Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to address Bill C-9, the Nisga'a final agreement act.
Many of my colleagues have addressed the serious concerns shared by British Columbians regarding the Nisga'a bill, but the bottom line is that this is deeply flawed legislation. The agreement was negotiated in secret. It was negotiated by a provincial government that has faced numerous scandals and which now has the lowest approval rating of any elected government in Canada. The Liberals may want to look at the process in B.C. and see what it did to that government because it is going to do the same thing to the government here. Those who try to force legislation down the throats of people who do not want it will pay the political price.
There was no active consultation in B.C. The member for Vancouver Island North went into this in great detail. He was our party's aboriginal affairs critic in the last parliament. In his speech last week, he went through in detail how the consultation process simply did not work. He said that it was smoke and mirrors, that there was no listening, no involvement. Because of that, British Columbians want to have a referendum. They want their chance to have a say. They do not feel the provincial government or the federal government are listening to the people of B.C.
What is the answer from the government side? That it is too complex of an issue, that a referendum simply is not going to work.
People are not that stupid. They understand the ramifications. They see the inequality. They see the holes in this agreement. Quite frankly they do not trust many of their politicians. They want to have a say. There is nothing wrong with that. There have been referendums before that have worked.
A referendum that worked was the Charlottetown accord. Canadians voted down ethnic based legislation. They said no. They voted it down no more strongly than in British Columbia. They simply said that equality was the way to go and this government is going in exactly the opposite direction. That is typical of this government. It has bungled legislation over the last six years we have been in opposition.
The public service pension bill was considered a few months ago. The government is raiding the pension fund for $30 billion. Remember it is the government that promised to scrap, abolish and kill the GST but we still have it.
In many ways that is the Trudeau solution. It goes back that far. Trudeau's Canada did not include the west. He had no understanding of the west. He did not comprehend anything beyond upper and lower Canada, Ontario and Quebec. That was his Canada.
This government's vision is very much Trudeau's vision. It is insisting on forcing controversial treaties on British Columbians. Bear in mind that this is the first treaty of many that are going to spread right across the country. There is no support. There is no support in British Columbia for this type of legislation. It is not surprising that the Trudeau legacy simply does not work.
Look at Alberta, the province next door to B.C. The national energy program throttled Alberta's booming oil economy. What is different in this case? Nothing, other than it is British Columbia's turn to get the Liberal boot.
This heavy-handed government is not going to allow forthright debate in the House. A few hours ago the government moved time allocation on the bill which means that the opposition parties and even the government cannot fully debate it. The government said no, that is enough. At the end of today there will be a vote and it will be a done deal. It will be over. Is that democracy? Is that where we are going with the government?
I would like to broaden the picture. The Nisga'a agreement is the tip of the iceberg. The government and the courts, particularly with the charter, are taking us in a direction I do not believe Canadians want to go. They are taking us away from equality into areas where special groups have special rights.
The Nisga'a deal and the Marshall decision on the east coast have given us an inkling of where this country is going. We are going to be in turmoil over the next number of years. I can refer to the Musqueam reserve in Vancouver where the leases on land with $150,000 and $200,000 homes are being taken over. A lease is now $25,000 a year and people are being thrown out of their houses.
The Marshall decision simply said that Donald Marshall had the right to fish for eels. It has expanded to lobster. We now see it affecting snow crab. The Sable Island oil deal is now on hold because the natives want to be heard. Logging in British Columbia and New Brunswick is being undertaken against the will of the provincial governments. That is where this treaty is taking us. It points out the lack of vision on the part of the government.
What is the vision? Where did the government see this parliament and this country going? Are we headed to become a group of separate societies? That is where the government is taking us. Natives will have separate rights. We have seen what is happening in Quebec. Is that the vision? Is that where we are going? It is a shotgun approach.
Do we want to have equality? Do we want to have a country where the laws are the same? Despite one's ancestry, despite one's race, despite one's sex, whatever, the laws are the same. I thought that was what Canada was all about but apparently not because the government and the courts are taking us in a completely different direction.
The Nisga'a deal is the tip of the iceberg. The provincial NDP and the federal Liberals are ramming this agreement through against the will particularly of British Columbians. We can see where this is taking us.
The Marshall decision is another example of where we are going or perhaps where we do not want to go. The newspapers have shown many cases where natives have decided that the natural resources are theirs. It started with Donald Marshall and the ability to fish for eels and it has now gone to oil and gas. My colleague from northern Alberta was talking about what is happening with the oil industry. There are other natural resources, such as timber. Where is it going to stop? Where are we going?
The supreme court has brought down decisions which are against the will of this parliament. Parliament has laid down what is supposed to be the rules for the laws of this land. Yet the judges have decided that they know better and are circumventing the will of parliament.
That is the bigger issue of what we are talking about with Nisga'a. It is the bigger issue of where Canadians should be looking to the future, of where they want the government to go. What is the vision of the government? Where do we want the country to end up? Do we want a group of separate fiefdoms or do we want equality and togetherness? I believe we want to be united with one set of rules for all in one country.
