Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate on Bill S-24 although I am always critical of bills that originate in the other place. I firmly believe that legislation should be presented by elected officials rather than by unelected people sitting undemocratically in the other place. It is therefore with sadness that I enter the debate on a bill which I support and would like to see passed but of whose origins I am critical.
Although we are dealing only with second reading today, there was unanimous consent among House leaders to deal with all stages of the bill in one day. The bill would afford basic rights to the people of Kanesatake, something for which they have been waiting for generations. It would therefore be fitting and appropriate that the House of Commons co-operate for once and deal with all stages of the bill to give the people of Kanesatake what they have so patiently and peacefully waited for all these years.
Let it be known that it is the Canadian Alliance, the party that stands against any form of aboriginal self-government, that has blocked this agreement. The Canadian Alliance is an obstacle to the agreement and is denying the Kanesatake Mohawk people the right to self-determination. I am very critical of this stunt. Let it be known that it is political mischief on the part of the Canadian Alliance. It is another stunt to create an obstacle to the self-governance aspirations of the Kanesatake Mohawk people.
I wish to compliment Kanesatake Mohawk Grand Chief James Gabriel and the Kanesatake council for the patience and perseverance they have shown during peaceful negotiations to get to this point in Canadian history. We can now renew the relationship with the people of Kanesatake through a real governance instrument so that they can move forward their aspirations with legal authority.
Bill S-24 fills a legal vacuum because the Kanesatake are not covered by the Indian Act. They never have been because early on they saw the shortcomings in the Indian Act and to their credit said that they did not want any part of it. The fiscal and legal relationships between the Kanesatake Mohawks and the federal government have always been vague.
Even though they implemented their own rules and regulations they had very little legal authority to enforce them. It came to light recently when they wanted to stop people from dumping garbage on their land. They tried to intervene by pointing out that it was against their bylaws and local council laws. They found that they had no right to stop the dumping of toxic waste on their property. That should illustrate the depth of the problem better than anything else. Somehow that had to be fixed.
On December 21, 2000, the Government of Canada negotiated with the Kanesatake to create the Kanesatake interim land base governance agreement. Bill S-24 would ratify the agreement and would ensure that certain lands constitute lands reserved for the Kanesatake Mohawk within the meaning of the Indian Act but not covered by the Indian Act.
The Kanesatake would still not be in the same relationship as other first nations on reserves. It would be an independent, free standing and unique arrangement that would serve the people of the community very well. It would serve as a model and would prove that the Government of Canada could negotiate individual agreements with first nations. We do not need a cookie cutter or boiler plate approach to impose things on people.
Kanesatake is a Mohawk community of approximately 2,000 members situated on the Lake of Two Mountains about 50 miles northwest of Montreal. A number of lots that make up Kanesatake Mohawk lands are situated within the boundaries of the village of Oka. Mohawk land is actually intermingled with land owned by non-Mohawks. It is not a traditional aboriginal community at all. It is unique in that way.
Kanesatake has never been an Indian reserve. They have always rejected the model of the Indian Act. Even with this new relationship the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development would not have the right to veto and would not be vested with the same authority as he is under the Indian Act. In that way the Kanesatake Mohawk would retain independence even though the new relationship with the federal government would be defined.
The unique land status means that the elected Mohawk band council which has never been recognized or had law making powers would now have that authority. Bill S-24 is the enabling legislation that would grant real law making authority to the band council. They were always self-governing. They had rules and regulations by agreement but, as I pointed out with the garbage dumping issue, they never had the legal weight and authority to be able to enforce the rules and regulations.
The bill would cover a number of details. The Kanesatake Mohawks would have jurisdiction to make laws in relation to the use and development of the lands of the Kanesatake Mohawk interim land base including a relationship to the health and quality of life of residents.
The bill would also provide for the protection and management of wildlife and fish, which is a major issue; the observance of law and order; the prevention of disorderly conduct and nuisances, in other words self-policing with legal authority; and the prevention of trespass including entry on to or occupation of the lands without lawful authority, which is control of their own boundaries.
They would be allowed to pass laws due to residency. Fire safety and fire protection services would be independent agencies unto themselves through the band council. The construction, maintenance, management and use of local works including water supplies are very significant issues. They would have control and governance over their own water supplies, which is a huge issue across the country and especially in first nations communities lately.
Zoning would be under the authority of the band council, along with waste management, public sanitation and even traffic regulation. They would be able to govern traffic issues throughout their reserve. They are not worried about basic traffic issues but about the type of traffic that goes through their land. For example, they may not want trucks full of toxic waste going through their land. They would be able to regulate those matters.
