Mr. Speaker, it is with great frustration that I rise today to speak to Bill C-6. The bill aims to establish a centre for the resolution of aboriginal specific claims up to $7 million. The centre purportedly would reduce the time and expense of making specific claims. The legislation as written does not guarantee this. In fact, it may likely increase the time and expense involved in gaining a resolution of a claim.
The Canadian Alliance supports the fair and expeditious resolution of claims in a manner that benefits the relations between aboriginal Canadians and the people of Canada. Article 56 of our declaration of policy states:
Our position in land claims negotiations will be to ensure respect for existing private property rights, affordable and conclusive settlement of all claims, and an open and transparent process involving all stakeholders.
There is no provision in the bill for the respect of existing private property rights or an open and transparent process involving all stakeholders. We need a process for resolving these claims that is fair to aboriginals and other Canadians as well. All citizens, regardless of who their parents are, should be equal partners in Canada, and we have to, over the long term, work toward accomplishing this goal.
The process of setting up a claims commission has been going on since 1947. I was not even born then. When a joint Senate and House committee in 1947 recommended this, it was put into place. The Liberals have advocated for such a body since 1963 when they initiated legislation on it. One would hope that after all of this time they would have come up with something better to present to Canadians than this flawed bill. Unfortunately, for all concerned, the government has chosen to draft a bill creating an expensive patronage bill of bureaucracy that has no guarantees of hurrying along the settlement process.
There are no guarantees to spend and no timelines are mandated in this process. In fact, there are numerous opportunities for the government to delay and stonewall. For example, in clause 30, the government is given the right to hold up the process as it decides whether or not to hear a claim. It contains no timelines or final deadlines for the government to provide, and has no mechanism for the commission or the claimant to move the process forward in the event of an extended delay by the government. This clause should be deleted.
Government members in the committee of aboriginal affairs and northern development voted against all amendments that would require the government to declare openly its reasons for deciding against a claim or for holding up the claim process. Because of that, the claim centre could summarily reject claims and the decisions secretly made would never be publicly explained. That is not transparent.
Another problem is that the bill creates a false hope of speedy resolutions and correspondingly lower costs. The exact opposite would happen. The bill opens the floodgates for more claims that have been held back. The claim centre risks being overwhelmed by cases, just like the Liberal gun registry, resulting in an even larger backlog and less expedient helpfulness.
In three decades the government has settled only 230 claims. That bears repeating: three decades, 30 years, 230 claims. Not much of a record. Some 500 are still waiting to be heard. Aboriginal representatives say that they expect up to 1,000 more claims to be filed once the new centre is opened. This new bogged down claims process would further confirm the fact that claims between aboriginals and the people of Canada result in few benefits to any except lawyers, with all due respect, who keep getting richer and nobody wins.
How can the government say that this claim centre will be successful and expedite matters when the only thing it would do is create thousands more claims? It seems that the government has it backward. Instead of clearing up the claim backlog and resolving aboriginal issues, this institution will create more delays and dissatisfaction. The bill would not speed up the resolution of claims, particularly more costly claims.
We should work toward a way to create an environment where trust and open agreements, arrived at openly with respect for private property holders, can work.
One plus is the government's understanding that there should be at least some semblance of accountability contained in the bill. Government Motion No. 7 is something that we can support as being an expression, however small, of that accountability by mandating the minister to submit a report to Parliament of any change in the centre. Unfortunately this does not change the fact that any changes are at the whim of the minister and Parliament will only be told about these changes long after they are done.
The bill would create an institution that would be just one more in a long line of adversarial, bogged down bureaucracies big on promises and short on delivery. The 1993 Liberal red book promised an independent claims commission that would be jointly appointed by aboriginals and the Government of Canada. Bill C-6 breaks yet another promise from that book.
Since all the adjudicators and commissioners in the Canadian centre for the resolution of first nations specific claims would be appointed by the minister, the idea of an independent impartial body to oversee the resolution of claims is already ruined. There is too much power in the PMO already and adding more useless appointments that benefit no one makes it worse.
It amazes me that the minister, who put this forward, is a resident of British Columbia, as I am myself. As a member of the Canadian Alliance, one of my first assignments was to spend a full year as the chairman of the leaders advisory committee on Indian and Northern Affairs. My job was very simple. I was to go speak to both aboriginal people and non-aboriginal people, the other stakeholders. I did that. Some of the things that I learned were amazing. I have tried to share them with the government on other occasions but it has had no time to hear it.
Let us look at B.C. just as an example. Under the bill there is not supposed to be any geographical limit which means B.C. could be a part of the process. We count on the other parts because the government has decided to dump the responsibility onto the provincial level of government and we have been unable to do anything to prevent that. However in this case, because there are no geographical limits, B.C. could actually be covered under specific claims. It sounds good on the surface but wait until we dig a little deeper.
There are no claims in B.C. for under $7 million. This is according to the claims commission and the aboriginal people of B.C. When we put a limit of $7 million on it, once again the government has told B.C. to figure it out for itself because it does not want to get involved. It has a fiduciary responsibility to be involved and again it has abdicated it.
I spoke with aboriginal people across the country who make up, according to census figures this year, approximately 4% of Canada's population. Of the 4%, about 0.2% of that population had a driving urge to have the land claim issue settled. Those people are a minority among the aboriginal people to whom I spoke.
The people to whom I spoke were everyday band members. What everyday band members want is what all Canadians want. They want the opportunity for their children to have a better life than they have. They want to have some measure of success and they to have that opportunity to make that success happen. Aboriginal women want equality. It is something we enjoy in the country as non-aboriginal women but for aboriginal women it is lacking.
I realize I have gone off the subject of specific claims but I do not think there is much else that can be said about it. This is not an answer. It does not listen to the other stakeholders involved in the process, whether they are ranchers, tourism people or private property owners and it does not answer the needs that aboriginals have related to me. Because of those reasons, I will not be supporting the bill and neither will my party.