Madam Speaker, I have listened with interest and I do not disagree with some of the comments that have identified. There is a higher population of aboriginals in our corrections systems. I really find it amazing that their logic would say it will solve everything by giving them special sentences after they have committed crimes. I do not buy that.
I spent 15 years in Canada's north. I lived in a community that was 50% aboriginal. The aboriginal community got high offices on our local council because we treated them as equals. They ran businesses and were treated with respect in the business community because we treated them as equals. They rose to significant influence in our community because the community treated them as equals.
To have this philosophy that the only way aboriginal people will rise from oppression is by treating them differently is false. Our justice system is based on all people will be treated fairly and equally under the law. The fact that aboriginals have horrible living conditions on reserves will not be resolved by giving them special consideration under law.
What they need is substantial support from the federal government. The federal government has to stop treating them like children and stop denying them their proper place in society. The government does not give them good health care, which is its responsibility and it does not give them good education, which is also the government's responsibility.
Yes, there is a high suicide rate among young people on reserves. Yes, there are poor living conditions on reserves. We should be dealing with those kinds of issues.
To in law assume that it is only aboriginals who live in poverty is not true. Many non-aboriginal people live in poverty. Many non-aboriginal people are uneducated, do not have jobs and incomes and are on welfare and social assistance. To say that the way to solve all problems is to treat them differently in law will not resolve those issues.
To take our legal system and break it down on special conditions for this and special considerations for that, that has already happened. It is not codified. It is not written down in law. When a judge looks at all the circumstances and deals with anyone who appears before the court who has committed a crime, all these circumstances that have a place in the crime which was committed are taken into consideration by the judge when a sentence comes down, and so it should be.
We have argued that much of this does not need to be codified because it is already in practice. However, when we start codifying stuff, then we are starting to say that the law is not equal and is not fair. When we go down that slippery slope, we start breaking down what law is and what the justice system is to Canadians.
I do not argue with my colleagues that something is wrong and that a higher percentage of aboriginals are in our prisons and system. I do not argue that it is because of deplorable circumstances and living conditions. However, I do argue that codifying that a judge has to take that into special consideration and treat that person differently than they would treat a non-aboriginal is wrong. This is not the way to go.
When we look at the circumstances, I know the federal government spends a lot more money on different programs, restorative justice programs for the aboriginal people, and that is good. However that does not deal with the inherent problem that causes the higher number of aboriginal people to be in the court system.
We have to break down some of the prejudices that we see in perhaps our policing community that will throw an aboriginal in the drunk tank but take a non-aboriginal home. We have to change that attitude because it is not right. We have to change the attitude of some people who might say that these people do not have any better place to go so we should incarcerate them.
I know of a personal case in the community in which I was raised. A person who did not have a place to live was left alone during the summertime, but come fall he would be incarcerated because some people decided he would at least have a roof over his head and three meals a day.
Those are the wrong reasons for putting a person behind bars, but it was done for compassionate reasons. This guy would end up spending his time locked away during the winter months because people were concerned about his health and well-being, There has to be a better way for society to handle that sort of thing.
We have to deal with those kinds of issues that may skew some of these numbers. This comes down to root causes such as poverty, poor living conditions, poor health conditions or poor education. This does not happen just on reserves. A large community of aboriginals in Canada are not treaty Indians and do not get the protection of the federal government, albeit it is not much protection. That aboriginal community needs something.
Those aboriginals need economic development in their communities so that they can get jobs and have pride in having work and having income. We can restore their sense of pride because they do not have to depend on federal government largesse and, in essence, the federal government treating them like children.
We need to do something substantial, but treating them separately and differently is not the way to do it. The aboriginal community will only become accepted in our society as equals when we as a society start treating them as equals. By always separating them, making special conditions for them and treating them as different, we will never reach a point where we are treating them as equals. I know this from my own experience in the community where we have a large native population. Only when they are treated as equals, will we be able to meet them face to face as equals.
My colleague who presented the amendment in Bill C-416 is only trying to get down to the basic point of the law, which is to treat all Canadians with fairness and with equality.
I rest my case. That is the essence of this issue. There are problems with our aboriginal people, but let us deal with those problems. Let us not get mixed up in corrupting a legal system to deal with problems that do not belong there.