As one of Pat's constituents, I'd just like to mention another round of dumb things said by my MP.
February 28th, 11:20 a.m.Quote:
Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of my constituents in Winnipeg Centre not
only to speak against this bill but to reject it. I will use my 10 minutes to
condemn this bill and the very assumptions that led to the bill coming before
the House of Commons today. I find the bill to be an extension of the
Eurocentric, colonial, paternalistic and offensive assumptions that underlie
the government's policies toward first nations people.
This bill finds its roots and origins in the racist assumptions that all first
nations are either corrupt or incompetent and I reject both of those
assumptions. In fact, I feel sorry for the member for
Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar because she is a hapless dupe who has been
designated to put forward a bill that the government was too cowardly to bring
forward itself. If the government wanted to try to make the case that all
first nations are incompetent or corrupt, the government itself should have
the guts to say it to the House of Commons instead of using the back door and
some new rookie hapless dupe in rural Saskatchewan. That is what I find
offensive.
If the member had done a bit of research, she would know that the Auditor
General of Canada said that first nations in fact are over-audited. They are
handicapped by audits. They are almost crippled and paralyzed by the number of
routine audits they have to do. There are 168 audits per year to five
different government departments. How many is that? If we do the math, it is
three or four times a week that paperwork has to be submitted.
In spite of this, 96% of all first nations in the country submit their audits
on time, without comment or criticism from the auditor. Of the remainder, 27
out of 633 first nations, the auditors commented that of the 27 first nations
that either failed to file 1 of their 168 returns on time, or made a
mathematical error, or had a problem with their accounting, only 11 were put
under third party management by the Government of Canada. Those are the
statistics.
If the Government of Canada wants to do something about the appalling social
conditions of our first nations people and if it wants the House of Commons to
be seized with first nations issues, why are we bogged down with some nuisance
little mischief bill that is pandering to a racist minority that dwells under
the assumption that all first nations are either corrupt or incompetent? That
is what we should be questioning today.
The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development should be renamed. He
should be called the minister for managing poverty, because that is what his
job entails: robbing Peter to pay Paul. He moves around the same little
inadequate pool of money that is supposed to provide for the basic needs of
nearly a million people, some $6 billion in total for the needs of a million
people.
Our entire armed forces comprises 68,000 people and what is the budget? There
is a $32 billion budget for 50,000 people versus $6 billion for a million
people to provide housing, schools, education, health care and basic needs.
That is the root of the problem. The problem is not about accountability or
governance. The problem is not about insignificant things like the number of
audits that are submitted on time. The problem is chronic long-term poverty.
I put it to the House that the problem of the social condition of the first
nations people has its origins in the Indian Act, an offensive document of
oppression, unworthy of any western democracy. That is the root of the
problem. The problem is not the meddling of one rookie MP who thinks she is
going to put forward a private member's bill with a racist assumption that all
first nations are incompetent or, even worse, corrupt. The Indian Act is the
root of the problem.
If the government wanted to solve the appalling third world social conditions
that our first nations are forced to live under, the government would tear up
the Indian Act and would provide a meaningful share of the land and resources
that first nations were entitled to under their treaties. If the government
took 10% of the money it spends in court fighting first nations for their
legitimate rights and applied it to a share of the land and resources, then
first nations could get on with some economic development.
I wonder if any member of Parliament has ever read the Indian Act. I wonder if
any member knows that first nations are not even allowed to cut down a single
tree on their land without the express permission of the Minister of Indian
Affairs and Northern Development.
I wonder if the members know that if gold or oil is discovered on a first
nations reserve, the residents are not entitled to it. The only thing they are
expressly entitled to in the Indian Act is gravel, sand, mud and soil. If one
can carve out a living by selling gravel, mud, sand and soil on a reserve,
granted, one then has a legitimate way to make a living by hauling gravel or
having a quarry. That, they are allowed to do.
However, if it has to do with fisheries, it is not allowed; with forestry, it
is not allowed; with mining, it is not allowed. If they discover gold and
pearls and rubies on their reserve, it is not theirs. So what can be expected?
I sat in this House of Commons at the last fumbling, clumsy attempt to try to
imply that aboriginal people's poverty is because of lack of governance or
corruption or incompetence. It was called the first nations governance act.
Again, it was a smoke screen to try to pretend that the root of the problem
was not chronic long-term poverty and all of its predictable social
consequences, and that it was not the complete refusal to share the wealth of
the land and resources guaranteed to first nations under treaty. However, this
is not an assumption on my part; the evidence is that every time an aboriginal
group does finally make it to the Supreme Court after 30 years, they win. They
win every time.
Until the 1960s, a lawyer was not allowed to represent Indians in court. How
were they supposed to fight their court cases? One was not allowed to take
money from an Indian to pursue a land claim. It was expressly forbidden by the
law society. So when these 30- and 40-year land claims finally get to court,
the plaintiffs win because they are right. Whether in the Marshall case, the
Sparrow case or in Delgamuukw, whatever the case, first nations plaintiffs win
and the government loses.
Yet instead of acknowledging that reality, that those treaties mean something,
that the treaties are two sided and that we are all treaty people and that I,
for instance, am a participant of that treaty, the government denies it. Those
treaties are legal and binding, and they are right. There would not be the
third world social conditions here if we honoured the treaties and did not
wait for 30- and 40- and 50-year court cases. However, the Department of
Justice has floors of lawyers who do nothing but say “no” to aboriginal people
and drag stuff through the courts. That is what the government spends its
money on.
Does the government think there is any advantage to having a permanent
underclass in our society? Does it think that is an economy? That is a false
economy. It is an offensive economy and the social cost is prevalent and
obvious in the streets of Winnipeg and in any other major centre, and
certainly on first nations reserves that are denied the right.
I carry the feather. I was given the honour of a blanket ceremony and a
spiritual name was given to me by the Assembly of First Nations for standing
up and fighting the first nations governance act. With that honour comes an
obligation that we will speak truth to power in this House of Commons. Every
time there is an offensive piece of legislation that extends the paternalistic
assumptions of the Indian Act, we will denounce it, we will condemn it and we
will defeat it. That bill will not pass.
If the Government of Canada wants to talk about secrecy and accountability, it
should look in the mirror because it is the Department of Indian Affairs and
the Minister of Indian Affairs that are secretive and unaccountable.
Here I point to the Kapyong Barracks, the military base in the city of
Winnipeg, as a classic example. Year after year, the treaty land entitlement
of the first nations who have first option to purchase surplus government land
has been systematically denied.
We just had another court case on Thursday of this week in Winnipeg, where the
Government of Canada appealed another decision that it had lost, and thus
guaranteed five more years in court going to the Supreme Court of Canada,
where it will ultimately lose. But at least it is pandering to its base that
says, “Stop giving those Indians so much stuff and let them pull themselves up
by their bootstraps”. How do people pull themselves up by their bootstraps if
they have no tools to use? How do people pull themselves up by their
bootstraps if they cannot participate in economic development because they
have no right to the land and resources under their feet, the very land and
resources that were guaranteed to them under Treaties 1 through 7 in our
prairie region, and all over the west coast with the Douglas treaties, et
cetera?
The government is wrong: this bill is offensive and we condemn it. We should
not just reject it; it should be tossed out of here with great ceremony
because we will not tolerate it and will not stand for it.
CKA Elite 
CKA Elite 
