Bill S-8 (Historical)

Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act

An Act respecting the safety of drinking water on First Nation lands

This enactment addresses health and safety issues on reserve lands and certain other lands by providing for regulations to govern drinking water and waste water treatment in First Nations communities. Regulations could be made on a province-by-province basis to mirror existing provincial regulatory regimes, with adaptations to address the circumstances of First Nations living on those lands.

First Nations Clean Water Act

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, when the Conservatives were last in power, they pushed through a very unpopular bill about first nations drinking water that was not well thought out, Bill S-8. It eventually had to be repealed as a result of a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit.

Can the member assure the House today that the Conservatives will help make sure the bill will not go down the same path?

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would find it hilarious if this were not such a sad topic. The member actually cited the legislation that the Conservative government of the day put in place and that was litigated against, as a record of good benefit to his party. What irony it is that he mentions Bill S-8 as one of the best things that the Conservatives ever did.

I do not have a question, but I am going to inform the member: That legislation was litigated against as being paternalistic and as being legislation that breached the rights, the charter rights, of first nations people. We need to actually have truth and facts in this discussion. Does the member recognize that in order for us to solve the problem, you have to first recognize that you have done harm yourself? On behalf of the party, can he apologize to the first nations that had to take him to court?

First Nations Control of First Nations Education Act

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to stand in the House to speak to a bill that is extremely important to the people who sent me to Parliament, first nations and indigenous people in northern Manitoba, and of course, first nations people across our country.

I want to begin by speaking about the reality that first nations youth face in communities in our part of the country. Some weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit Little Grand Rapids. Little Grand Rapids is a small first nation on the southeast side of Lake Winnipeg. It is isolated. There are no roads that go there; it is in the middle of the forest, or the bush, as we call it. People work hard at what they do, hunting, trapping, fishing, and they hope for the best for the future of their kids, as anybody does.

What I hear from them when I visit from house to house is their concern for their kids, the concern that their kids are not going to have the same opportunities as other kids. It is not because of where Little Grand Rapids is, how far it is from the city or where it is positioned geographically. It is because it is a first nation, and they know their kids face some of the most unequal opportunities in terms of education in this country. Because they are first nations, going to school on reserve, they are guaranteed to be going to a school that is funded to a lesser extent than other schools.

What does that mean? It means that their kids go to a school that some people describe as a fire trap. It is a school where the doors do not lock properly. In order to lock them in -40° weather, so the cold does not come in, they have to a use a chain and a lock. It means the fire alarm system does not work. In fact, when Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development built the school, it hooked up those little fire alarm contraptions that we see everywhere else. It put them on the walls throughout the school and never hooked up the wiring to a fire alarm system. Guess what? There is no fire alarm system. Not only is there no fire alarm system, but as a result there is no sprinkler system, and due to the underfunding, there are no fire extinguishers.

My question in the House for the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development is whether he would be okay with his kids going to a school like that. Why should the youth of Little Grand Rapids and first nations across this country go to schools that are dangerous, underfunded, falling apart, and full of mould, that do not have enough books, do not have enough teachers, and do not have enough resources, and that are setting them up to fail?

When we talk about the history of colonialism and paternalism that first nations have faced in this country, we cannot just talk about history, because it is happening today. It is happening in the way first nations people face unequal standards across the board, whether it be education, health, employment, housing, or infrastructure. The list goes on.

To see what is most fundamentally clear in the response to the needs of first nations youth and the kind of paternalism we see, one has to go no further than the approach the government has taken on Bill C-33, the first nations education act. The reason I say that is that a fundamental obligation of the federal government to consult with first nations people has not been adhered to in the development of this critical bill.

First nations across the country, certainly those in Manitoba, have been clear that, without consultation, the bill cannot be supported. It is not because they have not made clear the importance of consultation. They have made it clear and have been consistent over the last number of years.

In December 2012, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada began consultations on an education act. In July 2013 the department released a document called “Developing a First Nation Education Act: A Blueprint for Legislation”. With few amendments, that blueprint became a draft legislative proposal for a first nations education act in October 2013. I am sure all too many members of the government will remember that the draft proposal was condemned by first nations educators, leaders, and activists overwhelmingly.

On the very issue we are discussing today, on the critical issue of education for first nations, first nations have told us the direction they want to take and their priorities.

In 2013 a special assembly the Assembly of First Nations highlighted five priorities: first, respect and recognition of inherent rights and title, treaty rights, and first nations control of first nations education jurisdiction; second, statutory guarantee of funding; third, funding to support first nations education systems that are grounded in indigenous languages and cultures; fourth, mechanisms to ensure reciprocal accountability and no unilateral federal oversight or authority; and fifth, ongoing dialogue and co-development of options. Those five priorities were laid out clearly in a very public manner by first nations themselves, and sadly, the federal government failed to adhere to those priorities.

What we hear from the federal government is rhetoric that is at first premised on having spoken with first nations and of having heard real concerns. Then when I and my colleagues raise the concern that first nations across the country have not been consulted on this legislation, when they need to be consulted, we hear threats, intimidation, and the same old colonial attitudes that first nations have put up with for centuries.

It is clear that first nations across this country are saying no to the first nations education act. I and my colleagues in the NDP are proud to stand with them. I am proud to stand with first nations educators who are speaking out against the first nations education act.

I would like to share the words of Janice Mokokis, an educator and lawyer from Alberta, who has been involved with the Idle No More movement. She has been clear in her opposition to the first nations education act. Janice tells us:

There have been rallies and teach-in's held across the country to inform the Canadian public and First Nations about the implications of this Bill. People who have attended the rallies include children, mothers, fathers, teachers, professionals, leaders and those that would be directly affected by this...[government's actions]. There has been consistent opposition about the Conservative's agenda what they deem to be good for First Nations on Education. The Conservative's idea of 'consultation' needs to be closely questioned and critically examined. For example: In the Saskatoon consultation, people were...pushed out of the 'education consultation'.

It was made clear that they were not welcome to have their voices heard.

I also stand in solidarity with people in the blue dot campaign, who made clear their opposition to the government's desire for them not to be welcome at the announcement on the Kainai first nation in Alberta. Members of that nation and first nations people from across the country were there to hear an announcement of legislation that has everything to do with their future, and yet they were not even welcome to stay in the room.

It is clear that there is opposition from coast to coast to coast. First nations people are saying that their inherent rights are not being respected, that their treaty right to education is not being respected, and that the right to consultation that they have under the Canadian Constitution and that is recognized in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is not being respected. The necessity of consultation is not being respected.

The reality is that first nations youth sit by and suffer as a result of the way the Conservative government is approaching a fundamental part of their development and future. We know the statistics are grim. Secondary school data over the last number of years identify the rate of first nations graduation at approximately 36%, compared to the Canadian graduation rate of 72%. Some 61% of first nations young adults have not completed high school, compared with 13% of non-aboriginal people in Canada.

In 2010, there were more than 515 first nations elementary and secondary schools available to approximately 109,000 first nations students resident on reserve. Over 64% of these students attended 515 on-reserve schools operated by first nations. The majority, 75%, were enrolled in either kindergarten or elementary school.

First nations youth is the largest young population in our country. I am so privileged to have had a chance to visit first nations across our region and look into the bright faces of these little kids, who want to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, and carpenters and who want to do great things. All I can think of is the way I come to work every day to look at a government, a Prime Minister, and a Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development that do everything in their power to ignore the voices of their communities, educators, and leaders. They say they are doing the right thing and they say they are going to do the right thing, but after the next election, maybe in a few years, or maybe if they get re-elected. Maybe. All the while, these young people are left in limbo.

I am also fortunate to have learned from elders. They are elders who fought as part of the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood, fought against the white paper, and fought against the control that the federal government had on their education. They fought back, and they fought for first nations control of first nations education. Many of these elders are not with us today, owing to the challenging life situations in our communities and the shorter life spans that first nations people have. However, in my conversations with them and in my journey to Parliament, they taught me a very clear lesson, that first nations control over first nations education is fundamental to the success of the education system. It is fundamental to the success of first nations youth as they go forward. This is because first nations know what their nations need.

We know about education in first nations language; youth who learn their first nations language succeed at great rates. We know that when they have the resources in their schools to learn their mother tongue, the historic language of their people, they will have opportunities that other youth do not have. We know that when first nations have control over the kind of curriculum, priorities, and lessons that are shared with their youth, their students succeed.

I think of first nations like Roseau River, Peguis, Fisher River, and others that have had very successful models when it comes to education. It is not because the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development told them how to do it. In fact, it is the absolute opposite. It is these first nations that have stood up and sometimes, with the few resources they have, pulled together extraordinary people. They have supported the education of their youth, who have gone on to become experts and specialists in education and have come back to their communities and invested in the resource that is most important to them: their youth.

One would think that, in seeing the successes and knowing the way graduation rates in first nations increase when there is proper funding and proper support, when there is a focus on first nations language, the Department of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs would celebrate, that it would say that first nations control over first nations education is critical.

Consulting with first nations on further steps, on a first nations education program, is not only critical but first nations need to be leading that direction. Instead, what we have is a slap in the face from the federal government, which has a fiduciary obligation to first nations that makes it very clear that it does not matter what success these students have, it does not matter what success these leaders have had in fighting for education in their communities, with its response to promise action and change and to do that with a father-knows-best mentality, that what it knows best is what is going to go.

Some years ago I had the honour of sitting with leaders and grassroots people in Thompson at the office of the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, where we saw live the apology the Prime Minister made to first nations people about the tragedy of the residential school system. I remember it moved all of us. I am proud that our leader Jack Layton was integral in that important historic day. There were tears. There was sobbing. There were people who were very emotional about that apology, people who had been very clear about the abuse, the oppression, and the racism they had faced. However, there was also an overwhelming sense of hope, hope that things can change, that a new spirit of reconciliation was guiding our country.

Over the last six or seven years, I cannot say how many people I have met across northern Manitoba, how many first nations people, who have said obviously that apology meant nothing to the Prime Minister. People took the time to believe and to enter into that spirit of reconciliation. Unfortunately, through the actions of Prime Minister, not just in looking at Bill C-33 but also Bills S-2, S-6 and S-8, as well as omnibus bills like Bills C-45 and C-38, we can look at the long list of legislative actions that the government has taken that fly in the face of that apology, of that spirit of reconciliation, of that commitment that the relationship with first nations would be different.

At the end of the day, is there anything more important than investing in the future of our young people? In the one area of education, the federal government had the chance to change course and maybe remember the statement that the Prime Minister had made in terms of that apology and act in the spirit of that apology. Instead, he and his government have chosen to take a very different approach, an approach that is clearly not only supported by first nations but is extremely deeply problematic in terms of the future of first nations education in our country.

In closing, I am proud to stand with first nations in Manitoba who oppose the first nations education act and who are very clear in demanding far better from the government, from Canada, and from the crown when it comes to the future of education for first nations.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I have the honour to inform the House that when the House did attend His Excellency the Governor General in the Senate chamber, His Excellency was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the royal assent to certain bills:

C-321, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act (library materials)—Chapter 10, 2013.

C-37, An Act to amend the Criminal Code—Chapter 11, 2013.

C-383, An Act to amend the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act and the International River Improvements Act—Chapter 12, 2013.

S-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code—Chapter 13, 2013.

C-47, An Act to enact the Nunavut Planning and Project Assessment Act and the Northwest Territories Surface Rights Board Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts—Chapter 14, 2013.

C-309, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (concealment of identity)—Chapter 15, 2013.

C-43, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act—Chapter 16, 2013.

S-213, An Act respecting a national day of remembrance to honour Canadian veterans of the Korean War—Chapter 17, 2013.

C-42, An Act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts—Chapter 18, 2013.

S-209, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (prize fights)—Chapter 19, 2013.

S-2, An Act respecting family homes situated on First Nation reserves and matrimonial interests or rights in or to structures and lands situated on those reserves—Chapter 20, 2013.

S-8, An Act respecting the safety of drinking water on First Nation lands—Chapter 21, 2013.

C-63, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the financial year ending March 31, 2014—Chapter 22, 2013.

C-64, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the financial year ending March 31, 2014—Chapter 23, 2013.

C-15, An Act to amend the National Defence Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts—Chapter 24, 2013.

C-62, An Act to give effect to the Yale First Nation Final Agreement and to make consequential amendments to other Acts—Chapter 25, 2013.

S-14, An Act to amend the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act—Chapter 26, 2013.

S-17, An Act to implement conventions, protocols, agreements and a supplementary convention, concluded between Canada and Namibia, Serbia, Poland, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Switzerland, for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes—Chapter 27, 2013.

S-15, An Act to amend the Canada National Parks Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and to make consequential amendments to the Canada Shipping Act, 2001—Chapter 28, 2013.

It being 4:24 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday, September 16, 2013, at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Orders 28(2) and 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 4:24 p.m.)

The first session of the 41st Parliament was prorogued by royal proclamation on September 13, 2013.

First Nations Elections Act

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

Mr. Speaker, although we certainly support the four-year election term under this legislation, there are a number of other parts of the legislation that are ill-defined. We have to look to other instances where people cannot trust what is in legislation. I look to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its ongoing dispute with the government over relevant documents.

In this piece of legislation, clause 41 sets out the regulation process. This regulation process is important because it covers the appointment, powers, duties and removal of electoral officers and deputy electoral officers, the manner of identifying electors of a participating first nations and so on. There are a number of very important clauses that regulations would define.

Nowhere in this piece of legislation is the process outlined by which first nations will be included in the development of regulations. At least in Bill S-8, the clean drinking water bill, in the preamble it said “working with first nations”. However, it does not say that anywhere in this act.

I wonder if the member could address specifically how first nations would be included in the development of regulations.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this time last week, I said that I hoped to have a substantial list of accomplishments to report to the House. Indeed, I do.

In just the last five days, thanks to a lot of members of Parliament who have been here sitting late at night, working until past midnight, we have accomplished a lot. Bill C-60, the economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1, the important job-creating bill, which was the cornerstone of our government's spring agenda, passed at third reading. Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act, passed at third reading. Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act, passed at third reading. Bill C-62, the Yale First Nation final agreement act, was reported back from committee and was passed at report stage and passed at third reading. Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act, was reported back from committee. Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act, was reported back from committee this morning with amendments from all three parties. Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act, has been passed at committee, and I understand that the House should get a report soon. Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, passed at second reading. Bill S-17, the tax conventions implementation act, 2013, passed at second reading. Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act, passed at second reading. Bill S-6, the first nations elections act, has been debated at second reading. Bill C-61, the offshore health and safety act, has been debated at second reading. Bill S-16, the tackling contraband tobacco act, has been debated at second reading. Finally, Bill C-65, the respect for communities act, was also debated at second reading.

On the private members' business front, one bill passed at third reading and another at second reading. Of course, that reflects the unprecedented success of private members advancing their ideas and proposals through Parliament under this government, something that is a record under this Parliament. This includes 21 bills put forward by members of the Conservative caucus that have been passed by the House. Twelve of those have already received royal assent or are awaiting the next ceremony. Never before have we seen so many members of Parliament successfully advance so many causes of great importance to them. Never in Canadian history have individual MPs had so much input into changing Canada's laws through their own private members' bills in any session of Parliament as has happened under this government.

Hard-working members of Parliament are reporting the results of their spring labours in our committee rooms. Since last week, we have got substantive reports from the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Standing Committee on Health, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, and the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

We are now into the home stretch of the spring sitting. Since I would like to give priority to any bills which come back from committee, I expect that the business for the coming days may need to be juggled as we endeavour to do that.

I will continue to make constructive proposals to my colleagues for the orderly management of House business. For example, last night, I was able to bring forward a reasonable proposal for today's business, a proposal that had the backing of four of the five political parties that elected MPs. Unfortunately, one party objected, despite the very generous provision made for it with respect to the number of speakers it specifically told us it wanted to have. Nonetheless, I would like to thank those who did work constructively toward it.

I would point out that the night before, I made a similar offer, again, based on our efforts to accommodate the needs of all the parties.

Today we will complete second reading of Bill S-16, the tackling contraband tobacco act. Then we will start second reading of Bill C-57, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act.

Tomorrow morning we will start report stage of Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act. Following question period, we will return to the second reading debate on Bill S-6, the first nations elections act.

On Monday, before question period, we will start report stage and hopefully third reading of Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act. After question period Monday, we will return to Bill C-49, followed by Bill C-65, the respect for communities act.

On Tuesday, we will also continue any unfinished business from Friday and Monday. We could also start report stage, and ideally, third reading of Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act that day.

Wednesday, after tidying up what is left over from Tuesday, we will take up any additional bills that might be reported from committee. I understand that we could get reports from the hard-working finance and environment committees on Bill S-17 and Bill S-15 respectively.

Thereafter, the House could finish the four outstanding second-reading debates on the order paper: Bill C-57; Bill C-61; Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act; and Bill S-13, the port state measures agreement implementation act.

I am looking forward to several more productive days as we get things done for Canadians here in Ottawa.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to have that level of civility. I congratulate my friend across the way.

Before asking the usual Thursday question and before the government House leader across the way starts to talk about how he has been able to abuse Parliament over the past week, I would like to make a small observation for all those listening.

Of all the bills I am sure he is about to mention that are important, not a single bill passed through this legislative process in anything resembling a normal fashion. Bills S-8, S-15, S-17, S-2, S-6, S-10, S-16, C-56 and C-60, every single bill we have debated in the past week, operated under time allocation. I might parenthetically add that seven of them came from the Senate. It seems like a strange place for the government to get its agenda: a bunch of unelected, under-investigation senators, but so be it. It is the government's choice.

We tried to work with the government to find ways to allow the House to debate bills and to do so expediently. A good example is the Sable Island as a national park bill. For example, we offered up about five or six speakers who wanted to address the merits of the bill, which would have allowed the passage of that bill after they had spoken. The reaction from the leader from the other side was to move time allocation, which in fact ended up taking up more time in the House than the offer the NDP had made would have taken.

The Conservatives' strategy is sometimes bizarre. In fact, it is hard to figure out whether it is a strategy or not. I would like the Conservative member to enlighten me on this, even though the Conservatives' responses have no merit.

We have spent more than 14 hours debating and voting on time allocation motions in the past two weeks alone. I find it ironic that the government allots only five hours of debate to the content of the bill under time allocation, when the vast majority of our time is spent debating and voting on the time allocation motions and not on the bills. That is the Conservatives' way of doing business.

When will the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons learn that a hammer is not the only tool available for getting the work done?

Could the leader of the government tell us what his plans are for this week and the week following?

Second Reading

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

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak to Bill S-6, an act respecting the election and term of office of chiefs and councillors of certain first nations and the composition of council of those first nations.

Before I start, I would like to read from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In article 18, is says:

Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters that would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision-making institutions.

That particular section of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is particularly important because, of course, what we are talking about today is how first nations elect their chiefs and council members.

I will turn for a moment to the legislative summary. It indicates that, “First Nations may choose to opt in to the new elections regime proposed under the legislation, or they may be brought under the new elections regime by ministerial order in some circumstances.”

I would agree with previous speakers that moving to a four-year term on an opt-in basis absolutely makes sense, but there are other elements of this legislation that first nations have spoken out against. If the government would entertain some amendments to this piece of legislation, I am sure we could all agree on how to move forward.

I would like to go back to the legislative summary:

According to Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, 240 First Nations hold elections pursuant to the Indian Act, 341 First Nations conduct “custom” or community-based elections rather than elections under the Indian Act, and 36 First Nations select their leaders according to their self-government agreements.

This is an important point because of the fact that there are already a variety of ways by which first nations select their leadership.

