Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to add my voice to the debate today, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
First, the purpose of the legislation is important. I want to make it clear and state for the record that Bill C-25, the Qalipu Mi'kmaq first nation act, carefully and fully respects and upholds the original intent of the 2008 agreement between Canada and the Federation of Newfoundland Indians that created the Qalipu Mi'kmaq first nation. In particular, it fully respects and upholds the eligibility criteria set out in the 2008 agreement.
Some parts of this debate may have created concern or confusion in the minds of some Canadians about these points. There should not be any concern or confusion. The original agreement is fully and completely respected and upheld.
The bill before us, the Qalipu Mi'kmaq first nation act, is primarily created to enable the Governor in Council to amend the schedule of names and birthdates of founding members of the Qalipu Mi'kmaq first nation. The Indian Act is unclear as to whether this is possible, so the Parliament of Canada wants to make it clear that the Governor in Council can make the amendment to the schedule of founding members of this new first nation.
As others have said, the reason that amending this schedule of membership was needed was because the Qalipu Mi'kmaq leadership foresaw that those wanting to join the new first nation would be those people living in or around the 67 Newfoundland Mi'kmaq communities identified in the 2008 agreement. The parties expected that people would want to be members of this new first nation and that the number of eligible members would be around 9,000 to 12,000. There were about 10,000 members of the Federation of Newfoundland Indians at that time.
What happened, as other members have said, was that although individuals living outside of those communities could also be members, the intent was that even non-residents could have some strong cultural connections with the Newfoundland Mi'kmaq community. However, to everyone's surprise and shock, there was a flood of applications. In fact, there were about ten times the number of applications received than had been foreseen. There were over 100,000 applications during the four-year enrolment process, and most of these, over 70,000, were received in the final year before the enrolment deadline. Therefore, all of a sudden the Qalipu Mi'kmaq first nation was faced with this incredible flood of applications.
It became very clear that there needed to be some precision put forward to operationalize the agreement that created the first nation and the founding members enrolment. The flood of late applications was not only concentrated toward the end of the enrolment period, in fact almost 50,000 were submitted in the last three months before the application process ended. However, about two-thirds of the applicants did not live in Newfoundland or anywhere close to Mi'kmaq communities; they lived elsewhere in Canada.
Therefore, the Federation of Newfoundland Indians recognized that these numbers were not credible and threatened to undermine the integrity of the enrolment process, and that there would be no time to review these applications before the end of the enrolment process. The Government of Canada and the federation entered into discussions, and after very careful discussion in July 2013, a supplemental agreement was reached in which all applications that had been submitted, except those that had been rejected, would be reviewed for a second time.
It is clear that there has to be some integrity in the process. The Qalipu Mi'kmaq first nation wants to make sure that people joining its community have a real and substantial connection and really care about the community and have a commitment to the community. The first nation wants to make sure that people are not just throwing in an application for personal benefit.
The new agreement clarifies the kind of documentation that would be required. It extends the original time limits and treats everyone fairly by applying the same criteria to everybody.
The applicants have already been given notice that their applications are to be assessed or reassessed. The applicants have an opportunity to provide any additional documentation that would be required, given the clarification of the requirements for membership. The deadline was even extended to February 10, 2014.
The only clarifications that were made were designed to eliminate confusion and misunderstanding about the requirements of the enrolment process, such as documentary requirements. The agreement also extended the timeline in order to make sure that everybody had a chance to make a clear and complete application.
The supplemental agreement that the Federation of Newfoundland Indians reached with the Government of Canada carefully and fully respects and upholds the criteria for enrolment that were originally set out. It does not change them in any way. Nothing changes.
However, there seemed to be some confusion about what would be required. That has been clarified, and applicants have a chance, in light of those clarifications, to submit further documentation and to have another review of their application. The legislation would not alter the enrolment criteria in any way, but it makes clear what is required.
What would the bill do? The bill would provide the Governor in Council with the authority to remove names from the schedule of founding members. It would also prevent individuals from collecting any compensation or damages from the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation or the Government of Canada if it is found that their claim to be not legitimate. This is not a new clause. It is legislation under the Indian Act. It protects the taxpayers of Canada and the first nation from a flood of claims that otherwise could paralyze the work of this group.
This is legislation that the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation needs. The first nation has agreed that it needs to go forward, and I hope that members will support it.