Mr. Speaker, continuing with my speech on Bill C-16, I submit that a strong, economically self-reliant Sahtu nation will be a benefit to all Canadians.
This agreement also provides for a transfer of funds from the Canadian taxpayer amounting to $130 million over the next 15 years. This amounts to over $8 million a year. These funds are apparently designated for areas such as education, training and heritage preservation.
I am sure that Canadians would support this transfer of tax dollars for these purposes as well as the allocation of the land involved. However, I do not believe that the Canadian people will support these articles of the agreement unless there is a clear indication that the financial dependency on the taxpayer will end some time in the future.
This agreement provides no such assurance. In fact, it is clear from the agreement that the Sahtu's right to receive benefits from existing or future aboriginal programs will continue, therefore continuing the dependency which this government contends will be extinguished by this agreement. This defeats the purpose of the agreement itself.
In this connection I would like to comment on an article in the Globe and Mail . According to a March 29, 1994 report the federal government has spent more than $50 million on self-government negotiations with native groups over the past seven years, yet it has produced only one agreement. About 400 native communities have entered self-government talks but most have abandoned the process because it is long, bureaucratic, limited and legalistic.
According to the Globe and Mail , this was the finding of a federal audit. The audit apparently described a host of weaknesses in the federal policy for negotiating self-government deals at the community level and concluded that the process is long, cumbersome and expensive.
Federal payments to native groups for the negotiations jumped by 500 per cent since the process began in the 1986-87 fiscal year. The department of Indian affairs has given $30 million to aboriginal groups for the talks and has spent a further $20 million on internal operating costs.
The department has spent $50 million creating a cottage industry around these negotiations, where lawyers and political leaders are the only ones who benefit while the deplorable living conditions of the individual aboriginal person has not changed as a result of the expenditure of these funds.
I suggest the weaknesses evident in the Sahtu agreement are a reflection of the flawed negotiation process identified by the federal audit. The interests of the Canadian taxpayer are not protected in the agreement.
Within the agreement the means exist by which the Sahtu nation can continue to demand that the federal government tax the wealth of Canadians for their use, in spite of the enormous land mass assigned to these people, the significant resource royalties agreed to and the multimillion dollar cash settlement provided.
This is neither fair to the Sahtu nation nor the Canadian taxpayer. It is unfair to the taxpayer because there is no end to the financial support demanded and unfair to the Sahtu people because it does not end their dependency on the Canadian taxpayer and therefore is not a formula for self-reliance.
A final area of concern to many Canadians is that this agreement creates entitlements and rights based on race and ethnic origin and will be as racist a document as is the Indian Act. The agreement will create special status for the Sahtu nation based on race and destroys the principle of equality of citizenship in that all Canadians ought to stand equal before the law.
This does not bode well for the future unity of our country. I believe the intolerable conditions faced by aboriginal people is due to the fact that for many years they did not have equal rights in Canada. They were discriminated against at all levels of society. Their language, religion and culture were suppressed. Job opportunities were non-existent for the majority of aboriginal people.
In order to correct the situation we must ensure they stand equal before the law. If we grant them special status, harmony and unity will not be the result.
While the rest of the world, including South Africa, is bringing the barriers down between races and ethnic groups, we are in the process of erecting them through agreements such as this. We saw it in the Meech Lake accord, the Charlottetown accord and we are seeing it again in this agreement. People are being granted special rights and privileges based on race and ethnic origin.
These rights and privileges are being paid for by the Canadian taxpayer. The formula cannot succeed in a multicultural society such as Canada. We must ensure that all Canadians stand equal before the law regardless of race, language, culture or religion.
This may be the greatest failing of the Sahtu agreement. It grants special rights based on race and ethnic origin and in doing so destroys the principle of equality of citizenship in Canada.