Madam Speaker, it must be spring. The sun coming through those stained glass windows is taking my breath away.
As spokesperson on aboriginal affairs for the Reform Party of Canada I take great pleasure in opening debate on second reading of Bill C-16, which would have the effect of approving, giving effect to and declaring valid the Sahtu Dene and Metis comprehensive land claim agreement signed September 6, 1993.
This agreement is comprehensive and complex in scope and far-reaching in consequences. Along with numerous appendices it comprises several hundred pages with many clauses and subclauses of considerable complexity.
My party has some very serious reservations about the direction in which land claim settlements in the north have gone in general and specific concerns relating to this agreement in particular. I intend to point out some of them and I am sure that my colleagues will add further to what I have to say. Many of our members wish to speak on this bill.
I want to emphasize at the outset that my criticism is directed to government policy toward the native people. In many respects it is not achieving the desirable result of improving unacceptable social and economic situations in which many of our native people find themselves or providing opportunities which could encourage and assist many of them to take their full place in Canadian society.
At this time I would like to explain a little bit about my background. I have worked in many locations on the B.C. coast in the forest industry. Twenty-two yeas ago I was supervising tree planting and forestry crews in the Chemainus area on Vancouver Island with natives as crew and charge-hand. This connection with native forestry crews continued in Ucluelet and in the Queen Charlotte Islands. The workforce in the logging operation on the Queen Charlotte Islands was very integrated. Individual racial status was often not known nor of consequence, which is as it should be in my view.
When one lives, works and volunteers in these small communities there is sensitivity that respects cultural differences. I have shared joy and grief and I am aware of many of the subtleties of native culture.
I so much remember my Haida friend, on hearing that I was leaving the Charlottes, saying to me: "John, many people have come to the Charlottes, worked, and then left without contributing a thing. I can tell you that you are an exception because you have made this a better place". Madam Speaker, these words meant so much to me. It is so easy to become polarized in society, particularly when this suits someone's political agenda. We all have a responsibility to be constructive wherever possible.
Returning to debate on Bill C-16, every time I set out to analyse this agreement I return to the same question. Will the Sahtu Dene and Metis people be better off after the agreement is in place than before or will they not? The agreement requires surrender of all further land claim interest, creates fee simple ownership without creating reserves, and maintains a tax regime for individual Dene and Metis of the Sahtu the same as that of any ordinary person. They pay tax on income earned. These are enlightened provisions with which I concur.
My primary reasons for speaking in opposition to the bill are threefold. First, there is no legal rationale for this massive fee simple transfer of land. Second, a new bureaucracy is created. Third, the agreement in all its complexity is to be constitutionally entrenched.
We are dealing with very substantial benefits in land and dollars and other rights to a relatively small population over a massive land area. To be specific, the Sahtu settlement area covered by the agreement we are discussing today covers 280,000 square kilometres or 108,200 square miles. It is an area 50 times the size of Prince Edward Island, five times the size of Nova Scotia, or 30 per cent of the size of British Columbia.
A portion within this massive land area will be conveyed outright to the Sahtu Dene and Metis. Specifically they will receive title in fee simple to 41,000 square kilometres or 16,000 square miles. This is an area seven times the size of Prince Edward Island or three-quarters the size of Nova Scotia.
In addition to these land entitlements the Sahtu Tribal Council will receive each year for the next 15 years a sum of money totalling approximately $130 million. The Sahtu Tribal Council will also receive from government a portion of the royalties received from oil and gas exploration within the settlement area equivalent to 7.5 per cent of the first $2 million in royalties each year and 1.5 per cent of all royalties over and above the $2 million.
Non-share or communal settlement corporations are to be established to receive these capital funds and to dispense them for the activities and details and benefits described in detail in schedules I and II of chapter 8 of the agreement. These activities and benefits include education and training, supplementary funding for a wide range of existing government programs, loans or grants to low income people for certain purposes, housing, other public services, heritage preservation, economic development loans or guarantees, recreational facilities, elders assistance, one-time individual grants to all of $3,500 plus consumer price index adjustment to the date of payment, administrative costs, and qualified trusts investments.
In addition to all of this, the federal government is committed to taking measures to support the traditional economy and to assist business development. Moreover nothing in this agreement affects the participant's right to receive benefits from any existing or future constitutional rights for aboriginal people generally.
This is an enormous package of benefits and one cannot help but be struck with the fact there are so few people who stand to receive them. The Sahtu ratification committee has provided us with the most recent count of participants in the settlement area. It numbers 982 adults, that is 829 Dene and 153 Metis, and 773 children for a total of 1,755 people.
