Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this afternoon and speak to Bill C-61.
At the outset of my brief comments I have a comment for the member for Halifax. If that is the extent of her enlightening comments in response to this particular legislation in the Chamber this afternoon, then I for one do not regret her decision to step down as leader of her party. She used words like revulsion and repugnant.
I have quite a number of reserves in my riding of Prince George--Peace River, and I say that with a great deal of regret because I do not think the reserve system has been at all beneficial to the aboriginal men, women and children of our nation. What I find particularly revolting is the fact that a large percentage of people who live on the reserves in my riding and indeed in ridings all across the country continue to live without hope. I cannot imagine a worse fate for any Canadian than to live without hope. They try to get by without any hope. The system is to blame, not the aboriginal people.
I want to begin my remarks by doing something I very rarely do and that is congratulate the minister for at least attempting to address this serious problem in Canada by bringing forward Bill C-61.
Do we as the official opposition have concerns about it? Of course we do. However we, as I believe all parties do, support the idea of sending the bill to committee. We look forward to making our concerns, not only on behalf of aboriginal men and women but on behalf of all Canadians, known as it goes through the committee process. We will certainly take a hard look at the various clauses in the legislation and will be bringing forward what we believe to be constructive and helpful amendments to the legislation.
I thank the minister for addressing a situation that seriously needs redress. I thank him for showing the courage to bring forward legislation. Has he done it in the manner in which we would have liked it done? Probably not. We probably would have done it differently. We would have tried to have a more open and widely consultative process. I think all parties have been somewhat critical of that but at least the minister has brought forward a bill that contains some clauses that we can discuss and debate. Hopefully aboriginal people themselves will be part of the process and be encouraged to come forward with their alternatives.
As the member of parliament for Prince George--Peace River one of the things that deeply concerns me is what I call the growth of the Indian industry in Canada. The last number I saw that was spent annually trying to address the problems facing our aboriginal people was around $9 billion. That is nine thousand million dollars when combined with what is spent at the local, provincial and federal levels of government. By anybody's estimation that is a lot of money.
When I drive down a back alley in my home town of Fort St. John, British Columbia and see aboriginal people being reduced to climbing into dumpsters for their supper, I would suggest that there is something seriously wrong in the country.
When we as a nation can spend that kind of money, it is obviously not reaching the people who need it. These people continue to live without hope. They live in abject poverty. They face incredible difficulties on the reserves.
Before question period my colleague for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca spoke passionately about his role as a rural doctor in the city of Prince George in my riding, about how he treated many aboriginal men, women and children and about coming face to face on a daily basis with the tragedy of our aboriginal people. He talked about the horrendous suicide rates; the daily violence; the murder rates on reserves; the alcohol, drug and sexual abuse; and fetal alcohol syndrome that puts so many aboriginal children at a disadvantage before they even begin. The living conditions are worse in many cases than in third world countries and yet we as a nation are spending adequate amounts of money on this, by anybody's standard. Where is the money going?
How is it that we can spend $9 billion a year and still drive to a reserve and see the poverty of the people we are attempting to help? Something is clearly wrong. There are far too many lawyers and consultants becoming incredibly wealthy while the people continue to suffer.
We have some concerns about Bill C-61. It has a great summary at the start of the bill. It reads:
This enactment provides governance tools to bands operating under the Indian Act in matters of leadership selection, administration of government, financial management and accountability, legal capacity and law-making. It makes a number of related amendments to the Indian Act.
It sounds like something I think all Canadians would want to support. Despite the comments by the member for Winnipeg Centre and the member for Halifax, there are serious problems on our nation's reserves and members of the NDP are burying their heads in the sand if they do not recognize that.
Those members have said that we are fearmongering. The member for Winnipeg Centre basically said that the minister, by bringing forward the legislation, was trying to incite violence and protest from the aboriginal people. If that is not fearmongering I do not know what is. Yet they point to the Canadian Alliance and say that we are somehow responsible for what has transpired. What absolute nonsense.
We and, in particular, the member for Wild Rose have had countless consultations across the country with grassroots aboriginal men, women and children. The member for Wild Rose reached out to those people and found an audience that was just waiting for someone to ask the question of how we can help and give some hope for the future.
Members of the NDP say that the Canadian Alliance has raised these concerns but these concerns were heard directly from the grassroots aboriginal people when we and the member from Wild Rose travelled across the country .
We will continue to raise those concerns. We welcome the opportunity to address some of those concerns within the confines of this legislation. There are clauses, though they may be flawed, that we can work with, amend and improve so that we can bring that degree of accountability to the reserves of Canada which is what the grassroots people themselves have been asking for.