Mr. Speaker, I thank all members who contributed to this discussion. We seem to have a consensus here that everyone wants to help, but not now.
This April will mark the 25th year since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into being. We will mark the silver anniversary of our commitment to principles Canadians cherish: rights to security, personal freedom and equality. Subsection 15(1) of the charter states:
Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race--
Those are genuinely great words, but they do not apply to Canada's aboriginal people who are not equally empowered with the rights that most Canadians take for granted. If we believe the speakers to this bill, then we believe that the aboriginal people should not be empowered now but they should be empowered at some point.
My private member's bill would, on an interim basis, empower them now by putting in place matrimonial property rules that do not exist. That is an important first step to move toward the equality rights that aboriginal women in particular deserve to have and that they have called for in this country for over two decades.
Unfortunately, we need to move forward. The adoption of this bill needs to happen because we have created a jurisdictional ping-pong game for aboriginal people who must endure a marriage breakdown without any prescriptions whatsoever for the division of property. Apart from a very few reserves where there are rules, no one has rules. This bill would fill a legal vacuum that exists which has caused so much suffering, particularly for aboriginal women.
The Indian Act is silent on the issue of matrimonial property rights. This creates a legislative no man's land where no man or woman should have to dwell, a land where the strong and the friends of the strong survive but the weak continue to be oppressed. Certainly I have heard from them, as I believe other members who are concerned with aboriginal issues have as well.
Opposition critics have said in the House that they recognize the problem, just not enough to take action on it. They promote the perpetuation of a process, no doubt followed by further dialogue, followed by focus groups and think tanks and additional consultations, and they frame this as being respectful of aboriginal people. It is not. It is the opposite of that. A failure to take action on such a fundamental issue of human rights under the guise of being respectful of people is actually disrespectful of those very people.
These people have had their rights ignored for a long, long time and they continue to have them ignored by members of the House who should know better. This bill would implement the unanimous recommendations of both the Senate standing committee and the House of Commons committee on native affairs. It provides interim rules until the happy day when the Canadian government or first nations governments take action.
It complements, it does not work in opposition to the government's consultative process. Given the precarious nature of this minority government and of all minority governments, the consultation process the government has under way may or may not lead to legislative action. Every member of the House knows that. In the meantime, we have an opportunity to do something. In the meantime, this bill would demonstrate that the House of Commons is serious about addressing the issue of matrimonial property rights for aboriginal people in a real way.
Let us not be naive. Of course the issue is complex, but our choice here is simple: we either support the status quo or we support change. The status quo has its merits only if we place the never-ending jurisdictional concerns of the Indian affairs department and some chiefs and councils above the needs of aboriginal people, particularly aboriginal women.
I have listened to the opposition members in the House call for immediate emergency action on virtually every aboriginal issue. Water quality, housing, alcohol and drug dependency, education and treaty disputes are all invariably described as emergency situations that require immediate action from the minister and the government. Everything is an emergency, except this, and this can wait.
All of those issues the government has been called upon to act with urgency have one thing in common; they have one great commonality and that is this: they can all be solved by millions or billions of dollars of additional taxpayer funding, and therefore, they are naturally supported by every single chief and council. There is the consensus everybody talks about, but we will not get a consensus on this bill. We will not get a consensus on matrimonial property because some chiefs will always oppose it. Some women will always cry for it and they deserve action from us.
We cannot just throw money at problems. This is an issue that does not require us to throw money. It requires us to give the same rights to aboriginal people that we enjoy and take for granted around this country.
Why is solving the problem of matrimonial property rights so easily put on the back burner? Is it because it is easy to ignore the needs of a minority within a minority? Is it because of the risk of offending the political power brokers on reserves? Is it because on reserve discretionary power will be replaced by the rule of law? Is it because the equality provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms will come into existence on reserves for the very first time?
This bill is a respectful first step to bringing equality to aboriginal people. In April we will mark the 25th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I think we would really have something to celebrate if we moved forward on matrimonial property rights for aboriginal people--