Mr. Speaker, I am honoured today to rise and speak to this bill on the Red River Métis Self-Government Recognition and Implementation Treaty.
I want to begin with respect for the Manitoba Métis Federation. The work we discussed today did not appear overnight. It reflects decades of organizing, advocacy, negotiations and constitutional work done by the Manitoba Métis Federation and the Red River Métis citizens.
The Red River Métis people have fought for recognition and their place on the land since before Canada became a country in 1867. In most recent history, the agreement itself records a long path, a 2016 framework agreement, a 2018 incremental reconciliation plan, a 2000 interim fiscal financing agreement and a 2021 self-government recognition and implementation agreement, all leading up to today.
The treaty also links itself to the unfinished reconciliation identified in the Manitoba Métis Federation v. Canada action.
I want to acknowledge President Chartrand and his leadership, which has led to the Manitoba Métis Federation becoming a socio-economic driving force in Winnipeg, Manitoba and beyond.
I also want to show respect for those other indigenous governments for helping with the conversation about what could be improved within the treaty and for their courage for respectfully bringing their concerns to the broader discussion. I know from experience that indigenous critics can experience the most severe forms of abuse from outsiders and insiders via lateral violence, despite the shared goal of building solid foundations for future generations.
As members of Parliament, we have a duty to combat such abuse and bring respectful dialogue to such important matters, and this is a very important matter. We need to take the time to make sure this bill that proposes to bring the agreement into Canadian law and constitutional law is well-built. This is why this debate should not be reduced to a false choice between reconciliation and scrutiny. Parliament can support reconciliation and still insist on precision. In fact, when legislation will constitutionalize a treaty under sections 25 and 35, precision is a part of reconciliation.
Conservatives support treaty rights. We support Métis self-government. We support modern agreements that are durable, constitutional and workable. We even support the Manitoba Métis Federation's choice, as is their right, to negotiate and enter into an agreement that empowers them to move away from the Ottawa bureaucracy.
As a first nations person, I would not personally support growing the ISC bureaucracy as a part of implementing this treaty. A key part of the Manitoba Métis Federation's self-governance is its freedom to choose its partners even if ISC has shown a long history of being unreliable and abusive to other indigenous communities. Supporting the Manitoba Métis Federation's self-determination and governance over its own people does not require us as legislators to ignore potential challenges with implementation. It requires us to confront them before they become drawn-out lawsuits, which can still happen despite the best efforts of drafters, and to anticipate and resolve disputes in more conciliatory ways. It requires us to ask whether consultation in other indigenous communities was sufficient to anticipate the potential challenges this treaty might face.
The first reason for caution is that the treaty itself says that it is a treaty within the meaning of sections 25 and 35, that it has the force of law, is binding on all persons and bodies, and engages the honour of the Crown. Once Parliament gives effect to that, the courts, not the ministers, become the final interpreters of what this text means. If Parliament leaves ambiguity in a constitutional instrument, Parliament is not choosing flexibility, but risking future litigation.
The implementation legislation before us would give the treaty and future Manitoba Métis Federation laws the force of federal law, which would prevail in many areas over inconsistent other federal laws. Among other features, it has the potential to give non-Manitoba Métis Federation police forces and provinces the power to enforce Manitoba Métis Federation laws on non-members of Manitoba Métis Federation, including the possibility of the power to prosecute and imprison accused individuals. Because the Manitoba Métis Federation is not definitively geographically bound or defined in the treaty, Manitoba Métis Federation laws could potentially apply anywhere inside western Canada and beyond. Several Métis groups have made the point that the Manitoba Métis Federation jurisdiction should not extend to other Métis traditional homelands and territories, and that it should be up to the Métis justice systems, not the Crown courts, to determine what Métis laws mean and how they apply.
Modern treaties have the opportunity to place aboriginal and non-aboriginal relations in a shared legal system where we can build certainty, continuity, transparency and predictability.
Ambiguous modern treaty drafting can produce years of conflict. It is not fearmongering to remember the decades of history when interpretation and poor relations resulted in unintended division. Canada still lives with that today. We see this playing out in British Columbia. Governments, federal and provincial, are learning hard lessons about focusing their work on reconciliation rhetoric rather than the hard work needed to bring as many people along as possible, indigenous Canadians and non-indigenous Canadians alike.
