EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Monday, April 24, 1995

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[English]

The Chair: Order.

We are continuing with our examination of Bill C-68, an act respecting firearms and other weapons.

We are pleased to have as our witness this evening the Government of the Northwest Territories, represented by the Minister of Justice for the Northwest Territories, the Hon. Stephen Kakfwi.

Mr. Kakfwi, I know you have with you a number of MLAs from the Legislature of the Northwest Territories. Perhaps you might introduce them to us and any others you have with you. Then you can present us with your testimony, which will be followed by questions from the committee. You may use any of the official languages of the Northwest Territories.

Hon. Stephen Kakfwi (Minister of Justice, Government of the Northwest Territories): Thank you, Mr. Allmand.

With me are Jeannie Marie-Jewell, MLA; Fred Koe, CMA, MLA; Don Avison, Deputy Minister of Justice; John Ningark, MLA; Jim Antoine, MLA; and Dennis Patterson, MLA, Iqaluit.

As you know, we have a system of government in the Northwest Territories with no political parties. It's a consensus form of government, so it has been our wish to present as many of our members as possible to you in the course of the committee.

As the Minister of Justice, I will be making the opening remarks, accompanied by the member from Deh Cho. All members will be helping me to answer questions, since many of the questions we will answer should be from our own personal experience and knowledge as to why we have the concerns we have. As much as possible, we don't want to talk in the abstract, but with practical day-to-day examples of what this law means if it is passed without amendments.

I have come here with members of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories. All members of this assembly have unanimously chosen to express our concerns about Bill C-68. We believe this bill will have an adverse and negative impact on our way of life in the north if it is passed without amendment.

Our collective hope is that the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs will conclude that the amendment we propose should be adopted. We believe this will preserve the valid policy objectives of Bill C-68 without compromising the traditional and customary use of firearms by the people of the north.

People in the south understandably view firearms as weapons. We in the Northwest Territories view guns as tools: tools that put food on the tables of our families and our communities; tools that ensure family and community safety from wild animals such as polar bears, grizzly bears and wolves; tools that provide many of our people in the north with the only way they have to make a living and to put food on the table.

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Strict application of the law as contemplated by this bill would restrict the use of these tools and it would criminalize the traditional activities of people who wish to be law-abiding citizens.

This bill threatens to erode traditional hunting economies and destabilize commercial guiding and outfitting activities, which have brought a significant and much-needed measure of economic growth to regions otherwise on the margin of Canadian society.

The Northwest Territories is not southern Canada. Our way of life, sometimes our very survival, depends on the legitimate use of firearms. We believe our unique needs in the north must be considered and understood before this bill becomes law.

We have problems with several provisions of the bill, which we believe will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to apply in the north. The existing firearms provisions in the Criminal Code have been difficult to implement. It's fair to say that the inconsistency between the existing provisions and the traditional hunting practices in the Northwest Territories has already created a situation where the degree of non-compliance with the letter of the law is very high.

For the most part, non-compliance is not an act of deliberate civil disobedience. The issue, quite simply, is relevance. We want to be very clear that our opposition to the registration, transfer and related handling aspects of Bill C-68 should not be taken to mean that we are not concerned about violent crime, firearms safety issues or the need for safety training in the north. These issues are of vital concern to us.

We experience disproportionate levels of suicide, particularly within our younger population. But we know, without doubt, that registration of firearms will do absolutely nothing to solve that problem, as guns will remain easily accessible in communities where rifles are essential to our survival.

It is the issue of the lack of jobs, of developing any economic base, of the tremendous social and cultural change in our lifestyle, of the anti-fur lobby and its impact on our life, the loss of our languages, the lack of respect shown for aboriginal people, their culture and their lifestyle that has led to the decimation of our people and the increased rates of suicide and family violence. Gun registration will do absolutely nothing to address that problem.

We believe the much-needed resources that will be taken up trying to implement this piece of legislation would be much better spent in our jurisdiction on crime prevention, suicide prevention, victims services and safety training. That's where we believe the resources should be spent. We are worried, we believe with reason, as we are about to be compelled to dedicate scarce resources and energies to a registration regime that is irrelevant and unproductive and that will limit our capacity to focus resources on the underlying causes of violent crime.

We are also troubled, as you should be, about some of the more subtle problems inherent in the scheme that would be established if Bill C-68 is passed without amendment.

The Canadian firearms safety course must have guarantees for appropriate regional content and accessibility. As you know, in the Northwest Territories literacy levels are low. More importantly, many people either are unilingual speakers of an aboriginal language or speak an aboriginal language as their first language. We have eight official languages in the north, six of them aboriginal. Failure to address the cultural and linguistic facts of life in the north could well cause Bill C-68 to be a barrier to lawful firearms possession.

Serious issues remain about who should be doing the training and how it should be done. Despite two years or more of negotiations on this point alone, the federal government has not yet come to terms with the core issues associated with culture, language and accessibility with the Government of the Northwest Territories. The federal government has, however, reduced aboriginal language funding just recently. This will limit our capacity to meet the challenge of making laws passed in Ottawa understandable and accessible to the people who live in the remote areas of Canada's Arctic.

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The bottom line on our position is this: Bill C-68 imposes a complex and expensive scheme, which in several material respects simply will not work in the Northwest Territories. We recognize the seriousness of the situation in southern Canada, and we do not underestimate the severity of our own problems in the north. The point we want to get across to you is that in a country as diverse as Canada it is essential for the law to be implemented in a manner that makes official accommodation for regional, cultural and geographic distinctions. Bill C-68, in its present form, fails to meet that objective.

We urge this committee to closely examine the federal government's position in all aspects of the proposed firearms law, especially in its assertion that it must have universal application.

Our position is that in the conflict of the competing values of uniformity and diversity the balance has been unfairly and unnecessarily tipped in favour of rigid, uniform application. The regrettable result is that a law designed to respond to the needs of communities such as Toronto is about to have a profoundly adverse impact upon the way of life in communities such as Tuktoyaktuk. This isn't the first time this has happened, but the implications this time are far greater than they have been in the past. We say to you that this is an excellent example of how treating everybody equally can actually produce inequality.

The legitimacy of the need to accommodate diversity in the application of the law has already been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada on a number of occasions. It is unfortunate that the federal government has generally failed to adequately take this into account in the design of this bill.

Given the extent of the diversity that exists from one part of Canada to another, we believe it would have been preferable if several aspects of Bill C-68, particularly the provisions that deal with licensing and registration, had been drafted in a manner that would have facilitated appropriate regional variation. This would have been nothing new. The alternative measures scheme in section 4 of the Young Offenders Act was specifically designed to achieve that purpose.

We realize that because of the way Bill C-68 is structured it would be difficult to adopt an amendment that would easily provide for regional differences. We also realize that it is unlikely that Parliament will significantly rewrite the act.

Under the circumstances, the best available alternative would be to amend Bill C-68 by deleting the coming-into-force provision in clause 186 and substituting a provision that would permit the act to come into force in the Northwest Territories on a date to be fixed by the Governor in Council, on the advice of the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories. We propose to table with you a draft amendment that in our view would achieve the desired objective.

I want to take a moment to express to you how deeply I feel about this issue, as an aboriginal person and as a northerner. Hunting for food is part of what I am as a person. My children will learn to hunt and will hunt with me in the years to come. Several months of the year, my mother, who is 74 years old, still goes out by herself on the land outside the community to hunt and to prepare skins, to prepare meat.

We believe, and we always have, that a right to possess a firearm to hunt for food and to protect ourselves from predators is essential and that if any government is interfering with that right, the limitation of the right must be minimal. We are not alone in thinking that. As you know, the Supreme Court of Canada came to exactly that conclusion in the Sparrow case.

I look at Bill C-68 and I can only conclude that while the drafters paid lip service to aboriginal rights with provisions such as paragraph 110(t), they failed to meet in any meaningful way the standard the Supreme Court established in the Sparrow case. Our amendment would give the federal government an opportunity to come into compliance with the requirements of Sparrow.

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I also wish to observe that while aboriginal rights in Canada and in the Northwest Territories have a special status by virtue of section 35 of the Constitution Act, aboriginal people do not live alone north of 60. Many non-aboriginal people have adopted our lifestyle. They are friends; they are relatives; they are family. They too will be adversely affected by the proposed changes in Bill C-68.

Paragraph 110(t) will be useless if ultimately it operates to drive a wedge between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people in the north. The absence of any clarity from the federal government as to how they would propose to address these issues only serves to aggravate the problem.

I have heard from many people in my community and across the north who have approached me to express their fears and anxiety about what these changes will mean. Outfitters believe this bill totally ignores what they do, how they do it and and the contribution they make to the northern economy and the extent to which their livelihood is likely to be compromised by these changes. They are right, but their voices are not being heard in the debate.

