1990-05-01

Mrs. Suzanne Duplessis (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for Science):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, a number of Order in Council appointments which were made by the government. Pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 110(1), these are deemed referred to the appropriate standing committees, a list of which is attached.


PETITIONS
Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to eight petitions numbered as follows: 5484, 5488, 5489, 5490, 5532, 5560, 5627, 5651.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition on behalf of a number of constituents from Kamloops concerning the government's goods and services tax that is now before the Liberal Senate.
They are asking that the tax be stopped. They point out a whole set of reasons why they feel it ought to be stopped. One of the reasons is that it taxes reading, which makes Canada the only country in the world that does so.
They call upon the Liberals in the Senate to stop the tax.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, on another matter I have a petition to present from a number of western Canadians who point out the benefits to a country the size of Canada having a first class passenger rail service.
They also point out that all large countries like Canada have first class passenger rail service which is the most environmentally friendly way to travel.
They are urging the government to reconsider its decision to abandon a good part of the VIA system in the country.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, on a third matter I have a petition to present from petitioners who point out the increasing number of Canadian children who find themselves living in poverty. They point out that the number is actually increasing during these trying economic times for many families.
They are asking that the government support the initiative first introduced by the hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam calling for a comprehensive bill of rights for children in Canada and to implement policies and take initiatives that would ensure that Canadian children cease living in poverty.


Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition certified correct under the Standing Orders. It is from a number of my constituents who are calling on the government again to save the VIA Rail system.

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The government has already taken action to cut back the railway. Yet, Mr. Speaker, you will know that on Vancouver Island we still have our VIA system thanks to the protection granted to that passenger service by the Supreme Court of the Province of British Columbia. My constituents are concerned that the National Transportation Agency in its biased method has dismissed a fair appeal on this rail system.
This petition is signed by a number of constituents who live on Vancouver Island.


Robert Evans Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I have another petition as well from people in the communities of Tofino, Ucluelet and Port Alberni in my constituency who have expressed their opposition to the cut-back in funding of the women's programs of the Secretary of State, and in particular the core funding that was provided to women's centres across Canada.
The petitioners are asking that the funding be reinstated so that those women's centres can provide the kind of service that is so desperately needed in communities in my riding such as Tofino, Ucluelet, Port Alberni, Courtenay, Parksville and Qualicum Beach.
over-crowded classrooms, working with obsolete laboratory equipment and so on.
They would like to have the House of Commons and Parliament commit to arranging as soon as possible a federal-provincial conference of the highest political representatives to establish obligations of the two levels of government, that is the provinces and the federal government, to financing post-secondary education, and to ensure an end to the shameful neglect of higher education in Canada.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis: Mr. Speaker, I suggest that all questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall all questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan - Similkameen - Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I have another petition to present with 405 names on it. I would like to add these names to the thousands of names that I have already presented to this House.
This petition is from people who are calling on the House and the government to reject the current proposal for the goods and services tax. They are asking the government to cease with its proposal which would shift the tax burden on to ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax instead of through real tax reform.


EDUCATION WEEK
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, as this is Education Week in Ontario, I take pleasure in tabling a petition signed by a great number of students from the University of Ottawa who would like to tell the House that they feel that the present situation concerning post-secondary educational institution standards is indeed sad. They point out that they are in


ALLOTTED DAY, S. O. 81-ABORIGINAL RIGHTS
Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre) moved:: That this House reaffirm that all persons are equal under the law and demand that the government (1) promote this fundamental human right for Canada's aboriginal peoples, (2) ensure that our system of justice is more responsive and suitable, (3) pursue alternative aboriginal justice initiatives, and (4) in cases of jurisdictional conflict, that the Government of Canada, in consultation with aboriginal leaders, ensure the protection of the life, liberty, and security of aboriginal people who are entitled to the status of Canadian citizens.
He said: Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to consider my motion.
It is time to lay out for the people of Canada in detail the extent to which the plight of our aboriginal peoples has become a national tragedy. Today, I only want to deal with one aspect of this tragedy, the question of human rights and our Canadian society.
As Canadians we have long pointed our fingers at others, and for good reason. The stories of El Salvador, Iran, Nepal, China and the Soviet Union, to mention
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only a few, have brought senseless grief to millions. We have a right and an obligation to speak out as a democratic society in an undemocratic world.
With that privilege also comes an obligation. That obligation is to put our own house in order, to ensure that every Canadian is looked after in the spirit of a truly democratic society, and to ensure that this spirit is present in the structure of our judicial system, in the daily application of our laws, in the operation of our governments and in the political system itself.
We must give substance to our Charter of Rights which guarantees that:
Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
Sometimes these words have to be read in the House to remind ourselves as to what our obligations are as representatives of Canadians.
It is finally dawning on all Canadians that words are not enough. We are losing our way, and nothing shows our lack of commitment more than the way we treat this country's aboriginal peoples.
This motion is not based on my own opinion, but on the research, views and analyses of every individual, committee and commission that has looked into the critical problems facing our aboriginal peoples.
We are using this opposition day to request that the government show some understanding, some sympathy and some concrete movement in reaching out to these Canadians, and to recognize that the experience of aboriginal peoples is the dark side of our reality. We are bringing these issues forward so that we can leave behind the stage of denial and compel the Government of Canada to show good faith to the world. The aboriginal peoples are, after all, our people, and should be our friends and neighbours.
The law, and in many respects we have to say bluntly, the white man's law, has been unkind to Canadian aboriginal peoples. Throughout much of our history the law, like a two-edged sword, has denied natives the freedom to exercise the fundamental prerogatives of their ancestors and the Europeans who occupied their lands.
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In the years which followed Confederation, one province after another enacted legislation which excluded natives from the franchise. In 1875, for example, British Columbia decreed that "no Chinaman or Indian" could vote, a provision which was upheld by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the highest court in the British Empire. Quebec, the last province to repeal its discriminatory legislation, only did so in 1969.
On the federal level, aboriginal peoples were also barred from participating in the electoral life of their country, a ban which was not lifted unconditionally until 1960. Not until 1972, it appears, did an aboriginal sit on a Canadian jury. The names of such individuals had been hitherto omitted from the list of potential jurors.
The list goes on and on as to how history has been an unfair weapon against our aboriginal peoples. But if you look at the situation currently, Mr. Speaker, you will see that we have not changed.
I would like to review some of the major findings that people have made concerning certain conditions of Canadian aboriginal peoples. The 1989 annual report of the Canadian Human Rights Commission repeats again the findings that it brought to the attention of Canadians in 1988.
In 1988, the commission stated that the justice system is heavily weighted against Canadian native peoples. It also stated that an Indian youngster in Canada has a better chance of being sent to prison than of completing university.
The commission argued that ways must be found to remove bias and to dispel the views of some natives that the justice system is "white law".
When the commissioner wrote his report this year, he came to the same conclusion as he came to in 1988. This time he said:
If there is any single issue on which Canada cannot hold its head
high in the international community, any single area in which we can
be accused of falling down on our obligations, it is in this area of
aboriginal relations.
In his frustration in trying to get the Government of Canada to act this time he recommended the creation of a royal commission. That recommendation is still before the government.

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This year, an interdepartmental committee finished its review of Indian policing policy. This report states that "Indian communities are entitled to effective and culturally sensitive law enforcement services" which should be of the same standard as those enjoyed by similarly situated non-native communities.
It also states that Indians can "legitimately expect to increase their control over their own future and be policed increasingly by Indians," regardless of the policing program which is serving them.
The statistics that the committee presents indicate that the average number of on-reserve crimes per thousand is approximately four times the national average.
Reserves which are served by regular police programs suffer from problems of slow response time, little to no preventive policing work, no enforcement of band bylaws and poor communications between the band, its membership and the regular police serving the reserve. So far the government has not taken any action on this task force report.
I would like to refer now to the final report of the Task Force on Aboriginal Peoples in Federal Corrections. This was a task force created in 1987, which reported in 1989, to find ways to improve the treatment of aboriginal peoples in the federal corrections system. It stated that the need for improvement was demonstrated by the fact that aboriginal people comprise 2.5 per cent of the Canadian population but a full 9 per cent of federal inmates.
Also, fewer aboriginal people are granted full parole, and when it comes it is later in their sentences, and they are more likely to have their parole revoked.
The task force made more than 60 recommendations touching every aspect of the corrections system as it relates to aboriginal offenders. These include recommendations such as having increased aboriginal correctional staff, working with aboriginal communities and organizations so that they be better informed and involved with the delivery of programs and that the institutional environment provide further support to aboriginal culture, spiritual values by, for example, improving the access of aboriginal elders to correctional institutions.
The task force emphasized that in judging the performance of aboriginal inmates it was important to understand the social and cultural realities of aboriginal life, otherwise discrimination in the treatment of aboriginal offenders would be certain to continue.
More recently, and I think perhaps more important because it brings home the message to all of us, was the 1990 report from the fask Force on Federally Sentenced Women. Eight emergency measure recommendations were made. A number made specific mention of aboriginal inmates.
One of the major concerns that we have in this country is the fact that not only is there a high rate of incarceration among aboriginals in general, it is even higher among women. Their problems are compounded by the fact that the prisons available to them take them away from their community life and take them away from their family support systems. Many end up in Prince Albert or, on occasion, they are brought east to Kingston. Most of these people originate in western Canada, far removed from Kingston.
Once cut off from these services the likelihood of being able to return to a productive life back home on a reserve or in urban centres that they come from is near impossible. The fact is that the government has failed to recognize that the issue of women in prisons is largely at this time an issue of aboriginal women in prison and that it needs to be addressed immediately.
It is not only the federal government which has been reporting on the problems facing aboriginal peoples in Canada in dealing with human rights issues, but also provincial governments. For example, as this debate takes place, there is a task force in Alberta reviewing the judicial system there.
There is also a judicial review in Manitoba which is coming to its conclusion. Hopefully, its report, which is coming out shortly, will add and contribute positively to the debate.
In Nova Scotia last year we heard from the Royal Commission on Donald Marshall. This report will be referred to in more detail by one of my colleagues who finds it particularly oppressive. She will bring the report to the attention of the House in more detail.
For now, it is important to point out that this Royal Commission concluded that Mr. Marshall's race was a factor in his wrongful conviction and 11-year incarceration for the murder of Sandy Seale. It found that the
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judicial system failed Marshall at virtually every turn from his arrest and conviction in 1971 up to and beyond his acquittal by the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.
It found that the individuals involved in the judicial system failed to perform their duties in a professional and/or competent manner, thereby allowing this tragedy to happen.
In 1988, the Canadian Bar Association turned its attention to aboriginal peoples and cited in its report, called Locking up Natives in Canada, a Saskatchewan study that shows that a treaty Indian male who turned 16 in 1976 had a 70 per cent chance of at least one stint in prison by the age of 25. For a non-native, this figure was 8 per cent-70 per cent versus 8 per cent. That is almost a factor of 10. Again, it draws to our attention the dramatic difference in the lifestyle and problems that aboriginal youth run into compared to non-aboriginal youth.
Some of the grim statistics the report reviewed show that infant mortality among Indian children was 60 per cent higher than the figure for the country as a whole. These are figures that you read about normally concerning Third World countries. If there is anything that hits at the heart of human rights and why the UN has turned its attention to human rights, it is the treatment of children. The fact that we have an infant mortality rate in Canada so much higher for this particular group again points out one of the many ways we are failing these people.
Indian children who survive their first year of life can expect to die ten years before their non-native contemporaries. The rate of violent death among Indians is more than three'times the national average. The likelihood of Indian minors being placed in the custody of a child welfare agency is five times higher than that for non-native children.
The Bar Association concluded that what we need in Canada is a criminal justice system which does more than respond to dispossession and deprivation by locking up natives. This again shows the frustration not only of people in government, not only of people in the communities themselves, but very much of people such as
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lawyers and judges who are looking at these people on a daily basis wishing that another system could be set up.
The Bar Association came up with an idea which is gaining currency in Canada. It is one that I think the House should look at. I refer to an alternative native justice system. Members of the committee of the Bar Association believe that there is a sound constitutional basis for them. Although they refrain from endorsing a particular model, they feel that these systems could reflect the accumulated wisdom of both aboriginal law ways and the common law. I think it is time that the government begins to look at the alternative legal systems being tried in the United States and being suggested by different inquiries throughout Canada.
Perhaps one of the most moving ways of looking at the issue of native people and the law was offered by a reporter, Geoffrey York, of The Globe and Mail who has just published a book called The Dispossessed. In using his experience, mostly throughout western Canada, he went to different communities and talked to the leadership and people in different communities about native issues. He stated that for many native youths the reformatory is more attractive than life on the reserve, that incarceration provides a welcome escape from isolation, poverty and boredom.
He quotes one young aboriginal person who said of his peers:
We have nothing to look forward to when we wake up in the morning. We get frustrated and scared. We don't give a damn what happens to anybody any more because nobody gives a damn about us. The only thing we know is to cause trouble and go to jail, where you have three meals a day and a place to sleep and a TV to look at.
I cannot think of a more incriminating commentary on the situation we have created, and everyone is responsible, than to think of people who see their life as one in which going to jail is the only alternative because they cannot work productively in their community.
However, many communities are trying to take the initiative to improve their lot, with or without the support of the government. In 1987, for example, crime rates fell significantly in four native communities in northern Manitoba after a sports and recreation program was instituted for the inhabitants.
It is hard to believe that when the government built some of the reserve infrastructure it did not bother to build sports and recreation facilities on these reserves. So the youth had no place to go. Even the schools often

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have very limited facilities. During the long winter periods in remote communities people get more and more frustrated. A simple thing like a physical infrastructure would make it possible for them to live a more positive lifestyle.
Prince Albert is very well known for its prisons in western Canada. There are in fact three facilities, and each is filled with natives. The population of the federal penitentiary is 50 per cent native, the population of the provincial correctional centre is 75 per cent native and the population of the women's jail is 85 per cent native.
It is obviously easy to spend all day going through statistics and reports, but I think the point is well made that no matter who looks at the Canadian system, whether it is the United Nations which has sent an observer into western Canada, whether it is the South African ambassador who took the opportunity to embarrass Canadians by visiting a reserve in central Manitoba, whether it is a departmental committee, whether it is the Human Rights Commission, whether it is a provincial royal commission or whether it is a judicial study in Manitoba or Alberta, everyone comes to the same conclusion. The human rights of Canadian aboriginal people are being put at risk by one generation after another of Canadians who fail to come to grips with this problem, who fail to recognize that they must do something, and begin now.
This is an opportunity and an obligation on the part of the government. This is not something that people come to do easily in their communities. Anyone who thinks that out of local goodness people will begin to look at the problems of aboriginals, is walking away from his or her own responsibility as federal leaders. People need to see that the government itself is willing to stand up and protect people. They need to see that there will be programs which respond to people. People living in Norway House or in Shamattawa want to know the government is willing to come up and say: "Here is a facility for you. Here is a local police program. Here is an opportunity for you to join in crime prevention. Here is an opportunity for you to protect your own human rights."
People look to the federal government as the heart of liberal values in this country. One of the reasons why we
have tried to develop a strong federal government in Canada, going back to the turn of the century, is that it has become the focus for human rights battles. This is where we develop law.
This is where we develop the interpretation of laws, through the federal government and through the federal court system. This is why we provide money through the Court Challenges Program. This is why we have provided for the education of the RCMP. This takes place at the federal level, and therefore I call upon the government today to think about its inactivity, to think about the fact that it is not taking these initiatives.
In the meantime, people are going to jail at the age of 16. Family violence is on the increase. People are having difficulty developing a positive lifestyle. In the the absence of action on the human rights questions, we once again have failed many people.
This motion has four components to it. Each one of them asks the government to consider different approaches: promoting equality; ensuring that our system of justice is more responsive and suitable; and pursuing alternative aboriginal justice initiatives. These three components, plus the fourth component which deals more specifically with the problem to be addressed by the next speaker, are very straight forward. There is nothing complicated about asking the government to act immediately.


Hon. Shirley Martin (Minister of State (Indian Affairs and Northern Development)):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate today.
Yesterday, I had an experience that was both saddening and uplifting as I visited the families, mainly the elderly, women and children, who have been forced from their traditional lands by a small group of violent people trying to impose their wishes by force of arms. We have all heard on the radio, seen on television and in the newspapers, the report about the critical situation at the St. Regis Akwesasne Reserve.
I know that members on all sides of this House realize that what is happening in this native community is extremely complex. The current difficulties have been brewing for some time. Informed people understand that there is no easy, quick solution to a problem involving five governments, the governments of Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the State of New York, the United States of

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America and the Mohawk people on both sides of the border.
Not the least of the complications is the fact that the community of St. Regis, part of the reserve, is Canadian territory but is physically cut off from the rest of Canada by the St. Lawrence River and the St. Regis River and the United States border. This explains why the Surete du Quebec evacuated many residents of St. Regis by boat last Friday. This unusual move was necessary because the normal route by road was controlled by members of the Mohawk Warrior Society, a group based on the American side.
I think it would be helpful to review briefly the events of the last few days to gain a better understanding of the current situation. On Wednesday my colleague, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and myself met with several native leaders, including George Erasmus the national Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Mr. Harry Laforme who is the Indian Commissioner of Ontario, Grand Chief Mike Mitchell of the Akwesasne Community, Chief Harold Tarbell who is Head Chief of the St. Regis Tribal Council, and Tom Porter, Chief of the Traditional Council.
The same night and the following day we consulted with the Attorney General of Ontario and the office of the Minister of Public Safety in Quebec.
Early Friday morning, following several days of violent clashes, the band decided to evacuate the St. Regis Reserve and sought the help of the Quebec police force to move its people to safety. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ontario Provincial Police provided assistance, including boats, to the Surete du Quebec who co-ordinated the operation to ensure the protection of the persons evacuated.
Approximately 600 persons registered at the Transport Canada Training Institute in Cornwall and the evacuees were accommodated there. For those who do not know the training centre, it is a school-room and hotel-like atmosphere where students who are being trained by Transport Canada normally stay.
Some of those evacuated wanted to return to protect their homes but Grand Chief Mike Mitchell has convinced most of the band members to remain in Cornwall for their own safety.
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At a meeting on Saturday morning, the community discussed what they might do regarding a return to their homes. As we can all understand, they were most anxious about their homes, now empty and unprotected from possible attack. The group decided to stay in Cornwall and postpone their return to the reserve.
Chief Mike Mitchell, Chief Harold Tarbell and Chief Tom Porter thanked the city of Cornwall and the Canadian government for their assistance and called once again for American intervention. I would like to join them and express my sincere appreciation for the co-operation and assistance of those who participated in this commendable effort.
Mr. Speaker, I think Parliament can take satisfaction in the actions of the government in assisting those men, women and children that sought refuge in Cornwall. The Transport Canada Training Institute provided food and shelter for those who did not feel safe on the reserve.
In fact, when I was there yesterday they were showing me the food that had come in from the community, from the people in Cornwall-everything from disposable diapers, to food, to toys for the children. It really was rewarding to see how the city of Cornwall responded to this situation and helped these unfortunate people.
Officials from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development are there now and have been throughout the evacuation period to provide whatever help and reassurance necessary to our native people.
When I travelled to Cornwall yesterday and met with the St. Regis Band members there, I must say I was deeply moved by the fear, which was mixed with courage and determination not to submit to the scare tactics that threaten their community and their way of life.
Our objective is to strive for a peaceful solution, acceptable to all sides. The Secretary of State for External Affairs has explained to the House that he has made representations to the Secretary of State of the United States. He has told his American counterpart that we have a situation that is near anarchy; that much of the source of the problem is on the American side; and that we urge response by American authorities, particularly those from the State of New York.

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The government has shown its determination to play an effective role in bringing about a peaceful resolution. We expect the Americans, both at the state and national level, to act promptly to resolve the situation.
In its actions over the last few days, our government has demonstrated its commitment to protecting the interests of all Canadians and all aboriginal peoples. No one in this House accepts the idea that native people in this country can be forced from their homes by a violent and illegal action of a small group from another country, even if that country is our good neighbour, the United States of America.
Canada has a different history with respect to resolving conflict than those of our American cousins. We have a tradition and a Constitution which emphasizes negotiation, not confrontation.
The hon. members across the floor, and our own members, may grow impatient with our desire to find a solution which is both peaceful and lasting, but that is a non-violent approach which contributes to a high reputation in this world as a nation of peace-keepers.
Personally, I am proud of this history of treaty-making and peaceful negotiations which has characterized our approach in resolving our relationship with native people. This does not mean that there is not room for further improvement. The Marshall inquiry and other continuing inquiries have shown us that justice is a matter for every responsible person, and it is an institution which must strive continually to obtain goals of justice and freedom.
The most recent events in Akwesasne show that Canada should continue to strive for a land where all citizens have access to peace and freedom. We must have order and peace so we can reach that freedom, not reach it through violence. Most importantly, in full respect of their honour and dignity to deserve its high reputation as a leader among nations, as Canadians we must strive continually for justice for all.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott -Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the minister for her measured speech this morning. I appreciate her comments. I know she was at Akwesasne yesterday, or near Akwesasne, I should say. I would not blame her for not going there right now. I would not either, even though
part of the reserve is in my riding. I would not go there now out of fear for my own safety, and besides I would not want to cause tempers to flare any higher than they are at the present time. I am sure that is the case for the minister, as well.
We will be discussing this subject today and tomorrow, and hopefully finding a resolution to a very difficult problem. I want to make one or two suggestions.
I notice the Solicitor General is here and I welcome his presence. Whatever means we find must be utilized to disarm the community. This is what will have to be done. I do not think there is any question that efforts will have to be made on both sides of the border simultaneously. I do not want the minister to give me any great detail on how that is going to be done because, obviously, it will have to be done in certain confidence that all police forces approach this at the same time.
My concern is that the village of St. Regis is on Canadian soil but only accessible through the United States, as the minister has indicated. Perhaps for some members, that may be a little hard to figure out. One would almost need a map of the area, as a prop, to show members the configuration of the reserve, so that everyone would understand what we are talking about. Of course, we cannot do that in this House. I only say that to illustrate how complicated the border is.
I want to return to the remarks I was making and suggest to the minister that efforts be made on both the Canadian and the U.S. sides with the police forces in order to disarm the community. It is important that it be done simultaneously simply because, if we are talking about the community of St. Regis and the United States, there is no Customs officers there.
Perhaps the two ministers have not been to that part of the reserve. Our distinguished colleague from Beauhar-nois-Salaberry and I have been there on a number of occasions. There are no customs. It is actually the only place in Canada where you can legally cross between Canada and the United States without going through customs. There is actually such a place in Canada. It is Akwesasne. Strangely enough, if you go between Cornwall Island in Akwesasne and the U.S. side you have to pass through customs, but if you go from St. Regis to the U.S. side there is no such thing as a customs office. My fear, of course, would be that the guns and everything else would just move across the border if whatever is
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done is not done simultaneously on both sides. That is the first concern.
I have discussed the second point privately with the Solicitor General. It is my hope that once everything is solved, we will find a way to build a road or a bridge-it will have to be a combination of a road and a bridge- between the village of St. Regis and the village of Snye. Both villages are on the Quebec side of the Akwesasne Reserve but one is separated from the other by a body of water, as the minister has indicated. By constructing this access-and I hope it is done on an urgent basis and hopefully this year in a combination between the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec-it would ensure that the people of St. Regis are never landlocked again and are never put in a situation where they become hostages in their own village. That is unique to Akwesasne and it is something which is certainly undesirable. We are seeing now that our citizens can be landlocked in that manner and dependent on the level of law and order in another country for their safety.
I will have several other remarks to make later when I make my own speech but I would like to raise one of my concerns. I do not expect a response to the first one as it is probably better that there is no response other than an acknowledgement of the concern.
On the second one, I would hope that I could get a commitment from the government that there would be high level negotiations with Quebec in order to build such a road and bridge between those two Canadian communities so that they are no longer landlocked and potentially held hostage, as we have seen over the last few days.


