Pat Martin

[Supply, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I do not feel the need to apologize for my remarks. I found that some of the remarks made in Hansard by Herb Grubel, a former member of parliament whose name we can use because he no longer sits here, were offensive. I could not believe people harboured those kinds of attitudes toward aboriginal people, especially a person representing a major Canadian political party.

I do not apologize for raising that in the House. I think it helped to set the base tone of the debate. All of us, even if we reluctantly hold our nose and vote in favour of the motion, being the innocuous thing that it is, are very suspect about the motivation of the Canadian Alliance every time it raises aboriginal issues.

[Supply, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, once again the member is fundamentally wrong. In actual fact the member for Churchill did stand and ask the government questions concerning the money that kept flowing to the Virginia Fontaine Centre even after it was clear that something was wrong. The member for Churchill asked that question but got an answer that was not very satisfactory.

However, the main thrust of her question was very different from the potshots thrown by members of the Canadian Alliance. She asked if it was true that the money could have been used to benefit so many more people. Rather than spending $36 million on one treatment centre, which is a lot of money, a general hospital could have been built. The government could have helped a lot of people who are suffering the consequences of chronic long term poverty, one of which is substance abuse, which was what the Fontaine Centre was dedicated to addressing.

What the hon. member does not know, because I do not believe he is well briefed on aboriginal affairs issues, is that the Assembly of First Nations' fiscal relations secretariat is taking many of the steps that his party is advocating, and has been since 1996. I do not think members opposite even read their own briefing notes. All they are trying to do is whip up some kind of an anti-Indian hysteria in the country so that they can join the BC F.I.R.E. movement and the anti-Indian movement to stop land claims and stop treaty processes.

[Supply, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP caucus, I believe, is very much in favour of renewing the fiscal relationship with aboriginal communities. The hon. member was alluding to legislation we anticipate coming down the pike fairly soon that will revisit the fiscal relationship between the federal government and aboriginal communities.

We believe that what really needs to be done, instead of just lobbing potshots at isolated incidents of mismanagement, is to develop the administrative capacity of first nations communities so that accountability can become as mainstream in their administration of offices as it is elsewhere.

I should point out that 95% of all audits done on aboriginal communities come up squeaky clean. I do not know if the current government can make a claim like that with all its programs. Certainly the business community is not held to that high a standard.

In a sense, we are watching the Canadian Alliance take these isolated incidents and trying to thread them together into an overall case that all aboriginal communities are poorly run or mismanaged in some way.

One thing that is heartening, which I learned about recently, is that the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada and the Assembly of First Nations have started a national round table and a mentoring program to give special national certification to aboriginal auditors so that within the communities there will be well trained aboriginal people to ensure that the books are kept to acceptable best practices of accounting.

[Supply, March 19th, 2001]

Certainly, Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to do that. In the interest of keeping an elevated standard of debate in the House, I will take those remarks to hand.

One thing we have noted is that the Canadian Alliance approach to aboriginal issues, in recent months at least, has been to seize on isolated incidents of misuse of funds or mismanagement of funds. The Alliance comments over and over again on isolated incidents across the country and then tries to thread them together into an overall theme that there is gross mismanagement of funds in virtually all aboriginal communities.

That is the message, whether deliberate or not, that is getting out to the public. The Canadian Alliance says that aboriginal communities are corrupt, ergo they do not deserve self-government and we should not proceed any further with land claim settlements. That is the theme that comes across to the Canadian people, whether real or perceived.

I guess the same thing could be said about my comments because I am threading together isolated incidents of Alliance Party members saying horrible, hateful things. I have come to a broad conclusion that it is in fact party policy, not just isolated incidents.

I point out that the member for Athabasca said that of course we defeated them, and that just because we did not kill them in Indian wars does not mean they are not a vanquished people. Otherwise, he asked, why would they accept being driven into those godforsaken little remote reserves? That was the attitude of the member for Athabasca who is still sitting in the House.

