 We can get started for the next session, if everyone could just take their seats. Our next session is looking at how do First Nations people in New Zealand and Canada fit into the legal structures and governance of their countries. Our first speaker is Tariana Turia, former Member of Parliament, New Zealand. Ma kouta katoa to the Anu University. Thank you so much for inviting me to come over for this hui. I want to acknowledge Matilda and to thank her for allowing us to be amongst her tribal peoples on their land. I also want to take the opportunity to mihi to Linda Burnie, to Ken Wyatt and to Senator Patrick Dodson, tena koutou. I am tribally of Ngā Wairiki Ngāti Apa, Ngā Rauru, Whanganui and Ngāti Tuwharetoa. On 12 October 1996 I was elected into the New Zealand Parliament. I came on to serve in six successive terms occupying a diverse variety of roles. I was the list MP for the Labour Party, a Minister in the Labour Government, an independent MP and the co-leader of the Māori Party for ten years as an electorate representative from 1999 to 2014. And from 2008 a Minister in the Māori Party, National Party Coalition Government. I served on select committees in Māori Affairs, Primary Production, Transport and Industrial Relations, Health and Regulations Review. I set on the Standing Orders, Offices of Parliament and Privileges Committee. One might say in my 18 years of office that I had a unique opportunity from which to respond to the question, how do First Nations people in New Zealand fit into the legal structures and governance of their country. In my maiden speech to Parliament I shared my apprehension about what a political journey might consist of. I said for every negotiation we enter into we have to doubly justify ourselves, perform twice as well as others and open our books to my new scrutiny. Everything we do must turn to magic the first time round. We cannot do worse than what has already been done. It is our right and our responsibility to take control of our own affairs. Only we can truly restore our dignity and integrity. We know the problem, then let us be our own solution. Over two decades later as I look back at my political prophecy I can't help but think of Albert Einstein's definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. It was his view that we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that we used when we created them. And so as I think about the nature of legal structures and governance, I wonder was the rejection of the independent indigenous voice in 2018 in inevitable reflection that 178 years post-colonisation we still have some way to go to living up to the legacy of our founding document to Treaty o Waitangi. Our ancestor signed up to two key documents of governance in 1835 and 1840. Hewakapu Tanga o Te Rangatira Tanga o New Terine were signed on 28 October 1835. In that document Ngai We Maori declared ourselves a sovereign nation, suggesting that the United Tribes of New Zealand would meet at Waitangi each autumn to frame laws to govern our country. Five years later to Treaty o Waitangi was signed across our nation as a means of consolidating strategic leadership, political debate and alliances. Both these covenants of faith gave birth to the notion of partnership, which would give value to the histories and the cultures, the values and knowledges of both the First Nation, people, Tanga to Whenua, and those that came to Aotearoa by virtue of these two documents, now Tanga to Treaty. Central to these constitutional references was the notion of Rangatira Tanga, self-determination for Maori as we might see expressed in the rights defined by our association to our mountains, rivers, our seas and our marae and to our tupuna, our elders and our gods, our lands, our environment, our ancestors, our gods. Despite this framework for nationhood on 13 September 2007, when 144 other nations of the world signed up to the United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, the Labour Government, the same government that is in power today posed the declaration on the basis of Article 3, the right to self-determination. Exactly 10 years later that same Labour Government was voted back into Government and the only indigenous political party that has ever served in the New Zealand Government lost its seats and therefore its opportunity to continue to stand in the House of so-called representatives. So this Anu Forum is a fascinating juncture for which to look back over the last two decades and ask ourselves the critical question, was fitting into the legal structures and governance of our nation that caused our demise. Another important milestone last year was that 2017 marked 150 years since the New Zealand Parliament signed up to the Māori Representation Act of 1867. The absence of commentary or recognition by the media and academic arenas or in Parliament itself was deeply concerning. It is not as if our endemic problems have disappeared and we no longer have any need for indigenous insights to resolve contemporary issues. The Ministry of Justice figures showed 56.3% of people imprisoned last year were Māori. The highest proportion since records were made available from 1980 and record numbers of Māori children comprise the 6,300 children in the care of the state. Two out of three children in care are Māori. I want to return to this notion of fitting in and use it to describe one of the most effective policy achievements that resulted from having an indigenous voice in Parliament. The concept of fitting in implies with it a willingness to conform to resemble the status quo to match the prevailing view. One of the greatest challenges of our experience as indigenous politicians is the difference between political participation and political representation. Last century, for those first Māori MPs in the House, participation was a major challenge. There was the language barrier for a start. Māori politicians faced a hard road in taking government policy out to their people, for bills and other parliamentary papers affecting Māori were seldom translated into te reo Māori. Individual Māori MPs were often seen as a minority. The political party to which those for allegiance was established to represent mainstream New Zealand rather than the interests of Māori as the Treaty partner. This dilemma between participation and representation I believe remains one of the greatest challenges for Māori in Government right up to the current day. To combat the domination of the majority rule over the decades, Māori political parties came into being. In 1981, Mana Motuhake gained 15% of the Māori vote. From 1993 to 2003, the Mana Māori movement represented Māori interests, incorporating two other political parties, the Piri Witi Tua movement, which was based around the Ratana movement, which is a church movement, and Te Tawharoa, which is founded on the Ringatū Church principles. Other parties around this time were Māori Pacific, which was the spirit of the Pacific, Mana Wahimete, Eritangata, and more recently the Mana Party. Then in 2004, in response to thousands of New Zealanders protesting against the foreshore and seabed bill, the Māori Party mobilised popular support, and in 2005 gained four of the Māori electorate seats. Three years later it was invited into Government, where it stayed for three successive terms from 2008 to 2014 in partnership with our national, sorry. And so I come back to the question, is it better to fit in or to retain political independence? Over our 13 years in Parliament, the Māori Party was often asked if we would accept the baubles of power. Our answer was informed by the wisdom of our founding president, Matua Watarangi-Winiata. His advice was that our people didn't vote us into Parliament to sit in opposition, to sit in the back benches. We had a responsibility and an obligation to both hold Government to account