Yvan Loubier

[First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to debate the amendments in Group No. 1 proposed by the government in connection with Bill C-23.

I was extremely disappointed by the government's amendments, not just Group No. 1, but also Group No. 2, which we will also likely deal with this afternoon. The main reason for this is that, when we met with the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development a few weeks ago, he assured us there would be one amendment among those he was planning to propose to the House of Commons on Bill C-23 to the effect that the provisions of the bill would not be applied to the first nations of Quebec and Canada that did not want to take advantage of them.

Now, looking at the series of amendments in Groups No. 1 and No. 2, we do not see such an amendment. Yet the minister told us it would be among the government's amendments.

This results is an uncomfortable feeling toward the bill. I remember that the general assembly of the Assembly of First Nations was held in British Columbia a few months ago. Most of the chiefs from across Canada and Quebec were in attendance. The new chief of the Assembly of First Nations asked the assembly to express its opinion of Bill C-23, which at the time was C-19. There were some lively discussions on the scope of the bill, and finally there was a vote. A strong majority, 61% of the chiefs of Canada's first nations, voted against the bill.

Why? Because this bill does not meet the needs of the vast majority of Quebec's and Canada's first nations. It may be worthwhile for the most wealthy ones, the ones that are highly developed and might be able to take advantage of institutions and loan opportunities, particularly for investment in infrastructures.

Basically, however, for the vast majority of first nations, this bill does not live up to their expectations. In particular, it does not solve the many problems they face every day. These are the problems of safe drinking water, infrastructure, lack of or shortfalls in federal funding and housing. I believe I will have the opportunity to return to this important issue a little later.

Another thing this bill does is to arouse fears among the first nations. I believed that it would be different with a new minister who appears more open than the previous one. The previous minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development was completely obtuse and impervious to all criticisms made by the first nations and the opposition parties. So much so that for Bill C-7 on governance, my NDP from Winnipeg Centre and I had to keep the government in suspense for 55 days with a filibuster in the committee, to make the point that the first nations did not want that bill.

And now here we are with a Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development who takes exactly the same stance with respect to Bill C-23. He had promised substantial amendments to allay the fears surrounding this bill. These fears arise primarily from the fact that the government may, under certain provisions of Bill C-23, make a clean slate of all its fiduciary obligations and arrange it so the first nations would have to assume, by themselves, all the debt they might enter into, and use their ancestral lands as collateral for such loans needed for infrastructure and other things.

It is a fear that has not yet been allayed. Despite the minister's promises, there is no amendment to reassure the first nations.

If 61% of the aboriginal communities in Canada do not want this bill, the minister's attitude or reaction should have been to say that they would sit down together and rewrite the parts of the bill on first nations financial institutions so as to reach a consensus and not please just 39% of the first nations.

It is quite sad to see that a government is dividing to conquer. Even the new Prime Minister, who met the chiefs of the first nations in a special assembly not so long ago, perhaps one and a half weeks ago, had promised greater openness and flexibility. He held out his hand and all the hopes were there. Once again, these hopes began with the series of amendments in Group No. 1 and Group No. 2.

It is unacceptable that the majority of first nations be served to this extent by legislation. If it had been clear legislation, with no room for confusion, and the assurance that the first nations that do not want to live with the provisions in Bill C-23 can opt out of this obligation, perhaps we would have supported more indepth consideration and our position would have been more carefully stated.

However, it is clear that no assurances are being given to the vast majority of first nations. So, we are unable to support such legislation.

The first nations communities have urgent needs. The fundamental need is for the self-government process to be accelerated. Helping the first nations achieve their inherent right to self-government is the only clear route we should use to guide our relationship with them.

In 1996, the Royal Commission of Inquiry tabled a report. It was preceded by the Penner report. Our time was spent writing reports and quasi-anthropological studies of the first nations before taking decisive action.

In 1996, the royal commission clearly said that this route was the only one possible, the only one that would generate results and ensure that the first nations could take responsibility for themselves. They must do so with their own tools for development and their own institutions. The early Europeans trampled on those institutions when they arrived in America. The first nations must take responsibility for themselves, with their own culture and languages too, their own way of managing their affairs and with the resources they are entitled to.

There have been too many cases, over the past 130 years under the Indian Act, where the aboriginal communities and first nations were put on reserves, on limited land with no possibility for development.

From all we hear, we criticized the first nations for not wanting to engage in their own development. But we took away all their means for development. Often, when land was discovered to have interesting forestry potential, we would displace aboriginal communities and let the major forestry companies exploit this resource. The term exploit has many meanings.

This exploitation by the forestry companies produced catastrophic results. Clear cutting occurred in many regions in Quebec and Canada. This activity violated the first nations ancestral lands where they could have practised their traditional activities, developed their communities and engaged in a reasoned, rational and sustainable exploitation of the forests. However, we often preferred to give concessions to U.S. companies to come devastate their lands. We took the first nations and put them on adjacent reserves and told them we would provide for their basic needs, and that was it.

