THUNDER BAY -- When Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett was first handed the critic portfolio for the department that governed Canada’s relationship with First Nations in 2011, it was known as Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Shortly thereafter, the Conservative government changed its name to Aboriginal Affairs.
“This change has no impact on the mandate of the department,” the ministry’s website read at the time.
After changing political winds blew the Liberal Party into a majority government last month, the department Bennett will lead was rebranded again as Indigenous and Northern Affairs.
This time, the Liberals say, there's more to the change than a name.
Indigenous leaders have met the Liberal promise to renew relationships with open arms. Now it’s time for Minister of Indigenous Affairs Carolyn Bennett to respond to ambitious promises on education, drinking water, constitutional change and a long-sought inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.
Bennett was in Thunder Bay this week to send a message that she’s ready to deliver.
TBNewswatch: Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day talked to us before the election about how First Nations have already begun the process inquiring into missing and murdered indigenous women. Is there anything you can tell us about how the national inquiry is starting to crystalize and what the government hopes will come out of an inquiry that we don’t already know?
CB: I think that obviously, the most important thing is that we’ve learned the lessons of commissions that haven’t worked. I think the blueprint for an inquiry -- the analysis that happened in B.C. about the Oppal Commission -- is very informative. We want to spend some time in this pre-inquiry engagement making sure we’ve heard from families particularly but also NGOs, provinces and territories, the civil society organizations that deal with this on a daily basis to make sure the design of the formal inquiry is a good one and will meet the needs and be able to come to good recommendations that will have the buy-in -- and therefore the action -- to go forward.
We’re balancing how long the pre-inquiry should the pre-inquiry be with the urgency that many feel about getting on with it. We’re going to find that balance of getting this pre-inquiry right.
I think we also know there are some things we can get going. There are some issues around policing. It sounds like will be addressed again at the roundtable in January in Winnipeg. There are real issues that are coming up every day from the Sûreté du Québec in Val d’Or to other issues we continue to hear about in terms of concerns about racism, sexism, consequence for bad behavior.
I think we also now from the child welfare system to so many things we need to get going on fixing it. As we live through this inquest in Thunder Bay, we want to know about education, about all the facets of this that we probably haven’t looked at in a real way. This isn’t going to be band-aids. We have to address some real systemic problems.
TBNewswatch: Do you feel from your experience and understanding that those cases of missing women and girls are being treated differently?
CB: Anecdotally, when we listen to families, their stories are compelling. Laurie Odjick’s story from Kitigan Zibi of Maisy and Shannon that went missing but the police decided they were runaways even though they left their purses and their cell phones at home. I don’t know of a teenager that runs away without their purse or their cell phone. Even her husband’s testimony as the stepfather of a teenaged girl, he said to us, ‘I should have been the prime suspect. If I wasn’t questioned, who was?’ There are stories like that that make you pause.
Even though the B.C. inquiry was problematic, we still learned things. Certain indigenous women and girls’ disappearances were viewed as inevitable. It wasn’t taken seriously in the same way and there is that devaluing of lives because of certain circumstances. I think we have to get to the bottom of that.
TBNewswatch: The Liberal government has promised to end boil-water advisories on First Nations within five years. Five years seems like an awfully short time when you look at the magnitude of the problems that exist. Are there changes you can see within the bureaucracy of how this issue has been managed?
CB: I think you have to set targets and you have to therefore have all possible partners shoulder-to-shoulder to try to meet those targets. It is a strong common purpose, local wisdom, local knowledge to get it done. That’s the by-word of complexity theory; how you get things done from the bottom up.
What we’re hearing from the regional chief here is they are already redoubling their efforts to come together to find workable solutions to this because they want us to succeed. They want them to succeed. They want the communities to have clean drinking water. This isn’t a test that any of us want to fail. We think there are bright people out there who are going to help us do it. It will only be if we work with them and listen that we’ll find the creative solutions to get this done -- and it’s doable. This is Canada. We can do this.
TBNewswatch: On constitutional issues, there has been a change in tone. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper talked about the hole left behind if the federal government pulls the Indian Act up by its roots. What can you see happening by the end of a four-year Liberal majority when it comes to First Nations sovereignty?
CB: It starts with the attitude and the relationship. It means that it is ‘adversaries no more’ as Regional Chief Day has said. Then it means working together towards this ultimate goal of nation-to-nation, government-to-government. It starts with trusting interpersonal relationships. We’re blessed to have as a Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, who has been thinking about these things for a very long time. I think she has, with her portfolio at the AFN on governance, an understanding that communities will be ready at different times but there’s a desire to get communities out from under the Indian Act and then figure out what should be there instead.
TBNewswatch: What’s one thing you want to contribute to that constitutional change over your time in office?
CB: I would hope people would see progress.