There is much in the treaty that deserves acknowledgement. It recognizes Red River Métis self-determination and the inherent right of self-government. It recognizes the Manitoba Métis Federation as the government of the Red River Métis in paragraph 9. It provides concrete jurisdiction now over citizenship, leadership selection, internal operations, accountability, administration, enforcement and related matters. This is serious work, and it deserves respect, but respect for the work done by the Manitoba Métis Federation does not erase the duty of Parliament to ask what this text does, what it does not do and what it may be read to do later.
The next area of concern is the definition of Red River Métis, relationships with other Métis governments and the question of constitutional space for others. The Red River Métis should be the ultimate authority on determining who is Red River Métis. Paragraph 1 defines the Red River Métis as an “Indigenous collectivity...originally established within the historic Northwest and centred in the Red River Valley,” distinct from any other indigenous collectivity and collectively holding section 35 rights, including the inherent right to self-government.
Paragraph 10 then says the Red River Métis acts “exclusively” through the Manitoba Métis Federation in exercising collectively held rights, in pursuing scrip claims and in Crown consultation respecting potential adverse effects on Red River Métis section 35 rights.
Paragraph 19 adds that any existing section 35 rights of self-government in respect of the definition of Red River Métis and the exclusive representation of the Red River Métis by the Manitoba Métis Federation continue and will be exercised in accordance with the treaty.
To many Red River Métis citizens, these provisions are long overdue recognition and nation building. That perspective needs to be heard. However, to other Métis governments, these same provisions raise alarms. The treaty's definitions and scope are read as expansive and ambiguous. We have heard from other Métis nations the concern that the treaty may fail to leave constitutional space for other Métis groups. Once implemented, it will be binding on third parties, including other federally recognized Métis governments. Self-government agreements and treaties with different Métis and other indigenous governments must coexist with each other.
There are strengths in drafting this agreement with flexibility and limiting language, but there is also too much ambiguity. Paragraph 13 says nothing in the treaty may be interpreted to determine the geographical location or the extent of the Red River Métis. There is also nothing in the treaty to imply that the Red River Métis is the only Métis collective under section 35. It also does not imply that the Manitoba Métis Federation represents any other Indigenous collectivity than the Red River Métis. It preserves the possibility that there are other Métis collective rights holders, which is a good thing, established before effective European control, that include individuals with Red River Métis ancestry and may hold distinct section 35 rights. Those are important safeguards, and any fair reading of the treaty should say so.
There is respect from other Métis governments that have also worked for years at securing recognition of their own rights-bearing communities and self-government agreements. Their concern is not that the Manitoba Métis Federation should have no treaty. It is quite the opposite. Various Métis groups appreciate, celebrate and support Canada's modern treaty-making with Métis governments and recognize the Manitoba Métis Federation's right to pursue self-determination through this agreement.
A second area of concern is land and aboriginal rights ambiguity. Supporters of the bill frame this as an internal governance treaty, not a land claims treaty. The treaty's immediate operative jurisdictions are about governance, citizenship, internal structures, accountability, adjudication and related institutional matters, not a direct land transfer.
In recent months, disagreements about how treaties and other agreements about land-based rights should be interpreted have led to much uncertainty on the part of Canadians and much undeserved ignorance, interpretation and hatred directed toward indigenous peoples. Canada's failure to be precise and to communicate about several recent agreements in B.C. has caused harm to everyone. If Canada wants to say now that the Manitoba Métis Federation treaty does not recognize land-related rights, it has a duty to spell that out explicitly, inclusive of protecting fee simple property.
Too often, it seems the current government wants to intentionally leave in that ambiguity so it can take credit but not responsibility for the decisions made. Why does this matter? Chapter 9 lays out the process for future supplementary self-government arrangements in areas including wildlife, migratory birds, and fish harvesting and management; environmental assessment and protection; administration of justice; and any other matters reasonably related to self-determination, self-government, or other rights and interests of the Red River Métis. For many first nations and other indigenous peoples, a traditional paradigm is that we are a part of the land, inclusive of wildlife and plant life.
Paragraph 88 goes further and says that the treaty contemplates future negotiation or recognition of Manitoba Métis Federation jurisdiction over lands that may be held by the Red River Métis, and the preamble of the treaty itself refers to the unfulfilled land-grant provisions of the Manitoba Act, implying the potential for redress.
For non-indigenous Canadians, especially those worried about their recreational or life-sustaining use of the land, it is important not to inflame fear. This treaty would not, on its face, threaten fee simple title. It does not contain a clause expropriating private home ownership. However, it would create a legal framework that could affect future consultation questions, future jurisdictional negotiations and future litigation over the scope of rights. The responsible position is neither alarm nor denial. It is clarity.