while also striving to achieve as much as possible for our whānau hapū iwi. And so the political configuration that worked best for us was a coalition agreement by which we sat outside of Cabinet with ministerial roles and resources. It gave us the wonderful opportunity to introduce the policy revolution I referred to before called whānau ora. Whānau ora is based on the concept that strengthening whānau capability working directly with our families, focusing on intergenerational transfer of knowledge, being driven by outcomes and strengths based. All of these factors would create the conditions by which our own influence and integrity was brought to bear. In 2010, $138 million was allocated to whānau ora and I was appointed the minister. We had our own appropriation. We knew well that the traditional, contractual approach of Government separated families into individuals, focusing on a single problem rather than a coordinated, integrated and holistic approach. In short, our common experience was that whānau support was shaped by funder priorities rather than the actual family needs. Moreover, the focus was largely on crisis management with less emphasis on positive development and enabling the aspirations of whānau to be realised. We were treated as sad, bad and mad. Health was about disease focus. Policy developments were often characterised as a helicopter drop, which led to fragmented and frustrated communities. We knew that we could do better. Whānau Ora recognises a group capacity for self-determination. It has an intergenerational dynamic. It is built on a Māori cultural foundation and it can be applied across a wide range of social and economic sectors. We wanted Government to improve its approach to build and foster relationships to focus on family needs rather than the service and to give priority to early investment, which in turn enabled whānau to be more independent. It is as far away from fitting in as one could imagine. What we knew works is flexibility to tailor our approach to local circumstances to create, strengthen and maintain the capability of whānau as the key lever for catalyzing change. The passion and the commitment of whānau to improving outcomes has been absolutely inspirational. The time and investment they put into their initiative is significant. They have grasped the opportunity to be self-determining. Their preference is clear that they would rather be opening up pathways to aspiration than backpedaling in cycles of deprivation. Whānau Ora navigators walk alongside of whānau and building capacity, collaboration is integral to the success they seek. What we have learned is that you cannot outsource well-being. The ancient connections to land and place to people and story is vital to the success of whānau Ora. Change cannot occur by simply having Māori people participate or Māori words and concepts being applied in policy. The model has to emerge out of the relationships, histories and values that reflect a different system than the Westminster system of Parliament. Whānau Ora has been phenomenally successful precisely because it challenges conventional systems. It puts whānau back in the driving seat of their own destiny. It is based on a world view where the outcomes, the approach and the delivery is designed owned and controlled by First Nation peoples rather than being tacked on to the mainstream approach. Without First Nation's political advocacy however any policy transformations designed and driven by Māori will always be vulnerable. The new government was barely six months old before in its first budget it made no new provision for whānau Ora thereby restricting the impact of its reaching coverage to the maintenance of the status quo. And this is the crux of the matter. Success and policy design and delivery will be best for Māori when owned by and controlled by Māori at the helm. Likewise political impact can only be realised when Māori political presence is not just about participation but far more powerfully is about representation. Despite lauding the fact that the 2017 parliament had more Māori politicians than any other parliament prior the Labour government reneged on its campaign promise to boost whānau and to put a budget of funding and slashed another 9 million off the Māori affairs agency to put e kōkiri for this year with a further 12 million to be sliced off over the next four years. Widespread disappointment was registered across Māori communities who called the budget a kick in the guts for Māori and the budget of broken promises. Finally I want to leave with the challenge that being Māori by Waka Papa or philosophy is where the change is ultimately required. We have Māori MPs in Parliament now who identify as Māori but will not promote or uphold the values and aspirations which we hold dear to and which are advanced by our people. Those MPs will fit into the legal structures. They will fit into Parliament but their impact will always be limited unless they can also support and progress Māori principles and practices. We have a saying Hokiwakamuri Hiahuwakamua look back to guide the way forward. If we are ever going to fulfil the legacy of our ancestors who signed the Treaty of Waitangi it will not occur through fitting in. We need to be representatives, advocates, champions for change and for the cause to sing our songs to use our language to walk our talk. I have great faith in those who have come back into the Māori Party to rebuild. Our current priority is not on fitting in but fit out. To rebuild the connections we have across Aotearoa with whānau, hapua and iwi as our base. We live by a protocol that is influenced by Marae te Kanga. In other words every member of our movement is valued equally. Unity is important for each of us living up to the legacy that we were born into. In doing so we are committed to a model of building consensus that gives effect to the spirit and intent of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, one which encourages us all to live the Treaty partner rather than simply to confine it to the archives of political history. Our greatest strength is ourselves Kōtua Tātaureo me Ōna tīkanga. I am privileged of sharing our story with you and my greatest hope for these few days is that we can learn together how to capitalise on our kinship ties to demonstrate our respect for one another and to emphasise our common unity as peoples of the land first nations, families of the world. Tēnā tātau katoa. Tēnā koutou katoa. Tēnā koe Matilda, kai hia koe. Nā i whakatau mai i a tātau katoa ki te iwi ngana wa hoki, kai te mihi, kai te mihi. Ki ngā kai whaka haere, Mick Dodson, Brian Schmidt, Graham, Gareth Evans ngā kai kōrero, hirinoa kia tātau katoa Iain Arachautiu. It's a pleasure to be here, thank you, Prost enough, for having me and for the invitation. I'm going to speak about five practical ways in which Māori fit into legal and governance structures in Aotearoa in New Zealand but I wanted to make 2 notes, before I start and some of them are in a similar vein to some of the questions and discussion that has come so far. First of all, the question that we've been placed suggests that we talk about how Māori fit Maori fit into New Zealand legal and governance structures. We could also be asking how non-Maori or non-Indigenous Australians fit into our legal and governance structures, and then we'd be having quite a different discussion. And I say that not just because of the semantics of the words, but I do think we need to remain critical of the kinds of assumptions that we're making in some of these discussions. Having said that, I also wanted to note the specific position from which Māori engage with the Crown in Aotearoa. Māori do continue to have our own governance and legal structures. They're clearly different to the ones that existed in the 1600s or the 1700s, but they continue and they