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

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the hon. member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar developed her private member's bill in reaction to complaints from members of first nation communities who could not access the financial information needed to hold their leadership to account.

Would the member share with us what she heard that led to the development of her private member's bill?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, when I introduced Bill C-575, it had become apparent that there were many members in first nations communities who were wanting to access information about the expenses of their chiefs and councillors and how things were being managed in their communities, and they were not able to do so.

As I mentioned, some were given the information; some were outright refused, and others proactively gave this information before it was asked for. I heard many stories from first nations community members about the concerns in their communities, and I continue to receive letters, phone calls and emails from first nation members who are now asking where my private member's bill is and when that piece of legislation will be enacted.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member would acknowledge that there is a difference between a private member's bill and a government bill. When the Government of Canada introduces a bill, there is an obligation that the government work in co-operation with and consult with first nation leaders prior to even the drafting of the bill.

However, there are concerns on the part of a large number of people. The member has a right, as we all have rights, to introduce private member's bills, but given that her private member's bill was converted into a government bill, could the member share with the House who it is that she consulted with, in particular, first nation leaders? Could she say that first nation leader x sat down and talked with her, so we have a sense that she actually met with, consulted and had that first-hand uptake prior to introducing her private member's bill?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member has been asking this question over and over again as we have been having this debate. I spoke with Chief Atleo when I introduced my private member's bill. I spoke with Chief Darcy Bear. I spoke with many members of first nations communities who wanted access to this kind of information.

Does it mean that everyone supported my private member's bill? No, but most of the community members on first nations definitely support the bill. They are calling for this bill. They definitely want to see the ability to access this information be enacted in legislation. It provides a road map to first nations' elected officials for accountability and transparency.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to follow up on that last question and answer, I wonder if the member would be prepared to table in this House the names of the people she did consult, the band members and the first nations.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member knows that when a member of Parliament meets with individuals to talk about their concerns, about issues they have, those conversations need to be kept confidential.

There are privacy issues that one would have in tabling the names of first nations members who, as I have explained in my speeches, not only today but in prior debates, are very concerned about the repercussions they face when they even ask for this information.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to commend the member for her initiative, her leadership in having introduced the bill and having listened to the voices of grassroots aboriginal Canadians.

I wonder if she would care to comment on the ongoing opposition to this initiative by members of the parties opposite. Why is it that they seem more concerned about the views of the people from whom information is being sought rather than people seeking the information? Let us say there was a proposal to expand the Access to Information Act, would the opposition be asking if ministers and agency heads in the federal government had been consulted? Of course not. They would be more interested in the rights of ordinary Canadians.

Could the member comment on that? Why does she think opposition members are more focused on the desire by certain members of the established leadership to diminish openness and accountability rather than grassroots people desire to broaden transparency and accountability with respect to first nations' finances?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Quite honestly, Mr. Speaker, I cannot answer that question.

I think I said earlier in my speech, I cannot understand why all members in this House, all Canadians, whether they are aboriginal or not, do not get behind this legislation and support the principles of accountability and transparency that are foundational to the work we do as elected officials, and that all Canadians deserve from their elected officials. I believe first nations community members, like all Canadians, deserve that financial accountability and transparency from their elected leaders.

[The Deputy Speaker]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway, International Trade; the hon. member for Windsor West, Public Safety; the hon. member for Cape Breton—Canso, Employment Insurance.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, maybe I can help the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism in terms of understanding what is in fact the difference.

If there is a prime minister of a country who says that the government wants to change a law within the immigration department, we believe that ultimately the prime minister, through his cabinet, and the minister of immigration who gets to sit around that cabinet table, will be consulted, maybe not necessarily under the current Prime Minister, and a sense of consensus would be built within the cabinet. Then the law would ultimately be proposed and brought to the House of Commons.

We need to recognize the uniqueness of what we are trying to do through this bill. There is an obligation for the Government of Canada to consult with first nations leaders. The government has not recognized that.

