Sébastien Lemire, Abitibi—Témiscamingue
“I agree that First Nations need clean drinking water, but this bill is too weak and comes far too late. It is a watered-down version of an earlier bill that First Nations groups already agreed on. It takes away the clear promise that water is a human right, weakens protection zones, and only asks the government to make its best efforts instead of making firm commitments. We must send this bill to committee and fix it so it actually guarantees clean water and respects provincial powers.”
“Madam Speaker, kwe kwe, waachiyaah. I am especially pleased to speak to Bill C-37, but I do so with some regret, even a bit of bitterness, because, in my view, this debate comes far too late. For years, if not decades, the Auditor General has been issuing reports criticizing the impact of the government’s inaction on the quality of life of first nations. This inaction also undermines their capacity for self-determination and has significant repercussions on the health of children, as well as on that of all first nations members. In my view, this is clearly a fundamental right, one that is also recognized by the United Nations. In the current context, it is important to remember what has brought us to this point. The journey has been marked in particular by the pressure exerted and leadership shown on these issues by the Assembly of First Nations, or AFN, and the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador, or AFNQL. I want to highlight the work done by Lance Haymond, chief of Kebaowek First Nation in my riding, who is still fighting to protect water quality in the context of the nuclear waste disposal site at Chalk River and the consequences it could have on traditional lands. Indigenous peoples, first nations, Inuit and Métis have a responsibility to protect our shared territory. Their vision is rooted in a perspective that looks ahead to the next seven generations. This should also serve as inspiration in the context of Bill C-39, which seeks to fast-track project approvals without ensuring social licence and without free, prior and informed consultations with first nations. Bill C-37 emerged in that context. However, as I was saying, it has come too late. We studied Bill C-61 during the last Parliament, which lasted nearly four years—three and a half years, to be exact. Why did the Liberals not make this a priority sooner? Why was it not debated in the House earlier, debated in committee and advanced through all the stages to be passed by the Senate? I have been thinking about that a lot. At the time, I was the Bloc Québécois critic for indigenous affairs. We did extensive work on Bill C-61, which contained a number of important distinctions compared with Bill C-37, particularly because of the co-development process. The parties concerned were brought to the table from the outset. The parliamentary work was done. I am thinking in particular of the work carried out by my former NDP colleague from Nunavut, who has now crossed to the other side of the House. Ironically, she will be voting against provisions that she herself helped improve. Bill C-37 is a watered-down version of Bill C-61. Several fundamental elements have been removed, and I will return to those shortly. In the context of Bill C‑61, I would remind the House that we proposed many amendments and recommendations stemming from the concerns of first nations, including the AFN and the AFNQL. That work allowed us to reach a consensus. When the current Minister of Indigenous Services was appointed, the first thing I asked her to do was to reintroduce Bill C‑61 as amended by the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs. I think that Parliament could have passed that bill quickly, yet here we are today, more than a year and a half later, with a new bill that is only at first reading, or rather, receiving its first hour of debate. How many months or years will it take for this new bill to make it all the way through the legislative process? I am worried about that. Until we have a law in place, there will be no government accountability and, obviously, no results. We see this year after year in the Auditor General’s reports, as well as in her follow-up reports on earlier recommendations. This is a huge problem. In the meantime, the communities are suffering. The government may well say that there has been some progress and that only 35 communities are still affected, but that still leaves 35 communities having to boil their drinking water on a daily basis. In Quebec, the community of Kitcisakik did not have clean drinking water, but the Quebec government handled it. That community now has access to electricity, which allows its systems to function more effectively. If the Quebec government had not stepped in, the federal government would have also failed in its responsibility to provide clean water to first nations. That was the situation we were facing two years ago when we were examining Bill C-61 in committee. I must admit that the minister of indigenous services at the time, the member for Thunder Bay—Superior North, was excellent to work with. I hope I got the name of her riding right. I want to commend her for approach because it enabled us to reach a consensus that I felt was inclusive, something that we are not necessarily seeing today. As we saw earlier in questions and comments, the government is even going so far as to justify the time the minister gave herself to hold the consultations that were never carried out. It is easy to see that this is just the government’s way of wasting time. Meanwhile, the government does not have any obligation to produce results. That is the crux of