I have been here longer than the hon. member for Provencher and I have heard some horrifying attitudes expressed toward aboriginal people.

The Canadian Alliance launched an out and out campaign to aggressively stop what I believe is the most historic treaty of our time, the Nisga'a land claim treaty, which was ratified in the House of Commons. It was a very proud moment for all of us. The Alliance launched an out and out campaign to stop and to block that group of people from taking their first courageous steps toward independence and self-government. It is opposed to aboriginal self-government.

The NDP is in favour of the implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. The Canadian Alliance Party is not. That is why I think I am justified in questioning the motivation of that group when it raises aboriginal affairs issues in the House.

I am very happy to speak to the motion. It is a lot more difficult to speak to the motion now that it is so watered down and innocuous. If the Canadian Alliance is harbouring some sort of resentment about land claims and self-government, it should at least have the guts to put forward a motion that actually says that so we can have an honest debate in the House.

We now have a watered down motion that calls for the status quo. The reason the Alliance got the Liberal Party to agree to vote in favour of the motion is that it is easy for the Liberals. They are already doing that. The motion put forward originally by the Alliance insinuated that there was no auditing or accountability in aboriginal communities and that therefore we needed to impose a requirement for auditing.

In actual fact, the Indian Act and the Indian Bands Revenue Moneys Regulation already calls for that. Articles 8.(1), 8.(2) and 8.(2)(a) state:

8.(1) Every Band shall engage an auditor to audit its account and to render an annual report in respect thereof.

(2) A copy of the annual auditor's report shall, within 7 days of its completion,

(a) be posted in conspicuous places on the Band Reserve for the examination of all members of the Band;

If that is not a requirement to have an independent audit and to publish the findings of the audit, I do not know what is. Frankly, all the Alliance is calling for is what we already enjoy.

I object to one thing in the remarks of the Canadian Alliance member in introducing the motion. I will need to check the Hansard for the actual words, but he implied that the Alliance has the support of the grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations for the motion. I found that very hard to believe, given the offensive stance toward aboriginal issues that the Canadian Alliance has demonstrated since it has been in parliament. I doubt it very much that the grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations would endorse a motion put forward by that party because, frankly, that individual, more than anyone, would have serious reservations about the motivation of that party.

I called the national grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Matthew Coon Come. His executive assistant just got back to me five minutes ago. Not only did the Assembly of First Nations never endorse the motion, it was never contacted about the motion. It was never called.

The Alliance Party has started this whole debate with dishonesty. That also leads me to believe that there is more here than meets the eye. The real motivation of the Alliance Party is to do everything it can to foster animosity toward the self-government process because it personally is opposed.

There is no party in the country that has bastardized the word equal more than the Alliance Party. I am very proud that just last week an aboriginal judge in the province of Manitoba, Murray Sinclair, moved up to the Court of Queen's Bench. Murray Sinclair, in the aboriginal justice inquiry, deals with this very issue. He says:

—the application of uniform standards, common rules and treatment of people who are not the same constitutes a form of discrimination. It means that in treating unlike people alike, adverse consequences, hardships or injustice may result.

In other words, we cannot treat all people equally if in fact they are unequal at the beginning. After we have met the basic needs of people and established a common denominator, then rules can be applied equally.

That is a very wise statement and I am proud to be able to raise it in the House of Commons today. Equal rights for all is in fact unfair when dealing with people who are held back in a systemic way, as is the case with many aboriginal people.

I come from Manitoba, where we have perhaps more firsthand and recent knowledge in trying to renew the relationship with aboriginal people than do many of the members here from other provinces.

I am not proud to say it, but my province was the home of J.J. Harper. If that name has not been raised in the House of Commons before it certainly should have. If it had been me walking home late one night instead of J.J. Harper, I might have been pulled over by the police and asked questions. However I probably would not have died that night. J.J. Harper did. He was killed. That was one of the incidents that spurred the aboriginal justice inquiry, which was probably the most comprehensive review of the hugely disproportionate representation of aboriginal people in Canada's criminal justice system.