In responding to my question, the member said that she somewhat anticipated that I would ask this question. I was a bit surprised in terms of the answer that she provided, given that she knew I would ask it. We all need to be concerned about it.

Let me repeat a specific question that I asked a little earlier today, and then I will give the answer that followed.

The question I had asked was for the member for Kootenay—Columbia, a member from the government benches. I said, “My question to the member is this. Can he provide to the House in any fashion the names of anyone within that first nations leadership whom the government actually consulted with prior to the drafting of the legislation?” I reinforced it with “Can he list some of those first nations leaders with whom the government had consulted with to come up with the legislation or the ideas behind this legislation?”

The member for Kootenay—Columbia responded with this, “Mr. Speaker, certainly we consulted. Between January 1, 2011 and September 25, 2012, the department received approximately 250 formal complaints from people within the first nations communities of Canada saying they could not access the information that they wanted about their chiefs and their councillors. Bill C-27 will make this happen”.

That is not consultation. That is not what the government has a responsibility to do when it comes to making changes and passing laws in Canada. That is virtually any type of law. One would like to think is more than just consumer-based complaints and the government then jumps up and changes a law.

There is a wide variety of stakeholders on any given issue throughout this nation that would like to contribute to the development of public policy and there is an obligation for ministers to go out and do their homework. We know we have been let down by a number of ministers who have not gone out to do their homework when they have introduced legislation in the chamber. There have even been ministers who have gone against what the public wanted. I could give a number of examples of that, whether it is the Canadian Wheat Board or some of the refugee legislation that was introduced.

When we are passing legislation dealing with our first nations, there is that much more of an obligation for the government to sit down with the first nations leadership in order to try to improve upon the situation.

For the last number of days, we have been talking about finances, transparency and accountability. All Canadians want to see more transparency and accountability. This is not a they versus us. It should not be the Government of Canada saying that it demands that first nations leaders become accountable and transparent.

The vast majority of our first nations leaders say that they too want to see accountability and transparency. They believe in it, much like the average Canadian believes in it. However, we need to recognize that there has to be a process to achieve that.

What we have had is a very eager member of the Conservative caucus who brought forward a private member's bills in previous sessions saying after reflection and meeting with constituents, the bill was drafted. Apparently there was consultation after the bill was done. She did not say whether they supported the bill or her particular initiative. However, then we had the government of the day adopt that bill and make it a government bill. The bill is going to pass. We know that.

It is the type of thing which I suspect, if the government had done its homework, there could have been and should have been a lot more incorporated in it and maybe some aspects of it even deleted or modified if there was goodwill from the Government of Canada to sit down with some of those individuals on the front lines trying to deliver these services.

The Auditor General of Canada has made it very clear, not just once but on several occasions, that we need to see meaningful action in order to reduce unnecessary first nations reporting requirements, that we need to look at streamlining the overwhelming reporting burden currently there. The government, as opposed to reflecting on what the Auditor General of Canada has said, is advancing its ideas without doing due diligence or consulting with our first nations leadership. As a result, we find ourselves in the situation we have today, where the government ultimately has to force passage of the bill through time allocation.

What would have happened if the government had done its work, taken the responsibility and treated first nations with the respect that they are due? If that had taken place, we might have been able to achieve some of the things the Auditor General talked about that would not have taken away from accountability and transparency. We could have even had a bill that had more accountability and transparency. After all, it was the first nations that ultimately suggested that we should look at having a first nations auditor general.

Look at the benefit that not only the nation of Canada has had as a direct result of an auditor general, but the benefits that individual provinces have had by having auditors general in place. It provides a great deal of accountability and more transparency. This idea was talked about during the Kelowna accord.

However, we find ourselves in a situation where we have the Auditor General of Canada saying that there is already a heavy burden. We also have leadership within our aboriginal community, in particular our first nations community, that also want to see action on this issue. However, the government is doing it in a piecemeal fashion. If the government were genuine in wanting to really resolve the issue of accountability and transparency, there would have been a better way.