the problem, which has been going on for decades. The federal government has failed to produce results when it comes to providing first nations with clean water. Last December, the Prime Minister personally promised the Assembly of First Nations that this bill would be introduced. As first nations know, just because a bill is introduced does not mean that it will get passed. It does not guarantee results from this government. The cavalier attitude that we have been seeing in the House over the past few weeks, since the government bought itself a majority with Conservative floor crossers and the member for Nunavut, is not good for first nations. What we have been seeing since the current Prime Minister took office is the introduction of bills like Bill C-5. What did Bill C-5 do? It eliminated the responsibility to comply with the Indian Act, which entailed the duty to consult first nations. I proposed an amendment to this bill, which I thank the Conservatives for supporting, to remove from the schedule those bills that the government is allowed to ignore when implementing its projects of national interest or similar projects. We also need to define what is meant by national interest. That remains to be determined. Taking the Indian Act out of that schedule would stop the government from circumventing the fundamental principle of consulting first nations. Although it is extremely archaic, the Indian Act does set a baseline for the rights of first nations. Clearly, the federal government was not happy about the Indian Act being removed from the schedule, so it tried again with Bill C‑15. It removed some elements from the bill, and it is doing so again with Bill C‑39 by clearly stating that nuclear energy must be the priority. As a result, this fight is going all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. I want to once again commend Lance Haymond and the Kebaowek community for their leadership in protecting the integrity of our waterways, our lands and our biodiversity. This time, it will be much more complicated, if not impossible, to stand up for the fundamental rights of first nations, even though one of the fundamental rights of first nations is obviously access to drinking water. The reality is that Bill C‑5 was passed with limited debate. I would remind the House that Bill C‑15 was also passed quickly and Bill C‑39 was voted on yesterday at second reading with the support of the Conservative Party. There will be a lot of work to do in committee, and it will be up to the Bloc Québécois to stand up for the rights of first nations in the context of Bill C‑39. As for Bill C-37, it is the same story. I regret not putting more pressure on the government to ensure that Bill C-61 was the version presented to the House. Actually, no, I believe I did my due diligence on this, and I believe first nations did theirs as well. I believe it is the government’s refusal to listen that has caused us to lose another year, another five years, another 40 years. It is this accumulation of delays that means first nations members are once again being penalized today. All in all, Bill C-37 is in keeping with the spirit of continuity, and I would like to emphasize that. However, some provisions that had been included in Bill C-61 have been omitted, which is a real shame. However, we in the Bloc Québécois recognize the relevance of the principle underlying this approach. Access to clean, safe and reliable drinking water is a fundamental goal. First nations must have the necessary resources to manage their water services and protect their resources. It was on precisely this point that I personally took action at committee to ensure that first nations’ expertise is developed. It is one thing to say that they will take care of it, but that expertise needs to be developed. All too often, we have seen consulting engineering firms like SNC-Lavalin get lucrative contracts at the expense of first nations. If something breaks, it takes months for repairs to happen, because there is no local expertise. This means that people need to be trained. It means that systems need to be updated. It means that ongoing investments need to be made. Bill C-37 does not prove that the Liberals have a long-term vision for investments in that regard. Among other things, the bill seeks to affirm first nations jurisdiction over water, source water, drinking water, waste water and related infrastructure on, in and under their lands by establishing minimum standards and mechanisms for co-operation with the various levels of government. That is an important aspect because water is under provincial jurisdiction; it is Quebec’s responsibility, for example. There is a desire to find better water quality, but protecting clean water is fundamental to human survival. First nations people have a vision to protect it, as does the Government of Quebec. Partnerships exist that should not be replaced. If the government does not respect the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces, it will end up creating other mechanisms that will not solve the problem at its core. Bill C-37 also provides for the gradual implementation of mechanisms to guarantee access to drinking water, the co-development of a funding framework and the possible creation of a first nations-led water commission. This brings me back to the debates we had in committee. Any such commission must respect both official languages. Unfortunately, when I proposed an amendment to that effect, several Liberal members and the member for Nunavut refused to support both official languages. Of course, the goal should also be to make translations available in the indigenous languages of