Louise Hardy

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, March 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I guess what I would say is that I included all of us. If there is any impression of wrongdoing by one, it is wrong for all of us.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, March 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your direction.

The NDP supports the amendment to delete clause 241 because it calls into question not just the finance minister; it calls into question every single MP in the House.

We were elected to come here to serve the common good, not for our own agenda or our own benefit.

The finance department has put forward amendments which it says will accomplish two things. They will improve the 1991 residence rule by applying the same test to all foreign shipping companies whether they hold their ships directly or in separate foreign subsidiaries. Second, they will confirm the longstanding policy that the exemption applies to capital gains as well as to other income.

Concern has been raised because the finance minister tabled the bill and he has a direct relationship with a shipping company, the Canada Steamship Lines. At no time did the minister's department let the ethics commissioner know about the tax amendment and its relationship to the minister.

Earlier the Reform member for Fraser Valley said that the motivation to do this was because there is a connection to business. Even though it is in a blind trust it is important that business people make decisions based totally on good business. I disagree and say that decisions to avoid and evade Canadian taxes are based on greed.

We are not talking about a small business person with a little income who is trying to keep as much as possible to continue the business; we are talking about a multinational corporation which is evading taxes in Canada.

It really worries me when I hear members of Parliament implying that it is all right to evade Canadian taxes. As citizens we agree to pool our resources and then redistribute them for medicare, for education and for social programs.

When people evade taxes, those who can pay, and who pay a substantial amount—and we are talking about millions of dollars in taxes every year that will not be coming from Canadians—it makes it harder and harder for the rest of Canadians to make up for what we are not receiving.

It is really shameful that this kind of aspersion should be cast on our finance minister. I bring it back to the point that, as members of Parliament in this House, if an aspersion is cast on one MP it falls upon all our shoulders.

On that basis alone it is important to delete this clause so that the House of Commons can maintain a good reputation. People will know that we are here for their good, not our own or not for some interest separate from those of our citizens.

Although decisions taken by the Minister of Finance have an effect on all Canadians, it is still imperative that at no time should any public office holder appear to be in a position where there is any suggestion that they would benefit from their public office. Canadians should not be put in the position of thinking that we are all here as crooks or dishonest—

[Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, March 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this motion is to have this House investigate ways of granting some form of recognition to a noble group of Canadians, the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion. They are a unit of 1,300 volunteer soldiers who banded together to go abroad and fight the suppression of democracy, the fascist powers of Europe.

These were Canadians who had the wisdom and the foresight to see the real dangers of fascism well before governments around the world. In return for this wisdom and foresight and willingness to stand up to fascism, these volunteers were subsequently made criminals by our own government through the Foreign Enlistment Act.

We are at a time when our government is making apology after apology. The Japanese were apologized to, as should have been done. At that time the laws were not good. People were just obeying the laws by putting Japanese Canadian citizens in internment camps and taking their property.

The minister of aboriginal affairs has just apologized to First Nations people. I went to school with a man who at the age of four along with his brother were scooped up off the hillside by a truck that came to town and were taken to a residential school, not to return home for eight years. They were just obeying the law. No question, they did not do anything wrong but it was wrong. It was wrong then and it is wrong now and the government had the foresight to recognize this and apologize for it.

We have here people who fought for our country who were right then and they are right now. We recognize that what they did was right and it was a just cause. It made a difference in the history of this decade, the freedoms of peoples and we will not recognize their efforts. As a country we will not even look at a way to recognize it.

The Spanish civil war was in many ways a dress rehearsal for the second world war and there was therefore an early test of the resolve of the free world to make a stand against the forces that were there to crush democracy. That is putting it very mildly. As we all know, it was the death of millions of minority groups around the world.

The Mac-Paps fighting alongside other international brigades distinguished themselves in a number of major battles against Franco's phalange, the Italian Black Shirt divisions and the German Condor Legion of the Luftwaffe. Among those Canadians was Dr. Norman Bethune. The casualty rate was staggering but even worse was the fact that those who survived were not allowed to enlist and fight for their country so were doubly denied any chance to be seen as veterans.

There are only 40 of these people alive. I do not think it would be setting a dangerous precedent to recognize what they have done. The government has already shown that it has the courage to recognize where we went wrong in the past. We went wrong here and we should have the courage to apologize and recognize as a country what these people did for our country. It is not about money, it is about recognition of Canadian citizens and their efforts to make sure this country remains free.

[National Defence Act, March 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is very impressive that the minister is willing to overhaul the whole institution, in particular when it comes to justice.

