Debates of Dec. 2nd, 1999

Committees Of The House

[The Speaker]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the second item involves the previously tabled report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the televising of our standing committees. I move:

That the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in the First Session of the Thirty-sixth Parliament, be deemed to have been laid upon the table in the present Session and concurred in, provided that, for the purposes of this Order, the date “June 30, 1999” in the said Report shall be read as “June 30, 2000”.

[The Speaker]

Does the hon. member have permission to put the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-9, an act to give effect to the Nisga'a Final Agreement, as reported (without amendment) from the committee; and of Motions Nos. 1 to 30.

Nisga'A Final Agreement Act

[The Speaker]

When I interrupted the hon. member for Kelowna just before Statements by Members, he had six minutes left. The hon. member for Kelowna now has the floor.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will continue with my presentation, in particular with the reference to the Diane Francis column of November 20 in the National Post on the Nisga'a treaty:

Not only does this constitute a hideous giveaway based on unproven claims that their ancestors roamed around the area, but there are overlapping claims by neighbouring bands that also claim their ancestors roamed around there too. Some are threatening violence.

Counter-claims are hardly surprising given the flimsy “evidence” behind the exercise...

My ancestors roamed around the United States for a couple of centuries and Europe for millennia but that doesn't give me any claim to a piece of Dublin or Chicago.

What we have now is a questionable collective memory of entitlement, and governments that fail to meet their responsibilities to the public interest.

Simply put, the Nisga'a treaty is the beginning of turning much of Canada into a series of “balkan” principalities often run by feudal chieftains.

Worse yet, the Nisga'a claim is one of 30 being cobbled together in British Columbia—

Other authorities would say more like 50:

—even though treaties were never signed between the British and locals as in other parts of Canada. Many other land claims are justifiable because deals were inked with the Crown.

But this type of ad hoc treatism is dangerous because it also abrogates the basic values of this society. Its only result will be to create privileged franchises for self-defined ethnic groups with questionable provenance, who already get excessive and unjustifiable special entitlements out of the public purse such as tax-free status.

Nisga'a ignores the rule of law.

Nisga'a ignores democratic rights.

Nisga'a disdains transparency of process.

She is speaking of the treaty:

Unfortunately, political correctness has set in on this one. The Canadian establishment has ganged up against the public just as it did behind the attempt by Ottawa to railroad Canadians into voting for the Meech and Charlottetown accords. The only ally the public has federally is the Reform party, which is clearly aligned with the public interest on this one.

Unlike those sweeping accords, Canadians will not get a chance to vote on the matter in a referendum, nor will British Columbians.

This is because the rest of the federal parties—Liberals, Tories, NDP and Bloc Quebecois—are in favour of the treaty.

Most worrisome is the support for this treaty by the Bloc Quebecois. It means the Liberal government is being led into an ambush by Quebec secessionists who support passage of the Nisga'a deal because it circumvents the Constitution and gives an ethnic group self-government and vast lands.

To ram through the Nisga'a treaty in Parliament may be to unravel the Supreme Court of Canada initiative undertaken by the federal government in the case of Quebec secession.

It is a serious allegation that Ms. Francis states here. She goes on to say:

The court ruled that any referendum on self-government by Quebecers would have to be passed by a clear majority responding to a clear question and involving all parties pertinent to the issue.

Nisga'a is not being offered up to the public for its approval and therefore all parties pertinent to the issue are not being involved, except indirectly through the Liberals in Ottawa and the NDP in Victoria.

Plenty of constitutional experts maintain, as does the Reform Party and the B.C. Liberal Party, that the people of British Columbia have a right to vote on this matter in a referendum. Some 78% of the people of British Columbia oppose Nisga'a.

Without a doubt, most Canadians oppose any special deals for anyone. Privileges already exist and should be dispensed universally on the basis of need, and not on race—

That almost brings to a conclusion her statement except that she ends with this sentence:

Instead, we have the Liberals and NDP heaping more unnecessary burdens on to taxpayers in order to unfairly reward a few vocal, politically correct and taxpayer supported ethnic organizations.

So much for what Ms. Francis had to say about the Nisga'a treaty.

I will continue to reference Squamish women and their concern about the provisions of the Nisga'a treaty. I have the verbatim report of what was heard by the committee on Friday of last week. A Ms. Baker said:

I am Maisie Baker from the Squamish Nation, and I'm one that don't just sit back and let everybody else do the work for me, I got to get up and do my own fighting. I fight my chief and council every day, and when they see me coming, they say, oh, no, is that Maisie coming after who, and I said well, if you're on my way, look out. But I'd like to say that the Squamish nation is so corrupt, it's unbelievable. The money that comes from the government gets stuck in our band office and it stays there. We never see it, and I am very angry at my Squamish Nation's so-called chiefs and councillors for putting me into this Bill C-49. Not only our chiefs and council, but I'm angry at the government for putting me in this position, because it doesn't give us any rights at all. We can't fight them, we have no money, we have nothing but I'm really angry at government for not listening to the grassroots, when we are the most important people.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise again today on one of those occasions when I wish I could say I am pleased to rise in this debate. However I have to be blushingly cautious in that statement because I am not really very happy to be standing here under these circumstances.