the communities concerned, and I fully support that. However, failing to recognize French as an official language of Canada and failing to provide documents in French also has discriminatory consequences for many first nations communities in Quebec whose members are francophone. That reality was largely overlooked. I would like to point out that the committee’s work ultimately resulted in a bilingual commission. Common sense prevailed, and there are mechanisms in place that have enabled us to correct what would have been a very serious error. In its preliminary analysis, the Assembly of First Nations, or AFN, raised concerns that “the lack of commitment to the full achievement of the human right to water, limited definition of First Nations lands, weakened co-development and consultation provisions [and] reliance on ‘best efforts’ language”. We see a lot of that. The bill often states that the government will make best efforts. That is a problem. We do not need the government to do its best. We need it to commit to doing better. It is all meaningless without that commitment. It is just empty words. Another concern raised by the AFN was “uncertainty regarding the interaction between the right to water supply [provided for in the bill] and existing provincial water allocation regimes.” What happens if the source of drinking water is not on reserve territory? As we know, reserve boundaries were drawn so as to enclose as little area as possible, which is a problem for growing populations. Often, as is the case in my riding, first nations occupied the land well before we did. They lived near waterways, which is only natural, particularly for the Anishinabe. However, most reserves are inland, far from first nations’ ancestral lands. Some land flooded when dams were built, as was the case for the Long Point nation and the Kitcisakik community. All of this affects their direct access to water, to river water sources. Today, we are dealing with additional costs to supply water to these reserves, and we need to take that into account, but collaboration is also needed. Several of the criticisms of Bill C-61 were addressed through a co-development process. I want to point that out. Although it was imperfect, it was a step forward that was not replicated in the process for Bill C-37. To me, that is a major risk. I would like to echo the remarks of Francis Verreault-Paul, Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador. He believes that Bill C-37 no longer explicitly recognizes access to drinking water as a human right. He, too, is adding his voice to the discussion. He also believes that certain elements of the bill represent a step backward compared to Bill C-61. When I asked the minister that question earlier, she proudly stated that she is investing money and looking ahead. These problems will not be solved. If we refuse to acknowledge the nature of the problems and the setbacks we are facing, we are dooming ourselves to repeat the same mistakes. If we doom ourselves to repeat the same mistakes, in the end, everyone loses. It will cost taxpayers more, and first nations will not have access to the safe, high-quality drinking water to which they are entitled. These are no trivial matters. I talked about Bill C-5. I talked about the fact that we need to establish collaborative mechanisms between governments, especially provincial governments, and the jurisdictions involved. Funding is a key issue. We have to consider what is good for communities when it comes to maintaining, renewing and upgrading infrastructure. We have to consider skills development, consultation mechanisms, joint management, the coordination of regulatory regimes, long-term funding and the meaningful authority that first nations will have with respect to concrete protection measures. We need predictable, long-term financial resources, along with a clear and respectful relationship. All of that is there. I will return to Bill C-61. It established a clearer definition of protection zones. Based on what I see in Bill C‑37, that concerns me. This aspect will have to be updated in committee. The bill talks about “best efforts”. We could change that to “commitments to do better”. That is essential. I would like to revisit the Auditor General’s findings so that we have a clear understanding of the situation we are starting from as we discuss this issue. Based on her report tabled in 2021, she stated in 2025, “Although the number of [long term drinking water advisories] has declined, 35 advisories remained as of April 1, 2025.” Nine of those drinking water advisories were issued in the following fiscal year. Clearly, this remains a problem today. We need long-term solutions, yet we are still far from certain that the areas of progress identified by the Auditor General will deliver any results. Quite frankly, that is deeply disappointing. I sat on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. In that context, I wanted to ensure that these challenges could be addressed. A report adopted by the committee in June will have to be tabled in the House so that we may one day debate it. Before the debate even begins, we have to look at the government’s shortcomings. I am thinking of Bill C-10, which establishes a commissioner for modern treaty implementation. This position is only needed because the government has failed to live up to its obligations with respect to first nations. Do we need to do the same thing here, that is, appoint a drinking water commissioner to finally ensure that someone can actually access the inner workings of the government, particularly within the Department of Indigenous Services, to get the information needed to hold this government to account? Bill C‑37 raises a lot of questions. It will need to be improved in committee, but it would have been so simple and so much more efficient to build on the former Bill C‑61, which had consensus and could have been passed very quickly.”
