Mr. Speaker, I was wondering about the timing of this bill, but I hear my colleague for Halton-Peel referring in his conclusion to the fact that the minister has finished his journey.
Yet this bill, Bill C-79, merely amends the act of which we all are ashamed, the Indian Act. This act infantilizes aboriginal people, makes them into incapable minors. It imposes upon them a government system which, to all intents and purposes, has been such that some of them have lost their own system of government, or are unable to make use of it. With this bill, the native peoples have been more or less forced, in a roundabout way, to accept that.
What I find the most shocking in this bill is the nastiness of its nature. It holds out a few little goodies and forces band councils who want them to accept the principle of this hated act, an act which is, in their eyes, a symbol of subserviency.
This bill is shocking for other reasons as well. It is also shocking because no one among those who addressed the aboriginal question, as a commission or otherwise, has thought that not only the solution, but the beginning of the path toward a solution, lay with amendments to the Indian Act.
Yet the red book, with its generosity, its understanding, its compassion, with all the illusions that it held out, never made any reference to even minor amendments to the Indian Act. Now we find the minister wanting to be able, on the eve of an election, to say: "Mission accomplished". There is one thing you can be certain of: he will not be able to count on us to help him be able to say that.
The native people of Canada-if I may use that term-have a lot of grievances. I have long had an interest in these matters. I was a minister in the Lévesque government when René Lévesque gave official recognition in the National Assembly to the ten Indian and Inuit nations. This arose out of a process begun in 1983 when representatives of the aboriginal groups were brought together and certain proposals were advanced. Not all were judged to be enough, but this did mark the beginning of a process of change.
Obviously, as on the one hand the Indian Act was supreme, and on the other a process of transformation was initiated, beginning on the federal level with the Penner commission and later with the Erasmus-Dussault commission, the native people of Quebec chose to respond: "Very nice of you to offer, but we will continue to call for recognition on the federal level of the rights we feel we are entitled to". In Quebec it was felt this was a valid option.
But what has happened since then? Not long ago we had the Erasmus-Dussault report which is far removed, I would say light years removed, from Bill C-79. We hear nothing about this report. We do not know where it has been shelved, and what we see now is this pitiful excuse for a bill which hardly deserves to be called even an attempt to deal with aboriginal issues.
Meanwhile, in Quebec, the Parti Quebecois, which later formed the government, worked hard on preparing proposals for aboriginal people, proposals that were made to the various groups, to the leaders of aboriginal communities. What we have managed to do is create an opportunity for change that would get rid of the Indian Act once and for all and let each community, moving at its own pace, take over the management of its resources, develop its economy and become aware of the need to protect the environment beyond the limits of its territory, and I am sure aboriginal people in Quebec are starting to understand.
They are starting to realize that it will be in their best interests to negotiate with the government of a Quebec that is sovereign, because if they wait for Canada to deliver on its futuristic promises, they will never get anywhere.
Even today, and this is not something to brag about because much remains to be done about improving the circumstances of aboriginal people, but anyone who is aware of these issues knows perfectly well that aboriginal people are much better off in Quebec than anywhere else, whether we are talking about knowledge and retention of mother tongue, demographics, education or the poverty rate.
We also had the James Bay agreement signed by Robert Bourassa which remains a model of its kind. In spite of the unhappy events in Oka, which I will not discuss here, there is no comparison between the relationship between Quebecers and aboriginal people, although coloured by a past which both sides have to live with, and what we see elsewhere.
It is unfortunate that this government, instead of making real progress on aboriginal issues, and we can draw a parallel here with the national question, preferred to take the easy way out, an easy way I would call pernicious because it will force aboriginal communities to go along with the fundamental principles of the Indian Act if they want to take advantage of certain changes.
I may add that it is rather unusual that this bill is optional. It will be up to the band and the band council to decide, and once they decide to go along with the new legislation, they cannot go back.
Now this can cause major divisions, and here again, the settlement process will remain in the hands of those who administer the Indian Act. Instead of improving, the situation has become even more complex and the future does not look very promising.