Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-14, the Tlicho treaty. The bill is important to Canadians for many reasons but particularly for the precedent it sets for other groups seeking land claim settlements and/or the power to self-govern.
It is necessary and right to be fair in such negotiating agreements, but it is also necessary to be accountable and to be practical. That is the only one way to ensure that the rights of all Canadians are respected and considered.
Bill C-14 would fix in law the Tlicho land claims and self-government agreement made more than a year ago between the federal government, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Tlicho First Nation.
Ownership of land between Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake, about 39,000 square kilometres, would be transferred to the Tlicho First Nation and participatory regulatory authority would be given for an even larger area. This land agreement is combined with provisions for self-government.
To be clear, under Bill C-14 the Indian Act would no longer apply to Tlicho citizens and Tlicho lands would not be considered reserve lands. Tlicho citizens would have continued access to all federal programs for status and non-status Indians and Métis, and the Criminal Code would continue to apply.
It seems the Charter of Rights and Freedoms would apply to the Tlicho government. However, even though the Tlicho constitution is intended to be consistent with the charter, it is in law the paramount authority.
The agreement does state that the citizens or persons to whom Tlicho laws apply will have rights and freedoms “no less than those set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms”.
I have a number of concerns about this agreement. For example, the preamble to the annotated agreement states:
Whereas the Parties have negotiated this Agreement in order to define and provide certainty in respect of rights of the Tlicho relating to land, resources and self-government...
This agreement provides neither definition nor certainty to a number of issues. It contains a clause to reopen negotiations if another Northwest Territories aboriginal group negotiates terms that are attractive to the Tlicho in a future agreement. It fails to do its most basic job: achieve a final settlement.
Looking to the future, there are literally hundreds of other native groups that could seek similar agreements. If none of these arrangements are finalized, it puts Canada in a position of confusion and uncertainty.
This is also an issue of particular concern and interest in my home province of Saskatchewan where natives make up an ever increasing portion of its population. By not limiting the authority of the Tlicho to enter into “international, national, interprovincial and inter-territorial agreements”, it appears the agreement recognizes the right of the Tlicho to enter into international agreements.
In addition, it puts the onus on the Government of Canada to consult with the Tlicho First Nation before Canada enters into an international agreement that “may affect a right of the Tlicho government, the Tlicho First Nation or a Tlicho citizen”. I am concerned about this very broad, vague language and how it constrains power constitutionally reserved for the federal government. By allowing this, the Canadian government would, in essence, be compromising its own sovereignty.
In a country where we already have a bloated administration, I do not believe additional levels of government are necessary or desirable. Yet that seems to be what is created in this agreement.
There is jurisdictional confusion in that the agreement describes three different hierarchies to determine which legislation is paramount in the event of conflict: federal legislation, territorial legislation, Tlicho laws or the agreement.
We must also consider that it is not clear that Tlicho citizens will have the benefits of protection under Canada's Charter of Rights in the event of conflict with the Tlicho constitution. This is the kind of clarification that I would have like to have seen come out of committee discussion so that we could avoid the future intervention of the courts, which will likely come about if this bill passes and the agreement comes into effect.
Self-government is a serious issue and it must be considered in a thoughtful way. When a country is divided into essentially sovereign groups, it affects not only the group in question but all Canadians.
I would like to quote from an author who wrote First Nations? Second Thoughts . Mr. Flanagan wrote that he holds certain core beliefs, including the following:
Society is a spontaneous order that emerges from the choices of individual human beings. The indispensable role of government is to make and enforce rules of conduct that allow society to function.... When government sorts people into categories with different legal rights, especially when those categories are based on immutable characteristics such as race and sex, it interferes with the social processes based on free association.
The Tlicho agreement does in fact divide people by race, even within the population it affects.
The agreement creates a category of citizens called Tlicho citizens who are the only people who may be elected as chiefs. Further, 50% of the elected councillors must be Tlicho citizens.
This racially based governance goes against fundamental Canadian values and would likely not withstand a Charter of Rights challenge, that is if the charter was not negated by Tlicho law. Again, the uncertainty is tremendous and I cannot in good conscience allow myself to support the bill.
Any other outstanding claims for land and self-government must be pursued on the basis of a clear framework which balances the rights of aboriginal claimants with those of this country. Such a framework does not exist in the context of the Tlicho agreement.