As he said, we expect every soldier to be willing to give his or her life so why on earth should we hold them to another code of conduct and a whole other code of justice than what we would hold ourselves accountable to? I think this is important. What is wrong with our own courts? Why on earth can we not have our justice system deal with our military so that they can count on our justice system if they are going to give their lives for us?

[Employment, March 19th, 1998]

They need help. The government has money. Help them.

[Employment, March 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. Cominco, one of Canada's largest companies, has shut down the Anvil Range mine in Faro, Yukon leaving hundreds unemployed and stranded. The minister's EI rules are keeping families trapped in the remote north with no hope of work or moving to get to work.

In light of the minister's huge surplus and considering the remoteness of the location involved, will the minister help these families with the costs of moving to a new job?

[Multilateral Agreement On Investment, March 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, in November 1997 Yukon legislation called on the federal government to cease negotiations on the MAI.

Normally international trade agreements bind national governments alone but the MAI is different. It gives the ability to sue local governments.

Will the Prime Minister commit to the cross-country hearings that Saskatchewan, Yukon, P.E.I. and B.C. have asked for and table an analysis of local hiring and the impact on first nations, or will he end the negotiations?

[Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, March 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for this opportunity.

One MP represents the whole of the Yukon territory and two in the Northwest Territories. When things change Nunavut will have one and the Northwest Territories will have one.

The impression I want to make is that the land mass is huge. Possibly people in the south forget or just do not know the difficulty of travel. If they have the opportunity, they should come to the north to see how huge and diverse it is. There are not many voices to speak for life in the north.

Another aspect is that the languages of first nations are very much alive in the north. If members have an opportunity to go to Old Crow to a Gwich'in gathering or into the far north to an Innu gathering, I suggest they take the opportunity. Then they will understand very clearly that the economy of those people still comes from their land.

We want to be heard and understood. We want to be a valued part of the country. Very often we are treated as a colony, as an afterthought, and are barely mentioned unless in passing or if someone remembers the north.

Parliamentarians should have the chance to go to the north, to explore it, to listen to the people and to see the huge size of it. I ask them to imagine if they had to represent a physical area that large.

[Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, March 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill.

The NDP was very pleased to support the bill at second reading. Everything seemed in order. Consultation had taken place and the First Nations of the Sahtu and Gwich'in were eager to move on with the application of this bill.

However a different story arose when it came to committee. Again, the department assured us that there was adequate consultation and that everything was as it should be. As witnesses appeared however, it became very clear that that indeed was not the case.

Before I go into specific details, I will say the NDP no longer supports this bill as three out of the five First Nations involved in the region of the Mackenzie Valley do not support it. It comes down to a very basic question of democracy.

The three First Nations people who are not in support of this bill believe that their land claims process will be jeopardized if this bill is imposed on them before they finish their land claims.

The Deh Cho people, the Slave people and the Metis of the region came before the committee time after time to ask whether we could wait until their land claims were finished or would we exclude them completely and have this bill apply to the Gwich'in and the Sahtu as part of their land claims. No one objected to that. In fact nobody really objected to the terms of what is in the bill. They thought that it was very good for the Gwich'in and the Sahtu but that it was not good for them. The justification for imposing it on them I do not think is reasonable.

Looking at this in light of the response of the minister for Indian affairs to the royal commission on aboriginal affairs and her statement of reconciliation imposing a bill on First Nations people, it is not consistent with her statement of reconciliation nor her response to the commission. She was very clear. I remember sitting in the Yukon and listening to her and feeling that this was on the right track, that the government's position would be to negotiate with First Nations people and not to litigate.

During the hearings I asked one of the witnesses from the Deh Cho people if they were included in this bill what it would mean to them as a people. The witness said that they would have no choice but to go to court. They would have no choice but to litigate. They would have no choice but to spend very precious resources, both financial and manpower, to direct their attention to fighting for the rights of their people an action which is totally unnecessary on the part of this government. It would be a waste of valuable human resources on the part of the Deh Cho people who are trying only to have some say over their land, their people and their future.

In the spirit of the royal commission, we saw the passage of Bill C-6 as not just honouring a federal government commitment and obligations or a payment of a moral debt to aboriginal people, but we saw it as proof of the new relationship the minister had stated she wanted. Those expectations have not been met and these new facts have caused us to re-evaluate our position on Bill C-6.

Bill C-6 sets a regime to meet the aboriginal needs of the Sahtu and the Dene-Metis under the land claims agreement. That is because the federal government is fulfilling a commitment to those groups. However, the procedures established under the bill will have an impact on the First Nations in the Mackenzie Valley living outside the designated Sahtu and Gwich'in regions.

