The Decibel - National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak wants Carney to slow down

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

On Friday, the Liberals’ controversial Bill C-5 was passed by the House of Commons — it’s the only legislation to pass, ahead of Parliament rising for the summer.Bill C-5, the One Canadian Economy Act, aims to remove barriers to interprovincial trade, fulfilling Prime Minister Mark Carney’s promise to do so by Canada Day. But the legislation would also give Carney’s cabinet the power to quickly approve big industrial projects deemed to be ‘in the national interest,’ exempting them from some federal laws.Carney has said the legislation will not weaken the government’s duty to consult Indigenous rights-holders, but many are worried.The Decibel is joined by Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak. She represents more than 630 First Nations and has been voicing concern over the bill. She’ll walk us through how First Nations are responding and whether it could spark another Idle No More movement this summer.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Parliament rose for the summer on Friday, and the only piece of legislation that made it through the House this session was Bill C-5. This bill is seen by many people as controversial, and it's moved quickly through Parliament. C-5 is called the One Canadian Economy Act, and it has two parts. The first aims to remove barriers to inter-provincial trade. That's something Prime Minister Mark Carney promised to do by Canada Day.

That's not the controversial part. People are taking issue with the second part of this bill. It would give Carney's cabinet the power to quickly grant federal approval for big industrial projects. These projects have to be deemed in the national interest. Things like mines, ports, and pipelines. Federal approval times will be cut down from five years to two. A single set of conditions would have to be met, and all projects will go through a new

federal projects office. But in order to do this, these large projects would be exempt from various laws. And that has a lot of people worried. A major concern is that Bill C-5 could weaken the government's duty to consult Indigenous rights holders before approving these projects. But Carney disagrees. At the heart of this legislation is Section 35 of our Constitution. At the heart is not just respect for but full embrace of of free, prior and informed consent.

It has to be seen as well. — And late on Friday, Kearney and Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Galmasti held a press conference and announced how they're further addressing these concerns. — The major projects office created by this bill will have an Indigenous Advisory Council whose core function will be to honour Section 35 rights in the implementation. That's why the first thing we will do to launch the implementation of this legislation

in the right way is through full-day summits with First Nations, Inuit and Métis rights holders, leadership and experts. So today, Cindy Woodhouse-Nipinac is here. She's the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, representing over 600 First Nations. Respect needs to be shown to first peoples in this country. And time and time again, it isn't. She's voiced serious concerns over this bill.

We just got the bill on Friday, a draft, you know, the draft bill. We need time of course to legally review it, politically review it as well, and we're not being given that time. I spoke with the National Chief around noon on Friday. She'll walk us through how First Nations are responding responding and whether we could see protests and legal challenges against Bill C-5 this summer. I'm Maynika Raman-Wilms and this is the Decibel from the Globe and Mail. Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse-Nipeneck, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me. So, Bill C-5 would cut approval times for major projects and would streamline things so projects only have to meet a single set of conditions. Can you just lay this out for me? What are the concerns around this bill and the government's plans really to speed things up? Look, I just think that we continue to be very disappointed that First Nations rights holders have been shut out of Bill C-5's legislative process.

We saw that at the committees, many chiefs returned away and uninvited. And it's 2025, it's not acceptable to keep First Nations rights holders out of these discussions. This shouldn't be the Canadian way. I went and did my five minute presentation. I don't think five minutes in the House is sufficient. And chiefs came with me and I felt really terrible that many of them couldn't speak. Many of them had, you know, amendments that they wanted to put forth and

I don't even know what those are because of the timing. And you know, just like in Ontario and BC, these federal bills are being rammed through and we are pleased that some amendments have been made. However, we are continuing to be concerned that there's many amendments that First Nations want to put forward but they haven't had the time. And the truth is that the Bill C-5 does not include any language as well to free prior and informed consent, even though the federal government had said that this is at the heart of this bill. So I just think that it could have been done a lot better. I think, you I think the federal government could have called

First Nations in together for a meeting ahead of this. We've co-developed bills before on Indigenous Languages Act, for instance, on Bill C-92. We've done a lot of co-developed work together before that was quick and worked much better when you have everybody at the table. I think also when the premier and the prime minister meet as a country, they've always historically left out First Nations, always.