My province was also home to Helen Betty Osborne, a 16 year old girl in The Pas, Manitoba who was killed. I can assure hon. members that if it had been my 16 year old daughter walking home that night kid, she probably would not have been seen as a target by four redneck hillbillies who would sexually assault and murder her. After the murder of Helen Betty Osborne, the whole town took part in a 16 year conspiracy of silence to shield the actions of those people. We in Manitoba have firsthand knowledge and very real examples from which to draw.

One of the things that came up during the aboriginal justice inquiry was the hugely disproportionate representation of aboriginal people in our prisons, never mind the ones caught up in the criminal justice system. It came to light that, at periods of time during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in two women's prisons in Canada, the percentage of the population that was aboriginal was 100%. That was all of them. It was as if we were trying to lock up a generation of young aboriginal people as some supposed fix to the terrible situation they were in.

It is galling for me to watch a group of people who are not as far evolved in their thinking about the new relationship that is necessary with aboriginal people. It is frustrating to see a group of people from provinces not far from mine who are so politically naive when it comes to the new relationship that is necessary with aboriginal people.

There was a poem spray-painted on a wall near my office in downtown Winnipeg for many years. It has now been erased. A street poet wrote it and one of the lines in it said “Racism is ignorance masturbating”. It was the sort of thing that would catch one's attention. However, when we think about it, racism is, by its very nature, born out of ignorance. As soon as people learn more about other cultures they are no longer threatened by them and they are less racist. We see that gradual maturing process happening in every neighbourhood and community across the country. The more we know about other people, the more we realize that they love their children as much as we love ours and that we have more in common than we do that is separate.

Masturbating is, by its very nature, a solitary act. It is not very gratifying and it certainly is not productive in any way, shape or form. Neither is racism. Racism feeds on itself and it does not benefit anyone. That comes from the very solitary nature of it.

Canadian Alliance members do not consult and they do not learn from other people. They do not phone the Assembly of First Nations when they say they do. We know that much as evidenced today. There is a terrible dishonesty in their approach.

I have already pointed out that the motion we are dealing with today is really the status quo, is it not?

I have tried to point out some of my reservations about following the Canadian Alliance's lead on anything to do with any aboriginal issue ever, because I know who its members are. I have been here long enough to hear their spokespeople and to understand what really drives and motivates them. I will say again, I believe the Canadian Alliance is the legislative arm of the anti-Indian movement in Canada. I have never seen anything to dissuade me or move me off that opinion.

Today's motion is so harmless and so innocuous that we do see fit to vote in favour of it. Everyone is for public accountability and public financing.

[Supply, March 19th, 2001]

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. I would be happy to limit my remarks to the motion we have before us today.

I started out by saying that I believe, and I do not think it is an exaggeration to say, that the Canadian Alliance is the legislative wing, the political voice, of the anti-Indian movement in Canada. That is why I question its motivation and its true intentions every time it raises aboriginal issues.

[Supply, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, that is certainly my intention. I have a 20 minute speech and I would like to set the basis for the tone and content of my remarks by giving a bit of recent history as to why I am apprehensive about this particular motion and the motivation of the Canadian Alliance in introducing the motion.

It is a matter of record. It is a matter of Hansard , when we look back at the remarks of previous aboriginal affairs critics in the Reform Party, like Mr. Herb Grubel, former adviser to fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet and currently a member of the board of directors of the Fraser Institute. In his comments, Herb Grubel likened living on an aboriginal reserve to living on a south sea island and being supported by a rich uncle. That indicates a real sensitivity to the issues facing the aboriginal people. That is why, frankly, I would argue that the Alliance Party does not have any credibility when it speaks on aboriginal issues.

