Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. As the aboriginal affairs critic for my party, I am very interested in how this series of events came about and the crossover interests. I know my colleague from Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore has a vested interested in this issue as well, as it pertains to national parks and the environmental impact sensitivities associated with it, especially with the west coast of Canada which, as we know, is one of the areas affected by the bill.
Coming from Manitoba, I particularly wanted to add my voice as well to the debate. I understand that one aspect of the bill deals with Riding Mountain National Park and a small amount of area that will be dedicated to Riding Mountain Park to withdraw lands from the park for the purposes of dealing with an historic injustice, I suppose, in the boundaries of the reserves. The portion with the following change then for the Province of Manitoba would be simply sections 5, 6, 7 and 8, the west half of section 4 and the portion of the east half of section 4 lying west of Clear Lake Indian Reserve No. 61A and the southwest quarter of section 18. That is the specific definition of the change made to Riding Mountain National Park.
Of more concern or perhaps of greater interest to the people here and anyone listening may be the impact on the west coast, which deals with the Pacific coast and the parks there. It is an acutely sensitive environmental area and a very worrisome development with the local provincial government recently. We believe it will be expanding oil and gas exploration in that area and the area just north of the area specified in the bill.
Aboriginal people in the area are very apprehensive of these pending changes which we believe will be coming about. They have made their opinions known in no uncertain terms that they do not support especially super tankers going through the inside passage and the relatively narrow straits, and the offshore oil and gas exploration associated with the new interest of the Liberal government in B.C. There has been particular attention to the preservation of park land and marine parks on the west coast in anticipation of this burning desire to exploit these natural resources. We are always concerned whenever we hear of any national park being eroded or diminished in any way.
When the bill first came along, it was the view of some of us in our caucus that we would oppose the erosion of the national parks in anyway, even if it were to satisfy the legitimate claims of a first nation that had an historic right to that property by virtue of traditional use or a land claim or a specific land claim dealing with what was in fact an error made in the survey of assessment of the first nation affected, as is the case of the Riding Mountain National Park.
We are really most interested in speaking about the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve of Canada in the context of this debate.
To strip away all the chafe from the wheat, and in its rawest form, this debate is about section 35 of the Constitution. Some members may wonder how we could arrive that. Quite simply, section 35 of the Constitution Act 1982 deals with aboriginal and treaty rights but fails to give any definition to those rights. That is why the government of Canada has spent the last 22 years in court, since 1982, to give meaning and definition to section 35 of the Constitution. While the Constitution recognizes aboriginal and treaty rights, it does not say what those aboriginal and treaty rights are.
It is the position of first nations that aboriginal and treaty rights mean some right, some legitimate claim to some sharing of land and resources on their traditional land base, not just the narrow, finite boundaries of reserves which are not in any way traditional or naturally occurring. They are constructs of the federal government and the Indian Act.
I am talking about the traditional area of land use as demonstrated through traditional land use maps. From time immemorial the aboriginal people up and down the west coast, whether it is the coast Salish or the any number of Tsimshian west coast Salish tribes up and down the west coast of Vancouver Island, have been using this area for hunting, gathering, settlement and traditional. They never ceded that territory through the Douglas treaties, which predated the rest of the treaties throughout Canada, and certainly not through the treaty era of Treaties Nos. 1 through 8 in the rest of Canada.
Their aboriginal and treaty rights were never ceded or signed away in any formal agreement with the crown, and they remain intact. Therefore, it is fitting and appropriate, and we feel proud to support their claim today, that this area of the Pacific Rim National Reserve of Canada should rightfully be under the direct holding and title of first nations making that claim.
Obviously, there is vested interest on many claims. However, people are satisfied that there has been consultation and adequate consultation with local land owners, municipalities, town councils and rural municipalities in the immediate area and that their concerns have been taken into account. I do not think that anyone has strongly held views about recognizing the aboriginal and treaty rights in these cases.
As we deal with the bill, it is a lesson for us all that the Government of Canada and therefore the people of Canada could save themselves an enormous amount of grief, aggravation and cost in the future if we would simply take one step back and get our minds around giving meaning and definition to section 35 of the constitution.
Frankly, the Government of Canada is not faring too well in its court challenges in those regards. Virtually every time aboriginal people make claims for recognition of those rights, they are denied by the federal government. First nations have no avenue of recourse but to go to the courts. They go to the Federal Court and then to the Supreme Court ultimately, and they always win. Court cases have been going on for 10 years, 15 years and 20 years, but they are finally concluding in favour of aboriginal people.
We are letting the courts do the work of Parliament. It should be up to Parliament to give meaning and definition to section 35. We have been afraid to or reluctant to do this. I do not know what the reasoning is on the federal government's part, but it has never tackled that thorny issue. It has never embraced that as a priority.
We came close in Charlottetown in 1992. The promise was made during the aboriginal round of the Charlottetown accord that if we passed Charlottetown, we would finally convene a national assembly of affected persons and would give definition to what aboriginal and treaty rights meant.
People may not like it. No one side will get everything it wants, but at least a fair consultation and negotiation will take place and we will not need to seek out the courts as an avenue of recourse. There will be some defined parameters as to what we mean by aboriginal rights because it seems to vary from person to person no matter who we asked.
Some non-aboriginal people are willing to concede that it only applies to hunting, gathering and fishing, traditional activities that people have always done for thousands of years. They are willing to let the Indians hunt on their land out of season as it will do no harm. Others go much broader in interpretation saying that people in an area called an Indian reserve have the exclusive right to resources on that property, all else is to be shared. That would mean the first nations people have a legitimate right to share in the land and resources such as mineral resources, lumber rights and logging and to share in the resources of their other traditional areas of use, which is essentially the rest of Canada.
There would be no poverty among aboriginal people if we took that interpretation. Even if we agreed that 1% of all the wealth from natural resources in mining, logging and hydroelectricity would be shared with first nations people, there would be no chronic third world poverty conditions. There would be economic development. There would be full participation by aboriginal people in the Canadian experience. That is the full range of interpretation of section 35 of the Constitution.
There are elements that say no special rights or privileges should be recognized, that is history, that this is 2004 and that they will not get into that debate. Then there are some grudgingly and some willingly who admit that fishing, hunting, and gathering berries are traditional activities.
The Indian Act specifically says that first nations people have a right to share in gravel, soil, mud, sand and other rock, other than minerals. We very generously and specifically listed those resources they have a right to have a share in. Granted, gravel has an economic value, but not as much as gold, titanium, uranium, pearls, rubies, oil and other treasures that we chose to keep exclusively for our use and for our purposes. We willingly conceded that aboriginal people have a right to mud, clay, gravel and sand, and as much as they want. They can develop it in any way they want too, resourceful as they are. We have that broad range here in interpretations.
The fact that we have to bring forward a special bill dealing with national parks is very sensitive in that it affects aboriginal people and their rights. The Government of Canada could spend less time seized of this issue if it would dedicate the time, the resources and the energy to define what aboriginal and treaty rights are.
I think there is generosity and goodwill among most Canadian people. I think Canadians are finally ready to recognize that 140 years of social tragedy as it has pertained to aboriginal people is enough. Our relationship with aboriginal people is Canada's greatest failure and, some would say, Canada's greatest shame in that we allowed these third world conditions to foster within our midst, knowing full well that it was not at all necessary.
People on the west coast have to be ever cognizant of traditional aboriginal and treaty rights, unseeded and yet to be clearly defined. In this case, my colleagues and I in the NDP will support the bill.