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

This bill was last introduced in the 37th Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in November 2003.

Sponsor

Bob Nault  Liberal

Status

This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

February 27th, 2003 / 3 p.m.
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Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to make the business statement and I will have two motions which relate to that immediately afterward, with the permission of the House.

This afternoon we will consider the Senate amendments to Bill C-12, the sports bill. I understand this will be brief. This will be followed by third reading of Bill C-15, the lobbyists legislation. If time permits, we would then turn to Bill C-20 on child protection, and then possibly Bill C-23, the sex offender registry. I think by then the day will probably have exhausted.

Tomorrow our plan would be to commence with Bill C-2, the Yukon bill, which would then be followed by Bill C-6, the first nations specific claims bill.

When the House returns on March 17 we will complete the budget debate on that day. I will have a motion to offer to the House in a few minutes to defer the vote on that.

March 18 shall be an allotted day, as shall be March 20. I will give an update to members of the House in terms of legislation to be called on March 19.

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations among the parties and I wish to seek unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, if on March 17, 2003, a division is requested on the main motion for government order, ways and means proceedings No. 2, the said division shall be deferred until the conclusion of the time provided for government orders on March 18, 2003.

For the benefit of members, that refers to the budget motion.

Specific Claims Resolution ActGoverment Orders

February 25th, 2003 / 6:45 p.m.
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The Speaker

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-6.

First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management ActGovernment Orders

February 20th, 2003 / 10:50 a.m.
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Bloc

Yvan Loubier Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC

Mr. Speaker, you took me a bit by surprise. I thought that the government had a bill to defend, especially when it is its own bill. However, we find that even the government's own members are not willing to defend a bill such as Bill C-19.

We can see why. Bill C-19 is part of a major federal offensive, along with Bills C-6 and C-7, against all the traditional land claims and the rights of Canada's first nations, such as the inherent right to self-government, the right to a land base, the right also to compensation for the 130 years during which they were subjected to the Indian Act—the most retrograde law ever conceived by man, and this law was created right here in Canada 130 years ago. All these rights, as well as the respect to which our first nations are entitled, are being trampled by Bill C-19. And, of course, Bill C-19 is part of a whole scheme that also includes Bills C-6 and C-7.

We always come back to the same basic problem. When the government came up with Bill C-19, it had not even bothered to adequately consult first nations. This is an attempt to shove a bill they do not want down their throats. This is an attempt to undermine their credibility, to say for example that the Assembly of First Nations does not represent all first nations in Canada, which is false. There is even a federal law that recognizes the Assembly of First Nations as the spokesperson for first nations in Canada.

But, as the old saying goes, divide and conquer. The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has taken this old adage to heart and is being quite machiavellian in how he applies it.

They are even going to bypass the Assembly of First Nations and choose some Liberal Party sympathizers. The selected individuals picked by the Liberal Party of Canada and by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development will then say that they agree with the government, that everything is great and that everything in the bill is great.

We tried to amend Bill C-19. We tried to convince the minister that this bill was not quite right, that first nations had very legitimate claims, that they wanted to be consulted and that they wanted to be respected for who they are. The minister turned a deaf ear.

Many representations on Bill C-19, C-6 and C-7 were made. Currently, Bill C-7 is at the committee stage. Each time we have proposed amendments to improve the contents, to ensure that the rights and demands of the first nations of Canada are respected, the minister has turned a deaf ear and said, “I know what I am doing. I consulted, I have held 400 meetings since last year and this is the result of those consultations”.

What the minister forgets to mention is that those 400 consultations were probably each about five minutes long. How can the first nations, under such circumstances, make positive contributions? Because these bills are for them. How can they satisfactorily contribute to replacing the much-hated Indian Act with legislation that recognizes and respects them for who they are?

We had supported the principles in Bill C-19. Given that the minister does not want to hear about the major changes that need to be made, we are forced to change our minds. We will oppose Bill C-19, which is part of a broad offensive to get first nations to accept the unacceptable, which no Canadian, and certainly no Quebecker, would do.

Bill C-19 creates a statistical institute, a tax commission and a first nations financial management board.

As if aboriginals needed three additional ultra bureaucratic entities. The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development's speciality is bureaucracy, cumbersome administration and piles of paperwork. Aboriginals do not need any of this. They want nothing to do with it. These are not their real problems.

This is not what they talk about when they appear before us in committee or when we meet with them individually. They want us to address the real problems in the aboriginal communities, such as land claims that have been on the back burner for decades, compensation for the harm caused to them and aboriginal health issues.

In terms of health, there is no need to draw a picture. Across Canada, aboriginals' health is worse than anyone's. They contract infections that no longer even exist in our communities. For instance, there is a high incidence of tuberculosis among the Lubicon in Alberta.

These communities are struggling with substance abuse problems in young children. Recently we saw young children 6 or 7 years old behind homes sniffing gasoline fumes or glue. These are real problems.

There are major problems with drinking water across Canada. Imagine, that was a discovery for me. Some regions of Canada are in the same situation as the developing countries. I thought drinking water problems were mainly in Africa, where CIDA is doing such excellent work.

I think we need to look a little closer at ourselves and stop thinking that underdevelopment is something foreign to us. The reality is that the first nations have been marginalized. They do not have drinking water. Considering the importance of safe drinking water for health, and particularly for child development, I hardly need say how ashamed this makes me feel. This is a problem that must be addressed.

Moreover, to dispel any old prejudices that may still be lurking in the minds of any of my colleagues, what the Auditor General said was not that there were administrative problems in the first nations communities, but that those problems lay within the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.

I see these three new entities relating to taxation and statistics as a way for employees of that department to hang on to their jobs. The right thing to do today would be to abolish the despicable Indian Act, which treats aboriginal people like children and kept them on the reserve for so many decades. This legislation has been around for 130 years now and has stripped them of their resources.

If we abolished the Indian Act, we would at the same time abolish some, if not most, positions at Indian and Northern Affairs. But they will do as they did at Fisheries and Oceans. There are no more fish, but there are hundreds of employees. Why? Because the changes in the fish stocks must be monitored. SInce these people have been monitoring the situation, fish stocks have decreased. But that justifies jobs at Fisheries and Oceans.

It is worse at Indian and Northern Affairs. I met some of the employees when they appeared before the committee. Some had that typical attitude that is so despised, people for whom what is important is to hang on to their jobs, not to work for the well-being of the aboriginal community or to help it break out of the vicious circle that has been in place for the past 130 years and has the first nations mired in chronic underdevelopment, which gets in the way of their future development and their children's future development, and strips them of pride and dignity.

But officials are not there to work on these problems. Of course not, they are there to create bureaucratic entities. The Auditor General said that first nations are overadministered.

Almost all aboriginal communities are required to fill out 168 lengthy forms every year on their administration, on how they operate, down to the last penny. One hundred and sixty-eight forms, do you know what that represents? That is three government forms per week in every aboriginal community. Keep in mind that there are some communities with about 100 people.

It is the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development that requires this. The Auditor General did not criticize aboriginals for being sloppy when it comes to the administration of aboriginal affairs; she criticized the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development for being sloppy and ineffective and for its excessive bureaucracy.

That is who she criticized. Not only has the government failed to rectify the situation, but it has added to the problem. First nations will now have to produce even more reports and fulfill the requirements of even more administrative bodies.

What about the real problems facing aboriginals, that we in Parliament should be solving? What are we doing about drinking water? What are we doing about health problems? What are we doing about education problems?

There is a few million dollars here and a few million dollars there. The government will point to the budget. True, some tens of millions of dollars were given for health, as well as for education, but that is completely inadequate. Particularly since Bills C-6, C-7 and C-19 impose additional administrative requirements. But the resources are not forthcoming. Put plainly, first nations are given the same resources, and they have to fight to keep their heads above water to assert their rights, to fight the federal government in the courts, to build their case and to solve community problems with what little resources they have. These same resources will now be used to fulfill the requirements of these three new administrative bodies and also the new provisions that are contained in the governance legislation, Bills C-6 and C-7.

All of this is outrageous. It really is ignominious. I asked to be given the first nations file because it was a very interesting one, even if it was one we very seldom heard about. I asked for this file because there were things that I wanted to resolve and understand. I have a hard time understanding why a country like Canada, that prides itself on being a country where rights and freedoms are respected, a country that even adopted a charter of rights and freedoms, a country that includes in every throne speech an explicit reference to the aboriginal people and to respect for their culture, their language etc, does not do anything in this regard. It talks a lot, but the disgrace is that not much is happening.

Now I understand why. After the Erasmus-Dussault commission, everything was in place for the Canadian nation and the first nations to negotiate solutions to problems as equals. The report was lengthy. Consultations had been held. But no. Our fine Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, a follower of Machiavelli, divided and conquered, and rammed through new measures that were supposed to improve the act, the infamous Indian Act. There was a flurry of protests and all first nations representatives opposed these bills. However, the minister bragged about the fact that he could count on the support of his friends. He has a few aboriginal friends. It looks good to have a few aboriginal friends when you are the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

We are lucky. We are really lucky—and I see that there is agreement here—that aboriginals have not revolted more than they have up to now. Because if I were an aboriginal and I had been treated like that, I would have dumped the standing committee. I would have come to Parliament a long time ago together with all 638 first nations. I would have come to Parliament a long time ago and mobilized numerous resources to say, “That is it. We have rights. You put us in reserves 130 years ago. You crushed us. You took away our dignity. You tried to get rid of us. Now, that is it. You will not repeat the past with Bills C-6, C-7 and C-19”.

They appeared a few times before the United Nations. Their claims were even successful. There are, for example, the Alberta Lubicon. They are in the news now because, several decades ago, they had been promised their territories, which they are entitled to, and they were also promised compensation.

What happened in the meantime? There are rich oil and gas companies in Canada. They have the support of the Minister of Industry even if they are hurting the economy now and even if the price of heating oil has gone up 30%. The minister is on their side. He is siding with the oil and gas companies. This is not the first time that the government has sided with them.

As soon as major oil deposits were discovered on the land claimed by the Lubicon, we started hearing that they might not have any right to them, that the land might not be theirs. In the 1930s, official papers were even falsified. What a fine reputation. If you do not believe me, the matter was taken all the way to the United Nations, where the Canadian government was criticized for its lack of respect for the human rights of the Lubicon Lake Indians.

Quite clearly, the Lubicon no longer had any territorial rights. As soon as these rich oil fields were discovered, the matter of profits for large oil companies arose. These companies cozy up to the government, and this has been going on for decades.