practice Māori law, te kanga Māori, and perpetuate and continue Māori economic values. And those are our runanga structures, our tribal governance authorities. So the largest of these are around 125,000 members and the smallest really are in the range of 15,000 to 19,000 members. We also also have national entities like the Iwi Chairs Forum, which doesn't have specific legal standing as such, but does engage directly with ministers of the Crown and has members on a number of working groups, policy working groups throughout Government on significant issues for us, such as water ownership and allocation. So that's the kind of context. We also have tribal economic entities which are based on Māori land and governed under the Māori Land Act. And they're really the powerhouse of our Māori economy, but also continue to be driven by Māori values and Māori law primarily. So having said that and setting out our context, I'll come back to what I assumed the question was directing us to in terms of the ways in which we fit in. So despite the short time that we have, I'm going to try and squeeze in five quite practical ways that we fit into legal and governance structures. And the first one is around the Treaty of Waitangi Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Of course passed and signed in 1840, allowed the British to govern and create a Government in New Zealand at that time, but also guaranteed us Te Nauranga Te Ritanga, the full and exclusive rights to our lands, homes and treasures. It also provided Māori with rights of British subjects at that time. So I'm going to talk through after each of these five ways we fit in about their strengths and weaknesses. So you may be aware of some of these mechanisms, but I think it's the strengths and weaknesses that I'd like to draw your attention to. So the Treaty, of course, is excellent to have. That's its strength political leverage that we can derive from it. And it has led the Crown to trying to fulfil some of their Treaty obligations by setting up a Treaty settlements process. We can no longer talk about historical breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, because they also created a deadline for those. But contemporary urgent and other matters continue to be heard by the Office of Treaty settlements and through that mechanism. One of the weaknesses, I guess, of the Treaty of Waitangi is that successive governments have not managed to translate it into an actual acknowledgement and an entrenched protection within our legal system for Māori rights. Some Prime Ministers have refused to accept that Māori did not cede sovereignty. The second mechanism I wanted to talk about and Tariana's mentioned this is our Māori seats, our Māori electorates for Māori representation. So they were established in 1867 and the rationale for their establishment really differs from the reason why we continue to have them. And when we changed electoral systems in 1993, there were many comments made at that time about these seats actually being a minimum recognition for Māori rights in our current constitutional arrangements. But that's, of course, not quite why they were set up in the 1800s. There are seven Māori electorates out of a usual size of House of Representatives of 120. And as Tariana suggested, the Māori electorates, the Māori seats and those representatives must not be confused with the Māori people who sit in the House of Representatives. After the last election, we had around 26 Māori serving in the House. But again, a lot's been made of that, including by many of those politicians, but not all of them. In fact, only seven of them are there as specific Māori representatives. So in terms of strengths, well, it is good to have some Māori representation. That's great, but the weaknesses are quite a few. The Māori electorates continue to be dominated by one political party, the Labour Party in New Zealand. And for many that makes them appear to be safe seats, and often they're then taken for granted by that particular political party. We need to make them more marginal seats to raise their profile and heat up the contest in those electorates. The seats aren't entrenched, so 50% plus one of Parliament could abolish those seats at any time, and there are a number of political parties that have that as a policy platform, which is why they also don't stand candidates in those electorates because they fundamentally disagree with them or label them as separatism. Another weakness is that Māori can choose to go on the Māori electoral roll when you sign up and enroll, and thereafter only once every five years. So you're pretty restricted in which role you're on. At this very moment, we have the Māori electoral option open. So at this present time, Māori can choose whether to be on the Māori electoral roll or the general electoral roll. And the preliminary results from this particular option suggest that certainly the new enrollments continue to go directly onto the Māori electoral roll, but we have quite significant numbers of Māori swapping from the Māori roll to the general electoral roll. If that continues, unfortunately, there is a chance that we would lose one of those seats. Having said that, there's still time for Māori to swap from the general roll to the Māori electoral roll, and I would certainly encourage any that are out there listening to do that. We don't know the exact reasons for that. We have some anecdotal evidence, but we probably don't have enough time to get into that all here today. So that's at our national level. The third way we're involved in legal and governance structures I wanted to talk about is similar, but at a regional level, Māori can have wards, can have seats as well in our local councils, our regional councils across the country. So under our Local Electoral Act 2001, councils can establish Māori wards and have Māori seats in their areas. So this is an opportunity that's available to them. Only two councils have wards set up out of a number of 78 across the country. So again, we've got a strength here. We have the opportunity for Māori representation. The weakness is that it's very difficult to achieve two out of 78 so far. There are a couple of others in the pipeline. The legislation itself is discriminatory. It allows for council decisions to be overturned or put to a public poll of if 5% of electors in that particular area sign a petition, they can create a public poll. And this year, in fact, we had five councils who'd all taken the opportunity to have Māori representation in their areas. They'd all voted for having Māori seats on their councils. All five of those decisions were put to a public poll and all five of them resulted in a change to that. Basically, they all projected at the public poll stage, having Māori seats. And so that's quite disheartening, but it's also a discriminatory element to the legislation which should be changed. So the fourth mechanism that I wanted to talk about was the Waitangi Tribunal. And this will be familiar to many of you. It was established in 1975 by the Treaty of Waitangi Act. It's a permanent statutory commission of inquiry. Here's cases brought by any Māori person about possible breaches of the principles of the Treaty to it. And it examines, as I said, historical, although the deadline has passed for lodging those contemporary and urgent claims. And it tends to be bogged down by the urgent claims as the Government continues its recidivist ways and continues to breach the principles of the Treaty. And it makes recommendations to Government. So in terms of a strength that is useful, clearly to have a mechanism where you can take claims and for Māori, for many Māori communities, having those historical issues aired and heard and listened to by and researched is a really valuable experience. The weakness is it's really not fit for the purpose that Māori try