlement. We have experienced social upheaval, the loss of our homes and forced resettlement from our Traditional lands and from the Yukon waterfront. We have witnessed the extensive alienation of our lands without ever having surrendered our title to them. And we have struggled to govern our Traditional lands from an urban centre where three other governments – federal, territorial and municipal - also occupy the seat of power.

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Over a period of 30 years, Kwanlin Dun supported the other First Nations and the Council of Yukon Indians in negotiations that would help settle our land claims and establish full self-government for our First Nation. Over this time, we built on the contributions of many negotiating teams and many government administrations. Our last and final round of land claim negotiations began in 1999. Our approach clearly focused on the achievement of a number of fundamental objectives:

· A land claims package that was inclusive of all our beneficiaries and members, notwithstanding our diverse origins;

· Restoring and strengthening the relationship our people to our Traditional lands and customs;

· Formal recognition for all time of the important and rightful place of our people on the Yukon River waterfront, especially in the core of downtown Whitehorse;

· An outstanding package of urban and rural lands owned and governed by Kwanlin Dun;

· Fair and equitable participation for our people in the economic opportunities of the greater Whitehorse area;

· A property tax model that is fair and financially affordable for our government; · Self-government powers on our lands, especially in the City of Whitehorse, that

respect our authority and status as a fully self-governing First Nation. A strong voice over future development in the Kwanlin Dun Traditional Territory. We secured all of these objectives and much more in the collection of agreements that we signed three years ago. What is the full meaning of what we signed? What is the full consequence of what we negotiated? Today we cannot completely answer these questions. They remain a work in progress. Our agreements are promises. Their achievement is up to us, Canada and Yukon. As with our negotiations, implementation of our agreements requires honour, trust, respect, commitment, creativity and a great deal of hard work by all parties. In our brief history working on the implementation of our agreements, several areas have quickly emerged as ones that are particularly challenging to achieving the promises and objectives of our land claims and self-government agreements. I will briefly speak to four of them. Let me also say that for the most part we understand that these are not issues that are unique to Kwanlin Dun. They have been well documented by other First Nations with land claims agreements and are a collective challenge for all of us. Four and a half years ago, in 2003, the first conference entitled “Redefining Relationships” between Aboriginal governments and federal and provincial/territorial governments was held in Ottawa. It focused attention on a fundamental obstacle to the implementation of modern day land claims agreements. The promise of the

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modern day land claims and self-government agreements is that historic relationships between aboriginal people and state governments will change. And because most of these agreements are entrenched in section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, a special weight is attached to them and the objectives and new relationships that they establish. For Kwanlin Dun as a self-governing First Nation it has been an enormous disappointment that this is not reflected in our political and working relationships with Canada and Yukon. Far too often the jurisdiction and powers of our government are forgotten or ignored. In important areas affecting our responsibilities to Kwanlin Dun citizens, such as justice, education and child welfare, the federal and territorial governments have yet to fully act on the basis of a government-to-government relationship in these areas. Too often, our interests, rights and responsibilities as a government are construed as those of a stakeholder group or an Indian Act Band. Too often the Government of Canada and federal departments have deferred to DIAND as the “voice of Canada” in addressing matters that are properly the jurisdiction and responsibility of and better addressed by other federal departments. The consequence is that DIAND acts on behalf of or as an intermediary to those departments with a better understanding of the programs and issues that they are directly responsible for and which affect Kwanlin Dun citizens. The result is a time consuming process of concluding program arrangements and initiating projects that will benefit Kwanlin Dun people. In the Yukon, the territorial government’s land claims secretariat continues to function in the work of land claims implementation in a manner that simulates their lead role in land claims negotiations. Again, they often function as intermediaries or obstacles to direct political and working relationships between Kwanlin Dun and other territorial government departments. And, again, the consequence is the time-consuming and costly exercise of implementing the most basic of intergovernmental measures and claims obligations. Within Whitehorse, the relationship between the City and Kwanlin Dun is an uneasy one. Although we have signed a number of accords over the years, committing ourselves to a government-to-government relationship it has been difficult for municipal officials to provide their departments with policy guidance that would assist their employees in working with us. In this implementation policy vacuum – and this applies federally and territorially as well – our agreements are read and understood according to the narrowest of interpretations. Rather than legally established “platforms” for enabling and facilitating the achievement of agreements’ many objectives, our agreements are too often understood as the “ceiling” the upper limit of what governments are prepared to do to meet their legal obligations. This is a particularly deeply held view within DIAND and the Yukon government’s land claims secretariat. And, given the lead role that both departments play in many areas of land claims implementation, it is a view and