The legislative summary notes that the Senate released a report entitled, “First Nations Elections: The Choice is Inherently Theirs” and says:

It indicated that the existing two-year term of office imposed on First Nations by the Indian Act is too short to provide political and economic stability, often creating deep divisions in communities. The report further noted that Indian Act election systems are often fraught with administrative difficulties and inconsistencies, resulting in frequent election appeals.

The legislative summary goes on to talk about the number of times attempts have been made to make reforms to the Indian Act around the elections process. It notes that:

Attempts to reform the Indian Act election system arise from growing First Nations dissatisfaction with the operation of the regime, including its administrative weaknesses, such as loose nomination procedures and a mail-in ballot system that is open to abuse.

Other substantive concerns with Indian Act elections relate to the degree of ministerial intervention, the lack of an adequate and autonomous appeals process and the absence of flexibility to set the terms of office and to determine the size of councils.

It is those points around the ministerial intervention and the autonomous appeals process that are sticking points in the current piece of legislation.

The summary goes on to talk about the fact that a number of recommendations arose as a result of the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and some of these recommendations that are not included in this piece of legislation are as follows, and this is from 1996:

With respect to elections, a key proposal was to develop community leadership selection systems and remove the application of the Indian Act as a preliminary measure to re-establishing traditional forms of leadership....To accomplish this, the following steps were suggested: community-level development of custom codes; community development of local dispute resolution procedures; the establishment of regional First Nations capacity and advisory bodies;

And so on.

Again, some of the elements that were recommended back in 1996 are not present or appropriately resourced under the current legislation. I mentioned earlier that one of the sticking points was under clause 3(1), which states that the minister may, by order, add a first nation to this schedule of first nations participating in the new election system.

Once again, I know that the former parliamentary secretary pointed out the fact that this power has been in place, but here we are reinforcing and reiterating that power once again. This is one point where first nations are saying to butt out. They should be able to have an appeals process internally to look at this. I will speak to this point in a little more detail later.

The other problem with this legislation is the regulations in clause 41. The clause provides for the Governor in Council to have broad and general powers to make regulations with respect to elections. Again, I will touch on this point a little later.

With regard to the support, initially we had the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and the Atlantic Policy Congress that were engaged in consultation around the development of the legislation. However, this is a pattern that we continue to see with the government. There are reports and recommendations from first nations, and then the government disregards some or all of those recommendations and reports.

This is the case in point. According to the legislative summary:

Opinions on the ensuing legislation are divided among First Nations organizations involved in the engagement process: while some support the new legislation, others do not view it as reflective of the report and recommendations.

Some First Nations leaders expressed strong support for Bill S-6. At the December 2011 announcement of the new legislation...the Atlantic Policy Congress, echoed the government's view that the Act will support sound governance and increase economic development in First Nations communities.

The current Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, Derek Nepinak, however, has expressed strong opposition to Bill S-6. In a written statement, quoted in several media outlets on 7 December 2011, 37 Grand Chief Nepinak stated that the proposed legislation does not fulfill the recommendations put forth by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, and represents an apparent “attempt by the Minister to expand governmental jurisdiction and control of the First Nations electoral processes that are created pursuant to the Indian Act or custom code.”

In particular, Grand Chief Nepinak has criticized the following features of Bill S-6: in certain circumstances, the Minister’s ability to bring First Nations under the legislation without their consent; the lack of a First Nations appeals process; and the conduct of draws to resolve tie votes in elections for band council chiefs and councillors.

There is not the kind of support that the government is touting. I want to turn to a legal opinion from December 29, 2011. This has been provided primarily to first nations using a customary election code or regulations, and this is the legal opinion, and this is why it is important for first nations that are currently under custom code:

Based on a preliminary review of the proposed legislation, Bill S-6 may offer an improvement over the existing Indian Act election provisions. However, for those First Nations that already operate under their own customary election codes or regulations, opting into the First Nations Elections Act would provide only marginal benefits and may in some instances be viewed as a step back in a First Nations pursuit of self-government.

While there may be specific provisions within Bill S-6 that a particular First Nation may find attractive (such as a four year election term), First Nations should consider amending their existing custom codes or regulations to incorporate any provisions of interest as opposed to opting into the First Nations Elections Act.

I mentioned earlier clause 41 and the concerns. What we saw with Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act, was that bill was enabling legislation that laid out a process and some content for regulations.

Of course, what happened is that there is no meaningful provision for first nations to be involved in the development of regulations and the subsequent implementation of regulations. That is the same case in this legislation.

The legal brief says:

The Regulations—the Devil is in the Details

At this time, all that the Government has shared with First Nations are the provisions within Bill S-6. Section 41 of the Bill provides for the regulatory making powers of the Governor in Council. The Regulations to be passed include those dealing with the appointment, powers and duties of Electoral Officers, the certification (decertification) of Electoral Officers, who are electors, who and how candidates may be nominated, how voting is to be conducted, and the removal of a Chief or Councillor by way of a petition and anything else in the Act that requires regulation.

Those are pretty broad scopes of power under the regulations, and nowhere in Bill S-6 does it talk about how first nations will be included in that process. People are right to raise flags around that.

The brief goes on to say:

Ultimately, how attractive this legislation will be to any First Nation will depend greatly on what is, or is not included or provided for within the Regulations. However, it should be kept in mind that Regulations are designed and intended to be amended easily and quickly. Therefore, while a First Nation may opt into the First Nations Elections Act on the basis of what it considers to be attractive Regulations, there is no guarantee that the Governor in Council will not change these Regulations to something that a First Nation may find less appealing.

That is why when we had Bill S-8 before committee, New Democrats proposed that a clause be inserted that required regulations to come back before the House and referred to the appropriate committee, so there would be some parliamentary oversight. Otherwise, there would be no parliamentary oversight.

There is a precedent for it because in 2003 or 2004, the Quarantine Act had a clause that had the regulations come back before the appropriate committee.

Under the clause opting into the first nations election act, pursuant to section 3(1)(b), the minister may order a first nation to use the first nations elections act in circumstances where the minister is satisfied that a protracted leadership dispute has significantly compromised the governance of that first nation. What qualifies as leadership dispute in the first instance, let alone a protracted leadership dispute? There is no definition, no qualifiers around that.

Under what circumstances is there significantly compromised governance? This section is extremely subjective and at the sole discretion of the minister there is a potential that any first nation could be forced to use the first nations election act if chief and council cannot agree on issues such as budgets, funding, housing and so on, on what the minister may consider to be a timely basis.

On the opting out piece, opting out of the first nations election act, while it is simple for a first nation to be added to the first nations election act, being removed from its operation is a far more complex undertaking. To be removed from the act, a first nation must satisfy a number of specific requirements and the minister “may”, not “shall”, remove the first nation from the operations of the act.

The key requirement that must be satisfied includes establishing a new election code that is approved by a majority of the majority of the voters. The code must include amendment procedures and there can be no outstanding charges under the act against any member of the first nation. Even if these requirements are met, it still remains at the minister's discretion as to whether the transfer out of the act will be approved or not. Therefore, we again caution first nations already using a custom election code or regulation, their customary powers should be guarded and protected jealously since it may be difficult to regain these customary powers once a first nation opts into the first nations elections act.

I mentioned earlier the appeals procedure. When I quoted Article 18 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, it indicated that representatives needed to choose their own procedures as well as maintain their own indigenous decision-making institutions. The appeal procedure is problematic in this act.

Under sections 30 to 35 of the proposed legislation, there is only one way to appeal an election: apply to either the Federal Court of the court of Queen's bench for a review of the election. The only ground available to overturn an election is to prove that a provision of the legislation or regulations was contravened and the contravention was likely to affect the outcome of the election. Internal appeal mechanisms are not provided for.

Using the courts is a costly and time-consuming process. The legislation does not provide for funding of these appeals to the court. Therefore, only applicants who can afford to hire a lawyer are likely to pursue an appeal. Further, appeals to the courts can be time-consuming and may take months for an appeal to be dealt with. On a side note, we only have to look to what is going on currently with various alleged misdemeanours, or perhaps outright fraud, under the current Canada Elections Act and the amount of time it takes for that process to unfold. We are going to see the same kind of process when it comes to forcing first nations to resort to the courts in order to sort some of this out.

On the other hand, if the regulations are to provide that the first nations will fund appeals or if courts make a practice that all or most appeals will be funded or paid for by the first nations, significant expenses may be incurred by first nations following every election. Many, if not most, custom election codes or regulations provide for some form of internal appeal process that will allow first nations members to file and have heard an appeal or grievance in regard to an election, usually without the need to hire a legal counsel. These processes will allow for most members with a grievance to participate in the appeal process if so inclined.

Further, if an appeal is unsuccessful, the aggrieved member may still choose to pursue the matter to court. That is, most of the existing custom election codes and regulations provide or allow for both an internal appeal process and a court-driven appeal. The proposed legislation only provides for the courts to be the final arbiter of election disputes. That is an enormous problem. It would seem perfectly reasonable, and again I go back to the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples report, that indicated dispute resolution mechanisms needed to be developed by the first nations themselves. It would seem a perfectly reasonable approach to take.

I referenced clause No. 41 earlier in my speech about the problem with having regulations developed essentially without input and without any oversight.

In addition, we proposed another amendment with regard to Bill S-8, which would be an appropriate amendment for this legislation with regard to looking at whether there would be unintended consequences with legislation.

With respect to Bill S-8, we proposed that within five years after the act came into force, a comprehensive review of the provisions and operations of the act and of the regulations made under this act would have to be undertaken by such committee of the Senate and of the House of Commons as may be designated and so on.

The purpose of having some sort of five year review would be to look at what was happening with the regulations and also to look at whether the act was achieving its intended objective.

We heard from other members who spoke in the House about the fact that the legislation would provide stability in the communities and add to economic development opportunities.

I was first elected in 2004 and was in constant election mode. I understand the challenges for chiefs and councils when they are in two year election terms. It is not a reasonable period of time to develop and implement an agenda and to look at some of the results of it. If the government had just stuck to the four year term in the legislation, we would have had no problems supporting the bill, but it had to stick in other mechanisms.

I want to turn briefly to testimony that was heard in the Senate with regard to objections to the bill, and I want to refer to Derek Nepinak, the grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. I will read some of his testimony before the Senate. I have no idea how much time we will have when the bill gets to committee, because time allocation has become a way of doing business here. I do not even know if we will have time to have witnesses before committee. Chief Nepinak said:

Regarding clause 3(1)(a), we know already that the development of custom codes in our communities and the passages of them requires a double majority vote, meaning that we need to hold a referendum which includes a majority of the electors, as well as a majority passing the customary code. That double majority is reflective of the ability and willingness of our community members to participate in governance processes. I think that this bill undermines that somewhat in allowing a chief and council to move a resolution to opt into this new legislation. I think that is problematic because it excludes members of the community.

I have concern with respect to the phrase “protracted leadership dispute”. I am not quite sure what that means. I find the term overly ambiguous. It opens up a broader discretion for the minister to impose Bill S-6 on a community that might not otherwise wish to be part of the new legislation.

He goes on to outline a number of other clauses. Then he goes on to say:

Speaking broadly with respect to clauses 30 to 35 on contested elections, the chiefs in Manitoba supported the resolution to move forward in the discussion on the basis that we would discuss a process of tribunals or regional tribunals to engage the challenges resulting in our elections. I think it is fundamental to the self-determining efforts of communities to be able to engage their conflicts, be able to engage conflict, and to make difficult choices. I believe it is in the form of a tribunal...that...really come to the surface...the form of a decision-making body with authority—that our values and our systems of decision making...We can really show, and once again redevelop, those systems that were once there. I believe we need to be shown the respect and given the room to develop these tribunals so that we can adjudicate these matters within our systems. I believe that is a critical piece of the legislation that is missing.

I want to quote Ms. Cook-Searson, who also was before the Senate. She said:

I just wanted to comment on the question...One of my points was that we should have an independent First Nations electoral commission or a First Nations tribunal to settle any election disputes because it is afforded already for the federal government, the provincial governments. You have mechanisms in place where it is part of the regular part of democracy. If it is good for the federal government and the provincial governments, why is it not good for First Nations? Why not an option for a truly independent electoral commission? I do agree there will be disputes and you do need a mechanism to deal with them. However, rather than go through the minister or the cabinet or through the courts, we could have this independent First Nation electoral commission or First Nations tribunal to settle any election disputes.

Ms. Cook-Searson raises a really valid point. Elections Canada is doing its job currently about some allegations with respect to members of the House. Why do first nations not have access to the same kind of process?

I will end on that note. I hope the government will entertain some amendments to the legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Western Arctic for his input on this piece of legislation and, of course, for the great work that he does on the aboriginal affairs committee.

There is one specific clause in the bill that I want to ask the member about, clause 41, which provides for Governor in Council to make regulations.

We just finished with Bill S-8 on safe drinking water, which was all about making regulations. The concern that was raised under Bill S-8, and I am sure it will be raised under Bill S-6, is the fact that there is no rigorous provision for first nations to be involved in making regulations. In fact, the NDP proposed an amendment to Bill S-8 that would see regulations come back before the House and tabled to the appropriate committee so that there would be parliamentary oversight.

Could the member comment on the fact that there is no provision in this piece of legislation for first nations to be involved in the development and implementation of regulations?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I do want to start by reviewing what our House has accomplished over the preceding five days since I last answered the Thursday question.

Bill C-51, the safer witnesses act, was passed at third reading. Bill C-52, the fair rail freight service act, was passed at third reading. Bill C-63 and Bill C-64, the appropriations laws, passed at all stages last night as part of the last supply day of the spring cycle.

Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act, has been debated some more at third reading. Bill C-60, the economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1, was passed at report stage. Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act, was passed at report stage, was debated at third reading, and debate will continue.

Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act, was passed at second reading. Bill C-56, combating counterfeit products act, was debated at second reading. Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, was debated at second reading. Bill S-17, the tax conventions implementation act, 2013, was debated at second reading.

On Bill C-62, the Yale First Nation final agreement act, we adopted a ways and means motion, introduced the bill, passed it at second reading and it has since passed at committee. I anticipate we will be getting a report from the committee shortly.

Bill S-16, the tackling contraband tobacco act, was given first reading yesterday after arriving from the Senate. Bill C-65, the respect for communities act, was introduced this morning.

Substantive reports from four standing committees were adopted by the House.

On the private members' business front, the House witnessed three bills getting third reading, one being passed at report stage, two being reported back from committee and one was just passed at second reading and sent to a committee.

Last night was the replenishment of private members' business, with 15 hon. members bringing forward their ideas, which I am sure we will vigorously debate.

The House will continue to deliver results for Canadians over the next week. Today, we will finish the third reading debate on Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act. Then we will turn our collective attention to Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, at second reading, followed by Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act, at third reading.

Tomorrow we will have the third reading debate on Bill C-60, the economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1. The final vote on this very important job creation and economic growth bill will be on Monday after question period.

Before we rise for the weekend, we hope to start second reading debate on Bill C-61, the offshore health and safety act.

On Monday, we will complete the debates on Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, and Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act.

Today and next week, I would like to see us tackle the bills left on the order paper, with priority going to any bills coming back from committee.

As for the sequencing of the debates, I am certainly open to hearing the constructive proposals of my opposition counterparts on passing Bill S-6, the First Nations Elections Act, at second reading; Bill S-10, the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, at second reading; Bill S-12, the Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, at second reading; Bill S-13, the Port State Measures Agreement Implementation Act, at second reading; Bill S-16, at second reading; Bill S-17, at second reading; Bill C-57, the Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act, at second reading; Bill C-61, at second reading; and Bill C-65, at second reading.

Mr. Speaker, I am looking forward to having another list of accomplishments to share with you, and all honourable members, this time next Thursday.

Suffice it to say, we are being productive, hard-working and orderly in delivering on the commitments we have made to Canadians.

There having been discussions among the parties that it will receive unanimous consent, I would like to propose a motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practices of this House, the member for Peace River be now permitted to table the Report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development in relation to Bill C-62, An Act to give effect to the Yale First Nation Final Agreement and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Bill S-8—Time Allocation Motion

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

Mr. Speaker, this government's actions are absolutely shameful. I am outraged that it would dare impose a 41st gag order on this Parliament, this time concerning Bill S-8, especially given that this bill contains significant flaws. In particular, these legislative measures will make first nations responsible for water supply systems, which have already proven to be inadequate, without giving them the funding and the means to construct systems that are better adapted to their needs.

Last year, the NDP member for Timmins—James Bay told the government about the heartbreaking situation in the community of Attawapiskat. It is clear that first nations are not a priority for the government. Why are the Conservatives not taking action?

[Bernard Valcourt]

Mr. Speaker, not to disagree with the member, but we think enough time has been allocated to discuss and debate views and concerns about this bill.

The fact is that over 50 witnesses spoke on Bill S-11, the previous version, and on Bill S-8, the current version. Members heard from many organizations, including the Assembly of First Nations, the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nation Chiefs, the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador, the Institute on Governance and the Indigenous Bar Association.

Bill S-8 was introduced only after many hours of discussion. There has been enough debate. It is time to act.

[Bernard Valcourt, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, CPC]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the member is not very much concerned about the substance of the subject matter of this motion.

The motion is about Bill S-8, safe drinking water for first nations. This bill is crucial to ensure that first nations have the same health and safety protections concerning drinking water and waste water treatment as are currently enjoyed by other Canadians.

It has taken seven years for us to get to this point. It has taken seven years of continuous dialogue with first nations, including formal engagement sessions and implementing measures to accommodate the concerns of first nations.

The proposed legislation before Parliament today is the result of hard work and collaboration. It is time to move forward.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, in relation to Bill S-8, An Act respecting the safety of drinking water on First Nation lands, not more than five further hours shall be allotted to the consideration of the third reading stage of the bill; and

that, at the expiry of the five hours provided for the consideration of the third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Bill S-8—Notice of Time Allocation Motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise the House that agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to third reading stage of Bill S-8, An Act respecting the safety of drinking water on First Nation lands.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3) I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage of the said bill.

Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1

[Jonathan Genest-Jourdain, NDP, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when I last spoke in the House I made some observations about a recurring theme in the government's initiatives and announcements, and that is that the government is distancing itself from social intervention, more specifically from providing services in the country.

My last intervention focused on charities. I tried to substantiate my comments by introducing our audience to the notion of distancing, the government's desire to withdraw, a desire that has been obvious every day since it came to power. I could see that there were some controversial topics that Canadians viewed somewhat unfavourably. This government is often an easy target, both within Canada and internationally. That is the case when it comes to human rights—which I will come back to later—and access to clean drinking water. Recently in committee, we were examining Bill S-8, an initiative that once again transfers the burden of sanitation and access to clean drinking water onto first nation band councils. As everyone knows, this a fundamental right that is enshrined in the Constitution and one that is internationally recognized. Access to clean drinking water is crucial; it is a basic human right. The government is trying to step back from its obligations, to distance itself, and is transferring this burden to other bodies such as band councils, which do not necessarily have sufficient financial resources to deal with these issues.

Bill C-60 contains the same kind of blind transfer of responsibility. Some subjects are rather contentious, rather controversial. That is why the government is trying to get out of its obligations, or at least distance itself from the negative spotlight associated with certain subjects.

I will now substantiate my remarks by giving some concrete examples.

Throughout this mandate, many members in this House have joined with the auditor in exposing the obvious, chronic underfunding of education in first nation communities. The public's interest in the debate and the media coverage of the shortcomings affecting academic opportunities for a growing segment of the population helped fuel the Idle No More movement.

With respect to education, I read earlier on the CBC website that people are beginning to ask some questions about education for first nations and the general population. They are examining their own situation and their reality, a reality that is reflected in the debates in the House and in the implementation of the measures introduced in the House and sometimes in the Senate. Personally, I think too many measures are coming from the Senate.

