Bill C-5 MP amends the amendments

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National Aboriginal organizations are once again throwing their support behind Bill C-5, the proposed Species at Risk act, after amendments to strengthen Aboriginal involvement and protection of Indigenous knowledge received government support.

Some Aboriginal leaders had threatened to pull their support of the bill when the parts of the bill dealing with those issues were watered down by the government at the report stage.

Those amendments were received with less than enthusiasm, with the opinion being that they reversed the work done on the bill by the Environment and Sustainable Development Standing Committee.

Rick Laliberte, Member of Parliament for Churchill River, Sask. is a Liberal backbencher and member of the standing committee, which consulted with a number of interest groups, including Aboriginal organizations, and reported back to the House with a long list of amendments to the bill. The bill as suggested by the standing committee report tabled in December, however, was not the bill presented to the House for debate this spring.

Laliberte took advantage of a procedural loophole to address that situation, and on March 21 introduced two amendments to the bill that come close to restoring the proposed legislation to what was intended by the standing committee.

One of the amendments by the standing committee was a clause that would create a National Aboriginal Council on Species at Risk made up of the federal ministers of the Environment, Fisheries and Heritage, along with six Aboriginal representatives, to be selected by the minster of the Environment. The role of the council under the amendment would have been to advise the Canadian Endangered Species Conservation Council.

But when the bill came back to the House at the report stage, the National Aboriginal Council as originally proposed had been changed to a committee, and its role was changed to advising the Environment minister rather than the Canadian Endangered Species Conservation Council.

Laliberte said he was surprised to see the amendment to this particular clause.

"Because it had unanimous support from the standing committee, and it also was the exact wording that the minister had negotiated with our office when I presented the amendment. So that was the surprise," he said.

Another change to the clause that raised concerns was that the wording was changed from stating that the minister "shall" establish the council to that the minister "may" establish the committee.

"Why use 'may' when the law will create the council. So you're supposed to use 'shall'. Because some day a minister might change. It could be a new government with a new agenda," Laliberte said. This minister may be well intentioned to create the council, but if a new minister, some time in the future, if you give them the 'may' power, they could strike the committee after it's been established."

The amendment put forward by Laliberte effectively reverses two of the three impacts of the earlier amendments, reinstating the national Aboriginal advisory group as a council rather than a committee, and changing the wording from 'may' back to 'shall'."

Laliberte's amendments don't quite return the clause back to the way the standing committee envisioned it, however.

According to Laliberte, the original clause envisioned a National Aboriginal Council made up of three federal ministers and six Aboriginal leaders. Under the amendment introduced by Laliberte on March 21, the council would be comprised solely of six Aboriginal representatives, who would advise both the Environment Minister and the Canadian Endangered Species Conservation Council.

"Through the deliberations, I think that would have been testing the very structure of the government, because you're dealing with the powers of ministers in equal comparison to the powers of Aboriginal leaders," Laliberte said of why the clause was likely amended.

"It's a worthwhile debate, but to make this bill workable we had to wor within the parameters of the amendment, and it was to have the Aboriginal leaders, in and of themselves, advise the council, the Canadian Conservation Council, and then advise the ministers on administration of the act."

Another clause that came out of the committee process dealt with protection of traditional knowledge. Laliberte said the report stage amendment to that clause was flawed, in that it contravened the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity.

"The report stage amendments, it must have been a typo, or a legislative error. The legal team that drafted the final amendment must have misunderstood the intent of that clause. Because it was intended to define the ways of sharing traditional knowledge, which are intellectual property rights. Instead of finding ways, they said sharing traditional knowledge, and that's totally against what the UN Convention on Biodiversity says. The traditional knowledge holder still retains title to that knowledge, until you negotiate how you want to share that knowledge. This one would have inevitably given the power to the government to share all our knowledge for free, to anybody. And that's totally against the UN Convention."

Laliberte said he has received assurances from the Minister of Environment, David Anderson, that there will be government support for his two amendments.

Bill Stevenson chairs the Aboriginal Working Group on Species at Risk, which has been working with the standing committee on Bill C-5. The working group is made up of representatives from National Aboriginal organizations, and has also involved regional Aboriginal groups that are already working to preserve species at risk at the local level.

Stevenson said the minister's support of Laliberte's amendments to the bill is good news, although those amendments don't give Aboriginal people the level of involvement they would have had under the standing committee amendments. However, the renewed commitment to set up an Aboriginal Council is enough t keep Aboriginal groups involved in the process, he said.

At press time debate over the two amendments introduced by Laliberte were wrapping up, but debate over the next group of amendments, those dealing with the contentious issues of compensation, were still to come, meaning a Commons vote on the proposed legislation is still a way off.

The government's last two attempts to enact legislation protecting species at risk-Bill C-65, the Canadian Endangered Species Protection act, tabled in 1996, and Bill C-33, the Species at Risk act, tabled in 2000-both died on the order paper when elections were called and Parliament was dissolved.

"The other bills, I think, were just victims of time," Laliberte said.

Laliberte said this proposed Species at Risk act will be a positive thing for Aboriginal people, as long as the Aboriginal participation guarantees and protection of traditional Aboriginal knowledge within the bill remain intact.

"It created a vehicle where we play a major role. And that's light years ahead of all other legislation that I've seen. Especially when you deal with environment."