Pat Martin

[Veterans Affairs, October 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the government insists on paying Dingwall severance, yet it denies any benefits whatsoever to 14,000 veterans who were deemed never to have served just because they did not fill out their discharge papers by the deadline. These veterans answered the call just like anybody else, but by order in council their service records were erased.

This is the year of the veteran. Would the Minister of National Defence please tell us that he will have the order in council reversed and reinstate the benefit for these 14,000 surviving veterans or their spouses? They did in fact serve and we cannot erase a person's service record by order in council.

[Amendment to Income Tax Act Regulations, October 6th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my colleagues from Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier and Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for the direction and opportunity they have given us. I learned a great deal from both presentations.

I learned a great deal about things that horrify me, frankly, and I learned things that made me angry. I am not an expert in tax law like my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, but I am not a sucker either and it seems to me that the Prime Minister of Canada views Canadians the way that P.T. Barnum viewed circus goers. That is the way it appears to me.

Our taxation system is not supposed to be run like some sleazy ring toss game on a carnival boardwalk. That is the way it seems to be stacked against ordinary Canadians. If I learned one thing here today, it is that this idea of “tax motivated expatriation” is the technical term for the popular trend in corporate Canada of using offshore tax havens to avoid paying a fair share of taxes.

The reason they call it tax motivated expatriation is that it sounds better than sleazy tax-cheating loopholes, which is actually what it is to an ordinary Canadian like myself. This is tax avoidance in a systematic and structured way.

If there is one thing that rings true to me from the debate tonight it is that when corporations do not pay their fair share of taxes, not only are they ignoring their social responsibility but the rest of us have to make up the burden. These guys are avoiding taxes in a systemic way that is unfair to the rest of us. It is no wonder our social programs are underfunded. It is no wonder that ordinary working Canadians are being asked to assume more than their fair share of the tax burden. It is because sleazy tax-cheating loopholes like the Barbados tax haven exist.

I know I am probably not using the technical terminology. Some say it is not a tax haven as such, that it is exploiting an aspect of a tax treaty, but it seems to me that since I have been a member of Parliament the government has torn up a number of similar arrangements with other countries. I believe there were 11 or 12 such countries around the world where Canadians could avoid taxes. The government tore up those agreements except, by some happy coincidence, in regard to the country where our Prime Minister happens to have nine shell companies of Canada Steamship Lines. It is galling and infuriating to me that we even need to have this debate.

Corporations are dodging taxes like never before. The latest trend is income trusts. I will not even get into that because there is not enough time, but it is astounding to me that since 1991 our major banks alone, by using tax havens, have avoided paying $10 billion in taxes while showing record profits during those years. Some of them were very tough years for the rest of us. While we were forced to tighten our belts, they were avoiding $10 billion in taxes. Six years ago, Ottawa promised to make it tougher to hide money offshore and today government lawyers are still tinkering with the proposals.

Our Prime Minister, being a corporate CEO, is no stranger to tax havens. One study shows that Canada Steamship Lines avoided paying $103 million in taxes between 1995 and 2002 by setting up these nine shell companies in Barbados. When I say shell companies, I mean just that: we are talking about a table, a telephone and one employee who may or may not have anything to do with the company.

An added complication to allowing this wholesale tax avoidance is that it actually encourages further offshore investment and starves capital from Canada. If the profit from the offshore activity were repatriated it could be re-taxed as earnings, so there is a further motivation to continue investing that sheltered offshore money further offshore and never getting it repatriated back into Canada.

It starves not only the tax revenue for our social programs but it starves money that would otherwise be used to reinvest in companies and expand and grow that Canadian enterprise. This is an added complication.

Speaking on behalf of ordinary Canadians who perhaps do not understand all the technical details the parliamentary secretary tried to explain, frankly in a paternalistic kind of way, it is not that we do not understand the technicality of this tax arrangement. We get it. Instinctively, in our gut as Canadians, we get it when we are being hosed, when we are being gouged, and when we are being cheated. That is what this wholesale tax avoidance represents in my mind.

I want to thank my colleague from Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier for bringing this issue forward. It should be debated in this House. It is an embarrassment to me that we allow this situation to exist. Members of Parliament on every side of the House should stand up in outrage to slam the door on this kind of abuse of our tax system.