Shirley Martin: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments on this issue. I know it is one that he has a great interest in because we have had personal conversations as this has been going on.
I thank you for the suggestion about the bridge because it is very unique and it is hard for people to understand. It would be as if we, sitting here in the House, to get to our office in Hull had to go out the back door and climb into a boat to go across the river in order to get there. That the reserve is in Ontario, Quebec and the United States is a very unique situation and there is not a continuous method of transportation between them.
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As far as the disarming is concerned, I agree with the hon. member. This is not something that can take place unilaterally by any part of the reserve. It must be done in unison. If we are to attain a peaceful solution, the arms must be laid down. People cannot live in fear of their lives because of shots being fired, and even though they may be only fired in the air, it is still a method of intimidation and fear. It is very important that those arms be laid down.
I do not know of any place in the world where peace has been obtained and solutions have been found under gunfire. In all cases the guns have been laid aside and then negotiations and mediation have taken place. I feel that this is what has to happen at Akwesasne. As most of the guns and certainly the majority of the firing has come from the American side, it is very important that we have the co-operation of the United States and the State of New York in order to obtain this.
In fact, as we are debating this matter in the House, there is a meeting going on between the officials in the Department of Indian Affairs in Canada, the bureau of Indian Affairs in the United States, representatives from the State of New York and from External Affairs and from Washington. These officials are discussing opportunities for a peaceful solution to this particular situation. I am looking forward to the results of that meeting. We may not have an immediate solution based on the meeting this morning but it is a first step in the right direction, the bringing together of both sides to try and obtain a solution.
The problem belongs to Akwesasne. It is the people of Akwesasne who must face the issue of the gambling that is taking place. It is something they have to solve among themselves. However we, as the government of Canada, with the provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec, as well as the American government, must do what we can to help facilitate the groups to come together and to forge a peaceful solution to the problems they have there.


Mr. Phillip Edmonston (Chambly):: Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in hearing what my hon. colleague, the Minister of State for Northern Development had to say about what the government is doing for Indians, the promotion of native justice particularly, and for natives in general.

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How does this coincide with what we have been hearing, particularly what our caucus has been hearing, from native groups who tell us about the cutting of funds, through the Secretary of State's ministry. These cuts affect native groups as far as broadcasting facilities and native publications are concerned?
The information we received as a caucus when we met with native groups was that this was creating serious problems for native groups and their ability to communicate with each other. Their common culture and their communication through broadcasting and papers is so important to them that they feel this is something the government is doing which will severely handicap them.


Shirley Martin: Mr. Speaker, the funding of native Canadians comes from many sources within this government, primarily through my department, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. In fact, the budget for my department was increased by some 8 per cent this year to ensure that the necessary funding to provide the services to the native people that are required, whether it be in education, in health, or in infrastructure within their reserves, has been increased because we realize that the need is there.
Native people have been making great strides in education. There is a long way to go but there has been much growth in the number of people going into post-secondary education and post-elementary education over the last four to five years and I hope to see that continue to grow.
While there were some cut-backs in the over-all budget of the Secretary of State, and some of those cuts were reflected back within the native people, there is also a committee put together to look for other ways of funding those communication areas for the native people. Money will come from other sources and be on a more ongoing basis to allow them to continue with their communications. But certainly the over-all budget as far as aboriginal and native people in Canada are concerned has been increased and will continue to be funded at levels where we can continue to work with the native people.


Robert Evans Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg North Centre for presenting this motion and raising this issue in the House today, and also for his comments on how native Indians relate to the justice system in Canada and
some of the problems that he has outlined in his comments.
Also, I appreciate that the Minister of State would want to confine her remarks to the current problems at Akwesasne. I think all that we on this side, in this party, would like to say is that we appreciate that this matter is being treated sensitively and that we would not like to see the kind of violence that has taken place over the past few days increase. We appreciate the fact that there is an attempt being made to bring the parties together to negotiate a resolution to this issue rather than to follow the suggestions of some people that, for example, the National Guard be brought in to deal with the issue. I think that that kind of response would probably beget more violence and not bring about the kind of solution that we would like to see. I appreciate the Minister of State's approach, which is to bring the parties together to negotiate a resolution and then to see what can be done, respecting the views of all the parties involved, and also respecting the issue of Mohawk sovereignty over their lands which is an important issue.
I would like to discuss some of the broader issues relating to native justice in this country, not simply the Akwesasne issue or the issue of the justice inquiries that were brought up by the member for Winnipeg North Centre.
The problem of natives in conflict with the justice system, as offenders, is only the tip of the iceberg in this country. The evidence is overwhelming that natives are not well treated by the justice system in Canada. The member for Winnipeg North Centre mentioned the Donald Marshall inquiry and the statement in the Marshall inquiry that if it was not for his race, Donald Marshall would not have been considered the prime suspect in this case, and would not have gone to jail for years and years as a result of the ineffectiveness of the courts, the police and the whole justice system.
I am pleased to see that there are now inquiries taking place, in both Manitoba and Alberta, into instances that have emphasized how unjustly natives are treated in those provinces. It is a fact I think we are all aware of, that in Manitoba federal prisons, 39 per cent of the inmates are native, even though natives make up only about 2 per cent of the population. In Saskatchewan, 36 per cent of inmates are natives, although natives make up only about 2 per cent of the population. The provincial prisons in both of those provinces and across Canada show a disproportionate number of native inmates incar-
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cerated in correctional institutions as a result of the problems that the justice system has in dealing with native people.
I think we should recognize the work of the Human Rights Commissioner over the last two years and the Canadian Bar Association and other authorities who have dealt with this issue and who have tried to work with the Canadian government to develop changes to the problems of native justice in this country. I think their work, hopefully, will lead to some resolution of this problem.
The government, at this point, seems to have taken the position that our justice system is fine but it needs a few refinements in order to accommodate native Indians in Canada. I do not think that that response or that reaction goes far enough. I think we have to look at the roots of this problem and that the solutions we come up with and that ultimately will be successful are going to be far more radical and more far-reaching than the solutions that seem to be acceptable to the government at this time.
Native injustice does not simply begin when native offenders come into conflict with the laws of the dominant society. The injustice has been present over the last 200 years. It begins with the status to which we assign native people in this country, through our laws, through the way we administer the Department of Indian Affairs, and, essentially, the role of native people in this country is the role of colonized people virtually anywhere in the world. They have been pushed to the margins of society, they are treated as colonized people and we, who supposedly represent the dominant society, are the colonizers. The problem with the relationship is that native society has been relegated to the margins and relegated to the status of lesser importance. The treatment, as far as I am concerned, of native people in this country is no different, except perhaps in terms of degree than the treatment of the Congolese during the colonial period in the Belgian Congo. The colonized people were marginalized, were seen as secondary people and in fact in many cases, non-people relative to the dominant colonizing society and I do not think that that is any different in Canada. When you start by looking at the references to native people in our fundamental constitutional documents, there is absolutely no way that our constitutional documents recognize the role that
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native people played in our country prior to the period of colonization when the European and other people came here.
Our constitutional documents do not give adequate mention to the role and the importance of native people in our society. I suppose, with the exceptions in the British North America Act that assigned jurisdiction of natives and lands reserved for natives to the federal government or some mention in the Constitution Act of 1982 that existing aboriginal rights and treaties will be respected, there is very little in the constitutional documents that recognize the importance of the role that native people have played and should be playing in our country today.
Today we seem to be locked in with the Meech Lake discussions in a discussion around who are the founding nations of this country, how they should be mentioned or displayed in our constitutional documents, and what rights and privileges should be assigned to them.
Yet it is strange that one of the fundamental characteristics of this country was that we as colonizers found people here when we arrived. These people had organized societies, they had their own governments, they had ways of managing the land, they had ways of allocating property, and they had the power in their governments to both make war and to make treaties of peace. In fact, every characteristic that is a fundamental characteristic of a nation was enjoyed by those nations of aboriginal people our forefathers and mothers found when they arrived on these shores hundreds of years ago. Those nations also had their economies and their trade relationships with other nations.
Any characteristic or right of a nation that would have the right to be a member of the United Nations today or the right to participate in national debates throughout the world were present in those nations that we found here in the beginning. Even the colonizers who came here took advantage of some of those characteristics by entering into treaties with those nations, as if they were sovereign people and recognizing that they were sovereign people in their own lands. They signed treaties of peace. They signed alliances in times of war when the European colonizers fought against each other. In fact, they were treated in the early history of our country as

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sovereign nations, but something has happened in the meantime. We have forgotten those treaties. We have forgotten the sovereignty that has to be recognized prior to entering into a treaty with the people we found here and we have now forced those people to the margins. In fact, we have begun to treat them as non-people.
It might be worth while, when talking about the injustice that is meted out to native Indian people by our country, to look at some of the fundamental documents of legislation by which this injustice is institutionalized in the way this Parliament operates and in the way the federal government administration operates.
One is the issue of the assignment of status as native Indians. One of the primary tenets of culture is that a culture recruits its own members and has the right to recruit its own members. Native Indians should be deciding who are Indians and who are not, and I think that they would find it relatively easy to do that.
Instead, we have arrogated that right to ourselves here in Parliament. For example, we had decided that if a native woman marries outside her race, then she loses her Indian status. We made that decision right here in this Parliament. We decided right here in this Parliament that if a native decided to join the Canadian Forces and fight for this country during the war, that in the very process of doing that, he lost his status as an Indian. What other group in this country loses their cultural status by joining the Canadian Armed Forces, and yet we forced native Indians to go through that process of being enfranchised in order to fight for this country.
Some months ago in the House I brought up the incident of the Stoney Point base in southern Ontario, where we had examples of the Canadian army seizing a native reserve as a military base and promising to return it after the war. Some of the men on that military base signed up in the Canadian army, lost their Indian status, and when they came home after the war they found that they had lost the homes for which they fought because the Canadian army seized them. It is now used as a summer resort for officers on the Great Lakes who go there and enjoy what was once an Indian reserve. The homes Indian soldiers fought for have now been lost because the Canadian government refuses to honour an
agreement that it made with the people of Stoney Point during the war.
You could lose your Indian status simply by joining the army. You could lose your status by voting, as is the right of every Canadian citizen or every citizen in a province. In many cases, by signing up to vote you lost your Indian status. Who else in this country has to lose their status and their culture by signing up and exercising their right as a Canadian citizen or the citizen of any province to vote in an election? Yet this is the kind of thing that we did and continue to do to native people.
The Indian Act and the Indian administration in this country was designed to liquidate Indians as a separate culture in Canada and to assimilate those people into the dominant society. It was futile. It was fruitless. It could not be done.
A second thing that we did to native Indians when we found out that parents have a great deal of influence on their children in matters of education and matters of culture is that we decided to set up Indian residential schools. We would take those children away from the influence of their parents and their cultural influence. We would take them away from their roots and from their homes and we would put them in with other children from all over the country who, in many cases, spoke different languages, and we would educate them all together so that they would become more white than their parents were. That is how the residential school system operated. We put them under the control of religious communities that saw Indian religions and cultural beliefs as satanically inspired. In many of those schools, the children were brutalized. The revelations that have come out of Mount Cashel and other institutions recently would pale in comparison to some of the things that happened in Indian residential schools over the last 100 years.
Mr. Speaker, I do not know if you saw the film on CBC Where the Spirit Lives. I thought it was an excellent film, and based on the stories that I have heard from my native constituents and from natives across the country, it treated very lightly the kind of brutality both against culture and against individuals that took place in those schools. If we ever want to do an investigation of the residential school system, it would produce some stories that no Canadian would be proud of.
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One of the things that happened out of the residential school system and one of the things that is being debated in Manitoba today where the member comes from, is the process whereby child welfare agencies in the province were permitted to seize Indian children from their parents, take those Indian children out of their families and to adopt them into white families, or non-Indian families, or even to adopt them into the United States and to other countries around the world.
The member for Winnipeg North Centre will know the story of the native women who was recently brought back from Holland by the native organizations in Manitoba. She had been adopted into a European family in The Netherlands. They had sexually and physically abused her. They had allowed her to be a prostitute on the streets of Amsterdam. When she got cancer, they brought her back home. Her people found her and brought her back home to die. There are thousands of children in Manitoba and in all the other provinces who have experienced that same adoption and have been taken out of their homes.
There are many ways in which this country treats its Indian people unjustly. As I said, not simply when they come into contact with the justice system, but this injustice is institutionalized in the way we deal with native people.
Look at what is happening in resource conflicts around the country, Mr. Speaker. Whether it is in the Innu lands in Labrador, or any province or any region of any province, you will find the same kind of thing happening. Essentially, when governments of provinces and the federal government look at native lands or lands claimed by native people, they consider those lands as empty or as lands populated by non-persons. That allows the government to contract with foreign governments to allow the low-level flying in the Innu areas of Labrador. They consider and treat the Innu people as essentially non-persons, and Innu lands as empty lands for the purpose of resource development.
The same thing is happening in James Bay with the expansion of the James Bay hydroelectric projects. The lands of the James Bay Cree are considered empty lands, populated by non-persons. Therefore, it is possible to expand hydro reservoirs, pouring mercury into those
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reservoirs which destroys the fisheries that are enjoyed by the James Bay Cree, the Inuit and Naskapi people in that area. It destroys their lands and their livelihoods and does not take their concerns into consideration at all.
I want to express some appreciation to the Government of Ontario for the recent settlement with the Temagami Anishinaabee in northern Ontario where they allowed the Anishinaabee the right to have a veto over timber allocations in certain areas that are of extreme importance to those people, and also to allow them a veto over the right to determine whether or not those trees would be cut. This is the kind of agreement and the kind of consultation process we should be looking for.
Yet the Government of Quebec, in the Barriere Lake wilderness area has refused to allow the Barriere Lake Algonquins to play a similar role in how timber is going to be allocated in that area and how resources are going to be protected, resources those native people need for their sustenance and livelihood. As a result, the Barriere Lake Algonquin people have had to take the Government of Quebec to court. The James Bay Cree are taking the Government of Quebec to court and the Innu people of Labrador are taking the Government of Canada to court. Why should this process go to court? Why should Canada not recognize its native people as important, as belonging to the land and the land belonging to them.
We need to do three things in order to right our relationship with the native people of this country. One, we have to recognize the role they have played in the founding of this country. We have to enshrine their right to self-government in the fundamental constitutional documents of Canada. We cannot wait until everybody else has been recognized. We have to recognize those who were here first, first. That is an important thing that we would have to do in order to right the relationships that we have with native people.
Second, we have to continue the lands claims process. I appreciate what has been done by the government in the Yukon and Northwest Territories with the signing of the comprehensive agreements in that area. One of the economic benefits is that will repatriate capital back into the regions, capital that has been bled out of those regions in the last little while by actions of this government that is totally market-oriented, which seems to strengthen the communities of Toronto, Montreal and

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Vancouver while bleeding resources and capital from the regions.
The tremendous advantage of land claims settlements is that it recapitalizes those regions in which the wealth of this country is located. It also puts that capital in the hands of people who have had a stake in that area for the last 13,000 years and are going to have a stake in that area, let us hope, for 13,000 years and more into the future. Recapitalizing those areas is a tremendous side advantage to the land claims issue.
Finally, the one that thing we have to do, as the member for Winnipeg North Centre suggested, is to strengthen our human rights legislation. The one problem with our human rights legislation now, whether you are talking about pay equity legislation or about the Canada Human Rights Act, is there is no teeth, there is no enforcement capability within that legislation. As a result, native people do not see the human rights legislation and the employment equity legislation as an opportunity to obtain justice in this country. In fact, in many cases they have to go to human rights authorities in the United Nations or overseas in order to obtain justice in this country.
Those are the three areas: constitutional recognition, land claims solutions, and stronger human rights legislation. If we get action on those, that will deal with the concerns brought up in this House today by the member for Winnipeg North Centre.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: On questions or comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice.


Mr. Rob Nicholson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, there were so many things that I take exception to in the comments of the hon. gentleman that I do not know where to begin. One of the things that disappointed me most was he persistently referred to the present tense when he talked about some of the historic injustices that have been done to Canadian natives and aboriginal peoples.
For instance, his characterization of our native communities as non-persons is untrue. His statement that we have marginalized them is unfair. His comments comparing our treatment of Canada's native people to
the colonial administration in the Belgian Congo is absolutely ridiculous.
The member spent much time talking about the historic injustices done to Canadian natives, which we agree with, but he spent almost no time whatsoever on all the historic changes that have taken place in recent years. He should have done that just to be fair. When talking about individuals losing the right to vote, he could have mentioned Mr. Diefenbaker's initiatives almost 30 years ago to quite properly enfranchise all native Canadians on reserves in Canada. He could have at least mentioned that.
He could have mentioned the changes that our Prime Minister and this House have undertaken to restore the native status to women who lost that through marriage. I did not hear that. I only heard one sentence toward the end of his 25-minute speech concerning the historic native land claim settlements that have been made. The whole world is looking on those. The member should be giving credit to the present Solicitor General and the new Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and congratulating them by saying: "You have put to rest to a large extent in Canada's northern territories these historic injustices that have been done". But there was only one line on that and then he immediately got into the usual NDP propaganda and condemnation of the free enterprise system. He immediately got into NDP dogma. TTie hon. member should have spent time on that.
I take exception not only to that, but to his characterization of the brutalization of native children. I will check the "blues" to see exactly what he had to say about Mount Cashel and the difficulties at the Mount Cashel orphanage. That is absolutely ridiculous. A characterization like that does not take into consideration the thousands of very dedicated men and women who sincerely tried to help native Canadians through education, who were not inspired to condemning their beliefs as being satanic, and who were not there to try and inculcate white or European values into them.
As the member was speaking, I thought of my own grand-aunt who spent almost 30 years teaching on a reserve outside of Baddeck, Nova Scotia. She was a very dedicated, responsible individual who was trying to help native Canadians, as many of us are today, and as many people from generations past in Canadian history have tried to help. But his generalizations would lead us to
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believe that what was taking place was just a complete brutalization of native children and I think that was quite unfair.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There was not much of a question. There was a comment, but I will let the hon. member rebut.


Robert Evans Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I certainly noted a question there. I do not know if the member is denying the history of how this country has treated its native Indian people. On the issue of status, I would suggest that he look at the concerns that are being experienced today.
Up until a case was taken before the United Nations by Canadian native women about their loss of status, Canada essentially argued that they were not going to change the status issue until they changed the Indian Act. They argued that there was a process of consultation going on to change the Indian Act. That process has now collapsed. It collapsed a long time ago.
As a result, the House of Commons passed Bill C-31, over the objections of many native groups that wanted to see a more comprehensive change take place. As a result, some very serious problems have been created on many reserves across Canada. The Minister of State indicated that while the Indian Affairs budget has gone up by 8 per cent, the population of native people in this country is increasing at a far greater rate than virtually every other segment of the population. Therefore, the amount of money going to native Indians on a per capita basis is decreasing.
Sometimes the changes in status that are brought about in this House, without adequate consultation with the native people, have resulted in even more serious problems. What is going to happen on reserves when those people with their newly restored status ask for housing, for the right to education, or for the right to social services on reserves? Canada is not expanding the reserves as much as those reserves are requesting. We have created some serious problems as a result of our efforts to unilaterally reverse the position on status and assign it to what it was before. There has to be a much broader process of consultation.
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I do not criticize everyone who has been involved in Indian education over the past years, nor the relatives of my questioner. In fact, many of those people contributed to the changes that took place and to doing away with the residential school system.
I have to point out to the member that when the people of Shuswap in British Columbia took a look at why their teenagers were committing suicide at such a high rate relative to the balance of the population, they took a look at what residential schools had done to the understanding of native families. By taking children away from their families, it destroyed the understanding of what the relationships were between father and son and father and daughter. It affected the understanding of the incest taboo and incest relationships.
It created family and social disintegration, and we are paying the price for that today. Even though the residential schools have been closed down, we are paying the price for those residential schools today and I think that it is worthwhile for us to take a look at exactly what price the native people are paying for that social experiment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I cannot entertain any more questions or comments. The time is flying and more members want to speak on this subject. On debate, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice.


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, before I begin I would like to say that there are many government members who would like to participate in this debate. If it meets with your approval and the approval of the House, I would like to propose that, with the exception of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development who will be speaking this afternoon, that all government members would be prepared to share their time equally, each speaking for ten minutes with a five minute question period.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Will you be 20 minutes or will you be 10 minutes?


Rob Nicholson: I would begin that process and I would like to share my time with the member for Verdun- Saint Paul.

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Agreed. The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice.


