Lost his last election, in 2006, with 33% of the vote.
Aboriginal Affairs October 25th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, that was a perfect non-answer, so I will try it with the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
Today is the deadline. Today is the day that the Musqueam leaseholders are told to pay up their $70,000 to $80,000 leases or get evicted from their houses.
There is still time to reverse that decision. Does the minister intend to evict those people or will he revisit that decision, reconsider and tell those people that they will not lose their homes?
Aboriginal Affairs October 25th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, the taint of closure is already attached to the Nisga'a treaty because of the way the provincial NDP administration in Victoria rammed it through that legislature.
We were scheduled for two days of debate on the Nisga'a treaty in the House this week but we now find that we will only get one day, and that is tomorrow.
Is it the government's intention to invoke time allocation before we have even had one minute of debate in the House on the Nisga'a treaty?
Fisheries October 21st, 1999
Mr. Speaker, earlier in question period the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans lamented that Reform does not support his aboriginal policies.
We have had 132 years of aboriginal policies from the federal government and it has been a litany of failure. Who has been the governing party for most of the last 132 years? The Liberal of Party of Canada. Why should anybody trust it to get it right now when it has got it wrong so much in the past?
Aboriginal Affairs October 21st, 1999
Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that no private property rights are created under this agreement. He knows that without private property rights aboriginal women cannot possibly hope to enjoy the same rights and protections as all other Canadian women in the event of a marriage breakup.
Why did the minister agree to sign on to this treaty when there is no provision for private property rights for Nisga'a people? Why did he do that?
Aboriginal Affairs October 21st, 1999
Mr. Speaker, members of the Reform Party have a fundamentally different position than the government. We have a positive vision for aboriginal people. We want a new start for aboriginal Canadians in this country. We want aboriginal women to be full and equal partners, both on reserve and off reserve. We want aboriginal people to have the same rights and protections which all other Canadians enjoy.
How can the government continue to ignore these fundamental rights that aboriginal people are crying out for in this country?
Aboriginal Affairs October 21st, 1999
Mr. Speaker, today is a sad day for the individual rights of aboriginal people in Canada. The Nisga'a agreement fails to provide Nisga'a people with private property rights, fails to provide Nisga'a women with the same rights and protections enjoyed by all other Canadian women and puts in peril the charter rights of each and every Nisga'a individual.
How can the government and the minister ignore the fundamental rights of aboriginal Canadians?
Points Of Order October 21st, 1999
Mr. Speaker, since first being elected to this place in 1993 I have witnessed over and over again that the government is not willing to respond to questions in this House when the matter is before the courts.
Mr. Speaker, I ask you, how can we properly debate this fundamentally important issue to all Canadians and the Nisga'a people when the matter is before the court? This flies in the face of the conventions that I have understood since I came to this place in 1993.
Aboriginal Affairs October 19th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, the government had a wonderful opportunity to negotiate equality into the Nisga'a agreement but it went for special status and special legal rights instead. It had an opportunity to embrace unity but opted for division, an opportunity to build bridges but opted for walls.
Ordinary Nisga'a people will pay the biggest price for that folly in the end. Why are the minister and the government prepared to promote disunity, division and discord rather than equality?
Aboriginal Affairs October 19th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
The Supreme Court of Canada has generated serious conflict and confrontation by declaring a special native only commercial fishery on the east coast of Canada.
In spite of the very obvious problems that come from treating Canadians differently, the minister is about to ratify the Nisga'a agreement, effectively creating the exact same special native only commercial fishery on the west coast of Canada.
Why in the world would the minister promote such a concept in the Nisga'a treaty when he knows full well the kinds of serious problems that come with it?
Speech From The Throne October 18th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, in standing to speak to the throne speech, I must say that there were no big surprises.
Since I hold the critic responsibility for the Reform Party in the area of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, I eagerly scanned the throne speech to see what was in there that related to aboriginal people and the challenges that aboriginal people and government face in Canada today. I was not surprised but I was disappointed to see that there was no change in direction on the part of the government and that it is steady as she goes.
