Maurice Vellacott

[Supply, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think our NDP colleague is way off the mark here and he should get on the topic to help native people instead of this rant that he is into. He is becoming like a member of the opposition in terms of his tactics at this point. Could we get him back on topic?

[Supply, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, what does the member see the motion doing? Does he see it doing something that the government presently is not doing or is it one and the same as what the government has been doing all along?

[Supply, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I did it at the beginning of my speech. The motion on the floor earlier was put by our House leader, and we want it to be immediately stipulated that we move to that end. Therefore I move the following amendment:

That the government immediately stipulate that in all Contribution Agreements between the Federal Government and individual Indian Bands, the use of any public funds be publicly reported and audited.

[Supply, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I know it is sometimes more customary to move an amendment at the end of debate, but our party would like to move that the motion be amended to read that the government immediately stipulate that in all contribution agreements between the federal government and individual Indian bands, the use of any public funds be publicly reported and audited.

That would move immediately into the mode of the motion that we anticipate or hope to have passed at the time of the vote.

There are a couple of things to which I would like to draw attention to before I move through my main thesis. What we mean by publicly reported and what we understand that to involve is being available to anyone through access to information, such as members of bands much more readily, sometimes they are stonewalled and put off from getting this information, and also to members of the general public because it involves tax dollars.

In terms of the unanimous consent to a change by our House leader at the top of the hour, and why we allow it to be stipulated in all contribution agreements that they be publicly reported and audited, is because if we just used financial transfer agreements there are seven older methods which would escape untouched. Because the government has dragged its feet for so long on moving to financial transfer agreements for all its dealings and all the mechanisms, we are quite glad to acknowledge this and consent to all contribution agreements being publicly reported and audited.

I would like to focus for the most part on the way in which the government has hindered the development of financial accountability over the years, how it has stopped that from happening, intentionally in some cases and in other cases maybe more by neglect, and how it has allowed some very poor handling of allegations.

It is the government's responsibility to ensure that there is financial accountability among Indian bands. One way this is done is by handling allegations of financial mismanagement and wrongdoing in a proper way. Yet in this area, the government and past governments have done very poorly. It has failed to address adequately allegations brought by band members in particular but others as well. I would like to address this important aspect of the government's failure to promote financial accountability, and the key word is accountability, among Indian bands.

The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs reported that it received over 300 allegations relating to 108 Indian bands during the two year period preceding the auditor general's report in 1999. Those allegations related to matters like social assistance issues, mismanagement of funds and other concerns. Because the department's data is incomplete, as found by the auditor general, there could be many more allegations. In fact I am of the strong view that there are many more.

I had people come to my office with affidavits and documented supporting evidence in what seemed to me like very clear cases of allegations, but the cases went nowhere. We will talk about that later. There are probably many more allegations which have come to various members of parliament on all sides of the House.

The question we need to address is this. What has the government been doing to address these allegations? If we ask the government, it would say that it is doing its job, maybe that it is doing a fine job.

In 1996 the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs published certain principles of accountability including principles of redress. In its guidance to Indian bands and how to complete accountability and the management self-assessments, the department elaborated on redress as a key principle of accountability in the following words:

Formalized review and appeal rules and procedures are in existence for operating programs and key governance functions that impact on the rights/entitlements of individuals and/or the community.

The auditor general noted that the government's position, as reflected in the statement, was that mechanisms already existed for objective review and resolution of allegations. However does this reflect reality? Is the government really living up to its words when it comes to appeal and review processes? The short answer is clearly it is not. On the contrary, the government deserves a failing grade.

I would like to mention three things that lie behind the government's failure in this regard which enable the government to avoid enforcing accountability measures in dealing with Indian bands.

The first way is that the government can pass off responsibility far too easily. Essentially, it can pass the buck in this way. The department said that often the proper action for it to take would be to refer the allegation to other parties and that the ultimate responsibility for addressing an allegation may lie within an Indian band.

This is bizarre. It is nonsense. To say people who have grave concerns and documentation in hand about misappropriation of moneys, wrong use of moneys and so on by band chief and council, and to be told that they have to go back to them to present that information and they will decide whether or not there is anything to pursue, is the height of ridiculousness. It is ridiculous to think that could resolve something and get redress.

The department skates around this stuff because it does not want to look silly or incompetent, and it is not doing its job. Therefore, it sloughs it off as well. In some cases the department has said that they should go to another funding agency. This other funding agency does not want to be shown up as being incompetent either. Maybe it has not vetted or screened it properly, so it passes it off and pushes to the side. Perhaps, it has said for them to take it to a law enforcement or investigative authority.

Many band members in their situations have gone with the evidence, as I see it not being a law enforcement person, which looks like pretty serious stuff. The paper trail is there. Yet these RCMP officers and so on will say that it is like nailing jello to a wall. As long as there is a resolution on the band books saying that $50,000 can be spent on the trip to Las Vegas to maybe check out casinos, or economic development or attend a meeting, then there is nothing wrong and they can do that.

It may be clearly inappropriate when we think there will be a shortfall of funds to health, education and other areas, and sometimes a very significant shortfall because of this inappropriate use of dollars. However, it is not technically an illegality. RCMP officers would say that we could not go to them because it was really difficult to nail this down. It is like nailing jello to a wall.

