Bill C-6 (Historical)

Specific Claims Resolution Act

An Act to establish the Canadian Centre for the Independent Resolution of First Nations Specific Claims to provide for the filing, negotiation and resolution of specific claims and to make related amendments to other Acts

Specific Claims Resolution Act

[Bob Nault, Liberal, Kenora—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot predict anyone's future, mine nor the member's. We will see how he makes out when he is up for nomination in his own riding or when he is up for re-election.

However, the objective of what we are proposing today is to put forward modern institutions of governance and the ability of the Government of Canada, through an independent specific claims commission and tribunal, to work with first nations outside of the courts to fast track and bring forward outstanding grievances of the past.

I do not understand this rhetoric from across the floor that somehow this diminishes the respect of aboriginal people. If they choose not to use the tool, that is their right; however, the fact is that we do not have the mechanism now to improve the abilities to work with first nations on resolving these claims. That is why Bill C-6 is so important to the long term resolution of grievances of the past.

What we set out to do in this mandate was very simple. We wanted Parliament to enter into a debate for the first time about the important modern institutions necessary for first nations to be part of our country, not sitting on the sidelines, living in poverty, and waiting for us to find some political will to work with them.

That is what Bill C-7, Bill C-19 and Bill C-6 are all about. And I dare say, later on this week, we will see another piece of legislation that also signals the same need for first nations people.

[John Duncan, Canadian Alliance, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, during their administration, the Liberals have invoked time allocation and closure a total of 84 times. The record in the previous administration, the Mulroney administration, was a total of 72 times. Therefore, we are already well past the record setting pace of the Mulroney administration.

The government, in all of its dealings with aboriginal legislation, must be known for an absence of sharp dealings and forthright expression of its constitutional fiduciary obligations to indigenous peoples.

Not only does Bill C-6 fly in the face of virtually all commentary received from aboriginal communities, but it also flies in the face of all of the opposition parties in the House.

The minister made reference to the First Nations Land Management Act. I was here when the act went through this place. We had 14 first nations that were strong proponents of that act.

I ask the minister, where are the first nations that are strong proponents of Bill C-6? They do not exist. Is the government invoking time allocation because of the legacy that this minister hopes to leave behind? In others words, the first nations governance act, Bill C-7, has gone sideways, and these are the final days of the minister's mandate.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the minister say he was establishing an open system. It is not; it is a completely closed system. For example, it is closed, as far as the ceilings on claims is concerned. With the Senate amendment, the ceiling will be increased to $10 million. And yet, the average individual claim settlement in the past 30 years was over $18 million.

He says it is an open system. But it is closed, as far as accepting the first nations' individual claims is concerned. The minister will be the sole judge of whether or not such first nations claims will be accepted. He says it is an open system, because it allows court challenges if the commission does not work properly. Well, yes. Once again, he will decide on whether individual claims that are referred to the Department of Justice are acceptable.

We know very well what will happen with the Department of Justice. Technical evidence will be introduced. Things can be drawn out for 15 or 20 years. There are still 1,000 individual claims that have not been settled by the existing process. Things will not improve with the process proposed by Bill C-6. No additional resources are being allocated to settle the hundreds of individual claims that already exist.

The minister says that there are no systems in the world comparable to the one we are going to establish. Of course not. Apartheid ended in Africa some years ago, and he is recreating apartheid for the first nations.

Bill C-6 is goes against all the work that has been done since 1982. We are talking about a commission that is independent from the government, a government that is both judge and party. The first nations understand that. The minister must stop saying that he is speaking for the first nations and the chiefs of the first nations. Less than a month ago, in Vancouver, there was a first nations summit meeting. The chiefs present, including the grand chief, were unanimously opposed to Bills C-6 and C-7, and most of them were opposed to Bill C-19 as well.

[Maurice Vellacott, Canadian Alliance, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the minister knows very well that those amendments from the Senate are pretty wimpy, pretty much token and nothing of an adjustment in a significant way at all.

The Canadian Alliance blue book states support for speedy resolution of specific first nations claims. Specific claims include alleged improper administration of lands and other assets under the Indian Act or other formal agreements.

In other words, in some cases the Indian agents took and sold off Indian reserve lands and lined their own pockets with the money. That is the kind of injustice that we are talking about here today.

Bill C-6 would not speed up the resolution of specific claims. No timelines are mandated in this process. In fact, there are numerous opportunities for the government to delay and stonewall with impunity.

I would like to ask the minister why there are no timelines of any kind in this particular bill to get some resolution and some justice to native people since justice delayed is justice denied.

[Reed Elley, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in 1993 the Liberal red book promised an independent claims commission jointly appointed by first nations and the Government of Canada.

Bill C-6 clearly breaks that promise by concentrating the power to make appointments in the Prime Minister's Office. In that regard this will then be very much controlled by the government.

Indian bands have repeatedly faced obstruction, rejection and delay in their attempts to have the government consider their claim. I would like to ask the minister why native people across this country should trust the government to act in good faith in the face of yet another 1993 Liberal red book broken promise and in the face of what Bill C-6 offers them.

[Bob Nault, Liberal, Kenora—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are not here debating Bill C-7 but I will make a quick comment and that is that Bill C-7 is alive and well and he will have an opportunity to debate that some time soon I am sure.

The reason for that is that no one in their right mind, who knows anything about aboriginal issues, can say that the present Indian Act meets the needs of first nations people. We all know the status quo is not acceptable. We all know first nations people are suffering because Parliament has not acted in modern times to bring forward the kind of institutional changes necessary to improve the opportunities for first nations to be successful.

If the member is having a debate about whether Parliament has the right to move legislation without every first nation leader across the country being in support, then he has a different definition of his role and responsibilities than I do.

I go back to Bill C-6, which is the matter of the debate and on which many members want to ask questions. I will put it to the member again. If the member believes that Bill C-6 is not as good as the present Indian Claims Commission we have before us today he should stand up and say so. My belief is that this legislation is 10 times as good as the process we have now. It will prove to be very effective once it is implemented into law.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the minister standing today and moving closure is the desperate act of a desperate man. He is fully aware that his first nations governance initiative has been an abject failure. It has been an abject flop because first nations, from one end of the country to the other, have denounced it. They have said that they do not want it.

In choosing to go forward with Bill C-6, is the minister not aware that first nations, from one end of the country to the other, have said that Bill C-6 is not what they want? Where does he get off, where does he get the licence and where does he get the colonial arrogance to impose this on his supposed partners in the community who have said clearly that they reject it? They have said that it bears no resemblance to the joint task force that was struck and that was supposed to develop such an institution.

Will the minister admit that his first nations governance act is a failure, that the whole initiative was a failure and that the whole suite of bills has been a failure? Will he go back to the drawing board with some respect for first nations people and start over again in consultation with first nations people? Will the minister do that, at least in this last opportunity that he has?

[John Duncan, Canadian Alliance, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the government is showing its true spots again and breaking new records for invoking closure. What is most astounding this time, however, is that the government invoked closure in the Senate on Bill C-6 as well. It is quite possibly unprecedented for any government to have had an aboriginal bill time allocated in the Senate and now in the House of Commons. It is certainly a precedent for which the government cannot be proud.

Because of limited time only the Canadian Alliance has spoken to Bill C-6 , with only one member speaking to it for a total of three hours of debate. Why is the government so intent on pushing through this poorly crafted bill?

[Bob Nault, Liberal, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, what we do know about Bill C-6 is that this is the third attempt since the 1950s to bring forward a tribunal and a commission process, an independent body that will allow first nations to bring their specific grievances, which are legally binding agreements that we as the crown have signed over the last 100 years or so, to a process where there is fairness.

The fact that there has been debate in this place for the last year about whether Bill C-6 is perfect, whether it is completely independent or whether it meets all the needs is a legitimate debate. However the time has come to put a process in place that will be more acceptable than the one we have in place today.

At the present time the backlog is significant. The reason is that we do not have a process in place where we can sit down and use the modern tool of management, of negotiation and discussion to bring this to a conclusion and decide on what the government would owe to a first nation based on a past grievance.

This is a unique process to Canada. There are no commissions or tribunals like it in the world. The Human Rights Commission is the only commission that is close to being like it. We have said on numerous occasions that no one in the House can predict the success of it but we believe we must find ways to work together and negotiate instead of litigate, which is the objective of the exercise.

We have had over a year of debate and that is a significant amount of time. Good amendments have been made by the Senate and we agree with those amendments. We want to move on with the implementation of Bill C-6.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That in relation to Bill C-6, an act to establish the Canadian Centre for the Independent Resolution of First Nations Specific Claims to provide for the filing, negotiation and resolution of specific claims and to make related amendments to other acts, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the stage of the consideration of Senate amendments to the bill;

and fifteen minutes before the expiry of the time provided for government business on the allotted day of the consideration of the said stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, my apologies first to my hon. colleague for interrupting his speech.

An agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the stage of consideration of Senate amendments of Bill C-6, an act to establish the Canadian Centre for the Independent Resolution of First Nations Specific Claims to provide for the filing, negotiation and resolution of specific claims and to make related amendments to other acts.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.

I regret the filibuster which has been going on for the last few days.

[Maurice Vellacott, Canadian Alliance, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, precisely, and the point here is to show that these very weak and whimsical kinds of amendments that have come back from the Senate entirely miss the point. Very good work has been done over a number of years, building rapport and building recommendations so we get a good bill before us. Bill C-6, even with what the Senate brought to us, does not take that into account.