The government feels that it is charting the right course. It obviously continues to use words like partnership, gathering strength and all kinds of nice words and phrases that would leave the average person listening to the throne speech with the impression that progress has been made, is actually being made and that things are continuing to improve.
I can assure the House that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, for aboriginal people in Canada things continue to go downhill. The social problems on reserves continue to worsen. The economic circumstances for aboriginal people living on reserves continue to worsen. The programs that have been put in place by successive governments over a long period of time in the country have actually, if anything, been counterproductive to the health and welfare of aboriginal people in Canada.
As an example, the Government of Canada decided to invest in aboriginal economic development back in the early 1990s. It spent $1 billion on aboriginal economic development over a period of four years. These facts are all contained in the Auditor General's Report to parliament. Over the same period of time that the $1 billion was expended, the economic conditions on reserves worsened, the unemployment rate continued to increase and the overall picture continue to worsen, to darken, rather than to improve.
The question one naturally asks is why would the government continue to go down the same road when there have been no positive results and there continue to be negative results? Do we not learn as human beings from experience? Do we not look to the past to gather and analyse information to assist us in making decisions about what we are going to do in the future? That is really what learning and human history is all about. The government has refused to do that.
Naturally, one asks why we would go through the trouble of having all of these government departments that can track the impacts and effects of various government programs and expenditures if we are not going to pay attention to the results. I have come to the conclusion that the government by choice automatically insulates itself from the realities of its own policies. It does not want that feedback. It does not want to know that its policies are failures.
The government does not want to know because it does not want to admit that it has failed. The government lacks the vision and the courage to think outside the box, to think in some new way that could perhaps be of great benefit not only to aboriginal people but to the country as a whole. Obviously, the country has a challenge in front of it which badly needs to be addressed.
The Liberals do not have the courage to face that challenge. They do not have the courage to admit that the way things have been done in the past, the policies that have been implemented and the taxpayers' money that has been expended has not been of any benefit to native people in Canada.
Is the government not willing at least to analyse the results of its policies? We would think that at least a majority of native leaders would be interested in going through that analysis and going back to government and saying that what the government has been doing has not been working and they need a change. Why are the chiefs and councils across Canada not engaged in a process of examination and analysis? Why are they not advocating for change?
I think the reason becomes clear when more time is spent looking at what the department of Indian affairs does and how it has a relationship with native leaders across Canada and native leaders at the national level. There is a symbiotic relationship. Both parties are unwilling to admit failure because they fundamentally do not want to change the status quo. The reason most native leaders do not want to change the status quo is that they are caught up in the system. Some direct personal benefit accumulates to them as a result of being part of the system.
One of the things that strikes me as I travel from place to place and talk with grassroots aboriginal people is that they feel as fundamentally disconnected from their leaders in many cases as do ordinary Canadians from their political leaders. There is a sense of frustration that the programs are supposed to be benefiting them as individuals but they are not hitting the mark.
One has to do a critical analysis to determine why that is the case. The greatest mistake the federal government has made and continues to make and shows no sign of changing when it comes to native people is it continues to treat native people as collectivities rather than as individuals. It wants to deal in programs and policies that are related directly to collectivities. That is why we see certain things in modern treaties that are being negotiated.
The Nisga'a treaty is mentioned in the throne speech. We are going to have a lot more to say about it in the coming weeks when the government actually introduces the legislation. Fundamentally it sees the Nisga'a as a collectivity of some 5,000 people. It does not see the individuals. It looks at the Nisga'a people, and aboriginal people in general, as being some kind of homogeneous group that thinks the same way, that wants the same things and that fundamentally has a culture that is different from the rest of Canada and therefore must be treated differently.
Of course, what gets lost in the shuffle when that happens is the individual. Individual rights are put on the back burner in favour of collective rights, and individual aboriginal people are coming to that realization in a major way in the country. Individual native people are coming to understand that their rights as Canadians are fundamentally sidelined in favour of these collective rights that are somehow supposed to benefit them, but they see very clearly that those benefits are not accruing.