Senator Tannas: Yes. They are part of the challenge of reconciliation. It certainly will come across that way in things like child and family social services. It will come that way in education. It will come that way in health. It will come that way in a whole bunch of different areas over the course of time, and it will have to be dealt with.

All we wanted to do, and the simplest thing to do today, was to put Indigenous governments on their reserves where they have jurisdiction in the same position as the provinces. That was the simplest way to do it. There may be, in the fullness of time, other ways in which it could be done. There may be a point when the provinces can’t agree on things and we have to come up with a national gaming scheme. Who knows? But I would not want a new set of soothing words about a “someday, maybe” national gaming program that would include First Nations to get in the way of doing something that’s simple and elegant today.

Senator Tannas: Yes.

Senator Tannas: Yes. Certainly for the host reserves, this would be a large revenue generator. Chief Roy Whitney of the Tsuut’ina estimates that over the history of the Grey Eagle casino, that community has given the province of Alberta a half of a billion dollars that would otherwise have gone into their community for that kind of infrastructure. It would help with all the programs we are busy giving them and downloading to them.

There’s no question — we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars a year that would go into those communities for economic activities that are on their reserve where they have invested the capital to make it happen.

Senator Tannas: It is technologically neutral. It doesn’t speak to whether or not a First Nation has the right to make book in Ontario. It doesn’t say it can’t. It doesn’t say it can.

It’s the same problem that the provinces have with each other. It’s the same problem that we have with the Bahamas. It is sovereign governments that don’t know how to protect their own gaming in a world that is the way it is.

Court is probably the best way to go, but this bill will not impact it, positively or negatively — in my opinion and in the opinion of the counsel for drafting — one way or another.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

Senator Tannas: Until six o’clock, I’m open.

Senator Tannas: To your first point, every province has a different scheme, and we did not spend a lot of time analyzing those schemes because we want to get the province out of the way. To the extent that the province takes, in some cases, 70% of the profit and returns a small amount of that, which they decide, to whoever they decide should get it and leaves 15% of the profit with the host community, there are all of these schemes that involve so many percentage points going in all directions. That’s not for us to decide.

In this case, we’re handing over jurisdiction, just like we did with the provinces. There were no conditions. The agreement that transferred this authority to the provinces is about three pages long, and two pages of it is signatures. It was not complicated and it wasn’t fraught with a whole bunch of conditions that the federal government said they wanted to have in the future.

I know it’s risky. I know our reflex is to say that we can’t trust them with this. Well, I’m sorry; we have to. We have to believe that Indigenous governments will get it right. That is the whole point.

On the second issue, which is sort of the same issue, we need to understand. I think the operators understand who their customers are and they have actioned the idea of an Indigenous gaming commission that they would all belong to. It was passed as a motion to begin to build a framework at AFN — Assembly of First Nations — just a few months ago. They are doing the work to put that in place.

They also have the example of the United States. When the rights and jurisdiction were given over, there was some disruption and dislocation, and there needed to be a collective that brought good standards and the right policies together. But again, that is for those nations to decide. This is business that is being conducted on their lands.

We could spend months or years dreaming up all the rules, regulations, conditions and so on that we’d like to place on the First Nations in order for them to take up a right that they assert is already theirs. That’s not what we should do. It’s not what was done with the provinces. We trusted the provinces to come up with the right rules, regulations, schemes, wealth transfers and so on. We need to do the same with Indigenous governments if we believe this.

Senator Tannas: I mentioned this in my speech, and we didn’t spend a lot of time on the North because there isn’t much going on up there in the gambling world, right? It’s not something, and it doesn’t appear in the Criminal Code — territories are not mentioned. It says “provinces.” It doesn’t say “territories.”

The objectives here are to deal with First Nations gaming on‑reserve where there are, in fact, 30-odd casinos operating today.

To the extent that if there is language we can find that the Northwest Territories, the Yukon or somebody else wants to propose, we would definitely welcome that. However, from what we could tell, it would require something completely different than what is in the Criminal Code and what we’re proposing to do, which is specific to reserves.

Senator Tannas: We are not looking to complicate things any further. I won’t presume whether you could or couldn’t drink in 1985, but these agreements and this devolution happened in 1985. So Diamond Tooth Gerties was likely licensed before things were devolved to the provinces. Is that right?

Either way, it is not part of what is happening in the South with First Nations gaming. There is obviously a federal licence that has been granted somehow, and that’s what’s being operated on. It’s a one-off, and we’re not looking to solve that problem. I’m not even hearing it’s a problem. I’m hearing it’s working wonderfully, so I don’t know why we would want to chase it if there isn’t a problem to fix.

However, what we’re hearing and what we’ve been told is that there is a big problem in the First Nations with the 30 communities that are involved in gaming today. There is a problem with revenue sharing and with one-sided agreements decided by one party, which is the province, with a First Nation who has no choice but to say yes to whatever the deal is.

Hon. Scott Tannas: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak briefly on behalf of all members of the Canadian Senators Group about the horrific attacks that occurred in Israel, and now the unfolding human catastrophe in Gaza. As global citizens, we are quite rightly horrified and heartbroken.

As parliamentarians, I think we must be clear-eyed, and we must urge our government to focus on easing the suffering of all those people by providing aid wherever and whenever it is needed. I think we must urge the government to exercise serious diplomatic influence in order to stop the potential spread of this horrible contagion of war.

Canada has a strong legacy of promoting peace in the world and defending human rights. When former Canadian prime minister Lester B. Pearson accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957, he said:

Of all our dreams today there is none more important — or so hard to realise — than that of peace in the world. May we never lose our faith in it or our resolve to do everything that can be done to convert it one day into reality.

Colleagues, that is Canada’s role in the world, and its role — more importantly — now more than ever.

