Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is good to be back.
Just by way of background for the members, I am a lawyer. Please don't hold that against me. I'm sure there are a lot of you in the room.
I am a member of the Haida Nation on the northwest coast of British Columbia. I am also a former employee of INAC, but not for as many years, apparently, as Mr. Shanks, so I will defer to him.
I worked there for about four and a half years as a land management leasing officer. I did a number of designations and leasings. Since 1999 I have been in private practice.
Part of my practice also is trying to navigate the designation processes in the Indian Act and to get some on-reserve economic development going.
I only have a few comments on the proposed amendments and I will keep them brief.
As a practitioner, I am very much in favour the amendments. I have two current files on my desk that are designations; I have to say I talked to one of my clients last week, and they said to tell you they are in favour of the amendments.
I think the elimination of the double majority requirement and Governor in Council approval will shave several months off the process.
In addition—and I talked about this before in my appearance on the land use study—it will also encourage compliance with the act. Many first nations are forgoing the process for a do-it-yourself approach, not taking advantage of the highest and best use of their lands and potentially exposing themselves and the government to liabilities.
However, lawyers always try to find holes, and a couple of areas cause me concern.
First is the amount of discretion that is going to be vested in the minister's office. As you are probably aware, the designation process can be traced back to the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Its purpose today is to ensure the informed consent of the members of the band both on and off reserve.
The two-vote requirement is common in all sorts of organizations, and certainly in terms of corporations. My testimony is that there needs to be a quorum. We speak of quorum in the corporate sense; in terms of the Indian Act, the quorum is 50% plus one. You need to show up to vote, or vote through mail-in ballots.
In the corporate sense, if there aren't enough people to constitute a quorum, you adjourn the meeting. Then you have a second meeting, and it's just a simple majority, so there is some consistency with the current act and what happens in the corporate world, as it were.
Without having a quorum threshold, there is the possibility of lands being designated for long terms, for example 99 years, without a significant portion of the membership voting. I submit there is a possibility of that leading to legal challenges.
In my view there needs to be a clearly defined quorum that the minister will accept as a broad consensus. While this may be addressed in policy or amendments to the referendum regulations, my personal preference would be that it be embodied in the legislation.
Overall, however, the amendments are a significant step forward, with the caution that the lack of a quorum—and I use that term in the corporate law sense—may lead to legal challenges.