Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill on behalf of my party. I will tell you at the outset, however, that I am not about to congratulate the government. As far as advance notice of this bill is concerned, although I was told last Friday that the bill would not come before the House this session, I learned this morning on returning from my riding that it is on today's Order Paper.
I deplored this practice before when the Yukon bills were considered. I was very surprised to find a one foot thick pile of documents on my desk the day before second reading. I had to spend the whole night reading all these documents to try to prepare something acceptable for the next day.
As for advance notice, although this is the end of the session, the government should show some understanding, especially since these are far-reaching bills which we are often unable to discuss and criticize for lack of time. As I was saying earlier, I am not about to congratulate the government on the subject of advance notice.
I have no congratulations to offer either on the fact that this bill, like other bills affecting Natives, constantly refers to an agreement. The bill before us today is quite simple, as it contains only four clauses. There are short definitions and a significant clause 4, which is the heart of the bill. Naturally, clause 4 refers to an agreement that is not provided to us.
Again, our ability to comment is rather limited. It is difficult to make positive and constructive comments on an agreement that you have never seen. When we realized that the four clauses of this bill referred to a specific agreement, we had to move heaven and earth to put our hands on it. We finally got a copy of the agreement on Friday afternoon.
Having been told that Bill C-60 was not on the legislative menu, we did not set out to examine it immediately. So, we all had to scramble this morning. Again, I tell you, it is quite difficult to come up with constructive criticism when you have had just a few hours to go through an agreement 20 or so pages long and weigh the merits of it all.
I will nevertheless give you an overview of the historical development of the agreement underlying this bill. In 1986, the Pictou Landing band was on the verge of taking legal action against the federal crown. This action was predicated on the fact that, in 1965, an effluent treatment system had been built in Boat Harbour, Nova Scotia. Of course, it had been built on Indian land and authorities had simply forgotten to advise the Indians that there was going to be some building on their land. That is pretty well how things were done back in those days. As you can see, the native issues were far back in the government's priorities.
So, after repeated attempts to negotiate made over several years, the Indians finally said: "Negotiations are required. If the government refuses to negotiate, we will take legal action", which they did in 1986.
In 1992, the government was facing prosecution. It figured it would give negotiations a try. It then instructed its negotiators to meet with the band to consider the possibility of an out of court settlement. This settlement was reached out of court. To have it adopted democratically, it was put to a referendum in July 1993: 141 of 260 voted on the agreement, so they had a participation rate of roughly 60 per cent on the decision concerning the agreement as such. Of the 166 members who voted, 141 were in favour and 25 against.
Those opposed were motivated mainly by the high level of pollution on their reserve. I will come back to that shortly because we think that is the problem and it is the type of project which we can agree to refer to the Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, but there will certainly be many questions raised in that committee because I think that the environmental aspect gets very short shrift. We will have to see, with the First Nations, exactly what the settlement means, especially for the environment.
Of course, the agreement was signed following the referendum on July 20, 1993. Basically, the agreement relieves the Canadian government of any liability for past, present and
future effects of the treatment system. The government says that it will escape any liability by paying them $35 million.
My colleague just mentioned that these $35 million would not be subject to the Indian Act. So the native people, the Pictou Landing Indian Band, will be able to control the $35 million themselves. I think it is important to specify that this amount will be divided roughly in two. There is a $20-million compensation account for the band and the members, recognizing that their environment was damaged. The remaining $15 million will go into a compensation account if the band ever decides to move.
We are at the point where we say: We know that your environment is very polluted, so polluted in fact that we are putting $15 million at your disposal to move. Moving might be a solution, but what will happen to the costs and also to the environment which was polluted for years and which will probably remain in that state?
As I just mentioned, the government offered the possibility of avoiding future effects and risks. The amount of $15 million will be used to move people to adjacent lands and let the company, Scott, continue what it has been doing for nearly 30 years, that is to pollute the environment.
Issues of employment and pollution are also involved, to which I will come back later. When you read the bill, and particularly the agreement, it is obvious that the government wants to discharge itself of any responsibility. In fact, this is the basis of the agreement and of this bill designed to solve the problem for good, at least according to the government's vision and definitions.
In chapters 8 and 9 of the agreement, Canada agrees to look at ways to find solutions to environmental problems. What does that mean? It means that the government is committed to looking at solutions. The government is not saying that it will solve the issue, only that it will look at solutions. The federal government also pledges to take any reasonable action to fight harmful effects, but it does not have any future responsibility. This sounds wishful thinking, while the danger to the environment remains ever present.
As I mentioned earlier, the agreement also includes waivers. These illustrate the contradictions of the legislation before us. Indeed, we are told that this issue which concerns a First Nation is settled by handing out money, but the government does not care about what happens to the environment. This is significant when you read the following excerpt:
The Pictou Landing Micmac and members of the Pictou Landing Micmac who receive amounts from the proceeds of the settlement, including amounts arising from the trust fund, hereby waive any present or future cause of action against Canada based on flooding, breaches of property rights or nuisances arising from activities including the construction, operating, repairing, maintenance or cleaning of the Boat Harbour effluent treatment system or on any failure to meet related fiduciary, legal or other obligations.
There is a particular risk involved, and I am referring to this release from fiduciary responsibility. It may create a precedent, because the government must realize in certain cases in Canada, it has a fiduciary relationship with the First Nations. So if the First Nations are involved in litigation, they can say to the federal government: you are our fiduciary, so you have to defend us.