I have observed over the years how different people fall out of sorts with each other. We call them human relationships. I have noticed people fall apart even in their marriages. A couple of things lead up to that, according to the reading I have done, but one of them is that there is an indifference to the other partner. The partner starts thinking “I just don't matter. I just don't care”.

In Canada these days we are once again consumed with the question of national unity. I would simply put forward the notion that national unity, the unity of our citizens, is not being served by Bill C-9 at all. That is because of the indifference the government is showing toward people who are so greatly affected by the bill.

I cannot help but observe that even right now not a single member of the government is paying attention to what I am saying. Not one.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

I am.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Oh, there is one back there. He happens to be reading his book but he says he is listening to me. There is another one back there who is actually listening. I cannot mention his name. That is great. There are two of them. That is wonderful.

Out of 301 members of parliament, the Reform Party is trying to put forward some debate. We are trying to persuade some empty seats to come to a different point of view. What a shame.

I will say a bit about the process that is involved. We have a very strange anomaly with respect to the democratic process. It is a matter of record that the majority of seats in western Canada, the majority of seats in British Columbia, are held by Reform Party members. We in the Reform Party have undertaken a very creative initiative in politics in Canada by representing in the House of Commons the wishes of the people who elected us.

A majority of members of parliament from British Columbia are Reformers who are listening not just to the chiefs but to the grassroots people. They are getting the message both from grassroots natives and from grassroots non-natives that there are serious flaws in this process and in what is being jammed down their throats.

The democratic system is failing because of the way democracy does not work in Canada. Most Liberals on the other side of the House, most of whom are represented by green foreheads again today, do not live in British Columbia. They will rise on command and vote the way they are told to jam the legislation through even though they do not represent, by any stretch of the imagination, the people who are most vitally affected by it. I am speaking of the people of British Columbia.

I should also hasten to add that inasmuch as every deal like this one creates a precedence and a pattern for future agreements, it affects every Canadian. However the Liberals are not listening to that. They say they do not need to listen to that. They have a majority and can do whatever they want. They just thumb their noses at us and do whatever they wish.

Even though the New Democratic Party government in British Columbia held a majority of seats in that house, it obtained a lesser percentage of the votes in British Columbia than did the Liberal Party. It is intriguing the Liberal Party of British Columbia, a party with the same name as the governing party here, came to the conclusion after studying the bill and consulting with the people involved that it was not a very good bill and should be amended, changed, fixed or defeated.

Admittedly the New Democratic Party government gave it a lot more debate time in its house than we are getting here. I guess we can give the NDP a back-handed compliment for at least permitting that. However just permitting debate is meaningless.

I know my party is saying that we ought to be able to debate this bill. I am not content with that. I am not content with just standing here and talking. I would like to change the minds of the people on the other side. What can I do to force them to actually listen to me? I do not know what I can do.

Maybe we should change the rules of the House. Maybe our salaries should be contingent on us actually physically being present in the House when debates are being held. Maybe that should happen. Maybe we should do something that forces members to participate in a debate like this one.

How many speeches have we had from the disinterested green foreheads over there today? I believe we had one or two. I was at finance committee for a while so I may have missed one of those important speeches, but there is mostly indifference.

I remember reading a long time ago that the opposite of love was not hate, that the opposite of love was indifference. Members opposite are totally indifferent. They do not care. They do not raise their heads to speak. They do not talk to the people in any meaningful way. When the time comes for voting they will indifferently rise on command, collect their salaries and go home.

I am not in a position to prognosticate and predict what will happen, but I would be very surprised if the number of Liberal members from B.C. in the next election was not cut by one-half, one-third or one-fourth. I do not think that they will carry the support of the people because it is evident that they are not being represented here by those Liberal members.

We have evidence that between 60% and 90% of people in different ridings are opposed to the agreement. I will ask a simple, reasonable question. If there is such opposition to it, why can government members not exercise a shade of humility and say that perhaps they are not perfect? Just imagine if they would confess that and admit that perhaps they are not 100% perfect.

We are dealing with Bill C-9. I know I cannot use props, but I was trying to guess how thick the books were. I just felt them and they are thick, the two books we are talking about today. Surely in there somewhere we could have made a few little amendments to satisfy the deeply held concerns of British Columbians and other Canadians in this regard.

What we have is a government that says it is 100% right and there is no room for change. It feels that it does not need to consider any amendments. In fact the bill has come to the House without the possibility of amendment. We are not doing our jobs as parliamentarians if we just simply rubber stamp a flawed document. Also, the ramifications of this decision will be with us, our children and our children's children for generations. Therefore it is important that it is done correctly.

I remember one of my bosses at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology who had a parchment in his office. Every time I went to see him I would see that parchment which contained a very fitting statement: “If you don't have time to do it right, when will you find time to do it again?” That is a very good principle for how we do things. We need to do it right. In this instance it is doubly and triply important because the ability to change the agreement once it has been enacted is not very hopeful at all. It will be virtually impossible to do so.