I believe this bill has been drafted by well-meaning people who understandably want to control the rising trend in southern Canada toward the unlawful use of firearms. Although we have strong objections to these elements in Bill C-68, which we expect will have a negative impact on our life in the north, we wholeheartedly endorse much of what the bill proposes to do.

We agree that stronger penalties should be put in place for those found guilty of using firearms in assaults, sexual assaults, robberies and other serious crimes. We support initiatives designed to reduce the smuggling of guns. We also accept that it's entirely appropriate, indeed essential, for government to restrict the position of a broad range of assault weapons that exist for no purpose other than to cause harm or to satisfy collectors who focus their energies on dangerous and exotic weapons. If anything, we say that government should accelerate the timetable for the implementation of these reforms.

Despite its good intentions, however, the bill in its present form will impose unnecessary hardship on northern people. This is why it must be changed. Amending clause 186 would make it possible to bring into force only the portions of the act that make sense in the context of the Northwest Territories. This, we believe, is the most appropriate means by which to accommodate our concerns.

I thank you for listening. I wish now to invite the member for Deh Cho, Mr. Jim Antoine, to give his remarks, and then we will be available to answer your questions.

Mr. Jim Antoine (Member of the Legislative of the Northwest Territories): Along with my legislative assembly colleagues in the Northwest Territories, I'm here to talk to you about the very serious concern that many of my constituents and people across the Northwest Territories have expressed about Bill C-68.

Before travelling here, I discussed the proposed legislation with several regional leaders among the western Arctic people - most of the time I had to do it in my own language - and especially with many of the elders who share with us the wisdom they have acquired over the years. I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, that people of the north understand the need to address the serious problems surrounding violent crimes in southern Canada.

We look at the satellite television broadcast from the larger centres in this country, as well as in the United States, and, like you, we are shocked and dismayed by the legal use of firearms for crime. We understand the feeling that people who live in large urban centres must have. We understand the reactions of victims who have had loved ones taken from their lives through senseless violence or the inappropriate storage and use of guns. We understand the pressure this situation has created to take some political action to enact some laws that will address these chilling features of our modern world.

We understand these things, but by the same token we don't know why it is so difficult for other Canadians to understand our situation. For a large part, the people in the Northwest Territories live under conditions that are different from those anywhere else in Canada. Our small communities, our aboriginal lifestyle and our special relationship with the land are all factors that define who we are.

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Bill C-68, as it presently exists, will change that in ways that are more significant and far-reaching than I believe most Canadians in the big southern centres can understand.

I mentioned earlier that I discussed my presentation here with many Dene elders and leaders. The concern and underlying anger they have expressed about the impact this proposed legislation would have on their lives was something I could not miss.

I can clearly recall one of our most respected elders looking me in the eye and saying they had been told that now they were not to use the trapping methods they grew up with. We are having more and more restrictions put on the way we put food on the table for our families. He is asking me what they are trying to do to us - are they trying to force us onto welfare and destroy us? That's what he said, Mr. Chairman.

Canadians have to understand the role the responsible use of firearms plays on all facets of our northern lifestyle, especially for aboriginal people. Within our culture we believe the Creator placed us here on this earth and surrounded us with the animals of the land so we could survive. In return we are to care for the environment and behave responsibly with the tools we have been given for that purpose.

That's the way we have looked at our use of firearms over the years. To us they are tools we use to fulfil our responsibilities to feed our families, bring food to the community, and protect ourselves from predators when we are on the land, travelling across the mountains, or in the bush.

We tend to use different firearms for different purposes. For example, I have about seven rifles of my own. I have two .22s for hunting chickens, rabbits, ducks and geese. I have a high-powered rifle, a .30-.30 300 Savage, a .30-.06 bolt action and a .30-.06 semi-automatic. That was a gift, and it has only three-shot clips, by the way. The 12-gauge shotgun is for ducks and geese, and we use a .410 for chickens and rabbits. I'm using myself as an example. This is the case for most of the families in the north.

These guns are used by the whole family. I use them, as well as my wife, my two sons and my daughter. We go out hunting and our firearms are like tools we use to ensure our subsistence. But they are more than that. After serving as a chief for 13 years, my people asked me to serve as their member of the legislative assembly. When I resigned as the chief, the Dene of Fort Simpson honoured me with a feast and presented me with a rifle as a gift. To me and to them, the gift symbolized more than just a gun. It was a statement about what is important in our culture. It was a statement about my continuing responsibility as a provider for the community, and it was an honourable thing.

I remember the agreement in principle with the initial comprehensive claim in the Northwest Territories. The federal Minister of Indian Affairs of the day honoured the aboriginal leaders involved in the negotiations with gifts of firearms, like .30-.30 rifles.

The elder I spoke about a few minutes ago told me last week that he owns 22 rifles. He shot his first moose with his father's rifle when he was twelve years old. To him those rifles are not part of a gun collection. They are valued possessions that were left to him by other elders, by loved ones who had passed away, his two sons. Some day he will in turn leave them to his own children and grandchildren and they will remember his teachings and the teachings of those who have gone before him. He wonders why other Canadians cannot understand why this is so important to us. It was an insult for that honourable old man to have to take a written test to keep the rifles that mean those things to him.

The way we live in our traditional aboriginal communities is different from the way you live in southern Canada. We do not use application forms, registration certificates and training curricula in the same way. We have existed for centuries in our northern communities without having to write down regulations in the Gazette, without having to apply in triplicate for permission to do something, and without criminalizing various aspects of our subsistence. To try to impose those things now will erode the very foundations of who we are. That is what the people I talk to want other Canadians to realize.

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For you, Mr. Chairman, it makes sense to have age limits that determine when someone can begin to use a firearm, to let us know when a young person is ready.

My mom gave me my first .22 when I was fifteen years old because she knew I was old enough to be trusted with it. I hunted rabbits and ducks with this rifle and learned the value of putting food on the table and sharing it with others in my community.

There is a woman in Fort Simpson who knows that her grandchildren and nephews are old enough to own firearms when they become as tall as she is. That is how we have decided these things, not with a law that establishes mandatory age requirements.

It may make sense to you, Mr. Chairman, to place strict limits on the sharing of firearms, but for us it doesn't.

What should I do if my brother, Gerry Antoine, the grand chief of the Deh Cho First Nation Council, tells me there are caribou nearby, and because he's in a rush he needs my .300 Savage to get some meat for his family? Should I refuse? Should I tell him he must wait for the appropriate forms to be processed? Should I tell him our uncles, our elders, were wrong because they loaned us firearms to use when we needed to hunt food? Should I tell him to go to the store and buy a package of meat from the Edmonton slaughterhouse instead of harvesting the gifts the Creator placed on our lands for us to use? Should I behave in an honourable way and let him use my rifle and then have the RCMP and the courts say I'm a criminal because I offended your Bill C-68?

Mr. Chairman, you will never have to face those kinds of questions. Your constituents will never have to face them either. But with Bill C-68 I will have to face them and so will the Dene, Métis and Inuit I represent. Why can't other Canadians understand that?

For you, Mr. Chairman, it makes sense to create very specific restrictions requiring the locked storage of firearms, but that is because you don't know what it would be like to be fiddling with the key to a metal case when you're within 100 yards of a grizzly bear. For me that is a very real risk each time I go to the mountains and hunt where my ancestors have hunted. In the springtime in the remote mountains of the Deh Cho, on the land hunting for food there are caribou, moose, bears, beavers, chickens, ducks and geese and you always have to be ready.

The use of firearms is a fundamental feature of our traditional lives as Dene. We want you to understand that.

I know that some people have suggested this is not the case because firearms were brought to our culture by the Europeans. They were told that traditional hunting was done with bows and arrows and spears. I will address that right up front and tell you that it is a ridiculous statement.

When we hunt, the important thing in our tradition is not what we use to end the animal's life. It's the way we track the animal; it's the way we respect it by killing it quickly and using every part of the animal for food and clothing. For example, when we shoot a moose we use the meat and eat the head, liver, heart, stomach and certain parts of the guts. This is also how we share the meat with our entire family and all the people of our community. It is the way we pass those values along to our descendants. Once we get a moose or a caribou, we thank the Creator. That is what we mean by traditional hunting, and using a firearm to achieve those outcomes is every bit a part of our tradition.

I don't need to remind you that we signed treaties in 1921 in the Northwest Territories that guaranteed that our aboriginal lifestyle would be upheld and protected by the fiduciary role the Crown offered to undertake. At that time firearms were a part of that lifestyle, and had been a part of our lifestyle for over 100 years.

So if someone comes to your committee and tells you hunting with firearms is not a traditional part of the aboriginal way of life, I would ask you to tell him he doesn't know what he's talking about. Tell him to come to the Northwest Territories and find out the truth before he begins to express opinions that are basically unfounded and untrue.

