Madam Speaker, I am going to be splitting my time with the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley.
In a way as House leader I have witnessed a lot of things on process in the House. I will talk about the process but I find it sad the way some of these parties are going on about this important Nisga'a debate. I will talk a bit about what it is to be opposition in the House of Commons and about what it takes to stand up and have a little courage in one's convictions.
The process of debate in the House on this whole issue was not only shortened by time allocation after four and a half hours of our debate time. The total time was around eight hours, but of course the other parties that are supposed to be in opposition here agree with the issue.
That may not seem much to the government but it is to the people we represent. The issue has come up in question period time and time again. Government references the official opposition by saying that all members from British Columbia should speak to the issue as they know what they are talking about. It happens that a majority of them are in this caucus and should have had full opportunity to speak to this issue rather than have debate cut.
After the government eliminates debate time through time allocation we go into committee. The committee on aboriginal affairs did not want to go to British Columbia, so as House leader I basically said that we would not travel in any committee then, that all committees had to come through the House for approval to travel and we would oppose them all. That encouraged the government to travel to British Columbia. That is the only reason it ended up going to British Columbia. Otherwise it was not going.
We said then we wanted to go to a number of communities in British Columbia. No, it did not want to go where the Nisga'a agreement was opposed. After hours of debate we finally got it to go to Victoria, Vancouver, Terrace, Prince Rupert and Smithers. It did not want to go to Smithers because of the opposition that it knew it would hear. It did not want to go to Kamloops so we sawed it off and went to Prince George.
I was sitting in my office and members of the aboriginal affairs committee came in and said that a list of 62 names, all in favour of the Nisga'a agreement, were tabled in that committee. They were voting to bring those names forward as they travel throughout British Columbia to support the Nisga'a agreement. We went back into committee and said there should be better representation, pro and con. That seemed reasonable.
What happened? A small minority of individuals were opposed to it and a vast majority were in favour of it. The vast majority of people in favour of the agreement got to fly to British Columbia at government expense to make presentation as witnesses. Some of them were not even from British Columbia. A minority of people who were opposed were allowed to speak.
We could ask what is the point of going to British Columbia and what is the point of even having witnesses at a committee. Under those circumstances there is not any point, but what the government and people in the country do not understand is that this happens frequently with all committees such as the agriculture committee and the finance committee. All the witnesses are voted on by a majority of government members. People think committees are travelling around the country getting input. The whole thing is staged. By and large the environment committee and all these committees are just staged events by government. That is the problem.
Since we have seen this with the Nisga'a agreement we are now about to change the rules on how committees work because I will no longer put up with this charade. Committees will not travel if that is the way it is to be. We will have to see about debating committee travel in the House if and when they want to travel. That is fine with me. I would sooner have it that way anyway.
They would not allow television. No television cameras could go into the committee meeting because they said the rules were not set up ahead of time. A committee is master of its own destiny and choices. They could have changed it right there but they did not want to allow it.
They are right. This is probably the end of this debate because the government has a majority and can outvote us any time it wants, particularly when there are opposition parties that are more Liberal than on the right side of politics.
What will we do? We will have a referendum next, an opportunity to give people input in British Columbia. They have told us time and time again they want it. The NDP government in British Columbia would not allow it, even though the opposition parties and the majority of people in British Columbia wanted it. Tomorrow night there will be a vote in the House. All the Liberals will stand and say “no referendum”.
Why not give the people their say through a referendum? The NDP will stand and vote against the referendum. I do not know where the Bloc stands on a referendum. The Progressive Conservatives, the people who brought referendum legislation into the House of Commons, will not even agree to a referendum.
I ask myself, what does it take to be in opposition in this country when we have a bill such as this which has such ramifications and about which there are many questions?
I have a question about the perpetuity of the financing, the more than $30 million a year for the rest of our lives, our children's lives, and our children's children's lives. I have a question about that. I thought the permanent financing would come to an end at some point.
Why should I not have the right to debate? Why should the people in my community not have the right to ask the question: What is $32 million in perpetuity? How much is that in tax? If this is only one agreement and it is the template for all other agreements and they are all going to have money in perpetuity, should we not ask the questions now instead of later? I did not think there would be benefits in perpetuity, so why can I not have the right to ask the questions?
If anybody in opposition has these questions, do they not have the right to ask them without the slanderous and ridiculous comments of New Democrats, the socialists in the House, and without the comments of the PCs, as few as they are in the House? What is wrong with asking questions in the House of Commons? Why is it that these opposition parties will not even oppose or ask serious questions about these kinds of issues? It is because they are too damn busy calling those who are asking articulate questions racists and bigots. That is their problem. They are afraid that if they stand to ask questions about this they will be labelled by that sort of talk.
I thought we were past that in this day and age. What is wrong with the House of Commons that we have got down to the lowest, dirt level talk, this gutter talk? There is something wrong when members cannot stand to debate an issue, no matter what the issue, without these people trying to make political brownie points by slandering others. It is terrible.
If that is the kind of opposition that people watching this and listening to me today want, those comments which are nothing more than slanderous rhetorical statements, rather than getting down to the real problems that exist in legislation, then we are in serious trouble. This government will be perpetuated along with those who support it.
I am here as an opposition member. I am damn well here to ask questions and I am going to stay here to ask questions. I am not here to side with these people. I am here on behalf of many Canadians to ask questions; logical questions I hope.
Finally, there is one other thing I want to say concerning all of the questions on the Nisga'a agreement. Why is it that when the issue of public schooling and the Catholic school system in Newfoundland came up and there was a referendum in Newfoundland nobody had a problem with that? That was the proper thing to do. The referendum was held, it was brought back to the House and we debated it. No one was then saying that this is an important issue, but we have to push it through because there is a referendum. In fact, the government wanted a debate on it. It did not call time allocation.
One has to wonder what this is all about on all sides of those supporting the Nisga'a agreement, whether it is just rhetorical politics they are talking about or really trying to get in depth on legislation.