Action4Canada - November 08, 2023


First Nations Speak to MPs. Object to Bill C-53. Battle Over Land Rights


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

116.885475

Word count

644

Sentence count

39

Harmful content

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Learn English with Grand Chief Alvin Fidler, Grand Chief of the Anishinaabeska Nation, speaks at the Unsuited and Surrendered Lands of the Algonquin Nation in response to Bill C-53.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Good afternoon, everyone.
00:00:12.640 It's great to be back here in the unseated and surrendered lands of the Algonquin Nation. 0.99
00:00:22.560 My name is Alvin Fidler, I'm the Grand Chief for Anishinaabeska Nation.
00:00:28.300 One of the PTOs in what is now called Ontario.
00:00:34.860 It's one of the largest PTOs in the country, it covers almost two thirds of the province
00:00:43.200 of Ontario and there's three distinct languages.
00:00:48.060 I stand before you today to reiterate our position that we set out to the letter that
00:01:06.820 we sent to Minister Ananda Sandri, the new CERNAC Minister.
00:01:13.480 That letter was sent out to him on October the 10th.
00:01:18.940 And the letter was clear.
00:01:20.260 The message in that letter was clear.
00:01:21.820 It was to ask Canada to withdraw Bill C-53 and that it is reckless for Canada to rush through
00:01:31.980 this legislation without meaningfully engaging with First Nations and ensuring that there 0.97
00:01:39.340 is a proper basis for what Canada is doing and a thorough understanding of the consequences.
00:01:45.820 Canada's current attempt to force through Bill C-53 will do nothing but damage First Nations'
00:01:53.980 rights for generations to come and I am here to tell you that it is likely to cause damage
00:02:01.340 to our relationship with you.
00:02:04.140 The Métis Nation of Ontario has repeatedly made public statements and demands to our communities
00:02:10.940 that it intends to impose itself on First Nations' lands and displace our rights. 0.86
00:02:17.880 Given that reality, which Canada is choosing to currently ignore, what choice will we have?
00:02:25.920 Giving Aboriginal treaty rights to groups on our territories that do not have a legitimate entitlement 0.97
00:02:32.500 to rights diminishes those rights.
00:02:36.220 What we are asking for is transparency and meaningful consultation.
00:02:42.780 We are also asking that you do proper due diligence on MNO's claims.
00:02:48.380 I just want to be very clear that we do not, we are not here to oppose the legitimate rights
00:02:54.580 of the Métis people as set out by rigorous legal tests, for example, in the Pauly case.
00:03:03.100 We support their aspirations in seeking to correct the historical injustices that they faced and
00:03:10.540 the processes established to get there.
00:03:13.700 We have no issues with that.
00:03:16.840 What we are opposed to, however, are the six new illegitimate Métis communities in Ontario 1.00
00:03:22.600 as represented by the MNO.
00:03:25.680 The recognition of these communities is baseless, non-factual, and not supported by genealogical evidence.
00:03:35.380 Of the six, the Abitibi Inland Métis community, which is deemed to be situated in the Treaty
00:03:43.080 United Territory, this community does not exist.
00:03:48.540 The neighbouring communities and elders have never seen such a community.
00:03:54.840 And I would invite you as members of this committee and ministers to visit this community.
00:04:02.040 You will not find it.
00:04:04.540 It's a fictional community simply designed to assert rights that are non-existent.
00:04:09.980 And I want to bring an elder here with me today to testify to this, but because of the short notice,
00:04:17.520 he wasn't able to be here.
00:04:20.740 And there are a number of things that we have issues with this bill.
00:04:25.160 Number one, the territorial rights assertion of Métis rates. 0.65
00:04:29.340 Future treaties with the Métis has been discussed by ministers of this government.
00:04:38.640 And defined references to concepts such as mobility rights, and activities incidental to harvesting.
00:04:47.880 And just the last 15 minutes, or the 15 seconds that I have, I just want to say that I hope you read all this material that we've given to you.
00:04:57.600 And I hope you recognize how colonial this is.
00:05:02.100 That you're sitting up there contemplating giving recognition to another group.
00:05:07.240 That is not legitimate, in our view, at least the settlements that they're claiming in our territory.
00:05:12.300 That we do have treaties.
00:05:14.480 I brought the treaty documents with me.
00:05:17.080 That were signed by my ancestors and your ancestors.
00:05:21.300 And that's the relationship that we want to maintain.
00:05:26.680 So Miigwetch, thank you for inviting me to be a part of this.