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, I am not a very good speed reader, but I would highly recommend that members read the Kelowna accord. It is good reading for all members of the Conservative caucus. To that degree, I would ask for the consent of the House to table this document so members would have clear access to it.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

Before I have the opportunity to ask, the answer appears to be no; there is not unanimous consent.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Peterborough.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to this debate all day and I have had the opportunity to listen to this member on many occasions making interventions. However, today most of it is around one single subject that he cannot seem to get his mind past.

One of the things that has occurred to me, and frankly I really think it matters, is that in every Parliament every once in a while in this position one has the opportunity to do something that is truly transformational and truly important. We have had that in the time since I have been elected. I think of the Federal Accountability Act, the 2009 federal budget and the economic action plan.

I think of other Parliaments that have voted on things that were significant, such as John Diefenbaker's Canadian Bill of Rights and the U.S. free trade agreement. These are things that have fundamentally transformed Canada and made a positive impact. The record of members who have supported those things is something that is celebrated today.

I wonder how this member will feel when he looks back 20 years from now and sees that he had the opportunity to provide transparency and accountability, which is something I believe will become the mainstay, expectation and right of every single first nation citizen. How will he look back at his time when he had the opportunity to make a difference, to stand up for transparency, accountability and those less fortunate in Canada, but he voted against it, the way he has indicated here today?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will answer the question by posing a question.

One has to wonder how it is that the Prime Minister of Canada is going to look in the mirror when he had an opportunity to work with our first nation communities on an issue of accountability and transparency, something on which we know our first nation communities very much want to work.

The Prime Minister had the opportunity to build that relationship on something that really was not that difficult to do. However, he put a pass on working with our first nations and instead followed a private member's bill from a backbencher that excludes a significant percentage of the population of our country.

I think that if we were to talk to our first nations, their leaders and others, most people would say that, at the very least, when the will is there for more accountability and transparency, why would one not work within our first nation communities to have a bill that would pass unanimously in the chamber without time allocation being required.

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

Mr. Speaker, I tried to listen attentively to what the member had to say. I wonder if he would like to comment on what I believe to be the real problem here.

The real problem is that if one goes to a regional office of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Canada, there is nobody there. They have all been fired. There are a few people, but they are not taking responsibility for anything. They will not see anybody. They will not talk to any first nation people. They will not sign anything that needs to be signed. No one is taking any responsibility. If a band member has an issue, he is not getting any help from the government.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member brings up a valid point. We debate legislation, but what is actually happening in our communities?

It was not that long ago that the leader of the Liberal Party brought in a motion that recognized the need for clean running water. This is a serious issue—not for 98% of Canadians, who turn on the tap and water comes out. They get water for drinking, for the toilet, for the bathtub and so forth. When the motion was introduced, it was great because all members from all political parties voted in favour of it, recognizing the crisis that was there. However, we need to take the next step. We need to ensure the services are going to be there to meet the needs, as my colleague pointed out. We need to ensure there are the necessary resources to make a difference.

Most Canadians would be quite surprised to find there are huge numbers of people who do not have running water and yet they live here in Canada.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the member speak, and the one thing that really struck me is that we keep on talking about wanting to speak and speak, and it reminds me of what the Liberals did with the emissions, when they signed onto the Kyoto protocol and did nothing with it except talk about it, until we formed government when something actually started to happen and we saw emission reductions.

The member also said it is not an “us versus them” as far as accountability goes, yet why does he want to make it that way? The member should be supportive of this. He says all Canadians, including aboriginal communities, desire accountability, yet he is talking about a bill that brings forward accountability. Does the member not believe that there should be accountability on the part of a leadership group of elected officials, to the people who elected them?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the idea of accountability and transparency is something that is supported by all members of the House of Commons. Verbally it is something that is supported. Having said that, I also believe that the population as a whole supports more accountability and more transparency. That includes individuals who are leaders within our first nations.

