Mr. Speaker, I will try to breathe a bit of life into this debate in spite of the late hour.
I am pleased to rise after my colleague from Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, who also speaks with so much conviction when he deals with fishery matters and when he talks on our party's behalf on those subjects that interest him so much and for which he serves his constituency so well.
I was also pleased to hear my colleague from Saint-Jean, our critic for aboriginal affairs, who presented his concerns on the subject debated tonight.
I would like to remind the House that the Bloc Quebecois is really interested in this subject because of its constitutional aspect. It is a matter that touches on the relations between the native people, or nations as we prefer to call them in Quebec, and the other inhabitants of the country. We now have to participate in a debate that will have consequences for our future, the future of Quebec and the future of Canada, the relations between Quebec, Canada and the natives people who belong to one or the other of those jurisdictions.
I believe that this kind of debate was fully justified, especially as a solution must be arrived at quickly. There is increasing urgency, given the well-known facts that seem to have deepened the crisis, which gave rise to violence and to behaviours that are unacceptable in a free and democratic society.
I have had the opportunity to hear part of the debate and I would now like to talk about constitutional issues and the Constitution, and mention that in a sovereign Quebec we will avoid problems such as those faced today by Canada as a result of the laissez-faire attitude of this government, and of its failure to truly follow through on its constitutional commitment as stated in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which says, and I quote the first subsection “The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed”.
Enshrining things in the Constitution is not enough. Native peoples know full well it is not enough to have their rights recognized and affirmed in the Constitution. These rights must be implemented and exercised; the existing laws, the laws which were in force when this section came into force in 1982 must be reviewed and amended to reflect those rights. This is the root cause of the problem we are facing today and which is the topic of the motion before us.
Nothing has been done for 17 years. This provision came into force 17 years ago and successive governments have failed to implement it properly.
As a matter of fact, if one looks at the Marshall decision, the court says something very telling about the refusal to recognize the treaty rights at issue in this case.
The court said, and I quote:
“Mi'kmaq treaty rights were not accommodated in the regulations because presumably the crown's position was and continues to be that no such treaty rights existed”.
The court affirms that such were the position and the views of the crown. This clearly explains why regulations were adopted to give total discretion, and that discretion was exercised to deny rights granted by treaties that were, appropriately, widely and liberally interpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada.
So, it is carelessness on the part of the government that has put citizens, people sharing the land who also want to share the resource, in a crisis situation.
We Quebecers experiencing this constitutional crisis fully understand and share the concerns of aboriginal nations, which have seen their constitutional rights trampled, a government hesitate and refuse to sit down and negotiate in good faith not only as regards the way their rights are recognized, but also the limitations that can be imposed on these rights, since the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada has led to the adoption of restrictions that are reasonable when it comes to the treaty rights of aboriginal nations.
All this to say that, from a constitutional point of view, this shows once again the flaws of our constitution when dealing with one of the peoples of Canada, with aboriginal peoples in general.
We are here not only to discuss and to protect the interests of Quebec, but also to promote the sovereignty project, which is the reason for the presence of Bloc Quebecois members in this house. I simply want to solemnly reiterate to Quebec's 11 aboriginal nations, that the Quebec government pledged long before other governments to recognize aboriginal nations. It did so in 1985 for 10 of them, and in 1987 for the Malecite nation. Not only did the Quebec government recognize their existence, it also indicated its determination to conclude agreements with each of the aboriginal nations.
In the 1985 motion, these agreements guaranteed the right to hunt, fish, trap, harvest and participate in the management of wildlife resources. This explicit recognition of the right to fish was expressed in a motion dating back to 1985.
Since then, negotiations have been carried out in good faith to follow up on these commitments. Sovereignist parties and members of this sovereignist coalition have also re-iterated the commitment they made in the 1990s to ensure that aboriginal people would be entitled to self-government within a sovereign Quebec and would even be able to take part in the drafting of a constitution where their autonomy would be recognized.
As we have so clearly said before, once the draft legislation on sovereignty has been proposed to Quebecers, once the bill on Quebec's future has been drafted, following numerous consultations of Quebecers through regional and national commissions, the Parti Quebecois's current agenda provides that:
—the constitution of a sovereign Quebec recognize the right of the native people to govern themselves on lands belonging to their people and to take part in the development of Quebec. Also the current constitutional rights of aboriginal people, their treaty rights and their aboriginal titles would also be confirmed by a sovereign Quebec.
Lastly, I want to say that the Bloc Quebecois is currently considering a major proposal in which its members are also urged to re-iterate their commitment to recognizing the existing rights of the aboriginal people, to confirming these rights and to ensuring that negotiations are carried out with the native people of Quebec in order to recognize their right to self-government.
We also stipulate in this major proposal that the relationship between the native people, a sovereign Quebec and Canada could be governed by a partnership agreement that would ensure that these people and nations continue to enjoy a friendly relationship and that the native people would not, as the supreme court said in the Marshall judgement, be considered as “citizens minus”, but as first-class citizens in a sovereign Quebec and a sovereign Canada.