If there has to be a tax treaty with Barbados, how the heck do we allow companies to get taxed earnings from Canada being taxed at 1% and 1.5% in that offshore tax haven. Let us call it what it is. It is a sleazy, tax cheating loophole designed by the Prime Minister's buddies on Bay Street for their self-interest. It is against the public interest of Canadians.

[First Nations Oil and Gas and Moneys Management Act, October 6th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it has been an uphill battle trying to drag my colleagues from the Conservative Party into the 21st century, kicking and screaming as they go, as they acknowledge aboriginal and treaty rights. It is a challenge that I am willing to take on and one by one, we are trying to chip away at this Eurocentric sort of arrogance and ignorance that endorses the paternalism of the Indian Act.

For someone to stand and defend the paternalism of the Indian Act, in contrast to a progressive piece of legislation that contemplates a sharing of oil and gas resources is beyond me. We should not waste a great deal of time on this as I am sure we are close to question period.

[First Nations Oil and Gas and Moneys Management Act, October 6th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, there is a huge disconnect between the political philosophy of the Conservative Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party as it pertains to aboriginal and treaty rights and to the application of the treaties in terms of land and resources.

I heard him make reference to private property. There is a Eurocentric sort of naiveté on the part of many Conservative Party of Canada members who think the answer to the housing crisis on first nations reserves can be found in private ownership. That is a Eurocentric construct that almost speaks to an arrogance or a paternalism that many people find offensive. It is not the aspiration of everyone to build equity in their own home. Many people have a sense of community. Many people have a sense of collectivism, especially in traditional cultures.

There is a Eurocentric naiveté that borders on offensive when my colleague tries to trivialize the issue of sharing of land and resources with his own narrow Eurocentric construct associated with private property.

Some of the Conservative views about private property are worrisome even. Everyone believes in fee simple title for their own homes. The way some Conservatives view private property is the absolute freedom to do whatever they wish with their property, even if that means the right to keep certain people off their property or the right to pollute their property without the intervention of the state.

I always worries me when I hear a Conservative starting to harp about private property and the absoluteness of the sanctity of private property in contrast to the collectivity, or the rights of the collective or the well-being of the collective.

What we see in traditional cultures is a lot more comfort with a communal enterprise, shared resources. In terms of sharing resources, the bill is more in keeping with the traditional views of the first nations we are dealing with than it is with my colleague's rather narrow view of the world.

[First Nations Oil and Gas and Moneys Management Act, October 6th, 2005]

It is stolen right out from under their feet.

We will allow foreign corporations to come in and drill for that oil. We give them billions of dollars per year of exploration grants to extract that oil, pay the government a royalty, loot the profits and take them offshore, whether it is Exxon or whatever. However, the very people who for thousands of years have lived on top of that oil are allowed a lifetime lump sum payment of $15,000 per person. It does not even buy a pickup truck, never mind provide for that family. That is the status quo we are dealing with here. That is the Canadian legacy of first nations oil and gas management up to this date. It has been a legacy of theft and exploitation.

Sharing in the land and resources was exactly what the signators to the treaties thought they were doing. They view reserves a little differently than we do. We view an Indian reserve as where we cluster all the first nations people together and make them live there. When we read the treaties literally, they view what they signed to mean that they are willing to share all their traditional territories, all of Canada, except for the reserve which they have the exclusive control over. They are perfectly willing to share the land, the wealth and the resources of the rest of Canada.

We did not see it that way. We view the treaties like this. We will take most of the reserve and give them the bit that is left. They live on top of that and anything that is found underneath it, whether it is lead, zinc, silver, molybdenum, gold, is ours. They have no right to benefit from that except as specifically outlined by the minister in his paternalistic benevolence.

Incrementally, as aboriginal leaders have learned the rules of the game, and just when they learn them the rules seemed to change on them, leaders like Strater Crowfoot and the other representatives of these three first nations have seen what is necessary to finally negotiate a way to at least have some control over their own what they call Indian moneys.

I will point out what the bill do. The status quo is that Indian moneys were held in trust for first nations and may be used only for the first nations, but at the direction and control of the minister. In other words, Indians could do nothing with their own money without the minister's rubber stamp and to make application. In this sense, the Indian moneys regime is interfered with. Sections 61 to 69 of the Indian act govern the management of Indian moneys. Indian moneys are either capital moneys which are derived from the sale of a first nation's surrendered lands, or capital assets, or revenue moneys which include all moneys other than capital.

