John Duncan

[Land Claims, February 22nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, based on leaked information surrounding the Nishga land claim in northwest B.C., which includes a settlement offer of $125 million and 1,900 square kilometres of land, I understand the negotiations also include a federal offer for a treaty protected commercial fishery. This would provide a government guaranteed industry forever as opposed to a commercial industry.

Could the minister confirm that no commercial fishery will be constitutionally entrenched under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982?

[Pictou Landing Indian Band Agreement Act, February 16th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the member for Central Nova in whose riding is the Pictou Landing band. I also enjoyed the speech of the Bloc member for Saint-Jean. However, if it had not been for the opening and closing statements, I would not know which way he would be voting.

It is a pleasure to have an opportunity to say a few words at third reading of Bill C-60, the Pictou Landing Indian Band Agreement Act. The legislation has received due consideration at second reading and careful review in committee. I thank the departmental officials who have provided us with a cogent and detailed explanation.

While my party and I had some concerns, particularly over ratification of an agreement after payment of $28 million of the $35 million package has already been made, we support the intent of the legislation.

I will give a quick background. In 1966 the crown failed to provide or to obtain the band's informed consent to transfer to the province of Nova Scotia its riparian rights on the Boat Harbour tidal estuary. This transfer permitted the province to operate Boat Harbour as a facility to treat effluent from the kraft mill owned by Scott Industries Maritime Limited.

In July 1992 the government approved a mandate to negotiate an out of court settlement of the lawsuit. It was ratified by vote

on July 5, 1993. The final agreement was signed on July 20, 1993. That was under the previous administration.

The final agreement provides that the band gives Canada a release from responsibility and liability for past, present and future effects related to the Boat Harbour effluent treatment system in exchange for compensation to the Pictou Landing band. As I mentioned previously, the total compensation was $35 million of which the band received $28 million at the end of April 1994 and will receive the remainder in April 1995.

The one outstanding question in my mind is: What has taken so long to bring the bill forward? I have asked the question and I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer.

There are two critical issues addressed in the legislation. First it will ensure that all future claims by members of the First Nations in that area will be directed to an established fund that the bill provides. This means that no further claims can be made against the crown in this instance. This is critical to me and my party. We therefore are satisfied with that arrangement.

Second, Bill C-60 provides that the Pictou Landing Micmac band is responsible for managing and disseminating the settlement money provided, a total of $35 million, $20 million of which will go to pay out claims to the band and to individual members. The remainder, $15 million, shall be used to pay band members to relocate should it become necessary. Once the allotment has been used, the band has no further recourse against the crown for further financial compensation.

Having addressed the two operative principles of the bill, I want to add that it is my hope the $20 million will help deliver the band to self-sufficiency. We feel that every agreement the government signs should ultimately bring more self-sufficiency to the band.

The Reform Party supports the conclusion of outstanding claims. The Pictou claim is a consequence of the non-fulfilment by the government of an obligation arising from the improper administration of reserve lands by the department. This breach of fiduciary responsibility and duty has now been settled.

I am confident members of the Pictou band will manage this settlement responsibly and I wish them well.

[Petitions, February 16th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I rise to present a petition on behalf of 78 of my constituents from Gold River and Campbell River, British Columbia, who call upon this Parliament to reject any further firearms control legislation, regulations or orders in council and rather focus on the misuse of firearms by violent criminals.

I support the petition.

[The Environment, February 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, this has been an ongoing problem. It only ceased this week. This is happening because DIAND has abdicated its responsibility with its policy of devolving authority to band control.

In this case the Indian timber regulations are the legislation that control the forestry activity. This is giving loggers, taxpayers, the band and the department a black eye.

Will the minister ensure this legislation is enforced?

[The Environment, February 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, there are serious reports from the Stony Reserve in Alberta of logging activity which is illegal and harming the environment. The reports also state that a few are getting wealthy, tax free, as a result.

Will the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development ensure that violations of the Indian timber regulations in the Indian Act are quickly dealt with and the legislation and departmental policy strengthened to prevent a repeat occurrence?

[Committees Of The House, February 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on Bill C-18. Eleven months ago I rose to participate in the debate on this bill suspending the

operations of the Electoral Boundaries Commission. At that time I questioned the political interference, the waste of millions of dollars and the fact that as politicians we were involved in that messy process at all.

