Bill C-27 (Historical)

First Nations Financial Transparency Act

An Act to enhance the financial accountability and transparency of First Nations

This enactment enhances the financial accountability and transparency of First Nations.

First Nations Financial Transparency Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member somewhat makes the argument that many first nations today are exceeding the requirements that are written within the legislation.

The question I have for her is in regard to what the government is actually doing. On the one hand, it seems to recognize that there is some leadership within the first nations that more than exceeds the expectations and yet on the surface it would appear as if the government has not in good faith negotiated or sat down with the first nations leadership prior to introducing the legislation.

It is important for us to note that the leaders of our first nations communities can more than adequately deal with this issue. It is a question of the government having the trust and faith, and sitting down with that first nations leadership and working with them to have better legislation.

Why did the government, prior to the drafting of this bill, not sit down with our first nations leaders and work with them?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite knows that the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development has spent countless hours meeting and speaking with individuals who are part of first nations governments.

In addition to that, the committee has reviewed at length what the language should be in this bill and has come forward with this, striking a balance, as I mentioned in my speech. We all need to know that the committee took thoughtful time and came up with excellent language that is acceptable.

The transparency provided in Bill C-27 would stop any speculation or dispel any rumours about the salaries around first nations leaders and allow Canadians to see the reality of how well first nations governments are being funded. In addition, this would ensure that the same standards that apply to businesses owned by their governments in Canada would also apply to first nations governments in precisely the same way.

This is good legislation. I look forward to the opposition supporting it.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear the parliamentary secretary talk about first nations governments and yet the Conservative government does not actually treat them as governments.

The member also mentioned that there is this accountability in the relationship with provinces and yet I know that the Conservative federal government does not require that the provinces, for example, report accurately on how much private health care dollars are funded through the public health care system.

The Canadian Bar Association wrote a letter to the minister saying that this legislation fails to recognize the unique constitutional arrangements between first nations and the federal government and does little to move away from the paternalism which has historically defined this relationship.

I wonder if the member could comment on the fact that there is no recognition of that nation-to-nation status in this legislation.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let us be very clear about jurisdiction. Health care dollars in this country are provided to the provinces, which make decisions with respect to how they deal with those dollars.

This government has put in place an escalator, in fact, 6%, year-over-year, in order to make sure health care dollars are made available to Canadians. I encourage the member opposite to look at those jurisdictional issues so she is clear with respect to how health care dollars are allocated in this country.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-27 raises a number of issues, of course. As I mentioned in my earlier question, with this bill, the government took for granted many negative and disparaging opinions about first nations in this country. Right from the start, the Conservatives noted that there was a problem with the first nations, and they imposed the view that there was indeed a problem.

There are first nations communities in my riding. For example, there is the Kitigan Zibi reserve, where the chief and the band council make an enormous effort to be accountable and transparent with their members. In order to do so, they publish documentation on their financial statements and their accounts, they use the Internet and they reply to the many questions from their members and the band councillors at public assemblies.

Beginning by identifying a problem, without even doing any research, is inherently problematic. It seems to me that, if you are going to discuss a problem, there must first be evidence of a problem.

With this in mind, I am going to give the House some statistics. First of all, is there a problem with the salaries of chiefs and band councillors? The answer is no. The average annual salary of a chief is $60,000, while that of a councillor is $31,000. Furthermore, 50% of chiefs earn less than $60,000 per year, and only 5% of them earn more than $100,000 per year. So how can anyone talk about abuse?

In comparison, an elected member of Parliament is paid $160,000 per year. Only 5% of first nations officials earn more than $100,000 a year, while every one of the elected members in the House of Commons earns more than $100,000 per year. So where is the problem?

Of course, it all depends on how we see things. Is this a government in the process of negotiating with another government, a nation—whether Quebec or Canada—negotiating with another nation, or is this the daddy of Canada that is continuing with its fault-finding, paternalistic relationship with the first nations? I think that this is the attitude that is the real basis for Bill C-27.

Here are some other statistics: a recent regional survey on the health of first nations members showed that only 51% of first nations families had Internet access at home. Making it mandatory to publish information on a website or on the Internet does not make sense considering that the bill primarily concerns first nations members. The figure drops to 36% for families whose income is lower than $25,000.

In Nova Scotia, the public can consult summaries of ministers' expenditures, for example, at the parliamentary library. The government of the Northwest Territories publishes only ministers' travel-related expenditures. The various levels of government are in fact less accountable than the first nations are. It is a double standard. They are expected to be more accountable than we are.

It should be pointed out that the current Conservative government is probably the least transparent government in Canada's history, in terms of layoffs in the public service, in terms of its spending, in terms of the F-35s and a number of other things. The first nations cannot be asked to be more accountable than we are.

We are opposed to this bill primarily for one basic reason: there has been absolutely no consultation with the first nations on this bill. I myself have done my work and asked the first nations in my riding if they were consulted with regard to Bill C-27; the answer was a resounding no.

