Mr. Speaker, the federal Liberals stand up and say that we are standing in the way of first nations' prosperity, while they are ignoring the rights and title of first nations people to be self-determinists and to make decisions for themselves, with their inherent rights and title intact, as promised in section 35 of our own Constitution. It is a section the NDP fought for, against the wishes of Trudeau senior, who did not believe that there was any need to recognize individual, and particularly first nation, rights and title. When they say to first nation people, in what has been described by their own officials as a “paternalistic” way, that this is the way forward, that we do not have to acknowledge or take into full account the rights and title of first nation people, does he not understand that it continues the colonial spirit that has so often undermined the full value and potential of this country?
Of course, there are first nation people interested in this project, as there are first nation people opposed. However, one does not get to selectively quote and then say that the problem must be a wash. That is not how rights work. Rights work in our courts and in our fundamental belief in the inherent strength of our Constitution. We either believe in it or we do not. We do not get to selectively choose which part and who speaks for it. That is why the B.C. government has backed up that first nation claim. That is why the Prime Minister, who claims to believe in UNDRIP, should be doing the same thing, as opposed to what he is doing right now.