Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned in his remarks the need to resolve the national unity problem. I submit that the national unity problem will never be resolved until we deal adequately and fairly with our aboriginal people.
I was pleased to hear earlier that the government is committed to working in partnership with our aboriginal people. I would submit that there is a very practical opportunity for the government to do this in a very real fashion.
The Pic River First Nation submitted a land claim and this claim was rejected after a legal review by the Department of Justice. The Pic River First Nation feels that this legal review was seriously flawed and they are seeking an independent legal review of their land claim. They have launched a court action but they are quite willing to forgo court action if the government will agree to work together with them in partnership to have an independent legal review of their land claim.
I would submit that this is an opportunity for the government to show and put meaning to the words in the throne speech, to work realistically in partnership with the First Nations, to resolve this outstanding land claim rather than force this First Nations group to go through a lengthy court action. The deadline date for this would be October 9. I would urge the government to move in the direction of resolving this issue before that time.
I further feel that for Canada to resolve the national unity issue we have to deal fairly with all peoples and that means looking at the aboriginal situation in a fair and reasonable way. A first step to admit that we want to obtain national unity would be for Canada to issue an apology to the aboriginal people for the manner in which we have historically treated aboriginal people over the years.