That has been our relationship with the first nations in 130 years of applying the worst legislation ever created in the West: the Indian Act.

The only course to take is to recognize the inherent right to self-government. This has already been done in the Constitution; now we have to make it happen.

Currently too few discussions are accelerated for achieving self-government and giving first nations the land and resources they need for their own development in order to provide a promising future for their children. There are 80 negotiation tables right now and that is not enough.

I asked questions to the minister responsible for the negotiations. I asked him if, by the deadline established by the royal commission, which is 2018, we might expect that most of the cases will be settled, that the negotiations will be over, that we might be able to live in harmony with our different nations. This is uncertain.

Financial and human resources to expedite the process are lacking, and we are wasting time on bills. For example, last year, on Bill C-7, it was horrible to see the financial and human resources that were invested in a bill that no one wanted.

Group No. 1 of amendments to Bill C-23 is not satisfactory to us, and we will have the opportunity to go back to Group No. 2 a little later.

However, that being said, we must tackle the issue of self-government and speed up negotiations, but, in the meantime, we must also deal with urgent problems.

I mentioned housing at the beginning of my speech. There is a housing crisis in the first nations. There is an incredible lack of housing. Constructions that are done annually do not even represent a quarter of what would be needed, given the demographic growth in the first nations.

There are a number of other very urgent problems that must be solved in several communities, particularly the chronic mould problem. I have visited several aboriginal territories and realized that the problem was quite widespread.

Consequently, we must immediately allocate resources to deal with this problem. We must have an emergency plan, which is appallingly lacking at this time. Even the Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development told me there was no emergency housing plan. If there is no emergency plan, if we let entire aboriginal families live in substandard conditions, as is the case in Lac-Barrière, Winneway and elsewhere, we will not fulfill our duty as fiduciary of the first nations.

[Supply, April 27th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I thank my New Democratic colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle for his question. As he said, there were Parti Quebecois governments, but also Liberal ones, during the past 30 years in Quebec's National Assembly.

Recently, the Parti Quebecois government struck a committee, called an estates general on democratic governance, to study the reform of its democratic institutions. It invited Quebeckers to take part in a broad debate on the future of such institutions and on how we vote. One of the committee's recommendations is to have fixed election dates.

I talked earlier about a poll of Quebeckers. It found that 82% of respondents viewed the fact that there are not fixed election dates and that it is entirely up to the Prime Minister to decide to hold an election on a specific date as a partisan exercise forming part of an election strategy, and so forth. People no longer want this.

So, the time is ripe for change. I am pleased to hear the member say that, in Saskatchewan, this has been the case for quite some time. There were visionaries and forerunners there. In my opinion, this is the point we are at, and the public is with us on this.

[Supply, April 27th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, we will not ask for a change in the Constitution; we have not even accepted the Constitution of 1982. This is basic political history, which the member should have mastered. Still, if one is not in the habit of defending the interests of Quebec, one is not going to know one's history. I cannot expect too much of him.

When he says that the true nature of the Bloc Quebecois will be revealed in an election campaign; well, hurry up and call the election. We are ready to compare our record to yours. We are so ready that it should be easy for people to make a choice between the party of the sponsorship scandal and the party of integrity and honesty—the Bloc Quebecois. It will be very easy.

It will also be easy to see who the people were who asked the government the questions that put them up against the wall for the scandals such as employment insurance. There were also the Prime Minister's ships, with headquarters in Barbados so as to profit from a $100 million tax saving, thanks to a bill the finance minister himself introduced here in 1998. The people know what is going on.

I, too, am eager for the election call. We in the Bloc Quebecois will be able to say that we were the only defenders of the people of Quebec in the issue of employment insurance, and we will walk with our heads held high. I can speak for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, because I am the member for that riding. Unemployed people who have problems in the riding of Shefford, for example, are not going to see their member. The hon. member for Shefford was once the parliamentary secretary to the former minister of human resources development. In fact, when they go to see her, what are they told? They are told that if the officials in the department have said that they cheated and were not entitled to employment insurance, well then, they are not entitled.

They come over to Saint-Hyacinthe. I do not know how many men and women who have had problems with EI in Granby have come to Saint-Hyacinthe to get them solved—and we have been able to do it. The former parliamentary secretary to the former minister of human resources development closed the door of her office saying, “Do not bother me with that. The department said it was that way; so that is the way it is”. People remember.

The ridings are not cut off from each other. People also remember that when it comes to seniors, it was our colleague from Champlain who pulled the rabbit out of the hat. The Bloc Quebecois toured with our colleague from Champlain to meet representatives from associations that look after destitute seniors. We told them that there were some people—some of the poorest people in society—who were entitled to the guaranteed income supplement up to $6,000 a year. That can be the difference between poverty and relative wealth.

