Mr. Jack Ramsay (Crowfoot): Mr. Speaker, as we had been debating prior to the break, Bill C-34, I was pointing out that the department of Indian affairs has spent $50 million creating a cottage industry around the negotiations on land claims and, of course, the inherent right to self-government. This has simply benefited the lawyers and the political leaders, while at the same time the deplorable living conditions of the individual aboriginal person have not changed one iota as a result of the expenditure of these funds.
Fifty million dollars later and the introduction of Bill C-34, we still have so many unanswered questions. Topping the list is the question: What is aboriginal self-government going to look like? Does it mean a transfer of power, or just a transfer of administrative responsibilities? Will it mean that 30, 40, 50 or 100 nations will each have their own governments, and power to pass their own constitutions, their own laws and their own citizenship status?
It is simply going to add a new layer of government to what we have now, and it is going to result in more duplication, taxes and debt.
Will the federal and provincial governments be overwhelmed by the demands of many small and inefficient governments?
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How will the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply? Will they have their own constitution, their own system of justice and education? These are all things that are promised within this document. I would like to just touch for a moment on the area of the Constitution.
They are granted the right to create their own constitution. The very definition or the very words ``inherent right to self-government'' would indicate that the laws passed by either the federal or provincial governments will not apply to them. How in the world can we expect them to create a constitution that will direct their inherent right to self-government if that constitution is not independent of the Constitution of Canada including the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms? That question has not been answered by the creators of this bill.
Will non-aboriginal peoples be subjected to the powers of governments that are beyond their control? What kind of self-government rights will aboriginal people have when they are not on an aboriginal land base? Will I need a passport when entering these new territories? The questions go on and on.
I feel that I cannot support this bill, although I support, as many of my colleagues do, the direction in which this bill goes. However the questions that we have raised in this debate so far have not been addressed. Before this bill can be supported we must make sure that we know exactly where we are going with the bill, the rights and obligations attached to this bill and the responsibilities of not only the two senior levels of government but also the responsibilities of this new form of government that we will be forming.
Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca): Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure here to speak on Bill C-34 which represents the settlement of four self-government agreements in Yukon with the native peoples.
There are 10 more self-government agreements that still have to be settled. This bill if it is passed will give further agreements to be ratified by cabinet alone and therefore does not have to come under the scrutiny of Parliament and therefore the scrutiny of the Canadian people.
The purpose of this agreement is to deal with aboriginal self-government to a vast and sparsely populated part of Canada. I think it is worthwhile for us today to discuss some of the salient points of this bill, what it would give the native people, vis-à-vis the Canadian people, the rest of Canada.
Bill C-34 gives special rights and special privileges to some of the native peoples of the Yukon Territory. As a representative here of all Canadians I have some problems with this. This bill is divisive. It will define the citizens of the First Nations as a separate group of citizens. Therefore what we would have in this land are two citizenships, citizens with different rules and regulations pertaining to each group.
As a result of this we are setting up separate governments for separate nations within the borders of this country, new governments with broad legislative powers, independent legislative powers of the rest of the country.
Native peoples see themselves as separate nations and not part of Canada. This I recognize. It is obviously a philosophical point of contention. To see oneself as a nation that is separate from another within the borders of this country may sound good to some, but I think that it is only divisive.
The native people should ask themselves if this is indeed going to improve their social and economic situations or will it be divisive and counterproductive. The rest of Canada must also ask whether they are prepared to accept this within the borders of their country.
Yukon I believe, as most Canadians believe, belongs to all Canadians. Let us elaborate on some of the nitty-gritty of these bills. Bill C-34 will increase the number of governments in Yukon right now up from two to sixteen. This would produce an increase in bureaucracy, in taxes, in rules and regulations for only 7,300 people, 20 per cent of the people who live there. This is apartheid. It smacks of the old South Africa. In effect we are creating separate nation states within the borders of our own country. This is a new brand of Canadian apartheid.
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Apartheid, as we know, means separateness or apartness for those who do not realize it, not togetherness, and this at a time when above all else we need to work together. It is wise to reflect on the meaning of this when we look at what will be happening to the Yukon if these bills are passed. It will mean a division among people.
Another question that has not been asked concerns the structure of the legislative body that would have the ability to pass laws and legislations within the Yukon. This has yet to be finalized but would be left up to the native legislative body. I can say this though, it does enable the body to give the power to a single person to enact legislation. There are no rules and regulations concerning democratic institutions in this bill and this concerns me greatly.
Who will be paying for this self-government? The Canadian taxpayers and the native people together will be paying for it. However the Canadian taxpayer will be footing the major portion of the bill. Then they must also have a say in what will be the outcome of the negotiations on this bill. The cost would be far greater than that which is borne today by the federal government to provide services to the aboriginal people in this area.
We must stand back and look at the larger issue here, in fact the most important issue, the welfare of the native people. No one disputes the ability of any individual to exercise his or her democratic rights and freedoms. I do not think anyone has a problem with enabling any group of people who live in an area to govern themselves by municipal powers, the same municipal powers that are given to any other area of the country.
However will providing these vast, expansive special agreements to the rest of Canada, a part of Canada that belongs to every Canadian, help the welfare of the native people? Let us get
down to brass tacks here and call a spade a spade. Many of the native communities tragically are wracked with very high rates of suicide, alcoholism, substance abuse, unemployment, depression and sexual abuse.
As a physician I have spent much time in northern British Columbia working with native people. The plight of these individuals breaks my heart. I have seen individuals raped, had their heads put through walls, beaten up, smashed up, shot and killed, people who have suffered the ravages of alcoholism. I have seen them go for years, suffering these ravages only to have to pronounce them dead on the gang plank of an emergency department.
It is intolerable for this to have occurred and it is intolerable for it to continue. Part of the blame rests on the non-native population and in particular Canadian governments that have continued to treat people in a paternalistic fashion by providing for them many of their basic needs without trying to do much to stimulate self-reliance.
Whenever you give an individual or group their basic needs they will lose their desire to fight for these things and therefore lose their self-respect, pride and self-reliance.
I also put a large part of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the native population and native leaders who in my opinion have been unwilling to take the bull by the horns and ask what they can do to pull their communities out of these tragic situations.
Do the native peoples' leaders truly think that settling these land claims and self-government in a different fashion from anybody else-it is important to emphasize different-is going to do much to alleviate these tragedies? Are they trying to carve out an area of Canada for their people based on history and have them live like they did 150 years ago? If so, do they think that their people want or need this?
If you want to go back to living off the land so be it, but you cannot expect to do that and still have a VCR, car, CD player and many of the other amenities of 20th century, first world lifestyle. In other words, you cannot have it both ways.
Over time and history, groups of individuals have moved from one area to another, expanded and taken over certain areas where others live. This has occurred, whether you are speaking of Canada, America, Australia or England. It has been a fact of life and a fact of the history of mankind. It is something that none of us here can do anything about. We must look ahead, look into the future and determine how all people in the country can have their socioeconomic situations improved. This is particularly important for the native people because their socioeconomic situation is the poorest in the land.
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However it is incumbent on the native people to ask themselves what they can do to help themselves. In my discussions with native people, it has been sorely lacking. They speak about getting back pride and self-reliance. I can tell members that the only way to get back pride and self-reliance is if you earn them yourself. You only achieve these things through your own hard work, your sweat and your desire to fight for your basic necessities and your life.
Pride and self-respect are not things that are given to someone, paid for or bought. They are only things that come from within your heart and soul and only from your ability, as an individual or community, to fight for your own life. I do not mean this in a pugilistic sense or by taking up arms. I mean this figuratively and in a spiritual sense.
When one works hard and fights for one's life in this world, win or lose, one develops a sense of pride, self-respect, self-reliance, self-esteem that nobody can take away. It is the only way that this will come to the native communities.
As I have said before, it must come from within the people. Canadian governments and provincial governments have done too much to pander to the communities. They have taken this desire away from them, this fight to become the best that they can become.
Cultural, social and linguistic integrity does not have to be lost but again the responsibility for this resides squarely on the shoulders of the native population. Canada's cultural mosiac is a great benefit to every citizen. For the native population to lose its history and its culture would not only be a disservice to them but to every citizen, native and non-native.
Rather than dealing with trying to buy out the native populations with these huge land claims, perhaps it would be better for us to determine ways that together we can work toward helping the native population becoming self-reliant. Of course this does not preclude the concept of municipal governments in areas where there are native populations but these rights are the same for every Canadian, non-native and native. I will reiterate this again. The rules, regulations, laws, responsibilities and privileges of a citizen of our country must be equal for everybody, native or non-native together.
Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York-Simcoe): Mr. Speaker, I guess I am somewhat puzzled by the statement of the member from the other side.
He said that he has worked with First Nations' people as a medical doctor and has talked to them. It seems to me that he really has not listened to them, nor has he learned anything about them. He talked about self-government but he has talked about it in a somewhat befuddled way. If he were to truly
understand what self-government is about, he would change a lot of the statements that he just made.
I had the honour of sitting in a meeting with a group of chiefs from across the country. A very articulate chief from the west spoke about self-government. He spoke about his relationship with the Department of Indian Affairs. He spoke about the problems that native people have because they do not have the same rights that many Canadians take for granted.
Moneys that are generated through leases and economic activity in their communities goes to the department. They have to apply for moneys through budgets. These budgets can be turned down. He gave a very eloquent and poignant description of this life and he looked to me and said: ``Self-government is just a way of having the same basic rights that other Canadians enjoy''.
I am really at a loss to come up with a question for the member on the other side. I only have a suggestion and that is to open your mind and your heart-
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): Order. I know that in debate people feel a great deal of conviction and are very committed to the issue they are debating. However I want to remind all members that it is in the best interests of all members in the House to direct comments in a less personal fashion through the Chair.
I would ask all members to keep that in mind throughout the day.
Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member to think about some of the experiences he has had, open his mind and his heart and really listen to what people are telling him. He should investigate what it is like for people in native communities and the kinds of relationships they have right now and really explore what self-government is all about.
Mr. Martin (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca): Mr. Speaker, I do very much appreciate the comments of the hon. member. Whether she believes it or not what she is saying is supporting what I have said. I agree with many of her comments.
The Department of Indian Affairs is paternalistic, does not serve the native people at all and should be eliminated. They agree with that and I think many people in the House do. It is insulting for them to have an institution such as that govern them in the way it does. They do not deserve it.
I will reiterate it again as I did at least twice in my speech that we in this party stand for equal rights, equal status and equal opportunity for all Canadians, natives and non-natives. We should concentrate on investing our efforts collectively, natives and non-natives together, to determine how every individual who lives within this beautiful country can become the best they can.