The government was both defendant and adjudicator, collecting royalties on the oil resources developed by the big companies. So, the Lubicon were ignored. And this injustice has been going on for 70 years. Even a UN resolution was not enough to shake the government.

Government representatives go around the world presenting Canada as a supporter of rights and freedoms, talking about our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, while within Canada there are these injustices. After 130 years of the Indian Act, the government is spreading the injustice and making matters worse with bills that no one wants, namely Bill C-6 and Bill C-7. The aboriginal nations do not want these bills because they do not respect who these people are; they do not respect their cultures and traditions.

It is totally unacceptable to be presented with such bills, especially since there is a common thread linking the three we are debating, when we include Bill C-19: an attempt to erode the rights of aboriginal people. The federal government is trying to shirk its fiduciary responsibility.

Why I am making such a statement? Because there is no non-derogation clause in Bill C-19, in Bill C-6, or in Bill C-7. A non-derogation clause would reassure first nations by guaranteeing that, despite the provisions found in Bills C-19, C-6 or C-7, their aboriginal rights, their inherent rights to self-government, their land rights, their rights to compensation, and their rights to pride and dignity are not beign threatened. This is what a non-derogation clause is all about. There is no non-derogation clause in these bills even though, in the past, such clauses were included to reassure aboriginal nations about the fact that even though a bill brought about some changes, even though it included new provisions, their claims and their rights were not in jeopardy. A non-derogation clause does not give them anything, it simply gives the assurance that their rights will be respected.

Over the past 30 years, in a number of rulings, the Supreme Court has consistently come down in favour of respect for aboriginal nations and their inherent right to self-government. These decisions compelled the federal government to settle numerous disputes that had been going on forever.

All these rulings were in favour of aboriginal nations and, today, we fare faced with a situation where, instead of following up on the rulings of the Supreme Court, instead of implementing the recommendations of a royal commission of inquiry that tabled its report a few years ago, the government is repeating its past mistakes. Instead of treaties written in archaic language over a century old, we have modern bills that are every bit as insensitive and cruel to aboriginal nations.

For all these reasons, we will strongly oppose Bill C-19. We will also strongly oppose Bills C-6 and C-7, which are utterly objectionable.

The members of the Bloc Quebecois members will fight for the aboriginal nations of Canada and Quebec, not to give them more rights than we have, but to ensure respect for the rights that they do have, and to settle disputes once and for all, in a climate of respect and dignity, nation to nation. Equality between nations must go beyond words; it must be a concrete reality, and it must be based on respect and dignity.

Business of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

February 20th, 2003 / 10:05 a.m.
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Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I thank hon. members for carrying the motion.

There have been consultations among parties and I believe you would find unanimous consent for the following business to be disposed of, as follows, and I will do it step by step because we have a number of them. I move:

That on Bill C-6, the question on the amendment to the motion for third reading be deemed to have been put and a division thereon requested and deferred until the conclusion of Government Orders, February 25, 2003.

Specific Claims Resolution ActGovernment Orders

February 7th, 2003 / 1:25 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Ken Epp Canadian Alliance Elk Island, AB

Madam Speaker, it is very important for us to resolve the issues of Bill C-6 in an equitable and fair way.

One of the things that the bill provides is for a tribunal which has a cap of some $7 million on things that it can decide on. Beyond that, it is beyond its scope. So there is a limitation. If there were an impasse on a certain inquiry, then we would have the situation where the tribunal would not be able to solve the problem and we would have the same kind of impasse that we have had for the last 20, 30, 50 years.

I would like the member's comments on the cap and the tribunal process.

Specific Claims Resolution ActGovernment Orders

February 7th, 2003 / 1:15 p.m.
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Progressive Conservative

Rex Barnes Progressive Conservative Gander—Grand Falls, NL

Madam Speaker, listening to the hon. member who just spoke, he outlined some areas and some organizations that are totally opposed to the manner in which this has taken place. When we talk about negotiations to come to a deal to satisfy groups of people, we negotiate to satisfy the majority of the people.

From what I see here, the bill has definitely angered a lot of people within the organization. As a result of that, we in the Progressive Conservative Party will not be supporting it. We firmly believe that these are not negotiations that have transpired. This is the government saying that this is what it wants, rather than what the people want.

The minister has stated that there are 550 claims in the system right now, which will take approximately 30 years to do under the current procedures, and he believes that the new system would resolve 80% of them. If 80% of the outstanding land claims are easy to resolve, why have they not been resolved?

I know the claims may be complex, but if the government does not sit at the table and negotiate with all the groups it will never get done. However, we need to have open negotiations. We need to listen to the first nations people. It cannot be all one way. Right now it is all one way. It is the government's way or no way.

The minister also stated that the first claims policy statement arose out of the Supreme Court decision in 1973. Since 1973 it has been the same old story. We are still waiting for first nations to have their land settlements resolved, which is unfortunate.

We cannot continue in that way. We need to make peace with our first nations people. We need to make sure that the court ruling is upheld. They are entitled to their land claims. Let us settle these claims now and get them over with so we can work as a nation. However we all know that is not what the government wants to do.

My hon. colleagues before me mentioned many points. One of the things is that after an initial review of Bill C-6 we identified a number of departures from what was agreed upon in the 1998 joint task force report, which may compromise the new body to assist in resolving claims in a fair, expeditious and impartial manner.

Where are we going with this? We need to have impartiality. We need to make sure that it is done in a certain timeframe so that the system works for everyone. We cannot continue to say that if it does not work we will put it into the courts to take care of the larger issue. If the smaller issues were resolved, then the big issues sometimes take care of themselves by sitting down to negotiate and talking sensibly.

There is a big concern about a conflict of interest. It has to have independence. We cannot have the government appointing people to do certain things because then it is not impartial.

A lot has been said about this issue and a lot will continue to be said. What we need to do is to get back to the table to settle the land claims, to sit down and speak to our first nations people and to all the people to whom we need to speak, so we can move forward to make sure that the best deal is given, not only to the aboriginal people but also that it be fair to the government.

I do not see that happening because there are two sets of rules, one for the people and one for the government. We need to make sure that it is good for the country and good for the people. The government cannot get its own way all the time.

As a result, the bill does not answer a lot of the concerns of the first nations people. The Assembly of First Nations had a lot of concerns. I have seven of them here, most of which were addressed today: the cap up to $7 million; the patronage appointment process; the lack of first nations input; no significant increase in the budget for the new process; conflicts of interest; and the minister's role in managing the process.

The other item that was of great concern had to do with the compromises built into the new body that was done in the joint task force of 1998.

There is so much that is unsettled with this new bill that the parties in the House cannot support it. I would recommend that the minister go back to the table, go back to the people and speak to the committee. I know the committee members were upset. I am not a member of the committee but I spoke to members of the committee who were very concerned about the direction in which the bill goes.

I know the minister has the greatest of intentions to make sure that the land claims are all settled and that first nations people get what they rightly deserve but if the bill becomes law it will not give them what they deserve. It will cause major fighting, major bickering and major unsettling of our people.

I firmly believe that the minister should go back to square one and listen to the people. Yes, we need to compromise but in negotiations. He talked about his past negotiating skills but I can tell him right now that in negotiations we give some and we take some. It is a compromise. However, when it is all finalized and we come away from the table, both parties should be happy and settled with it. If not, in the real world, if it were union negotiations, they would be on strike.

Right now we could almost say that the people who are opposed to this are on strike. We need to get back to the table, sit down and discuss this reasonably and rationally and, most important, let us get a deal that is good for the country, good for the people and one in which all Canadians will benefit greatly.

Specific Claims Resolution ActGovernment Orders

February 7th, 2003 / 12:50 p.m.
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NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased on behalf of the New Democratic Party to join the debate on Bill C-6 at third reading.

I would like to compliment the speech made by my colleague from the Bloc Québécois, a member of the aboriginal affairs committee. His speech contained very thoughtful remarks and a well researched analysis of this very flawed bill.

We intend to emphasize many of the same points as would have been heard from the Canadian Alliance when it opposed the bill and from the previous speaker from the Bloc Québécois as he opposed the bill. Virtually everybody associated with aboriginal claims issues is opposed to the bill, as the hon. member from the Bloc pointed out, with the possible exception of the minister and his immediate staff.

I will mention some of the organizations and communities that have contacted the NDP to express their very strong dissatisfaction with the bill. They include the Assembly of First Nations, as has been pointed out before; the Alliance of Tribal Nations from New Westminster, B.C.; the Saddle Lake First Nation of Saddle Lake, Alberta; the Adams Lake Indian Band from Chase, B.C.; the Lucky Man Cree Nation from Saskatoon; Long Lake Reserve No. 58 from Longlac, Ontario; Eagle Lake First Nation from Ontario; The Society for Threatened People from Austria; the Tlowitsis First Nation from Campbell River, B.C.; the Battlefords Tribal Council from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; the Blueberry River First Nation from Buick, B.C.; the Boston Bar First Nation from Boston Bar, B.C.; and the Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council from Prince George, B.C.

There is also the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Inc. from northern Manitoba. I believe MKO represents some 50 communities in northern Manitoba. There is also the Opaskwayak Cree Nation from The Pas, Manitoba whose chief, Oscar Lathlin, is currently the minister of aboriginal affairs in Manitoba.

Also on the list are the Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research Centre of Manitoba Inc. from Winnipeg; the North Shore Tribal Council from Cutler, Ontario; the Six Nations of the Grand River from Ontario. The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, a plenary umbrella group from Saskatchewan is on the list.

The list also includes the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte from the Mohawk Territory, Ontario; the Pasqua First Nation from Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan; the Okanagan Indian Band from Vernon, B.C.; the Nanoose First Nation from Lantzville, B.C.; the Tsuu T'ina Nation from Alberta; the Halfway River First Nation from Wonowon, B.C.; the Northwest Tribal Treaty Nations from Terrace, B.C.; the Nipissing First Nation from Garden Village, Ontario; the Union of New Brunswick Indians, Fredericton, New Brunswick; the Seabird Island Band from Agassiz, B.C.; the Algonquin First Nation of Timiskaming, from Notre Dame du Nord, Quebec; the Wolf Lake First Nation from Quebec; the Buffalo Point First Nation and Chief John Thunder from Buffalo Point, Manitoba; the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, Kamloops, B.C.; and the Barriere Lake Algonquin First Nation from Quebec, just bordering the city of Ottawa.