We did this. Out of 68,000 seniors in Quebec who did not receive the guaranteed income supplement, we managed to help nearly 20,000. We will not stop there. During the election and throughout our mandate, we will continue to look for these people. It took six months of our initiatives before the federal Liberals from Quebec started to say that it would be a good idea to include a few words on the guaranteed income supplement in the pamphlets they send out to homes. It is unbelievable. It is politicking like we have never seen.

People are not naive. They know that only the Bloc Quebecois is there to stand up for them. The good thing about the Bloc Quebecois is that it defends the social, moral and economic interests of Quebeckers. Since they were elected, that is not what the federal Liberals from Quebec, let alone the member for Beauharnois—Salaberry, have set out to do. He did not lift a finger for the workers at Spexel. They will certainly remember.

[Supply, April 27th, 2004]

And also what they do not do. As a result, people will realize that the best investment they can make is to support political activists such as the Bloc candidates who, since 1993, have proven that they are the only ones defending Quebeckers and the only ones defending the dignity of seniors, from whom this government has literally stolen under the Minister of Finance, who masterminded the cuts for nine years. We will tell the public that we are the only ones—and they know this—able to defend the interests of the most vulnerable members of our society, as well as students and environmentalists.

I think that we will succeed in showing them too that we are an honest party. We are not up to our necks in the sponsorship scandal or the mismanagement of the firearms registry, which was initially supposed to cost $2 million and is now costing $2 billion.

I really think that, this time, Quebeckers will understand that it is in their interest to vote for the Bloc Quebecois, for true activists who defend their interests in Ottawa. We are not only spokespeople, but passionate and forceful defenders of their interests. We will get rid of that gang of federal Liberals from Quebec who have not bothered to lift a finger to defend jobs and ensure the accountability of the health care system and education, and simply the proper management of public funds.

[Supply, April 27th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I thank the members from the Conservative Party, as do my Bloc and NDP colleagues, for the opportunity they have provided this morning to discuss this issue.

I was stunned and upset to hear the remarks by my Liberal colleague when he talked about an attack on the Crown. First, we may wonder if the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard was installed only as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada or if he was crowned monarch of Canada. That is the question; what are his powers as Prime Minister? This is about one single member, the member for LaSalle—Émard, not elected as Prime Minister, holding everyone hostage with regard to the election date. Is that Canadian democracy?

It is deplorable. He is acting like a monarch, we will admit. The current Prime Minister is seen as a monarch and it is said that his prerogatives are under attack. Of course, the very essence of the motion is precisely to remove the arbitrary nature of partisan decisions from the hands of the Prime Minister. Let us not forget that. For nearly a year, everyone has been on edge waiting for the next election, the Liberals in particular.

The Prime Minister is not often in the House. He is travelling here and there. He goes to visit day care centres where there are little children, so that he can show he is a good prime minister with a good heart, while in fact he has made savage cuts in social programs. We will come back to that later. He goes to hospitals to say he is full of compassion for the patients, although once again, he has made savage cuts in health expenditures. He just does it to polish his image. He also goes to meet students although he has made savage cuts in the education budget.

He does it to polish his image and polish up the polls. With the influence he has, touring Quebec and Canada—and not being in Parliament, where he has not been contributing much for nearly a year—he wants to make himself look good in order to be able to choose the most favourable moment to call the election.

Is it normal that essentially the bills passed since he became leader of the Liberal Party are old bills from the Chrétien years? Where is the current Prime Minister's parliamentary agenda? Where is the comprehensive legislative agenda? For the past two and a half years or so, since the Liberal leadership race began, he had been saying that he was ready. True, we heard the same thing in Quebec City last year from Mr. Charest. He said, “We are ready”. The results are clear. Governance in Quebec is a huge fiasco.

But, the Prime Minister said he was ready. So, we thought he had a legislative agenda and reforms to propose, and that he would quickly move forward with his vision of the country. But what is his vision? Up to now, his vision is extremely partisan. Given how the current Prime Minister is hesitating, we see that he has difficulty making decisions. He has this proverbial difficulty. We know him. I, especially, know him, because he has been sitting across from me for nine years. We know him especially well. He is someone who has difficulty making decisions.

Will the entire population of 30 million and an entire Parliament wait with bated breath until the Prime Minister says, “Yes, we are calling an election”? What nonsense. Can one man, one member, who has not even been elected Prime Minister, get away with holding an entire Parliament, opposition parties and supporters of all parties, including his own, hostage for an entire year because he cannot make up his mind? It is disgraceful.

If it is traditional for the Prime Minister to pick the election date, perhaps it is time to change that tradition. This is not an attack on the Crown, it is about ensuring that democracy functions as it should. It is not normal for one man to hold everyone hostage this way. This is called a democratic deficit.

Things are changing. A poll was conducted when the steering committee on the reform of democratic institutions in Quebec held its annual conference last year. There was a poll on how people perceived the Prime Minister's prerogative to be the only person able to decide when to hold an election. According to the poll, 82% of Quebeckers perceived this as a strategic weapon that prime ministers use for purely partisan political purposes.

