Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to suggest that the native people are in any way inferior to us or any other people in the world. It is my considered judgment from reading history and evidence on the sociology and the problems of these communities that the state and well meaning people like the minister who just spoke have created conditions and institutions with the best intentions, filling the short run demands of the individual just like we were likely to do when we were teenagers or in our twenties.
I am suggesting the evidence I have seen is that these institutions have produced not what the teenager wanted, not what the natives wanted but something that is now creating the difficulties all of us feel so terrible about. From what I hear life is awful on these reservations.
We all want to help. I am not here to denigrate or in any way insinuate that the aboriginal peoples of this country are in any way inferior. They need our help. The question is, are we giving them the right help?
I believe we must look at how we got where we are. How did we get there? How does the proposal to give even more resources to these people differ from what our predecessors in the last 100 years said: "Here is a problem. Let us throw more money at it". Let us make sure that this is a cure, that the responsibility we have for them is even more permanent and fixed.
I did not invent the words lazy house. It was discovered by the natives themselves. When they get the things they have they do not quite turn out the way they expected.
You remember when you had your first bicycle, your first motorcycle, your first car. As you were fighting for it, you thought: "If only I could have that, I would be happy forever and ever". We now remember. Sometimes the things we want, when we have them, are not really good for us.
Let me sum up. I am not in any way insinuating that the people themselves are lazy, that they are in any way inferior. Any problems that society has I believe should be looked at realistically by asking: "How did we get there?" If we decide that all we need are more resources, I urge members to go back and see why proposing all those resources in the past, increasing all those resources available to them, has not solved the problem. From what I hear and read, it has made it worse.