I would ask the minister as to the rationale the government has applied in arriving at this huge package of benefits for such a relatively small number. How has the sum of $130 million been arrived at? Is there any indication it is appropriate to the needs of the participants? Will this enormously generous package of benefits result in the regular programs available to native peoples being phased out? There is no indication in the agreement that this is to be so. In fact, the very opposite is said to be the case.
A very disturbing aspect of this agreement is the fact that a massive area of land will be forever removed from the public lands of Canada and conveyed outright. An area equivalent to three-quarters the size of Nova Scotia will be conveyed to a collectivity totalling 1,755 people. In our view, conveyances of this kind are unnecessary, should not be made and are not in keeping with what the courts of Canada have found to constitute aboriginal rights.
The area north of the 60th parallel throughout Canada has always been considered to be a part of the public lands of Canada in which all Canadians share an interest. This is the fourth land claim settlement undertaken by recent federal governments in the territories. It is apparent there is very little left of the Northwest Territories which has not either been conveyed outright to various bands or over which they have a substantial measure of control.
It is apparent it is the intention of successive governments of Canada to blanket all of Canada's north with land claim settlements of this kind. One could understand granting to a sparse northern population traditional rights of hunting, fishing and trapping, subject to third party interests. But it is quite another matter to convey the outright ownership of vast territories of land. It is not necessary and my party opposes it.
It is noted that subsurface rights are also transferred under a portion of the property to be conveyed outright to the Sahtu Dene and Metis under this agreement. I wonder if the minister can tell us if the Government of Canada has any idea of the potential in mineral and oil and gas exploration that exists in respect of these subsurface rights. If not, this represents a potential transfer of unknown proportions.
We do not believe that land claim settlements of this kind should be open-ended or represent a blank cheque. After all, these are the public lands of Canada and the Government of Canada has a duty to all Canadians to administer them in the best interests of all. Massive transfers run contrary to this principle.
The agreement sets out a plethora of new administrative tribunals and other bureaucratic instruments that are going to be established. The same can be said to have been the case in regard to the three previous land claim settlements in the territories. In fact in the case of the Nunavut agreement, a whole new government is proposed to be established: a legislature and a court system including the Supreme Court of Nunavut and the court of appeal.
In the case of the agreement before us today, it is noted that five renewable resource councils are to be established for each of the Sahtu communities of Colville Lake, Déline, Fort Norman, Fort Good Hope and Norman Wells to manage the exercise of harvesting rights.
A renewable resource board is to be established as the main instrument of wildlife management in the settlement area. Six members are to be nominated by the government and three by the Sahtu Dene and Metis.
An arbitration panel is to be established to attempt to settle disputes relating to this agreement without going to court. A land use planning board is to be established to prepare a land use plan providing for the conservation, development and utilization of land, resources and water in the settlement area. Again the Sahtu Dene and Metis can nominate 50 per cent membership on such a board.
A land and water board is to be established to regulate all land and water use within the settlement area. The environment impact review board and the surface rights board established to implement the earlier Gwich'in agreement are to have jurisdiction over the area with special panels established with the Sahtu tribal council having the right to nominate half of the members.
One has to question the necessity of setting up still another plethora of boards, commissions and instrumentalities within the Northwest Territories. The fact of the matter is that most of these functions are now being administered by existing instrumentalities of either the Government of the Northwest Territories or the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.
There is no obvious consideration in the agreement given to winding down existing boards. Layer of government upon layer of government in the sparsely populated Northwest Territories is not the way to go. We are in danger of turning a sparse population into a bevy of bureaucrats, yet one of the main stated purposes of the agreement is to permit pursuit of a traditional livelihood and way of life.
Later this year the government is expected to introduce the Mackenzie Valley resource management act which it is said will fulfil the resource requirements of the various regional land
claim settlements in the western Arctic. In addition it will bring a new system of resource management to the Mackenzie Valley. Indications are that this act will create still additional boards to co-ordinate the activities of the others. Where will it end, bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy?
The agreement provides for a most elaborate process of negotiations in the future to conclude agreements on Sahtu Dene and Metis self-government. This framework agreement is set out in appendix B of the agreement. It is important to note this framework agreement contemplates negotiations on the transfer of legislative-making powers to the Sahtu Dene and Metis over a long list of 18 subject matters.
One has to question the necessity of this given the fact the agreement we are debating today deals with virtually every aspect of these people's lives. The real question is: Is self-government necessary or appropriate for so few people scattered over such a wide area? Whether or not a self-government agreement is negotiated remains for the outcome of future negotiations.
I would stress the fact that self-government arrangements or agreements must provide that the laws passed by legislative bodies and governments of the aboriginal peoples and the administrative practices of such governments must comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. To be certain this will be the case, it may well be necessary to amend section 32 of the Constitution to specifically provide that the legislation passed and administrative action taken by aboriginal governments will be subject to the charter.