and force upon it. It's really not fit for being able to be that kind of ultimate check and balance on breaches of the Treaty. It's underfunded and it only makes recommendations, except in specific circumstances, and the Government tends to ignore those pretty routinely. One of our most significant cases there, kuautearoa tenei y262 about Māori intellectual and cultural property rights, has been sitting, being considered by the Government since 2011. So it's a relatively weak mechanism in that kind of regard. The final way in which we're included in legal and governance structures, you might also consider to be a fairly weak mechanism, although we've had quite a lot of success with it. And these are through Treaty clauses in legislation. So in 1986, in our Stato and Enterprises Act at that time, a particular clause was slipped in at the relatively late stage of the reading of the Bill, and it said that nothing in this act shall permit the crown to act in a manner that is inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. And since that time, there have been various versions of that kind of clause shall take into account the principles of the Treaty, shall give effect to the principles of the Treaty. There's some variation and over the years we've had quite a number of those. I should note our current Acting Prime Minister is also Māori and he's put forward, his party's put forward at least on two occasions a bill to delete all of those principles of the Treaty of Waitangi out of all legislation. So sometimes there are unexpected consequences of things. In terms of strengths, well, it enables Māori some legal leverage, having these clauses in there. We have a recourse to the courts to try and enforce some of those. In terms of weaknesses and practice, the crown still determines what they believe to be consistent with the principles of the Treaty, and that's usually at the sort of lower end of the spectrum. But they can be quite influential mechanisms. So those are briefly five ways that we fit into the New Zealand legal and governance structures, and I look forward to the questions and discussion. Thank you, Maria. Our next speaker is Brian Crane, Queen's Council, fellow for the Gowling WLG American College Trial Lawyers. Like other speakers, I want to pay respects to the First Nations on these lands and to honour their ancestors at the past and the present and the future. I was also very moved by the ceremony that we had this morning outside the old parlant with a large fire or with a smudge, with a lot of smoke, and I joined the others to participate in the washing of the body with the smoke. And then I came to the side of the circle and to watch, and the smoke got in my eyes again. And so I moved to another place in the circle, and the smoke followed me. I could only conclude that I had a lot of cleansing to do. I proposed to address the challenge of the topic and the shortness of the time by some general comments on three areas. First, the place of the constitution in Canada and the recognition of Aboriginal and Treaty rights in that constitution. Second, the engagement with the government or the governments because provincial governments as well as the federal government are involved in treaty making over the past 30 years. And this is an area that I personally have spent a lot of professional time in, especially in Northern Canada. And lastly, to talk a bit about the role of the courts in that process and the recognition in the courts of Indigenous rights. And finally a few general remarks on whether there is any relevance to the Australian scene in this story. I would say that you don't get anywhere without knowing a little bit about the country. And in Canada, we have had a long history of discrimination and some conflicts, some, not many, Indian wars. A large period of attempted assimilation of the Indian or native population. With the European or settler communities. And a rather reluctant coming into the modern age encouraged by some judicial decisions and encouraged also by a high level of political action by the by native organizations in the 1970s. And then so that all of this is sort of the setting for any discussion about how native people fit in to the governance of Canada. Let me just give you a few quick highlights of that story. The early settlers were English. There were wars. There were there were the invasions by the French. There was counter action. There was eventually a peace. And in the in the process there was rivalry with the United States and worry about the United States taking over Canada. And then there was a settlement of the West going from what is now Ontario to the Pacific Coast, opening up new lands, which had originally been opened up quite considerably by the fur traders. And the the companions, the Courier de Bois, that went with the fur traders to the farthest reaches of the country and took furs back to Montreal. And the opening of the great railway between the Transcontinental Railway, which became a political theme for expansion of the West. And the the Government in power was always in favour of opening up the West and driving the railway west. And finally, of course, the settlement of that of the country, British Columbia joining in and then the provinces coming together in 1867, a gigantic union of the existing provincial governments or colonies with Canada to become the Canadian Federation. So the history really starts as a country from a federal point of view with 1867. And the British Parliament passed an act called the British North America Act, which has a lot of pieces in it about setting up legislatures and the judiciary and dealing with the electoral process and amending the statute. There's no mention there of any social policies. There's no mention of Aboriginal people or anything of that sort in that document. What it has remained though as is a charter for the division of powers between the central government and the and the provinces. And so one of the sections of that statute was gave the power to regulate lands and lands reserved for the Indians to the central government. But in fact today, through the passage of time, the provinces, the provincial governments equally have a legislative role in relation to native communities. So once that that happened, there was a the quickly it was a passage of a statute called the Indian Act, which sets up the the banned system, the reserve system, the the the process for managing the Indian population, the process for managing the Indian population. And after that, the the next item in the chronology that we look to is the the situation where Indians are discriminated against in the Indian Act and in other legislation. No right to vote disenfranchised, no right to retain legal counsel. The very much under the hands of the Indian agent who is controlled their affairs and all that sort of thing. So the from that emerged a crippled native culture. Here I'm speaking of the First Nations equally the Inuit in the north and the where we're in a situation of complete disengagement because there was very little government support for any of their activities. And we had the horrors of the residential school system, which resulted in countless abuses, which are still being recorded today. We had the removal of populations relocation. We had the Indian the adoption system under which Indian children were taken and removed from Indian communities. Even today this this is being litigated. There is an important class action now underway in Canada, which is called the 60s scoop in which government came in in the 60s and removed and placed under foster care a large percentage of the Indian Indian children. And so we have coupled with that. We have the loss of culture, loss of language and disintegration. It came to the point in the late 1860s. It came to the point where there was a