Nathan Cullen

[First Nations Commercial and Industrial Development Act, November 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am not about to intercede in the debate between the two members, only to say that when we have looked at the treaty tables that exist within my riding, the incredible thing is when I ask those first nations facilitators and mediators what is the hold-up when it comes to treaty talks, they suggest that even though Gordon Campbell started off his mandate in the absolute opposite direction in terms of first nations' interests, it is the province that is actually allowing many of these things to go ahead and it is the federal government that has not come to the table with a clear mandate. I find this stunning and confusing.

At some point we need to settle the land question and have certainty for both the people and the industry there. I implore the government to send those hard-working Indian affairs bureaucrats to those tables in such a way that they actually have a mandate to negotiate, a mandate to settle these things so that industry can prosper and the communities can prosper. That seems to be the block in holding us up from future prosperity.

[First Nations Commercial and Industrial Development Act, November 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I will keep my comments brief, because I know there is interest in this place in getting the bill before the committee for some proper review.

To comment on some of the remarks that have been made by the government in terms of the NDP's intentions around election timing and other things, let me say that the New Democratic Party stands second to no one in this country when it comes to our history of supporting first nations rights and title in this country.

We can go back through all the history of our party and find our champions, such as the current member for Ottawa Centre, enforcing, pushing, coddling and imploring the government of the day to include the whole notion of rights and title in subsection 35(1) of the 1982 Constitution Act, thus ensuring that first nations have a voice.

I think back to Frank Howard, an MP from my riding at the time, who filibustered this place for three years on Fridays to ensure that first nations had the right to vote when they were living on reserve, a fundamental right that all Canadians enjoy. That was pushed by the New Democratic Party. There were Frank Calder and Jim Fulton and the list goes on. The New Democrats have stood with first nations through the ages, through time, and in debate after debate. And we stand with them today in strong support.

The idea of playing politics with important first nations issues is something that I find personally offensive. I find the tone being used by some of the government members toward the Kelowna meetings, this bill and other acts offensive, as do many of our first nations allies. The New Democrats' sole intention is to improve, once and for all, the quality of life of first nations in our country

With respect to that, I have often mentioned in this place the strong cultural history of first nations in my riding. Thirty per cent plus of the people I represent are of first nations origin. We have incredibly strong first nations that every day present their culture, their history and their hopes for the future. Too many times, these hopes have been ignored by the government over the last 12 years.

I have implored the government to change its basic understanding of how it deals with first nations by no longer using the number of announcements made and the number of dollars promised and rarely spent as the indicators for whether it is dealing with first nations problems or not.

We all know the horrendous state of affairs when it comes to the quality of life of first nations in this country, right across this country and in my riding in particular. We know that the rates of suicide, type 2 diabetes and poverty are absolutely deplorable. These are the indicators that the government would use, if it actually had any courage, when dealing with first nations and first nations issues.

One of those issues is teen suicide rates. The Lax Kw'alaams Band is a small band village in my riding. I have attempted to visit there three times in the last six months. All three times we had to cancel trips because of teen suicides, successful, if one can use that term, teen suicides. There were three. These villages, these communities, are being eroded in the most important way possible, through their young people, their young people who are not feeling any sense of hope whatsoever toward their future. They feel no sense of hope toward prosperity.

The reason New Democrats are looking forward to having this bill pass is that in some small measure we have come forward with another small step in trying to improve the quality of life of first nations across this country. We simply cannot play politics with this.

I also implore the government to stop playing politics with our Kelowna meeting. The member for Toronto--Danforth has proven time and time again that first nations are front and centre in our minds. When we renegotiated the federal budget last spring, many Canadians noticed that in each of the four main areas of the renegotiated budget, first nations were front and centre. Whether we were talking about the environment, affordable housing or education, whatever it may be, we ensured that in each of those areas first nations held a place of importance, thereby demonstrating yet again the New Democrats' passion and commitment to improving the quality of life for first nations in our country.

Highway 16 runs through my riding. For a number of years women, particularly first nations women, have gone missing year after year. This incredibly tragic issue has been absolutely ignored by both the Liberal provincial government and the federal government. It is awful and truly devastating. Due to economic poverty, people are forced to hitchhike and use other methods to get back and forth across the vast territory which is my riding. Year after year the missing persons posters go up for young first nations women who have gone missing. There is no public cry in this place or in the legislature of the province of British Columbia that resounds properly to the tragedy that we are watching unfold before us.