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an attitude that has been exported to other federal and territorial departments under their “watch.” Some of governments’ obligations in our land claims agreements are time-limited, especially in the areas of economic opportunities and benefits. The problems that I have referred to are delaying and, ultimately, will prevent us from taking full advantage of the very opportunities and benefits that our agreements have provided for. Another great weakness in the current federal environment affecting the implementation of the Kwanlin Dun land claim and self-government agreements is the remote control that is exercised by Ottawa in most of their program dealings with us. Even though the federal government devolved province-like responsibilities and jurisdiction for water, land and resource management to the Yukon in 2003, the federal government still assumes a large presence in our lives, particularly with regard to health, social and economic programs affecting our citizens. Under the current federal administration, we have witnessed a greater level of centralized, Ottawa-based control for federal program administration and delivery than we have witnessed in at least 15 years. It is ironic that while the purpose of devolution was to provide the Yukon with greater local control to better address opportunities and challenges within the territory, the current high level of centralized program authority based in Ottawa is accomplishing the opposite. Implementation of claims-based measures and affected federal programs are seriously hampered when we are not able to work with knowledgeable local officials. The upshot is that Ottawa’s excessive remote control of federal programs and responsibilities affecting and affected by our agreements is making a situation of costly delay and excessive bureaucratic red tape much worse. Modern day land claims agreements are constitutionally entrenched agreements. That said, our land claims agreements, notwithstanding their force and paramountcy, do not implement themselves. In other words, while our agreements recognize and establish certain legal rights and arrangements for the protection and benefit of Kwanlin Dun citizens, if their provisions are not reflected or captured in current federal and territorial legislation affecting these rights and arrangements, it remains business as usual. While our citizens may no longer be prosecuted for exercising their rights and practicing arrangements under our land claims, there is nothing to recognize, support and advance them. The federal and territorial governments are required to make amendments to their legislation and policies to ensure that they reflect and are consistent with the provisions of our agreements. They have been very slow to do this. For example, since the first Yukon land claims agreements were signed in 1995, amendments to the Yukon Wildlife Act have still not been enacted. As a result, certain historic policies and institutional arrangements continue unaffected by the reality of our land claim and self-government agreements.