It's not within our tradition to depend on the state. I have been angered many times by statements to the effect that Indian people only look for government hand-outs. That is wrong. But if our ability to engage in subsistence hunting is eroded, there will be implications for the way our communities are able to support themselves.

I will speak from my perspective as the chairman of our legislative assembly's standing committee on finance. We have known for many years that the domestic harvest has been a significant factor in reducing social assistance costs in our jurisdictions and that funds for sharing in the administration of registration and enforcement systems are just not readily apparent. I wonder what consideration has, or will be, given to the economic factors associated with this legislative initiative.

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I will close by again stating that we understand the necessity for legislation aimed at reducing the risks associated with illegal firearm use. But I would like to ask your committee to understand our concerns and to ensure that the bill is amended to make it more compatible with regional variations. Such an approach would allow the achievement of the firearms control benefits you're seeking while safeguarding the principles held in high esteem by the people I represent.

Merci for your consideration, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Now we will start with the rounds of questioning.

[Translation]

Mr. Langlois, you have 10 minutes.

Mr. Langlois (Bellechasse): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the witnesses for their thoughtful presentation; it showed us and emphasized a Canadian reality which everyone should be aware of. This is a step above what we heard this afternoon and, like some of my colleagues, I was outraged by the last page of one of this afternoon's briefs where the Liberal Party logo was shown in a target in an attempt at creating some kind of patriot game.

The violence underlying that page, Mr. Chairman, is totally unacceptable in a democratic society, and...

The Chair: It was mentioned at the end of the afternoon sitting. Someone mentioned it.

Mr. Langlois: Well, it's not that I'm a telepath, but I was shocked. I'll get back to our witnesses. I apologize.

At the beginning of your presentation, you said that with amendments the bill might be acceptable to you. But you don't really need this bill; the existing provisions are quite adequate as far as your jurisdiction is concerned. Did I understand you correctly or are you trying to find a compromise?

[English]

Mr. Kakfwi: We know that the present requirements of the law are largely not complied with in the Northwest Territories. No evaluation has been done on how effective those provisions have been in reducing crime, suicides, and domestic violence, but the government is intent on passing this legislation.

We come from a huge geographic jurisdiction that has very few people, so politically we're not in any position to get the elephant to move and change direction.

We make the suggestion that you should consider putting your money to better use, because we know it's going to suck up millions of dollars to try to implement it in the Northwest Territories and it's not going to save one life, save one woman from being beaten up, or prevent any suicides. It's not going to do any of the things the federal minister has said it's going to do. All it's going to do is take away money that we need in the north to combat family violence, to deal with the victims of violence, to provide shelters to women and counselling to victims, and in a lot of other areas where we have need but don't have any resources to put at this time.

So you can say it is a compromise. As we said, we support certain provisions of the bill. We think there are reasons to try to get penalties for people who are abusers of the law, who abuse the proper use of firearms. We think that everybody should be required to learn how to use guns safely and there should be some consistency in applying that across Canada.

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As a whole, the bill, as we said, was drafted by well-intentioned people, who are obviously limited in their knowledge of the Northwest Territories and rural areas. It is urban minds who have designed this urban bill for urban centres. It doesn't make sense, I presume, knowing as little as I do about Toronto and Montreal and these places.

[Translation]

Mr. Langlois: In your brief, you addressed the constitutional issue and you seemed to put in opposition two concepts: the concept of property and civil rights found in section 92 of the BNAA of 1867 and that of criminal law found in section 91 of the same act. After comparing the two sections of the Constitutional Act, you come to the conclusion that this bill might very well be a matter of property and civil rights.

I would like to know if you have considered the possibility of the constitutional conflict between the provincial jurisdiction over property and civil rights and the right of the federal government to legislate for "peace, order and good government" as set out in the preamble to section 91. Did you consider that?

Let me summarize my position - if our premise is that this bill does not fall under criminal law but pertains to property and civil rights, it could still be within federal jurisdiction since it has to do with peace, order and good government in Canada.

[English]

Mr. Kakfwi: The Deputy Minister of Justice, Mr. Avison, will respond.

Mr. Don Avison (Deputy Minister of Justice, Government of the Northwest Territories): That is an issue we have examined in some detail, together with our colleagues in the provinces, who have some similar concerns about the potential operation of the bill. We're in a rather difficult position, because the constitutional status of the Northwest Territories and our neighbour territory, the Yukon, is fundamentally different from that of the provinces in that we don't have the same constitutional responsibilities for property and civil rights as our neighbours to the south have.

Certainly it's been identified by the provinces in the course of their examination of the bill that property and civil rights are at the very heart of some of the issues that are contemplated by Bill C-68 and that the regulatory nature of several aspects of the bill seems to fly in the face of the division of powers between the federal jurisdiction and that of the provinces.

The focus of the constitutional issue on which we, as a result, concentrated our energy is not in relation to the division of powers in sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution Act, but the implication in relation to section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 and the violations that would ultimately result to aboriginal rights and the right to hunt and the limitation of rights that would be contrary to the principles that were expressed in the Sparrow case.

I'd answer the question this way: it's one that I think will be addressed in detail before the committee, but likely later in the month of May, when the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta come before you.

[Translation]

Mr. Langlois: Mr. Kakfwi mentioned earlier that an amendment to section 186 concerning the coming into force of the bill in the Northwest Territories could be a solution since it would exclude, for all intents and purposes, the Northwest Territories.

Personally, I don't see how we can do that in light of section 15 of the Charter of 1982 which says:

[English]

Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

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[Translation]

That raises the following question. In a country like Canada, could the federal legislator apply different legal criteria, within his jurisdiction, for the people living in the northern regions and for the rest of the people like in the greater Toronto, in Montreal, in Maria or in Montmagny? Is it possible to have two different sets of legal criteria, double standards in the same country?

My second question is a follow-up to the first one. Do you think that the inherent rights granted to aboriginal people by the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms could be used to by-pass clause 15?

[English]

Mr. Avison: If I may, I'll field that question as well, Mr. Chairman.

The answer to the first question is yes. I say that because it's already been decided by the Supreme Court of Canada in a number of cases. The most significant one I commend to your attention is the decision of the Supreme Court in R. v. Sheldon S., which dealt with the issue of the application of section 4 of the Young Offenders Act. That deals with the alternative measures programs that could be implemented on a province-by-province basis.

The same thing has happened in relation to the kinds of breathalyzer technology utilized from one provincial jurisdiction to the next. What the Supreme Court has said is that provinces can focus their enforcement priorities depending on the circumstances that exist from one area to the next.

In fact, in R. v. Sheldon S. what the court said - and there the court was dealing with the situation where Ontario had not put in place any alternative measures program - is that it's essential in a country as complex and diverse as Canada to have the flexibility that will allow regional variations to be taken into account. On that basis, they ruled that the failure to put in place a program pursuant to section 4 of the Young Offenders Act in one jurisdiction - despite the fact it existed across the rest of the country - was not, in law, a violation of section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

So we say that you don't even need to get to the section 35 issue to find that you can overcome the section 15 question to take regional variation into account.

The second significant point that needs to be addressed is that we're not asking for an exemption relating only to the interests of aboriginal people, because, as the minister indicated, there are needs and interests of non-aboriginal people that need to be protected here as well.

So you never come into the situation where you've got a distinction based upon one of the classes enumerated in section 15. There would not, therefore, be a proper basis to bring before a court a proper argument that had much of a chance of success on the basis of section 15 of the charter.

Mr. Ramsay (Crowfoot): I too would like to welcome the lady and the gentlemen. I appreciate your presentation and I appreciate the position in which this particular bill places people such as yourselves, living in the environment you do, and requiring firearms as you do. I appreciate your situation.

I suggest that many areas of Canada experience similar kinds of situations and environments where firearms are not looked upon as weapons but as tools.

I have been receiving some letters from sporting organizations in the United States indicating that they're going to boycott Canada, that they're not going to come into Canada to hunt or fish because of the requirement to register. I don't know if that will be an economic ramification in your area. I would like you to address that.

I also understand the frustration that portions of Bill C-17 must bring home to your people in the Northwest Territories. The law is made in this part of the country, particularly in Ottawa, and that particular section within Bill C-17 compels a person to store their rifle in one room and their ammunition in another. They have to be locked up in separate rooms. This hasn't taken into consideration the one-room cabin where a person or a family may dwell.

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So I can understand the frustration and perhaps the bewilderment that people from your area would have about what in the world they are thinking of when they pass that kind of legislation, which has such a negative impact and connotations of impossibility in terms of being practical. So these are some of the things I see in this bill that will simply continue to frustrate people living in your environment.