Perhaps the minister could advise the House whether the Minister of Justice has examined this issue and expressed an opinion as to whether or not the actions of aboriginal governments are now covered by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or whether an amendment to the Constitution is required.
If approved, Bill C-16 constitutionalizes the agreement within the meaning of section 35 of the amendments to the Canadian Constitution which came into force in 1982. While the full scope of this constitutional protection is not clear, it almost certainly means the agreement can only be amended by resorting to the appropriate part of the amending formula set out in the Constitution. If it be otherwise, constitutional protection means nothing.
When one looks at the amending formula in the Constitution there are no less than six different formulae, only one of which is designed to be used in a particular circumstance. The fact of the matter is that none of them fit the case of an agreement entered into by the Government of Canada and a tribal council of native peoples. When the amending formula was designed there was no thought given to devising constitutionally entrenched land claim agreements between an Indian band and the Government of Canada.
If this had been an agreement between the Government of Canada and a single province then section 43 would apply and the agreement could only be amended by consent of both the provincial legislature and the Government of Canada. However, the Sahtu Tribal Council is not a province and it is unclear how this agreement can be amended.
Section 41, which is the general amending formula, might be the only amending formula available in this case. The irony is that this general amending formula requires not only a resolution of Parliament, but also of at least seven provincial legislatures. Of course this is totally inappropriate.
There are two aspects of constitutional entrenchment that cause me concern. First, this is a complicated agreement. I think it unwise to constitutionalize such detail given the uncertainty as to how it can be properly amended.
I am well aware clause 3.1.26 of the agreement provides that once the agreement is in force it may be amended by consent of the cabinet and the Sahtu Tribal Council. If this is so, it is difficult to see that the agreement has protection under section 35 of the Constitution.
My second concern is to question the wisdom of entrenching all of the detailed provisions of the agreement until it has been in force for a period of time to consider whether or not it is workable.
It would be preferable to constitutionalize the land rights and perhaps the other benefits to be paid. All of the administrative and regulatory provisions should not be constitutionally entrenched to ensure flexibility as circumstances dictate.
Who are we to say we know what is best for future generations in those areas? If there is to be certainty, finality and stability to these land claim agreements, there must be the extinguishment of any claim to other undefined and uncertain aboriginal rights over land that might be put forward in the future.
I am therefore pleased to see under clause 3(1)(11) that in consideration of the rights and benefits provided under this agreement, the Sahtu Dene and Metis release and surrender to the Government of Canada all their claims, rights, title and interests if any to other lands and waters anywhere in Canada.
I am pleased to see such a provision in this agreement. It is rumoured that the minister does not favour extinguishment clauses in agreements of this kind and that he has instructed departmental staff to expunge from their vocabulary the word extinguishment.
I do not know whether this is in fact the case but if it is, I say with the greatest of respect to the minister that it is the wrong course for him to take. I say that because the content of these agreements represents substantial concessions from government to the native people and the most reasonable quid pro quo should be for the final resolution of outstanding aboriginal claims.
To enter into these agreements with the prospect of having to do it again a few years down the road is a prospect that should not be entertained by government. Although there is an extinguishment clause, the agreement provides that it in no way affects the right of the Sahtu Dene and Metis to participate in any benefit from any existing or future constitutional rights extended to aboriginal people or their right to continue to benefit from all government native programs.
What is missing in this agreement is any indication that if it proves to be successful over a period of time, financial assistance and government native programs of a general nature can be phased out. All of this is at the expense of the Canadian taxpayer and surely the objective is to provide self-sufficiency and ultimately the removal of the need for government assistance beyond that available to ordinary Canadians.
I would like to have seen more of an indication that this is the direction in which the government wishes to go. One should also ask what we do if this agreement turns out to be unsuccessful over a period of years.
My final point concerns the tendency of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to take a decidedly advocate role on behalf of the native peoples. I can understand that this is its mandate up to a point but with issues such as conveying large areas of public lands, the actions of the department should be in the best interests of all Canadians.
Too often these agreements are worked out behind closed doors with the ordinary Canadian in blissful ignorance of what is going on. I am delighted that the Sahtu agreement is being debated at some length is this House, unlike earlier north of 60 agreements. In future it would be advantageous to determine a mechanism for debate at a much earlier stage than merely at ratification. I commend this approach to the minister for his consideration.
I regretfully conclude that the major beneficiaries of this agreement are negotiators, advisers and lawyers. I have concerns that the average Sahtu Dene or Metis may be no further ahead in the long run as a result of this agreement. I wish them well.