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Several important areas affecting our people are wildlife legislation, and hunting and park regulations. The determination of conservation limits on our right to hunt certain wildlife species, our right to hunt and carry firearms in parks, our right to trade and barter across territorial and provincial borders are but a few examples. Again, in the absence of implementing consequential amendments to federal and territorial legislation and regulations, recognition and protection of our rights by government officials (such as conservation officers) is seriously diminished. Under its self-government agreement, Kwanlin Dun, like other Yukon First Nations, has the power to make laws affecting its citizens and the management of conservation and resource development on Kwanlin Dun private lands. While government has indicated an interest in harmonizing management regimes across public lands and Kwanlin Dun lands, an interest that Kwanlin Dun generally shares, progress in the area has been slow to date. That said, I can report that Kwanlin Dun is actively participating in a process with the Yukon government to draft Yukon forest legislation - largely a function of the practical requirements of federal devolution - that will attempt to develop a forest management regime on Crown lands that could be compatible with Yukon First Nations’ approaches to forest management on our lands. This is good news. Finally, implementation of government obligations to consult with Yukon First Nation regarding land and resource dispositions on Crown lands has become a matter of legal dispute between Kwanlin Dun and certain other Yukon First Nations on the one hand and the governments of Yukon and Canada on the other. Following a ruling of the Yukon Supreme Court in May 2007 that applied the legal duty of the Yukon government to consult on such matters in the context of a modern negotiated treaty, the territorial and federal governments have appealed the decision. Clearly there are potential implications beyond the Yukon for other First Nations with modern day agreements. Kwanlin Dun holds the view that its land claim agreements spell out the legal obligations of government to consult with the First Nation and that this obligation includes consulting the First Nation regarding potential resource and land dispositions that may infringe upon the rights and entitlements of Kwanlin Dun citizens on Crown lands. At the heart of the issue for Kwanlin Dun is the legal nature and extent of Kwanlin Dun’s rights and the protection of those rights across our Traditional Territory in a post-land claims environment. It is an especially important matter for Kwanlin Dun given the extensive development that has occurred and will continue to occur in our Traditional Territory – the most populated of all of the Yukon’s First Nations’ traditional territories. Finally, I would like to lend our voice to a recommendation that has been made by others, beginning with the Aboriginal delegates to the 2003 Ottawa conference on

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redefining relationships that I referred to earlier. The recommendation is a straight-forward one and I cite the one made at the conference:

There must be an independent implementation audit and review body, separate from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. This could be the Auditor General’s department, or a similar office reporting directly to Parliament. Annual reports will be prepared by this office, in consultation with groups with land claims agreements.

There are two good reasons for supporting this recommendation. First, the relationship between Aboriginal governments and the federal, territorial and provincial government in the area of land claims negotiation and implementation is a deeply political one. The twin tasks of measuring the progress of implementation, its successes and failures, and advancing recommendations for improvement have not been easily or very effectively accomplished over the last 25 years. We do not see this changing under the current relationship. The formal establishment of an independent party to conduct evaluations of land claims implementation and whether or not the objectives of modern day land claims agreements have been met would serve us well. Second, on the basis of past performance, the office of the federal auditor general, when it has conducted similar types of evaluations, has produced helpful findings. Again, however, the challenge is to see these findings implemented by the responsible governments. In closing, and in reflecting on these several examples from our last three years of implementation, let me say that Kwanlin Dun was under no illusion, after more than 30 years of claims negotiations, that implementation would be easy or without disappointment and frustration. Our agreements and their implementation lay at the heart of our work. It is hard work. It is important work.

That said, it will be up to future generations to judge the full significance and worth of the agreements that we signed. We look forward to that day with the hope that our efforts will meet the expectations and needs of our present and future generations. It is our hope that our long journey has been a necessary one and that its benefits will be enjoyed by our children and our children’s children.

Massi.

Chief Lawrence Joseph was asked to introduce Fred Kelly. Chief Joseph spoke his indigenous language. He asked Elder Courchene to help us to pray, to gain strength, in honour of his friend and Chief Joseph’s brother Sam Kelly as well as the loss in February of Fred Kelly’s lifetime partner. Elder Courchene then led the assembly in prayers.