The public is already beginning to realize that a system such as this makes no sense.

To paraphrase the words of my Conservative colleague and my NDP colleague, British Columbia already made the decision in 2001 to adopt a set date for their elections. Even the steering committee on the reform of democratic institutions in Quebec, to which I have referred, has made a proposal on this. The municipal elections are held on a set date. Why would anyone reject such a proposal of electoral reform out of hand?

I think there is only one reason to adopt this system of elections on a set date every four years as the Conservative Party of Canada proposes: to allow democracy to speak. We must not continue a system where the government side can try to influence public opinion through all manner of strategies and stratagems. The Prime Minister is all over the map these days, in schools, daycare centres, posing eating poutine, anything to try to influence public opinion in favour of the Liberal Party.

It seems to me that we could prepare for the election at the appropriate time. At least that way Parliament would function properly for four years. That way we would not be keeping the supporters of the Bloc Quebecois, the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party and the NDP on tenterhooks for a whole year. WIth a set date, we would know what was going to happen, it would be predictable. The government would simply have to toe the line in the meantime by presenting legislative measures that made some sense.

I think that the Liberals are getting cold feet about the possibility of having to face the voters of Quebec and Canada after all that they have done over the nearly 11 years they have been in power. The current Prime Minister, when he was finance minister, pillaged social programs, and the transfer payments for health care, education, and welfare. Now the Liberals are quaking in their boots at the prospect of having to face Quebeckers and Canadians.

They are afraid because what they have done over the years in terms of employment insurance reform is beginning to haunt them. One cannot exclude about 60% of the unemployed and treat them like cheaters in the first place because they made an administrative error while filling out their forms. The government cannot expect to get people's trust at the next election after making them poorer.

The Liberals are afraid to face the unemployed. They are afraid to face the sick and the students who are anxious to show them what they think of their government. They are also afraid to face seniors. The Liberals did not tell seniors about the guaranteed income supplement for years. Seniors were robbed of $3 billion. This money was taken from the poorest in our society, from our seniors. They too cannot wait to tell the Liberals what they think of them.

I am anxiously waiting for the election call. If we had a fixed election date, we would know when we would face Liberal candidates. Federal Liberals from Quebec did not lift a finger to protect Quebec, to protect the poorest people in our society, including seniors. They did not lift a finger to protect students and sick people. I cannot wait to see the Liberals facing these people.

I too am looking forward to facing Liberal candidates. Quebeckers are unanimous on the issue of fiscal imbalance. Whether it is the Parti Quebecois or the Quebec Liberal Party, they are all unanimous. Quebeckers want the federal government to settle the fiscal imbalance, because it does not make any sense. All the money is in Ottawa, but all the needs are in essential services such as health and education. Again, I am anxious to face the Liberals and tell them that they did not lift a finger to protect Quebec, to correct the fiscal imbalance, on which there is unanimity.

That is why they are afraid to call the election. That is why the Prime Minister is eating hot dogs everywhere, and is going to visit children in day care; there may be a spot of Pablum on his suit.

I am eager because the sponsorship scandal happened while the Prime Minister was finance minister and vice-president of the Treasury Board. Chuck Guité, who testified last week, said that the office of the finance minister at the time was definitely involved in sponsorships. All the Liberals, in the end, are involved right up to their necks in the sponsorship scandal. I am eager to get out and meet them on their territory, so I can toss it up in their faces.

That is why they are afraid to call the election. They are not really aware that for nearly a year we have been at the ready, waiting to find out if one day the current prime minister will make up his mind. Perhaps it will be one of the first significant political decisions he makes in his life, because he has not made many of them. He has let his officials in the finance department call the shots, or watched things happen and pretended he did not see them, especially in the sponsorship scandal.

For example, I am eager to see what the member for Beauharnois—Salaberry will say during the next election about the highway extension he promised during the 2000 election campaign. His colleagues came to his riding and said, “You will see; the government will do it”. He got elected on that issue. He also go elected on the question of job preservation. He has lost nearly 100 of them because the Governor of the Bank of Canada has decided to buy paper for $100 bills from Germany. That is a big symbol of Canadian nationalism—Canadian currency.

We talked about using the U.S. dollar out of pragmatism because it would be easier and would avoid the speculation we experienced a few years ago when the money market in Southeast Asia collapsed. The shock wave reverberated here with unbelievable fluctuations in the Canadian dollar. Our position was pragmatic.

We were told it was a matter of Canadian nationalism. The Canadian dollar supposedly symbolizes the difference between Canada and the U.S. in social programs and such. Now this symbol is imported from Germany because the hon. member did not even lift a finger to save a hundred or so jobs at Spexel.

It is quite simply appalling. I cannot wait to see how he will face voters in the next election. I look forward to going to Beauharnois—Salaberry and to other Quebec federal Liberal ridings as well. I can hardly wait. I will stay in my riding, of course, roughly half the time and the other half I will spend taking them to task. They have not addressed any of the issues that have become important to Quebec over the years such as parental leave, the fiscal imbalance or the environment. The St. Lawrence will not be dredged according to them. Of course not. The federal Liberals from Quebec say this will not happen. No, but if complacency prevails then it will happen. There needs to be protest and pressure placed on their government. Instead, they just say it will not happen.