In 1912 the Blackfoot were duped in an effort to try and elevate the standards of living conditions of their people. The Siksika, the Blackfoot, sold about half of its reserve for $1.2 million. Now in 1912 it made it the richest tribe in western Canada. It bought new houses, with regular interest payments and other services. By the end of World War II that money was gone and it had little to show for their wealth except for a smaller reserve. The population had doubled. This is the type of exercise that we saw which was simply detrimental to the well-being of aboriginal people. However, we can see where the leadership would be tempted to try to do something to cope with the social conditions of their community.

With regard to Indian moneys, they are held by the crown and “expended only for the benefit of the Indians or the bands for whose use the moneys are being held”. It is within the governor in council's choice to determine whether any purpose where the moneys used are for the benefit of the band. The minister has the absolute power in relation to the management of band moneys.

What we propose in Bill C-54 will hopefully allow three phases in this idea. The pilot project that took place to establish this first nations oil and gas management initiative dealt with co-management, enhanced co-management and management and control of the money.

During the first phase, duties and decision making about the administration of the money was shared with the first nation. During the second phase, first nations were given training to develop their administrative capacity in dealing with the application of this money.

The pilot project is currently in its final phase, which requires the passing of the legislation which will allow the transfer of authority to first nations provided they meet the limitations and the requirements of this legislation.

We will support the bill because we support a fairer distribution of the wealth of the land and resources occupied in the traditional territory of first nations as the only hope for a meaningful progress in terms of economic development and elevating the standards of living and social conditions for first nations people.

[First Nations Oil and Gas and Moneys Management Act, October 6th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, to speak to Bill C-54, the first nations oil and gas and moneys management bill.

Let me say at the outset that it is my policy personally, and I believe I can speak for the NDP caucus, that when legislation dealing with aboriginal issues is asked for, developed by and driven by first nations, my party will not stand in the way, in any way shape or form, to that legislation coming to fruition. We will support Bill C-54 and we recognize and pay tribute to the patience and perseverance of the architects of the bill who, for the past 10 years, have done the necessary development of the bill and have it put into the form in which we find it today.

The bill goes to the core of what is wrong with this nation's treatment of aboriginal people and its relationship with aboriginal people. In a happy vein, it makes some progress toward what is wrong, but let me state clearly at the front that the bill is about the share and control of land and resources. Frankly, if aboriginal people and first nations were given a greater share and a greater control of the land and resources on their reserves and in their traditional territory, we would not see the abject poverty and the third world conditions that are so endemic in the aboriginal population.

As my colleague from Halifax said, we would not need the bill if we would only get our minds around the fact that the treaties that we signed in days gone by were all about a sharing of the resources and the wealth of this great nation. Somehow that aspect of the treaty process has been put aside and has been gathering dust. It has never been honoured and aboriginal people only make progress in terms of sharing of land and resources when they fight it through the Supreme Court of Canada.

In most of the recent rulings of the Supreme Court pertaining to first nations sharing in land and resources, first nations have won. The Supreme Court has found the Government of Canada to be wrong, that it was not fulfilling its contractual obligations under the treaties and not fulfilling its fiduciary obligations under the Indian Act. We have been deliberately and systematically denying first nations their rightful share in the land and resources. That is the basic context within which I will make my remarks today.

The bill is about oil and gas reserves. Imagine being an aboriginal person living in Alberta for the past 2,000, 3,000, 5,000, 7,000 years and, by some happy coincidence, oil is struck under our feet. The most valuable commodity in the world, by non-aboriginal culture and European western standards, is unearthed in abundance under our feet. We should be like Jed Clampett and The Beverly Hillbillies story because untold wealth should be our legacy, not abject poverty.

Instead, because of the structure of the Indian Act and because of the attitude of us colonizing the population, there has been no sharing of that bounty. In fact, it is only with the enactment of Bill C-54 that we will see for the first time an actual transfer of authority, control and management of the oil and gas on first nations land to first nations.

I will go through some of the status quo to compare the current situation to what is being contemplated by the bill in order to illustrate this point. Let me say for the record that the prime proponents of the bill, the three first nations that have come together to ask for this initiative, are the Siksika First Nation, led by Chief Strater Crowfoot in this context; the White Bear First Nation of Saskatchewan, which will be represented by Councillor Clarence Nokahoot at the committee when the bill gets there; and the Blood Tribe, which will be represented by Councillor Kirby Manyfingers.

