Charlie Penson

[First Nations Land Management Act, March 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to take part in the debate at report stage of Bill C-49, and specifically the group one amendments that are before us today.

It is clear that this is an area that needs a lot of work. From my own experience in my riding of Peace River there are a number of reserves with significant problems which I think need to be addressed down the road by disbanding the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and letting the reserves take control of the situation themselves. One aspect that is really hurting that prospect right now is the fact that they still have to have communal property. I will speak to that in a moment.

The glaring problem in Bill C-49 is that it fails to require a band to consult with adjacent municipalities on land use issues. These issues have a potential impact and implication for other municipalities. There needs to be consultation and co-operation, otherwise it may lead to conflict which quite often hurts and delays industrial development, environmental clean-up and many other issues.

That is why my colleague from this side of the House suggested that we should have consultational amendments that will help ensure that bands have local community support in writing, to create a much smoother transition from the remote control aspect that we have seen under this government and Indian and northern affairs to what we might have, which is local control by bands that do not meet development problems that exist when we have two municipalities existing side by side.

I suggest in many respects that is what we really should have here. These reserves should really be municipalities.

I hear the NDP members talking. I guess they will probably have their turn in debate so I would hope they would use this opportunity to listen to others while they are speaking.

I believe that we need to have local government at the band level, a municipal style government, not government that gets into provincial or federal areas but which is a delegated government from the province on down. It seems to me that by having municipal type government on reserves, if we had a good municipal style election process, we would have greater responsibility on the reserves as well. We would have an election process that was under the courts and would have to be adhered to more openly.

My big concern today has to do with the communal property aspect as I was suggesting earlier. It is one important change we could make by repealing the Indian Act and moving away from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and establishing a better relationship with the local reserves.

I suggest that as long as we have communal property aspects rather than fee simple title on the reserves, we have the potential for a lot of problems. We know that the communal property aspect has not worked anywhere around the world in the socialist or communist countries. I am not sure how we intend it to work here and work effectively.

I want to tell the House about a friend of mine who passed on about two years ago. A Cree Indian from northern Alberta, from the Beaver Lodge Hythe area, Archie Calihou was a friend of mine and I talked to him at great length. Archie told me that he had some of the best advice of his entire life when his father said to him when he was a young man, “Archie, don't take treaty”. The reason, his dad said to him, “You are going down a dead end road, Archie”. Archie took his advice. Archie went on to become a war hero for us. He fought in the second world war. He worked very hard to help his people out with substance abuse counselling and he worked very hard as an advocate for people on personal issues. Archie said to me when I was elected, “You have to do something here to address this communal property aspect. Down the road in 100 years my friends out there on that reserve at Horse Lake and their descendants are going to be no better off in 100 years than they are right now. Look at my situation. My wife and I did not take treaty. We have our own home in Beaver Lodge. My friends on the Horse Lake reserve are having a great deal of difficulty. They try to get ahead, yet what happens to them with the communal property aspect? There is no reward system”.

Private property gives that reward. We take chances in life when we have private property. We have a farm ourselves. We make investments. We know that sometimes we make good investments, sometimes we make bad investments. We make good decisions, or we make bad decisions, but we live by them and we learn from them. But when people have a piece of property that does not really belong to them, when they are working a piece of land and all they can do is lease it for a farm, and they do not know about the long term tenure of that lease, and there is no possibility of it ever becoming theirs, what hope do these people have?

We have to move beyond this situation. Clearly we have to move to a system where people have fee simple title to land. Fee simple title is an aspect of life we enjoy in Canada and I would suggest it has worked very well for us.

We see what is happening in some countries, for example Russia, which still has not been able to make that transition out of the communist system to go to private property. They are wallowing. They cannot produce enough food for their own people under that kind of system. I talked to people who were here from Estonia. I asked them if they had been able to move back to the private property aspect and they said that after having communal property it is very difficult. People get used to that security of the government over all those years.

I suggest there is an analogy here with what we are talking about today. They get used to that security blanket and they are not willing to take any opportunities and chances for themselves. They said that the result is very little production. The production levels in Estonia need to be increased.

