Madam Speaker, it will probably surprise you that my speech will be a little longer than those of the other members. I could actually speak from now till 5:30 p.m. I will not bother asking for unanimous consent for that because I rather suspect there would be at least one member here who would decline.
There is so much to be said on this topic. It is one of those issues where again, we ought to be paying a great deal more attention to the facts of the matter than we actually are.
I would like to begin by laying some groundwork. I have had some experience, but not a great amount, in working with native people. When I was in the math department at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, one of the very good projects in which I was involved was setting up a program for students who had dropped out of high school so that we could get them back into the educational route and hopefully retrieve their lost years. We would get them into a program and give them training so that they could obtain employment.
The institute had a program called pretechnology where we taught the basics of mathematics, the English language and science. There was a course in chemistry and a course in physics for them. On those subjects we actually went back all the way to the very basics. We started probably at the grade 2 or 3 level in math. We did not spend a great deal of time at that level because they were adult students, but we laid the foundation and we built on that.
At the end of one year we had taken those students right through to having completed high school equivalency. They did not get a high school diploma from us but we gave them enough education in those basic areas so that the following year they could enter a post-secondary program, just as those who had gone through grade 12 in high school.
Most of the students in that program for one reason or another had dropped out of school any time after grade 9 or 10. They had forgotten everything they may have known, so it was a major task.
I am indicating that today because when I was working in that program, I was also one of the instructors. Even though I was the head of the mathematics department in those years, I also chose to work as an instructor in that program.
In that program we had a small number of native students. I always felt that somehow these students were not anywhere near the potential that was contained in them. For the most part that was true. When I would talk to them individually about this, I would find out that most of them had had very poor opportunities and very poor discipline and learning in the schools that they had attended. There was a big attendance problem. The students were never really properly motivated, whether or not it was because their parents did not support their going to school adequately.
Many of them were involved in cultural things. In the fall they would go hunting. I always felt that if that is what they wanted to do, that was fine, but surely we could devise an education program that worked around that. Their vacation time could be during hunting season if need be. These young people could go out with their dads and learn how to hunt and do all of those things. That would be great, but let us not stop their education.
As a result these students came to NAIT very often with a very poor elementary and lower high school background. They were wonderful people to work with. I say that unequivocally. I found them to be very gentle, if I can make a generalization, and very eager to please.
I actually met one of the students on the airplane not very long ago. He had been in my class. Amazingly I remembered him but he did not remember me, which was quite a curiosity. Usually students remember me because I was the guy up front and they would recall that I had been their instructor. He also was one of my students and we did a little reminiscing about that experience.
What I am trying to say by preamble is that I have a real soft spot in my heart for the natives of Canada because of the situation that they have been in for many decades. I believe primarily it is because of the fact that governments have really done wrong by them, they really have, and it is time to correct it. It is time to put that behind us and start moving forward in huge leaps and bounds in order to allow native Canadians to realize their full potential. That is a goal I think we really need to seek out.
As the House may or may not know, for a time I was also involved in a small business. I remember that one of the young men who was hired to work for us was a first nations person. He was a fine young man. He worked diligently and people could count on him. If he said he was going to be there, he would be there. Unfortunately I have to say that was not true of all of the employees, but for him it was.
I remember as well one occasion, and this is a dead giveaway, when I stopped at one of the Kentucky Fried Chicken places in Edmonton. I was hungry for Kentucky Fried Chicken. This is a free ad for it and everyone can see it had a good, long term effect on me. I was eating my meal in the car. I used to pick up my food, sit in the car at noon time and listen to the radio before I would head back to work.
I was doing that when a young native came to the door of my car and asked for money. Instead of giving him money, I asked him what he needed it for. When I found out that he needed bus money in order to get home, I told him to get in and that I would drive him home. I had an opportunity to talk to him. I found out about what a sad plight he was in. Here he was in the big city and he did not have a job or any means of support. He really was very desperate.
That is not acceptable. It is not acceptable that for years and years these people have been undertrained, undereducated and underemployed. We need to correct that. One of the ways of correcting it is to treat them with the dignity with which they should be treated.
When we come to the topic of Bill C-6, I think this is an area where the federal Liberal government, which loves to crow about its compassionate attitude, has so totally blown it. It has blown it over decades. The Prime Minister likes to brag about the fact that he held all sorts of portfolios, that way back he was the minister of Indian and northern affairs. In all areas where those people have been trying to work with our first nations people they have utterly and totally failed. Now they have deluded themselves into thinking that if they keep on doing the same thing a little more often, they are going to get different results. I do not think so.
I look at the many provisions in Bill C-6. I am rather appalled by the mediocrity of the bill, by the fact that the Minister of Finance under the direction of the Prime Minister and all of the people in that department could not come up with something better than Bill C-6 with all of its flaws.
Another thing that really annoys me is that in the next election campaign, and I can already see it, there is going to be an election platform where the Liberals are going to say, “Do not vote for the Canadian Alliance. It voted against the natives”. That is how they will message it. That is very annoying.
The reason that we in the Alliance are against this bill is it is so totally inadequate. The Liberals will twist it. Instead of saying that we are against this bill in order to improve it for the natives, they will twist it so that Canadian people will be led to believe that we are against the natives. It is exactly the opposite.
