Madam Speaker, it is good to be back in Ottawa to represent the good people of Skeena—Bulkley Valley.
As mentioned earlier, I was a first nations leader. I was a councillor for eight years and a chief councillor for six years, and then I moved on to be an MLA. I am very proud to say that I am representing Skeena—Bulkley Valley in the House today. During those eight years, I was the treaty chairman, which means that I was in charge of day-to-day negotiations for my band. We were at stage four, by the way. We were nowhere close to signing a treaty. In fact, we pulled ourselves out of treaty negotiations because economic development agreements were actually outpacing treaty negotiations at the time.
However, all the issues we talked about in terms of treaty implementation are still there today. During the discussion we had at the summit in Vancouver, we talked about Canada's failure to show up to the table to implement modern day treaties.
When I became an MLA, I was surprised to hear that all the reports over the last 15 to 20 years, all the letters, all the lobbying, had made their way to Ottawa but nothing was done. I was surprised to hear that an independent body such as the Auditor General actually reported to the House annually on the failure of the government to implement modern day treaties. As my work as an MP has unfolded, it has come out that those reports had no teeth to them. They had no backbone. There was no reason for the government to follow the Auditor General's report to follow up on implementing what should be a priority in B.C., if not in Canada.
We are looking at the chaos in B.C. right now. We have heard the debate in the B.C. legislature. We have heard the debate in the House of Commons in Ottawa, talking about the need for certainty. We need the economy to be back on track. After 10 years of stifling the economy, the priority now is to get the economy moving, but for that we need first nations participation, as cited in the Haida court case of 2004 that laid out the framework on how to reconcile aboriginal rights and title with Crown statutory decision-making.
It was working. From 2004 to 2017, it was working on a few points. Number one is that we had to resolve rights and title interests. On specific projects, that was working out okay. It was not in all cases, of course, but in most cases, especially if we are talking about the LNG development in Kitimat and especially if we are talking about the pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver, the Trans Mountain pipeline, and countless mining agreements.
The majority of these agreements were done with first nations that had asserted aboriginal rights and title, not defined title such as we are talking about here today. By defined title, I mean there is a first nation that sat down and said, “We want to put down for the record our rights and title, and we want to coexist in the economy of Canada today and the society of today. We're going to reconcile our interests under the laws of Canada and B.C., under the regulations of Canada and B.C.” That is essentially what a treaty is.
When we talk about Bill C-10, through which the government wants to create a commissioner for modern day treaty implementation, again it is just another announcement. It would be millions of dollars or more going towards a title, an office, not only to compile the list of complaints over the last 20 years but also to possibly amend those complaints with the complaints of today, which are basically the same complaints as the last 20 years. The last time I got up to speak to this, I told the House that everything is already there for the government to co-operate and partner with treaty first nations.
Read the treaty. It talks about the Crown's obligations, department by department, on how to implement the treaty. More than ever before, the reason for that is what we talk about here every day, whether we are talking about tariffs, the economy or the cost of living. It is there. The government just needs to read the treaty and enforce it.
The accountability is not only for the government, but every ministry under the government has an obligation to look at that treaty and find out exactly what their duties are to breathe life into it. The first nations are there. They want co-operation. They want to help build Canada. The complaint is that Canada just does not want to implement it.
If the government does not want to read the treaty and understand its own obligations under the treaty, then it should look to its own website. There is a comprehensive set of guidelines and principles on the government website that talk about how to implement modern day treaties. It is already there. The government wrote it and amended it over the years.
Just one publication is the “Guide for Federal Implementers of Comprehensive Land Claims and Self-Government Agreements”. It is on the Canadian government website. It has an executive summary and eight different clauses talking about treaty implementation. It gives the background of how we came to these treaties in the first place, coming from comprehensive land claims agreements and self-government agreements to modern day treaties in B.C. It talks about how to implement the treaties, the phases of implementation, how to plan for implementation, the committees that are set up for implementation, the implementing bodies and the obligations of all the parties.
It also includes funding obligations, which we all know continue from Ottawa after a first nation signs a treaty. It is there. It talks about the roles and responsibilities of federal implementers. It talks about the principles of federal collaboration. The government does not need a new treaty commissioner to tell it its own principles of collaborating with first nations treaties. This is already written in its own document.
If the Auditor General already told government annually, in their reports, how the government is failing at implementation, what good would a multi-million-dollar new office and budget do? There are also federal structures and processes, coordination, decision-making, information sharing, monitoring and reporting. There are annexes supporting these principles under treaty.
It is a shame if government is just buying more time so more reports and more summaries can be presented to the House and shelved. The plan is there. The treaty is there. The government has its own guides to follow. It has the recommendations of the Auditor General. I assume the government's lead bureaucrats are telling it about the failures and how to fix them.
More than ever, we need action, not another office, not another title and not more money being spent. The treaty first nations are there. They want to assist in building Canada. They want to do everything they can to make this economy stronger. The only one missing is the federal government. If the government does truly believe that we can build Canada strong, then it should get back to some of the fundamental partners that can help it, the first nations that have signed modern day treaties.