I believe that will happen over time, but only when we make the transition back to the fact that people can have private property and it will be their decision to go ahead or not based on their own industry.

I support the amendment by my colleague which suggests that we need to have a consultation process between Indian bands on their reserves and the local municipalities.

I know from firsthand knowledge in my area that it is important that we have that. It seems to me that municipalities should work together. In fact, it is a requirement in all other municipalities in Canada that if one is suggesting an industrial development that will affect the other they have to consult. I am not sure why we would want to move away from a model that is working well throughout the rest of Canada.

It is a very good amendment. I look forward to further debate on the other aspects of this bill later on.

[The Budget, February 18th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It seems to me that the member who has just spoken is so worked up that he is going to have to check his blood pressure. Otherwise he might be a victim of—

[The Budget, February 18th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the member speak about the money that was going to be pumped back into health care, which is certainly welcomed funding. I want to remind the member that this is the government that cut Canadian health and social transfers to the provinces from $18.5 billion down to $11.5 billion. With the money that is being put back in, it is going to take three years to get back to where we were prior to the cuts.

My question really has to do with the $3.5 billion that is going to be budgeted for in this current fiscal year, 1998-99, the one that ends March 31, but which is going to be proportioned out over three years. If it is going to be budgeted for this year, why is that $3.5 billion not being pumped in immediately in order to see some response as a result of the much needed money that is required? If it is budgeted for this year, maybe it should be spent this year.

[The Budget, February 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the member for Nepean—Carleton it sounded like he was painting an awfully rosy picture for Canadians in the next few years. I began to wonder whether he had his stats right. If things are so rosy why has Canada fallen so far in terms of standard of living? Why are Canadians facing such a lower standard of living now than we were facing five or ten years ago?

Our major trading partner, the United States, has been experiencing tremendous growth in standard of living. We have fallen behind the Americans by 25% in standard of living expressed in terms of GDP. We have seen 45,000 of our young professional people leaving Canada to go to the United States. If things are so rosy why is this happening?

We have the highest personal income tax rate in the G-7, about 15% higher than in the United States. The United States is experiencing tremendous growth and a tremendous increase in standard of living. Why are we so stagnant here if things are so rosy?

[The Budget, February 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, today we have seen a lot of patting themselves on the back by members of the Liberal government about this budget. This is their sixth budget.

Being the sixth budget and that we have a major trading partner in the United States where 83% of our exports go to, why have we been falling so far behind in standard of living compared with the United States growth? In other words, living standards in Canada measured as a percentage of gross domestic product per person are now a full 24% lower than they are in the United States. That is a 6% decrease since 1990.

If we are doing so well here, with unemployment rates still twice as high as in the United States, with 2% unemployment rates in California, why are we not experiencing the same type of increase in our standard of living that the Americans are?

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, February 10th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate today at report stage of Bill C-55, although I admit I am a little dismayed that we should be debating such a bill to begin with.

In my capacity as the critic for international trade for our party, I understand all too well the importance of trade to Canada. Forty per cent of our GDP is derived from exports.

Canada recognized a long time ago, and I suggest that even the Liberal government of the past recognized a long time ago, as early as 1947, the need for some rules to surround the trade issue. Canada has a relatively small population base and we need trade to survive. It is as simple as that.

A third of all the jobs provided in this country are related to exports. That is a simple fact of life. There is not anybody here who is not affected by that fact of life. Of that, 83% of those exports go to United States. We have this great big trade relationship, $1.4 billion a day crossing the Canada-U.S. border in a healthy, goodwill relationship. I submit we need to make sure that stays.

In that trade relationship, yes, we have some problems with the Americans in terms of agriculture from time to time. Problems with softwood lumber and other issues present themselves. This is a pretty small problem overall in terms of our total trade relationship but to those industries the problem is big.

Add to that the steel industry. It is subject to a lot of anti-dumping charges by the U.S. and I do not think they are really substantiated. They have to go through quite a process to comply. The compliance factor is very expensive. They are always on notice that there will be problems with the U.S. on the steel industry.

