Bill C-14 (Historical)

Serge Cardin Sherbrooke, QC

Mr. Speaker, in the context of the bill before us concerning the Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act, I would like to begin by noting that it is often said that diamonds are forever. As a result, diamonds become a symbol of eternal love. Indeed, all of the ladies in this House, our colleagues, surely enjoy receiving a diamond as a token of love, but most certainly not a diamond produced by the atrocities of war.

It is in this context that Bill S-36 proposes certain amendments of a basically administrative nature to the Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act.

Essentially, Bill S-36 will have two effects. First, it will authorize the government to compile and distribute data on international trade in diamonds. The adoption of this amendment, which would make the diamond trade more transparent and easier to control, is necessary for Canada to remain in compliance with its international obligations pursuant to the Kimberley process.

Second, it will remove a formality associated with the Kimberley process as regards very small diamonds less than one millimetre in size. In number and in weight, the great majority of the diamonds dealt on the market are tiny. They are not used just to make jewellery, but have more of a utilitarian function. They are to be found, for example, in turntable needles—less and less so, I am told—in watchmaking or in certain industrial knives.

Unlike large diamonds whose scarcity makes their price exorbitant, these diamonds are of no great value, and the administrative burden associated with the Kimberley process can be prohibitive. This proposed amendment will facilitate the diamond trade and is good news for the industry.

I might mention that Canada recently became the world’s third largest diamond producer. In Quebec, even though no diamond mine is yet active, seven mining companies hold licences on such mines, basically in Abitibi, Témiscamingue and the Northwest. Deposits of kimberlite, the ore in which diamonds are found, have been discovered in five sub-regions of Quebec.

The Bloc Québécois is not opposed to this new flexibility in principle, but it intends to ensure, in the course of review in committee, that it will not be introduced to the detriment of achievement of the objectives for which the act was passed, that is, the establishment of fairly tight control so as to prevent trade in conflict diamonds.

Allow me to quote Mr. Ian Smillie of Partnership Africa Canada who said:

In 2000, the international diamond industry produced more than 120 million carats of rough diamonds with a market value of US$7.5 billion. At the end of the diamond chain this bounty was converted into 70 million pieces of jewelry worth close to US$58 billion.

Of total world production, rebel armies in Sierra Leone, as well as in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are estimated by De Beers to traffic in about 4 per cent. Other estimates place the number higher. Although not a significant proportion of the overall industry, four per cent of $7.5 billion—or whatever other estimate one might use—can buy a lot of weapons.

The Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act ensures that Canada is in compliance with the Kimberley process, an international agreement which has established a process for certifying the origin of rough diamonds. The Kimberley process is basically designed to limit the trade in conflict diamonds, which are sold by armed factions to finance their wars. Because they are small and highly valuable, the diamonds are easy to market and can be very profitable.

In the 1980s, this trade was a veritable scourge, and a major component in the funding of wars that displaced about 10 million people in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to name just a few.

At first, only a few NGOs were concerned about these conflicts and were critical of the lucrative diamond trade that bankrolled them. In 2000, the UN published a report on the funding of the war in Angola, confirming everything that the NGOs had been proclaiming for years: the diamond trade was being used to finance the war.

Also in 2000, the RUF, the Revolutionary United Front, an armed faction in Sierra Leone, stepped up its attacks on civilians, making Sierra Leone the country with the largest number of displaced persons in the world.

With these two events, the African conflicts and their link to the diamond trade left the back pages and made the headlines.

That is when the countries and the companies that produce diamonds began to get involved. The moment that diamonds become synonymous with war, rape and murder and not with dreams, wealth and eternal love, they lose their core value.

Responding to the invitation of two NGO groups, Global Witness and Partnership Africa Canada, 37 countries and the principal diamond merchants agreed to sit down together with the NGOs to find a solution to the problem. The first meeting was held in May 2002 in the city of Kimberley, South Africa: hence the name the Kimberley process.

At the end of a series of meetings, they agreed that the best way to civilize the diamond trade was to put in place a system for certifying the origin of diamonds. Under this system, all diamonds exported from a country participating in the Kimberley process must be placed in a sealed container and accompanied by a government-issued certificate of authenticity called a Kimberley certificate. Importing countries that are participants in the Kimberley process may import only diamonds that are accompanied by this certificate. They may trade in diamonds only with participating countries.