Madam Speaker, kwe kwe, waachiyaah. I am especially pleased to speak to Bill C-37, but I do so with some regret, even a bit of bitterness, because, in my view, this debate comes far too late. For years, if not decades, the Auditor General has been issuing reports criticizing the impact of the government’s inaction on the quality of life of first nations. This inaction also undermines their capacity for self-determination and has significant repercussions on the health of children, as well as on that of all first nations members. In my view, this is clearly a fundamental right, one that is also recognized by the United Nations. In the current context, it is important to remember what has brought us to this point. The journey has been marked in particular by the pressure exerted and leadership shown on these issues by the Assembly of First Nations, or AFN, and the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador, or AFNQL. I want to highlight the work done by Lance Haymond, chief of Kebaowek First Nation in my riding, who is still fighting to protect water quality in the context of the nuclear waste disposal site at Chalk River and the consequences it could have on traditional lands. Indigenous peoples, first nations, Inuit and Métis have a responsibility to protect our shared territory. Their vision is rooted in a perspective that looks ahead to the next seven generations. This should also serve as inspiration in the context of Bill C-39, which seeks to fast-track project approvals without ensuring social licence and without free, prior and informed consultations with first nations. Bill C-37 emerged in that context. However, as I was saying, it has come too late. We studied Bill C-61 during the last Parliament, which lasted nearly four years—three and a half years, to be exact. Why did the Liberals not make this a priority sooner? Why was it not debated in the House earlier, debated in committee and advanced through all the stages to be passed by the Senate? I have been thinking about that a lot. At the time, I was the Bloc Québécois critic for indigenous affairs. We did extensive work on Bill C-61, which contained a number of important distinctions compared with Bill C-37, particularly because of the co-development process. The parties concerned were brought to the table from the outset. The parliamentary work was done. I am thinking in particular of the work carried out by my former NDP colleague from Nunavut, who has now crossed to the other side of the House. Ironically, she will be voting against provisions that she herself helped improve. Bill C-37 is a watered-down version of Bill C-61. Several fundamental elements have been removed, and I will return to those shortly. In the context of Bill C‑61, I would remind the House that we proposed many amendments and recommendations stemming from the concerns of first nations, including the AFN and the AFNQL. That work allowed us to reach a consensus. When the current Minister of Indigenous Services was appointed, the first thing I asked her to do was to reintroduce Bill C‑61 as amended by the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs. I think that Parliament could have passed that bill quickly, yet here we are today, more than a year and a half later, with a new bill that is only at first reading, or rather, receiving its first hour of debate. How many months or years will it take for this new bill to make it all the way through the legislative process? I am worried about that. Until we have a law in place, there will be no government accountability and, obviously, no results. We see this year after year in the Auditor General’s reports, as well as in her follow-up reports on earlier recommendations. This is a huge problem. In the meantime, the communities are suffering. The government may well say that there has been some progress and that only 35 communities are still affected, but that still leaves 35 communities having to boil their drinking water on a daily basis. In Quebec, the community of Kitcisakik did not have clean drinking water, but the Quebec government handled it. That community now has access to electricity, which allows its systems to function more effectively. If the Quebec government had not stepped in, the federal government would have also failed in its responsibility to provide clean water to first nations. That was the situation we were facing two years ago when we were examining Bill C-61 in committee. I must admit that the minister of indigenous services at the time, the member for Thunder Bay—Superior North, was excellent to work with. I hope I got the name of her riding right. I want to commend her for approach because it enabled us to reach a consensus that I felt was inclusive, something that we are not necessarily seeing today. As we saw earlier in questions and comments, the government is even going so far as to justify the time the minister gave herself to hold the consultations that were never carried out. It is easy to see that this is just the government’s way of wasting time. Meanwhile, the government does not have any obligation to produce results. That is the crux of the problem, which has been going on for decades. The federal government has failed to produce results when it comes to providing first nations with clean water. Last December, the Prime Minister personally promised the Assembly of First Nations that this bill would