Because you represent a government, I want to ask this question of you. I want to approach it as diplomatically as I can; nevertheless, I think it has to be approached, because it is a concern to me. It has to do with the division of powers in a democracy.

There must exist a division of powers between those who create the law and those who are responsible for enforcing or administering it. The justice minister has failed so far to obtain the support of at least three provincial governments and, from what I understand, the two territorial governments for this bill. However, he seems to be soliciting the support of the Canadian police chiefs and the Canadian Police Association, which are the organizations representing the front-line police officers.

This is the other component of the democracy I referred to - the division of powers. We should be responsible, as parliamentarians, for creating the law. The law enforcement agencies have the law as their master; they are paid and they are sworn to enforce the law.

In the case of the police chiefs, the justice minister, on August 25, 1994, addressed them in Montreal. This was before this legislation was tabled. He gave a fairly lengthy speech, and he covered the question very well, I thought, but at the end of his speech he said this:

Now, some parts of this package will be more easily sold than others. I do not expect much opposition, for example, for proposals that will lock away those who possess or use firearms for criminal purposes. Other parts of the proposals, perhaps as important in the long run to crime prevention and prosecution, will be tougher to sell, and that is where I'm going to need your help. I will need the prestige of this association in supporting our proposals. I will need your credibility, your experience, and your expertise. Together I believe we can achieve change, and I look forward to working with you to achieve it in the months ahead.

Also, I want to place on the record that the Association of Police Chiefs is not financially independent of the federal government.

Regarding the Canadian Police Association, they had their convention here some weeks ago and the justice minister also met with their representatives, and it appears he is in the process of dealing with them and of course has claimed their support. Apparently the Canadian Police Association, which of course represents the front-line police officers and the rank and file, asked him to withdraw section 745 of the Criminal Code. He indicated he was willing to consider this.

The Canadian Police Association was also concerned about criminalizing the failure to register a firearm, so it discussed the possibility of doing so and replacing it with a seizure of the offender's firearm. The justice minister said on TV to the effect: ``I think we can do business''.

Do you, being representatives of a government, have any concern about what appears to be the linking of arms between the two institutions - the government on the one hand, which creates the law, and those who enforce the law on the other hand?

Mr. Kakfwi: I am going to respond to the last point Mr. Ramsay made, the concern about the division of power and responsibility. I'm going to ask Mr. Koe, the member from Inuvik, to speak to the issue concerning outfitters, which I think will be addressed directly and in more detail at a later date by the outfitters themselves. Then I'm going to ask Mr. Ningark to speak to the issue of storage as to whether we comply and whether we in the north will ever comply in our communities with the present provisions for storage.

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The ministers of justice met in Victoria a few months ago. At that meeting a group of us ministers asked Mr. Rock whether there was any way he would agree, since we were representing governments as well, to consider softening his stance on certain elements, especially regarding the penalty provisions. We were basically given a flat ``no''.

It was astounding to me to see on the national news a short while later a smiling Mr. Rock suggesting that he couldn't do it for us but he was quite willing to do business with the chiefs of police of this country, who asked for the very same things. It just astounded me that we would be treated like that, which perhaps is not so well. It's quite vivid in my mind. When I saw that, it had a resounding impact on me and I'm sure on other ministers of my government.

The Chair: And so far he hasn't changed it.

Mr. Kakfwi: I will ask Mr. Koe and Mr. Ningark to respond.

Mr. Fred E. Koe (Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories): The whole issue of economic benefits to sport hunters and outfitters in the Northwest Territories is quite significant. Maybe it's not significant in a global sense in which we deal in many millions of dollars, but it's very significant to an individual guide or outfit owner in a small community.

For example, say a guide in Sachs Harbour books a hunt through an outfitter in the States. When they come in, they spend, if it's a muskox, up to $13,000 U.S. If it's a polar bear, it's up to $20,000 U.S. The majority of that money goes into that community of Sachs Harbour. A good portion of that money ends up in the individual's pocket. This is significant in the middle of the winter, when no other economic activities are going on. There's no construction or mining. There's very little for the individual to do. It's a poor time for trapping. That's if there's any trapping going on - because we're quite heavily influenced, as you are all aware, by the international fur lobbyists, including seal lobbyists.

The point I'm making is that there's a very significant impact on an individual. A guide may only book one hunter per year, as there are a limited number of tags available per community or per region. They have to be quite successful; otherwise, they may not be picked next year. So they work very hard and are very environmentally sensitive toward most animals. They use dog teams now instead of snowmobiles. They use tents. So the whole experience is there.

A lot of these hunts go on across the Northwest Territories. So to individual hunters it would be a significant impact if they were to lose that economic activity.

Mr. John Ningark (Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories): First, Mr. Chairman, I'm very happy to be here before the federal committee looking at this legislation.

If I were not here tonight, I would be out hunting. I would be sleeping next to my loaded rifle. I'm being serious and honest, Mr. Chairman.

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I believe in a strong central government. I'm proud to be a Canadian. I believe in the justice system of this country. I believe in fairness and in the practical application of any law of this country, given that it's sensitive to the different regions of the country.

When I'm at home, I watch the proceedings of the House with my family and friends. Sometimes my father asks about what's going on in the House and I explain it to him.

The Chair: What's your community?

Mr. Ningark: Pelly Bay, Northwest Territories.

My father wants to know what's going on in the government. I have to translate for him because he's unilingual; he's not able to read or write English. Many times he says in his own words that he's proud to be a Canadian, as I am, as we are.

In regard to the storage of firearms and ammunition, which was asked about by the honourable gentleman, in our part of the country it is like a hunter who wants to go out the next day from his community. It is not very often that the Creator gives us the opportunity to go hunting in fair weather. Most of the time in the winter you have to wait for days and days until it's fine enough to go out. While you're waiting, you have your rifle and your ammunition together in the same corner. Often the rifle is loaded, because of the short daylight in our community. Often, when you least expect it, the game is right there. At that time, you have to take that chance. It may be the only chance you have in a whole week.

The separate storage of firearms and ammunition is not practical in our part of the country, especially in the north.

In 1983, during the Christmas celebrations, the whole community was in the community hall around midnight. Two young boys came into the hall very excited. They were yelling, almost crying. We could hardly understand them. Finally they calmed down and told us that there was a polar bear right in the middle of town. One of the boys indicated the location of the polar bear.

One gentleman ran out. He saw the polar bear next to his house trying to go after his cache. He started running toward his door. He was only about 50 yards from the polar bear when he slipped. The polar bear got him and dragged him. His son knew that his father always stored a loaded rifle in the porch. So the young man ran to the porch and took the rifle out. He ran after the bear, which was dragging his father, and shot him, saving his father's life.

This is how crucially important it is for us to be respected. This is not only part of our lives; it's also for our own protection.

Whether we stay in a tent or in an igloo when we go hunting, before we go to sleep every night we always leave a loaded rifle next to our beds in case polar bears or wolves come around.

Mrs. Barnes (London West): I welcome you. I very much appreciate the fact that you are taking the time and coming this distance to talk to us.

One of the things you point out quite correctly, as we sit here in Ottawa, is that it's difficult for a member of Parliament trying to create and adapt legislation to a very large country to appreciate fully the differences within that country. I felt that way when we were looking at our Young Offenders Act a little earlier, and I definitely feel that way today.

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During the summer I will make some effort to tour into the Northwest Territories, because I've never been there. I listen to what you're saying and I'm trying to appreciate and understand it. I think it's very necessary that you're here to tell the story. Having said that, maybe we'll take it a little bit out of the firearms right now and try to envision.

On page 8 of your brief you talk about the extensive public information campaign that will be required to bring the full impact of the new legislation to the attention of the northern public and that it will have to reflect that many people do not use written languages or do not read or understand English or French. That being the case, let's presume that we're not talking about gun legislation. Say we're talking about some other very difficult piece of legislation that is very important and that those messages will have to be delivered within the Northwest Territories.

How do you go about communicating new, different legislation to people in outlying territories speaking the various languages you've told us today exist within the Northwest Territories? How would you go about this? What length of time and different vehicles would you need to get a level of understanding of new legislation that is difficult, that is technical and that will hopefully change a behaviour pattern that is probably well entrenched through culture and lifestyle?

Mr. Kakfwi: First of all, whenever we develop legislation we try to take as much time as we can to give people in the communities a chance to understand what it is we're trying to do and to involve all members of the legislative assembly in the legislation so they can go home and explain it. The government itself...myself as a minister, for instance, if I'm sponsoring a bill, will go on behalf of the government to try to sell the bill. MLAs also explain and support or reject the bill on their own.

Communities are given information packages. We translate the information into the different languages. We do radio and television programs. We hold an extensive consultation process before the thing comes into effect. We also ensure that we have a standing committee that feels quite free to go from one end of the country to the other in holding hearings. So all the members of our legislature are compelled to travel.