Today the Kimberley process has 45 participants, including the European Union and its 25 members, for a total of 69 countries. These countries account for 99% of the legal international trade in diamonds.

To the NGOs who started this initiative and succeeded in transforming an awareness campaign into binding rules of international law, the Bloc Québécois says: well done. Without taking anything away from the other NGOs who have joined the movement and made it the success that it is, the Bloc Québécois wishes to specifically salute the work, clear-sightedness and tenacity of the two NGOs who got this initiative under way, Global Witness and Partnership Africa Canada.

It is necessary to proceed with amendments to the Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act. From the outset, the Bloc Québécois has demonstrated keen support for the Kimberley process. In the fall of 2002, it lent immediate support to the bill on the export and import of rough diamonds, Bill C-14, which was intended to bring Canadian practice into compliance with the Kimberley process.

The Bloc Québécois continues to support the Kimberley process and will support the initiatives to make it more efficient and effective. Many of the amendments contained in Bill S-36 are the product of the discussions of the plenary session of Kimberley process participants held at the Lac-Leamy Hilton in Gatineau in 2004. Their adoption is necessary for Canada to remain in compliance with the Kimberley obligations. Most of the amendments in Bill S-36 are in fact designed to facilitate application of the process.

For these reasons, the Bloc Québécois supports Bill S-36 in principle and will vote in favour of it at second reading.

However, there are many shortcomings in Bill S-36.

Bill S-36 was introduced before Parliament could do a serious review of the current control mechanism. The Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act requires the government to carry out a complete review of the operation and effects of the act three years after its coming into force and submit a report to Parliament.

Next January, the act will have been in effect for three years. The government will therefore submit a complete review of it, its operation and weaknesses, by January. By that time, Bill S-36 will probably have already been passed, if that is the wish of the House of Commons. In fact, some of these provisions must be in effect before next January 1 in order for Canada to remain in compliance with the Kimberley process and be able to continue exporting diamonds.

This way of doing things, in which the government starts by introducing amendments to the act and only afterwards tells us about the weaknesses in it is not a normal way of proceeding. The government is in a minority situation and can no longer permit itself to think that a majority of the members of the House are at its command and will pass anything that it proposes, even without having the requisite information.

The Bloc Québécois expects the government to issue its review of the Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act and submit it to Parliament before Bill S-36 is considered in committee. However, even under Bill S-36, Canada is content with the minimum obligations under the Kimberley process. This process sets forth a series of minimum obligations that the participating countries must meet. Exported diamonds must be placed in sealed, tamper-resistant containers. The certificates of authenticity must contain certain information: the origin of the diamonds, the identity of the merchant, the total weight of the lot in carats, and so forth.

In regard to the Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act, Canada decided to content itself with meeting the minimal obligations under the Kimberley process, even though it was free to go further. For example, in the information required on the Kimberley certificate, Canada is content to require the total weight of the lot. However, 20 ten-carat diamonds are worth 30 times as much as 400 diamonds of only 0.5 carats, even though both lots add up to 200 carats.

At present, an importer can very easily buy a lot of small diamonds on the legal market, replace them with large stones bought cheap on the black market, then sell them again with no problem, since his Kimberley certificate does not contain the information that could be used to spot the swindle. This dishonest importer will be able to make an enormous profit, while at the same time laundering an entire lot of conflict diamonds.

Has this in fact happened? We cannot know. What we do know, however, is that in 2003 Canada imported rough diamonds valued at $703,820, from India. It exported nearly $200,000 worth of them to the same country. The import value per carat was $162; the export value was $392. While this may simply be explained by the return of undesired gems of great value, or by exports unrelated to the imports, there might also be something fishy going on here.

If the Canadian certificate contained certain optional information provided for in the process, such as the number of stones over two carats in size, this sort of stratagem would no longer be possible.

The Bloc Québécois is counting on the committee hearings to see if it might be possible to make the act more effective.

The real weakness of a Kimberley process is the lack of resources dedicated to control in the poor countries and the lack of assistance the latter are being offered by the rich countries.

The participating countries have all had to pass legislation to bring their trade practices into line with the requirements of the process. Unfortunately, controls are lacking. The state apparatus is often disorganized, and civil servants who are underpaid, or not paid at all, are vulnerable to corruption. In conclusion, even the most perfect system on paper cannot function if it does not have the necessary resources.

