Mr. Speaker, throughout the day we have been hearing Reform's reasons why the Nisga'a deal should be put to bed and that it should not happen.
What we are really hearing is that any move toward true aboriginal self-government or toward the emancipation of aboriginal people should be squashed, because for some reason they are not ready for it, or they are too rife with corruption, or there is a mismanagement of funds. For two years we have heard Reform members cite isolated incidences of the misuse of funds. They have tried to thread that together into some overall picture that aboriginal people do not deserve control over their own destiny.
We just heard another speaker on this subject try to point out that there is mismanagement and abuse and that they are speaking out for the grassroots aboriginal people. It is really galling for most of us in the House to listen to the Reform Party try to paint itself as the champion of aboriginal people.
Recently we heard members of the Reform Party, such as the member for Athabasca, say that just because we did not kill the Indians and have Indian wars that does not mean we did not conquer these people and is that not why they allowed themselves to be herded into little reserves in the most isolated, desolate and worthless parts of the country. Thankfully not all members of the Reform Party agree with this.
We also heard Herb Grubel a former MP counter this. He likened Indians living on aboriginal reserves to people living on south sea islands and being taken care of by their rich uncles. One of them thinks they live on desolate little worthless pieces of property, driven there as vanquished people by the conquerors. Another one says that living on a reserve is like living off the fat of the government, like some guy on a south sea island being taken care of by his rich uncle.
Fortunately, the most recent speaker tried to be a little more sensitive in pointing out some of the true hardships that exist on aboriginal reserves. That is what I would like to comment on. He itemized some of the genuine social problems that exist in aboriginal communities and which desperately need some measure of change.
The situation in aboriginal communities is a predictable consequence of colonialism. It is like others in recent history who were driven off their land, vanquished and then suffered alcoholism, broken families and all those things. The most recent one we could relate to is the British during the industrial revolution. People were driven off their land and found themselves in ghettoized situations. Would the member like to comment on that analogy with his own history perhaps?