Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Etobicoke North.
I am pleased to speak to Bill C-8, An Act respecting family homes situated on First Nation reserves and matrimonial interests or rights in or to structures and lands situated on those reserves.
The bill was designed to create a regime to govern how property interests of married and common-law couples on first nation reserves would be divided after a breakdown of their marriage, but the government, when introducing the bill, misled the House by claiming that it had the approval or it consulted all aboriginal groups.
In my consultations with many native women's groups, both from Ontario and Quebec, they were appalled by the lack of consultation, the inflexibility of the consultation process and the fact that two large provinces that constitute over 50% of the aboriginal communities were left out of the consultation process.
We all know we do not question the need for legislation to address the very real problems when family breakdown occurs for Canadians living on reserves. However, the Conservative government failed in its constitutional duty to consult the aboriginal groups in the development of the bill.
I am appalled by the fact that NDP claims it will support the bill.
I come from the colonial era so I know what colonialism is and I can see the Conservatives moving toward that era. However, for a party that claims to support human rights, I am absolutely appalled when women themselves claim that this would violate the Human Rights Act and they have given me a litany of articles that have been violated.
I cannot understand why anyone would stand up and support the bill. If we leave this proposal on the table, there cannot be substantive changes or discussions because we limit the ability of the aboriginal communities to discuss or make substantive changes. The bill needs to be hoisted for six months and we are calling on the government to do it so that it can use its time to properly consult without forcing its own opinions on a community that has not been consulted.
The Native Women's Association of Canada has stated that this is not the right bill. As I was listening to the presentations, I heard the NDP say that this would allow the Native Women's Association to present. However, if it presents and there is a violation, 60% of the recommendations of the Grant report have not been addressed, it demands that these aboriginal women who are living on the reserves need to have those amendments made, how can the government claim that it will be able to amend this bad bill? A bad bill has to be thrown out. Therefore, it is important that we do consult.
Let us look at the history behind this. In 1986, during the era of the Mulroney Conservative government, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that when a conjugal relationship breaks down on reserves courts cannot apply provincial or territorial family law because reserve lands fall under federal jurisdiction. As a result, aboriginal women living on reserves have not enjoyed the same rights as women living off reserves. They are not entitled to an equal share of matrimonial property at the time of a marriage breakdown. Matrimonial real property, MRP, refers to the house or land that a couple lives on while they are married or in a common-law relationship.
Since the 1986 Supreme Court ruling, the gap in the law has had serious consequences. When a marriage or relationship ends, the courts have no authority to protect the MRP interests of spouses living on the reserve. As a result, spouses living on the reserves cannot ask the courts to grant an order for temporary or permanent possession of the family home even in a situation of domestic violence or when the spouse has custody of the children, or order partition or sale of the family home to enforce an order of compensation from one spouse or the other, or preclude a spouse from selling or mortgaging the family home without the consent of another spouse.
The Native Women's Association of Canada and the Assembly of First Nations have been highly critical of the bill. I would like to ask all parliamentarians to listen as they represent the majority of the groups. If we do not want to listen to them and impose a bill on them, then what are we here for? We are living in an ivory tower trying to impose laws on people who have not been consulted and this is a violation of the fundamental constitutional rights of the aboriginal people.
They strenuously argue that the government failed to live up to its constitutional duty to consult first nations on a law that would directly impact their right to manage reserve lands. There is a concern for the first nations women and girls who are four times more likely to be physically or sexually assaulted than any other women in Canada. Their suicide rate is three times the national average as is their likelihood of contracting AIDS. They are less healthy, poorer and more likely to have addiction problems. There cannot be another group in Canada more vulnerable and with fewer alternatives than women living on reserves.
Why is the government and those who are supporting this bill supporting keeping native women in the back rooms, poorer and uneducated? The bill does not address their rights nor does it address any of the socio-economic problems.
In her report, the Auditor General stated that INAC, which did the consultation process, had no cultural sensitivity to the aboriginal communities and that the consultation that was done under INAC was not driven by consulting the larger groups of aboriginal communities. The “father knows best” is not an approach here. I think parliamentarians need to understand that when they bring in a bad bill they should have the will to apologize for the bad bill and withdraw it. Instead, they are putting themselves in a position of no return to the detriment of the aboriginal communities.
Many first nations communities have come to us to say that it is contrary to the RCAP, which is the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and that it violates their jurisdiction. They say that it is inconsistent with the inherent rights of self-government recognized in section 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982.
First nations people have the right to exercise their jurisdiction and govern themselves without federal legislation. I heard from the NDP member that they would be given the right to put forward whatever bills they have, but the NDP misses the point. The first nations consent is also required. The federal government takes the position that it consulted with the Assembly of First Nations and Native Women's Association of Canada, however, the duty to consult cannot be delegated and the obligation rests with the federal government to consult the rights holders, first nations communities and their representatives.
The other thing aboriginal groups have told us is that the bill violates the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and that Bill C-8 blatantly violates the following sections: article 3, article 5, article 8, article 21, article 22, article 27, article 33 and article 34.
With such a bad bill that has no support from any of the aboriginal communities, and I have the Grant report here, how does the government and the other opposition parties think that by sending the bill to committee they will be able to make any substantive changes? They will not.