For example, in 2003 the Congo was suspended from the Kimberley process because its civil servants had issued certificates representing two and a half times the country’s diamond production. Clearly, many of those diamonds were from neighbouring conflict-ridden countries, probably the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Congo was caught out, but how many other countries serve as transit routes for conflict diamonds from the Congo, Côte-d'Ivoire, Burundi or elsewhere? What is urgently required is a substantial increase in international aid to permit states to function as they should.

Furthermore, it is not by chance that wars are going on mainly in the poor countries. Where the population is living in the most abject poverty, the ground is fertile for the creation of armed factions and the onset of civil war. Even if Canada were to pass the best law in the world on the diamond trade, it would not stamp out the problem—not without a substantial boost to its international aid envelope.

In 1993, when the present Prime Minister became Minister of Finance, Canada was allocating 0.43% of its GNP to international aid, making it the sixth most generous donor in the OECD. When he left the Department of Finance in 2002, Canada was allocating only 0.23% of its GDP and had slipped to 17th out of a total of 29. At its current pace of increase, Canada will not achieve the UN target—which however it has accepted—of 0.7% of GNP for international aid until 2033.

The government can boast of its role in the Kimberley process, but not until it is a serious contributor to the war on world poverty can it say that it is playing a role in conflict pacification.

We must take inspiration from the Kimberley process to promote equitable globalization. In the commercial realm, the Kimberley process is a remarkable innovation. It introduces considerations other than commercial and economic ones into the trade rules. The NGO campaign has been such a success that it has become indecent to oppose it, to the point that the WTO had to amend its rules in January 2003, barely four weeks after the Kimberley process came into effect.

The amendments to the WTO rules allow member states to ban the import of conflict diamonds. Their rules do not, however, allow restrictions on the importing of products manufactured by children or by prisoners of conscience in labour camps or virtual slaves exploited in factories where basic labour rights do not exist, nor those produced with total lack of concern for environmental destruction.

For years now, the Bloc Québécois has been calling for the government to propose the inclusion of such humane, social and environmental considerations in trade agreements. For years now, the government has demurred, on the pretense that these non-trade considerations have no place in trade agreements.

Had that logic prevailed in connection with conflict diamonds, the Kimberley process would be illegal according to WTO rules. When will we see a Kimberley for child labour? For forced labour? For environmental destruction and the forced displacement of aboriginal nations?

The proposed amendments will, of course, be examined in committee. As I have said, we are favourably disposed to them but there is still much room for improvement.

Charlie Angus Timmins—James Bay, ON

Madam Speaker, I have had the honour over the last four years of working for the Algonquin Nation in Quebec, a proud community that never signed any treaties with Canada and is still continuing their fight to get land deals worked out. In fact, one community I worked with started out with a 70,000 acre reserve. That reserve arbitrarily was moved down to 38,000 acres and then moved down to 9,000 acres.

That community is down to 4,000 acres today on the worst section of ground in a most beautiful agricultural region. That land will never come back to them. The damage this has done to that community has impacts on generation after generation.

I had the great pleasure of working with that community in trying to redress some of those historic grievances, so I am very pleased to hear the hon. member's words about the bill and the attempt to move forward with our first nation neighbours. Does the hon. member think that Bill C-14 might be a model for other first nation communities that have been left out and still need land deals settled? On top of that, how can we start to move these forward in a timely and just manner?

John Cummins Delta—Richmond East, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that it gives me a great deal of pleasure to address this bill today, but I am sorry I cannot. I am troubled by the bill. It is deeply perplexing. The bill in a sense is probably one of the first of over 600 bills which will be like this.

Before I embark on a critique of the bill and the problems that I see in it, I want to lay before the House the Conservative Party position on these issues because it is important. Our position on these bills is reasonable and shows an understanding of the problems that face native people in the country. If the positions we have taken were followed in the document we are debating today, there would be a glimmer of hope.

The Conservative Party of Canada believes that self-government must occur within the Constitution of Canada. That is an important point and one which I will address later in my speech.

We believe that the settlement of all outstanding comprehensive claims must be pursued on the basis of a clear framework that balances the rights of aboriginal claimants with those of Canada, and I might add with Canadians. The Supreme Court itself has stated that in any agreement reached with native people there has to be an understanding that others have acquired rights and there has to be a balance between the aboriginal right and the rights of other Canadians. I do not see that in the bill.

The Conservative Party believes that self-government agreements must be structured to ensure constitutional harmony so as not to impede the overall governance of Canada, which is another point that I will address more fully later.