I consider this whole thing to be unfair to the public. We are wasting taxpayers' dollars again, in the order of $5 million, and once again we will be soliciting their input. I have had discussions with many members of the public and they have lost the thread on this whole redistribution exercise, as have I from time to time. It is beginning to read like a bad novel.

Some of the debate that has gone on today reminds me very strongly of why politicians should not be involved in drawing lines on a map. Some of the objections are tantamount to that.

Eleven months ago I also expressed regret and concern for overturning a process which had been in effect every decade since 1867. I could not determine precedent for this action and nothing has changed my mind in the intervening time.

It remains a shame why we have gone through this process at all, and having gone through it, we have achieved so little. What we have before us today, in my view, confirms that fact. This is an exercise which retroactively thwarts a longstanding, non-partisan method of redistribution.

The Constitution sets out the formula for representative government based on the concept of equality of voting power, that all Canadians should have an equal voice in governing themselves. This concept has been modified over time to ensure equality and continuity. Today's report does very little, in my view, to solidify this notion. We had hopes for a workable report. This attempt does not meet our standards and that is why we submitted a minority report.

First, the total number of seats in the House is not reduced. They have increased from 295 to 301, which was the original situation with the Electoral Boundaries Commission reports that were previously made. We have gone through this whole exercise and we are right back at the same place we started.

We argue that it is time to reduce the cost of the precincts and reducing the number of seats is an important first step. There seems to be a notion that the more members of Parliament we have the more will be accomplished. We should not confuse more and motion with real progress.

The hon. member for Calgary West described the capping of the number of seats very well so I will not pursue that in my speech today. However, we have had a consistent message throughout this piece. I am a member of Parliament from British Columbia where we have the somewhat unique situation of getting additional seats. We receive two of the six additional seats in this proposal. Our message has been consistent. It is consistent whether we reduce the number of seats to 265 or whether the number goes to 301. The message is that B.C. should get its fair share, as should the other provinces and territories. We started this exercise on the basis that the Liberal government wanted to freeze the number of seats at the 1993 levels. That is not where we are now.

The recommendations on the quotient factor contained in the report do not deal effectively with the 25 per cent quotient factor or the what is called the population variance factor by some.

The Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act specifies that a commission is to draw constituency boundaries in such a way that the population of each constituency is as close as possible to the quotient obtained by dividing the provincial population of eligible voters by the number of seats in each province. No constituency is permitted to have a population smaller than 75 per cent of this figure or greater than 125 per cent under this proposal.

Elections Canada reports that 51 of the 295 existing ridings exceed the current permissible population variances. By suspending the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act we have perpetuated present inequities. What we are being offered today as a consequence of Bill C-18 and suspending the work of the commission, is 25 per cent. Surely we should expect an improved situation as a consequence of this delay and study. That is not the case. In fact, the recommendation is worse and ultimately the situation will be too.

We are very concerned that the commission will continue to be allowed to draw maps that from the very outset vary up to 25 per cent from the electoral quotient. This will compound the quotient factor in light of population shifts between redistributions.

The Reform minority report advocates an allowable maximum variance of 15 per cent to ensure the primacy of equality of voting power over sociological considerations.

The report states that there may be some ridings that should be more or less than 25 per cent of the provincial quotient and that these ridings should be set out in a schedule to the act. What a contradiction. We are allowing a plus or minus variance from the 25 per cent. With a variance of 25 per cent there should be no exceptions, no need for a schedule, I might add a schedule without guidelines.

Can we really say there has been any substantive changes to the bill? When one considers the lack of reduction in the size of the House of Commons, one has to consider the conviction and the motives of the legislation. It is very difficult to justify discarding the work at great public expense of the existing Electoral Boundaries Commissions for these so-called changes.

[Petitions, December 15th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, the other petition signed by 33 of my constituents requests that Parliament not repeal or amend section 241 of the Criminal Code and therefore will uphold the current law disallowing euthanasia. I personally concur with these petitioners.

[Petitions, December 15th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I rise to present two petitions.

One is on behalf of 149 of my constituents from the riding of North Island-Powell River requesting that Parliament not amend the human rights code that would indicate societal approval of same sex relationships.

[Communications Security Establishment, December 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to contribute to debate on motion M-38 introduced by the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River.

It is also a pleasure to support this motion. It is not only timely but essential to accountability. It is essential to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to authorize the Security Intelligence Review Committee to review the operations of the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE.