be introduced. As first nations know, just because a bill is introduced does not mean that it will get passed. It does not guarantee results from this government. The cavalier attitude that we have been seeing in the House over the past few weeks, since the government bought itself a majority with Conservative floor crossers and the member for Nunavut, is not good for first nations. What we have been seeing since the current Prime Minister took office is the introduction of bills like Bill C-5. What did Bill C-5 do? It eliminated the responsibility to comply with the Indian Act, which entailed the duty to consult first nations. I proposed an amendment to this bill, which I thank the Conservatives for supporting, to remove from the schedule those bills that the government is allowed to ignore when implementing its projects of national interest or similar projects. We also need to define what is meant by national interest. That remains to be determined. Taking the Indian Act out of that schedule would stop the government from circumventing the fundamental principle of consulting first nations. Although it is extremely archaic, the Indian Act does set a baseline for the rights of first nations. Clearly, the federal government was not happy about the Indian Act being removed from the schedule, so it tried again with Bill C‑15. It removed some elements from the bill, and it is doing so again with Bill C‑39 by clearly stating that nuclear energy must be the priority. As a result, this fight is going all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. I want to once again commend Lance Haymond and the Kebaowek community for their leadership in protecting the integrity of our waterways, our lands and our biodiversity. This time, it will be much more complicated, if not impossible, to stand up for the fundamental rights of first nations, even though one of the fundamental rights of first nations is obviously access to drinking water. The reality is that Bill C‑5 was passed with limited debate. I would remind the House that Bill C‑15 was also passed quickly and Bill C‑39 was voted on yesterday at second reading with the support of the Conservative Party. There will be a lot of work to do in committee, and it will be up to the Bloc Québécois to stand up for the rights of first nations in the context of Bill C‑39. As for Bill C-37, it is the same story. I regret not putting more pressure on the government to ensure that Bill C-61 was the version presented to the House. Actually, no, I believe I did my due diligence on this, and I believe first nations did theirs as well. I believe it is the government’s refusal to listen that has caused us to lose another year, another five years, another 40 years. It is this accumulation of delays that means first nations members are once again being penalized today. All in all, Bill C-37 is in keeping with the spirit of continuity, and I would like to emphasize that. However, some provisions that had been included in Bill C-61 have been omitted, which is a real shame. However, we in the Bloc Québécois recognize the relevance of the principle underlying this approach. Access to clean, safe and reliable drinking water is a fundamental goal. First nations must have the necessary resources to manage their water services and protect their resources. It was on precisely this point that I personally took action at committee to ensure that first nations’ expertise is developed. It is one thing to say that they will take care of it, but that expertise needs to be developed. All too often, we have seen consulting engineering firms like SNC-Lavalin get lucrative contracts at the expense of first nations. If something breaks, it takes months for repairs to happen, because there is no local expertise. This means that people need to be trained. It means that systems need to be updated. It means that ongoing investments need to be made. Bill C-37 does not prove that the Liberals have a long-term vision for investments in that regard. Among other things, the bill seeks to affirm first nations jurisdiction over water, source water, drinking water, waste water and related infrastructure on, in and under their lands by establishing minimum standards and mechanisms for co-operation with the various levels of government. That is an important aspect because water is under provincial jurisdiction; it is Quebec’s responsibility, for example. There is a desire to find better water quality, but protecting clean water is fundamental to human survival. First nations people have a vision to protect it, as does the Government of Quebec. Partnerships exist that should not be replaced. If the government does not respect the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces, it will end up creating other mechanisms that will not solve the problem at its core. Bill C-37 also provides for the gradual implementation of mechanisms to guarantee access to drinking water, the co-development of a funding framework and the possible creation of a first nations-led water commission. This brings me back to the debates we had in committee. Any such commission must respect both official languages. Unfortunately, when I proposed an amendment to that effect, several Liberal members and the member for Nunavut refused to support both official languages. Of course, the goal should also be to make translations available in the indigenous languages of the communities concerned, and I fully support that. However, failing to recognize French as an official language of Canada and failing to provide documents in French also has discriminatory consequences for many first nations communities in Quebec whose members are