That education works to free the people. That is why, in 2013, government agencies are instead focusing on training that meets the needs of companies involved in extracting natural resources. I am seeing that in my own riding. Those of us on the front lines can see that training programs, especially in remote areas, are designed to meet the needs expressed by a significant segment of industry. There is an attempt to push students towards programs that meet the needs of extractive companies, to the detriment of general education that encourages analytical and critical thinking regarding many of our country's contentious issues. That is basically what I wanted to say.

Now I would like to take a look at some of Canada's social statistics. It seems there is a 30% gap between the funding provided to students attending schools on reserve and other Canadians who attend provincial schools. That reflects the fact that natural resources are mainly, but not exclusively, being extracted in remote areas. My riding, where natural resources of all kinds are being extracted, is a clear example of that.

That is why this government does not necessarily have any interest in giving Indians access to post-secondary education. They will find themselves in situations that are similar to the ones they are facing now.

I am calling all of that into question and exposing it. The public has taken up this cause, and because of the advent and the growth of social media as we know them today, it does not take long for the information to get to remote communities. The Internet has become more widely available in recent years, and people have access to that information, even in remote communities. That is why the government tries so hard to restrict first nations' access to education.

Access was facilitated when I began studying law. There were programs that made it possible for aboriginal students to be admitted to law programs. There were pre-law programs, which were eliminated over time. Barring any proof to the contrary, those programs are no longer available today. Of course, it all depended on what government was in place at the time. There was a clear desire to include and extend that freedom to a segment of the population.

I was from a remote community, and that was a life-saver, if I may say so. I managed to get away from my community and its deleterious elements. Leaving did me a world of good. Now the government is trying to keep people in their communities. That explains the 30% disparity. It is the government's way of keeping Indians on reserve. There are times when the circumstances make life on reserve destructive, poisonous even. That seems to be their plan. That is my own perspective for your consideration, Mr. Speaker.

Considering the vast gulf dividing Canada's aboriginal and non-aboriginal groups in terms of academic opportunity, it is conceivable that the government is trying to delegate the implementation and funding of education programs for aboriginal clients across the country. That is why I have my doubts about the measure in Bill C-60 to transfer $5 million to a charitable organization responsible for distributing post-secondary education scholarships to students registered under the Indian Act and to Inuit students.

I am not the only one who is skeptical about this type of announcement. Some observers, both here in Canada and abroad, have their doubts. In fact, in this case, the Conservatives are blindly delegating the implementation of public policy. Instead of focusing on the real disparity in funding for the training and education of first nations youth—young people who are disadvantaged and who must face adversity on a daily basis—the Conservatives are delegating everything to an organization. The organization may be well run, but it is a non-profit organization, a para-public or charitable organization, that is not necessarily accountable. The Canadian government must set the parameters for implementing measures that foster access to higher education for first nations because, in the end, it is bound by its fiduciary obligation to them.

The delegation of this task leaves me perplexed and skeptical to say the least. In fact, we know that $5 million is not a huge amount in any event, especially when we consider the number of young people who will have access to or who are old enough to have access to quality education, higher education. This leaves me perplexed.

I submit this respectfully.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, now that we have been sitting for a week under our Conservative government's plans for a harder-working, productive and orderly House of Commons, I would remind all hon. members of what we have been able to achieve since just Victoria Day.

Bill C-48, the technical tax amendments act, 2012, was passed at report stage and third reading. Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act, was passed at second reading. Bill C-51, the safer witnesses act, was passed at report stage and we started third reading debate, which we will finish tonight. Bill C-52, the fair rail freight service act was passed at report stage and, just moments ago, at third reading. Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act, was passed at second reading. Bill C-60, the economic action plan 2013 act, No. 1, was reported back from committee yesterday.

Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act, was passed at report stage and we started third reading debate. Bill S-6, the first nations elections act, was debated at second reading. Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act, which was reported back to the House this morning by the hard-working and fast running member for Peace River, has completed committee. Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act, was debated at second reading. Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act, was debated at second reading. Bill S-13, the port state measures agreement implementation act, was debated at second reading. Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act, was debated at second reading.

We will build on this record of accomplishment over the coming week.

This afternoon, as I mentioned, we will finish the second reading debate on Bill C-51. After that, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-56, Combating Counterfeit Products Act.

Tomorrow morning, we will start report stage on Bill C-60, now that the hard-working Standing Committee on Finance has brought the bill back to us. After I conclude this statement, Mr. Speaker, I will have additional submissions for your consideration on yesterday's point of order.

After question period tomorrow, we will get a start on the second reading debate on Bill S-15, Expansion and Conservation of Canada’s National Parks Act. I am optimistic that we would not need much more time, at a future sitting, to finish that debate.

On Monday, before question period, we will debate Bill S-17, Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2013, at second reading. In the afternoon, we will hopefully finish report stage consideration of Bill C-60, followed by Bill S-2 at third reading.

On Tuesday, we will return to Bill S-2 if necessary. After that, I hope we could use the time to pass a few of the other bills that I mentioned earlier, as well as the forthcoming bill on the Yale First Nation Final Agreement.

Wednesday, June 5 shall be the eighth allotted day of the supply cycle. That means we will discuss an NDP motion up until about 6:30 p.m. This will be followed by a debate on the main estimates. Then we will pass to two appropriations acts.

Next Thursday, I would like to return back to Bill C-60, our budget implementation legislation, so we can quickly pass that important bill for the Canadian economy.

Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, entitled Bill S-8, An Act respecting the safety of drinking water on First Nation lands.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

First Nations Elections Act

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I have the opportunity here, quite late on Tuesday night, to speak to this particular bill.

It has been my viewpoint over the past two years on the aboriginal affairs committee that the Conservatives really have not been consulting in the correct fashion with first nations across the country. They come in with the wrong attitude. What we really need is to have first nations design the legislation that they would like to see enacted for their governments, their people and their nations. We can then take that in Parliament and understand how we can amend it so that it works.

However, we have the opposite way and we saw that with the accountability act, an act that really was an unfortunate piece of goods that came from the government. It was universally condemned by first nations. They did have a couple of supporters there, but they were some very specific people who had problems in their own particular communities. Those who understood the nature of the first nations-Canada relationship rejected the accountability act.

We are now at Bill S-8, the safe drinking water act, which we would think that everyone could get behind and support. However, once again, we see that the method of consultation and delivery of these bills is simply not working. The Conservative government is not providing the first nations with the opportunities to design the legislation so that it works for them. In this case, with the Senate putting forward Bill S-8, we also have the additional problem that we cannot make requirements for resources to ensure that first nations can actually meet standards that they would all want to meet.

The history so far of the majority government has been of one that refuses amendments. I think of Bill C-47, when we put forward some 45 amendments on a bill that only affected Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. Of those 40-some amendments, the Conservatives turned down all of them, even though the amendments were designed to make the bill work better. They were not coming from people who had great opposition to the bill. They were coming from people who were concerned that the bill should work right.

In other words, once again the Conservatives failed to provide a methodology of consultation that delivered a product that people could get behind. I see that this pattern is being repeated with Bill S-6. The Conservatives did go into some consultation. They did hold meetings with first nations. They got recommendations from first nations about how this bill should be set up. The problem is that when the bill showed up, those recommendations were not carried forward in the fashion that the first nations had assumed.

We can see that in the problem with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. The first Grand Chief, who was involved in the consultation side of it before the bill was put out, was pretty happy with what was going to happen. He said that, but then when the bill arrived in the Senate, the Manitoba Chief that I quoted in my question to the parliamentary secretary said, "no, that is not what we are after".

The consultation process is wrong. The consultation process does not deliver the goods for first nations. That is the problem here and the government has to change its direction in order to make legislation that truly represents first nations' points of view. The legislation is for the first nations. This legislation does not affect other people in Canada. The legislation is for the governments of the first nations. Therefore, it should really have those elements as the prime elements within the legislation.

That seems to be simple. We are not here to force our way upon other governments. We are here to provide guidance and accommodation and to make the system work.

Conservatives have a different view. They view it from that economic development lens. We heard the parliamentary secretary say that. Implicit within all the work that the Conservatives are doing is the idea that economic development for the first nations is the most important element. The most important element is not what the first nations want, not what the first nations deserve, but what will make economic development work. That is the Conservatives' point of view.

What we see in legislation over and over again is that message. What is important for economic development is the primary thing that we will see in legislation that comes from the Conservatives on first nations issues. If first nations go along with that, and the government can get some to go along with that, those will be the quotations that are used. Those will be the validations that Conservatives seek.

What really is needed? We really need to listen to the first nations. This legislation is for them, it is not for us. It is not telling us how we are getting elected. It is working with the first nations to come up with a system that they endorse, that they want for their very valid self-government efforts.

In the consultation process there was probably a little more give, a little more understanding, but when it came back to Ottawa, the changes were made to ensure that it worked for the government and it plans. That is the reality of what we are dealing with.

We have trouble with the bill. We also have trouble supporting it at second reading and taking it to committee. We have done this over and over again, but we are not getting any results. We are not getting the government to come onside for valid amendments to bills.

That is the process by which we all want to engage in here. This is what we want to do at committees. We want to have the opportunity to take what the people want, take what the government wants, come up with some compromises. We do not want this hard line attitude about the committees and about how amendments are dealt with at committees. That is not working for us. What we are saying is that will oppose this bill at second reading because it does not what the first nations want.

It is a tragedy that we cannot take the bill to committee with some kind of assurance that some of the important elements that need to be fixed in the bill will be fixed. However, when we beat our head against the wall and do not get results, then we should quit beating our head against the wall. That is sensible.

We can fight it here in Parliament. We can go to committee and hear the witnesses who will say that they want amendments and to make the bill work properly. That is what we have heard over and over again. With all the legislation that has come in front of us, it has always been the case that the first nations witnesses who testify want solutions. They do not want to go away empty handed.

It is a tragedy and it is wrong. That is not the way we should do government. Government is for the people. The people who are affected by legislation are the primary concern of the legislation. This is not for all of Canada. This is for first nations. They have the primary say here. If we go against that principle, we are really going against the principle of democracy if we are not allowing the people who are affected by the law to have the dominant say over how the law is put together.

If a law affects all Canadians, then we all have a say in it. The responsibility is different. However, in the case when we are making laws for first nations, first nations that have a constitutional right of self-government, that have been in this land for thousands of years, who signed treaties, they should have a say in it. We did not take the land away from them, we signed treaties with them. The Queen agreed about how these treaties were taken care of in 1763.

That is our history. Do we want to rewrite history? We should write it the way it has been done.

I really would like to get along with the government on legislation for first nations when it starts getting along with first nations and when it starts listening to first nations. This is what the legislation is for. These are the people who are affected by the legislation. It is not for businessmen, not for those who look upon reserves as potential new sources of land and resources. No, it is for those people. Let us remember that when we deal with legislation. If we do not, we are simply not doing the job that, as Canadians, we know we should be doing.

Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, the foreign investment protection act is another piece of legislation that just went through. The foreign investment protection act means if we change legislation regulations in Canada and it does not fit what the foreign investors had expected from our country, then they have the right to complain, to take action.

All of a sudden now we are in a position where regulations that are decided somewhere else by someone else other than this Parliament can make that a probability, perhaps a reality. Those are things we have to think about with this.

We are changing the way we are doing business. Is the way we are changing doing business the way we want to do that? I would say right now that, to me, amendments to the bill are needed.

I understand why people want to have the bill, the necessity to do the things that make sense with the bill. It is good to have regulations that can recognize inflation and the changing nature of our society, that can do those things that make sense. I do not have a problem with that. I am in favour of that, but I am not in favour of impeding our sovereignty in any way through changing the way we make regulations. That is clear. I do not have to think twice about that.

When we talk about Bill S-8, about the safety of drinking water on our first nations reserves, we are talking about a law that enables regulations, and those regulations will probably be made in provinces. Those provinces will change those regulations for safe drinking water as time goes on. That is the reality of the situation.

We have a fiduciary responsibility to first nations in the government. We need to ensure that any changes that are made to regulations are run by the first nations to whom we will apply this law. Therefore, we need to have the opportunity to look at changes, to consult with our first nations about changes that are made by provinces if we adopt their regulations to govern safe drinking water on first nations reserves. There is another instance of why we need to look at this legislation.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand here at 11 o'clock at night to have the opportunity to speak to the Statutory Instruments Act.

First, I am not very pleased that the bill has come from the Senate. I find this is an inappropriate direction for legislation of this nature. It should have come from the House of Commons.

Right now, at the aboriginal affairs committee, we are dealing with another piece of legislation, Bill S-8, which also came from the Senate. That legislation has been panned by almost everyone who is standing in front of our committee because it does not have the ability to provide resources for the things that are required within the bill.

A Senate bill cannot put a financial burden on the government. Therefore, that bill is not effective. It is also the wrong direction, as well.

That aside, when we look at the bill, it is an interesting one. I think we have all learned a lot through this debate tonight, and I am sure the debate will continue on it because it is a very important bill. As my colleagues pointed out, it would make 170 decisions of the government legal after being illegal for a number of years.

There is a lot to regulation. There are 3,000 regulations on the books, consisting of 30,000 pages. There are also 1,000 draft regulations every year. That says that those 3,000 regulations are being changed constantly. There is change within the system. That change has the scrutiny of Parliament, its officers and its staff. That is taken care of within the confines of our Government of Canada.

We now have a bill that would open up change to our regulations from a variety of sources that we would no longer have control over. What is going to happen here?

In the bill, there is a section which says, “The power to make a regulation also includes the power to incorporate by reference an index, rate or number”. Now, we do not have definitions of those three things, but I guess we can assume that they cover most of the gamut of what regulations are. It goes on to say, “as it exists on a particular date or as it is varied from time to time”. Therefore, as it varies, it can be incorporated. It goes on to say, “established by Statistics Canada, the Bank of Canada”, all good institutions. I do not have a problem with those institutions helping with regulations. Then it says, “or a person or body other than the regulation-making authority”

As my colleague from Fort McMurray—Athabasca said, this can be Canadian regulations, it can be provincial regulations, or it can be international regulations.

We now have a situation where we are going to incorporate regulations under Parliament that are made in other countries. It sounds good. Countries make choices. They may be very good choices. However, those regulations can also be varied in those countries and we have no control over that. We would have no control over what would go on with those regulations when they are varied in those countries.

How does that fit with sovereignty? I am not here to sell Canadian sovereignty. That is not my goal in this Parliament, I am sorry. Canadians need to control the regulations that are created by Parliament. They need to have a say over how those regulations are changed, whether they come through the provinces, whether they come through bodies in Canada, or whether they come through international bodies. That is quite clearly the case. That is what most Canadians will want.

What we have is a situation where we need some amendments to the bill. We need to limit the ability to take on changes that are made in bodies outside our country. We need to ensure that changes made to regulations that are made within Canada have the scrutiny of Parliament through its procedures, through its committees that are set up to do exactly that. Those are types of amendments that could be made to the legislation to make it more palatable to most people when they understand the nature of what is going on with this innocuous named bill.

It does not sound very threatening and, if handled correctly in the interest of Canadians, with the understanding of Canadian sovereignty, it works out quite well, unless it is used as a tool in international trade agreements to take on regulations so that we can make trade deals with other countries and take on their regulations.

We are into the European Union right now. The European Union will demand a lot of things of Canada. It is going to demand that Canada do things the way the European Union does them. That is what it wants, if we want to have a trade deal with the European Union.

This is an opportunity to give the European Union exactly that. We could take on the regulations of the European Union for many things. We could put them into our system, and in the future, if they make changes to those regulations, those will fit into our system as well.

How does that fit with sovereignty? I do not buy it. I stand here today and say that if I do not hear a better argument against this, I cannot buy this legislation. If I do not see some kind of amendments in it that actually protect my country from having changes made to its laws by other countries without the scrutiny of this Parliament, I cannot buy that. That is not for me. If it is for you, then I say you should go back to your constituents and tell them what you are doing with Canada.

Extention of Sitting Hours

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not very happy about being here. However, I am here because we need to stand up to this government, which believes that Parliament exists only for its benefit and that it is just a place concerned with the government's problems and accountability.

It is almost as if a new party came into the House today, as we listen to the Conservative House leader speak. It certainly is not the party that moved prorogation and killed legislation time and again. This new Conservative Party is suddenly interested in not defeating legislation. It could not be the same Conservative Party that has shut down debate in the House of Commons more than any party in Canadian history. It could not be a member of the same party who was speaking here today, talking about opening up debate. The Conservatives have invented a new world for themselves that is fascinating.

I am reflecting on my friend from Langley, who sought to speak in this House on what they call an S. O. 31 statement, which happens just before question period. It is a statement that lasts for about a minute. Usually members of Parliament get up and make a statement about their ridings about some issue that is important to them. My friend from Langley, who sits in the Conservative Party, was a parliamentary secretary, I remember, for the Minister of the Environment, a chair, a well-respected member of Parliament, and a friend. He sought to stand up and speak to something he thought was important to his constituents.

It was the old Conservative Party that shut down that member of Parliament and every other one who tried to get up and speak, because this new Conservative Party talks about wanting people to speak in the House and wanting to have debate.

While it is refreshing to hear it, I do not believe it, and I do not think Canadians are going to believe that suddenly accountability and democracy have broken out within the Prime Minister's Office. It is the office of this particular Prime Minister who, rather than face any uncomfortable questions from the media or the official opposition members today, or for the rest of this week, has decided that going to South America to sit with other trading partners from other countries we already have established trade deals with to talk about trade deals that already exist is much more important than asking questions about the Senate.

It must be a new Conservative Party that suddenly has on its agenda a legislative directive that the members need to sit longer hours and work hard on something that might be quite topical today, something such as the reform of Canada's Senate, which has been long overdue and long called for by Canadians and New Democrats who said that the place was fundamentally broken. There is no accountability. Unelected and under investigation is the new Senate.

I remember the old Reform Party. You probably do as well, Mr. Speaker. It came in riding from the west, from my part of the world.

I see a member across the way, who was one of the founding members of the Reform Party, calling it a beautiful thing. While I disagreed fundamentally with many of its positions, certainly its social positions, there was something on which I could see some common ground. That was to make Parliament more accountable and to reform the Senate.

The current government has now been in power almost seven long years. Is that right? The time goes slowly. In those six or seven years, the Prime Minister made a promise as one of his fundamental commitments to Canadians. Commitments should be treated sacredly, I believe.

We all get up at elections. We have party platforms and promises we make to Canadians. If we win, that platform and those promises become our agenda. That is what we would seek to do in office. It is simple. One of his promises, one of his agendas, one of his reforms was on the Senate. When the Conservatives were in opposition, they would see those Liberal senators down there taking their money, not really representing anybody, going on trips and maybe even defrauding taxpayers. Who knows? The Reform movement came in and said it was wrong and anti-democratic.

For a party that decided to put “democratic” right in the middle of our name, we take these questions seriously. We feel that it is accountability to the people we on the orange team represent. In a sense, we are watching this Prime Minister now play victim to what is going on in the Senate with senators he appointed exclusively and explicitly to raise money for the Conservative Party of Canada. Now this same Prime Minister claims victimhood and wonders how this happened. How did his chief of staff, who sits to his immediate left every day and knows his deepest, darkest secrets, whom he put in charge of major trade files and negotiations with other countries, cut a $90,000 cheque to a senator he appointed? However, obviously, the Prime Minister's hands are clean, and he has nothing to say about this. He believes that his hands are so clean that he is not going to answer any questions about it. He is going to go to South America to be in trade talks with countries we already have trade deals with. That is the new Conservative Party, which is the old one, the same one that has forgotten its roots.

