Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am new to this committee, so I do apologize if I ask questions that people have had addressed over the past months of hearings on this issue. However, one of the reasons why I asked to be part of this committee, why I joined this committee, was simply the number of calls that I've had to my office specifically regarding minorities within aboriginal communities.
I represent an area that has a significant aboriginal population. I have a significant number of aboriginal communities scattered throughout my constituency. What I'm very concerned about, specifically when it comes to an interpretive clause, is the issue that minorities within first nations...because there are minorities within first nations communities as well.
If anybody would like to meet some of these minorities within first nations communities, I'd be happy to bring you to my constituency and show you some of these horrific examples of where people are being kicked out of their houses because they aren't the right family or didn't support the right person in the past elections. There are all kinds of horrific stories about mothers and children being tossed out because they have done something or spoken out against something.
It's really horrifying for me, so when we discuss an interpretive clause, I get very concerned that individual minorities...and I'll put a face to these people. These people are elderly, these people are mothers, they're children, they're people who have come against what they see as corrupt, systems of corruption. They are being tossed out.
Quite effectively, what I'm seeing with an interpretive clause is the ability for the leadership in that community to say, “We don't care about what you think your rights are, we're just going to just interpret this as being our given right.”
That's my concern. If somebody can say there are ways we can address this to ensure that this won't happen....
I know that there are people who are sitting there in disbelief that these situations are in fact happening.
Ms. Keeper, I'd be very happy to have you come to my constituency—