Nothing will be done about Spexel either. Six years ago, the Bank of Canada wanted to use German paper. The Bloc Quebecois put pressure on the bank. I even met with the Governor of the Bank of Canada to prevent them from doing that. My colleague, the hon. member for Joliette, recently did the same thing. The Liberal member for Beauharnois—Salaberry is the only one who did not lift a finger to prevent the bank from making this decision, even though we, Bloc Quebecois members, were able to do so for several years.

During the next election campaign—assuming it will take place and assuming the Prime Minister will make up his mind—we will pay them a few visits. They will have to do some explaining, particularly to the unemployed. They will have a lot of explaining to do, because the unemployed are probably those who have suffered the most. In addition to losing their jobs and their dignity, and being treated like cheaters, they have had to deal with federal Liberal members who, again, did not lift a finger to help them. People, and that includes yours truly, are just fed up with this.

So, if the next election could be called and if there was a fixed election date, members would know when they would be up against the Liberal candidates. When the election is called, my colleagues from Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, Joliette and Trois-Rivières, and all my Bloc Quebecois colleagues will tour Quebec and, each of us according to our field of expertise—my colleague from Rosemont—Petite-Patrie on the environment, my colleague from Joliette on public finance and the fiscal imbalance—will remind everyone what those people do when elected.

[National Security, April 27th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, the government's new security policy raises some questions. The first one relates to civil liberties. The minister said that we must ensure, and I quote, “that civil liberties and individual rights are not unnecessarily compromised in the pursuit of improved domestic security”. Does this mean that if, ultimately, this must be done, the government will do it?

Second, the new security policy includes a rather extraordinary number of agencies, committees and groups. However, let us not forget that, in her criticisms, the Auditor General alluded primarily to the exchange of information. Will this proliferation of agencies, committees and groups of all kinds ensure that the exchange of information is more efficient?

Third, I hope it is not just to please the United States that, this morning, the government is making this statement on a new security policy. Earlier this week, when the Minister of Finance met his American counterpart, John Snow, and presented this security policy to him, before presenting it to Parliament and to Canadians, Mr. Snow said that he was satisfied and that the United States would be satisfied, because the policy looks very similar to what the Americans themselves are doing regarding national security.

This new security policy is being tabled—and this is my fourth point—in haste without any consultation with Parliament or the public. And they talk about partnership.

Some partnership. This is my fifth point. The policy states that the partners will have to apply measures that are decided here. That is an odd partnership for starting this new security policy. It is quite disconcerting to see in this new policy statement on security, the Canadian government again considering the possibility of participating in the U.S. ballistic missile defence system when we are against it. The majority of Quebeckers and Canadians are against it, but the government is saying that it will continue to consider a policy that no one wants.

Allow me—and this is my last point—to question the cost estimate for these new security and public health initiatives: some $690.4 million. We know that the cost of gun control alone was estimated at $2 million and has now reached $2 billion. We have reason to doubt that for something as broad as security, $690.4 million—which does not include money for health—will be enough.

We have some questions. We asked those in charge of security whether some of the costs involved in marine security, for instance, could be assumed by users. We have been burned in the past by this government in having to share ice-breaking costs in particular.

In conclusion, allow me to say that we will closely scrutinize all bills pertaining to this new public security policy to ensure above all that fundamental freedoms are respected.

[Government Contracts, April 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, what is clear from all this, even if the Prime Minister informs us that politics under him will never be the same again, is that there is no difference at all between the old and the new government.

Will the government acknowledge that the old and new governments are linked by the same old common thread, and that the Liberal way is first and foremost to help its friends to public funds?

[Government Contracts, April 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, how can the Prime Minister claim he was aware of nothing, when he knew how the system worked and his office did not hesitate to use political interference to steer contracts toward Earnscliffe, as the Warren Kinsella memo confirms?

Given the constantly increasing evidence, will the Prime Minister continue to claim he knew nothing?

[Westbank First Nation Self-Government Act, April 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. I will not go into the alcohol question in detail, because I feel the issue is broader and more basic than that.

The advantage of self-government is that it is a primary right. It is not just an advantage, but the primary right of any people in the world to exercise self-determination, to be able to make its own choices about all the parameters of its present and its future, and to try to eradicate its past, or at least that part of its past that has been less than stellar, as has been the case with the first nations over the past 130 years.

It is a fundamental right, but the exercise of that right is what is of most interest. We hear all manner of things about the first nations, and not just since I have been the critic for that issue. For some years now, we have been hearing about their high unemployment rate, supposedly indicating a lack of desire to work, and their problems with multiple addictions, supposedly indicating poor parenting skills. We have heard that they do not have to pay either income tax or other taxes. How many times have we heard all these things, things that are wrong 99% of the time?