I had the opportunity to address this issue previously. One of the things I talked a great deal about at that time was the Kelowna accord. I believe the Kelowna accord is an example of the way a government should work with our first nations in order to achieve success. That is the reality of it. If we canvassed individuals, we would find wide support for the Kelowna accord,

Stakeholders, including the different levels of government, first nations leaders, members of other aboriginal communities and other interested parties sat down over a period of months and brought up issues that concerned them, including the issue of financial accountability and transparency. This is something very real. It was there.

I raised the issue the other day inside the House. Members were commenting on the Kelowna accord, so I said that perhaps we should table the Kelowna accord so members could actually read it.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

It's a press release.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

The member can call it what he wants, Mr. Speaker, but the bottom line is the accord was achieved, and that is a fact. The other thing that is a fact sadly, is the government that replaced the Paul Martin government deemed the accord unnecessary and ripped it up. The government did not want anything to do with it. That is the second reality. That has led to many different issues.

I said that members might like to read the accord as it seemed some had not. I asked for the unanimous support of the House to table the accord and much to my surprise someone said no. That individual did not want me to table it. I was somewhat taken aback by that because after all there seems to be a genuine lack of awareness about the Kelowna accord by members on the government benches. If government members were a bit more sensitive to what is inside the Kelowna accord, they might be a bit more sympathetic as to why they are receiving the type of opposition they are getting today on this legislation.

Once again, I managed to get my hands on this wonderful document. I commend former prime minister Paul Martin for his efforts. It is critically important that a prime minister have the ambition to achieve things of this nature. Many within and outside the aboriginal community thought the Martin government did a fabulous job on the Kelowna accord. I want to read a couple of parts of the accord that are really relevant to this debate.

A lot of the questions that I and the New Democratic Party are asking are focused on the relationship between Ottawa and our first nations communities. We have gone through all sorts of other debates over the last year dealing with first nations issues. Time and time again the issue of consultation, or the lack thereof, has come up. This has really become a problem for the government.

I thought it might be appropriate to highlight a couple of aspects of it because it makes reference to the importance of consultations.

On page 2 of the Kelowna accord it talks about a 10-year commitment to closing the gap. I am going to quote directly from it:

First Ministers and National Aboriginal Leaders are committed to strengthening relationships between Aboriginal peoples and federal, provincial and territorial governments. These relationships will be based on enhanced collaboration, effective working partnerships and mutual respect. In that spirit, First Ministers and National Aboriginal Leaders are launching a 10-year dedicated effort to closing the gap in the quality of life that now exists between Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians. The ultimate goal of this effort is to address the serious conditions that contribute to poverty among Aboriginal peoples and to ensure that they can more fully benefit from and contribute to Canada’s prosperity. In strengthening relationships, all parties are committed to move forward in ways that build on the principles enshrined in the Constitution including the recognition and affirmation of existing Aboriginal and treaty rights.

When it talks about the principles of the Kelowna accord, we should think of the whole idea of consultation and obligation. I just talked about trying to narrow the 10-year gap. In that paragraph, we get the sense of the importance of building a relationship. We have to ask ourselves what type of relationship the current government is building with first nations, when we cannot get a direct response when we ask it to tell us who it is meeting with prior to introducing bills before the House of Commons.

If Conservatives had done that, if they had met with some of the first nations leaders, I believe we would have a healthier and stronger bill today. It would have provided equal or greater accountability and transparency on reserves and beyond them. I have faith and confidence that there is already strength within the leadership of first nations that is equal or greater than the types of transparency and accountability clauses we are seeing in the current legislation. The will would have been there, and I suggest that it could have been even better legislation. The government chose not to develop that relationship, and that is unfortunate.

I will go back to the Kelowna accord, based on the importance of consulting before bringing in legislation that would impact first nations communities:

The following principles will guide how the parties will work together:

If I have one minute left, I do not have enough time to read what I wanted to, unfortunately. A member suggested I could ask for leave. I would welcome the opportunity to speak longer, if I may.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Does the member have leave to continue his speech beyond 20 minutes?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

It appears that he does not, and he now has 30 seconds to complete his speech.