We have to dismantle some of the barriers for native people. I would ask whether settling these land claims is going to do that. An economy cannot be created in some of the far away places where these land claims are to be settled and expect individuals to improve their socioeconomic situations. It will not happen. We must provide a helping hand to enable native peoples to become the best they can become. I am sure that we can do that.
Mr. Darrel Stinson (Okanagan-Shuswap): Mr. Speaker, Bill C-34, an act respecting self-government for the First Nations in Yukon Territory is a bill which I would very much like to support.
I would like to support it and I say this with absolutely no malice toward the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development because I personally look forward to the day when the Department of Indian Affairs no longer exists. When that day comes it will mean that people born on Indian reserves or people born of First Nation parents have assumed their full rights and responsibilities as adult citizens rather than living under the not always benevolent dictatorship of some distant white parent figure in the federal government.
I would also like to support Bill C-34 because I know that men and women around the world regard aboriginal peoples as a world treasure. Any modern nation which can bring its aboriginal peoples into full partnership in the modern world will be deserving the world's praise and gratitude.
I would like to support Bill C-34 if I could because it is only right and just that as the First Nations people demonstrate their readiness to take over their own affairs, that right should be handed over to them in a reasonable and efficient manner.
Finally if it were possible I would support Bill C-34 because the policy of the Reform Party of Canada passed by our many thousands of members at our regular assemblies supports: ``Processes leading to the early and mutually satisfactory conclusion of outstanding land claims negotiations-enabling aboriginal individuals, communities and organizations to assume full responsibility for their well-being by involving them in the development, delivery and assessment of government policies affecting them''.
Given my own commitment to those four reasons for supporting progress toward native self-government, it was with real disappointment and mounting frustration that I read the reasons why I cannot support Bill C-34.
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The incredible twists and turns of this bill have created a strangely complex administrative trap set to ensnare well meaning officials of both the involved First Nations and the Yukon territorial government.
I have no wish to say anything bad about the motives of the people who put Bill C-34 together. No doubt they had the best intentions. Regardless of their good intentions, they have started Canada's long desired progress toward native self-government by making two fundamentally wrong assumptions.
I am deducing their assumptions by looking at what Bill C-34 provides. In its schedule III, parts I, II, III and IV, Bill C-34 provides these First Nations with jurisdiction over virtually every item relating to creation, preservation and defence of peace, order and good government that would be granted to a nation such as Canada.
For example, the First Nations will have jurisdiction over manpower training, which the province of Quebec has long been seeking but was not granted. Additionally Bill C-34 provides these First Nations with jurisdiction over the control or prohibition of the possession and use of firearms and other weapons and explosives.
Part III, number 21 gives this a power which has been reserved for the federal government and not even given to governments at the provincial levels. With the passing of Bill C-34, that right to make firearm laws will be handed over to these four First Nations.
As a third example, portions of Bill C-34 relating to administration of justice point out that some interim agreements must be concluded, but once such agreements expire these four so-called First Nations shall have the right to administer justice including imposing fines up to $5,000 and imprisonment for up to six months.
In other words, Bill C-34 is taking very literally the term nations when legislating to these four groups of natives. Is this reasonable?
I am not a student of world geography, but I frankly cannot recall reading about any nation in the world which has a population of under 10,000 people. In Canada our towns, municipalities and regional districts have more than 10,000 people and those administrative levels of governments are often hard pressed today to pay for the kinds of things required from municipal level governments; for example, to pay for the salaries of building inspectors to be sure that new construction complies with standards for things like electrical wiring, soundness of building foundations and fire safety.
Bill C-34 regards each of these four so-called First Nations as being a nation with virtually all the rights and responsibilities of a modern developed country like Canada, whose population is 28 million.
Bill C-34 extends the special rights, privileges and duties of nationhood to these groups whose total population is approximately 7,300 native people, divided into 14 bands and scattered across some of the most sparsely populated land remaining on our planet.
Again I must ask my colleagues of the House: Is this reasonable? From my personal point of view it is so far from being reasonable that it seems tragic. I say that Bill C-34 is tragic because by expecting far too much Bill C-34 dooms one of Canada's first experiments in native self-government to failure, for on to the shoulders of these 7,300 natives will fall the responsibility to administer some 16,000 square miles of land equivalent to about 75 per cent of the province of Nova Scotia which the land claim agreements of Bill C-33, the companion piece of this legislation, will hand over in fee simple ownership.
In case some hon. members may doubt what I am alleging here, let us look at some of the other responsibilities which will fall on the small native population. On that piece of land, three-quarters of the size of Nova Scotia, they will be responsible for all use, management, administration, control and protection. That is part III, item 1.
They will be responsible for all allocations and dispositions of rights and interests in that land for the use, management, administration and protection of natural resources for all businesses, professional and trade licensing, for all construction, sanitation planning, zoning and land development, for controlling operation and use of vehicles, local services and facilities, for preventing pollution and protecting the environment.
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In short, nobody needs feel concern over unemployment in this area of Yukon because virtually every adult will be getting a job from the new First Nations government.
At a time when the people of Canada are complaining about being overgoverned, Bill C-34 carries overgovernment to undreamed of extremes.
One incorrect assumption of the people who drew up Bill C-34 is that the term nation should be applied literally to these tiny isolated groups, reserving for the federal government only such limited functions as postal service, international agreements, military defence and the jurisdiction of the federal court.
The second bad assumption which the drafters of the legislation apparently made is that these native groups are fully ready for such an advanced stage of self-government. To return to the Reform Party policy on the subject, because it has the unusual merit of making plain common sense, unlike Bill C-34, the Reform Party supports: ``The establishment of a new relationship with aboriginal peoples beginning with a constitutional convention of aboriginal representatives to consider their position on such matters as the nature of aboriginal rights, the relationship between aboriginal peoples and the various levels of government, and how to reduce the economic dependence of
aboriginal peoples on the federal government and the department of Indian affairs''.
To the best of my knowledge none of this preliminary groundwork has been completed. I believe it is particularly important for native peoples to work out agreements with neighbouring municipal level governments with which they could share the cost burden of providing that more realistic level of self-government services.
I would like to draw to the House's attention the question of drawing up a constitution for these First Nations as probably the most essential missing pieces of Bill C-34.
Regarding creating a constitution, many people around the world have been impressed by the process used by the new South Africa in moving away from its old white race dominated system of government to a new country based, at last on the fundamental democratic principle of one person, one vote.
Once the political will was there, South Africa accomplished this transition fairly quickly by establishing, first of all, a temporary constitution to determine how the election should take place, some soft boundaries for the future nine provinces, and the rough framework whereby the newly elected federal officials, balanced by an equal number from each of the nine new provinces, will gather to draw up South Africa's long term constitution, subject to ratification by the people.
In order to establish these four Yukon First Nations, to the best of my knowledge and research, no such constitutional details have been spelled out.
What Bill C-34 does provide is some standards which must be included in the constitution of these First Nations, including what is required for citizenship and procedure for determining whether a person is a citizen; what shall be the governing bodies of the First Nation, including such things as membership, duties and procedures; a system for these governing bodies to be financially accountable to the citizens; a way to recognize and protect their rights and freedoms; a way to challenge the validity of laws and quash the laws seen as not valid; a way to amend the constitution.
Unfortunately a number of key questions are not discussed. For instance, who is to draw up these constitutions for each of the four First Nations involved? What time frame are they to follow? Do the native people get to vote on their own proposed new constitution? If so, how? Will our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms be followed in these new nations?
On all of these essential points, Bill C-34 is silent.
However the legislation does contain something which does not, in my opinion, properly belong in any bill which a responsible government asks members of this House to support. Bill C-34 asks Parliament, by passing this one piece of legislation, to give blanket approval, sight unseen, to self-government agreements for 10 additional Yukon bands, according to Clause 5(2): ``Where a self-government agreement is concluded with a First Nation after this act comes into force, the governor in council may, by order, bring the agreement into effect and add the name of the First Nation to Schedule II''.
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I believe this particular clause is the height of irresponsible behaviour by the present government. In the way of things, another government altogether may be in place before the 10 other self-government agreements have been concluded.
Members of today's Parliament could be giving this blanket permission to a cabinet not even yet elected. I submit to my colleagues that this simply is not a conscientious way to fulfil our obligations to all the people of Canada. It is at best a slip-shod kind of behaviour which no conscientious people would exercise in the conduct of their own personal affairs, much less the affairs of this great nation.
In conclusion, I would like to suggest some positive alternatives to Bill C-34, which I regard as having such serious flaws that it cannot be remedied even by numerous amendments.
In the very desirable process of going along with our aboriginal peoples as they follow the road to self-government, I believe that we must simply start at the beginning of the road and not leap with little caution toward the road's end. The beginning of the road to aboriginal self-government is holding an aboriginal constitutional convention at which the native peoples spell out what conditions they want to live under and what responsibilities for government and administration they want and are ready and financially able to assume.
For example, I doubt that the people of Canada would question or deny the aboriginal right to administer First Nation affairs and operation and internal management of the First Nation, together with the management and administration of rights and benefits realized by the aboriginals' agreement with Canada.
I feel certain that the people of Canada would be pleased and proud to see natives assume full responsibilities for programs and services relating to their spiritual and cultural beliefs and practices as well as the preservation of their aboriginal language and culture. However, far too little thought and planning has been devoted to the ways by which our native peoples would end their financial dependence on the rest of Canada.
There is no joke about the golden rule, that he who has the gold makes the rules. In our society to be regarded as a responsible adult is to take full responsibility for one's self. In my book that does not mean negotiating such huge settlements of land, cash and resources that the most minimal common sense
about investment will allow the beneficiaries to pursue their own chosen lifestyle forever.
In the rest of Canada people with many types of handicaps pride themselves on being able to work to be as self-supporting and independent as possible. Frankly, to say that for some reason our native people are not equally able to become self-supporting and independent seems to me to be racism of the worst kind.
I look forward to the day when a responsible government will bring to Parliament the kind of legislation enabling aboriginal self-government that all members of this House will be pleased and proud to support. Unfortunately, Bill C-34 does not fit that description.
Mr. Charlie Penson (Peace River): Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to speak on this very important topic this afternoon.
I spoke a month ago on Bill C-16 which laid out a settlement for land claims with the Sahtu Indian bands. I stated at that time that I was opposed to the bill on the grounds that it was overly generous. I also stated my concerns that the bill was setting a dangerous precedent. My thinking on these two bills before us today is much the same.
I support the concept of self-sufficiency and self-reliance inherent in the successful land claim settlement process. In no way do I argue with these in principle. I also encourage this government to dismantle the department of Indian affairs and let the people involved conduct their own affairs.
This approach develops responsibility and places decision making in the hands of those most directly involved.
