Mr. Speaker, hello to your father-in-law as well from northern Alberta: Peace River—Westlock, or as I like to call it, the promised land. We have 7,500 dairy animals and we are the honey capital of Canada, so we are literally flowing with milk and honey.
Peace River—Westlock was settled on a promise called Treaty No. 8. This involved 14 first nations, three Métis settlements and over 100 communities. I overlap with about 500 other elected representatives of band councils, town councils, school trustees and others from a big swath of northern Alberta. Every day, I have the honour and privilege of representing them here in Ottawa.
Bill C-15, the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, has been a widely debated piece of legislation over the last number of years. It is my honour to bring my voice to that today, representing the people of northern Alberta.
One of the things that I hope I bring as a member of Parliament is that I typically mean what I say and say what I mean. I wish that were the case with the Liberals on this particular piece of legislation. I find it interesting that even though I will be voting against this particular piece of legislation and the NDP will be voting for it, we actually agree on the substance of it: that it could make a significant change to the way the governance of this country happens. The NDP continually say that it would be a significant change and we say that it would be a significant change. It is always interesting that the Liberals continue to say they are going to bring this in, but there will be fairly minimal impact on the way we do business or the way that governance happens in this country. It is fascinating.
Section 4(a) in this bill declares that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples will have application in Canadian law. That is probably the crux of the bill for me, the tripping-over point that I have. No other declaration from the UN necessarily has application in Canadian law. We have not legislated that for any declaration other than UNDRIP.
Mr. Speaker, you may be familiar with the work I do to combat human trafficking in this country. Human trafficking is a scourge of this country. It is a growing crime that is happening, often within 10 blocks of where we live. One of the tools that I use in combatting human trafficking is a Palermo protocol. The Palermo protocols are part of a UN document and declaration that outlines how to identify a victim of human trafficking. The challenge with that is it is not a legislative tool. It is not a piece of law, it is a declaration. It gives principles under which countries should operate. I advocate all the time for us to bring Canada into alignment with that Palermo protocol. We have made several attempts to do that over the last 30 years: essentially, recognizing human trafficking and bringing human trafficking offences into the Criminal Code, and dealing with how to identify somebody who is being trafficked. All of those things come in, and we get a framework and idea of how to combat it from that Palermo protocol.
Another UN instrument that I use regularly is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. That is, again, something that helps to identify whether the rights of a child are being upheld or being violated by holding a given situation up against the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. When there is a default or issue and we are not able to hold a particular case up against the rights of the child or Palermo protocol to ask why a human trafficking victim is not able to get justice, we can look at the Palermo protocol and see that it indicates, in this instance, that in Canada one of the areas of the Criminal Code is that there is a requirement for the element of fear.
If a person is living in fear, that is one of the elements for them to be identified as a victim of human trafficking, yet the Palermo protocol does not have that requirement at all. The Palermo protocol tries to set it up so that, given the criteria laid out, an outside observer can see whether somebody is being trafficked or not. The individual being trafficked does not have to verify that they are being trafficked.
It is similar with UNDRIP. In a given situation, we would stack it up against UNDRIP and ask: Are we meeting the ideals of UNDRIP, or are we not meeting the ideals of UNDRIP? Does Canadian law have a shortfall? Are we not living up to the areas of UNDRIP?
“Free, prior and informed consent” is one of those very definite areas where we have to ensure that we live up to that. The challenge that we have with it is that if “free, prior and informed consent” means the same thing as “duty to consult”, then on all of the court cases that have gone into developing that whole concept of “duty to consult”, would introducing a new term of “free, prior and informed consent” come alongside? If it comes alongside, if “duty to consult” falls right inside “free, prior and informed consent”, which I think it does, would our jurisprudence continue, would our jurisprudence stand, and in introducing the new topic into it, would that just come along and align?
I think that would be great. However, if it comes in and we are now going to have to start re-litigating all of the court cases of the past because we have introduced a new concept into the jurisprudence, I do not think that is going to be helpful, not at all. Now we are going to be confusing the issues.
I have been part of putting together several private members' bills. It is a rewarding exercise. It is something that is a luxury that only members of Parliament have. I am very much appreciative of the efforts that go into developing a private member's bill.
One of the issues that always comes up, every time I have worked on a private member's bill, is the introduction of new terms. Every time I bring an idea to the legislative drafters, I ask, “Why did you use that term, and not the term that I used?” or “Why do you want to talk about this, when I wanted to talk about it like that?” They always say that this term has been clearly defined by the courts. Therefore, if we use that term, we already know what it means, it has a whole list of jurisprudence.
For example, that term of “commercial use” is understood by the courts. There is a lot of jurisprudence behind that. Therefore, we want to use that term when we are talking about supply chain reporting, for example, or the use of images, or whatever it happens to be. We understand that term. The courts have ruled on that term.
When a new term is introduced into the mix, it opens up to a whole new discussion and a whole new debate, and the opportunity for the courts to have to make a judgment on what those rules have to say. That is where the concern is.
I have been sitting at committee listening to testimony on this, as committee work is always a rewarding experience, listening to Canadians bring their perspectives to Ottawa. In one case, we heard from a member of the public who outlined UNDRIP as the indigenous bill of rights. I do not think we are introducing the indigenous bill of rights when we are adopting UNDRIP. Maybe we are, but I do not think that we are doing that. So to then say that we are doing that, I do not think it is helpful to indigenous people, if they think that this is going to be a bill of rights. I am not sure. Maybe the Liberals could clarify that for me, but I do not think that is the case.
I am not 100% sure what the terms, with application in Canadian law, actually mean. Does it mean, as most of the witnesses who show up to committee say, that it would be used in much the same way as the Palermo protocol would be or the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
If that is the case and we can slip free, prior and informed consent in right alongside the court-defined term of duty to consult, that would be great, but I have not seen that from the Liberals. I am hoping that we can hear from the Liberals that they mean what they say and they say what they mean.