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Fred Kelly March 27, 2008 Mr. Kelly began by speaking in his indigenous language. He then said, I accept your kindness in the most humble way from the bottom of my heart on behalf of my sons who have lost a mother. Now I will share with you the words I said at her memorial just so that you will share the sentiments of also those you have lost including my good friend Sam. Those of you that are with heavy hearts as well, share with me as I repeat for you the words I said. And they came from the heart and somebody took them down and said this is what you said and I don’t know what I said but they came from the heart. I spoke to her my final words in public. I told her. I would take flight on the wings of the eagle and soar skyward and join in the path of the everlasting road upon which the grandfather that lights the day walks. In search of you, to find you and bring you back if I knew that you would not suffer another moment, but that is not to be the case because you have reached perfection that which so belongs to you and only you in your unique way. I will remember you. I thank you. I love you, forever. And I share that with you so that will share that with your loved ones who are now in the spirit world and have reached perfection that they so rightly belong. I have also been honoured to speak to you on behalf of my family and on behalf of my partner because she was the one that also sustained me in my ongoing quest and she would not have given up her final breath had she known that I would be deterred from passing on my message which I believe needs to be passed on to our young people. And the voices of our past leaders. Our past leaders who were more preoccupied with their sense of duty than their sense of rights, because it was only through the breach of those Treaties that our leadership has become preoccupied with our sense of rights rather than our duties. I want the young people to know that. And there has to be an equilibrium and only we can bring back that equilibrium. My brothers, my sisters, Chiefs, Elders, veterans, ladies and gentlemen, friends and others, As long as the sun shines – that phrase is more than the just the utterances of the noble savage. That, my friends, is an invocation of sacred law of which I wish to speak to you today. Too many times in the past, it appears to be that we have talked about our Treaties and rights of the Aboriginal peoples being in s. 35 and we approach them from that side of Euro-Canadian law rather than our own indigenous law, rather than, the laws of our own people that have been sustaining us for centuries, for thousands of years. And that’s what I wish to talk to you about today. For you see, you must know and understand and accept the sacred law that when the sun, the grandfather that lights the day comes up in the sky comes up with those spirits (indigenous language). Many many spirits that come up with the grandfather when we do our sunrise ceremonies,

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you are making an invocation, you are acknowledging that the grandfather that lights the day walks, according to, the law of the Creator which we call sacred law. And at noon day such as we are right now, the Grandfather stops to look at the garden that we call the Earth, brought forward by Mother Earth. Those, my friends, are the invocations that are said in our songs and our prayers. And why we ought not to just ask the Elders to come and say an opening prayer. That, my friends, is the way of a secular society such as the Canadian society that divides the church and the state. Ours are together in the holistic sense. That when you talk about (indigenous language) you talk about sacred law, you are also talking about the law of our peoples as well as the spiritual beings because they’re fused into one, they’re not separated. And that’s how we live. So when you sing your songs they rise to the Creator, as you smudge, the sweetgrass, the sage, the cedar, all those things that were given to us, they rise and that’s the way we were, that’s the way we are and that’s the way we must be. And so, as long as the sun shines, is more than the poetic noble savage. You will see very shortly what I am talking about because I will talk to you about (indigenous language). The name given to me is Fred – not a very difficult name to remember. A four letter word that begins with an “f”. “Kelly” is an Irish name. I do not see any evidence and my mother did not tell me otherwise that there doesn’t seem to be any Irish blood in me. If it were then I would be ‘Irishnabe’. According to the Indian Act, I am 5401. According to the Anishnabe sacred law, (indigenous language) With that introduction, my friends, I am going to try and talk you as quickly as I can and I hope as succinctly and as clearly because what I have to tell you that if I miss anything I am talking to your spirit as our Elders do. When they talk to you and they look into your eyes, they are talking to your spirits, so this message stays with you. Even after awhile you didn’t get it right off the bat, you think “Oh yeah, that’s what he meant.” But I hope that I can communicate with you. I have been known by various names, including the ‘techno-elder’, using a powerpoint presentation. Our people foretold in their prophecies, and I could tell you those prophecies but I do not have the time today. When our people first saw and when our people first knew that the yellows had been placed in the east, the blacks to the south, the reds to the west, and the whites to the North and they foretold that a time would come when they would come together. And if they did not respect the laws given to them each in their own way, they would be conflict. My brothers and sisters, we are living in those times, and we are trying to resolve those issues. Our vantage point is that we were placed as they say in east(indigenous language), south (indigenous language) the west (indigenous language, the north (indigenous language). And as the Creator, in his wisdom, he did not use a computer by the way or a powerpoint, you know that. But I use some pictorals to indicate to you and to give you a simulation of what I’m about to say to you. Because when we say ‘Anishnabe’ (and I will explain that) it is important that we know these things because that is the central

