Mr. Speaker, Bill C-27 is part of a pattern that I have noticed as a non-first nations person here in the House of policies and practices of the government that are paternalistic, punishing and somewhat prejudicial. This pattern is quite disturbing to me as a non-first nations person in that the government should actually be protecting and enhancing the first nations people of this country rather than punishing them.
The genesis of the bill, as I understand it, was a report from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation about the remuneration received by a band chief, or maybe other band chiefs, that was in excess of what we pay the Prime Minister. There are lots of corporations in this country that pay significantly in excess of what the Prime Minister makes. Whether a band has the resources to be able to pay its chiefs appropriately is not something that we should concern ourselves with unless there is some evidence of fraud or of other nefarious means. That is not the case here. There was no indication and no expectation on the part of the band that the chief was being paid in some manner that was inappropriate.
Indeed, the bill does not even touch on the appropriateness of compensation. It does not provide any guidance as to what would be a conflict of interest or what would be a conflict in terms of remuneration. Instead, it seems to punish the bands that are providing many financial statements already by making them provide even more by increasing the reporting requirements in an extreme way. That, again, seems to be a punishment for bands, perhaps for having spent so much on their chiefs.
In terms of it being paternalistic, once again we see that the government will not consult with the first nations themselves but instead prescribe for the first nations what they must do. We have heard time and time again in the House and from first nations themselves that what they want is be free to run their own affairs and, where the government provides some money, they want to be consulted. By the word “consult” we mean consent. We do not mean just spend a few dollars and bring a few people in to talk. We actually mean that the bands should give consent where there are major changes to how the government provides its services to them and the relationship between the Canadian government and the governments of the first nations people.
It gets even more paternalistic when the government says that if bands do not follow its rules it will hold back money. I cannot for the life of me understand why the government would do that to a band, to punish the children of the band perhaps if the money is for education, or to punish the mothers of the band perhaps if the money is for food or shelter. Why on earth are we punishing these people for the actions of a few? We have tried at committee to move significant amendments to the bill to deal with those issues that have been raised with us by the first nations and the issues that we can plainly read in the text of the bill, and yet every one of those amendments have been rejected by the government. As is the case in almost all the bills before Parliament, there is no attempt to be co-operative or consultative with the other parties in the House. The government does it all on its own.
The bill is punishing to the first nations because, in many circumstances, it would require the proprietary business information be released to the public. We are not talking, as the member for Scarborough Centre suggested, about ensuring that band members have this information. In fact, the requirement is that the information be made completely public and, when it is made public, if it is proprietary information, it puts the band at a disadvantage. It is punishing the band.
Some of these bands have been quite successful in creating businesses and trying to lift some of their members out of the extreme poverty in which we often find Canadian first nation members. The government's reaction is to punish them for doing that by making them release proprietary information in their financial statements that would put them at a disadvantage to non-first nation businesses in Canada and elsewhere. That is just wrong. We should not be putting first nations people at a disadvantage.
When we talk about proprietary information, the thing that I find most ironic is that when a freedom of information request is made of the government, most often the excuse that it gives when turning down the release of information, whether it is financial or otherwise, is that it is proprietary information and protected by the privacy of the dealings with another business or entity. Yet first nations are not given the same ability to protect their information. Instead, they are being told they must disclose it or the government will step in and withhold money.
I believe the government has fallen 30 places in the world's rankings in terms of freedom of information requests. Yet it is telling first nations they have to release information. The government is not practising what it preaches. As we know, the government's accountability is always in question when the Parliamentary Budget Officer has to take the government to court in order to get information released. Yet the way the government treats first nations is to say that if they do not release information, it will withhold their education money or money for housing or food.
There are some who have spoken at committee about the punishing nature of the required information. John Paul from the Membertou First Nation on October 24 stated:
In addition to what we do publicly, our first nation community must also still comply with all the detailed reporting requirements as decreed by the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada reporting handbook, developed by AANDC alone, as per the conditions of the five-year multi-year funding agreement that we have signed with AANDC. The time my staff has to spend to complete these obligations is significant and is done at our own first nation's cost.
The government does not help with any of this.
These reporting requirements and the need for documentation seem to have increased, even though a few years ago the Conservative government committed to an improved funding relationship. The continual and increasing reporting burden on our first nation must be addressed.
We are going in the opposite direction with the bill. We are creating a greater burden and more funding requirements, and there is no additional money to provide for it.
In terms of the policies of paternalism and some would say even prejudice toward the first nations, I am reminded of the comments of the Prime Minister when the Attawapiskat First Nation crisis came to our attention last fall. His knee-jerk reaction was to say, “We gave them lots of money. Where did they spend it?”
That was not the problem. The problem was not that the government gave them lots of money, it was that the government did not give them enough money. It has frozen their funding at 2% raises since 2000, first by the Liberal government and continued by the Conservative government, when their population is increasing at a greater rate than that and the inflation rate in Canada is higher than that on many occasions. Every year that funding arrangement stays in place, first nations fall further and further behind.
We are told that 85,000 new homes need to be built on first nation reserves. The Conservatives bragged yesterday about how it built 16,000 houses since 2005, which we should remind them was money that Jack Layton got out of the Paul Martin government to create new housing. In fact, the Conservatives voted against providing money for housing. Native North Americans in Canada are 85,000 houses short and yet the government is going ahead without providing any new housing infrastructure money for first nations. It is frozen at 2%.
As far as education goes and as far as we can tell, the first nations who must report on this money now are being paid half of what other Canadian children receive in terms of education dollar spending. In some cases this paternalistic attitude toward the first nation education system is such that when a first nation is given space to have a school, the government deducts the value of that space from the money it gives the first nation for education, even though it did not cost anyone anything. It is shameful that the government—