Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate today in this debate on Bill C-79, an act to amend the Indian Act. I cannot say, however, that I am too proud of what this government has accomplished on the Indian issue since taking office three and a half years ago.
Perhaps three and a half years is nothing in the history of Indians in Canada, but it shows this Liberal government's blatant lack of vision. A bill is introduced, which purports to deal with rather important issues: distribution of estates, new powers for band councils, election procedures, contraventions and criminal law on reserves.
Unfortunately, in view of what I would call generalized opposition-more than 500 aboriginal communities told the government, and sent us copies of their letters, that they did not want this bill-I think we must realize one thing, which is true in Quebec as well as in Canada.
In the past, we have not always treated aboriginal people, the natives, like adults, as equals. And instead of changing this attitude, the minister is perpetuating it. Imagine what impact making this act optional will have, with some communities coming under the it, and others not.
We can easily imagine that it will be a carrot and stick situation, where special advantages will be used as incentives to get some communities to agree with the optional modification of the act. This will result in a proliferation of unacceptable situations condemned previously, by the Auditor General of Canada among others, concerning allocation of funds, that is to say how federal government funds are allocated to and used by aboriginal people.
One really has to wonder what prompted the minister to make such a decision. Why not have gone to the bottom of the issue like the Erasmus-Dussault royal commission did in a thorough analysis? One may not agree with all the recommendations in this report, but the commission conducted a major exercise and took a look at the overall situation. Why does the minister come up with a bill which, to me, is a cosmetic, pre-election measure?
The government wants to be able to campaign and say: "We passed an act amending the Indian Act. We had said we would do it and we did it". All these cosmetic changes before an election are nice, but we are not elected for that purpose.
We are elected, ultimately, to truly fulfil the commitments made during the election campaign, so as to be credible as a government. In this case as in many others, the current Liberal government is launching into what could be called a coverup operation. It is like putting a bit of paint on an old car to hide the rust for a while, for the duration of the election campaign, before it will resurface again.
The plight of Canada's Indians is much more serious. Let me read the Liberal Party's position, as stated in the red book. It says: "A Liberal government will develop a more comprehensive process for consultation between federal ministers and aboriginal representatives with respect to decision-making that directly affects First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples". There are 542 communities opposed to Bill C-79, that is 85 per cent of the total number. Something is wrong somewhere. It does not make sense. The federal government's decision is even insulting for aboriginal communities.
There is another line in the red book which is even smoother when we read it today. It says: "It does not make sense for the federal government to be unilaterally making policy or budgetary decisions that affect the lives of aboriginal people, without their involvement". Yet, the government introduced a bill which will
have major policy and budgetary consequences, partly because of its optional nature, without the support of aboriginal communities.
If I were a member of an aboriginal community, I would be even more stunned by the way the Government of Canada is treating them. Let us not forget that the Indian Act was based on the same principle, the same structure as the apartheid legislation, in South Africa. It stems from the great wisdom of the British Empire, many years ago. Since then, we never went to the bottom of the issue to really find out how to solve the problems relating to aboriginal communities and their rights, and to also find out how to deal with them.
Today, the Liberal government has placed us in a sad situation. If this bill is passed by Parliament, native peoples will be able to say once again that the government has decided to offload the problem, as the member for Mégantic-Compton-Stanstead would say, to ignore the facts.
If I were a native person, I would be rather puzzled. First of all, I would wonder why the Government of Canada, which is supposed to be my defender, which is so described in the bill, is passing such bills, when the only people to truly come to our defence are Quebec's sovereignists. What is going on in this Parliament that things have come to this?
One answer is that, in the past few years, Quebec has begun treating native communities with the respect they deserve. We began by recognizing their status as a nation, and then went on to other areas that have not always been easy, but we are still trying to establish a relationship that is evolving slowly through negotiations.
It is not just a matter of keeping an election promise by passing a bill, so that during the election campaign they can say: "You see, we kept this promise, the eighty-second or eighty-third, increasing our score to 82 or 83 per cent".
Quantitative results like these are not what the people of Quebec and of Canada, what native peoples expect from their government. What they want is to get to the bottom of things, because there are social problems, important economic problems resulting from the failure of the Canadian government to take action on this issue for several decades. This government, which announced interesting things in its red book, has been completely unable to deliver the goods.
Today, on the eve of an election campaign, it confronts us with a completely unacceptable bill. I urge the members of the majority to go back and consult the 542 communities who wrote to tell us that they did not want to see the bill passed, that they wanted it thrown out. They gave us the reasons they did not want to see it passed.
Each of you in the Liberal majority, in your respective ridings, before the election campaign begins, during the period when the bill is being studied in committee, should go to see your communities and ask them the reasons they find the bill unacceptable.
I am certain that, when you come back from this consultation, you will make sure that your government at least kills this bill, or has the courage to propose a bill that completely transforms the relationship with natives within Canada, so that this major problem can be eliminated. A solution must be found to this problem, which is a stain on the quality of democratic life in this country, because Bill C-79 is no solution.
I will close by saying that it is essential that any bill that speaks about relations with native peoples must include as a basic principle that they be treated like adults and that their rights be respected. It is for this reason that the Bloc Quebecois is coming to their defence against this bill, which is unfair.