We have come a long way with trade liberalization. It has been recognized worldwide for the last 50 years, largely as a result of the second world war. A number of institutions were built to make sure we did not get back into those situations again, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and of course the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the United Nations.

One of the reasons the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was put in was so that we would not have Balkanization where there was no access to markets from other countries.

I have already made the case why we need that access. In addition, under the free trade agreement with United States and the subsequent NAFTA, trade between our two countries has grown by over 50% in 10 years.

That speaks volumes about the need for and the benefit of trade liberalization and yet we have a government that as far back as 1988 fought the free trade agreement. The minister responsible for Canadian heritage was one of the leading proponents of fighting the free trade agreement with the United States. She even fought it right up until NAFTA was signed.

Although the Liberal government all of a sudden was elected in 1993 it said at the time it would not sign NAFTA unless a number of important problems were addressed. It did not do that. It did sign NAFTA.

I wonder if some of the Liberals who fought this so hard are really committed to trade and trade liberalization. It seems to me we are seeing today that some of them are not.

Do we need protectionism in our cultural industries? A number of our speakers have already suggested we do not. I would subscribe to that theory. Our cultural industries need promotion just like any other industry. It needs to be promoted at our embassies overseas and through trade missions. I have no problem with that aspect at all.

We have a number of areas in culture that stand up very well but what we do not want is to have other countries take this same type of venue, protectionism, especially the United States. What would happen if the United States told Canada our artists no longer had access to Hollywood or Nashville?

Look at the number of Canadian artists who have developed their abilities by having access to that huge American market. We absolutely have to make sure that stays. This kind of legislation is the type we have come to expect from the minister, stick your finger in the eye of the United States and give it a good gouge.

What do we have from this minister so far? We have the MMT legislation, Ethyl Corporation. We were to ban the sale of MMT. It came from the minister. Of course we had to back down. The American Ethyl Corporation was paid $16 million as a result of the heritage minister's misguided policies.

We had the split run legislation on taxation, on duties, that went to the World Trade Organization that we lost. We had the endangered species legislation that had to be pulled as an embarrassing piece of legislation because the minister was not going to take into account the very users in the areas involved, forest companies, farmers and ranchers. We have of course the toxic waste situation where S.D. Myers in the United States is probably going to sue Canada under the investment chapter of NAFTA because the minister decided that toxic waste should not be exported to the United States, it should go to northern Alberta so we could burn it up there.

This is what we have come to expect but it is not what we should expect from a minister of the crown who should be introducing responsible legislation. This issue will come back to haunt us. I know the minister has introduced an amendment today, essentially backing down, saying this will not be put into effect for some time.

I noticed the tone of her remarks in question period during the last while has really come down a lot. She is trying to put this issue at a lower level, and rightly so. It should be scrapped altogether. The legislation should be scrapped because it is not in Canada's best interest.

I happened to catch a CBC program the other night where a number of the minister's own constituents in Hamilton were interviewed. The big issue for them is jobs and not whether split runs continue to enjoy Canadian advertisers. It is the fact that their jobs may be threatened. The Hamilton steel industry has enough problems with the Americans. We do not have to invent phoney ego trip problems by the minister.

What about the chemical industry, the plastics industry out of Toronto and other parts of the country which has had tremendous growth into United States, taking advantage of niche opportunities in that big American market? Are we going to kill those opportunities now because we risk retaliation from the United States?

It is clear that if there are any jobs to be lost on this issue it should only be one, that of the Minister of Canadian Heritage for irresponsible legislation.

Does Canada have the right to introduce the legislation? Of course we do. But is it the responsible thing to do? That is the question. Is it responsible to risk our big trade relationship with the United States? NAFTA, brought in 1993 and endorsed by the Liberals, says Canadians have the right to protect our culture. It also says as part of that agreement that if the Americans are not happy with that they have the right to retaliate to an equivalent effect.

