The Minister of the Environment. In our system there is no check or balance whatsoever. In our system that constitutes ratification.
I have a basic fundamental problem with that, as does the opposition. However, that is the way it is. Our signature meant nothing until 1999 because it was not ratified by the other party. Now that it has been ratified by the other party, our signature is taken for granted. That is a fine way to do business. I am being facetious, of course.
The protocol entered into forced when the instruments of ratification were exchanged on October 7, 1999.
In 1997 a protocol on changes to the Mexico-U.S. migratory birds convention was also consented to by the U.S. senate. That has happened along the same timeframe.
What we are debating tonight is basically an amendment to the old 1916 migratory birds convention, which is a schedule or an appendix to the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994. That is what we are talking about.
Ours is called the Migratory Birds Convention Act. The American legislation is similar but different. I think theirs is called the migratory birds conservation act, for example. There certainly are major differences in how they deal with aboriginal peoples in our case or indigenous peoples in their case.
The new regulations include a whole new section, section 4, which basically talks about harvesting by aboriginal peoples. It says that migratory birds and their eggs “may be harvested throughout the year by aboriginal peoples of Canada having aboriginal or treaty rights”.
It further states that inedible byproducts may be sold but the birds and eggs so taken shall be offered for barter, exchange, trade or sale only within or between aboriginal communities as provided for in the relevant treaties, land claims agreements, self-government agreements or co-management agreements made with the aboriginal peoples of Canada.
That is one of the proposed sections in our amendment to the Migratory Birds Convention Act. I just want to point out that the old language did not use the term aboriginal. The old language, which is still in the regulations, does not talk about aboriginals. It talks about Indians and defines the word as having the same meaning as in the Indian Act. It talks about Inuk and defines it as meaning a person who is a direct descendant of a person who is or was of the race of aborigines commonly referred to as Eskimos and possesses at least one-quarter Inuk blood.
I am very familiar with the Indian Act. I am very familiar with all the definitions surrounding the terms Indian, Inuk, Inuit, Metis and several others. I was unaware until today that Canadian documentation anywhere referred to blood quotient, but indeed I find it in the regulations attached to the Migratory Birds Convention Act when it talks about Inuk. I was quite surprised to see that. It tends to be an American convention or way of doing things. I had not seen it in Canadian statutes or regulations at any time before. It was a bit of a surprise.
At least we have a pretty clear definition in the regulations. Where we have a problem now is that this new amendment states that migratory birds “may be harvested throughout the year by aboriginal peoples of Canada having aboriginal or treaty rights”.
That was probably imported from the constitution because similar language is used in section 35. However, if one wanted to define aboriginal it is simply not there. I looked. It is not defined anywhere in the act or the regulations. Neither are aboriginal rights defined. We all know what a treaty is. It either is or is not, but aboriginal rights are not defined either. This is totally open ended and I will relate some the ways it is open ended.
We may have one definition in Canada but we cannot constrain this agreement to Canada alone. This is a bilateral agreement. Let us talk about the Nisga'a treaty which we debated at some length in this place. It said that Nisga'a citizens had the right to trade or barter among themselves or with other aboriginal people any migratory birds harvested under this agreement.
I went to the glossary in the Nisga'a agreement. There is no glossary in the Nisga'a agreement. I went to the definitions. There are definitions in the Nisga'a agreement but they do not cover that part of the alphabet or do not cover aboriginal, aboriginal rights or aboriginal people. None of those words were defined. The only thing relied upon in the Nisga'a agreement once again is the Indian Act definition of Indian. That is how the Nisga'a define themselves in terms of whether or not they are eligible to become Nisga'a citizens. That does not help.
Why am I expressing a concern? One of my concerns is who are other aboriginal people. Are they confined to Canada? Are they confined to British Columbia in this case or are they not? Is it confined to status Indians and Inuit? Is it confined to status or non-status Inuit? Is it confined to status or non-status Metis and Inuit?
This is not good enough. Let us look at the American language and the following terminology:
The protocol establishes eligibility for the indigenous inhabitants of Alaska. Indigenous inhabitants are defined as permanent residents of a village within a subsistence harvest area, regardless of race. Subsistence harvest areas are established to include most village areas within the Alaska peninsula, Kodiak archipelago, the Aleutian Islands and areas north and west of the Alaska range. Areas that would generally not qualify include the Anchorage, Matinooska, Susitnu and Fairbanks North Star Burrows, the Quini peninsula roaded area, the Gulf of Alaska roaded area and southeast Alaska. Exceptions to these areas can made through a deliberative process which includes the management bodies established by the service.
It is pretty definitive. There is a lot of clarity. Is this important? I believe it is.
First, the primary goal of the whole treaty process is conservation. Conservation is achieved most successfully when it is rules based and everyone knows what the rules are and to whom the rules apply.
Second, we are now at the point where what was clearly aboriginal harvest for domestic use has been expanded by the amendment and by the terms of the Nisga'a agreement. It is clearly a new direction to include the sale or possible commercial exploitation of migratory birds.
Any sale of migratory birds will be in accordance with federal and provincial laws of general application and with any Nisga'a law in respect of the sale of migratory birds harvested under the agreement. Nisga'a citizens have the right to sell inedible byproducts including down of migratory birds harvested under the agreement. It does not even constrain that by saying they have that right to sell only to other aboriginals.
Given that we do not have a high level of historical exploitation, I am suggesting that this could lead in that direction. We ought to be concerned about the clarity of the language and the clarity of the language is simply not good enough.
I will go back a bit to the second major point I want to talk about. The Canada-U.S. treaty is impacted by the Mexico-U.S. treaty on migratory birds. We could look at that plus the fact that we want the agreement to deal with conservation of species. We also want the agreement to allow for the fact that some species listed under the migratory birds convention have become pests since 1916 or even since 1985.
Snow geese are one example. The nesting grounds in the Arctic were getting beat up. They were taking a major hit. It took quite an effort by the federal government to come up with a way to get around the constraints of the migratory birds convention and allow a targeted hunt of snow geese to prevent the habitat destruction.
We currently have a similar situation in the middle part of our country and the middle part of the U.S. I spoke with a congressman from Minnesota last week who said they have the same problem there with cormorants. Cormorants are a listed species. I understand one of the reasons has everything to do with the reverence attached to blackbirds by the people of Mexico. That kind of got translated into the Canada-U.S. agreement.
We should be able to deal much more quickly with that issue than we have done up till now. Cormorants are major fish eaters. They are cleaning out lake habitats in the spring and summer in the prairies and in the mid-west. They are becoming very much a pest. We need to do something in that regard.
Those are the points that I wanted to make. I very much want to say that I think we all agree with the intent of the migratory birds convention. It is the role of the opposition to point out some inadequacies. We have some shortcomings here. We have some inadequacies in the way we have handled this issue. Because these agreements are so difficult to amend, when we do it we should do it right. We should clarify our language very precisely. That simply has not happened.
I hope we do better next time. Who knows when the next time will be? There is no doubt that an agreement which dates back to 1916 has basically stood the test till now.
Probably it will not be that long again until the next episode, simply because the world is changing and we are much more attuned to the environment that surrounds us. There is a degree of management that has to happen. Species do require some management from time to time.
We look forward to seeing some productive changes to the Migratory Birds Convention Act in the future.