Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, the people who are watching may find it curious that the hon. minister, perhaps moved by the sentiments of Valentine's Day, has given me half of his time. Members of the House will find it even more curious to realize that the Green Party alone will be voting against Bill C-15 in this House at third reading, as we did at second reading. I thank the hon. minister for giving me the opportunity to explain our position.
To be clear, the leadership on this bill from the hon. member for Western Arctic is nonpareil. I have no interest whatsoever in suggesting that I criticize his vote in favour of the bill. It is a difficult decision to vote against Bill C-15, and I want to explain why my hon. colleague in the Green Party and I will be doing so.
The first part of the bill is unquestionably important, and we would vote for it. It is long overdue. The devolution of authorities to the Northwest Territories, as the hon. minister has mentioned, is right. It was of great benefit to the Yukon when that territory had its powers vested locally. It is about time that we have a devolution of authorities to the Northwest Territories.
However, the contentious parts of this bill, as the House will now well know, is that Bill C-15 has inexplicably jammed fundamental changes to the water and resource boards of that region down the throats of first nations.
I want to go through some of the history and background on this to underscore how deeply shocking this should be to Canadians from coast to coast, whether they live in the Northwest Territories or not. These are not mere administrative arrangements, or the product of a bunch of civil servants figuring out what is one board, what is two, and what boards should be consolidated. Rather, these boards are the product of government-to-government negotiations. They are the product of the whole structure of negotiations with the Gwich'in, the Sahtu, the Wek'eezhii, and the Tlicho. These boards are the result of government-to-government negotiations in good faith.
There is a tremendous, unassailable, and incontrovertible body of jurisprudence from the Supreme Court of Canada that first nations' rights are inherent and protected in our Constitution, and that the federal government has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure those rights are not infringed upon. Therefore, if a government wishes to ignore treaty obligations and unilaterally rewrite agreements that have stood for some time, we would have to think there is a crisis of some sort that has brought this administration to run counter to the law, to ignore the decisions of the Supreme Court in the Haida, Delgamuukw, and Marshall cases. It is rare in any area of law that we would have so many cases that all say the same thing, which is that the rights of first nations are not a fringe benefit but fundamental to first nations. They are part of our Constitution. It is the obligation of the Crown to protect those rights, those treaties, and ensure that first nations are adequately consulted, particularly in cases of resource development.
That is where I find this bill so extremely disappointing. There is no case to be made that there is something wrong with the way the current boards are working. In fact, it is to the contrary. Many witnesses before the Bill C-15 committee said that the only evidence one can find is with regard to the timeliness and predictability of permit approval through the boards, which this act will unravel, and that they have been more predictable, more timely, and more efficient than other boards of a similar type in the region. In other words, if industry wants predictability and to know that its applications will be dealt with on a timely basis, the status quo is the gold standard.
This proposal is a way to unravel something that is working. It will create an untimely, unpredictable environment for resource applications of all kinds. It is also a fundamental insult, and there is no word I can find other than "insult", to the notion that the Crown negotiates in good faith.
We had the budget tabled this week, and it made reference, at page 145, to the fact that this administration recently commissioned Mr. Douglas Eyford as a special representative on the issues that affect my constituency a great deal: proposed pipelines and tankers on the west coast. These are opposed by most of the first nations that could be impacted by that development. The budget tells us:
The Government has made public the Special Representative's final report and is closely reviewing the recommendations made in all four areas: building trust, fostering inclusion, advancing reconciliation and taking action.
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