Mr. Speaker, like my colleague for Burnaby—New Westminster before me, who made such an eloquent and passionate speech, this is one of the motions that I would rather not have to get up to speak on. One would think that we would not have this legislation in front of us when there are so many serious issues to be addressed for our first nation communities across the country.
I have worked as a teacher for a great number of years on beautiful Vancouver Island. I have had the privilege of working very closely with the first nation communities both in Nanaimo and Nanoose. One of the things I have realized over the last couple of decades is that as a society we have a lot of work to do.
For the catastrophe of residential schools, we have had an official apology from this place. However, we need to start addressing some of the very serious issues in our first nation communities around clean water, housing, price of food and health care.
These are areas for which we have been criticized by the rapporteur of the United Nations. This was a criticism that my colleagues across the way did not take too well. Even though the rapporteur is from a well-established international organization that we are a member of, the Conservatives wanted this gentleman's resignation. It is absolutely flabbergasting.
Instead of addressing any of the real day-to-day issues and challenges faced by our aboriginal communities, what do we have? We have another bill that would create more accountability.
Who would not want more accountability? On this side of the House, we want more accountability. We want legislation to be debated and voted on in the House. We do not want time allocations to be called. We also do not want to be faced with bills that are the size of a phone book purporting to be budget bills but buried in them are devastating impacts on our environment, immigration policies and much more.
However, the Conservative government really does not believe in accountability for itself. It has a tendency to use some extreme cases in order to stranglehold those who may not agree with it. I wish I knew what the motive of the Conservatives is. I know they are very good at yelling “accountability” at others, but they have practised none of it themselves. They do not even listen to their own parliamentary officer and they definitely do not give him the information he required so he can give an informed assessment.
I was not here during the last sitting of Parliament, but I believe this legislation is based on a private member's bill from the previous sitting, Bill C-575. This new bill was introduced on November 25, 2011, with a press release that said:
This bill builds on [the member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar's] bill that was introduced in the last session of Parliament, addressing the issue of financial transparency for First Nation leaders by expanding the scope of the information to be publicly disclosed beyond the salaries and expenses of chiefs and councillors to include a First Nation's audited consolidated financial statements.
The issue is not really accountability. Once again it is playing to their base. Once again, based on misinformation and limited information, the Conservative government has introduced a piece of legislation. What the government is doing is absolutely outrageous. Using the example of purported salaries in one province alone with one first nations group, it is putting in a kind of surveillance that goes way beyond the requirements for many of our elected officials around this country. Let us take a look at this.
While the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and other Conservative-friendly groups like to talk about the outrageous salaries made by our first nation administrators and leaders, once we actually look at the facts, the reality is that the average salary for chiefs is $60,000 and the average salary for councillors is $31,000. As well, 50% of the chiefs around this country earn less than $60,000 and only 5% earning more than $100,000. This obviously has very little to do with addressing a real issue, so what is it all about?
One of the things that has really struck me since I came to the House is how pieces of legislation such as this get sent to committee, where we really hope there is some parliamentary oversight, discussion, debate and amendments. The NDP proposed 18 amendments and not one was adopted by the majority on the other side. While we were there, we were trying to do something that makes sense: to delink remuneration and expenses. The two things just do not go together. People have different expenses as they carry out their jobs, but to link that to their actual salaries and then conflate that figure is just outrageously unjust.
The other thing we tried to do with an amendment was to remove the power of the minister to withhold funds. We know the kinds of terrible conditions that exist for first nations right across this country. To think that any minister would be able to withhold funds, let us remember that funding is to provide for education, health care and to subsidize the cost of food in many cases. This could also freeze the administration in that area in a very damaging way and could actually put lives at risk.
This seems to be a new trend by the government. I have certainly seen it in the area of immigration. We are seeing it in more and more of the legislation that keeps coming through the House. More and more power is being vested in the hands of the ministers. I would say that is the antithesis of parliamentary democracy.
When so much power is vested in the hands of one minister, or two or three or four ministers, no matter which political party they belong to, I would say that is a real threat to parliamentary oversight and to parliamentary democracy. We get elected and sent to this hallowed hall to discuss, debate and then vote on issues. Under the current government, ministers have grown their powers to a degree that I would say has become very dangerous. That is one of the key areas in this piece of legislation that needs to be addressed.
We are opposing the bill because of the items I have mentioned, but also because the government failed in a fundamental rule. It failed to consult with our first nation communities and make them part of the solution. Without consultation it would be unfair to impose an unjust piece of legislation on our first nations people.
