Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to my hon. colleague's comments. He said the whole business of the Indian question and what to do about land claims, self-government and these types of issues will be resolved only through negotiation.
That is true. That is something we can all agree on. But if that is true, why have so many of the Indian bands in British Columbia either backed away from this process or not participated to begin with?
One of the reasons we are opposed to this treaty process is that the only examples we can see are the ones history has taught us. Treaties enshrine special rights. They enshrine racism because certain rights are attributed to one group of Canadians based solely on their race.
The Reform Party believes the ultimate goal of any negotiations, as the hon. member said and I agree, is we must get to the point at which we can negotiate an end to these issues and put them to rest. The end goal must be the equality of all Canadian citizens, not further inequality, not enshrining inequality in agreements.
Another point is the finality. We believe on this side of the House these must be final agreements. They must bring about extinguishment of special rights and they must be final.
Once again when we look at history and at what happened with the settlements in the northern territories, we do not see that finality. Rather, there are clauses in those agreements whereby any future negotiations that bring about benefits south of 60 could also accrue to those bands that have already completed negotiations in the territories. We do not have finality. Canadians do not know what the final bill will be.
One of the reasons the Charlottetown accord was defeated was the ambiguity of the Indian questions. In other words, what did native self-government really mean? How would it come about?
I heard my hon. colleague putting forward the Reform perspective that what we need is a very clear definition of whether self-government will be based on a municipal model or some third level of government. These are the types of questions Canadians want answered.
Where is the involvement of the third party during these negotiations, private landowners? There are a whole bunch of questions not answered and not adequately addressed by this treaty negotiation process presently underway and which this bill would enshrine.
In a constituent survey in my spring householder I asked a number of questions on native land claims because I wanted feedback from the citizens of Prince George-Peace River. The first question was: Does government have an obligation to negotiate modern day treaties with natives?
This is exactly what we are talking about today with this bill. It is interesting that although the returns were low, the sample size was low, of the more than 500 people who returned the questionnaire two to one voted no. They said we are not obligated to negotiate treaties.
For that reason and the others I outlined I will be joining with my Reform colleagues in opposition to this bill.