Dear Mr. Manning is still with us, so he is not spinning in his grave, but he is definitely spinning. He was asked recently whether the Conservatives have lost their principles. He said, no, they have maintained their priorities. It is an interesting dodge of a question. Mr. Speaker, you have been around politics a bit. You know when a question is put directly and someone answers it indirectly.

I find it incredible that we have before us a motion that continues to abuse Parliament. This motion is designed simply to restrict debate and demonstrate to members of the House of Commons that the only reason Parliament exists is so that the government can do what it wants.

I remember a comment made by the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. When we were debating a time allocation motion, he said that their intention was not to put an end to debate or to censure it, but just to control Parliament.

It is incredible that a minister is admitting that the Conservatives just want to control the Parliament of Canada. It also reflects the Conservatives' esprit de corps. They want to control everything, not just the opposition and Parliament, but their members, as well as the media and the public.

The current vision of the Prime Minister and the government leaves the public with no choice and no voice. It is all about the kind of country that the Prime Minister wants to build.

We see a government moving this extraordinary thing, which will see, big deal, members of Parliament sitting until midnight.

New Democrats have been known, sometimes to our detriment, to be willing to force the calendar to the very last minute and sit all night, such as when the government moved anti-worker legislation against a very profitable Canada Post, which, I might add, in a parenthetical way, then lost money.

After the lockout by Canada Post, the government imposed wage contracts on those workers that were less than what the company was willing to offer. Then it said that it needed to shut down Canada Post offices around the country, as Canada Post was losing money because of the lockout it allowed them to do. The logic is inherently twisted on that side.

Remember the omnibus debates and the voting we had. I remember my friend from the Green Party moving a certain number of amendments to the bill, which forced the House to sit all night and vote, hour after hour. I remember some of my friends from Surrey who stayed in their seats for 22 hours.

No one has ever accused New Democrats of not being willing to come to work and work on behalf of our constituents. We may do some things wrong. We may sometimes fall short in some areas, but hard work has not ever been one of those things.

There is such irony in hearing a Conservative House leader who, with his Prime Minister, has prorogued Parliament, shut it down, and killed their government's own legislation time and time again, say to the Speaker that the problem is that they cannot get their legislation through.

It had been there for 12 months. After eight months, they killed it themselves and prorogued the House.

One prorogation was quite notable. The government looked to be in a bit of trouble. It was in a minority position. The world was entering into a very deep recession. The Minister of Finance, who claims to be the best in the world, ignored the recession and introduced what the Conservatives called an austerity budget at the very moment when the rest of the world, realizing that the economy was coming to a virtual standstill, was introducing budgets that did the opposite.

The finance genius we have sitting in the chair said, “Never mind what the rest of the world thinks about what is going on in the global economy; we know that Canada is not going into recession”, even as we were in the midst of a recession. He introduced an austerity budget to cut back billions in job creation, in grants and in all the things the Conservatives take credit for, such as unemployment insurance for a bunch of Canadians who were just being thrown out of work.

The opposition said that it was not a very good budget and suggested that we vote against that budget. The government panicked and prorogued. Canadians got a civil lesson in how Parliament works. They had never heard the word “prorogation” before. Then we got to learn.

The Prime Minister had to go to the Governor General. He sat there for a number of hours, perhaps being lectured about how undemocratic it was, when facing a non-confidence vote, to head down the road to the Queen's representative to ask for permission to shut it all down before he was thrown out of office. He was more worried about his job that day than about Canadians. That is for sure.

That is a government that killed its legislation in order to save itself, and did it time and time again.

Here is the trend that we worry about with today's motion. For a government that has broken the record by shutting down debate more times than any government in Canadian history, it has refused 99.3% of all the amendments that the opposition has brought to its legislation.

Let us look at that for a moment. The way a bill is supposed to work is it comes into the House and gets debated. There is a pro and con and the real coming together or clash of ideas to improve the legislation because no one is perfect. The drafters of legislation do not get it right. They are sometimes hundreds of pages long and very complicated. The House is meant to debate that. Then we send it to committee and hear from experts, not just members of Parliament who are not often experts in these areas, but people who work in the field. They are the social workers, the financial experts, the crime experts and the police. We hear those suggestions and write amendments based on those ideas. That is the way this place is supposed to work.

However, the government is saying that in 99.3% of those cases those experts are wrong and the government is right. It will not change a period, a comma, not a word in any of the legislation. Then lo and behold, time and time again, the legislation is challenged in the courts successfully. The legislation does not fix the problems identified and costs Canada and Canadians billions.

We all remember well Bill C-30, the Internet snooping bill that would allow the state to look in on the Internet searches and emails of Canadians without any warrant. The government decided in its vigour for its tough on crime agenda that it would pass a law that said that at any point, at any time, Canadians anywhere could have their BlackBerrys and iPhones tapped by the government, that web searches on home computers could be looked at by the government and the police. There is no country in the world, outside of Iran and North Korea, that would even consider doing this. The Conservative government thought it was a fantastic idea. In trying to argue the case, it said that if we were not into exposing our Internet searches and our emails then we must be in support of child pornography.

Has any more offensive or stupid an argument ever been made on the floor of the House of Commons? It is offensive to basic civil liberties and decency, to the role of members of Parliament trying to do our jobs and to the Canadians who said that they were not sure they wanted the government looking at their email?

I look at the member for Yukon right now. I do not know what he is searching and I do not want to know. It is his privacy to look on his computer and do as he sees fit. That is a civil liberty I am sure he defends as well, but not his government.

Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill, was the flagship. The government rammed it all into one bill and said that it was such important legislation it would shut down debate on it too. Then whole sections of the bill were taken out. Why? It was because they were unconstitutional.

Now we know where that all comes from. Canadians actually pay for a service. Many members of Parliament may not know this, but when a government introduces a bill it goes to constitutional legal experts to determine if the new legislation goes against our constitution, our foundation as a country? If it does, it is a good idea to modify the law to ensure it does not get challenged in the courts, which costs upwards of $3 million to $5 million to taxpayers every time there is one of those challenges. The government did not check on Bill C-10. We know that because the people who work for the Government of Canada, who do this work, are no longer receiving references from the government.

The government is not even asking anymore. It is choosing ignorance. This is incredible. It is saying that it does not want to know whether the laws it writes are constitutional, whether the laws it writes as a government are for or against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is incredible. This is not a mistake. It is by intention. Therefore, we have these lawyers sitting in their offices, being paid every day, waiting for the government to refer the bills it introduces here to ensure they can survive a constitutional challenge. The government does not ask anymore.

Bill C-38, the first omnibus bill and Bill C-45, the second omnibus bill, were both challenged in the courts as unconstitutional. First nations are challenging it. I need to address this because the government House leader mentioned two bills that are being moved, so-called, on behalf of first nations. They are Bill S-2 and Bill S-8. One is matrimonial property rights. It sounds pretty innocuous. Most Canadians would say that matrimonial property rights for first nations women on reserve maybe protects their rights. Who is opposed to it? It is not just us in the opposition, but aboriginal women, every first nation women's group in the country. My friend across the way shakes his head, but I can show him the testimony that says the bill is no good for aboriginal women.

However, the Conservatives know better. With their shameful record on aboriginal rights and title in the country, suddenly they know better than aboriginal women, than first nations women. Bill S-8 is a bill to help first nations have clean drinking water because the record has been shameful.

Government after government has failed first nations communities. Thirty-five per cent of the people I represent in northern British Columbia are in first nations communities. The water conditions there are incredibly bad. We have to do something about it. There are fixes and there are ideas coming from those communities.

Instead the government moves the bill, handing all responsibility down to first nations in terms of cleaning up their own water mess, but none of the resources to do it. Are first nations supportive of it? No. Nor would any municipality or any province in Canada be supportive of legislation that rams down responsibility without any of the support, money or help to get that done.

Most of these first nations communities are living in abject poverty. Where does the government think they are going to get the money from? The government will not settle treaty with them in the west. First nations are having mining, oil and gas exploration and pipelines put everywhere and are receiving none of the royalties, none of the compensation and the government will not move treaty forward.

I was just in Gitxsan territory, speaking with the Gitxsan and the Wet'suwet'en, talking about basic child services, kids who are being abused in their homes and setting up a program that the federal government said that we should enact 20 years ago to allow first nations more rights and responsibilities to rescue those kids and help them kids integrate back into their communities.

Who is not coming to the table? The Conservative government. This is the government that on Bill S-2 and Bill S-8 suddenly said that it had first nations rights and title and priorities at heart, when it did not.

The place can work. Members can sense a certain amount of frustration in my voice, because Parliament can work. It is actually designed to work. I love our system. It is so superior to many other systems I have studied around the world, that have consistent congressional gridlock on legislation and on budgets. We can make things happen here.

However, with the power that is afforded a majority government, which is a lot, comes a certain amount of responsibility to use the power wisely and not abuse it. Yet time and again we have seen the government House leader and other ministers get up and say that they are not looking to limit the debate; they just want to control it. They reject virtually 100% of all the amendments and all the changes and suggestions they hear at committee because they know better and they have the votes to push it forward.

It is at such a point that the control has extended deeply into the government's caucus. Some of the more socially conservative members of the Conservative caucus are no longer free to speak, or are only free to speak on certain things, in certain ways, if the Prime Minister's Office allows for it.

In a small program that we run in northern B.C., initiated a number of years ago, I hold a conference call with all the detachment commanders from all the RCMP outposts that exist in my riding. It is a very large riding facing a lot of tough, difficult situations with policing. Once every two or three months I get on the phone with 12 detachment commanders and we talk about what is going on. We talk about what is happening in crime, what the drug use is like, what legislation is moving through the House that will help or hinder these hard-working, hard-serving officers.

I am not allowed to have that conversation with these RCMP officers anymore. I am not supposed to talk to them. As a sitting member of Parliament, I am not supposed to go to them. A number of them have come to me because they are friends and we have known each other for years. They offer good, on-the-ground advice about what is happening.

They say that they are sorry, that they cannot talk to me. They tell me that I have to phone the Prime Minister's Office in order for them to talk to me about what is going on in Prince Rupert, or what is going on in Dease Lake or Bella Coola.

It is insane. This is wrong. Government officials at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, who I have known for years and who I phone just for an update to see what is going on with our fish on the west coast, tell me that I am a member of Parliament from the opposition and that I need to phone the people in the Prime Minister's Office and that they will give me permission as to whether they can tell me what is going on in Canada's fishery.

This is not their government. This is not a Conservative government. This is Canada's government. We pay for these civil servants. We pay their salaries to do work on behalf of Canadians. Whether it is silencing scientists, shutting down access for members of Parliament to basic conversations, or shutting down debate in Parliament, the consistent voice from the government is that it will not be held to account.

This is bad. This is not just about the privilege all members of the House need to do their job. The government says there is some urgency, but there is not. There is no urgency when it comes to the government's mandate or agenda.

It is very strange for the government to say it is very open, when we see what is going on in the Senate.

We have senators like Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau. All current senators have potentially stolen money from Canadians. These are the same senators that the Prime Minister says are very good people. These are the same senators using money from the Canadian people to travel during an election and raise money for the Conservative Party. That is the new Conservative Party. I do not understand.

I remember the Reform Party of Canada and some reforms that Mr. Manning wanted to make. With the current party, it is the same story as with the Liberal Party and the Gomery commission and all the rest. I am both angry and sad.

The majority of Canadians did not vote for this government, which has a majority, but does not have the majority support of Canadians. Close to 60% of Canadians voted against this agenda, against this sort of arrogance. They voted not to have the kind of government that now uses brutal tactics, not against the New Democratic Party, but against Parliament.

Lastly, I think we need to have a referendum, which may not happen until the next election.

It bears some comment, not only with respect to the Senate scandal but even the motion today.

I watched the government House leader and the Prime Minister on television earlier. He actually allowed the media into his caucus room for a second, which was bizarre. The bully turns into the victim, that somehow this is put upon them, that they are somehow being victimized here.

What frustrates me is not just the work that we have to do as parliamentarians that is constantly thwarted by the government at committee stage, and my friend laughs, but how can it be possible that 99.3% of all amendments were rejected? The evidence is clear.

My friend can shake his head and laugh and treat this with disdain or heckle out what seems to be a favourite tactic of some of my friends who cannot win the debate, but can simply sit in their seats and heckle, yell and try to put down a comment that hurts a little too much, that being that 99.3% of all amendments were rejected, that the witnesses were all wrong, that the government was always right and that the courts must be wrong too. Soon the Conservatives will call them activist courts like the Republicans do in the states. Members should watch for it because it is coming.

We believe this motion is fundamentally flawed in its abuse of this place and of all members. I do not speak just for the New Democrats or the folks down the way. I speak for the backbenchers who have been rubbing up against some of the limitations. What is sad about most of it and is most concerning is those who are not agitating against the Conservative government's control over its backbench and accepting it. I lament the most for those who are so comfortable reading the script from the Prime Minister's Office and repeating it like robots, feeling that is their work and whose expectations of what it is to be a member of Parliament are so diminished that they simply accept it, not those the media have called rebels who have stood up and stated that they want to have their own statement but the Prime Minister's Office has shut them down. They run under the blue banner, which is their choice.

I lament for those who seem so happy to get up and repeat the mindless dribble that is put to them by the Prime Minister's Office day after day. When they first ran for office, I wonder if they said that they wanted to be a member of Parliament to represent people and get to Parliament to speak with a strong voice of conviction on behalf of the people they represent and that in order to do they would read whatever was put in front of them by the Prime Minister's Office, written by a 24-year-old intern who types out some sort of nonsense and makes up policies that the NDP does not have, making personal attacks on a regular basis as a substitute for honest and sincere debate? Was that really their expectation?

I wish I had some video evidence from some of those early debates because I know that is not what those members ran on. I know their nomination meetings did not look like that, nor did any of the debates they attended during the campaign. That is not what they said. They said that they would speak on behalf of their constituents, fight for them and still raise their voice, even if that meant it was contrary to what their government suggested.

I am sure that is what my friends across the way said. They are very nice people. I know a lot of these folks, as we have spent some time together. I know some of their inner thoughts about the way Parliament ought to be, and some of them lament it. However, it is the ones who do not who worry me. They are the ones who so comfortably slip into that straitjacket day after day. Maybe they just get used to it, but they are able to rationalize that there is some larger agenda that is more important than their having an independent and free voice.

They can keep yelling and you can allow them to if you wish, Mr. Speaker, but the truth often hurts, and the truth of the matter is that with a majority government, this member and his colleagues have chosen to vote for closure more than any government in Canadian history. With a majority, the Conservative government has refused the evidence, has refused the science time and time again, and that government is bad government.

The Conservative government appointed senators, and I am sure some fundraising went on for some of my friends. Maybe Ms. Wallin, Mr. Duffy or Mr. Brazeau came by and raised a few dollars, shook a few hands and got a few votes for my friends. Maybe there is a little bit of a tarnish on my colleagues, which is why they are calling out and why they are worried. It is because their base hates this. They hate the idea of entitlement and of an insider's game that goes on in Ottawa all the time, and that friends of the Prime Minister's Office get some sort of special treatment.

Talking about special treatment, how about a $90,000 personal cheque just cut off the back and handed over to somebody who may have defrauded taxpayers? Where is the Reform Party now? Where are the original Conservative intentions now? They are gone, bit by bit, eroded piece by piece. That is where it has gone, and it has all been subjugated to some idea that there is a better and bigger cause, that this grand scheme they are involved in somehow makes all of it justifiable.

Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, what these guys would sound like if the roles were reversed? If it were a Liberal government with senators getting cheques from the Prime Minister's chief of staff or a New Democratic government acting the way the Conservatives act, could you imagine the hue and cry and the calls for resignations every second minute? They would be losing their minds.

Now the Conservatives play the victim, saying that these senators were put upon them, that they didn't know what they were doing, that it is terrible. They only have a majority, both here and there. The Prime Minister has appointed more senators than any Prime Minister in Canadian history. How many did he say he would appoint? None, but he had to appoint some, and then it had to be justified. These are small and slow slippages, and this motion is a continuation of that.

This motion says that Parliament matters less and that those Canadians who have grown cynical about the role of MPs are justified in their cynicism. We say that is wrong. How do we turn to the young voters coming up? How do we turn to people who come to us and say that they might want to run for office one day? How can we say that their voices will matter when the government moves motions like this time and time again, shutting down debate?

As my friend the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development said, the Conservatives do not want to shut down debate; they just want to control it. Is this is how one entices people into a life of politics? Is this how one encourages young people to vote? Do we say, “Welcome to Parliament, where we are going to control debate and shut it down time and time again”? This is the Conservatives' call to action.

It is not a call to action, but a call to inaction. It is a call to cynicism. It is calling to people, “Do not look over here; nothing is happening here in government. Go on with your lives and other things that are more important and distracting.” The government is counting on people to have an attention deficit rather than realize that the decisions we make here in Parliament every day affect Canadians in every way.

If members of Parliament cannot do their work, as this motion suggests, and hold the government to account, it is bad government. It is bad government when it cannot find $3 billion that may be under a mattress or in a banana stand or wherever it happens to be, and when senators rip off taxpayers with no consequence whatsoever. We think the RCMP might have a role to play here.

What would happen if any of the Canadians in our gallery today or watching on TV defrauded the Canadian government of $500? They would get charged. However, if it is a Conservative senator, what happens? Oh, they just recuse themselves from caucus. Wow. They still get paid, they still have all of their privileges, but they cannot go to caucus meetings on Wednesday mornings.

Mr. Speaker, do you think that maybe that punishment is a little severe? I mean, having to recuse oneself from a two-hour meeting on Wednesday morning for defrauding taxpayers—boy, that seems pretty harsh.

Why the double standard? We used to call that the culture of entitlement. I remember a colleague of mine in this place, Ed Broadbent, asking a former Liberal minister who became head of the mint and was claiming packets of gum and coffee on his receipts, “Are you entitled to your entitlements, sir?” This person took a moment of authenticity and said, “Yes, I am entitled to my entitlements.”

The Conservatives railed at the Liberal entitlement, the culture of entitlement, the Gomery inquiry and all those terrible things that went down.

History repeats itself if one is not a student of history, and it seems that the Conservative Party has not looked at the history of this place or of other parliaments.

The fact of the matter is that debate in and of itself is not a bad thing. The exchange of ideas is not in and of itself a bad thing. Being wrong from time to time is not of itself a bad thing; learning happens in those moments, and the government needs to learn, because I can read off the list of the bills it had so fundamentally wrong that it had to withdraw them. The Conservatives had to say that they got it so badly wrong because they listened to none of the amendments that they have to fix it now, at the very last minute, or wait until it gets to the Senate and let the unaccountable, unelected and under investigation senators deal with it. That is no form of democracy worth defending, and the Conservatives know it. They know it better than most.

I will move that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after “Fridays” and replacing them with the following: “(b) when oral questions are to be taken up pursuant”—

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will pick up where I left off. Obviously my hon. friend did not hear this and has not read the motion. I will respond to his macho riposte at the end of his comments by pointing out that the motion would do three things: first, it would provide for us to sit until midnight; second, it would provide a manageable way in which to hold votes in a fashion that works for members of the House; and third, it would provide for concurrence debates to happen and motions to be voted on in a fashion that would not disrupt the work of all the committees of the House and force them to come back here for votes and shut down the work of committees.

Those are the three things the motion would do. In all other respects the Standing Orders remain in place, including the Standing Orders for how long the House sits. Had my friend actually read the motion, he would recognize that the only way in which that Standing Order could then be changed would be by unanimous consent of the House.

The member needs no commitment from me as to how long we will sit. Any member of the House can determine that question, if he or she wishes to adjourn other than the rules contemplate, but the rules are quite clear in what they do contemplate.

