Jane Stewart

[Carriage By Air Act, March 18th, 1999]

moved that Bill S-23, an act to amend the Carriage by Air Act to give effect to a protocol to amend the convention for the unification of certain rules relating to international carriage by air and to give effect to the convention, supplementary to the Warsaw convention, for the unification of certain rules relating to international carriage by air performed by a person other than the contracting carrier, be read the first time.

(Motion agreed to and bill read the first time)

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, there is an outstanding obligation to the landless Caldwell First Nation that stems from from the 1790 treaty where they along with others surrendered a huge amount of land in return for reserve land. That is the promise. This government is going to do all it can to ensure that we make good on that almost 200-year old commitment.

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the legislation is not being rammed through. In fact, we have had 50 speakers address this bill in the House. That does not include the interventions that were made at committee. I would clarify that the hon. member for Skeena supported it at second reading in committee.

The issue of matrimonial property is important. The bill gives us the first opportunity to deal with the provision of recognition of matrimonial property in first nations. I encourage hon. members opposite to understand that and join all other parties in the House to unanimously support Bill C-49.

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as far as I am concerned we have a very good bill. I would note that the hon. member opposite voted fully in support of the bill after second reading.

[First Nations Land Management Act, March 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond. Let us look first at the issue of matrimonial property. Let me convey again how significant it is that the recognition that the 14 chiefs, which include women I would point out, have agreed that it is highly important for them in their land codes to include provisions for matrimonial property or the disposition of property that effectively recognizes the impact on women, particularly at the point of marital breakdown.

To my mind, as we look across the provincial jurisdictions which have authorities in the area of matrimonial property, we have seen different approaches province by province. It is my expectation that the strength of these provisions will be developed in the context of the community in which they are found.

The challenge we have in providing services to citizens and responding to their needs is best met in the context of recognizing legitimacy in this particular case of the first nations government to work with its community in order to find the provisions that work for them. Those provisions and those land codes have to be developed in consultation with the community. They have to be ratified by the community. They have to be verified by an external verifier who looks at all the aspects and the intentions to ensure that they are legitimate and will provide what the community wants and what is required.

This gives us the first tangible opportunity to say to women who live in first nations communities that they will be part of this undertaking. They will for the first time have the opportunity to have this very important and essential aspect of their lives, the issue of property, managed effectively in the context of legislation and their land codes.

The second question raised by the hon. member was on the issue of expropriation. I would first say that that real estate agent should look carefully at the bill. I am afraid he is giving his client an opinion that is not based on fact. In a very unfortunate way it serves to escalate, heighten and encourage difficult relationships between and among people in that particular part of Canada.

There never has been and never will be the intention that lands can be expropriated willy-nilly. In this context lands can only be expropriated in the way in which lands can be expropriated through any other legitimate government, for the purposes of specific benefits to the community. That is absolutely clear and so this what I view to be a red herring on the issue of expropriation is an inappropriate one.

[First Nations Land Management Act, March 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate and thank my colleagues for their consent.

As I said, it is important from my point of view to put into context the importance of Bill C-49 and the contribution that it will make to ensuring a commitment which this government has to work with first nations to build self-reliance and to provide first nations the opportunity to have the social and economic control that they need to have to better their lives within the community and the lives of their community members.

Second, if I have the time I would like to explore some of the issues that have been raised in the last few days with respect to Bill C-49. I anticipate that I will be able to do that. If not, I know my parliamentary secretary will speak to some of those issues.

First and foremost, let us consider the context in which Bill C-49 finds itself. In this regard I would like to remind the House about the fact that the primary relationship that I as minister of Indian affairs and the Government of Canada has with first nations is through the Indian Act.

Over the course of the last couple of years, as I have appreciated my role as minister of Indian affairs, I have found the Indian Act to be paternalistic, or maternalistic in the sense that I am the minister currently. The way this legislation overlays first nations is quite extraordinary. I have the responsibility to tell first nations how to develop their lands, what they can do with their reserve lands, these lands which have been set aside for them. I have to approve whether there can be economic development, who can build where, what conservation opportunities can be implemented.

In the Indian Act I am the one who decides and approves the will of individual first nations. I am the one, in providing funds to first nations, who says “Yes, you can have so much money for this particular undertaking. You can have so much money for that. You can have so much money for this”. The minister of Indian affairs has considerable and complete control over the activities that occur on first nations.

To me it is inappropriate. It is antiquated. It is not allowing the communities to use the resources that are truly theirs for the benefit of the people in those communities.