Rob Nicholson: I would like to begin by repeating that the government is committed to the principle that all Canadians, without qualification, enjoy the protection of law and the right of fair treatment in all their dealings with the judicial system. Recognizing that these benefits are obtained and maintained only by virtue of the continuing efforts of all the individuals and institutions that comprise the Canadian system of justice and justice administration, the government has and will continue to work to see that that principle is upheld.
The Minister of Justice, under the authority of the Department of Justice Act, has the responsibility for "the superintendence of all matters connected with the administration of justice in Canada, not within the jurisdiction of the governments of the provinces". This mandate extends to criminal matters generally and, as the federal government has constitutional responsibility for "Indians and lands reserved for the Indians", the department, therefore, has a special interest in addressing the justice aspirations and needs of aboriginal peoples.
While many creative and innovative strategies have evolved over the course of time to address aboriginal justice problems, there remains a great deal to accomplish. The federal and provincial ministers responsible for justice have undertaken discussions with a view to better understanding the actions that will be required by each level of government in moving toward the resolution of the aboriginal justice concerns.
The Government of Canada is committed to developing a new relationship with aboriginal peoples. Since 1984, we have responded to aboriginal aspirations with a number of initiatives to increase self-reliance and autonomy. One of the most important, and one that I mentioned just recently, is the settlement of land claims and, of course, the subject of self-government.
The Prime Minister reaffirmed the government's commitment to resume discussions on aboriginal questions at a First Ministers Conference, as soon as there appears to be reasonable prospects for success. Indeed, he has
expressed the view that Canada will not be complete until this outstanding historical question is resolved.
After the patriation of the Constitution in 1982, a series of First Ministers Conferences on aboriginal constitutional questions were held, in the words of the Prime Minister, "to make self-government a practical reality for Canada's aboriginal peoples". He envisioned, "a future in which aboriginal peoples assume even greater control over matters which directly affect them". He said as well that, "all Canadians have come to revere equality as fundamental to their birthright. The aboriginal peoples of Canada are entitled to no less". That commitment is ongoing and firm.
In the context of community negotiations with selfgovernment on Indian reserves, negotiations that have been undertaken despite outstanding Constitutional discussions, the administration of justice has been identified as a matter that is open to discussion as one element of aboriginal self-government agreements.
While pursuing the means to meet the aspirations of aboriginal communities, it must, of course, be recognized that native men and women often face particular difficulties in their dealings with the justice system, whether the difficulties are described in terms of denial of justice, over-representation in our correctional facilities, discrimination, or in some other way. The reality of these problems has been drawn to the national attention in recent times, notably as a consequence of public inquiries. These concerns will continue to be brought to the national attention as the reports of the inquiries are released and the outcomes of the special consultations are made public.
There are now three judicial inquiries pertaining to aboriginal justice that have been undertaken in response to the treatment of individuals or more general conditions: The Alberta public enquiry into policing on the Blood Reserve; the recently completed Nova Scotia Royal Commission on the Donald Marshall prosecution; and the Manitoba Public Inquiry into the administration of justice and aboriginal peoples. There have been ongoing investigations supported in other provinces.
In responding to the concerns of aboriginal peoples and to the aspirations of aboriginal communities, the federal government has established a variety of programs. These programs have been developed in recognition of the special status of Indians and the particular
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needs of aboriginal peoples. The Department of Justice has programs, for instance, that seek to enhance the accessibility of the justice system to aboriginal people and to facilitate greater participation in the legal profession.
In northern Canada and other areas, federal legal aid funding has supported special efforts undertaken to respond to particular legal aid needs of aboriginal people and to involve communities more directly in the management of those services. Specially designed programs of this kind are important in ensuring the generally available services respond to the particular needs of communities whose circumstances are different than those generally found in Canada.
While access to legal services is crucial to ensuring that the rights of individuals and groups are fully recognized, other kinds of activities are important. The Department of Justice, for example, supports two such programs, native court workers and public legal education.
More must be done. I could talk more about initiatives that the Department of Justice and this government are involved with. They are all aimed at ensuring that our aboriginal people receive the kind of equal and fair treatment within the criminal justice system that they and all other Canadians deserve.


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest as the parliamentary secretary reviewed the government's actions. I also listened earlier to his outburst at my colleague from the NDP. He said that perhaps we were too hard and did not put this into a historical context.
One of the concerns that we have on this side is that there is a lot of historic inertia in Canada. We turn to this government and ask what it is doing. I listened carefully when the parliamentary secretary read through his notes, and I did not hear what it was doing.
One of the problems in dealing with aboriginal issues is the reality that every day another incident happens and the government remains silent. Today, during the debate, I had a phone call from my constituency office about an aboriginal woman who was mistreated in the
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largest health facility in Manitoba. The stories repeat day after day.
Does the parliamentary secretary not think that the government has some obligation to recognize this problem, to deal with it honestly and to begin to take more of a promotional position rather than a defensive one in dealing with our aboriginal peoples?


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada is not taking a defensive position with respect to this. I wish I had had slightly more time. I might not have been as generous to the member for Verdun-Saint Paul had I known that I would not be able to elaborate on the different areas with which the Department of Justice and this government have been involved.
The member should be aware of the native court workers program. This is a program funded by the federal government in which we attempt to involve people who are familiar with the criminal justice system with people who have come into conflict with the law. We want them to feel comfortable. There are cultural differences. There are differences of interpretation. Sometimes the language of the court can be a problem. That particular program is one that I think is very helpful and positive.
As well, with regard to public legal information, there is no question that Canadian natives are over represented in our correctional facilities. One of the things that we are trying to do, as much as possible, not just within the territories but within the provinces across the country as a whole, is to get legal information into the hands of individuals so that they have a better understanding of the criminal justice system.
As well the hon. member should be aware of the legal aid program. It is a fundamental part of our concept of justice in this country that an individual be entitled to legal representation. No one involved in the criminal justice system in this country would be unaware of the fact that very often those who come into conflict with the law are often those who do not have the means to hire a lawyer. Therefore, we help fund legal aid programs in all provinces and in the territories as well. This is a positive and important component of ensuring that native Canadians, and other Canadians as well, receive fair treatment before the courts.

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We as well, of course, are monitoring very carefully the judicial and public inquiries that I alluded to briefly. We are very concerned about those. When those inquiries identify areas in which the federal government can be helpful, of course we will look at those very carefully with a view to taking positive actions in this area.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. Before I recognize the next speaker, the hon. Solicitor General on a point of order.


Hon. Pierre H. Cadieux (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that at approximately 7 a.m. today the RCMP in Cornwall was advised that Mr. Matthew Pyke was shot and was transported to the Malone, New York, hospital. I have also been informed that at approximately 10.57 a.m., Mr. Pyke succumbed to his injuries. Obviously we are very saddened by this and we regret this incident.
I am informed that the Surete du Quebec is investigating this unfortunate incident, and also that the New York police authorities are investigating this incident as we speak.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I will, by utilizing the means of a point of order as well, confirm to the House that I was informed of this approximately half an hour ago. As soon as I was told of the sad and tragic incident I immediately proceeded to inform the minister so that he could verify those facts prior to rising in the House to state that in fact Mr. Matthew Pyke, who I understand is a 20-year-old man, was killed. I believe that he died as a result of gunshot wounds received on the Mohawk community of Akwe-sasne.
This is a sad event which goes to show how urgent are the actions of our government, the government of the United States and all parties involved in finding a settlement to this most tragic issue unfolding right here, less than 50 miles from Parliament Hill.
I am going to take another moment or two and I beg your indulgence, Mr. Speaker. It does not seem possible that less than an hour's drive from here people are shooting at each other with machine guns, tossing hand grenades and so on. When we watch on television events such as that going on in lands far away, in Lebanon or elsewhere, we find it difficult to conceive. To think that it
is happening right here on our doorstep is nothing short of mind-boggling.
I extend to the family of Mr. Pyke and his friends and relatives, and to the Mohawk community of Akwesasne, my condolences and those of my colleagues.


Mr. Gilbert Chartrand (Verdun -Saint-Paul):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak to the subject before the House today. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Walker) has proposed a topic for debate which seems very appropriate in the present circumstances.
The relationship of aboriginal peoples with our justice system has been the focus of attention for a number of years. Recent studies have shown that all things being equal, aboriginal people are more likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system than the rest of the population.
Under our federal system, justice is an area of shared jurisdiction and its complexities are not always easy to grasp. In addition, the system is largely based on a culture and values that are foreign to the traditional aboriginal culture and values. It operates in an environment that is equally foreign, in languages that are not their own.
We have all at some time or other heard alarming statistics on the involvement of aboriginal people in the criminal justice system. I will not give any figures today. I merely wish to point out that the causes of the problem are complex and deep-seated, and that the justice system alone cannot be held responsible nor can it be expected to provide all the answers. However, some definite improvements are readed to make the system more receptive to the problems and aspirations of our aboriginal fellow citizens. Public inquiries in Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Alberta are examining the way the system treats aboriginal people. The government is taking the requisite steps to improve the way aboriginal people are treated by the system, and it intends to co-operate with them and do everything in its power to enable them to take their rightful place in Canadian society.
The government is aware that the legislation, the programs and the staff that implement them must reflect a better knowledge and understanding of aboriginal people, their customs and their way of life; that it is important that our Canadian laws be understood and observed by all Canadians; and that some of our laws are
May 1, 1990

simply obsolete. It has undertaken a thorough review of federal legislation, and in recent years, a number of bills have been passed in this House to correct this problem.
This process is far from over, and the task that awaits us, as members of this House, is an impressive one. However, legislation alone is not enough. It must be understood and effectively enforced. Our justice system, the way it treats individuals and access to justice itself must be fair, open and dynamic.
To achieve these objectives, the government has decided to examine the needs, concerns and demands of aboriginal people. There have been consultations in various areas. For instance, a recent study looked at aboriginal people in the correctional system. It found that problems caused by the number of aboriginal people in the prison environment are aggravated by the fact that these individuals do not form an homogeneous group and that their needs and characteristics vary, depending on the cultural groups to which they belong and according to their rural or urban origins.
The consultations that took place during the study reflected a lack of understanding on the part of the justice system of aboriginal peoples and their cultures. One of the study's recommendations was to expand the use of elders as consultants in federal penitentiaries. It was found that the role of elders had increased spectacularly during the past ten years and that many of the people consulted were convinced that their involvement could be even more important at a crucial stage in the correctional process. It was recognized that the elder's point of view could provide insights into certain cases and thus simplify decision-making by the National Parole Board. It was also found that recruitement of native workers by the system would help establish better commmunications, since increasing the number of native workers would improve the system's general understanding of and sensitivity to the needs of native inmates.
Another study, this time on policing in the reserves, was ordered to ensure that reserves would have access to appropriate police services, commensured are level and quality with those provided in other communities in the
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same region. However, the study found that one could not expect the same results in communities where the circumstances were different. Services had to be adapted to the local culture and local needs.
The task force, however, recognized the fact that the federal government was under pressure to expand all major programs for Indians. They must realize that the federal government is less able to do so, for financial reasons, although the budgets have increased considerably in constant dollars in recent years, and that various federal policies to give Indian communities some real control have been developed, especially the policy of negotiating self-government with Indian groups.
Consultations are now in progress on the conclusions and recommendations of this study. The Canadian government favours native self-government and their increased participation in police services. The study concludes that for this purpose, and to better meet the aspirations and special needs of bands, steps should be taken so that Indians can begin to participate more in the major decisions on policing the reserves.
These findings apply to all aspects of the justice system. It is important for us to be as aware as possible of the needs, concerns and requirements of native people and of the obstacles we face. We must listen carefully to our native fellow citizens and understand them. We must work to ensure their representation in all institutions of the justice system at all levels. We must create institutions that can meet their needs.
Some programs are already in place to meet some of the identified needs. Consultations are going on with the native people to improve existing programs and to develop and implement new ones.
I said earlier that drafting legislation is not all; the law must also be understood. The Native Courtworker Program is probably the best-known federal native justice initiative. The services of native courtworkers to help accused natives understand and obtain legal and social services are available to any native charged with violating a federal or provincial law or municipal bylaw, including any young person within the meaning of the Young Offenders Act who is accused or suspected of breaking a federal or provincial law or a municipal bylaw. Eight

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provinces and territories participate with the federal government in this initiative.
Another program to make it easier to understand the system and the law and to promote access to justice is the funding, together with the provincial and territorial governments, of organizations that provide legal information services to Canadians. These agencies, located in every jurisdiction, can provide the target public with publications and documentation adapted to different communities in the language and at the level of understanding of the intended audience. Some programs offer evening courses for adults or open-line shows on the system and current legislation. For example, the Community Legal Education of Manitoba received financial assistance this year from the Canadian government for the "Feeling Yes, Feeling No" Project, which is intended to make native communities aware of sexual abuse of children and family violence. The purpose of this project is to help residents of rural areas, especially native people and their children, better understand the main points and the principles underlying amendments to the Criminal Code dealing with child sexual abuse.
What I have said so far only skims the surface. The government is determined to play a positive leading role in improving our justice system. In co-operation with the provincial and territorial governments, native leaders and communities and non-governmental organizations, the government has done a lot to identify our roles. The problems are manifold and complex, but there are also many signs that the will to deal with these issues exists more than ever before and that dialogue is open with all concerned. Everyone has shown a desire to take part in it.
The government is determined to continue dealing with these issues and to make major improvements in the field of justice for native people. This is a priority.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments? Resuming debate. The hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell has the floor.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I must say that this is not the best time for me to be making a speech. I am sure the whole House would understand why, given the incident I was made aware of not that many moments ago.
Perhaps I should commence my remarks by wishing, praying, that there will be no more loss of life. I say this message not only to the members of this House but to anyone in and around Akwesasne who may be listening to this debate. I pray that cooler heads will prevail and that each and every one will understand that the violence has to come to an end. Needless to say, any further violence will not enhance that prospect.
Having said that, I would like to take a few moments to talk about the community of Akwesasne, to describe it a bit for some of our colleagues so that we can all understand what we are talking about. Perhaps that will assist us as well in understanding why we have some of the problems we have there now.
The Mohawk government paper on aboriginal rights and the Canadian Constitution, prepared for the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs in October 1985, described the community of Akwesasne in the following way:
It is an understatement to say that Akwesasne is "unique". -We are the only community in North America to straddle two countries, two provinces and one state. Within Akwesasne there are three forms of government consisting of the Tribal Council, the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne and the Traditional Council. Each are very distinctive and serve to form a very dynamic and non-apathetic government system. The leadership of Akwesasne are faced with problems no other similar entity would dream of because of the geographic and jurisdictional boundaries of our community. The government of particularly the Canadian portion of the reserve is complicated by the jurisdictional horrors of inter-provincial politics and federal responsibility. The argument is always whether a question should be deferred to the province of Quebec or Ontario or to the federal government in Canada. Bureaucratic red tape and an antiquated Indian Act serve to inhibit change in the relations between the leaders of Akwesasne and the government of Canada.
Mr. Speaker, that short passage expresses to us some of the difficulties, some of the jurisdictional problems, of the Mohawk community of Akwesasne. Picture yourself for a moment, Mr. Speaker, as a resident of the village of St. Regis. Perhaps your brother or sister lives on another part of the same reserve, call it another part of the same town to use language that you and I are familiar with, and we call that part of town Cornwall Island.
You both get up at nine o'clock in the morning and decide that you are going to go over to the U.S. side of the reserve. A resident of St. Regis just walks across. It takes approximately 30 seconds. As a matter of fact, you
May 1, 1990

may not even realize you are crossing the boundary between the two countries because some of those concrete monuments are missing and weeds and grass are growing around those that remain so you are not too sure where they are. There are no customs agents, immigration officials or anything like that.
Your brother or sister, whom I have fictitiously described, who lives in the other part of the same town, to use our language again, on Cornwall Island, crosses over to the U.S. side of the same reserve. Of course, he or she has to go through customs, is stopped there and perhaps searched, which is quite normal when you are dealing with boundaries. They can then go on their merry way to the American side of the reserve.
Think about it the following way, Mr. Speaker. If you are a resident of Cornwall Island and you want to visit your relative in the village of St. Regis, both of which are on the Canadian side, you have to go through U.S. customs to get to the United States because that is the only way of getting back into Canada on the other portion of the reserve.
One cannot help but scratch his head and ask why these laws are so crazy. I guess you just shrug your shoulders and say: "White man's rule, they do not really make much sense", and you continue doing what you are doing.
If it were that easy, Mr. Speaker, if you could just shrug your shoulders and go on your merry way, perhaps it would all be simple. But that is an example of the frustration people have with a set of rules which are applied totally arbitrarily because, of course, in two communities on the Canadian side on the same reserve they are not applied the same way.
Let us imagine ourselves in the shoes of a person like Grand Chief Mike Mitchell, who is an elected person, like you and I are, Mr. Speaker, doing his best to govern the Canadian side of the reserve. Grand Chief Mike Mitchell or his U.S. counterpart have no choice of whether they are the chief of one side or the other rather than the whole entity. The structure is that way. There is this artificial boundary right down the middle of the village. There is nothing they can do about it.
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So there are two jurisdictions at the native level plus, of course, the historic traditions that fall in there as well. Of course, Mr. Mitchell is certainly not a perfect human being. Neither am I, Mr. Speaker, neither are most of us here, but he is there and elected, trying to govern as best he knows how the community of Akwesasne.
For the purpose of this discussion let us imagine there is an argument between an individual and the local police on the Canadian side. What do you do? You have to cross from St. Regis where the police force is to Cornwall Island where this problem is occurring. Of course, in order to do that you have to get the police cruiser on to the American side.
As you know, you cannot bring a gun into the United States legally. So you leave your gun in the police station since you cannot bring it in the car because your car has to go on the American side in order to come back to Canada to administer the police work.
Once you get back into Canada on Cornwall Island you are a policeman without a gun. That is fine if the other person does not have a gun either, I suppose, but what if he or she does? Then you are not equipped to handle the situation.
The same occurs, of course, if the residents of Snye on the Quebec portion of the reserve need services offered by the police force. The same potential situation occurs in the area of ambulances and all kinds of other services because of artificial boundaries placed there by our ancestors which fall right in the middle of that community-
The ancestors of the proud residents of Akwesasne have been living there for a very, very long time and it is a shame that we are unable to provide the mechanisms necessary to at least make Akwesasne a little bit easier to govern. Even if we are able to make the place a little bit easier to govern, that perhaps would not solve all the problems that we have there now.
In addition to the inter-jurisdictional difficulties that I have described, we also have to deal with those people who seize such opportunities as they see fit to establish places that they deem are appropriate to serve their own interests. I refer here to the establishment of casinos,

May 1, 1990
bingo halls and so on. I understand that there are approximately half a dozen of them.
It should be remembered by us all that at Akwesasne all of those facilities, at least all the ones that I know of, are located on the U.S. side of the reserve. In a strange coincidence the U.S. side of the reserve has no police force at the present time. It was disbanded some time ago. My colleague from Stormont-Dundas is sitting beside me here. He lives only a few miles from Akwesasne and he will know, of course, that the American side of the reserve has no such thing, as we speak today, as a police force. There is no one on the American side who administers any kind of policing, save and except perhaps the so-called warrior society which has decided on its own that this is what it should be doing. On the Canadian side, of course, there are the police forces that I was describing awhile ago.
So when you have that situation of one-half of the reserve with almost total anarchy, it is fertile ground for the lawlessness that I was talking about before. So it is not a coincidence that that is where the casinos, the gambling halls and bingo halls and all those other things are located. It is not a coincidence either that they have not established themselves on the Canadian side where there exists Grand Chief Mitchell, his council, and all the other things that are there.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, it is my duty to rise in the House today and ask my colleagues in the other place to pass Bill C-21 without further delay.
We have a responsibility to improve our training and labour force adjustment programs, and that is what Bill C-21 is supposed to do.
The total cost of the amendments proposed by the Liberal senators is nearly $1.7 billion annually. We don't have that kind of money!
Mr. Speaker, how long will it take the Senate to release the funds that will enable all Canadians to have access to better training and better jobs?

Now we have roughly the following situation. The residents of Akwesasne see those casinos. They see, of course-and I have to say it-the undesirable elements that sometimes seem to surround those establishments, and they decide that they want no part of this. That is understandable. I live in a small village. It is not, of course, a native village, but I would not want those casinos in my own village, which has its own unique little character.
Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, I will draw your attention to the clock and continue immediately after Question Period.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member will have seven minutes plus 10 minutes for questions and comments.
It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this day.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


PENSION REFORM
Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, today, the board of directors of the federal Superannuates National Association is meeting in Ottawa to discuss pension reform. They are very concerned, so concerned in fact that today they are sending a telegram to the Prime Minister to ask him to finally bring legislation into the House to deal with this matter.
In 1986, the government introduced legislation to reform federal pensions, recognizing the need for pension reform. That legislation died when the 1988 election was called.
Since then, the President of the Treasury Board has declared on numerous occasions that he intends to introduce new superannuation reform legislation. To date, no such legislation has been introduced.
Federal superannuation funds are growing at a rate of approximately $5 billion per year. There is plenty of money for pension reform. There is plenty of need for pension reform. All that is lacking is the political will of

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May 1, 1990

this federal government and a commitment to pensioners across the country.


HARBOURS
Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, on Sunday evening in my riding part of the wharf at Stanley Bridge collapsed.
It collapsed because of a lack of funding from this government for wharf and harbour maintenance. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
It is the responsibility of this government to ensure that wharves and harbours do not reach life-threatening conditions.
I have toured the wharves and harbours in my riding, and I know that there are many places where poor wharf conditions demand the attention of this government. My colleagues and I have been asking for financial assistance since we were elected in 1988.
I urge the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to come to my province, to visit the harbours and witness the terrible wharf conditions fishermen must face.
This government must plan ahead and make wharf repair a priority. The fishermen of Prince Edward Island deserve safe facilities. The situation in Stanley Bridge needs immediate action.


NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE AWARENESS MONTH
Mr. Ross Belsher (Fraser Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the House that the month of May has been designated as National Motorcycle Awareness Month by the Canada Safety Council.
The Hon. Doug Lewis, Minister of Transport, has endorsed this worthy, new safety endeavour which is aimed at reducing road accidents, injuries and deaths during the summer months.
The theme of the safety campaign "Roads are for Sharing" aims at fostering a strong, positive attitude among all road users to abide by the rules of the road.
Safety is a shared responsibility. Motorcylists must drive responsibly and follow the rules of the road. Motorists need to be extra vigilant for motorcyclists and bicyclists who are sharing the road with them.
I particularly wish to acknowledge the Canada Safety Council's efforts in educating parents of young children about the importance of bicycle helmets. We must not forget that head injuries are by far the leading cause of traffic fatalities involving cyclists.
I invite all members of this House to support this latest road safety initiative.


THE ECONOMY
Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, Canadians realize the hypocrisy of this government and the Governor of the Bank of Canada when they insist that Canadians restrain wage increases to control inflation, while at the same time they keep interest rates high and continue to raise taxes, and while employees of the Prime Minister's office and the Bank of Canada have received wage increases estimated by some at up to 20 per cent on an annual basis.
Nepean's Margaret Knight, a 35-hour weekly volunteer co-ordinator of a food shelter, serves breakfast and lunch daily to hundreds of women and children. Due to this government's cut-backs to the Canada Assistance Plan, the agency will face severe financial restrictions. The double standards of this government are becoming ever more frustrating.
In Ontario alone, CAP, which was instituted in 1966 to provide basic necessities to those in need, will see a revenue shortfall of approximately $90 million.
Are we really seeing the demise of a caring society as we have known it?
Canadians will not continue to be fooled by these drastic measures.


SKILLS CANADA
Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to congratulate the winners of the first provincial competition of Skills Canada that took place April 21 in Hamilton.
Skills Canada is part of the Skills Initiative Program. Last year, Canadian students attended the competition in the United States as observers and guests. This year, 40 Ontario winners will compete with 7,000 other partici-

May 1, 1990
pants in the United States Skills Olympics to be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma in June.
It will be the first time Canada has been represented in this North American event.
The competitive categories cover a wide range of expertise. Here are a few examples: air-cooled gasoline engine repairs, architectural drafting, carpentry, woodworking, cosmetology, culinary arts, and the list goes on.
I congratulate them all on a job well done and wish them the best of luck in the upcoming event.
These are the varied sorts of skills training that stand to gain by the passage of Bill C-21.1 would encourage all members to seriously consider what is at stake by obstructing the passage of Bill C-21.


