Mr. Speaker, we all know about the plight of aboriginal people in too many communities in our country. The Indian Act is a boot on the neck of aboriginal people from coast to coast in our ridings. Many of them do not have the rights we do, including the fact that many lack ownership of property and an adequate mechanism within their own communities to control their leadership.
I have a question for my hon. colleague. At the end of the day for aboriginal people, it should be integration, not assimilation. It should not be about treating aboriginal people as different and separate in an apartheid-like setting, such as what happened in South Africa where people were treated differently and were separated from mainstream society.
Aboriginal people should be in an environment where their rights are respected and the ability for them to engage in the traditional activities is respected and enshrined. Is that not a better way to go so that aboriginal people can have the right, just like the member and I do, to integrate, not assimilate, and to be treated with fairness and equality and have the same rights that we all do in our country?