Mr. Speaker, I rise today to give a Saskatchewan perspective on the issues of Yukon aboriginal self-government and the land claims that are before this House today.
What is happening in the Yukon is very important to those of us in our province as well. Certainly today we are setting legislative precedents. We must be very careful about this, thorough in our analysis and creative in our proposals for solutions.
These issues are of real concern for people in my province. We have a significant and growing aboriginal population. In fact by early in the next century, some believe that the aboriginal population in Saskatchewan will approach a majority percentage.
I would like to raise four specific areas of discussion taking place now as we contemplate the present and future factors. Number one is the concerns of the Saskatchewan rural municipalities regarding land claims. Rural municipalities in Saskatchewan have a deep concern about losing a tax base from land claim settlements.
I sat in on a meeting of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food on April 28 past. We heard the concerns of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities in this matter. SARM represents 297 rural municipalities with over 235,000 rural residents. They are concerned that approximately two million acres are going to be purchased by the aboriginal community.
For rural municipalities this is a large tax implication. These lands are not going to be purchased in large blocks. It will be a quarter here, a half section there, a willing buyer, a willing seller type of agreement. These lands will go to reserve status.
Under federal law municipalities do not pay taxes. On treaty land entitlements there is a compensation fund worked out but on specific claims or reinstatement of treaty land entitlements we do not have an agreement.
If Indian people move into your municipality and they are not going to pay municipal tax, it is going to create unhappy neighbourhoods. If a person on one side of the road does not have to pay taxes and the person on the other side does, and perhaps more because the first does not, this is unfair.
SARM told our committee that it wanted to leave a strong message with us: This is a big problem in Saskatchewan and it has to be addressed.
This is an example in Saskatchewan of decisions and agreements being made without meeting the essential characteristics of good decisions. I fear for the same bills under discussion here in this House today. We must have decisions that are, number one, appropriate. Do these bills respond to the real problem?
Will they transform the present situation into the target state? Number two is attainability. Can these bills be successfully implemented given the resources that we have? Number three is attractive. Do we see these bills as relevant, feasible, understandable, supportable and ownable by everyone? Number four is adaptability. Can we modify things easily if conditions change or if new information becomes available?
In order to make the best decision we may have to do what all good decision makers should do, slow down, retrace our steps, elicit new opinions, present new ideas, give a word of encouragement, suggest a compromise, postpone action and reach out to non-participants. I say this is what we should be doing with the bills before us here today.
We have questions about the effectiveness of these bills and someone has said that questions thrown out the front door have a way of coming in through the side window. We do not want that to happen in this case. In fact we cannot afford to have it happen in this country.
The second concern is the community pastures under the PFRA program. A second type of related issue in Saskatchewan was raised in our committee at the same time in late April. Some of the PFRA community pasture lands will also be up for purchase by First Nations people.
A reasonably good process of negotiation has been put in place for this. The Indian band will need the agreement of 75 per cent of the patrons of any particular pasture in order to proceed to the transfer of the said lands. This process is open and democratic, which all processes should be.
The third concern is the First Nations Council of Moose Jaw. Moving to yet another related issue, an event occurred in my riding of Moose Jaw-Lake Centre about a year and a half ago that really surprised some of my constituents. They woke up one morning to read the daily paper's lead headline, and I quote: "First Nations elect first government. Status Indians take charge of their destinies".
This was during the referendum campaign. The news story we read that morning said that an election held in Moose Jaw Tuesday should pave the way for self-government for urban status Indians throughout Canada. They said that their elected council would negotiate with all levels of government to secure better health care, education, employment and housing for its members.
What surprised people was that this was a group of neighbours and friends in our city who got together, conducted a process of discussions, elected leaders and declared to the rest of us that they were a duly constituted government to which we would now relate in jurisdictional terms. One hundred and seventy people out of a city population of some 35,000 made this decision that the rest of us must now abide by. I have yet to settle in my own mind exactly how one should respond to such an initiative.
The fourth concern was an event that happened last year in our riding. I have raised it before in this House. I believe it illustrates the importance of making sure our decisions and our actions are carefully thought out and applied before we take them.
In our riding we are trying to work together to solve a potentially divisive problem. Last July 22 to 25 an indigenous peoples celebration was held in Moose Jaw. Soon after I was elected as MP in October, local business and organizations that had provided goods and services to this event approached me with the news that they had not been paid for their services. The problem is serious because we have identified possibly as much as $200,000 worth of unpaid bills. I have informed both the federal government and the Saskatchewan provincial government about this situation and the issue certainly has been in the local news.
I have a deep concern that a successful resolution be found to this problem. I am encouraged by the patience of the business persons involved as we work through this problem and by the openness and the responsibility being taken by the newly selected aboriginal leaders in Moose Jaw. I am hoping we can carefully reach a successful conclusion to this matter. I have said that I will keep this House informed. I am of the distinct persuasion, however, that this problem ended up being harder to solve than it would have been to prevent by careful planning.
A wise person once said that one should make sure they count the costs before undertaking an initiative. I am concerned that this is what will happen in the debates about the far-reaching and significant implications of the legislation that we have before us.