That is a partial list of the groups that have come forward. Some made representation to the committee and some simply contacted our offices, appealing to the opposition parties to do all they could to stop Bill C-6 because it does not meet their needs. It is not what they are looking for. It is not what they desire in terms of a truly independent claims commission as claimed by the minister.

The most compelling thing I bring to the House today is a petition that was brought to my office. Unfortunately it is not in a format which I could present to the House of Commons. I will not be formally tabling the petition because unfortunately, my office was not contacted first to get the proper format.

Those people went to a great deal of trouble. There are over 50,000 names on those sheets of paper which are in boxes in my office as we speak. I would like to read into the record at least the preamble of that petition, even though I know full well it cannot be presented formally.

It is a petition by the Jubilee Petition on Aboriginal Land Rights called “Land Rights, Right Relations”.

Dear Prime Minister,

In keeping with the Jubilee theme of Renewal of the Earth, we the undersigned call for a renewed relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples based on mutual respect, responsibility, and sharing.

As part of this ongoing process towards a new relationship, we are seeking justice for Aboriginal peoples.

We join the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and the United Nations Human Rights Committee in calling on the federal government to act immediately to establish a truly independent commission with the mandate to implement Aboriginal land, treaty and inherent rights.

The signatories are from all over Canada. I should point out that they are not primarily aboriginal people. The vast majority of the signatures on this 50,000 name petition are not of first nations people. In fact, the sample I am holding are people from downtown Guelph, Ontario: Debbie Armstrong, Cindy Donafeld, Erin Stather and Mike Elrick; these people all identify themselves as being from fairly suburban urban Canada.

Perhaps it was long-winded but I wanted to share with everyone the depth and breadth of the opposition we are learning about to Bill C-6. There are ordinary Canadians as well as first nations communities who do not accept that Bill C-6 is what it is touted to be, the long awaited and much ballyhooed bill that was looked for with great optimism.

Many aboriginal people I met, leaders through the Assembly of First Nations, authorities in the field of land claims, worked on the joint task force for years leading to the formation of an independent claims body. Many expressed their dismay as soon as the hon. minister of aboriginal affairs presented the idea two years ago that he would be introducing this new claims commission by legislation and advanced preliminary sketches of what the bill might look like.

The Assembly of First Nations made it clear at that time that the government had missed the point, that it did not fold in the important key recommendations of the joint task force. That round table met for, I believe it was 18 months, leading up to the development of its position paper which called for a truly independent Indian claims commission.

There was advance warning. The minister cannot feign that he was somehow blindsided by this. He was advised from the very outset that the bill being contemplated and proposed would miss the mark and did not satisfy or pass the test of the truly independent claims commission that was being called for by first nations leaders.

With that as a preface, I suppose I will outline once again some of our objections to Bill C-6 and give an overview and legal analysis of Bill C-6. I do not think we need to get too technical because it is the position of the New Democratic Party when it put forward umpteen amendments at the committee stage. Every single one of them was rejected. It is now our position that the bill is not redeemable.

The bill in its current form unamended is not worthy of our support and will not be getting our support. Therefore I am not going to bore the House of Commons or anybody watching at home with the gritty details of the minutiae, the technical details. That was done by the Canadian Alliance for 40 minutes half an hour ago.

Our initial review of Bill C-6 identified a number of departures from what was agreed upon in the 1998 joint task force report. We believe this compromises the ability of the new body to assist in resolving claims in the expeditious, fair and impartial manner that was contemplated by the task force. Bill C-6 fails the test of being able to introduce a commission that is truly fair, impartial and expeditious.

There is deep concern, and we expressed it from the very outset, with the conflict of interest in the minister's role in managing the independent claims board process. This point has been made over and over again, and not just by opposition critics in the House of Commons but by authorities who have studied this issue for decades in civil society, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal.

How can the commission be truly independent when the minister's discretionary authority is enhanced in the bill rather than diminished and when the commissioners are appointed by the minister? We believe the independence of the commission and the tribunal are undermined by the retention of the unilateral federal authority over appointments and by the unilateral federal authority over the processing of claims. This is the key fundamental point upon which Bill C-6 falls short of introducing a truly independent Indian claims commission.

As many people were, we were shocked and disappointed to see that appointments would be made upon the recommendation of the very minister charged with defending the Crown against such claims. How can anyone not see the blatant conflict of interest? The minister would get to appoint the commissioners, and it would be the Crown against which these claims would be made. Can people not see what is fundamentally wrong with this picture?

We have tried to articulate it as clearly as we can and still we get no relief from the minister or from the Liberal majority on the standing committee. Our representatives on that committee, using the rules of the House of Commons, legitimately tried to have that amended and corrected. Had we achieved that amendment, we would be supporting the bill. Just as no one in their right mind could fail to see the blatant conflict of interest, no one in their right mind could fail to hope that some of the 550 outstanding specific claims could be settled expeditiously, at least in our lifetimes.

I share in the frustration of aboriginal people, many of whom have waited 30, 40 and 50 years for resolution, not to a general land claim but to a specific claim, which I should explain. Let us use an example.

There have been cases where a military air force base expropriated a certain amount of land from an Indian reserve for a specific purpose. When that function was finished and it came time to return that land to the band, it gave back less than it took. The aboriginal people involved said, “Wait a minute. You borrowed 100 acres and gave us back 85. What is going on here?” They filed a specific claim. I am pulling that abstract out of my head. There are about 550 of those.

Here is another example. The amount of money transferred to aboriginal communities is based upon a per capita basis. There may be a dispute between what the first nation says is its membership and what the federal government has counted as membership. A claim would be filed to address that grievance. That is the type of very specific issue with which we are dealing, but unfortunately without a satisfactory resolution mechanism, the band has no recourse but to clog up the courts with these claims.

As I said, no one in their right mind would not want to see a speedy and expeditious settlement of these outstanding grievances to give remedy to these, in many cases, historic injustices.

We are frustrated and we share the frustration of aboriginal people. It has yet to be determined if all the claims are legitimate. Hopefully, a fair and impartial arbitrator will decide that. However now we will not have that mechanism. The long awaited and much ballyhooed mechanism to finally give satisfaction to these outstanding claims is not forthcoming. These people will have to go forward with what they perceive to be a biased mechanism, a mechanism that is tainted and clearly prejudiced, or at least there is a conflict of interest. It remains to be seen if fairness can still be achieved.

There are no effective timelines provided under the commission process. We believe that this is a shortcoming of the bill. We would be far more likely to achieve satisfactory resolves, if people could not play the waiting game. Certainly the government has been playing with many claims for all these years.

Using timeliness as a delaying tactic is reprehensible in my mind. There is a phrase “justice delayed is justice denied”. It is even more unkind when the government throws it back in the face of aboriginal people by saying that they are always clogging the courts with all of these claims.

The reason the claims are in the courts is because the government refuses to sit at the table and resolve these issues. It takes two to tango. It takes two to create an impasse. Aboriginal people want these claims settled. The government has a vested interest in stalling and delaying because if the claims are resolved, as they are in most cases, it will cost the government money.

If we stipulate ourselves to a dispute mechanism that is supposed to be fair and expeditious, then timelines should be imposed so that these delaying tactics could no longer be used as a tool by the federal government. There are far too many opportunities for federal delay built into this process.

From where did the $7 million cap figure come? It was pulled out of the air. I cannot say whether it should be more or less for specific claims, but anytime a line like that is drawn there will be cases that fall right on the line. I will give the House an example of a worse case scenario.

Let us say a first nation has been waiting 30 years for satisfaction on a specific claim and it has spent $2 million on legal fees. The claim is worth $10 million. It could carry on in the courts, because this is optional, and spend another $2 million fighting for what it knows to be right, or it could go before the independent claims body and have it settled to a maximum of $7 million. This may coerce, out of necessity, first nations to accept less than what they deserve and what they have coming because they cannot afford to fight for another 50 years.

As the previous speaker mentioned, this generation of aboriginal people may not be quite as patient as their forefathers were in achieving justice. They need it and they want it now. However because of the cap the maximum that will be handed out will be $7 million. We believe this is a cost saving measure contemplated, vented and executed by the federal government in imposing this cap into the bill.

My party is further critical of the definition of a specific claim that has been narrowed from the existing policy. Believe it or not, we are supposed to be moving forward toward resolution of these outstanding grievances with the bill. Instead we are going backward. The definition of what constitutes a specific claim for treatment under the independent new commission is narrower than things that could go under the existing independent claims commission.

The bill does not provide for a substantial financial commitment and is more about limiting federal liability than about settling claims. That is the simplest way I can express our objection to the bill. It does not provide for a substantial financial commitment. It is more seized with the issue of limiting federal liability than it is about settling claims. Bill C-6 offers little hope for addressing the growing backlog of specific claims in the foreseeable future.

I appeal to the minister to step back and look at the whole suite of legislation he has introduced, namely, Bill C-6, Bill C-7 and Bill C-19. There are those of us on opposition benches who would like nothing better than to enthusiastically support legislation that will amend the Indian Act because we think the Indian Act is fundamentally evil. We believe it is responsible for 130 years of social tragedy. If I do nothing else in my time here as a member of Parliament, I would like to say that I moved the issue of aboriginal people one step forward.

I appeal to the minister to take a step back and rethink why the entire first nations community is opposed to these measures. I appeal to him to introduce something again, in a co-operative manner, something of which we can all be proud. The government will then have the enthusiastic support of the New Democratic Party instead of the opposition we have expressed toward the bill.

Specific Claims Resolution ActGovernment Orders

February 7th, 2003 / 12:45 p.m.
See context

Bloc

Yvan Loubier Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC

The hon. member for Champlain tells me that, at this rate, it will take 141 years to settle these specific claims. If we take the average pace for the past 30 years, at 8% per year, and taking into account what could be added, with a process such as the one proposed by the minister, aboriginal nations will have to wait 141 years before they can hope for a fair settlement of their specific claims.

When I said it was a joke, this is an indication of how seriously the minister takes his work. This morning, he told me he had the support of the first nations. I wonder where he got this support, because I attended all the committee meetings on Bill C-6 and I did not meet many people, except for public servants, who agreed with this new process.

To sum up, we tried in vain to amend this bill. So many amendments were proposed that, at one point, the bill practically needed to be rewritten. The Liberal majority refused to go along with all the amendments we had proposed to make this a good bill and to give us, finally, the means to settle specific claims in an expeditious and lasting manner. All the amendments were rejected.

We believe that, as things now stand, this bill will limit the right to justice, impartiality and equality for first nations. It is a cynical bill that somewhat reflects the minister who introduced it. This bill is not supported by the first nations, and is an insult to our intelligence and to the intelligence of the first nations.