LOW-LEVEL FLIGHTS
Mr. Dan Heap (Trinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, yet another incident has called this government's low-level flying program into question. A British Tornado aircraft crashed yesterday near the Canadian Forces Base at Goose Bay. The aircraft was reportedly flying 10 to 20 miles outside the designated zone.
Why was the aircraft there?
This incident certainly casts even more doubt on the DND's claim that the Innu will not be over-flown if they simply tell the defence department where they will be.
What about safety? Tornado aircraft crash a lot in Britain, so you would think that our government would have assessed the risk of continuing to allow them to fly in Canadian airspace.
I again ask the government to stop low-level flights all together. This crash is another example of how these flights are not only a violation of Innu sovereignty and an impediment to peace, but they are also unnecessarily dangerous for people and the environment.


MEECH LAKE ACCORD
Mr. Gilles Bernier (Beauce):: Mr. Speaker, languages should unite people, not divide them.
The Meech Lake Accord is more than a question of language and culture: it is the gathering together of all the people of a great and diverse country, and it means accepting others in a spirit of generosity and tolerance.
Meech Lake also means uniting the strengths of ten provinces.
Meech Lake means understanding and accepting that Quebec is the wellspring of French Canada.
No province will be diminished by accepting the facts as they are. Should Canadians turn their backs and say no to part of their daily reality?
Quebec has been distinct for a century, Mr. Speaker. Why should it no longer be distinct in 1990?
I am a francophone, the member for Beauce in Quebec, and I belong to that great Canada my parents used to describe as a generous and tolerant country.
I say to the leaders of Manitoba and Newfoundland that wisdom lies in accepting the fact that one's neighbours may be different. This fact does not prevent the economy of your province from expanding or your people from participating in this vast country of ours, where anglophones, francophones and allophones accept and respect each other.


CHILD CARE
Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton -East Richmond):: As usual, the minister's announcement lacks details on finances, quality, availability, accessibility and affordable child care for Canadian families.
There is a quote that describes what it is like for Canadians to have to deal with this kind of government.
We the willing-led by the unknowing -are doing the impossible
for the ungrateful. We have done so much for so long-with so
little-we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.


LABOUR FORCE DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
Mr. Ken James (Sarnia - Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, roughly one month ago the task force reports of the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Centre on the government's Labour Force Development Strategy was released.
In its entirety, the study asserts that Canada requires a new attitude and approach to labour force training so that our workforce can better meet the evolving demands posed by structural demographic and technological change.
Of particular interest and importance is the task force reports on human resource planning. Both the labour and business report press the need and requirement for basic skills training in literacy and numeracy.
These skills should be promoted on a universal basis since they form the foundation upon which higher development skills and retraining can be based.
I trust that our government will heed this advice and devote additional resources to basic skills training. The funds envisaged in Bill C-21, the changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act, could be instrumental in this regard. I urge our friends in the Senate to play a more constructive role in our pursuit of an effective national training effort.


TAX BENEFITS FOR NORTHERN AND ISOLATED
Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche -Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, the present system of tax benefits for northern
and isolated areas is unfair. Some communities qualify, while others right next door do not. There is not a single community in the riding of Restigouche-Chaleur that qualifies for these benefits. Northern Canadians and residents of isolated areas rejected the recommendations of the Task Force on Tax Benefits.

The people of my riding are entitled to this tax benefit since they have to incur the extra costs of living in an isolated area, which include travelling long distances to obtain specialized health care, post-secondary education and many other goods and services.

The federal government must introduce a new system that will give remote communities like those in Northern New Brunswick the same tax benefits that are available to residents of similar communities.


Mr. Peter L. McCreath (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, May 1 is a day often associated with the labour movement throughout the world.
Organized workers in Canada enjoy a standard of living excelled by few of their counterparts in other countries of the world. Collective bargaining rights in Canada are among the strongest in the world, and so they should be.
Canada is a strong, democratic country currently enjoying the dynamic leadership of a Prime Minister and government with the courage and the integrity to lead, and the ability to prepare this country for the 21st century.
The labour movement has an important role to play in preparing Canada for its place in the competitive world of the next century. I encourage all labour leaders to work with our government in its effort to ensure a prosperous future for all Canadians.

May 1, 1990
Oral Questions INTEREST RATES


Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords -Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, interest rates are continuing to rise-21 times since this government was elected.
Not since the dying days of the previous Liberal government have interest rates been so high and so harmful to Canadians.
It is time this government recognized the harm that high interest rates are doing to farmers. Commodity prices remain too low to meet the cost of production. Farm debt has escalated beyond the $22 billion mark. In Saskatchewan, 1,000 farm families each year are leaving the land.
High interest rates are contributing to increased farm bankruptcies, foreclosures and forced sales. It is time for this to stop.
Governments can control and manage the levels and effects of interest rates. Canadian farm families should expect no less from their federal government.
I call on the government today to take the necessary steps to reduce interest rates so that Canadian farmers can begin to get control of their farm finances.


MENTAL HEALTH WEEK
Mr. John E. Cole (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, I take this opportunity to remind members of the House and the general public that this is Mental Health Week.
For the past 30 years the Canadian Mental Health Association has co-ordinated events to raise national public awareness aimed at reducing the stigma of mental illness and at encouraging community acceptance of those in need of mental health services.
The Department of National Health and Welfare is pleased to collaborate with the CMHA in this worthwhile event to draw attention to the importance of mental health issues.
This year's slogan for Mental Health Week is "Working Together for Mental Health". All Canadians are invited to give their full support to the Mental Health Week events that the local branches of the CMHA have planned in their communities.


PEACEKEEPING
Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker, Canada is involved in five peacekeeping operations around the world, including increasing its commitment to the UN forces in Central America and may become an important participant in a possible UN operation in Cambodia.
The demands for UN peacekeeping and Canada's participation will likely increase further given the upsurge in ethnic tensions in the developed and developing world, increasing disputes over ocean sovereignty and mounting trans-border environmental dangers.
The federal government has through budget cut-backs eliminated the acquisition of new communications equipment and new light observation helicopters, both important aspects of Canadian peacekeeping.
For example, Canadian peacekeepers face situations wherein they can barely supply cold weather gear for themselves, let alone to other participants involved in cold weather peacekeeping operations.
It is not enough that the government engage in internal reviews to reassess the new demands upon Canadian defence and foreign policy. We must allow the public to have input in these reassessments and be willing to provide the necessary financial support to ensure that its present and future commitments do not ring hollow.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance.
Yesterday, in response to my questions about the contraction of the Canadian economy in January and February, the minister said by way of reply:
- I acknowledged in my last budget that we expected to have a slowdown in the economy this year. We expected that in the first half of this year. So there are no surprises here.
May 1, 1990

In his budget the minister also predicted that interest rates would average only 11.1 per cent this year.
I ask the minister this. How is he going to achieve this 11.1 per cent interest rate target when interest rates in Canada have already gone above the 13.8 per cent level? Is it not time for him to admit that his interest rate projections in his budget are now totally obsolete?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I think if the Leader of the Opposition would notice the calendar he would see that we are one month into the fiscal year. We have 11 months to go before we have to review what the total impact of interest rates are.
Certainly, interest rates are high, and we are reviewing this on a regular basis. But let us not jump to conclusions too quickly before we see how things develop further.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, everybody else in this country has already reached the conclusion that interest rates should start coming down. For example, yesterday, Adam Zimmerman, President of Noranda Forests, speaking on behalf of the Business Council on National Issues, usually a strong supporter of this government's economic policy, said: "The BCNI's thinking is that high interest rates have gone too far, and it's time to bring them down."
The voice of the Business Council on National Issues has been added to the voices of major business organizations like the Canadian Manufacturers' Association and the Canadian Real Estate Association.
Why will the minister not listen to these major business organizations and agree that interest rates have already gone too far, that it is time to bring them down, and therefore start bringing them down today?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to what Mr. Zimmerman and other leading commentators in the business community have to say about these matters. Their views are important, obviously. They employ a lot of people.
I think what Mr. Zimmerman is pointing out is that there is a difference between the experiences that they are having in the goods sector-the manufacturing and resource sectors of the economy, which are very clearly
Oral Questions
feeling the effects of the monetary policy that we have been following-as compared to the service sector, or other levels of government, which are not responding in the normal ways to the interest rate policy that we have been following and are keeping their prices and wage settlements up to reasonably high levels.
It is that distinction, that difference between the goods sector on the one hand and the service sector on the other hand, which makes it particularly difficult to deal with at this point in time.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, there is only one interest rate in this country. The minister forgets we don't have a range of interest rates. We have only one, and Mr. Zimmerman and his colleagues have asked for an immediate reduction in this interest rate. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Doug Peters, chief economist for the Toronto-Dominion Bank, commented on the policy of the Minister of Finance, saying that:
The economy was idling, that after the brakes had been applied for two consecutive months, the machine had finally stopped.
I want to ask the minister why the government maintains a policy whose purpose is to stop the economic machinery completely. Why does the Minister of Finance want to drive the Canadian economy into a deep recession?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, let me correct a couple of things that the Leader of the Opposition said.
First, this policy is not designed, to use his words, to stop the economic machinery completely.
Second, it is not designed, again to use his words, to drive the economy into a deep recession.
What I have said on many occasions in the past is that we are trying to avoid that recession by slowing down the level of activity in the economy so that we can reduce and eliminate the inflationary pressures that are there. We are seeing some signs of inflationary pressures easing, using some measurements, but in using other

May 1, 1990
Oral Questions
measurements they are not easing. That is the problem that I referred to in my second answer to him.
If we are able to take these inflationary pressures out of the economy, then we can look forward with confidence to many more years of non-inflationary sustainable growth. That is the objective of this government.


Mr. Douglas Young (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance who just referred to the fact that it is early in the year and that the Leader of the Opposition in referring to the high interest rates should wait for awhile.
Why does the minister believe that Canadians should have confidence in his projections as they relate to the interest rate that he predicted would be at 11.1 per cent when last year in his budget he predicted that by the end of the year the average interest rate would be at 10 per cent? Why would he be right this year when he was so wrong last year?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, let me draw to my friend's attention the fact that the one-year deficit projection of this government in the five years that we have projected the deficit has been out an aggregate of something in the order of $2.5 billion. The previous five years under Liberal projection it was $26.5 billion. That is a factor of 10 to 1.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Surely, that should give Canadians a much better degree of confidence in our ability to project than was the case in previous years.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, my question for the Minister of Finance is quite simple. What we want to know is based on the projections in his Budget. Does he still maintain that his projections on the deficit, which was supposed to be $28 billion, will be borne out, and will the average interest rate for the current year still be 11.1 per cent? Does he maintain his position, as stated in the Budget, with respect to interest rates and the Canadian deficit?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, what I was pointing out in my first response to
my hon. friend is that we on this side of the House do manage to keep to our projections. We have worked hard to manage through our projections in each year.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Fontana:: How about your promises?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I hear some catcalls from the other side. I do not think that those catcallers heard that the total deviation from our budget deficit projections is $2.5 billion-one-tenth the deviation under the Liberals in the previous five years.
I pointed out that we are one month into the fiscal year. There are things that will put upward pressure on the deficit, and that is what higher interest rates will do. But, also, the higher level of inflation increases revenues. So it is not all one way.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Solicitor General.
As he will know, a 22-year old Mohawk resident of the Akwesasne reserve was fatally shot today, following what was described as a nine-hour gun battle. This is a situation which has been developing for many months, even many years.
My question to the Solicitor General is this. Will the RCMP now intervene? What steps will the government take to deal with this tragic situation?


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, ministers of the government and all members of this House are indeed saddened to learn of the tragic escalation of violence which occurred overnight at the Akwesasne Mohawk Reserve.
We extend our sympathies and those of all Canadians to the families and friends of the young Mohawk man who has lost his life as a result of the senseless violence that continues at Akwesasne.
I am informed that a week ago, the three councils from the reserve came to the federal government-in fact, they met with the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development-and specifically asked for the RCMP to intervene, to bring law and order to the reserve.

May 1, 1990

Earlier this morning we were informed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who learned from the Surete du Quebec, that 22-year old Matthew Pyke died at 10.57 a.m. in hospital in New York State of gunshot wounds. Mr. Pyke, a resident of Hogansburg, New York, was shot at Snye, Quebec.
My colleagues and I are dismayed that the situation has deteriorated to this point. One death is one death too many. We have and will continue to strive to find a peaceful solution to this very serious and difficult problem.
As the hon. member and other members know, we were visited by the elected leadership, the traditional leadership, of the Mohawk communities last Wednesday, not a month ago as the member indicates, and have sought working with officials of various federal departments, officials of the two provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec, the State of New York and the United States government, to find a peaceful solution to this problem. Those efforts are continuing at an escalated pace today.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, in no way do I mean to diminish my respect for the government's concern for the death in this case. I must say that it is simply not enough to hear that the government is continuing discussions.
I ask the Solicitor General who is responsible for the RCMP if will he accede to the request that was made a week ago, as the minister has just confirmed in the House, that the RCMP move on to the reserve and establish law and order so that Canadian citizens on the reserve can be protected?


Thomas Edward Siddon: As the hon. member would know, policing in Canada is firstly a matter of provincial jurisdiction.
Contacts were made with the Attorney General for Ontario and Solicitors General last week. They have taken actions to effect the patrols and disarmament, where possible, of those carrying arms on the Canadian side.
The member knows that the problem arises from a pro-gambling faction based in New York state.
Oral Questions
Any activity to intervene from outside the Mohawk nation requires the full consent and co-operation of several law enforcement agencies, the state and the provincial governments, as well as the two national governments.
That kind of co-ordinated approach is being discussed at the highest level, with a view to seeking a peaceful solution to this very, very serious situation.


John F. Brewin: It should be evident that the time for a peaceful solution has tragically passed.
First, the Minister of Indian Affairs has not indicated whether he ever spoke to the Solicitor General about this. My question again is to the Solicitor General.
Did he receive the request from the native groups involved?
Very particularly, did the Solicitor General, on behalf of the RCMP, seek the authority from the Ontario Provincial Police, the Quebec Police and the Americans to come on to that reserve?
He had the authority of the native people involved and of the leadership on that reserve. Did he seek the authority a week ago, before this tragedy happened?


Pierre H. Cadieux: Mr. Speaker, as has been indicated by my colleague, we have here a situation that involves various jurisdictions, beginning with American and Canadian, and provincial jurisdictions with respect to where the reserve is situated on the Canadian side.
With that comes policing jurisdiction and I can assure the House and my hon. colleague in particular that we have been co-ordinating policing efforts since the situation started and particularly since we were asked last week to intervene. There have been discussions between the Attorneys General and the Solicitors General from the provinces of Ontario and Quebec and between my colleague, the Minister of Indian Affairs, and myself.
It is a co-ordinated effort, and as was indicated this morning by my colleague from Glengarry-Prescott- Russell, it has to be a co-ordinated effort involving also New York state before any physical intervention can occur. We have been co-ordinating this. We will continue to do so. We will act according to the circumstances.

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Oral Questions


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could preamble my question by expressing on behalf of my colleagues and I, our sympathy and regret to the family of Mr. Matthew Pyke who so tragically passed away in this most unfortunate event, which hopefully will end very soon, namely the violence at Akwesasne.
My question is for the Solicitor General. I agree with him that the approaches that have to be taken in order to have a physical intervention at Akwesasne have to be taken together on both sides of the international border. Otherwise, let's face it, nothing at all is going to happen because the arms will simply move from one side of the border to the other.
Can he report to us now what progress has been achieved this morning in the meeting he and presumably others in his department have had with the Americans in regard to restoring law and order at Akwesasne, more particularly to disarm the community of Akwesasne?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member has indicated there has been a continuing co-ordination of police forces in this matter. Yesterday morning five police forces, including the state, two provincial, and the national police forces, met and agreed that a co-ordinated effort is required to deal effectively with the violence in the Akwesasne community.
As well, the Secretary of State for External Affairs wrote to Mr. James Baker last Friday and there has been high level interventions at the state department. I understand that Canada's ambassador in Washington is again approaching the State Department with a strong message of concern this afternoon.
It is our desire to see the state of New York co-operate and assist in dealing with the elements on the New York state side which appear to be provoking this incident. To this point we are not satisfied that the state of New York is responding adequately.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I want to direct a supplementary question to the same minister. It was only yesterday that Governor Mario Cuomo of New York finally admitted that there was a problem which necessitated an outside intervention. We all know that before that he was
claiming that this was an internal matter to be settled by Mohawks. I am sure the minister will agree that that kind of action was totally inappropriate up to that point.
Can he tell us if he still believes that Governor Mario Cuomo takes the position that it is all right to have those gambling casinos on the U.S. side? I believe, and I believe the people of Akwesasne believe, that the first element to a solution is to close down those casinos, leave them closed, disarm the community and then worry about those other things afterwards.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member would agree that this is not the place to engage in a debate with Governor Cuomo, but it is in fact the case that in order to effect a peaceful solution of this serious and tragic occurrence the democratically elected leadership of the Mohawk nation in all of its parts, which represents the majority of the Mohawk people, must be respected. A way must be found through some form of diplomatic or mediated process to have the majority wishes of the Mohawk people respected.


CANADA CUSTOMS
Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont -Dundas):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Revenue. The staff of the Canada Customs office presently located in Cornwall are scheduled to be moved to Cornwall Island on the Akwesasne reserve on May 11.
Given the tragic event of earlier today would the minister accept my suggestion to postpone this move indefinitely?


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, when conflict on the island began to escalate some time ago I immediately gave instructions to my officials to postpone any movement of additional staff to Cornwall Island.
May I point out as well, as I told his colleague from Glengarry-Prescott-Russell last Friday, that we also entered into an agreement some months ago with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ontario Provincial Police to protect customs facilities and officers and the travelling public on Cornwall Island.
May 1, 1990

We have further improved the facility from a standpoint of additional security, including the expansion and improvement of the building. I can assure the hon. member that as far as the customs officers and the travelling public is concerned, every step has been taken to protect them from any potential danger.


Robert (Bob) Kilger: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is to the same minister. I wonder if he would commit today, to the House, a full review of the appropriateness moving any officials to the new location on Cornwall Island?


Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, I have just confirmed to this House that I have put a stop to any potential move of additional personnel to Cornwall Island until the situation on the island stabilizes.
The request at the beginning, prior to any concerns affecting anyone on the island, was to try to utilize expanded facilities and provide a greater service for the travelling public. While these conflicts continue to take place or even potentially exist on Cornwall Island, no movement of additional personnel is going to take place.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. The Canadian economy at this stage is already suffering serious problems. Yet yesterday, our ambassador to the United States made a public speech to U.S. businessmen and others, talking about threats to our unity and internal division here in Canada. This sort of alarmist talk in Washington hurts us economically.
Could he tell the House if this speech by Mr. Burney was fully discussed with the government and if not, why it was not discussed.


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the speech by Ambassador Burney, what appeared to include a question and answer session, appeared to deal with some questions that had been raised in Washington a few days ago by Mr. Jacques Parizeau, the leader of the Parti Quebecois, who visited Washington and who proceeded to deliver himself of some views about how casual and how harmless the breakup of Canada might be.
Oral Questions
Ambassador Burney proceeded yesterday to disabuse Americans and I hope, a few Canadians, of those notions and indicated that indeed if there were serious consequences in Canada they would manifest themselves in most unattractive and unhelpful ways. Ambassador Burney made a very strong and I thought persuasive statement in favour of the strength and the unity of this nation and that is what he is in Washington to do.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.
I have here not elements from a question and answer session, but notes for an address from Mr. Burney sent from the Embassy in the United States. We are not talking about something casual and off the top of his head.
I want to ask the Prime Minister if we are, as a country, simply some sort of banana republic that is supposed to talk about our constitutional issues in Washington.

Does the Prime Minister think it makes good sense to wash our dirty linen in Washington? Does that make sense, according to the Prime Minister?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I had no idea Ambassador Burney's speech would offend the sensibilities of the hon. member. President Bush was here a few weeks ago, and when asked what he thought of the debate on the Meech Lake Accord, he said he did not want to intervene in a domestic debate. However, if you want to know my opinion and that of my government, we are in favour of a united and prosperous Canada. That has been the strength of this nation for 125 years. I hope the hon. member has no objection to that.
I did not see the text of the Canadian ambassador's speech before he made it, but I trust him. He is old enough to know how to behave, and he is doing a very effective job in Washington. If, either in answer to a question or directly, he touched on any matter concerning the strength and unity of this nation, he was right to do so. Does the hon. member believe that when faced with this kind of situation, our ambassador should be less than forthright and tell the Americans that nothing is happening in Canada and, in any case, it is none of their business? Citizens of a the country with whom we trade goods for a total of $200 billion annually, as neighbours and allies have every right to put questions to our

May 1, 1990
Oral Questions
ambassador. We send an ambassador to Washington to answer all legitimate questions, not to become evasive when the going gets rough.


UNEMPLOYMENT
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the acting minister for employment.
Yesterday, the Valmet-Dominion Company announced the lay-off of 200 industrial workers at its plant in Montreal, and on the weekend, Pascals Hardware announced the lay-off another 180 workers in that city. This makes a total of over 9,000 lay-offs announced in Montreal during the past year, including VIA Rail, Vickers, Simpsons, General Electric, Gillette, Marconi, Cattelli and many others.
When is the government going to take the situation seriously and put forward a comprehensive program to re-establish the economy and employment in Montreal? When are we going to get some action and less words?


Hon. Monique Vezina (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration) and Minister of State (Seniors)):: Mr. Speaker, we are aware that workers in Montreal and elsewhere in Canada are going through difficult times. That is why, as a responsible government, last April we tabled a labour force strategy with a policy for unemployment insurance reform, as a tool for this government to develop new policies and enhance our ability to compete in a globalized market. We say that this reform will help workers make up losses they would otherwise have incurred.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, we have had nothing but band-aid solutions by the government.
In a report published last month, in April, by the regroupement des departements de sante communautaire du Montreal, it was stated that one out of four Montrealers
now live in poverty. In 23 neighbourhoods of Montreal, the unemployment rate is over 15 per cent.
The fact that some of these people are working does not address the problem, because there are too many low paying, part time jobs and a lot of working poor. When is the government going to do something about this serious situation?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, I think that the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace is not telling the whole truth. He is telling his version.
The federal government has done a lot in the Montreal area. For example, he should consider the investments, particularly in the eastern part of Montreal, which he no longer talks about since the government has taken some worthwhile initiatives.
Mr. Speaker, everyone knows that the federal government has done its job. General Motors confirmed just last week that it was awarding the F series of cars, the Firebirds, to Montreal.
I personally went to Cameo in eastern Montreal yesterday, Mr. Speaker, to confirm the maintaining of 700 jobs with the workers, who were extremely satisfied. Again, I think that when you talk about Montreal, you can give your version of the facts, but someone must tell the truth about Montreal.


