Madam Speaker, I took the advice of one of the speakers from the Reform Party and I listened for the past couple of hours to the debate on the amendments to this bill.
After listening and talking to some of my colleagues and others and getting some advice on this, I have come to one fairly inescapable conclusion. The Reform Party simply does not support self-government. I do not know how I could arrive at any other conclusion.
It is quite clear to me that what the Reform Party has done is to put forward amendments that are pure nonsense. I guess it has done this in an attempt to hide what it is really saying under the guise of supporting some minority individuals who have spoken out and expressed concern which under normal circumstances would be laudable. The Reform Party simply does not want to see any self-government or any land claim agreements or any kind of a deal made with these first nation communities that would provide them with the dignity they have been negotiating.
How can we arrive at anything else when we look at the fact that the provinces have been consulted and they are on side. The 14 chiefs of the first nation communities have signed and gone through the democratic process on this.
What we are really hearing is that the Reform Party does not trust them to be able to make their own decisions. It does not trust these first nation peoples to be able to run a democratic community, allowing for people to have a say and a vote in establishing the land code. What other conclusion could we come to if we look at the substantiveness or the lack of substantiveness of these amendments?
I looked at one amendment and found it almost laughable. Motion No. 7 is one of the three we are debating today. This motion would delete the names of the 14 first nations from the schedule but would keep the empty schedule. What is that? The Reform Party says “We are out of new ideas, so let us just delete the names of the 14 first nations that signed the agreement”. That is the best the Reform Party can come up with.
Why do Reform members not at least have the courage to stand up and tell the truth which is that they do not support self-government. They do not support this kind of a deal for these first nations. At least we could understand if they had the courage to stand and say that and not hide behind nonsensical, almost silly amendments, deleting the names of the participants to the document. It is astounding.
I hear concerns about expropriation. I have looked at this. I have read through the document. I have read through the information in the bill. It is nothing more than fearmongering to suggest that somehow in the middle of the night they are going to come along and take away their family home with no opportunity for any kind of democratic protection. It is just not true. Members should not say things in this place that are not true. We all know that. We learn that the first day we come here.