Bill C-33 will validate land claims entered into between Her Majesty, the Government of the Yukon Territory and certain First Nations of the Yukon Territory. Bill C-34 is an act respecting self-government for the First Nations of Yukon territory. These two bills represent only four land claim agreements and four self-government agreements. There are 10 more of each to come in the Yukon. I might add there are about six pending in my riding of Peace River.
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The 14 land claim agreements would convey fee simple 16,000 square miles of land for these 14 bands. As my colleagues have said, that is equivalent to roughly three-quarters the size of Nova Scotia. The Government of Canada also agrees to pay $243 million in 1989 dollars over a period of 15 years. That is very substantial.
Clause 5 of Bill C-33 would allow the other 10 land claim agreements to be ratified by the approval of cabinet rather than by Parliament as a whole. In much the same way, clause 5 of Bill C-34 allows the self-government agreement to be ratified by cabinet as well.
At the present time, law making in Yukon is entrusted to two legislative bodies in Canada: the Parliament of Canada and the Yukon legislature. When this bill is passed, the number of governments having the right to pass laws in Yukon or parts of Yukon will go from two to sixteen. This means there will be more bureaucracy, more taxes, more laws and more rules and regulations. How can this possibly be in the best interests of Canada? We have just heard from my colleague from Okanagan that some of these are very small in terms of the amount of people involved and the efficiency of skills certainly cannot be achieved.
A number of questions need to be addressed. Will the new self-government have to function within the provincial, territorial or federal framework? That is a very important question that needs to be answered for Canadians. Why is it not spelled out explicitly that the self-governments must respect the authority of the Parliament of Canada?
Does the Canadian charter apply? Obviously it does not. Why is it not specifically spelled out in this legislation that the Canadian charter should apply?
The population of Yukon is about 32,000. To accommodate 20 per cent of that population, some 7,300 people, we are going to have 14 new governments. That does not make any sense to me. Who is going to pay for these governments? The country is already borrowing heavily abroad to finance the excessive spending of our federal government. Do we really want to ask the Japanese or the Americans to finance 14 more governments?
Let me read to members clause 24 of Bill C-34 which deals with funding: ``The minister may, with the approval of the governor in council and subject to appropriations by Parliament, enter into an agreement with a First Nation, for the provision of funding by the Government of Canada to the First Nation over the period of time and subject to the terms and conditions specified in the agreement''. To me, that sounds like a blank cheque and I do not think Canadian taxpayers will buy it.
Frankly, I am not prepared to commit my children and my grandchildren to who knows how many millions of dollars in future payments. I am not prepared to set this kind of precedent for future aboriginal self-government agreements.
As a member of the Reform Party I support the expeditious settlement of land claims leading to self-sufficiency. That is a very important distinction, self-sufficiency. I also support a modest form of municipal style self-government. That is a very important first step before we embark on any other notions that it may be federal or provincial. Bill C-34 goes much beyond that. I simply cannot support the direction in which these two bills are taking us.
I further object to the underhanded way in which these two bills are being pushed through. The Liberal red book promised integrity in Parliament, yet these bills were introduced only last week. Surely there is more time. This House has to work effectively. One week is certainly not enough time for MPs. These bills were introduced only last week with second reading occurring today. How can MPs properly prepare a response and debate a very complex package that took some 21 years to prepare in such a very short time?
The agreements made so far which Parliament is now asked to ratify are nine inches thick. That gives some perspective of what is involved here and how complex they are. They represent only four of fourteen land claim agreements and only four of the fourteen self-government agreements.
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If Bills C-33 and C-34 are passed, only cabinet will have to approve the other 10 yet to come. There is something seriously wrong here. I will vote against these bills and I urge my colleagues in this House to do the same.
Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake): Mr. Speaker, the Reform Party has said on several occasions this afternoon there was not enough time to prepare for this debate. Was the Reform Party not aware that this agreement was signed a year ago and that implementing legislation would have to be brought to the House at some point? Did Reform members not prepare and do their homework prior to the introduction of the bill so they would be prepared for the debate knowing it was coming forward?
Mr. Penson: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have that question asked. We have been trying to find out from this government, the minister of Indian affairs and the Prime Minister himself. On many occasions we have asked them to define what native self-government means and we have been unable to get any kind of a direct answer. They have been very evasive.
The most important question that needs to be asked is: What does native self-government really mean? Is it municipal government, provincial government or federal government? Those kinds of parameters have to be spelled out before we can embark along what we know is going to be a very long trail because a lot of other land claims are going to be coming before us.
I still think we need to defeat this bill. I hope the Senate will have enough common sense to send it back to the House and make this government define more clearly what self-government means.
Mr. Gordon Kirkby (Prince Albert-Churchill River): Mr. Speaker, I believe that the question of the member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake has gone unanswered. This agreement has been signed for quite some time now and I believe the hon. member mentioned it has been about a year. Could he not have asked for this agreement in order to get ready for this debate? We would like a direct answer to that.
Mr. Penson: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that when this government wants to implement something it agrees with like native self-government, it seems it can be done very quickly, but when it comes to cancelling the Pearson airport deal that is another matter. The former government was wrong and lot of blame was put on it. Now this government seems to be hiding behind the skirts of the former government in that the deal was negotiated so now it has to be finalized. I do not think that is a good enough argument.
Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer): Mr. Speaker, we need to put this whole issue in a different perspective. For the last three months I have been involved in the foreign affairs review. We have been looking at different countries and the property disputes, future disputes and the ethnic and racial tensions that have developed. I can see many of the things we have looked at there when I look at the type of legislation we have before us today. We might simply be trading one problem for another. We should take a serious hard and long look at some of the poorly thought out measures in this bill.
First I should make clear that I and certainly my party believe the department of Indian affairs is a mismanaged, poorly operated bureaucratic nightmare. All of us can agree it is something long overdue for reform. We can also agree with the principle of self-government. However, before something like that is set up there must be the criteria and an understanding of what you are getting. As was just mentioned the minister has been asked over and over again what is meant by self-government and the answer has never come.
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My general overview of self-government is one where we have a municipal-like organization. It is one which has limited powers and co-operates with the other levels of government. It is one which is harmonized at all levels and one which leads certainly to a better form of government for its people. The most important words would be ``democratically chosen'' and democratically representing the entire group of people, the grassroots. It does not mean representation by a clique, by powerbrokers, by a mob-like government, which in fact can happen if there are no restrictions or if the people are not ready for that type of government.
In examining the bill itself we see a very broad range of powers being given, literally an unlimited set of powers with absolutely no guarantee of any kind of democracy. We see more bureaucrats, more rules, more laws, more regulations, and more waste. We in fact see something possibly worse than the department of Indian affairs is today. Relating back to the world
situation, if people are not ready for self-government and are not prepared to work by certain criteria, which they should have a part in establishing, then you have nothing but disruption and ultimately possibly chaos.
Also there is no mention in this bill as has been mentioned a number of times before about the charter of rights. I do not think there are any Canadians including the native people of Yukon who would not want the charter of rights included in any kind of government they might have. If those charter of rights cannot be guaranteed, that is how countries get into human rights abuses, how they get into an area where the people are not protected from that power clique that could potentially run the proposed government.
We have to stop and look at this and get the people along with the experts to define what exactly we mean by self-government.
This is setting a serious precedent for the future. We are going into uncharted waters and we are going to come up with proposals that are going to be used in other parts of Canada. Are we sure these in fact are the rules by which we want to play? Certainly by removing any future settlements and allowing cabinet to decide these could not be much less democratic. We have literally taken the people out of the equation and have put it in the hands of politicians. I do not think that is a decision that is current with the way Canadians are thinking.
With the big picture now in place, do Canadians really know what they are getting? Do the natives of Yukon really know what they are getting? What are the repercussions later? Are the seeds of racial and discriminatory practices being sown by a bill like this? The potential is there. You just do not know enough of the guidelines or there are no guidelines to guarantee that will not happen. We have then a poorly defined self-government and the repercussions are for Canada entirely. There is no place that does not have a land claim in Canada and so the repercussions are great.
Of course there is the cost. No one really has talked about that. We have talked about the blank cheque in clause 24 and we have to ask as to who pays. We have to ask about the kind of repercussions that could come from the Canadian taxpayers when they find the price tag on this kind of agreement that has been signed.
This is just another case of legislation that will come back to haunt us in the future. It is another time when we should take a sober reflection and look at it before we move forward. The government should be happy to blame the last government for this kind of botched deal. Obviously the Canadian people believe the last government botched things pretty badly. This would be an opportunity then to simply reiterate that, as the Canadian people told us last October, go back and do it right, set the criteria and put this bill on the back burner until we can come up with something better.
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Mr. Allan Kerpan (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre): Mr. Speaker, I rise today to give a Saskatchewan perspective on the issues of Yukon aboriginal self-government and the land claims that are before this House today.
What is happening in the Yukon is very important to those of us in our province as well. Certainly today we are setting legislative precedents. We must be very careful about this, thorough in our analysis and creative in our proposals for solutions.
These issues are of real concern for people in my province. We have a significant and growing aboriginal population. In fact by early in the next century, some believe that the aboriginal population in Saskatchewan will approach a majority percentage.
I would like to raise four specific areas of discussion taking place now as we contemplate the present and future factors. Number one is the concerns of the Saskatchewan rural municipalities regarding land claims. Rural municipalities in Saskatchewan have a deep concern about losing a tax base from land claim settlements.
I sat in on a meeting of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food on April 28 past. We heard the concerns of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities in this matter. SARM represents 297 rural municipalities with over 235,000 rural residents. They are concerned that approximately two million acres are going to be purchased by the aboriginal community.
For rural municipalities this is a large tax implication. These lands are not going to be purchased in large blocks. It will be a quarter here, a half section there, a willing buyer, a willing seller type of agreement. These lands will go to reserve status.
Under federal law municipalities do not pay taxes. On treaty land entitlements there is a compensation fund worked out but on specific claims or reinstatement of treaty land entitlements we do not have an agreement.
If Indian people move into your municipality and they are not going to pay municipal tax, it is going to create unhappy neighbourhoods. If a person on one side of the road does not have to pay taxes and the person on the other side does, and perhaps more because the first does not, this is unfair.
SARM told our committee that it wanted to leave a strong message with us: This is a big problem in Saskatchewan and it has to be addressed.
This is an example in Saskatchewan of decisions and agreements being made without meeting the essential characteristics of good decisions. I fear for the same bills under discussion here in this House today. We must have decisions that are, number one, appropriate. Do these bills respond to the real problem?
Will they transform the present situation into the target state? Number two is attainability. Can these bills be successfully implemented given the resources that we have? Number three is attractive. Do we see these bills as relevant, feasible, understandable, supportable and ownable by everyone? Number four is adaptability. Can we modify things easily if conditions change or if new information becomes available?
