Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today to Bill C-9 and to the amendment to hold it up for six months, which I think is an extremely good idea. One of the reasons I say this is that most of us from B.C. know that the issue of the Nisga'a treaty will come before the courts. A number of court cases are already pending.
We are here today in the House trying to debate a bill that our democratically elected government has put time allocation on. We do not have enough time to speak on it and to bring all the issues forward to properly inform the people of Canada with regard to what is going on here.
The treaty was jammed through in British Columbia without the consent of the people of British Columbia. It was not brought to the people of British Columbia. The hon. members of the NDP should remember that the instigator, the premier of the province at that time, has now resigned in disgrace over this issue and a number of other issues.
I have a a lot of difficulty with this because of four reasons. First, since B.C. fulfilled all of its obligations to our Indians before it entered confederation, Ottawa alone should bear all the costs of the Nisga'a treaty, including reimbursing the province for fair market value of the additional land and natural resources involved. This is very critical. The treaty will not cost just the people in British Columbia, it will cost everyone in Canada. When British Columbia entered into confederation, the federal government at that time said that it would take over Indian affairs. This is just one of the arguments.
Second, all the people in British Columbia, not just the Nisga'a people, should have the right to vote on this. I shall clarify that. Not all of the Nisga'a people voted on this. Some were not allowed to vote on it.
Third, due to the sweeping changes the treaty proposes, it should be subject to periodic review, perhaps every five or ten years, rather than being entrenched as it stands now in Canada's constitution. I say that because we have lived for a number of years under basically two governments in the country, the Liberals and the Conservatives. We have seen what they have done to the country. We have seen what they have done with regard to the Indian Act. They still believe that this is a workable document. They have gone on for years and years holding up our native people, holding up the reserves and holding up the process of the Indian Act as a great workable document for the people of the country.
However, we know it is a failure. We have heard time after time from speakers from all parties in the House about just how detrimental it has been to our Indian population in Canada. That is one of the reasons why, before we sign off on all these agreements, that we should have reviews every five to ten years.
My fourth and final point is that the B.C. legislature and parliament are legally required to pass, amend or defeat this and other modern day treaties yet to come because it is our responsibility to ensure the legislation is as good as we can make it rather than merely rubber-stamping it, which is exactly what we are doing here. We are just rubber-stamping the document.
The government is not open. It has already said that it will not accept amendments. I have no doubt that it will bring in closure when it goes committee. It will try to ram this through. It has said in the paper that it will try to get this through before Christmas. They stand over there and say that this is not so, but it has been stated in the papers.
If that is not rubber-stamping, if that is not forcing an issue, if that is not showing total disregard for the people of British Columbia, I do not know what is. It is not only total disregard for the people of British Columbia but, in my humble opinion, also for the Nisga'a people.
I had the honour and privilege of visiting the Nisga'a country and meeting with the chiefs. I had lunch with them and talked with them. We decided to disagree very politely in regard to a number of these issues.
After having travelled through the Nisga'a country and visiting New Aiyansh, I visited the bordering reserves and met with many of their chiefs. They had great concerns about the treaty because it infringed on their traditional territory. Here we have other bands saying that the agreement infringes on their territory and the government just sits over there and goes ahead with it anyway.
When the agreement hits the court, the government will say “We didn't know that. Nobody told us that or put that out”. Well, we have and I want the government to remember that.
I also want hon. members on the other side to realize that British Columbia is a part of Canada. When it comes to an issue of this importance, where we are basically reshaping and redefining how Canada will look on maps and how the laws will apply in different parts of Canada, I would really think that a government that says it is so concerned about the well-being of Canada, of its people and of the native population in the country would at least have the common decency to sit in the House. However, government members do not. They just leave. Hardly any of them stay around with regard to this.
We can go back years and years, long before your time, Mr. Speaker, to when British Columbia first came into confederation. In my home province it has been proven by order in council that British Columbia has fulfilled its obligations with respect to its Indians.
I have strong objections to the Nisga'a treaty and to the remaining hundreds of treaties which B.C. Indians still have to come forward with. The government says that this will not be a template of what is to happen but it will be. The ex-premier of British Columbia has also stated very strongly that it will be. It is strange that the government says that this will not become a template to what will go on in our province because it is a template. There is absolutely no doubt about it.
I understand the NDP with regard to the issue of private property rights. Private property rights are nowhere to be found in the agreement. I understand that from the NDP members, with their socialistic attitude regarding private property rights, and that governments should own everything and that they should be the government that will tell us what we can do.
I also do not have any trouble understanding it coming from the Conservatives down on the other side of us because the red Tories are almost exactly the same thing as what we have sitting here as the NDP.
I did have a little trouble though trying to understand where the Liberals are coming from on this. They profess time after time that everybody in the country should have the opportunity to own something, to have security of that ownership and to be able to better themselves in regard to that ownership. However, here they are ready to rubber-stamp this without giving that right to the natives themselves. It is almost like they want to keep that entrenchment upon the reserves so that they cannot better themselves. I have great difficulty with that after listening to how they profess they care and what they say to the public outside.
I sincerely hope that the government will at least open this up to proper debate and allow us to speak on this instead of keeping us to 10 minutes and shutting off debate with no questions and answers in the House. This is supposed to be the most democratic House in Canada. I would think the rest of the world would have to shake its head at that.