When it comes to the need to consult and accommodate, there is one finding that has come out of the courts time and again. I mean this in all sincerity, but I do not believe that the government has caught up to the court cases that have been presented in front of it, whether it was the Haida case or the Taku River Tlingit case, in truly understanding what it is to properly accommodate and consult. I could go through case after case that we are seeing in my riding where the government has come in and has allowed either industrial projects to go ahead or has initiated its own without that first step of proper consultation and accommodation of the first nations. I see it time and again. At some point the culture within government must change to finally come to terms with what the courts have told us for a number of years, that particularly in places where no treaty has been signed, there is a need to properly accommodate and consult.

For the country to truly prosper in the true sense of prosperity, we will need our first nations people on board. We will need them to prosper with us. No longer will it be acceptable to have all of the key indicators of quality of life improve for Canadians in general, but continually slide for first nations. The Liberals have some accounting for this. For the last decade or so on the key indicators, the ones to which we pay the most attention, first nations continue to fall further and further behind what all Canadians should come to expect, which is a high quality of life living in the greatest country on earth.

[The Environment, November 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the amount of false bluster being displayed by the Liberals over the past few days has been nothing short of astonishing for Canadians. It is the same sort of attitude the government has shown toward the environment over the past 13 years.

While everyone knows the Liberals are masters of spin, Canadians are starting to learn the truth about what is happening in our environment. Yesterday the Commissioner of the Environment expressed justifiable skepticism at the government's latest promise to develop a sustainable development strategy for the environment, asking, “How will this effort succeed where others have failed?”

The result is that we are on the eve of an international conference on the environment where Canada's record will be held up as what not to do when it comes to the environment. My question is for the Minister of the Environment. What makes him think that he has any credibility with Canadians on this file?

[First Nations Commercial and Industrial Development Act, November 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we have many first nations in the northwest of British Columbia. More than 30% of my constituents are first nations, proud groups with thousands of years of history. A remarkable event happened over the last two years. Through the leadership of one of our colleges, an all nations poll was created. Seven nations came together. For the first time in any of their histories, they built and designed a poll together. They put together the images that represented the strongest parts of their nation. There was a true and deep sense of compromise at one of the most basic levels possible for a nation to achieve.

I listened to the parliamentary secretary's speech. A member of her government, in a question to her, referred to the motion put forward yesterday by leader of the New Democrats, which would have us return in January to deal with important bills such as this one and consider them properly in the full light of committee. There was the suggestion that this was somehow a lack of compromise and that somehow the New Democrats were doing something otherwise.

That poll in my riding represents people working together for a common cause, establishing new relationships and working toward something positive, as has been described by this legislation. The legislation has been driven by first nations, but it needs to have proper scrutiny by parliamentarians. We should not rush through this.

Could the member comment on the implied remark from the government that the opposition parties have any interest other than allowing a proper review of the bill, by allowing for an election some time in the beginning of January? We have heard the blustering and machismo of the government in the last couple of days?

[Supply, November 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, those were excellent comments and an excellent question. People must remember when the Prime Minister went on television and asked for forgiveness and time. He promised to call an election. The first part of his promise would have placed us directly in the time zone we are declaring right now. Justice Gomery said that he would release his second report on December 1. It is undeniable. The Prime Minister has chosen the second part of his promise.

Two months ago the Auditor General's Office said that the government had an incredible addiction to announcements. It loves to make announcements. If it were possible, it would announce the same things six or seven times. She said that before the confetti hit the floor, the Liberals would move on to the next topic. They were not delivering on their announcements.

After 12 years Canadians know better than this blackmail and hostage-taking. It is disrespectful to every constituency.

[Supply, November 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, that already has been tried today when the motion was first introduced in the House. The Liberals tried to move away from the democratic right of Parliament to do exactly what we are doing today, which is debating this very legal and lawful motion. There was a point of order brought forward, various were arguments made and since defeated. Respect for parliamentary procedures is exactly what we are doing.

When it comes to the environment, it is laudable that my hon. colleague has quoted various people who have made comments in the press. It is incredible that Canadians have watched their smog days double. We have watched the pollution rise dramatically over the last 12 years. It is incredible that there is any suggestion that the government, in its deathbed conversions, has any serious intent when it comes to issues such as the environment and first nations. It has had such an incredibly long period of time. Laments are being heard across the land for such false and empty arguments. They simply cannot be tolerated any more by the people of Canada.

In terms of a Christmas election, this is exactly to what the motion speaks. It says let us avoid the holiday season, let us use common sense and a compromise and arrive at that. It is only blustering and arrogance that will not allow the Prime Minister and the government to realize that fact.

[Supply, November 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, the member for Vancouver East, who brings to bear a sensibility and sense of compromise to this debate and in her work as our House leader.