considerable proactive Native movement in Canada. In the late 1960s going on through the 1970s and the 1980s, the Native Indian Brotherhood and other or other organizations engaged in strong political action. At the same time in the courts, in the Calder case, which was 1974, that case went to the Supreme Court of Canada overruling previous decisions. It was our MABO case, if you like. At that time in Calder, the court ruled that there was such a thing as Aboriginal rights and title. And of course it remained for another 20, 30, 40 years before that could be defined in any way, which was acceptable to the courts. But in that important case, government policy changed dramatically overnight. And the government declared that it was prepared to sit down and negotiate. Up to this point there had been right across Canada a series of treaties, starting with historical treaties in the West and leading to a number of individual treaties in Ontario, to a whole series of what we call the numbered treaties in Western Canada and Northern Canada, which dealt with particular nations and which made allocations of reserve lands in return for giving up their Aboriginal title. And those treaties were in place throughout Canada, except for British Columbia and Northern Canada, Yukon, Northwest Territories, and what is now Nunavut. So government said they would negotiate these, the unsettled areas. They would negotiate claims and so the land claim business came into force. We had a whole series of land claim agreements in Northern Canada, starting in the Yukon with the Northwest Territories, with the Nunavut, and then with a series of what we call comprehensive claims. Because the agenda was everything, not only land and compensation, but rights with respect to subject matters and negotiating support arrangements. So that is pretty well the background. In 1982, leading up to the major constitutional reform, there was a series of considerable series of legal actions in Canada against the federal government, against the then Trudeau government. And out of all lists came what was a massive reform, and the Constitution Act 1982 was the end result. And in that Constitution Act was the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which sets out for all Canadians a shopping list of civil rights for which they can go to court. Freedom of religion, freedom of association, a host of criminal rights for criminal proceedings, fair trial rights and equality rights as well. At the same time, because of pressure from the native organisations and individual political leaders who supported the action strongly, Canada declared that there was such a thing as aboriginal and treaty rights. And section 35 of the Constitution was enacted. That is separate from the Bill of Rights, the Canadian Charter of Rights. And that is perhaps the most significant legal development in Canada in the whole field. Because section 35 states that the rights are recognised. The rights of the aboriginal peoples defined as the Indians, the Métis and the Inuit are the aboriginal peoples. Their rights, which then exist, are preserved, recognised and affirmed. And by that action the courts were given a solid foundation for future constitutional development, for future interpretation of treaties and aboriginal claims. If that had not happened, the courts would not have been able and would not probably have had the courage to enact a whole series of legal decisions, which have fostered a positive relationship toward resolving native land claims. That important development is undoubtedly something that has relevance for Australia today. Of course these things are very much driven by the society they derive from. And there was at that time a consensus in Canada that there should be such a declaration. The politicians took it in their minds that they could move forward and they could create another amendment to the constitution, which was worked out at one of these constitutional conferences like they might have had in this building. And that was the constitutional meeting in Charlottetown which resulted in a document called the Charlottetown Accord. One of the provisions of the Charlottetown Accord was a declaration that the native peoples had the right to self-government. That under our procedure had to go to a referendum. It went to a referendum and failed. There was the usual thing that happens in the political process. Sides are formed, yes, no camps put up scenarios which are perhaps not envisaged by the original framers of the measure. And it was a puzzling and depressing defeat when that constitutional amendment did not go through. As a result, politicians in Canada tired of the whole exercise of trying to reform or amend the Canadian constitution. And it was, they laid down tools and they embarked on other matters. But the opportunity and the consensus that had been reached on the self-government file was such that they decided to move forward. And this was in 1995, they decided the government of the day said that they would recognize as a policy matter the right to self-government. And they declared what was called the inherent right policy. That policy still exists and it allows negotiations to proceed on a self-government agenda, which can be a sexual type of agreement dealing with education or it could be a complete comprehensive self-government giving a particular community or a group of communities legal powers to pass legislation and manage a particular area. And that is, it has many successes. It was required by the government of the day the comprehensive process for comprehensive land claims which has resulted in a series of modern treaties must deal with self-government. And so that has created a whole set of self-government agreements in Canada. It's an agenda that is not supported unanimously by any means among the native communities because there are strong federal restrictions on what can be negotiated and what cannot be negotiated. But the mechanics are there and they are proceeding. On the treaty front, I mentioned the comprehensive land claims. In addition to those, there have been a series of negotiations of what's called specific claims which relate to past treaty breaches and those claims have also been preceded with. The final legal development is the resolution of group or collective claims arising from abuses. The Indian Residential School Settlement what is now the day schools litigation which is ongoing in Canada. The whole question of the abuses in institutions under class action procedures, these claims have been accepted and in most of the cases, eventually government has agreed to negotiate. So there are settlements proceeding dealing with individual abuses. In terms of the suggestion of participation of native Canadians in the governance system, we do not have a strong record. There is in the, we had a major royal commission in the royal commission on Aboriginal peoples. There was a proposal put forward for a third house of parliament by one of the Aboriginal organizations. The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples put that forward. It has not seen the light of day since then. There has been, I think it's fair to say that there has not been too much interest on the Aboriginal side in having a third order of government or even a mechanism to guarantee seats. There is an interest that the politicians should give representation and lobbies are struck but there is nothing in the law that requires for example a seat on the courts to be held by an Aboriginal lawyer. But there have been in our federal courts and in our provincial courts there is representation. There are lawyers who have an Aboriginal background and they are there but they are there as part of the overall process. There is no guarantee of participation. There is no guarantee of participation in parliament. And so that there is no