For this reason and for the sake of justice, equality, effectiveness and intelligence, the Bloc Quebecois will vote against this bill, which is a bad bill. Members of this House should vote massively against this bill, which will do nothing to help first nations. On the contrary, this bill will add more obstacles to a process that is already questionable, and has settled 230 specific claims in 30 years.

As my colleague from Champlain said so well, if it is going to take 141 years to settle the current specific claims, this should make many people stop and think.

Specific Claims Resolution ActGovernment Orders

February 7th, 2003 / 12:25 p.m.
See context

Bloc

Yvan Loubier Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in the debate on this bill. What is less enjoyable is realizing that the bill is now being considered at third reading without a single opposition amendment having been passed from the time the bill received first reading or during the legislative process that followed.

During the work in committee, several criticisms were levelled at Bill C-6. Most of these criticisms were against the bill as a whole. There were so many deficiencies in the bill that both first nations and the opposition parties were unanimous in asking for this bill to be dropped since it in no way meets the needs of aboriginals with regard to expediting specific claims.

There have been various committees, often joint committees of both first nations and representatives of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. They have made countless recommendations for expediting specific claims by first nations to ensure that the process is effective and objective, and as impartial as possible.

In light of the experience of the past 30 years and the various committees, it is somewhat surprising that, in spite of all the recommendations made, we are once again looking at a bill which, if passed, will not change a thing. It will not improve how quickly specific claims are settled nor ensure the impartiality that has been lacking from the beginning in the processing of these claims.

We are going to end up with a scheme that will be perfectly efficient vis-à-vis the objectives sought, a process that will not be a serious one and one which, in practical terms, amounts to some kind of avoidance strategy on the part of the government when it comes to resolving once and for all the hundreds of specific claims filed by aboriginal nations in Canada.

In the next few minutes, I will try to demonstrate that this bill is a complete farce, contrary to what the minister told us this morning in a haughty, arrogant and cynical fashion.

First, I would like to address the so-called impartiality of the new process and the new institutions proposed by the minister. Through his bill, the minister is proposing the establishment of a specific claim resolution centre, itself comprised of two divisions.

The first one, the specific claims commission, will receive and analyze claims from the first nations, and advise the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the minister himself on the admissibility of these claims.

After admissibility has been determined, the commission may help set the amount of compensation for each specific claim.

The second is a tribunal responsible for making recommendations to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, which in turn makes recommendations to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, after the commission has made a decision. If the minister agrees that a given claim is admissible, the tribunal then entertains this claim. This new special specific claims tribunal will be the one reviewing the whole file and setting, in conjunction with the parties—as in a regular trial—the amount of compensation for each specific claim.

The institutions and the process of negotiation between the federal government and the first nations have always been faulted for their lack of impartiality, because the minister and the government appointed people who were both judge and defendant. As representatives of the federal government, they received complaints, acted on them and, in the end, paid out the money.

This could not be any clearer. The federal government has always been both judge and defendant. This morning, the minister claimed that he was remedying the situation. Yet all members of the commission and all members of the tribunal to be created by Bill C-6 are to be appointed by the governor in council on the recommendation of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

This means that it is the cabinet, acting on the recommendation of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, that will receive suggestions for appointments and determine the membership of the specific claims commission and tribunal.

Where is there any impartiality, if the minister is both judge and defendant and is the one to appoint those who will sit on the commission and the tribunal to settle specific claims issues? This is a real joke. No one can claim impartiality and be both judge and defendant.

Despite the minister's claims to the contrary, this bill has not done what the joint body, that is one composed of the first nations and the department, had been suggesting for a long time in order to make the process impartial. Members could have been appointed jointly by the government and the Assembly of First Nations.

Neither the Assembly of First Nations not the aboriginal nations in general have any say on the appointments of commission or tribunal members.

This is a pretty serious situation, when all recommendations made over the past 30 years have emphasized collaboration, partnership, and above all impartiality.

Not only are this new structure and these new institutions not impartial but the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada reserves an unbelievable discretionary power. He has the power, through his department and ultimately through himself, to make a specific claim admissible when he deems fit.

In other words, several years can pass before the minister decides that a specific territorial claim is admissible and acceptable, and it is sent to the specific claims tribunal.

What this means is that the minister, who is both judge and jury in this situation, could block not only the settlement, but also the admissibility of a specific claim by a first nation, for many years.

Is this right? Is this an effective approach? Previously, all the serious and non-partisan stakeholders told us that the only realistic, appropriate and effective way to handle specific claims by aboriginals was to give them direct access to a specific claims tribunal without an intermediary who is both judge and jury, who stops the process and delays justice.

That is all that ever happens; the normal course of justice is stalled for those, who for 130 years have been subject to the worst law, to practically apartheid, under the Indian Act.

The minister says this will speed things up, but I think the opposite is true, that it will slow down the course of justice which for 30 years has hardly been stellar in terms of settling disputes and specific claims by aboriginals.

There are also no supplementary resources at Indian and Northern Affairs Canada to accelerate the admissibility of specific claims, their processing and, where applicable, the decisions made by the tribunal.

Without any supplementary resources to handle the administration of specific claims, how can the minister say that claims will be processed more quickly and that justice will be served for Canada's first nations?

I also mentioned the experience of the past 30 years; there is a reason for that. Over the past 30 years, every attempt has been made to speed up the settlement of specific claims by aboriginal peoples. In 30 years, only 230 cases have been settled. There are still 1,154 and more will be added in the coming years.

As we go back and research the past, as we find written treaties and call upon the oral traditions of elders and others to analyze these treaties, we become increasingly aware that first nations have rights that were unsuspected. As a result, specific claims will be added to the 1,154 claims that are already pending.

In the last 30 years, 230 of these claims have been resolved. How many years will it take to resolve the 1,154 specific claims, and perhaps the hundreds, or even thousands of others that will arise in the coming years? It is a veritable farce.

If the minister had really wanted to speed things up, he would have provided additional resources, he would have allowed direct access to the new specific claims tribunal for those with claims involving compensation. He would not have been both judge and jury while involving the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in order to confuse the situation and get away with dragging out the settlement of aboriginal people's claims.

Bill C-6 does something that can only be described as unusual. It excludes specific claims that could exceed $7 million. Since when in a legal case, do we set a ceiling on the amount that can be claimed—$7 million in the case of this bill—before even assessing damages, before even calculating the compensation or estimating the value of the case? Since when is legislation worded so as to render only partial justice?

It does not work that way. Either justice is rendered, or it is not, but it cannot be rendered partially, and all specific claims from first nations that exceed $7 million excluded. It makes no sense.

Say we were to set a ceiling of $7 million today. Over the years, interest can add up on a case, and costs add up too. Normally, at the end of a case, when a ruling is handed down, the judge takes into account additional costs related to inflation, for example, and the loss of interest revenues, because compensation is not paid until five years after a claim is filed. So, there are all sorts of considerations involved.

This means that if a case is worth $7 million at the start, then is held up for five years before the specific claims tribunal renders its decision, taking into consideration interest, lost revenue and legal costs, it will still be worth $7 million and will never go beyond this amount.

Since when has the capacity to render justice to an individual or a group of individuals been limited? This does not make any sense.

If the past few years are any indication, particularly since 1985, in a region like Saskatchewan where many specific claims were made and some resolved, the average amount of a specific claim was $18.5 million. Does this mean that if the same claims, which represented $18.5 million at the end of the process, were made today, a first nation that felt that its rights were affected since time immemorial would not have the right to seek more than about one-third of what the claim was worth?

It is quite unbelievable that the government introduced this bill with a straight face, and that we are being told that now aboriginals will obtain justice. If that were done to us, for example, I can tell you that the Canadian Bar Association would be the first to condemn this denial of justice. Perhaps I will pay them a visit to get their opinion. It would be interesting to see if the Canadian government is working outside the law and is guilty of denial of justice with its own bills, if it is breaking all legal conventions. This bill is being presented by a minister whose arrogance and cynicism defy description.

For claims in excess of $7 million the usual process applies, except that there is one more constraint on the first nations.

For specific claims in excess of the $7 million cap, the regular courts will be used. It will not be the new tribunal, but rather the regular courts. The novelty of the century, thanks to the cynical and arrogant Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, is this: he will be the one to decide whether or not a given case is acceptable and can be submitted to the justice department. Incredible. The minister is the one who will determine, when the $7 million limit has been reached, whether the case is valid or not. He will be the one to determine the time limit, the procedure, and the validity of the largest claims. This will be entirely the responsibility of his department and the Department of Justice.

This is pretty serious business. If ever that cap is exceeded, whether five, six or seven years down the road, the first nations claimants will find themselves passed over to another minister, the Minister of Justice. He will be the one to determine what is valid and what is not, as well as the timeframes for processing the claim. Here again we will end up with the possibility that has been often seen in other instances—revenue cases among them—of the federal government and its lawyers presenting technical defences, limitations and a defence invoking procedure or defective presentation of the specific claim.

In short, all the delaying and defence tactics we have become accustomed to in the regular courts can end up having a case involving an $8 million claim end up taking 10, 12 even perhaps 15 years before settlement, because of procedural wrangling, postponement of proceedings, technical glitches and new evidence. I do not need to draw hon. members a picture of this.

We find ourselves in a situation where we have the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development telling us, “We are making improvements and we have agreed with those who were calling for improvements”. This is unbelievable. Actually, it is the opposite.

It is as though every road block has been put up, strategically, to avoid settlements. Instead of assessing specific claims and resolving them, everything possible to postpone their settlement has been done. If a case exceeds $7 million, forget about it, because it will take a long, long time before it will be resolved and before first nations will see any compensation.

I can understand why the Assembly of First Nations and the vast majority of all of the groups that appeared before us condemned this bill as a fraud. They said that the bill will not solve anything, that the bill is ineffective and avoids solving problems. Instead, the bill passes them down to future generations, leaving it up to them to solve the responsibilities that are ours today.

Imagine the situation. Aboriginal communities in Canada have been waiting for years. More than 1,152 cases have been pending for 30 years. These people have not seen justice done. Young people today are getting more and more impatient. I have met young aboriginal people. They are starting to say, “We have had it. Our ancestors were a bit more patient than we will be. We want justice”.

I understand that young aboriginal people are getting impatient and appearing before international tribunals to explain that Canada is not an example when it comes to respecting the rights of first nations, that Canada is not an example when it comes to its ability to solve the problem of specific claims, or that Canada is not an example when it comes to respecting its first nations.

