Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague from Skeena for actually standing up and saying what he wants to do to help those that the minister referred to as the poorest of the poor.
It is interesting to compare both speeches. The minister went on a 20-minute diatribe against the Reform Party instead of stating what he was going to do for the people who he claims are the poorest of the poor in our society.
While we stand in the House talking rhetoric among political parties, those aboriginal people who are on or off reserve that are suffering from sexual abuse, violence and the poverty that they endure, are still out there suffering. We should be ashamed in the House to be seeing that happening.
Previous governments have created for the aboriginal people an institutionalized welfare state. They have done this by giving money to people in the honest expectation that it would help them.
As my hon. colleague mentioned, one cannot keep giving things to people and expect them to have pride and self-respect. Pride and self-respect comes from within one's person and it is rooted in the ability of the person to take care of himself or herself.
Contrary to what the minister said, I would like to ask my hon. colleague from Skeena, and for him to reiterate if he could, that the pursuit of the treaties is constitutionally and legally from the court's point of view, illegal.
What does he propose to help those people on or off reserve who are suffering from the terrible things that I mentioned previously? How is he going to help the poorest of the poor stand on their own two feet and take care of themselves? That is the root of the problem.