I am trying to show and adduce here some of these things from the joint task report. If they were taken into account in terms of the amendments from the Senate, we would have something with which we could live. The first nations have indicated that. Members around the House have as well. I cannot understand or see why members on the government side have not.

The point is that a considerable amount of work has been done. These things should be taken into account and the Senate amendments should be adjusted. They should be taken into account as the work is being done. It is important to note that the underlying assumption in all the lead up work to Bill C-6, and to even get us to this phase of the JTF, was that the goal of the exercise was to find, and this is the crucial thing, a mutually acceptable means by which to settle claims. That was the whole point of the exercise.

Can we say, with a straight face in all honesty today, that Bill C-6, coming back with the weak amendments from the Senate, is a mutually acceptable means by which to settle claims? I think not. It is just so far removed from the case. In fact there was a modicum agreement coming out of the JTF. These were the minimal basic kinds of standards that would be taken, even at this late hour, by the government. If it would hear what is being said adjust the report, then we could get on and get the business done so we could have a body which would be a mutually acceptable means by which to settle claims.

There has been a growing backlog of claims for many years, outstanding legal obligations that present a liability to this government and to any government that comes in later; the new Conservative Party government that will take office in the future. We need to deal with it in a fair and reasonable fashion. That is the whole point of it.

The legislative proposal, the mandate that committee had, is conveyed here. It is a very technical table of some very technical work, which is being done, to come to agreement on a detailed proposal and a model for a more credible claims process. That is why we are doing this whole thing. That is why we had a JTF. The last way of doing it and the present way has not worked. It has not been a credible claims process. The Senate should listen to the recommendation. At this late hour, to get something of a decent body and to get this approved in the House before we rise, the government should take into account some of those minimal standards of the JTF report.

Those recommendations are articulated in the draft in the form of drafting instructions. They represent the joint product of people on both sides, extensive efforts by leaders and by officials on both sides. Notwithstanding that, every effort was made to meet the needs and concerns of both parties. These proposals, as said by the JTF, articulate the best technical means by which to resolve these claims. I stand by that. I think we would find a spirit, a willingness in the House to move forward if we went back to the very considerable work that was done.

I need to stress the main themes and elements of the JTF proposal. It has been often said in the Senate in recent days, on Bill C-6, that what we have is basically JTF. It could not be further from the truth. It is definitely not the case. Only by members around the House today understanding what JTF is about can they themselves make a judgment and say that our own senators, Liberal senators, were not exactly telling us the whole story. It is not representing JTF. It is something else they have come up with and it is a bit of a deception to say that it is JTF when that is not the case.

The government should accept and incorporate the main elements of the joint task force report the into the bill, were it to find it possible at a late hour.

The main elements are comprised of that commission to facilitate negotiations and tribunal as well to resolve disputes. The proposed commission is meant to ensure a more level playing field for negotiations by providing for independence. That is key.

I have something that I want to share. It is a very substantial piece of work that has been done by an author on this very issue entitled, “Towards an Independent Land Claims Tribunal: Bill C-6 in Context”. Mr. Milroy, in his writing on this, has very astutely and aptly exposes how this is not independent. How will we ever get some resolution to this unless we have some perception of that?

The proposed commission is meant to ensure this level playing field by providing for independent facilitation, at least that is what was recommended by the JTF. However, it is not at all what we find in Bill C-6 here. The JFT states:

It can draw upon an entire range of alternative dispute resolution techniques and mechanisms to assist the parties in reaching final settlements that will be satisfactory to both sides. These tools range from mere facilitation of meetings to various forms of mediation. If the parties agree, they can even resort to arbitration to resolve a claim or any issues within it that may prevent progress in negotiations. The Commission need intervene only to the extent required by the parties in their efforts to reach a resolution.

The proposed Tribunal, on the other hand, would be a last resort. It would be a quasi-judicial body available to make a final binding determination on the validity of claims, on discreet legal issues that prevent progress in negotiations or on compensation to be awarded claimants in lieu of damages to first nations communities.

“The Tribunal”, at least as perceived by the JTF and which in fact should be the case here in Bill C-6, “is an essential element in the proposed process where independence ultimately resides with that body, thereby eliminating any conflict of interest on the part of the Crown”. It goes on to state, “Its presence is intended to provide incentive for the parties to conduct negotiations in good faith and to reach timely settlements”. There are no timeframes or time structures in Bill C-6. It goes on:

The key difference from the current process, the process that we have had and have been going with up until now, is that incentive for timely and efficient settlements to be reached is greatly increased, if we follow the joint task force report of 1998.

“It should be noted that despite the wish of many first nations, outstanding lawful obligations and grievances related to aboriginal title and rights are specifically excluded from this proposed process”. Again, it is not about some of those other outstanding kinds of things. This is about specific claims where in many cases it has been established that they are bona fide claims where somebody has absconded with aboriginal or first nation resources, sold their land and pocketed the money to the detriment of that first nation.

The federal government in fact insisted on this exclusion, so at the end of the day the parties at the table agreed to that. The federal government did not agree that the issue could be revisited upon the five year review as was recommended. It wanted to keep those other things out and just make this specific claims. So be it. That is where we are with regard to some of the very good recommendations in the JTF report.

The reports states:

It was agreed that a separate review of the federal comprehensive claims policy would be included in the National Delgamuukw Review process now being initiated.

The JTF recommendations have maintained the long-standing principle that negotiations are the preferred means by which to resolve outstanding legal obligations. We continue to agree that the courts are far too costly, adversarial and inaccessible to realistically resolve the hundreds of specific claims that have been brought forward by first nations.

It is clear that the costs of not settling these claims will continue to grow the longer they are not addressed.

That is so profoundly true. It goes on to say:

More importantly, the social and economic benefits of settling these claims makes it an important means by which Canada can assist first nations in healing broken communities and building a productive future.

The big advantage here is that settling outstanding claims is not another spending program, it is paying off old debts. These are recognized obligations that Canada owes First Nations. The benefits that will be derived from bringing closure to these outstanding matters far outweigh the costs. This initiative is a key step in building a new relationship by correcting past wrongs. It represents one important step in building mutual respect that first nations in Canada can undertake immediately.

Some of the key features, as we got into that JTF process, of the proposed model, included the removal of Canada's perceived conflict of interest through the creation of a truly independent mechanism which would report directly to Parliament and the first nations.

Another key feature was the establishment of a commission to facilitate and ensure good faith negotiations by providing appropriate mechanisms for alternate dispute resolution.

The third key feature was the establishment of a tribunal that would be available to claimants to resolve legal disputes when negotiations fail.

Fourth was that the tribunal could make binding decisions on the validity of grievances, compensation criteria and award compensation subject to reaching an agreement on a fiscal framework.

Fifth, another key feature, was a contemporary definition of what types of issues could be brought forward which were consistent with case law evolving jurisprudence that included all legal obligations arising from the fiduciary relationship and the honour of the crown.

As well, another theme would be the flexibility to accommodate regional diversity and complement existing or future regional mechanisms.

Another theme would be the capacity to offer innovative means of resolving outstanding grievances. That is lacking. That is not in Bill C-6. Also, getting a legislative base for the new settlement process to ensure adequate authority, impartiality and secure financing.

Another key would be that of independent funding for first nations research, submission and negotiation.

The last one would be a joint review after the first five year period which would assess the effectiveness of the process and consider matters that could not be addressed at this time, for example, the inclusion of lawful obligations arising from site specific aboriginal rights.

The joint task force moved through its report and came to the end of some fairly decent and reasonable recommendations. These were not found in Bill C-6 before the bill went to the Senate, and are still not found there after the Senate recommendations. They are not found anywhere. However, there were several items, and in a process of this sort special challenge come to the surface. Admittedly, in the joint task force report a conscious a effort has to be made to maintain the task force interest base approach to the discussions.

These types of issues brought out some more of the adversarial aspects of the relationship. They required some fairly sensitive discussion.

Such issues had undermined previous efforts of joint policy development. This group resolved it would not fall into that old pattern of positional bargaining. Those more difficult issues and how they were dealt with might be informative to other joint efforts in the future, and I think I would agree.

On aboriginal rights, early on in the process it had to face the fact that the federal government and first nations held very different conceptions about how land grievances should be addressed. First nations wanted to hold to the original Liberal red book commitment, that an independent commission to deal with all claims would be established. The federal government insisted that aboriginal title and comprehensive claims had to be dealt with separately. The issue of site specific aboriginal rights was raised.

The first nations across our country pointed out that many first nations could suffer damage due to an infringement on such rights. However, they did not have access to comprehensive claims negotiations.

In the view of first nations such issues are no less lawful obligations than any other specific claim.

Federal officials were concerned about opening the door to aboriginal title matters. They insisted that the government would never consider dealing with aboriginal title within the same process, primarily due to the compilations presented by issues related to the jurisdiction of provinces.

Many of the first nations were not prepared to support the JTF process unless their concerns about a review of comprehensive claims policies were addressed. That particular issue was only resolved at a meeting with the chiefs' committee on claims on December 11, 1997, late in the year prior to when the JTF report came out.

The minister made an explicit commitment to a second process to review federal comprehensive claims policy. That proved rather timely as the Supreme Court of Canada's Delgamuukw decision came out later the same day in fact.

In the very end, this issue has been flagged for inclusion in the five year review of the new process recommended by the joint task force. It is important to note that the proposed process would allow for issues related to aboriginal titles to be addressed in the independent process with the consent of the minister. That is the recommendation. It is a very reasonable one.