To ensure fairness and equality, a Conservative government would ensure that the principles of the charter applied to aboriginal self-government, which is almost an impossibility as the House will see.

The Conservative Party believes in giving aboriginal governments the power to raise their own revenues. Aboriginal agreements reached with the federal government must represent a final agreement in the same manner as was achieved in Nisga'a. Let me correct that. Aboriginal agreements reached with the federal government must represent a final agreement, and I will stop there.

We are told the agreement is a culmination of two separate negotiations. The first was the negotiation of a comprehensive claim, which has been carried out pursuant to the 1986 comprehensive claims policy. In this respect, the agreement is similar to the Nisga'a agreement. Secondly, the negotiation of self-government arrangements are based upon the 1995 inherent right policy. In this respect, the agreement follows the Westbank agreement.

Before I go on with my comments, I want to bring to the attention of the House something that I think is critically wrong with the process that we are engaged in today. The bill and the agreement are being put before Parliament on an all or nothing basis. We are told that the government has received advice that Parliament lacks the capacity to amend the provisions of the agreement. It is for this reason that the legislation was introduced by way of a notice of ways and means motion on October 19.

To suggest that the agreement is beyond the capacity of Parliament to amend is a serious flaw in the process. Who negotiated the agreement? Who and what authority was given those negotiators? That is not clear. I am not aware of it. I do not know and I do not think there is a member in the House right now who could tell us who the individuals were that negotiated the agreement, what relationship they had with the area under discussion and what relationship they may or may not have had with the native bands involved prior to the negotiations. Who are they?

In my own riding, the Tsawwassen agreement will be coming forward for signing shortly. The negotiators are not familiar with my community. They regularly ignore the wishes of the local community, the Delta Council and others. They are just grey bureaucrats.

These grey and unseen bureaucrats have negotiated an agreement which in a sense is binding on all of us. Today we are either going to accept the total package or reject it. We have no right to say that we like a part of it, but ask people to go back to the table to some changes because this or that aspect of it may be unworkable. That is what we should be doing. We are here to represent the people of Canada, yet we do not have a say. Who gave the instructions and who detailed and told the negotiators what was on the table?

We are told that there are 39,000 square kilometres of land. That is half the size of New Brunswick. To put it in a way that people in British Columbia understand, that is 25% larger than Vancouver Island, and 3,000 people are involved. What were the instructions? Was the negotiator prepared to give away 60,000 square kilometres of land if the demand had been made? Nobody knows and in fact there are conflicting demands for the land.

That is a serious problem with the whole process. When these sorts of agreements come before the House, the House should debate them thoroughly, especially these first agreements, and establish guidelines that can give some direction to negotiators in these agreements and to negotiations that are ongoing. Instead, we are here to rubber stamp it, and we know that will happen. The government members will rubber stamp the bill and others, because they do not want to cause any kerfuffle, will agree with this as well. Many may do it thinking that this is the best way to go.

I do not. I oppose the legislation and I do so for a variety of reasons.

In the first instance, the bill lacks finality. In agreements signed in days gone by, the language was at the end of the bill: cede, release and surrender. In other words, the band which received its reserve lands and its governance, whatever way or nature that may have taken, signed off and said that it ceded, released and surrendered any further claims. That is not the way this bill goes. In fact, this is not the final draft.

If another band gets more, these folks can come back to the table and demand more. In other words, we are committing the Government of Canada, and Canadians, to continue this process for decades because there will be no end. There will always be that juggling to try to get a little more.

If anybody wonders how that works, just think back in British Columbia, for example, and the teachers' negotiations. Board A would come in and would be in negotiations. The smaller board would sit back, let the other guys go first and see what happened. Everybody would wait for the wealthy board to sign off, and it would become the benchmark. Everybody else then tried to reach it.

I guess that is collective bargaining rights, but does it really work? Does it deal with the marketplace in any way, shape or form? No. Yet that is what we face when the language is not final. All it means is that some day down the line, when somebody else comes up with a better deal, there will be a request to reopen the negotiations.

I mentioned in the beginning that there were two areas from which this agreement flowed, or two separate sets of negotiations, one being based on the 1995 inherent rights policy of the Liberal government.

This is a policy which has not really had the benefit of the scrutiny of Parliament. It is a policy which was created by the government but was not openly debated in this place. In fact, when the first bill that was negotiated on this came through this House last fall, the government tried to rush this thing through in one day. When it did return, there was not much in the way of discussion to really create an understanding of what was meant by this bill. That is the problem with everything that seems to be going on here.