In order to make the best decision we may have to do what all good decision makers should do, slow down, retrace our steps, elicit new opinions, present new ideas, give a word of encouragement, suggest a compromise, postpone action and reach out to non-participants. I say this is what we should be doing with the bills before us here today.
We have questions about the effectiveness of these bills and someone has said that questions thrown out the front door have a way of coming in through the side window. We do not want that to happen in this case. In fact we cannot afford to have it happen in this country.
The second concern is the community pastures under the PFRA program. A second type of related issue in Saskatchewan was raised in our committee at the same time in late April. Some of the PFRA community pasture lands will also be up for purchase by First Nations people.
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A reasonably good process of negotiation has been put in place for this. The Indian band will need the agreement of 75 per cent of the patrons of any particular pasture in order to proceed to the transfer of the said lands. This process is open and democratic, which all processes should be.
The third concern is the First Nations Council of Moose Jaw. Moving to yet another related issue, an event occurred in my riding of Moose Jaw-Lake Centre about a year and a half ago that really surprised some of my constituents. They woke up one morning to read the daily paper's lead headline, and I quote: ``First Nations elect first government. Status Indians take charge of their destinies''.
This was during the referendum campaign. The news story we read that morning said that an election held in Moose Jaw Tuesday should pave the way for self-government for urban status Indians throughout Canada. They said that their elected council would negotiate with all levels of government to secure better health care, education, employment and housing for its members.
What surprised people was that this was a group of neighbours and friends in our city who got together, conducted a process of discussions, elected leaders and declared to the rest of us that they were a duly constituted government to which we would now relate in jurisdictional terms. One hundred and seventy people out of a city population of some 35,000 made this decision that the rest of us must now abide by. I have yet to settle in my own mind exactly how one should respond to such an initiative.
The fourth concern was an event that happened last year in our riding. I have raised it before in this House. I believe it illustrates the importance of making sure our decisions and our actions are carefully thought out and applied before we take them.
In our riding we are trying to work together to solve a potentially divisive problem. Last July 22 to 25 an indigenous peoples celebration was held in Moose Jaw. Soon after I was elected as MP in October, local business and organizations that had provided goods and services to this event approached me with the news that they had not been paid for their services. The problem is serious because we have identified possibly as much as $200,000 worth of unpaid bills. I have informed both the federal government and the Saskatchewan provincial government about this situation and the issue certainly has been in the local news.
I have a deep concern that a successful resolution be found to this problem. I am encouraged by the patience of the business persons involved as we work through this problem and by the openness and the responsibility being taken by the newly selected aboriginal leaders in Moose Jaw. I am hoping we can carefully reach a successful conclusion to this matter. I have said that I will keep this House informed. I am of the distinct persuasion, however, that this problem ended up being harder to solve than it would have been to prevent by careful planning.
A wise person once said that one should make sure they count the costs before undertaking an initiative. I am concerned that this is what will happen in the debates about the far-reaching and significant implications of the legislation that we have before us.
Mr. Gordon Kirkby (Prince Albert-Churchill River): Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments that were directed toward this legislation.
It is often easy to ask a lot of questions about self-government legislation. Questions have been asked of the government to define self-government. When an agreement like this is put forward does that not aid the members of the Reform Party to see what the government means by self-government?
Second, if there are perceived problems with the legislation what specific measures would the hon. member propose to deal with situations like the comprehensive land claim issue?
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Mr. Kerpan: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's comments and questions.
The one key element that is missing from this agreement, as I see it, is the inclusion of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. From looking at the bill and studying it in some detail, that to me sticks out more than anything.
The other part of the question that I would like to answer is what we would do or how we would involve this. I do not think anybody on this side of the House, certainly in our party, is against the theory of some sort of native self-government. The problem as I see it is that the process has not been a very open process. In my mind it is something that has been rushed for an issue of such significance. I think it needs to be opened up to all Canadians regardless of what part of the country they live in or what their particular personal heritage might be.
That is probably the key to this whole issue, that we must bring all Canadians into this type of decision-making process. Anything short of that will certainly spell disaster for some idea or theory that may in fact be a good idea to start with.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): Is the House ready for the question?
Some hon. members: Question.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.
Some hon. members: Yea.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): All those opposed will please say nay.
Some hon. members: Nay.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): Call in the members.
During the ringing of the bells:
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): Pursuant to Standing Order 45(5)(a), I have been requested by the chief government whip to defer the division until a later time.
Accordingly, pursuant to Standing Order 45(6) the division of the question now before the House stands deferred until Monday at the ordinary hour of daily adjournment at which time the bells to call in the members will be sounded for not more than 15 minutes.
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. Pursuant to our rules the vote now has to take place on Monday. From our position while the bell was ringing we could not ask otherwise. However, now that we have officially reconvened I wonder if the Chair would seek to determine whether or not there is unanimous consent to have the vote at the ordinary time of adjournment on Tuesday if there is such consent.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): Is there unanimous consent?
Some hon. members: Agreed
Hon. Fernand Robichaud (Secretary of State (Parliamentary Affairs)): Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise to address the House on Bill C-33, the Yukon First Nations Land Claims Settlement Act.
[Translation]
The government's red book clearly stated our commitment to the resolution of outstanding land claims, a commitment we intend to meet whenever we can.
By settling land claims in a way that is responsible and equitable, the government will resolve former differences with the First Nations and ensure that old grievances between native and non-native people will gradually disappear.
[English]
Nowhere is the need to act more evident than in Yukon. The council for Yukon Indians land claim entitled``Together Today for our Children Tomorrow'' was accepted by the Government of Canada in 1973. It was among the first of the land claims accepted by the government and its settlement is long overdue.
We have come close in the past. An agreement in principle was reached in 1984 but was not ratified by a sufficient number of Yukon First Nations to move the process forward toward negotiations of a final agreement.
Based on the 1988 agreement in principle the Council for Yukon Indians and the Governments of Canada and Yukon were able to negotiate the Yukon Indian final umbrella agreement. That agreement was signed by all three parties in May 1993 and is the basis for Bill C-33.
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[Translation]
Hon. members should realize that the approach to resolving land claims in the Yukon clearly differs from what has been done elsewhere in Canada. This is due to the simple fact that the Yukon is different from all other regions.
It is unique in that, first of all, most aboriginal people do not live on reserves. As a result, programs and services are dispensed by the territorial government with which a close relationship exists.
[English]
Because of the unique situation in Yukon the negotiation of the final umbrella agreement was only the first part of the settlement process. It remained to conclude land claims agreements with each of the 14 Yukon First Nations; four such agreements have been reached and will be given effect through Bill C-33.
Also as part of the settlement process, certain Yukon First Nations will be negotiating transboundary agreements to resolve overlapping claims with aboriginal groups in the Northwest Territories and British Columbia.
Throughout the negotiations that have taken place over the past two decades, the effected interest groups and the public have been consulted extensively. The end result is that we have territory-wide support for the settlement agreements.
[Translation]
Numerous public hearings were held to discuss the contents of the final framework agreement. The Yukon Legislative Assembly also set up a special committee on land claims and self-government. Based on the favourable response it received during its visits to Yukon communities, the committee strongly recommended that the four agreements negotiated to date be approved.
[English]
Interest groups have also had direct input to the settlement process. A good example of this occurred during the selection of settlement lands by the four First Nations that have reached final agreement.
As part of this process, the Yukon Outfitters Association whose members will be affected by the designation of settlement lands was widely consulted and was able to negotiate compensation for provable losses under the final umbrella agreement.
First Nations are continuing to work with this association to minimize any commercial hardship that may result should the agreements come into force during the outfitting season.
[Translation]
We also sought the views and backing of groups representing the energy and mining industries. We consulted with all municipal governments, churches, chambers of commerce, recreational associations and other groups, and heard some very valid comments.
With your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote from several letters which the government received from Yukon organizations. The person signing each letter expressed firm support for the land claims settlement agreements and urged Parliament to move quickly to pass the enacting legislation.
[English]
The Anglican Bishop of Yukon, the Right Reverend R.C. Ferris, has written to the government on behalf of his diocese. Right Reverend Ferris asked that the settlement legislation be brought forward without delay and expressed the community's distress after so many years of struggle on the part of all parties to achieve an acceptable agreement. Settlement legislation is not yet a reality.
Mr. Dan McDiarmid, chairman of the Mayo District Renewable Resources Council, wrote to the minister in April stressing the importance of the land claims agreements to everyone in Yukon, requesting that the government introduce and approve settlement legislation at the earliest possible date.
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[Translation]
The Yukon Chamber of Mines noted that the land claims settlement agreement had the support not only of Yukon natives, but also of many other territorial groups, and among others, of the mining industry.
Mr. Steven Powell, the president of the United Keno Hill Mines Limited, sent us the following message: ``Thanks to this agreement, Canada will be able to close the door on a difficult chapter in the history of its relations with aboriginal peoples. Therefore, I urge you to press your colleagues in the Commons to debate the matter in a level-headed manner and to endorse these agreements''.
The entire Yukon Legislative Assembly urged the government to act. On April 27, the assembly passed a resolution calling upon the minister to urge Parliament to enact the land claims settlement legislation. Furthermore, the resolution called upon the members: ``-to act expeditiously to adopt the Yukon First Nations Land Claims Settlement Act which will safeguard the rights and interests of the Yukon's first nations and enable the territory to move into the 21st century''.
[English]
One of the most candid and compelling letters the government has received came from Chief Robert Bruce, Jr., writing on
behalf of the Buntut Gwychin tribal council whose final agreement will be given effect by Bill C-33.
In his letter to the Prime Minister Chief Bruce stated: ``The people of Yukon and the Government of Canada have worked very hard to reach the compromises and innovative concepts that are embodied in these agreements. It is very important to see these efforts translated into action now while enthusiasm and expectation are high''.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, in light of all these comments, it would be inconceivable for the House to reject Bill C-33. Clearly, all sectors of Yukon society overwhelmingly support the land claims settlement act.
[English]
There is good reason for that support. The first four nations final agreements that will be given effect by Bill C-33 are good agreements. They will bring many social, economic and political benefits to the affected Yukon First Nations. They will also provide many substantial indirect benefits to non-aboriginal residents of the territory.
Yukoners are now calling on Parliament to do its work, to give this legislation speedy passage so that it can get on with the job of building a stronger, more prosperous future. I can see no other reasonable or responsible course of action.
[Translation]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): Order. Pursuant to Standing Order 38, it is my duty to inform the House that the questions to be raised this evening at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra-Rwanda; the hon. member for Verchères-Trade; the hon. member for Peace River-National Defence.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Saint-Jean.