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part of our identity. I am not 5401. I am not Fred Kelly. According to our sacred law and the laws of our people, I’m ‘Gzowshay’. I understand that maybe in 50 yrs there may not be too many people left who may be referred to as ‘Indians’. I’ve got no particular problem with that because I’m Anishnabe. I’m not an Indian unless you stick by the word in Spanish ‘Los Indios’ which means ‘close to God’ and I hope that I would be. But ‘Indian’ misplaces me into a different continent, a misnomer and those are the myths, those legends that we apparently are not supposed to believe in but they can believe them. When the earth was first made, the grandfather, the rocks, the boulders, the stone, the gravel and all that can be called aggregate. They wanted to share this beautiful piece of life with someone. In time, one of the ladies and there are four ladies that appeared. One the first one who appeared and she said I have been sent by the grandfather to be with you, and as she spoke something began to trickle amongst the grandfathers they had never seen before and she said that which you see amongst you now is salt water. I will be with you forever and I will look after the salt water. And by this time, she said that there will be some water beings that will be placed there for a purpose. The second one appeared, and as she appeared, some steam started to rise from among the grandfathers, and the clouds started to form and to rain, and she said I will look after that rain water, that will purify you and that will nurture life into eternity. I will be with you forever The third one appeared and she said, I too have been sent down to be with you, and I will look after the freshwater, the rivers, the streams, underground to freshen and re-circulate and cleanse our grandmother and the grandfathers. I will be with you forever. By this time everything was on Mother Earth. The fourth one finally appeared and she said I too have been set down because now the Creator’s getting ready to send the two legged. This one is going to be so helpless. He will have the powers of the Creator but won’t know what to do with them. We will have to look after that one. We will have to give him birth. We will have to feed him. We will have to nurse him. We will have to provide in every way for this one. This one shall be called Anishnabe. So helpless will he be that he will have to be carried inside of the woman. And it will take thirteen months, thirteen moons for the grandmother that lets the night sky for her in her full glory to come down. At this point, some people tell me, “Fred, you’ve got your months wrong here. A woman carries a child nine months.” True. I understand that. I was raised by a “(indigenous language)” and these are their teachings. Four months for the spirits to find the father and to find the mother out of which this child will be born signaling that now the woman is with child and nine months to

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carry. And when this lady appeared she said he will be carried in this water and during this time I will look after that water and I will be with you forever To this day we call ourselves Anishnabe, and the reason we call ourselves Anishnabe and I will come down to that as soon as I explain how the Anishnabe was descended into the constellation of four concentric circles, that those of you will fast will see (indigenous language) It is not a sexy name when you translate it, it simply means from ‘a hole in the sky’. Nothing very amorous about that. Not like in “(indigenous language)” And this is what you see and I see those when I am fasting. Anishnabe that means two words ‘nisina’ means descended ‘nisinaa’ means nothing. Nothing but God and the Creator does not mean nothing. Nothing in this sense means no more than and no less than all living creatures and creation. An integral part therefore and that is ‘Nabe’, that means male. There is no mention of a woman. Let me tell you, I say this most respectfully. We do not mention a woman not because we forgot her but because to mention her in the same breath as we say ‘isha’ would be to denigrate her sanctity. And that is the sanctity and the sacredness of our women, which we must live up to and reclaim that value and that law. My friends, if we knew that there’d be no need for children’s aid society. There’d be no need for women’s shelters. And that’s the way it was. And that’s the way it can be. And so the women take pride in this and so they should but they also have their own little vanities. When you go back to your communities and you see the Elders walking ahead to of their women, at all times and that is the way it is traditionally. They’re walking ahead shield the women from the sleet, the rain, snow, and the branches. I told my mother, you see the man is superior, he got to walk in front and she said yes, because someone has to walk behind and say turn left stupid, turn right stupid. And so we were placed on the western part of Turtle island, that is called “(indigenous language)” Turtle Island and the reason we call it Turtle Island the Anishnabe way is because of those thirteen moons that it takes for the grandmother to be in her full glory. That’s when she comes down. And if you look at the turtle you will find 13 platelets, five down the middle, four on each side, counting thirteen. And that’s why we call it Turtle Island. We were given four orders of law “(indigenous language)” which we refer to as sacred law, (indigenous language) which we refer to as traditional law, “(indigenous language)” which we refer to as customary law and “(indigenous language)” temporal law. We were given many things as part of the sacred law, at a time when the Anishnabe suffering and they lived up to their covenant, and remember that word covenant. And they lived up to their obligations, to their duties. The sacred beings came down at a time when the earth was covered with ice, our people were suffering, and starving, freezing and the white bear came down from the north and so love the Anishnabe that that was the first one to adopt them and that was the first clan. And the wolf did