Since September, I have been a member of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources. I did not think that it was still possible to hear offensive comments regarding aboriginal peoples. I thought that this was a new era.

I did not think that there could be such paternalistic analyses, which keep aboriginal nations in a state of dependency. I thought that we were living in another century and that we had gone beyond such biases and intellectual hang-ups, and I thought we were prepared to recognize aboriginal nations, to do them justice and to promote mutual respect between our nations and their nations.

I also felt somewhat ashamed to hear some people say that we cannot settle everything, that some issues in justice can only be partly settled. If we were treated in this manner, with justice only half done, we would not appreciate it. Many people in our communities, both in Quebec and in Canada, would cry foul, but when it comes to aboriginal nations, it is no big deal.

Then the minister told us, “We will speed things up and we will make sure that we have the money to meet the needs of aboriginal nations”.

When we look at the budget earmarked by the minister to settle issues relating to specific claims, we notice that it is still the same. It is $75 million, while outstanding claims are estimated at about $1.5 billion. How can we speed up the settlement and compensation process when the money is not there? There is $75 million in the budget, but the specific claims that are pending have an estimated value of $1.5 billion.

Specific Claims Resolution ActGovernment Orders

February 7th, 2003 / 10:15 a.m.
See context

Canadian Alliance

Maurice Vellacott Canadian Alliance Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-6, entitled 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.

For non-technical listeners today, a layman's explanation is that the bill is designed to set up a permanent centre to evaluate specific claims brought against the federal government by first nations.

An Indian Claims Commission already exists, but it was put in place eleven years ago in 1991, as a temporary measure, to stay until the Liberals got around to fulfilling their 1993 red book promise. That promise is nine years old now. In my view and in the view of others on the committee, the Liberals are still not keeping their promise with the bill before the House today.

For the most part, specific claims deal with outstanding grievances that first nations have regarding Canada's fulfillment of its obligation under historic treaties or its administration of first nations lands or other assets under the Indian Act. That is of course in contrast to the comprehensive claims, which are substantial land claim treaties such as the Nisga'a and Delgamuukw claims.

In other words, at points in our country's history, and maybe even until a few decades ago, there were sharp Indian agents, too sharp by half, who took native lands, who absconded and cheated first nations out of certain shares of that land. Some of these claims have been validated already, but for others, that was the whole point of this centre.

Bill C-6 proposes to set up a claims resolution centre made up of a commission and a tribunal. First nations will file a claim with the commission and if it meets the terms of an admissible claim for the purposes of the commission, the claim then will be submitted to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development for consideration. The commission then will convene preparatory meetings to help the claimants present their case to the minister. Upon completion of that phase of the process, the commission must then suspend proceedings until it receives a written response from the minister as to whether or not he will negotiate the claim. Therein lies the rub, and I will talk later about the stall and delay tactics that can be engaged in thereafter.

In other words, the minister is not given any deadline for making his decision. If the minister decides not to negotiate the claim, the commission will sit down with both parties in an attempt to help them resolve the question of the validity of the claim using alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.

If that process does not work, the claimant can then request that the case be sent to the tribunal, but only if the total amount of the claim does not exceed $7 million. If the tribunal decides that a claim is valid or if at the earlier stage in the process the minister decides to negotiate the claim, the commission then has to try to help the two parties arrive at an agreed upon amount of compensation.

If the compensation question cannot be resolved by the commission, the claimant can make an appeal to a tribunal to have the case heard, but again only if the compensation being demanded by the claimant does not exceed $7 million. The tribunal has the power to make a binding decision after it has heard the case.

The goal behind the bill is to expedite the process of resolving specific claims. Between 1970 and March of last year, Indian bands across the country had filed 1,146 claims and only 232 had been settled, which is less than 20%. The backlog is terrible. The cost in terms of human lives and suffering in the meanwhile is only getting worse, with both the government and first nations becoming increasingly frustrated with the current system.

Unfortunately Bill C-6 is not the legislation we need, despite the minister's pretext to the contrary. I certainly agree that the intent behind the bill is sound and the goal is correct, but the mechanism proposed is terrible. It will not work. What we have before us today is unfortunately a badly and deeply flawed bill.

At committee, the Canadian Alliance Party introduced about 40 amendments to the bill to improve it, to get it right, to make it fair and just and to make it work. But as we in the House of Commons know, the government always has a majority on a committee. The Liberal dominated committee voted against every single amendment we put forward. If it had passed even just one of those amendments, I might be able to stand here today with a message of some hope and some optimism for the Indians who are supposed to use the centre that the bill authorizes and for the taxpayers of this great country who are expected to fund this institution.

Unfortunately I cannot do that, because I believe the claim centre that Bill C-6 proposes will not work. It will fail because it does not have the confidence of the first nations people who are supposed to use it. It will fail because the $7 million cap on the claims that can be heard by the tribunal will significantly limit the number of claims the new centre will be able to consider. It will fail because it lacks transparency, concrete accountability measures and provisions to prevent patronage.

When it fails it will fuel the feelings of injustice and unrest among Indian people across our nation. It will put Canadian taxpayers on the hook for the cost of setting up and running this centre, but with no return, or a very negligible one, on their investment.

Taxpayers will also have to continue to pay the government's 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. First nations people 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.

I want to discuss some of the reasons why Bill C-6 is such a flawed bill. I will revisit some of the current concerns we raised by way of amendment in committee and hopefully this time around the government will be listening. As a result, perhaps even at this late hour the government may be of a mind to withdraw the bill or to send it back to the aboriginal affairs committee for further examination.

One of the worst aspects of the bill, in contradiction to the proposals and recommendations that came prior to this in the lead-up to the bill, is the lack of independence of this centre. The government spent three years negotiating with first nations to come up with a plan for dealing with specific claims, or longer than that if we count some of the negotiations prior to that process, which produced the 1998 report of the Joint First Nations-Canada Task Force on specific claims policy reform.

That report reiterated the longstanding recommendation for an independent claims centre. The primary mechanism by which it would be made independent was a joint government-first nations process for appointing the commissioners and the adjudicators. Both parties were to develop a list of jointly approved candidates. The government would pick the commissioners and adjudicators from that list. However, the government has completely abandoned that particular key and crucial proposal.

In Bill C-6 the government has the exclusive prerogative of appointing and reappointing these officials and deciding whether to increase or reduce the number of commissioners or adjudicators, of course within the parameters provided by the bill.

Also, the three to five year review process mandated by Bill C-6 is to be undertaken only by the government, rather than by a joint team of government officials and first nations representatives or other vested interests. The government may, and again “may” is a slippery word, bring other parties into the review process, but it is not required to.

We certainly do not consider the government's track record of late to be one of transparency and disclosure when it comes to dealing with ethical violations. We hearken back to the lack of disclosures on the gun bill of late, to some of the deceptive stuff that was going on there. We do not believe that there will be the transparency and disclosure that is required for this centre to work properly. Therefore, the review process sends the message that the government is interested in the effectiveness of the centre from only its own perspective, rather than understanding its impact on all of the parties involved and concerned.

Indian chiefs from across the country, as well as the Assembly of First Nations, have made their position abundantly clear: that this appointment process mandated by Bill C-6 undermines any claim that the centre will be independent and impartial. If first nations use the centre at all they will not or will very reluctantly accept the rulings against their claims, because they lack confidence in the impartiality of this proposed centre. Unless the government has already decided that it will negotiate all specific claims, it has set up a process that really will not resolve anything in terms of producing closure on or finality for a particular claim.

The parliamentary secretary told us in committee that the minister would consult first nations, but having said that, he was unable to explain why the minister was unwilling to put such a promise into the bill, black on white, where all could see it and read it. Simply saying, “Trust me, I am from the government”, does not work today. It never did. If an MP were to try that, going back to the constituency and telling people, “Trust me, I'm from the government”, people would not be likely to swallow that real well, especially not when such a sentiment produces $1 billion gun registry fiascos and numerous other examples of gross incompetence and questionable ethics.

Canadians want to make their government accountable by seeing its promises stipulated in legislation so that there can be no backing out or waffling on what was intended by some verbal statement. Verbal assurances are not good enough and certainly not when there is the kind of legacy that this government has.

There is also concern about the possibility of patronage appointments to the new centre. There is nothing to prevent the government from resorting to its common practice of patronage and stacking it with its own people who are really not capable and not competent. They may have raised money for the party and done other kinds of things and maybe they are competent in that respect or that sphere, but not with respect to something as important, as crucial, and as complex as this might sometimes be.

The bill does not provide sufficient details on the credentials required of the commissioner or adjudicator so as to ensure that the person actually has some basic understanding of specific claims. Bill C-6 states that the majority of the adjudicators, those who serve on the tribunal, including either the chief adjudicator or the vice-chief adjudicator, need to be members in good standing of the bar of a particular province or the Chambre des notaires du Québec, but the bill states nothing about the professional qualifications of those eligible for appointment to the actual claims commission.

In a saner time one might have been able to trust the competence of appointments without more specification, but I am not even sure if ever in the history of our country we could. Right now a parliamentary committee is calling bureaucrats to account over the billion dollar boondoggle of the gun registry to determine their role in the out of control spending that took place there and the less than ideal amount of disclosure. Of course patronage is standard operating procedure for governments through the course of history of our country, particularly for the Liberal government. So we have real concerns about the need for greater clarity as to the credentials of potential appointees to the claims centre.

First nations have also expressed a concern that the appointment periods for the chief and the vice-chief of commissioners and adjudicators are only five years. For the regular commissioners and adjudicators the period is three years. There is the possibility of reappointment in all cases. First nations fear that these short periods of service will tempt the officials to rule in favour of the government of the day to ensure their being reappointed. I think they have a legitimate point.

I served on a district health board in my province as one of the elected members. We had eight elected and six appointed. I think fair observers of that whole process in Saskatchewan would be quick to say that yes indeed, when push came to shove, those who were appointed tended to be looking over their shoulders in terms of whether to be on the government side because of more money. Sometimes we were being underfunded or there were other issues, but they did not want to rock the boat very much because they owed their appointments to the government of the day. As an elected member, I did not. I was not at the government's beck and call. It was the old adage of he who pays the piper calls the tune.

Therefore, we think there needs to be a longer period of time so the officials are not so beholden to the government by way of the appointment process.

