Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed because my hon. colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan had a very important intervention to make on behalf of Mr. Ken Conrad of his riding, which would have been very valuable since he was an RCMP officer who worked closely with aboriginal people in Saskatchewan for a very long time.
We have heard a great many comments from members across the way, comments that were extremely egregious, comments that were extremely false, comments about the B.C. media being biased. This issue is not about stupid political rhetoric, it is about people. This is about the most impoverished people in our society.
I would like to cite some examples from the first nation's aboriginal health task force which put together some information that I think would be very valuable to the House in understanding the scope of what we are dealing with, so that we do not have to listen to the idiotic comments coming from members on the other side which have no constructive basis whatsoever in trying to improve the health and welfare of the aboriginal people of this country.
First, I have some comments from the aboriginal community. Fifty per cent of aboriginal people have a water supply that does not even meet the minimal safe drinking water guidelines within Canada. Of the 613 water systems on reserve, 50% have no treatment facilities. Of the 71,531 homes on reserve outside the Northwest Territories, 20,700 have no indoor plumbing and 16,900 have no sewage system whatsoever. Sixty-eight per cent of aboriginal people were on social assistance in 1990. On reserve unemployment is greater than 30%. Seventy-five per cent of tuberculosis cases were in aboriginal communities, and on and on it goes. That is what we get for spending over $6 billion on aboriginal services today.
If treaties are so good, then I think it is useful for us to take a look at where they have been employed, east of the Rockies. If treaties are so good, and the Nisga'a treaty is something that the government and other political parties want to pursue, then they must have a good track record and they must improve the health and welfare of aboriginal people. But that is not the case.
If we consider the treaties that have been signed east of the Rockies, if we look at what is happening to people in the trenches, if we look at aboriginal people on and off reserve, we see a deplorable situation. They occupy the lowest social rung in our society today.
Treaties, in their current form, do not work. They do not work because they further the separateness that is embodied in the Nisga'a treaty and the Indian Act. The government was not always so fixed on its current platform. In 1969 the Reform Party would have locked arms and pursued the course which the then government had agreed upon when the then aboriginal affairs minister, our current Prime Minister, produced a white paper.
At that time Prime Minister Trudeau said that aboriginal people stood at a fork in the road and they could do one of two things. They could either pursue the course embodied in the Indian Act of separate development, which has been like a boot on the necks of aboriginal people for more than 100 years, or they could pursue what the current Prime Minister said at that time. He said that it was time for aboriginal people to move forward, to own land as individuals, to have equality with non-aboriginals, to have the same opportunities, goals, rights and responsibilities as non-aboriginals, and that it was time for integration, not assimilation.
That is what the current Prime Minister said in 1969 with the support of Prime Minister Trudeau. That is 180 degrees from what he is saying today.
It is the Reform Party that wants to get rid of the Indian Act. It wants to pursue equality and give every aboriginal person the same rights and responsibilities and hope for the future as we have in the House today. The reason we oppose the Nisga'a agreement is not that we are against the Nisga'a people, it is because this treaty is an extension of the separateness and balkanization that is embodied in a 125 year history of separate development that has crushed the ability of aboriginal people to be the best they can become.
Every year $6 billion is put into aboriginal affairs. Where is that money going? My colleagues from Wild Rose and Skeena have been listening to grassroots aboriginal people who have been telling them that they see money coming into the reserves but they do not know where it goes. They say that their children still lie on cold floors in basements and they still commit suicide because they see no hope. Where is the money going?
The department of Indian affairs was forced in over 150 cases to intervene in the management of aboriginal reserves. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Most often the department does not even want to go to determine what is going on.
At the end of the day, who really gets hurt? Is it the people at the top? It is the people whom the government professes it wants to help. They do not have a say. The grassroots aboriginal people, the man, woman and child who are on the street on and off reserve, do not have a voice. The Nisga'a agreement will not give them that voice because the power will be centred with the people at the top.
We would not want that for ourselves. Why is the government trying to pursue a course that would cement this kind of control at the top without any municipal power for the people and without the people having a say in a meaningful way? Why is the government continuing to support this course which has been proven to be an abysmal failure? I cannot understand it and my colleagues cannot understand it.
At the end of the day, our goals are the same. Not a person in the House wants to see the state of affairs of aboriginals on and off reserve worsen. We all want to see it improve. Our objection is that this is not what the Nisga'a agreement will do. What is worse, it will be a template for other agreements that will be made in British Columbia.
What the rest of the country does not understand is that in conjunction with Delgamuukw there will be an opportunity to open up treaties across the country. If we think we have problems now, imagine what it will be like in the future.
No one is even discussing who will pay for it. In Alberta alone the cost of trying to resolve aboriginal claims is estimated at $107 billion. Money does not grow on trees. Where is the money going? Would it not be better if we scrapped the Indian Act and made selective investments in aboriginal services so that aboriginal people would have the training, job opportunities and skills required? People, regardless of their race, cannot have pride or self-respect if they are wards of the state.
For men and women to have self-respect and pride, they have to be able to provide for themselves, their families and their communities. That is the only way they will have the pride and self-respect which will enable them to stand on their own two feet.
What Reform wants is what the Prime Minister wanted in 1969, an opportunity for aboriginal people to exercise their traditional rights and responsibilities, to have the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else, to scrap the Indian Act and pursue a course of equality for all peoples.
The money that will go into this agreement and indeed the 50-plus agreements that will take place in B.C. will create a new level of bureaucracy that was agreed upon by former Premier Clark of British Columbia. It will also mean new bureaucracies at the provincial and federal levels.
Rather than putting that money into bureaucracies, why do we not put it into the hard edge of making sure these people have the skills to provide for themselves, their families and their communities?
People cannot have pride and self-respect if they are wards of the state. Over the last 125 years we have created an institutionalized welfare state. If you visit many reserves, Mr. Speaker, you will see this.
During my time working as a physician on and off reserve I went to these reserves. I saw people in the worst possible state of affairs. I have not seen things like that since I worked in Africa.
We should not have that in this country. We should pursue a course that will empower and strengthen individual aboriginal people, rather than the leadership at the top. That is something on which we would work with the government to pursue, but we will oppose the government if it tries to put the strength and the power of this agreement in the hands of a very few while excluding the majority.