As you know, the Northwest Territories is 1.5 million square miles in size. It spans the whole of Canada. It's one third the size of Canada. So it's a huge place, and just as diverse as the southern part of Canada is.

We have a need to know what life is like in Pelly Bay, as much as we need to know what life is like in Yellowknife, Colville Lake, Tuktoyaktuk and many places, because we are the ones who are drafting legislation for those people. So it seems as if it would be nice to compel all members of the legislatures to get to know Canada from coast to coast to coast so at least you won't be so unaware of the impact that some of the legislation you deal with has on people.

On firearms training, for instance, we're having a very difficult time. The requirement to have a safety course in the Northwest Territories is not implemented yet. It has been deferred twice because we can't get into an agreement with the federal government on the content and the delivery of that course. In many of our communities there is no one qualified to teach any course right now, except the one we have ourselves.

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The federal government just cut back on the funding for aboriginal languages, yet this piece of legislation is going to require even more manpower so we can make firearms safety courses available to all people equally in the Northwest Territories.

In many of our communities there are no RCMP officers. In many of our communities there's only one officer. In many communities there are two but they are extremely overworked at this time.

We have no way to hook up telephone service to at least six of our communities at this time. There are no provisions for computers to these communities. So how this bill is going to be implemented, the registration system, is beyond us. We don't have the manpower and the capacity.

One of our members pointed out that a community of 400 people may have over 1,000 different long rifles. How long would it take for one person to register that many guns and just within that community keep it current and updated? That's more than a full-time job even for someone who's proficient on a computer. So you're going to require more police than you currently have just to implement this registration system.

Mrs. Barnes: The registration system, as I understand it, though, won't necessarily be input by police. In fact, I don't believe that's going to be the situation.

I'm looking at clause 97 of the legislation. It talks about delegation, and I think this would be very apropos the Northwest Territories. It says:

A person who is designated in writing by the Registrar for the purpose of this section may perform such duties and functions of the Registrar under this Act or Part III of the Criminal Code as are specified in the designation.

To me, that's a wide-open section. That's the section where I think there can be a vehicle used for bridging this legislation to your communities because the designation powers are in the act. That will be much different from what would be applied as a designated power, say, in my community of London or another community in a more populated area.

Given the time period we have to implement this legislation, it'll be through the delegation powers. I think you're absolutely right. I would look to elders in the various communities to assist in this delegation of powers in a manner much different from that in a highly populated, regulated, technical area, within perhaps forwarding of information.

I don't think our job here today is to find out how this will be accomplished but to say that there is something in this bill, as a vehicle, to bridge those gaps, having full recognition that this is going to be different and difficult in different parts of the country.

What I'm asking you, as Minister of Justice of the Northwest Territories today, is could you envision working with the government to find some ways within the communities, through these delegated sections, to work through whatever legislation ends up at the end of this process? I know that's a difficult task.

Mr. Kakfwi: The fact is that we couldn't imagine asking any of our people to be tools for implementing this legislation. I'll give you an example. Last year one of the wildlife officers in the Northwest Territories intervened in a group of people who were fishing and announced on a bull horn, ``What you're doing is illegal. You have to acquire a fishing licence to do what you're doing.'' He said this to people who have been fishing for thousands of years. This was in July.

In January we got a cold spell of minus-45-degree weather, so a group of people started to haul wood for our elders to burn. The resource officer intervened and said, ``I want you to know that what you're doing is illegal. You have to buy a permit to be hauling wood.''

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He was ignored, but he also had to leave town. It was not by the young radicals. This was on the order of the older people, people who depend on wood to heat their homes. It came on the order of elders, who said this was an unacceptable intrusion into their lifestyle, their right to make a living on their own land the way they always had.

We know the RCMP in the Northwest Territories, the courts and the crown prosecutors do not support this bill. They do not think it is going to do any good for us. It's not going to reduce crime at all. It's important to point out that we know that in our discussions with them.

In fact, I think the RCMP dread having to see this law come into effect, because it is going to alienate them to a great degree from the very people they are trying to serve and keep close company with. It is a fear all of us have. None of us want to be the ones who are going to be the instrument that has to go to our own people and say we are sorry, but we have to implement this.

Mrs. Barnes: Just one more question?

The Chair: We're way over.

Mrs. Barnes: Okay.

Ms Meredith (Surrey - White Rock - South Langley): It gives me great pleasure to welcome you here. It almost makes me homesick. I spent fifeen years in northern Alberta and was responsible provincially up to the Northwest Territories and over to the Saskatchewan border. It's good to have people here who truly know what it's like to live in the north, where firearms are not a weapon, they are certainly a tool of the trade.

In the community I left, there was young boy who was camping with his parents not that far out of town. In a tent he was attacked in the middle of the night by a black bear. When spring came there were black bears on the golf course. It was a fact of life that people learned to deal with.

Having worked in the north for fifteen years and having seen the people who live in those kinds of circumstances, I wouldn't say they ignore the rules or laws, but they certainly realize some of these laws are not applicable to them.

You've already acknowledged that the non-compliance is high and that it's not going to help the suicide rate, because that's caused by other factors, not firearms.

Do you see that it's possible at all for any enforcement in the north if this bill passes? Do you now have a problem with the law enforcement people trying to enforce the non-compliance level? Are you having problems now under the present legislation with the law enforcement people, and is that something you see as getting worse? Or is it something you can live with simply by ignoring it?

Mr. Kakfwi: I'm going to ask Mr. Patterson to respond to your question.

Mr. Dennis Patterson (Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories): Before I became a member of the legislature in 1979 I was a practising legal aid lawyer in a clinic designed to help Inuit in Baffin Island understand the law and participate better in the justice system. I'm speaking from that background in answering this question.

It's important to understand that the present firearms registration provisions, which were tightened up some three years ago, I think by Bill C-17, are utterly not working now in the Northwest Territories. Let me just give you a bit of a picture of what it's like to apply for an FAC, particularly if your first language is not English or French.

First, you're dealing with, I believe, a four-page form in a language not your own. You have to get a passport photo. I can't tell you how tough it is in most of our communities just to get a passport photo. Maybe it's tough in the south, I don't know, but up north it's a major undertaking to get a passport photo. You need two of them, I think, for this form.

You need to pay a $50 fee. We're told, don't worry, people will be exempt. There's an exemption for sustenance. Let me tell you how it's working in my community. In my community the decision about whether or not you're exempt from the fee is made by the local RCMP. By the way, they are very unhappy about having this burden and having that decision to make.

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They decide that you'll be exempt from the fee only if you're on welfare. There are lot of people who live by hunting, general hunting licence holders, who are very proud not to live on welfare. They don't have a lot of income, but they don't live on welfare. They're not exempt.

Maybe that is a problem I've just discovered and it will have to be fixed up. I'm just giving you an example of the multitude of barriers now in place.

Most people are saying they can't be bothered with this. The elders are saying they'll just have to sell each other guns and trade each other guns. The FAC requirements are not being enforced at all today. Nor are the safe storage requirements, and Mr. Ningark is the best evidence of that.

On what we now have in place, the firearms safety course, we have not yet been able to reach an agreement. What is in place is definitely and clearly not working. It is being honoured in the breach. This is why we're looking with horror at the prospect of having the responsibility of implementing something much larger.

I know the police chiefs are cited as being in favour, and I know the official position of the RCMP is in favour of this bill, but let me tell you that the policemen in our communities who are trying to build up better relations with aboriginal people, with good community policing a priority, are not at all looking forward to implementing this bill. They are telling us they don't need to know whether there are firearms in the house. A house without firearms is the exception in our community. They know, and they know who the people are.

To answer your question, the present bill is unenforceable. Many of the enhanced provisions are unenforceable. That's why we're pleading for the bill to be postponed in its application in the Northwest Territories. We're not sure how long that would take, but we know that right now it is completely unworkable and we would need to take a great deal of time to develop a regime that would actually make sense.

The consequences are horrendous. The consequences are criminal records and mandatory jail terms, which are only going to diminish the respect for the justice system in the north.

The Chair: Mr. Gallaway, five minutes.

Mr. Gallaway (Sarnia - Lambton): You'll have to excuse my knowledge of the Northwest Territories. It's rather sketchy.

I'd like to ask a question just to put this into perspective. What is the population of the Northwest Territories?

Mr. Kakfwi: 70,000.

Mr. Gallaway: And what is the population of Yellowknife?

Mr. Kakfwi: About 15,000.

Mr. Gallaway: Okay. Is it reasonable to expect that there are about 65,000 people, then, who -

A voice: 55,000.

Mr. Gallaway: 55,000? Well, I'm throwing some in from Yellowknife? There are 55,000 people who would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to comply with this proposed law.

