Mr. Speaker, it is quite an interesting debate today. I did want to respond to a couple of the comments that I have heard from the Liberal Party in particular regarding the Nisga'a final agreement.
The first thing that comes to mind is that one of the members said that it was just the Reform Party that opposes the Nisga'a deal. That is not true at all. If we look at the vote that the Nisga'a people had, there was not an absolute consensus on the Nisga'a final agreement even with the them. Neither was there a consensus or even a majority of people in the province of B.C. who thought that the Nisga'a final agreement would bring certainty. The official opposition in the province of B.C., the B.C. Liberal Party, also strenuously objects to the Nisga'a final agreement.
To enhance that argument, I point out that I have presented literally thousands of names of people in my riding of Okanagan—Coquihalla who are opposed to the Nisga'a final agreement. Through the office of petitions in the House of Commons, some of those are still being processed. There are many more people who are still rising up and saying that there are major problems with the Nisga'a final agreement and they want to be heard. That is why the Reform Party of Canada is bringing forward a number of amendments to this very important piece of legislation that is being put through the House of Commons.
It should also be very instructive to the government that the majority of B.C. representatives in the Reform Party of Canada are opposing this. We would not be opposing it if we were not hearing from our constituents in our ridings that they have problems with this agreement. For the government, of which most of its members are from Ontario or other provinces, to argue that the Nisga'a final agreement is being accepted by the people of B.C., is just a ridiculous statement if we look at the democratic process that we live under. We are here to represent the province of B.C.
I have an interesting story to tell the House. Some seven years ago, my first trip to Ottawa before I was elected, I got on the phone to make the flight arrangements. I remember distinctly talking to the customer service representative of the airlines. She asked me where I was calling from and I told her that I was in the Okanagan Valley. She asked me where I wanted to go and I said that I was going to Ottawa. After looking on her computer screen she said that I could not get there from where I was. Although she made that comment tongue-in-cheek, and it was kind of humourous at the time and still is, that is the way a lot of British Columbians feel. Ottawa is so far away and so disjointed from the way we feel in the province of British Columbia that we simply cannot get through to the people here, in particular the Liberal federal government.
I have another example of how the Liberals deal with these types of situations. We have had a considerable amount of unfortunate incidents in my riding between non-native and native groups. It has affected our economy.
One of the most recent ones was when the Minister of Transport sent a Liberal senator to make a big announcement at the Penticton airport. The announcement was that the federal government would put $650,000 into repaving the runway at that airport. That in itself is not bad and the work needs to be done, but the fact is that for years now I have been telling the government that there is a serious problem which has caused division in the riding between the native and non-native groups, that is a specific land claim against the Penticton airport.
I almost felt sorry for that Liberal senator. He should have known, after years and years of attempting to get this message through to the Government of Canada, that they have to deal first with the root problem we are facing in Penticton, which is the land claim settlement and the issues with the native band regarding ownership of the land. They blew into town, dropped $650,000, blew out of town as quickly as possible, and left the problem with the local people who have no authority to deal with the issue.
What has that caused? It has caused a number of things. It caused more disruption at the Penticton airport. The band and the locatee families have stopped the paving company from fulfilling its work. It has caused all kinds of problems but this is typical of the Liberal government.
When we look at the Nisga'a agreement it is the same. They came to the province of British Columbia and said that this would solve all their problems and left town. They will push it through the House of Commons very quickly, and who will be left with the economic problems at the end of the day? First it will be the Nisga'a people and then the people of British Columbia. That is unsatisfactory.
I have heard from members in the House today that the agreement will not affect anyone else. In the research I have done I discovered a briefing note from the NDP ministry of agriculture to the minister of agriculture which confirmed that the former premiers of British Columbia continually see the Nisga'a final agreement as a template for treaty negotiations in B.C. I say former because they keep changing premiers as the NDP has trouble keeping someone in place there. Then it went on to state:
Impacts on current agricultural uses of crown resources will result if the Nisga'a land selection and settlement model is repeated.
The briefing note then detailed what the impacts would be by stating that we could expect to see significant localized disruptions to individual ranchers within close proximity to first nations land. As an example it pointed out that 1,000 farms in the south Okanagan held crown tenures within 10 kilometres of existing Indian reserves. The same land holds 69% of the British Columbia agricultural land reserve. All this land will become the subject of land claims if the Nisga'a agreement is used as a template, which even the former premiers of British Columbia admit. The briefing note went on to state:
—that the total land quotum to be transferred to First Nations would be in the range of 5% of the total land base, an area larger than the total Agricultural Land Reserve. This amount of land would likely consume the majority of Crown Agricultural Land Reserve, approximately 2.5 million hectares.
Given the dramatic impact of the Nisga'a final agreement in a riding that is so far away from the Nass Valley, the House must consider those problems. We must be very cautious. We must be very sure that we have processes in place to make sure that other economic industries, whether it is ranching, orcharding or natural resources such as mining and forestry, are not disrupted by this type of land settlement. Those areas are of great interest to the province of B.C. To say that this agreement brings certainty is far from the truth. The briefing note I have presented today is just one of the examples we have.
There has been a lot of talk in the House about private property. I stress that the Nisga'a agreement gives collective rights. The Reform Party would like to see it be individual rights.
We think there will be some problems down the road. What do we do when collective rights come in conflict with individual rights? That is the big question. As the Liberal government does time and time again with legislation, it will not spell it out clearly. It will leave it to the courts, which means more more economic uncertainty in the province of British Columbia.
My colleagues and I want to see certainty. We want to see finality to the whole issue of native land claims. Unless we have that we will have years and years and probably decades of more uncertainty in the province of British Columbia.
On behalf of the riding of Okanagan—Coquihalla and the people of B.C., I urge the government to look at our amendments very carefully and accept the express desires of the people of B.C.