Mr. Speaker, as we have agreed to send this important bill to committee, I will be brief. If my partner shows up I will be sharing some time with him.
This is a tremendously important bill to me. I may be a little selfish but there is a lot of land in my constituency and there will be claims that I will want be able to address. I want the opportunity to question the committee and submit questions for my own satisfaction in dealing with other governments because once a land claim is made it is not just over. We will be dealing with changes in the acquisition of land, changes in the tax bases for municipalities and a whole set of agreements. It is not a simple thing. It is far reaching. It even goes into the tax base to fund public schools and so on.
It is a very difficult situation. Some of the rules and regulations in land acquisition in my province have a particular formula. I am sure it is the same formula as my colleague from Dauphin--Swan River just spoke about.
With regard to land acquisition, there is a point that no one has mentioned and it concerns me a lot. If one is going to lose or take out of the agricultural industry or the base for a certain community 20 farmers from a given portion of land, and if they move elsewhere, then we should know well in advance because the businesses that have traditionally served those 20 people will have to change their operations in order to adjust to the loss of customers. Heaven knows, in Saskatchewan we are losing enough customers as it is and that is a very serious concern.
No matter what people have to do to make their claim, I want to make absolutely sure that our position in land claims negotiations will be to ensure respect for existing property rights, affordable and conclusive settlements of all claims, and an open, transparent process, including all stakeholders. I can assure the House and the committee that the bill will set up that it is imperative that the committee understands the total results of what happens when land is taken over.
The first question I have concerns the independent centre. How independent will it be? In the true sense of independence, when the government selects the people, the chief executive officer and so on, how independent can the centre be? To answer that question, from what I have read, it will be about as independent as one could expect from government appointees. Let us keep that in mind.
The second question that has bothered me somewhat concerns the fact that the bill dictates that the centre must be located in Ottawa. That might be all right for the centre itself but I would suggest to those going into the committee and to the minister that it would be a lot easier to move the appointees to the area of dispute or to where the claim is being made than it would be to bring people down here. I have no objection to the centre being located here but I would suggest that its mobility be recognized. I really believe there is a necessity for that.
I would like to point out that the centre will be audited by the auditor general within six months of its operation and then it will be audited annually. I see nothing wrong with that. It is a whole lot better than some of the government programs today. Some of them have not been audited for years.
I would like the minister to take a look at grants in lieu of. It is a very indepth study but in some cases the grants in lieu of are grants made because of loss of business. While the transaction may be legal other outside interests will lose. I think the commission should be prepared to listen to that.
When the federal government came into our province under the PFRA back in the thirties it established huge grazing pastures. The RMs, who lost the real tax base, were given a grant every year in lieu of taxation.
In the case of land claims by first nations, a formula is in place but I think we have to re-examine that formula. Let me give the example of the RM of Golden West in my area. The amount of land that it has lost through land claims, and I do not want to use that word lost, but lost only to taxation purposes, leaves that particular rural government in the position, even with the formula, of no longer having the financial means to properly operate.
Some will say that is all right, that they can be swallowed up by other local RMs, which is possible, but I would like the minister to take a look once more at that formula and check with the Association of Rural Municipalities in each of the provinces to see if it is working. We need to have everybody on side or it will not work.
My hon. colleague from Dauphin--Swan River talked about something that has hurt this process and will continue to hurt this process. There is a man made lake just inside of his constituency called the Lake of the Prairies. People came in last winter, illegally netted the fish in the entire lake, loaded the fish on trucks and took them far away.
I want to say up front, that was not sustenance fishing and everybody knows that. However in my own area we reported the massive slaughter of elk one winter. The elk were taken out in refrigerated trucks. Although this was totally against conservation and totally against the environment no one, as far as I know, was ever apprehended or cited with an offence. If we want co-operation, we must realize that these things can no longer take place. They will hurt us in negotiations.
The next question I have concerns the minimum of seven million claims. What if one group of people submitted three seven million claims? That would amount to 21 million claims? Would they be allowed to submit three seven million claims? It is a moot question but it could be the way in which an agreement is finalized that normally could not be finalized under this group.
I am not on the committee but I hope the committee gives this the due attention it needs. It is very important because we must get this over with as quickly as possible.
My final question has to do with the time limit on the claims. Is there a time limit or do we have to wait for 20 years until another $7 million claim comes in? I think that is important too.