francophone. That reality was largely overlooked. I would like to point out that the committee’s work ultimately resulted in a bilingual commission. Common sense prevailed, and there are mechanisms in place that have enabled us to correct what would have been a very serious error. In its preliminary analysis, the Assembly of First Nations, or AFN, raised concerns that “the lack of commitment to the full achievement of the human right to water, limited definition of First Nations lands, weakened co-development and consultation provisions [and] reliance on ‘best efforts’ language”. We see a lot of that. The bill often states that the government will make best efforts. That is a problem. We do not need the government to do its best. We need it to commit to doing better. It is all meaningless without that commitment. It is just empty words. Another concern raised by the AFN was “uncertainty regarding the interaction between the right to water supply [provided for in the bill] and existing provincial water allocation regimes.” What happens if the source of drinking water is not on reserve territory? As we know, reserve boundaries were drawn so as to enclose as little area as possible, which is a problem for growing populations. Often, as is the case in my riding, first nations occupied the land well before we did. They lived near waterways, which is only natural, particularly for the Anishinabe. However, most reserves are inland, far from first nations’ ancestral lands. Some land flooded when dams were built, as was the case for the Long Point nation and the Kitcisakik community. All of this affects their direct access to water, to river water sources. Today, we are dealing with additional costs to supply water to these reserves, and we need to take that into account, but collaboration is also needed. Several of the criticisms of Bill C-61 were addressed through a co-development process. I want to point that out. Although it was imperfect, it was a step forward that was not replicated in the process for Bill C-37. To me, that is a major risk. I would like to echo the remarks of Francis Verreault-Paul, Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador. He believes that Bill C-37 no longer explicitly recognizes access to drinking water as a human right. He, too, is adding his voice to the discussion. He also believes that certain elements of the bill represent a step backward compared to Bill C-61. When I asked the minister that question earlier, she proudly stated that she is investing money and looking ahead. These problems will not be solved. If we refuse to acknowledge the nature of the problems and the setbacks we are facing, we are dooming ourselves to repeat the same mistakes. If we doom ourselves to repeat the same mistakes, in the end, everyone loses. It will cost taxpayers more, and first nations will not have access to the safe, high-quality drinking water to which they are entitled. These are no trivial matters. I talked about Bill C-5. I talked about the fact that we need to establish collaborative mechanisms between governments, especially provincial governments, and the jurisdictions involved. Funding is a key issue. We have to consider what is good for communities when it comes to maintaining, renewing and upgrading infrastructure. We have to consider skills development, consultation mechanisms, joint management, the coordination of regulatory regimes, long-term funding and the meaningful authority that first nations will have with respect to concrete protection measures. We need predictable, long-term financial resources, along with a clear and respectful relationship. All of that is there. I will return to Bill C-61. It established a clearer definition of protection zones. Based on what I see in Bill C‑37, that concerns me. This aspect will have to be updated in committee. The bill talks about “best efforts”. We could change that to “commitments to do better”. That is essential. I would like to revisit the Auditor General’s findings so that we have a clear understanding of the situation we are starting from as we discuss this issue. Based on her report tabled in 2021, she stated in 2025, “Although the number of [long term drinking water advisories] has declined, 35 advisories remained as of April 1, 2025.” Nine of those drinking water advisories were issued in the following fiscal year. Clearly, this remains a problem today. We need long-term solutions, yet we are still far from certain that the areas of progress identified by the Auditor General will deliver any results. Quite frankly, that is deeply disappointing. I sat on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. In that context, I wanted to ensure that these challenges could be addressed. A report adopted by the committee in June will have to be tabled in the House so that we may one day debate it. Before the debate even begins, we have to look at the government’s shortcomings. I am thinking of Bill C-10, which establishes a commissioner for modern treaty implementation. This position is only needed because the government has failed to live up to its obligations with respect to first nations. Do we need to do the same thing here, that is, appoint a drinking water commissioner to finally ensure that someone can actually access the inner workings of the government, particularly within the Department of Indigenous Services, to get the information needed to hold this government to account? Bill C‑37 raises a lot of questions. It will need to be improved in committee, but it would have been so simple and so much more efficient to build on the former Bill C‑61, which had consensus and could have been passed very quickly.
