Mr. Speaker, you will understand that my feelings are considerably hurt by the fact that there were members across the way who did not like to hear me speak yesterday. I thought I was doing a good job in bringing forward some significant points. However, sometimes in this place very brutal measures are brought to bear, as just happened in the vote, with something that needs much more debate in the House in terms of improving Bill C-6.
Bill C-6 is no improvement over the present claims body. I differ with the minister. I do not think we will see the minister standing up in the House to say that the bill has done a much better job. In fact, contrary to what the minister said, there are a number of members within his own party, and most notably senators who were making the point and I will indicate some of that now in reading from the Senate record.
I also give notice that I will be giving substantial time to other members today. Much more significant things could be said in respect to why the bill is not a good one, why it is badly flawed and its many defects. However, I will allow others to make those points in the course of the day through to the vote at the end of the day which has been pushed forward by the government by way of closure.
Some of the other material that I referred to in the past is from an insightful document written by Leigh Ogston Milroy, called “Towards an Independent Land Claims Tribunal: Bill C-6 in Context”. I will not have the time to make a substantive reference to that but it is there for people's reading and I suggest that people do read the essay.
I want to put on the record some comments from Liberal Senator Serge Joyal. This is what Senator Joyal had to say on the record in the Senate in reference to at least one aspect of the tribunal part of Bill C-6:
In this bill, we have a proposal to establish a tribunal. A tribunal is a court of justice; it is an independent body. This independent body, according to any legal advisers, must satisfy three criteria. First, it must be financially secure. In other words, it should not depend on a third party for its supply of money in order to function. Second, the members of that tribunal must have security of tenure, which means that they must remain there for a long period of time, to be immune to undue influence.
We see that Bill C-6 is so rife to patronage, to those kind of accusations or allegations. I do not think we have the sense that there is independence at all by way of the appointment process. Then others get to critique after the fact, typically as we do with appointments, railing at the government for the inappropriate appointments that are made.
The senator went on to say:
Second, the members of that tribunal must have security of tenure, which means that they must remain there for a long period of time to be immune to undue influence. In other words, they must not make popular decisions to please the person who has the authority to appoint. We can understand that easily. Third, the tribunal must have institutional autonomy. In other words, it must rule its affairs totally outside any kind of influence.
According to Serge Joyal, those are the three criteria for an independent tribunal. He went on to say:
What is at stake in this bill? In this bill is essentially the constitutional duty to establish a system of adjudication that meets those criteria so that those who go to the court [this tribunal] will have the assurance that their claims will be dealt with properly.
When we apply those three criteria to the bill in question there are some issues pending.
That is his mild way of putting it. I would have stated it a lot stronger, but we will go with that for now. He went on to say:
One is that the judges are appointed for five years--
In a commission it is only three years. It does not even overlap two terms of a government. Judges on the tribunal are appointed for five years--
--and they might be reappointed to that or any other position. That is found in clause 41(7) of the bill. This raises the issue that a person might adjudicate on the basis of an expectation of being reappointed to that position or to another position.
Here we open the door not to a sense of impartiality, but of partiality because of the nature of the appointments and the very short duration of this court in effect, or tribunal set up under Bill C-6.
He went on to say:
That is a very important element because administrative tribunals such as the one contemplated in this bill are presently the object of an investigation by former Chief Justice Antonio Lamer. His report, expected in December--
That is coming up very shortly; we could have waited for that report.
--will analyze the various norms that administrative tribunals must satisfy in order to continue to adjudicate properly, to maintain not only justice but also the appearance of justice.
There are other aspects of this bill that raise problems with regard to institutional autonomy. The bill says, in various aspects, that its people are assimilated to public service. They do not have the autonomy that court personnel should have to remain outside influence.
In terms of financial autonomy, Treasury Board defines the scale of salaries. This is problematic too. As you know, there has been a decision of the Supreme Court in relation to payment of salaries to judges, and the court has established very stringent criteria. We have had to deal with those problems here.
He went on to talk about the fiduciary responsibility. He said:
Hence, the system contemplated in the bill is a very delicate balance between those two conflicting objectives. The mechanism put into place by this bill raises serious questions. We must be sure that this bill will meet the test of the court.
Obviously sprinkled throughout in other comments I cannot read here, he very much tips his hand to indicate that he sees it will not meet that particular test. Senator Joyal went on to say:
Honourable senators, read clauses 41 to 70 and you will realize that this is a real court of justice that is being proposed.
A court, in evaluating the reliability of that system, will apply the norms that are usually operational in a court system. This is important because that guarantees that the aboriginal people will get real satisfaction. If they are not convinced of that, what will happen? All our debates will be for nothing. All of the hours and the long sessions that the aboriginal affairs committee, under the chairmanship of Senator Chalifoux, and the time that other senators will have spent on this bill will be to no avail because the system will not be trustworthy.
And I add as an aside, all the time spent by this place in committee, in this House and so on.
In conclusion he said:
There is no doubt that if we do not reconcile the trust of the first nations people in the system we are putting in place, we will not solve the conundrum that we have found ourselves in for centuries.
I remind all of us here today that this is not comprehensive land claims we are talking about. This is specific claims, where a first nation was promised land of a certain good, fertile quality.
