Mr. Speaker, I am certainly not the Minister of Finance. However spending on aboriginal affairs is a necessity in Canada especially when we are talking about education. We cannot afford to waste the potential of people. We cannot afford to take away hope.
We must be concerned with the demographic signals that are out there right now. The children who are very young will either be drains in their own life and not be happy or they will be productive members of Canadian society.
We have ways, means and tools that we know can work and have been shown to work when there is goodwill among all three levels of government and in the House to move forward treaties.
When people have a land base they get economic viability and move outside the current Indian Act. I saw this when I chaired the aboriginal affairs committee during the Nisga'a agreement. I think we will see a productive society in the Nass Valley that could not have occurred as easily inside the Indian Act. My vote goes in that direction.