The Sahtu and Dene-Metis land claims agreement is being imposed on the Deh Cho, South Slave and North Slave groups. These groups should be excluded from this bill, or the federal government should redefine an overall umbrella agreement through negotiations with all of the First Nations of the Mackenzie Valley to clarify the co-management of the Mackenzie Valley and future self-government agreements.

Another point that is important to bring into this is that with the two original First Nations groups that would have been included in this bill, it would have given them an equal say over their land. However, the more First Nations groups that are included with the two First Nations groups one can see that it will dilute the say that each group has over their land, their future and decisions made that will have a direct impact on their way of life.

The Northwest Territories Chamber of Mines advanced a series of amendments to the bill to facilitate doing business in the Mackenzie Valley. The chamber recognized that some First Nations were not really thrilled with Bill C-6 because it was coming before negotiations on their land claims, some started or finished. The chamber was concerned that if these First Nations decided not to appoint members to the boards before they had settled their claims, it could bring development in the area to a halt.

The business community was and is aware that other First Nations in the Mackenzie Valley are either adamantly opposed or are requesting major amendments to Bill C-6. The unwillingness of the government to accommodate these concerns will create in the end a high degree of uncertainty about the final regulatory scheme that will apply to that area.

According to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the legislation treats the whole Mackenzie Valley as one ecological unit. In this sense the department failed to consider the political aspects behind First Nations living inside this ecological unit.

There are serious shortcomings in setting up the political relationship between the First Nations in the Mackenzie Valley and the federal government. The outcome is a relationship on the basis of the old traditional attitude of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development toward First Nations and not one based on the stated objective of the minister which is a new relationship, a new beginning. The inability of the federal government to resolve this contradiction has violated the spirit of the royal commission and indeed the minister's statement.

The Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories supported the implementation of Bill C-6 but not in the areas that have not settled their claims. These people feel that Bill C-6 should not be imposed on them. They clearly indicated that the officials of the federal government were making a serious mistake by implementing the Gwich'in and Sahtu final agreement throughout the whole of the Mackenzie Valley.

The South Slave Metis indicated that while they participated in information sessions with federal officials on Bill C-6, they were never involved in consultations or in the drafting of Bill C-6. They requested that Bill C-6 should not be allowed to take place in their region. This group, like other First Nations, asked the committee to wait to implement the bill.

Again, three out of the five First Nations in the region requested exclusion from the bill.

The option of a dual system linking both areas for the settled and the unsettled was considered feasible by several witnesses but no consideration of the idea was given by federal officials.

It is the position of the NDP that Bill C-6 should only be applied to the Gwich'in and Sahtu area as the bill is a direct result of agreements reached with the federal government by the above groups.

During the committee stage it became increasingly clear that there was a lack of communication, allocation of resources and consultation with respect to other First Nations being affected by this bill. Historically, Canada has a poor record when it comes to aboriginal people. The new relationship heralded by the minister has not yet seen the light in that area.

Another aspect that was brought up over and over again was that sending the package through the mail to elders of a First Nation whose first language is not English or French is not consultation. It does not meet any standard of informing those people of what is going on and how their rights and their lives will be affected. Witnesses who came before us stressed how important it was that their elders be properly informed and that the opinion of these esteemed elders be sought.

It is really regrettable that the people whom this will affect were totally left out of the consultation process. Today this government is imposing legislation on First Nations lands with land claims that are not settled. Decisions will be made on their land before they have finished their claim. The input of these first nations will be diluted once the boards are set up. Decisions could be made that affect their land and their claim process. They will have minimal, if any, say.

What was proposed by the NDP was to exclude those groups from the bill and when the time came, when their land claims were finished and they deemed it proper, they could be included if it suited them. Unfortunately that was not adopted and we have before us a bill which goes against any kind of democratic principle.

Sitting on the committee as a northerner, I was quite shocked to realize the lack of knowledge of the north. I felt as a northerner excluded from the plans of the country because, as one of my Liberal colleagues stated, there are not very many of us.

There is no recognition of the inherent right to self-government by the first nations in the area. People who appeared before us explained historical agreements of goodwill and hope. They told us of the fights they had to take before the courts over and over again. I was hopeful they would not have to take that route, that they would not have to go before the courts to fight for the basic right not to be included in an agreement that will impose upon them, their land and their people conditions with which they may or may not agree or have no knowledge of.

Those are the reasons we do not support the bill.

[Canada-Yukon Oil And Gas Accord Implementation Act, March 11th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, when Yukon becomes a province all of this would be renegotiated. It is for the people of Yukon to decide when they want to take on provincehood.

It cannot be forced on anybody. Perhaps at this point we are not ready or prepared to do that, but we are to build toward that position.