As I was saying, the reason for the motion is that Canadians expect their members of Parliament to work hard and get things done on their behalf.

Canadians expect their members of Parliament to work hard and get things done on their behalf.

We agree and that is exactly what has happened here in the House of Commons.

However, do not take my word for it; look at the facts. In this Parliament the government has introduced 76 pieces of legislation. Of those 76, 44 of them are law in one form or another. That makes for a total of 58% of the bills introduced into Parliament. Another 15 of these bills have been passed by either the House or the Senate, bringing the total to 77% of the bills that have been passed by one of the two Houses of Parliament. That is the record of a hard-working, orderly and productive Parliament.

More than just passing bills, the work we are doing here is delivering real results for Canadians. However, there is still yet more work to be done before we return to our constituencies for the summer.

During this time our government's top priority has been jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity. Through two years and three budgets, we have passed initiatives that have helped to create more than 900,000 net new jobs since the global economic recession. We have achieved this record while also ensuring that Canada's debt burden is the lowest in the G7. We are taking real action to make sure the budget will be balanced by 2015. We have also followed through on numerous longstanding commitments to keep our streets and communities safe, to improve democratic representation in the House of Commons, to provide marketing freedom for western Canadian grain farmers and to eliminate once and for all the wasteful and inefficient long gun registry.

Let me make clear what the motion would and would not do. There has been speculation recently, including from my friend opposite, about the government's objectives and motivations with respect to motion no. 17. As the joke goes: Mr. Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. So it is with today's motion. There is only one intention motivating the government in proposing the motion: to work hard and deliver real results for Canadians.

The motion would extend the hours the House sits from Monday through Thursday. Instead of finishing the day around 6:30 or 7 p.m., the House would sit instead until midnight.

This would amount to an additional 20 hours each week. Extended sitting hours is something that happens most years in June. Our government just wants to roll up our sleeves and work a little harder, earlier this year. The motion would allow certain votes to be deferred automatically until the end of question period, to allow for all honourable members' schedules to be a little more orderly.

As I said, all other rules would remain. For example, concurrence motions could be moved, debated and voted upon. Today's motion would simply allow committees to continue doing their work instead of returning to the House for motions to return to government business and the like. This process we are putting forward would ensure those committees could do their good work and be productive, while at the same time the House could proceed with its business. Concurrence motions could ultimately be dealt with, debated and voted upon.

We are interested in working hard and being productive and doing so in an orderly fashion, and that is the extent of what the motion would do. I hope that the opposition parties would be willing to support this reasonable plan and let it come forward to a vote. I am sure members opposite would not be interested in going back to their constituents to say they voted against working a little overtime before the House rises for the summer, but the first indication from my friend opposite is that perhaps he is reluctant to do that. Members on this side of the House are willing to work extra hours to deliver real results for Canadians.

Some of those accomplishments we intend to pass are: reforming the temporary foreign workers program to put the interests of Canadians first; implementing tax credits for Canadians who donate to charity; enhancing the tax credit for parents who adopt; and extending the tax credit for Canadians who take care of loved ones in their home.

We also want to support veterans and their families by improving the determination of veterans' benefits.

Of course, these are some of the important measures from this year's budget and are included in Bill C-60, economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1. We are also working toward results for aboriginals by moving closer to equality for Canadians living on reserves through better standards for drinking water and finally giving women on reserves the same rights and protections other Canadian women have had for decades. Bill S-2, family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act, and Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act would deliver on those very important objectives.

We will also work to keep our streets and communities safe by making real improvements to the witness protection program through Bill C-51, the safer witnesses act. I think that delivering these results for Canadians is worth working a few extra hours each week.

We will work to bring the Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, into law. Bill C-48 would provide certainty to the tax code. It has been over a decade since a bill like this has passed, so it is about time this bill passed. In fact, after question period today, I hope to start third reading of this bill, so perhaps we can get it passed today.

We will also work to bring Bill C-52, the fair rail freight service act, into law. The bill would support economic growth by ensuring that all shippers, including farmers, are treated fairly. Over the next few weeks we will also work, hopefully with the co-operation of the opposition parties, to make progress on other important initiatives.

Bill C-54 will ensure that public safety is the paramount consideration in the decision-making process involving high-risk accused found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder. This is an issue that unfortunately has affected every region of this country. The very least we can do is let the bill come to a vote and send it to committee where witnesses can testify about the importance of these changes.

Bill C-49 would create the Canadian museum of history, a museum for Canadians that would tell our stories and present our country's treasures to the world.

Bill S-14, the Fighting Foreign Corruption Act, will do just that by further deterring and preventing Canadian companies from bribing foreign public officials. These amendments will help ensure that Canadian companies continue to act in good faith in the pursuit of freer markets and expanded global trade.

Bill S-13, the port state measures agreement implementation act, would implement that 2009 treaty by amending the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act to add prohibitions on importing illegally acquired fish.

Tonight we will be voting on Bill S-9, the Nuclear Terrorism Act, which will allow Canada to honour its commitments under international agreements to tackle nuclear terrorism. Another important treaty—the Convention on Cluster Munitions—can be given effect if we adopt Bill S-10, the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act.

We will seek to update and modernize Canada’s network of income tax treaties through Bill S-17, the Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2013, by giving the force of law to recently signed agreements between Canada and Namibia, Serbia, Poland, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

Among other economic bills is Bill C-56, the combating counterfeit products act. The bill would protect Canadians from becoming victims of trademark counterfeiting and goods made using inferior or dangerous materials that lead to injury or even death. Proceeds from the sale of counterfeit goods may be used to support organized crime groups. Clearly, this bill is another important one to enact.

Important agreements with the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador would be satisfied through Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, which would, among other things, create the Sable Island national park reserve, and Bill C-61, the offshore health and safety act, which would provide clear rules for occupational health and safety of offshore oil and gas installations.

Earlier I referred to the important work of committees. The Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations inspired Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act. We should see that committee's ideas through by passing this bill. Of course, a quick reading of today's order paper would show that there are yet still more bills before the House of Commons for consideration and passage. All of these measures are important and will improve the lives of Canadians. Each merits consideration and hard work on our part.

In my weekly business statement prior to the constituency week, I extended an offer to the House leaders opposite to work with me to schedule and pass some of the other pieces of legislation currently before the House. I hope that they will respond to my request and put forward at our next weekly meeting productive suggestions for getting things done. Passing today's motion would be a major step toward accomplishing that. As I said in my opening comments, Canadians expect each one of us to come to Ottawa to work hard, vote on bills and get things done.

In closing, I commend this motion to the House and encourage all hon. members to vote for this motion, add a few hours to our day, continue the work of our productive, orderly and hard-working Parliament, and deliver real results for Canadians.

Indian Affairs and Northern Development—Main Estimates, 2013–14

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Chair, between 2006 and 2014, including the budget 2012 investment, the Government of Canada will have invested approximately $3 billion to support first nations communities in managing their water and waste water infrastructure and related public health activities. The government is prioritizing these investments to high- and medium-risk systems to address factors that are the greatest contributors to risks such as capacity and training in operations and maintenance.

In 2011-12, the government supported 402 major and minor first nations water and waste water infrastructure projects and 286 are currently planned for 2012-13. Could the parliamentary secretary please inform us how Bill S-8 will help protect Canada's substantial investments in first nations' water and waste water systems?

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Chair, I will be 10 minutes and then will allow five minutes for questions for the minister.

I am proud to stand today and talk about what our government is doing for first nations with respect to providing improved water and waste water services to their residents. Our government engaged in the largest comprehensive study of water and waste water systems this country has ever seen, identifying and going through every water and waste water system so that we could prioritize how we could improve water and waste water.

The Government of Canada and first nations have shared the goal of ensuring that first nations have the same access to safe, clean drinking water in their communities as all other Canadians do. Access to safe drinking water, the effective treatment of water and the protection of sources of drinking water in first nations communities is critical to ensuring the health and safety of first nations. I want to assure all members in this House tonight that this is an area of great concern for our government.

We are targeting three key areas to ensure that residents of first nations communities can readily access clean and safe drinking water, like all Canadians. The three things we look at are enforceable standards and protocols; infrastructure investments in specific projects; and enhanced capacity-building, operations and training for those treatment systems.

In the area of enforceable standards and protocols, I have to say that we have made significant strides. On February 29, 2012, after significant consultation with first nations, Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act, was introduced in the Senate. This is enabling legislation. If passed, it would make it possible for our government to work with first nations, and not just first nations but also other stakeholders, to develop regulations comparable to those that safeguard drinking water in other places across Canada.

Currently, legally enforceable protections governing drinking water and waste water do not exist on most first nations lands. It is our government's view that anyone committed to better safeguarding water quality on first nations lands should see the importance of supporting this legislation. Of course, I urge my colleagues on the other side of the House to support this legislation when it comes back for a vote. It is now moving to the committee. This legislation would clearly lay out the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved in drinking water in first nations communities.

I want to underscore that the proposed legislation is the product of engagement between the government and first nations on safe drinking water legislation and enforceable standards over the last seven years. That is how long this consultation has been going on. There have been numerous recommendations concerning federal water regulations, including reports by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, the Office of the Auditor General, the Expert Panel on Safe Drinking Water for First Nations, and the Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. There was also the “National Assessment of First Nations Water and Wastewater Systems”, which is the study I referred to at the beginning of my speech.

First nations have also supported the concept of water regulations. When the proposed legislation was first introduced, Chief Lawrence Paul of the Millbrook First Nation, who is also the co-chair of the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nation Chiefs Secretariat, spoke to the potential of the bill for first nations communities. He said:

First Nations will be able to look forward to having the same protections that other Canadians have around the provision of drinking water, water quality standards and the disposal of wastewater in their communities. This is not only an important health and safety issue, but will help build confidence in our infrastructure and help create a better climate for investment.

Should the proposed legislation be passed, further engagement with first nations on the development of federal regulations would follow. This would support the development of federal regulations that would be tailored to the unique circumstances of first nations. However, the opposition has indicated yet again that they will not support this important legislation for first nations. I do not understand this opposition. The time for this legislation is now.

Creating federal regulations will take time, and they would be implemented over a number of years. This would allow the government and first nations to bring water and waste water infrastructure and capacity to the level required to meet those very regulations.

Our government's vision for supporting first nations to improve water and waste water services for the residents also includes capital investments. Between 2006 and 2014, the federal government will have invested approximately $3 billion in water and waste water infrastructure and related public health activities to support first nations communities in managing their water and waste water systems. That is a significant investment.

Economic action plan 2012 also included an additional $330 million over two years to help sustain progress made to build and renovate water infrastructure on reserve and to support the development of a long-term strategy to improve water quality for first nations. More specifically, this money is going towards training for operators of water and waste water systems on reserve, operating costs of water and waste water systems and capital investments for the highest-risk systems.

Because of the comprehensive study we did, the first of its kind, we were able to prioritize water and waste water systems that are in need of immediate help. That is what we are doing with those funds.

With the new funding last year, the government was able to prioritize investments to high and medium-risk systems in over 50 first nations communities, including Canoe Lake First Nation, Tallcree First Nation and Nazco First Nation. These estimates include $137.4 million for the first nations water and waste water action plan. Again, these are additional funds being invested in water and waste water.

This funding will be allocated in 2013 and 2014 in three areas of planned expenditures. Operations and maintenance will receive $46.1 million, $30.2 million will be for training for first nations and $50.8 million will go toward capital investments. However, that is not all. Health Canada is also supporting first nations with an investment of $54.8 million committed through economic action plan 2012, which is for water-related public health activities.

The federal government recognizes that in some first nations communities, there are issues regarding in-home access to water and waste water services. Manitoba's four Island Lake first nations are one such example. I am pleased to say that this government invested $5.5 million in 2011 to bring running water to 100 houses in that community.

I want to underscore the fact that our government is committed to ensuring that first nations have the same access to safe, clean drinking water in their communities as all other Canadians. This means not only setting our sights on reducing the number of medium and high risk systems, but also directing investments to capacity and training to operate and maintain those systems. The 2011 national assessment results underscore the critical importance of having trained and certified operators to reduce the risk and help ensure that the drinking water in first nations communities is safe. Operation and maintenance, operator qualification and record keeping account for 60% of the risk measured.

As I outlined earlier, the federal government's economic action plan 2012 year one investment includes more than $30 million for training first nations. Our government provides funding for operator training courses and for operator certificate training and registration costs in all regions. Training helps to ensure that operators have the level of training and skills required to operate and maintain the water and waste water systems.

I want to take a moment to highlight another important program. That is, of course, the government's circuit rider training program. The program, for those who do not know, is a specialized training program that provides first nations operators with ongoing on-site training and mentoring on how to operate their water and waste water systems. We invest approximately $10 million a year into the circuit rider training program across the country.

It is clear that this government has made working with first nations partners to improve on reserve water and waste water a priority. Through progress on enforceable standards and protocols, through sustainable capital investments and by supporting enhanced capacity building and operation training, we are delivering on those results.

I am confident we will continue to deliver results and make progress on this important issue.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue the debate on today’s opposition motion from the NDP. Pursuant to the rules of the House, time is allocated and there will be a vote after the two-day debate.

Tomorrow we will resume the third reading debate on Bill S-9, the Nuclear Terrorism Act. As I mentioned on Monday, I am optimistic that we will pass that important bill this week.

Should we have extra time on Friday, we will take up Bill C-48, the Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, at report stage and third reading.

When we come back from constituency week, I am keen to see the House make a number of accomplishments for Canadians. Allow me to make it clear to the House what the government's priorities are.

Our government will continue to focus on jobs, growth and long-term prosperity. In doing that, we will be working on reforming the temporary foreign worker program to put the interests of Canadians first; implementing tax credits for Canadians who donate to charity and parents who adopt; extending tax credits for Canadians who take care of loved ones in their homes; supporting veterans and their families by improving the balance for determining veterans' benefits; moving closer to equality for Canadians living on reserves through better standards for drinking water, which my friend apparently objects to; giving women on reserves the rights and protections that other Canadian women have had for decades, something to which he also objects; and keeping our streets and communities safer by making real improvements to the witness protection program. We will of course do more.

Before we rise for the summer, we will tackle the bills currently listed on the order paper, as well as any new bills which might get introduced. After Victoria Day, we will give priority consideration to bills that have already been considered by House committees.

For instance, we will look at Bill C-48, which I just mentioned, Bill C-51, the Safer Witnesses Act, Bill C-52, the Fair Rail Freight Service Act, and Bill S-2, the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, which I understand could be reported back soon.

I look forward also to getting back from committee and passing Bill C-60, , the economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1; Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act; and Bill C-21, the political loans accountability act.

We have, of course, recently passed Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act, and Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act. Hopefully, tomorrow we will pass Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act.

Finally, we will also work toward second reading of several bills including Bill C-12, the safeguarding Canadians' personal information act; Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act; Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act; Bill C-56, the combating counterfeit products act; Bill C-57, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act; Bill C-61, the offshore health and safety act; Bill S-6, the first nations elections act; Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act; Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act; Bill S-13, the port state measures agreement implementation act; Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act; Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, which establishes Sable Island National Park; and Bill S-17, the tax conventions implementation act, 2013.

I believe and I think most Canadians who send us here expect us to do work and they want to see us vote on these things and get things done. These are constructive measures to help all Canadians and they certainly expect us to do our job and actually get to votes on these matters.

I hope we will be able to make up enough time to take up all of these important bills when we come back, so Canadians can benefit from many parliamentary accomplishments by the members of Parliament they have sent here this spring.

Before taking my seat, let me formally designate, pursuant to Standing Order 81(4)(a), Tuesday, May 21, as the day appointed for the consideration in a committee of the whole of all votes under Natural Resources in the main estimates for the final year ending March 31, 2014. This would be the second of two such evenings following on tonight's proceedings.

Bill S-8—Time allocation motion

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

Mr. Speaker, what ignorance from that side of the House.

The fact is that for more than seven years, the governments, both the Liberals and the Conservatives, have not respected their treaty obligations.

Again, here is a quote from April 29, a resolution of the United Chiefs and Councils of Mnidoo Mnising First Nations. It says:

UCCMM First Nations has the right to free and prior and informed consent on anything that affects us. We have not given out free, prior or informed consent on any of the legislation passed by this sitting of the legislature.

Again, one of the bills is Bill S-8. There is no first nation that does not want fresh, clean water.

The minister spoke about the places he had seen where the government had invested in clean water, where there was water that people could actually drink. He is not talking about the ones where they cannot drink it. The minister is forcing first nations to have legislation that they cannot even afford to put a system in place.

First, will the minister put money with that? Second, will he agree that all first nations should be heard, especially the United Chiefs and Councils of Mnidoo Mnising First Nations?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about the minister's responses regarding the consultations he held.

He brags that he consulted a number of first nations. However, the Assembly of First Nations strongly opposes this bill.

Had the Conservatives consulted the Assembly of First Nations, the assembly would have told them what amendments should have been made to this bill. I can think of a lot of them. I will not rattle them off for you the way the minister does for the groups he supposedly consulted.

Consulting groups is not enough; we must listen to them as well. When groups ask us to make amendments, we need to do it. That is why we want to continue debate on Bill S-8. The government has obviously not done its job. It has not made the necessary amendments.

Introducing legislation on safe drinking water is not enough. That needs to be done, but funding must be provided too. That is what the Assembly of First Nations is asking for, but that is not in Bill S-8. That is why we want to continue the debate, to explain all the good amendments and changes to be made to the bill.

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, had the hon. member taken the time to read the bill, he could have explained to the mayor in question that the proposed legislation itself would have no impact whatsoever on non-first nations governments. As such, Bill S-8 and subsequent regulations would not force municipalities to provide drinking water services to first nations, nor delegate powers or costs to municipalities. Furthermore, Bill S-8 would not affect municipalities' abilities to choose to pursue or not municipal service agreements with first nations.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, for most Canadians access to safe drinking water is taken for granted. This is not the case for many first nations communities. Bill S-8 is crucial to ensuring first nations have the same health and safety regulations and protections concerning drinking water and waste water treatment that are currently enjoyed by other Canadians.

It has taken seven years to get to this point, seven years of continuous dialogue with first nations, including formal engagement sessions and implementing measures to accommodate the concerns of first nations. The legislation before Parliament today is the result of hard work and collaboration. Now is the time for action.

Could the minister explain how time allocating Bill S-8 would help fulfill this long-standing legislative gap and enhance access to safe, clean and reliable drinking water for first nations communities?

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

Another time allocation motion, Mr. Speaker. First nations are not in favour of time allocation and they are not in favour of Bill S-8.

I have a resolution here from the United Chiefs and Councils of Mnidoo Mnising in which they talk about the fact that first nations have the inherent right to self-government as recognized by section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982, which includes independent jurisdiction.

The resolution also says that the Conservative government has not consulted with them in order to pass these bills. The resolution says:

Therefore be it resolved that; the UCCMM First Nations categorically reject the following assimilation and termination Bills, Acts, policies and procedures used against our citizens;...Bill S-8 Safe Drinking Water...

Could the minister tell us why he is trying to pass this legislation as quickly as possible without consulting first nations and without the proper input of first nations and their members?

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River for his question. It is an important one.

As a matter of fact, from the former iteration of the bill to this one, we have incorporated some 10 amendments that had been requested by stakeholders and first nations across the country.

Over the last several months, as members may know, concerns have been raised by various stakeholders regarding the opt-in provision in Bill S-8 for self-governing first nations and those who have already concluded land claim agreements. Specifically, it was suggested that this provision could create jurisdictional challenges and impacts for ongoing and future land claim agreements, among other issues.