The government has abandoned the recommendation of the joint task force report. A number of these things that I am talking about today were from the joint task force report. Despite the statements of the minister here, first nations are not accepting of that. Our party is not, because we want a quick, expeditious and fair settlement of claims and this is only going to bog it down and make it longer, to the frustration of all parties involved.

We believe that the government has chosen to act in bad faith with Indians by securing exclusive control over the appointment process for the claims centre. As such, it has undermined the legitimacy and the credibility of the agency, guaranteeing its failure before it has even begun. That is a tragedy and it is one that victimizes first nations, some 600 bands across our country. It victimizes them all over again and also victimizes the taxpayers who have to pay out more because of that.

A third area of serious concern with the legislation is the complete lack of transparency. The provisions allow the government to stall, delay and stonewall the process of considering a claim.

If the minister, for example, were to decide not to negotiate the claim, he would have no obligation to explain his decision. Of course, if the claimant were to decide to challenge the minister's decision, he would need to provide complete disclosure in his defence. The minister does at a point much later along the way, if we even get there. The claimant, however, must provide a full accounting of his position and his rationale from the very 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 adversarial environment of the courts, that the bill would make clear both parties' responsibilities for full disclosure. In a court of law or in any other judicial or semi-judicial proceeding it is not acceptable that only one is required to divulge his or her position fully, exhaustively and completely, while the other one has no onus at all in that respect .

The government has built a number of 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 1988 joint task force report that would have helped to ensure a speedy and effective claims resolution, which is what the Canadian Alliance, and the Reform Party before that, had insisted on.

The government also rejected the 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 a stalling clause in the bill is the provision for multiple preparatory meetings. On 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 to us said that generally one preparatory meeting would be enough and that therefore the optional additional meetings would not likely to be found useful to first nations. Concern was raised that it existed more for the benefit of the government for use as a stalling mechanism. These meetings do not necessarily have to happen back to back and they can be strung out and protracted over a long period of time too.

The bill does not require the commission to hold additional meetings at the request of either party. One could imagine the government using this point in its defence. However, without protections in the bill to ensure that the commissioners are competent and patronage free, this means very little.

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 or not he will negotiate the claim, the bill gives him six months to report back with a decision. That sounds well and fine enough for more complex kinds of issues and settlements but in clause 30 of the bill it states that the minister can come back to the commission in six months and, instead of reporting his decision, he can just simply say that he needs more time. Six months later he can come back again and say he needs more time. This could go on indefinitely. Therefore at first blush it might seem like a reasonable provision to ask for an extension of six months but if it is extended again and again, which it can be with no particular reasons other than he needs more time, then there really are no timelines or final deadlines provided at all. The government could theoretically ask indefinitely for additional six month extensions.

One of the amendments that we submitted, which we thought was a reasonable and fair amendment, would have put a one year limit on the process. However the government voted down that amendment. More specifically, our amendment would have required the minister to apply to the commission for more time, giving the commission the right to deny the government's request. It also would have required the commission to hear from the claimant before making a decision.

Currently, the bill does not require the minister to seek permission for an extension. The minister can make the decision unilaterally and the commission and the claimant are forced to live with it. The bill does not even require the government to provide its reasons for insisting on this extension to its reporting deadline.

We are dealing with a government that appears to, these days at least, despise accountability and transparency. Subclause 30(3) states that the government may, and there is that slippery word again, provide the reasons that it needs more time, and here it really compounds it, “if applicable”.

The way the clause is phrased it treats the practice of not providing reasons as normative by stating that the minister only needs to produce reasons if it is deemed applicable to do so. I do not know what situations would make it not applicable for him to provide reasons for delaying the process and leaving the parties hanging.

One of my amendments in committee was to delete the words “if applicable” but, alas, the government members voted it down.

Although I am not quite sure why, this secrecy provision is important to the government, even though the minister is secretive about telling us why it is important. It is the lack of transparency in the bill that raises serious questions about how effective it would be at clearing up the terrible backlog that exists today in specific claims.

The government even added a fourth section to clause 30 to protect itself against penalties for stalling the process. Subclause 30(4) reads:

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.

The government protected itself quite well there.

That subclause 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. It remains in limbo until the minister decides to announce his decision. It has no possibility of going another way, no recourse to some alternate route, until such time.

The Canadian Alliance proposed an amendment to delete that subclause from the bill but again the government members in the committee defeated the amendment.

I want to take a moment to quote the legal analysis of Bill C-6 produced by the Assembly of First Nations, being that the minister said that they were so much in love with the bill and supported it so grandly. The following is their analysis pertaining to the issues of accountability and transparency in the claim process proposed in the legislation. They state:

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:

The following is the AFN list:

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;

They tried everything and absolutely covered all the grounds. The list goes on:

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;

Even as I read this I am almost exhausted thinking about the long, drawn out and frustrating process. To continue:

proceedings in front of the Tribunal; a five year delay while the award is paid out; judicial review of the award.

The AFN continues:

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 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.

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

Under the JTF Report, the Minister did not have the discretion to consider a claim indefinitely.

I think that was a good thing in the joint task force report.

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

As I have examined the bill and the claims process in general, including the history leading to the place we find ourselves today, these observations strike me, generally speaking, as quite reasonable.

When the minister finally gets around to making a decision, if he decides not to negotiate the claim, the claimant can then request the commission to bring the minister to the negotiating table in an attempt to resolve their differences. That is where we face yet more problems.

The bill would require a claim to be heard twice by the commission and by the tribunal if the claim could not be resolved through the commission. It would first have to go through a validity phase, which is designed to determine the validity of the claim. After a claim is deemed valid, if the government decides to negotiate it or the tribunal rules that the government just get on and negotiate it, the claim would then have to go through a similar process in order to determine compensation.

As everybody knows by now, Bill C-6 includes a cap such that any claim valued above the level of the cap would not even be heard by the claims tribunal. The cap proposed in the bill is $7 million and whether or not a cap of some sort should exist at the compensation stage of the process, there is no reason that the cap should be proposed at the validity stage.

Since the bill would clearly separate these two parts of the process, it should be relatively easy, one would think, to eliminate the cap requirement for the validity stage. In committee, the Canadian Alliance introduced an amendment that would have done just that. It would have eliminated subclause 32(1)(c) which would have required the claimant to waive any compensation for the claim that is in excess of the claim limit. We wanted that subclause eliminated.

The government likes to point out that the cap is only applicable at the tribunal stage of the process, that there is no cap for claims heard by the commission, but if government officials knew that an unresolved claim at the commission level had to be bumped into the slow and expensive court system because it could not be sent to the tribunal, that would act as an incentive to stall and obstruct the process in the case of claims the government really had no interest, no desire or did not want to resolve.

In other words, although the cap would not apply directly to the work of the commission, the other side of it is that it, nevertheless, would have a significant and severe impact on the work that would take place there as well.

Perhaps the reason for preventing access to the tribunal for determining validity for costly claims is strictly political. Some first nations have told me that a tolerable compromise might be a measure similar to the one that is available in the current Indian Claims Commission.

The current commission cannot issue binding decisions on a claim but it can prepare non-binding reports that first nations could use to generate some political pressure on the government at least, if they feel the government is unfairly stalling in the resolution process. That is more likely the reason that the Liberals do not want an expensive claim to come before the tribunal, even to deal with the matter of validity. The unfortunate result is that far fewer claims will be successfully processed through this new claims centre than the government hopes.

Another problem with clause 32 is the obstructionist language used in terms of the requirements the claimant would have to fulfill before the commission would be permitted to send a claim to the tribunal. A claim could go to the tribunal if the government refused to negotiate it following the discussions facilitated by the commission with the help of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. However if the claimant still wanted to pursue his claim he could 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 would impose on the claimant before his claim could go before that 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, would require the claimant to prove to the claims commission that he had done absolutely everything that he could possibly do, no stone unturned. The onus would be on him to prove that he had done that within the alternative dispute resolution process before the commission could send that claim to the tribunal to consider its validity.

The absolutist language in that subclause would impose an excessive, if not impossible, threshold of proof on the claimant before he would be permitted to pursue a hearing before the tribunal. If pro-government patronage appointments were sitting on the commissions, and we think there is every likelihood of that, they could help the government 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 could be a place to delay justice for aboriginal people. We think that cannot and should not be and, unfortunately, it is again, to the detriment of native people across our country.

First nations have pointed out that they support the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and that if the alternative dispute resolution process is working for a particular claim, it really is in their interest to make it work. First nations therefore say that they do not understand why the government is using this big stick approach to ensure the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, unless it is another mechanism to be used as a stalling tactic to force the claimant to continue to sit down again and again with the federal government even long after any reasonable person, any outside fair-minded observer, would say that there is nothing further to 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. A claimant should not have to “prove” to the commission, in another potentially very expensive and dilatory proceeding, that alternative dispute resolution is “exhausted”. 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 alternative dispute resolution process.

I want to move to the compensation phase of the process. Assuming the tribunal has made a binding decision if the claim is valid, both parties then 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 1(a) and 1(b) of this clause duplicate those found in clause 32. We have talked about that before, and the same reasons why it is so flawed and problematic apply in this case here.

We introduced amendments in committee to improve these clauses, but again they were defeated by the government without explanation. This was the course, a stony silence on the other side. Even when its own member on the committee asked for the reasons for voting down some of these amendments, there was dead silence. Other times there were other offhand remarks that were not respectful of the process.

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, stated 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 that tribunal hearing. No one is required to do so in any other comparable litigation or arbitration context.

The representation went on to state:

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?

That is a very valid point.

They certainly seem to me to be reasonable observations. I am not saying that no criteria should be stipulated as a basic requirement of part of the process, but we think that the claimant should be able to proceed without being stalled or stonewalled in that way. It has to be something met by the claimant before the commission can transfer it to the tribunal. Perhaps there are ways that I or others in committee have not thought of, but more thought could be given to that, if in fact a claimant tried to unfairly take advantage of a situation in which no criteria were required. At the very least, the criteria should be modified with changes to the absolutist language that currently exists in the bill.

Subclause (1)(d) of clause 35 requires the claimant to waive any compensation amount higher than the cap stipulated in clause 56, which is currently set at $7 million. We introduced an amendment to increase the cap to $25 million. I will be talking about this more in a moment.

When we think about the section before us, we have to realize that the claimant is really being asked to waive his right to a claim amount higher than the designated cap before even knowing what the final value of that claim might be. That strikes me as being rather perverse. The longer a claim takes to be resolved, the more its value grows in terms of interest and appreciation. If a claim is close to the value of the cap or if the government stalls the resolution over many years, the value of that claim rises above the cap. Claimants who have signed waivers have to essentially take a loss in terms of the maximum amount they can receive from the federal government for the claims.