Mr. Kakfwi: It's probably on the generous side, but -

Mr. Gallaway: I'm trying to understand, and I certainly appreciate what you've said here this evening. Your perspective is that this law has valid policy objectives in other parts of Canada, but not in the Northwest Territories. Is that correct?

Ms Jeannie Marie-Jewell (Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories): I think the concern we have is that even though we have only 55,000 people out of Yellowknife, we have to try to envision them - you being a southerner - spread around 63 communities in the north. To be able to provide the resource people to implement such legislation would be a horrendous task and very difficult, taking into account that out of the 63 communities it's fair to say at least 50 live a very traditional lifestyle.

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Mr. Gallaway: That's what I was trying to find out.

I can certainly appreciate what you've said this evening. I believe Mr. Antoine raised the issue of the Sparrow case. Is it the position of the Government of the Northwest Territories that the Sparrow case is a shield to this legislation, or are you suggesting that it's another reason to oppose this legislation?

Mr. Kakfwi: Mr. Chairman, when people came to this country originally, I don't know how many rights they thought the aboriginal first nations had, but obviously not that many. Even Mr. Trudeau back in the early 1970s didn't think there was such a thing as an aboriginal right. But the Calder case changed some people's minds.

No matter what you think, or what political stripe you are, everybody agrees that the most basic aboriginal right is the right to hunt. That's the most basic, elementary right that everybody agrees aboriginals have. At least you have that. What the Sparrow case says is don't mess with that. If you don't need to mess with it, don't mess with it. Basically, that's what the court case says.

Mr. Gallaway: If I could go one step further then, if the Sparrow case says don't mess with the right to hunt, you're suggesting then that Bill C-68 does not apply to you because it messes with the right to hunt. In your own words -

Mr. Kakfwi: I'm saying that whoever drafted this legislation should have taken serious consideration of that question before they drafted it. It's of little use to pass legislation that is going to be challenged with serious constitutional questions later. That's the problem we have with it.

Mr. Gallaway: I can appreciate that.

I want to keep this brief. It's getting late. I have a final question. I think a number of us have received these letters, which I assume were solicited, from groups such as the Kentucky Riflemen, who are saying they're not going to come to Canada to hunt. How, in your opinion, will the imposition of a certificate, a registration form, or whatever it will be, at the border impact upon your clientele in the Northwest Territories?

Ms Marie-Jewell: It will probably increase our suicide rate even more because of the fact that you will take away a lot of the economic base that we have. Some of the outfitters are now only representing some of the economic base we're striving for, because in many communities there is no particular economic base as there is in the southern communities. When you live in the north, in many of the small communities you learn to live to survive. Traditional hunting is the means of survival for many people.

Mr. Gallaway: Have you heard from some of your clients with respect to this legislation? Have they said they will not come?

Ms Marie-Jewell: Among my constituents, many of the elders feel that many of their basic, fundamental rights are infringed upon and they feel insulted by this type of legislation if it's passed. Knowing elders, they are very respectful of the law. I would say our generation feels not sorry for them, but sympathy towards them and tries to make them understand how it would have to be implemented and encourages them to adhere to it. As I stated, it's always been an area of learning to survive, and taking that away from them by adhering to southern laws, as they see it, is very hard for them to understand.

The Chair: Mr. Nault.

Mr. Nault (Kenora - Rainy River): I want to relate to you first of all that I come from a jurisdiction in northern Ontario that has a lot of aboriginal people. In fact, many of those communities are very isolated in their own right - some 23 out of the 46 first nation communities that I represent. In those communities we have the same difficulties and problems that you are relating to us as to how we comply. Storage is an issue, of course.

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At the same time, I can tell you that since the mandatory training program came in in 1991 there hasn't been one FAC in the aboriginal communities that I represent. That means no one has taken the training program. It doesn't mean no one has bought a gun since 1991. It means that they're not complying as per what is happening and as related by you tonight.

Nonetheless, I still have a major problem, which I know you have in the north, and that's a tremendous amount of suicides that are taking place in my communities. Probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50% of those suicides are with firearms.

What I need to know tonight is two things. First, how do you propose to deal from a culturally sensitive and a more regionally flexible way of doing business...to deal with an issue like that? There must be of course a concern and an interest by the elders and the leaders in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon to make sure it is not as easy and as accessible to get firearms to commit suicide. At the same time, there must be individuals in your society, in your communities, as there are in mine, who I wish didn't have access to a firearm because of what they do to themselves or others.

I'm interested in knowing from your perspective how you propose to deal with that if in fact this legislation is turned down. You have reflected to us on the second-last page that you are encouraged by the expressions of commitment from the minister and his officials to accommodate regional and cultural flexibility in the implementation of the requirement for firearms training. I suggest by that of course it means you are in the process of negotiating and you are hopeful the minister understands the differences between aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities, and of course north-rural versus our friends in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and those places, where most of us don't want to live.

Could you suggest to me tonight how you propose we go about that? I have the same dilemma you do. I would like to deal with some of those problems in my communities, but I don't know how, because I just can't seem to figure out or convince my colleagues in the urban centres there is a different way to do it in the north that will give us the same result.

Mr. Kakfwi: I appreciate the question. This is a question that all of us who are elected to the legislature in the north have been grappling with, because we know the devastation our people have suffered even in the last thirty years. The dismal state of our people is readily apparent to us.

Recently the government has said we want to re-empower people to govern themselves. We believe our people of the communities, who have always been independent, self-reliant, and able to run their own systems of government, should be given back the right, the power, and the resources to do it. So when we make the offer to our communities and say look, we've been acting as your government for a long time, we've got this power and that power, and Ottawa has that one, we know we've done you a disservice, because obviously we're not doing very well, and we are now going to turn it all back over to you.... We made that offer over three years ago - in fact, six years ago. People haven't been running up and saying well give it to us, give it to us, give it to us. If anything, people have said it's not so easy; don't think you can just give it to us and walk away. We are people who haven't been able to do many of these things because we've been deprived of them. There needs to be a whole community wellness approach to this. You can't deprive somebody of their right to use their arm for ten years and then say, here, play tennis now; we'll give it back to you. It just doesn't happen.

People are saying give us the resources to rebuild ourselves culturally; give us the money; don't tell us where to spend it; just give us the resources and the power to make the decisions ourselves and we'll do it. That will drop the suicide rates. That will stop the social disintegration.

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Don't pass laws that have an adverse impact on us. Don't pass laws you yourself don't understand the impact of. Let us do those things ourselves. If you're going to pump money into tourism, also pump money into family wellness, into alcohol rehabilitation programs, suicide prevention programs, into programs that will teach zero tolerance across our communities and respect for women and elders. Those are things that we have been losing and that have been eroded for some time. Those are the things they are telling us.

Mr. Nault: The question I asked is really one that of course needs the cooperation and the interest of people to work together to find a solution.

First of all, it's very easy to license every individual in the north who hunts. Just give everybody a licence. That shouldn't take long, because if your community is the same as mine, 85% of the people I know happen to be hunters and gun owners. Therefore it wouldn't take a long time to figure out how to license someone, because that's the first phase of this process.

The second phase of the process is the registration by the year 2003. It seems like a fair distance away for all of us, probably too long or too short, depending on which side of this issue you are on. Nonetheless, I want to ask you, do you think between now and the year 2003 it's possible for aboriginal people and the government to come up with a solution as to how we deal with registration?

Mr. Kakfwi: The timetable, as I see it, the bill as it is, will be a huge offence to the people in the north and to aboriginal people in particular. So how do you reconcile that? If you get a good slap in the face, how long does it take you to forgive and say I know you had to do it, now let's make up and figure out how to best live with each other? I don't know how long that takes.

In the case of the north, again we're not complying with the present provisions. So with this one, even if they felt like it, does the federal government have the capacity, the money, and the dedicated manpower to set up the registration system? We don't think so. We just don't think so.

The Chair: Mr. Breitkreuz.

Mr. Breitkreuz (Yorkton - Melville): Thank you very much for your presentation. I appreciate very much what you had to say, because it reflects what I am hearing in my own community. I live in a northeastern community in Saskatchewan. As legislators we need to look at the big picture and we need to come up with legislation that improves society. The people in my area cannot see, they cannot figure out what principles here can be applied that would improve their society. So I very much appreciate what you had to say.

I lived for a time in northern Saskatchewan with the aboriginal people. I enjoyed the dog sleds, hunting, and all that kind of thing. Even today many of my friends and neighbours are aboriginal people. Your analysis, where you state that the people in Ottawa are dreaming up legislation that will be totally ineffective, is exactly what I hear from my friends and neighbours. But it doesn't matter what race they come from. It does not matter what their background is. They feel this will be ineffective.