Mr. Bachand: Mr. Speaker, I have something to ask you. My hon. colleague from Prince George-Bulkley Valley must catch a plane and, if you have no objection, I agreed to give him the floor immediately. I would like to come back and respond to the speech given by the hon. member on behalf of the minister. I would be very grateful if you told me whether I can use up to 40 minutes which are allotted to me for a reply.
[English]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): Certainly I am only too pleased to follow the agreement. I thank all members for that sense of co-operation in the House and I will recognize at this time the hon. member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley.
Mr. Dick Harris (Prince George-Bulkley Valley): Mr. Speaker, my deepest appreciation to my colleagues from the Bloc. I really appreciate that.
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We are debating Bill C-33 today. It is probably appropriate, and it would be the best possible direction to take on the bill, to draw some comparisons between Bill C-33 and Bill C-16.
I know the Yukon natives involved in the negotiation of Bill C-33 overwhelmingly support the bill. There is no doubt about that. It appears that they would be more than satisfied with this settlement. However I believe that we as parliamentarians, as duty bound by the people of the country, would be more than negligent, as have past parties in the House, if we did not address some of the problems contained within Bill C-33.
Certainly my colleagues and I in the Reform Party are most willing to entertain the concepts of aboriginal self-sufficiency and aboriginal self-determination, but only in situations and only under the clear focus that aboriginal people or the Yukon natives will come to a position of self-sufficiency within Canadian society.
Most unfortunately Bill C-33 does not address that focus. Bill C-33 like Bill C-16 calls for more bureaucracy, large settlement moneys, continued DIAND participation in programs, financial assistance and future negotiation for self-government. The bureaucracy possible within the agreement is very extensive.
We in the Reform Party greatly fear that as we proceed along the path to establishing land claims and aboriginal self-government the bureaucracy will create such an expensive and complex deterrent to the goal of self-sufficiency. It is necessary to address that.
I want to look at Bill C-33 for a moment and talk about the package itself. There are some 8,000 Yukon Indians in Yukon out of a total population of 32,000 people. They will be conveyed collectively ownership of some 16,000 square miles or 41,400 square kilometres of land, 10,000 square miles of which include all subsurface rights and the remaining 6,000 square miles of which include some subsurface rights.
In addition, the federal government will pay some $242.6 million in cash and the Yukon First Nations will receive rental revenues from surface leases, royalties and development of non-renewable resources. Yukon First Nations will also receive a preferential share in wildlife harvesting, exclusive harvesting over most of their settlement lands, and 70 per cent of their trap lines will be located in the larger traditional territories.
On top of all this, under the bill all existing government programs for natives and non-natives will continue to apply. How could we have a focus on arriving at a settlement for land
claims if coupled with that settlement are promises for continued future federal funding?
The object of settling land claims is to break the dependency of the native people upon the federal government. We want to give them the opportunity to become self-sufficient. As my hon. colleague talked about this morning, we cannot break that dependency cycle if we continue to give money and funding to a person or a group such as the Yukon natives. That dependency cycle has to be broken. The goal has to be self-sufficiency. To include in the agreement the same federal funding that exists now is no incentive to create self-sufficiency.
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Another area of concern is that although Bill C-33 has come to the House for debate, and certainly we in the Reform Party welcome the debate, the other 10 land claim agreements spoken about in the bill and yet to be negotiated need only be approved by order in council. In other words, we will not be given the opportunity in the House to debate those land claim settlements. We are talking about thousands of square miles of land and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. Surely the people paying the bill, the taxpayers of the country, have a right to be represented in the House by members who debate the good points and the bad points of the bill.
The bill guarantees that future land claims under Bill C-33 would be negotiated in the offices that we cannot get to. I believe Canadian taxpayers deserve more than that. We are trusted by them. We were elected and sent here by them to look after their affairs. This is certainly something of major concern to Canadians.
I want to talk about the constitutional entrenchment. By virtue of clause 6 of the bill the rights contained in the land claim agreements are recognized and affirmed under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. We are very uncertain as to what this means and we are relatively certain that the government is uncertain as to what this means. It may mean these rights are not amendable except by constitutional amendment or, at the very least, without the concurrence of the first nation involved.
This would mean that these rights are beyond the reach of ordinary future parliamentary amendment. This adds the element of finality to them that does not sit well for changing future circumstances. The circumstances are changing all the time. In our Constitution we have the mechanism to make amendments, to be able to change our Constitution with the times. Bill C-33 in our opinion does not provide for changes to meet future circumstances which may appear. Quite frankly we think the government displays a tremendous amount of arrogance to lock in forever today's government policy. The constitutional entrenchment causes a lot of concern.
I spoke about the comparison between Bill C-33 and Bill C-16. I talked about the boards, the commissions and the councils. Bill C-33 would formally constitute five more government boards and two government councils referred to in the various land claim agreements. Presumably most, if not all, of the functions of these new bodies are presently performed by the facilities of the Yukon and federal governments. Is there a need for more regulatory bodies, support staff and bureaucracy on top of what is already in place?
Clause 9(4) constitutes still more boards, commissions and councils that may be referred in future land claim agreements. As I stated, the bureaucracy concerned in Bill C-16 is predominantly present in Bill C-33. This is not the way to get best value for our dollars.
The government has talked about downsizing government, downsizing departments and downsizing the way government runs so that it can be more cost effective. The government, the Reform Party and the Official Opposition have been talking about downsizing, becoming more efficient and more cost effective.
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Bill C-33 goes exactly in the opposite direction. It calls for a larger bureaucracy, a larger government, more costs and less cost effectiveness. This is an area in which the government has done a flip-flop if it believes in downsizing. It has done a complete about turn.
I want to talk for a moment about the transfer of full ownership. The implementation of full ownership of the property has gone far beyond what any court in Canada has found to constitute aboriginal title. No court in Canada of which I am aware has decided that an aboriginal interest in land goes so far as to entitle aboriginal people to fee simple or full ownership. At best our courts have found the meaning of aboriginal rights and title to include those traditional activities carried on by native communities prior to colonial contact. These include hunting, fishing, et cetera.
These rights have been characterized by the courts as not, strictly speaking, being interest in land but all special rights unique to the native people. This represents a cloud on the crown's title. The courts have gone on to say that the cloud can be removed by the exercise of crown sovereignty through legislation that has a clear intention to remove the aboriginal interest.
There is a challenge to the aboriginal land claims presently in the court of B.C. It is a challenge to a ruling by Chief Justice McEachern in which his decision was that there was no valid legal basis for the land claim in question. The fact the government now proposes to bypass an undecided court ruling by means of Bill C-33, a ruling that is still under appeal, causes a lot of concern for us.
I said that the focus of land claims should be on the eventuality of self-sufficiency for the aboriginal people. No one can deny that every Canadian wants to see that come about. It will
not come about until the aboriginal peoples of the country are given an opportunity and the dependency cycle would be broken.
In other words, we have no problem with settling land claims with aboriginal people whatsoever. We have a problem with the inclusion in land claim settlements that government funding would continue exactly as always. This is an area of concern. I urge the government to do the right thing: to help aboriginal people become self-sufficient.
The government has the power to break the dependency cycle. That is what it should be doing. It is like when I was trying to teach my children the value of becoming independent and responsible for their own lives. What if I had continued giving them everything they wanted without asking them to take responsibility and to begin to understand what it means to strive and to work and the value of education to make themselves more independent? If I had not done that they would be still dependent on me and, quite frankly, at the age my sons are I am looking forward to the time when they will be independent of me. That is what I have been striving for. That is what the government has to do in connection with these land claims. They have to break the dependency cycle.
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I strongly want to urge members of the House to focus on that. Let us not be swayed by the emotional part of this whole native issue. Let us focus on what should result out of this process. The aboriginal people should have the opportunity to become self-sufficient. Let us break the dependency cycle. Let us not make agreements or contracts that will drive a wedge further between Canadian society and the aboriginal people. Let us seek to tear down the barriers that exist and that does not mean continuing to fund native programs forever and ever.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): I see members seeking the floor. The House might keep in mind that the first three speakers on this legislation at this time have up to 40 minutes to speak without question or comments.
[Translation]
Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean): Mr. Speaker, true to form, I will state forthwith the position of the Bloc Quebecois. Following discussions with appropriate authorities, the Bloc will support Bill C-33.
I take this opportunity, while the cameras are on me, to pay my respects to the people from the Yukon both at home and in the gallery. Their perseverance is rewarded today, after twenty some years of discussions, with agreements that will be given effect by Bill C-33.
As I said when I spoke to Bill C-34, perseverance is one of the characteristic traits of native culture. We often think in terms of future generations and these peoples must be commended for their perseverance. Year after year, decade after decade, they persevered in their pacific approach toward a potential agreement. Here it is today. I am pleased to greet and congratulate them.
A number of things were said in this place this morning as well as this afternoon. I may have given my speaking time up to my colleague from Prince George-Bulkley Valley but understandably, it does not mean that I agree with every single remark he made.
I heard someone say: ``I gave my son a bicycle as a child; then, he asked for a motorcycle''. To listen to the people across the way, you would think that native peoples, Indians and first nations are nothing but spoiled children. I want to make it quite clear that I do not agree with that opinion.
I think we must bear in mind the social contract they have concluded with us, white people, people with our own laws, procedures and parliamentary democracy. We must also bear in mind that we settled on their land. Let us not forget that these nations have been established in the Yukon Territory for 10,000 years. They were here long before us. Yet, we have enjoyed the use of that land. Regarding the financial compensation provided for in this agreement today, I do not think it is really a matter of giving them everything they want and them more or less rubbing us of these $240 million. It is more a matter of recognizing the fact that for generations, for decades, in fact since the Europeans set foot on this continent, we have enjoyed the use of this land and are now granting appropriate compensation.
As far as I am concerned, the native peoples are no spoiled children. They are people perfectly capable of negotiating. They are very good at it too, as I have seen for myself on many occasions. Having been a negotiator myself for 20 years, I must admit that while being pacifists, they are formidable negotiators.
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We must also understand that with an agreement such as the one before the House today and with this enacting legislation, the objectives of the two parties have not been fully met. At best, they agreed on a common denominator, this agreement before us which to my mind is the end result of discussions between persons who took care to ensure that they had all they needed in the way of services from legal or consulting firms.
Far be it for me to think that the first nations are merely being treated like children who have grown up and are finally being allowed to fly on their own. Basically, I believe that this is a good agreement for the people of the Yukon and I also think it is good for the Parliament of Canada. These are very important considerations.
Mention is often made of ending the guardianship. I believe we need to discuss how to go about doing this. Some people may argue that the agreement and legislation before us do not end the guardianship and naturally, I disagree with them. I think this agreement enables the first nations of the Yukon to take charge of their own destiny, much like Bill C-34 adopted on second reading speaks about self-government. Certain powers are being given to these nations and the logical follow-up to
Bill C-33 would be to give them the land base over which to exercise these rights.
