Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure today to speak to this very important issue. I want to start by emphasizing one word in Group No. 1, as well as in the entire group of amendments that will be presented over the next few hours and day, that the government does not seem to understand.
Auditor general reports have constantly called for more accountability, particularly from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development but especially accountability for the billions of dollars that are sent to the reserves to try to help these people. Why does that word not exist in the government's vocabulary? It does not exist in the vocabularies of most dictators who say “Do as I say and shut up”.
One of the opposition parties is the NDP. It does not know the meaning of the word accountability. Its members simply insist that we throw more money at this problem, but we do not hear that word in their vocabularies. It is the same with the Conservative Party, another opposition party that is supposed to help us in making sure good legislation goes out of this building. Liberal, Tory, same old story. There is nothing new there.
Bloc members have one thing on the agenda. They want to leave the country so their importance involving this legislation is meaningless. They only have one thing on their minds. They want to form a country of their own.
In the meantime my colleagues formed a committee and went to visit some people in the Vancouver area, including my colleague from Okanagan—Shuswap who was on the committee. We listened to such things as what I will read right now. An elderly lady appeared before the committee and said:
I see my people struggling day to day, picking up bottles, lining up in cigarette line-ups to make $15 to feed their kids for the rest of the month and here our councillors are sitting pretty in a nice office. They spend $28,000 on their coffee room and it is just for the chiefs and council while our kids go to school hungry. I said they wonder why they are getting angry. I said I can't take it any longer, I am so fed up with them. We tried to do a non-confidence on them Sunday but we got overpowered with their people. We have no accountability for what they do for the people and I said I hope somebody out there will help us to get where we need to get in order to have an audit done for our people and find out where is all the money going. What is happening? Why are we having in this country so many individuals crying out to this government for help and what they are crying for is not more money. They are crying for accountability. You are sending money to our chiefs and council and we are living in squalor.
There is a difference between members of my party and the Liberals. I asked every reserve I visited if they had ever seen a member of parliament in their homes or on their reserves other than in the council chambers or the chief's home. The answer was “You are the first, sir”. My wife went with me on many of these ventures. We were told we were the first political MP to ever visit their homes on reserves, which could be a broken down bus with no wheels, no windows, no heat and no water. We went to other homes where there was no furniture. They sit on stumps. They are very hospitable with what little they have. They are great people to get to know.
The example of this story that my colleague heard is only one of thousands that are being expressed across this country to a group of people who finally came together and said they want to be a coalition. They are asking the government for accountability and help. What does the government say? “Go to your chiefs and council”. The chiefs and council are the problem.
They run to Indian affairs and are are told: “Wait a minute, this is an internal problem. You people go to your chiefs and council”. But they are the problem. Nobody is listening to the cry of the grassroots people on the reserves.
I had hopes that we would have people in this building who would have a little compassion for the way conditions are on the reserves so that we could come together and have two or three people from each party form a task force to go out and see these horrible conditions, come back here and collectively recommend some things we could do that would at least make these lives a little more compatible with some sort of a standard of living, instead of the third world conditions that the United Nations says exist in the land of Canada.
Lo and behold, we are having Bill C-9. These grassroots people from this coalition are calling me and expressing their concerns. The government in this treaty is going to give these people nearly $1 billion as part of the deal. Where is this $1 billion going? It is going into the hands of a very few. Therefore, the very rich will continue to become very rich and the very poor will be no better off.
These people are being given power that they have never experienced before in their lives, more greedy power where they will be able to control things in their area beyond belief, beyond what they do now. We have members sitting opposite who claim to be compassionate, caring about individuals who are living in these conditions. However, they are doing absolutely nothing except making sure that it happens without building into any agreement that one word, accountability. Where is it? Why is it being allowed to happen? Why is the government allowing that kind of thing to begin to happen?
Auditor general reports year after year say do something about the accountability factor, particularly on the reserves, particularly with the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. He is simply ignored. I just looked at the most recent report which says the same thing, that there are still too many great difficulties in the lives of ordinary people on the reserves.
We brought these grassroots people together in a place in the middle of Winnipeg in a place called Birds Hill. These are grassroots people who cannot afford a big convention hall. They could not go to a place where the Liberal Party would support a big convention of native leaders, where it would cost thousands of dollars to rent a hall with fine food and fair drink. They were in Birds Hill trying to pitch tents, if they had one, finding a shrub bush, if they could find one. They were lying all over the park.
I was there for three days with them waiting for some of the invited Liberals who live very close to Birds Hill park to show up and show a little compassion to these people who were crying out for help. Not one of them showed up and did not care.
But, boy, they are wonderful. They are creating this marvellous deal in British Columbia without the consent of the people, without the care of the grassroots natives throughout British Columbia. Oh yes, they held a referendum in the Nisga'a area. I believe it was somewhere around 65% to 35%. It does not matter. They ignored the call and the cry of the people who were against it because they wanted one thing to happen. They liked the idea of moving in this direction. They were thrilled about it. They said to me, “Are you sure the billion dollars or whatever is paid in is going to be shared? Am I going to be able to own property? Is there any accountability?” The answer is no because accountability does not come from dictators. That is what this government is and it ought to hang its head in shame. One day it will answer for that.