LOBSTER INDUSTRY
Mr. Fernand Robichaud (Beausejour):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries.
The lobster crisis is worsening. Quebec fishermen are refusing to go out and fishermen from the Acadian peninsula will stay in port tomorrow. At $1.25 a pound, lobster does not pay enough to cover expenses.
The minister said in Caraquet last Sunday that he would consult with the interested parties. However, the government had been warned last September by all those concerned in the lobster industry.
So my question is quite simply this: Why did the minister drag his feet so much that he is still only at the consulting stage? How come he has no solution to offer these fishermen?
May 1, 1990

Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans): Mr. Speaker, it is easy for a Liberal member to get up and blame everyone for the prevailing conditions in the lobster market. Two months ago, I spoke with the fisheries ministers of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, for example, and at the time, I believe there was $17 million worth of lobster from last year in stock.
Inventories, I believe, still amount to about 20 per cent of 1989 production today. This is due to market conditions.
Now, I met the lobster fishermen on Sunday and I received a proposal from them that I intend to discuss with my provincial colleagues whom I am to meet next week.


Fernand Robichaud: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the same minister. Lobster fishermen and the whole industry are in this predicament precisely because the government has failed to protect them.
As a matter of fact, I understand that the Minister of Fisheries and the Prime Minister will meet with workers and fishermen tomorrow at Inkerman in the Acadian peninsula.
Will the minister and the Prime Minister take this opportunity to unveil a support program for that industry which the Prime Minister himself had promised to protect, something he has yet to do?
Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans): Sure enough, Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will be in the Acadian peninsula and we will take that opportunity to urge the people to tell the bunch of unelected senators to pass the unemployment insurance reform legislation so that we will be in a position to launch the programs which the Atlantic region needs to make sure that there are opportunities other than unemployment insurance benefits.
The hon. member never misses a chance to rise in the House on behalf of various causes, Mr. Speaker, but I am still waiting for a suggestion from the Liberal Party as to how the federal government might go about settling the issue of lobster prices on international markets.
Oral Questions


RIDING OF LAURIER-SAINTE-MARIE
Philip Edmonston: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
Five and a half months have now passed since the death of our colleague Jean-Claude Malepart. Members of all parties in this House have pointed out that Mr. Malepart was a great defender of Quebecers' interests.
The people of Laurier-Sainte-Marie have been without representation for five and a half months. My question for the Prime Minister is this: When will he give us and the people of Laurier-Sainte-Marie a precise date for the election of their representative? Is he afraid to see a Jean Chretien or a second member of the NDP get elected in Quebec?


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Martin Brian Mulroney: No, Mr. Speaker, the government must follow a specific timetable in calling a by-election in Laurier-Sainte-Marie-


Mr. Prud'homme:: And in Oshawa.


Martin Brian Mulroney: -and in Oshawa. It will be interesting to see the reaction of Oshawa people because the hon. member of the NDP has asked for a by-election in a Liberal riding but forgot to mention a Socialist riding.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Philip Edmonston: I wish to ask a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.
First, I can tell you that I have not forgotten Oshawa, and I can tell you that the NDP is quite prepared in both ridings. There is no problem there.


Guy St-Julien: Tell us about PCBs!


Philip Edmonston: I am getting to my supplementary question. The unemployment level for the people of Laurier-Sainte-Marie is nearly 20 per cent. They have already been hit hard by free trade and they are being hit hard by the economic situation for which the federal government is responsible. If the people of Laurier- Sainte-Marie do not have a representative soon, could they at least have specific programs to help them?

May 1, 1990
Oral Questions


Guy St-Julien: Ask the senators that!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I have the feeling that very shortly I will be able to set a date for a by-election or by-elections. If you feel at ease in Oshawa- Are you ready for Oshawa?

When I hear Simon de Jong say, "It's time to go", it's time to go.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


PEARSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Mr. Harry Chadwick (Brampton -Malton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. I was most encouraged last year when the Department of Transport announced short and long-term initiatives intended to improve conditions at Pearson International Airport.
At that time we were informed that fines levied against airlines which violate flight path and flight time restrictions would be raised to $10,000. Could the minister tell the House when this important initiative will be implemented.


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. friend's continued interest in Pearson International Airport. In fact, we did announce that initiative last fall. In March we took additional steps vis-a-vis departure paths and changes to take-off and climbing procedures. The amendments which my hon. friend refers to will benefit the residents of Mississauga, Brampton and Etobicoke. They are presently in the drafting stage and I would hope to have them in the House very soon.


EMPLOYMENT
Edna Anderson: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Employment and Immigration.
Many young people in my riding make every effort to acquire the skills and training they need to get properly launched in the labour market. Everyone here will know how great a challenge that can be. Governments can and do help with this but these kids need more help. Can the
minister tell us what more the government is willing to provide?


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, in our jobs strategy, we have programs especially for young workers. I am thinking, for example, of co-operative programs, of occupational training programs. These help young people find and, more important, keep a job.
What we as a government want to do to improve this situation, because there is room for improvement-we presented a new labour force strategy and a reform of the Unemployment Insurance Act. Using these additional funds, we can make the progress required to ensure that young people can find work and obtain the necessary training.


Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Trade, or in his absence the acting minister. A major portion of the jobs in the town of Kinsville have been lost, 429 workers are unemployed. They are unemployed because an auto parts manufacturer has decided to use the free trade agreement and relocate operations in the U.S. and Mexico. Sheller-Globe has effectively closed the Kinsville plant, opting for $5.75 an hour labour in Indiana, and $1.50 labour in Mexico.
Does the minister continue to support this deal that is driving industries out of Canada and encouraging companies to move to the U.S. and Mexico, costing constituents in my area jobs?


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Mr. Speaker, we certainly do support the trade agreement. When you look at southern Ontario, we have had a major announcement made in Windsor, for example, of an aerospace company. We have had Freightliner of St. Thomas just announce over 1,200 jobs in St. Thomas alone, and at the end of the week we are going to be at a very important announcement by Cani in Woodstock where they are opening a new line and hiring hundreds of new employees.



May 1, 1990

The free trade agreement is great for southern Ontario. I wish the hon. member knew that.


Jerry Pickard: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the same minister. Just to point out the facts of free trade in our area, I mention the job closing today. Wayne Bus Manufacturing Company, located in Windsor, also has announced that as of June 15, 1990, 145 workers will lose their jobs.
The company has already moved half of its production to Richmond, Indiana. The company will open a Canadian sales office in the future. Within eight years the free trade agreement will allow all of this equipment to come across duty free.
How can the minister still support this agreement that is daily costing Canadians jobs?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, I can support the agreement because 264,000 jobs have been created across Canada since the agreement has been put in place.


Thomas Hockin: I want to say to my hon. friend I represent the same constituency as the premier of Ontario. I received the other day through the mail a very interesting magazine Business Week, published in the United States, with a 12-page insert from the province of Ontario in which the premier of Ontario boasts about the dynamic economy of Ontario and how the free trade agreement is assisting it.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for London East, a single question.


HOUSING
Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: Mr. Speaker, maybe the hon. member for London West should come back to his own community and see what is happening in London, Ontario.
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. With the interest rates now hovering over 14 per cent, thousands of Canadians no longer can afford to own and buy a home. Canadians who are now renewing their mortgage will have less disposable income to spend on other necessities because of the high cost of shelter. Housing construction is now grinding to a halt, leaving
Oral Questions
thousands of construction workers without steady employment. This is one of the first industries to feel the brunt of this government's recessionary policies.
With an entire industry collapsing across the country why will the minister not admit that their interest rate policy must be changed and interest rates must be reduced now?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, for almost two years we have had the premiers of the country unanimously calling for a reduction in interest rates. At that time people were saying the housing market was going to go all to hell because of the high interest rate policy.
What has happened is that for two years we had housing starts well in excess of 200,000 every month throughout that period. So I caution the hon. member on drawing conclusions too quickly.
But I acknowledge that the housing starts in the province of Ontario have turned down. I say to my hon. friend that it is important that we do have some easing back here because of the very fast pace of activity over the course of the last five or six years. These inflationary pressures are leading to the high interest rates.
If we are able to cool the economy off somewhat now and get these inflationary pressures out of the system, we will be able to see a much healthier economy in the future and avoid the blow-up that we saw in 1981 which led to that huge recession.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Prince George- Bulkley Valley, a single question.


FORESTRY
Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George -Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, officials from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre are expecting a fire season similar to last year when an area the size of New Brunswick was destroyed.
A report released in Winnipeg today stated that the problems that the department had in responding to it were the ones pointed out by the forestry minister.

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Can the minister assure this House and the people of Manitoba the full support of federal agencies, including the Armed Forces, so that both governments are prepared for the fire season this year?


Hon. Frank Oberle (Minister of Forestry):: Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate my hon. friend's concern in this area. Forest fires are not only recognized as a major cause of C02 emissions in the atmosphere, but annually they destroy as much fibre and timber as we are processing through our mills, a $40 billion industry.
I can give the hon. member the assurance that technical experts will be available as they have been in the past to the province of Manitoba and other provinces. We will continue with our major research effort, which has proven very effective and has had impressive results in the sense that we can now, through computer modelling, predict almost any fire in any area. Admittedly, there are costs associated with the pre-positioning of response equipment.
I cannot say that the Armed Forces will be called in to assist with that, but that is an interesting idea.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Essex-Windsor on a point of order.


POINT OF ORDER
Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, there was some disagreement which arose in Question Period about whether the comments of Ambassador Burney were in a question and answer session, or part of an address. I wonder if I could have the House permission to table-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member is quite out of order. 1 am sorry, but that is a matter of debate and the hon. member knows that he will have to take it up somewhere else.


RIDING OF LAURIER -SAINTE-MARIE
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I should like to set the record straight about a point of order raised today concerning the riding of
Laurier-Sainte-Marie which is temporarily without full-time representation in Parliament.
Mr. Speaker, you would know that the House of Commons does make provision for serving the people of a riding which is unrepresented or vacant as a result of death or resignation. The arrangement is simple enough: party whips, members of the opposition parties as well as government members take over the riding after the Clerk has written to the residents of the riding. Canadians ought to know that the House of commons serves the riding of Laurier-Sainte-Marie, as it does the riding of Oshawa I suppose, but I know that the constituents of Laurier-Sainte-Marie have not been left to fend for themselves. I was there last week to meet with some of the residents, Mr. Speaker. We did respond to their letters, we tried to help those who asked for assistance, and I must say that even the ministers have been co-operative in helping the citizens of Laurier-Sainte-Marie get from the government the services they need.
I think it is unfair to suggest that the riding is unrepresented or without assistance. Quite the contrary, we are doing our best to make sure these people get the services they need. It is not an easy task, granted, but we are glad to work for them.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge that during this time service is provided by the House. I believe that my hon. friend from Chambly was saying that it was time that it has a member of Parliament in the House of Commons to represent the people of that area.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Walker:
That this House reaffirm that all persons are equal under the lawand demand that the government (1) promote this fundamental human right for Canada's aboriginal peoples, (2) ensure that our system of justice is more responsive and suitable, (3) pursue alternative
May 1, 1990
[Stage Direction]
aboriginal justice initiatives, and (4) in cases of jurisdictional conflict, that the Government of Canada, in consultation with aboriginal leaders, ensure the protection of the life, liberty, and security of aboriginal people who are entitled to the status of Canadian citizens.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: When the House rose, the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell had the floor. Since he is not in the House, I recognize the hon. member for Lotbiniere on debate.


Mr. Maurice Tremblay (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to take this opportunity to offer our condolences to the family of the deceased, after what happened this morning on the Akwesasne reserve.
Mr. Speaker, to many of us, the right of aboriginal people to life, liberty and security of the person has seemed very precarious during the past few days. The situation for residents on the Akwesasne reserve is alarming and dangerous. Most Canadians cannot imagine being in that kind of situation.
Mr. Speaker, it is a difficult matter, and there is also the problem of jurisdiction, since Akwesasne straddles the borders of two provinces and two countries. As you know, talks took place throughout the weekend and continued into the small hours, to try and find a peaceful solution to this problem within the Mohawk community.
For several years, the Canadian side of the Akwesasne reserve has had its own native police services, jointly financed by the federal and provincial governments. These special officers have served the community loyally and well.
Major changes led to a law enforcement system being established by the Akwesasne community, in consultation with the federal and provincial governments.
During the past decade, Indian communities have evolved considerably. Most exercise a greater degree of autonomy, while some operate under their own forms of administrative autonomy.
Today, a steadily increasing number of residents of Indian reserves across the country would like to have their own law enforcement services.
The aspirations of aboriginal people to play a greater role in law enforcement on Indian reserves were boosted by a recent report on this question. A federal interdepartmental task force recommended that the govern-
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ment should continue to support law enforcement services on Indian reserves.
This important document will help us prepare for the challenges of the 90s and represents a major step in developing a consistent federal policy.
After studying crime, incarceration, population growth and employment rates, as well as expenditures and previous policies of law enforcement agencies, the task force put forward a number of principles and findings laying the foundation for future discussions.
We must point out that in-depth consultations will be the key to finding long-term solutions in response to peace and safety concerns of Indian people. Only by meeting with the people who live there and who understand how complex the issue is can we expect to solve long-standing problems.
This consultation process has already started and involves the participation of Indian communities as well as the federal, provincial and territorial governments. These meetings will lead to the drafting of a final report making recommendations to the Cabinet later this year.
The task force report identifies a number of problems some government departments and native leaders are dealing with. One of the most important problems, as illustrated by the current situation in Akwesasne, is the need to clarify the responsibilities of the federal government and those of the provinces.
Our overlapping and sometimes incompatible roles are creating problems for native people who want greater control over their territory.
While recognizing that Indian reserves are entitled to the same quality of service as similar non-native communities, the report stresses that we share the responsibility of ensuring that law enforcement forces in reserves meet community needs.
The federal, provincial and aboriginal governments will have to cooperate and work closely together to find acceptable solutions to the present problems. The report also stressed the need to establish the cost sharing mecanisms to be used by those groups.
The Indians consider as particularly important the fact that the need for an increase in their participation in the process is recognized in the report. The consequences of self-government, service management by native people,

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training and operating standards as well as the hiring of native constables are among the issues examined.
We are confident that practical solutions will be found during the course of our discusions on their concerns. We believe we will soon be able to submit new options regarding the native law enforcement services in general.
The study on the law enforcement services on the reserves is not the only ongoing study relating to the peace and the safety of our native people. The Thsk Force on the criminal justice system and its consequences on the Indians and Metis in Alberta is also doing a very important job in an area inhabited by a large Indian population. The Task Force was struck under the auspices of the Government of Alberta and the Government of Canada. The announcement of its creation was made jointly by the honorable Pierre H. Cadieux, the then Minister of State for Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the Attorney General of Alberta, Mr. Ken Rostad, the Solicitor General of Alberta, Mr. Dick Fowler, the president of the Indian Association of Alberta, Mr. Roy Louis, and the president of the Metis Association of Alberta, Mr. Larry Desmeules. The Task Force reflects a global and positive approach to the concerns of Indian and Metis groups in the province. It will examine issues affecting natives and the criminal justice system, including the disproportionately high number of natives in Alberta correctional institutions. It will also recommend solutions to problems identified in the current criminal justice process.
The study will also deal with provincial law enforcement services, legal aid, the courts, legal practices, correctional and native counselling services.
The task force, chaired by Judge Robert Allan Cawsey of the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench, will submit its report to the federal and provincial governments by December 31, 1990.
Control over justice and law enforcement services is an important step toward self-government, which has received the obvious support of many native groups.
Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note that control over justice and law enforcement services in reserves is also favoured by most non-native Canadians. National polls conducted in the last two years show substantial support for a separate native justice system. This issue has clearly
been brought to the fore by the Marshall inquiry, by the inquiry on native justice in Manitoba and by increased media coverage of other incidents suggesting that the criminal justice system discriminates against natives.
A 1989 Angus Reid poll indicated that 69 per cent of the population favour a separate justice system for natives, while a survey conducted by phone the same year put the level of support at 73 per cent.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would like to go back to the unique and frightening situation in Akwesasne. It is unique because the reserve geographic configuration is creating frustrating problems in terms of jurisdiction. Because of these problems, the crimes committed have greatly exceeded the capacities of a community police service. Such a unique situation obviously demands a unique response and we are trying to find appropriate and efficient solutions.
Mr. Speaker, all Canadians are praying for an end to the violence in Akwesasne. The process is already under way to ensure such a situation never happens again anywhere else.
We must learn from the events in Akwesasne and devote all our energies and all our support to solving justice and law enforcement problems throughout the country so that native people enjoy the same protection of life, liberty and security as all other Canadians.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: On questions or comments, the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member a short question.
One of the problems that we have when we are talking about native justice and reviewing the penal and correctional institutions is that we are basically not leaning to the strength of the native people. The native people of this country and all around the world have a very special skill in their ability and attitude toward the environment.
The member talks about these consultations that have been going on for some time now and will continue to go on, I am sure, for a lot longer. Would he not think it would be a productive exercise to include in those


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consultative groups people who are sensitive to environmental issues so that when the correctional institutions or the penal system is reformed, a more positive role could be given to rehabilitation in the native community by using their services, not only in their own community but all communities, by having them make a contribution to the environment by teaching others, by letting them work with reclaiming lands and rivers, et cetera? That, to me, would be a more uplifting way of rehabilitation rather than the current system where we tend to put them in confined quarters where we really do not rehabilitate but tend to put them back even further.
Since the Minister of the Environment is planning to develop, not just a conceptual approach but a very specific action plan in September, I wonder if the member thinks that this approach could be used in this consultative process, and if he could comment on that.


Maurice Tremblay: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for his question. I would like to make it clear to him that just because I did not mention the environmental aspect of the Indians' situation specifically does not necessarily mean that it should not be included.
When I spoke about the Akwesasne reserve in particular and more generally about the studies that are being produced or will be produced in Alberta and Manitoba, I am sure that the environmental issue will be raised by those concerned, namely the native people themselves. As you said so well, this issue not only affects them particularly but should also be part of the solution to problems like incarceration and self-government itself.
I would just ask the hon. member not to write to the Minister of the Environment or to make suggestions to him, because if I understand our institutions properly, it would be better to make the chairman of this study or the Solicitor General of Canada or even the Minister of Indian Affairs aware, so that this aspect and others that you and I do not have in mind now can be considered in the light of the problem and that hopefully, adequate solutions will be found.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. On debate, the hon. member for Delta.


Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this very important topic this afternoon. If it were not for the Meech Lake disagreement or agreement at this time, it would be one of the major points of discussion in Canada. What we are seeing in southern Ontario, Quebec and New York State at this time is a microcosm of the types of problems that we are indeed facing and as a government must deal with.
Canada's record on human rights is very good. People come from all over the world to live in this country because of the freedoms that we enjoy and we welcome others in order that they may also enjoy it. We also need to recognize that there are problems with our aboriginal population. In the past, they have not been dealt with fairly. Things are improving slowly perhaps in some areas, but more rapidly in others. Therefore, this is a good topic for discussion and for debate this afternoon.
We have made a great deal of progress. I can remember when I was a young lad that our aboriginal people were not allowed into beer parlours and could not live in certain areas, just as many of our friends from the Orient were also limited in that area. The recent inquiries that we have seen, such as the Marshall Inquiry and the Manitoba Justice Inquiry, have demonstrated very clearly that our native population has not always been dealt with fairly.
The fact has been mentioned a couple of times today that a disproportionate number of our native people find themselves in jail for offences which, if committed perhaps by a white person, would not have been as stiff. I believe that this is an example of the poverty and the disadvantage that many of our aboriginal people do face.
As a fair government and a fair country, we need to look at these problems and assist our aboriginal people in achieving the goals and aspirations to which each Canadian aspires.
One of the keys to this whole problem is the concept of self-government to which our native population has aspired. This, of course, includes increased responsibility

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for their educational, judicial, and social systems that they are working within, and the economic system which must be meshed with the rest of the economy of Canada which we all must deal with.
I believe that if this is carried out in consultation with our aboriginal leaders we will indeed see increased prosperity and increased self-reliance and independence. Already, we are seeing the emergence of strong, dynamic leaders in the aboriginal community. A few years ago this was unheard of and would never have been thought possible. Yet today we are meeting these people. Indeed, the aboriginal people should be very proud of the leaders they are electing and appointing to assist them in this very important area of self-government.
There are certain areas in which the government has been able to assist the aboriginal people in this quest for self-government. We think particularly today of the native justice system. One example where we have been able to do something is the on-reserve policing services. We have discovered, through errors that governments and others have committed in the past in trying to impose one culture on another, that many mistakes and problems have developed. Developing a proper justice system and policing system that takes into account those traditions and cultures is most vital and helpful.
The number of aboriginal people in jail has already been mentioned. Last September an Angus Reid poll revealed this concern. More than half of those polled believed that native people are not treated fairly by the courts; 70 percent of Canadians believe that native people have more difficulty getting hired for good jobs than do white Canadians; most also feel that aboriginal people deserve to be a lot better off financially than they are now. It also pointed out that Canadians are more likely to support than oppose aboriginal self-government. Over half of those surveyed agreed with the statement that the Canadian Constitution should specifically recognize the right of Indians to govern themselves on their own land without interference from white society.
These are very encouraging opinions and indicate to me a large body of goodwill among Canadian people to our native population. I only hope that it increases over the years. Canadians could not do anything else but to encourage policies and programs that would enhance that ideal and goal of self-government.
Another area in which the government is assisting aboriginal and native people to look after their own affairs is through a couple of very significant programs. One I would like to mention briefly is the Alternative Funding Arrangement or the AFA in which the government allows the individual tribal councils and bands to transfer funds from one program to another. We are all familiar with the complaint that they have made over the years that they are given money for a specific project and are unable to use it in another area where it may be of more value. This program assists those bands and councils to transfer funds without going through all of the annual budgetary changes that are necessary. This speeds up the whole process. Again, there is obviously room for improvement, but it is a step in the right direction that the Canadian government is taking.
The second program I would like to mention, again very briefly, is the Canadian Aboriginal Economic Development Strategy. This is designed to encourage economic development and decision-making at the local level with the recognition that the economic success rests with the aboriginal people themselves. Often we have taken a very paternalistic attitude toward our aboriginal people, that they could do nothing and it required a white man to run the show. More and more we are seeing the development of the native economic leaders themselves. This is a program that I support 100 per cent. It encourages them to move out into new areas of economic development. I think of the development in my own area of a significant tourist resort. They have some choice land and through this particular program they are discussing with the government the possibility of establishing a resort.
Another area that we should mention briefly concerns the Indian Act. So often in the past this has done nothing but impede the economic, political and social development of our aboriginal communities. Specifically, we are talking of the review of the lands and revenues, and trust review. This review is being used to examine the agreements between the various bands and councils so that they can be made more effective and utilized by our native populations for their own ends rather than having to depend on the bureaucracy in Ottawa or other major centres.

