Mr. Speaker, during question period last Friday, I asked why the government was promoting the Nisga'a treaty that abolishes equal opportunity.
The Liberals have fixed it so that success in our country is now based on race. Hard work is no longer the factor that determines how successful one can be making a living in forestry, fishing or mining.
The government has quashed the principle of equality with the Nisga'a treaty. It is assigning democratic rights according to race not based on needs. Canadians find that offensive and an attack on the very foundation of our country. Equality is at the core of what it is to be Canadian.
Imagine my surprise when the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans jumped gleefully to his feet to address my question. Hansard shows that his carrying on required the Speaker to ask for calm. In his blathering, the fisheries minister attacked, with rhetoric and misinformation, the Sikhs willing to join the RCMP. What a peculiar notion. Where does he get this stuff from? As a Sikh, I find his remarks offensive. As a Sikh himself, the minister should apologize.
At the Reform Party convention in 1996, the Reform Party passed a resolution supporting a change in the dress code of our RCMP. The fisheries minister, like his government, is living in the past. He should be kept up to date. If he was up to date, he would know that he was wrong about the Reform Party policy.
Later the same day during question period, I rose again and asked point blank why the fisheries minister supported a treaty that segregates Canadians and creates inequality. I informed him that the Reform Party believed in the equality of all Canadians, and that was why, as a Sikh member of the party, I was living proof. The Reform Party of Canada has more members representing ethnic minorities than any other party in the House.
Finally, I challenged the minister to a debate on the Nisga'a treaty in Vancouver, B.C. If the Nisga'a agreement is so representative of the Liberals' position on equality, why does the minister not debate the issue with me? By the minister's refusal, it is obvious to me that he is uncomfortable with the government's bill on the Nisga'a agreement. The Liberal government's bill on the Nisga'a agreement creates inequality for aboriginal women and maintains band control over individual property rights, among other important issues.
After my second question, the Speaker of the House gave the minister an out by saying that the minister did not have to respond, and the minister chickened out again. He refused to answer my challenge. Instead, he attacked me personally based on my religion. He should apologize.
Is he refusing to debate me? I do not know. What is he afraid of? I have no clue. I again ask: Why is the government promoting the Nisga'a treaty that abolishes equal opportunity for all Canadians?