Madam Speaker, I rise to support this bill. I commend the hon. member for Kamloops for bringing it to the House. The day which he talks about would be a day of reflection.
I would like to quote Georges Erasmus, who said:
The history of our people needs to be told. We need to present accurately what happened in the past, so that we can deal with it in the future- I don't like what has happened over the last 500 years. We can't do much about that. But what are we going to do about the next 500 years? What are we going to do about the next ten years?
On this day of reflection these are the things which we should be thinking about. We should be thinking about the fact that when the Europeans landed here the Indians fed them, showed them how to avoid scurvy and asked for nothing. They asked Jacques Cartier for nothing. We should reflect on the Truro wampum, the covenant chain, the broken treaties, the food which they gave us.
My background is Irish and Italian. The Irish think that the potato came from Ireland. It came from the Indians. The Italians think the tomato came from Italy. It came from the Indians. They had over 1,200 different plants when we arrived. It was a self-sufficient nation.
We should reflect on their path of tears. We took away their voice. We made them non-persons. We put them on reserves. We put them in residential schools. It was not good enough to put them in residential schools, we moved them to other provinces. It was not good enough that they were in schools in other provinces, we said: "You shall not go home from the age of six to eighteen". They did not go home, not even for Christmas or holidays. Then we decided we would take away their language and their culture. To back all of this up and to make the kids go to residential schools we invented the pass laws. If the parents did not give up their kids to go to these schools they did not get a pass to leave the reserves.
Show me an Irish family or an Italian family or any other family that came to this country and was treated like that. In other words, the visitors to this country were treated better than the people who had been here for 10,000 years. We should reflect on that.
My friend reminded us that we should reflect on the Indian Act. It is archaic. It is an act which should not exist in any country.
We should reflect on the dams at Grand Rapids, Churchill, Nelson and Cheslatta that took away their livelihood. We took away their very being. We should reflect on what we did to the Haida Gwaii and the Micmac with our development of the forests. We should reflect on what we did with minerals. Because we needed minerals in northern Ontario, in came the Robinson Superior treaties. That is why we have those treaties, because we needed minerals.
In my area we took away the sturgeon and the wild rice. Not only were they food sources, they were religious things to them. They were there for generations and then they were gone.
We should remember our land grabs on those days, and the people who have come and gone: the Elijah Smiths; the elders of the Yukon; Jake Fire of the Mohawks, a traditionalist who came to a meeting unarmed and was shot; Frank Calder and the Sparrows. These are not individuals, these are families. For three generations the Sparrow family in B.C. has been saying the same thing. We should reflect on that and we should remember.
We should also reflect on what they are doing. They now have over 5,000 businesses, representing 31,000 employees. Twenty-five years ago only 600 to 800 aboriginal students were in post-secondary schools. Today, as I stand here, they have
150,000 graduates, with 22,000 in post-secondary institutions this year and 23,000 who will be in post-secondary institutions next year.
They had the leadership and they were articulate. On this day that the hon. member is proposing we should think of that.
In the past 17 months, and to me it feels like 17 years, we have tried to implement the promises of our red book. We have negotiated with the Micmacs. We have said: "You've done so well in education, now it is time to take over jurisdiction". The Micmacs in Nova Scotia are doing just that.
At the meeting when we signed the agreement, one of the elders now, but once a chief said: "You know when I started this, Ron, there were only four Micmacs in the whole province of Nova Scotia in post-secondary. I came to this meeting tonight to sign with high hopes in my heart. I saw a car there. There were three kids in this car and they were out of gas so I stopped and helped them. All three were Micmacs, all three were university graduates". We should remember that.
On the Manitoba dismantling, a year ago people in the House of one party thought it was craziness. Within three or four months the public said maybe it is important. A month before the signing they said it is historic. Now they say at Harvard that it is the most significant aboriginal self-government agreement in the world. That is the spirit.
In British Columbia it is difficult because we are doing contemporary treaties, in spirit and intent. There are now over 120 First Nations negotiating at five tables with 50 people from our side bringing in contemporary and modern treaties.
We intend to dismantle in northern Ontario. The meetings will be held in the next two or three months. We intend to move jurisdiction in Treaty 3 in the Fort Frances area and that is going on now.
We are moving oil and gas. This is the way it works. There are 110 oil and gas chiefs, 50 are on significant oil and gas reserves. They do not own it and they do not manage it. We have to give them that because it belongs to them. It is on their reserves. That will be done.
In Quebec we are dealing with the Inuit, the Cree, the Montagnais, the Huron. We are dealing with them face to face with dignity and respect, and agreements are being reached there.
The same thing happened in the Yukon. You all went through that as members. I would like to recall to you the night we voted. I looked up at the Yukon delegation sitting in the gallery. They were all in their traditional garb. We applauded and they applauded. They started crying and our hardened members here started crying. Hardnosed Liberals were crying over this. That is the kind of commitment we must have. The same thing will happen in the Northwest Territories.
I wish I could go on and on, but my time is limited. I want to talk about what can be done and what we should remember on that day. How can we? It seems so simple but it is difficult. It is a triangle. At the top of the triangle is dignity, respect and self-government. At the bottom of the triangle are adequate health facilities, adequate housing facilities and adequate economic development. If we do not do these things at the bottom, the triangle is going to collapse.
There will be opponents. They will say we are bleeding hearts. They will say we have our agenda. They will say the Indians have too much right now. I do not feel I am a bleeding heart. I do not feel I have an agenda. I have eyes to see. Erasmus is asking us to see.
What will it take? It will take courage to stand up to these arguments. It will take knowledge of what is out there. It will take compassion. We have to have compassion. It will take an attitude that we will talk face to face. One Metis leader said to me: "We've talked back to back and side to side too long. We must talk face to face". We can do it.
In the Northwest Territories, they have nine official languages, four more than the UN. They have translation in their legislature. The Russians have come here to see what we have done. That is the attitude we should have as Canadians, not just doing a good job but the best job in the world, where people will come to us.
Today the Irish, the Scots, the English and even the French are flying Canadian flags. If we are to have a flag in the aboriginal portfolio it should be the aboriginal people and other Canadians saying it is a flag of tolerance, a flag of dignity, of sharing and respect. It will work. That is why this day is important and that is why I will support it.