As a result, I will be recommending to the committee that will be studying this bill clause by clause that there be removal of this provision from the bill, which will be good news for the land claims coalition and for those self-governing nations.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, in relation to Bill S-8, An Act respecting the safety of drinking water on First Nation lands, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the Bill; and

that, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Bill S-8—Notice of time allocation motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the safe drinking water for first nations act would allow our government, in co-operation with first nations, to ensure safe access to drinking water and to ensure the effective treatment of waste water and the protection of sources of drinking water on first nation lands.

However, I would like to advise that an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of Bill S-8, an act respecting the safety of drinking water on first nation lands.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of the proceedings at the said stage.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the opposition House leader for his stream-of-consciousness therapy.

Our government, however, is very focused. Our top priority is jobs, growth and long-term prosperity. With that in mind, this afternoon we will continue second reading debate on the cornerstone item of our legislative agenda, which is Bill C-60, the economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1. We will continue this debate tomorrow.

Next Monday, May 6, will be the fourth day of second reading debate on this important job creation bill, and Tuesday May 7 will be the fifth and final day.

Once debate is concluded, the House will have an opportunity to vote on the substantive job creation measures in this bill.

On Wednesday, the House will debate Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act. This will be the fourth time this bill is debated at second reading so it is my hope and expectation that this bill will come to a vote.

With the vote, there will be another clear choice before the House. Members will be voting to allow for national standards for on-reserve drinking water. This is a question of basic equality. I know the opposition voted against equality for women on reserves when it voted against Bill S-2, matrimonial property on reserves, but I hope they have stopped grasping at excuses to oppose equal treatment for first nations and will now support Bill S-8.

While I am speaking about aboriginal affairs, allow me to take the time to notify the House that I am designating, pursuant to Standing Order 81(4)(a), Thursday, May 9, for consideration in committee of the whole all votes under Indian Affairs and Northern Development in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014.

On Thursday, we will continue to advance the economic priority of our legislative agenda by debating Bill C-48, the technical tax amendments act, 2012, in the morning. Following question period on Thursday, May 9, we will continue Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act at third reading. I understand there is broad support for this bill, so I hope to see it pass swiftly. Then we can move on to other legislation, including: Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act; Bill C-51, the safer witnesses act; Bill C-52, the fair rail freight service act; Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act; Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act; Bill S-13, the coastal fisheries protection act; and Bill S-14, the fighting foreign bribery act.

Finally, Friday, May 10 will be the seventh allotted day, which I understand will be for the NDP.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it was Harold Macmillan who once said, “Events, my dear friend, events”. That is the great variable.

As we know, we have had many events and we were delighted that we were able to get Bill S-7 approved by this House this past week, in response to events.

Today, we will continue with debate on the NDP's opposition day motion.

It being Victims Week, we will follow up on this week's passage of Bill S-7, the combatting terrorism act, with debate tomorrow on Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act, at second reading.

Insofar as the government's agenda, there is actually a very significant cornerstone to that agenda; that is, of course, our economic action plan. Earlier this week, the House adopted a ways and means motion to allow for a bill implementing measures from economic action plan 2013. Our top priority is creating jobs, growth, and long-term prosperity, so if a bill following on the ways and means motion were to be introduced before Wednesday, we would give that bill priority consideration for debate Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of next week.

In the interim, on Monday, we will return to the report stage debate on Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice and the support of Canada act. It is my hope that this debate will conclude on Monday so that we can have the third reading debate on that bill on Tuesday.

If we have the opportunity next week, we will continue the second reading debate of the not criminally responsible reform act. This is an important bill and I would hope that it will get to committee without delay.

The government will also give consideration to Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act at second reading; Bill C-52, the fair rail freight service act at report stage and third reading; Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act at third reading; and finally, Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act.

Homes Not Connected to a Sanitation System

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate on Motion M-400, which calls on the government to consider establishing a financial support program to help Canadians bring private residential sceptic systems up to standard.

The hon. member sees this as a means of protecting Canadian lakes, water quality and public health. Certainly, those are commendable goals, and our government is working hard to achieve them.

While I understand the good intentions with which the motion was put forward, the government will not be supporting Motion M-400. Since the regulation of sceptic systems is a provincial and territorial area of responsibility, we believe that the provinces and territories are best positioned to understand and respond to local issues of this nature.

Having said that, our government is doing its part to improve wastewater management and treatment. We have invested heavily in public wastewater infrastructure, providing approximately $1.8 billion since 2007. This funding has contributed to more than 1,200 wastewater projects across the country, and on an ongoing basis, we are providing municipalities with $2 billion a year through the gas tax fund, money that can be used to upgrade wastewater infrastructure through municipalities if they choose to do so.

The investment in the affordable housing framework announced by the federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for housing in July 2011 is another possible source of federal support. This framework provides for a combined investment of $1.4 billion over three years to reduce the number of Canadians in housing need.

Provinces and territories are responsible for program development and delivery, and they certainly have the capacity to direct funding to upgrade private sceptic systems if this is considered a priority by them.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s mortgage insurance can also help homeowners get funding to repair or replace their septic systems.

With mortgage insurance from CMHC, qualified homeowners can refinance their mortgages for up to 80% of the value of their home, and then use the resulting funds to make improvements to their plumbing or other systems.

I would also like to take the opportunity to comment on an area where the government has found an important role with respect to household septic systems. This role is in helping first nations to provide better water and waste water services on reserve.

Hon. members on both sides of the House will agree that the living conditions for many first nations communities are below those of other Canadians.

Working in partnership with first nations, our government is taking action on a number of fronts, including supporting first nations in operating their waste water and water systems on reserve. Each year our government provides approximately $197.5 million in water and waste water programs to first nation communities. This funding assists first nation chiefs and councils in their responsibility to plan and develop water and waste water systems on reserve. This is a significant investment, but we recognize there is more to be done to improve the health and quality of life for people in first nation communities.

Our government made a commitment to address on-reserve water and waste water issues on a priority basis, and subsequently released the “National Assessment of First Nations Water and Wastewater Systems--2009–2011”. We identified three key areas of action: enhanced capacity building and operator training, enforceable standards and protocols, and infrastructure investments. Progress has been made in each of these areas, and I am pleased to say that even bigger improvements lie ahead.

Canada's economic action plan 2012 provided for new investments of $330.8 million over two years to help first nations provide better water and waste water services to their residents. This investment, which is over and above the funding we provide annually, will sustain the progress that has been made to date in building and renovating water and waste water infrastructure on reserve. It will also support the development of a long-term strategy to improve water quality in first nation communities. As a result of this planned investment, risk levels will be reduced and access to clean water on reserve will improve.

Analysis shows that 60% of the risk identified in annual performance inspections of water and waste water systems relate to systems operations, maintenance, operator training and certification, as well as record keeping and reporting. To improve results in these areas, during the first year of this plan $32 million will be invested in training for first nations, and an additional $47.7 million will be invested to support operations and maintenance. New investments will also be made to support the construction and renovation of water and waste water treatment facilities.

In year one, capital investments of $47 million will be prioritized to target high- and medium-risk systems in over 50 first nation communities. Canoe Lake in Saskatchewan, Tallcree First Nation in Alberta and Nazko First Nation in British Columbia are among the communities that will benefit from this funding.

Finally, Health Canada will support first nations with an investment of $27.4 million per year to build capacity, enhance monitoring, increase public awareness and review project proposals from a public health perspective. Chiefs and councils will continue to be responsible for public health measures such as issuing drinking water advisories to affected communities, communicating the information to residents and addressing drinking water quality challenges.

Once this two-year plan is fully implemented, our government will have invested approximately $3 billion between 2006 and 2014 to support first nation communities in managing their water and waste water infrastructure. Clearly the government attaches great importance to this issue. We are making the investments needed to achieve results.

Another way our government is taking action is by introducing legislation that will enable us to develop, with first nations, enforceable drinking water regulations and standards to be applied on reserve lands. As hon. members know, Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act, was introduced in the Senate last year. The proposed legislation is the product of discussions between the government and first nations on safe drinking water legislation and enforceable standards over the past five years. Bill S-8 has been approved by the Senate and is now awaiting second reading here in the House. I urge all members to support this meaningful legislation.

In closing, let me reiterate that the proposal from the hon. member would take the Government of Canada into an area of provincial and territorial responsibility. For this reason, Motion No. 400 will not be supported by the government. We will, however, continue to work co-operatively with federal and provincial governments and with first nations to protect public health, preserve the environment and improve the quality of life of Canadians. We will do so by continuing to focus our attention and investments in areas of federal responsibility where they can have the greatest impact.

Opposition Motion—Aboriginal Canadians

[John Duncan, Conservative, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to the motion by the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan. The member's motion calls for improved economic outcomes for first nations, Inuit and Métis, and a commitment on treaty implementation and meaningful consultation on legislation with aboriginal peoples in Canada.

I am proud of our government's record on improving the lives of aboriginal people in Canada. Since 2006, our government has made unprecedented investments that will make a concrete difference in the lives of aboriginal people, including skills training, housing on reserves, potable water, schools, treaty rights, protection of the rights of women and the resolution of land claims.

For example, we have built over 30 new schools on reserve and renovated more than 200 others. We have invested in a major way in safe drinking water systems. We have built over 10,000 new homes and renovated thousands more. We have increased funding for child and family services by 25%. We have legislated that the Canadian Human Rights Act will apply to first nation individuals living on reserves. This was a glaring discriminatory provision in the Canadian Human Rights Act, which we reversed, over the objections of the opposition.

We introduced legislation to improve the accountability of first nation governments to their people. We introduced legislation to create an open and transparent elections process, necessary for economic development. We have settled over 80 outstanding land claims, many of which had been languishing for 20 years in the hopper. We have invested in over 700 projects, linking aboriginals across Canada with job training and counselling services.

I have had a long history with first nations and have seen a lot of change over the years. I am very encouraged to see firsthand many examples of strong first nation leadership driving very positive change.

Aboriginal peoples represent the fastest growing population in Canada. Given the country's labour shortages and the proximity of first nation communities to resource development projects, there is a tremendous economic opportunity before us. That is why we have consistently invested in measures to improve aboriginal participation in the economy.

Like economic action plan 2012, economic action plan 2013 will be focused on jobs and opportunities for all Canadians, including first nations, Inuit and Métis.

Finding ways to ensure that first nations can benefit from resource development is a priority. It is good for first nations, for Canada, for our Métis and for our Inuit. Our government is investing in measures that will help ensure that first nations are well-positioned to take advantage of these and other economic opportunities. For example, our government has invested in over 700 initiatives to link aboriginal people with job training, mentoring and other supports. We also invest more than $400 million annually in direct funding for aboriginal skills development and training.

My department's major projects and investment funds initiative has also contributed over $22 million to support aboriginal participation in 87 energy and resource projects, such as hydro, mining, renewable energy and forestry. These contributions have helped create over 400 jobs and levered just over $307 million from public and private debt and equity financing sources.

In addition to these investments, our government has worked to modernize legislation to allow first nations and aboriginal organizations to operate at the speed of business. Last year, our government introduced Bill C-27, the first nations financial transparency act to allow first nations community members access to the same basic financial information about their government and their elected officials available to all other Canadians.

More specifically, the bill would require first nation elected officials to publish their statements of remuneration and expenses as well as their audited consolidated financial statements. The bill would provide community members with the information required to make informed decisions about their leadership and to provide investors with the confidence they need to enter into financial partnerships with first nations.

Now that the legislation is before the Senate committee, we hope to see it passed into law very soon.

The first nations financial transparency act was driven by grassroots first nation members who were calling for greater accountability from their governments. Many of these people have suffered retribution, including intimidation and verbal and physical abuse, for having spoken in support of greater transparency and accountability.

Another important legislative initiative that would foster jobs and economic growth is Bill C-47, the northern jobs and growth act, which includes the Nunavut planning and project assessment act and the Northwest Territories surface rights board act, along with related amendments to the Yukon Surface Rights Board Act. Together, these measures would fulfill outstanding obligations under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, as well as the Gwich'in and Sahtu land claims agreements, and respond to calls for measures to streamline and improve regulatory processes in the north. The bill is currently being studied by the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

Amendments to the land designation sections of the Indian Act that comprised a portion of Bill C-45 would also create economic opportunities. These amendments would speed up the process for leasing lands for economic development purposes, while allowing first nations to maintain full ownership of their lands. As a result, it would provide greater flexibility for first nations to act on time-sensitive economic development opportunities. These amendments responded directly to first nations who had expressed frustration to me, to the standing committee and to other members with the overly complex and lengthy process of designating land, which was an impediment to investment opportunities.

I quote from Chief Shane Gottfriedson, chief of the Tk'emlúps Indian Band in British Columbia, speaking about these changes to the land designation process in Bill C-45. “[Before the changes] it was just horrific for us to try and do any sort of business within our territory”.

Chief Reginald Bellerose of the Muskowekwan First Nation in Saskatchewan also spoke in favour of the changes: “[Muskowekwan First Nation] recognizes the positive steps the federal government has made to assist First Nation communities to operate in a more efficient and commercial manner. Specifically, Bill C-45 provides for a more efficient land designation vote process”.

We have heard from first nations that they want to be able to move at the speed of business and we continue to work with willing partners to remove economic barriers to the success of first nation communities as they seek out opportunities to generate wealth for their communities and their members.

If further proof was needed that legislative action can speed economic development, I would like to point to my announcement just last week on new regulations under the First Nations Commercial and Industrial Development Act that will allow the Kitimat natural gas facility on the Haisla First Nation's Bees Indian Reserve No. 6 to move forward. The Kitimat LNG facility will provide Canada's energy producers with a doorway to overseas markets. It will create well-paying jobs and economic growth opportunities for the Haisla First Nation and the entire northwest region of British Columbia.

We have also invested in modernizing the land management regimes for first nations so that they can unlock the potential of their lands and natural resources. This past month I announced that eight more first nations will soon be operating under the First Nations Land Management Act. These first nations have chosen freedom from 34 land-related sections of the Indian Act, which were holding them back from achieving their full economic potential. They now have power over their own reserve lands and resources so that they can take advantage of economic activities without wading through bureaucratic red tape.

This is in addition to 18 other first nations that I announced last January, making a total of 69 first nations that can now develop their own land codes, which will allow them to more quickly and effectively pursue economic opportunities and create jobs. Through these initiatives we are putting in place the building blocks for future success. These foundational pieces will help prepare communities to take advantage of new economic opportunities available to them.

We are a business-like government. We like to obtain concrete results. We are making unprecedented investments in the spirit of partnership and we recognize historical grievances. This is why we have settled outstanding land claims that have been long languishing.

The government is committed to continue building on the progress we have made to improve living conditions for first nations and to create jobs and economic opportunities in their communities. Specifically, we are committed to expediting comprehensive claims and treaty implementation. We all recognize that while much progress has been made, more work remains to be done. We are taking steps to improve land claim and self-government negotiation processes. This includes identifying alternatives to negotiations that meet the interests of the parties as well as practical measures to make sure that first nations are ready and able to fully engage and participate in the process.

In some cases there are alternatives to comprehensive claims and we are good with that. For example, the Haisla, the Squamish First Nation and Westbank First Nation are not specifically interested in pursuing treaties. They realize there are other measures that can and have been put in place, which are expediting the conditions for economic prosperity for their communities. We are also involved currently in self-government negotiations on a number of historic treaties. An example of that is the Sioux Valley Dakota First Nation in Manitoba, where we anticipate imminently the conclusion of self-government negotiations.

There is a clear link between the strength of the relationship and the economic prosperity of first nations and all Canadians. Protection of aboriginal treaty rights and consultations with aboriginals are enshrined in our laws, which have been passed by this Parliament. This government fully respects our duty to consult. That is why we have conducted more than 5,000 consultations annually. As minister, I have visited over 50 first nation communities since 2010 and I have had hundreds of productive meetings with first nation chiefs, councillors and community members across Canada.

This government also undertook unprecedented consultations on Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act. We are currently in the midst of intensive consultations with first nation leaders, teachers, students and educators in the development of a first nation education act. I would like to highlight some of the important work that has been done on the development of a first nation education act.

In economic action plan 2012, our government committed to work with willing partners to establish a first nation education act that will establish the structures and standards to support strong and accountable education systems on reserve. Through intense consultations, we have committed to work with willing partners to have the legislation in place by September 2014. We are determined to follow through on this commitment.

First nation students are the only children in Canada whose education system is not governed by legislation. Our government, unlike previous governments, is committed to bringing forward such legislation. The legislation would provide the modern framework necessary to build standards and structures, strengthen governance and accountability, and provide the mechanism for stable, predictable and sustainable funding.

I would like to add that, as recently as yesterday, I met with the first nation education steering committee in British Columbia. We have other examples, such as Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey in Nova Scotia, where these parameters are already in place. An important part of our consultation is to meet with first nation authorities that have already done much work in this area and are obtaining results of the kind that are setting a great example.

We are making other investments. We have also invested an additional $100 million over three years to help ensure readiness for the new education system to be put in place by September 2014. We committed an incremental $175 million, on top of the $200 million that we spend on an annual basis, to new school projects. It is unfortunate that the member who brought forward today's motion chose to vote against these investments in first nation education.

This past December I announced the launch of intensive face-to-face consultation with first nation parents, students, leaders, educators and others on the initiative. The first in a series of sessions began in Halifax last week. The second session will be in Saskatoon next week.

I want to state very clearly that there is no legislation drafted. The purpose of these ongoing consultations is to get views and feedback so that legislation can be drafted. The input gathered during consultations will help shape the drafting of the legislation. Once drafted, the proposed legislation will be shared with every first nation across Canada, as well as with provincial governments and other stakeholders for feedback.

Modern land claims and self-government agreements can also provide a path to self-sufficiency and unlock economic opportunities. We are working in partnership with first nations on a new results-based approach to treaty and self-government negotiations to achieve more treaties in less time so that aboriginal communities can begin to unlock economic opportunities that can be realized through treaties.

Under the new approach, our government will focus its resources on tables with the greatest potential for success to bring treaties to fruition. The chief commissioner of the B.C. Treaty Commission is strongly supportive of our new approach, saying that she is encouraged our government is accelerating progress. We have heard first nations' concerns and we are delivering necessary change. It is also clear that there are options to the treaty process. Our goal is to achieve treaties where we can and to develop options to treaties where we cannot.

I will conclude by saying that moving forward will take time and dedicated effort from all parties. We are fully committed to taking further steps along this journey. We will continue to focus on real structural reforms and increasing the effectiveness of long-term investments.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by thanking everyone involved in supporting us as members of Parliament in Tuesday’s voting. Despite all of the amendments at committee and in the House, the balance of the government’s 2012 economic action plan will become law shortly.

This afternoon, the House will resume consideration of second reading of Bill C-15, the Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act. Once that has concluded, we will turn to report stage of Bill C-37, the Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act, Bill C-42, the Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, and Bill C-43, the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act.

We will continue working on these bills tomorrow.

Monday shall be the seventh allotted day, which goes to the New Democrats. This gives the official opposition one last opportunity before the new year to lay out its plans and schemes for a $21.5 billion job-killing carbon tax that will raise the price of everything.

For the rest of the week, I hope to advance a lot of legislation that continues to sit on the order paper. In addition to the bills I mentioned already, we will also consider Bill C-48, the technical tax amendments act, 2012; Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act; Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act; Bill S-6, the first nations elections act; Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act; Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act; Bill C-17, the Air Canada and its associates act; and Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act, once that bill has been reported back from committee next week, which I anticipate.

Indian Act Amendment and Replacement Act

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the privilege of talking about an issue as important as the one addressed in Bill C-428. I believe that this bill is important because it tackles the horrible Indian Act of 1876. There can be no doubt that this bill is one of Canada's most archaic colonial legacies. That is why I commend the member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River on his initiative. However, it is not enough. It is too little, too late. The Conservative government should consider a much farther-reaching rewrite of the Indian Act and a much more open process.