If it is ruled an authentic claim, then questions arise about the legitimacy of attempts to get the claimant to accept the compromise. We well understand that the government does not have an unlimited pot of money, but it raises some serious philosophical and practical questions when we allow the fiscal limitations to guide, in this case, the government's decisions about whether it will honour contractual and treaty obligations. Others have to declare bankruptcy to escape fiscal obligations. To hold the government to a lesser standard of contractual obligation, is to grant it the right to exercise arbitrary power.

As I stated earlier, there might be issues of jurisprudence that should be revisited, but to maintain respect for the rule of law, the government should be held accountable to honour whatever jurisprudence it has chosen to accept.

The claimant already has had to waive a compensation amount over the value of the cap before the claim can even proceed to the tribunal at the validation stage. The claim might be well more than the $7 million, and that is the whole purpose of the process. However claimants have to waive that, or sign away their life so to speak, at the outset of the process and that seems hardly fair. It is not even clear why they have to sign waivers a second time prior to the tribunal accepting it for the purpose of determining compensation.

There are other aspects of the clause that might have some merit, although I expect that is rather open to debate. However due to the government's refusal to make the important amendments proposed by the Canadian Alliance in committee, I introduced an amendment to delete the entire clause from the bill.

The government has not told us what it is afraid of when it comes to being held to the same standard of accountability that first nations are held to with this piece of legislation. Yet time after time in committee amendments, from the Canadian Alliance as well as from other parties, that would have introduced stronger measures for accountability and transparency into the legislation were defeated. It just shows how self-important or maybe even arrogant a government can become.

Most of the amendments were put forward with sincerity and reasonableness but were defeated without explanation. Committee members from the various opposition parties continually asked the government members to explain why. From time to time we had wringers in committee, and I am sure we are all familiar with that term. They walked into committee totally unaware and out of the loop of the discussion beforehand. Therefore we understood why they could not explain. However no attempt was even made by other committee members who had been supposedly told to vote a certain way.

I confess one Liberal member voted with us on a number of these. Consistently he asked his own colleagues for an explanation to refute the apparent reasonableness of some of our amendments, yet almost without exception our questions were met with blank stares and stoney silence. I suppose when the government has a majority in Parliament, it does not have to explain its actions or defend its decisions. It can do whatever it wants in the hope that constituents will have forgotten by the time the next election comes around.

I want to speak for a moment about clause 56 which stipulates the criteria for determining compensation, including the $7 million cap. I think that cap is very unfair. We had proposed a cap of $25 million. I will leave it to subsequent speakers to deal with that. However, I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following therefore:

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, be not now read a third time, but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources for the purpose of reconsidering clauses 30, 32 and 35 with the view to making the claims negotiation process faster by, among other things, setting timelines for each step of the process.

Specific Claims Resolution ActGovernment Orders

February 7th, 2003 / 10:05 a.m.
See context

Kenora—Rainy River Ontario

Liberal

Bob Nault LiberalMinister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

moved that 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, be read the third time and passed.

Madam Speaker, there are countless compelling reasons to support this important legislation. Perhaps most important, the specific claims resolution act would enable us to achieve honourable and just settlements to some of the longstanding grievances of aboriginal people, yet of all the arguments, few are more persuasive than the fact that this act would create opportunities for unprecedented economic and social development in first nations.

The Canadian centre for the independent resolution of first nations specific claims established by Bill C-6 will usher in a new era of cooperative and impartial negotiations; negotiations which will allow us to more efficiently address the grievances of the past so we can focus on building stronger, more self-sufficient first nations communities in the future.

One of the greatest benefits of the bill is that it reflects the priorities identified by aboriginal communities. In response to the recommendations of the First Nations-Canada Joint Task Force on Specific Claims, we are proposing an independent centre that would operate at arm's length from government. It would be comprised of a chief executive officer and two components: a commission division to facilitate negotiations on specific claims and a tribunal division to resolve disputes involving those claims.

The centre would promote a fairer and more transparent process for the research and assessment of claims and to conduct negotiations. It would also establish a forum in which both parties can be held to account for their actions to resolve claims.

I want to go back to many years ago to reflect for a moment and advise the House that this is the third time in the last 50 years that we have attempted to create an independent resolution process for specific claims and claims for aboriginal grievances. I am proud today to stand in this place to recognize the hard work of the aboriginal joint initiative between ourselves and the first nations, in particular the AFN. We have gotten to a point where we are now talking about a piece of legislation that will remove the judge and jury type of philosophy that we have used in this place for many years to deal with these kinds of claims. We will now have, I believe, a very independent body to deal with these very fundamental issues of grievances of the past.

This is a very important step as it would increase first nations people's confidence in the process and help us reach agreements more amicably and efficiently. We would no longer be left with no alternative other than being bogged down in an adversarial court system. We would instead be able to resolve impasses before an impartial tribunal.

With the specific claims resolution act, we will be able to create a system that is more fair and just as important, more effective in settling specific claims. The claims resolution centre would provide a range of modern dispute resolution mechanisms to help to accelerate the rate of claims settlements.

All specific claims would have access to the centre's modern day bargaining tools which would include facilitation, mediation, non-binding arbitration and, with the consent of all parties, binding arbitration. These alternative mechanisms emphasize that the Government of Canada and first nations would rather negotiate than litigate, because negotiations save unnecessary delays and help to reduce costs.

As a labour unionist in my past life and a negotiator, I can say that one of the most important parts of arriving at arrangements between parties is the ability to have these modern tools at our disposal. Whether it is mediation, joint research, or the ability to go to arbitration when necessary, these are the kinds of tools the centre would bring to the forefront for the first time in our relationship.

It would be done with the independence of a commission whose members would be appointed by order in council, but they would be qualified people, as is done in the same fashion with other commissions right across the country. They would also, through the budget that would be set down for them, have the ability to use it in an efficient way to arrive at the kinds of arrangements they want and to get away from going to court, as we do on a regular basis.

I remind my hon. colleagues that not only first nations residents but entrepreneurs and communities all across Canada, aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike, profit from the settlement of these claims. Successfully completed specific claims produce a win-win situation for Canada as a whole.

The first obvious impact that comes to mind is the economic benefits they create. One key obstacle to the development of aboriginal businesses is the difficulty of getting the investment and the loan capital that companies need to grow. The certainty provided by claim settlements can help to bridge this gap.

Settled claims pave the way for partnerships among first nations and the private sector, governments and other Canadian communities. Once claim settlements have been reached, the door is open to expanded opportunities, such as joint ventures with non-aboriginal businesses. Investors can proceed with confidence and first nations can negotiate from positions of strength.

The strongest cases for settling specific claims are the investments that communities make in their own development. For example, with the funds from its successfully resolved claim, the English River First Nation has purchased Tron Power, a general contracting firm which provides specialized construction services.

Equally important are the training opportunities these funds generate which create career options for young people living in aboriginal communities. The Kitigan Zibi First Nation used its $2.7 million settlement for both infrastructure and other social programs.

Of course from the first nations' perspective, perhaps the most critically important aspect of settled claims is access to land and resources. A number of first nations have purchased agricultural lands with the proceeds from their settlements to farm or to lease to non-aboriginal farmers. As one example, the Osoyoos settlement allowed the first nation to purchase a large orchard and further develop its vineyards.

Some first nations have purchased oil and gas producing lands with their claim settlements which generate revenues, employment opportunities and even sometimes joint venture projects. These partnerships benefit Canada not just from an economic standpoint, but they also strengthen the presence of aboriginal culture in the country and create new opportunities for the aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities to get to know each other better. As we all learn more about each other, we all learn to appreciate the value of different cultures and gain greater respect for our shared history. I am sure hon. colleagues would agree that we simply cannot put a price tag on that.

I want to remind the House that this progress is made possible through the settlement of first nations claims. By moving forward with the bill we can create a more positive climate for other aboriginal communities so they too can see business and other partnerships flourish.

As was made clear in the Speech from the Throne, the government is determined to move further and faster to achieve the same progress for first nations still awaiting the settlement of their specific claims. We know that the revenues generated by settled claims lead to greater partnerships and self-sufficiency. We know too that the end result of this economic success is the ability to better respond to community needs. This in turn leads to an improved quality of life for aboriginal people. It is this above all that we are determined to achieve.

For all the many good reasons I have outlined, the House must move forward in supporting Bill C-6. This economically advantageous and very necessary legislation will help to ensure that first nations people will finally see the grievances of the past resolved and can look forward to a brighter future. There can be no doubt that we all believe this will make us richer, richer as a country, richer as a people.

I know that in any discussion we have with first nations people, there are always other things they want as it relates to a piece of legislation.

But I think that in the general sense of what we have achieved here after 50 years of trying to get a piece of legislation before the House, we have achieved a good balance, a balance that the government needs to have as it relates to fiscal responsibility in a budget and also at the same time the independence necessary to work very closely with first nations on these grievances, these specific claims, in arriving at a just and very acceptable solution for all.

I thank the House for allowing me this time to voice our strong view that this is a good piece of legislation and one that needs to be supported by the House. I look forward to it coming into effect so that we can move very quickly to resolve the specific claims that are outstanding.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

February 6th, 2003 / 3 p.m.
See context

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I will start with the rest of this day and then go on with the future agenda.

If the opposition follows through with its offer, as promised during question period, to withdraw its motion today on the strength of the commitment made by the Prime Minister to, on the first day following military deployment should there be one which we all hope of course there would not be, call a votable opposition day that would free up the rest of the day.

Following that, this afternoon we would then deal with Bill C-19. Should there be any time left we would call Bill C-22, although I suspect that there would not be that much time, and perhaps Bill C-19 would take us close to the end.

Tomorrow we shall begin the third reading stage of Bill C-6, the Specific Claims Resolution Act, followed by Bill C-2, an act to establish a process for assessing the environmental and socio-economic effects of certain activities in Yukon.

Monday next, and Thursday as well, shall be allotted days.

Tuesday morning, we shall be resuming consideration of Bill C-13 on assisted reproduction. After oral question period, we shall begin consideration of Bill C-24 on political financing. Wednesday, we shall resume consideration of any unfinished business, with the possibility of continuing debate on Bill C-24.

Specific Claims Resolution ActGovernment Orders

February 4th, 2003 / 3:10 p.m.
See context

The Speaker

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the report stage of Bill C-6.

