Mr. Speaker, according the departmental documents, Bill C-25 would enable the Governor-in-Council to implement the agreements reached between Canada and the Federation of Newfoundland Indians to create a landless band for the Qalipu Mi'kmaq people.
The Liberal Party believes this legislation is actually focused on unnecessarily restricting the legal rights of individuals to pursue damages flowing from the band's troubled enrolment process.
When Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949, the Mi'kmaq communities were not recognized as first nations under the Indian Act.
This left many indigenous people in Newfoundland with uncertain legal status and robbed them of the same benefits and recognition first nations in the rest of Canada were and are entitled to.
Talks to rectify this uncertainty have occurred on and off ever since, and in 1989 the Federation of Newfoundland Indians commenced a legal action to obtain recognition for Mi'kmaq individuals. The most recent phase of discussions to rectify this injustice began in 2002, culminating in an agreement in principle signed in 2007.
The 2007 agreement proposed specific terms for the recognition of membership in, and operation of, the future Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation.
Canada ratified the agreement in principle in 2008. Unfortunately, the Conservative government badly mismanaged the negotiations and implementation of membership criteria. Initial estimates of likely band membership were approximately 10,000 to 12,000 individuals. The enrolment committee has now received 103,000 applications. This unexpected volume of applications led to a huge amount of confusion, and has left the government scrambling to manage open-ended criteria to which it originally agreed.
In the summer of 2013, the federal government and the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation band raised a supplemental agreement which adjusted the guidelines used to implement the membership criteria. These new guidelines were designed to make it more difficult to meet the enrolment criteria, and all applications are being reviewed under the new guidelines.
This has led to numerous rejections and left many who had applied under the original criteria very disgruntled with the process. In fact, this review could result in individuals who have already been granted membership in the band losing their status.
The Liberal Party recognizes that both the agreement and supplemental agreement flow from a nation-to-nation process that must be respected. However, it is unclear whether the bill is actually required to implement these agreements and, as I noted before, half of the bill is actually focused on limiting the government's potential liability for mismanaging this process.
It should be stressed that the federal government has been intimately involved in both designing and implementing the enrolment process.
Clause 4 of the bill provides that no one may receive “any compensation, damages or indemnity” from any entity, including the crown, because of being removed from the schedule to the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation band order.
The government, in a process that has been mired in confusion and controversy, is now asking parliamentarians to prejudge whether applicants may be entitled to compensation for any mismanagement or the impacts of the retroactive changes to how the membership criteria are being interpreted.
As we learned from testimony at committee, this legal indemnification was not requested by the band and is not something it is looking for. It is clear that the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development badly underestimated the number of applications that would be put forward during the membership process, relying extensively on measures of self-identification of indigenous heritage.
This is particularly puzzling, given that we know that generations of prejudice and marginalization induced many in Newfoundland to hide their indigenous heritage. As a result, whole family histories have been buried.
Whether damages are appropriate in specific cases is matter that is more appropriate for a court to decide. A judge will have the benefit of the facts on each particular case or class of cases.
It is unacceptable for the minister to use legislation to insulate his department from possible damages using a bill that he claims is simply to implement the agreements reached with the Federation of Newfoundland Indians and more recently the Qalipu First Nation.
Pre-emptively removing access to legal damages that an individual would be otherwise entitled to, flowing from an enrolment process that has been the subject of such confusion and controversy, is simply wrong.
That is the reason the Liberal Party of Canada will be voting against Bill C-25.