It goes further. The person who sat on the cross country advisory committee on aboriginal issues when the Reform Party took a touring task force around the country was Mel Smith, the author of Our Home or Native Land , the famous book that is a sort of diatribe against any kind of self-government or land claim settlements. In fact, it called for the reversal of land claim issues settled across the country.

Tom Flanagan, associated for a long time with the Reform Party as a senior advisor, wrote a well known piece called “Why Don't Indians Drive Taxis?” His argument was that all other new Canadians who come here and start at the bottom of the economic totem pole start by driving taxies so why do Indians not drive taxis? The basic premise of his argument was that they expect handouts. He said that they would rather have handouts than drive taxis.

It really shows a sensitivity to the economic development issues that aboriginal people face when senior people in the Reform Party talk about aboriginal issues in that way.

The most compelling example I can give is Greg Hollingsworth, former Reform Party staffer here in Ottawa on the Hill. I frankly do not think this was how it transpired, but they say that he quit his job to go and set up BC F.I.R.E. in British Columbia. BC F.I.R.E. is the anti-Indian movement in British Columbia. It is called Foundation for Individual Rights and Equality. It is a horrible, hateful group of people who are dedicated solely to keeping aboriginal issues and people down.

When I say that I do not believe frankly that Greg Hollingsworth quit his job, I think he was sent there by the Reform Party. I will go further than that. I think the Canadian Alliance—

[Supply, March 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to stand today and join the debate on this opposition day motion dealing with the transfer of funds and the fiscal relationship between the federal government and aboriginal communities.

Frankly, I cringe when the Canadian Alliance Party raises aboriginal affairs issues. I am always kind of apprehensive and nervous as to what the real motivation is and why it would choose this particular issue for their opposition day motion.

My apprehension is well founded when we look at the history of some of the positions taken by that party on aboriginal affairs and aboriginal issues. The first that comes to mind, of course, is the ratification of the historic Nisga'a treaty. I should probably thank the Alliance for all the stubborn obstinacy that it showed during the ratification of the Nisga'a treaty because it gave me the satisfaction of one of the most gratifying moments that I have had in the House of Commons, and that was being able to stand up 473 times on behalf of aboriginal people, on behalf of self-government, and on behalf of the emancipation of aboriginal people. I found that personally very gratifying . I still have the T-shirt that says “Nisga'a 473: Reform Party 0”. I also find it very satisfying when I wear that T-shirt to the gym.

My apprehension is well founded when we look at some of the comments of former aboriginal affairs critics in the Reform Party and Canadian Alliance Party.

[Right Of Landing Fee, March 2nd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, let the record show, and I hope all the people who are watching this back home are fully aware of this, that there is only one party in the House of Commons that refuses to allow this motion to go to a vote and that is the Liberal Party. The Liberal MPs are the only ones who are afraid to put this issue to a vote.

I can tell the House why they are afraid. They would lose that vote. There are members of the Liberal backbench to whom I have spoken who feel very passionately about this issue as well, because they represent ridings where there is a strong population of new Canadians who feel abandoned and cheated by their own government by the imposition of this unfair tax.

I know of one Liberal cabinet minister who has spoken very plainly and openly about it and who strongly believes this should be eliminated.

The Liberal Party knows it would lose the vote.

The Liberals had a window of opportunity. I used my very rare opportunity of getting one of my bills or motions put forward. Of all the pieces of private member's business I have, I chose this one in order to give them a graceful exit so that they could get out of a bad situation. They chose not to take advantage or avail themselves of that. I hope they wear that right across the country.

We heard the member for South Shore say that this is not just a head tax but a penalty on new Canadians. They are being penalized for choosing to make Canada their home. What kind of welcoming message does that send around the world as we try to attract the best and the brightest to our country? I should add that we are in competition with other countries. There are a lot of countries people can choose to go to. We want them to come to Canada, yet we throw barriers and roadblocks like this racist head tax in their way.