Every national chief before me has never had a full seat at that table. And I think that that has to change in 2025. First Nations are rights holders, we're foundational partners to Canada, and First Nations need to be respected as such. I think that we've created this country together. We've signed treaties, we have inherent rights and that's not Indian Act rights. Indian Act rights happened way after the signing of treaties. Treaties were signed, agreements were made that we'd live peacefully together in this country, create this beautiful country. And then 10 or 11 years later, Indian acts kind of rammed down in parliament without,

you know, consultation back then with First Nations. Hmm. So Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that his government will not choose projects for fast tracking without the consultation of affected Indigenous people. And on Thursday, he did say that consultation is, quote, at the heart, unquote, of this legislation. What do you make of those assurances? Are those not enough? I think that if you're, you know, if the federal government is serious about making sure that free prior and informed consent is actually placed in the heart of bill, that they should put it in the bill, write it into the bill. So you want to actually see that language laid out very clearly then?

Absolutely. There was of course a long list of amendments approved for Bill C-5, as you alluded to a little bit earlier, and they do ensure that the government won't be able to use this legislation to circumvent a host of laws, including the Indian Act. Does this address any of your concerns, National Chief? Well, partly, but I think there are still many legal experts that we have out there, again, because of timing. I think seven days to review legislation, put a submission in, and I think of like 34 First Nations who are fighting wildfires. What about them?

Where is their voice is going to be heard in all this when they can't even have time to open up the legislation to read it, let alone put a submission in, I feel for them. And I feel for, you know, maybe other communities that may have, we just weren't in this week on other issues right across the country, that seven days is not enough. I also feel for Canadians that should have time to put their submissions in as well, whether they approve or they don't approve and have time to analyze that. And I just think that ramming something in seven days is not the way to go, not the Canadian way to go for sure. And I think that we need to be cognizant of that and, you know, find a better way. But of course, we won't give up. We will be, you know, the onus is on the

senators to get this right, the senators of this country and the Senate about this bill and how they can make sure that A, FPIC is included in the final version and you know, the honor of the Crown rests with every senator sitting in the Senate this week. So all options are still on the table. I'm hoping they do the right thing. And when you mentioned FPIC there, that means free, prior, and informed consent. National Chief, it sounds like from what you're saying, it's the process that is particularly concerning here.

What would be sufficient when it comes to the government ensuring that they're consulting with Indigenous groups? Look, take the summer and go and speak to First Nations, go speak to Canadians, go speak to environmental groups, go speak to legal people, and industry experts. When we make bills in this country, let's make them the best that they can be rather than rushing and making mistakes and mistakes that could be maybe changed differently with a new government down the way or things are taken out of context 10 years from now when there's a totally different government. Maybe people had good intentions right now, but those intentions, if they're not written in stone,

you know, what's the point of that 10 years later when a new government comes in and tries to override things or, you know, who knows what they do with that? And I think that's the fear out there. I think the fear out there also is, A, people didn't have enough time to review and to go through this with a fine- fine tooth comb to make sure that they're comfortable enough. I think sometimes anybody needs time to digest something this huge. I think this country has a real opportunity here to make the best country that we can have. You know, if we want to talk about fast tracking things, let's fast track schools for First Nations children. Let's fast track clean water for the ones that there's still more communities that still need

water treatment plants, access to clean drinking water. Let's fast track, you know, cell service and high speed internet for our kids. Like we've seen during the pandemic how every other Canadian child was, during the pandemic was able to go online and try and get online schooling. First Nations kids didn't have that. Let's close that infrastructure gap once and for all. It will propel us from the bottom end of a G7 country to the top. You can read the Conference Board of Canada's report that we had just finished recently with them. And it shows that it could create jobs for Canadians and for First Nations. And it would close that infrastructure gap and

narrow the gap between making sure that all children have access to an equal life in this country, including First Nations children. We'll be back after this message. National Chief, Bill C-5 isn't the first time that Ottawa has made a big push to speed up approvals for resource projects. In 2012, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper put forward a big omnibus bill, this was Bill C-45, that proposed changes to dozens of acts. There was significant backlash to this bill from some Indigenous communities as well as people more broadly as well. And this was the beginning of the