There was a fiscal framework for all of this. When one looks at specific land claims, I think anyone would have to acknowledge that fact. Reaching agreement on recommendations for a fiscal framework proved to be one of the biggest challenges for the joint task force. It had to agree that certain key principles should guide the discussion on a fiscal framework. The backlog of claims and the transaction costs for processing them should be reduced. All claims should be resolved within a reasonable timeframe.

When we look at the Senate recommendations and when we look at the bill as it went from committee to the Senate, that was a problem. We acknowledged that in committee. Recommendations and amendments came forward in the committee but of course they were voted down by the government members, for whatever reasons we are not quite sure.

However there were no timeframes. If this is going to work, there have to be timeframes. That is simply why I have emphasized time and again throughout my speech that it is such a crucial part of a proper process.

There is one recommendation which needs to be heeded by the government and which should have been heeded by the Senate and could possibly still be adjusted with respect to that. It is the recommendation in terms of a fiscal framework comprised of a budgetary allocation for a settlement of funds over the initial five year period which has been referred to as a five year compensation amount or FYCA.

If during the five year period when the amount paid in settlements by negotiated agreements or tribunal rulings reaches a certain predetermined point, it will trigger a pause in the caseload until the next budgetary allocation is determined. That makes sense.

That would be the way of doing it even with those that are going to be over the “cap”. We think the cap is way too low. We have indicated that. It could be put into the next budget year and a pause put on some of those other examinations of cases until such time as the payouts happen.

Once this point was reached, the commission would not issue certificates for first nations to go to the tribunal. That would prevent the new system from imposing liabilities that exceed the budgetary allocation. This should satisfy the federal requirement for a manageable fiscal framework while meeting the first nations need that no claims be excluded from the new independent process.

Although there are federal concerns that one or more large claims could expend the budgetary allocation early on in the five year period, the joint task force concludes that the FYCA proposal is the best means by which to meet the minimum requirements of both parties.

While the federal side has presented the problem at the task force table and has indicated a wish to explore options which might exclude larger claims from the tribunal process, first nations representatives were not comfortable discussing any exclusion of lawful obligations claims. Such a compromise would require political direction and might very well undermine the broad first nations consensus maintained to that point.

While the JTF was not in a position to resolve how the financing would ultimately be addressed, agreement was reached on what data and approach would provide the most realistic cost projections for future settlements. It gave a very specific outline of that in an appendix which was rather helpful for the government and for the Senate to take into account.

The main variables to be used in making cost projections have been clearly identified. They were discussed and all that foot work was done. For example, 60 claims come in each year and 60% of those have been accepted for negotiation. That would provide the base data for determining a whole range of options on financing.

It is important for us to know too in terms of when other bodies get involved, other less partisan bodies some might say, the kind of process they go through to come up with a report. I think it is instructive and enlightening for us. There are drafting instructions which the task force provided to the government which represented the product of intensive efforts by leaders and officials from both sides. It was not one sided.

A great deal of technical assessment and legal analysis had to be undertaken when the joint task force began developing proposals for an independent claims body sometime ago. The proposals themselves are the product of many years of work by many different people all of whom have recognized the need for some fundamental reform.

The joint task force did a lot of work reviewing and debating a wide range of options in arriving at the recommendations. Its suggested model was thought to be the best course in terms of eliminating the crown's conflict of interest in dealing with claims against itself. The joint task force proposal aims to achieve fairness, efficiency and effectiveness in the process for settling specific claims. All participants agreed that these were reasonable expectations in view of the serious shortcomings of the current process.

There were many legal, political and financial implications brought to bear on the task force's lengthy discussions. Many hours were put into the discussions. The task force devised what it believed to be an innovative and workable solution which was ignored by the government and the Senate again. The task force thought it was innovative and workable. Hours of no end were put into the challenge of jointly establishing recommendations for a fiscal framework.

The joint task force relied heavily upon the many years of experience of the participants, the wealth of past analytical material, as well as the expertise of the various consultants and experts who were brought into the process at different points.

The process was unique. It is rather different from what goes on in the House of Commons. It demanded representatives from both sides to act in a mutually supportive fashion to achieve results. There was not a lot of previous experience in such joint efforts to draw upon. The participants discovered that it required a great deal of mutual support and understanding to make it move forward. Each party had to come to grips with the constraints under which the other operated, especially at difficult points in the discussions when it seemed that different viewpoints were almost insurmountable.

From the outset the participants determined that the discussions had to be guided by an interest based approach, what was in it for one party and what was in it for the other based on interest, which was non-positional and required some wide-ranging consultation.

The development of mutually acceptable guiding principles helped both sides reach agreement relatively quickly on the scale of things on what the main elements of the recommendations should be. In this way the task force was able to take up one element at a time and work its way through the required details.

The task force hoped that its respective principals, the Government of Canada and first nations, would come to an agreement on proposals that could be mutually sanctioned and implemented within an agreed timeframe. Alas, it appears that will not be the case. It will be some time before we get some resolve on this. Regrettably it is not coming to pass anytime soon.

After the report was written, both the minister and the chief expressed the desire to have the new body in place by April 1999. The calendar in front of the Mace indicates that it is now November 3, 2003. There will be quite a few more sittings of the House before any headway will be made on the issue. Those individuals were obviously far more optimistic than they should have been.

The minister committed to the first nations that the required legislation would be jointly developed, thereby providing the task force with some sense of urgency in its efforts to complete the package. The goal was to have the legislation ready for introduction to Parliament early in the current session and here it is almost five years later.

Part of the urgency in moving the legislation forward quickly was due to the growing backlog of claims. Back in 1998 there were approximately 400 claims. We can well imagine what the backlog is now. The backlog contributes to the frustration and sense of grievance that have characterized relations between Canada and the first nations for so many years.

The need to clear up the uncertainty and to remove the impediments caused by those outstanding claims is now more apparent than ever, as first nations and Canadians pursue a wider range of economic opportunities and business partnerships.

Developments in the law have helped to clarify the legal basis of these claims and also the federal responsibilities in this regard. This makes it even more imperative that we eliminate the appearance of conflict in how Canada deals with first nations grievances against the government.

It had been expected that, pending agreement on the recommendations, those proposals would go to cabinet very quickly thereafter. That was postponed and delayed and other things stood in the way. Finally, we stand here on November 3 not anywhere closer at this point it is regrettable to say. Some of the delay was in order to address the federal requirement for a fiscal framework as set out in the Liberal government's red book.

Based on the desire to move forward on the required reforms without delay, the task force prepared a model of what the basic elements for legislation might look like and presented that in its report. If the drafting instructions of the joint task force had been approved by cabinet, the task force could have moved forward with the development of an actual bill very quickly. Instead the government took a detour. It went in a rather different direction from the recommendations in the 1998 joint task force report.

The task force was directed to work on a fiscal framework. It sought to satisfy the federal need for financial predictability. This was very time consuming and many hours were put into doing that. It was found that building a fiscal framework had fundamental implications for key aspects of the proposed model under discussion. It also brought about a further re-evaluation of such fundamental questions as to what comprised independence, how much it would cost and the issues surrounding fiscal control.

Those are good questions to be asking. Whenever we embark on a bill around this place those are the necessary questions. Sometimes we are concerned that the government does not get into that, that it does not look through it carefully and does not do the projections nor does it extrapolate the costs. It makes a lot of sense that this should be done in respect of this. The task force went through a lot of that work trying to get the figures down to be able to make the proper predictions.

It is believed that the five year compensation amount recommended by the task force addresses the concerns raised by the government of the day. It required a significant compromise on the part of first nations representatives who had a clear mandate to avoid putting financial caps on the settlement of claims. It was with great difficulty that the task force managed to reach agreement on a fiscal framework that would not prejudice or exclude claims.

The task force firmly believes that its proposal will provide the best means by which to settle claims. It is important to begin addressing these outstanding matters in a very significant way as the cost for first nations and the costs for the nation of Canada, can only rise when there is further delay. There are costs for not settling these matters not only fiscally, which is important of course, but socially as well. There are other kinds of fallout as well, which we do not want to have to get into today because it is a rather sad and sorry state. The cost of settling these matters must be done in a clear and timely fashion.

The task force's proposals were felt to provide the kind of basis for moving forward. Again, they were ignored by the government and by and large they were ignored in the Senate amendments as well. The task force suggested that the first nations and Canada begin to consider the types of mutually acceptable individuals who should fill those key positions in the new body.

Now we sit around waiting, and we will be waiting for a while to come, as the government has no particular willingness to make some significant adjustments to the bill. It was thought it would be timely to consider a joint advisory body to assist the new claims commission and tribunal in setting itself up. We are a way from doing that as things unfortunately stand.

The task force believed it engaged in an exercise that could serve as a landmark and a model for a new partnership between first nations and Canada. It addressed it in a very creative, cooperative spirit. There was a whole range of technical, legal and financial challenges it had to address and it did in a reasonable manner. It is not perfect and nobody is saying that, but the task force produced a very detailed, innovative and for the most part very practical proposal.

The task force was ready and willing to provide any further technical assistance. If it were called up today I am sure it could provide advice and wisdom, having sat that many hours for that particular joint task force. Task force members hoped and I hoped that its work would in some sense contribute to the enactment of legislation in this place and to other measures that would ensure a new process to resolve claims to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.

I think that is important when we look at what the government produced and what the Senate then, in a fairly weak and wimpy way, came forward with: something of the final draft of the legislative drafting instructions for an independent claims body, the instructions for preparing the legislation, the product of the joint first nations and Canada task force. The task force completed its work in a series of monthly meetings beginning in February 1997 and concluding in the latter part of 1998.