What does this inherent right policy mean? How is it going to impact not only the governance in native lands but on other Canadians living in that particular area covered by the treaty?

Let us back up for a minute and put the notion of inherent right into perspective. Section 91 of the Constitution, if my memory serves me correct, lists the powers of the federal government. Section 92 lists all the powers of the provincial government.

The Constitution says quite clearly that there are no other powers available. The powers that are vested in the provincial government and in the federal government cover the spectrum of powers that are available. There is no room in the Constitution for other powers. Some may ask about municipal government, where does it fit in?

Municipal governments are a delegated form of government. Their authority flows from the provincial government. The provincial government gives municipalities certain powers which actually belong to it. It says these are local powers. These powers are better managed by local government than they are from Victoria, in the case of British Columbia, or from Edmonton, in the case of Alberta, to mention two of the finer provinces.

If the federal government takes all its powers from section 91, the province takes all its powers from section 92, and municipal governments derive their powers or operate with a delegated form of authority from the provincial government, where then does this inherent right power flow from?

When the government recognizes inherent right to self-government, it is saying that right flows from section 35 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In other words, the inherent right to self-government is not one which is delegated by either the federal or provincial government, but in fact it has equal footing. It flows from section 35 of the of the charter and that gives it the ability to trump federal or provincial law. It is as simple as that. This is not complex. This is simple stuff that is quite easy to understand for anyone who takes the time to think it through. How then does the charter apply? Government would tell us that the charter will apply. But how can it?

If the Tlicho government were operating because it has an inherent right, how then can we say that the charter would apply? That is an intrusion on the inherent authority of the Tlicho government. Therefore, it will likely be rejected in the courts.

The court will say, how on one hand can it be said that these folks have an inherent right to self-government and on the other hand say that they are constrained by the charter? It does not follow. It cannot be had both ways. We cannot say they have an inherent right and then at the same time turn around and say that their rights are constrained.

In fact, if we look at Bill C-14, it recognizes that very point. The bill says and contains this remarkable section relating to international matters. In article 2.2.9 of the agreement, it states:

Nothing in the Agreement shall be interpreted so as to limit or extend the authority of the Parties to negotiate and enter into international, national, interprovincial, and interterritorial agreements--

By implication this suggests that the Tlicho government has the authority to enter into international agreements.

In fact, if that authority does not exist in that manner, the Government of Canada is required to consult with the Tlicho when international treaties are going to impact on them. That is clear from reading the agreement. If an international agreement is going to impact on the Tlicho people, then they have a right to be consulted and to have their concerns addressed. However, how far does it go? That is not clearly defined.

Will the Tlicho people have the right to veto an agreement because it somehow impinges on their right? I think the whole issue is very confusing. However, the very broad language that is contained in this treaty puts a remarkable restriction on power that is constitutionally reserved for the federal government.

This is one agreement in over 600 that we are going to enter into in this country. I look at the Tsawwassen Indian Band, in my own neighbourhood, located a mile or so north of the international boundary at Point Roberts. There are ongoing issues between the province of British Columbia and the state of Washington, or in essence between Canada and the United States. There are fisheries issues there.

If we were to go right along the coast then, any band that says it has an interest in fish on the west coast of Canada, any band from Alaska down to the border at Washington state, would have an interest in fish, sign an agreement, and demand the same right that the Tlicho First Nation has. How do we manage this? Every band has a right to veto. Every band has a right to be consulted on a matter which affects all Canadians.

The Magna Carta was signed in 1200. Essentially, the signing was to limit the authority of the lords. It has grown from that point to the point where we are sitting here in this House of Commons, as members of Parliament, representing the people of Canada. The Government of Canada is supposed to be the authority over the lands of Canada and sharing that responsibility with a province.

This agreement sets up one group of Canadians and says that this group will have the final say on a lot of legislation that will be introduced in this place.

Lynne Yelich Blackstrap, SK

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-14, the Tlicho treaty. The bill is important to Canadians for many reasons but particularly for the precedent it sets for other groups seeking land claim settlements and/or the power to self-govern.

It is necessary and right to be fair in such negotiating agreements, but it is also necessary to be accountable and to be practical. That is the only one way to ensure that the rights of all Canadians are respected and considered.

