Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to address the House for the first time. I would ask for a little latitude to mention a few things before talking about Bill C-6.
It is certainly an honour to be in the House to represent the good people of Dewdney—Alouette. May I begin by acknowledging the people who chose me to represent them in parliament.
The riding of Dewdney—Alouette encompasses a number of diverse communities which stretch from Pitt Meadows in the west to Mission, to Harrison Hot Springs and to Agassiz in the east. It is a diverse mix of urban and rural settings. For many people in the riding it is the last frontier of affordable housing so that they can work in Vancouver.
The forestry and fishing industries are vital to the economic make-up of the area. I salute the people of those communities involved in that work. It is certainly a beautiful place to visit. I would say it is the most beautiful riding in Canada.
I acknowledge a few of my constituents, in particular a few who live in Mission and those who live right in my house. Those are the most important constituents, my wife Wendy and my children Jordana, Reanne, Kaelin and Graedon. It is this support, as it is for all of us who sit in the House, that make it possible to make this commitment to our country. I thank them personally for that. Family is a very important part of my life. We all make sacrifices to be in the House. Members of all parties appreciate those who are at home supporting us. Family is the life of our country.
It is time for those who have been silent for a long time to get involved. I talked to a number who were disillusioned with the governance of the country. Apathy is at an all time high. People are disillusioned. I believe it is time we restored the commitment of the House to the people of the country.
I am proud to be a member of a party committed to restoring the confidence of people in their government through real structural parliamentary reform. That is where Bill C-6 can be addressed. While it is well intended it does not deal with real structural reforms needed to address the concerns of the Mackenzie Valley.
My own riding has eight bands represented, the Sto:lo nation being the largest in the area. Several bands are part of the Sto:lo nation: the Chehalis, the Douglas, the Katzie, the Lakahahmen, the Samahquam, the Scowlitz, the people of Seabird Island and the people of Skookum Chuck.
As my colleagues have mentioned before when talking about the bill, we recognize the validity of the goals of the legislation and the need to implement commitments made by Canada under land claims agreements. Land and water management and protection of the environment in the Mackenzie Valley are issues of importance both to the residents of the region and to Canadians in general.
Our objection and what I would like to focus on is the creation of another level of bureaucracy as was mentioned earlier by some of my colleagues. I received a phone call during the election campaign from one of my own constituents, a member of the aboriginal community. As my hon. colleague from Skeena mentioned, a co-dependency relationship seems to have been established between the federal government and many aboriginal peoples.
The young lady phoned me and said “I am really tired of the process I have been through. I just want to be a Canadian. I just want to be someone who is treated the same as all other people in Canada”.
Our party's focus on equality and the establishment of equality for aboriginal peoples and all peoples of Canada strikes at the heart of this young lady's comments and a need for real structural change.
When people bring forward legislation they have an idea of what they are doing, at least we hope they do. We argue that the level of bureaucracy to be created would not serve the people of the area well. It would hinder true economic development of the area and the needs of the people there. It is certainly something that needs to be addressed and examined.
Members on this side would like to focus on a new relationship with the aboriginal peoples of Canada, one that focuses on the equality of all Canadians including aboriginal peoples. We have seen and heard from a number of a constituents in ridings across the country of terrible things that have happened in their personal lives. We think about the fact that real people are affected by legislation. We see the effects of legislation on many people in our aboriginal communities and the co-dependent relationship which seems to have developed over the last several decades.
I have spoken with people from aboriginal communities, the rank and file people on different reserves in my riding. People are looking for involvement at the grassroots level and at the governing structure of reserves.
Because the rights of each individual on the reserves are not the same we all know of different stories of people who have been abused. Those are things that need to be addressed. The best way to address them is with fundamental changes, structural changes to the system, the implementation of programs and the implementation of an aboriginal affairs policy that addresses all people of all communities and has a primary function of equality.
Members on this side fully support honouring treaties according to their original intent and court decisions. We also support that aboriginal people be part of the process. We see some trouble with the bill as was mentioned by some of my colleagues before. The levels of bureaucracy would hinder the involvement of rank and file individual people of the Mackenzie Valley. We see the principle of the implementation of the boards as a problem.
The structure of the proposed legislation does not address the real concerns of changing the system to address the needs of individual people. That is where our objections would lie. Many times people will say different things about different groups of people. We fully support aboriginal people.
We look at different people who have come to our offices with troubling circumstances. We shake our heads and wonder how it could have happened. We want to focus on helping all Canadians to achieve equality and to add to this great country.
We support aboriginal people, rank and file individuals who often tend not to have a real voice in their own communities. We see leadership in some bands—not all of course—that does not fully recognize the contributions of all members of the local community.
We object to Bill C-6 on the basis of a number of principles that were mentioned earlier. We look forward to being able to see real parliamentary reform and structural reform in our aboriginal communities to give them a real say at the local level.
As my colleague from Skeena mentioned earlier in his analogy of kingdoms and fiefdoms, the power structure disables the people at the rank and file level from being involved. In essence it shuts down the ability for real involvement by people. It was a very good analogy. We on this side of the House would like to work with the government toward looking at fundamental structural changes for the good of our aboriginal people. The equality of all Canadians is important.
Another person I did not mention or thank at the beginning of my speech whom I would like to thank now is not with us. It is my father. He was a veteran. He served the country and fought in World War II. He really instilled a sense of democracy in me personally. We had many debates about freedoms and democracies. I saw the scars and the pain he carried with him from the horrors of war, the things he saw and had to endure. In fact he lost many of his friends. Even 50 years after the fact tears would well up in his eyes as he thought back to the friends and mates he had lost in the war.
The battles fought by our veterans were for the equality of all Canadians, so that all people would have a say. That is the principle for which he and his colleagues fought.
We would like to see that implemented. We would like to see expressed equality for all Canadians and our aboriginal people who have not had that full opportunity, the full rights and privileges as all other citizens of Canada have had.
I will close by restating our concern for the aboriginal communities and the fact that in Canada we would like to see equality for all people, to bring about a healing, to bring about concern for all people, to help solve the injustices of the past which previous structural policies have put in place. It is time for a change, as my hon. colleague mentioned, not a time to go down the same road. It is time to address these factors of equality and that all Canadians are equal before the law.
The Mackenzie Valley is a great area, part of a great country. While legislation can be well intended, we see structural problems with the implementation of these boards. We need to have that in place in order for it to work well and it needs to be right before implementing it. That is where my main objection lies.
Madam Speaker, I thank you for listening intently to my comments. It is an honour and a privilege to be here and I hope I have many opportunities to speak on different bills.