The following are some of the suggestions the task force had. The bill was going to be called the first nations specific claims resolution act. I think the instructive item in the title was that it was actually going resolve something. It was going to resolve these specific claims.

There were definitions, as there are always are. There were definitions with respect to AFN and with respect to the bands. A band was defined as:

(a) a band as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Indian Act;

(b) a group of Indians that was recognized as a band under the laws of Canada, or whose ancestors were so recognized, and whose members are members of a band referred to in paragraph (a) or (c); or

(c) a group of persons that was a band as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Indian Act that was a signatory to a comprehensive claims settlement agreement entered into with the Government of Canada or to any other agreement specified by the regulations.

Establishing a commission by subsection 5(1) of the act was also addressed.

With respect to competing claims, it was defined as follows:

“competing claim” means a claim that is brought by a band before an adjudicative body otherwise than under this Act if there was another claim filed under section 10 and the two claims are in respect of the same asset and raise substantive or remedial issues that could result in irreconcilable decisions.

We would not want to be at odds if it is already under consideration in some other context. That had to be sorted out and clearly and properly defined.

The purpose of the proposed act was to provide for the establishment of:

an independent and expert Commission to help First Nations and the Crown settle, or resolve by binding arbitration, certain claims and to establish an independent and expert Tribunal to expeditiously and finally determine issues referred to it that arose from such claims.

With respect to non-derogation, it stated:

The bill will provide that, for greater certainty, nothing in this Act shall be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from the application of section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

Then in general there were proposed sections 5 to 9, which are what the bill should look like. This is more closely what it should approximate. These were specific drafting instructions for the government of the day which for some reason this government decided to ignore. Why do we put people to work on these expensive and time consuming task forces and then ignore them and set aside their report?

The bill was to include:

provisions for the establishment of the First Nations Specific Claims Commission and for general administrative matters regarding the Commission.

It stated:

The Commission shall consist of a Chief Commissioner, a Vice-Chief Commissioner and between three and five other members to be appointed by the Governor in Council.

It recommended that:

Persons are eligible to be appointed only if they are recommended by the AFN and the Minister.

Thus we see that a joint recommendation was suggested.

In regard to regional representation, it stated:

Appointments shall be made having regard to regional representation in the membership of the Commission.

That was to get some balance around the country.

In regard to full time and part time, it stated:

The Chief Commissioner and Vice-Chief Commissioner shall be full-time members and other members may be appointed as full-time or part-time members of the Commission.

In regard to the terms of their appointments, it stated:

Each member of the Commission shall be appointed for a term of not more than five years and may be removed by the Governor in Council only for cause on the recommendation of the AFN and the Minister.

As things stand now, where we have only three year terms, if the government does not like how the commission is doing things it could well remove members.

I sat on a health board for the city of Saskatoon and the Saskatoon area, the largest health board in that province, where at one point in time the NDP government of the day decided it needed something of a buffer, so there were appointments of members to these health boards while other members were elected. I was one of those elected members. Six were appointed.

I need to make members aware that when individuals are appointed, as was the case there, they are going to be somewhat careful not to buck the trend and not to go against the government if in fact they are dependent on the government for their reappointment.

In this case, we have three year terms. With that kind of scenario, if these individuals are looking for reappointment because they need the salary, the job and they want to carry on, it is only for three years. If they do not kowtow to and rule as the government wants them to, members can imagine that they are not going to be reappointed. That is problematic.

Therefore it was a very wise recommendation coming out of the joint task force report that:

Each full-time member of the Commission shall be paid the salary fixed by the Governor in Council and each part-time member shall be paid the fees or other remuneration for that member's services that are fixed by the Governor in Council.

Then we move on from there in terms of a number of other things.

Mr. Speaker, you are signalling me that my time has concluded. I have much more to say on this subject. I look forward to that in days ahead. I understand that I have indefinite time, so am I to understand that I will commence again when Bill C-6 comes back to the House as I yield the floor now? I will cede the floor, but I will be back on the docket to relay much more wisdom and many more insights, not from myself but from the joint task force report.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am rather concerned. Today we are debating the amendments to Bill C-6 as they came back from the Senate. I know many members are concerned but we would certainly hope that he would stick to the main point in order and not digress. That is probably the reason that people are not listening very much.

[Maurice Vellacott, Canadian Alliance, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I know they will be watching from the TV monitors out in the lobby as they are eating their lunch and hearing the very important things that are being said this hour in response to the report from the Senate with regard to Bill C-6.

When I left off on Friday in terms of this rather important bill under consideration, I was saying that I do not dispute the point that making the centre independent not to mention giving it the appearance of independence is no small challenge. It is a challenge. As I said last week, it is clear to me that the government is not up to the challenge.

Proposals to help give the centre independence and the important appearance of independence are staring the government in the face from the pages of the joint task force report, to which I will refer later. There are large blocks of that document that are very helpful. There is another document by Leigh Ogston Milroy which talks about the need for independence with this particular body.

A number of amendments were put forward in committee by the Canadian Alliance and there were some from other parties as well. There were a significant number of amendments from our party, yet those were completely ignored and swept aside.

Another Senate amendment is a transitional provision to ensure that those who are claimants under the current specific claims policy are also entitled to make representations regarding appointments to the new claims centre.

Another Senate amendment will allow first nations to make representations as part of the government's three to five year review process mandated in the bill. This will affect clause 76 of the bill. Unamended, Bill C-6 does not obligate the government to seek anyone else's input into the review process or to document their thoughts.

Even with the Senate amendment, nothing forces the government to make public and be accountable for concerns that the many first nations have with the claims resolution process. How does the government expect to win over the confidence and the trust of first nations when it ignores them in such an obvious manner? How does the government expect to convince people that the claims resolution centre is independent when it is keeping such tight control over every aspect of the process?

Indian chiefs from across the country as well as the Assembly of First Nations have made their position very clear, that the appointment process mandated by Bill C-6 undermines any claim that the centre will be independent and impartial. If they use it at all, the first nations will not accept rulings against their claims because they lack confidence in the impartiality of the centre.

The government has set up a process that will not resolve anything in terms of producing closure or finality to a claim.

The parliamentary secretary told us in committee that the minister would consult first nations. Having said that, he was unable to explain why the minister is unwilling to put that promise in the bill. The review process sends the message that the government is only interested in the effectiveness of the centre from its own perspective, rather than understanding its impact on all parties concerned.

I believe that is a major flaw and a major problem in the bill. If the bill is not looked at in terms of the other parties involved, in terms of getting the proper resolution, saving us all kinds of tax dollars if we have to use the more expensive and extensive process of going through the courts, this is not taking into account those considerations.

The concerns about trust and lack of independence of the proposed claims centre have been raised numerous times in the Senate as well. I frankly confess that I am surprised that the Senate report to the House did not include any stronger amendments to rectify the situation.

For example, Progressive Conservative Senator Terry Stratton noted at one point:

Under the present system Canada is already the judge and jury. Bill C-6 retains this concept and adds elements to this conflict.

The federal government retains sole authority over appointments to the commission and tribunal and retains authority over possessing the claims, which undermines any concept of independence. Appointments are made on recommendation of the minister, the same minister responsible for defending these claims. Obviously, this system is ripe for political patronage considering that the commission appointees have no qualification requirements.

Liberal Senator Gill told his colleagues:

I have trouble seeing how this tribunal or the appointed commissioners or judges would be independent. I have a lot of trouble seeing that independence.

At one point Senator Nick Sibbeston, speaking in defence of the bill, argued:

There is no other system. No other approach is possible in our system of governance, where the government appoints people to tribunals and boards. We have to live with that system and trust that the appointees are not in a conflict of interest situation. We must trust that they can make judgments based on their best ability without regard for who appointed them.

Senator Sibbeston and others speaking on behalf of the government on this issue are arguing that we are dealing with an either/or situation, making no room for a middle ground.

Elsewhere in Senate debate, Senator Jack Austin, also speaking in defence of the bill, objected that the Assembly of First Nations and other aboriginal groups were demanding veto powers over government appointments. The Assembly of First Nations has indicated that it can live with the recommendations that are in public view for all to see in the joint task force report.

As I indicated in my speech last week, although it gives aboriginal groups much more input into the appointment process than they would have under Bill C-6, it would still give the government the final decision making power. First nations can be given far greater opportunity for input into the review process as well without giving them veto powers over the final release of the government's report.

Mr. Speaker, as you well know from your many years in this place, there is a mechanism in Parliament whereby in the case of committees, opposition parties can release dissenting reports. No doubt, Mr. Speaker, you were in on that process when you sat on the opposition side.

Opposition reports, or dissenting reports, are not uncommon in this place. Those dissenting reports are given when individuals do not agree with a committee's final report. Those opposition reports are tabled and made public. They have official status but they do not stop or obstruct the government's legislative agenda from moving forward.

I do not understand why there is such a lack of creativity on the government side when it comes to the specific claim centre that it cannot come up with something comparable to that such as dissenting reports or whatever one wants to call them in the three to five year review process mandated in the legislation.

Senator Sibbeston raised an interesting point in the comment which I quoted a few minutes ago. He talked about trust and about how important it was. We are supposed to “trust that the appointees are not in a conflict of interest situation”. He said that we must trust that appointees can make judgments based on their very best ability without regard for who appointed them.

