Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on the Nisga'a final agreement.
It was not planned that I would speak but, after listening to all the speeches by members opposite and by members of all parties, particularly the official opposition, I now feel that I must make my humble contribution to the debate.
I lived for several years in close proximity to aboriginals on the north shore, and that is where I got to know them. Canada has some atoning to do when it comes to the native peoples.
I can remember that as recently as 1965 aboriginals were not allowed to have liquor on reserves. Unlike other Canadians, they were not allowed in establishments that served alcohol, such as hotels and taverns. Aboriginals were excluded. I saw this with my own eyes.
Unfortunately, I also lived through the period when, more through ignorance than ill will, Canadians, myself perhaps included in those days, treated aboriginals, our fellow citizens, unfairly. Fortunately, with age comes experience and one gets to know and accept others, and often discover that they have things to teach us.
I would like to speak more specifically about the north shore, the Montagnais in Sept-Îles and the Bersimis, who are now known as Innu, as I learned recently. I have worked closely with these people. I met with some good people who did not necessarily share our values.
Astonishingly, they were not caught up in the idea of making money, an idea that unfortunately we all have developed to some degree, however varying. The aboriginals I knew were not bent on making money at all costs. They were at peace with themselves and with nature, but this did not exempt them from some serious attacks on their dignity. I think that the worst thing that happened to aboriginals was the Indian Act passed by the federal government, in 1876 if memory serves.
They were contained within very clearly defined parameters, rather like animals in a zoo. They were fed, kept clean, housed, as in zoos, and could not leave in favour of an active and happy life without risking the loss of their status. And what was the sense in all this?
The aboriginal people were stripped of their dignity, a dignity they had before we came along, and today they are demanding it back. I am no different from anyone else. I have no stones to throw at my friends across the floor. When the Erasmus-Dussault report came out we were told, and that was not so long ago, maybe two years, that it would be costly to reintroduce equity for the aboriginal peoples, to restore to them part of what has been taken from them, as well as the dignity they have lost. The Nisga'a agreement is, in my opinion, a step in the right direction.
The Nisga'a have perhaps been had, as far as certain aspects are concerned, and that is always a possibility with the government across the way. Time will tell. I am sure that the Nisga'a did not have the battery of experts, lawyers and so forth to conduct the negotiations as they would have liked, but that is what freedom is all about. It is the ability to make one's own mistakes sometimes and also to fix them.
I support this Nisga'a treaty. These are the first nations. They have been here for at least 20,000 years. Historians do not agree on this, but there is no doubt they were here 20,000 years ago. When the Europeans arrived, they were cavalierly crowded together. There were 50 million of them in what is now Canada and the United States. How many are left? I think there are even fewer of them in the United States than there are here.
We have destroyed them, although perhaps not always intentionally. Diseases against which they had no immunity killed many once the first Europeans appeared in North America.
I wonder if there are many of us, Europeans and their descendants, who would have put up for so long with the treatment we have given the aboriginal peoples, without demanding compensation and without waking one day and saying “We want a say on the matter. We want to express our opinion, to direct our economic development and to be part of Canada's economic growth”. I do not think many of us would have let ourselves be treated the way these people have.
It is hard to avoid comparisons between the criminal world of the past and the attitude of some aboriginal people now because they have no hope. Someone said to me the other day that young Italian immigrants arriving in the States in the middle of the last century and at the beginning of this one had no chance of settling in the North American context, benefiting from economic growth or enjoying the benefits of it.
They were compartmentalized in a way that put them in the service of others all their lives. They had the right to settle in the United States, but not the right to prosper there, to live in peace, the right to happiness and, in particular, to hope. That is what led to the emergence of gangs, and the same thing is happening here with our aboriginal people.
They have been contained, as I have said, and not allowed the opportunity to contribute to, and to profit from—for there are two sides to every coin—the benefits of the Canadian economy.
Now with this little treaty, a first, we have succeeded in giving the Nisga'a the power to regulate themselves, a kind of self-government, although this will nevertheless be under the authority of the Canadian constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
This may be the start of a better life for them. Perhaps we will begin to see positive effects: far more interest, far more dynamism, far more hope. When a people is deprived of hope, what does it have left? Quebecers know something about that; we have not gone unscathed either. That may be the reason why today the sovereignist forces are so strong in Quebec.
It must be terribly insulting for the Nisga'a to see a newly recognized right challenged by people who were not here 50 years ago, people who are claiming that an injustice is being done because they are losing some of their province's territory. What exactly is going on?
I would ask Reform Party members to give this some serious thought. Most of them were not here 50 years ago, while the Nisga'a have been around for a very long time. Let them learn to live with others.
As early as 1985 the former PQ Premier of Quebec, René Lévesque, recognized the first nations in Quebec and offered them self-government in a future sovereign Quebec. We were 14 years ahead of the Liberal Party of Canada.
I am pleased that my party has approved this Nisga'a treaty and I hope it is the first in a long list that will set the record straight and put a stop to the injustices that have been going on for over 125 years.