In some cases they were given disastrous swamp land, marsh, nothing better. Is it any wonder then that some of these bands are in the predicament they are in. With no economic development opportunity, they are like third world countries, in very desperate straits because of some sharp dealing, some dishonest dealing by Indian agents back in time. Another case would be where some Indian agent came along and sold off a chunk of a reserve without the proper permission and did not give that money and resource to the band, but pocketed it himself or disappeared in some other way. Who knows?
That is the nature of what Bill C-6 is dealing with in specific claims. As I have said before, it has definitely been long and drawn out, with delays to no end. Justice delayed really is justice denied and we have to acknowledge that.
I have made this marathon speech, although it was not as long as some other speeches in the House. It was my first opportunity in six and a half years here to speak for this length of time. I chose this opportunity because there are major defects and flaws in the bill.
The government in the Senate has acknowledged some of the main points that the Canadian Alliance and some of the other parties such as the NDP and the Bloc have made. We spoke for 45 minutes on Friday and another two hours yesterday because we think there are some major problems with the bill. It will not resolve the specific claims at all. In fact to the contrary, it just adds some more elements of delay, stonewalling and so on, and entrenches it more specifically in Bill C-6.
The few amendments that the senators had the gumption to bring back to this place quite frankly are wimpy ones. They are cosmetic. They are token, no more. We are not much reassured. We would have had more hope of some better work coming out of the Senate in respect of this bill.
As I said before, the Canadian Alliance supports the speedy resolution of specific first nations claims. Specific claims include alleged improper administration of lands and other assets under the Indian Act or other formal agreements.
I will be emphatic in stating that I hope I am wrong. I hope the minister will be right but I have no reason to believe so and he has not provided anything at all to reassure the House or others across the land.
Bill C-6 will not speed up the resolution of specific claims. There are no timelines mandated in the process. The minister made a kind of faint half-hearted attempt to say that the minister had to report back, but he can simply ask for more time. He does not have to give any kind of reason. He can do this indefinitely, on to eternity. There are no specific timelines in terms of the minister having to fish or cut bait and going ahead with this or not. He can keep dragging it out, stalling it indefinitely. That is one of the major problems many people see with this process and with Bill C-6 in this regard.
There are no timelines mandated in the process at all. There is nothing to assure us that it will not go on indefinitely. Built into the bill are numerous opportunities for the government to delay and to stonewall with impunity, with no punitive measures against it. It has utmost immunity with respect to that.
I ask the House and I ask people across Canada, who is standing up for the taxpayer in this new process? Bill C-6 in my view and in the view of many discourages the use of the less costly alternative dispute mechanisms. As we well know, going the route of more costly court cases wastes taxpayers' money. It wastes significant dollars that should be used to resolve these situations with first nations across our country, giving them the due and proper justice that they should have. Who is standing up for the taxpayer? Who is standing up for first nations and finally giving them the proper recompense that they deserve in these cases?
The new claims centre will not be independent. We have talked about that and I wanted to state that once again on the record. All adjudicators and commissioners will be appointed by the government with some token input from first nations, mostly after the fact. The appointment will be made and then we can make a comment. We can critique it. I can and anyone can. However what is the good of that?
Unlike the joint task force of 1998 that suggested the decent process of having individuals chosen for this particular body, the government instead has thumbed its nose at that. We are going to have all kinds of allegations and suspicions of conflict of interest, partiality and patronage in the process. That will ultimately destroy its legitimacy in the eyes of the first nations people.
We have been urging the Liberal government to take a serious look at the 1998 joint task force report. Considerable hours and a lot of time was put into that report by a good many capable and qualified people who came to some bottom line positions. It is not that they were all pleased on either side, which generally tells us that it had to be a reasonably fair process, but it was something that they could live with down the road and would give it the kind of ability to resolve the outstanding specific claims across the country.
We have been urging the government to go back and look at that. Perhaps somewhere down the road when we have to rewrite a bill because of the mess that this one is in, some of those reasonable recommendations may be brought into a bill in the future which would address what we perceive to be the major flaws and defects of the present Bill C-6.
I cede the floor to others regrettably, lamentably when there was much more I would have said on the bill and pushing back against Bill C-6. In conclusion, it was rather telling as well when the minister was pressed by a member of the New Democratic Party this morning who asked him if he could name one band across the country that supports Bill C-6. There is not one band to my knowledge that supports Bill C-6. I am not naive. I understand that we are never going to have a bill in any area, no less in this area, where all the first nations are jumping on board saying that it is a wonderful piece of work and a good piece of legislation.
It is also very telling when not one band steps forward to say that it is a good bill. Then we should know that we are in trouble and that we have a problem. If we were unable to satisfy even so much as one band anywhere in the country, never mind a significant number or maybe even a majority, then Canadians who are looking at this and viewing it might think this is badly drafted and badly flawed legislation. It is not satisfying anybody but the minister, and he alone, so he can complete his agenda before he walks off into the sunset.
Having said that, I think it is very plain that Canadian Alliance members object to the bill. We have done our very best in standing against this disastrous legislation. It will go down in the Hansard record that we thought it was a problem.
If I am ever proved wrong, I would be more than delighted, but I think my grandkids sometime down the road will look back to read grandpa's words and understand that the bill, as is proposed today, did not solve the problems. In fact it will have created more problems than it possibly could have resolved.
With that, we yield the floor to other good colleagues to continue to make the point of the major disastrous problem with Bill C-6.