Mr. Speaker, as usual the hon. member opposite has covered a lot of ground.
She said I said I favoured direct cash compensation and that I did not favour negotiated settlements. That is ridiculous. That is not what I said at all.
I said I was in favour of cash settlements but obviously it will have to be negotiated. How can government come to some agreement on how much cash to turn over to the natives without negotiating it? That is an absolutely ridiculous statement. That is not what I was saying. The only reason she said that was she was hearing, as is so often the case, exactly what she wanted to hear when she was listening to my remarks.
That points to the fundamental problem Reformers have in the House and outside the House. We try to shed light on subjects that are politically sensitive, as so many are, whether outstanding native claims or immigration or gay rights, whatever is deemed politically incorrect to speak on.
When Reformers and put forward the policies we want to put forward, we are attacked. If we spend all our time trying to defend ourselves from the statements we heard this morning once again in the House, we will never be able to put forward our own alternatives, which is the function of an opposition party, to put forward alternatives for the Canadian people.
That is the real question here. Will we have an open process? Will we have a process that welcomes input from everyone? Will we continue to see these types of settlements actually being done behind closed doors where there are a very few people included in the process: the native leadership, the native industry comprised of consultants and engineers and lots of lawyers. Will we broaden that to include the people themselves, not only the aboriginal people of British Columbia but the non-aboriginal people in the process and make them aware of what is happening?
Further, the member made a comment about the legal basis of these. What I was referring to is I do not see anywhere where there is a legal basis for entering into treaties. Yes, we have to have settlements. We have to have agreements. I do not see where we have to enter into a treaty which confers on one group special rights, constitutionally entrenched, not conferred on all Canadians.
As long as we have that we will see more divisiveness. We will be driving the wedge between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people deeper and deeper instead of trying to mend the problems of the past that I referred to in my speech and instead of trying to move beyond that eventually.
We cannot achieve equality overnight. The Reform Party is not saying we can wave a magic wand and all of a sudden we are all equal. We recognize that some segments of society, the poorest of the poor, are starting out a lot lower down and we have to give them a hand up. A hand up is not a continual and perpetual handout. The people do not want it and we should not want to give it to them because it is not the answer.
If a handout forever were the answer, certainly spending upwards of $9 billion a year on aboriginal programs within the confines the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and outside would have solved the problem by now.
We are spending in the neighbourhood of $9,000 million on these people. Yes, we all want to see the problem solved, but throwing money will not solve the problem or we would have done it long ago.
It has also been said repeatedly today that a very select few, although a growing industry, are profiting from that, this Indian industry. When I visit reserves in my riding like Fort Ware, a disastrous example of a reserve, I see the assistance that we all so desperately want to ensure gets to the poorest of the poor is not reaching them. It is not doing the job.
No matter how much more we spend every year, it is not doing the job. We have to look beyond that. We have to look for new answers.
The whole thrust of my speech was that in the end the ultimate goal for all Canadians, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, must be equality, the equal treatment of all our citizens.