We have to ask: Why do we not change the Indian Act? I remind the House that my predecessor attempted to do that. He attempted to amend the Indian Act in a very substantive way. But first nations resisted. They resisted it as a unilateral action made on the part of the crown to interfere with the existing relationship, despite the fact that they knew the Indian Act was so controlling.

If we explore why that was the reaction, we come to understand that first nations see the Indian Act really as their structural relationship, which goes back to the fundamental issue of aboriginal rights. All in this House appreciate, I know, that in section 35 of our Constitution, the highest law of our land, aboriginal rights are identified and protected. These are rights that are not better than yours or mine as non-aboriginal people, but they are different and fundamentally go back to our belief that the first people of this nation have rights that are theirs by virtue of the fact that they predated us in this great country.

For first nations they see that connection to those rights which, quite frankly, we have resisted, over and over again over the course of our relationship, in clarifying or at least somehow protecting through the Indian Act, this paternalistic piece of legislation.

More and more on this side of the House we are explaining and encouraging our support for aboriginal rights. We are seeing those aboriginal rights reconciled in a modern Canada through such things as the negotiation of the treaty in the Nisga'a lands in northwestern British Columbia and in other undertakings. There is an easing and an increasing interest and demand from first nations to deal with the Indian Act and to find ways and means of allowing first nations the authority they need to have as legitimate entities to make decisions in their communities on behalf of the people of their communities.

Bill C-49 is one tool which allows us to take some small steps in this regard. Bill C-49 is a product of over 10 years of work. It has developed into a partnership among 14 first nations and the Government of Canada to explore, in one particular area of the Indian Act, the aspect of land management, how we could restore jurisdiction to first nations. Working together, those 14 first nations and the Government of Canada have prepared legislation that will allow me to relinquish the authorities that I have under the Indian Act to control the lands of those 14 first nations and to give it to them in a legitimate, organized and controlled fashion. It is called Bill C-49 and it is tremendously important.

In the context of Bill C-49, 14 first nations in the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick will have the authority to make decisions on how their land is developed, how their land is conserved, how their land is protected, how their land is used and how their land is administered at the community level. For those people who say that government should get out of the face of the people, what is wrong with having decisions made locally, within a community, in the context and the milieu in which the community finds itself? I do not think there is anything wrong with that.

Bill C-49 is a step in that direction, a step which allows us, at least for those 14 first nations, to start to break apart this paternalistic relationship, not in a holus-bolus, free wheeling way, but in a controlled way as outlined in the bill, which will take us a certain degree and allow us the opportunity to test this. We have to review the bill after four years to see how progress is being made before we can extend it to other first nations which also want to be considered. It is a legitimate step that will help us make progress. To me this is fundamental in the commitment that I have to work with first nations and to find ways and means of allowing them the opportunity they need to really do what is most important, and that is to change the social reality of their demographics.

It is the Indian Act that has created and sustained that cyclical welfare relationship, that one way relationship that has kept aboriginal people from engaging fully in the wealth, resources and strength that we know to be ours in Canada. I encourage and ask hon. members to consider this bill in the context of that and to see that these are important first steps which will truly make a difference.

I want to speak to some of the specific issues that have been raised over the course of the last few days. Let us look at the issue of matrimonial property. Yes, we are talking about lands. Yes, women have to have an opportunity to have access to those lands after a marital breakdown. I remind the House that Bill C-75 which was presented previously in this parliament was the first nations land management act. That bill did not pass. When I became Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development women came to talk to me about the importance of including matrimonial property. I believed they were right. I would remind the House that there is nothing in the Indian Act which accommodates matrimonial property.

In Bill C-49 we have included the requirement that the land codes must include the opportunity and the reality in the provisions for matrimonial property to implemented. This will happen in consultation within the communities. The code has to be developed in consultation. It has to be ratified and verified before it can be proclaimed. There is a system.

This gives the first opportunity for women at least in those 14 first nations to have access to legislation that will allow for matrimonial property to be considered. Women would like that to be more broadly spread, for us to deal with it in the context of the Indian Act. In addition, what we have said we will do is appoint a fact finder to talk with interested parties, make recommendations to myself, to first nations and to the women of first nations about how we might be able to include in the broader context of the Indian Act ways and means of providing for property in the unfortunate circumstance of marital breakdown.

As a result of this bill, in those 14 first nations women will have provisions for property at the point of a marital breakdown. They also have my commitment to work with them to explore ways to broadly deal with that issue in the context of other first nations and the Indian Act.

Another issue that has been drawn to our attention is this tool that all governments have when managing lands, called expropriation. It is very unfortunate that in the mainstream press people are talking about the sweeping expropriation authorities. They are not sweeping at all. They are not any different than the authorities which exist now in my power as the minister of Indian affairs for action in first nations. In fact there is more control than the expropriation powers that exist for municipalities, provincial governments, hospitals and schools.