The hon. senator talked about trust in the context of the industry minister's interesting relationship with industry giant Irving Oil. We would not want to forget the special perks that other ministers have received from Irving. When we are told to trust the government, we should not forget about the Minister of Human Resources Development and her admission regarding Irving perks. That minister is already famous for the HRDC boondoggle that was exposed under her watch. Trust indeed. There is also the involvement of the environment minister and who knows who else will admit to an unethical relationship with Irving later on today, tomorrow or sometime during the remainder of the week.

When we think about trust and the current government, we might also keep in mind the flagrant abuse of taxpayer dollars through the billion dollar boondoggle gun registry. There has been no end to the ink used to write on that exposé of scandalous waste of taxpayer dollars and then we use the word trust.

That scandal in respect to the gun registry has been brought to us by the current industry minister. Everything he touches seems to turn to scandal and boondoggle it would appear, at least in terms of the number of portfolios he has had.

There are the current health minister, the justice minister and now the solicitor general, and there are all of these different problems in respect to the kinds of perceived conflicts and scandals they have been involved in.

Speaking of the justice minister, this is an individual who is presently sacrificing our parliamentary democracy on the altar of judicial activism and so we had hearings all across the country. We listened to good, qualified, competent people who presented considered, reasoned opinions to the committee and at the end of the day when it was just about to release its report, it was pretty much shut down. Other individuals were brought in to stack the committee. It did not matter that the members did all this good work over some considerable period of time in attempting to get an understanding of the crucial issue of marriage in the country.

As well, there is no question from the vast majority of witnesses that the way in which the government is going in terms of homosexual marriage is not the direction the committee wants. In fact, it would have been along a different line, possibly civil or domestic partnerships or something like that but certainly the retention of heterosexual traditional marriage was the way the committee obviously would have gone.

At the end of the day the government threw that out or did not even appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. A pretty good body of opinion is asking why it did not do that. It is because it knew in fact it would have been upheld; the traditional heterosexual time honoured definition of marriage in the country would have been upheld.

The Minister of Justice at that point did not trust at all what the committee did. He was not to be trusted because he really sabotaged and hi-jacked the whole process to his own end, to his own purpose and to his own agenda. Instead of taking it to appeal which would have upheld the traditional heterosexual time honoured definition of marriage, the whole thing was sabotaged.

The justice minister was trying to get in the way and obstruct others who were going to come forward in lieu of the government on that particular issue, defending in our country what has long been held to be the proper definition of marriage. It is as constitutionally valid today as ever.

I say that simply because there is the issue of trust. Can we trust? Ought we to trust? Ought we to be so naive as to trust when we have things like that going on in our country? I would say it would obviously be very naive.

Getting back directly to Bill C-6, that is why when Senator Sibbeston talks of trust, either he is thinking that we are a little bit naive and fairly stupid in this whole thing or he believes it himself and that is not even a strong statement in respect to his own credentials for his role.

Trust in the current government is probably at an all time low because of a number of these things. We cannot simply trust the government.

How would it go over, Mr. Speaker, if you showed up at a place in your riding, or if any of us did for that matter, and walked in saying, “Trust me, I am from the government”. I think it gives a little sense of it if you, I, or any member here did it.

I am slightly shielded at this point because I can say, “Trust me, I am from the official opposition party, the Canadian Alliance”. But if I were to walk in and say “Trust me, I am from the government,” I can imagine what kind of a response that would get from constituents. “Trust me, I am from the government” is not an assurance that goes very far today, not with the government engaged in permanent damage control due to unethical behaviour and gross incompetence.

Canadians want to make their government accountable by seeing their promises stipulated in legislation. They do not want a verbal statement that the government is going to do such and such; they want it in legislation. Let us defend it, make sure it is entrenched there and then they will be more likely to believe it. Verbal assurances are not good enough, certainly not when there is the kind of legacy that the Liberal government has.

What is so difficult about putting some bottom line, minimum standards in place in terms of the credentials required by a claims centre employee to mitigate against the risk of patronage and conflict of interest? That could be done, it should be done and it is necessary for it to be done. Such a move would increase the confidence of Canadians, including the aboriginal claimants involved in these claim disputes.

At the same time, to bring my comments back specifically to the three to five year process, let us give first nations a better mechanism to have their voices heard, especially if they do not agree with the government's report.

The Senate has made another amendment that seems designed to address concerns over conflict of interest. It may be of some benefit in that respect, although that remains to be seen. We are not quite sure. The amendment in the words of the Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples chair, the hon. Thelma Chalifoux “seeks to protect the impartiality of the commission by limiting employment with claimants for certain appointees following the completion of their term”. It also imposes a temporary employment restriction with the Department of Indians Affairs and Northern Development for prior appointees.

The government should make further amendments to deal with the independence and the impartiality of the claim centre before sending the bill back to the Senate for final approval, instead of simply accepting the Senate report as written.

Bill C-6 states that the majority of the adjudicators, including either the chief adjudicator or the vice-chief adjudicator, must be members in good standing of the bar of a province or la Chambre des notaires du Québec. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, the bill says nothing about the professional qualifications of those eligible for appointments to the claims commission. In a saner time one might be able to trust the government to make competent appointments, but the scandalous revelation of out of control bureaucrats that have been surfacing in recent months lead to some real concerns about the need for greater clarity as to the credentials of potential appointees to the claim centre.

It might also be worth examining the length of the terms that the appointees hold with the centre. First nations have expressed concern that the appointment periods for the chief and the vice-chief commissioners and adjudicators are only five years and for the regular commissioners and adjudicators the period is three years, with the possibility of reappointment available in all these cases. First nations, and rightfully so, fear that these short periods of service will tempt the officials to rule in favour of the government that appointed them so as to ensure they are reappointed. That concern was also raised during Bill C-6 debate in the other place, in the Senate. If the appointee sits for such a short term and has the option of being reappointed, will his or her interest in being reappointed affect his or her commitment to impartiality when hearing the claims?

The final amendment proposed by the Senate adds to the tribunal's authority by amending section 47. Section 47 deals with some of the responsibilities of the tribunal. The Senate amendment adds to the tribunal's responsibilities. If this amendment passes, the tribunal will be able “in relation to a specific claim that is before the commission to summon witnesses or to order production of documents”.

In other words, if one of the parties is not forthcoming with information deemed important by the commissioners to resolving the particular case at hand, the commission can request the intervention of the tribunal for the purpose of requiring witnesses to appear before the commission and to require the production of documents that would help in evaluating the claim. That on the surface seems like a reasonable amendment. I might be able to support that if we were to get that far, but I am not so inclined to think we will at this point.

Although not reflected in the amendments from the Senate, the question of transparency with the specific claims resolution centre was a significant topic of debate in the Senate. I found it very interesting to note and to understand what was said there on this matter. It was the subject of some observations which the Senate added to the end of its report to this House.

That is another area of the bill that needs to be dealt with to build confidence and trust in the government by our first nations aboriginal people across the country.

What we are talking about regarding transparency are provisions to make the process effective and efficient. I think everybody concerned in this process would like that. We want a process that is expeditious, not one that is full of delay, obstruction and stonewalling. Sadly, we see the very opposite in Bill C-6. In the legislation there are far too many opportunities available to the government to stall and to delay the process of considering a claim.

As individuals well noted, it has been said numerous times in speeches delivered here and elsewhere, that justice delayed is really justice denied. There is no question about it. If we hold off people indefinitely and obstruct, stonewall and delay, then justice delayed is simply justice denied. That is a sad statement.

The comments from the Senate are remarkably similar to the concerns that we raised in the House and in the aboriginal affairs committee earlier this year. Let me read the Senate comments into the record today. I quote:

One of the primary goals of this Bill is to provide for more speedy resolution of claims. Nonetheless, there are many areas of potential delay built into the process. Most notably, there is no requirement on the Minister to make a decision on whether to accept a claim for negotiation within a set time period. We have been told that this flexibility is necessary because of the complexity of many claims and the limited legal and other resources available to the Minister to make these determinations. As well, the government may be limited in the number of claims it can address because of the budget available for settlements. We would therefore urge the government to allocate significant additional resources to the process of validity determination, negotiation and settlement of claims so that the admirable goals of the Bill can be met.

We would ask that the Minister, in the review of the Act in three to five years, pay particular attention to the impact of the issues of delay and resources that have been allocated to the process of validity determination.

We, of course, believe the government should make the necessary amendments to the bill immediately and not put it off. As I noted earlier, the government has protected itself fiscally by establishing a budgetary limit to the funds it can distribute each year to settle claims. Then to go on to say that it needs to build on such protections at other points in the bill is really nonsense.

There is nothing stopping the government from resolving claims in any given year that total an amount greater than that which has been set aside in the budget to allocate to such claims. In such a situation the resolution process could include a provision to add an appropriate amount to the claim payout to take into account the fact that it cannot be allocated until the next fiscal year or whatever subsequent date on which the payment would be made. Therefore, if the total is used up within a year, that is fine, then there is an agreement, a written legal binding part of the text, that says it will be paid out of another year's or maybe the total amount could be increased altogether. However, I would say that it is fairly uncreative. I can attribute other things to it as well, but do not say that it cannot meet these bigger claims because it does have the total allocation, when it could be paid out in the subsequent years. I am sure that would be acceptable to that band rather than setting it aside altogether.

I am sure that the simple fact of resolving a claim would be a step forward for peace of mind and security for many native people, even if the payout for that claim had to be delayed by a year or two based on prior knowledge of budget constraints. To leave first nations claimants in a state of insecurity and flux over the final outcome of their claims simply because the money is not available to pay it out in any given year is quite frankly an indefensible position.

I want to take some time now to remind the House of the numerous specific areas in the bill in which the government has built in opportunities to delay and obstruct the claims resolution process.