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likewise. The winged one of the south did likewise. And the bison of the west did likewise, thus forming the first four clans. The Anishinabe “(indigenous language) “ If you look at these four directions, where the bison is to the wolf, this is where the four legged sit between the wolf and the winged one, that is where the water beings are. Between the eagle, the winged one and the bison, that’s where the winged ones sit. And so you will find your clans. That beautiful story is part of your spiritual identity. Not your ancestry, and descendancy according to the Indian Act registry. I want to give you some other examples. There are so many things that your Elders will tell you. I am just giving you just a little introduction to some of these things. The eagle we have here. For now discount those two stars that are to the outside. Instead look at the five, that form the inside of the cup, the handle and bends over and then there are three more that you do not see but they’re there in the night sky. That is your traditional eagle staff, our sacred symbol such as we have here. And underneath that you will see from time to time stars shooting through the stem. They represent the winged ones “(indigenous language)” simply means eternal and anything that is eternal must be sacred in our view. So the highest legal framework of a people allows them to achieve all their legitimate ends which become the supreme law of that particular nation. Our supreme law comes from the Creator and our ancestors. And that’s what we mean by ‘inherent’. Before European contact, our ancestors governed themselves according, as sovereign nations, according to their own constitutional frameworks and our supreme law determines our sacred relationship to all creation, including and especially (indigenous language) my Grandmother, the Earth. Interestingly what I mean by ‘inherent. Those of you who negotiate self-government agreements and I have no intention of denigrating anybody so I must be very careful because I respect your agreements because that was the will of your people. In my experiences, they told me that in negotiating self-government agreements that you must write your constitution and I have to say to you that the writing of my constitution is a very act of unconstitutionality. In itself this is unconstitutional. I cannot write and I must not write the sacred law of our people and you’ve been told that many times as well. So what do you write? It’s a synthetic charter or a synthetic constitution to move your negotiations along. Who says this? The government of Canada says this. See here’s the irony of the whole thing. Canada does not have inherent rights. All of Canada’s rights were delegated from Great Britain which has, ironically, an unwritten Constitution. But they want you to write yours. So where is our legal constitutional framework? The Elders when they are doing their ceremonies point in the four directions and what does each cardinal direction mean, the four levels of the sky that I just got through showing you, the four levels of the earth, the four seasons, the four lodges, the sweat lodge, the shaking tent, the day lodge, all of these lodges, they represent these four lodges that they are there but we don’t have any cathedrals or churches. The four drums, the four pipes, I see some

