Larry Bagnell

[First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, May 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, before I comment on the member's speech, he took a gratuitous shot at our party in the early part of his speech. He suggested that we had all the truth.

I would suggest that it is the Bloc that thinks it has all the truth. It always votes the same way. Bloc members are never thoughtful on different positions. They always think that sovereignty is the only way. The Bloc thinks it has the truth, whereas on this particular bill, when first nations brought it forward, Bloc members did not make one point in favour of the bill.

On our side of the House, we have members speaking on both sides of the bill. We are not saying that we have the truth. A number of Liberal members have spoken against the bill. I have mentioned that Chief Roberta Jamieson and Chief Paibomsai have approached me and that they are against the bill. I have tried to discuss issues that they have brought forward. I do not think the member should be suggesting that we are the ones who think we have all the right answers.

The member brought up the issue of optionality and mentioned that the NDP member had said that it was not optional. I will make it quite clear to everyone that this bill is totally optional. If first nation people want to buy into one of these financial institutions, they sign up. No first nation has to sign up. No first nation has to collect property taxes. There are already roughly a hundred or so that are collecting property taxes. They have chosen to do so under the Indian Act. They have that power under the Indian Act.

They can stay under the Indian Act and continue to collect taxes. They could stop collecting taxes, or they could collect taxes under this particular bill. The purpose for that or the reason why the first nation approached us and asked us to do this is to help them get some financing that they could not get before.

All this does is gives them that tax collection ability, which they have had for many years, in a structure that would help them get bonding. It is totally their--

[First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, May 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on a couple of points the member made, and I appreciate his points. In fact I appreciate all points that have been raised. This is an excellent debate, with points coming out on both sides. I had good meetings with Roberta Jamieson and Chief Paibomsai. They have given me a number of points that I have been researching and answering.

We have been consulting and revising this bill, which started in the 1990s. If the member is saying the consultation has been insufficient, could he outline what that consultation has been? He talked about the votes. I will provide some background on those votes because he might have been alluding to some numbers that I could give some more accuracy to.

I had the department research some information for me. The AFN general assembly voted in Halifax in 2001. General assembly resolution No. 24, 2001 was endorsed 61% to 38%. The recommendation of the AFN's committee on fiscal relations was that four new national first nations fiscal institutions be established through federal legislation. This was not a vote on the legislation but a vote to look at developing it further.

It is true that during the debate at the AFN general assembly the co-chairs of the chiefs committee announced that they would bring the draft legislation back to a national meeting of chiefs for review and input. That commitment was kept.

In August 2002 the national chief of the AFN distributed copies of a consultative draft of the bill and a community guide to every first nations chief in Canada. I do not think we could go much wider than consultation with every first nations chief in Canada.

In the communiqué to the chiefs, the national chief invited all the first nations to attend a national meeting on fiscal institutions and the consultative draft. That meeting was held in September 2002 and provided significant input on the development of the bill.

There are certain first nations opposed to it, but not necessarily a majority, and certainly there has been no feedback since we made the amendments for which the majority asked.

This may or may not be true but I am just giving evidence. The only vote ever taken by the Assembly of First Nations on this bill came in October 2003. That vote dealt with the resolution on all current federal first nations legislation. That was talked about earlier this afternoon. There were three bills mixed in there. It was not just a vote on this bill. The chiefs voted 61% against the resolution, 109 to 65.

The member referred in an earlier speech to 500-odd members that might have been against it, but there were only 109 in that vote out of 633 chiefs. However, taken in the context of 633 chiefs in Canada, only 17% voted against the resolution. Further, the bill now contains amendments that addressed the deficiencies of the bill which were identified by chiefs at that meeting.

To be fair, there have been no votes. Since that resolution, there have been consultations. The draft bill was sent to all chiefs in Canada who made a significant number of amendments as a result of that. Since the amendments, there has been no vote. There is no demonstration, since we made the major improvements asked for, that the numbers the member suggests are maybe 500 against the bill.

[Question No. 78, May 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions on the Order Paper be allowed to stand.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 78 could be made an order for a return, the return would be tabled immediately.

[Government Response to Petitions, May 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to one petition.

[Order in Council Appointments, May 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, a number of order in council appointments made recently by the government.

[First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, May 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her debate. Basically, I do not have a problem with most of the sentiment of her intervention. However, early on in her speech she referred to the serious problems with the legislation. Could she could outline some of those problems?

Contrary to what she inferred about top down, this legislation, as I think most people who have been worked with it realize, came from first nations. It was a first nations' proposal to the government. As the Prime Minister has said, we are looking for solutions from first nations. We are trying to work with the suggestions that we have received and put them in place.

I do not think there is any effort to rush it through. We have been debating this since the 1990s, when these proposals first started to come in to us. It has had a lot of debate and a lot of feedback. There has been a lot of changes, and interaction has been made to the feedback. I am not sure where there is any intention to rush it through.

As with the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, we are having a very fruitful debate now and are trying to look at the issues and problems. I do not know how many member will speak to the bill, but I think there are a still a number of them to speak. Therefore, I do not see any sense that we are rushing it.

What I am trying to do is search out and research some of those issues that the member might be able to bring forward, in addition to the ones I have written down from the excellent intervention from the member for Lac-Saint-Louis.

While he is here, I would like to also pay tribute to him, as the others have, in his last term with us. I have always treated him with a great deal of respect and have listened intently when he has spoken. He has made some fantastic speeches in the House of Commons and will leave a real legacy in the Parliament of Canada. I honour him for his efforts in the House.

[First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, May 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member has certain concerns about the bill. Because of the time limit on speeches, I want to ensure he has a chance to get them out on the table. There may be more comments on some of the clauses in the bill.

[Question No. 81, May 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Yesterday in the debate on Bill C-23, when I listed a number of first nations that were in support of the bill, I listed the Union of Ontario Indians which has 43 first nations.

I received a phone call from Grand Chief Commanda this morning saying this was not true, there was no such resolution supporting Bill C-23.

I want to apologize to the House. I had no intention of misleading the House. I want to set the record straight that there was no resolution as far as I have now been informed by Chief Commanda, and I apologize for any misinformation I might have provided.

[First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, May 5th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, the member will be happy that I did not find what I was looking for in my notes so I will have to wing it.

I agree with the member that there are different views on different aspects of the bill from a number of first nations people. I applaud the different views. They have approached me and I have tried to answer many of the concerns.

Of the first nations people who approached me, there was not one who had a concern about having the statistical institute in this bill. From what I understood from the member's speech, the only major concern he had related to leaving the fourth institution, the statistical institute, in the bill.

This institution does not duplicate Statistics Canada. It does not do what Statistics Canada does. It is to collect statistics that are not collected and to take statistics if Statistics Canada is collecting them. Statistics is a fairly detailed mathematical science involving a lot of procedures. We have a first nations institute that can do this when first nations people are looking to extract statistics from Statistics Canada, to embellish them with more statistics.

Having worked on the census once, I can say that collecting stats is a very sensitive activity. All people, including first nations people, can be quite sensitive to being asked different types of questions. I think they would be more open if they were being asked questions to help their first nation by a first nations statistical institute.

On that basis, I do not understand the member's only objection to the bill, which is basically the statistical institute being in the same piece of legislation.