Madam Speaker, I stand today in support of Bill C-6. While understanding that there are different views of the legislation within the Northwest Territories from aboriginal organizations, industry and other public interests, we fully support the timely implementation of land claims legislation, the substance of this bill.
Parliament has been delivered a package resulting from extensive negotiations among the Gwich'in, Sahtu, federal and territorial governments but there are concerns about the adequacy of the involvement from other aboriginal organizations and the public.
This is a very important piece of legislation as it will change environmental management of the western Northwest Territories. The bodies that will be established under this legislation are institutions of public government and they represent a significant shift of power and management to a more local level, something we clearly support.
At the same time it is important to ensure that some of the significant gains made through legislation, like participant funding for review panels in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, are reflected in the bill.
Consistent with the principles of participatory democracy, we will strongly urge the standing committee to hold public hearings in the north to hear the diversity of views on the bill. Getting such comprehensive negotiated packages in the House seriously limits the critical role of the member of Parliament to just acceptance of the package.
We believe that the committee should devote part of its attention to analyse the process which was implemented to develop this legislation. We are dealing with issues that, in virtue of a process, are in a fast track. To some extent the process of negotiations and consultations among the interested parties shut out Parliament from the decision making process.
We have an opportunity to assess one of the processes used to limit the role of Parliament. In this case we suggest that the committee travel to the north and act as an open forum for a detailed analysis of the bill but also of the process followed for the development of the legislation; the role of the bureaucracy, the acceptance of public input and the balance obtained among divergent sides, etc. This is an opportunity to decide if committees should be given more resources, more freedom to travel, to get in touch with the people of Canada and enhance the credibility of this House with the people of Canada.
There is also a fundamental value behind the implementation of this legislation. One of the major issues during the free trade agreement was the future of the water resources of this country. Canadians were extremely concerned that the policy implemented by the federal government was detrimental to the capacity of Canadians to manage one of the most abundant resources in this country, water. For Canadians engaged in the free trade agreement debate, Canadian water was not a commodity to be traded in a commercial market or just a resource to be exploited. In this bill we are doing justice not only to the aboriginal people but to those Canadians who fought for the prohibition of bulk export of Canadian water.
This legislation clearly recognized that for aboriginal people as well as for many other non-aboriginal Canadians land and water are not just economic commodities. This kind of co-management system makes it more likely that water will not be traded as a good. This bill also is a formal recognition by the Government of Canada that land and water are an inextricable part of aboriginal identity, deeply rooted in moral and spiritual values. In doing justice to aboriginal people, Parliament is indirectly recognizing those who took a similar approach to the water issue during the critical debate on the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.
Different societies do have different views on property or resource rights. The views of the federal government and some provincial governments are of open access or indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources that can be bought and sold in a commercial market. Aboriginal people view land and other resources as their common property.
Different values and visions create different management styles that could led to conflict and confrontation. Bill C-6 creates conditions to eliminate or minimize cultural clashes and promote or return to aboriginal people their rights to take part in the governance and management of land and resources. It is clear that we are addressing a fundamental concern of aboriginal people, their role in the management over land and water as well as other resources critical to their goal of self-sufficiency and self-reliance.
The co-management approach will allow an optimal balance between the values and beliefs of aboriginal people with the values and beliefs of other segments of the Canadian population.
We are very pleased with the message being sent to the aboriginal communities of Canada through the implementation of this bill. The co-management created for the land and water resources in the Mackenzie Valley is a positive model for all of us. It indicates that co-operation and honest, transparent dialogue create condition for substantive changes in the relationships between first nations and the people of Canada.
More experiments in regional public government, shared jurisdiction and shared management of resources may be coming and we look forward to them.
We hope that certain segments of the department of Indian affairs will modify their attitude to aboriginal people and participate fully in the implementation of this new relationship with the aboriginal people of Canada.
In conclusion, we support the speedy passage of this legislation and we call on the Government of Canada to proceed as soon as possible with its response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and to include the Parliament of Canada in the overall process of policy decision making and evaluation in this new relationship with the aboriginal people of Canada.