Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to get a question from the hon. member.
I am a member of Parliament and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, but I am also an Inuk.
Whether the government of the day or governments past or the member believes it or not, as far as I am concerned all of Canada belonged to the aboriginal people long before, in some cases 30,000 years, anybody else came along. That is my belief. However I have to be realistic. Some 30 million people now live in Canada, the majority of whom are other than aboriginal. We have to deal with that reality.
However, the wrongs that have been done to the aboriginal people are very wrong. This is how I feel. I am not naive about aboriginal concerns. If the hon. member wants me to elaborate on aboriginal issues and aboriginal concerns I can do that quite well without any lessons from the member across.
I live in the small community in the north in which I grew up. In 1962 the Inuit got the vote. I know about aboriginal concerns. I know some people came north and started putting up "no trespassing" signs on gravel deposits. No trespassing signs on my land? I have no lessons to learn from the hon. member across. Aboriginal people have been on the receiving end of a lot of wrongs for a long time. This attempts to correct the injustices that have been done.
When the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville makes a statement like that I am unlike the member across. I do not think the person is joking. I realize there may be some problems with the status cards. That probably is the case. Is it the Indians, the aboriginal people doing that? I do not know. I must say I am naive in that regard. I can honestly tell the member that I do not know. I apologize for not knowing because it is part of my responsibility.
One my responsibilities is to ensure that there is expeditious approval of bills that deal with the concerns of aboriginal people. I hope the hon. member, when we are dealing with this particular bill, will give his support to it so that we can correct the injustices that have been dealt to the aboriginal people in British Columbia.