Mr. Speaker, maybe I can help the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism in terms of understanding what is in fact the difference.
If there is a prime minister of a country who says that the government wants to change a law within the immigration department, we believe that ultimately the prime minister, through his cabinet, and the minister of immigration who gets to sit around that cabinet table, will be consulted, maybe not necessarily under the current Prime Minister, and a sense of consensus would be built within the cabinet. Then the law would ultimately be proposed and brought to the House of Commons.
We need to recognize the uniqueness of what we are trying to do through this bill. There is an obligation for the Government of Canada to consult with first nations leaders. The government has not recognized that.
In responding to my question, the member said that she somewhat anticipated that I would ask this question. I was a bit surprised in terms of the answer that she provided, given that she knew I would ask it. We all need to be concerned about it.
Let me repeat a specific question that I asked a little earlier today, and then I will give the answer that followed.
The question I had asked was for the member for Kootenay—Columbia, a member from the government benches. I said, “My question to the member is this. Can he provide to the House in any fashion the names of anyone within that first nations leadership whom the government actually consulted with prior to the drafting of the legislation?” I reinforced it with “Can he list some of those first nations leaders with whom the government had consulted with to come up with the legislation or the ideas behind this legislation?”
The member for Kootenay—Columbia responded with this, “Mr. Speaker, certainly we consulted. Between January 1, 2011 and September 25, 2012, the department received approximately 250 formal complaints from people within the first nations communities of Canada saying they could not access the information that they wanted about their chiefs and their councillors. Bill C-27 will make this happen”.
That is not consultation. That is not what the government has a responsibility to do when it comes to making changes and passing laws in Canada. That is virtually any type of law. One would like to think is more than just consumer-based complaints and the government then jumps up and changes a law.
There is a wide variety of stakeholders on any given issue throughout this nation that would like to contribute to the development of public policy and there is an obligation for ministers to go out and do their homework. We know we have been let down by a number of ministers who have not gone out to do their homework when they have introduced legislation in the chamber. There have even been ministers who have gone against what the public wanted. I could give a number of examples of that, whether it is the Canadian Wheat Board or some of the refugee legislation that was introduced.
When we are passing legislation dealing with our first nations, there is that much more of an obligation for the government to sit down with the first nations leadership in order to try to improve upon the situation.
For the last number of days, we have been talking about finances, transparency and accountability. All Canadians want to see more transparency and accountability. This is not a they versus us. It should not be the Government of Canada saying that it demands that first nations leaders become accountable and transparent.
The vast majority of our first nations leaders say that they too want to see accountability and transparency. They believe in it, much like the average Canadian believes in it. However, we need to recognize that there has to be a process to achieve that.
What we have had is a very eager member of the Conservative caucus who brought forward a private member's bills in previous sessions saying after reflection and meeting with constituents, the bill was drafted. Apparently there was consultation after the bill was done. She did not say whether they supported the bill or her particular initiative. However, then we had the government of the day adopt that bill and make it a government bill. The bill is going to pass. We know that.
It is the type of thing which I suspect, if the government had done its homework, there could have been and should have been a lot more incorporated in it and maybe some aspects of it even deleted or modified if there was goodwill from the Government of Canada to sit down with some of those individuals on the front lines trying to deliver these services.
The Auditor General of Canada has made it very clear, not just once but on several occasions, that we need to see meaningful action in order to reduce unnecessary first nations reporting requirements, that we need to look at streamlining the overwhelming reporting burden currently there. The government, as opposed to reflecting on what the Auditor General of Canada has said, is advancing its ideas without doing due diligence or consulting with our first nations leadership. As a result, we find ourselves in the situation we have today, where the government ultimately has to force passage of the bill through time allocation.
What would have happened if the government had done its work, taken the responsibility and treated first nations with the respect that they are due? If that had taken place, we might have been able to achieve some of the things the Auditor General talked about that would not have taken away from accountability and transparency. We could have even had a bill that had more accountability and transparency. After all, it was the first nations that ultimately suggested that we should look at having a first nations auditor general.
Look at the benefit that not only the nation of Canada has had as a direct result of an auditor general, but the benefits that individual provinces have had by having auditors general in place. It provides a great deal of accountability and more transparency. This idea was talked about during the Kelowna accord.
However, we find ourselves in a situation where we have the Auditor General of Canada saying that there is already a heavy burden. We also have leadership within our aboriginal community, in particular our first nations community, that also want to see action on this issue. However, the government is doing it in a piecemeal fashion. If the government were genuine in wanting to really resolve the issue of accountability and transparency, there would have been a better way.
I had the opportunity to address this issue previously. One of the things I talked a great deal about at that time was the Kelowna accord. I believe the Kelowna accord is an example of the way a government should work with our first nations in order to achieve success. That is the reality of it. If we canvassed individuals, we would find wide support for the Kelowna accord,
Stakeholders, including the different levels of government, first nations leaders, members of other aboriginal communities and other interested parties sat down over a period of months and brought up issues that concerned them, including the issue of financial accountability and transparency. This is something very real. It was there.
I raised the issue the other day inside the House. Members were commenting on the Kelowna accord, so I said that perhaps we should table the Kelowna accord so members could actually read it.