May 23 – 24, 2018 – have collaborated to organize the first-ever Indigenous-led summit that will bring together leaders to create a plan for moving beyond the Indian Act. determiNation is described as a national conference to plan for a new relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples based on rights, recognition and reconciliation. This conference will be structured around the themes of premises, principles, and institutional, legislative, and constitutional mechanisms, with the goal of creating a plan of action. Representatives from the Government of Canada including Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould are expected. Additional speakers and facilitators will be announced in coming weeks.

The first Indigenous-led summit to explore moving beyond the Indian Act closed today with a strong call for First Nations to exercise their self-determination and to forge a new path for their people. “We have heard loud and clear that moving beyond the Indian Act must start at the community level with the full engagement of our communities,” said NAN Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler. “The Government of Canada must move aside and support our people to design solutions from the ground up. Anything less is paternalistic and goes against everything we’ve been talking about for the past two days. We are not going to accept another federally dictated process where First Nation leaders are summoned to meet and given the option to take it or leave without true consultation.

CONCLUSIONS

An Indigenous-Led Process

To understand and respond to the needs of diverse Indigenous communities, it is necessary to empower communities to develop approaches and mechanisms which replace the Indian Act. For example, it must be for Indigenous Peoples to determine questions of citizenship and membership, and to develop Indigenous governance mechanisms to ensure accountability in relation to such questions. Therefore, as a necessary step in the dismantling of the Indian Act, communities must be empowered to develop their own roadmap and to set out their context and needs.

Solutions from the Community Level

The guiding principle for a community empowered process of dismantling the Indian Act is for solutions to be found at the grassroots level. This means explicit opportunities for the perspectives and needs of Elders, youth, women, two-spirited and other communities within Indigenous communities to have a voice in this process.

Canada to Fundamentally Rethink its Legal Framework

Canada has paid lip service to acceptance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), Nation-to-Nation political processes and the implementation of Treaties and the Treaty process. That said, Canada’s legal framework continues to advance colonial projects. For example, while the courts have recognized a duty to consult Indigenous communities over the use of Indigenous territories, those same courts have legitimized the right of federal and provincial governments to override the wishes of Indigenous communities where they conflict with governmental objectives.

For the most part, Canadian governments still do not to recognize Indigenous law, or the right of Indigenous People to govern their communities according to Indigenous laws. In addition to the adoption of UNDRIP as a framework for Crown-Indigenous relations in Canada, and aside from any elaboration of s.35 rights which the government may choose to put in place (which we know a subsequent government could simply modify or reverse), the government must acknowledge the centrality of Indigenous laws and legal traditions in the governance of Indigenous Nations and communities.

The establishment of a Treaty Tribunal, as a joint endeavour between Indigenous Nations and the Government of Canada, would provide a more appropriate venue for true Nation-to-Nation dialogue. With both parties on equal footing, Treaty rights and their meanings could be re-examined and conflicts resolved.

Beyond the clear inconsistency of the Indian Act with an Indigenous-led legal framework, the federal government should also seek Indigenous input in a review of other Canadian laws which have had a detrimental impact on Indigenous Peoples, such as the recently announced reforms to the criminal justice system.

To decolonize Canada’s legal frameworks, it is necessary both to recognize the legitimacy and authority of Indigenous laws and to address the harmful impact of Canadian laws on Indigenous Peoples

RECOMMENDATIONS

Community Empowerment

It is clear that the only way to redress the harms done through the imposition of colonial top-down structures through the Indian Act is to empower communities to chart their own self-determined futures.

First, NAN calls upon the Government of Canada to clarify its commitment to repeal the Indian Act and to replace it with a legal and constitutional framework based on a Nation-to-Nation relationship and the principles set out in UNDRIP.

Second, NAN calls upon the Government of Canada to make resources available to enable NAN to support its communities to develop their own vision for what lies beyond the Indian Act.

Third, NAN to facilitate a (fully funded) community empowerment process across NAN territory to develop Indigenous laws and practices in areas now imposed through the Indian Act.

Fourth, the Government of Canada to further develop and expand this engagement to support a national process to assist all Indigenous communities develop their own laws and practices in areas now imposed through the Indian Act.

Finally, a Community Empowerment Fund should be established by the Government of Canada to support an Indigenous-led, community-driven process for dismantling the Indian Act and replacing it with a Nation-to-Nation reconciliation framework.