If we take a look at the importance of first nations, treaty rights and so forth, we see there is a moral obligation and a legal obligation that we work with first nations in the development of legislation and policy. This has been agreed to in principle by governments of all political stripes in the past. It seems to have escaped the Prime Minister, and we would suggest it is probably the single biggest thing that is missing here, because there are many individuals within our first nation leadership who would have loved to have been able to participate in coming up with a better bill that would have provided more accountability, more transparency, but were denied that because of the manner in which it was brought in.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, why did the Liberals try to pass the First Nations Governance Act against the wishes of the first nations, which were trying to develop their own transparency measures?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the issues I brought up was that there are those who wanted to see an aboriginal auditor general or first nations auditor general. Having served inside the Manitoba legislature and now here in Ottawa, I recognize the important role that auditors general have to play in terms of the issue of accountability and transparency.

Who knows what would have happened, because we know there is significant support for that concept within the leadership of the first nations community? Had there been a consultation done, we might have actually seen something of that nature incorporated into the bill or something separate. I would suggest that is a lost opportunity.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, as many of speeches here today have underlined, there is no shortage of good reasons to support this legislation. Among the most powerful is the fact that this act will address a glaring deficiency in the way first nations governments operate at the moment. They are currently the only governments in Canada that do not adhere to transparency and accountability legislation.

While many first nations governments have put in place sound accountability practices to ensure transparency, there is no legislated requirement for them to release the information to community members and too many do not. All other jurisdictions across the country have realized the importance of putting financial transparency requirements into legislation. They understand that governments must be accountable in exchange for legitimacy in the eyes of the people they serve and that they must lead by example.

Several of my colleagues have touched on various aspects of provincial and territorial legislation in their presentations today. They have noted that in addition to the demands they make of their own elected officials, most provinces and territories have laws that also require municipalities to make financial documents public.

This highlights an important point. Even though municipalities are governments in their own right, they are required to follow provincial legislation with respect to financial transparency. In many respects, this parallels some aspects of the government-to-government relationship of first nations with the federal government. For this reason, I believe it may be helpful to explore what municipal governments are expected to do, to appreciate just how commonplace and beneficial these financial transparency laws are.

I am convinced this underscores that the provisions in the first nations financial transparency act are not only reasonable but also entirely do-able, as the many municipal governments from coast to coast to coast demonstrate when implementing their own versions of financial accountability legislation. For example, look at what municipalities in Ontario are expected to do when it comes to issuing annual financial statements. Section 294.1 of the Ontario Municipal Act says:

A municipality shall, for each fiscal year, prepare annual financial statements for the municipality in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles for local governments as recommended, from time to time, by the Public Sector Accounting Board of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Section 295 stipulates that within 60 days of receiving the audited financial statements of the municipality for the previous years, the municipal treasurer must publish this information in a local newspaper. This includes a copy of the audited financial statements, the notes to the financial statements, the auditor's report and the tax rate information for the current and previous year contained in the financial review.

Manitoba makes similar demands on municipalities under the province's municipal act. Section 183(1) requires a municipality to prepare annual financial statements for the immediately preceding year in accordance with the generally accepted accounting principles for municipal governments recommended by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. It also demands that any modification of those principles or any supplementary accounting standards or principles be approved by the minister. Furthermore, section 194 of the act requires the municipality to notify the public that the report and the municipality's financial statements are available for inspection by anyone who asks to see them at the municipal office during regular business hours.

In my home province, Saskatchewan's municipal act is even more precise. It demands that on or before June 15 of each year, municipalities prepare financial statements. Again, they must conform with the generally accepted accounting principles for municipal governments recommended by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. As in Ontario and Manitoba, the municipality also needs to publicize its financial statements, or at least a summary of them, as well as the auditor's report of the financial statements by September 1 of the following fiscal year. In addition, it has to submit its financial statements and the auditor's report on the financial statements to the minister by July 1 of the year following the financial year. Again, anyone in the province is entitled, at any time during regular business hours, to inspect and obtain copies of these documents.