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This produces an opportunity for a review in consultation with the bands and councils. This is an area which I feel could be expanded in the future and perhaps speeded up somewhat, so that the relationship between government and Indians could be redefined to truly reflect the needs of our native populations.
Our government is clearly committed to the eventual constitutional entrenchment of self-government. I mentioned in my opening remarks the prominence of the Meech Lake Accord at this particular time. Aboriginal rights are a key item for future meetings between the First Ministers and the government of this country.
While many problems must be addressed, there are optimistic signs for us. I feel quite optimistic that as we work together with our native population, we will bring about solutions to these problems.
In conclusion, let me say that human rights is not some abstract, theoretical concept to which lip-service must be paid. Rather, it is a real expression of the desire of people to be independent and in charge of their own lives and destinies. It is a wish to be treated with respect and fairness. The aboriginal people of Canada share these goals with us. They are something toward which we will work together.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There has been a request to allow the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, who has the reserve in his riding, to continue with his seven minutes. Is there unanimous consent to allow the hon. member to finish his seven minutes?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before the hon. member speaks, are there any questions or comments for the hon. member for Delta? There being none, I will recognize the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott- Russell for the seven minutes then I will recognize the hon. member for Halifax.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank the Chair and hon. colleagues for allowing me to be able to make further remarks for the remaining seven minutes to which I was entitled. Unfortunately, after Question Period I could not be here to take advantage of the seven minutes that I had left to me.
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This morning I reviewed with you, Mr. Speaker, some of the tragic and difficult situations that my constituents on Akwesasne have to live with in their everyday lives. I described the border issue.
Today during Question Period hon. colleagues were asking questions. One could tell that not everyone is familiar with the idea of how the border is situated and the difficulty in having access to Akwesasne and so on. That became obvious. It is a literal nightmare of jurisdiction.
I now want to turn to another subject, that being some of the difficulties that the people of Akwesasne have encountered in retaining their traditional way of life, or anything that resembles it.
First, the fact that they are partly in Ontario, partly in Quebec and partly in the New York state is difficult, at the best of times. Some years ago, the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority constructed a bridge between Canada and the United States at Cornwall. It was felt that the appropriate location for the bridge would be across Cornwall Island, therefore on the reserve of Akwesasne.
Although that bridge has been there since I was a little boy, the natives inform me that there is still a dispute over the amount of moneys owed to them by the federal government for placing the bridge there. As a matter of fact, they claim that they have yet to be paid for the location of that bridge which has been there for 30 years or more.
The people of Akwesasne, particularly those on Cornwall Island, for many years were farmers. Many of them were fishing guides and they worked well in that environment. I use the word "environment" advisedly.
As a result of the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, a number of factories established themselves in that area. On the American side there is a foundry known as General Foundry, which is a subsidiary of General Motors. Behind General Foundry, right on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, are these huge outdoor containers-they are actually large holes in the ground-in which there are toxic chemicals, right on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.
Immediately west of Akwesasne is the Alcoa plant, and right beside it is the Reynolds Aluminum plant. From the Reynolds plant, and possibly from the other one too, I am not sure, emissions of fluoride fall on the community of Akwesasne, particularly on Cornwall Island. It got so bad that approximately a decade ago the farmers of Cornwall Island had to get rid of their cattle. They were forced to slaughter the animals because the

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milk given by the cows was contaminated and not fit for human consumption. The teeth of the children of Akwesasne were in awful condition as a result of the over-exposure to fluoride and that situation still exists.
I have a report here entitled "Phytotoxicology Investigations in the Cornwall area of Ontario in the vicinity of the Reynolds Metal Company and the Aluminum Company of America, Massena, New York". That report of 1988 says that the fall-out from those plants is still dangerous for human health today. This is about a decade after we came to the very sad conclusion of how this was affecting the lives of the people.
I said that the people of Akwesasne were also fishing guides and had a traditional way of life in that regard as well. You can imagine what that pollution in the St. Lawrence River has done to the fish and what it has done, of course, to the potential of being a fishing guide. So all in all we have severely damaged their way of life. And when I say "we" I mean we as a society. I am not blaming any one singularly, but all of us collectively, for having damaged that lifestyle.
We have, of course, the crime rate and the other difficulties that I talked about earlier this morning which I will not repeat, and so on.
I would like to make the following point in conclusion. Outside the community of Akwesasne are all the good people who live around it. My constituents and others from the city of Cornwall, represented by my colleague from Stormont-Dundas, work in such positions as customs officers and so on. Canada Customs is located on Cornwall Island right in the middle of Akwesasne. Can you imagine having to work at that place today, Mr. Speaker, in the middle of this crisis that we are living through right now? This is a very difficult thing for the people of my constituency and those from Stormont- Dundas and elsewhere who work there.
My colleague from Stormont-Dundas today asked the Minister responsible for Customs and Immigration to get an undertaking, first, that the people would not be moved to the new office on Cornwall Island, because a whole new group was supposed to move there next week. We did get that assurance. However, my colleague was
also asking the Minister of National Revenue for a commitment that there would be a complete review of that plan before anyone is moved, not just now but even later, after this dispute ends, and hopefully it will end soon. We have not yet had a positive reply to that and I hope that the minister will speak later and give us that assurance.
In conclusion, I want to thank the House for granting me these extra minutes to be able to conclude these remarks. I want to appeal to the residents of Akwesasne, particularly today. I want to appeal to their good senses and to their calm because there are going to be difficult hours and days ahead of them. I want to remind them, through you, Mr. Speaker, and through this House, that the violence will not end with more war, the violence will end if everyone keeps their senses and does their best to restore law and order in Akwesasne.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: On debate, the hon. member for Halifax West-Halifax, sorry.


Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, just on that point I will say, before I begin my remarks, that the hon. member for Halifax West and I grew up on the same street, albeit a number of years apart. We are both Haligonians but as you, Mr. Speaker, are aware, we do have a different party affiliation.
I rise today to speak in strongest support of the motion moved by my colleague, the member for Winnipeg North Centre. I begin by quoting from that motion:
That this House reaffirm that all persons are equal under the law
and demand that the government (1) promote this fundamental
human right for Canada's aboriginal peoples-
There is more in the motion, as you are aware, but I would like to begin my remarks in this debate on this particular area.
My colleague from North Delta made some very interesting comments a few moments ago. He talked about the fact that Canadians can be proud of their human rights record and that people come from all over the world to make Canada their home because of this record. With the greatest of respect to my colleague, I think this has become a myth that too many Canadians
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believe. It is a myth which examination of the facts in Canada show to be untrue.
We have perhaps a small problem in Canada in that we tend to be a little smug when we look at our neighbours to the south. We tend to think that because we are smaller, more spread out, because we have a history that has evolved into a democratic nation rather than being born through revolution, because we tend to be less violent, at least on the face of it, than our American cousins, that all of these things add up to a Canada that is somewhat better, more congenial to all peoples, less bigoted and less racist. The sad truth is that this is just not the case.
We do not have to look very far to see that this is not the case for people who are visible minorities. It is not the case for women. It is not the case for new Canadians in their first, second and even third generations. It is not the case at all and it is something about which Canadians have to do something.
I refer, first, to this year's report of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. That report states that in a year that witnessed the fortieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the contrast between the ringing affirmation of human solidarity that that universal declaration gave and our common practice seems particularly harsh.
In relating it specifically to the question of Canada's first people, the report noted that the special committee of Parliament on Indian self-government recommended in 1983 that the federal government establish a new relationship with Indian first nations and that an essential element of this relationship be the recognition of Indian self-government.
This report was accepted by the government of the day in 1984. Later in that very year the new government agreed that aspects of self-government could and should be dealt with in the context of Indian land claim negotiations. Consequently, the report states that the issue today is not whether aboriginal people should have greater control over their own affairs, but the nature and the extent of that control.
We look at the problems besetting native Canadians and I think we have to hang our heads in shame. My province of Nova Scotia has been singled out, and to a degree rightly so, for its treatment of Donald Marshall
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Jr. After many years, long hearings, much soul-searching, the royal commission known as the Marshall Inquiry was published earlier this year. That commission made 82 recommendations. Those recommendations covered a gambit of areas from criminal trial procedures to police investigations.
For the purposes of this motion it is important to note that the commission found that the fact that Marshall was a native was a factor in his wrongful conviction and imprisonment, that the immediate response to the death of Sandy Seal was entirely inadequate, incompetent and unprofessional and that the fact that Donald Marshall was a Micmac was one of the reasons that the police identified him as a prime suspect.
A further finding of the commission was that racism played a part in a wrongful conviction and imprisonment. Further recommendations were that the Department of the Attorney General and Solicitor General in Nova Scotia adopt and publicize a policy on race relations; that the Government of Canada and the Government of Nova Scotia, as well as the Nova Scotia bar, financially support Dalhousie Law School's new special minority admissions program for Micmacs and indigenous blacks; that there be law school programs for visible minorities and that training for police officers include discussion of minority issues and encourage sensitivity to minority concerns.
I might add that this, too, is mentioned in the report of the Human Rights Commission and that the Human Rights Commission notes in particular that this kind of training is now taking place in the RCMR But, Mr. Speaker, it must take in police forces nation-wide to prevent travesties of justice similar to that in the Donald Marshall case. Donald Marshall spent 11 years in penitentiary for a crime he did not commit. Nothing will give him back those 11 year. Nothing, except a completely new and fair attitude on the part of governments and on the part of people, will redress the wrong done to Canadian native peoples.
Further recommendations of the Marshall Inquiry are that a community controlled native criminal court be established in Nova Scotia; that a native justice institute be established with funding from both the federal and the provincial governments and that in Nova Scotia in particular Micmac interpreters be provided in all courts in the province.

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One of the things noted in the report of the federal Human Rights Commission is that the evidence that native Canadians are over-represented in our prisons is inescapable. In a report prepared for the Canadian Bar Association in 1988 it was shown that 10 per cent of male inmates and 13 per cent of female inmates in Canadian federal penitentiaries are native, although native peoples make up only about 2 per cent of the general population.
The situation in provincial institutions is worse. In fact, it is a tragic but true situation that an Indian child born in this country has a far greater chance of going to penitentiary than he does of finishing university.
It was discovered in the course of the Marshall Inquiry that the lack of an interpreter for Donald Marshall at his initial trial, and even at his later hearing where he was finally cleared, was a major obstacle to his fair treatment by the court.
When I visited Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories some months ago I learned that one of the towns in the north-I am sorry, I forget which one-declared itself octolingual, to represent all of the languages spoken including, I might add, English and French, and six different native languages in that particular small town.
We can all learn from that kind of a gesture, particularly in the Canada of today, where so much tension, unhappiness and insensitivity is driving our nation to the brink of break-up because of a lack of a sensitivity by some of our people toward other of our people on the question of language.
If Donald Marshall had had an interpreter at his first trial in the early 1970s, I do not say that that would have made a major difference, given all the other problems, but it might have made his own time there a little easier. It might have turned up something that the courts would have had to listen to. It might have helped prevent the tragedy that then unfolded over the next 11 years.
The report also calls for public awareness programs. This, I think, is one of the areas of such great need,
where all of us can lead, because the problem almost goes beyond that of ordinary racism and ordinary bigotry.
Too many Canadians, vis-a-vis our native peoples have, not even a paternalism, which would be hard enough to accept, but a total ignorance, a total obliviousness to the fact that these are the indigenous people of Canada, that they have a specific culture, lifestyle and way of life that they have right to see continued, that they have a spiritual element that may be different from various other groups in this country but that is part and parcel and an integral part of their lifestyle which must be continued and respected by other Canadian citizens.
Until we see that in our schools, universities and other cultural institutions and on our television programs that sensitivity will not be created.
Bear in mind that everything that is stated regarding the province of Nova Scotia is equally true for every other province in the country and for the national government as well. Further recommendations of the Marshall Inquiry were that the Chief Justices and Chief Judges of each court in Nova Scotia should exercise leadership to ensure fair treatment of minorities within the system, that provincial funding to legal aid be re-examined to better serve the needs of minority clients and that municipal police departments and the RCMP actively recruit minorities.
Again, as part of the sensitivity and the training of police forces natives must be hired in these police forces and have input into the manner in which their people and they themselves are dealt with by these forces. A further recommendation was that official policies on the elimination of racial stereotypes be developed by all levels of government.
Nobody would stand up in this House and deny the need for any of these things. Nobody would stand up and deny the need for any of these programs. Nobody would stand up in this House and suggest that the status of native people in this country is anything that we can be proud of, that the treatment of native people by newer Canadians such as ourselves is anything that we should be prepared to boast about.
The time has come for action, the time has come for specific programs, but that is not what we are seeing. What we have seen, on the other hand, is the cancellation of the native communication programs.
While Donald Marshall was languishing in the federal penitentiary in Dorchester, New Brunswick, there was
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one champion for his innocence, one champion that worked on and on all during his incarceration to see justice done. I refer, of course, to the Micmac News. The Micmac News has been published in Nova Scotia for over 20 years. It has a circulation among native people and others of over 4,800 and it has done a tremendous amount of good. It has been a source of communication and pride to the Micmac community in Atlantic Canada and it is the only major native newspaper in Atlantic Canada. Mr. Speaker, its federal funding has been cut.
This is a tragedy. It is more than just a tragedy in the sense of a loss of a communication instrument for native people. For native people in Atlantic Canada who know that the Micmac News was so much a first cause in the final freeing of Donald Marshall there is a fear that the reason it has been cut is a deliberate move-I do not suggest this, Mr. Speaker, but among native people the feeling is it is a deliberate move to silence a voice that has done some good for native people.
The attitude among young native people in my region is that the white man's government is not relevant to them, that the white man's government does not care about them and that empty promises, broken promises and paternalistic feeling do nothing but cause amusement and despair. The amusement we might be able to do something about, but the despair goes right to the root of the lives of desperation that people live because they do not have the wherewithal to make it in a society that forever shunts them to the side.
Donald Marshall is the example to which we can all point. We know about Donald Marshall, we know what has happened to him and we know what it has meant to his life to have 11 years taken away from him, 11 years from the age of 17 to 28 when he would have been being educated, learning a trade and starting his lifelong career.
Native Canadians right across the country are suffering every day. They are suffering because our society puts little or no value on their contribution, because our society refuses to understand that the way they live their lives is as important and as relevant to the great cultural fabric of this country as the way those of us of Irish, English, French or Polish descent live our lives. It has to stop. It has to stop by a concerted effort of government
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to follow the kinds of recommendations that the Marshall Inquiry has suggested.
As I already mentioned, we see in Canada today a disproportionate number of natives in prison. Interestingly enough, the figure is even more disproportionate for native women than for native men. We see a disproportionate alcoholism rate, a disproportionate unemployment rate and a disproportionate suicide rate. All of these things lead us to see that the overwhelming spirit in the native community, if we do not act to right these wrongs and redress these wrongs as soon as humanly possible, is despair.
Canada is not a country that should engender despair in any of its people. Canada is a country that should engender hope for the future with a pride in the past, a pride in the past from our native peoples who were here when we got here. If we do not take care of this country the way we should, they will still be here after we have gone.
I can only add my voice to that of my colleagues from Winnipeg North Centre, Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, Stormont-Dundas and others who have spoken and will speak today and say to this government and to all of us here in Canada: for God's sake do something, act on these recommendations, show that our government and our country is not callous and uncaring, show that our government and our country puts a premium on all its people wherever they live, whatever their background and, most particularly, on our native people.


Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich -Gulflslands):: Mr. Speaker, I do not have a question for the hon. member but I would like to add my voice to the debate in this comment period.
I agree with the member's analysis that the fundamental problem is a complete lack of hope. I have long been interested in this. In fact I did an honours paper at university on the history of the Indian franchise in British Columbia so I have a demonstrated interest in that. Now that I am the member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands I have tried to reach out to the native communities in my district. I am finding that they feel very apart and outside of the mainstream of political activity.

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There is a very real fundamental mistrust of federal or provincial politicians to in any way address their requirements. I think that that is an historical mistrust. We have never been able to give them the kind of representation that they feel they require. I think there is this fundamental mistrust because we do not understand and also because of the kind of hurts that have been generated over history. Many of the comments by my colleague from Comox-Alberni this morning speak to that fundamental mistrust and the reasons for it.
I would like to reiterate what he said about that. If we are going to get real treatment for native justice in Canada we have to focus on the fundamentals. They are three: The first is constitutional recognition. We now have a constitutional crisis in our country. It is because, I believe, of the lack of consultation with ordinary people. The politicians felt more able and adept at handling constitutional matters than ordinary people and this is what we have. got. We have a mess.
The second item in recognizing the fundamental problem of native people is land claims. EIow can we give people the kind of recognition and respect that they deserve if we do not even recognize that they were here first and have some sense of ownership and some sense of responsibility to their land. They did it a whole lot better than many of us. Sitting on the environment committee, I have listened to members of many tribes speak of the kind of reverence they have for their environment. We could learn from them, Mr. Speaker, and we are not doing a very good job of that.
Finally, as my colleague from Comox-Alberni has pointed out, what we should be doing is strengthening human rights legislation. As the member from Halifax points out, we have a reputation but sometimes one wonders whether that reputation is well deserved or not. They say you cannot legislate morality. You can make sure that cases such as Donald Marshall will never happen again. For those people crying out for the renewal of capital punishment, Donald Marshall is certainly a case in point where the fundamental inhumanity dealt to this person from a native community would not have occurred if he were not a native.
My task as a member of Parliament in trying to represent all of my constituents is to build those bridges
of communication and to try to speak to people and get them to trust so that they can tell us what they want us to do as their representatives.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Saanich-Gulf Islands for her comments. I would like to add to what she has said when she mentioned, in particular, the subject of human rights. There are two points, Mr. Speaker.
One is the need for promotion of human rights vehicles and the response through provincial and federal human rights commissions in native communities. There is very little awareness and it has certainly given the federal government responsibility for first people. I think it is a policy which could be acted upon and acted upon quickly to promote the use of human rights commissions through the native communities in this country.
The second comment I would like to make in response to my colleague's comments relates to a situation that arose again out of the Marshall case that I heard in Nova Scotia. There was a civil suit that arose from some of the goings on in the Marshall Inquiry. The lawyer involved told me that he had asked a young native Nova Scotian to testify. The young man said to him: "Why, what good will it do? It never works for us. The system does not work for us, it only works against us." My friend tried and tried to convince him that the system could work for him. This young man, who I think was every day of 22-tragically the same age as that young man who died today at Akwesasne-said: "No, I am sorry; I do not believe you. I have no faith in your system; it will never do me any good". We cannot continue to allow this to be the case in our country.


Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg St. James):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a couple of short comments. This is a subject that moves me a lot because I have had the opportunity, in the past, as a journalist and as a broadcaster to do several documentaries about the Indian community and the problems related to our aboriginals in this country. My friend, the hon. member for Saanich-Gulf Islands, talked about mistrust and misunderstanding, and it is the absolute truth.
One of the problems we have, and it is a very complex matter, is that we simply just do not know each other. We do not work with each other. There are a lot of middle-class, white Canadians in this country who will offer gratuituous comments about Indians and yet they

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have never worked with them, befriended them or been with them, or ever been on a reserve.
Actually-and it is unfortunate in many ways-it is not normal for a lot of Canadians to have native Indians come into their lives every day, every week, or every month. In fact, I suspect there are many, many, if not millions of Canadians who have never shaken hands with a native Indian and it would do them well to do it. They should visit Indian reserves in northern Manitoba, northwestern Ontario and Saskatchewan, as I have. It would be an eye-opener. They would realize that these are human beings who want to live in peace, who want to prosper, who want to get ahead, and who have feelings like the rest of us.
It is something that moves you and hurts you a lot when you visit a reserve and discover that perhaps, in the winter time, 95 per cent of the adults, men and women, are unemployed and perhaps in the summer time it may go down to 70 per cent or 80 percent. That is how shocking it is. The problem is enormous.
Yes, there is a constitutional crisis; yes, we have to deal with land claims; and yes, we have to deal with some of these issues that are in the news all the time, but I would suggest that at the root of it is this mistrust and this misunderstanding and all of us, including the government of the day, should do something to help us get to know each other better.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. Debate, but before I recognize the hon. member for South Shore-

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Chambly-Women's Centres; the hon. member for Okanagan-Shuswap-The Environment; the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon-Pearson International Airport.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in this debate this afternoon. I am particularly pleased to speak
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following my good friend, the hon. member for Halifax. I rarely follow my hon. friend but I am always pleased to speak after her in debate, and today is no exception to that.
I wish to begin by commending the hon. member for Winnipeg North for bringing forth this very important set of issues relating to human rights in Canada and, indeed, relating to native people.
It is curious that he mentioned privately to me, when we were speaking a few minutes ago, the coincidence that today should be the day for this debate when we have, in fact, seen such a tragic event in Canada and North America relating to native people and, indeed, to the administration of justice on both sides of the border. I wish to commend him for bringing this issue forth because what we are talking about here today is, fundamentally, human rights. Issues of human rights are really issues which are non-partisan. They are issues that are of concern to all members of this House, I am sure, and they are of concern to all Canadians because, as Canadians, we value very highly our concept of our country as a democratic country.
The equality of Canadians, which is so much a part of the ethic of Canadian society and indeed a part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is something that we must continuously pursue until such time as we can be satisfied that it exists in practice throughout our country before the courts, before the police and in terms of access as well as opportunity to participate fully in all aspects of Canadian life.
Increasingly over the next decade we are going to see issues such as the issues that we are dealing with today become more and more in the forefront of Canadian consideration. Our society is changing at a phenomenal rate, and it will continue to change at a phenomenal rate because of the immigration needs of Canada. It is inevitable that we will continue to see the development of our population as a multiracial population. Issues such as whether or not people who may be different by virtue of their skin colour, their culture, their language, their religion or other aspects of their cultural heritage may find themselves in the position where they are not treated equally as Canadians. That is something that we

