Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, colleagues.
I'm going to jump right into my objections.
First, I wanted to read a quote from the Elections Canada website something that was tabled 20 years ago. It says, “Aboriginal people can make a strong claim that the federal electoral system perpetuates their exclusion.” It's a bold statement, but I plan to show why that statement is still true today after 20 years. There are improvements that we need. I'm seeking your help to remedy this today.
I have five grounds for my objections. Firstly, there was a lack of procedural fairness for the affected communities. The Mi'kmaq community ties of Eskasoni, Wagmatcook, Membertou and Sydney were not considered. It was done without any consultation from impacted Mi'kmaq communities. The commission did not take into consideration indigenous languages in the same way as other historical minority language communities. Finally, the work is not aligned with the practice of other electoral commissions.
I'm going to get into the procedural fairness part. I really only have the opportunity to talk about three of the reasons why this is procedurally unfair.
Usually, if you're going to make big changes, you do so at the beginning of the process. You say, “This is what we're proposing”, which gives people a chance to have their feedback listened to and gives people a sense of where you're going. The first recommendation in the proposal for Sydney—Victoria had zero changes. There were no changes. Based on consultation with a handful of people, who asked that they make an urban versus rural riding in Cape Breton, this was accepted. It's very strange that they would do so in the second report, without giving the affected communities any chance to know this was coming. I call it procedural catfishing, if anyone understands the “catfishing” phrase.
One of the biggest things I'm looking at is, when you heard the testimony of people saying that we should make an urban area for the municipality, the only place that was suggested to be removed from that riding was the largest Mi'kmaq community of 5,000 voters. It's the community that is my home. I believe that the moment the commission heard that the only region they were being asked to remove from the municipal riding was a Mi'kmaq community, that point triggered a duty to consult.
Article 19 in the schedule of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, which we just passed, requires that, when administrative boards make a decision that impacts indigenous communities, the free, prior and informed consent of that Mi'kmaq community is needed. I could go into the laws around consultation, but I don't have the time on this.
What we're seeing here is a decision that the Mi'kmaq community had zero opportunity to weigh in on. I have a letter here from all five Cape Breton chiefs who object to this. If you're looking at Nova Scotia, 66% of the on-reserve population is in the riding of Cape Breton. Besides the idea that there was no consultation, Eskasoni has a deep connection to the Sydney area.
I want to go into what other electoral commissions have looked at. If you look at commissions in British Columbia in the most recent provincial election, they said that they want to follow the principles of UNDRIP as part of their mandate. In Nova Scotia, the provincial boundaries looked not only at Acadian and Mi'kmaq communities, but also at African Nova Scotia communities.
I think the biggest and best evidence of this was in most recent report of the Ontario far north electoral riding commission. It said, “Indigenous representation must be given more weight in light of...past injustices”. There's only been a handful of first nations MPs in the history of this country who live on a reserve. There aren't a lot of indigenous MPs in this country. We're seeing why. It's because of these electoral processes.
I'm here to say that the commission's report is inconsistent with the law and the practice of commissions across this country, and that these changes weren't justified, as my colleague Mr. Fraser has already stated. We have an opportunity today to end that. We have an opportunity today, in this committee, to end the historical belief that these electoral boundary systems and these systems have perpetuated indigenous exclusion.
When indigenous communities look at this, the overwhelming question that I get asked is, “How could they do this?” In the era of UNDRIP and reconciliation, how can a commission, without any consultation or hearing from that indigenous community, remove the only Mi'kmaq-speaking member of Parliament—the only Mi'kmaq member of Parliament ever in the history of Canada to be elected—from his home community?
My timer says I'm up. I'm asking that you guys make the commission look at this, and I'm asking for the precedent to be set today that an indigenous member of Parliament and indigenous communities have the right to be consulted when an administrative board like electoral boundaries makes a decision that adversely affects them.
Thank you very much.