Idle No More movement, which saw months of major protests in support of Canada to uphold the honour of the Crown and recognise our treaty. Chanting Could we see something similar after this bill? Well, I'm just going to say that all options are on the table for First Nations. I don't have a whole lot to say of what happens next. I know that First Nations will be meeting this summer and we are having a Chiefs meeting on September 3, 4 and 5 in Winnipeg. And you know, we look forward to what the next steps are there and I think that there'll be a

lot of this will be one of the top issues right off the bat. And when you say all options are on the table, what does that entail? Look, I think everything, anything that First Nations want to do, we stand beside First Nations leadership. The AFN is here to support it. And there's a diversity of views of probably where people want to go with this. And maybe, you know, I also even have heard that some people support it. So some people support it, some people don't, others aren't sure yet because they haven't had time. And like I said, there's 34 out there that haven't even had time to

even review it yet because they're too busy on the front lines of fires in this country, trying to save their communities. So, I look forward to the conversation with leadership and getting their instruction. That's how we govern ourselves as First Nations people. We gather, you know, they pass motions in assembly and then we follow that at the assembly of First Nations. We try our best to make sure that we do the work that chiefs instruct us to do and we'll continue to look for that dialogue, wait for that dialogue and I'm sure that there'll be plenty. And you are welcome to our assembly. Our assembly is always open to the general public if you wanna come and listen,

but you'll hear so many different viewpoints. And it's always, it's so wonderful to hear that. And it makes things stronger and better. We shouldn't be scared of diverse opinions, even when it comes to controversial bills. And with the history of this country, trusting government, First Nations have always been

burned from government. So how can we trust them? I just want to come back to this idea though, when you say all options on the table for this summer, like are you anticipating national chief protests, legal challenges? What are you thinking about? Well, we've already seen protests. We've seen the chiefs of Ontario protesting on the hill this week, you know, and I think until this bill is passed, I don't know what will happen legally. Right now, I'm not going to go into hypotheticals, but I know that we will be in the House of Commons and of course in the Senate really lobbying hard to get some of our changes that

we need and to ask for more time so that First Nations can come and present and rights holders can come and present on rights holders can come and present on their opinions because some of them have very strong opinions. Look, even we've heard from, you know, other chiefs this week that are very pro development, but that said, hold on, you know, slow it down and do things carefully. And what does this mean? And this mean, look, dialogue needs to be a two way street. It can't be just a bunch of questions without any answers and I think that that's where Canada is failing there's not a lot of answers to the questions that have been asked of this bill. Just before I let you go here right now of course there is this big

push to strengthen the Canadian economy in light of threats and tariffs from the US of course and Carney made this a central part of his election platform of course he won the election how much of a risk do you think there is here that in this moment of Canadian nationalism, consideration here of Indigenous rights and other things might actually be eclipsed? Look, I just think that if Canada wants to propel itself to be number one around the world, close the First Nations infrastructure gap, read the Conference Board of Canada's report. If you close that gap, we're gonna make this country a better place for everyone, including Canadians, all Canadians, and everybody will benefit. But let's build those schools for our kids. Let's get that high-speed internet access into every

community. Let's build better roads for our communities so that they're not, you know, buses aren't breaking down every year. And let's get on with safer, healthier, prosperous communities for everybody, including First Nations in this country. I think that that's the Canadian way to go. And you know, we want to get there. And we're here to try and work with this country. Hand in hand, we always have. Every war, First Nations are the first of the front lines, more than any other group. First Nations people sign up more than any other group to make sure that they contribute to the safety of this country. Again, they will. Everybody banded together against Trump. We're all united against that. And we are united in the fact that,

yes, we want prosperity, but at the same time, not at the expense of our rights and this notion of, oh, you know, if you build this mining plant here, then maybe you'll get a school. Well, that's extortion. You know, I don't think any other, imagine saying that to Canadian children in any town or city somewhere, what that would signal when you say, well, unless we build a mine here, you're not getting a school or you're not getting, you know, access to homes. And people can also say, I think Canadians don't realize this, but every time that we

want to build something in our communities, we have to go and ask the minister for a ministerial loan guarantee. And we're the only people that are, you know, legislated around the entire world. First Nations people, we're very distinct people. And this is our own, our own homelands. Canada is our, our homel homeland and we welcome everybody here. But at the same time, the relationship has to change. It can't be this oppressive way forward that it has been.

Thank you. Thank you for having me today. National Chief, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Thank you. That was the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Cindy Woodhouse-Niepenec. That's it for today. I'm Maynica Ramon-Wilms. Our producers are Madeleine White,

Michal Stein, and Allie Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.