[Witness speaks in his native language]
I come today to express my concerns over the proposed bill's changes to the Indian Act.
It makes me wonder how this whole process is working. We have stated for years that we need changes, that we need progress coming from leadership. One person writes a bill and puts it on the floor of Parliament and wants to change our lives when this person has never lived on a reserve.
I take this as an insult. I'm offended by this while my people are suffering from the flood we have back home today and from the spike in cancer in my community. We have to drink runoff water, grey water. We have sewage fields. We're faced with inland flooding this year. The water has to be pumped out over the permanent dikes that surround us. We're a diked-in community. It's quite disturbing that suddenly we are sitting here today trying to focus on little things in the Indian Act.
I have treaty rights. Let's focus on those.
I ask myself what we need to do. Do I have to bring my people in here, the sick people with diabetes or cancer? I don't know, but I think your government and your people, your officials, have to come to see for yourselves, and not fly over our communities as the minister did a week or so ago without my knowledge of his coming to our territory. That's working behind our backs without our knowledge. He should come and see for himself.
We sit here and ponder how we're going to change one word of the Indian Act, or this word and that word.
It's quite upsetting that I have to be here to explain myself. If I have to, I will bring my people here. The media is criticizing us for what we are doing, being accountable and transparent. Whose worry is that? Is it your taxpayers? They say we are being funded by the taxpayers. No, we are not. According to the treaty, we should be the richest people walking this land, from the resources that are being extracted on a daily basis.
In our territory we have potash. We have forest. If you look at the Duck Mountain area on the northern part of it, which is Treaty 4, there's no bush left. We hunt on that land. We fish. We lived off the land. There is nothing there.
It's very upsetting that we sit here and talk about these things. Let's talk about the real issues. Let's go back to our treaty table. That's what we are proposing here as we sit as representatives from Treaty No. 2.