Mr. Speaker, I will continue with my presentation, in particular with the reference to the Diane Francis column of November 20 in the National Post on the Nisga'a treaty:
Not only does this constitute a hideous giveaway based on unproven claims that their ancestors roamed around the area, but there are overlapping claims by neighbouring bands that also claim their ancestors roamed around there too. Some are threatening violence.
Counter-claims are hardly surprising given the flimsy “evidence” behind the exercise...
My ancestors roamed around the United States for a couple of centuries and Europe for millennia but that doesn't give me any claim to a piece of Dublin or Chicago.
What we have now is a questionable collective memory of entitlement, and governments that fail to meet their responsibilities to the public interest.
Simply put, the Nisga'a treaty is the beginning of turning much of Canada into a series of “balkan” principalities often run by feudal chieftains.
Worse yet, the Nisga'a claim is one of 30 being cobbled together in British Columbia—
Other authorities would say more like 50:
—even though treaties were never signed between the British and locals as in other parts of Canada. Many other land claims are justifiable because deals were inked with the Crown.
But this type of ad hoc treatism is dangerous because it also abrogates the basic values of this society. Its only result will be to create privileged franchises for self-defined ethnic groups with questionable provenance, who already get excessive and unjustifiable special entitlements out of the public purse such as tax-free status.
Nisga'a ignores the rule of law.
Nisga'a ignores democratic rights.
Nisga'a disdains transparency of process.
She is speaking of the treaty:
Unfortunately, political correctness has set in on this one. The Canadian establishment has ganged up against the public just as it did behind the attempt by Ottawa to railroad Canadians into voting for the Meech and Charlottetown accords. The only ally the public has federally is the Reform party, which is clearly aligned with the public interest on this one.
Unlike those sweeping accords, Canadians will not get a chance to vote on the matter in a referendum, nor will British Columbians.
This is because the rest of the federal parties—Liberals, Tories, NDP and Bloc Quebecois—are in favour of the treaty.
Most worrisome is the support for this treaty by the Bloc Quebecois. It means the Liberal government is being led into an ambush by Quebec secessionists who support passage of the Nisga'a deal because it circumvents the Constitution and gives an ethnic group self-government and vast lands.
To ram through the Nisga'a treaty in Parliament may be to unravel the Supreme Court of Canada initiative undertaken by the federal government in the case of Quebec secession.
It is a serious allegation that Ms. Francis states here. She goes on to say:
The court ruled that any referendum on self-government by Quebecers would have to be passed by a clear majority responding to a clear question and involving all parties pertinent to the issue.
Nisga'a is not being offered up to the public for its approval and therefore all parties pertinent to the issue are not being involved, except indirectly through the Liberals in Ottawa and the NDP in Victoria.
Plenty of constitutional experts maintain, as does the Reform Party and the B.C. Liberal Party, that the people of British Columbia have a right to vote on this matter in a referendum. Some 78% of the people of British Columbia oppose Nisga'a.
Without a doubt, most Canadians oppose any special deals for anyone. Privileges already exist and should be dispensed universally on the basis of need, and not on race—
That almost brings to a conclusion her statement except that she ends with this sentence:
Instead, we have the Liberals and NDP heaping more unnecessary burdens on to taxpayers in order to unfairly reward a few vocal, politically correct and taxpayer supported ethnic organizations.
So much for what Ms. Francis had to say about the Nisga'a treaty.
I will continue to reference Squamish women and their concern about the provisions of the Nisga'a treaty. I have the verbatim report of what was heard by the committee on Friday of last week. A Ms. Baker said:
I am Maisie Baker from the Squamish Nation, and I'm one that don't just sit back and let everybody else do the work for me, I got to get up and do my own fighting. I fight my chief and council every day, and when they see me coming, they say, oh, no, is that Maisie coming after who, and I said well, if you're on my way, look out. But I'd like to say that the Squamish nation is so corrupt, it's unbelievable. The money that comes from the government gets stuck in our band office and it stays there. We never see it, and I am very angry at my Squamish Nation's so-called chiefs and councillors for putting me into this Bill C-49. Not only our chiefs and council, but I'm angry at the government for putting me in this position, because it doesn't give us any rights at all. We can't fight them, we have no money, we have nothing but I'm really angry at government for not listening to the grassroots, when we are the most important people.