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

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is quite simple. Why are the criteria created for first nations so much more stringent than those for other Canadians?

The former auditor general pointed out, years ago, that one of the main problems facing first nations band councils was their duty to fill out tons of paperwork. This proposed solution would actually make things worse.

How can our Conservative colleague justify asking for even more information when—as confirmed by the former auditor general—government officials do not even examine the documents they already receive?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is very important to note that nothing in this bill adds to the existing reporting burden faced by first nations. Instead, this bill represents the minimum set of standards with respect to financial transparency, which are not currently being followed by many first nations.

We expect many first nations will adapt easily and, in fact, will go further than the basic requirements laid out in this bill. Many will take this as an opportunity to put into place their own practices, which aim to enhance the overall accountability of their government. In this way, this bill would serve as a catalyst for change in many communities, which would lead to greater confidence in many first nations governments.

Greater confidence and transparency result in increased opportunities for flexible multi-year agreements, which will come with streamlined reporting. Over time, as these practices become commonplace, first nations will be in a much stronger position to demonstrate that they are candidates for more flexible funding arrangements.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General of Canada has made it fairly clear, not once but on several occasions, that the government needs to take some form of action to reduce unnecessary first nations reports, where it can. I listened to the member's comments, and what she fails to recognize is that there was a responsibility for the government to work in co-operation with first nations leaders in the drafting of this legislation. One thing the government should have taken into consideration was what the Auditor General of Canada was recommending, which was to find ways to reduce the number of reporting mechanisms.

I am wondering if she could comment on what I and my party believe is a lost opportunity.

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

Mr. Speaker, two years ago I introduced a private member's bill addressing first nations financial accountability and transparency. For the last two years, there have been many conversations and discussions held regarding the requirements that would need to be put in place to ensure greater accountability and transparency. Indeed, it was due to many complaints I received from first nations members that I introduced that private member's bill in the first place.

We know that all of the reporting we are asking first nations governments to include in their reports to the government and to make public are already happening, as I already said in my answer to the previous questioner. We know that governments, with the exception of first nations governments operating under the Indian Act—provincial, federal and municipal governments—in Canada must adhere to legislation that ensures the transparency of the financial statements of the government and its entities and the remuneration paid to its elected leaders. That is what this legislation is calling for, and I believe it is what first nations members deserve.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we are discussing Bill C-27, which claims to promote financial transparency on the part of the first nations. I am very proud to be firmly opposed to this bill, which does not enhance the accountability of first nations governments to their people.

Essentially, Bill C-27 lays the legislative groundwork for the preparation and disclosure of first nations’ consolidated financial statements and disclosure of the remuneration, in salaries and expenses, paid by the first nations to their elected leaders. The bill would apply to more than 600 first nations communities.

As I said, the NDP opposes this bill, even though we are actively working to improve transparency and accountability at all levels of governance. First, we oppose this bill because it was imposed on the first nations without consultation and because it is contrary to the commitment made by the Prime Minister in January 2012 to work with the first nations. The approach taken by the government is a paternalistic one. In fact, the Conservatives have introduced other bills in this House that were drafted without proper consultation with the first nations.

Second, we oppose measures that would add further to the burden that the first nations bear when it comes to disclosure. We know that the first nations are already buried in paperwork. The former auditor general, Sheila Fraser, in fact, came out in favour of streamlining the tasks associated with disclosure of financial information that the first nations have to complete. She thought that the paperwork had gotten worse in recent years and pointed out that the first nations were already required to file a number of reports that were not even used by the ministers of the federal government.

In 2002, she estimated that four federal organizations alone required at least 168 reports a year from first nations communities, many of which had populations of less than 500. In a subsequent investigation by the Office of the Auditor General, representatives of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Canada revealed that in a single year, that department alone received more than 60,000 reports prepared by more than 600 first nations. That is an unbelievable figure. Why is the Conservative government demanding more and more of these pointless forms and reports?

Aboriginal leaders need to be able to devote their energies to the urgent problems affecting their communities: education, access to clean drinking water and housing.

Much has been said about the new requirements regarding disclosure of the salaries paid to leaders of aboriginal communities. Bill C-27 requires that the first nations disclose the details of the remuneration—salaries, commissions, bonuses, fees and so on—paid by the first nation and by any entity controlled by the first nation to its chief and each of its councillors in their professional and personal capacities.

