Madam Speaker, we can only look at what the consequences have been of a colonialist, paternalistic, assimilationist approach: poverty and health outcomes. There is not one outcome where aboriginal people are ahead of the rest of the Canadian population. They have substandard housing, high unemployment, high suicide rates and a massive number of children in care. Some estimate it to be 27,000 people in care with first nations and non-first nations agencies.
This is what the imposed approach, the colonialist, assimilationist approach has done. On June 11 of last year, there was an apology. The apology was supposed to mean something: a way of doing business differently and a way of approaching our relationship with aboriginal people differently.
All of the comments I have heard around Bill C-8, the first nations people say that this reminds them of when they had Indian agents decades ago. It reminds them of the imposition of legislation that has caused this poverty, this breakdown in families and the lack of housing.
My hon. colleague is right. It is about content but it also about process. If we do not get the process right, the content means diddly-squat, to be quite honest. We need to get both right in order for it to be effective.