Take the tax issue, for example. Most members of the first nations work off the reserve, and they pay the same taxes as everyone else. Not all communities have problems; others are functioning perfectly well, achieving their potential, developing.

And which communities are these? The ones with self-government, the ones exercising that inherent right to self-government. We need just look at the situation in James Bay, at how, since the late 1970s, the James Bay Cree first nation has developed. We have had a number of occasions to meet Ted Moses and his chief advisor, Roméo Saganash. It has developed in an amazing way, with its own businesses, creating jobs and providing its young people with training.

I have also referred to the agreement with Hydro-Québec. Their right to self-government is what has enabled them to negotiate as a government with bodies such as Hydro-Québec or the Quebec government on the required training for their young people, their placement in specialized work sites, and the training of Cree administrators so as to promote and achieve economic and social growth for their community.

That is self-government: it ensures, on the one hand, that people telling all kinds of half-truths about the first nations finally shut their mouths and, on the other hand, that they do not just shut their mouths, but that the first nations demonstrate their ability to develop and create a future for the next generation. Currently, in most aboriginal communities, young people do not exactly have a rosy future: they are born knowing that their future is a dead-end.

In Weymontachie, it is unbelievable! In Winneway, in Barriere Lake, what is there for aboriginal children? A first nation that, often due to the government's inertia, lacks self-government and does not have the chance to control its own future, establish its own laws and its own parameters for economic development, employment, education and so forth is the one that suffers most.

That is why, in 1998, the Erasmus-Dussault commission said, “The process has to be accelerated”. That is why I was not merely disappointed but enraged when I saw, last year, that this darned government had imposed Bill C-7 on governance. We had to debate legislation that nobody wanted and that did nothing to accelerate the self-government process among the first nations. It was an attempt to force legislation that nobody wanted down the throats of all the first nations in Canada, while at the same time, the 80 negotiating tables on self-government lacked resources to accelerate the process. That is what is frustrating.

If there had been a different minister than the one who preceded the current minister, one able to acknowledge that self-government needs to be implemented more quickly because that is the only way the first nations can develop, to ensure harmony and break the cycle of poverty imposed on them for the past 130 years, perhaps two or three other self-government agreements could have been concluded, instead of wasting the time of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources with legislation that nobody wanted.

To get back to self-government, that is the first condition. When I see an agreement like that of Westbank, when this community came to see me, before I even read the agreement, on principle, I was full of enthusiasm for the idea of supporting them. When I read the agreement, I was even happier, because this is a wise and balanced agreement.

It is the same for the Innu in Quebec. That is a balanced agreement which takes nothing away from the territory of Quebec, which makes it possible for the Innu to make their own laws on their own territory and, outside their own territory, for them to share traditional activities, including hunting and fishing, with non-aboriginals. These new rules will be clearer than they are today.

There are some things in these agreements that move us and remind us that we have indeed reached the 21st century, that we have evolved over the decades, and that we have been recognizing this inherent right for a few years now.

We have to stop procrastinating. We must accelerate these self-government agreements. We have made a good start; in Quebec the process has begun for most of the first nations. We must ensure that, within this country, we respect each other, live in dignity on either side, and are able to develop with our own culture, our own institutions and the procedures determined in our own communities. That is self-government. That is sovereignty. That is independence.

That is what we are aiming for. It will happen in Quebec, for the Quebec people. When Quebec becomes sovereign, as will certainly happen in a few years, the first nations within Quebec's territory will have understood that respect for indigenous people in Quebec is a given. They will understand that respect for the dignity of aboriginal peoples—nations dealing with one another as equals—is now a given for the vast majority of the population.

When, at the general council of the Bloc Quebecois last year, I saw the ovation that occurred when respect for first nations and negotiations equal to equal were mentioned, I said to myself that we have come a long way in the last 30 years.

On the committee, I did not find the same feeling, or only some of the time. That is why my enthusiasm may have sometimes overflowed, as did that of my colleague from Winnipeg Centre. That is because we wanted to share it with our colleagues. We think we may have succeeded halfway.

[Westbank First Nation Self-Government Act, April 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have often had the chance to speak about this kind of first nations self-government agreement, particularly that of the Westbank First Nation. In fact, in December, we had an opportunity to proceed quickly to adopt this bill, which will finalize many years of work on negotiations. It has also been a long task for the Westbank First Nation, which has consulted freely. All residents of the territory have been consulted, sometimes more than once on very precise questions. The people of Westbank have participated in a fine democratic exercise.

I take this occasion to acknowledge the large delegation from Westbank behind me in the gallery. They have been here since the beginning of this debate of crucial importance to their future. They have been attending our deliberations since December. Unfortunately, in December we disappointed them because one Conservative member refused to give his consent so that we could proceed quickly with this bill.

I shall not stop repeating that the most beautiful thing that can happen in Quebec or in Canada is that the major recommendations of the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples—also known as the Erasmus—Dussault commission—should become reality.

