Mr. Speaker, the public is perhaps wondering what we are talking about here. Bill C-23 is designed to strengthen first nations real property tax regimes, create a first nations bond financing arrangement and in the process would create four institutions: the first nations tax commission, which would replace the Indian Taxation Advisory Board; a first nations financial management board; a first nations finance authority; and a first nations statistical institute.
There were 18 amendments tabled by the minister. We are speaking to one grouping of the two groupings that were created by the Speaker.
They accomplished several things. One thing they did not accomplish was that they did not separate the statistical institute from the rest of the bill. That was a significant request that had been made by a broad range of interests, including the Conservative Party. I find that somewhat unfortunate.
We will be supporting Group No. 1 amendments because there was widespread concern and desire to have this act ascertained as an optional exercise for the band level governments and this clearly specifies that. We are in pretty good shape that way.
I have been speaking about private property and have been looking at quite a bit of literature in relation to private property on reserves in Canada. There has been some very good literature produced recently. I will specifically make reference to a publication called Masters In Our Own House , published by the Skeena Native Development Society in May of last year.
The book talks about three cornerstones that are required in the way of bringing success and prosperity to first nations. We are making great progress on this front from the standpoint that there is some real leadership that is starting to be exhibited. Sometimes this cannot be one gigantic step but a series of smaller steps.
It is worth referencing that we have had taxation power available to bands across the country for about a dozen years or so. Today, 25% of the bands in British Columbia are exercising the authority and about 10% nationally. When we include the fact that British Columbia has almost a third of the bands in Canada, we can see that very few of those bands that are taxing are outside British Columbia. It is something that has led us to things like the bill we are discussing today.
The authority has been delegated to the bands under section 83 of the Indian Act and it would allow them to carry out this taxation scheme.
There are three cornerstones of successful governance; first, the market system must be allowed to function, it must be enabled; second, there must be an ability for the people to control the use and development of their lands to enable capital formation; and third, entrepreneurial thinking needs to be enabled for effective entrepreneurship to flourish.
I found this publication, produced by the Skeena Native Development Society, to be pragmatic and practical in terms of pursuing those three cornerstones within the context of the Indian Act and the other sort of albatrosses that have pre-empted that from occurring. The Indian bands are trying to go somewhere important, and I think we went somewhere important last week when we talked about Bill C-11 in the House, the Westbank first nation self-government agreement. This publication talks quite a bit about that and I want to shed a little light to that whole subject at this time.
When this group looked at the problems inherent in developing the first nations, they actually talked about going from a command economy to a market-based economy. The Indian Act has created a command economy where the Government of Canada, through the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, has been the one that was entrusted with all of the decision-making in almost every way. One can view that, as they did, through the lens of communist China. I will quote right from the document which states:
They were struck by the parallels between the economic development problems experienced during theChinese transition to a market-based economy, and those presently confronting native communities.
This brought them to some not startling but pretty important conclusions because they were coming to those conclusions themselves. They were not conclusions that some academic or someone else in some other community was imposing upon them. These were conclusions they arrived at themselves and it was leading to major progress that would have major economic consequences downstream. They went so far as to quote from Hernando de Soto that:
The single most important source of funds for new businesses in the United States is a mortgage on the entrepreneur's house.
They went on to say:
Without this fundamental capability, will the financial institutions continue to avoid providing mortgage funds to First Nation entrepreneurs? In many ways, the ability to mortgage is the litmus test of property rights.
The irony is that in Canada we now have many native individuals with the earning power to afford to carry a mortgage and build a home off reserve, but they cannot get the banks to lend them funds because they cannot collateralize the loan on the reserve because of the lack of simple title. There is a clear recognition about the concern about clear and enforceable property rights, which is compromising transactions both on and off reserve.
I would like to conclude by saying that this concern has been addressed partially by the first nations land management act, more wholly by the Sechelt agreement in British Columbia, more wholly again by one small part of the land allocation to the Nisga'a, and almost completely by the Westbank agreement, Bill C-11, before the House.