Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake in my home province for bringing this motion forward.
It is always a pleasure to speak to issues involving Indian people. I spent two years on an Indian reserve at Wollaston Lake in northern Saskatchewan, so I have a pretty clear idea of what barriers exist for the aboriginal people living in and around these communities. My constituency of Yorkton-Melville has five Indian reserves which I represent in the House. Therefore I have more than just a passing interest in the subject of Indian land claims.
The motion we are debating asks the government to "consider the advisability of establishing a new, independent aboriginal land claims commission as recommended in the 1994-95 annual report of the Indian Claims Commission". I read the annual report referred to in the motion and the commission's recommendation No. 1 states: "Canada and the First Nations should develop and implement a new claims policy and process that does not involve the present circumstances wherein Canada judges claims against itself".
The last time I spoke in the House on Indian land claims was during the debate on Bill C-33 regarding the Yukon land claims in June 1994.
The Reform Party is way ahead of the government in the area of aboriginal affairs policy. I would like to bring everyone up to date on the progress we have made.
In June 1994 I was one of several Reform MPs who had the privilege of participating in the Reform Party's aboriginal affairs task force. We met with many native people and even made a trip to Norway House in northern Manitoba. Mainly the concerns were about self-government, mismanagement of band funds, patronage and nepotism, and land claims.
In October of this year the leader of the Reform Party and Reform's aboriginal affairs critics released the party's aboriginal affairs task force report. The report was prepared following many public meetings held all across the country, but mainly in western Canada. Our task force met with native and non-native people. We were disappointed that for the most part Indian leaders boycotted the Reform Party's meetings.
Now, after the release of our 14-point plan, the aboriginal leaders are complaining that we did not consult them. Every band in western Canada was invited to the meetings and the vast majority of Indian leaders refused our invitation.
I am sorry that I do not have time to outline the Reform Party's complete 14-point plan in the House today, but here is what our task force report said about land claims:
Point number one: Indian treaties will be fully honoured according to their original intent and in keeping with court interpretation.
Point number four: Land claim agreements and self-government agreements will be negotiated under the principle of equality for and among all persons. Settlement of land claims will be negotiated publicly. All settlements will outline specific terms, be final and conclude within a specific time frame. Final settlements will be affordable to Canada and the provinces.
Point number five: Individuals residing on settlement lands will have the freedom to opt for private ownership of their entitlements.
Point number six: Property owners forced to defend their property rights as a result of the aboriginal land claims will be compensated for the defence of the claim.
A few weeks ago I was on a CBC Saskatchewan radio phone-in show discussing and debating the merits of our proposed aboriginal affairs policy. After I got home, I got a call from a woman, a native elder from a nearby community. She was positively excited about our ideas. She said that she wanted to start getting a petition signed supporting our new approach.
Here is how her petition reads: "We, the undersigned citizens of Canada, who also happen to be of Indian ancestry, draw attention of the House to the following: That we oppose in principle the government's approach to self-government and land claim settlements which would entrench forever a top down, paternalistic, race based system of government for Indian people run by bureaucrats, band leaders and tribal council leaders for the primary benefit of the bureaucrats, band leaders and tribal council leaders, not necessarily the individual members of the band; furthermore that we support in principle the Reform approach for self-government and land claim settlements which would give each individual Indian person real choices about how we want our money to be paid to us, how we want our benefits, entitlements and services to be delivered to us and whether we want our land to be owned and managed by the band or owned and managed by ourselves privately. Therefore your Indian petitioners request that Parliament move and support legislation which will protect the treaty rights, equality rights, democratic rights and property rights of each individual Indian band member, thereby giving us the right to opt for private ownership of a share of any land entitlements and the right to opt to receive our money and benefits directly from the government or through the Indian self-government".
Is it not very interesting that that comes from the native people themselves? This petition is being circulated by an Indian elder among aboriginal people in my constituency. It is clear we cannot continue the way we have been.
It is clear from everything I have seen during the two years I lived and worked on an Indian reserve in northern Saskatchewan that more money is not the solution. In fact more handouts simply perpetuate the problem. Whenever handouts, compensation or any benefits are given to anyone in society without that person being held accountable and responsible, it will eventually harm the one receiving it. That harm will spread like a cancer to the rest of society.
It does not matter whether the person or group receiving the handout is native or non-native, welfare has failed wherever it has been tried. Now native communities and native people are feeling the full effects of receiving handouts with no accountability, handouts given with no clear stated objectives and handouts given with no means by which to measure progress. The Reform Party's recommendations are made with the sincere intent to correct the colossal mistakes of years past.
Now we come to the motion we are debating this evening. Our task force was silent on the process by which land claims would be settled. It follows that we need to establish some kind of an independent commission to accomplish this goal. After reading the annual report of the current Indian claims commission it is clear that the current system is not very effective. There seems to be a lot of overlap and duplication which creates much bureaucracy and a colossal waste of money with little being accomplished.
The other aspect we must consider is the overall direction the Liberal government is headed in using the current settlement process which ultimately confers special status, special entitlements and creates separate enclaves based solely on race. It is not a policy and process based on equality; this is a policy of apartheid.
Before an independent aboriginal land claims commission could be effective, the negotiating principles have to change. We would argue that the principles espoused by the Reform Party's aboriginal affairs task force are a good place to start. As long as the negotiating principles can be changed so our starting point is accepted by all Canadians, then I would have to agree with the Indian claims commission recommendation.
It does not make much sense for the department of Indian affairs to be negotiating agreements and then also to be the final arbiter for the Government of Canada. I have to agree there is an obvious conflict of interest. Therefore, it is obvious we need some kind of independent process.
What choices do we have for an independent land claims process? We have an independent aboriginal land claims commission which I suppose would replace the current Indian claims commission as proposed in the motion we are debating today. We have a treaty ombudsman as recommended by Mel Smith, Q.C., a constitutional expert, in his recent book, Our Home or Native Land? , or we have the court system.
Until we have reconstructed our fundamental negotiating principles for dealing with land claims and until these fundamental negotiating principles have the support of the majority of people in Canada, I do not think it is possible to say which option is the preferred one.
This having been said, I would like to give my qualified support to the motion put forward today by my hon. friend from The Battlefords-Meadow Lake. After all his motion just says that this House "consider the advisability of". If this House considers the advisability of replacing the current land claims commission with an independent body, just maybe we will be able to have a full
public debate about the terms of reference of this new independent aboriginal land claims commission.