We are rushing into it. We are not doing it well enough as parliamentarians. I should be explicit. The Liberals and other opposition parties that are standing with them in jamming the bill through are failing the Canadian people. They are failing the people of British Columbia. They are failing the natives, because even they are telling us that they have serious concerns about the legislation. They are not well served. They are not at all happy with what is happening.

In conclusion, I urge members opposite to use their own brains and their own conscience and do what is right and what is necessary in terms of the bill. For once they should use the clout available to them. They are so close to being able to put the government in a position of having to deal with it, why do they not do it? Let them show some integrity and do it.

[Sophia Leung, Liberal, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as the member for Vancouver Kingsway, B.C., I am pleased to join in the debate. The Nisga'a treaty offers the opportunity to begin the process of reinvigorating economic growth in the province of B.C. through an agreement that will provide certainty for the benefit of British Columbians.

The amendments to Bill C-9 proposed by members of the Reform Party are puzzling because they would defeat the certainty we worked so hard to achieve. Those amendments would lead to uncertainty because they would make Bill C-9 inconsistent with the Nisga'a treaty. The amendments will lead to further uncertainty by making Bill C-9 inconsistent with key aspects of the provincial legislation which gives effect to the Nisga'a treaty. The amendment proposed by the Reform Party would eliminate or impair the ability of third parties to benefit from terms of the Nisga'a treaty which were carefully negotiated for their benefit. The Reform Party has called for consultation but does not seem to realize that its amendment would defeat the result of consultations held with third parties.

Members of the Reform Party will have to explain why they are choosing to ignore the views of British Columbians who were consulted during the treaty negotiations.

The Nisga'a treaty contains key certainty provisions which provide for the modification of Nisga'a aboriginal rights and title. Reform Party suggestions that those provisions be deleted or changed would defeat those certainty provisions. The members opposite must not realize or care about the impact of those proposed amendments which would leave the Nisga'a with the same aboriginal rights and title they may currently have under Canadian law. Members of the Reform Party must not realize that the certainty approach was developed with extensive consultation in British Columbia and modifies Nisga'a rights. This is the key part of the certainty approach. The amendments proposed by the Reform Party would make the certainty provisions inconsistent with the treaty and with the language that third parties expect based on our consultations in B.C.

Members of the Reform Party have proposed amendments which could defeat the transfer of lands and lead to uncertainty of title. Members of the Reform Party do not seem to realize that third parties have made it clear many times that a key goal of treaty negotiations is to create certainty as to ownership of lands.

Once again, members of the Reform Party have proposed amendments which are directly contrary to the advice our negotiators received during consultations. We value the advice and assistance we received from knowledgeable third parties during negotiation of the Nisga'a treaty obviously much more than the Reform Party.

Let me remind members of the Reform Party how Bill C-9 and the Nisga'a treaty provide certainty. Let us talk about full settlement. The Nisga'a treaty is a full and final settlement of Nisga'a claims to aboriginal rights and title and through this agreement those rights will be known with certainty. In future we will all be able to use the treaty for a precise description of Nisga'a rights. All of us will be able to use the treaty because the treaty says that it can be relied on not just by government and the Nisga'a, but by other persons.

Let us talk about future development. The Nisga'a will be able to develop Nisga'a lands. Businesses that are interested in economic development opportunities on Nisga'a lands will know from the treaty that the Nisga'a own those lands. Outside Nisga'a lands, the province of B.C. will be able to develop lands and know precisely the scope of Nisga'a rights and the procedures to follow to develop lands. Businesses that are interested in development opportunities outside Nisga'a lands will similarly benefit from knowing the province's authority to develop those lands.

Those who oppose the Nisga'a treaty risk losing, for all of us, this opportunity.

As in other areas of B.C., without the Nisga'a treaty there would be considerable uncertainty in the Nass Valley as to the scope and location of aboriginal rights and title. Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 says “the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed”. Section 35 does not define the scope, content or location of any existing aboriginal rights.

In the case of many first nations in B.C. like the Nisga'a, there is uncertainty as to where aboriginal title applies. Apart from the uncertainty as to aboriginal title, there is also uncertainty as to where aboriginal rights to harvest resources such as fish and wildlife apply. There is also uncertainty as to where an aboriginal right of self-government might apply.

Apart from all of this uncertainty as to the location of aboriginal rights and title, there is uncertainty as to the scope of aboriginal rights for any particular group like the Nisga'a. In a particular location a first nation might claim aboriginal rights, such as the right to harvest wildlife, to gather medicinal plants, to carry out traditional religious practices or to carry out a variety of other activities.

Speaking of negotiation and litigation, it would be costly and time consuming to use the courts to examine each claim of an aboriginal right for each location in B.C.

In the Delgamuukw case the Supreme Court of Canada commented on the disadvantages of litigation and encouraged negotiation as the best way to resolve these issues. Some members might remember that the Delgamuukw case took more than 10 years to go through the courts and in the end the supreme court ordered a new trial. There is still uncertainty as to the aboriginal rights of the Gitksan and the Wet'suwet'en who were involved in that case. The Nisga'a treaty shows the advantages of negotiating those issues instead of going to court.

