Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to this bill.
I am pleased to speak to Bill C-57. I thank my colleague from the New Democratic Party for permitting me to speak before her. I also want to indicate to the Chair that I will be splitting my time with the member for St. John's East.
This bill will amend the Nunavut Act with respect to the Nunavut court of justice. It will also amend other acts as a consequence. It is a very important step in our justice system.
I would commend my colleague from South Shore who has been a strong and vigorous spokesperson, not only on behalf of his riding, but on behalf of the Progressive Conservative Party and all Canadians with respect to his responsibilities as critic for the Indian and northern affairs portfolio.
I also want to take the opportunity to commend the efforts of the hon. member for Nunavut. Although we do not share the same political affiliation, I know the member is deeply committed to achieving progress for her constituents as they enter the 21st century as residents of Canada's newest territory.
Her participation in Tuesday night's hockey game also showed that she is one of the Liberal Party's smoothest skaters. I look forward to hearing her provide some lessons to her less limber and perhaps less timber happy colleagues, especially the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.
Before I begin my remarks on Bill C-57 I want to highlight an often overlooked participant in the creation of the Nunavut territory. He was a leader with foresight and vision who pursued an aggressive and activist agenda. He was the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney, who as prime minister set the wheels in motion to establish the Nunavut territory by signing the Nunavut land claims agreement in 1992. The creation of Nunavut is yet one more reason why Mr. Mulroney was named a Companion to the Order of Canada. Furthermore, it was under his government, as well as that of the Right Hon. Joe Clark as constitutional affairs minister, that aboriginal people became full participants at formal constitutional negotiations for the first time in Canadian history.
It was refreshing to hear the Minister of Finance say a few weeks ago that it was because of the PC government's economic plan that the budget is now balanced. It cannot be stressed enough that it was the previous Progressive Conservative government which gave aboriginal peoples a voice at the constitutional table, a voice through a royal commission, a voice through the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and a voice for our Inuit people now through the signing of the Nunavut land claims agreement.
Today we are debating another piece of legislation that was introduced by a government with a proud legacy, that is, the government of the Progressive Conservative Party. Although our party's ambitious policies were unpopular at the time, history has shown that it was by and large the Progressive Conservative Party that brought forward these initiatives for the betterment of Canada.
Bill C-57 deals with the best way of providing a court system for Nunavut, which is a new and expansive territory. There have been those who object to granting the people of Nunavut a single court system. They may object, on the basis of jurisdictional concerns, that this bill would create an intrusive precedent. They may object on the basis that this bill might somehow violate the equality provisions of the charter of rights and freedoms and create constitutional problems. I believe this piece of legislation addresses those problems in a fair and practical way.
As the justice critic for our party, I do not share the objections that have been raised by some opposition members. Bill C-57 appears to recognize the unique circumstances in which the people of Nunavut live. First and foremost in this unique environment is that the Inuit people will form a strong majority of the Nunavut population; 17,000 of the 22,000 residents or 77%. Nunavut's territory also represents approximately one-fifth of the overall size of Canada, yet its population is only 22,000, less than one-quarter of 1% of the entire population.
In that context, let us compare Nunavut's size and population with other jurisdictions. Nunavut's 1.9 million square kilometres fall just under the figure for Greenland. Nunavut is five times the size of Germany, four times the size of Sweden and one-fifth the size of China. With those expansive territorial boundaries we must factor in population distribution. Nunavut only has one-hundredth of one person for every square kilometre of its physical territory. Canada, as a whole, has nearly three people living per square kilometre. Ontario has 11 people per square kilometre.
Nunavut's main human and territorial characteristics are not only unique to Canada, they are unique to the entire world. For example, Nunavut has only 20 kilometres of highways.
Moreover, there is disparity between communities. The largest community is its future capital, Iqaluit. More than 3,000 people call Iqaluit home.
The community is located approximately 2,000 kilometres from Ottawa and the average temperatures range from -30° Celsius in January to 15° Celsius in July. Iqaluit residents experience 24 hours of daylight in June, while they find no more than six hours of daylight in the month of December.
Grise Fiord is Nunavut's most northern community. In fact, I believe it is one of Canada's most northern communities and it is a community I had the pleasure to visit some time ago. It is a full 2,700 kilometres from the capital. The population is only about 130 people, who experience an average temperature of -35° Celsius in January. These hearty souls also live in 24 hours of daylight in June and around the clock darkness in December.
I experienced a number of challenges practising law in rural Nova Scotia. At that time I always found it a pleasure to work with the law enforcement community and those who administer our criminal justice system. By and large, I found that many of those individuals work long, hard hours and go above and beyond the call of duty, like police officer George Mageney in the community of Stellarton, in my riding of Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, who I have a great deal of time and respect for.
It is nevertheless difficult for me, drawing upon my own experience, to perceive how court proceedings as they relate to criminal, civil or family law, would occur effectively and efficiently in such a large jurisdiction as this new territory. With such a small population and with such diverse communities, this will truly pose an incredible challenge to the people of this new territory of Nunavut.
However, as has been mentioned previously, Bill C-57 amends several existing federal statutes. It amends the Nunavut Act to establish a single level of trial court at the superior court level, to be known as the Nunavut Court of Justice.
It amends the Judges Act to provide for three superior court judges on the Nunavut Court of Justice and also to provide for full membership in the Canadian Judicial Council for senior judges in each of the territories.
It amends, most consequently, the Criminal Code to provide for new structures and procedures for the Nunavut Court of Justice in the following areas: jurisdiction of judges; summary conviction appeals; a new statutory form of release; judicial interim release; and elections as to a mode of trial.
All of those technical changes that occur within our Criminal Code are encompassed in Bill C-57.
It also amends the Young Offenders Act to ensure adequate structures and procedures for a single level of trial court, consistent with the new structures and procedures in the Criminal Code.
I believe the drafters of this legislation should be credited because it does mesh nicely with the existing provisions of the code.
I therefore welcome Bill C-57 as a positive measure that recognizes the unique characteristics and conditions of the people and the territory of Nunavut. However, I have a number of concerns which were not completely addressed at the justice committee by the minister and her officials.
The first concern deals with the greater use of justices of the peace. The Department of Justice believes that with appropriate training there is potential for greater use of justices of the peace to conduct preliminary inquiries and in some cases summary conviction trials. I endorse this concept. My concerns mainly arise out of the training and the funding for such training that will ensure that those who appear before these justices of the peace will receive adequate treatment under the law, the same treatment that they would receive from a properly ordained justice, if I can use that term.
I share the belief of many that the greater use of justices of the peace would not only benefit this single justice system in Nunavut, but also some of the courts, as our friends in Nunavut would say, in southern Canada, that is, the rest of Canada.
If the role of justices of the peace is to expand, training must be assured. Unfortunately, responsibility for this training falls solely under the responsibility of the Nunavut territorial government. So the federal government is once again, in some instances, able to wash its hands clean and download to a territory or a province. It is therefore problematic for the federal government, through Bill C-57, to open the door for increased responsibilities for justices of the peace without assuring that they will in fact be able to fund this new initiative.
We need only look at the federal government's downloading of the funding of the young offender programs in the rest of Canada to fear that similar problems could arise in Nunavut.
We need to ensure that Bill C-57 accurately reflects both the needs of Nunavut and the obligation of the Government of Canada to protect the due course of justice.
I join my colleagues in the Progressive Conservative caucus to support the bill as it is very positive in content. Let us continue to build upon the legacy of Inuit self-government left by the Progressive Conservative government.