This head tax is an insult to new Canadians. I have spoken confidentially with people in my riding and they are offended. Their feelings are hurt by the imposition of this tax. The Filipino Association of Manitoba, as my hon. colleague across the way knows very well because he is a former president of that association, has made very public demands. Its members have let their feelings be known very publicly about how offended they are that the government chose to look to them as some kind of a cash cow or revenue generator when all they are trying to do is reunite their families in this country.

Perhaps the most damaging thing about this head tax is not even the financial burden that it puts on families trying to bring family members here. It is the moral indignation they feel. It is in the assault on the morale of new Canadians that this head tax does really almost permanent damage.

The Liberal Party had an opportunity to live up to the resolution it passed at its own convention and to do the honourable thing. The Liberals do not need a legislative directive to change this head tax. They can do it unilaterally by order in council. The minister has the right to impose, raise, lower or eliminate a fee of this nature and it could happen tomorrow.

It would have sent a welcoming message to new Canadians. It would have satisfied the many social justice groups and advocates for immigration who have been saying loud and clear how unfair the imposition of this tax is.

The Liberals missed the opportunity. They did it voluntarily. I see them all looking down at their books. They are hanging their heads in shame, as well they should, because the country is watching, and even for those people who may have missed this little fiasco we are going to remind them. We are going to publish it far and wide that the Liberals willingly and knowingly missed this opportunity. Not only did they miss the opportunity to oppose the head tax, they decided to keep it and keep milking new Canadians like they are some revenue generating cash cow. Even though the government has a $100 billion surplus that it is always crowing about, it decided not to change the practice of picking the pockets of new Canadians.

The NDP caucus believes that immigration is an engine for economic growth. The NDP caucus believes that new Canadians begin contributing to the economy the very day they set foot on our shores and buy their first meals or first articles of clothing or rent their first home and, I might add, start paying taxes for the rest of their lives. They pay ad nauseam. That is how new Canadians make a contribution. We do not have to pick their pockets as soon as they express an interest in coming to our country.

We have missed a window of opportunity to send a valuable message to the rest of the world today. I am sorry in my own heart that members did not see fit to exhibit the kind of compassion and humanitarian reputation Canada is known for.

I am very disappointed and I am sure most new Canadians are as well. As I say, if they do not remember who the architects of this problem were, we will be there to remind them.

[Right Of Landing Fee, March 2nd, 2001]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should eliminate the Right of Landing Fee (ROLF) on all classes of immigrants to Canada.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to debate this important issue of national interest. A growing group of Canadians is calling on the government to eliminate the right of landing fee on all classes of immigrants. To the government's credit, about a year ago it eliminated the right of landing fee for all refugees. The same reasons why that was a good idea apply to all new Canadians and all immigrants. We believe it should be done away with altogether.

This marks the sixth anniversary of the right of landing fee. It was introduced on February 28, 1995. At that time we were in a deficit situation, the government was in a cutback mode where all programs were being reviewed and a great deal of effort was being made to enter into cost recovery mechanisms. When it introduced the right of landing fee the idea was that it would help offset the costs of some of the services new Canadians use, whether language training or settlement services. In actual fact, that money was never considered a dedicated fee for service. The money went into general revenues. It never really did get directly connected to the services it was meant to fund. In fact, during that period, program spending was being cut, hacked and slashed in the immigration department. Therefore, there was no direct correlation.

This is frankly why many critics of the right of landing fee call it a tax. The term that is being used is a head tax. The government does not like to hear that but this has become the same as the much loathed head tax of recent history. I remind the House that from 1885 to 1923 the government imposed a head tax on all Chinese immigrants to Canada. It started at $50 and rose to $500, specifically to bar entry to Chinese people coming to this country.