The Province of Alberta's Municipal Government Act is almost a carbon copy of other acts. Like other provinces I have mentioned, it demands that each municipality prepare annual financial statements for the preceding fiscal year. It also stipulates that the statements must be in accordance with the accounting principles for municipal governments recommended by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, and that any modification to them needs to be established by the minister through regulation. Likewise, each municipality has to make its financial statements, or a summary of them, along with the auditor's report of the financial statements, available to the public. That needs to be done by May 1 following the year for which the financial statements have been prepared. However, Alberta expects even more from municipalities. Their financial statements need to include the municipality's debt limit, including the debt as defined in regulations under section 271 of the act.

Newfoundland and Labrador is another jurisdiction that insists municipalities' financial statements and auditors reports be made available for public inspection during normal business hours. Like the previous provinces I have mentioned, under Newfoundland and Labrador's Municipalities Act, municipalities' financial statements need to be made available for public inspection. The only fees involved are the actual costs to provide a copy.

All of the rules and regulations I have just described apply strictly to municipal governments, essentially the equivalent counterpart of first nations governments in our federation. Then, there are various laws regarding the remuneration and expenses of provincial, territorial and municipal leaders. I will not take the time to describe each jurisdiction's laws in great detail, but here is a sampling. The Government of the Northwest Territories, for example, requires the disclosure of the salaries of elected officials. The Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act stipulates that the speaker must table a report that sets out in detail the indemnities and allowances paid to members and the expenses incurred by members in the previous fiscal year.

In addition, within two years after the polling day for a general election, the speaker must establish an independent commission and appoint three individuals who are independent, neutral and knowledgeable. Ten months following the independent commission's formation, the independent commissioners review the indemnities and any allowance or reimbursements for expenses payable, or other benefits available to members. They also have to provide a report to the speaker, setting out any recommendations for changes that they determine should be made.

The report needs to be very detailed. It has to break down the total amount of annual salary paid to each member, the total value of additional indemnities paid to each member holding an additional office, and the total dollar value of allowances for expenses as well as any other expenses and allowances. Apart from this report, the Government of the Northwest Territories publishes the salary and benefit allowances for its members on the legislative assembly website.

I could point to almost any province or territory and we would find similar laws or regulations governing officials' compensation. While the wording varies from one jurisdiction to another, they all require that the salaries of elected politicians be published along with any other special allowances that they receive. They also demand that this information be released to the public, whether within the legislature, council chamber, on government websites, in the local media or some combination of these locations.

This is true in Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario and many other jurisdictions. These governments and the elected officials that lead them recognize both the necessity and the advantages of making information easily accessible to electors. They know it builds trust, inspires confidence and ensures the public understands how public funds are spent.

Most of all, these leaders respect the public has a right to know. They realize they are accountable for their actions. These publicly released financial statements demonstrate that government leaders are not afraid to stand behind their record. First nations leaders stand to enjoy the same benefits once Bill C-27 is passed.

By acknowledging that members of first nations have the same rights to information as all other Canadians and making financial information readily available to them, they can instill confidence among the electorate in their capacity to lead and meet the community's needs.

Making salary and expense information open to scrutiny will send a clear signal that they recognize that band members are the ultimate owners of any business owned by their band. It will formally recognize that local residents have the right to know what the value of those businesses are.

Rather than adding a layer of complexity, as some fear, the legislation may actually lighten the load for first nations officials. Bill C-27 would remove any cloud of uncertainty that currently hangs over some communities. All this bill would do is mirror what other jurisdictions, provinces, territories and municipalities already do without any problems.

I fully understand that it is only human nature to resist change. If we are totally honest, perhaps some of us as parliamentarians initially had second thoughts about the reporting requirements we had adopted at the federal level. However, I am sure we will be able to be the first to say that being open and transparent about what we are paid in the way of salaries and expenses is not onerous. We have proven that it is not difficult to do. It has simply become the way we do business.

I am equally confident that if we were to survey provincial, territorial and municipal politicians who are subject to similar legislation, we would get the same reaction. Even if it took a bit of getting used to, I do not doubt that almost all would agree that being open with the public is not a chore. It is actually a good way to earn the confidence of people.

I also expect that many first nations leaders who already employ these practices—

[The Deputy Speaker]

It being 5:15 p.m., pursuant to an order made Thursday, November 22, 2012, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the third reading stage of the bill now before the House.

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.