It is with a great sense of pride and optimism that I speak on behalf of the New Democratic Party in favour of Bill S-24. It is the culmination of many years of hard work. It is the graphic representation of the new approach and the new attitude that progressive Canadians have toward our aboriginal brothers and sisters.
All parties, except for the Canadian Alliance, seem to welcome that new relationship. There is sort of a Eurocentric bias on behalf of the Canadian Alliance. It would like to maintain the old status quo and the old paternalistic relationship between government and aboriginal people. Our party rejects that paternalistic relationship. The Canadian Alliance wants to cling to it.
This has been a terrible frustration for me as a member of parliament trying to defend these issues and trying to promote these concepts. We suffered through the Nisga'a debate which should have been the feel good debate of the decade in the House of Commons when we finally dealt with a 130 year old dispute and signed the first treaty of the century.
Instead it turned into the most divisive debate in the House of Commons because members of the Reform Party, the Canadian Alliance today, moved 472 amendments. They lost every one of them. They did not move those amendments to improve the bill. They moved those amendments out of pure political mischief to try to bury a human rights issue.
It is the kind of party that would put human rights to a majority vote. Members of the Canadian Alliance are always talking about how there has to be a referendum. They say that we have to let the whole country vote on it. I say that we do not put minority rights to a majority vote. When will they get that through their heads? It was embarrassing for me to hear Canadians stand in the House of Commons with that type of approach toward the Nisga'a people.
I am proud to say that I have a T-shirt given to me by the Nisga'a people that says “Nisga'a 472, Reform Party 0”. That made me feel a lot better.
Bill S-24 is the realization of a dream. It is evidence of a maturing relationship between the Government of Canada and aboriginal people. It is the very fitting and rightful representation of the progress made as aboriginal people take their first courageous steps toward true self-governance within the legal framework of Canada. They have always had self-governance. They have the inherent right to be self-governing and they were doing it for thousands of years before the Europeans ever got here.
Now there is a formal relationship within the legal framework of Canada where they can actually make changes to their day to day lives. They can regulate and enforce. They have the power of law with the expressed co-operation of the Government of Canada in this new relationship.
I wish to illustrate from a legal point of view the vacuum this group of people were in. There was a well known case on the Kanesatake Reserve involving Jean-Roch Simon.
Due to a lack of clarity as to the legal status of the Kanesatake Mohawk people, it has never been clear which laws up until now, federal, provincial, Kanesatake or municipal, apply to the lands.
In March 1987 Jean-Roch Simon, a member of the Kanesatake Mohawks, began building a multi-unit residential building in the village of Oka on Kanesatake Mohawk lands. Mr. Simon received a construction loan from the Government of Canada. He proceeded to erect the building on the premise that he would be exempt from municipal land use bylaws because the lands in question were federal crown lands under section 91 of the Constitution Act.
This is where it gets complicated. In April 1987 the municipality of Oka commenced litigation seeking an order to cease the construction and to demolish the building on the grounds that it was in violation of municipal zoning and construction bylaws.
It is hard to imagine, but this brings an abstract concept into a very graphic illustration where we are dealing with real dollars, as well as a loss of opportunity and a loss of income on this person's part. The building was torn down because of the confusion as to who had the right to grant municipal permits to build on that property.
In August 1993 the case went all the way to the Superior Court of Quebec. It ruled in favour of the municipality and ordered the building to be demolished. The court made no determination as to whether the lands came within the meaning of section 91 of the Constitution Act. It found that the lands did not constitute federal public property. This again illustrates what a confusing legal morass the Kanesatake Mohawk people were forced to deal with all these years. As this document says, they were in a legal vacuum.
That is why we should be celebrating Bill S-24 and why I am incredibly critical of the Canadian Alliance for being an obstacle and a barrier to moving the issue forward. There is not another political party in the House of Commons that would stand in the way of basic human rights for aboriginal people except for Alliance members who over and over again deliberately, specifically and expressly do all they can to interfere with people's basic right to self-governance.
I would like to go over some of the background history in a little more detail because it is instructive that we are all made aware for future purposes how this kind of relationship has evolved. Bill S-24 and the agreement that stems from it could serve as a model in terms of future fiscal and legal relationships between the federal government and other aboriginal communities.
The Kanesatake Mohawk land claim has been viewed by experts as perhaps the most difficult Indian claim the Canadian government has ever inherited, even from pre-Confederation administrations, which is when this issue actually started. The unique circumstances of the Kanesatake Mohawks with respect to their land base can be traced back to 1717 and a seigneurial grant of land.