Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to address the technical details of this bill. This has been done by other members. My objections to the legislation are more philosophical than technical.
I object because the bill in my eyes is a reflection of the government's agenda to create a system of benevolent apartheid, velvet glove segregation enforced not by truncheons and attack dogs but with chequebooks and devious dealings.
When the Prime Minister of Canada was the minister of Indian affairs some 30 years ago, he knew better than to perpetuate the system we have in this country today. In fact, he issued a white paper which would have brought the native people holus bolus into Canadian society. Had he had his way at the time, the majority of the problems the native communities are now facing in Canada and by extension the rest of us would not exist.
However, he was not a senior member of the government at that time. He was beaten down by Prime Minister Trudeau. He was beaten down by the Indian chiefs. Now apparently he no longer recognizes the wisdom of his thoughts in those days. The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is off and running on the same track which this government has followed ever since it was elected, which is to maintain segregation.
Let us be clear that when we talk about not segregating the native people, we in the Reform Party are not saying that there should not be any cultural distinctiveness. Any group in society, if it has a culture to protect and defend, should be able to so. What we object to is administrative distinctiveness.
The southern United States used to refer to facilities, primarily education facilities, being separate but equal. This was the line of the Bull Connors type of person or, if we want to get someone a little more civilized, George Wallace. Surely these are not the models which we in Canada should follow in developing our social policy.
I would like to speak for a moment about what I think may be one of the impetuses behind the establishment of a natives only educational system. I would like to speak about the much maligned residential schools. One should remember that at the time when most natives, particularly in northwestern Canada, lived on the land, these were the only available options for an academic education for native children.
I used to work with a number of young men who graduated from the Fort Providence residential school. They had formally completed what was then referred to as a grade eight education. I would say their general level of sophistication and general knowledge was at least equal to that of the average contempory high school graduate. Had it not been for the residential schools, the construction of the educational foundation on which to build native political power would have been delayed by at least 20 or 30 years. Where do members think the leaders came from who were able to integrate themselves into the system—I use the word integrate advisedly—and effectively they beat the caucasian migrants at their own game?
I know some of these residential schools were tough. The one that my friends went to was apparently tough. When they talked about it, they did not talk about it in tones that would suggest they had been devastated by it. They spoke about it in a rather jocular fashion. In the days they were there all schools were tough. I attended a school where corporal punishment was the norm. I somehow survived. As has been admitted, there were perverts and sadists in the system, as there are everywhere in society. There were some terrible events. But that does not condemn the entire system which by and large was run by dedicated, sensitive people who really had the best interests of their students at heart.
In any event, with modern communication and modern transportation there is now no need for residential schools. If the Mi'kmaq children were to ride school buses to universally accessible community schools there might be some cultural shock but certainly much less than would be experienced by native people in other parts of Canada. Segregated schools are unfortunately a geographic and demographic necessity in some parts of the country but certainly not in Nova Scotia.
Anyone who has been watching the events on television lately the disputes over logging would certainly have been struck by the down home Nova Scotia accents of some of the disputants. These people are for all intents and purposes integrated into general society. This government is proposing what I would call a policy of dis-integration.
Many people would like to forget the band system in Canada, which this new educational policy would help to perpetuate, was the model for South Africa's system of homelands. The designers of that system actually studied our reserves at a time when our domestic apartheid was not benign, as it is today. They thought this was wonderful and went home and did the same.
We still have the apartheid system. We still have the reserves. Thank heavens they are now a little more benign, but at what cost? We have created this gigantic bureaucracy both in Ottawa and in and about the reserves. We have a class of people known outside of the Indian community as the Indian industry which comprises not just bureaucrats but the chiefs, the bands, all the people in power, the people who have their hands on the money and who will retain their power, their influence, their trips, their meaningless meetings and their good life as long a we continue to boost up the band system. It is a classic example of this type of band boosterism when we give people their very own schools apart from the rest of society.
Therefore I cannot in conscience support this type of legislation. It is wrong to divide people. It is wrong to set up a system where we have a money elite with power bestowed by the federal government, both economic and social power, who are in effect the representatives, whether the people being represented like it or not, of the vast majority of rank and file natives who have no choice in the matter.
This is the old colonial system. This is the way it was done in colonial times. They set up a leadership system that would eagerly collaborate with the senior governments. They gave them lots of perks and privileges and through that they were able to maintain permanent control, permanent separation, permanent economic subjugation of the vast mass of the people allegedly being represented.