For indigenous folks, especially Métis, first nations and Inuit people, the issue is equally serious but different. It is whether constitutionality can be protected via a treaty drafted in a way that leaves room for one indigenous government's hard-won recognition without crowding the constitutional room needed by others. It is whether reconciliation is being advanced through careful pluralism or through avoidable conflict. It is also about whether an indigenous community needs recognition in a treaty in order for its self-government rights to be exercised.
The Liberal government must acknowledge the push-back it received on Bill C-53 in consideration of the bill before us, not because the Manitoba Métis Federation is in the same category as other Métis in question in Bill C-53 but because other indigenous concerns were expressed explicitly. A fundamental question must be answered by the government, a question that I have received and that I know the Liberal government has received as well: How would this treaty overlap with the historic numbered treaties in Canada?
We cannot shy away from the fact that the Assembly of Treaty Chiefs in Alberta recently passed a resolution against the proposed treaty in question today. The chiefs of Treaty 3 in Ontario have said, in a submission to the Liberal government, that they have concerns about pre-approved modern treaties that will supersede historic Confederation-era treaties, practically making them second-class citizens. We have heard and we know that with the Liberal government, there has been little to no consultation with first nations across the numbered treaties in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba regarding the bill.
The Liberal government has started a significant consultation on Bill S-2 while doing no consultation on things like Bill C-5, and now, again, first nations are questioning the inconsistent politics being played by the government on when consultation is used and when it is not used. These concerns are real, and I know the Manitoba Métis Federation is aware of these concerns from first nations as well. I do not hear any indigenous nation, Métis, Inuit or first nation, wanting to see other indigenous peoples fail, but the process and details must be addressed. All of these types of agreements and treaties must live together, and we as indigenous and non-indigenous peoples must coexist.
A third area of concern is everyday predictability in governance and in how we grow the Canadian economy. The Canada Energy Regulator's process in British Columbia has seen the Manitoba Métis Federation relying on the treaty and the Red River Métis homeland claims to assert consultation rights far beyond the Red River, two provinces away. This can result in confusion, cost and delay in resource development. The impacts are not only political disputes but real, on-the-ground impacts that can hold back timely growth of Canada's economy for all treaty peoples.
As Parliament constitutionalizes a treaty whose wording and surrounding narratives are already being used in regulatory settings, Parliament has a duty to consider how wording matters outside this chamber. The commitment to a financial arrangement that would meet the expenditure need of the Manitoba Métis Federation to exercise its defined self-government functions is good in concept but poorly spelled out. Those IOUs promise big buckets of potential rights and obligations and a bureaucratic framework to ensure that Ottawa would get plenty of say in how it wants to maintain control over such agreements and this indigenous nation.
That brings me to my final point. The fairest and most constructive position is not to attack the Manitoba Métis Federation or deny legitimacy of the Red River Métis self-government. It is to say we honour the work that brought this treaty here, we recognize the unfinished business of reconciliation, and we accept that the Manitoba Métis Federation has spent years building toward this milestone. However, because this treaty would be constitutionally entrenched and binding on everyone, we owe it to the Manitoba Métis Federation, other Métis governments, first nations, provinces and everyday Canadians to draft the implementation legislation with maximum clarity.
This means asking whether Bill C-21 should include explicit protections making it clear that this treaty would not negate other Métis agreements, would not make the Red River Métis the only Métis people under section 35, would not constrain future negotiations with other Métis groups, would not recognize land-related section 35 rights unless Parliament intends to say so explicitly, and would protect private property of everyday Canadians.
These proposals are not antireconciliation. They make reconciliation more stable, more transparent and more durable at a time when many Canadians feel uncertain about where we are going. Modern treaties are too important to be carried out by implication when explicit language is available. Canada's own legal history teaches us that when treaty wording is uncertain, courts will spend years, sometimes generations, trying to reconstruct the common intention of the parties, while communities and Ottawa are left to deal with the unexpected consequences.
Parliament still has time to reduce that uncertainty here, so let us proceed with respect: respect for the Manitoba Métis Federation, respect for other rights-bearing Métis communities, respect for indigenous rights, respect for legal certainty and respect for Canadians who deserve laws that are clear enough to understand and that promote unity, not down-the-road division.
We look forward to discussing how to improve this bill, with consideration of any amendments, in committee.
