Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me this afternoon to enter into the debate on Bill C-34. It is a landmark piece of legislation that is being proposed to this House and I commend the minister for bringing forward legislation that deals with a very significant and serious matter that will affect all Canadians.
Regardless of whether we consider the advent of the Europeans into the territory we now know as Canada to have been fair and just, since then a lot of time has passed and the passing of time has brought tremendous change into this country and in the way we relate one to another.
Some of those changes have been cultural and today Canada is a multicultural country. The changes have been economic and today Canada is a developed nation. More significantly, the changes are irreversible. We cannot go back. We cannot go back because we must think about each of the 28 million people who
today call themselves Canadians, native or non-native, French or English, black or white.
Any original injustice when might was right set an immutable course which has brought us here where the dominion of some is now the dominion of many. To recognize this is to recognize that despite history the present rests on compromise. Compromise means that we can acknowledge with the deepest respect both the indigenous peoples who gave this land its spirit and the dreamers and builders who later came here and created Canada, as it is today.
In this House compromise comes to us in the form of Bill C-34 this afternoon; agreeing with which grants self-government to the First Nations in the Yukon territory.
Government is right to pursue such a compromise. Compromise under Bill C-34 affirms the right of the Yukon Indians to determine how they will live culturally and spiritually, and that is right.
Compromise under Bill C-34 means the Yukon First Nations people will determine how they will govern themselves and how they will determine their economic future, and that too is right.
We must ask ourselves questions. Does Bill C-34 further the common good for Canada and does it respect the equal nature of the rights and privileges of every citizen in this country? The question is twofold. Does it further the common goal of Canada, the common good for Canada? In any situation that requires compromise it must seem so. Government and natives are carving out a way to solve a disagreement that has carried on for many years. Many feel, and I am inclined to agree, that this agreement and others like it place doubt in the value of nationhood, citizenship and democracy.
Nationhood is the way we define who we are. We value nationhood because it gives us a strong identity and emphasizes that each of the citizens who make up that nation are members of that nation and are therefore equal.
Bill C-34 proposes to create a nation within a nation. Why? What of the nationhood that already exists? What of the equality of those citizens who live within this nation? Creating a nation, a first nation, within a nation does nothing to advance the equal status of First Nations people with other Canadians. Instead, establishing a first nation creates a bias based on ethnic origin, something which Canada and many others have worked very hard to eradicate from the political practices of mankind.
No matter in whose favour one pursues the bias, it remains a bias. It emphasizes what is different and makes it conspicuous rather than allowing our varied ethnic identities to form a tightly woven and colourful background that identifies us as Canadians. Is that good for Canada? How can it be?
This bias breaks the link that forms nationhood, the link of citizenship and the relationship between an individual and his or her country, the implication of freedom.
In Bill C-34 a new language has been created where words like nation and citizen have been redefined as they apply to native Canadians. By redefining these words we place doubt on the value of the original nation and the original citizen. This new language says this is my land and that is your land. It says this is my nation, the first nation, and that is your nation, the nation of Canada. It says in this nation I am a citizen of the first nation. In your nation you are a citizen of Canada.
The new language erects boundaries and cuts holes in a land where First Nations live. Like the main sail of a ship the holes work to weaken and cause a greater chance for larger tears and cease to protect from the winds of change. Once nationhood and citizenship are redefined, the very pillars of democracy begin to crumble and that is not good for Canada.
Does Bill C-34 respect the equal rights and privileges of every citizen in this country? In part I have answered that question in my previous remarks. Bill C-34 emphasizes an ethnic bias simply by acknowledging it. No other citizen in Canada receives rights or privileges on the basis of ethnic origin, although our colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois are seeking that very thing.
By setting this precedent in Bill C-34 I fear that we are fueling the fires of those who would separate, who can now argue that they like the First Nations people have the right to special status based on their ethnic origin.
It is further evidenced that special status does not accomplish what it intends. It does not strengthen, it serves to weaken. Some may argue that Bill C-34 gives First Nations people no more rights and privileges than any other Canadian. Why is it necessary to entrench these rights and privileges in legislation by naming them?
First Nations people are citizens of Canada and as such are given the same rights and privileges under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as any other Canadian-we heard this in this House just a few moments ago-except for one. By creating land claim agreements and subsequent self-government agreements we give to the First Nations people something that no other Canadian has a right to, namely the right to own property.
No other Canadian is allowed to realize that because it is not enshrined in the Constitution. By giving First Nations people ownership over their lands, we have now set a precedent which
would allow others to claim ownership for any number of other reasons, a certain one of which comes to mind readily.
Is this the way we ensure that all Canadians are treated equally and fairly under the Constitution?-no. Does this respect the equal nature of the rights and privileges of every citizen in this country?-no. Is this the way democracy is meant to function?-no.
Democracy says we all shall have a voice and that no one voice should be louder or stronger than any other. Democracy is meant to serve all, not a chosen few. Bill C-34 is a far cry from the agreements of long ago which placed First Nations people on reserves with limited lands and limited responsibilities and capabilities.
In our minds such legislation should speak with more dignity and find a way to bring together two sides in what has been a long and venerable argument. For the sake of both sides it is important that we use the same democratic principles that form the foundation of any legislation in this country. If we do not, that legislation is weak from the start and vulnerable to failure.
We owe it to native and to non-native Canadians to make Bill C-34 and any self-government legislation or land claims agreement sound, for if we are going to go forward we must do just that. The right legislation will respect all of us and will acknowledge the very thing that makes us the same.
We all want a home where we are free to explore our personal identities and spirituality and culture, but it has never been right to pursue this at the cost of others. There will be a cost if in our haste to find a compromise we pass legislation that has the potential to create more division.
In a strong, confident and democratic environment distinctions are valuable and positive, but in a fragmented one they become razor sharp, manipulated to cut here and there, to sever. The differences of Canada have great potential to hurt us if we continually uphold them at the cost of what is true, that we are all first and foremost citizens of Canada.
I believe Bill C-34 is guilty of this. I believe that Bill C-34 forgets that while it seeks to solve the past discrepancies faced by native Canadians, it affects all Canadians. Bill C-34, which provides self-government, Yukon self-government, must seek to reaffirm the citizenship of everyone, our nationhood, our confidence in democracy.
Bill C-34 must bring an end to the beliefs that put greater importance on who was here first or how we came to be here rather than where we are now. All Canadians seek a place of belonging unfettered by intellectual and physical boundaries. All Canadians seek citizenship in its truest form in a place where we uphold that all people are created equal.
Let us not jeopardize this by passing weak legislation that forgets our nationhood, our citizenship and democracy. Let us affirm this again and again above all else because this place exists, this country exists, and that place is Canada.