message there to the solution that was in the Alluru Statement as to a voice to parliament. The area that I was going to complete my remarks on has to do with the constitutional change. Our experience is extremely difficult and that it moves very, very slowly. There is not much I can say that would encourage Canadian politicians to argue today for amending the Constitution. The fact that these amendments have to go to the population for approval through a referendum. We've had some experience with referendums in the province of Quebec. We are not enthusiastic I would say as a people about that type of thing. It is often taken over by rhetoric, by positions that appeal to the personal interests. Where you have common political support it may be another question. But the message that has to be given to the electorate at large it seems to me must be simple and uncomplicated. And technical amendments may have a rough go ahead. The second point I wanted to make in conclusion is that with respect to moving forward with Aboriginal rights, treaty rights is only one side of the equation. The other side of the equation is anti-discrimination, is equity, is basic human fairness. There is a huge problem with the standard of living particularly in remote Aboriginal communities. Health, clean water, basic housing all needs to be addressed. That social agenda has to be part of the process for constitutional reform as well. Thank you. And our final speaker for this session before we break is Patrick Wadase Madavi, Grand Council Chief of the Ashinabek Nation. Thank you. Firstly I also want to acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians and on whose traditional lands we meet and pay our respect to the elders of the... I'm going to say this wrong. I just know it. Ungoal people, past and present. In our tradition this morning I was able to give some of the elders a bundle respecting the territory here and having them as our hosts. So I was fortunate I was able to meet some of the elders this morning and also participate in the spudging ceremony. We have a similar ceremony in our tradition. I gave my introduction of introducing myself. My name is Wadase. It's a name given to me by the elders and the people from our treaty, the Lake Huron Treaty which is a pre-confederation treaty. And it means warrior, but not so much in the sense of somebody that's going to battle, but somebody that looks after his people. It was the role that I played as Grand Council Chief as a Chief in my community and many other roles that I played on behalf of our people for 46 years. I recently retired about three weeks ago so I'm trying to have a life again. Unfortunately I've only had about three days off since I retired. Anyway, I come from a small first nation called Ondek Om Nakani. It means where the crows live. And it's important that I say that because under the federal government system they used to call us Sucker Creek Indian Reserve because the Indian agents saw a creek where smelts and suckers came to spawn and they said, well, you're Sucker Creek. Well, that name wasn't relevant to us because we were Ondek Om Nakani. And we're from Minidominsing and he's the island of the Great Spirit and we're very spiritual people and I'm also from the Eagle Clan. So I want to start off by indicating who I am. You know, it's very difficult to condense history in a very short period of time. And I'm going to try to go through some things very quickly. And you know, just say that our relationships is very key to this whole discussion. And we've gone through four different types of relationships in our country with the newcomers. And I want to say that history in our country didn't begin when Champlain came down to St. Lawrence River or other explorers came down the river systems and lake systems. You know, our people have been there since time immemorial. And history, this is a saying, is his story. It's not our story. And part of the challenge I think for folks here is to start telling your story. And that's what we're doing as First Nations in Canada, is to start telling our story. So the first relationship that we had was a nation to nation relationship when the English came over and the French and various other explorers that came to our land. And that was even recognized and acknowledged by the Royal Proclamation of 1764 where, you know, there was an acknowledgement of the nations in our country. And we have over 52 different distinct nations in our country with many different languages spoken. Where I come from in Ontario, there's three major nations. The Crees are in the north, Nishnabek are in central and part of southern Ontario and then the Mohawk and the Oroquoq and Fenerci are in parts of southern Ontario as well. And this Royal Proclamation talked about how the King acknowledged the fact that, you know, they were there to try to, you know, do trade, you know, was mentioned by Mr Crane about the fur industry. And whoever was allies with the tribes of the area, you know, controlled the trade and the fur market in the area. So that's why you saw, you know, you know, some of the tribes were allied with the British and some were allied with the French. But whoever held the military balance of power because our numbers are very significant. And they also mentioned, you know, the American attempt to come to Canada and take over in the War of 1812. It was our warriors from our territories that battled back the Americans when the British fled the forts and we saved our country. So this nation-to-nation relationship, you know, talked about how they were to treat, you know, the relationship with First Nations. And in some respects, and I don't know if this is true or not, but I feel it, the word treat was kind of the origin of the word treaty, about how you would treat, you know, your partner in a treaty relationship. And that nation-to-nation relationship was there and was supposed to even be embodied when Canada became a confederation in 1867. Now, some argue that, you know, maybe even today Canada, you know, in terms of the nation criteria of who's a nation, you know, could argue maybe that it isn't a country. You know, because they didn't have land. That land was indigenous land. They didn't have languages because that languages in that country was indigenous languages. They brought those languages over from France and England and other parts of the world. Their judicial system was brought over from Britain. You know, so even the spirituality, we had spirituality in our territories long before the various churches came into our territory. So, you know, today, you know, we look at that aspect of that nation-to-nation relationship and when Canada became a confederation, shortly thereafter, I believe it was the date around 1876, they created this Indian Act, which Mr. Crane made reference to. And again, the original intent behind that Indian Act was supposed to, you know, contain some of the, you know, thoughts that went into the Royal Proclamation of how they would treat and work with our people. But unfortunately, you know, it became an administrative relationship with our people. This was used to take control of us from cradle to grave. They controlled every aspect of our lives and included even telling us who we were, whether we were an Indian or not. And that relationship continued and Mr. Crane talked a lot about the chronology of our history and I won't repeat it. And, you know, I'll fast forward to, you know, the 60s, like he talked about. And I think that was a critical period in our history because, you know, in some respects, maybe the government of the day did us a favor by really waking us up when they tried to introduce the 69 white paper and they were trying to assimilate our people and we countered with a red paper that said, no way were we going to assimilate. And that was really, although