I would like to bring us back in time for a moment and recall the context from which the current Prime Minister spoke from the hustings in the last federal election, in a moment of what I would suggest was sheer desperation as he watched his numbers slide and the potential for losing his majority government which he craved for so long.

In these desperate days of June, the Prime Minister said the Liberal Party shared the same values as the New Democratic Party of Canada. He said that we drew from the same well. How far from the truth has the government proven itself? How far from that statement has the government proven itself?

If we recall the very first days of Parliament, games were being played with even the throne speech as to whether the House would fall. The New Democrats stepped forward and said that we would not play these games. We wanted this place to function. We wanted Parliament to work for Canadians.

I will remind the Liberal members present and those watching, and those who may have made the misfortune of voting Liberal in the last election, of the values that New Democrats hold which are not shared by the government. This has been proven through the last year and a half or so. We value public health care in this country. It was through the hard work of Tommy Douglas when people believed it to be an impossibility. It was the origins of the New Democratic Party that said this is something we must build for a sense of justice in this country.

We built the public health care system through a minority Parliament. We sustained, to the best of our ability, the public health care system. When we brought forward very clear and succinct proposals to the Liberal government to curb the privatization of health care and shorten wait times, that is increasing in this country, we received an answer that said this was very interesting. We were told that we will see about it maybe 10 years from now, once the current spending has gone through. That is unbelievable. That is not sharing the values of what New Democrats hold dear.

When it comes to the environment, I have the fortune to be the environment critic for my party. I have watched over this period in the House of Commons the rhetoric of wanting to protect the environment and to encourage sound environmental policies. The government brought forward a grand and incredible total of two environment bills: one of them a housekeeping bill and the other one of some moderate substance taken from various compositions of opposition bills from previous years.

That is the ambition that the government holds toward the environment. When it comes to climate change and Kyoto, the money set aside was almost $4 billion and just barely $1 billion of it has been spent.

We should all take a moment and thank all of our lucky stars for the Auditor General whose persistence and diligence brought forward by an inquiring press and the sheer ability to finally have a little freedom of information and access to information exposed the entire sponsorship scandal. It brought to the light of day what many of us suspected and what some I would suggest on the Liberal benches knew in their hearts was a sense of entitlement and corruption that had been going on within the party for so long that it precipitated the last federal election and indeed is with us still today.

When the Prime Minister rose in the House to answer the question from our member for Ottawa Centre about cases of entitlement that have gone on since that time in this new Parliament at the behest and will of the Prime Minister, many of us quietly hoped that the Prime Minister would show some resolve and humility after such an indictment by Judge Gomery, the Auditor General and many within the party, to come forward and say that the cases of David Dingwall and the cases of blatant patronage will stop. We would end this. We released the seven point ethics package. The government has ignored it. It has continued on in this light of entitlement.

When we brought forward our health care proposals, when we brought forward a sound Kyoto plan with timelines and targets to address the growing concern of climate change with real numbers and real targets, the government dismissed it. Instead, it brought forward what can at best be called a discussion paper about the environment, a discussion paper about climate change, giving no sense of urgency to the file and that business as usual will continue. This is the legacy that the government will leave behind as it leaves office.

Another value that we, New Democrats, hold very dear to our hearts is standing up for Canadians, standing up for our sovereignty and sense of unity, and standing up when we deal with our international trading partners when it comes to issues like water diversion and softwood lumber.

It was with great chagrin and sadness, when our international trade minister was in Vancouver some weeks ago, that I learned there would be at least two more years in the softwood lumber dispute and potentially more. What plan for action is there? We have lost over $5 billion over a number of years and this has being going on for more than a decade.

This is a dispute that is hurting communities across this country. It is shutting down mills. It is emptying the life, blood and soul of our communities. The government comes forward and says they are just going to have to hold on a couple more years because it does not have an answer. It does not have a willingness to do what it takes to end the dispute. It claims victory after victory and continually the lawyers that we hire become wealthier and wealthier.

One last value that we hold, although there are many more and the list is exhaustive, is the value of democracy, the sense that the representatives of this place, who are elected in a free and democratic society, can come forward to this place and cast a decision that is both legal and makes common sense.

The motion before us, put forward by the leader of the New Democrats, does exactly that. It proposes to avoid the holiday season. It would allow families to be together. It would allow the Canadian public to focus on things that are important, a time of reflection, and for rejoicing and being together. Thereafter, at the ballot boxes, they can deal with the sense of entitlement and corruption of this government.