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must all seek to eradicate in order that our country will live up to the principles articulated in our Constitution.
Native people in Canada are in a particularly unique position as compared to other persons who might be referred to as minorities in Canada. Quite simply, others who have come here as immigrants have chosen to come. They recognized when they left their homelands that they may face circumstances that are different, and that they may have challenges beyond those which they might face if they stayed at home. This is not the case with native people, because this is their ancestral home and the place where they should quite legitimately more than any other Canadians be able to call their homeland.
At the same time, when we talk about equality of Canadians sometimes I have had people say to me: "Why is it that native people have special status? Why is it that we talk about the equality of all Canadians, but yet native people have special privileges that other Canadians do not have, recognized in the Indian Act or elsewhere?" Quite simply, native people do not have special status in Canada. They are equal and pro-Canadians.
I noticed in my hon. friend's motion that there was something with which I wanted to take issue. In the motion he refers to the security of aboriginal people "who are entitled to the status of Canadian citizens". Native persons are Canadian citizens, full and equal with all other Canadians but they do enjoy benefits that other Canadians do not enjoy that relate to their special inheritance, in particular as status Indians as recognized through our law, Constitution and our traditions.
These special privileges that I often hear people criticize, one should remember, are no different than the inheritance that any other Canadian receives from his or her parents or ancestors, in the same way that my father may leave me certain of his property, rights or privileges when he passes on. Similarly, native people have legitimate right to receive from their ancestors certain rights and privileges that may accrue. Our goal must be to recognize all Canadians as equal under the law of Canada, and this is an aspiration that we must pursue.
My hon. friend from Halifax made reference to and spoke very sensitively on the subject of the recent Marshall inquiry in our province. There is no question
that that was a landmark, a very important investigation in the history of this country, and in the history of the administration of justice. I read that report with fascination. It was one of the most interesting documents of its sort that I have read in a long time. It was absolutely captivating reading and made some very valuable and important recommendations for our society.
I have said previously on a Standing Order 31 in this House and would say again today that Canadians from other provinces should not be smug about the Marshall report. Perhaps my hon. friend from Halifax has had people say to her: "What's your problem there in Nova Scotia?" The fact is it is not our problem there in Nova Scotia. Inquiries could be held in other provinces that could reveal the same problems with respect to the administration of justice, or possibly the administration of other public institutions in our society.
We happen to be in a position in Nova Scotia where we have now had the definitive evidence of a problem that we have to come to grips with in Nova Scotia. I am pleased to see the quick response of the Government of Nova Scotia to that. I am also pleased to see that the Minister of Justice for Canada and her officials have been reviewing the recommendations of the Marshall report to see if there are implications for the Government of Canada, and if they would identify needs on our part to change the way things are done nationally.
I would expect, as well, that the forthcoming report of the Manitoba aboriginal justice inquiry will also give us an opportunity for further insights and understanding in this whole area. I think we can expect that the dialogue is only just beginning at a very serious level in Canada. I think people could argue quite legitimately that perhaps it is overdue. Nevertheless, the dialogue is well under way.
The motion by the hon. member for Winnipeg North demands that the government "pursue alternative aboriginal justice initiatives". I am pleased to say that this government is deeply concerned about the native justice issues and is engaged in a number of initiatives in this area, some of which I would like to mention briefly today. First, I would like to provide a context for the discussion before addressing the specific initiatives which the government has undertaken.
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By its nature the justice system deals with conflicts between individuals, between individuals and the state, and between groups. Accordingly the issues discussed here tend to focus on problems, concerns about abuses and wrongs done. It is, however, necessary to approach the development of responses to these problems positively. It is necessary to focus on the evolution of a system of justice that is meaningful for all Canadians, to search for laws, procedures and institutions that exist through the free consent of all citizens regardless of culture or race.
One of the areas of concern to native people in Canada is the provision of policing services on reserves, something of which we have been very much aware in the last week or two in this country. The importance of policing services in the development of effective justice administration is reflected in the fact that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development undertook a review of Indian reserve policing to canvass the variety of present policing arrangements, examine the question of jurisdiction and assess alternative models.
These efforts which involve national consultations seek to ensure that Indian communities have access to appropriate kinds and levels of policing services. In January 1990 the final report on reserve policing was released publicly, and I understand consultations with interested parties are anticipated to be completed later this year.
As previously noted, aboriginal offenders are disproportionately represented in prisons. The ministry of the Solicitor General responsible for federal correctional services has taken special effort to identify programs and services that will ensure that programs and institutions are responsive to aboriginal concerns and needs. These efforts have often been undertaken in consultation with aboriginal organizations and groups, and encourage the active participation of native communities.
The correctional law review process and the task force report on the reintegration of the aboriginal offender both point to the commitment of developing programs in dialogue with aboriginal communities. The administration of justice is one of the matters that may be discussed in aboriginal self-government negotiations. In preparation, the Department of Justice led an interdepartmental
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committee to develop principles to guide the negotiations. This is part of the government's ongoing commitment to the concept of aboriginal self-government.
All members should be aware that the government and this minister are receptive to initiatives developed by the aboriginal communities themselves. I might say that for the first year and a half that I had the privilege to be a member of this place, I dealt a great deal with the minister who is now the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. I found that as Minister of Fisheries and Oceans he was one of the most approachable ministers of the government, and I can see that he is off to an outstanding beginning as Minister of Indian Affairs in having concluded some absolutely landmark agreements in the history of this country. There is no doubt in my mind as to his receptiveness.
The Department of Justice provides funding in a variety of aboriginal justice areas. In addition to proposals for radical institutional reforms such as would be implied by proposals for separate tribal courts and similar mechanisms, aboriginal communities and organizations have proposed a wide array of alternative program models. Various other proposals have relied upon mediation and arbitration schemes which, being consen-tual in nature, only work if the parties voluntarily participate. These may offer wide scope for accommodating the particular values and traditions of the community.
In conclusion, it would be difficult, even inappropriate, to attempt to identify all the alternatives that might be available to Canadians in this area. At this time, we can only agree that alternatives to existing processes, as well as improvements to the existing ones, are at the heart of long-term solutions.
As the government explores new approaches, whether in the community self-government negotiations, the renewed constitutional discussions, law reform initiatives or elsewhere, the participation of aboriginal Canadians will ensure that appropriate alternatives are considered and the human rights principles that characterize our system of justice are advanced for all Canadians.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions or comments? Debate, the hon. member for Regina- Qu'Appelle. It is a 10-minute debate and five minutes

May 1, 1990
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for questions or comments. You are splitting it with the hon. member for Victoria?


Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina -Qu'Appelle):: I am, Mr. Speaker, and thank you very much.
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me today to join in the debate on the motion of the Official Opposition regarding an Indian justice system. In my constituency of Regina-Qu'Appelle, I have over 11 Indian reserves. Most of them are Cree, although I do have some Sioux. As well, that part of Regina which I represent has a fair number of urban Indian people, not just treaty people, but also Metis and non-treaty people.
I have been a friend, an observer, and an associate of the native community back home for a number of years. As a new Canadian, a person whose family came to this country not too many years ago, I have to acknowledge the original people in this country, the Indian people. The fact that I now represent them in this House of Parliament, I feel, puts a special responsibility on my shoulders.
We have heard many members speak eloquently in this House today about the plight of the Indian people. We have heard about the statistics. Back in my own province of Saskatchewan, some 36 per cent of the inmates in the federal penitentiary are native people; in the provincial penitentiary, over 85 per cent of the inmates are of native ancestry. People of native ancestry only constitute 16 per cent of the Saskatchewan population.
When we consider the social statistics such as marriage breakdown, alcoholism, life expectancy, the rate of death by violent means, housing conditions on reserves, the unemployment rate, one has to come away with a sad heart and say that this is indeed the worst of Third World conditions.
Yet, I think it would be wrong for us not to also see some positive things. We can stand and lay blame that goes back many, many years, to the paternalistic attitude that previous governments have taken. It was not until toward the end of the 1950s that a band could sell a cow without having to receive the approval of the Indian, agent who had to get the approval from Ottawa.
If there was ever an indictment of over-welfare, certainly the Department of Indian Affairs and our treatment of Indian people is that example. We never
gave them an opportunity to be responsible for their own lives. Some of that is beginning to change. We see positive developments in terms of developing educational institutions on the reserves, manned and operated by the bands. We are beginning to see some economic agreements between the bands and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development that are beginning to allow for some economic development. We are beginning to see bands taking over the administration of social services, housing, and these other programs on the reserves themselves.
We, as members of parliament, should be encouraging these developments because, in the end, people having responsibility over their own lives is what it is really all about. Let the Indian people regain responsibility over their own lives. It is in this way that the Indian people will regain for themselves their own sense of pride. If there is one thing that the white civilization has done to our Indian brothers and sisters over the years is to take away their pride.
We almost destroyed them as a people, but as I mentioned earlier there are some hopeful signs that Indian pride is coming back. Every year I attend powwows on my reserves and in the 11 years that I have been a member of parliament I have seen these powwows grow not only in terms of numbers of people participating in them but also in the rebirth of Indian spiritualism that accompanies their renewed sense of pride. I see it in the faces of the young men and women going to the powwows on those reserves. I see that this Indian spiritualism is being used to combat problems like alcoholism on the reserve. They are beginning to get back their pride, which is essential if we really are concerned about the welfare of the Indian people.
The other area that needs serious attention is the native justice system. The opposition motion today deals with that question. Again we see some positive things. Toward the end of last year I had the honour and the privilege of participating in a ceremony in the town of Fort Qu'Appelle which started a training program for young Indian and Metis boys and girls who were going to enter the program to become Indian special constables in the RCMP.
I have to acknowledge the role that the RCMP has been taking. The RCMP is beginning to realize that they
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need native constables, especially if they are going to be dealing with the question of policing the reserves.
Much more needs to be done. All those programs are under-funded. There are more young Indian people wanting to apply to those programs than there are openings. I think about the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural College. Again we are seeing young Indian men and women wanting to advance their education and yet, unfortunately, the funding is being cut off to those important programs.
We have heard some of the possible solutions in speeches today. One of the most important ways to solve the problems that Indian people are facing is to resolve the land question. We have not lived up to commitments that previous governments have made to the Indian people. In fact in many instances we have stolen land from the Indian people. We have ignored legal agreements that we have made. In the past, crooked Indian agents have swindled Indian bands and Indian people out of their rightful land. This has got to be corrected.
Land settlements will begin to create an economic base that would allow the Indian people to develop a self-sustaining economy within their bands, thereby providing employment, and setting positive models for the Indian people.
The second area that I believe is important is education. We cannot and should not deny education opportunities to the young Indian men and women. People without pride lack positive role models. We are beginning to see positive role models developing in the Indian community. These are young men and women who have done exceptionally well at post-secondary education, very often against tremendous odds. Very often they do not have the white support or the family support in the urban setting.
Many of these young Indian men and women come from the reserves directly into an urban centre where they usually do not have the support system they need. They have to combat the temptation to become involved in the down side of urban Indian living is there. They have to combat the pressures and the newness of a white university system. Very often they are not adequately trained in terms of their past high school record so they need special help and attention as well.
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Those young Indian men and women who have come through the system with their degrees are really people whom we should all admire. They are the positive role models. They are the future for the Indian people.
If there is anything I can do in this House in terms of my appeal to government members, it would be to ensure that funding for post-secondary education to native young men and women not be curtailed, that we give them every opportunity of availing themselves of post-secondary education, because that is where the future lies.
The third area which is important is the area that the Official Opposition has raised. We need a justice system that is sensitive to Indian needs and Indian values. To this end, I sincerely urge the government to give the matter serious consideration, not just lip-service, to ensure that a system will evolve that will indeed provide justice to our Indian brothers and sisters.


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his excellent comments and for contributing to this very important debate.
The final issue he raised is one which I think deserves to be elaborated on. In western Canada several organizations are thinking about alternative justice systems. There seems to be a reluctance on the part of the federal government to get involved in a debate on this issue. Yet we all know that tribal councils, provincial organizations and individual bands are seeking ways of increasing their participation rate and their control over these systems. In Manitoba the Aboriginal Justice Committee had a very important two-day conference on this issue, and Alberta is considering it in the course of its own investigations.
Perhaps the member from Regina could further contribute to the debate by elaborating on the need for alternative justice systems to be more responsive to the native communities that we find particularly in western Canada.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, yes, indeed, I agree. When we talk about a justice system, we should also talk about the need for more law enforcement officers of native ancestry. We need people of native ancestry to be judges

May 1, 1990
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and members of tribunals. We need Indian lawyers as well.
If, indeed, our system of justice is to meet the needs of the native community, then these things must be in place. Without them there will be discrimination and racism, either overt or not. Policemen and judges, because of their upbringing and their attitudes, may unconsciously be racist or prejudiced since they do not very often understand the forces involved in a native's life.
When I returned to Saskatchewan in the 1970s and worked in the office of the Minister of Social Services, there was an attempt by young natives in Regina to have a young native police force. The official establishment, the police department and the welfare agencies were quick to denounce this. Yet it had some merit.
They were proposing that when, for example, Indian people went on a binge, instead of picking them up and throwing them in jail they would exercise wisdom and just gently take them home. That, to me, was wisdom. That was dealing with a problem in a wise way, rather than the way the white society deals with them. That is to say, when they find people who are inebriated on the streets they throw them in the paddy wagon and throw them in the cell.


Mr. Althouse:: If they are Indian.


Simon Leendert de Jong: That is right, if they are Indians
There are other, more wise ways of dealing with these questions. They should come from the Indian community. I thank the hon. member for his question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. On debate, the hon. member for Victoria. He also has 10 minutes of debate plus five minutes for questions and comments .


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to participate in this important debate. To refresh the House as to the motion before it, it states:
That this House reaffirm that all persons are equal under the law and demand that the government (1) promote this fundamental human right for Canada's aboriginal peoples, (2) ensure that our system of justice is more responsive and suitable, (3) pursue alternative aboriginal justice initiatives, and (4) in cases of jurisdictional conflict, that the Government of Canada, in consultation with aboriginal leaders, ensure the protection of the life, liberty, and security of aboriginal people who are entitled to the status of Canadian citizens.
This motion permits us to deal with a number of issues which are current in Canada, starting with the issue that is current today, that is, the tragedy at the Mohawk reserve on the Canadian border, where the Canadian government, having had representations from the responsible elected and traditional leaders, has failed to respond. As a result, a tragedy has ensued.
It is important that the Canadian government respond to the leadership of the native people, not only in that community but the national leadership who have joined in that request, and deal promptly and fairly with our citizens on the reserve in that tragedy.
The motion takes us beyond that particular issue into what is really one of the searing injustices in this country'. That is an injustice which has its roots in our history. I found that for me it was a gradual process of beginning to understand the depths and nature of the tragedy which we see about us today.
Before the Europeans came aboriginal people had a society which, while it was different in different parts of the continent, was generally marked by cohesion, by political stability, by a spirituality and cultural integration with the community and with the environment that we would all be pleased to have today in North America.
The impact of European intervention in North America has proven to be a disaster for most aboriginal people. Lisa Hobbs Birnie, who has written a very recently published book on the life and work of the National Parole Board, and others have described the relationship today as that of a Third World country living in the midst of one of the richest societies that history has ever known.
It is that first point which needs to be understood by non-aboriginal Canadians. That is to say that the culture and life that was here when the Europeans first arrived still remains in some fashion, and has not been absorbed within the European culture. Thus, daily, we have a clash of cultures, of worlds, that are radically different. This is caught up and described in the statistics. Perhaps we non-aboriginal people need statistics to help us understand the nature of the problem.
Not only are living standards dramatically lower across this country for aboriginal people, but social problems that arise because of a constant bombardment of their culture create a horror story in many areas of the native community. That horror story gets itself acted out in a
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clash with our system of justice. That clash shows up at every point in the administration of justice. It shows up in tensions with the police, as we have seen in the evidence that has come out of the Manitoba inquiry, and in the Donald Marshall case where a police force which is essentially non-aboriginal and which struggles to try to understand the culture that it is dealing with is usually at a complete disadvantage.
Many of our police officers-the RCMP as an institution, and the provincial police forces-have learned more than most of us about the tragedies and how to deal with them. But one of the great problems is that their voices are not being listened to in the council of government.
Since I have been here, and I have been critic for the Solicitor General's department, I have been visited with more reports than one could imagine on this subject. I have in my hand a report on policing for aboriginal Canadians, and the RCMP role in it.
My friend from Regina outlined a number of steps that could be taken. Each page has a series of specific recommendations which the police would like to bring into practice across this country which would only begin to deal with part of the problem.
I also have a copy of the report of the Indian Policing Policy Review Task Force which involved a number of departments. Again, it contains a series of recommendations which would begin to deal with the difficulties of policing at that level, on the reserves and in our cities.
The next level of the system is the courts. There are very few lawyers who are native. There are very few lawyers who have even had any education or training in native or aboriginal culture. There are very few judges who have had such training.
When I was with the Attorney General's Department in British Columbia, we had a program which taught us a few things. We picked up something from Saskatchewan which I thought was very helpful and instructive. It is something that the lawyers, prosecutors and judges were put through. They put native people on the bench and in the role of lawyers. They put the lawyers and judges in the role of the accused and the witnesses. They conducted the whole trial in Cree, with translators. That
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gave to those people a sense of the dramatic cultural impact, confusion and difficulty that the court system has.
Again, the Marshall Inquiry has underlined how that kind of injustice can happen in this country. Donald Marshall is just one case in thousands upon thousands in the history of this country.
I now come to corrections. Again, we have a task force report on corrections which has everybody's name on it. It has page after page after page of recommendations. It came out in 1988.
We had the chairman of the Parole Board in front of the justice committee today. We had the commissioner of corrections there last week. The week before that we had the Solicitor General. However, these recommendations are being implemented at a snail's pace.
It is little wonder that native people and aboriginal people are now beginning to be angry at what is happening. Perhaps out of some of that anger will finally come a hearing for the native people.
This report reveals that aboriginal Canadians take longer to get parole than non-aboriginal Canadians. Their sentences are longer. Even when they do get parole they have spent more time in jail. Their recidivism rate is higher.
That is because our system has failed. We have almost no programs in our jails for drug addiction or for alcohol treatment. We have almost no programs sensitive to the cultural traditions of native people.
Last week we received a report on creating choices. It is a report of the Thsk Force on Federally Sentenced Women. If you think it is bad in this country for a federally sentenced woman, try being a federally sentenced native woman in our institutions.
This report speaks with the cry of pain that native women feel. Because we have only one institution in this country for women, they are dragged from their homes in the north, or in Saskatchewan or Alberta to a jail in Kingston, Ontario-a jail that was built in 1933 and condemned in 1938.
That is what we have been inflicting native women with. They commit suicide as a result. Just a few months ago there was yet another suicide in the prison for women.

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Yet, when we ask the commissioner of corrections and the Solicitor General for a clear commitment to the principles of this report we get: "Well, we will have to think about it. We will have to look at our options. We have got all these other priorities. We will have to see".
The time has come for this House to speak with one voice on this issue. The voice must be that the time has come for action for our native people in the area of administrative justice. They need not look to this House further than today for a clear statement that we stand with them in their plea for justice.
We want to hear from the next speaker, the Minister for Indian Affairs and Northern Development, that this government is finally going to deal in a clear, honest and upfront way with the cries of native people. We want to hear that, finally, the injustices that have been perpetrated on those people for too long are going to come to an end, and that we will together begin to address the issues that these reports speak of and that we in this House want dealt with now.


Godfrey Stanley (Stan) Wilbee: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on his excellent dissertation on the effects of the justice system on our native population. I certainly think he has emphasized some of its shortcomings.
I do have a question for him. I was a little concerned with some of the things he was talking about when he spoke of sending in the RCMP to the Akwesasne reserve on a unilateral basis.
I wish to read from an article which appeared in this morning's The Globe and Mail. It quotes the Governor of New York State.
Again, we need to recognize that this is a multiple level problem with the Canadian and U.S. governments, as well as the governments of Quebec, Ontario and New York State. All of these jurisdictions are involved.
The article states that the Governor of New York State said: "there is a time for the use of military force" but only after all other avenues leading toward a peaceful resolution have been explored.
Mr. Clark is quoted as having said:
Much of the source of the problem in our view is on the U.S. side.
Our expectation is that the Americans on a state and a national level
will also play an effective role to resolve this as quickly and peacefully
as possible.
My question is this. Is it not rather dangerous to send our police into a situation where they could be fired at with impunity across the border? If we started to fire back at them, or if they were in any way to protect themselves, we would soon have an international incident.
I believe this is a time for all levels of government to get together and to come to a solution. It is not the time for Canada to take action unilaterally, as was indicated.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for the question.
We have an international incident on our hands right now. The issue is not whether the RCMP should go in unilaterally. The responsible elected and traditional leaders of the reserve have asked that the RCMP come in and bring law and order to that situation.
Frankly, we can all slip into something of a cultural response which says that only when the local police force is asked will we regard that as a legitimate request. But here we have the legitimate authority on the reserve asking that the RCMP come in.
I may add as well that the key issue is which police force is going to be responsible for dealing with it. I do not purport to advocate that the RCMP should necessarily take any particular steps to bring about law and order. That is a decision that it should make. But the RCMP should be put clearly in charge of the situation, and it should be up to it to decide what are the appropriate police steps to be taken.
A native person today described the situation to me like this. Quebec police are on the Quebec part of the reserve. Ontario police on the Ontario part of the reserve. The RCMP is going around in boats.
It seems to me that the time has come for our national police force to move into that situation and use its judgment as to the best policing methods.
Let me conclude by trading editorials. My friend referred to The Globe and Mail of Toronto. The Ottawa Sun, a journal of great wisdom and perception on



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occasions-perhaps rare-had it right on this occasion. It stated today in an editorial headed "Native land":
North American Indians often accuse the white establishment of meddling in their affairs -except when the interference is really needed.
On the basis of the uproar on the Akwesasne Reserve, no doubt about it, the Indians are right.
It goes on to state that the trouble is that there are too many officials.
So far the best most of them have been able to do is dither. Meanwhile, the 9,000 members of the reserve are, in effect, being held hostage by the Warriors Society based -in the reserve's New York sector.
New York State officials keep saying controversy over the half dozen casinos is entirely a Mohawk problem. This is the coward's approach.
The attitude enrages Canadian Indian leader George Erasmus who says there's no other group in either country that authorities would leave in such a predicament. He adds: "Canada has got to act".
As Joe Clark said yesterday, the situation is "near anarchy".
The editorial concludes:
He's right. We must act. Indeed, the Mounties and FBI owe it to the Mohawks to help maintain the peace on their reserve. If they wait until lives are lost, they will share the guilt for the deaths.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the motion currently before the House in the name of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.
In doing so I know that there is a great sense of sadness, and certainly tremendous sympathy, for the family of the young Mohawk person who was this morning killed in a violent incident on the Akwesasne Reserve near Cornwall.
I want to begin by commending the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre in his concern for the basic human rights of aboriginal peoples. The motion before us focuses on the importance of recognizing that all persons are equal under the law but, at the same time, the responsibility of this federal government and all institutions of Canada is to promote the fundamental human rights of Canada's aboriginal peoples.
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The motion further focuses on the impact of our justice system on Canadian natives and calls for the government to ensure the protection, liberty and security of aboriginal people.
I want to assure the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre and others present in this House that I share his concerns, as do all members of the House. I am personally committed to pursuing initiatives in each of the areas covered in the motion.
I rather regret the focus of the remarks by the previous speaker from Victoria who has just resumed his seat. They were all in a relatively negative vein and did not recognize the very significant progress that this government has achieved since 1984 in the resolution of important aboriginal questions and a move toward greater self-reliance, the completion of comprehensive agreements and specific claims and the improvements, although totally inadequate, but nonetheless significant, in the living conditions our native people experience in the various regions of Canada.
I am personally committed to making significant further progress in these areas in the footsteps of my three predecessors in this government since 1984.
I want to thank my colleague, the hon. Minister of State and member of Parliament for Lincoln, for her part in supporting this work and in working to these same objectives with myself, but in particular for her leadership over the past few days in regard to the Akwesasne situation while I was away in Igloolik in the Northwest Territories for an historic and widely celebrated conclusion of the largest land claim in Canada's history. I will return to that very important occasion in a few moments.
The hon. member for Lincoln should be commended for her efforts over the past few days, as should the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell and other members from surrounding constituencies. They should be commended for the leadership they have taken and for the calm and wise approach in judgment that they are bringing to bear as we seek a solution, now even more important, to this serious problem in the Akwesasne community.
My colleague from Lincoln yesterday visited the government training centre in Cornwall and spoke with many of the representatives of the Akwesasne community who voluntarily left the St. Regis community site on the south side of the St. Lawrence River, a small portion of peninsula on the south side of the St. Lawrence River,

