Evidence of meeting #92 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Federal Negotiations Manager, Negotiations - Central, Treaties and Aboriginal Government, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
I don't know personally whether.... Perhaps some of my colleagues at the table know whether, when implementing legislation comes forward, those tax treatment agreements come forward as well with the final agreements. I don't know offhand, Mr. Vidal.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Gary Vidal Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
Okay.
It just struck me as a bit of a.... I don't mean that it's a blank cheque. That's not what I mean at all. It just struck me as perhaps a clean slate as we're approving something that's going to happen in the future without knowing what it is. That was my concern.
5:05 p.m.
Federal Negotiations Manager, Negotiations - Central, Treaties and Aboriginal Government, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
I don't mean to poke too much fun at my colleagues at the Department of Finance either, but I was hoping it would add some comfort.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Gary Vidal Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
I think I'm okay. I think it's a fair question. I'm not sure how we're going to get that answered.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
In the context of what can happen in the future, I'm going to be circling back to my question.
For example, does the Métis Settlements General Council have a tax exemption on things that they have to pay?
5:05 p.m.
Federal Negotiations Manager, Negotiations - Central, Treaties and Aboriginal Government, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
I don't personally know at this time.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
You mentioned earlier that the agreements that were signed in February are a step towards self-government, and those steps would include decision-making about citizenship. Is that correct?
5:05 p.m.
Federal Negotiations Manager, Negotiations - Central, Treaties and Aboriginal Government, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
Yes.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
Okay. If the Métis Settlements General Council doesn't share the same kind of treatment as what we see in clause 13....
The work that they do is impacted by the cost of things, and if they don't have the same kind of tax treatment, that drives up the cost of their governance. Having that drive up the cost of their governance might impact Métis' decision to be members of the Métis Settlements General Council or the Métis Nation of Alberta.
I'm circling back because I'm remembering that there had been conversations about dual citizenship. If there are other Métis settlements that don't have the same tax treatment, do you see a potential impact on MNA increasing its membership because of how that might impact their cost of governing, for example?
5:10 p.m.
Federal Negotiations Manager, Negotiations - Central, Treaties and Aboriginal Government, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
I'm not an expert on tax, so please let me know if you don't feel this sufficiently answers the question.
I would say that certainly the concept of the tax treatment agreement captured here is not in any way intended to capture individuals' taxation. It's purely the taxation of the governing entity. The treaty, once negotiated, will include a few different pieces, one of which is this tax treatment agreement. Another is the funding arrangement between the Government of Canada and the Métis partners, the Métis governments. A third piece is an implementation plan for the ongoing implementation of the agreements.
I think this tax treatment agreement is a companion piece to the funding arrangement, in a way, to ensure that these Métis governments get the same tax treatment as other governments under general tax laws. However, MP Idlout, I'm not personally familiar with the tax terms around the Métis settlements.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
Based on that answer, I'm not feeling informed enough to vote on clause 13. I think we need to get information on Métis settlements and their tax treatments. I wonder if we could ask for that information to be shared with us so that we could make a more informed decision about this clause.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
We can ask for that information. I guess, to keep things moving, we could, perhaps through unanimous consent as the first step, see about standing clause 13 until we can get that information. Then we could come back to it.
I'll put the request out there. Are we willing to stand clause 13?
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
It will get inserted at the end, before clause 2, in the order that we go through. Clause 13 would be inserted ahead of clause 2 when we get to that point in the order of the clause-by-clause review.
In the meantime, we could put out a request to the Department of Finance. I think they would be the appropriate department on the question of how the Métis settlements are treated. By the time we got to that, we would have that information for a discussion.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
Depending on that response, would we still be able to recommend amendments?
5:10 p.m.
A voice
Yes.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Maybe we're on a point of order here right now. I'm not sure.
It's around getting the Department of Finance officials to come and speak to us about clause 13. It might be interesting to also get the Privacy Commissioner, the Information Commissioner of Canada and somebody from Yale First Nation as well. I know that several clauses that are coming up later on in the bill affect those folks, and when we first heard testimony, we did not hear witnesses speak to any of those issues.
If we're going to bring Department of Finance officials here to deal with that clause, it would be great to have some folks who can speak to some of these other clauses further down towards the end of the bill. I don't think we heard anything in testimony around the Yale First Nation piece. It would be good to have some representatives from that community, or department officials who know what's going on with that particular agreement.
I don't know if I have to make a motion for that to happen or if we can use the chair's prerogative for that, but I think that would be a useful thing to do.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
Mr. Viersen, we're going to interrupt for a second to go to a point of order.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Jaime Battiste Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
I have a point of order about the relevance. We're going line by line right now. It sounds like people are asking for additional testimony. We've gone through this legislation quite a bit. We've arrived at clause-by-clause study. To stall that after tabling it in the summer, to review every single one of these lines, to ask questions—that would be a lot of time waiting, and I believe the Métis have waited long enough.
I would like to acknowledge my Métis friend Marc Dalton over here, joining us at committee. We have a lot of Métis in the room. I kind of want to give my colleagues a sense of their Métis elders who have been waiting a long time for this. We won't get through this today. We might get to it in February. I'm wondering how many Métis elders we're going to lose over the next two months who would have loved to see this get to where we need it to go.
To go through every single line, line by line, and recall evidence to me just seems out of order.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
Could I speak to that point?
We're into clause-by-clause consideration. We've had our study and we've had witnesses and we've gathered our testimony. We have officials before us now to answer questions. We are able to have other officials invited to the table. If you want to have an official or officials from the finance department come so you can ask some questions as far as these points are concerned, you can, but it's not to reopen the study; it would be to help us to understand what the clause is that we're on so that we can then make an informed decision as we vote on it. That's, procedurally, what we're allowed to do.
I did put the question as to whether we want to stand clause 13 or we want to vote on it. The question now is whether we want to stand clause 13.
Mr. Schmale, go ahead.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Thank you.
Maybe we can get the best of both worlds. We could stand it for now and then, as per Arnold's request, bring in an official from the finance department, or whoever else needs to be here to answer a couple of questions, and just hold on for now and then move on.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
I require unanimous consent to do that, so do we have unanimous consent?