As a New Democrat, I believe that a complete overhaul of this cursed bill should be led by aboriginals. If the changes are imposed unilaterally, then what, really, has changed? That is why Bill C-428 seems inappropriate.

I will explain why this bill is not likely to go down in history. I do not claim to have a plan to make up for 136 years of colonialism, but I can say that ideally, new legislation should be drafted in collaboration with aboriginals, be introduced by the government and honour the goals of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Because Bill C-428 does not satisfy any of these conditions, I cannot support it.

I want to begin by pointing out that the goal of the 1876 act was the assimilation of all aboriginals and their forced integration into what was then a fledgling Canadian society. When I visit Manawan, people there are still speaking Atikamekw in 2012. In that respect, the act failed. It also includes many provisions that make life difficult for aboriginals. The government will have to do better than a private member's bill to fix it.

In 1969, the Liberal Party tried to get rid of the act in order to integrate aboriginals into Canadian society. That was supposed to happen without compensation, without special status, and with no respect for treaties signed in the past. As one, aboriginals rejected the idea, but that does not mean they wanted to keep the Indian Act. Quite the contrary.

In their red paper, aboriginals stated that it was neither possible nor desirable to abolish the Indian Act. They said that a review of the act was critical, but that it should not happen until treaty issues were resolved. Some 45 years later, that issue is still outstanding.

Other attempts were explored in this House. In 1987, a list was made of discriminatory provisions in the Indian Act, and this led to a bill. Later, in 2003, the Liberals introduced Bill C-7, which, once again, was heavily criticized by first nations. The Conservatives are now bringing forward Bill C-428, a private member's bill, which seems just as irrelevant as other attempts.

In the words of Einstein, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In my opinion, this quote points to what is clearly lacking in Bill C-428: a different approach. Perhaps this flaw is the reason why there is very little support for the bill outside the Conservative caucus. The chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Shawn Atleo, said that this bill is along the same lines as the policy espoused in the 1969 white paper.

Had the Conservatives listened to Mr. Atleo, they would have understood that what to do with aboriginals is no longer the question. In the 21st century, the question is: what do aboriginals want to do with us?

Bill C-428, which the Assembly of First Nations has said came out of nowhere, does not reflect the current reality. During the Crown–First Nations Gathering, the Conservative Prime Minister spoke at length about how his government would work with the first nations.

Aboriginal peoples were not consulted about Bill C-428, or about Bill C-27 or Bill S-8. When the government promises something—and especially something so important—it must follow through. It is shameful to see that this government is not keeping its own promises.

Speaking of broken promises, the government committed to removing the residential school provisions from the Indian Act. We can see that the government preferred to hide the clause in a private member's bill. The NDP thinks that something so important should come from the government, and with apologies, no less. The government must take responsibility and come up with a real, serious solution to replace the Indian Act.

Bill C-428 contains some clauses that seem to be chosen at random, when they are not downright negative. For example, the elimination of the provisions dealing with wills and estates could put aboriginal people in a very frustrating legal void. Does the bill's sponsor understand its implications?

Finally, we must recognize that the living conditions of aboriginal people are getting worse all the time. While the first nations communities are experiencing an ongoing demographic boom, their social services budgets are increasing by only 2% a year, thanks to the Liberals. The fact that the social services budgets for other Canadians are increasing by 6% a year does not seem to bother the government at all.

Malnutrition and education problems are hitting first nations communities hard. I am afraid that the Prime Minister will have to do more than give a medal to Justin Bieber to make young aboriginals forget about this sad reality. When the government decides to really tackle the problems resulting from the Indian Act, I will be there.

Furthermore, I expect that the proposed measure will be very much in line with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This declaration, which Canada ignorantly refused to support, recognizes the specific needs of aboriginal people. It recognizes their right to be consulted about the use of resources on their land. Do we not owe at least that to those who played key roles in our history and the development of our economy?

If the government does not change its attitude toward the first nations, they will understand that the NDP is the only party that can offer them a truly open consultation process. We want to help them to govern themselves. Other Canadians need to know that the excellent social services they receive must also be provided to aboriginal people, in a spirit of sharing and recognition.

The Indian Act needs to be revised, but not without real consultation, clear objectives and a detailed plan of steps to follow. Unfortunately, Bill C-428 does not meet any of these criteria.

First Nations Financial Transparency Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that Canada's Auditor General has actually been talking, for a while now, about the excessive amount of paperwork in terms of first nations having to report. In fact, the Auditor General's office has been calling on the government to take action to reduce unnecessary first nation reporting requirements.

When we take a look at Bill S-8, which should have had a great deal of discussion prior to its introduction, or even its drafting, one could question whether or not the government is fair in saying that it will not increase reporting requirements. We know Bill S-8 is going to do nothing to address that particular issue of reduction.

I wonder if the member of Parliament would like to provide comment on that important issue, which the Auditor General has raised.

Committees of the House

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, very briefly, I am a bit dismayed that my colleague across the way seems to have missed the part that I said for emphasis about the concern that we have around the committee. He suggested in his last point about the moot nature of amendments coming from committees. Some of the committees were given one committee meeting to hear from a couple of witnesses, view all of the clauses of the bill that were proposed, somehow formulate those amendments in the committee, and then vet those amendments and pass them on. Some committees did in fact move amendments.

My point is that in the instruction that came from the finance committee, it says quite explicitly in section (c), “any amendments suggested by the other Standing Committees, in the recommendations conveyed pursuant to paragraph (b),” which was all of the sections before, “shall be deemed to be proposed during the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-45”. It is a committee instructing a whole set of other committees to move clauses that were then deemed to be accepted as if they were moved at that committee. Committees do not have the power to do this. Only the House of Commons can convey this power upon a committee.

I would argue that this has been a disaster from the start. Initially the government said it would not split any of the bill. Then it split off MP and senators' pensions. Then, by a mistake of the Liberals, it threw 450,000 public pensioners into that submission as well, which was then changed again. We created a whole new Bill C-46, which was then passed on through the Senate for royal recommendation.

The finance minister said we were not splitting the bill. Then we get to committee and they have this cockamamie motion that sends all sorts of instructions to other committees and asks them to move amendments to clauses of the bill that they were not given time to study, with a minimal number of witnesses, and then to move those amendments back to the committee as if they had existed there, as if somehow the House of Commons had instructed them to do that.

We gave the Conservatives that option. We gave them the option to move the bill through in a timely fashion. The member talks about some sort of congressional system in the U.S. where budget bills go to the eleventh hour. We gave the government assurance of a timeline. We gave it a section of the bill to be carved out and studied properly because that is the whole function of Parliament, to hold the government to account. The government refused it and said that instead we would have this system in which we endow the finance committee with far more powers than anyone ever imagined.

If this is allowed to go on, in the future we could then say that committees are allowed to take far greater instruction, to break all of the precedents that this place guides itself by and to start instructing amendments to come from different places, instructing committees to study bills whether they want to or not, and then that all comes back to one committee, which somehow has become powerful.

In terms of the last point, that every bill, every consideration of this place has to do with the economy and therefore the finance committee, under some perverse notion by the House leader of the government, would then have to study every bill brought forward. Of course that is not what we are talking about. It is appropriate for Bill S-8 to go to the Indian affairs committee. It is appropriate for bills that have something to do with the environment to go to the environment committee, which was our point from the beginning.

The problem with the omnibus bill is that it crowded together so many various issues, which Conservatives used to say was a bad idea when they were in opposition. Now suddenly they are in government and they think omnibus bills are the best thing and start to create the largest ones in Canadian history and jam everything together. It does not work. It does not allow Parliament to perform its function for the people that we represent.

Clearly, there is a great deal of detail and procedural orientation to this, but if the government House leader chooses to ignore the most fundamental and foundational point of this point of order, then he is choosing to be blind to the fact of what his government and the finance minister created when they made this mess of a monster omnibus bill.

Aboriginal Affairs

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I listened quite intently to the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing. To say I respectfully disagree with her assertions would be rather mild.

I would like to assure all members of the House that our government continues to improve the quality of life of aboriginal people with a robust and targeted approach to investments. Economic action plan 2012 contained $175 million for schools and $331 million for water infrastructure. That is significant funding aimed at improving the living conditions of aboriginal people in areas such as housing, water and education.

Our government recognizes that access to safe and affordable housing is essential for improving economic and social outcomes and for supporting healthy, sustainable first nation communities. Since 2006, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada has allocated more than $1 billion to support first nations in meeting their housing needs. We will continue to work in partnership with first nations.

As I mentioned, economic action plan 2012 includes over $331 million over two years to build and renovate water infrastructure on reserve and to support the development of a long-term strategy to improve water quality in first nation communities. Last winter we introduced Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act, to ensure enforceable drinking water standards for first nations on reserve.

Just this past summer, our government announced funding for new water and waste-water infrastructure for several bands across Canada. Our combined investment in just two of these projects was close to $8 million. By 2014 our government will have invested approximately $3 billion in water and waste-water facilities in first nation communities. Any assertion that our government is not spending money in first nations communities is simply false.

I question the hon. member when she says that the mechanisms for delivering this money are somehow too burdensome or too cumbersome. What is wrong with having a system that ensures value for the taxpayer dollars being spent?

Our government supported the completion of 24 major projects. We have upgraded first nations water and waste-water systems. Overall, 402 major and minor first nation water and waste-water infrastructure projects will be supported this year. Another 139 capital projects are planned for 2012-13.

On top of that, we have an educational initiative for which we are spending $275 million, announced in budget 2012, which of course, the hon. member voted against. Education is at the heart of expanding opportunities for first nations people to fully participate in the economy. Education is crucial for success, as it provides a solid footing to expand the economic opportunities available to first nations people.

Any Canadian listening to this tonight can see that we are improving the lives of first nations communities through targeted investments. These examples are but a glimpse into the vast breadth of initiatives that have been undertaken by our government to improve the lives of aboriginal people by improving their living conditions.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, before we depart to our constituencies and events for Remembrance Day where most of us will be participating in remembrance services in our ridings, we will resume third reading debate on Bill C-28, the financial literacy leader act.

The week of November 19 will continue to see a lot of important action at the House committee level, where we are looking at the budget implementation act, Bill C-45, the jobs and growth act, as it advances through the legislative process. The finance committee is supported by 10 other committees looking at it and all together they will conclude the review of this very important bill and the very important job creation and economic measures that are laid out, measures that were first put before Parliament back in our March budget.

Meanwhile, on Monday the House will continue the third reading debate of Bill C-44, the helping families in need act, which we started this morning. Given support for the bill from all corners of the House, I hope it will pass that day so the Senate can pass it before the end of the year.

After Bill C-44, it is our intention to take up the report stage and third reading of Bill S-11, the safe food for Canadians act, which was reported back from the agriculture committee yesterday. I hope we will see strong interest in passing that bill quickly, just as we did for second reading.

Once that bill passes on Monday, the House will return to third reading of Bill C-28, the Financial Literacy Leader Act, if we do not finish the debate today.

That will be followed by second reading of Bill S-8, the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, the chamber will consider report stage and third reading of Bill C-27, the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, which was also reported back from committee yesterday.

I should also advise the House that on Tuesday when we return from the Remembrance Day week, immediately after question period I will call ways and means Motion No. 14 respecting some technical amendments to tax laws. Let me assure the House that there should be no doubt about this, but the opposition will no doubt be disappointed. This motion will definitely not implement the New Democrats' $21.5 billion job-killing carbon tax.

Finally, on Thursday before question period, the House will resume second reading debate of Bill S-8 and after question period we will take up Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act, also at second reading.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, while I do not know anything about a so-called deal that the NDP House leader talked about, I do know the Conservative Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance announced a process she was going to recommend to the finance committee to allow study of the bill, which I understand was adopted yesterday. It is a large bill, but it is not as large, of course, as the one that the Leader of the Opposition had when he was part of the cabinet in Quebec.

However, that being said, it is important that it be studied.

Consequently, as our government proposed, next week, 11 committees, including the finance committee, will study the important and necessary economic measures proposed in Bill C-45, the Jobs and Growth Act, 2012.

Yesterday, the finance committee got to work on this bill, not even 24 hours after the House passed it at second reading. This bill will implement key measures, like an extension of the small business hiring tax credit; and let me assure the House, it will definitely not implement the New Democrats' $21.5 billion, job-killing carbon tax.

Turning to business in the chamber, we will start second reading of Bill S-8, the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act, momentarily. I think it will be today.

Tomorrow, we will start report stage—and, ideally, third reading—of Bill C-24, the Canada–Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act.

As a former trade minister, I can tell you that the NDP is opposed to free trade. They have made that clear numerous times by dragging out debate, delaying and voting against free trade agreements here in the House. In fact, the hon. member for British Columbia Southern Interior outlined his party's position when he stated that “trade agreements threaten the very existence of our nation.” That is the NDP position.

We will continue debating free trade with Panama next week, on Tuesday and Wednesday. This bill will finally put into law our free trade agreement—an agreement which was signed here in Ottawa almost two-and-a-half years ago.

On Monday, we will resume the second reading debate on Bill S-9, the Nuclear Terrorism Act, before question period. Based on the speeches we heard the last time it was before the House, I hope that these two extra hours of debate will be sufficient for it to proceed to committee.

After question period on Monday, we will see Bill C-36, the Protecting Canada's Seniors Act to combat elder abuse, considered at report stage and, hopefully, third reading.

Also Monday will be the day designated, pursuant to Standing Order 66(2)(a), for resuming the adjourned debate on the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

Finally, next Thursday, we will consider Bill C-44, the Helping Families in Need Act, which I understand was considered clause by clause at the human resources committee this morning. Given the unanimous endorsement the bill received at second reading, I hope it could pass and be sent to the other place before we rise for the constituency week.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I did want to be in accord with the official opposition and NDP House leader. However, my disappointment was that before we started debate on Bill C-45, what we first encountered was a delay tactic in the form of a concurrence motion brought by the Liberal Party. Indeed, that was very disappointing to us and a surprise because Bill C-45 is important. It is the government's top legislative priority for this fall. All parties know that. He is quite right that I did want to see it debated in substance in the House rather than see those kinds of tactics to avoid debate.

Bill C-45's measures will further Canada's economic recovery and ensure the foundation for more good-quality jobs on top of the over 820,000 net new jobs we have already had. It includes an extension of the highly successful small business hiring credit that is directly helping Canadian entrepreneurs create new jobs.

Unfortunately, we have seen the NDP take an anti-job creation position. Believe it or not, the NDP finance critic actually dismissed the hiring credit as yet again another across-the-board cut for small businesses.

We want to see taxes lowered. We do not want to see higher taxes or an NDP carbon tax. That is why we have a budget bill that keeps those taxes low.

I am pleased to say that we will be voting on C-45 on Tuesday night at second reading, which will give us the opportunity to send it to the finance committee for consideration. The parliamentary secretary for finance has made it clear that she will ask the finance committee to ask, I believe, 10 other committees to study elements of the bill and potentially make recommendations with respect to changes or adopt its contents. The opposition and government members are free to make amendments at committee based on their own study as well as on the studies of those other committees. Therefore, there will be ample study of the bill and that is good for all.

Bill C-45 will continue to be debated this afternoon, tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday. As I said, the vote on the bill will take place on Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday, we will take up report stage—and, hopefully, third reading—of Bill C-28, the Financial Literacy Leader Act. Should we be able to make quick work of that debate, the House will take up Bill C-12, the Safeguarding Canadians' Personal Information Act, at second reading.

On Thursday morning, the House will consider second reading of Bill S-2, the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act. And, after question period, we will turn to Bill S-8, the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act, also at second reading.

Finally, on Friday, we will start report stage of Bill C-24, the Canada–Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act. This bill would implement our free trade agreement with the Republic of Panama—an agreement whose time has long come. In fact, when I was the public safety minister, I was honoured to be present when the Prime Minister concluded negotiations in Panama City, some 38 months ago.

First Nations

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity. I want to talk today about a couple of observations I have made so far in the debate. First, the spirit of both the leader of the third party and the member from this side have some kind of common objective or goal. I think everyone in the House agrees that the Indian Act does stand in the way of successes of first nations communities and continues to prevent first nations from becoming more autonomous, self-sufficient and full participants in a Canadian economy. The question is the pathway.

The motion today, in my respectful view, proposes an ill-conceived process to get rid of the Indian Act and would jeopardize current progress made by this government and first nations. Indeed, whether we talk about the Indian Act or the legislation that has been produced, going back the past couple of decades but particularly in the last six years, the motion says that we should undo all of that and recreate something in three months.

It seems a little unusual, and probably not achievable, given the number of communities across the country that are implicated in this, which raises my final point in this observation with respect to the debate so far. It appears as though the leader of the third party was using a frame of reference for a number of Inuit communities that actually are not under the Indian Act.

I hope, when the member says that he had consultations with first nations leaders or aboriginal Canadians, they were people who had a thoughtful reflection on the Indian Act.

This motion ignores the fact that the government has been engaging directly with first nations communities and organizations to conclude a number of agreements and develop legislation, tangible options that go outside of the Indian Act. There are some examples. The First Nations Land Management Act brings a community out of more than 25% of the act, read together, for example, with the substantive proposals in my colleague's private member's bill.

We are dealing with a number of important things: removing once and for all any legislative reference to the Indian residential school; dealing with the powers of bylaws at the community level; and dealing with wills and testaments. These are substantive changes that are overdue, not to mention the fact that the Conservative member who has brought the private member's bill is a first nations Canadian. He falls under the Indian Act for the purposes of his status. He brings, in the context of a private member's bill, and as I understand as a person who is generationally tied to the Indian residential school, a particularly meaningful and thoughtful perspective to incremental changes that need to be made.

At the historic Crown-First Nations Gathering held this past January, the Prime Minister reiterated our commitment to working together with first nations. He said:

—there are ways, creative ways, collaborative ways, ways that involve consultation between our government, the provinces and First Nations leadership and communities. Ways that provide options within the Act, or outside of it, for practical, incremental and real change.

The good news is that the Prime Minister has seen to it that this is already in process and we continue to bring legislation before this place that is substantive and dynamic to the extent that it incrementally chips away at the scope of the Indian Act and certainly attempts, in best efforts and good faith, to deal with those parts of that legislation that are no longer useful and that no longer apply and hold us all back as Canadians, not just first nations for the purpose of the Indian Act.

We know from past experience that proposals to significantly overhaul the Indian Act did not work and many of them came from that side of the House, from that third party. The Liberals passed attempts to overhaul the Indian Act, all of which were met with complete and utter failure and failed substantively to develop modern legislation and meaningfully dismantle the Indian Act.

In 1969, for example, Jean Chrétien published a white paper that sought to introduce measures to assimilate first nations people. That paper was overwhelmingly rejected by first nations people.

In 1996, the same party introduced the 1996 Indian Act optional modification act that attempted to introduce major changes to a number of areas, such as band governance, bylaw authority and legal capacity and the regulation of reserve lands and resources. It was also met with significant opposition and died on the order paper.

Most recently, in 2002, Bob Nault, the former MP for Kenora, from where I hail, introduced the first nations governance act, which would have involved significant changes to aspects of band governance. Many of those proposed changes were quite positive, but the bill died on the order paper.

For the past six years, in stark contrast, this government has been taking real action to provide first nations with alternatives to the Indian Act. Here I would like to expand on a series of targeted incremental initiatives that demonstrate the government's firm resolve to addressing the challenges the Indian Act presents to the political, social and economic dynamic and development of first nations communities that fall under the Indian Act. Our approach is to bring incremental change in consultation with first nations through new measures, investments and legislation that would provide alternatives to the Indian Act.