Expropriation is a tool that all legitimate governments need to have at their disposal. It cannot be used without great care. In this bill it cannot be used without a significant process being undertaken. This includes the identification of the need for expropriation only for community based interests such as schools, roads and hospitals, and that compensation be paid if indeed expropriation must occur in the context of the federal Expropriation Act which is referenced in the bill. The code of implementation has to be verified externally.

There is nothing here that is sweeping and broad. There is nothing here that is not offered to any other legitimate government. I cannot see how we can exclude this tool from use by first nations. It is just common sense to provide it but to provide it in a very controlled and regulated context, which is what happens in this bill.

The third area is the issue of consultation. We have heard particularly from British Columbia that the municipalities want to ensure that their neighbouring first nations will consult with them as they decide how to manage their lands. The first nations will do that. In fact consultation has already begun with the Union of British Columbia Municipalities to develop a reciprocal agreement, a protocol, on how first nations and municipalities will consult, share information and proceed in the area of land development.

There are those who say that the provisions in the bill must be more specific, that the legislation must require that consultation will occur. I am not sure one can legislate quality consultation. If we legislate it we might get a letter, but if we build the partnership between a first nation and its surrounding municipalities, we build a community, a neighbourhood. We build a partnership where both communities can benefit. That is the focus here.

That is why I have been so impressed by my colleague, the member from Coquitlam who has said, “I am going to go out there and bring the municipalities and the first nations together to make sure that they are communicating, connecting and building that partnership”. As one community thrives, so does another. That is how we build a strong British Columbia and a strong Canada.

It has been my experience that across Canada too many times we find instances where municipalities and first nations who are neighbours and use the same resources, the same water and the same community services, do not know each other. The mayor and council do not know the chief and council. When there are issues, they do not know who to turn to, or who to talk to.

There is a tremendously important role for members of parliament to play in bringing those communities together and ensuring that their constituents, whether they be first nations or not, know each other and work together. That is a challenge we have right across the country.

In my own community that was the circumstance with the largest first nation in Canada, Six Nations. The chief and council did not know the mayor and council. The process engaged in was one that was dysfunctional. If the city decided to do something and the first nations did not like it, there were protests and roadblocks. That is not how this country should work.

Once we brought the communities together and a protocol was written, because of mutual interests, mutual respect and recognition and a commitment to strengthen that part of southwestern Ontario which is broadly populated by both aboriginal and non-aboriginal people alike, we have got a tremendously exciting circumstance happening. Communications are going back and forth. The mayor and council are inviting the chief and council to events in the city and vice-versa. Economic development which is happening in one community or the other is being shared by both.

I believe that is the right approach. It is fair. It is open. It is democratic. It builds on the traditional and real values of Canada which are that we are a diverse country. We celebrate our diversity and we appreciate the strength it gives us as a nation.

The first people of this country have every right to be part of this nation, to have the authorities that the rest of us have to build our communities at the local level without the imposed wisdom or lack of it that I might provide as the current Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

To me, all this is part and parcel of Bill C-49. The issues that have been raised can be responded to. The responses exist within the bill and with the commitment of the chiefs of those 14 first nations, all of them and specifically those who have worked so long and hard on this as members of the First Nations Land Management Board. I congratulate them for their courage, for their energy and for the commitment to their communities.

In my mind it is in the best interests of all members of the House to support them. They show the leadership that we know we need to have in the 21st century if we are going to ensure that as we stand up as proud Canadians and say we live in the best country in the world, that we know it is true for all Canadians, and especially for our first nations.

[First Nations Land Management Act, March 5th, 1999]

moved that Bill C-49, an act providing for the ratification and the bringing into effect of the framework agreement on first nation land management, be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, may I request at the outset that you allow me to share my time with the parliamentary secretary for Indian affairs.

I am pleased to rise in debate at third and final reading of Bill C-49, the first nations land management act.

I have been following this debate very carefully. As a result, there are a couple of things that I would like to talk about today.

First, I would like to ensure that the House appreciates the context in which Bill C-49 finds itself. I want the House to appreciate how significant—

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the rhetoric in this question is full of holes, but I would ask the hon. member why, when he visited Chatham-Kent, did he not ask or sit down with the chief himself?

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the route taken was to consult with the community, to talk with them about their legitimate concerns with regard to the negotiated settlement with the Caldwell.

The chief is working with his community. We are talking with other members of the Chatham-Kent area and I believe we will, with the best interests of everyone at stake, find a negotiated resolution to this very important issue.

[Division No. 322, March 1st, 1999]

moved that the bill be concurred in.