Mr. Speaker, many times have I walked arm in arm with my colleagues, even last night on some of the amendments to Bill C-2, the elections act, which I think is an onerous bill. Many times have I warmed the cockles of my heart by their fire, but this is not one of those times.
I see by my watch and by the clock on the wall that it is time for a change and change we shall have. I should go so far as to say I think we should damn this agreement. More than that, I think we should damn those who do not damn this agreement. More than that, I think we should damn those who do not sit up at night not damning those who do not damn this agreement.
If I had but one reason why Nisga'a was a failure that would be a mighty one indeed. If I had two, then certainly people would say there was a case to be made. If I had three, the government would seriously have to reconsider its intentions. If I had four, the government members should put their tail in between their legs and run from this place with the agreement in their hands, never to bring it forward again. But I have more than five. I have far more than five reasons why Nisga'a is a failure.
One, Nisga'a does not recognize private property rights. The whole idea of wealth, of progress, of ownership is negated in the Nisga'a agreement. It does not recognize, it does not respect the idea of private property rights, something people have fought for over thousands of years, to maintain, to gain the idea of private property rights. Nisga'a abrogates, undercuts and instead puts forward collective group rights, rather than the rights of individuals, rather than the rights of individuals to own property. Shame. That is the first point.
Point two, the Nisga'a final agreement permanently entrenches the same essential elements as the reserve system of the modern day. The reserve system of the current day has numerous problems. Part of the problems that it has is that rather than trying to address the aspirations of individuals toward creating better lives for themselves and their families, instead it hives people together on reserves and gives them collective ownership of land, negates their ability to do something with it of their own creative abilities individually.
Indeed, every time that the natives have come to the government asking for some sort of redress to these problems, instead the crown, the federal government, has doled out money instead, rather than solving the fundamental problems. Every time there has been a knock on the door, the cash infusions have come out.
Instead of helping the situation, it has helped to undermine the sense of self-reliance that individuals within that community could develop. That is point number two.
Point three is the idea of taxation without representation. Revolutions and civil wars have been fought over these very ideas. Whether we go back to the idea of Magna Carta and King John, whether we go back to the idea of the American revolutionary war, the idea of taxation without representation is what representative democracy and indeed this very institution that we stand in today is about. It is the cornerstone.
I represent taxpayers. I come here on their behalf to argue their concerns and to try to keep government within its rightful boundaries which, I would like to add, currently is not within those boundaries and has trampled upon the good intentions of the people who have helped to set it up and is taking far more out of their wallets and out of the blood and sweat and tears of their labour than it should.
The whole idea that the Nisga'a agreement will not be a truly representative government but instead be taxation without representation is a shame. I know that as people have fought over centuries and over a millennium to go ahead and achieve a form of taxation with representation, so indeed the seeds that Nisga'a sows are bad seeds. The fruit that it will reap is that of despair. It will eventually lead to natives themselves rising up in terms of these very issues. That is the third reason.
The fourth reason is that we already have too much government in the country. We have two levels of government that are recognized in the British North America Act as of 1982 in the patriation. Some may question how it was done. Nonetheless there were two levels of government that were laid out in the constitution act. The provinces created a third: municipal government in the country.
We have now the creation of what amounts to a third, if we look at the constitution act or if we look at the totality, a fourth, level of government in the country. That in itself is a problem but it ties into another. That was my fourth problem with Nisga'a.
My fifth problem with Nisga'a is that this issue has been put to the people. It was called Charlottetown and it failed. At the time all the parties in this place got their ducks in a row and put Charlottetown to the people and said “It is good. Vote for it”. They outspent their opposition 13 to 1 in order to propagandize their aims, but at the end of the day they were not victorious. They lost, and rightly so, because the constitution should and does belong to the people. They rightfully said that they did not want to see these types of provisions in law and entrenched for time to come.
What has the government done? It has gone against the very explicitly expressed will of the people. It has gone against what people across the country said they did not want to see constitutionalized and put into law. The government is going ahead and doing it instead through a step by step piecemeal process through the back door. That is what this is about, a government overriding the will of the people who have already expressed it on a constitutional referendum. That is the fifth reason why I have problems with the Nisga'a treaty.
The sixth reason why I have problems with the Nisga'a treaty is because it hinders future economic development. It helps to deter and it hinders future economic development in British Columbia. There are mining companies and forestry companies. Indeed, when we look around the House we see murals depicting miners and foresters in the committee rooms. They are some of the foundations upon which the country was built, the main industries that helped give Canada its start. Those very companies and industries are pulling up shop in the province of British Columbia because of the uncertainty over land claim agreements such as this. Rather than go ahead and help to access the resources of the country and to help build it, they are taking their skill, equipment and ingenuity to other countries in South America and other places around the world. I know some of these companies even in my own backyard that have reservations with regard to what is going on with these developing issues. They are leaving Canada, and so go the jobs. Shame.
Point number seven is that not only will it deter economic development but there are huge costs that are directly implicit with the agreement. The massive payouts, millions of dollars just for this individual claim, never mind the hundreds of others, are simply unaffordable. The Nisga'a treaty is an unaffordable and untenable situation. If the government sets it up as a precedent for future land claims, woe the country.
Point number eight is that the Nisga'a treaty helps to build barriers. I only have but a minute of time, yet there are so many problems with this bill.
Point number nine is that the government knows it is a flawed bill. It would not, and will not, give consent to put this bill to the people of British Columbia because it knows it will fail. The government knows that as it put this question in Charlottetown and it failed, if it put this question in the province of British Columbia the people would once again turn it down. Shame on the government when it knows that what it does is wrong, the people would not support it and it would not carry the will of the land.
Point number ten is the idea of an inherent right to self-government. I believe in self-determination, however, think not of a municipal level of government but instead something that would help to set up hundreds of separate nation states. Lord Durham wrote of Canada that it was two nations warring within the bosom of a single state. Imagine a country that was hundreds of nations warring within the bosom of a single state. I put to the House that such a nation would have a very difficult time surviving indeed.
Those are just ten reasons and I could go on, but I leave it at that. I put to the government, if it knows the Nisga'a treaty will not pass the test of the people, and it knows it already failed the test of the people, leave it be and pull the bill from the House.