The Nisga'a treaty negotiations were not an attempt to define Nisga'a aboriginal rights, but instead to address uncertainty by exhaustively setting out and defining, with as much clarity and precision as possible, all the section 35 rights which the Nisga'a can exercise after the Nisga'a treaty is concluded.

In the past Canada has achieved certainty through an exchange of undefined aboriginal rights for defined treaty rights, using the language of cede, release and surrender. Objections by first nations to this surrender technique have been a fundamental obstacle to completing modern treaties. The Nisga'a treaty provides for a modified rights approach.

Using the modified aboriginal rights approach, Nisga'a aboriginal rights, including title, continue to exist, although only as modified to have the attributes and geographic extent set out in the Nisga'a treaty.

The approach to certainty is primarily set out in the general provisions chapter, which contains its basic elements. However, certainty is also achieved by the precise description of rights throughout the text of the Nisga'a treaty.

I urge Reform members opposite to come to their senses and to recognize that the amendments they propose would defeat the goal of certainty—

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am sorry, the hon. member's time has expired.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the member thinks consultation means, but consultation does not mean taking the industrial parties which were involved in chasing the treaty negotiators out of the picture in the last two weeks of the negotiations so that the treaty could be completed without their input. That is the kind of consultation Liberals believe in.

The other part of consultation they do not believe in is the committee process of the House. We ended up last week, a week ago tomorrow, having to go to Vancouver to permit people who have qualified opinions on this topic to put their thoughts on the record.

Because the government chose to exclude some very important people in British Columbia who had valid opinions from the committee process, I will put on the record some of the comments these people made at the hearing which we conducted last week. I will be quoting two people.

The first person is Mr. deJong. Mr. deJong is the aboriginal affairs critic for the Liberal Party in the province of British Columbia. The second person whom I will be quoting is Mr. Geoff Plant, who is the attorney general critic for the Liberals in British Columbia.

It is unusual that persons belonging to the party of that name in this place have so little in common with the Liberals of British Columbia.

Mr. deJong said:

I guess the first thing that needs to be said is it is unfortunate in my view that this hearing was necessary. But it is, because of what has transpired, not just over the past couple of weeks, but what has transpired over the past couple of months, a process that has been designed from the outset, Mr. Chairman, to cut people off from these negotiations. And you didn't need to look much further than the hearings that several of you were involved with, just last week, the federal standing committee that travelled to this province, largely because I think of the efforts of several of your caucus members.

But when you are a British Columbian and hear the kind of comments that we heard from certain members of that committee, representing the federal government, it was difficult not to get angry. When members of the federal government are quoted as saying that this is a dog and pony show that will have no impact and is a waste of time and money, you really begin to wonder about whether or not people in Ottawa care about the views of British Columbians about a topic that is going to profoundly impact the way we live and are governed in this province.

This is a process that, beginning back in the 1980s, has been designed to cut people off, to restrict their access, to restrict their input. Previous governments, and I think you heard from a former premier earlier today, set in motion a process, a closed process. That was designed, I think, from the outset to guarantee failure, and it has.

I remind the House that this is the Liberal aboriginal affairs critic of the province of British Columbia speaking:

So here's what we would like to do today, Mr. Chairman. We would like to comment on that process. We would like to outline for you quickly what our main concerns with this document, this Nisga'a treaty is, and Mr. Plant will provide you with a brief summary of the court case that has been commenced by Gordon Campbell, Geoff Plant and myself in the Supreme Court of British Columbia questioning the constitutionality of the deal, and then we have some thoughts about how this process can be made better because, make no mistake about it, we do have to settle this issue. We do have to settle these negotiations.

But you don't do it by employing the kinds of tactics that we have seen by the government of British Columbia and the government of Canada. The invoking of closure, time allocation by both governments cutting off the ability of elected representatives, Mr. Chair, to scrutinize this all-important document, is the single most pathetic excuse for the democratic process I have seen in the time that I have been involved in elected life.

We were told, all of us as British Columbians, that we would have an opportunity to question, critique, profess support or non-support for each and every clause of this agreement. The government of British Columbia, the NDP government, broke that promise. Mr. Chair, I was in Ottawa when the federal government prevented more than half of the members of parliament from this province from even speaking to this document, from even indicating what areas, what clauses, what principles, they believed this treaty should reflect and doesn't reflect. How can British Columbians have any confidence in any exercise that muzzles their elected officials, and it did just that, Mr. Chair.

So when we get to discuss the substantive provisions of this agreement and we are met by a wall of silence from the two levels of government, you are compelled to ask yourselves this question, Mr. Chairman, what is it that the federal and provincial government is afraid of in allowing this debate to go forward? They either don't have the answers to the fundamental questions that people are asking, or they do and they don't want people to know what those answers are. In either case, it is in my view a recipe for disaster.

We have commenced a court action. We have concerns about what is in this treaty, we have concerns about the self-government provisions, we have concerns about a treaty that would purport to limit your ability to vote for a government that has a responsibility over you and limit that right to vote on the basis of your ethnicity. We think that's wrong. We think a fishery, a commercial fishery, based on an allocation that is tied to ethnicity is wrong, and we think there are alternatives. And we have, as you know, Mr. Chair, members of your panel, taken the matter to the Supreme Court, so if I can defer to my colleague, Mr. Plant, he will provide you with a summary of the basis for those submissions and that argument to the court.