This motion brings to light concerns expressed as early as 1990 in the book Spy Wars and more recently in the new book Spyworld written by Michael Frost, a former CSE employee, where it is alleged that this organization routinely snoops on law-abiding citizens. It compiles dossiers on everything and

everybody from Margaret Trudeau to Quebec separatists. It is open season on any unsuspecting Canadian citizen.

CSE is a unique entity in government. It normally comes under the jurisdiction of the Minister of National Defence as its budget is hidden in the communications budget of the military. However, in reality it is a separate entity that receives its operational tasking from the deputy clerk for security and intelligence of the Privy Council. The political tasking comes from the cabinet committee on security and intelligence.

As we witnessed as a result of recent questioning in the House, the mandate of the CSE is questionable. There is no political accountability except to a group of cabinet ministers which is the most secret cabinet committee of government. Here we have an agency with a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars listening to overseas phone calls and accountable to no one person. This is not ham radio and catching the BBC Sunday night opera. This is serious business. It requires serious attention.

We are told all this snooping is done to protect national security. Well the Diefenbunker is no longer a secret and we are about to mothball some CF-18s. There is no obvious external threat, so why so much resistance from the government to outside scrutiny?

While I am no big fan of SIRC, it is as good as anything we have for this purpose. SIRC has managed to keep an eye on our spies without exposing them to danger. We can work on the patronage elements of SIRC at a different occasion.

Why not let SIRC have a review capacity in CSE? Why should CSE be above the law? Why should its budget, mandate and methods not be scrutinized? The operative question is: Does CSE spy on Canadians? The Deputy Prime Minister says it has no mandate to do so, but the Deputy Prime Minister recently refused to answer direct questions regarding if in fact it had.

In September 1990 a report entitled: "In Flux But Not in Crisis" was tabled. This report was the work of a special parliamentary committee on the review of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act. On page 153 it reported: "This organization clearly has the capacity to invade the privacy of Canadians in a variety of ways. It was established by order in council, not by statute and to all intents and purposes is unaccountable."

The passage goes on: "While the committee understands that this agency must be shrouded in secrecy to some degree, it believes that Canadians should be in a position to understand what the organization does and should not have to wonder whether their rights and freedoms have been infringed. The committee has evidence that both the RCMP and CSIS have asked the CSE for assistance and as such the committee believes that the Communications Security Establishment should have a statutory mandate that provides for review".

My congratulations to a member of that special committee, the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River, the member responsible for the motion before us today. He at least recognizes the gravity of the previous passage I just read from the report.

The Minister of National Defence unfortunately believes there is already sufficient review. To me, he is another of those do nothing, say nothing, status quo ministers who would rather stonewall than change. Things are just fine the way they are because they do not impact on his personal and private life.

The fact is this minister really does not have control of the CSE. What he controls is financial and administrative matters. The chief of the CSE reports to the Clerk of the Privy Council for policy and operations. This is not what I consider a fully constituted part of DND like the minister says it is.

The minister need only take a look at the government's response to the "In Flux But Not in Crisis" report entitled: "On Course: National Security for the 1990s" to see what it has to say about control of CSE and what is and what is not a fully constituted part of the Department of National Defence. The Prime Minister and the Privy Council Office are the real power and the issue. The Minister of National Defence is the filler in the sandwich.

I am not as naive as to believe that Canada does not need to intercept communications for intelligence purposes. It is part of the electronic information highway. There has to be some form of review and accountability, otherwise abuses can take place.

As the book Spyworld states: ``Employees of the CSE routinely listened to the conversations of Canadians as they tuned and tested their equipment''. I also believe there is nothing wrong with sweeping offices or encrypting phones. This is normal in today's age but I want to know what the CSE is doing besides this. I want to know that it is not abusing its powers. An external review agency seems the only way we can lift this veil of uncertainty, assure accountability and free the CSE from suspicion. That does not sound like such a bad thing to me.

I understand that the CSE is good at what it does. Let us make it even better. Let us support this motion for the good of all Canadians.

[Pictou Landing Indian Agreement Act, December 12th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member seems to have a lot of knowledge about this agreement. My questions relate to the situation at the reserve and adjacent to Boat Harbour itself.

Are the conditions such that the member would anticipate a significant number of members from the reserve would actually choose to relocate? If they do choose to relocate is there a provision within the agreement that specifies a time frame by which they must exercise that option? In other words, is there a window that closes within I believe it is the $9.725 million allocated amount?