Madam Speaker, for the past 16 months the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has been consulting with
native leaders and native groups across Canada on the issue of native self-government.
To date the minister has provided funding to national and regional native organizations in the amount of $5 million to assist these groups in preparing their briefs and input on the consultation process. The consultation was to last six months and culminate in a report on self-government.
Last week, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Ovide Mercredi, called a press conference to protest the minister's procrastination and to ask him to release a document that he said the minister was using in his meetings but keeping secret from the Assembly of First Nations and others.
Chief Mercredi released copies redone from memory of the minister's document that Chief Mercredi was allowed to read and that the minister allowed to be read to a meeting with Alberta chiefs in Calgary.
I am concerned with the minister using and allowing the contents of this still secret document in meetings and not being forthcoming with the House and Canadians on an issue that affects us all.
On March 23 and again on March 24, I questioned the minister on the contents of the document. I asked him the nature of the document and why parliamentarians had to rely on the chief of the Assembly of First Nations to shed light on this undertaking and make the process public. The minister told the House on March 23 that it was not a secret document. If it is not a secret document, the minister should release it today.
My further concern was with the delay in completing the projected six-month undertaking which has now run over 16 months. I am concerned that the consultation on the inherent right to self-government does not become another aboriginal royal commission. That is now two years overdue and over budget with spending at $58 million from an original projected cost of between $8 and $12 million.
I am not satisfied that my question of March 24, taken as notice by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs on behalf of the minister of Indian affairs, will prompt the minister and government to finalize its consultation on self-government and to release the contents of what the minister has called "not a secret report" to Parliament and the Canadian people rather than only to individual chiefs and the Assembly of First Nations.