Though the government does not say so in so many words, it may be very tempting to consider that although there are major problems in a number of first nations and it has a fiduciary responsibility, that does not matter because in a few years, in this case 30 years, the federal government or the Crown will deal with that by giving substantial amounts of money, and the rest will be history.
This is not the first time we have seen this happen. It was also apparent in the case of Split Lake. Is this the way to deal with the Crown's fiduciary responsibility to aboriginal peoples; to say we will pay later? We should try to deal with the problems up front and not wait 20 or 30 years and then finally decide to give $10, $15 or $20 million more to settle the matter. We are concerned about this release from fiduciary responsibility.
Now, regarding transfer. The band transfers to Canada any cause for present or future legal actions against the Scott Paper Company, which is the polluter with respect to the agreement, Scott Maritime Ltd., its executives, managers, employees, respective representatives, Nova Scotia, and any other party whose actions caused or contributed to flooding, breaches of property rights or nuisances in any way resulting from building, operating, repairing, maintaining or cleaning the effluent treatment system in Boat Harbour.
Here again, we see very clearly that the native people, who had reasons to sue, are giving up and the government is taking over. It is not sure that the government, for its part, will sue the company to have it clean up the damage done to the environment.
But furthermore the agreement covers the future. I say that the band will waive any cause for legal action based on flooding, breaches of property rights or nuisances in any way resulting from any future building activities. This is quite straightforward. It means that should the company decide to expand and pollute even more, the government says that the native people have no right to sue, since it is now its responsibility. We really wonder about the government's environmental responsabilities in this issue.
Furthermore, this agreement is littered with expressions such as "reasonably established". I will give you a few examples. In our view, this agreement is full of holes and allows the government to escape all its responsibilities. Expressions like "reason-
ably established", "reasonable", "if at all possible", "reasonable measures" lead us to conclude that the gov ernment will have the upper hand in everything. This agreement gives it all the opportunities it wants to avoid doing anything to protect the environment.
On the other hand, I understand the government's position on jobs. Indeed, this company employs people in Nova Scotia, and I know that the unemployment rate in that province is well above the Canadian average. There are huge unemployment problems there and the government is afraid to close down this company for polluting the environment. At the present time, we must assume that the government is more concerned about preserving jobs; one must wonder how much it will cost to clean up these rivers. We are told that 86,000 gallons a day are being dumped in the river.
We can speculate on the final cost of all this environmental mis-management. We are very critical of the way the bill and the agreement approach the environmental issue and the aboriginal issue.
The government is not very convincing. It promises to consider ways to solve the environmental problem and to take reasonable steps to counter any harmful effects.
The implementation of programs reasonably necessary-again, we consider that all this reasonable stuff is a smokescreen behind which the government is hiding to escape its environmental responsibilities. To escape its responsibilities, the government is hiding behind a bill and an agreement.
A committee will be set up. Canada will appoint a six-member committee to oversee the implementation of a control program. There again, this six-member committee is simply an advisory committee. Aboriginal people will be represented on the committee, but the legislation gives it absolutely no power to say things like: Here are the control measures to put in place. Here is the way we want to solve the environmental question. No, there is nothing like that in the agreement. It is an advisory committee which will recommend some procedures to the government but, in the end, the government can simply forget to implement its recommendations.
The committee does not have any power and although the First Nations will be represented, we have no guarantee that they will always have 50 per cent of the members. Nonetheless pollution has crossed their land for more than 30 years. For 30 years, the government refused to see the problem and now they give almost no control to aboriginal people. It gives them only the opportunity to move out, without dealing with the basic pollution problem.
Coming back to the bill, it has, as I said, only four clauses, the first two being the short title and a definition of the agreement and who it applies to. But the main problem rests with clause 4, because it refers to a specific chapter of the agreement, as I mentioned earlier. We were not provided with this agreement and just recently received a copy. We took a look at its scope and, like in any agreement, one section refers to another and you end up having to examine three or four sections all relating to the relevance of clause 4.
In addition, on examination, a summary one I must say, as I indicated earlier, we found that 10 per cent of those concerned did not give up their lawsuits, for the simple reason that they could not be reached.
The bill before us today concerns the entire community. Ninety per cent of the community abandoned any potential claim, but there is this 10 per cent of uncertainty. What will this 10 per cent do? Will these people decide to opt out of the agreement and legislation and say: "Look, we never withdrew our cases. We want to sue Scott. We are totally against entrusting Canada with taking action on our behalf, with the risk of being unsatisfied with the ensuing settlement?"
These are the kinds of questions we are asking ourselves at this point. The Department of Indian Affairs will certainly be questioned on this bill when it is considered by the standing committee.
Therefore, our position is a little shaky. Of course, the Natives, the Micmacs of Pictou Landing went ahead and held a referendum. We have to respect that. They held a referendum and there was an 85 per cent vote for the agreement, even though the participation rate was 60 per cent. We still have very serious questions, not on the amounts at stake- because we know deep down that these people will be able to manage the money-, but on the future of that nation if they decide to stay there. And if they decide to move, what will the government's environmental commitments be?
Will the province of Nova Scotia take over and address the environmental issue? We simply do not know, as there is nothing specific in the agreement itself. So we finally decided to support the bill for reference to the committee on aboriginal affairs, although we will certainly be back here at third reading after asking many questions at the committee stage. We will support the bill for now but with all the reservations called for.