Carrie's Guardian Angel LawGovernment Orders

February 3rd, 2003 / 12:55 p.m.
See context

Canadian Alliance

Monte Solberg Canadian Alliance Medicine Hat, AB

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chance to rise and speak to Bill C-6 and state for the record where my party stands on this legislation.

The reason Bill C-6 has even been introduced is because the government quite rightly recognizes that it has failed completely and utterly to deal with the issue of native land claims.

A number of members have pointed out that the government has only been able to deal with 230 land claims in the last 30 years and there are still something like 500 that are pending today. According to first nations spokespeople there are supposed to be around a total of 1,000 that will be ultimately brought forward. This is an admission of failure first of all because the government has not been able to deal with this issue.

What the government is doing now is what I would call a bait and switch. What it is trying to do is to convince the public and natives that if we put together a big bureaucracy in the form of a new agency, then we would be able to deal with these problems.

I would argue that this would actually make things worse which necessitates to some degree the reason for us to even consider the amendment that one member has brought forward. We want to see these land claims dealt with as quickly as possible. We want to see the government make it a priority. We want all sides to be treated fairly.

There are billions of dollars in liabilities at stake. Whenever the government brings down its books and we go into the section that has unfunded liabilities we see $10 billion, $20 billion, $30 billion and $40 billion in there. A lot of that has to do with land claims that have yet to be settled. We are talking about an astronomical amount of money.

We want proper scrutiny to ensure that when these land claims are settled that not only natives would be treated fairly, and they should be treated fairly and there should be respect shown for their claims, but that taxpayers must be treated fairly as well. There is a tremendous amount of money at stake here.

What I worry about, and I think many colleagues on this side of the House worry about, is that if we were to establish this independent claims commission then we would lose the ability to hold these people to account.

We have seen what happens whenever that occurs with the government. Let us look at some of these independent agencies that have gone wild. Maybe the best and most recent example is the firearms registry where we decided to let the bureaucracy run the registry. It ran up a bill of $1 billion. It was 50,000% over budget and it withheld all kinds of information from Parliament.

Let us look at the pest management regulatory agency. That should be the poster child for government agencies that do not run well. It is one that the Auditor General is constantly bringing before Parliament as an example of something that does not work well. The government still cannot get it right.

We are concerned when the government hives this sort of responsibility off and expects that all of a sudden we should forget about it and not worry about it any more, and that it will get better because it is now an agency. I do not buy that. It exacerbates the problem because now it is easier for the government to hide its failures.

I would much rather see the government step up to the plate and address the problems that it is running into now under the full light of parliamentary scrutiny instead of hiding it in some agency somewhere.

That is why we need to address the issue of the amendment that the member has brought forward. The amendment would force the government to bring any reports on how effectively the agency is running to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources. That is a pretty reasonable amendment and I do not understand why the government is so opposed to it. It would bring some scrutiny to this agency. Lord knows after all that has gone on in this place in the last number of months we need that kind of oversight.

I want to make a point about bureaucracies in general. Many people think that people on the public service side of things are in their job simply because they care more about the public and they are not self-interested at all. Whereas the self-interest of people who are in business is that they only care about profits.

That is completely wrong. People on both sides of these things, to some degree, are motivated by self-interest and to some degree they are motivated by what is good for the public. That is why we see people who are in business donating to charities, getting involved as volunteers and doing all kinds of things.

We see the same thing, frankly, when it comes to the public service. We see people who are there to help the public, but they are also to some degree motivated by what is good for them. That is why I get very concerned when we start hiving all kinds of things off to independent commissions and agencies away from parliamentary scrutiny.

There was an economist who won a Nobel price for economics based on something called the public choice theory. He asserted that if we give money to people in the public service they will act with it in the exact same way as people in the private sector. They will start to use the bureaucracy to benefit them.

The government should be wary of these sorts of things because if it is not, what tends to happen is that these people who start out with good intentions start to find ways to perpetuate their jobs.

Here is a situation where we would be asking the independent claims commission to wrap up all the land claims, but I think the tendency would be to prolong how long it would take to deal with these land claims because it would guarantee jobs. The tendency would be to build a bureaucracy bigger because it would guarantee more security and a bigger salary. We see it over and over again. We really do not need any degree in economics to understand that. All we have to do is consult our common sense and our own experience. We have seen it a hundred times, certainly parliamentarians have, when we deal with different agencies, independent commissions and that kind of thing when we are dealing with the government. That is why I become very nervous.

I am worried that as this commission is formed that there would be all kinds of examples of foot dragging when it comes to dealing with some of these problems. There would be examples of bloated expense accounts and people building empires. We would see one more agency that the government would lose control of and that would start to act in all kinds of ways that would be completely antithetical to what the government was trying to achieve. I caution the government on that.

I will wrap up by urging the House to adopt the amendment that has been proposed. The amendment says that the report on how this commission is functioning should go back to the standing committee every three to five years, whenever that report is released, so it could make judgments and provide some parliamentary scrutiny of this new agency, which I think people rightly have a concern about.

I will leave it at that and urge members across the way to think hard about what I have said as they prepare their votes.

Carrie's Guardian Angel LawGovernment Orders

February 3rd, 2003 / 12:45 p.m.
See context

NDP

Dick Proctor NDP Palliser, SK

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure once again to rise and discuss Bill C-6. I had an opportunity representing our caucus when the bill was before committee late in the fall session.

I listened in some disbelief as the minister talked about the legislation being on the right track and that it was a truly independent proposal that would resolve historic grievances. He stated that it would deal with claims in a fair and efficient manner. The minister presented a certain vision of Canada with regard to compromise and fairness between the Government of Canada on the one hand and first nations on the other.

As the House heard today, nobody on this side of the House shares that view. If there is any vision of Canada, it is the historical vision of father knows best which first nations have endured for several hundred years as European settlers arrived and treaties were subsequently arrived at.

The current federal government, exclusive of Bill C-6, decides if specific laws have validity. Unfortunately, those decisions tend to be made in secret and that is what we are trying to alter. My colleague from Winnipeg Centre talked about that when he pointed out that the joint task force report and the Assembly of First Nations together with the Government of Canada tried to work out a modus operandi, something fair to both sides that would resolve treaties that had not been resolved for decades but needed to be resolved.

Compensation is currently decided by negotiations. The federal government already has a high level of control over the application of the rules. In fairness it was seen that the government seemed to be in a conflict of interest. On the one hand it was the defendant and on the other it was the adjudicator. Perhaps one might say judge and jury. That is what we want to change.

My colleague and other members in the debate today talked about the fact that the joint task force report was a good initiative but was sabotaged by federal bureaucrats who wanted something different. However I will not go over that ground again.

Under Bill C-6, which is now the replacement for the joint task force report, there is no independent, impartial body to clear the existing extensive backlog. Instead, the federal government retains carte blanche to control the pace of settlement and decisions therein. Access to the tribunal is tightly limited. Appointments are at the unilateral discretion of the Government of Canada. The delay by the federal government is a financial reward to it and not a penalty.

Claims are not prioritized even after decades of no resolution. They are not recognized as legal debts. Instead, claims are a matter of discretionary spending to be tightly controlled. The end result is a conflict of interest because the government decides land claims against itself and all that is entrenched in the legislation it introduces.

My colleague talked about other legislation that seemed to be coming fast and furious. We think the bill damages the relationship because it arbitrarily imposes limitations upon first nations people regardless of their input, and in this case, even when the government knows there is massive objection to what is being proposed. This is again a father knows best approach.

Treaties are nation to nation agreements that date back several hundred years. They should be central building blocks to the creation of a fairer and more just Canada which we all want to see. They are legally protected under section 35 of the Constitution but Bill C-6 simply does not respect the spirit of treaties.

I talked about the government being in a conflict of interest by being both defendant and adjudicator. We find it insulting in the extreme that the government asked the Assembly of First Nations to take part in the joint task force report, but then ignored the model of the bill that was initially proposed.

First nations leadership desperately want changes to the Indian Act, yet Bill C-6, which would replace in part the act, has generated an unprecedented amount of animosity and disgust from first nations people. That is one of the many reasons why the New Democratic Party caucus vigorously opposes the bill.

Specifically, I want to make these points. In our opinion the bill does not create an independent and impartial committee. We say that because the minister has the final word, the last say about everything in the bill, contrary to what the government said earlier today.

Bill C-6 dismisses the role of the Assembly of First Nations when it comes to its inherent right to self-government. Not only does the bill dismiss the joint task force report, but nowhere does the legislation even reference the Assembly of First Nations.

In addition to dismissing the report, the consultation process has been farcical. Just three weeks were set aside for consultation on the bill and there was no opportunity to really hear from the witnesses who wished to appear and register their objections to Bill C-6.

There are no provisions for appointments, renewals and approvals, which was outlined in the joint task force report. All appointments, including the chief executive officer, the commission and the tribunal will be made on the recommendation of the minister and the minister alone.

Bill C-6 ignores the task force report in three ways. First, it excludes obligations arising under treaties and agreements that do not deal with land or assets. Second, it excludes unilateral federal undertakings to provide land or assets. Finally, it excludes claims based on the laws of Canada that were originally United Kingdom statutes or royal proclamations.

My colleague talked about the $7 million cap. Another part of that is that interest and costs are included in the cap of $7 million, which means, as I said before, that the government will benefit financially from delaying settlements as the real value of these settlements will obviously decline over time. Lengthy processes will mean extremely expensive legal fees for first nations and put them under pressure to settle for what they would consider to be much less than the real value for which they are looking; 10 cents on the dollar.

There are a number of difficulties with the bill. Delay is a major problem in the current system and it cannot be overestimated. There are 550 land claims outstanding. Bill C-6 will not create an independent and impartial body. The vast majority of those 550 claims are in excess of $7 million. Under the proposed legislation, the government is not even in a position to hear and consider this proposal. It will several hundred more years with Bill C-6 before we have settled all of the outstanding land claims settlements.

The spirit and substance of the joint task force report is not being embodied at all in Bill C-6. The bill is regressive even in comparison with the current system, the one that we want to fix. It seems to us that the government should recognize that Bill C-6 is entirely unfaithful to the spirit of the joint task force report. It is not consistent with the red book promises, as the previous speaker correctly pointed out.

No reasonable person would conclude that what is here before us today is in any way, shape or form a progressive step toward justice and finality. What is needed is a co-operative partnership. The government has rejected that with “it is my way or the highway” approach. Bill C-6 is not the way to go and that is why the New Democratic Party caucus is opposed to it.