Therefore, I feel that this agreement is one way to end the state of guardianship and as everyone knows, particularly those who took part in the negotiations on the native side, no set pattern of self-government or land base has yet been decided on.
It is clear from this agreement that the land in question is splintered. The government did not take one piece of the Northwest Territories or one piece of the Yukon and say ``Here, this is yours now'', as it did with other agreements or with the Sahtu Tribal Council. In those cases, a homogenous parcel of land was turned over and the people were told that they could exercise certain powers within that territory, based on agreements that were reached.
As I said, the government has not taken a general or uniform approach. What we have here is a splintered agreement between the government and four first nations of the Yukon. They have finalized agreements with the federal government and made decisions about the land involved. Ten other agreements are slated to follow.
When I hear that these ten other agreements will be negotiated behind closed doors, I have to disagree with that way of seeing things. On reading the text of the four agreements before us, we see that they are virtually identical.
So of course, subsequent agreements are likely to be carbon copies of these four ones. I think we should take the time to look at the contents of this agreement which the legislation enacts. Exactly what provisions are being enacted today?
The agreement involves a total area of 41,439 square kilometres which, as I said earlier, cover a broad area. If one first nation was able to prove to federal negotiators that its traditional lands were located in area X and the government agreed, then these lands are included in the final agreement with that first nation.
We have here before us today an final umbrella agreement which covers all land claims for a total area of 41,439 square kilometres which the federal negotiators have agreed to make available to 14 first nations. Four have already availed themselves of this right and have negotiated final land claims agreements with the federal government.
Regarding the government's economic proposal, as I mentioned earlier, this is not simply a matter of extending charity. For decades, even centuries, from the moment the Europeans arrived on this continent, we have benefitted from these lands.
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Today, we give back to them a number of settlement lands with compensation in the order of $242 million over 15 years. In my opinion, that does not necessarily keep these people under trusteeship because, as we will see later, they will have capabilities. They will have at their disposal financial structures that will administer this money and free them from this dependence in which we have kept them for too long.
We also see that the lands given back will be divided into Class A and Class B lands. It may be important to explain the difference between the two classes.
On Class A lands, people will have not only surface rights but also subsurface rights, including mining, minerals and oil. That is not to be sneezed at either. Not only are we liberating them by compensating them for what we took from them before, but we also give them the right to administer surface and subsurface resources on some settlement lands. It is another step toward the goal of freeing them from this trusteeship.
The agreement contains interesting clauses which I must point out.
Earlier I referred in passing to the final umbrella agreement but I would like to come back to it. We have before us today four final agreements for the four Yukon nations who negotiated and reached a settlement with the government. All future agreements will always have to refer to the final umbrella agreement covering all 14 final agreements, one for each nation. It may be important to point this out.
Regulatory agreements-this is important-will be guaranteed under Section 35 of the 1982 Constitution Act. Unlike Bill C-34, where Section 35 does not apply to modern-day treaties, these agreements on the land base will be protected under Section 35 of the 1982 Constitution Act.
The agreement also outlines some interesting options I would like to point out. Among other things, people will have some time to decide whether or not they want continued protection under the Indian Act, particularly with respect to Indian reserves. In other words, there are two options. The people will have the option of preserving the Indian reserve concept for a while. The other option will be that of settlement lands, meaning that they will move away from the Indian Act and the reserve concept and exercise their full autonomy on settlement lands, which are different from Indian reserves.
This whole agreement, of course, required a lot of mapping and surveying work. Today, I would like to dispel a rumour that circulated in the Yukon. I am mentioning it at this time because people in the Yukon are now watching us. The Bloc Quebecois has never considered for one second blocking the introduction and first reading of a bill because maps had not been translated. We admittedly consulted the party, but we never thought of
blocking an agreement that took decades to negotiate just because maps had not been translated.
The document before us is printed in English and in French. As far as we know, we told the minister we would appreciate it if he could have the maps translated as soon as possible. But in the meantime, we will not tell people who have been waiting for so long that we will not even let the bill pass first reading. That was out of the question.
I must point out today that the Bloc Quebecois did in fact agree to the introduction and first reading of this bill. The agreement also contains many interesting things such as the special management areas.
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You know that we whites and the natives agree on certain territories. There are boundaries and limits on these territories. This applies very well in a city or municipality, but in the wide open spaces of the Yukon, it is obviously hard to apply, especially for everything that has to do with wildlife, flora, fauna, the natural environment.
I give the Porcupine caribou herd as an example. It is very difficult to ask the caribou herd in the Northwest Territories in the spring not to go to the Yukon in the fall and not to go to Alaska because of the U.S. border. We understand that there will be specialized management areas. What is interesting about it is that it again highlights the traditional aspect of native peoples. Some areas will be specialized to concentrate on the local flora and fauna.
Another interesting point is the great emphasis put on land use. I was just telling you that it is a fragmented agreement; eventually 14 nations will have territories that are not necessarily contiguous. In some areas, native self-government will not apply and the Yukon first nations will not have a land base.
However, the agreement provides a process to ensure compatibility in decision making so as to avoid grey areas where the local authorities could make laws or regulations that would impinge on their neighbours. A process has been put in place for that and it is worth mentioning.
This process takes the Yukon Indians' cultural values into very serious consideration. It is very interesting because for once it lends weight to sustainable development, a concept of great importance to me. Our consumer society has too long overlooked the concept of sustainable development. We build and develop rapidly, often at the expense of the environment, and then we find that the environment has been destroyed. The economy enjoyed a boom and then declined when the resources on the surface and underground were completely used up. So sustainable development is a cornerstone of land use. We note that very great importance is given to sustainable development. We must be glad that this concept of sustainable development is in this agreement.
There will also be a development activities commission. This in a way is what I have always called a happy marriage of the traditional and of modern economic development. All the economic activities that developers want to propose on the lands covered by the agreement or on the reserves will have to be submitted to a development activities review board. Of course, we can see that sustainable development will be a key, as I said earlier, but the traditional methods and culture of these peoples will be taken into account. The agreement provides that developers will have to reduce the environmental impact of their projects so that this happy blend of the traditional and modern economic development is an everyday reality.
I think that another very important commission for them is the Fish and Wildlife Management Board. In the agreement, the federal government agreed to set up a joint fund to restore and rebuild everything that has to do with wildlife, fish and flora. We know that unfortunate developments in some areas depleted the resources on the surface or underground. The Fish and Wildlife Management Board will seek to restore the resources which have characterized the Yukon for centuries.
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A great deal of attention should also be paid to their heritage. That is something which is not often talked about and I am pleased to address this subject, as I did in my speech on Bill C-34. All issues related to language will be extremely important on those lands.
I must, once again, draw an analogy between the Quebec people, a French-speaking minority in the vast country that is Canada, and the aboriginal nations who are also linguistic minorities. So I am happy for them that attention was paid to their languages and traditions. As far as I am concerned, their rich traditions often add to my own culture.
I have noticed among other things that legends are very important to them. What could be nicer than a legend told in a traditional language spoken by the ancestors? That is provided for in the agreement. It is not the federal negotiators, I am sure, who insisted on inserting these provisions in the agreement as such. I think these people felt their culture was very important and saw to it that it was protected, just as we Quebecers want to preserve our culture. I think we ought to congratulate them for their similar views on this issue.
These people are not hegemonic because it is not a part of their culture. When the Europeans arrived, they did not object to sharing their huge territory. This attitude is reflected in the agreement: there will be quite reasonable access for all the
people who want to go to the Yukon. Obviously, we will not need a visa or a passport to travel to the Yukon.
By the way, I have been invited to go fishing for 25-pound trout in the Yukon-
An hon. member: Invite us.
Mr. Bachand: -I will be pleased to accept the invitation and I will not need a passport or visa to go there. I intend to go and see for myself whether this is really true, because people who go fishing often like to brag about the fish they caught, and when they do not have a photograph, they often say the fish was that long. I intend to find out whether what they said about fish weighing 25 pounds is true, and I promise to get back to the House on this and tell you whether there was some truth in all this.
Oral traditions are also a very important part of their heritage. Nowadays, we have the tendency to say: I'm buying a house. Now, I would like to see what the last contract, the contract with the previous owner, looked like''. They, however, have an oral tradition. We used to have that in our society as well, a long time ago, but today, that has been lost as a result of our whole legal perspective. But to them, oral traditions are very important.
They often have agreements without having a contract as such. As far as their heritage is concerned, they reserve the right to emphasize such agreements, and I think they are right. There will be a water management board, because the waters of the Yukon are very special. There is very little pollution in the Yukon, and some people would like to take advantage of this. For instance, our American friends might want to import water. This is something we are hearing more and more in some parts of the United States where the water table is going down. People often talk about diverting certain waterways to try and get more water.
The agreement states that as far as domestic needs are concerned, there is no problem. However, to handle specific needs, the people in the Yukon decided to set up a water management board. To me that is not a bureaucracy, because one-third of the board will consist of members appointed among aboriginal people, which is one way for aboriginal people to control their own affairs.
We see this as a way to stop having all the decisions made by Ottawa and then transmitted to regional headquarters and from there to the Indians or aboriginal peoples or First Nations. And now, the government says the will boards will be created.
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You want boards to protect your waterways and your environment, so the government will ensure that most of the people on those boards will be local people who are knowledgeable about the area.
I do not think we are getting a new bureaucracy as much as more effective management, because these will be local people who know their area, and we hope this will help to dismantle the Department of Indian Affairs and the Indian Act as soon as possible, and what the people of the Yukon proposed is a step in the right direction. As I said earlier, there are provisions on fish and wildlife on class A lands where they will have exclusive harvesting privileges. The agreement maintains 70 per cent of the trap lines, which was very important for them because this is one of their traditional activities.
Forestry is also an interesting area, and here I would like to draw an analogy, using forestry as an example. Aboriginal people often say that they see the world as a big forest. In a forest, there are many kinds of trees, like pine and maple, and they often say that the way they see the forest is more or less the way they see society. I wanted to draw this analogy, because to them, the forest is a vital resource, and the fact that this resource is also included in the agreement means that these people will have better control over their forest resources. I mentioned economic development, and the hon. member on the government side also raised the matter of transboundary agreements. These people will be able to take a part in transboundary agreements. For instance, as I said before, we have the Porcupine caribou herd, and these herds do not necessarily stay within certain borders. Since for aboriginal people, the caribou is part and parcel of their traditions, it is important for them to participate in discussions on transboundary agreements and the Porcupine caribou herd.
Incidentally, we must conclude agreements with the Americans because the caribou herds that migrate through the Yukon Territory spend part of the year in Alaska, and the Americans are thinking very seriously about developing Alaska's oil and mineral resources. That is why it is important for First Nations in the Yukon to be able to participate in transboundary agreements. An example that comes immediately to mind is the caribou herds.