I see a lot of hypocrisy in this situation. First, in accordance with the year-end financial reporting handbook, the first nations have to submit audited consolidated financial statements to the minister annually concerning the public funds they receive, including salaries, honoraria and travel expenses for all elected or appointed officials and all unelected senior officials of the band. In addition, the first nations have to distribute those financial statements to their members.

I say hypocrisy because, in reality, the average salary of aboriginal leaders in Canada is not exorbitant. We are talking about approximately $60,000 a year for the chiefs and $31,000 for the councillors. In addition, I should point out that in many cases, more is demanded of the leaders of aboriginal communities than of other public officials.

Consider the example of Nigel Wright, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, or his other close advisors. Although their salaries are governed by Treasury Board standards, the public has no access to information on how much they earn or the total amount they receive annually in expense reimbursements. Yet this is what is required of the elected representatives and senior officials of aboriginal communities.

How can the Prime Minister demand transparency from others and not from his own office? It smacks of a double standard. In my opinion, what is good for the goose should be good for the gander.

It is important to understand that under federal law, aboriginal communities already have to disclose their audited financial statements to the federal government, including the salaries, honoraria and travel expenses of the elected representatives of the band.

The first nations already publish their audit reports, and some regularly hold consultations with their members. In some respects, I would venture to say that the bill is even pointless. For example, should the government wish to change the way first nations' financial statements are presented, it could simply revise the funding agreement requirements. That is what the NDP Is proposing. Moreover, it should be pointed out that the first nations were not spared this Conservative government’s irresponsible cuts.

On this side of the House, we want to see the government work alongside the first nations in order to improve governance, which has not been done in this case. The Conservatives eliminated funding for institutions that support governance, including the First Nations Statistical Institute and the National Centre for First Nations Governance. Clearly, the government pays lip service to improving governance in aboriginal communities, while simultaneously doing away with the tools required for good governance.

It is particularly ironic that the government feels the need to lecture the first nations about transparency when this Conservative government is probably the most opaque in Canada's history. How can the government talk about transparency when it has introduced two omnibus bills comprising over 800 pages in an attempt to avoid parliamentary scrutiny? Indeed, I would remind members that Bill C-45 reduces the powers of the Auditor General and ensures that 12 government agencies will no longer be subject to any oversight whatsoever.

Moreover, I would like to remind members that Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, is having to take the Conservative government to court to force the departments to disclose the impact of the budget cuts on services and programs for Canadians.

Speaking of hypocrisy, let us talk about the Conservatives' lack of transparency around the approval process for the CNOOC-Nexen deal. From the get-go, the Conservatives have refused to inform parliamentarians and the public at large as to the impact of the takeover. We still do not know if CNOOC will protect Canadian jobs and the headquarters in Canada. Neither do we know the extent to which Canada will be able to enforce its own environmental standards. By studying this transaction behind closed doors and failing to specify the criteria they are using to determine what constitutes a net benefit to Canada, the Conservatives are demonstrating a shameful lack of transparency.

In turn, Auditor General of Canada Michael Ferguson is accusing both the Department of National Defence and Public Works of concealing the actual costs of the F-35 and circumventing the government's own procurement rules. Worse still, the Auditor General's report clearly states that the Conservatives knew the total costs of the F-35, $25 billion, and chose not to share that information with the House. The Conservatives can say they support transparency, but they show a great lack of transparency in the House.

If I have digressed, it is only to show how despicable it is for the Conservatives to give anyone lessons on transparency when they themselves show such strong contempt for accountability. We attempted to minimize the negative impacts of this bill in committee by bringing forward amendments, all of which were rejected by the government.

For these reasons, I am proud to oppose this bill in the House, and I look forward to answering hon. members' questions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member might provide some comment on the fact that many first nations leaders across the country have also recognized the importance of transparency and accountability and would have loved to have had the opportunity to present their ideas and thoughts on the issue before the government actually drafted and introduced the bill to the House of Commons.

As I have said in this place and will continue to say, it was a lost opportunity by the government to not have consulted the first nations leaders. I wonder if the member might provide comment on that specific point.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question. Indeed, we see goodwill in aboriginal communities. However, this government has taken a very paternalistic attitude towards first nations as we can see in the bills that are introduced in the House without any consultation with first nations.