The minister, for example, if he decides not to negotiate the claim is nowhere obligated to explain his reasons for that decision. If the claimant decides to challenge the minister's decision, the minister has to provide disclosure in his defence at a later date before the claims tribunal or the court. The claimant on the other hand is required to provide a full accounting of his position and rationale for it at the outset of the process.

One would expect that in a context that is supposed to be conciliatory and guided by alternative dispute resolution mechanisms rather than the more adversarial environment of the courts, that Bill C-6 would make clear the responsibility of both parties for full disclosure at the earlier point in the process.

The government has also built many mechanisms into the bill to enable delay and obstruction in the process of considering a claim. It has avoided the establishment of tangible timelines contrary to recommendations in the 1998 joint task force report, which we want to make some reference to later, to ensure a speedy resolution of claims.

That 1998 joint task force report had some very good, notable and worthy recommendations. The government has also rejected joint task force report proposals that would have given the claimant or the commission the ability to move the process forward if the government seemed to be taking excessive time to consider a claim.

The first example of what we might call a stalling clause is the provision for multiple, preparatory meetings. It is probably fair to call it a stalling clause because that is the net effect of what results here. Following the initial preparatory meeting, the commission is authorized to hold additional such meetings at the request of either party. The minister can conceivably use this provision to delay the process.

Indian representatives who spoke with us said that one preparatory meeting was generally enough and therefore the option for additional meetings was not likely to be a provision found useful by first nations. Concern was raised that it existed more for the benefit of the government for use as a stalling mechanism. People were pretty wise to that from all sides of the table. I think the government was also aware of that, but would obviously not want to concede that or publicly fess up to that.

The bill does not require the commission to hold additional meetings at the request of either party, and one could imagine the government using this point in its defence to try to defend the indefensible here. However, without protections in the bill to ensure that the commissioners are competent and free from conflicts of interest, this really means very little. As we have said before, we need those specific protections in the bill along the lines of the competence of commissioners free from conflict of interest and so on. We need those in writing. It is not good just to have verbal assurances of same. A handshake, unfortunately, is not adequate for the job in this case.

Later in the process where the bill discusses the minister's need to consider the merits of the claimant's case and to make a decision as to whether he will negotiate the claim, the bill gives him six months to report back with a decision. Clause 30 of the bill also states that the minister can come back to the commission in six months and instead of reporting his decision, he can say that he needs more time.

This might seem like a reasonable provision on the surface, if it simply extended the government's deliberation for another 6 to 12 months. When we look at it more closely, we find out that timelines and final deadlines are completely absent. They are nowhere in there, not in respect to a 6 to 12 month deadline. Therefore, the government could theoretically ask indefinitely for additional six month extensions carrying on to eternity, I assume. Obviously, that is a real problem.

Earlier in committee, the Canadian Alliance attempted to amend this section with a one year limit on the process, but the government rejected that amendment as it did with pretty much all of our amendments. Hansard records indicate that this aspect of the process was a topic of some debate and concern in the Senate, but unfortunately that concern was not translated into an amendment in the Senate's report to this House.

The amendment that we in the Canadian Alliance proposed would have required the minister to apply to the commission for more time rather than to simply declare that he needed more time. That is how it stands now: that he simply needs more time. Rather, what I think was our very reasonable amendment stated that the minister had to apply for more time, thereby essentially giving the commission the right to deny the government's request, enabling it to say no, it has had time enough. As it stands now, the minister simply says he needs more time and that is it. There is no verdict that can be rendered back to him to say that he cannot have more time.

The amendment we put forth and the proposal we made also would have required the commission to hear from the claimant before making a decision. Then it could render a decision on whether that period of time was required.

Bill C-6 does not even require the government to provide its reasons for insisting on an extension to its reporting deadline. Can hon. members imagine that? The government can say it needs an extension without any indication of how much time it needs and without having to give any reason why. I find that extremely absurd and nefarious at worst.

We are dealing with a government that despises accountability and transparency. Subclause 30(3) states that the government may provide the reason that it needs more time “if applicable”. The way this clause is phrased, it treats the practice of not providing reasons as normative. That is not uncommon, as we hear that across the way in question period as well. Not giving reasons is the norm. The exception would be that in some really remote and strange case one might be compelled to provide some sort of reason. That is the way the clause is phrased. It treats the practice of not providing reasons as normative, saying that the minister need only produce reasons if it is deemed “applicable” to do so.

I do not know what situations would make it not applicable for the minister to provide reasons for delaying the process and leaving the parties hanging there. One of my amendments in committee would have deleted the words “if applicable” and just knocked that out of there, but again, the government members voted that down. Apparently this secrecy provision, which is almost what I would call it, is important, even though the minister does not tell us why.

It is this lack of transparency in the bill that raises serious questions about how effective it really will be in clearing up the terrible backlog that exists today in respect of specific claims. The government even added a fourth section to clause 30 to protect itself against penalties for stalling the process. Subclause 30(4) states:

No passage of time in relation to the decision on whether to negotiate a claim may be considered as constituting a decision not to negotiate the claim.

This section reinforces the fact that the bill makes no provision for the claimant to circumvent this part in the process. The commission may not treat the lack of a decision from the government as a decision one way or the other, so it would remain in limbo until the minister decides to announce his decision.

It would be worthwhile at this time to consider for some moments part of the legal analysis of Bill C-6 produced by the Assembly of First Nations as it pertains to the particular issues of accountability and transparency in the claims process proposed in this legislation. Here I will quote:

Under Bill C-6, the federal government unilaterally controls the pace at which claims are considered. Bill C-6 permits the Minister to 'consider' a claim indefinitely at an early stage in the process. There are no time limits that must be obeyed. No independent body can ever say 'enough is enough, the claim goes to the next stage'. A claim might have to go through an elaborate series of distinct stages and steps before compensation is ever paid. This could include:--

Here the Assembly of First Nations lists distinct stages and steps before compensation is paid:

--a funding application;

--initial preparatory meetings;

--Ministerial consideration;

--mediation;

--further delays while the Minister considers an amendment that the claimant makes to its initial claim;

--an application and hearing to convince the commission that mediation has been exhausted;--

I am getting a bit exhausted just reading through this whole thing.

The steps continue:

--a hearing in front of the Tribunal to determine compensation;

--mediation to deal with compensation;

--an application and hearing to determine whether mediation has been exhausted;

--proceedings in front of the Tribunal;

--a five year delay while the award is paid out;

--judicial review of the award.

I can rhyme all that off in just a few short minutes here, but each one of that number of steps and stages takes considerable and lengthy time in and of itself. They are distinct stages or steps that would be required to be undertaken.

The Assembly of First Nations continued:

Many of these steps could have been eliminated or combined. With others, the delays could have been controlled by giving an independent body control over the pace by setting a strict time frame in the statute itself. The Joint Task Force Model Bill was built for making major headway on the backlog. Bill C-6 is almost certain to ensure that the backlog grows.

That was the thing. Even with all of those steps that we listed there, there was no strict timeframe in respect to any of them, so members can imagine that it would go on for an awfully long time. It is just a fact of life that if some timelines and timeframes are not set, then things go on indefinitely. In all courts of law, in all those processes, there is something to address that, yet we do not have anything here at all.

In a footnote to these comments, the AFN noted that:

Under the [Joint Task Force] report, the minister did not have the discretion to consider a claim indefinitely.

I think that was a very good thing about the joint task force report, one among many things. In that joint task force report, the minister did not have the discretion to consider a claim indefinitely. The AFN went on to say:

Once a claim was lodged, the Commission and Tribunal, not the federal government, had the primary say over the pace of proceedings. A First Nation was not required to attend more than one preparatory meeting, or to prove to a third party that mediation or other “alternate dispute resolution” was exhausted... When a claim reached the tribunal, both validity and compensation could be dealt with together.

As I have examined this particular bill and the claims process in general, including the entire history leading up to the place at which we find ourselves today in the House, these observations made by the AFN generally strike me as quite reasonable.

Another problem with clause 32 is the obstructionist language used in terms of the requirements the claimant has to fulfill before the commission is permitted to send a claim to the tribunal. A claim can go to the tribunal if the government refuses to negotiate it following discussions facilitated by the commission with the help of alternate dispute resolution mechanisms. If the claimant still wants to pursue his claim, he can ask the commission to refer it to the tribunal for a binding decision.

The problem here is the excessive threshold of proof that the bill imposes on the claimant before the claim can go before the tribunal.

Subclause 32(1)(a) states:

the basis for the claim and all matters of fact and law on which the claimant relies in support of the claim have been fully and clearly identified and adequately researched and have been considered by the Minister;--

Subclause 32(1)(b) states:

all dispute resolution processes appropriate for resolving the issue have been exhausted without the issue having been resolved;--

These sections essentially require the claimant to prove to the claims commission that he has done absolutely everything that he could possibly do within that alternate dispute resolution process before the commission can send the claim to the tribunal to consider its validity.

The absolutist language in this clause imposes an excessive if not impossible threshold on the claimant to reach before he will be permitted to pursue a hearing before the tribunal. If pro-government patronage appointees are sitting on the commission, they could help the government to use this provision as yet another stalling tactic. If the claimant does not have every single t crossed and every i dotted, this step in the process can be another place to delay justice for aboriginal people and, as we have said before, justice delayed is justice denied.

