Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his comments. I do not think that anyone would deny that there have been injustices done. I detailed some examples of that, how that has taken place down through the history of our country.
I think also that what I was trying to get at in my presentation is that when rights are granted to individuals or to groups there are corresponding responsibilities that go with those rights. I do not see in this agreement where that is taking place within the confines of the agreement. I see all sorts of things being granted to this group of Canadians, and I think we have to distinguish here that we are all Canadians and we have all benefited from this great land of ours in different ways. Even the native people, the aboriginal people, have clearly benefited from Canada. My comment is that they also have to take responsibility. If they are going to go down the road toward self-government-there clearly does not seem to be any definition of that forthcoming from the opposite side of the House-then obviously there should be this devolution of power, to the Sahtu people in this particular case, to the aboriginal people in Canada, but also they should be seeking to give up any further rights to aboriginal programs.
My hope always was that once we came to a reasonable and fair settlement and self-government for the aboriginal people that at some point we would all be treated equally. There would not be any programs specifically based on race any more.
I see that this agreement does not accomplish that, even though the monetary compensation is paid, even though the land use is guaranteed, even though the fee simple land is given over, even though subsurface mineral rights are given to these people from the Government of Canada. The bottom line still appears to be that they do not give up any future access to aboriginal programs, either existing ones or ones in the future. That was the thrust of my speech. That is my concern.