For those reasons, the end result is the government washes its hands of responsibility and nothing gets done. The buck gets passed and allegations disappear off into thin air.

It is not an accident. I believe the government has purposely left itself with a lot of wiggle room. Maybe its lawyers have told it to leave it loose and very broad and to leave a big escape hatch there. That is exactly what has happened. The government left this big nebulous open no man's land escape hatch for itself.

The second way in which the government avoids having to enforce accountability measures in its dealing with band members is by having no set guidelines on how to evaluate allegations. That is laid out in detail in the auditor general's 1999 report. I find this very shocking. In February 1998 the department issued a national guideline to senior officials on how to deal with allegations. The guideline defined and categorized the type of allegations, outlined the procedures to be followed, discussed the importance of departmental follow up and related matters.

The auditor general expected, he said in his report, to find in that guideline direction on the following topics, which I think are reasonable. He said he expected to find something about how to evaluate the merit of an allegation, how to decide what additional information was needed, who should collect any additional information and how to decide whether the allegation should be resolved by the department or referred to other authorities or Indian bands.

The auditor general found little or no guidance on these topics. What he found instead was instructions on how to control the flow of documents and communications. The department seemed more concerned with public relations than in taking allegations seriously and doing them justice.

The government's complete lack of substantive guidelines on how to address allegations shows that the government has intentionally, it would seem, left itself wiggle room to avoid addressing an allegation. The government does not have to ignore its own guidelines because it has no guidelines. There are none out there.

The third way in which the government avoids having to enforce accountability measures in dealing with Indian bands is by not collecting information on allegations and referring it back so it can learn from specific cases.

We find when we do not learn from history we are bound to repeat the mistakes of the past, so there is a problem there. One office said it did not know how many allegations. We have a major problem there. That is why we need to take these steps. To sum it up, we have to take steps that move us in the right direction toward greater accountability and, therefore, improvements to the lives of average Indian band members.

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Matthew Coon Come, is seeking to empower grassroots aboriginal people in Canada by enabling them to vote for the person of their choice for the office of AFN's national chief: one member, one vote.

Mr. Coon Come is not the first national chief to believe that such a move toward grassroots democracy would be a positive step. Former national chiefs Ovide Mercredi, in 1991, and Phil Fontaine, in 1998, supported this proposal for democratic change.

Mr. Coon Come is not trying to do anything alarming or unprecedented. He is simply moving the Assembly of First Nations in the direction of democratic accountability to grassroots aboriginals so the ordinary band member can be assured of proper representation.

This initiative is based upon the same principles of grassroots democracy that are important to the Canadian Alliance. I applaud Mr. Coon Come and the many aboriginals who support him for trying to move in this direction.

[Aboriginal Affairs, February 28th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the auditor general states very clearly that the minister and his department must be accountable for the way funds are managed and that program results must be acceptable. He insisted that management must be transparent and responsible.

Does the minister acknowledge that the lack of accountability threatens public support for these programs and at the same time leaves aboriginal women and children out in the cold?

[Aboriginal Affairs, February 28th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the auditor general tabled his report in which he stated:

Our audits of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada have identified a wide variety of problems, including poor accountability and unacceptable results in Aboriginal programs.

Canadians on and off reserves are disappointed that their tax dollars are not going to the people who need the help. Why is the minister dragging his feet on demanding proper accountability so that we can get some acceptable results?

[Human Rights, February 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian government is being complicit with the government of Sudan in the perpetration of human rights abuses.

The government of Sudan has inflicted unrelenting misery on the people of Sudan. It bombs schools, hospitals and churches. It denies food aid to war affected populations. It incites slave raids.

This brutal regime is financing its genocidal war by partnering with the Canadian oil company, Talisman Energy. Some of the profits from that joint venture are supporting the Sudan government's genocide. The Liberal government acknowledged this to be true, as a result of the Harker report released by the government one year ago, but it took no action.

One year later, it is clear that the government's policy of constructive engagement has failed. Last month even Lloyd Axworthy acknowledged on CBC Radio that Talisman “has not lived up to its obligations at all” and called the company's behaviour deplorable.

It is time the Canadian government put an end to any Canadian commercial complicity in Sudan's genocidal war.

[Criminal Code, February 7th, 2001]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-246, an act to amend the Criminal Code to prohibit coercion in medical procedures that offend a person's religion or belief that human life is inviolable.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to introduce today a bill to amend the criminal code to prohibit coercion in medical procedures that offend a person's religion or belief that human life is inviolable.

The purpose of the bill is to ensure that health care providers working in medical facilities of various kinds will never be forced to participate against their will in procedures such as abortions or acts of euthanasia.

The bill would not ban abortion or euthanasia but would make it illegal to force another person to participate in an abortion procedure or an act of euthanasia. Incredibly, there are medical personnel in Canada who have been fired because the law is not explicit enough in spelling out their rights of conscience. The bill would make those rights explicit.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Speech From The Throne, February 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I find rather interesting some comments made in the middle of the speech by the member for Mississauga West. I will attempt to find points of agreement where I can. He said at a juncture that it was a waste of everybody's time to hear him speak in the House. I find that I cannot disagree with that. Giving him the benefit of the doubt and concurring that may well be the case, for the benefit of the public and the viewing audience, could he expand and give examples as to why it is a waste of time to hear his speech in the House because many of us find ourselves in heartfelt agreement with his comments in that respect.