Also as we have said before, first nations have pointed out that they do support the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, and that if the alternative dispute resolution process is working for a particular claim, it is in their interest to make it work. First nations therefore say they do not understand why the government is using this big stick approach to ensuring the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms--unless it is another mechanism to be used as a stalling tactic, of course, which would explain why the government would be of a mind to use it--and that it is a matter of trying to force the claimant to continue to sit down with the federal government even long after any reasonable person would have observed that nothing further could be gained by additional negotiations.

One comment we received from first nations on this issue is as follows:

Alternate dispute settlement mechanisms, such as mediation, only work if both parties are committed to making it work. The best judge of that is the parties themselves.

The very best individuals to know that, the best persons to know that, are those who are sitting at the table, those parties themselves. The comment continued:

A claimant should not have to “prove” to the commission, in another potentially expensive and dilatory proceeding, that alternative dispute resolution is “exhausted”.

Now they have to prove that it is not working, with the burden of proof being on them. The comment continued:

The current provision allows the federal government to further stall and frustrate the process by dragging its feet with respect to its participation in the alternate dispute resolution process.

I want to move to discussion of the compensation phase of the process. Assuming that the tribunal has made a binding decision that the claim is valid, that it is a bona fide claim, then both parties have to go back to the commission to try to negotiate the appropriate compensation for the claim. That is dealt with in clause 35 of Bill C-6. Subclauses 35(1)(a) and 35(1)(b) of this clause duplicate those in clause 32.

Subclause 35(1) essentially requires the claimant to prove to the claims commission that he has done absolutely everything that he could possibly do within the alternative dispute resolution process before the commission can send that claim to the tribunal to consider its validity. As I said before about absolutist language, in this clause it imposes an excessive if not impossible threshold on the claimant to reach before he will be permitted to pursue a hearing before the tribunal. If pro-government patronage appointees--I said it before and I will say it again--are sitting on that commission, they could help the government by using this provision as another stalling tactic.

First nations have pointed out that they have supported the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and they would be willing to use that process. I think they are the ones best, willing and able to decide whether it is working, and the government across the other side as well, rather than forcing that individual or those claimants to sit down with the federal government even long after reasonable people would have observed that nothing further could be gained by additional negotiations.

Some first nations have said that if alternative dispute resolution mechanisms do not work by the end of one year, there should be a provision for the claimant to request that the claim be transferred to the tribunal. One representation we received states in part:

After one year of attempting to negotiate a resolution, the claimant should be free to proceed to the tribunal. It should not have to go through further hoops, involving additional delay and expense, to show that it tried to exhaust other means of settlement. It is unnecessary and unfair to require the claimant to exhaustively state its case, including all of its evidence and legal arguments, prior to the tribunal hearing. No one is required to do so in any comparable litigation or arbitration context.

The representation goes on to say:

The Minister should not be able to delay resolution by dragging a First Nation through a slow or endless series of 'negotiations'. Any First Nation that can achieve a reasonable settlement by negotiation will do so. Why would it risk losing at the tribunal?

These certainly seem to me to be reasonable observations. I think other people, as they examine, scrutinize and carefully look over the bill, would draw the same conclusion.

I am not saying that no criteria should be stipulated as a basic standard that has to be met by the claimant before the commission can transfer the claim to the tribunal. Perhaps there are ways in which the claimant could unfairly take advantage of a situation in which no criteria are required. But at the very least, the criteria should be modified with changes to the absolutist language that currently exists in the bill.

As I consider the lack of independence and transparency in the claim centre proposed in Bill C-6, I continue to be astonished at the government's claim that this is an improvement over the current situation. Even in the Senate, the hon. Jack Austin, speaking on behalf of the government, stated numerous times that:

The centre will create a more independent, impartial and transparent system.

He also claimed that:

Bill C-6 is the result of a substantial joint Canada-First Nations task force process.

Does the government believe that if it says the same thing over and over again--in the Senate or anywhere in the country--that no matter how absurd it is, people will eventually believe it? It clearly has not taken into account, in a substantive manner, the recommendations of the joint task force report of 1998.

It does not matter what Senator Austin or others have said. They can say it until they are blue in the face, but it does not make it so. It can simply be looked at and it is not on too many pages in that report. We eventually realize how far it falls short of those recommendations there.

Thankfully, aside from the government senators, Progressive Conservative and some Liberal senators were willing to challenge Senator Austin's claims on the independence of the Bill C-6 process, as well as his insistence that it was fairly representative of the joint task force report of 1998.

We also had Canadian Alliance Senator Gerry St. Germain make representations to say that what was in Bill C-6 was not independent as reported back to the House from the Senate. For the record, the hon. Terry Stratton, a Progressive Conservative senator observed that:

The [Indian Affairs] minister, in his presentation to the committee, referred to the joint task force report. He stated that there were two areas where they did not agree with the joint task force report and, therefore, did not follow the recommendations of the task force report. However, the aboriginal presentations stated to us quite clearly that far more than just two references to the JTF were ignored. As a result, because there were so many problems with the bill, not just two, they maintained that the bill should be rejected. There was a conflict between what the minister had stated and what the aboriginals had been stated with respect to the JTF.

Senator St. Germain stated, for example, that:

The government has built mechanisms into this bill that will delay and obstruct the process of considering claims. It has avoided the establishment of tangible timelines to ensure a speedy resolution of claims. This is contrary to the recommendations in the 1998 joint task force report.

Senator St. Germain also noted:

Bill C-6 would permit the minister to consider a claim at the early stages of the process indefinitely.

This reinforces exactly what we have said, what we as members of the committee have said, and what I, as a member of the Canadian Alliance, have said. The process can be carried on indefinitely. He went on to state:

There are no time limits that must be obeyed. No independent body can ever say, “Enough is enough, the claim goes to the next stage.” The claim might have to go through an elaborate series of distinct stages and steps before compensation is ever paid. Many of these steps could have been eliminated or combined with others. The delays could have been controlled by giving an independent body control over the pace or by setting a strict timeframe in the statute itself. The joint task force model bill was built for making major headway on the backlog. Bill C-6 is almost certain to ensure that the backlog grows.

Senator St. Germain then pointed out:

The AFN also noted that under the 1998 joint task force report, the minister did not have the discretion to consider a claim indefinitely. Once a claim was logged, the commission and tribunal, not the federal government, had the primary say over the pace of the proceedings. A first nation was not required to attend more than one preparatory meeting or to prove to a third party that mediation or other “alternative dispute resolution” was exhausted. When a claim reached the tribunal, both validity and compensation could be dealt with together.

As we can see from these comments, the concerns over the integrity of the government regarding the joint task force meetings is in question, at least in the eyes of first nations peoples. Why would the government go through that process, all the countless hours, in supposedly good faith, to get something of a meritorious document of that sort, and then ignore it?

Unfortunately, that happens with too many reports around this place. We go through the effort and then the report sits on a shelf collecting dust. It is not followed-through for one reason or another. That is why people question the integrity of the government regarding the whole lengthy process of the joint task force meetings. That is why first nations people, who participated in that process in good faith, question the whole process, particularly the government's intent and whether or not there was any good faith.

If the government decided that it could not stomach the recommendations of the joint task force report, then it should have the courage to say so, rather than pretending that Bill C-6 is a natural step in the process, that it is an evolution from the joint task force report of 1998, when clearly it is not.

The government should be bold enough to tell us there are problems. It should acknowledge where it sees problems so we can have some debate on this rather than the subterfuge that everything is fine and in Bill C-6, when that is obviously not the case.

I want to turn my attention to another example in Bill C-6 of the government's hostility to the principles of accountability and transparency.

Clause 77 of the bill gives the governor in council the authority to make regulations. Mr. Speaker, you have been in this place long enough to know that the Canadian Alliance, and perhaps members from every party in the House, are rather uncomfortable with the idea of the governor in council, in other words the government or the cabinet, making and changing laws behind closed doors, doing it by way of regulations beyond the scrutiny of Parliament and the Canadian public.

That is not to deny that sometimes that is necessary, particularly the fine points, the detail and so on, but obviously, it must adhere to the principles in the bill, not with regulations being made thereafter and going off in a different direction. That seems to violate the very letter and spirit of any bill if changes are done by way of regulations.

The reform party, before it became the Canadian Alliance, and members of other parties, have made it clear that they have considerable concern and unease about some of these things being made by regulation and, therefore, no scrutiny by Parliament. It is sometimes an easy matter to insert a clause here or a phrase there where it is not going to add thousands of pages, and then it does not have to be done in the regulations. It is plain for all to see in the bill itself.

This whole matter of too frequently relying on regulations to change laws, and often violating what would seem the spirit and letter of the bill, is a dangerous practice. It undermines Parliament by ignoring, and even ostracizing and diminishing the role of parliamentarians in this place, members of all parties who work good and hard making good legislation for people concerned. We need processes in place with respect to any bills that come before us that encourage and ensure democratic accountability.

Specifically in Bill C-6, the governor in council has the authority to add to part 2 of the schedule the name of any agreement related to aboriginal self-government, and to prescribe anything that may, under this act, be prescribed. We have a lot of “any” and “anything” there and that seems to open it up pretty wide.

Let us look at the second part of this provision, “the authority to prescribe anything that may, under this act, be prescribed”. Two places where the government will have the authority to make rules for the claims process outside the supervision of Parliament after the bill has passed are in subclause 32(1)(c) and subclause 35(1)(d).

Subclause 32(1)(c) is one of the conditions that claimants must meet before the commission is permitted to refer their specific claim to the tribunal for the purpose of determining its validity. It reads:

(c) the claimant has, in prescribed form, waived any compensation for the claim that is in excess of the claim limit as it applies to the claim in accordance with section 56.