Some people have estimated that equivalent effect to be $350 million of Canadian businesses that may be subject to tariffs and duties. Can our steel industry support having duties applied to it? We know what has happened to our softwood lumber industries in the past when that happened. It has had a very dampening effect on jobs.

It seems this is sending entirely the wrong message to Canadians, that one minister on an ego trip is willing to sacrifice the jobs of Canadian farmers, the jobs of Canadian steelworkers, Peerless Suits in Montreal which has actually had a tremendous niche opportunity and developed a business in the United States. It has developed this because the United States took a misguided view of things and put a tariff on wool coming into the United States.

We do not have the same tariff. We have seen the light. It has given Canadian companies in Montreal a tremendous opportunity in manufacture in wool suits. They captured a tremendous amount of the American market. We were not there 10 or 20 years ago but we have several billion dollars worth of sales of wool suits in the United States. That shows what can happen when we a view in terms of liberalization, in terms of duties and tariffs. This bill should be sunk. It should have the deep six. It should go to the bottom of Lake Ontario, the same place the minister referred to with some of the ships from the war of 1812. She put it in the same category as the American-Canadian battle of 1812 when American ships were sunk. That is where this should go, to the bottom of Lake Ontario.

[Supply, February 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am very familiar with the whole aspect of water in terms of groundwater sources available to Canadian residents as a primary water supply. It is a very important issue.

In Peace River a lot of our neighbours farm. We have an oil industry that also uses freshwater from aquifers to recover more oil from the fields.

It is a very important issue that has just been raised. We have to make sure that we protect the water supply for residential use as a primary responsibility because there are other sources of water available to industry.

Saltwater aquifers can also be used to flood those oil formations. They do not have to use freshwater. It is a concern that I have.

A number of people in the area that I live have water wells which are either drying up or levels which are going down. That has probably been happening because the industry has been pumping for something like 100 years. I do not think the industry in that case should have the right to our aquifers of freshwater that have taken in some cases hundreds of years to develop into the quality of water that we have now.

We have to be very careful in allowing industry to use potable water. It is a precious resource that takes time to develop. It seems to me that industry should be allowed to use water in these endeavours, but it should have to use water that is not potable and does not compete with residential usage in Canada.

[Supply, February 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that under the Canadian Constitution water is a natural resource that is under provincial jurisdiction.

If there are concerns in the area that my hon. friend is talking about, those concerns need to be discussed at the provincial level to see if some kind of an agreement or arrangement can be worked out.

[Supply, February 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to take part in the debate on the NDP supply day motion. The broad thrust of the motion is essentially to protect Canadian sovereignty over our water. While I take issue with the way the NDP may want to achieve that, no Canadian would probably disagree with the objective that Canadians need to have control over our water. We need to decide what we will do with it and Canadians have to come first in that equation.

It has been a longstanding Reform policy that we support the idea that Canadians have sovereignty over their water supply. We indicated that we would have liked to have had the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and the subsequent NAFTA amended to reflect that position. Unfortunately that was not done, and we have to ask why.

In 1988 when the Conservative government negotiated the free trade agreement with the United States water was not dealt with. Essentially the result of that left some concern as to whether water was on the table. There was a great deal of debate as to whether water was subject to the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States.

Leading up to the negotiations for the NAFTA there was a lot of debate and an opportunity to correct any misinterpretation that might have existed under the free trade agreement itself.

The current Prime Minister was on record on several occasions stating that water would not be on the table in any agreement that he signed. The Liberal red book said that the NAFTA was an opportunity to correct any flaws that existed within the free trade agreement with the United States. Some of the comments made by the Prime Minister at the time suggested that this was a flaw, that water was not properly protected.

I will quote a couple of his comments to verify what I am talking about. On November 19, 1993 the Prime Minister said:

Water and the North American Free Trade Agreement do not mix. Water remains under the control of the Canadian government. I can guarantee that.

I doubt that is the case and I will explain why in just a moment.

A few days prior to that he said:

I will not allow any large water exports to take place as long as I am Prime Minister. Nor will I sign any international bilateral trade agreements that obligate Canada to export water.

