Merci, Madame.
Hello to everyone on the committee and to the two other witnesses today.
Respectfully, I would like to offer our support, with all due respect to the testimony from other witnesses. The legislature here in Manitoba has unanimously adopted a resolution in support of this piece of legislation. I want to go on record as just giving you a quick summary of it, and I can make it available to the committee members thereafter if they wish.
With respect to the matrimonial property rights issue, it reads simply:
WHEREAS the Aboriginal population in Manitoba is 15.9 per cent of the total provincial population; and
WHEREAS Aboriginal women make up 7.7 per cent of Manitoba's total population which is projected to increase by 24 per cent by 2017; and
WHEREAS the Manitoba Department of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs states their vision is “an improved quality of life and opportunities for Manitoba's Aboriginal and northern people”; and
WHEREAS the Indian Act does not protect the property rights of Aboriginal women living on reserves; and
WHEREAS there have been many cases where Aboriginal women and children living on reserves have been forced into homelessness or insecurity following the death of a spouse or the breakdown of a relationship; and
WHEREAS Manitoba's Aboriginal Justice Inquiry recommended action on this issue in 1988, along with the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1997 and the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1998.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba urge the federal government to pass Bill S-2: Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act.
THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution be sent by the Speaker to the federal minister of aboriginal and northern affairs.
This has been done.
I should point out to members of the committee that our province, as you may be aware, has the highest percentage of aboriginal first nations residents on and off reserve in the country, and it is the fastest growing component of our population. This problem will not go away, and it will continue to be of serious impact if unaddressed.
I should also point out that we have over 100,000 first nations residents in our province. Saskatchewan, second to us, has also offered its support. I have a letter of support for this legislation from Premier Brad Wall as well, if committee members are interested in receiving this.
I will simply say that my interest or awareness of this issue began as a consequence of one woman's plight. She came to me asking for help, and I, frankly, am ashamed to say that I did not believe her when she told me that the law did not protect her, that the RCMP would not help her. When she told me that she had lost access to her own children on reserve, I felt that something needed to be done.
Others, of course, are aware that this is not an isolated incident. It doesn't affect one person; it affects many, many people—men and women on reserves. The fact of the matter is that the no man's land that we put aboriginal women and aboriginal people into, with respect to the silence of the Indian Act and the irrelevance of any provincial jurisdictional authority, means that the strong tend to survive, as opposed to fairness existing with respect to matrimonial property rights.
Some have argued that support for this bill is paternalistic. I should mention that several members of our legislature are themselves first nations residents, and they certainly have wholeheartedly supported this bill's enactment. I should also mention that I believe that paternalism is in fact, in many examples—too many that have been brought to my attention—the cause of the problem, and certainly it is far more of a problem in its impact on aboriginal women on reserve and their real lives than is the paternalism that has been attached to this bill itself.
I would say the status quo is not acceptable.
Thank you very much.