Mr. Speaker, the member for Provencher and I end up on the same plane lots of times, so we may even talk about this again.
I think we will refer to Hansard tomorrow and we will see that I spoke quite eloquently, I would say very eloquently, with regard to the fact that the Norway House band had serious loss of lands and that the compensation of $78 million that was agreed to by the various levels of governments, the aboriginal chiefs and the people was very fair and should be paid to them. We have no problem in agreeing on that fact.
The accountability problems deal with much more than this one agreement. As a member of parliament, where the issue at hand has brought the broad ramifications it has for the people of Manitoba, I would be remiss if I did not touch on those issues attached to the bill we are dealing with. One attached issue is accountability for the moneys that will be received by the band in trust. I agree it is normally a very good legal means by which money does not go missing. As I have said, I have seen so many thousands of cases of dollars go missing over the years, millions, from non-aboriginal and aboriginal holders of trust moneys.
We should not make light or cast aspersions on members of the House or others who speak up and say that everybody who is elected in aboriginal reserves to councils and chiefs are not crooks. They are average people who are getting elected to these things. But there are enough problems that have to brought to the attention of legislators and they have to be dealt with. To sit back and pretend that nothing is going wrong and that there is no room for improvement is sheer lunacy, to put it bluntly. I take pride in speaking out in my riding for my constituents. I have had so many comments from both aboriginal and non-aboriginal people that previous members of parliament did not stand up and speak in the very means that I am speaking today on behalf of aboriginal women and children and others who want to see accountability in first nations government.