In concluding, I would like to say once again that I want to congratulate the First Nations of Yukon on signing the agreement. And I want to say to them that the Bloc Quebecois supports Bill C-33. And as I said earlier, these people stood their ground, they were painstaking and stubborn and probably very hard on the federal negotiators who, I am sure, returned the compliment, and in spite of all that, there was no hostility. And as I said when we considered Bill C-34, and I say it again now, with respect to Bill C-33, there are aboriginal peoples that
would be well advised to follow the example of the people of the Yukon and the First Nations of the Yukon and persevere in their land claims and their demands for self-government, but peacefully, which can be very difficult when it comes time to negotiate.
However, taking up arms in a modern society, whether we are talking about aboriginal people or white people, is hardly if at all acceptable, and these people have demonstrated in what will become another historic turning point, that thanks to their perseverance and their ability to negotiate, they concluded an agreement that was satisfactory to all concerned, an agreement that was welcomed by many people in the Yukon, including the territorial government and mining companies involved in mining exploration in the Yukon.
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Once again, these people have demonstrated that co-operation exists in the Yukon. They made that clear, and I think we have cause to welcome Bill C-33.
In concluding, I want to say to the people of the Yukon that they can count on the support of the Bloc Quebecois for the passage of Bill C-33.
[English]
Mr. Bill Gilmour (Comox-Alberni): Mr. Speaker, at the outset let me say that the Reform Party believes in the self-reliance of natives in the Yukon. The difficulties that we have with this bill are on the generosity aspect.
To begin with, I am concerned with the general direction of this bill because it sets a precedent and, along with other bills such as the Nunavut deal that was brought in by the Conservatives, C-16, the Sahtu, these are overly generous settlements to small numbers of people.
If you look at the Canadian map, you start to see the jigsaw puzzle that is put together, individual bits and pieces. However, if put all together it is very clear that the area in Canada north of 60 is very quickly being set aside in land claims. There is little regard for the implications on non-native Canadians because these agreements have implications for both native and non-native Canadians. We have to look at it from that aspect.
It appears that this government may be sleepwalking toward a disaster with this overly generous land settlement plan. The generosity of this agreement is somewhat ridiculous because it has no basis in fact and no basis in law.
We do not state that there should not be a settlement. That is not the point. We are saying that the size of this settlement is clearly overly generous. In fact we could say that this settlement is far too liberal. It is the kind of agreement that will drive a wedge between native and non-native Canadians.
To give some statistics, this agreement gives 17,275 square kilometres or 6,670 square miles to these four Yukon native groups. Out of this area, 12,000 square kilometres or nearly 5,000 square miles includes the mining and mineral rights. That is 6,670 square miles for 2,457 individuals or each individual getting about 3 square miles of land.
This settlement deals with only four of the bands out of 14. There are still 10 more claims to be negotiated. If these groups are to realize similar agreements then I have to ask this government where the land will come from. Certainly to grant similar agreements to the 10 remaining groups will cover the entire Yukon Territory and possibly more.
I will go back to my jigsaw puzzle because it is starting to appear that each piece is falling into place, only the whole northern top end of Canada is being taken up.
What about the land rights of non-native Canadians here? When will this government look at the developments that are going on in the rest of the world? The policy that we are talking about here today is based on race. The rest of the world is going toward equality. We see it all over the world. I have to question why this bill and the self-government bill are going against that when the rest of the world is going for, the equality of all its citizens.
What about the non-native Canadians who spent their lives in the Yukon? Where do they fit in? That is unclear. What will happen if some of these people are in an area where the land claims go through the area? What if they are displaced? Will they be compensated? Have they been consulted?
On the consultation process the government has said, yes, it has consulted with the people. However, my understanding is that it is a fairly broad consultation on very fuzzy ideas like: Are you in favour of native self-government? Yes. Are you in favour of settling the land claims? Yes.
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The detail of these settlements has not been made public to my understanding. What will happen to the current landholders? If you own a house, a ranch, a trapline or whatever and it is covered by a land claim, whose law do you answer to? Is it the Canadian law? Is it native law? Is it a combination of both? I can see a nightmare of bureaucracy running through this whole situation.
There are not only native land claims. There are numerous more land claims that have to be settled. This precedent setting legislation that we are looking at is exceedingly dangerous in that each band will look at this as an agreement and say: ``We want at least as much if not more''. We are on the tracks heading to an area where we are going to have some huge disagreements.
Some of the areas that I have talked about before like the Nunavut deal that covered the eastern Arctic, the Inuvialuit deal that was the western Arctic, the Gwich'in agreement in the Mackenzie River delta, are all parts of this puzzle that are
falling into place. Again it appears that this government's goal is to blanket the Canadian north with these settlement agreements.
Let us go back in time because Canada is a nation of immigrants. We are all immigrants whether we arrived here first, second, third or just recently landed. Every one of us including natives has come to this country from somewhere else. Some of us have come for economic reasons. Some have come to join loved ones and some of us have had the good fortune to be born here.
Many immigrants have come here because they were persecuted somewhere else and Canada has opened its doors. What are we offering? We are offering equality for everyone. That is where we should be going today with these settlements. The first people in this country should not have any more rights or any fewer rights than other Canadians.
Moreover I do not think that the government is really aware of the extent of this settlement. According to the final umbrella agreement, $242.6 million in cash compensation will be divided among the 14 native groups to be paid over 15 years. That results in about $30,000 per individual. Thirty thousand dollars is a nice lump sum when one's house is paid for and the government is still continuing to pay the other bills.
How is this money going to be divided? When I talked earlier on the self-government bill, it became clear that the charter does not apply. We have huge sums of money and huge tracts of land that are going to be looked at and overseen by groups of people.
One of the biggest concerns that people had with the old Indian affairs act was that a native on a reserve did not own the land. He could not go to the bank and say: ``I own this chunk of land''. It is going to be the same thing as I understand it with these deals.
What about an individual native owning the land that he is on. This is where we start to get self-esteem. If it is owned by the band, if it is owned by an umbrella group, again we run into difficulties because it is not covered in the charter.
Does this government know the potential of the mining rights that are given in this deal? I made some phone calls to some mining people to find out and they are unclear where it is going. They do not know the potential of the mining claims in the Yukon. Because of uncertainty, a lot of the claims have been basically set back. Exploration has been set back.
The government does not know the value of what it is deeding away. Included in these four agreements is the option to acquire up to 25 per cent of the royalties held by the Yukon government, its agencies or corporations in future non-renewable resource development and hydro projects in the traditional territories.
Again, can the government tell the Canadian people what the values of these royalties are? I rather doubt it. We do not know what kind of money we are talking about here. One of the agreements, the Champagne agreement, provides for economic development agreements within the federal government to provide technical and financial assistance for economic development purposes.
How much assistance are we talking about? Does this mean unlimited loans? What are the guidelines? Again, where is the equality here? There should be the same rights and privileges for natives as for non-natives in the area.
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I question if this government had any idea of the actual proportion of transfer payments involved. In fact, I wonder if anyone knows. I fail to see how this government can justify the royalties to this House and to the Canadian people. We know it is going to be asked by the Canadian people to justify it.
In addition the federal government will continue to support all the present and future programs. Again how are we getting to self-sufficiency? Getting the land, getting the money, yet the programs continue to be ongoing. This does not bode well for getting self-sufficiency of individual natives.
The minister states that these agreements give aboriginal beneficiaries the means to become self-reliant, to regain a measure of control over their lives. My colleagues and I are in complete support of such an end. We recognize the need for all Canadians to become self-reliant and to gain control over their lives.
We would support such an agreement that would actually fulfil such a goal that is beneficial to natives and non-natives alike. However, this agreement moves in a very different direction. The granting of all this money, all the land or continuing to provide the same programs and benefits will nurture dependency and in no way fosters any measure of independence. Rather it would seem that by giving out these huge sums of money and land this agreement removes the incentive.
The agreement takes away the motivation for these people to gain their own self-respect and self-worth as individuals. This agreement does not allow the natives to make their own way and to succeed on their own. It is the old Indian act again.
There is no indication anywhere in this agreement of any intention to phase out financial assistance and government native programs if the terms of the agreement prove it successful.
For all the money that this agreement deals with there is no justification to state why this money is being awarded. What is the rationale? It concerns me that this agreement sets a very bad
precedent for fiscal responsibility in future government negotiations for many, many more land claim deals and agreements with natives.
There are many concerns about the management of both the funds and land base, concerns raised by natives themselves because settlement dollars and land title are not vested in the individuals. They are vested in the organizations as I said earlier.
This huge conveyance is far too generous and the entire deal should be re-examined to bring the agreement into reality. I stress again it is the size of this agreement that we are concerned with.
What are the rights of the non-natives in this agreement? That needs to be spelled out. Some of these agreements are providing for exclusive harvesting rights in the parks and in the territories. Where do the non-natives come into this? What are their rights?
Natives are granted guaranteed participation in commercial fresh water salmon fishery and sports fishing, adventure travel, forestry, outfitting and campsite operations in the traditional territories. Does this mean that they have exclusive rights? That is unclear. Once again the rights are given out on the basis of race. When the world is moving toward equality of all its citizens this government seems to want to move away from that direction and go on to a basis of creating two nations with the nation of Canada.
I am particularly concerned about the backlash from non-native Canadians. This government with this agreement is going to drive a wedge between these two peoples. What was supposed to be a program to assist natives in B.C. in the aboriginal fisheries strategy is a good example. It is native fishermen and non-native fishermen. Twenty-five per cent of the fishery is native. They worked together for generations and did just fine until the aboriginal fisheries strategy came in. It drove a wedge between those two groups of people who got along for years and years. This is the same type of thinking I see in this agreement.
I will be very surprised if this government can provide all of the answers here. Hopefully when it is addressed in committee a number of these issues will be brought forth and will be addressed rather than rubber-stamped.
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There is tremendous concern on the part of all Canadians who are not opposed to this settlement in principle but they do not like the generous deals. This agreement has to be re-examined in committee, it has to be re-examined here, the whole thinking process has to be looked at again.
Mr. Allan Kerpan (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre): Mr. Speaker, one thing that I have noticed as I sat through the debate today is that the bill uses the term First Nations throughout. It describes these 14 bands not necessarily as bands but as First Nations. Similarly the members of these First Nations are described as citizens of First Nations.
Although the term First Nation has been loosely bandied about lately and is in common practice, to my knowledge this is the first time that it has been formally referred to in federal legislation. It gives rise to a number of questions that I have and I would ask the hon. member's opinion of some of these questions.