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hand drums over here. I am blessed and honoured to be a drum carrier and I have carried the four, the big drum, the rattle drum, the water drum and the hand drum. I just got through explaining to you the four stages of life as well as the eagle staff, the pipes. Again the four pipes, the red, the yellow, the white, the black. All have a place in sacred law. Their meanings are contained in “(indigenous language)” the sacred stories of our people “(indigenous language)” the sacred instructions of our people, the teachings, the ceremonies. That’s why I say if you listen to these ceremonies you will see and you will hear the invocation of sacred law. Our traditional constitution, if you were to accept as proposition which I accept as fact, that we did have a supreme law since time immemorial, which for lack of a better term and we translate into the English language means ‘constitution’ because it is the supreme law of the people. Ours is oral, that is it is unwritten, it is spiritual, it is sacred, and the sacred in that, the sacred and the spiritual are fused, are as one. It is sovereignty, nationhood, governance and jurisdiction manifest. So I have some difficulty, my friends, and that’s just me. I am trying to get my head around the term ‘implementation of a Treaty’. Why? Because I believe in living it. And I have therefore some great difficulty in the Canadian government saying I will sit with you and let’s form a table and we will talk implementation of a Treaty. After 135 years, 150 years we’re not going to discuss what we meant 150 years ago. We knew what we meant. We knew what we were doing. But through their reticence and the deficiency of the proper attitude, and the superior racist attitudes of our counterparts. They wanted to treat us first as trading partners, second as allies in war, third as Treaty partners and finally as wards of the government of which we are trying to get out of now. I hope that what I give you here is some semblance of a road as another alternative to freedom. That there will be no need to pass resolutions and statements in support of our people who are political prisoners, that we are so ingenuously being harassed as a free people. Because here was the relationship that was envisioned in the Treaties – nation-to-nation, government-to-government. On the one side is Canada who claims sovereignty. A social contract according to Rousseau or St. Thomas or all those philosophers of the western philosophical. On our side we call it (indigenous language) a meeting because it comes from the Creator and that is our equivalent that is what we abide by. You notice that they are not together. We have nationhood, a people-hood that is collectively, singularly and collectively known as the Anishnabe. We have a government called (indigenous language) ’running our own affairs’. The inherent right to self-determination and we have jurisdiction, which means that we have laws. We have “(indigenous language)” So, if these are to be together, and as I propose to you and as I know as a fact of international law, and what was envisioned by our own people, this is the way to reconcile sovereignties. They were not meant, the Treaty was not meant to subsume or subjugate one over the other. They were

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meant, as was mentioned yesterday they were meant to be peaceful co-existence of two sovereignties, two peoples living side-by-side. So we have sovereignty and I tell you, these are not for negotiation. Then what have got? What is there to talk about now? The only thing to talk about is that unfinished business as the Chairman pointed out, Perry Bellegarde, a great leader talked about unfinished business, the unfinished business my friends is the harmonization of the administration of laws. I am going to try and wrap this up because I know there’s other business to be done. But I want to tell you the nature of “(indigenous language)” so that you will understand your constitutional framework or your supreme law. And I’m not going to tell you how your supreme law works because you as a nation. And I hear talking about us and I do not wish to disagree but I would like to put my own perspective on it - there is no such thing as an Indian nation across Canada that encompasses everybody. There are indigenous nations and believe it or not, we also have Treaties that pre-date ‘contact’. We took the Haudenosaunee among the Anishnabe. The Lakota with the Anishnabe and so on. “(Indigenous language)” is the sacred and eternal and sets out “(indigenous language)” life in general. If the United States Constitution is based on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and if Canada is based on peace, order and good government, I suggest that to you that many of these kinds of concepts were borrowed from the indigenous peoples. Read the life history of Benjamin Franklin, read the history of these “founders” who found the genius of our own people and we have two words that guide us “indigenous language)”, and from there unfolds the whole life. Your constitutional framework if you wish to call it a constitution, it is oral and cannot be written. Contained within that constitution are the four spiritualities “(indigenous language)” which encapsulates all those others. And I must remind you that our constitution and our laws are not for the negotiation. This is the traditional law flows from sacred law. It sets out how we use the land, the air, the water, the animals, the resources and so on. And the principal elements of your culture are in here. This is what we mean by Anishnabe “(indigenous language)” It is also oral and is passed on through generations and it does not lend itself to writing. The third order “(indigenous language)” you are allowed to make laws and this is customary law. It follows from “(indigenous language)” which it cannot be written. It too is written and is accompanied by strict adherence to ceremony and protocols. When you are going through your lawmaking procedures, presumably you will call your traditional lawyers, your Elders and they will show you what they mean and how to go about making a law. You do not need the Canadian government to show you or to tell you. It contains the lifeways of the people and how we relate to the environment. You notice how the other one sets out what life means, how to use them, how to live within it. This one is dynamic, it is adaptive and certain aspects may be written, which leads to the fourth, temporal law “(indigenous language)” Customary law follows “(indigenous language)”.

