Mr. Speaker, this weekend the United Nations Human Rights Conference was held in Edmonton, while across town an aboriginal summit was held by a new grassroots aboriginal group, Aboriginals for Accountability.
While Canada's justice minister paid lip service to human rights at the high profile event, grassroots aboriginal Canadians were listing basic human rights that are being ignored by their leadership, by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and by this government.
The rights being denied them include: freedom of speech, freedom from persecution for political views and freedom from persecution based on race. This is coming from their leadership as well as from non-aboriginals.
They also talked about scandalous living conditions, poor health care and jobs being awarded to the band leaderships' friends and families.
This government has virtually ignored these problems for years. Things are getting worse. Clearly, this government's words are much, much more than its actions.