I think it would be useful in the context of this debate to back up a little bit and recognize and acknowledge who we are dealing with. I come from the prairies so I know the name Crowfoot as a name of myth and legend on the Canadian prairies. Chief Strater Crowfoot is the direct descendant of Crowfoot, one of the greatest leaders and statesmen of Canadian history. Crowfoot was born as a Blood Indian, many would be interested to know, along the banks of the Belly River in 1830. As a child he was actually given the name Shot-Close.

We should point out that names among first nations in this part of the world were considered living and evolving things to be passed on to those who earned that category. After his father was killed, Shot-Close was adopted by the Blackfoot. Most people associate Crowfoot with the Blackfoot and they gave him the name, Bear Ghost. He earned the most prestigious name, Isapo-muxika or Crowfoot in the Blackfoot language, from an act of bravery during an attack and raid on the Crowfoot camp.

I think this bit of history is important so we can capture the gravity, weight and import of what we are doing today. This is not just an administrative detail. This is the manifestation of great patience, leadership and administrative skills by an acknowledged leader of the Blackfoot Nation. I think we would all benefit by knowing more about the Crowfoot name.

After an outbreak of smallpox that decimated the Blackfoot in 1869, Crowfoot became the chief. During his years as chief, Crowfoot became famous as an influential peacemaker throughout those tumultuous times where they were being faced by what today would be viewed as an alien invasion, invading forces of strange people, us. We were interrupting thousands of years of development of his people in that area. Crowfoot became known for keeping his young men from making raids and showing leniency in dealing with his enemies, a courtesy that was not afforded by us toward his people in fact.

He formed a close relationship with a missionary, Albert Lacombe, a man well known in our Canadian history books, who he actually rescued from a Cree attack. Early in the 1870s he made peace with the Cree and in fact adopted a young Cree, which is another name that all people in the House will recognize, Poundmaker. Chief Poundmaker was the adopted son of Crowfoot, just as Crowfoot was the adopted son of the Blackfoot.

Crowfoot had a keen intellect and even while the buffalo were still plentiful, Crowfoot saw a bleak future for his people. His famous quote is, “We all see that the day is coming when the buffalo will all be killed and we shall have nothing more to live on”. How interesting it is that 130 years later his direct descendant, Chief Strater Crowfoot, is dealing with taking care of the interests of his people and looking for an economic future, some livelihood because there has been an interruption in the 100 years preceding where first nations in that region have been without a means to control and dictate their own destiny.

Crowfoot remained a man of great dignity and compassion throughout a series of his own illness and personal sorrow and in watching their livelihood diminish. It was said that he captured the imagination of almost everyone who met him. After eight of his twelve children had died, he heard that his adopted son Poundmaker had been convicted of treason. This was after the raid on the abandoned Fort Battleford.

When Poundmaker occupied the abandoned fort at Battleford, he was in fact charged with treason, treated as an enemy and put in prison. Crowfoot wrote to his son, Poundmaker, saying, “I have such a feeling of lonesomeness, of seeing my children die every year, and if I hear that you are dead I will have no more reason for living”. The sadness was profound and there is a very well known song and poem on Crowfoot's lament.

He had been a warrior, a peacemaker, an orator, a diplomat and a leader and he brought great honour to the name of Crowfoot, as it still rings throughout the prairies today.

I go through that bit of interesting history because Chief Strater Crowfoot, who we deal with today, has come to the House of Commons, to Parliament, to ask that we consider the speedy passage of this bill on behalf of the people he represents. In the interests of fairness, righting historic wrongs and enabling people to proceed with economic development that will lead his people from poverty to bridge that gap to the mainstream population, this type of enabling legislation is absolutely necessary.

I should point out some of the history of the treatment of oil and gas royalties and first nations people up until the advent of this bill. Let me give one case study, a very brief analysis of how aboriginal people have been left out of the enormous benefit of the resources found in that part of the world until recently.

This is a source from a book called The Future Petroleum Provinces of Canada . It has done a case study of one reserve that struck oil. The Indian Act specifically bars aboriginal people from having any share in the resources, other than sand, gravel, clay, silt and mud. If gold, petroleum, rubies or anything of any value is discovered on their land, they have no right to it. If there is mud, clay, sand or dirt on their reserve, they are allowed to go forth and proceed with economic development in that capacity. There is a limit to how much mud one can sell.