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Our temporal laws - which means made by humans. They are written. Thus, some laws may be written but they must be consistent with the substance of the sacred law and the way to do that is to validate them in ceremony. And written laws may form the basis for harmonizing our laws with other laws. That’s all that can be harmonized with other laws, otherwise it is subjugation and colonialism and that is not sovereignty. But only the administration of those laws and so we need some kind of legislative agenda because I said I was going to try and point out some suggestions. This is not a prescription. You will notice at the bottom you will have your own constitutional framework. You will have your sovereignty. You will have your nationhood and how that is spelled out for the purposes of Treaty making and the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which recognized that we had annual congresses, and they said whilst at the annual congresses we’ll repeat our mutual engagements with them. And that was Colonel Shelburne in 1768 he wrote that as instructions when he started Treaty-making with the people. And by the way, let’s dispel some myths and some notions, King Charles in his magnanimous attitude towards these people, that is us, saw fit to enact the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and thereby being so generous and so kind to recognize us as nations. Well, there is another perspective. Pontiac recognized the encroachment and encroaching jurisdiction, encroaching damage that was being done to our nations and our peoples, and rose up in rebellion and captured 32 forts including Fort Detroit, and everybody panicked. Guess they had to do something. It was a direct result of Pontiac’s activities that resulted in 1760-1763 that resulted in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Let that be underlined in your history books. Followed and promulgated by Little Turtle, Shicane and followed as well by Tecumseh. These are Anishnabe peoples. If you wish, probably what you would want to do is address your relationship to the land provided that it is consistent with sacred law. And you may want to make a citizenship law to protect your identity and protect your children. You may want to write a government law that determines how that law is going to determine how it relates to your community and the nation because a law of the nation applies to that community only when that community has accepted it according to its procedure. Then after the basic laws, the foundation laws are made, you would want to address I would think your children, protection of the children and that is a sacred responsibility. You may want to enact a law on the administration of justice, an education law, a health law, and you may want to write other laws as you need them not because somebody tells you. Relationship of laws, the laws of the nation are paramount over the laws of Canada in so far as they affect your nation, including s. 88 of Indian Act (because s. 88 is the one that provides for the application of provincial laws of general application, which allows provincial laws and provincial jurisdiction to apply on reserves). So the laws of your nation are paramount over the laws of province so far as they affect your nation. As your laws take effect, they will displace the Indian Act and other jurisdictions or harmonize themselves in certain ways. In the end what does this mean? So what? What

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are we doing? I am telling you we are not interested in exercising federal jurisdiction. We are not interested in exercising provincial jurisdiction. We are interested in exercising only our jurisdiction. That my friends, is what the spirit and intent of the Treaties means in my view. That is the road to freedom, exercising your jurisdiction because sovereignty in essence, essentially is freedom. That is what we mean by hope for our children, what we mean by duties. And instead of political prisoners and continuous harassment, that is also what we mean by the rule of law.

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Appendix B

Statement on Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug