Mr. Speaker, one of the bedrock principles of our system is that there is to be no taxation without representation.
At the municipal level, in my lifetime, that has been expanded so that there is no residency without the right to representation. Renters who pay their taxes indirectly are allowed, just as landowners are, to have a vote on the activities of their local government.
We have before the House a bill that flies squarely in the face of that principle. It is called the ratification of the Nisga'a treaty which will make it quite possible for a group of municipal councillors, band councillors if you will, since the government keeps telling us that what it is setting up is a form of municipal government, to levy taxes. This group will be able to levy taxes on any and all residents on the reserve irrespective of what the persons being taxed may think or what they may want to do. They will not have a voice in it because voting and the choice of councillors will be limited only to people who have the correct skin pigmentation. The fact that one may be living, doing business or providing a service on the reserve will be totally irrelevant.
We already have an example of this sort of thing on the Musqueam reserve where in addition to the massive rent increases that we hear so much about, there is also a silent and somewhat unreported problem of taxation. The band is levying taxes to the tune of about $6,000 per residence on the people who will ultimately be dispossessed of their homes. They are doing this without any recourse to democratic action. These people cannot vote in any way on what their local government is doing with respect to taxes.
Does my hon. colleague have any thoughts or suggestions on this subject as to what might be done to ameliorate the problem?