Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate. It is not very common for the debate to take place before second reading stage.
We support sending the bill to committee before second reading, although we do have some concerns about that. When this procedure was first tried as a result of some prodding on our part, we thought it would be productive, that changes would be made before a bill went to committee and there would be more input from all parties in the House. We were quite hopeful that would happen. That is not what has happened. However we still support sending the bill to committee before second reading. We hope we will be listened to today and that the input we give in other ways will be heard. We are supporting that.
We do have concerns about the legislation as it has been presented to date. I want to take some time today to compare the legislation that has been brought forth to some work I did back in 1997-98, mostly throughout 1998 shortly after I was elected to the new constituency of Lakeland.
I was elected in 1993 to the Vegreville constituency. In 1997 the boundaries were changed and Beaver River and Lakeland, about two-thirds of each, went together into one constituency. With that constituency came eight Indian reserves and four Metis settlements.
As the elected representative I got lots of calls from reserves, from aboriginal people living in communities near reserves and from Metis settlements. Some very serious issues came up. They were issues that are dealt with in the legislation, or at least are mentioned in the legislation, although I am not convinced the solutions are there. That is why a lot of changes are needed before the bill actually becomes legislation which will be debated and passed by the House.
When these calls came in I dealt with them individually. Then there were so many of them that I got together with some aboriginal people in a town in the constituency and we set up the Lakeland aboriginal task force. I have talked about that task force, its results and the report that was produced on several occasions since 1998 when the report was completed. When the report was completed members of the task force and I met with the minister of Indian affairs at that time. The current human resources development minister was the minister at that time. We took some time to sit down with her and talk about the report.
The issues that came up from the report are worth talking about today. I want to go through them and make some comments on whether they have been dealt with effectively from what we can see at first glance in Bill C-61.
The first group of recommendations that came from the task force were not recommendations of the Reform Party which has since become the Alliance Party. They are not necessarily Alliance supported recommendations, although in some cases they are, but they are issues that have to be dealt with and recommendations which could be productive.
The first group called for more transparency in financial reporting on reserves and in settlements. It goes beyond the scope of the federal government in some cases, but the problems were very similar. The legislation talks about that. There is a start in that it talks about that, but the bill has to go to committee. The legislation that comes from committee has to ensure open financial transparency. Until that happens there really is very little meaningful change that can take place.
The second group of recommendations involves democratic reform on Indian reserves and settlements but settlements are outside the purview of the federal government.
The second group recommended the use of a third party monitor, such as Elections Canada, to monitor elections on reserve. I presented private members' bills and motions on the issue and at least one has been debated. I do not remember whether it was a bill or a motion but unfortunately, the item was not made votable so we could not even determine the will of the House when it came to having Elections Canada monitor elections on Indian reserves. It makes sense that it would. Indian reserves are the responsibility of the federal government.
The aboriginal grassroots people have expressed concerns about the way elections are conducted on reserves. They asked for some independent monitors. From what I can see in the bill, that is not dealt with. Certainly, let us take it to committee and have all parties involved in some serious discussions on the democratic reform issues.
The next group of recommendations that were made were very interesting. I had a process in place to gather information from aboriginal people which involved one on one private meetings. These took place with members of the task force over a period of five days in a time span of about two or three months. We heard from a lot of individuals at these meetings.
We put out a questionnaire to anyone who wanted to give input on any issue they wanted. It was a directed questionnaire. We mentioned certain issues which were brought forth by the task force. Others were brought forth by individuals who filled out the questionnaires. We put the results of the questionnaires together. The final part of the process was public meetings.
At one public meeting there were about 70 or 80 aboriginal individuals. Some came from reserves, others from communities near reserves. They expressed concern about moving too quickly to some type of self-government. There was a vote put forth by one member at one of the meetings just to see what the response would be from the attendees as to whether the group supported moving to self-government as the Liberal government and the leadership had been presenting it in quite a few cases.
The vote was almost unanimous against self-government. People said they were not ready for it. The accountability would have to be in place. The electoral reform would have to be in place so the elections would be fair. An ombudsman would have to be in place. I put forth a motion or a bill which was debated in the House on putting in place an effective ombudsman, not one who reported to the very people who hired him but one who was independent.
We know what there is in the government. In spite of what the Liberals promised in 1993, to put in place an independent ethics commissioner, the government chose to put in place a counsellor who answers to the Prime Minister. They are two different things entirely.
It is that kind of corruption and lack of ethics that we are seeing the results of, with all the various corruption that comes up in the House every day, one day after another. It seems to be only the tip of the iceberg because we keep finding more and more. It gets broader and deeper. Certainly it could not be solved by putting an independent ethics commissioner in place but it would be a start.
Corruption in government or anywhere can only be ended by having people who are determined not to take part in it. No amount of law can completely eliminate corruption. There has to be ethics in the group before corruption can be ended. I digress in talking about the government. I want to get back to the bill that we are sending to committee.
What was clear is that none of this can effectively be put in place until fiscal accountability is dealt with in an effective way. It has to be open. We have to put in place a democratic system. Part of making it democratic certainly is to have Elections Canada monitor elections on reserves as it does across the country. That is what the Lakeland aboriginal task force recommended.
When the checks and balances are in place, then and only then can we talk about an effective type of self-government beyond what is in place already. That is what the ultimate goal has to be but we cannot jump from where we are now to that without ensuring that these other things are in place. I look forward to my colleagues dealing with this issue in committee.