Thank you, Madam Chair.
I know that Chief Maracle, in his opening remarks, pointed out that this bill is before the wrong committee, and I would completely support Ms. Bennett's motion.
At the aboriginal affairs committee, we’ve just finished studying a private member’s bill that included a section on wills and estates. It became very clear—and this relates directly to matrimonial real property—that taking into account the very complex land codes within first nation communities, the matter of wills and estates needed further study. With regard to matrimonial real property, it's very clear that we're not dealing with fee simple lands. We're dealing with custom allotment. We're dealing with certificates of possession. We're dealing with a variety of mechanisms around lands that do not simply mean that when there's a marital breakdown, person A stays in the house and person B goes somewhere else.
That is an important factor when we're talking about matrimonial real property.
Madam Chair, when David Langtry, the acting chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, came before this committee, he indicated that there were three questions this committee should be considering. One is fair access to justice, one is ability to access rights in a safe way, and a third one is whether communities have the capacity they need to develop and implement their own matrimonial real property systems. I would argue that all three of those questions need to be dealt with at the aboriginal affairs committee because the aboriginal affairs committee has a much broader perspective on the complexities facing first nation communities.
One matter that came up at the aboriginal affairs committee when we were talking about Bill C-428 was the issue around custom adoptions. Now, I haven't heard anybody talk about custom adoptions. When provinces are going to be dealing with allocating who gets to stay in a home when there is a marital breakdown, how are they going to deal with custom adoptions? Many provinces don't recognize the first nations’ tradition of custom adoptions, so what would happen in such a case?
Chief Montour, Deputy Grand Chief Fiddler, Chief Maracle, Chief Abram—all of you have talked about the lack of resources. At the aboriginal affairs committee, I can tell you we're well steeped in hearing testimony from people about the lack of resources for housing, the lack of resources for education, the lack of resources for water, and the lack of resources for policing.
Deputy Grand Chief Fiddler, I know your communities have been struggling with issues of policing now for a long time, but it has been very prominent in the media over the last number of weeks because of that lack of resources for policing in your own communities.
We hear the government say that what's going to happen is that by passing Bill S-2, miraculously, somehow or other, people in communities are going to be protected. Well, who's going to enforce those protection orders? Where's the community going to get the resources for alternate dispute resolution and mediation? Where's the community going to get the resources for legal aid? Where's the counselling when families need help? Perhaps they could resolve issues with appropriate counselling. Where are those counselling dollars going to come from? How are the chief and council going to deal with the fact that there are such severe housing shortages?
As Deputy Grand Chief Fiddler and Ms. Fletcher pointed out, there could be 13 or 14 people living in a house. What happens if the custodial parent, the woman, is living with the husband whose whole family lives in the house? Now we're going to say, okay, the woman now has the house. Does that mean the grandparents have to move out because they're the parents of the young man?
This act has been touted by the opposition...I mean the government—opposition I could only wish. The government has indicated that this act will deal with violence against aboriginal women. I want to thank Chief Maracle and Chief Montour and others for rightly pointing out that aboriginal men, first nation men, are not violent by nature. When we're talking about marital breakdown, we're talking about the stressors of poverty and a lack of access to resources that complicates families in a way that many Canadians simply don't face.
On the issue of violence, Bill S-2 mentions family violence—not violence against aboriginal women, but family violence—eight times in this act, and it does nothing, absolutely nothing to deal with the factors contributing to family violence.
We saw in the past as the Aboriginal Healing Foundation funds sunsetted, which could deal with the intergenerational traumas that resulted from residential schools, for example, that money has disappeared.
So when you want to talk about what's happening and where this bill should rightly be it should absolutely be before the aboriginal affairs committee. I would support the calls that have come in from certainly the chiefs who are before us today, but many other chiefs and community members as well, about the duty to consult and accommodate.
It isn't just going out and self-selecting a number of communities, it is about that duty to consult, that free, prior, and informed consent that's been outlined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. So I certainly would encourage all members to vote in favour of Ms. Bennett's motion and have this bill dealt with appropriately at the appropriate committee.
Thank you, Madam Chair.