Mr. Speaker, the member for North Vancouver asked me to correct a statement he made in the heat of debate in which he mentioned that British Columbia had over 90% of the bands in Canada. The number is actually about 30%.
As a politician I thank the Liberal government for being so stupid, clumsy and arrogant in how it is imposing this agreement since it is creating animosity toward the governing Liberals that will not scrub away. I am more concerned about what will happen to my family, my community, my province and the nation. The Nisga'a disagreement is the most important and the worst social and economic legislation and constitutional amendment in my lifetime.
I have been talking about the Nisga'a agreement since 1995. I am intimately familiar with the agreement. Much to the contrary of what some of its proponents have been saying, we have read the agreement. We have studied it. We are familiar with it. I wish they were as familiar with it. They are glossing over the real facts. I have done more than read it. I have analyzed it. My analysis is available at my website, www.duncanmp.com.
It is with a heavy heart that I speak to this agreement once again, knowing that the government is committed to what will be seen down the road as a monumental social and economic blunder.
I have talked to live audiences more than 25 times and sent out half a million householders across the province. British Columbians are well informed compared with people in other provinces, jurisdictions and territories in terms of the Nisga'a agreement. They are better informed than many members of parliament. I only had to witness some of the comments this morning to appreciate how true that is.
On Friday, November 26, I spent the afternoon in Vancouver at the official opposition sponsored hearings. I will briefly talk about three presentations that were made because they illuminate with some clarity what is going on. Mike deJong and Geoffrey Plant, provincial MLAs from the B.C. Liberal Party, the official opposition; Jeff Rustand, the lawyer representing Mr. Lloyd Brinson, a small landowner in the Nass Valley of British Columbia who is surrounded by Nisga'a lands; and Miss Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Q.C., a lawyer and Musqueam leaseholder, appeared as witnesses.
Interestingly both B.C. official opposition Liberals and Mr. Lloyd Brinson have launched lawsuits in attempts to bring accountability and common sense to this federal and provincial negotiated agreement which has excluded the public interest and flies in the face democracy, equality and constitutional principles. For starters, I will quote Kerry-Lynne Findlay:
I am a Musqueam leaseholder. I live there with my husband and four children. I am a mortgage holder. I am also a lawyer and I seem to have found myself in the role of kind of general counsel and spokesperson for the Musqueam leaseholders. I have advocated on their behalf in many areas. Taxation without representation, Bill C-9, particularly the expropriation portions of that bill, and the treaty process in general. One of the comments I am always given, one of the answers I am always given by the federal government is that the Musqueam situation has no bearing on Bill C-9, which is separate legislation. It has no bearing on the Nisga'a Treaty, which is a separate matter.
It has no bearing on the treaty process in general, which is a separate matter. I have a fundamental disagreement with that concept because I believe it is part of an overall approach of divide and conquer, which is very much alive and well in Canada in 1999. All of these legislative initiatives, the treaty process, what is happening through the transfer of taxation powers to aboriginals under the Indian Act, this is all about the transfer of power and authority and the setting up of new governance institutions and new governing systems. Of course the stakes are very high... There are many aspects of the treaty that concern Musqueam leaseholders.
They include, if I can just highlight, the treatment of non-aboriginals on aboriginal lands; the fact that the treaty is one step away from giving taxing authority to the Nisga'a and, in our experience, could very well mean taxation without representation and all of what that entails because of the lack of vote that non-aboriginals have in Indian government; the lack of a timetable for this Nisga'a self-sufficiency; the open-ended financial commitment that all taxpayers are being asked to enter into and, of course, the constitutional level changes we are dealing with...all of this process reminds me very much of the discussions around the Meech and Charlottetown accord. At that time I was the National Chair of the constitutional law section of the Canadian Bar Association. I was very involved in those discussions and the process that evolved at that time. What happened there, of course, is not news to most people here, is there was the Canadian elite, those who headed up the large businesses, large monopolies of the country, big business and big government, got behind both of those and said that's the way this country should look, that is what we want.
Ms. Findlay continued:
I say that, in part, as a Liberal, and I want to say that today because I think it's important. I have been a Liberal Party member nationally and provincially since I was a teenager. I worked for that party. I've actively campaigned for that party in elections. I have acted as a legal adviser to people who are now members of parliament. I am fundamentally ashamed of that party and its lack of vision...I use the word “ashamed” because it is the true feeling I have and I think many of us will have right now because of the way the government has shown its indifference and arrogance on this issue. It is a fundamental issue for the Canadian fabric and it is important to both non-aboriginals and aboriginals that it be handled well and clearly and that the guidelines be precise.
We had testimony from Geoffrey Plant and Mike deJong of the B.C. Liberal opposition. I will quote briefly from what they had to say:
We have commenced a court action. We have concerns about what is in this treaty, we have concerns about the self-government provisions, we have concerns about a treaty that would purport to limit your ability to vote for a government that has responsibility over you and limit that right to vote on the basis of your ethnicity. We think that's wrong. We think a fishery, a commercial fishery, based on an allocation that is tied to ethnicity is wrong, and we think there are alternatives...We're asking the court to declare that the Nisga'a final agreement is unconstitutional. There are three basic pillars of the argument.
They went through them and concluded by saying:
If we're right on any of those points, then what has happened is that the governments have tried to negotiate a document which is outside their constitutional authority to do so.
Finally, we had testimony from another very interesting witness, and these are only three of many, Mr. Rustand, representing Lloyd Brinson, a small landowner in the Nass Valley. I will quote a bit from his speech because I am running out of time. He said:
Mr. Brinson owns a small patch of land up in the Nass Valley. The land that he owns is going to be if this treaty is implemented surrounded by what is known as the Nisga'a Lands. Now, what this means is that although Lloyd's land will remain technically part of the B.C. Land Title system and part of B.C. and subject to the laws of Victoria and Canada, all the lands about him will be subject to the laws and the administration of the Nisga'a government. To give you a microcosmic view of what this means for Lloyd and others who will be in his position, this means that everything related to his livelihood and his daily living will be under the purview of a government that is established for the purpose of administering to the needs of a racially defined group, on a communal basis, without an outsider. The issues that will come up for Mr. Brinson are such things as water...wood-lot rights, he requires wood for his heating...simple things like garbage disposal, business activities, commercial transactions, zoning, access to health, education, maybe not so much for Mr. Brinson, payment of local taxes....Because Mr. Brinson lacks the bloodlines to qualify as a Nisga'a citizen, the treaty takes a giant step backward to something which, if this happened in any other community in Canada today, would be considered an abomination.
Rafe Mair said recently in a public meeting which I attended, “Never assume that the people in charge know what they are doing”. That is what is happening with this Nisga'a disagreement.