Many people view the head tax in the same way. It is a racist head tax because it is selective by nature. In other words, the $975 fee that is charged to every landed immigrant does not seem like an insurmountable barrier for a person coming from western Europe, Australia or the United States. However, for a person from the Sudan, the Philippines or Southeast Asia, that could be two years' salary. Therefore, it is an actual barrier to immigration. This is why we feel not only is it a financial burden on people who might choose to make Canada their home, it is a real blow to their morale.

New Canadians are wondering what kind of message we are trying to send out. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration says they want to open the door wider and invite more new Canadians to this country. At the same time they put financial barriers that are true obstacles to many people, especially from certain parts of the world. In other words, the door is open if one can afford this fee for the privilege of coming here. The door is not so open for people who come from some parts of the world, such as the developing nations. These people need the refuge and the sanctuary that Canada offers arguably more than people from developed countries.

As I pointed out, there is a growing movement around the country of people who feel very strongly that the government should eliminate the head tax on all new Canadians, like the Ad Hoc Coalition Against the Head Tax. In fact, there is an organization of organizations that formed specifically around what it felt to be an unjust head tax.

The Canadian Ethnocultural Council has been working very aggressively on this issue. The Canadian Council of Refugees has made representation to the Canadian government demanding or strongly advocating the elimination of the head tax. The national Filipino association is on the record. The Maytree Foundation, the Canadian Labour Congress, the getting landed project and the Caledon Institute of Social Policy are on record. In fact, the Liberal Party of Canada, at its 1996 federal convention, passed a resolution for a review which would lead to the elimination of what we call the head tax. A lot of ethnic minorities within the Liberal Party were horrified when their government sent the message to the world that it was not as open a door policy as was thought.

The United States has a fee for service type charge associated with becoming an immigrant to that country. However, for a family of four in the United States, the total fees and charges would be about $1,580. In this country it would be about $3,150 for a family of four.

Let us look at the revenue. If immigration is supposed to be some kind of revenue generating service that we are offering here, let us be honest about that and say it. If the money is not going into settlement services and into actual language training or whatever it might be but is going into the coffers of the government to do with whatever it pleases, then it is another tax. As a matter of fact it is a lot of money. The government gets about $200 million per year from this head tax. Over six years, that is $1.2 billion.

When the Minister of Finance crows about getting out of the deficit situation and showing a surplus, let us look at where he is looking to find the revenue. There is $8 billion a year from unemployed Canadians with the EI fund surplus and $1.2 billion over this period of time from the poorest of the poor, those struggling new Canadians who might seek to make Canada their home.

I firmly believe the time has come for the government to act unilaterally. We do not need a change in legislation to eliminate the head tax. In fact, the minister has the right to implement, to raise, to lower or to eliminate any service charge or fee under the Finances Administration Act, I believe, section 19. The minister can simply act unilaterally because it is the right thing to do. She does not have to wait for the House of Commons to direct her that way. Enough Canadians have spoken.

I am going to cut my remarks short in a moment or two in the hopes that members from other parties will add their voices to emphasize the overwhelming support for the idea of eliminating this right of landing fee.

As I mentioned when it was first introduced, the idea was that it would directly offset the cost of running the immigration department. Now we have seen that there is no direct connection to the fee being charged and the service being rendered. It is not a fee for service as such, it is in fact a tax and an imposition.

Perhaps the most damaging thing about this head tax is not the financial burden it places on those who might seek to make Canada their home, it is the blow to the morale of recent newcomers to this country and those who would seek to reunite other family members and bring them here. They are having this hurdle thrown in their way, this unnecessary and I believe unwarranted obstacle to something that the government claims it is very interested in. It is always saying that family reunification is one of the three pillars of the immigration policy of the country.

The government has made it far more difficult since 1995 for any family to hope to bring other family members here, especially if they are struggling in a financial way.

I am going to end my remarks now. I hope to have some minutes at the end of the one hour and at that time I would be happy to conclude.

[Sales Tax And Excise Tax Amendments Act, 2001, March 2nd, 2001]

Squandering money on the poor.