It is the Liberals who are against them because of the inadequacy of legislation such as this bill. A careful reading of the bill would prove that what I am saying is correct.
Some of the previous speakers have already drawn attention to the fact that if the goal is to provide for speedy resolutions of claims, the bill would be one of the major hindrances to achieving that goal. How ironic to state that is the goal of the bill and then to design the bill so that it does exactly the opposite.
Madam Speaker, it is as if we were in a race. In order to help you, I as the young engineer, want to get your car going really fast and I say that we should tie a bunch of rocks on the back of the car and then drag them along. You would say, “Okay, you are the engineer, go ahead and do it”. But it would not help. I could say this would help you to go faster, but just because I say it would help does not make it so. In fact it would be just the opposite.
The same is true with the bill. When the Liberals say the purpose is to provide for speedy resolution of claims, it is just the opposite.
I would like to talk a little about some of the specifics of the bill. One that comes to mind is the promise of independence.
One of the reasons the natives of our country feel so downtrodden is that they have had governments lord it over them for too long. Here we have a process in place which again uses a label which is totally opposite to the result. They are talking about having an independent commission, an independent tribunal. Maybe the Liberals should get out the good old dictionary. They should have a look at what it means to be independent. They have missed the boat entirely on it.
I have used this example before in some speeches but it bears repeating here. It is the same as someone who gets into the ring to have a boxing match and the opponent also happens to be the referee. I wish that person luck in winning the match.
The natives are looking for an independent and fair resolution mechanism and what do they get? They get more of the same from the past, the Liberal government lording it over them.
The Liberals do not know the meaning of the word “independent”. If they do, they sure do not give any demonstration of understanding the meaning by the legislation they have here, in terms of appointments to the commission and to the tribunal. It is absolutely incredible that independence is a word only to them.
Of course we know that they do not understand it. Way back in 1993 we were promised an independent ethics counsellor. We have seen in the last nine and half to ten years how independent an ethics counsellor is, who is appointed by the Prime Minister, whose salary is determined by the Prime Minister, who answers to the Prime Minister, who reports to the Prime Minister and who, in effect, has been drawn into becoming part of the Prime Minister's damage control team every time anything goes wrong. We do not get independence by having a close tie like that to the government, to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
It is really a shame that they could not arrange for, as our amendment stated in committee, true independence, people on the board who would be agreed to by both the government and the first nations people. Why could that not be done? Surely they could agree. There must be about 15 million or 20 million adults in Canada. Among those, surely we could find 14 people who would be mutually agreeable.
That would take a little bit of work, perhaps. But the government simply says that it will appoint, and that is what this legislation does, but the actual wording is something like order in council. We in Parliament of course understand that is by order of the governor in council of the executive branch of our government, which means the Prime Minister and the minister and they will appoint whomever they will.
The legislation is so offensive in that regard. They will be appointed by the Prime Minister. Their salaries will be determined by the Prime Minister or by a minister of the department; their working conditions; any bonuses; and the extent to which expenses are paid. Where do the first nations people come into this? Nowhere.
The government will have a person or a group of people who will be adjudicating and determining the basis on which these claims are processed and the whole process will be done by people who are beholden to the government.
What is the probability of commissioners making a fair judgment, which might go against the government, if they know their appointment is to serve during pleasure, which means the Prime Minister and the minister are pleased with their work? How can they ever come up with something that displeases the government?
Why can the Liberals not simply build into that appointment process, that hiring process and that benefit process a way of having an independent appointment process, just simply, as I said, to make sure those individuals who are appointed are mutually agreeable? That should not be difficult.
As I said before, and this is a very small sample, but in my dealings with native Canadians I have found them so co-operative. They seem to be a group of people who have a gentle spirit. I find it unfathomable that in this country we would be taking more and more of them away from their natural ways and training them to become almost militant and to have to stand up so strongly for their rights because they have been put down so long.
Let us look at the appointment of the chief executive officer. The bill states:
The Chief Executive Officer may be appointed to hold office for a term of not more than five years and may be removed for cause by the Governor in Council.
It is right in the bill. What is ironic is that the appointment is for a term not exceeding five years, but the very next paragraph states:
The Chief Executive Officer is eligible for re-appointment on the expiration of any term of office.
There is a flaw in that. I realize members are all paying very close attention to what I am saying, all 170 of them out there. I want to point out the flaw in the fact that the individual would be subject to re-appointment. That puts in another reason that a commissioner would have to make sure he or she did not offend the sensibilities of the Prime Minister or the minister of the department in order to keep the job. And it is a fine paying job. It is ranked at the level of deputy minister and the salary is higher than members of Parliament, if I am not mistaken. There is a very fine pension plan and all that stuff. Of course those commissioners would want to keep their job. They will not rule against the government. Where do the natives stand in this? They come out on the short end of it once again.
Subclause 8(3) states:
The Chief Executive Officer shall be paid the remuneration that is fixed by the Governor in Council.
Everything would be done by governor in council, no mutual agreement at all.
To skip a few points, it is interesting that under subclause 8(6) it states:
The Chief Executive Officer shall not accept or hold any office or employment or carry on any activity inconsistent with the duties and functions of that office--
And then, in a most bizarre continuation of the sentence, it states:
--but, for greater certainty, the Chief Executive Officer may also hold the office of Chief Commissioner.
The bill states that the chief executive officer of the organization specifically can be a member--