It is, therefore, the condition that requires claimants to agree not to pursue an amount greater than the value of the cap--moving up to $10 million by way of a Senate report amendment--to settle the claim before they are permitted to have the tribunal consider the claim to determine whether or not it is valid.

For years now, the Canadian Alliance has been objecting to the government's practice of passing incomplete legislation, what we might call fill in the blank legislation, bills that need to be fleshed out by the government after the bill has been passed, fleshed out somewhere other than in Parliament, where there are less eyes watching and where they are protected from much of the accountability process that is provided by the House.

I do not think that is an appropriate way to handle the issues in the bill. There are enough problems with this section already, as I have mentioned, without making the implications of the bill for first nations and taxpayers less clear by keeping those important details of the law out of the bill until after it has passed.

The same must be said for subclause 35(1)( d ), the waiver clause for the compensation phase of the claims negotiation process. We are not going to know all the rules that govern the cap until the governor in council finishes prescribing them behind closed doors, somewhere at a time and a place when they will not be subject to the scrutiny and the accountability of Parliament. This is simply undemocratic and it is another example of the current government's hostility to the principles of accountability and transparency.

I have discussed some of the most troubling aspects of Bill C-6 even in its amended form. What I have listed here is by no means an exhaustive list of the flaws that permeate the legislation.

When the bill fails, it will fuel the feeling of injustice and unrest among first nations across the country. It will put Canadian taxpayers on the hook for the cost of setting up and running the centre with minimal or no return on the investment.

Taxpayers will have to continue to pay the government's legal bills in addition to this claims body. They will have to pay those legal bills for the expensive court cases that will be launched in place of the mediated hearings that would take place in an effective claims commission and tribunal.

The first nations will continue their uphill battle to have legitimate claims recognized over incidents of injustice and maltreatment at the hands of the federal government and its agents in violation of historic treaty agreements.

Bill C-6, for a host of reasons, does not deserve the dignity of being passed by Parliament. It should be withdrawn by the government and then redrafted before being brought back to the House for consideration.

I have referred a number of times to the joint task force report that was put together with considerable work by individuals back in 1998. It has considerable bearing in terms of what the new independent claims body should look like. Therefore, I am going to be making comments regarding the joint task force report on the specific claims policy reform. This was submitted by the Assembly of First Nations and the specific claims branch of DIAND. I am reading from a reformatted version of November 25, 1998.

The report's table of contents gives us a way out of the morass, the delay and the lack of resolution we have had in respect to specific land claims. I will make reference to the many covering letters which go into some of the background on how we arrived at this point and why we need such a body. Some of the main themes are outlined, such as the JTF proposals, and some of the key features. It then gets into a discussion of some of the general issues: aboriginal rights, fiscal framework, the joint task force process and then the current status. And, of course, as with any of these reports, there are a number of appendices, charts and graphs.

I first will read a letter to the chiefs from Rolland Pangowish, the co-chair of the joint task force report. It is dated November 25, 1998. He says:

Dear Chiefs:

On behalf of the First Nations Task Force representatives, I would like to take this opportunity to present to you the Report of the Joint First Nations/Canada Task Force on the Reform of Claims Policy. This report reflects the painstaking and highly detailed efforts of the past one and a half years of cooperative efforts between the AFN Chiefs Committee on Claims, First Nations technical advisors and government officials from the Departments of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Justice.

In introducing the JTF Report, I would like to offer my personal assessment that this exercise in partnership has succeeded by achieving agreement on what participants feel is the best technical approach for resolving claims. The recommendations set out in the proposal are based on the assumption that the goal is to resolve claims.

I think that is pretty basic and it is good they came to that understanding. He goes on to say:

It should be kept in mind that both sides had to give and take in this process in order to reach agreement on these recommendations. While there are certain aspects of the proposed process that each side would have liked to take a different approach, the proposal represents a minimum standard that each side thought their respective principals could live with.

Overall, in my estimation, this joint policy development initiative should be highlighted as a positive and productive venture in terms of its future role as a workable and highly useful means for addressing the many issues currently confronting the First Nations and the Crown.

It must be said, however, that many legal, political and financial questions were raised at the table for discussion. While the input from the Department of Justice was most helpful, the First Nation participants believe that any future refinement of these proposals should involve senior financial specialists from central agencies directly in the discussions. Had these key officials been active participants in our joint dialogue, they might have provided necessary expertise and assistance for us to achieve more timely solutions in key problem areas.

The Joint Task Force has now provided a highly detailed and focused blueprint for fulfilling the long-standing need for an independent claims body. The implementation of these proposals would represent an important step in addressing an important aspect of the RCAP Report. Although the Task Force could not address all the matters contemplated in the RCAP Report with respect to an independent claims body, we have attempted to design a process whereby the perception of conflict of interest would be eliminated.

The primary phase of the task that was mandated for the AFN by the Chiefs-in-Assembly has now been completed. The First Nations Joint Task Force technical representatives, under the guidance of the Chiefs Committee on Claims, has sought to ensure that this proposal is entirely faithful to the principles that have been set out for it by the First Nations political leadership.

In the next few weeks, we will be presenting this proposal to the Chiefs Committee on Claims and to the Chiefs at the Confederacy

On behalf of the Joint Task Force, we look forward to the opportunity for continuing to meet the challenge of ensuring that this proposal will one day form the framework for resolving conflicts between the First Nations and Canada. It is our anticipation that this proposal will provide a sound basis for a new, constructive and mutually productive relationship.

Sincerely,

Rolland Pangowish

Co-chair, Joint Task Force Report

The letter was carbon copied off to the appropriate individuals: the AFN executive committee, chiefs committee on claims, the joint task force members, the Minister of Human Resources Development and so on.

At the outset of the joint task force report there was a very interesting letter that I would like to read. I think the listening audience and members in the House as well will find it interesting. The letter was written by Dan Kohoko, the director of special projects, specific claims branch. He wrote it on Indian and Northern Affairs Canada letterhead and sent it to Mr. John Sinclair, the ADM policy and strategic direction, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, and then off to Mr. Scott Serson, the deputy minister, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. The letter reads:

The Joint Task Force, which Mr. Rolland Pangowish, Director, AFN Land Rights United, and myself, Director, Special Projects, SCB, chaired over the past two years, recently completed its work on what I would consider to be Phase I of our towards establishing an independent claims body.

For the record, we would like to table a report on the Joint Task Force (JTF) work, to which we have appended the actual product produced by the JTF in phase one; as well as a copy of both English and French versions of the legislative drafting instructions. The JTF work on the drafting instructions was basically completed when we met with AFN in October 1998. It was indicated at that time that a staged approach was preferred by the federal government.

As requested we held a meeting in Quebec City to discuss what a model that could be considered a staged approach might look like. The work to adjust the current drafting instructions to reflect such a model is what I consider to be the next phase of potential work for the JTF. However, before proceeding the JTF should receive direction from both First Nations and the federal government with regard to Phase II.

The letter was signed by Dan Kohoko, director, special project, specific claims branch.

We find again that the letter was forwarded off to the appropriate people: Warren Johnson, A/ADM, claims and Indian government, DIAND; Paul Cuillerier, DG, specific claims branch, DIAND; Dennis Wallace, associate deputy minister, DIAND: Daniel Charboneau, minister's assistant, DIAND; and, Rolland Pangowish, director, lands right unit, AFN. I simply add all those individuals who received it so nobody can claim it was not without their knowledge. This is public record and it has been read by all.

What we have where we say it is the JTF report embodied in Bill C-6 is hard to comprehend when in fact it is so obviously different from it and it does not take into account some of the very good recommendations that we find in the 1998 joint task force report.

I want to give some background and content though as we come up to the need for a specific claims body of some kind or other and what brought this particular joint task force together. In the preface of the report itself it gives some of that background. It states:

The Joint First Nations-Canada Task Force on Claims Policy Reform has been charged with addressing an important part of the new partnership the Government of Canada has promised will characterize its efforts to build a new relationship with First Nations. If this new relationship is to be based on mutual trust and respect, we must begin to address those things which have created mistrust.

It is well put from my point of view. The report goes on to state:

Obviously, an important part of this healing process requires that we effectively resolve outstanding grievances and address the need for an adequate land and resource base.

For many years, First Nations and others have called for the establishment of an independent body to resolve outstanding claims. The need to eliminate the federal government's perceived conflict of interest in resolving claims against itself has now been widely acknowledged.

Lots of people have seen the light on that one. The report continues:

The mandate of this task force was to provide a forum where federal and First Nations officials could cooperatively develop recommendations for the reform of Canada's claim policies.

The commitment to this type of process followed up on the federal government's Red Book commitment to work with First Nations to design a new independent claims body. This commitment was consistent with the recent RCAP Report recommendations and many years of similar recommendations by First Nations and independent observers. This commitment was further affirmed in the subsequent “Gathering Strength” and agenda for action polices of the federal government, which convey Canada's commitment to building a new relationship with First Nations, based on trust and mutual respect.

The Task Force is a technical table composed of regional First Nations representatives and federal officials from Indian Affairs and Justice. It began its work in earnest in the Spring of 1997 and has reached agreement on detailed recommendations with respect to the major elements of a new process for addressing what have come to be referred to as specific claims. We have now identified the required structures, basic procedures and required legislative--

[Maurice Vellacott, Canadian Alliance, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I assume we have moved on to Bill C-6 and we can commence from there. However I wonder if we could have quorum in the House first. I have some important things to say and wonder if that could be established before I commence my speech.