Furthermore, the government does not address fundamental issues that would improve the quality of life for first nations. For example, it fails to talk in the House about the housing shortage and the lack of jobs on reserves. It ignores these communities' real needs, something we find profoundly disappointing.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this government is demanding more and more paperwork and justifications from first nations and from anyone who does not share its political views. On the other hand, it does not hold to account polluters, those who contaminate the environment.

Why is there such a double standard, with one set of rules for friends of the government and another set of rules for other people?

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. Once again, we see a double standard at work. The government is asking first nations officials to show more transparency, while the Prime Minister's office is not transparent at all when it comes to its staff's salaries.

I would like to touch briefly on the Auditor General's comments from June 2011, as they seem very relevant to this debate. She called for major structural reforms to improve the federal government's policies and practices. Unfortunately, the government ignored those recommendations.

Among other things, the Auditor General recommended establishing clear and measurable service standards, products and responsibilities. She also suggested enacting basic legislation for key services, including education, housing and drinking water. Furthermore, she suggested paying attention to uncertainties and delays surrounding grants and funding, as they make long-term planning more difficult.

I am calling on the government to consider the Auditor General's clear and meaningful recommendations.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am a little saddened to rise in this House and speak to this bill, particularly in the context of what we see in first nations communities across the country. Just a few months ago, members of the NDP caucus went up to Attawapiskat where we saw the appalling state of housing. We were in communities where many families live in shoddy housing. We have seen problems of funding for first nations schools and the children are in appalling conditions. What we are seeing systematically by the Conservatives is the cutting of funding to first nations communities, those communities that depend on federal government funding in order to establish the schools and have adequate housing.

Instead of putting forward a bill that would deal with the dire shortages of adequate housing and schooling, the government has put forward, as it has done in a number of other sectors, a bill that tries to strangle first nations communities. We saw this with Bill C-377 as well. With the labour unions, which are democratically run and members have the full ability to influence their course of events, the Conservatives wanted to strangle those labour unions with red tape. We see the same thing here with Bill C-27. With inadequate resources that are the fault of the Conservative government, it is trying to strangle the first nations communities.

The government members try to pretend that they are actually concerned about accountability. Here is some accountability for them. In 2006, the Assembly of First Nations said that it wanted to establish an effective financial control system for first nations communities across the country. It wanted an auditor general and an ombudsperson for first nations so that those in the community could follow up with the ombudsperson and, at the same time, it could have an auditor general looking at the finances of first nations, most of which are extremely well run, and ensure that the moneys that are forwarded are put to adequate use. That is common sense. An NDP government would have said that it made a lot of sense and it would support it and put it into place.

Six years later, is there a first nations auditor general? No. Six years later, is there a first nations ombudsperson? No. The whole pretense of the Conservative government to somehow be interested in financial accountability goes right out the window because for six years it has not done what the Assembly of First Nations has said is a solution to this issue. We support those solutions but the Conservatives refuse to do it. Instead, they put forward a bill on which there has been no consultations with first nations at all and a bill that would strangle those already underfunded first nations with the red tape that only the Conservatives know how to impose.

We see this targeting of communities, groups or organizations that the Conservatives do not like. However, let us talk about the accountability of the Conservative government. It cut back on the Auditor General's department. It says that it wants nothing to do with the accountability mechanism that exists for it and that, through underfinancing, it will strangle the Auditor General's department so it cannot look into the expenditures of the government.

We have seen the government attack systematically the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The Parliamentary Budget Officer protects the public's interests. The people watching today understand that we need to have an impartial officer of Parliament who looks into whether the government fudges the numbers. What has the government been doing systematically? Because the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been doing what is for the Conservatives the worst possible sin they can think of, which is telling the truth, he has been under vicious and unrelenting attack by the government.

The government wants nothing to do with accountability, nothing to do with actually having a system of checks and balances. The government relentlessly attacks any independent budget officer, any independent agent like the Auditor General. It does everything it can to undermine that impartial work. Those officers are working in the best interests of the public. The Conservatives are saying that they want nothing to do with accountability and transparency.

