Madam Speaker, I could not help but hear the absolutely incorrect comments, and that is putting it kindly, by the member from the New Democratic Party.
It is true that the Reform Party stands alone in opposing the Nisga'a treaty. It is not because we are against the Nisga'a people. It is not because we want to keep the Nisga'a people or indeed aboriginal people under the hammerlock of separation and impoverishment that they have been subjected to for more than 100 years. Rather, the Reform Party wants to liberate aboriginal people and make sure they have the same powers, the same equalities and the same rights and responsibilities as non-aboriginal people.
In 1969 the then aboriginal affairs minister who today is our Prime Minister said very clearly that the aboriginal people stood at a fork in the road. They could either pursue a course of separation and marginalization and of being treated differently, which I might add the Nisga'a treaty epitomizes, or they could move forward in the ability for them to live by their own cultural traditions and rights and responsibilities in the context of being equal with other Canadians.
Does the member from the New Democratic Party agree with the white paper on aboriginal affairs put forth by our present Prime Minister in 1969? Does she agree that the rights and responsibilities that exist under the Nisga'a treaty, the right to own land and the benefits from the Nisga'a treaty, are accrued to the aboriginal leadership and not to individual aboriginal people?