Trust. Integrity. Reputation.
July - 2007Claims plan has limits
By Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
OTTAWAPrime Minister Stephen Harper booked the Railroad Room at the House of Commons on the afternoon of June 12 to announce his government's new plan to deal with the backlog of specific claims.
Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice and Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine were on hand, smiling broadly as Harper unveiled the new plan. A press release from the Assembly of First Nations praised the new plan.
"This is a historic announce-ment, and a day to applaud the federal government on its commitment to resolving the growing land claims backlog," said Fontaine. "First Nations have been calling for a fair, independent, binding, and just approach to resolving specific land claims for decades now."
The next morning Prentice, without the prime minister, spent 28 minutes on a conference call with members of the Aboriginal press. He said there are 793 claims in the system right now and close to 50 per cent of those are from British Columbia. Most of those are smaller claims. One way of speeding up resolution of the claims would be to "bundle" claims that are similar, he added.
Prentice said the current process is too expensive, using as an example a recent claim settled "in Quebec where the amount of the settlement was $400,000. It took 13 years to resolve and the process costs were $800,000. It simply doesn't make sense to be processing, analyzing and negotiating claims with that kind of inefficiency."
The minister said the June 29 national day of action had nothing to do with the government's decision to set this plan in motion.
"I think it's important for June 29 but this is not being done because of June 29. It's being done because this government, the prime minister and myself in particular, are committed to seeing justice in the claims process," he said.
The biggest criticism of all previous land claim processes is that Canada is in a conflict of interest when its own appointees rule on claims against Canada. Former minister Jane Stewart worked closely with the AFN in the late 1990s, trying to create a body that would have had members jointly appointed by the government and First Nations. But that process was rejected by the central agencies of the federal government.
The tribunal that Prentice and Harper propose to create is still a federally-appointed body. But the Indian Affairs minister defended that move.
"Well, the individuals who are appointed are going to be judges, which is a step no one has ever taken before. They are people who have distinguished them-selves sitting on the bench as superior court judges," he said. "The rationale behind that is that the judiciary has been very fair to First Nation interests and, I think everyone agrees, has shown enormous integrity of protecting the interests of all Canadians, including Aboriginal Canadians. These are the kinds of people that should be making the decisions and the system will be set up so they are."
Prentice hopes to have legislation ready for debate in the House of Commons by September and have the law passed by Christmas. He said he expects to have the first cases before the tribunal early in 2008.
The AFN appears to have the inside track on this process amongst the national Aboriginal groups. Prentice was asked if there'd be a role for the other organizations.
More Windspeaker Articles