Bill C-14 would fix in law the Tlicho land claims and self-government agreement made more than a year ago between the federal government, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Tlicho First Nation.

Ownership of land between Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake, about 39,000 square kilometres, would be transferred to the Tlicho First Nation and participatory regulatory authority would be given for an even larger area. This land agreement is combined with provisions for self-government.

To be clear, under Bill C-14 the Indian Act would no longer apply to Tlicho citizens and Tlicho lands would not be considered reserve lands. Tlicho citizens would have continued access to all federal programs for status and non-status Indians and Métis, and the Criminal Code would continue to apply.

It seems the Charter of Rights and Freedoms would apply to the Tlicho government. However, even though the Tlicho constitution is intended to be consistent with the charter, it is in law the paramount authority.

The agreement does state that the citizens or persons to whom Tlicho laws apply will have rights and freedoms “no less than those set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms”.

I have a number of concerns about this agreement. For example, the preamble to the annotated agreement states:

Whereas the Parties have negotiated this Agreement in order to define and provide certainty in respect of rights of the Tlicho relating to land, resources and self-government...

This agreement provides neither definition nor certainty to a number of issues. It contains a clause to reopen negotiations if another Northwest Territories aboriginal group negotiates terms that are attractive to the Tlicho in a future agreement. It fails to do its most basic job: achieve a final settlement.

Looking to the future, there are literally hundreds of other native groups that could seek similar agreements. If none of these arrangements are finalized, it puts Canada in a position of confusion and uncertainty.

This is also an issue of particular concern and interest in my home province of Saskatchewan where natives make up an ever increasing portion of its population. By not limiting the authority of the Tlicho to enter into “international, national, interprovincial and inter-territorial agreements”, it appears the agreement recognizes the right of the Tlicho to enter into international agreements.

In addition, it puts the onus on the Government of Canada to consult with the Tlicho First Nation before Canada enters into an international agreement that “may affect a right of the Tlicho government, the Tlicho First Nation or a Tlicho citizen”. I am concerned about this very broad, vague language and how it constrains power constitutionally reserved for the federal government. By allowing this, the Canadian government would, in essence, be compromising its own sovereignty.

In a country where we already have a bloated administration, I do not believe additional levels of government are necessary or desirable. Yet that seems to be what is created in this agreement.

There is jurisdictional confusion in that the agreement describes three different hierarchies to determine which legislation is paramount in the event of conflict: federal legislation, territorial legislation, Tlicho laws or the agreement.

We must also consider that it is not clear that Tlicho citizens will have the benefits of protection under Canada's Charter of Rights in the event of conflict with the Tlicho constitution. This is the kind of clarification that I would have like to have seen come out of committee discussion so that we could avoid the future intervention of the courts, which will likely come about if this bill passes and the agreement comes into effect.

Self-government is a serious issue and it must be considered in a thoughtful way. When a country is divided into essentially sovereign groups, it affects not only the group in question but all Canadians.

I would like to quote from an author who wrote First Nations? Second Thoughts . Mr. Flanagan wrote that he holds certain core beliefs, including the following:

Society is a spontaneous order that emerges from the choices of individual human beings. The indispensable role of government is to make and enforce rules of conduct that allow society to function.... When government sorts people into categories with different legal rights, especially when those categories are based on immutable characteristics such as race and sex, it interferes with the social processes based on free association.

The Tlicho agreement does in fact divide people by race, even within the population it affects.

The agreement creates a category of citizens called Tlicho citizens who are the only people who may be elected as chiefs. Further, 50% of the elected councillors must be Tlicho citizens.

This racially based governance goes against fundamental Canadian values and would likely not withstand a Charter of Rights challenge, that is if the charter was not negated by Tlicho law. Again, the uncertainty is tremendous and I cannot in good conscience allow myself to support the bill.

Any other outstanding claims for land and self-government must be pursued on the basis of a clear framework which balances the rights of aboriginal claimants with those of this country. Such a framework does not exist in the context of the Tlicho agreement.

Ken Epp Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague for his work on the committee as vice-chair and as one who is very much involved with it.

I was interested in the fact that he raised the issue of having to deal with different groups within the water boundaries of our country on a sort of country-to-country basis, setting these people up as individual nations. If Bill C-14 passes, does he anticipate that we will have delegations to these different nations? Will we have ambassadors there? How will we actually manage the intergovernmental affairs vis-à-vis these individual groups as compared to the provinces and territories that we have now?