even there was earlier remnants of our organizations established, it really became, you know, a catalyst for our people to mobilize. We started fighting back and it was pointed out, you know, prior to that time we couldn't even get legal advice. We couldn't leave the reserve without, you know, getting permission from the Indian agent. If you became educated or deemed to be civilized and you lost your status as an Indian, if you went away to war and came back you lost your status as an Indian and it was people removed from the treaty list and many different ways of this legislation, the discrimination that he referred to remove people from the status list. So this really became a catalyst to start fighting for our rights and I'll fast forward to, again, he made reference to the constitutional discussions. There were ministerial meetings Chris Cost in the country leading up to that, talking about what should be into this constitution. And, you know, the 69 white paper and subsequent policy and legislation of the government tried to change us and even create legislation called the First Nations Governance Act which would municipalise our, turn us into municipalities. And we said we didn't want that and this is where they were trying to change our relationship into a contractual relationship. You know, again, nation to nation then we went to administrative then contractual. So we fought back and tried to bring it full circle back to the nation-nation relationship with the constitutional discussions that took place in 1982. And that wasn't an easy discussion. We had to go, chiefs went to Britain, lobbied, launched court cases. There was a court case called the Lord Denning case that talked about the rights and responsibilities of the treaty process and talked about the visibility of the Crown, the Crown and Right of England and now the Crown and Right of Canada and the Crown and Right of the provinces. And there are obligations to maintain the treaty relationship. And that still exists today. It hasn't gone away. And one of the things that we are really trying to teach people at least in Ontario is that we are all treaty people. They keep saying that you are treaty people. Your First Nations are treaty people. But we are all treaty people because we have to have partners to sign the treaty. So they're treaty people too. And so when we signed this Constitution in 1982 when the Prime Minister signed it, I remember that constitutional talks started out kind of on a wrong note. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said Aboriginal treaty rights are a non-starter. That was the first thing practically out of his mouth when they started the discussion. I remember it well. I was there. I feel a little bit, people said I looked younger and I turned 65 about a couple of months ago. But I was around in a lot of this modern 69 white paper, the opposition to the First Nations and Governance Act. During the constitutional talks, I was there during the Meach Lake, the Charlotte Town Court, the Clona Court and helped form the Clona Court because there was many, many attempts at trying to deal with our First Nations situation. And former Prime Minister Paul Martin championed the Clona Court where we thought we had a full comprehensive way of how we were going to have a relationship. And unfortunately an election occurred and the Conservative Government killed the Clona Court. And so we've had lots of situations and even the constitutional talks in 1982 have not fulfilled what they were supposed to do. A year after the, and I should point out that we were, we had to fight to get section 35 in the constitution because originally it was section 34, the reference to Aboriginal and Treaty people. But in order to try to appease René Lavec and the Quebec separatism, there was a deal trying to be cut in the kitchen of the Chateau L'Oreal Hotel before you get to the tunnel to go over to the Congress Center where the meeting was going on of trying to appease René Lavec and some of the other provinces. They wanted to remove references to Aboriginal and Treaty rights. So we fought back and it became back as section 35. And you know, some of those moments in history are quite scary. I received the phone call. I can say it is today because it's old history. But I received the phone call. I was staying at the Chateau L'Oreal. Some guys that worked in the mines in Incoe in Sudbury saw that they removed the section 34. And they said, chief, what do you want us to do? We've been stealing dynamite out of Incoe. We'll take out every bridge and railway system and pipeline between here and Sudbury. I said, whoa, hold the phone. I said, we're still negotiating. So it was quite surprising that hard rock miners were watching what was going on in the constitutional talks of our country. You know, so we fought back and it became section 35. But within one year of the constitutional talks in 1982, there was supposed to have been another constitutional forum to discuss jurisdiction, what was federal jurisdiction, what was provincial jurisdiction, and what was going to be First Nation jurisdiction, and where there may be areas of shared jurisdiction. And we were talking about an order of government back then. We weren't talking about a third order of government. We were talking about an order of government and how those relationships would work itself out by this discussion about jurisdiction and how we would work out those jurisdictional discussions. That has not happened even to this date. Do the math from 38, 40 years later. That still is an outstanding piece of business. And the fact that they're even dealing with us is still part of an outstanding business of the Lord Denning case and even the Royal Proclamation because this should be noted. There were no other groups at the constitutional talks other than the federal government, the provincial government and our indigenous peoples. There were no labor groups there. There were no church groups. There were no other interest groups there, minority groups, or anybody because legally they still had unfinished business with the indigenous peoples in this land. And that's still an outstanding issue in our territories. There's been lots of activity have happened between the constitutional talks and now we've made some progress and we've also had some setbacks. We went through a 10-year era of a Conservative government that took us to court 90-some cases costing about $290 million and they lost every case. You know, the truth self-sets you free, they say. And you know, even the United Nations Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People was originally rejected by Canada. And you know, we played a little bit of politics. We went to the provincial legislature and said to one of the opposition parties, do you know what would be a real feather in your hat if you upstage the government in power and introduced a bill recognizing UNDRIP. So we went over them to the party in power and said, did you know what the opposition party is thinking of doing? They're thinking of putting forth a bill here to recognize UNDRIP. So the provincial government in power quickly passed UNDRIP. And then we said to the provincial government, you know, you'd be really embarrassing if you were to pass this legislation before the federal government did. And then we went to the federal government said, do you realize that the provincial government is talking about passing legislation to recognize UNDRIP and you haven't done it. And in the very next throne speech, they recognized UNDRIP with some conditions, of course, that they talk about trying to water it down. So, you know, there's been lots of activity have gone on. We've ventured into, you know, different discussions with the province as well and they're part of this equation now where at one time it was only a federal