Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to take a long time to debate this bill today. Part of my problem with the bill is not so much what the bill contains, but how it contains it.
There is a real danger in approaching legislation in an omnibus fashion like this. We have two quite different pieces of legislation in one bill. Perhaps we should not be trying to hurry this legislation through the House. We have a number of pieces of good legislation that we are trying to deal with. We should take the time to examine this bill carefully and understand all of the pertinent issues.
Bill C-56, the Manitoba claims settlement implementation act, has two parts, the first part being the Norway House Cree Nation master implementation agreement to establish reserves.
The Norway House signed the master implementation agreement in December of 1997. The legislation before us allows the government to affirm certain provisions of that agreement, although it is being implemented. What this implementation does is to ensure that fee simple lands provided to Norway House as part of the compensation plan do not fall under the Indian Act as special reserve lands.
It also ensures that money provided as part of the compensation agreement is administered by a trust for the first nation. This prevents the money from becoming band money as defined in the Indian Act, thus it is at the disposal of the first nation to be used as it decides. I guess the wording of that would be Indian money as declared under the Indian Act. Otherwise they would have to continue with the time consuming and onerous administrative requirements of the Indian Act. Instead, this improves their opportunity for self-reliance and is a step toward self-government.
The Northern Flood Agreement sets out a means of providing compensation to the first nations affected by the flooding of their traditional lands. The agreement was so poorly constructed, however, that the implementation never occurred. This legislation attempts to bring some form of closure to many of the elements of that agreement.
The second part of the legislation improves the process of establishing reserves. The process could be faster and more efficient with the minister rather than the governor in council approving reserves.
First nations also have the opportunity to improve their economic developments with this legislation, since it allows them to have third parties continue or begin developments while the process is ongoing to establish a reserve. This has been a hindrance to both economic opportunities for first nations and the parties trying to develop interest on reserve lands.
With a certain willingness to see this piece of legislation pursue the course of parliament and get to committee before Christmas, I have no problem allowing this legislation to continue. I am not going to continue the debate at great length today. However, I will say again that there is a danger in this type of legislation which deals with more than one issue. Actually, we are dealing with three issues. There are certainly two big issues. There is a certain danger in that. I caution parliament that if we are going to continue to do this, in the long run we will end up slowing the process because we do not have time to study each separate issue in its entirety.
For example, the Northern Flood Agreement consists of 155 pages. That is just one part of this bill. I realize that all legislation is complicated and can be fairly onerous, but this legislation would be much better suited in two bills.