One of these recommendations, which is also found in the work of the Westbank community, was to make it possible to create vast reforms over the next 20 years, that is by 2018. These reforms were to have adequate resources so that all first nations in Quebec and Canada could benefit from self-government agreements based on one major principle: the inherent right to self-government.

I have been the critic on this issue for two years now. In committee and here in the House, whenever I hear some of my colleagues say, “Should we concede this or that to them? We must not give them too many powers”, I say, and I repeat, that it is not up to us to concede or give greater or lesser powers. They have these powers because of this principle that is recognized in the Constitution itself—the inherent right to self-government.

Members of the first nations will also tell you it is a right given them by the Creator. That may seem spiritual, but sometimes it is good to have a little spirituality in this Parliament to remind us of fundamental philosophical truths.

The first nations were here long before the first Europeans. They not only had rights, but owned the land. Over the years, the Europeans of the day imposed a different way of life and institutions that were foreign to the first nations. With respect to democracy, they imposed principles that the first nations did not support. Surprisingly enough, when the first Europeans arrived, most of the first nations had democratic systems and institutions and even highly developed electoral colleges, and we borrowed from them in setting up our own parliamentary and democratic system.

We destroyed everything. We said that their way of doing things was not right. We imposed our views. Almost 130 years ago, we also imposed the most despicable legislation I have ever seen in my life aside from apartheid in South Africa, and that is the Indian Act. We forced them to do things a certain way. We told them we would stick them on reserves, on very limited lands, but that they should not worry because we would provide for their basic needs. That is how we have been treating them for 130 years.

We made them subservient. We took away any means they had to develop. We also took away the rights that every person should be entitled to in the 21st century. I am talking about the right to run their own affairs, the right to make a decision, the right to manage and even the right to borrow money from the bank. We took away their ability to develop with their own territories and resources.

How many logging companies in Quebec and Canada have helped Parliament and successive federal governments evict the first nations and move them off the ancestral lands they had occupied for decades? All to allow the logging companies, often under foreign ownership, clear cut their ancestral lands, preventing aboriginals from developing their own resources and practising traditional activities, such as hunting and fishing.

How many injustices have the first nations been subjected to over the past 130 years, particularly since the Indian Act came into force? What were first nations children subjected to, when they were taken literally from their families and placed in schools to give them an education that was inconsistent with their culture, and also preventing them from speaking their own language? How can pride and a desire to build a better future be instilled in such circumstances?

How many oil companies, through pressure and lobbying and, at certain points in Canadian history, by basically buying off the government, managed to evict entire bands from their ancestral lands in order to exploit the resources underground? Mining companies did it too.

No royalties were paid until recently, and I could tell the House about cases in Quebec. The first nations were never given a share of these resources, be they surface or subsurface. The first nations were moved around, parked on reserves and told, “Poverty for you and economic growth for us”.

The first nations had an awakening, particularly within the past two decades. They began to believe that they had rights under the Canadian Constitution, rights too under international law and the authority, as first nations, to ensure that their future development, growth and existence belongs to them. They sought recognition, even internationally.

I am thinking of certain aboriginal leaders from Quebec who went all the way to the UN to assert their rights. At times, they were abrupt, but who would not have been, given all the historical elements that have resulted in their rights being trampled on and them made victims of a kind of code of silence to eliminate them at various periods in the past? Who would not have been abrupt in their condemnation, before the entire world, of Canada's treatment of the first nations?

We would have done the same. In fact, awareness of the situation was so much heightened as a result that international bodies such as the United Nations Organization decided to award the aboriginal peoples of Canada and all over the world rights on the international level. They decided to recognize them as real nations according to the UN definition. They also decided to accompany the world's aboriginal peoples in bringing pressure to bear on governments, particularly those in the industrialized world, to recognize aboriginal rights and ensure the provision of all the tools required for their development.

Sometimes Canada has ignored these appeals from such respected organizations as the UN. Even quite recently, during our debate on Bill C-7 on first nations governance, the former minister of Indian and northern affairs wanted to impose on Canada's aboriginal peoples an agreement on governance that they did not want, one that was contrary to their interests, and was unanimously opposed. Two members, my colleague from Winnipeg Centre and your humble servant, on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois, had to battle to make the Liberal members of the committee and the government see reason and realize that this bill did not suit the first nations.

It took both energy and time to make the government understand some fundamental truths, things as basic as “the reality of the modern world 101”, to make them understand this is not the South Africa of apartheid days. As world bodies have called upon the governments of the industrialized world to do, there had to be openness to the realities of the first nations and they had to be provided with the means to develop their full potential and realize their inherent right to self-government.

Believe it or not, in order to get the government to grasp just those basic principles, principles recognized in the Constitution moreover, took a 55-day filibuster. I say day, but it was often evenings or nights. We had to keep it up for 55 days. I have inquired of the clerks at the table if there was any precedent for such a long filibuster, and they assured me, though they did not look into it in depth, that according to the combined memories of the clerks over the years, this was one of the longest in the history of Parliament.

