Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague very much for both his observations and his question.
It has been my experience in my own lifetime of observation and working with our native peoples that indeed over a large period of time now, government mismanagement in this whole area has led to the terrible conditions that exist on many reservations across Canada. We in the Reform Party have had a number of concerns in this area for a long time.
What concerns us about a bill like this in regard to our aboriginal peoples is that far too often the negotiations go on with the band chiefs and the band councils and if I might use the term, a band elite. They have very little reference to the ordinary aboriginal person who makes up the majority of the band population.
When speaking to aboriginal peoples, their concerns differ very little from yours and mine. They want a good job. They want to be a useful productive person in society. They want to live a good and peaceful life.
Unfortunately the kind of mismanagement of aboriginal affairs by consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments has just driven our native peoples into a land of despair and one that is without hope. It grieves me tremendously to see what is happening with our aboriginal peoples today.
Somehow we have to fix this problem. We have to work with our native brothers and sisters to do something about it. From my perspective it really does start at the grassroots level, our making constructive contacts with native peoples to work at this whole concern.