We then hear from Mr. Plant who is the Liberal attorney general critic in the province of British Columbia.

Thank you very much, and thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to speak to you and the other members this morning. The lawsuit is an action commenced in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. It's commenced in the name of three members of the official opposition, who are Mr. Campbell, Mr. deJong and myself, as representatives of the official opposition. The lawsuit is what lawyers will call a declaratory action. We're asking the court to declare that the Nisga'a final agreement is unconstitutional. There are three basic pillars of the argument. The first is an argument that is not open to the federal and provincial governments within the existing constitution of Canada to create a new freestanding third order of government.

The second argument is that it is not open to the federal and provincial governments by negotiation with the Nisga'a or in any other way, short of constitutional amendment, to confer upon a new order of government paramount legislative power. And as I'm sure you are aware, the Nisga'a final agreement does expressly purport to confer upon Nisga'a government legislative power in 14 separate areas of lawmaking that is paramount to federal and provincial legislative power.

The third argument is that the Nisga'a final agreement violates the charter because it denies non-Nisga'a the right to vote for a government which will have the power to make decisions that affect their lives and as you know, the charter guarantees everyone, every citizen of Canada, the right to vote. Those are the three arguments that are the basis of the lawsuit. We are asking the court to rule, as I said, that the treaty, the Nisga'a final agreement, is unconstitutional on each of those grounds. So the question is what is the significance of that. If we're right on any of those points, then what has happened is that the governments have tried to negotiate a document which is outside their constitutional authority to do so.

In effect, they will have tried to amend the constitution of Canada by the back door, and in British Columbia, and I think it's important that people in other parts of Canada understand this: we have in British Columbia a made in B.C. process for ensuring that if you want to amend the Constitution of Canada—

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order, please. The hon. member for Winnipeg North—St. Paul on a point of order.

[Rey D. Pagtakhan, Liberal, Winnipeg North—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not wish to interrupt the hon. member while he is speaking but, on a friendly note, I would seek your opinion, Mr. Speaker. If we are debating a lawsuit that is before a court, is this proper or not?

[The Deputy Speaker]

I think the hon. member was reading from various proceedings. I do not know that there is actually a debate going on in the House about a lawsuit. In any event, unless I knew more of the existence of the lawsuit, and I have heard nothing of that except for the casual mention in debate, I do not think it is something that cannot be discussed here.

The hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia has the floor with one minute remaining in his time.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I might clarify for the benefit of the member and the House that this lawsuit has been set aside temporarily until the treaty comes into effect. I am simply reciting the points of the lawsuit that are being put forward by the B.C. Liberal Party. It is the plaintiff in this case.

What I have basically done, and I have just started to scratch the surface, is bring to the table, to this debate, to Hansard and to the record of this debate, the arguments being put forward by the B.C. Liberal members of parliament, people in responsible positions, people who are the aboriginal affairs critic and people who are the critics for the attorney general of the province of B.C., the B.C. Liberal members who form the opposition in British Columbia. They were excluded from representing themselves and getting their points of view on to the record in the committee process. I think more is the shame for this Liberal government.

[Cliff Breitkreuz, Reform, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, here we go again with such a far-reaching bill before the House. It is probably the most important bill perhaps in this century, certainly during my time here in the House of Commons, and there are hardly any members in the House.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I thought it was the custom of the House not to refer to the fact that members are or are not here. It seems to me there is a comfortable quorum here. Is the hon. member objecting?

[The Deputy Speaker]

Whether or not the quorum is comfortable, there does seem to be a quorum. I know that the hon. member would not want to go beyond that.

[Cliff Breitkreuz, Reform, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your understanding.

Here we are again with the governing Liberals, the NDP, the Bloc and the fifth party all supporting the bill and the Reform Party standing alone in opposition to this bill. It reminds me somewhat of the Charlottetown accord when Reform stood alone. We were the only national party in the country that stood alone against the Charlottetown accord. Yes, we were on the side of Canadians from coast to coast, including many natives.

We have the rest of the parties extolling the Nisga'a treaty, which is a template for many settlements to follow. It is a tragedy that the Nisga'a treaty is cast from the same mould as most other treaties that have formed the reservation system in the country.

The reserve system must be a shining light, just an extolling example of how well the system works. Let us have a short look at one of the wealthiest reserves and bands in the country, which is in my home province of Alberta at Hobbema. It is one of the four bands in my riding. It is the Samson Band. It has lived under a treaty for over 100. I believe it was Treaty No. 7 that that created this particular reserve system. We should look at this to understand a modern reserve to see whether a reserve system is a good example to follow, to perpetuate. This should be a model reserve, a shining example.

There was a recent study of the Samson band which really shatters any notion that the reserve system is a shining light. We should examine whether the reserve system has worked in the past, whether it is currently working and whether it has the potential to work in the future.

The Samson band receives millions of taxpayers' dollars in addition to the millions from their oil and gas revenues. In 1996, the Samson band had an income of about $100 million for just over 5,000 people. However, most of the members live in wretched poverty in one of the wealthiest bands in the country.