First, are native people in Yukon now to have two kinds of citizenship extended to them under what we perceive as Canadian law? If that is the case, would that not be conflicting allegiances? This is a problem that I have had as I have sat through this debate today and listened very carefully.
I would ask the hon. member if he would like to comment. I would like to hear his comments on those types of allegiance, and the conflict that might arise should that be the case.
Mr. Gilmour: I thank the member for his question. It brings very much to the fore the tying together of these two bills, native self-government and the land deal.
The member is absolutely right. We appear to be setting two different nations within a nation with these two pieces of legislation. The bills tie together, they are intertwined. I fully believe, as I have said a number of times, that we are going the wrong direction. We are only one nation. We cannot be people from Quebec, people from the Yukon, people from other parts of Canada; we are all Canadians.
The push to pass this legislation, in my mind, is going away from the direction of equality toward a self-government that cannot be defined. We have asked the government on a number of occasions to please define their view of what is self-government. Is it a municipality? Is it provincial, is it federal; what is the umbrella approach? We cannot get those answers.
Until we can get those answers, until Canadians can sit down and see what they are looking at, what we are voting on, it is so vague, so loose, it can be manipulated by virtually any party that is part of the agreement.
It is paramount that we should be going toward equality. We should be going toward a fair settlement that puts all of us on an equal basis.
Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York-Simcoe): Mr. Speaker, I am intrigued by the questioning about First Nations. We are indeed talking about First Nations. These were the first people on this continent. They are not one nation, they are many nations, and I think it is only right that people have the opportunity to name themselves.
I was in northern Sweden and you are probably familiar with the term Laplander. Laplanders did not name themselves Laplanders, they call themselves Sami which means the people.
There is a bit of confusion here around this issue. This is not just a trendy little name that has been bandied about; this is a name that the indigenous people of North America have chosen for themselves, First Nations, and we use it out of respect.
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When we talk about treating people equally, and that is absolutely the point here, we have to understand the historical roots of discrimination, the barriers to discrimination, the systemic aspects of discrimination. These are not conquered people. These people had treaties, agreements with our government and rightfully they are seeking what is theirs.
Mr. Gilmour: I thank the member for her question. We have a differing point of view which often happens in the House.
I will not be using the term First Nation because to me it implies a second nation and a third nation. There is only one one nation of Canada. That to me is equality. It is all of us together. It is not a slight on our native peoples. If there is a First Nation, what is the second, what is the third and what are the different rights? There are no different rights. We are all equal.
Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer): Mr. Speaker, I have heard bandied about the idea that Yukon people are very familiar with self-government, what it means and what its implications are, and that the Canadian people are also familiar with them.
I wonder if the member could comment on how general is this knowledge and how informed people really are about the settlement agreements that we are talking about.
Mr. Gilmour: Mr. Speaker, my understanding, as I touched on in my speech, that the general knowledge in depth of this agreement is not high.
The concept of self-government, the concept of a land claim deal, that is fine. People are well aware of that. But the depth of what is in this bill and its generosity is not general knowledge.
Mr. Charlie Penson (Peace River): Mr. Speaker, about a month ago I rose to speak on Bill C-16, the Sahtu land claim.
At that time I told the House we were setting a very dangerous precedent and we are following along the same footsteps today. Bill C-33 gives two square miles of deeded land per person in this land claim. Just to put this into perspective, my family has a farm in northwestern Alberta. We have two square miles of land that we farm and it has supported a family of six people. If we were to work this out, two square miles per person comes to twelve sections of land per person.
Let us put this into perspective for a moment. When my family came to Canada in 1869 from England they got 205 acres. We are talking about 12,000 acres here. This is a lot of land. I think it sets a very dangerous precedent.
In the Peace River riding I have six land claims that have not been settled that we want to move forward. It seems to me that every land claim that is settled we start to build and build on it at a time when Canada has a major debt and deficit.
I wonder if the government has given some thought to the implications of how this is going to play out in all the land claims settlements throughout the country. Thirty-five thousand dollars roughly per person in this particular land claim settlement using the model again of a family of six represents $200,000 plus twelve square miles of land.
I have to ask the question, where do we go from here? We have a lot of land claims in the province of British Columbia that are coming up. Are we going to be borrowing more money from places like Japan and the United States to pay out on land claims? We have to think very carefully of the cost of what we are doing here and the precedent we are setting.
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Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca): Mr. Speaker, the costs of these land claims are absolutely enormous to the Canadian taxpayer. It will cost over $260 million to settle these four claims. Something is missing in this equation. No one is standing in the House today speaking about the non-native Canadians.
Who is standing up and speaking for them? Who is speaking about their responsibilities and their ownership of other parts of the country?
Is it not that Canada from sea to sea belongs to all Canadians, native and non-native alike? Are all of us here interested in the well-being and the welfare of the native peoples in this land claim? What will the land claims do to benefit the native people? Is there a better way of doing this, is there a better way to help the welfare of the native people? What responsibility or what accountability is there going to be to the non-native people in these land claims as they are going to impact dramatically on the taxpayers of Canada.
Mr. Penson: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his questions. I think they are very important questions.
We are going through a situation in my riding where agriculture has been hit very heavily with the trade war that has been going on for over 10 years. I have a lot of constituents who have lost their farms, lost their land and I think they would ask that question and it should be answered. These people are finding it very hard going.
The Canadian debt is very high and it is part of the reason these farmers are losing their land. They are paying so much in taxes at a time when we are giving land to native people in big land claim settlements. I do not believe that can be supported and I do not believe that the Canadian public will support it.
We have to settle these land claims but we have to have some self-reliance and self-sufficiency built into them. That is not my understanding of what is being done in these two bills. It is sort of an open-ended arrangement where we really do not know what the cost is going to be. In effect we are giving a blank cheque. It would be one thing if they were signed, sealed and delivered and that was the end of it but that is not my understanding of the two bills that are before us today.
Some very important questions have been raised. I think that has to be built into the legislation and I would encourage the members of government to entertain some amendments to make these more effective so they can be sold to the Canadian public.
Mr. Harold Culbert (Carleton-Charlotte): Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member has any idea of the mass of land in the country and in the particular case of this bill what was available to the native people in the Yukon at the time when the settlers came forward.
It has been suggested that the bill overextends the number of square miles, acres, whatever you want to take it in, per capita, per family. I would suggest that we have to consider where those rights were and what amount of space actually was considered as part of their homeland. When the early settlers came to this country and went to the far north in some cases they were welcomed and in other cases they were not. However over a period of years they took over and operated those masses of land.
There has to be some responsibility of government, of members on all sides of the House, as Canadian citizens, for our actions today and the actions of our predecessors, our ancestors and our family line.
This bill finally takes some responsibility for the people of today's First Nations and takes that responsibility very seriously. I think this government should be commended for finally taking those actions after these many years.
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Mr. Penson: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that question. It is a very important question and one that we have to give considerable thought to. Essentially when the white people came to Canada the Indians had all of Canada. Surely the member is not suggesting that we try to redo that wrong because it simply would not work.
I understand that there are some Indian bands in British Columbia that would take back the city of Vancouver. It simply cannot be done. In British Columbia they tell me there is 130 per cent of the land mass claimed in land claims because there is some dispute as to which ones own certain properties.
Therefore, you are absolutely right. We do have to have a fair settlement. I guess it is a matter of debate as to what is fair here.
I have raised a family of six children on considerably less land and I certainly did not have any cash settlement along the way. I think this is overly generous.
Mr. Jack Ramsay (Crowfoot): Mr. Speaker, could you advise me of the time that I have left?
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): I will be glad to indicate to the House that we will terminate at 5.50 p.m. and move to Private Member's Business.
Mr. Ramsay: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I listened to the very eloquent, warm and generous tone of the Bloc member who spoke a short time ago. I listened intently to what he had to say. As he spoke I could not help but compare what is happening in Yukon through this land agreement with what the situation would be if a similar occurrence were happening or the same situation were occurring in the province of Quebec.
I wonder what the member from the Bloc would say about that kind of an agreement if the James Bay Cree, if the Mohawks and the aboriginal people in northern Quebec had been granted huge blocks of land over which they would have complete control and an agreement that would give them the right to create their own constitution, to create their own legislative assemblies, to determine citizenship and the rights of citizens in that area, to determine laws that would deal with non-aboriginal people when they came on to that land, and the right to set up their own justice system and to administer the affairs of huge chunks of what is now the province of Quebec.
Would it be looked upon as fair to them if this agreement were centred in Quebec rather than in Yukon?
I have already in the early debate on Bill C-34 mentioned my concern in the particular area that all of these rights and entitlements contained within this document are based upon race.
Like the Indian Act that was based upon race, and they were discriminated against based upon race as the Indian Act discriminated against them and the interpretations of that act discriminated against them, this document as well is based upon race. I wonder about that. I wonder if that is wise.
They are going to have rights on the land that is designated to them. Are they going to be Canadians? I would hope they would remain Canadians. That would mean they would have rights. They would be Canadians plus.
They would have all the special rights that they would enjoy on the land area they are granted. If they moved off that land which they would be entitled to they would enjoy all the rights they and we as Canadians enjoy.
What about the rights of the non-aboriginal people who move on to those lands, whether it is to go fishing, as the hon. member from the Bloc suggested, or to set up a business or simply move in and establishing a home, a living quarters on that land? What would be their rights?
I see this bill creating a two tier system of laws within this country to the benefit of the aboriginal people or one sector of Canadian society based upon race.
I have the deepest feeling for our aboriginal people. This is going to go through. There is no question. When the treaties were signed so many years ago there was no real record, no real fleshing out of the spirit and the intent of those treaties. All we have on the one hand is what the white man recorded in the treaty and the notes and the remembrance by the aboriginal people of the intent and the spirit of those treaties.
We have been arguing about that for almost 100 years. This time around because it has been brought into this House, certainly the aspects that we have had time to examine are going to be placed upon the record. As this program goes forward and as this agreement takes effect we are going to be able to then judge whether it is has been a wise deal or not and whether the wisdom of the people of this country on both sides of the issue has been applied to this agreement. We will be able to judge the fruits born by this agreement.
Therefore, if it is a good deal it will have the support of all of us. If it fails we will be able to go back on the record and see those concerns raised by elected representatives of this country in this House.
In summing up, I say to the aboriginal people who are going to benefit from this program, God bless you and the very best to you. Surely if they take over that part of Canada they cannot do a worse job than the governments of this country have done to this country when we look at our debt, our justice system and other matters where this country has really run amok as a result of the direction of the people we have elected to this House.
I wish them the very best. I have reservations but I say God bless them and the very best to them.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): It being ever so close to 5.50 p.m. by my clock, I cannot extend questions and comments but I will ask members whether they are ready for the question.
Some hon. members: No.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): It being 5.50 p.m. the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.