In the case of oil, here is the breakdown for the benefit of this case study reserve. We will call it reserve X, but it is a real reserve, with a population 3,000. The potential reserve of the oil on the property is 19.3 million barrels. The natural gas on the reserve is 93 billion cubic feet. Reserve of oil per capita is 6,400 barrels. Not to go through all these details, let me get down to the bottom here. After all these formulas and calculations about the royalty value per person on reserve X, the one-time lump sum cash payment per person was $15,000. They are sitting on a wealth of oil and their families and children are living in abject poverty with no prospects, no hope of economic development because it is not allowed under the Indian Act. They are at the mercy of the minister for everything they do. He has absolute control over their destiny. They are sitting on this pool of black gold and their share is a one-time lump sum payment of $15,000.

[Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, October 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, one of the most worrisome aspects of the whole idea of blowing the whistle is being disciplined for that wrongdoing. That is why the name of this bill is the protection of whistleblowers.

I would ask my colleague if he has given some thought to the possibility that a person could come forward with information of a wrongdoing that the person believes to be accurate and it turns out that the information is incorrect, then that person is very vulnerable to discipline as well. Does he agree with me that being simply wrong about an issue should not preclude coming forward? A person should not worry about reprisal. In other words, it is not evidence of mischief to be incorrect.

[Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, October 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I actually like Conservative scandals better than Liberal scandals because with the Conservatives they do not seem to be afraid to fire people and put them in jail. When Brian Mulroney was prime minister, a cabinet minister a week went down. He would fire them. He would not just prop them up month after month. I am with my colleague. I prefer all of the scandals of the Progressive Conservative Party to the ones that we have lived through with the Liberals.

Clause 55 is meant to be very narrow in scope and application. There is some comfort we can draw from the fact that our committee at any time could amend and change Bill C-11 if we find there is a real problem with clauses. We do not have to wait for the five year mandatory review of the bill. There is nothing stopping us from correcting irritants as we go. I believe the application of clause 55 will be very rare and narrow as it pertains to the Access to Information Act.

[Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, October 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Mississauga South for listening to the point I was making, that the implementation of the bill is going to be the critical point. The devil is going to be in the details.

We can pass this laudable legislation, but if no one believes that they are safer, we are no better off. The individual that we choose is going to be paramount. We need to choose a real champion of workers' rights in a sense because that will be the primary function. It will be to supervise the administration and the application of the process but with the key and paramount duty to protect the whistleblower.

I will openly state that I think the best person for the job would be the member for Mississauga South. He himself should think twice about running again in the next federal election. Perhaps he should accept the appointment if we invite him to be that new first whistleblower officer.

In terms of methodology, an information campaign has to be undertaken throughout the public service and it is a massive job. The dissemination of information to 180,000 people is abundantly clear and it has to go right to the lowest level, the casual labourers. All of them need to understand their rights as they pertain to this new whistleblower regime.

Just as we did with the WHMIS legislation, workers have the right to know and the right to refuse unsafe work. The workplace hazardous information materials system was a massive undertaking and a five year project to inform all workers that they have rights under WHMIS. We need to inform all workers what their rights are under this new whistleblower regime and then the benefits will begin to be evident.

[Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, October 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would concur that it was the efforts of opposition party members who forced the issue until it reached such a critical mass that the government could not ignore it. I recognize my colleague from Newton—North Delta was very aggressive in his pursuit of whistleblowing legislation.

I read the bills he introduced on this subject. They are very similar to mine and the one introduced by the Bloc Québécois in 1996 in the 35th Parliament. It had it right from the beginning. The whistleblower officer should be an independent officer of Parliament. In the incarnation from 1996, it suggested the Auditor General. My private member's bill also said that we should use the office of the Auditor General, only because we knew the Auditor General had the confidence and respect of the public servants and that her office was an independent office that reported only to Parliament and not to a minister of the Crown or to government.

Therefore, the opposition parties knew what they wanted nine or ten years ago. It was echoed and reinforced by significant efforts made by my colleague, myself and others who put forward private members' business.

Again, it is an example of the advantage of minority Parliament when we are advancing some of these soft issues, non-monetary issues, issues that advance and elevate the status of the working conditions of public servants. I think it is going to be a different world. As soon as we pass Bill C-11, the culture and the morale in our public service will elevate.