Mr. Speaker, today we are debating Bill C-49 which is important to all Canadians including aboriginal people.
On reflection and on examination of the bill I find I am unable to support the bill in its present form. As it goes through parliament I hope amendments will be brought in that make it more acceptable to both aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians.
I certainly support the right of aboriginals to manage their own lands, but we must think about Canada as a country. We must remember that aboriginals are Canadians. We occupy the same lands as defined by our national boundaries.
The good of all Canadians is paramount. The people of Canada need one government that is supreme, one government that is in charge and responsible for the country and for all the people residing in its boundaries. All other levels of government have to be at lower levels to the federal government. All governments and all laws have to be subject to the House.
We have heard and examined the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, “Gathering Strength—Canada's Aboriginal Action Plan”. It had a lot of good features to it. It certainly helped move the debate down the road and helped to make Canadians more aware of what was going on. I question how many Canadians have actually read the report and understand it. Many aboriginal people have read it and a pretty significant number of them have some very deep concerns.
I will deal with some of their concerns in my speech today. I think I could sum them up by saying that they deal mostly with accountability and the place poorer children and women in particular will have in a future self-government.
The royal commission report should have stated unequivocally that accountability of elected representatives on our first nations lands had to be in place as self-government moved along. It should have included built-in democratic guarantees to all aboriginal people. A cornerstone of democracy would not be restricted to such things as election laws being equivalent to or better than the Canada Elections Act.
That would seem to be pretty basic to any self-governing democracy. However we find on first nations reserves which come under the Canada Elections Act contained in the Indian Act that elections are not always fair to the people who are participating.
How long will Canada and the aboriginal people in particular go along with the idea of hereditary chiefs? This was brought to my attention many times, over and over again. When there are hereditary chiefs we do not have a democracy.
The cultural aspects of hereditary chiefs are certainly important. They were a fact of life of aboriginal people. I believe that it can be accommodated through some form of governor general, a figurehead for the reserve and its people. True democratic institutions are what are required by aboriginal people. In order for them to have that they need full democracy as we know it today.
In addition to election laws that have to be clearer and fairer for everyone, there should be an independent auditor general. An independent auditor general would be free to criticize the government and government departments he is reporting on. That could have been built into all agreements with our aboriginal people. Without it there is no accountability of elected officials who manage agreements.
The third matter that would be a good cornerstone would be an access to information component. How can people be governed and assess—