These are difficult times with the prospect of even darker days ahead. Hope is hard to find in the face of terror and horror, but may we always be driven by our faith that peace will always prevail.

Thank you.

Hon. Scott Tannas moved second reading of Bill S-268, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Indian Act.

He said: Before I start, thank you, Senator Boisvenu. I know we will have time to celebrate your legacy. You have left us a bill to honour your legacy, and it is much appreciated.

Honourable senators, I rise to speak to Bill S-268. I am a first-time sponsor of a Senate public bill. I have been here 10-plus years and this is my first bill.

For the record, I’ve been a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples since my very first day in the Senate. It has not always been easy, but it has been an honour to work with members past and present on issues and obstacles to reconciliation.

I’d like to thank First Nations people in general and Chief Roy Whitney of the Tsuut’ina Nation and Chief Bobby Cameron of FSIN — the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations — for their initial inspiration to me to take this step on behalf of all First Nations.

Let me talk about the objective of the bill. This being second reading, my speech will be relatively short. I’m happy to answer questions. I’m going to try to stick to the principle of the bill.

Simply put, the bill affirms First Nations’ governments’ jurisdiction and power to govern gambling activities on their reserve lands, and does so in a way that matches identically provincial jurisdiction and powers in their respective jurisdictions.

Bill S-268 would formalize First Nations’ control of gaming only on-reserve. It would displace provincial control over those activities, including licensing and — here’s the tricky part — the appropriation of the profits. The desired outcome is that all activity and profit would be under the control of duly elected First Nations governments for gambling on their territories and reserves, in the areas of their jurisdiction. We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars per year that would accrue to the benefit of the First Nations communities involved. That’s what this bill attempts to do.

Here’s some context around the history and the situation today. About 40 years ago, the federal government entered into two agreements with the provinces that effectively devolved gaming — or what they called back then lottery schemes, as they were termed — to the provinces. This devolution involved changing the Criminal Code to say that only provincial governments could manage or conduct gambling or, as they called it, lottery schemes.

Of course, this being 40 years ago, there does not appear to have been any thought or consideration given to First Nations, or territorial governments for that matter; not surprising, after all, because the ink was barely dry on the Constitution at this point.

Since that time, First Nations governments have attempted to assert their right and jurisdiction in this area, citing section 35 of the Constitution and backed by evidence that gaming and gambling have been part of Indigenous culture for millennia, and certainly predates the arrival of and contact with European settlers.

Many First Nations governments entered the gaming industry in the hope and expectation of eventually realizing their jurisdiction. They developed infrastructure and expertise in good faith despite an uneven and sometimes unfair relationship with the provinces. Today, there are more than 30 Indigenous community-owned gaming facilities on reserves across the country.

Successive generations of First Nations leaders and delegations have engaged with and been assured by ministers of the Crown that the federal government is working toward recognition of rights and jurisdiction of gaming on reserve lands. Many years of soothing words to that effect have been heard by leaders and delegations.

It has become clear that nothing is happening. Nobody is working toward anything regarding this issue. Why is that? In this era of reconciliation, why is that? I suspect the real reason is because it’s hard, because doing what’s right will cost somebody who previously had a monopoly to have that monopoly removed and face competition and innovation and, ultimately, see less revenue than when they had a monopoly. This is what real economic reconciliation looks like. It’s hard.

Much effort has gone into reconciliation in the past 10 years or so, particularly with acknowledging the truth of our past; providing funding and development of Indigenous governments; and providing resources and jurisdiction in the areas of education, culture, social services and community development — all cost centres, by the way. We’ve provided jurisdiction and resources in all of those areas.

There is still much work to be done on these fronts, but talk has definitely turned to action — speaking as somebody who has an arc of time of 10 years watching Indigenous matters through the committee.

Economic reconciliation is more difficult because it disrupts the status quo. It displaces those who were advantaged by the policies of the past. It involves money, new competition and redistribution of market share. But it is overwhelmingly, colleagues, the right thing to do.

After decades of uneven and unfair suppression of First Nations rights and jurisdiction, and after years of quiet promises and assurances by ministers of the Crown, as we move past symbolic reconciliation toward tangible economic reconciliation, it is time to do this. To quote John F. Kennedy from many years ago, “We should do this, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.”

Colleagues, there are a number of nuances in this bill that will hopefully receive study and reflection at the Indigenous Peoples Committee, and I welcome the opportunity for improvement through the committee stage.

I will leave my comments here for now. I’m happy to answer any questions that you might have today, and you will certainly hear more from me about the bill — in greater detail — at third reading. Thank you.

Hon. Scott Tannas: If I remember correctly, you were talking about the deal in Saskatchewan. The deal in Saskatchewan, as I understand it, has an interesting formula that involves a percentage going to the host nation and a percentage going into a pot for all First Nations, and then the non-First Nations casinos, obviously overseen by the province, also contributed into that pot that goes to the benefit of all First Nations, which was a negotiated deal that has some interesting history to it.

The point is this: Our bill would not seek to preserve or to kill that. Our bill recognizes and seeks to affirm the jurisdiction of the communities. They will decide what they will do. If there is a wealth redistribution scheme that needs to happen, they will make that decision. If there’s a wealth redistribution scheme that needs to happen in uranium mining, oil and gas, forestry or whatever, where maybe a community that isn’t close to those resources gets something, they can decide all of those things. We don’t get to decide that and the province doesn’t get to decide that.

It’s probably fair to say that in the province of Saskatchewan — and maybe it was trial and error or maybe it was circumstance — it’s probably the deal that is fairest for host First Nations, and indeed for non-host First Nations. Maybe it will be a model that will run rampant across the country. But that is for those governments to decide, just like wealth redistribution is done in our federation with transfer payments and equalization.