relationship. And we've had some milestones reached where we've created statements of political relationship of how we're trying to work with each other. And one of the things that we've said and advocated to both the federal provincial government is nothing about us without us. So don't be discussing anything about us unless we're engaged. And they tried to do that recently with health transformation as an example. And we quickly went to the minister and said, and to the prime minister that, you know, you can't be talking about health system delivery to our people without talking to us. So the health transformation discussion is something that's going on right now. They've come out recently, you know, with the election of the Liberal government about this whole notion of reconciliation. And I've said to both level of governments, reconciliation is fine words. We need reconciliation action. I said, action speaks louder than words. And, you know, I think, I've said to, you know, we have this two-row Wampum Treaty as well that talks about how, you know, the crown is in their boat and we're in our canoe and we travel parallel together in our land and that we don't interfere. They don't interfere in our canoe. We don't interfere in their boat, but we work together in a relationship as the treaty has outlined. And one of the ministers used to talk about, you know, how he, you know, wanted to, you know, honour that relationship. But I said to him, I think you need to get into a speedboat because you're very slow in moving forth any action. And so I think that's part of the problem is that, you know, there has to be, you know, a lot of work and they've come out recently with, besides this reconciliation discussion, something called a new governance and fiscal relationship. And they've divided the, what used to be Indian Affairs is now called the Department of Indigenous Services Canada. They've changed their name a couple of times. It used to be Aboriginal in Northern Affairs Canada. They were Indian Affairs Canada at one time. And, you know, we keep saying to them, you know, that we're in a shnabe. We're not Indian, you know, and even during the constitutional talks, I should have made reference to that. We talked about how we would reference ourselves in the constitution. Of course, the government didn't listen to us, but anyway, we said, you know, we're not Aboriginal. We're the original people. So it's like being normal and abnormal. We're original. We're not Aboriginal. And you can be native of anything. And we said, we're not natives. And Indigenous was a term that is, you know, widely accepted, you know, internationally. But then an elder, a woman from Saskatchewan, Crease, said the Canadian constitution, the preambles of the Canadian constitution is a lie. It says, the founding nations of Canada are the English and French. She said, don't they know that we were the first nations in this land? And that's how the term first nations came to be used in Canada. And, you know, in my community, I quickly took down that Sucker Creek Indians reserve sign and I put up on deck Omniconing Ojibwe territory, you know, because identity is very important to who we are. So we're starting this whole discussion with the government now. And we're very concerned that, you know, we have to have political will. And I guess this is advice to folks. I'm not about to tell you how to do your business, but you know, we're saying amongst ourselves, we have to be very careful that, you know, we talk about a political will and a political move to get consensus on how we're going to move forward in the future. Not get tied up in legalistic parameters, because that's exactly what they do all the time is box us with policy and legislation and legalistic, you know, constraints. And, you know, we term some of the work that we've had to do with the federal infrastructure government and we call it proactive disengagement. Just keep us talking, but don't do anything. And it drags things out for years and years and years. And we're saying to them, we want pragmatic sovereignty. We can't leap from where we are over to the total sovereignty. You know, we have to build capacity along the way and we may never get to, you know, full sovereignty because that may not be a desire of all nations across our country. We will continue to have a relationship you know, with the crown. You know, with the Nishinabek Nation, we've now started we passed our own constitution it's called Chinak Nagewin, the great law about, I think it was in 2012 and we are getting individual communities to pass their own Chinak Nagewin's. We are, we passed our own citizenship law called ebendoggijig. It means those that belong because identity is very important because the government has systematically eliminated our people and are continuing to do this do so today with this Indian Act by having designations of who you can be a section there's various categories and it lessens and lessens your rights and we're saying we should know who belongs to our people and this identity is very important. You know what the elder said to me a moose is a moose a duck is a duck an Nishinabek can only be an Nishinabek. You can't be anything else so trying to assimilate us or trying to make us into something or not will never happen. So you know that's why it's so important that we're talking about our own citizenship laws. We're talking about our own child well-being law because much like the Māori have talked about you know we have more children in care now than even during the residential school area by a time period because of the 60s scoop and you know we we are trying to get back to our own systems of government. We have a clan system and we have seven clans and there's many clans behind that clans but the main clans are starting from the eastern door to Washcash clan which is the deer clan and you know it has the responsibility for things like social services we have the it is yeah ego clan which is more like your education people the responsibility for education. Ajijak the crane clan has responsibility for different things the turtle clan is like a mediation responsibility we have the mong the loon clan is like your internal chief internal relations and the external relations and we have the bearer clan which is responsible for like health and the martin clan for economic development so we're getting back to our own forms of government I just want to talk about again trying to wrap up you know we also are saying we should be respecting diversity and amongst us ourselves though you know it's important that we maintain unity amongst our own selves if we're going to be strong to vote our rights in our own country and also it's important that we deal with the rights holders the individual leaders of those treaties and those communities are the rights holders not the provincial territorial organizations that represent them and I say that as a leader or a former leader of our provincial territorial organization it has always been my belief that the rights holders at the community level are the ones that the government needs to be talking to so a lot of work today going on and I think if we can avoid you know the bureaucracy or the legal legal beagles goofing things up as much as possible and create some political will we'll get some movement in Canada because again you know we've been around for thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands I could say that a thousand times and we're not going away we go at you thank you Patrick that concludes this session we now have the joint select committee on constitutional recognition hearing with senator Patrick Dodson and Julian Lisa who will be here and that will be conducted in here everyone else can break lunch those of you who are not staying to be part of to be part of that session and we're back in at 2 o'clock