Let us examine for a moment what in fact he got. When the NAFTA was negotiated the Liberal government said it would not sign it unless there was a labour and environmental agreement within the main body of the NAFTA. Presumably from his comments the Prime Minister was going to make the case that he would not sign the NAFTA unless he also received a specific exemption for our water.

He got exemptions for raw logs and unprocessed fish, but somehow a provision concerning bulk freshwater exports was not included. What he got was a side agreement that was not adequate. It does not in any way address the concern because it is an appendix. It is not a part of the agreement itself.

The side agreement states:

The NAFTA creates no rights to the natural water resources of any Party to the Agreement. Unless water, in any form, has entered into commerce and becomes a good or product, it is not covered by the provisions of any trade agreement, including the NAFTA. And nothing in the NAFTA would oblige any NAFTA Party to either exploit its water for commercial use, or to begin exporting water in any form.

The essential portion of the side agreement states “Unless water, in any form, has entered into commerce and become a good or product...”.

What does that mean? When could the United States or Mexico ask for Canadian water? As we are aware, water comes under provincial jurisdiction. Presumably any province could say that it wanted to export water, but I do not think that would happen. But that is not enough to cover it.

Water only has to come into commerce. It can be done domestically between companies in Canada. Then we could not say that American or Mexican companies do not have have access to a particular body of water.

The Prime Minister blew it. He said he was going to protect Canadian sovereignty over freshwater, but he did not achieve that. He got a side agreement which essentially says that when bulk water comes into commerce, even domestically in Canada, then under the provisions of the NAFTA and the free trade agreement before it all parties have access to that particular body of water.

Let us examine how that could take place. There have been several proposals put forward by the provinces to have that come into effect. If one province decided that it was going to drain a lake and sell the water to a Canadian company, that is all it would take to trigger the mechanism. Then, under the non-discrimination aspects of the NAFTA, that province could not deny access to an American or Mexican company.

That may not be a bad thing, but let us not try to fool the public. We do not have sovereignty or control over our water as a result of the agreement signed by Canada, Mexico and the United States. It simply does not exist. The only way that we can stop the export of water is to work co-operatively with the provinces to build the awareness that if water from a particular source comes into commerce other companies will have access to it.

It is important to support the NDP motion because we want to ensure that Canada maintains control of its water. We need to set the agenda and that is one way we could do it. The provinces do not have to give a licence to any particular company to build a domestic industry on water exports. The provinces have the right to say yes or no, just the way they do when they give access to forest products. In forest management areas in Alberta or British Columbia the provincial governments have the right to say “You have access to a certain amount of trees in this forest management area”. However, the provinces do not have the right to deny access to an American or Mexican company if a Canadian company has access.

We have to be careful of that provision. Let us not try to fool people. That is the only way that control over our water can actually take place.

I am not sure what the Minister of the Environment envisions in the legislation which she will be introducing in a couple of weeks, but it appears that provincial-federal co-operation is necessary if we are to maintain control.

It is important that Canadians maintain control over their water. What we decide to do with it has to be our agenda. I am not suggesting that at some point down the road Canadians may decide there needs to be some sale of water, but I do not think that is the case now.

This is a very emotional issue. Bottled water is sold on a commercial basis. Then there is the other extreme, that of the interbasin transfer of water which scares the heck out of people. I farm in Alberta. I know what can happen when people change water routes. It is a very emotional issue.

It is very important that we give serious thought to the NDP motion which is before us today. We will be supporting the main motion and we encourage others to do so to try to bring some sense and reason to the whole idea that we need to have federal-provincial co-operation in order to have control over our Canadian waters.

[Supply, February 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member about comments in the 1993 red book where the Liberal Party said that it would take the opportunity before signing the NAFTA to correct any flaws that existed in the original free trade agreement.

There are a number of Liberals who are currently sitting in this House who are on record as saying that one of those flaws was that Canada did not get protection over its water and that it would be part of the agreement.

Why did the Liberal government not take the opportunity to correct those flaws before it signed the agreement?