Thank you.
Good morning. I'm specifically going to address the regulations proposed in Bill S-8.
My name is Jim Ransom. I serve as the director of Tehotiiennawakon and oversee the environment, economic development, and emergency measures for the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. I'm going to address in particular clauses 4, 5, and 6 in Bill S-8. They really represent the heart of Bill S-8.
While we support safe drinking water with appropriate standards, we cannot support the way Bill S-8 is written. In regard to developing standards, we have prepared a proposal to develop our own water and regulatory framework. We have submitted it to Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada.
It is comprehensive and will meet and exceed the requirements in Bill S-8. It has been prepared in cooperation with the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Building relationships around common interests and ensuring safe drinking water for all peoples is important to us. We actually have letters of support for our approach from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and from the Quebec Ministry of the Environment.
However, the approach we've taken is not envisioned by Bill S-8. Clauses 4, 5, 6, and 7 put us to the back of the regulatory bus. Subclause 5(1) deems us owners of our water systems but fails to recognize our authority to self-regulate those same systems. Instead, it transfers liability without consideration of the condition of the assets being transferred to us, and it sets us up for failure without adequate resources to ensure transferred systems are safe and can be maintained.
Bill S-8 recognizes provincial water laws, but not first nation water laws. Clause 6 allows the Minister of Indian Affairs and our Minister of Health to enter into agreements made under the regulations “with any province, corporation or other body” and related to “administration and enforcement of regulations”, but it doesn't do the same with first nations.
To address these concerns, we offer the following recommendation: that clauses 4, 5, and 6 be amended by including first nations as entities that can be conferred legislative, administrative, judicial, and other powers necessary to effectively regulate drinking water systems and wastewater systems. In other words, don't just make us owners: give us the responsibility to regulate our own systems. The development of regulations must be done with the active involvement of first nations and should have room for recognition of first nations' jurisdiction and authority.
The last concern we have with Bill S-8 is in the sense of how it confers to the provinces jurisdiction over first nation water systems. In doing that, it doesn't consider the reality. Provincial water laws were developed for a different audience. They were developed for their own municipalities. They were not developed with first nations in mind.
For first nations, we have unique circumstances that are not considered by the provinces. We have cultural traditions that are not considered. We have operators in our communities who in many cases have not been trained to provincial standards.
Also, how you deal in remote communities with on-reserve water and wastewater systems is totally different from how you would deal with it in, say, Toronto or Ottawa. That's not being considered.
For us in particular, we're in two provinces. If you're going to confer and delegate down to the provinces, which province? That's a question that we have in particular.
We feel that the legislation can be enhanced by including provisions that allow first nations who have the abilities to develop their own regulations—or groups of first nations working together—to self-regulate. That's the direction the provinces are going in right now because of budget cutbacks. They're trying to get out of the regulatory business. And suddenly in Ontario you're giving them 133 first nations that they will now have responsibility for, with no resources.
We've spoken with them. They're not ready to take on that burden. But we are, because we see it as a responsibility.
With that, I'll turn it over to my colleague Micha Menczer.