Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the chamber and thank the government for the beautiful ceremony this morning for unveiling of the stained glass window for residential school survivors. It was most appropriate. It was a moving ceremony. There is clearly a lot that we must do together, as the window says, in looking forward.
The Liberal Party understands and supports the goal of bringing further clarity to the regulation of land use in the north and, in particular, the dispute resolution process for surface and subsurface rights. However, we also want to ensure that this legislation accurately reflects the wishes of the residents of all three territories and respects the concerns of the first nations, Inuit and Métis that will be impacted.
I see my job, in French it always sounds better, as porte-parole. My job is not to read a 200-page bill and then decide whether it is good or bad. My job is to ensure that the people affected by the bill have had time to read it and have had time to explore the consequences or the unintended consequences, or to show us gaps or areas that need further tightening. It, therefore, will be hugely important, as we go forward, that we hear not only from the governments of the territories but also from the people who live there.
In 2008, the McCrank report stated that one of the regulatory problems in the north was a lack of surface rights legislation to resolve disputes between land owners who did not want to grant access to their lands for development projects. It is clear that this is a legislative gap that must be filled.
Over the next decade, the Mining Association of Canada estimates that the new mine development across Canada's north could bring in more than $8 billion in investment. There is no question that resource development in the north, if designed with northerners, for northerners and in close consultation with aboriginal peoples in the north, could represent a tremendous opportunity.
This legislation is more than 200 pages long and deals with fundamental changes to how development will occur in the north. It would create frameworks to regulate how environmental assessment and permitting processes in Nunavut and Northwest Territories will proceed. It would also amend the Yukon Surface Rights Board Act to create a dispute resolution mechanism for surface and subsurface right holders and land owners or occupants in the Yukon; grant legal immunity to individual board members and employees of the Yukon Surface Rights Board from prosecution; and remove the requirement for the Auditor General to audit the Yukon Surface Rights Board and allow independent auditors.
Any decisions made by the boards contemplated by this legislation would be final and could override first nations, Inuit and Métis decisions on development. Given that, we must be absolutely sure that consultations on the structure of these boards and the appointment process were comprehensive in each of the three territories.
Even though, of course, there was extensive consultation regarding the parts of the legislation that have to do with Nunavut, the Liberal Party wants to ensure that the process related to the Northwest Territories and Yukon also reflects the opinions expressed by the residents of those territories, especially aboriginal populations.
We are concerned that already the Liidli Kue First Nation in Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories, seems to be caught off guard when Bill C-47 was first tabled and hope that the way the legislation was tabled does not reflect the consultation process for the proposed legislative changes for the whole of the Northwest Territories. Provisions in this legislation would cover aboriginal land settled under land claims agreements: unsettled land, commissioners' land, crown land and municipal land.
The Liberals also have some concerns regarding how these changes would impact lands that have yet to be dealt with by the land claims agreement and, as always, we have concerns in the way that land claims processes are being carried out at the moment with this very top down, take it or leave it approach and the so-called negotiators not really having the power to negotiate.
Given the scope of the changes contemplated in this legislation and the technical nature of many of the provisions, this bill will require close study and review in the broader context of the government's approach to northern development.
As for the broader question of northern development, the Liberals believe that a lot more needs to be done besides simply streamlining regulations related to surface rights and dispute resolution mechanisms in order to develop the enormous economical potential of the north.
For example, the federal government still has no plan or capacity to clean up a major spill in icefield waters. Canada must develop the capacity to respond to environmental threats, such as an oil or gas spill resulting from resource extraction in the Arctic. These emergency response capacities must be part and parcel of any streamlining of the regulatory process for land use in the north.
Northern economic development would also require investments in basic needs, like education, housing and health, but also the infrastructure that is required to support a growing population and economy. The Prime Minister does not actually seem to understand northern development. It is more than military deployments and extracting natural resources.
Northern development must also deal with the social and economic welfare of the people who live there. For instance, Canada has a serious food insecurity problem in northern communities. Some estimates put it as high as 79%, or 8 out of 10 people, without sufficient food. The recent Food Banks Canada report, “HungerCount 2012”, helps bring that struggle into disturbing focus. The report notes that one of the few long-standing food banks in the territories has seen an alarming 18% increase in use over the past year and that residents in Iqaluit spend 25% of their total expenditures on food compared to the Canadian average of 11%. However, the Conservative government has stubbornly refused to admit that nutrition north Canada, the Conservative government program that was supposed to deal with the situation, has failed to bring down the cost of weekly food budgets.
The stark reality of Inuit education today is that roughly 75% of children are not completing high school and many find that their skills and knowledge do not compare to those of non-aboriginal graduates. Low educational outcomes are associated with adverse social implications, including greater unemployment, greater numbers of youth entering the criminal justice system and greater incidences of illness and poverty.
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami released its national education strategy on June 6, 2011, outlining a plan to improve student success in Canada's four Inuit regions by tackling low school attendance and graduation rates, while producing more bilingual Inuit youth. A year later, however, all we see is the government reining down legislation like this. It is only about regulation. It is only about thou shall. It is only about mechanisms as opposed to really understanding the realities and the funding that is required to make so many of these things happen, like fresh drinking water and waste water management.
More than a year later, after the ITK education paper, there has been no commitment from the federal government to support these initiatives, financially or with other concrete measures. Without equal access to education and training, northern Canadians will not benefit from the employment opportunities that resource development would create. We will yet again have jobs without people and people without jobs.
Instead developing appropriate programs to address this need, the Conservative government is cutting existing support. For example, the Conservative government has ended the successful aboriginal skills and employment partnership. Canada's resource sector companies were some of the most active participants in this program and have criticized its cancellation.
Furthermore, regarding transportation, some serious flaws remain, including for instance the fact that plans to establish a deep water port in Nanisivik have been abandoned in favour of creating a refuelling station that will operate only part time in the summer.
Iqaluit remains without a deepwater port and Nunavut Premier Aariak recently made it clear that the lack of ports and roads connecting its communities to each other and the south is constraining economic and social development. She has also pointed out that the thriving fishery industry in Nunavut is forced to offload its catch in Greenland because of the lack of port infrastructure.
In short, unlocking the tremendous potential of the north is much broader than streamlining the regulatory process for land use and development.
This government needs to take a much more comprehensive approach to the whole question of northern development.