I know that secretly many members, even in the government's own backbenches, think this is a reasonable compromise. Yet, the government will ignore the will of this House, not for the first time but for the fifth time in the brief history of this minority Parliament.

There is virtually nothing consistent with the values that the Liberal government has shown and the values that we, New Democrats, hold dear to our hearts. The Prime Minister claims to have drawn upon the mutual well between the Liberals and New Democrats. The well of the Liberals is contaminated. It is not a well that I would draw sustenance from. There must be a boil water advisory which Canadians should listen to when they head to the ballot boxes, whenever that happens, because this is not a well of values and morality that anyone would want to hold dear. Canadians do not hold dear the sense of entitlement or culture of corruption. That is not the Canadian value system. It is certainly not a value of the New Democratic Party system. Those are not our values.

I come from northwestern British Columbia. We have a common sense approach to issues. We have many issues presented to us that have very strong and divergent opinions. I will point to a number of them. Yet, even in a place of great diversity where the opinions can stray from one end of the spectrum to the other, we have found in a number of cases the will and desire to form a consensus, that common sense must prevail and we are willing to compromise.

A fascinating example, which the Liberal government has promoted for quite a while and which for the life of me is beyond explanation, is opening up salmon farming in our communities. Time and time again the communities have said they are not interested and that they do not want these things. The Liberal government, through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, is both the supposed protector of wild salmon and also the promoter of farm salmon, which has brought up a number of contentious issues.

On this issue, in our riding of Skeena--Bulkley Valley in the northwest of British Columbia, commercial and sport fishermen and women, first nations and the public have unified around this issue. People who would very rarely sit together at a table and be willing to compromise have shown a compromise to say they will stand against the will of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the government in its misled promotion of such a dangerous activity.

This culture of entitlement must end. We must have a moment to decide upon this. We have brought forward and negotiated a compromise with the other opposition parties, an option that would allow important things to take place, important legislation and bills to be carried forward through the holiday season. Then, it would allow Canadians to pass judgment on that culture of entitlement and to no longer believe in the blurred morality that the government shows time and time again when it comes to its friends and supporters. It would allow Canadians to pass judgment in a time of the House's choosing, all in the full sense of what it is to be a democratic nation.

[Supply, November 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, a number of negotiations and discussions have been going on around this place but there seems to be a certain amount of hostage taking going on by the Liberal Party over a number of important issues. Our party certainly knows that the abhorrent conditions many first nations have had to live through has been a disgrace and a blight on this country's reputation for far too long.

Our member from Timmins fought extremely hard to draw attention to the plight of the people of Kashechewan that was long overdue. The government finally brought some measure to bear on the quality of life and I despair to even call it quality of life that these people had to endure.

The government is now saying that the compromise that the NDP has put forward would delay the important summit taking place in Kelowna, British Columbia with first nations' leaders until after the election. The government is holding this meeting out and the potential for finally changing something as being suddenly important after 12 years. The Liberals have had yet another deathbed conversion that this is an important meeting. The government was meant to have this meeting six months ago and instead placed it in a very precarious political time. This was the government's choice and no one else's choice.

The government has now said that this meeting is so important that all of the procedures and options being put forward in the House are putting it in jeopardy. The government has ignored the fact that the compromise the NDP has put forward, supported by all opposition parties, would step across this meeting and place the interests and the attention of a federal election into January and February. It would allow the government and all interested parties to work together to finally, after more than a decade of neglect, improve the quality of life for first nations in our country. Would the member please comment on that?

[Supply, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's clear sincerity and energy with respect to this issue.

The member for Ottawa Centre from the New Democratic Party recently released a seven point ethics package that addresses much of what we have talked about here today. I am wondering if the member's party is supportive of the third point of that ethics package, which pertains to this issue, regarding setting spending limits and transparency conditions on leadership contests within political parties.

I know there has been some contention within parties to allow public access and transparency as to who is behind the leadership bids of various parties. I missed his leader's package, the transparency bill on good governance, but did I miss that in the bill? If it is not in there, would he be particularly supportive of such open and transparent accounting to the Canadian public?

[Supply, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned at one point both the confidence of Canadians and our international partners in this democracy to function when we have things like the sponsorship scandal and a government still dragging its feet after more than a decade and unwilling to actually bring forward true transparency.

On the economic front, I have mentioned the Ridley terminal sale in British Columbia that has been mired in controversy and a lack of transparency in what the government is actually doing. It is a federal crown corporation worth $255 million that the government is trying to sell for $3 million and change which raises a lot of eyebrows in my region.

I am wondering if the member could comment on the impact of a government that holds its secret information so closely to its chest in terms of economic development that a lot of regions in our country depend upon.