Let us talk a little about their leaders. They jet off to Paris, London and Geneva. They hold council meetings in Las Vegas with all expenses paid while 80% of the members of the band are on welfare and 85% are unemployed. This was in 1996, just a few years ago. The majority live in shacks, many without windows and many without any form of heat whatsoever.

How did it come about that we are perpetuating the reserve system in the Nisga'a treaty, because we are forming another reserve in British Columbia, or at least verifying the reserve system through a treaty? I will comment on the framework of how this bill has come about and on how other legislation comes about in the House.

One of the country's most alarming attributes is the expanding gulf between the views of the Ottawa establishment, the bureaucracy and some politicians, in other words the Ottawa court party, and the views of the average taxpaying Canadian who lives out there in the general populace.

This gulf is discernible in many areas of government, from the state of government wasteful spending to the state of the huge debt that Canadians are facing. Nowhere is this huge expansive gulf more evident than on the whole issue of native affairs. Hence, we get Bill C-9, the provisions of which are entirely divergent, completely out of sync and out of step with the views of the average Canadian.

If average Canadians were familiar with the provisions in Bill C-9, they would think that these provisions came straight out of coo-coo land. Let us look at some of the most basic provisions in Bill C-9.

The treaty calls for a a big injection of cash of almost half a million dollars to be handed over directly to the Nisga'a in the Nass Valley. It does not stop there. There is an annual payment, which goes on for years and years, that could well bring the total cash injection by Canadian taxpayers to around $1 billion. That is a huge cash injection.

The other issue is the land mass. What about the land mass, the kind of reserve that is being set up? It is approximately 2,000 square kilometres. To put that a little more in tune with the way people can understand it, that is almost a half a million acres. That is the size of the reserve. In addition to that there are 10,000 square kilometres that are given over for the Nisga'a to control: the resources, forestry, timber, fisheries, whatever resources there are. That is given to the Nisga'a to control.

Those 10,000 square kilometres are two and a half million acres. Put it together it is three million acres, a big percentage of B.C.'s land mass that is turned over in just one settlement, one treaty. There are between 50 or 60 more that are to be settled in the province of British Columbia alone. As is well known, the claims call for over 100% of the total land mass of British Columbia.

I want to read into the record comments of submissions made to our own Reform Party hearing in Vancouver last Friday. This is from a former premier of British Columbia. In his submission he states:

That natives have been discriminated against is self-evident. Entrenchment of the reserves, which have kept natives apart from the rest of us has clearly been a disaster. The reason many have had to live in third world conditions in the midst of a land of prosperity is that they have been demoralized by a welfare state which has denied them the same opportunities as everyone else, and by essentially making many of them prisoners to remote, isolated reserves with little economic opportunity and even fewer business opportunities. Native people have been forced to live in poverty, whether they want to or not. The Nisga'a Treaty will entrench the situation even more deeply than it is now. It will Balkanize our province into groups of people based on the colour of their skin.

I see my time is up, Mr. Speaker, but I want to ask one question of the government opposite. If any member can show me one reserve in this country that has at least the average living conditions of a non-native community, I would like to see it.

[Rob Anders, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, many times have I walked arm in arm with my colleagues, even last night on some of the amendments to Bill C-2, the elections act, which I think is an onerous bill. Many times have I warmed the cockles of my heart by their fire, but this is not one of those times.

I see by my watch and by the clock on the wall that it is time for a change and change we shall have. I should go so far as to say I think we should damn this agreement. More than that, I think we should damn those who do not damn this agreement. More than that, I think we should damn those who do not sit up at night not damning those who do not damn this agreement.

If I had but one reason why Nisga'a was a failure that would be a mighty one indeed. If I had two, then certainly people would say there was a case to be made. If I had three, the government would seriously have to reconsider its intentions. If I had four, the government members should put their tail in between their legs and run from this place with the agreement in their hands, never to bring it forward again. But I have more than five. I have far more than five reasons why Nisga'a is a failure.

One, Nisga'a does not recognize private property rights. The whole idea of wealth, of progress, of ownership is negated in the Nisga'a agreement. It does not recognize, it does not respect the idea of private property rights, something people have fought for over thousands of years, to maintain, to gain the idea of private property rights. Nisga'a abrogates, undercuts and instead puts forward collective group rights, rather than the rights of individuals, rather than the rights of individuals to own property. Shame. That is the first point.

Point two, the Nisga'a final agreement permanently entrenches the same essential elements as the reserve system of the modern day. The reserve system of the current day has numerous problems. Part of the problems that it has is that rather than trying to address the aspirations of individuals toward creating better lives for themselves and their families, instead it hives people together on reserves and gives them collective ownership of land, negates their ability to do something with it of their own creative abilities individually.

Indeed, every time that the natives have come to the government asking for some sort of redress to these problems, instead the crown, the federal government, has doled out money instead, rather than solving the fundamental problems. Every time there has been a knock on the door, the cash infusions have come out.

Instead of helping the situation, it has helped to undermine the sense of self-reliance that individuals within that community could develop. That is point number two.