Is there a neat, clean line that we can draw across Canada...? Is it the 60th parallel? Is there a neat clean line that we can draw that would separate the concerns you have in the north from the concerns people have in the rest of Canada? Would that line have to go down into Saskatchewan quite a ways because the rural people say exactly the same things you have?

One of my neighbours came to me the other day and said if I didn't have my gun right there, like that, my toddler child would have been at great risk from a rabid animal; I needed to have it there. People in Ottawa very often do not understand the situation in the rest of Canada, and I think that's a problem.

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It's creating huge resentments against the government. I can really relate to what you had to say about what if someone had to go in there and now begin to implement this kind of legislation. It creates huge resentments and has a negative effect on all of society and the attitude people have toward the law. I think that's a concern we have to address.

Where should the line be drawn? I understand you come right from the north, but is it easy to draw that line? Would you have to draw it through the centre of Yellowknife? I'm sure there is not just one group of people who live in that town. Where are you going to start drawing these lines? Would it be a jagged line, or can it just be at the 60th parallel? If this legislation doesn't have a clear purpose for you there, where does it have a clear purpose, in what parts of Canada? Where would you draw that line?

Mr. Kakfwi: What is going to happen during the course of the hearings is that different governments and groups will come and make their specific recommendations to this committee.

The Chair: Later we're going to hear from the governments of Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Mr. Kakfwi: Yes, and I think they will go into great detail, because we have been keeping in touch with other governments. They know what it is we are doing. We have said we are going to focus primarily on our own jurisdiction, on the unique situation of northern people, aboriginal people, in the Northwest Territories, and deal with that.

What we have said to Mr. Rock in Victoria is if certain provinces, such as Quebec, British Columbia, and Ontario, are so strong for registration and they're so convinced that registration is going to make a huge difference in their crime rate, in their rate of violence, then let's implement it there first and let's see how well it does. Let's see the statistics coming back to us in measurable numbers. We will support the concentration of the resources that the government says they are going to allocate to this just in those provinces.

Better yet, let's do it just in Montreal. Let's just do it in Toronto. Let's just do it in Vancouver and Victoria. We will see what a great job they're going to do and how it's going to reduce crime and violence. We will be applauding them and supporting them and saying don't spread your scarce resources across the country, focus on where it's going to have maximum impact, and if it does a great job we'll publicly admit we were dead wrong. We'll come limping in and say we'll join the club right now. But as you know, our plea was not well received.

The Chair: Ms Phinney.

Ms Phinney (Hamilton Mountain): My question is very short. Has this been debated in your assembly?

Mr. Kakfwi: Yes, we have debated it, and we had extensive discussions with the minister last fall, long before this bill came out. We've had some success. We have to give credit to the minister for that. He did hear some things we've said. For instance, on the provision of the purchase of ammunition, at one time he had wanted to restrict us to buying only ammunition for guns we own. So those of us who live in the remote communities could only buy ammunition for ourselves. Of course it's not available locally. It never is.

Also, that we could only own so many boxes of ammunition is totally impractical, because in many communities we get one shipment a year and that's it. So you can't buy your three boxes or whatever that you were going to limit us to.

He did see the validity of that point. We did give him some good examples of how much of an impact this legislation is going to have.

As you know, and we know, I think it's in the red book or somewhere. That makes it important to the Prime Minister and to the party. But there's also a very quick timetable.

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We don't think there should be such a rush for something that is so controversial, but I guess political commitments are there. We wish people would take a break over the summer and reassess priorities and come back in the fall and see if they still feel the same about it. That's our own point of view.

Ms Phinney: May I interrupt you? Is this your point of view, or is it the whole legislative assembly's point of view?

Mr. Kakfwi: It's the point of view of everybody in the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.

Ms Phinney: You have said you'd like clause 186 amended. It talks only about time. It just says that when this bill is passed, the government will set a time. Do you only want the time amended? I'm just picking up on what you've been saying and if it also included, in your case, resources to implement some of the things that are in this bill. Would you want both of those in that amended or just the time amended?

Mr. Kakfwi: We've said that this bill in large part cannot be implemented in the Northwest Territories. If you pass this legislation as it is, then we ask for an amendment - and we will give you a specific wording, plus some explanation of why we think there has to be an amendment - that says basically that this bill or any of its provisions should come into effect on a day or days by order of the Governor in Council on the advice of the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories. This is because we need time and the federal government needs time to figure out how much it's going to cost, who's going to implement it and how it's going to be done.

That's basically it. So we're saying we know without doubt that the way it is, it's not going to work. You can't implement it the way it is. It's going to make criminals out of the majority of people in the Northwest Territories. I would say that no courts or no law enforcement officers in the Northwest Territories are looking forward to the passage of this bill as it is. It is going to make life extremely difficult not only for aboriginal people, not only for northern people, but also for the law enforcement people and for the courts.

We will be quite happy to table this with you if one of your officials would like to come and pick it up.

The Chair: We already have it.

Mr. Morrison, the clerk gave me your name, but we have three members of the committee who are still on the list and they haven't asked any questions yet. The rule is that only after we've finished with members of the committee can we go to non-members, and then by unanimous consent. Is there anybody else on your side? It's back to your side.

Mr. Ramsay: It seems to me that what we've heard here is a lot of common sense as far as I can see. What these elected officials have been telling us certainly makes sense to me.

It seems to me that what you're saying is you don't need Bill C-68 and you don't need at least parts of Bill C-17. Is that what you're saying - that you just don't need this law, you can get along without it, it will not do you any good, therefore you can do without it?

Mr. Kakfwi: It is difficult not to be insulting to the drafters, because I believe the intention is a good one. I don't think the drafters had the scope and the knowledge to do what they're trying to do. They cannot, and the minister himself cannot, tell you categorically that it's going to save any lives, that he can demonstrate substantially that registration of firearms is going to change the trends in Canada today.

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If we had a discussion, we would support restricting and perhaps outright banning of military assault weapons. Most of us in the Northwest Territories have no use for handguns. We don't want to go as far as saying those should be totally banned, but they are not relevant to us. However, long guns are.

We support and have been supporting and have developed our own safety course in the Northwest Territories, and have done so for some time. We support storage in Yellowknife. We think ammunition and guns should be kept separate if possible and should be locked up. In the communities, no, because it's a matter of security, as Mr. Ningark said.

All of us can give you examples of bears having come in. Last year 17 bears were destroyed and removed in Fort Smith alone. Bears come into our communities on a daily basis, along with wolves.

Life is very different for us. We would never dream of trying to put something like this together in front of the Canadian people, as naive as we are in the Northwest Territories. We don't think it's going to do the job it was intended to do. But certain elements of it might, and this means dismantling Bill C-68 the way it is. We would say those would be better.

Mr. Gagnon (Bonaventure - Îles-de-la-Madeleine): In this presentation I sense the nobility of how you hunt and how you always use all parts of an animal. I was raised beside an aboriginal community on a Micmac reserve in the Gaspé peninsula, and that's one thing I've always noticed. Often the outfitters would have people over and these outfitters from the south or the east or the west were often there for sport, which was never the case with any of our first people as far as I'm concerned.

I also sense today a fundamental difference between your presentation and that of the National Firearms Association or any other association that has written to us as MPs. You are basically advocating the right to hunt, whereas all other groups are advocating the right to bear arms. I think that is a fundamental difference between you and most of Canada, and absolutely the Reform Party in front of us.

When you are talking about the right to hunt, a few of my constituents, elders, find it very difficult to apply for a fishing permit in a provincial office. You've been doing this for a thousand years. But in that aboriginal community, in Restigouche, people are now registering among themselves. I sense there is now a role for elders, there is a role for the community to administer themselves on how to control firearms, how to control certain fishing rights, as long as it's done among yourselves.

Since you are advocating the right to hunt and you are from an area that's very different from southern and urban Canada, I'd like to hear how you could possibly implement your own rules and regulations, which would respect the spirit of the law but which would also respect your traditions that have been around for thousands of years.

I'm working with the Solicitor General and we're trying to make attempts with tripartite agreements and community-sensitive policing. I think some attempts have been made in various aboriginal communities across Canada with some success. I'd like to hear your comments on this.

I know you are still faced with the problems of violence and abuse like many other communities, but I am sure we could do something different in cooperation with you. I would like to hear your comments on these three points I have raised.

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Mr. Kakfwi: We've said before that wherever possible we as a government are willing to give back to our communities their inherent right to govern themselves and to pass laws. It is true that in the Yukon the land claims agreement that the federal government signed has provisions for Yukon first nations to legislate an area of firearms. How this is going to be reconciled with that agreement is for the federal government to figure out.

First, arguments will be made in great detail by our governments that this is more properly the jurisdiction of provincial governments and that it is so unwieldy and cumbersome the way it has come out of the federal minister's office because it never should have come out of there in the first place. Jurisdictionally, it is not a creature that should have been born in the federal minister's office. It is more properly a jurisdictional issue that should be dealt with by the provinces.