How can we expect to have a good relationship with the first nations in this country if we do not even make the effort to convene an assembly of first nations or even to have a telephone conversation with the band councils about Bill C-27?

There are a number of reasons why I am personally opposed to this bill. For instance, it imposes tougher standards than those imposed on the elected representatives in other levels of government. I have already mentioned this. There is also the minister's power to withhold the payment of any sum due to a first nation or to terminate any agreement respecting any grant or contribution payable to the first nation, in the event of failure to comply with any obligation. This is an excessively harsh penalty, especially when we know that many first nations depend on these transfers for their health and well-being. In some cases, these transfers are a matter of life and death. We absolutely must take an approach that is smarter than simply punishing first nations if they do not comply with this new bill.

We want to see the government working in co-operation with first nations on improving their governance. That is true. Instead, we have noted that the Conservatives have eliminated funding for institutions supporting governance, such as the First Nations Statistical Institute and the National Centre for First Nations Governance. Once again, it is completely wrong, if not hypocritical, to expect supposedly better governance by the first nations while cutting budgets for institutions that support the development of governing institutions.

We also believe that changes to the way in which audited financial statements are presented to the first nations do not require legislation. Such changes can be included in the requirements for the funding agreements that the minister had each first nation sign. Understanding the context would allow for a more personal approach to negotiating and co-operating with each of the first nations involved.

I am also concerned, as my party is, that this bill overlaps and breaches other legislation, including the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act, both of which, let us remember, exist to protect Canadians.

The legislative summary provided by the Library of Parliament describes the legal requirements to which band councils are already subject. The Conservatives have not proven to us that these legal requirements are problematic: there has been no conversation and no facts have been presented. Why do these requirements cause a problem? I have come full circle in my speech: we have to identify and prove that there is a problem before we can find a solution to it.

I must say that my position—my party's position—is supported by a number of first nations groups. The Assembly of First Nations, for instance, has profound concerns about this bill.

The Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians issued a press release on November 24.

I am pleased, therefore, to rise in this House to oppose this bill together with the first nations in my riding.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think there has been a common theme regarding Bill C-27, at least from our perspective in the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party believes that it is absolutely critical that we work with the first nation leadership.

Within that first nation leadership there is a great deal of expertise and experience for dealing with accountability and transparency. We need to enable that leadership to contribute to making good legislation. Without doing that, without having the proper consultation and without enabling the first nation leadership to participation wholly in that process, we would be selling it short.

Would the member agree that the government is making a mistake because of the manner in which it introduced the bill in the first place?

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I tend to agree with the premise of my hon. colleague's question on where the expertise is.

In a former career in academia, I worked on getting others to recognize that knowledge was not found solely in academia but also in communities all over this country.

The reality is that if the government took the time to open its ears, it would realize that first nations in this country actually have something to teach us about governance and transparency. Just because their transparency does not look like ours, it does not mean they are not transparent.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciated my hon. colleague's speech, which touched on one aspect that I think is very important. Being a former employee of Statistics Canada, he talked about the elimination of the First Nations Statistical Institute. I find this particularly relevant because it shows that the government does not understand that, to govern well, it must know the populations it governs well.

Statistical institutes like Statistics Canada and the First Nations Statistical Institute play a role in providing information to the government.

I wonder if my colleague from Pontiac sees a certain pattern or modus operandi in the Conservative government's desire to reduce access to information about the people it must govern.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question. Absolutely, and I would need an hour to describe in detail all of the cuts this government has made to science and research. Take the Statistics Canada form, for instance, which was essential and was also related to this question of having more information about first nations populations.

The fact is that first nations want information about their own populations. They want to know what is going on with Canada's aboriginal people. This information could be extremely useful when it comes to their own governance and it could be useful to scientists across the country. It is appalling that this government spends so much time attacking science.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I sit on the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. Witnesses told us about complaints that led to the introduction of this kind of bill by the government.

However, considering the number of first nations people in Canada there were relatively few complaints, and these were made by Canadian taxpayer associations and other conservative groups that like to criticize outrageous salaries. However, the truth of the matter is that a chief earns an average of $60,000 and a councillor earns about $31,000.

We should be more worried about the transparency of the government, with its glasses of orange juice, than that of first nations. Can my colleague talk more about this?

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Pontiac has 30 seconds left.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since this government came to power, ministerial expenses have spiralled out of control. Members of government love their privileges.

I am prepared to compare the privileges of ministers to those of first nations chiefs any time. The chiefs have no privileges.

I would like to remind members that five per cent of first nations chiefs earn just over $100,000, whereas all MPs make over $100,000. That does not make sense.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

My hon. friend from Halifax was actually standing. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 62, I move:

That the member be now heard.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did see another member rise, but I did not see the member for Halifax rise.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I can assure the member I did see the member for Halifax rising.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?