Point three is the idea of taxation without representation. Revolutions and civil wars have been fought over these very ideas. Whether we go back to the idea of Magna Carta and King John, whether we go back to the idea of the American revolutionary war, the idea of taxation without representation is what representative democracy and indeed this very institution that we stand in today is about. It is the cornerstone.

I represent taxpayers. I come here on their behalf to argue their concerns and to try to keep government within its rightful boundaries which, I would like to add, currently is not within those boundaries and has trampled upon the good intentions of the people who have helped to set it up and is taking far more out of their wallets and out of the blood and sweat and tears of their labour than it should.

The whole idea that the Nisga'a agreement will not be a truly representative government but instead be taxation without representation is a shame. I know that as people have fought over centuries and over a millennium to go ahead and achieve a form of taxation with representation, so indeed the seeds that Nisga'a sows are bad seeds. The fruit that it will reap is that of despair. It will eventually lead to natives themselves rising up in terms of these very issues. That is the third reason.

The fourth reason is that we already have too much government in the country. We have two levels of government that are recognized in the British North America Act as of 1982 in the patriation. Some may question how it was done. Nonetheless there were two levels of government that were laid out in the constitution act. The provinces created a third: municipal government in the country.

We have now the creation of what amounts to a third, if we look at the constitution act or if we look at the totality, a fourth, level of government in the country. That in itself is a problem but it ties into another. That was my fourth problem with Nisga'a.

My fifth problem with Nisga'a is that this issue has been put to the people. It was called Charlottetown and it failed. At the time all the parties in this place got their ducks in a row and put Charlottetown to the people and said “It is good. Vote for it”. They outspent their opposition 13 to 1 in order to propagandize their aims, but at the end of the day they were not victorious. They lost, and rightly so, because the constitution should and does belong to the people. They rightfully said that they did not want to see these types of provisions in law and entrenched for time to come.

What has the government done? It has gone against the very explicitly expressed will of the people. It has gone against what people across the country said they did not want to see constitutionalized and put into law. The government is going ahead and doing it instead through a step by step piecemeal process through the back door. That is what this is about, a government overriding the will of the people who have already expressed it on a constitutional referendum. That is the fifth reason why I have problems with the Nisga'a treaty.

The sixth reason why I have problems with the Nisga'a treaty is because it hinders future economic development. It helps to deter and it hinders future economic development in British Columbia. There are mining companies and forestry companies. Indeed, when we look around the House we see murals depicting miners and foresters in the committee rooms. They are some of the foundations upon which the country was built, the main industries that helped give Canada its start. Those very companies and industries are pulling up shop in the province of British Columbia because of the uncertainty over land claim agreements such as this. Rather than go ahead and help to access the resources of the country and to help build it, they are taking their skill, equipment and ingenuity to other countries in South America and other places around the world. I know some of these companies even in my own backyard that have reservations with regard to what is going on with these developing issues. They are leaving Canada, and so go the jobs. Shame.

Point number seven is that not only will it deter economic development but there are huge costs that are directly implicit with the agreement. The massive payouts, millions of dollars just for this individual claim, never mind the hundreds of others, are simply unaffordable. The Nisga'a treaty is an unaffordable and untenable situation. If the government sets it up as a precedent for future land claims, woe the country.

Point number eight is that the Nisga'a treaty helps to build barriers. I only have but a minute of time, yet there are so many problems with this bill.

Point number nine is that the government knows it is a flawed bill. It would not, and will not, give consent to put this bill to the people of British Columbia because it knows it will fail. The government knows that as it put this question in Charlottetown and it failed, if it put this question in the province of British Columbia the people would once again turn it down. Shame on the government when it knows that what it does is wrong, the people would not support it and it would not carry the will of the land.

Point number ten is the idea of an inherent right to self-government. I believe in self-determination, however, think not of a municipal level of government but instead something that would help to set up hundreds of separate nation states. Lord Durham wrote of Canada that it was two nations warring within the bosom of a single state. Imagine a country that was hundreds of nations warring within the bosom of a single state. I put to the House that such a nation would have a very difficult time surviving indeed.

Those are just ten reasons and I could go on, but I leave it at that. I put to the government, if it knows the Nisga'a treaty will not pass the test of the people, and it knows it already failed the test of the people, leave it be and pull the bill from the House.

[John Cummins, Reform, Delta—South Richmond, BC]

Mr. Speaker, essentially my remarks today will be on the fisheries component of the Nisga'a treaty. Fisheries issues have been of some concern to Canadians from coast to coast in the last little while, and for good reason. On the east coast with the Marshall decision the supreme court has acknowledged or put in place a process similar to what is government policy on the west coast with separate native commercial fisheries.

The substance of my address today will be to point out, by quoting from documents I received under access to information, that back in 1987 the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was arguing against the policy the government has put into place in the Nisga'a treaty with a separate native commercial fishery. The department was effectively arguing against the same policy the Supreme Court of Canada imposed on the east coast with the Marshall decision.

The first document I would like to bring to the attention of the House is a March 6, 1987 letter sent by Mr. Laurie Gordon, who at the time was assistant district supervisor in district 8 in Prince Rupert, to Mr. Paul Sprout, who was assistant area manager in the north coast division of Canada's Pacific coast.

