Madam Speaker, as I was saying, the fact that we in North America enjoy one of the highest living standards in the world is not an accident. If we look at the resource rich country of the former Soviet Union, we can see very quickly that it did not fare nearly as well as we did. This is simply because it had a political system which did not allow human beings in that country to achieve their potential.
That system is democracy. It is a fundamental cornerstone upon which not only our country is based, but on which our economy is based. We cannot achieve without the freedom to achieve. We cannot achieve without the freedom of contract. We could not have achieved what we have in North America without democracy.
Let us compare that with the situation in the former Soviet Union. The system there said that government and not the people was the centre of all power, that the communist party was the only political party. There was no option or choice. If one were to belong to a political party it had to be the communist party. The communist party determined that it was going to own the means of production and dictate how the economy would run and dictate how people ran their lives. It was going to even dictate whether or not there would be freedom of religion in the country and it determined that there could not be freedom of religion.
There were so many things about the former Soviet Union that I cannot reiterate them all in this short intervention. Suffice it to say that human liberty was suppressed to the point where the economy could not work. The economy crumbled in on itself and the people of that country during that time suffered a very low standard of living which resulted in a virtual collapse in 1990-91 when the Soviet regime finally ended.
Now we see the emergence of a democracy, albeit not a total democracy at this point, but it sure has come a long way from the days when I was a kid and I watched the news at night and saw what little there was coming out of the Soviet Union. Certainly there has been a lot of progress made there and we are very hopeful that is going to continue.
We have a democracy in North America. As I said earlier it is democracy that is responsible for giving us so much in this country. I would argue strenuously that without it we would not be where we are today and we could not be where we are today. If we abandon democracy, we do so at our peril because we will start slipping backward.
But the forgotten people in North America who have always been precluded from joining our democracy are the aboriginal people of this country. They have been precluded from becoming a part of this democracy from the beginning contact and colonization.
The system of governance in this country and successive governments in this country have ignored, belittled and marginalized these people from the beginning of Confederation. They have been largely Liberal administrations I might add, largely Liberal governments. I would ask any aboriginal people watching today to remember that. Liberal governments for the most part have dominated the House of Commons during this century. It is the Liberals who have constructed the welfare state and the dependency.
Native people in this country did not get the right to vote until 1960. How could we possibly consider that they were part of a democracy when for the first almost 100 years of this country they did not even have the right to vote let alone run for office? It is a small wonder that the level of anger and hostility and hopelessness is so pervasive and so high on aboriginal reserves in this country.
It is a small wonder that these people are bitter and angry and confused and are wondering what the future holds for them. They see this Canadian dream being lived all around them and they are not participating in it. They do not know why and they are angry and they are looking for answers. They are looking for some respect.
This government gives them the kind of respect as to set up these phoney baloney management boards and says “Yeah, we are going to give you half the seats on the board”. What kind of respect is that to show to a human being? It is like “You could not make it on your own, you could not do this unless we created this special situation for you so that you would have a chance to sit on these boards. If we do not do this, you cannot do it. You are not good enough to do it on your own”. I reject that 100% completely and totally.
Local control or local input into resource management can be a good thing but it should not be based on anything other than the fact that there are people who are local to the area and who have a vested interest in the decisions that may affect them and may affect the land they are living on. It should not be tied to membership in a native band. It should not be tied to membership in anything other than the community of interest that surrounds the area that could be affected by decisions that are made, environmental decisions, land use decisions and so on.
I will talk for a minute about the welfare state that has been built up around aboriginal people in this country. I am not sure if the House is aware that the dependency on welfare in this country by aboriginal people exceeds $1 billion at this time. It is growing faster than the rate of inflation and the rate of aboriginal population growth combined. That did not come from me, it came from the auditor general.
The auditor general also points out that over one four-year period the department spent an additional $1 billion over its regular spending for economic development. One billion dollars in addition to its regular spending because the department had this elite top down arrogant attitude that it could solve all the problems on reserves by micromanaging from Ottawa. Guess what happened.
That $1 billion expenditure translated into a progressive increase in the unemployment rate, the dependency rate and in the social assistance envelope that the department has to provide every year for social assistance on reserves. In other words, it had no affect. The auditor general said in his report that if it had any effect whatsoever, the affect would have been a negative one rather than a positive one. One billion dollars, it did not help the people it was designed to help and cost every taxpayer in this country a serious amount of money.
I want to talk about what the auditor general said in his most recent report to Parliament on aboriginal health care. The most revealing aspect of the report was that the Government of Canada and the Ministry of Health are so unconcerned about the fate and health of aboriginal people that over a 10 year period dependency on prescription drugs was actually facilitated by the department to the point where in one three month period there were more than 700 people who had 50 prescriptions or more for mood altering drugs. The government has known about this problem for 10 years. The auditor general said so and has harshly criticized the government because it has done absolutely nothing about it.
I submit that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is without accountability. The government is without accountability. What it is trying to do is window dress the whole affair by creating these so-called management boards and land claim agreements to try to give people the appearance that the government is actually concerned, that it is actually doing something. The reality is it sits on its hands and does nothing.
Look at the issue of the Stony reserve in Alberta. The people on the reserve had to cry out through the media. They lived under the threat of their houses being burned down before they could finally get the minister of Indian affairs, kicking and screaming, to agree a forensic audit of that band. Now we see, as a result of the forensic audit, charges are being laid. The truth is coming out. Hopefully the whole truth will come out. I still think there are still some people on that reserve who are concerned that the whole truth does come out.
Again this is the Liberal way. It is the way obfuscating what is really going on by creating the impression that something is being done about the very serious problems which exist on many Canadian reserves.
I was speaking with some aboriginal people yesterday who came from southern Ontario. While we agreed during the meeting that we would not agree on all points, at least we had some common ground. These people said they could not understand why a minister who had fiduciary responsibility to them was actually intervening in a court case and trying to undermine their position in that case. I will not get into the details of it. It is one more example of the Liberal way of speaking out of both sides of your mouth at the same time. It is one more example of creating an illusion for the benefit of your political numbers in the next poll that you are actually doing something when you really are not.
I believe that aboriginal people across the country have caught on to the system. I think they know the system better than the government. The aboriginal people of this country are not going to be satisfied with these kinds of initiatives in the future. I submit to the House and to the aboriginal people of this country that the way out of this mess is for them to be included as full and equal partners in this democracy, for them to be afforded every opportunity as any other Canadian. The way for the future in Canada is the equality of all Canadians, recognizing that aboriginal peoples have unique culture, unique characteristics and a unique language.
I think most Canadians embrace the notion of that. Most Canadians find that something to be proud of, that we have this kind of a culture within our nation's boundaries. We have a culture that people from other parts of the world, Japan, Germany and so on, come over here to see for themselves. I have people coming to my riding from Japan who want to see for themselves aboriginal culture, who want to see a display of aboriginal culture, who want to watch a dance, who want to tour a museum or who want to view aboriginal art. I think that is a great thing for our country.
I submit to the House and to the aboriginal people of this country that being a country that embraces the notion of expressing our culture and our diversity does not mean entrenching inequality and special rights within the laws of our land. I submit that is not the way of the future for this country.
That is principally why I oppose this bill. I believe it is undemocratic. I believe it does not reflect the true values of Canadians and, most of all, I believe in the long run it will do nothing to assist aboriginal people who really want to assist themselves at the present time, who really want to have a future for themselves and their families within this country, who really want accountability, who really want to have an opportunity to see themselves in the future with the same opportunities and with the same economic circumstances as every other Canadian. That is why I oppose this bill.