It was simply to make the government understand these fundamental truths about the inherent right to self-government, which had supposedly been recognized by this Parliament, that is, the right given to the first nations by the Creator. It was to make them understand that now, in 2003, peoples who have been defined and recognized as nations by the United Nations cannot be forced to accept what they do not want.

Moreover, it would be normal, if their future were being discussed, to welcome representatives from the first nations to the committee table, so that they could explain their realities to us, which we do not always understand, and their lifestyle, which we also do not understand, and their history, which escapes us as well, even though we know through history books about the atrocities committed toward aboriginal people in Quebec and in Canada.

It took us 55 days to explain to the government members—supposedly sensitive to the sovereignty of countries and people—the basic principles of the sovereignty of peoples. Of course, we also took the opportunity to speak about the sovereignty of the Quebec people as well. Who better than a Quebec sovereignist Bloc Quebecois member of Parliament to explain the value of a country's sovereignty to the Liberal members who think they know something about it?

It was the perfect occasion to explain to the first nations what the people of Quebec have been going through as a people for decades. We explained to them the attempts we were making to take our destiny in our own hands and not be dependent on another people, the Canadian people, for decisions that concern our future. We explained the policies that meet with widespread approval in Quebec but not here; parental leave for instance, a simple transfer of part of employment insurance as permitted by the Employment Insurance Act.

We also took that opportunity to explain that the fiscal imbalance is crushing the people of Quebec, the same way as the lack of funds transferred to aboriginal peoples to meet incredible challenges in terms of health, economic development and social development. This lack of funding is harmful to the future of aboriginal peoples.

We talked about the situation in Quebec, which has absorbed 51% of the cuts in health, education and social assistance funding that were imposed by the current Prime Minister when he was finance minister. We talked about that, too. We were able to discuss with the first nations, and my colleague from Winnipeg Centre and I became their brothers, when we were honoured with the eagle feather.

Agreements like the Westbank agreement should be fostered. Self-government agreements should not only be fostered, but accelerated in order to give first nations the tools for developing their full potential, and for meeting the many challenges they face. The first nations do not only have problems, but incredible challenges to meet. They have the necessary talent to take up these challenges and win.

Some communities face daily horrors. My colleague from Champlain and I had the opportunity to visit a number of reserves in his riding, Weymontachie in particular. Weymontachie has unbelievable housing problems. Almost all the homes have chronic mould. My colleague from Berthier—Montcalm and I went to Winneway in Abitibi. That is another first nation with problems, but their problems have to do with education. It They would have liked to have a self-government agreement and resources, as well as compensation for the harm caused by the federal government over the past 130 years. These first nations would have liked to have these tools, but they did not have them to meet these challenges.

In Quebec, oddly enough, there is no one better than a sovereignist MP to talk about the fundamental value of sovereignty principles. The first agreement in Canada with the first nations was signed by the greatest sovereignist leader Quebec has ever known: René Lévesque. During his first mandate he signed an agreement with the James Bay Cree. It was an economic development agreement, which also brought about social development. The greatest sovereignist leader extended a hand to the Cree people. All Quebec sovereignists and all Quebeckers in general, with a few exceptions, extend a hand to the aboriginal people.

There were other examples, but the best known is the ratification of what was called the peace of the braves agreement. It complements the agreement reached by Mr. Lévesque's government at the end of the 1970s. The peace of the braves was signed by Bernard Landry, another great sovereignist leader in Quebec. Hydro-Québec also made an addition to this agreement by signing a treaty not so long ago on the development of hydroelectric resources and respect for aboriginal peoples and their prerogatives on their own land.

There was also a process that lasted about fifteen years and led to an agreement in principle with Quebec's Innu communities. Once again, this process started under Lucien Bouchard. Mr. Parizeau tried to do the same thing with the Attikamek-Montagnais communities in 1994, if my memory serves me.

How is it that sovereignist leaders and sovereignist governments in Quebec were the ones to initiate this dialogue, which accelerated negotiations with the first nations on self-government and the provision of development tools to allow their community, whose population is on the rise, to develop? That is just it. Sovereignists fighting for freedom and the emancipation of their people—the Quebec people—are sensitive not just to the importance of such freedom, but also to the importance, for a people, of making its own decisions, the importance of instilling in its children a sense of pride about the future, not a provincial sense of pride but rather a national one.

The National Assembly is called the National Assembly and not the legislative assembly. It is this enthusiasm and this pride which I saw in the first nations that have led me, along with my Bloc colleagues, to invest such enthusiasm and to work tirelessly to accelerate the implementation of self-government agreements, in order to understand what they are experiencing and show what we are experiencing too.

I am convinced that, this way, all the peoples in this land will be able to live in harmony in the future, including the aboriginal peoples, the sovereign people of Quebec and the sovereign people of Canada.