Before I refer to the letter, the point I must make is that back in the mid-eighties the treaty negotiators had proposed a fisheries component for the Nisga'a treaty that was under negotiation at that time. It was similar to the treaty we ended up with just a couple of years ago. It is the treaty we are arguing before the House. This proposal was made by the treaty negotiators at that time and the department was effectively speaking out against it.

These are some of the reasons the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was opposed to the Nisga'a treaty back in 1987. It said that if it proceeded there would be no area 3 fishery for non-Nisga'a in poor areas and only moderate fisheries in good years. The letter goes on to state:

We are concerned that this will be an incentive to have fish caught in the Nisga'a fishery recorded as having been caught in the all citizen's fishery.

There was concern about the transfer of fish from a separate native commercial fishery to the all-Canadian commercial fishery. In talking specifically about sockeye it stated:

In some years of low returns there would be no all citizens fishery for sockeye...Depending on migration routes and timing we would therefore likely have to adjust our fisheries, particularly Area 4 and the outside of Area 3, to allow more sockeye into 3Z.

That is the zone the Nisga'a would be fishing in. It continued:

In most years the first few weeks fishing, mid-June to mid-July, would have to be Nisga'a only. There would thus likely mean no commercial net fisheries in the north coast prior to the second week of July.

That is the impact the treaty will have on the commercial fishery in the future if it is passed by the House. That is what the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was saying in 1987. In all likelihood that is what the Department of Fisheries and Oceans concluded in the secret report in which it talked about replicating the Nisga'a treaty coastwide. With regard to pink salmon Mr. Gordon's letter continued:

We have no quantitative method of determining Nass pink strength in season and therefore it would be very difficult to accurately adjust the allocation in season. The Nass run will be masked by large numbers of Alaskan and area 4 pinks.

Even post season we cannot estimate total Nass pink runs without making dubious assumptions about the portion of catch which was of LCA, land claim area, origin.

We have a huge problem making estimates or guestimates of the fish returning to the Nass River, even post season.

With regard to coho it states:

We know very little about stock strength of Nass coho, and have absolutely no way of determining it in or post season.

Coho are in serious decline and could probably be considered an endangered species in some areas of the north coast. It is interesting when Mr. Gordon talked about Chinook salmon. Let me read his letter and be very clear about it:

All sport fishing for chinooks including catch and release would be stopped.

This was the view of Laurie Gordon back in 1987, that is if we went through with the treaty now before us. If that is the case there will be many lodge owners on the north coast of British Columbia who will be very upset.

The other letter I want to quote from is from Pat Chamut, director general of the Pacific region back in 1987. He is now an assistant deputy minister. His letter was to A. Lefebvre-Anglin, assistant deputy minister, Pacific and freshwater fisheries. The date of the letter is March 16, 1987. Essentially Mr. Chamut repeated the concerns expressed in the previous letter. He wrote:

The formulas to determine species mix are unmanageable...In order to ensure the sockeye fishery proposed, in most years the first few weeks of fishing, mid-June to mid-July, would have to be Nisga'a only.

He went on to write:

This would likely mean no commercial net fisheries in the north coast prior to the second week of July.

He referred to the difficulty with properly managing fish if we proceeded with the treaty. It is horrendous that the man who is now assistant deputy minister of fisheries and promoting this treaty would have changed his tune since 1987. As I said earlier we are talking about essentially the same agreement being in place as the one that was discussed in 1987. Mr. Chamut's letter started off by stating:

The following comments are in response to the Chief Federal Negotiator's letters of February 13 and March 5, which respectfully outline the Nisga'a proposal on species mix and the Chief Negotiator's intentions with regard to a new federal offer in this area.

It specifically concerns the treaty and bodes ill for the future.

The next letter was from Marion Lefebvre, chief claims negotiator, native affairs division. It was to Mr. Fred Walchli, chief interim negotiator, Nisga'a claim, comprehensive claims. In that letter she made the following case:

The formulas to determine species mix are unmanageable...In order to ensure the sockeye fishery proposed, in most years the first few weeks of fishing, mid-June to mid-July, would have to be Nisga'a only. This would likely mean no commercial net fisheries in the north coast prior to the second week of July.

I cannot emphasize that enough. If the treaty goes through there will be no commercial net fisheries on the north coast prior to the second week of July. That is the time of the most effective fishing on the north coast. It is those first couple of weeks in July that make it all pay. That is when the fish are caught.

On June 25, 1987 a letter from Michelle James, acting chief, fisheries negotiator, was addressed to Mr. Fred Walchli. Ms. James assured him that the department's advice on this matter was that he should not pursue the notion of using area 2Z catch as the basis for determining the Nisga'a fishery. She wrote that this was most important and that it would be impossible to replicate the treaty coastwide. That was the intention of the government.

The evidence is there in the access to information documents, that if the treaty goes ahead there will be no commercial fishing on the north coast prior to the middle of July, which will put serious restrictions, if not eliminate, the sport fishing for chinook on the north coast.

Those are facts that were stated by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans back in 1987 when the proposal before the government was similar to the current fisheries component of the Nisga'a treaty.

[An hon. member]

It was different.