If there is some way to allow first nations to legislate the use and to regulate and pass laws governing the safe use of firearms rather than to provide penalties for them, then we should do that.

The Chair: If I understood you correctly, you said that there is very little use in the Northwest Territories of small, short handguns and also of paramilitary automatics. Is that correct?

Mr. Kakfwi: Aboriginal people have no use whatsoever for military assault weapons or handguns. We don't have any knowledge of them and we don't use them.

The Chair: I'd like to ask about a few other modern contrivances that usually require licensing that I think are used in the north.

Previously you said you were moving away from skidoos back to dogs, but I think skidoos are still used to quite an extent in the north and are used for hunting. Do they require licensing and registering? What difficulty do you have if they do? What are the rules with respect to the use of skidoos, and do you still use them for hunting?

Mr. Koe: Most municipalities have their own local by-laws to regulate the use of skidoos within municipal boundaries. We have no licensing system in the territories for the use of skidoos. Skidoos are widely used. When I mentioned dogs, they are used specifically for hunting polar bears. Skidoos are not used for sport hunting of polar bears but for traditional pursuit of a bear nowadays -

The Chair: Are skidoos used and do you need a licence if you take them out over the land to hunt?

Mr. Koe: No. We don't license them.

The Chair: It's only for use in the municipality area?

Mr. Koe: Certain municipalities have their own by-laws and municipal laws regulating the use. In Yellowknife you pay a licence fee and you register a skidoo.

The Chair: The other modern contrivance I was wondering about is with respect to boats. In the south you have to get a licence for your boat. What about in the territories? What are the laws with respect to boats?

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Mr. Koe: It's very similar. If it's a certain size, I think you register them with the Ministry of Transport if you're using them on ocean travel or large lakes. But generally canoes and other smaller boats that we use, sailboats, are not licensed.

The Chair: Like at Hudson Bay?

Mr. Koe: No.

Mr. MacLellan (Cape Breton - The Sydneys): I just wanted to see where we can go from here. You've mentioned that you don't feel this bill will work in the Northwest Territories, and I think, Mr. Minister, you've said that you're not going to try to implement it in the Northwest Territories, if I remember correctly. Also, you mentioned your recommendation, that the come-into-force day be fixed by order of the Governor in Council on the advice of the commissioner of the territory. And you had said to Mr. Rock in Victoria that it should be tried in Ontario, Quebec and certain parts of Canada first to see if it works.

Assuming that that's not going to happen, that this amendment that you're suggesting is not going to be agreed to, and it's going to be applied universally across the country from coast to coast to coast, do you have any plans from here? Are negotiations with the Department of Justice, federally, under consideration? We have time when we consider clause-by-clause the amendments, and I think it would be unfortunate if we were just to leave it at that point. I feel that with your department and the federal Department of Justice there could be some meaningful negotiations. Do you see that? Do you foresee further meetings in this regard? Where do you think we should go from here?

Mr. Kakfwi: If you're going to quote me, then it's important that you do it accurately. I don't want to be seen or to be painted as a Minister of Justice who is saying that he's not going to comply with the law. I have said that if this law passes, the Attorney General for the Northwest Territories is Allan Rock, not myself. So I will be watching Mr. Rock try very hard to figure out how to implement this bill. He told me a short time ago that if all things go well - he didn't say if I behaved well - I might be the attorney general for the Northwest Territories, if they devolve prosecutions to us in the next few months. I will not be wiping the sweat from his brow as he's trying to figure out how to do it; he'll be doing that for me.

It's important that it be understood that I've never advocated that people, including myself, not comply with the law. I do advocate very strongly, though, that when you develop laws and you legislate laws coming into effect, it should not conflict with other, more basic, laws. This is what may be happening here: the laws governing the rights of aboriginal people for one thing, the laws that suggest that some of these provisions may be cruel and unusual punishment for people under the Charter of Rights, if these provisions are implemented uniformly across this country. So that's the point we're trying to make there.

I've never advocated that people should disobey the law.

Mr. MacLellan: Just on the second part, on where we go from here, on the assumption that perhaps this amendment you suggest is not going to be satisfactory, do you foresee other meetings with the federal Department of Justice where other suggestions could be brought forward, and perhaps changes made to the bill that would make it more acceptable in the Northwest Territories? Do you plan to partake in discussions with the Department of Justice to try to get changes in this regard?

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Mr. Kakfwi: If there was more time for the Canadian public to put their views forward to try to change this legislation we would be most interested in helping, in fact in redrafting the bill, perhaps in sections. We would be happy to help to do what we can, since, as we've said, we support some of the elements of this bill.

We think that politically it's not going to happen. We don't think they're going to give you the grace of enjoying summer with your constituents, who may change your mind about supporting this bill. It's supposed to be dispatched with some decisive moves in the month of June, implementing this bill. We wish there was more time. We think we could do a better job. We think there's no need to spend so much money and focus so much energy on something that has questionable returns.

On the paragraph you included, which some of you think has some assurances for us, your paragraph 110(t), if you're convinced it is so good then perhaps the bill shouldn't come into effect until the regulations are all clarified and it is providing those assurances that the minister thing is all in the bag. We'd like to see them before it comes into effect.

The Chair: Members of the committee, Mr. Morrison is not a member of the committee. Does he have unanimous consent to put questions?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Mr. Morrison (Swift Current - Maple Creek - Assiniboia): As he said, I'm not a member of the committee, but I'm glad I came tonight. It was most refreshing to hear your presentation. Common sense is sometimes in short supply in Ottawa.

I've lived all over the Northwest Territories. I know where you people are coming from. I know what you're talking about. On a couple of occasions I've even had to shoot bears in my camp. So I can relate to what you're telling us.

My problem with what you've said here tonight lies in your proposed amendment; that concerns me very much. There is perhaps a misconception among you about southern Canada. Southern Canada does not begin and end in Toronto and Montreal - thank goodness! There is an awful lot of semi-wilderness in this country. There are a lot of small rural communities, even in my province of Saskatchewan, which bear a lot of commonality with the small isolated communities in the Northwest Territories.

When I talk to people from those communities, they use basically the same arguments, the same commentaries as you people have been making here tonight, and they feel very strongly about them.

So what I'm asking you - it's more a plea than a question - is that you give consideration to acting with and supporting rural people from all over Canada: the farmers, the ranchers, the loggers. We should unite against - if I may use such a strong term - a common enemy. I don't like to see division in our camp. So that is my request. That's what I'm asking you: that you would give very serious consideration to what you're doing. Don't let them divide and conquer the country people of Canada. Thank you.

The Chair: Do you wish to respond?

Mr. Kakfwi: Yes.

I don't know whether you appreciate that we don't know who are the Liberals, who are the Reformers and who are the Bloc members, and we don't really care at this time. All questions for all members are welcome, so long as they're done with respect.

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So we appreciate what is being said, and we understand it, because we know, by and large, what Ontario and Quebec want. They're the ones that govern this country. The majority of MPs are from those places. The people who live on the margins of Canadian society have always been aboriginal people, and particularly people in the Northwest Territories.

Let me tell you, if we thought no one was going to take up the cause of rural people in Canada we would do it without hesitation, because we know what it's like to be ignored and to be left out. But we are assured and we know without doubt that other governments and other groups will come, and they will make their point emphatically with you in the course of your hearings. We know that other governments will come and make very strong points, very strong arguments, very detailed technical arguments. They are aware of what we are doing here and we're working in concert with them.

So I want to assure you that we're not choosing deliberately to fight only for ourselves, because it never works. We are doing this in concert with other jurisdictions.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Your testimony has struck a chord with many members of the committee, and I'm sure they're going to try to see how they can work out what you've recommended with the need to implement strong gun control laws in areas where they are needed. We appreciate your testimony very much.

I want to remind the members of the committee that we're meeting tomorrow morning at 9:30, but in Room 308 because this room was allocated a long time ago. We'll come back here on Wednesday. Tomorrow morning it's on the estimates of the Correctional Service. Then we go back to Bill C-86 later in the morning, and in the afternoon.

Mr. Kakfwi: Mr. Allmand, we should inform the members of the committee and other members that, as you know, we had strongly advocated that the committee come at least to the Northwest Territories to see for themselves how different life is, how different the circumstances are in the north. I know now you are saying it is not possible; it's not impossible, but you're saying that at this time it's not possible. But I would extend the invitation again.

If not, then perhaps even you as the chairman of the committee could go on a very quick trip. We will bring you out to an Inuit or Dene-Métis community and show you that the kinds of images and examples we've given you are very real today. It could benefit the committee to know of your personal injection into our life, even for a short while. So I extend that to you.

The Chair: Thank you. I'll consider that.

This meeting stands adjourned.