Madam Speaker, I am privileged to stand today to try to bring some clarification to the Nisga'a final agreement which the government has already endorsed. I am afraid that the government will take the same route that the provincial NDP government took to limit debate and move time allocation or closure on this debate when it reaches the House in the fall.
It distresses me that there seems to be an unwillingness on the part of governments, both in British Columbia and here in Ottawa, to look at this agreement with an open eye, to really look at the document and try to answer some very serious questions that the people of British Columbia have and that the people of Canada should have.
The concern that we have in British Columbia is that the precedent setting Nisga'a final agreement will have ramifications across the country and Canadians should be aware of what those ramifications might be.
Already in Alberta we have Treaty 8. There is talk about re-opening that treaty. Treaties which have been agreed to and have been in place for a good number of years may be changed because of the final agreement that has been settled with the Nisga'a people.
What is also a concern from British Columbians' point of view is that the Nisga'a agreement will be a template for 60 other treaties that are under negotiation. However, we should understand that those 60 agreements which are being negotiated now do not represent the total number of aboriginal communities trying to reach agreement. There are a good number of aboriginal communities. The first nation in my riding is not taking part in the treaty negotiations because it does not believe that it is a process which it wants to follow. We are not talking about 60 treaty agreements, we are talking about many more.
While this treaty has yet to be ratified by the House, which would put it into the position of being considered under section 35 of the constitution, there are already four law suits pending.
People can say it is just the non-aboriginal people who are concerned. No, it is not. The Gitanyow band from up north has a court case against the Nisga'a and against this treaty because the Nisga'a have seized up to 84% of its traditional territory in the Nass Valley. Eighty-four per cent of the land that is claimed by another first nation is being absorbed in this agreement.
A leader of the Gitanyow has stated that they are concerned that the Nisga'a were never required to prove the extent of their title to resolve the overlaps in land claims. They feel it is a violation of aboriginal law and federal policy.
According to one individual, it is not right to sacrifice the land entitlement of one nation to obtain a treaty with another nation.
It is not just non-aboriginals, it is aboriginals themselves who have taken the Nisga'a to court to resolve some of the issues that are not clear and to try to resolve some of the conflicts which this agreement has already established.
We feel very strongly in the Reform Party that we must settle some of the things which are not clear, the uncertainties, through the courts on this agreement before the House ratifies it. How can we ratify an agreement when there are four lawsuits before the courts concerning its legality and the land it entails? How can we possibly ratify this agreement with those four cases before the courts?
One reason we brought this motion to the House today for debate is because there are so many constitutional and legal issues that must be clarified.
We have heard over the past number of months when we have raised this issue in the House the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development claim that the Nisga'a government will be subject to the charter of rights and freedoms.
I want to read directly from the Nisga'a final agreement, which states that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to Nisga'a government in respect of all matters within its authority, bearing in mind the free and democratic nature of Nisga'a government as set out in this agreement.
If this agreement is going to recognize the charter of rights, why does it include “bearing in mind the free and democratic nature of Nisga'a government as set out in this agreement”? Why does it not just say that the charter of rights and freedoms applies to Nisga'a government?
I would suggest that the reason is quite simple. It is that the government is wanting to leave the ambiguity in the agreement so that the courts understand clearly that they are expected to treat the Nisga'a people differently and not to apply the charter of rights as it would apply to any other Canadian. I can think of no other reason than to force the courts to treat the Nisga'a people differently under the charter of rights.
I had many experiences in my previous life of aboriginal communities taking on responsibility for themselves. I was an observer of 11 aboriginal communities in northern Alberta taking on the responsibility under the Lesser Slave Lake Indian Regional Council to provide education, welfare and social services to their people and to co-operate to provide good regional government for their people. However, it was never done with constitutional protection. It was never done by forming another level of government. They were very successful over a large number of years in providing these services without the need to form another level of government.
In British Columbia we have seen a number of cases where aboriginal communities have achieved more authority in running their programs and their communities, but they have not shown a good degree of responsibility. I refer to the Musqueam Band and the Semiahmoo Band. In both cases they were not fair in their treatment of non-aboriginal individuals within their communities.
The Musqueam Band has raised rents extraordinarily, out of reason. One individual got a bill for $73,000 for 18 months' rent from the Musqueam Band. Although their rents skyrocketed, the actual value of the land and their property plummeted. It now has no value at all.
All of this is because of an attitude of an aboriginal people who are being supported by provincial and federal governments which allow them to completely disregard fairness and equity for non-aboriginals.
It also happened in my own community where there were nine non-aboriginal residents who lost their homes. They lost those homes after 40 or 50 years with absolutely no compensation. They were evicted. I would question if that would be allowed to happen if it was a white Anglo-Saxon male making the decision.
There are too many questions left unanswered in this final Nisga'a agreement. The uncertainty of the legal status of the Nisga'a treaty and the Nisga'a government must be resolved in the courts before the agreement is ratified here in the House. Nobody can predict what the courts' reaction and decisions will be.
I would suggest to the House that when the Prime Minister helped to introduce the charter of rights and freedoms many years ago he never for a moment contemplated that pedophiles would have a legal right to child pornography. I do not think we can leave uncertainty and ambiguity in our agreement. We cannot ratify this agreement. We must be more certain of what it means and what its ramifications will be across the country. I would like to think that parliamentarians and Canadian people as a whole have a right to know what the legal ramifications will be before parliament ratifies this agreement.