Earlier this year, we welcomed 18 new first nations to the first nations land management regime, which I referred to earlier. The regime enables first nations to opt out of more than 34 land-related sections of the Indian Act and, in the process, assume greater control over their reserve lands, resources and governance.

There are now 56 first nations operating or developing land laws under enabling legislation known as the First Nations Land Management Act. Participating first nations are better able to pursue economic activities, create jobs and have more self-sufficient communities. To improve the regime, we collaborated with the First Nations Land Advisory Board, removing legislative barriers that prevent or delay first nations from taking advantage of the benefits of assuring land management responsibility. Yet the opposition voted against these amendments.

At committee we are doing some hard work around land management and land use planning and I appreciate the collective efforts of many of my colleagues, if not all, on the standing committee for their substantive contributions to this important work. The modernization of lands management regimes helps unlock the potential of reserve lands and natural resources and frees first nations from some of the economic limitations imposed by the Indian Act.

Another example of legislative change that would unlock the potential of first nations is Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act, presently awaiting second reading in the House. The objective of this proposed legislation is to ensure that first nations have the same health and safety protections for drinking water in their communities as other Canadians. It focuses on capacity, reporting, monitoring and maintenance of state-of-the-art facilities that often involve intensive management given the lands that many of the first nations communities live on in isolated and remote parts of this country. It deals with an ongoing commitment to water infrastructure. Finally, Bill S-8 is a mechanism for both governments to develop in partnership enforceable regulations to ensure for the first time that there is access to clean and reliable drinking water, the effective treatment of waste water and the protection of sources of water on first nations land.

This is about working together on a process that has led to the development of these and many other pieces of legislation. As someone who has invested the greater part of his professional life to areas where the Indian Act applies, including health for first nations communities and water and waste water treatment, for example, I would say that we are seeing across this county a collective effort and the need to continue the consultation process for legislative tools outside of the Indian Act so that communities can thrive. These are in areas of infrastructure and economic development. Here we look forward to studying my colleague's private member's bill at committee, hearing from witnesses and, as always, moving on to bigger and better things.

The motion before us now calls for a new approach, one that we cannot support, as it would jeopardize the progress being made. I encourage my hon. colleagues to reject the motion.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, just to clarify, I would have been quite happy to have consented to the motion had the member not included in it a provision for an additional opposition day. Had the member decided to conclude that NDP was prepared, since its subject for today was food safety, to make the balance of the day the debate on Bill S-11 and then have it proceed to committee, we would have been quite delighted to consent.

In terms of his suggestions on the budget bill, I am looking forward to meeting with him and discussing with him what opportunities might exist there further.

Earlier today, the Minister of Finance introduced Bill C-45, the Jobs and Growth Act, 2012.

This important piece of legislation will bolster Canada’s economy and help improve communities with initiatives that build a strong economy and create jobs, support families and communities, promote clean energy and enhance neutrality of the tax system, and respect taxpayers’ dollars.

We will start second reading debate of Bill C-45 on Wednesday—once honourable members have had a chance to review the bill and discuss it at next week’s caucus meetings. The debate will continue on Thursday and Friday.

I genuinely hope all members will take advantage of the budget bill study week that is available to review the valuable measures that are set out as the second half of our legislative arm of our comprehensive economic action plan 2012. One highlight of the study week will be a briefing arranged by the minister for all hon. members on Monday evening. I hope many MPs can attend, and certainly more than the paltry attendance of opposition members that appeared this spring for the briefing on Bill C-38.

I look forward to a vigorous policy debate on the economy and not on procedural games.

I turn now to the business of the House leading up to Wednesday.

This afternoon we will see the conclusion of the NDP's opposition day. Regrettably, I was personally disappointed that the official opposition did not answer my call last week to lay out the details of its $21.5 billion carbon tax and how it would raise the price of gas, groceries and electricity. Though, I was encouraged that this week in question period the New Democrats actually did acknowledge the subject and raised it.

Tomorrow and Monday will see us resume second reading of Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act. I understand we should finish that debate sometime on Monday, at which that time we will then turn to Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act; Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act; and Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act.

On Tuesday, we will debate the second reading of Bill S-11, the safe food for Canadians act, unless we find some other approach that would allow us to move on a more urgent basis. Since we did not get unanimous consent to move it forward quickly, we are hopeful there will be some other approach that can be agreed upon to move quickly with it. We hope that if we do debate it that day, we will be able to deal with it quickly and then spend the balance of that day debating Bill C-15 and Bill C-12, the safeguarding Canadians' personal information act.

Aboriginal Affairs

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to the question from the member for Churchill.

Let me begin by reassuring my hon. colleague that our government continues to work with willing partners to improve the quality of life of aboriginal people. We have made significant targeted investments that have a direct impact on living conditions, including education, water and housing.

Let me remind the hon. member that economic action plan 2012 contained significant financial and legislative commitments to support our government's approach to improving the living conditions of aboriginal people. We have taken concrete steps to address water and waste water issues on reserve to ensure that first nation communities have access to safe drinking water.

Economic action plan 2012 includes almost $331 million, over two years, to help sustain progress made to build and renovate water infrastructure on reserve and to support the development of a long-term strategy to improve water quality in first nation communities. In addition, in February 2012, we introduced Bill S-8, the safe drinking water and first nations act, to ensure enforceable drinking water standards for first nations on reserve.

These initiatives and investments build on the concrete actions our government has taken since 2006 to support first nation communities in improving access to potable water, including sustainable development and investments under Canada's economic action plan and the first nations water and waste water action plan. These examples demonstrate our government's commitment to address the issues of water and waste water on reserve and to ensure first nations have access to safe, clean drinking water.

We are also very proud of our record of partnership and collaboration with provinces and first nations. A good example is our commitment to working with first nation partners to provide first nation students with the quality education they require to realize their aspirations. In collaboration with first nation partners, we are working on a concrete agenda to improve the education outcomes of first nation students and to provide them with the opportunity to acquire the skills they need to enter the labour market and to participate fully in a strong Canadian economy.

Of the $270 million announced in budget 2012, $100 million will be used to provide early literacy programming and other supports and services for first nation schools and students, and to strengthen the relationships with provincial school systems. This also includes $175 million to build and renovate schools on reserve, providing first nation students with better learning environments.

Our government will also work to explore mechanisms to ensure stable, predictable, sustainable funding for first nation elementary and secondary education. Access to high-quality education is crucial to success later in life. We believe that all Canadians benefit when first nation students can access education and can fulfill their aspirations.

When it comes to food security for aboriginal communities, our government supports this initiative through a number of programs, including nutrition north Canada. Nutrition north Canada is a program that helps provide northerners with greater access to nutritional perishable food, such as fruits, vegetables, bread, meat, milk and eggs. Furthermore, this program benefits 103 remote northern communities in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

Our government remains committed to improving the lives of aboriginal people, as these initiatives truly demonstrate. This is definitely in contradiction to the direction the NDP would take us. As the member opposite mentioned, her party's preference would be to elevate taxes, to focus on something that we would really prefer not to focus on. The NDP wants to implement a $21 billion carbon tax, something that would ensure that we cannot create jobs and provide opportunities for these young aboriginal Canadians. We are against that. We are going to be focused on ensuring that aboriginal Canadians can succeed.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by addressing Bill S-11, the food safety bill. It was introduced by this government in the Senate to bring about changes that would strengthen our food safety system further following the implementation of the 57 recommendations of the Weatherill report, which further strengthened our system.

I believe the comments, to which the member referred, by the Conservative caucus were not about the NDP obstructing the bill in the Senate but rather about statements that had been made by NDP members previously following the introduction of the bill that the NDP would oppose the bill. Of course, the issue we are looking forward to is having it pass successfully in the Senate. We hope that people will see the urgency more clearly, that we will get the support of the Liberals and that we will see its rapid passage here in the House. We would be delighted if we had support to do that very quickly from the NDP and other parties.

Now for the business ahead of us.

This afternoon, we will continue our safe streets and communities week with second reading debate on Bill C-43, Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act.

In last year's election, the Conservative Party promised to put a stop to foreign criminals relying on endless appeals in order to delay their removal. This bill follows through on our commitment to Canadians.

We will resume debate tomorrow, when I am optimistic, based on discussions, that debate will end—and, then, we will have concluded the first three weeks of our hard-working, productive and orderly fall sitting.

On our constituency week, I hope all members of Parliament and staff in this place will have an opportunity relax. Many of our pages will have their first opportunity to go home since they started the year here. I hope on our return we will all be ready to be productive and work hard because we have much to do.

On Monday, October 15, before question period, the House will start the second reading of Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act. We will also debate this bill on Wednesday and Friday of that week. This, of course, is designed to continue to make Canada and, in fact, the whole world, a safer place.

After question period on October 15, we will kick-off debate on Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act, which shares the same objectives. It would implement Canada's international obligations under the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.

Tuesday, October 16, shall be the fifth allotted day, which will see the House debate a Liberal motion. We eagerly await the content of that motion.

Thursday, October 18, shall be the sixth allotted day when we will consider the New Democratic proposal.

It is my personal hope that having given the NDP three chances already this fall to articulate to the House and to all Canadians how it will implement its $21.5 billion job killing carbon tax that it will finally choose this as its subject for debate. I hope the NDP members will seize that opportunity and let Canadians know once and for all the fine details of their scheme to raise the price of gas, groceries, electricity and winter heat.

Should we have additional time that week upon our return, or even this week if we move quickly, the House will also consider second reading of Bill C-37, the increasing offenders' accountability for victims act; Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act; Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act; and Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act.

Of course, I am always open to suggestions from the opposition. If they are willing to accelerate any of those bills for quick passage, I will call them.

Finally, I wish everyone here a happy Thanksgiving. I hope that everyone has a productive and hard-working week working with their constituents.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the House leader of the official opposition for his kind comments about co-operation. It is true that we have been working together in a co-operative fashion on the bills he mentioned. In fact, without utilizing time allocation, after nine days of co-operative debate on things that everybody agrees on, we have been able to have one vote on one bill at one stage. If members wonder why it is difficult to get things done, that indicates why: we all agree on something and it still takes nine days to get one bill to one vote at one stage.

Anyway, this afternoon, we will continue with our helping families in need week with second reading debate on Bill C-44, which will undertake several steps to help hard-working Canadian parents in times of need.

Based on discussions, I expect that we will finish debating Bill C-44 today. If so, I will then call Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (accountability with respect to political loans), tomorrow.

I understand that there is interest in all corners of the House to see this legislation referred to committee quickly. I hope so, because I believe that all parties want it passed. We may be able to make that happen.

Next week we are going to focus on making our streets and communities even safer. From Wednesday through Friday we will consider second reading of Bill C-43, the faster removal of foreign criminals act, which will firmly show that Parliament does not tolerate criminals and fraudsters abusing Canadian generosity.

On Monday and Tuesday, we shall have the third and fourth allotted days. Both days will go to the official opposition. I am eagerly waiting to see what we debate those days. Perhaps the New Democrats will use the opportunity to lay out their details for a $21 billion carbon tax which would raise the price of gas, groceries and electricity. Perhaps I should correct the record; it would be a $21.5 billion carbon tax. I know there are some in the press gallery who want us to be precise about that.

If we have a hard-working, productive and orderly week in the House which sees debates on Bill C-44, Bill C-21 and Bill C-43 finish early, the House will also consider second reading of Bill C-37, the increasing offenders' accountability for victims act, which the official opposition supports, despite debating it for four days last week; Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act; Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act; and Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first, let me formally welcome back all hon. members to the House of Commons from their productive summers in their ridings, which I trust they had, working with and listening to constituents.

On the government side of the House, we heard loud and clear that the priority of Canadians remains the economy. It is our priority too. Not one person raised with me a desire to see a $21 billion carbon tax implemented to raise the price of gas, groceries and winter heat. I do not expect the member will see that in our agenda.

I also want to extend a warm welcome, on behalf of Conservatives, to this year's class of pages. I am certain that their time with us, here in our hard-working, productive and, I hope, orderly House of Commons, will lead to lifelong memories.

Yesterday, we were able to pass Bill C-42, Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, at second reading. I want to thank hon. members for their co-operation on that.

I am optimistic that we will see similar co-operation to allow us to finish second reading debate tomorrow on Bill C-37, Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act, which the hon. Leader of the Opposition talked about.

This afternoon, of course, is the conclusion of the New Democrats' opposition day. As announced earlier this week, Tuesday will be a Liberal opposition day.

On Monday, the House will start debate on Bill C-43, the faster removal of foreign criminals act. This legislation would put a stop to foreign criminals relying on endless appeals in order to delay their removal from Canada and it sends a strong signal to foreign criminals that Canada is not a safe haven. I hope we will have support from the opposition parties for rapid passage of the bill designed to make our communities safer.

Starting on Wednesday, the House will debate Bill C-44, the helping families in need act. Once the opposition caucuses have met to discuss this important bill, I am confident they would want to support the early passage of this legislation as well. It would enhance the income support provided to families whose children have been victims of crime or are critically ill.

If we have additional time tomorrow or next week, the House will consider Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the Defence of Canada Act; Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act; and Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act.

We are interested in Bill C-21, which deals with accountability for political loans and making that consistent with the other political contribution provisions. If we have a consensus among parties to bring that forward, we will certainly do that.

Similarly, if we can see a consensus among parties on passing Bill C-32 as it has been presented to the House, we would be pleased to do that on unanimous consent.

Message from the Senate

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed Bill S-8, An Act respecting the safety of drinking water on First Nation lands, to which the concurrence of the House is desired.

[For continuation of proceedings see Part B]

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 27, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12 midnight, commencing on Monday, June 11, 2012, and concluding on Friday, June 22, 2012, but not including Friday, June 15, 2012.

Today I rise to make the case for the government's motion to extend the working hours of this House until midnight for the next two weeks. This is of course a motion made in the context of the Standing Orders, which expressly provide for such a motion to be made on this particular day once a year.

Over the past year, our government's top priority has remained creating jobs and economic growth.

Job creation and economic growth have remained important priorities for our government.

Under the government's economic action plan, Canada's deficits and taxes are going down; investments in education, skills training, and research and innovation are going up; and excessive red tape and regulations are being eliminated.

As the global economic recovery remains fragile, especially in Europe, Canadians want their government to focus on what matters most: jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity. This is what our Conservative government has been doing.

On March 29, the Minister of Finance delivered economic action plan 2012, a comprehensive budget that coupled our low-tax policy with new actions to promote jobs and economic growth.

The 2012 budget proposed measures aimed at putting our finances in order, increasing innovation and creating suitable and applicable legislation in the area of resource development in order to promote a good, stable investment climate.

The budget was debated for four days and was adopted by the House on April 4. The Minister of Finance then introduced Bill C-38, Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, the 2012 budget implementation bill. The debate at second reading of Bill C-38 was the longest debate on a budget implementation bill in at least two decades, and probably the longest ever.

On May 14, after seven days of debate, Bill C-38 was passed at second reading.

The bill has also undergone extensive study in committee. The Standing Committee on Finance held in-depth hearings on the bill. The committee also created a special subcommittee for detailed examination of the bill's responsible resource development provisions. All told, this was the longest committee study of any budget implementation bill for at least the last two decades, and probably ever.

We need to pass Bill C-38 to implement the urgent provisions of economic action plan 2012. In addition to our economic measures, our government has brought forward and passed bills that keep the commitments we made to Canadians in the last election.

In a productive, hard-working and orderly way, we fulfilled long-standing commitments to give marketing freedom to western Canadian grain farmers, to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, and to improve our democracy by moving every province closer to the principle of representation by population in the House of Commons.

However, in the past year our efforts to focus on the priorities of Canadians have been met with nothing but delay and obstruction tactics by the opposition. In some cases, opposition stalling and delaying tactics have meant that important bills are still not yet law. That is indeed regrettable.

In the case of Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act, a bill that will help to create good, high-paying jobs in Canada's creative and high-tech sectors, this House has debated the bill on 10 days. We heard 79 speeches on it before it was even sent to committee. This is, of course, on top of similar debate that occurred in previous Parliaments on similar bills.

It is important for us to get on with it and pass this bill for the sake of those sectors of our economy, to ensure that Canada remains competitive in a very dynamic, changing high-tech sector in the world, so that we can have Canadian jobs and Canadian leadership in that sector.

Bill C-24 is the bill to implement the Canada-Panama free trade agreement. It has also been the subject of numerous days of debate, in fact dozens and dozens of speeches in the House, and it has not even made it to committee yet.

Bill C-23 is the Canada-Jordan economic growth and prosperity act. It also implements another important job-creating free trade agreement.

All three of these bills have actually been before this place longer than for just the last year. As I indicated, they were originally introduced in previous Parliaments. Even then, they were supported by a majority of members of this House and were adopted and sent to committee. However, they are still not law.

We are here to work hard for Canadians. Adopting today's motion would give the House sufficient time to make progress on each of these bills prior to the summer recess. Adopting today's motion would also give us time to pass Bill C-25, the pooled registered pension plans act. It is a much-needed piece of legislation that would give Canadians in small businesses and self-employed workers yet another option to help support them in saving for their retirement. Our government is committed to giving Canadians as many options as possible to secure their retirement and to have that income security our seniors need. This is another example of how we can work to give them those options.

In addition to these bills that have been obstructed, opposed or delayed one way or another by the opposition, there are numerous bills that potentially have support from the opposition side but still have not yet come to a vote. By adding hours to each working day in the House over the next two weeks, we would allow time for these bills to come before members of Parliament for a vote. These include: Bill C-12, safeguarding Canadians' personal information act; and Bill C-15, strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act. I might add, that bill is long overdue as our military justice system is in need of these proposed changes. It has been looking for them for some time. It is a fairly small and discrete bill and taking so long to pass this House is not a testament to our productivity and efficiency. I hope we will be able to proceed with that.

Bill C-27 is the first nations financial transparency act, another step forward in accountability. Bill C-28 is the financial literacy leader act. At a time when we are concerned about people's financial circumstances, not just countries' but individuals', this is a positive step forward to help people improve their financial literacy so all Canadians can face a more secure financial future. Bill C-36 is the protecting Canada's seniors act which aims to prevent elder abuse. Does it not make sense that we move forward on that to provide Canadian seniors the protection they need from those very heinous crimes and offences which have become increasingly common in news reports in recent years?

Bill C-37 is the increasing offenders' accountability for victims act. This is another major step forward for readjusting our justice system which has been seen by most Canadians as being for too long concerned only about the rights and privileges of the criminals who are appearing in it, with insufficient consideration for the needs of victims and the impact of those criminal acts on them. We want to see a rebalancing of the system and that is why Bill C-37 is so important.

Of course, we have bills that have already been through the Senate, and are waiting on us to deal with them. Bill S-2, which deals with matrimonial real property, which would give fairness and equality to women on reserve, long overdue in this country. Let us get on with it and give first nations women the real property rights they deserve. Then there is Bill S-6, first nations electoral reform, a provision we want to see in place to advance democracy. Bill S-8 is the safe drinking water for first nations act; and Bill S-7 is the combatting terrorism act.

As members can see, there is plenty more work for this House to do. As members of Parliament, the least we can do is put in a bit of overtime and get these important measures passed.

In conclusion, Canada's economic strength, our advantage in these uncertain times, and our stability also depend on political stability and strong leadership. Across the world, political gridlock and indecision have led to economic uncertainty and they continue to threaten the world economy. That is not what Canadians want for their government. Our government is taking action to manage the country's business in a productive, hard-working and orderly fashion. That is why all members need to work together in a time of global economic uncertainty to advance the important bills I have identified, before we adjourn for the summer.

I call on all members to support today's motion to extend the working hours of this House by a few hours for the next two weeks. For the members opposite, not only do I hope for their support in this motion, I also hope I can count on them to put the interests of Canadians first and work with this government to pass the important bills that remain before us.