Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to address what is a very important issue of a critical nature. We have individuals who want to see significant progress made on this file.
It is fair to say that land claims have been an issue ever since the signing of treaties back in 1701 and all the way up to today. We still get issues related to land claims, things that occur today that have impacts where there is a need for a settlement to be reached.
I do not believe there is any political party inside the House that can say that it has done the type of work necessary to ultimately resolve the issue permanently. I would like to think there has been significant progress in certain areas, but there is a lot more room for improvement.
While I was an MLA, I heard about the flooding impacts of our hydro development, for example, during the seventies and eighties. We had a different level of government, a province, that caused horrendous issues, whether it was New Democratic governments that failed to deliver on land claim issues or Progress Conservative governments or, ultimately, different parties at the national level.
We recognize that 40 or 50 years ago, I believe it was back in the early 1970s, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau established, through policy, the need for us to recognize that we had to respect the treaties and work toward having laws that would see land claims ultimately processed in a much fairer fashion. It drew in the other stakeholders, and in particular the provinces and territories, to also accept responsibilities in resolving outstanding land-related issues. In 1974, an office was created to deal with native land claims. Through the years, we have seen a great deal of effort.
If we were to canvass most Canadians, in particular our first nations, we would find that much more work needs to be done and there is a great deal of frustration that we just are not moving fast enough to resolve these issues.
Mr. Speaker, I should have indicated that I will be splitting my time with the member for Vancouver Centre.
I would like to highlight that we have two types of land claims that are noteworthy. There are the specific land claims which really deal with treaties that, as I say, go back from 1701 to 1923. We are still talking about several hundreds of those types of things where issues are still outstanding. Then there are the more comprehensive claims that need to be resolved, the more modern type claim, the type of claim that I asked the minister responsible about a few minutes ago, which is trying to get an update. This particular claim is something that is made reference to in the text of the motion itself.
All of us are aware of the Idle No More movement. When we try to get a better understanding of that movement, we would get a better appreciation of why there is this great sense of frustration throughout the country with regard to what I would classify as the spinning of the wheels on very important first nation aboriginal issues. These people want to see a government that is prepared to do more than just talk. They want to see action.
When I have the opportunity first hand to meet talk with first nation leaders or members from the Metis community and others, they want to talk about issues related to economic opportunities. They want to talk about education and the quality of it, in particular post-secondary education. They want a higher sense that in the future there will be more hope. Hope is so critically important in the development of any community. The federal government has to recognize the leading role it needs to play.
I have stood in my place on numerous occasions to talk about aboriginal and first nations' issues. I have put the challenge to the government that it needs to recognize it has to approach those issues with its counterparts, the many first nation leaders who are quite able and want to demonstrate leadership on these issues and to open the doors and get them engaged in the decisions that affect our first nation and aboriginal communities throughout Canada.
One of the frustrations is the refusal of the government to acknowledge and fulfill its legal duty to consult on matters that impact aboriginal rights. As an example, I have a note which shows the Conservative government has rammed through different forms of legislation with respect to first nations, such as financial reporting.
We have heard a lot today about matrimonial property on reserves, regulation of water and waste water, various portions of the Indian Act, aboriginal fisheries, land management and environmental protection, all without proper prior consultation and the necessary resources to implement the changes being imposed upon them. Back in 1973, Pierre Trudeau indicated very clearly that we had that obligation. We have seen court decisions that have been made since then, indicating there is an obligation. I do not quite understand why the government has not recognized that obligation to the degree to which it should. One would question as to why it has not done that.
I suspect the type of reaction from many of our first nations toward the government is because it has stood idly by and not acted on this. That is the reason why we have seen the protests on the Hill and in other regions of our country. It is a wake-up call to say that people will not continue to stand by and tolerate a government that is not prepared to act on these very important issues.
Over the last couple of years, the Liberal Party has brought forward ideas and suggestions to deal with some of the issues that are there, always taking into consideration the importance of recognizing the leadership on our first nations in a real and tangible way and using that leadership to provide guidance as we try to deal with these issues that are of critical importance.
We believe we need to speed up and improve the land settlements process. If there are things that we can do to encourage and promote that, the House should do what it can. The length of time it takes in the process today is far too long and that issue has to be addressed.
We have continued to go beyond the land settlement issues in wanting to get to other issues. That is why we have had the critic for our first nations communities stand in her place and talk a lot about education. We have talked a lot about other economic type of opportunities and how we can support our first nations from across this land.