Mr. Speaker, the comments of the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca remind me of a comment a friend of mine made. He was a former chief at Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nation near Massey, Ontario. He is very educated, like many of our first nations leadership. He said that what Canadians had to understand was they did not want to go back to living the way they lived 200 years ago. They wanted to become modern too, but they wanted to retain their land roots, cultural roots and language roots, which is what all cultures want to do. All cultures typically want to modernize, improve the quality of life, have better health outcomes, have better education and have better local economies. We all want that.
I appreciate the hon. member's question. The federal government needs to see its role with first nations as a partnership.
When the first contact was made, it appeared that we took over all the land, at least it looks like that when we step back. It was done in a way that was supposed to have been negotiated each step along the way.
As reserves were being negotiated and European settlement took place outside the reserves, there was a quid pro quo. The Crown offered education, because the leaders of the first nations demanded that in trade, the land for education. They demanded access to health care. They demanded to be part of the country. It was a trade. It was not the Huns arriving and taking over the country. Arrangements were negotiated each step along the way.
It was must be our part now to honour those negotiations, to do the right thing and in partnership. If they have the land base, and each community has a land base to which they are entitled, or the cash in lieu of that land base, they would be more capable of local economic development, having schools in their communities in their own language, should they choose to do so, to have better health outcomes.
First nations people are naturally spiritual people, naturally connected to the earth. We have to recognize that and honour that as an example of going forward.
Our aboriginal population is growing. They are a wonderful resource for our economy as it grows. We need young aboriginal people to be strong participants in the labour force and in our education system to the extent that first nations can meld their cultural language within this big country in a way that allows them to preserve those roots. There is nothing worse than losing one's culture because somebody else made it happen. When we lose those roots, we have lost something forever.
We owe an obligation to look at our first nations, our aboriginal people, as partners in the future of the country, not as adversaries, which has so often been the case.