What is the result? How accurate is the financial information that we get from the Conservatives? How accurate is the information that they actually provide to Canadians? Let us take just one file, the F-35s. I think that is an adequate representation of how bad the Conservatives are at financial management. This is an untendered contract that they put forward. Originally it was supposed to cost $9 billion. We found out subsequently through the Parliamentary Budget Officer that it had gone from $9 billion to $20 billion to $30 billion. The last estimate before they tried to hide it under their cloak and let things just blow over was nearly $40 billion for the F-35s. There is no accountability there. They did not even tender the contract. Their attempt now to retreat on this issue just underscores their ineptitude and incompetence when it comes to financial matters.

As a former financial administrator, I know when one is putting together the books, one does not cook the books. We need to be honest, whether we are talking about an NGO, a business, a labour organization or a government. The Conservative government cooks the books on an ongoing basis repeatedly. The Conservatives simply do not respect the public's right to know, and the F-35 is one example.

How about the Muskoka summit? We now know, because of a variety of interventions by the NDP, that the summit cost over $1 billion. There is no accountability there. The government just decided to throw that money around and did not even have a paper trail in many cases. When it comes to accountability and transparency, the government gets an f.

Let us look at the West Block renovations that my colleague, the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, has been questioning. The West Block renovations, which were supposed to cost $750 million, are now at somewhere around $1.5 billion. Again, there was no accountability and no transparency. The government throws money around like there is no tomorrow when it comes to its lobbyist friends or when it comes to its pet projects. It does not understand accountability or transparency.

Then we see the actions of individual ministers. We were all appalled by the former member for Durham, Bev Oda, the minister who decided to move to another hotel, hire limousines and pay $16 for a glass of orange juice. When knocking on doors in Durham on Sunday night, all people wanted to talk about was how the Conservatives are so egregiously bad when it comes to entitlement. In fact, one Conservative voter told me that the Conservatives were as bad as the Liberals. We can only agree. The Conservatives are as bad as the Liberals when it comes to entitlement.

What else? We had the Minister of National Defence flying around on Canadian Forces jets and helicopters. When the Prime Minister was in India, he had his limousine flown in from halfway around the world instead of renting limousines that exist everywhere in India. I have been to India and it has a lot of great limousines. We do not even know how much was spent. It could have been a half a million dollars or a million dollars. We have no idea because under the government there is no transparency and no accountability.

We have a government that is trying to strangle first nations. It has put forward suggestions that are clearly a resolution of the problem instead of looking at itself. The government is the least accountable and the least transparent in Canadian history. I . Accountability is something that the Conservatives should be embracing but they are not, which is why we are saying to them--

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. it may just have been a lack of clarity on the part of the member and maybe he will want to bring some clarity to it, but he did use the phrase that we are trying to strangle first nations. I do not want that to leave a bad impression that somehow there is strangling going on. The member may want to clarify what he means by that statement.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am not sure that is a point of order.

The hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster has about 20 seconds.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

It is not, Mr. Speaker. Conservatives are financially strangling first nations, as they are financially strangling democratically-elected labour movements. Both of those approaches are bad and they need to walk the talk. Conservatives need to be accountable to Canadians. It is about time they actually started setting an example.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I was following quite attentively what the member was saying and then he kind of lost me when he made reference to the Liberals being worse than the Conservatives. My first thought was that I would take any opportunity in any forum to talk about previous leaders of both the Liberals and New Democrats, standards of transparency and public accountability for their personal behaviour. I would challenge the member to engage in that discussion in an open and transparent fashion.

Would the member comment on the importance of consulting prior to drafting legislation, which seems to have been lacking with regard to this bill?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, here is the issue. The Assembly of First Nations put forward very clear solutions. It said that there should be an auditor general and an ombudsperson for first nations communities. Those are solutions that everyone in the House should embrace. For six years, those recommendations have been festering in some backroom where the Conservatives hid them away. Instead, they bring forward this bill on which there has been no consultation at all.

Consultation is a fundamental part of democracy. It is something that an NDP government will do in 2015. It will be ensuring that it is consulting with the public, because that is normal. However, the Conservative government, whether it is Nexen, or first nations, or the labour movement or anything it decides it does not like or disagrees with, there is no consultation and it tries to impose its views and ideology on Canadians. I think that is why Canadians are losing confidence in the government.