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but nonetheless a part of Canada. These people left their community with the assistance of Canadian enforcement agencies to seek shelter from the violence that has been brought into their midst by an element emanating from the New York State side of the reservation which is associated with the pro-gambling forces in that area.
It has been a trying time for all concerned, particularly so in light of today's disturbing events. It is not merely I, but all members of the House and all Canadians who are disturbed and saddened by the events and the death this morning of a young man.
As I said earlier, we want to extend our sympathies and those of all Canadians to the family and friends of this young Mohawk man who lost his life as a result of the senseless violence that continues there.
I have been informed by the RCMP, who learned earlier today from the Quebec provincial police force that 22-year old Matthew Pyke died at 10.57 a.m. this morning in hospital as a result of gunshot wounds. Mr. Pyke, who is a resident of Hogansburg, New York, was shot on the Canadian side, in Quebec at Snye, and was taken to a hospital in upstate New York for treatment where we ultimately expired.
I am dismayed that the situation has deteriorated to this point. One death is one death too many. I am sure all members of the House knowing how potentially explosive this issue is would want the government and all agencies to react with good judgment so as to ensure there will be no further loss of life and that we contain the violence and seek a mediated peaceful process for reversing this unfortunate situation.
The event of this morning only reinforces the urgency for all jurisdictions to recognize their obligation to maintain peace and order in the Akwesasne community. I will return to Akwesasne a little later.
On another front I would like to report that we have been making outstanding progress in the area of land claims to the benefit of our aboriginal people these past several months. In fact I would hazard to suggest that in the last two months we have had more significant progress in magnitude and in impact in resolving long
remaining injustices and a lack of proper legal settlement than we have seen in this entire century.
I have just returned in the early hours this morning from Igloolik, which is way up on the western limb of Hudson Bay in the Northwest Territories, near Baffin Island. I was there for the historic signing of the agreement in principle with the Tungavik Federation of the Nunavut, an agreement which has been sought now for some 14 years and on which significant progress has only been possible as a result of a new comprehensive claims policy introduced by my colleague, the now Minister of National Defence, in 1987.
It was a matter of great pride and personal satisfaction for me to be associated with this settlement. I want to personally compliment the Tungavik Federation of the Nunavut and its president for the vision, confidence, trust and generosity that they have shown toward Canada in agreeing to this settlement.
The settlement provides the 17,000 Inuit living in the region with $580 million in compensation funding over the next 15 years and confirms their title to over 350,000 square kilometres of land, an area of about half the size of Saskatchewan, and a portion of the larger Inuit domain of the eastern Arctic which represents some 20 per cent of the total land area of Canada.
It was a longstanding commitment I had made to be in Igloolik to mark this momentous occasion and to sign the agreement on behalf of the Government of Canada.
On a personal note, I want to thank the members of the community of Igloolik for their outstanding hospitality, for the warmth of the reception shown by the young children in the local school in Igloolik, the trappers who took me out on the ice floe, the hunters, the families, and especially the elders.
The hospitality and the warmth of that visit reflected joy in the face of very significant hardships and the optimism of the Inuit people of the eastern Arctic with respect to the ultimate successful implementation of this agreement and the benefits it will bring to their very remote, but very beautiful, part of Canada.
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I say warmth although I must add there was no central heating in the igloo, which I had the privilege of helping to construct after midnight two nights ago and in which I slept during my stay. It was a marvellous experience that few Canadians will ever experience. I consider it a great privilege to have spent a short night sleeping in an igloo. Igloovigik they call it, an ice house.
Among the many achievements of this landmark document are the provisions for wildlife harvesting rights, participation in the management of lands and resources, and a variety of economic and cultural rights and benefits. All of these measures will ensure greater self-sufficiency for the Inuit people throughout central and eastern Arctic. This agreement will also enhance the climate in the Northwest Territories for economic and political development by removing legal uncertainty on land and resource use in the eastern Northwest Territories.
The land claims settlement will not in itself create Nunavut, which is the aspired homeland for the Inuit people, but commits the territorial government and Tungavik Federation of Nunavut to set up a mechanism for achieving a northern consensus on the division of the Northwest Territories outside the claims process. This agreement once again confirms the commitment of this government to settling comprehensive claims, to improving aboriginal relations with the federal government and building stronger native and northern economies.
I mentioned earlier that progress on this and other major claims has been achieved because of the comprehensive claims policy of this government, introduced a few years ago, and also the policy on northern political and economic development, again introduced by my predecessor who is now the Minister of National Defence. He and other ministers who preceded me laid the groundwork for the completion of historic agreements.
The agreement in principle was signed yesterday. The final agreement was signed with the Dene-Metis people three weeks ago in Yellowknife, which I had the privilege of presiding over, and four weeks ago, the historic settlement of the comprehensive claim with the Council of Yukon Indians was signed right here on Parliament
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Hill in Ottawa. That too, will bring great benefit to the people of Yukon.
All across northern Canada, from the sixtieth latitude upward we now have settlements in the form of final agreements or in the most recent case, an agreement in principle with the TFN.
In the case of the Yukon settlement, approximately 7,000 Indians of Yukon are provided with over 41,000 square kilometres of land or approximately 8.6 per cent of all the land area of Yukon. They will receive $248 million in financial compensation and a share of the Yukon government's resource revenues when and if they are transferred to the territory, that is the jurisdiction over resource development. The agreement provides guaranteed participation in the management of lands, resources, fish and wildlife.
A little further to the east in the western Northwest Territories we have concluded an agreement. It was a difficult conclusion but one which was celebrated with great joy in Yellowknife three weeks ago. This agreement involves the two peoples, the Dene Indian communities of the western Arctic and the Metis who live in corresponding communities together. The Dene and the Metis work together under the leadership of Mr. Bill Erasmus and Mr. Garry Bohnet with the territorial government and the federal government to affect a successful conclusion to the Dene-Metis final agreement.
Under that agreement, the Dene and Metis peoples will receive ownership of over 180,000 kilometres of land, $500 million in compensation and a share of any future resource royalties which the government of the Northwest Territories will collect in the settlement area. As members of this House know, there are vast resources, particularly hydrocarbon resources-the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources is in the House today-and very exciting and major developments afoot which, as a result of this agreement, will now be made possible.
The Dene and Metis will play a very fundamental role in the management and decision-making of the companies of that resource development. They will share in significant ways in the economic benefits that flow therefrom. Her e again there will be majority participation by the Dene and Metis people on the management

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boards. They will ensure preferential hunting and fishing rights, and exclusive trapping rights for the Dene and Metis people in the region.
These comprehensive claims agreements continue a process that has been evolving for more than two centuries. These settlements are meant to clarify the rights of aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples with respect to land and resources north of sixty. It is a way for aboriginal people to obtain lasting protection for their traditional land based interests while, at the same time, securing rights and benefits which will assist them into the next century. We will have a legal framework in which their participation in Canada and the unique recognition of their rights will be guaranteed for all time.
Above all, the settlement of these comprehensive claims lays the groundwork for new partnerships between aboriginal peoples and their non-aboriginal neighbours. Such partnerships will benefit all of Canadian society but bring special benefit to the people of the north. The traditional aboriginal respect for and understanding of the environment and its natural dynamics will be just one of the many valuable contributions they will make to Canada's future.
I want to indicate a sense of confidence in Canada and a willingness to agree, reflecting those traditional Canadian values of generosity, tolerance and respect for one another in our differences. We certainly want to see a successful conclusion to the Meech Lake Accord. It will be the conclusion of the Meech Lake Accord which allows us to move into the next and very important stage of constitutional definition involving aboriginal peoples, the stages involving the more thorough and legally binding definition of aboriginal rights and the development of structures and institutions of self-government for the aboriginal peoples of Canada.
It is the agreements which we have just concluded, and the successful conclusion of Meech Lake which will allow us to make further major and important steps toward the full delivery on the rights of native people, to have those aboriginal rights not merely named in a Constitution but become a living reality that all Canadians can better understand.
On another topic, as hon. members are aware, a number of inquiries have been held or are currently under way into the issue of aboriginal justice. A common thread that appears to be emerging from these inquiries is the necessity to adapt the justice system to the
particular needs of Indian people. Such an approach has been proposed numerous times during the initial phases of a major review undertaken by my department called the Land Revenues and Trust Review.
This review is designed to find improved mechanisms to ensure the self-administration of lands, the revenues and the rights to property by native people through a means of self-administration. When this review is completed, we believe it will constitute an important step toward effective self-government, both in treaty settlement areas and in the areas which are the beneficiaries of the new comprehensive claims and further settlements to come, especially in the province of British Columbia.
Many people believe that the only acceptable solution to the administration of justice on our reserves is to establish a justice system that recognizes the significant cultural differences that exist between Indian and nonIndian communities. Each of these alternatives, from increased use of justices of the peace to a separate Indian justice system, are being fully explored with Indian communities. In this way, we will also ensure that any changes that are made reflect the concerns of Indian communities.
If I had more time, I would like to say more about the work we are making in the new aboriginal program known as CADES, jointly with several other departments, to assist entrepreneurial development and economic opportunity for our native communities across Canada. I could speak of the implementation of Bill C-31 which brought justice to many native women who had been denied their rights to full and equal partnership and participation in the status native communities of Canada and the study that we are doing and will report to Parliament on regarding how that implementation program is going.
In conclusion, I would like to say once again that the issue of the last few days, particularly at Akwesasne, and the opportunity to debate aboriginal issues in this House in the context of aboriginal rights and justice, I think has allowed us to reflect on the tremendous amount of work that must yet be done and the awesome responsibility we have. We are all concerned about the violence and tension that has compelled some 600 Mohawk Canadian people to evacuate the village of St. Regis. My department is assisting in the adjustment and the needs of these people. We want to see them returned quickly and
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in an orderly fashion to their communities where we will see peace restored.
I urge all members of the House to contribute to the wisdom and to help by suggestions of good advice as to how we might bring the parties together and involve the State of New York and the United States federal government in bringing an end to the lawlessness which has been the trigger for this very unfortunate situation.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by asking the minister, perhaps as a symbolic gesture, but one which I hope he will join with me over the next few hours and days, to call upon the community of Akwesasne for calm, for understanding and compassion in what would obviously be very difficult times for them. As darkness draws near today we know what darkness has done to the days at Akwesasne. I invite the minister to join me in this symbolic gesture of wishing and perhaps praying that the people of Akwesasne will do what is right and will ensure that there is no further violence because, obviously, further violence will not contribute to peace.
Having said that, Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could ask another question of the minister and he may want to respond to everything at once. First of all, I would like to offer perhaps a bit of a tribute to my colleagues, the member for Stormont-Dundas and the member for Beauharnois-Salaberry for their assistance, as always. Akwesasne, on the Canadian side, is partially in the riding of the member for Beauharnois-Salaberry and partially in mine. Everything that happens in Akwesasne has an effect on the riding of Stormont-Dundas as well. It is, of course, because it is right there beside it and the people of Stormont-Dundas are helping out.
I invite the minister to join me in thanking the good people of Stormont-Dundas for their assistance with the residents of Akwesasne. I want to ask the minister if he could give us any further information that he might have received this afternoon on the tragic incident of today and as well, on any progress of those meetings that his officials are having with the United States government. In particular, I ask him quite bluntly if his official has convinced Governor Mario Cuomo and his group that this problem will not go away and that this business of pretending that it is an internal Mohawk issue and that it is for Mohawks to deal with themselves is simply an inadequate proposition for anyone to entertain.
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There has to be a co-ordinated approach to disarm the community of Akwesasne because there is no room in Canada or anywhere else for machine guns, AK-47s, M-16 rifles, grenades and all that other kind of thing that we see there.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the concerned and heartfelt spirit in which the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell has addressed this tragic issue.
I too, want to compliment the hon. member for Beauharnois-Salaberry and the hon. member for Stormont-Dundas whose constituents are particularly affected by this matter. The hon. member for Beauharnois-Salaberry is, in particular, the member in whose riding this tragic accident occurred in Snye, in the province of Quebec.
Responding to the member's initial plea, it is for all members of Parliament to, in any way we can, have influence and to show sensitivity and wisdom, and to take recourse to our faith, because in the final analysis the resolution of this issue will only be found in the hearts of men and women who are prepared to make peace. We would all wish for a peaceful night and a peaceful few days as government officials work with the leadership of the Akwesasne Mohawk peoples to find a lasting resolution to this problem.
The problem is complicated by geographical matters relating to a border which is difficult to enforce, and jurisdictions of one state and two provincial governments. It has to do with some criminal activities which are not just restricted to organized gambling. The majority membership which elects the councils, both the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne and the St. Regis Tribal Council, as well as the traditional chiefs have tried to find a solution. In their view on behalf of the democratically elected majority, that solution would see an end to organized gambling.
The Governor of New York state, who spoke out yesterday on this issue, offered the observation that all parties should lay down their arms before some kind of mediated process could be commenced. He offered a suggestion involving one of his officials to some form of mediated process. I think it is time now to appeal to the leadership, particularly the Governor of New York, Governor Cuomo, and officials of the U.S. State Department, to work with us realizing the serious and immedi-

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ate dangers of the situation, to realize that there are emotions.
There are factors relating to certain economic disparity, but also certain economic interests which go with the activities which have led to the arming of the element of the Mohawk Warriors Society, which is creating such a terrible and tragic situation. Whether realistic or not, I think it is important that another attempt be made to seek an accommodation in which the Mohawk Warriors Society is challenged to sit down, work this matter out and dispense with the violence and the use of sophisticated armaments which are merely taking their toll on people's emotions and peace of mind, and their right to security.
Just to conclude by responding to the hon. member's question, I have not had a thorough briefing as a result of the meeting that has gone on all day in the U.S. Embassy across the street between officials of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and my department, under the auspices of the Department of the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the U.S. Slate Department.
I have been told, however, that the discussions have focused on the means of gaining the agreement of the American authorities, that the solution to the Akwe-sasne situation requires the co-operation of all levels of government, including the American and New York state governments, and that American officials have now accepted this position, their need to be part of the solution. Furthermore, agreement was reached that an urgent meeting be arranged involving representatives of all five jurisdictions, that is; Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the U.S.A. and the state of New York. This further urgent meeting is being set up under the leadership of the federal government. More information on this meeting will be provided as soon as possible. One might ask what good are more and more meetings but meetings are the right and proper course toward peaceful settlement.
Earlier today, as I indicated during Question Period, the Canadian Embassy in Washington, Ambassador Burney I believe, approached the American State Department with a strong message of urgency, expressing our lack of satisfaction with the progress made today,
and in light of this morning's incident, the need for much more immediate, sensitive and effective action.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will entertain one more question. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, a very short comment please.


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for joining in on this debate. I do have one reservation with his comments in that I did not think he addressed the wider issue that we are facing right now. That is, that although we do have a particular crisis on one reserve, perhaps it points to the inadequacy of our judicial system relating to a lot of the native communities across this country, both urban and rural.
I wonder if the minister would like to indicate to the House to what extent that his department is willing to take the initiative in co-ordinating the Solicitor General's department and the Minister of Justice and his own department for seeing that alternative systems are developed across this country to respond more meaningfully to the problems being faced by Canadian aboriginal communities.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre is speaking in the broader general spirit of his resolution so I will not link that to the Akwesasne situation which he understands is very unique and demands a very unique and special form of response.
As I tried to indicate in my broader remarks, we are seriously moving toward the development of effective forms of self- government in terms of the way in which funds are managed by native bands and by the way in which schools and services are administered and also, the way in which lands, revenues and property exchanges are administered by native leadership. We are also moving seriously in the area of forms of independent native justice systems and we have made a great deal of progress in supporting native policing.
All of this is in response to the realization by our aboriginal people that the treaties signed in the past century and in the early part of this century have not worked. We have created, through the dependency on the federal government and the provisions of the Indian Act, a situation in which they are not able to control and decide their own destiny. As a result of that we are trying to respect their desire for autonomy. That is why we do not move outside police forces or other agencies in until
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we are invited to. We realize the systems in place are imperfect and I call on all members of Parliament to help us to improve them.
In the spirit of giving effective recognition to the concept of self-government we really want to respect the homelands and the communities of our aboriginal people. It is only in the face of a tragic incident like that which we are experiencing today that we realize the inadequacies of a system which has not yet had enough opportunity to demonstrate its weaknesses. As we discover the weaknesses and as we better learn to co-ordinate the efforts of government agencies in support of the needs of aboriginal people, I am sure we are going to do a much better job. We have a long way to go yet and in that sense I respect the spirit of the motion that the hon. member has put forward today.


Robert (Bob) Kilger: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in the House today on the motion put before us by my hon. colleague, the member for Winnipeg North Centre. I would like to add my words of condolences to the Pyke family and to the entire Akwe-sasne family who I am sure share in the loss of a brother.
The riding of Stormont-Dundas holds these people close at heart. We have been neighbours for hundreds of years and up until the last election they were members of the constituency of Stormont-Dundas. Certainly they are now ably represented by my colleague, the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. However, our ties still run very deep and very long.
It seems odd, however, that we in 1990 are debating in the House of Commons of Canada a motion which in part calls upon this House to reaffirm that all persons are equal under the law. Sadly, when it comes to the aboriginal peoples of Canada this fundamental legal right is sometimes seen, at best, as questionable and, at worst, horribly denied.
One can find several references in our country's history where aboriginal peoples have clearly not been afforded the security of Canadian law which other Canadian citizens enjoy. Moreover, there have been numerous injustices made in the past which illustrate the lack of resources and opportunities that native Cana-
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dians have within our legal system. The Donald Marshall case in Nova Scotia is but one sad example.
Canadians are concerned about the state of affairs regarding our native population. We all believe in equality and we all value the rights and privileges we have. Our standard of living in Canada is one which is seen by others as being quite decent. However, when we examine the avenues open to native Canadians we see a different society, one which is lacking in the comparative opportunities of Canadian life.
Indeed, beyond the inequality in law there is a range of problems concerning aboriginal Canadians. In terms of social conditions, post-secondary education, health matters, economic opportunities, constitutional and other political rights, the aboriginal peoples of Canada have not been on the same level as most Canadians.
We also have to realize of course that if aboriginal peoples are denied the full measure of human rights and justice it should not be too surprising to find these additional inequalities in native life.
The government has dragged its feet for some time on the issue of establishing an aboriginal justice system. The government appears to be uninterested in creating this justice system. It has virtually ignored the desire of aboriginal peoples across Canada to attain self-government. This is hard to accept given that several judicial inquiries into the treatment of aboriginal peoples have submitted reports calling for such a system to be implemented.
I cannot understand the reasoning behind the government's reluctance to grant native Canadians an aboriginal justice system. My colleague, the member for Kenora-Rainy River, represents a riding which has some 46 native communities. He has personally witnessed the success of aboriginal programs and services in a manner far more beneficial and productive than government-run programs.
Surely the government must understand that the operation of a justice system by aboriginal peoples is a natural extension and that they would be able to operate it in an effective manner.
The government is once again, in my estimation, out of touch with the views of the Canadian people. As far back as April, 1989, a telephone research survey asked the question: "Should the native people have the right to law

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enforcement, trial and punishment for offences committed, on native lands?" Nationally, 73 per cent of respondents said yes; in Ontario 89 per cent agreed likewise. In every province a majority of respondents were in favour of an aboriginal justice system.
Still the government of Canada has failed to move ahead and reflect the wishes of Canadians on this matter.
In a letter dated November 20, 1989, to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Grand Chief, Michael Mitchell of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne clearly outlined the need for an aboriginal justice system. In discussing the problems on the Akwesasne reserve, Chief Mitchell wrote: "In times of potential violence it is human nature for people to look for signs of continued stability and progress from their leaders. Therefore, it is crucial for the Mohawk Council to demonstrate this stability and progress. In order to do this we need the co-operation of the federal and provincial governments".
Chief Mitchell was simply pointing out an obvious fact, that it is sensible and reasonable to suggest that aboriginal leaders are best able to understand what is required for their particular communities.
Chief Mitchell made this point very clear to the minister in a brief accompanying his letter. In referring to the Akwesasne judicial system, Chief Mitchell wrote: "As the governing body, the Mohawk Council is answerable to the Mohawk people of Akwesasne for all decisions which affect their daily lives". That being the case, I certainly believe that no aboriginal council within any native community would take their responsibilities to their people lightly.
Aboriginal leaders would not make legal decisions affecting their people on their own. Chief Mitchell writes that their council is constantly receiving advice from their people on how to handle local matters. However, when the council acts on these recommendations they find they are up against a brick wall with the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
According to Chief Mitchell, out of necessity and established procedure, an accepted law by his council is sent to Indian Affairs where it is usually rejected. The
basis for this rejection is part of the over-all problem. In Chief Mitchell's assessment: "Government officials sitting at a desk far from Akwesasne cannot possibly know of the background information or circumstances prompting the passing of a law".
There are several circumstances for aboriginal leaders to invoke laws in their communities. It is impossible for bureaucrats who only look at the drafted law to see the reasons for such a law or the conditions which exist in the community. According to Chief Mitchell, these laws are usually rejected without consultation with his council. In the past four years, Chief Mitchell indicates that 14 council laws have been disallowed by the federal government. Most of these had to do with protecting the community from illegal activities brought into the reserve from the outside. These rejections do not help the relationship between the aboriginal leaders and Indian Affairs.
We have another problem here and that concerns the antiquated Indian Act. In a brief sent to all members of Parliament in April, the Native Women's Association of Canada states that the Act's very title "evokes feelings and actions that have caused anguish, pain and suffering to Indian people for well over 200 years and it continues".
The association points out that while the rest of the country takes pride in its growth and prosperity, the original peoples of this land continue to suffer needlessly as a result of legislation which affects aspects of native life from birth to death.
In terms of justice, the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne believes the interpretation of the Indian Act is so narrow in scope that the laws passed for Akwesasne cannot be sanctioned by the federal government. In the opinion of Chief Mitchell, such a situation limits the legal capacity of the Mohawk Council to regulate activities within Akwesasne and is contradictory to the process of selfgovernment. Most would also come to the conclusion that the Indian Act is as bad for self-government and aboriginal justice as it is for the protection of aboriginal human rights.
It is clear that an aboriginal justice system would alleviate a good portion of the problems caused to some degree by the injustices of the Indian Act. Unfortunately, the present government does not see this. It seems more content to express vocal concern about native self-government and the ever-pressing need for an
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aboriginal justice system, but never seems to get around to implementing it.
Unfortunately, native Canadians continue to suffer. They are denied full access to human and legal rights and self-determination. The current state of native life in Canada does not present a vibrant, promising picture. Life on reserves is increasingly difficult. Native leaders and their councils are unable to adequately govern in their communities. They are restricted by an Indian Act which is badly in need of change while at the same time having to cope with a number of negative socio-economic issues.
It is also difficult to make do with the policies and programs thrown to them by a federal government which has no commitment and no vision for the future of aboriginal peoples.
I have no doubt at at all that the present crisis on the Akwesasne reserve may well have been avoided, if the Mohawk people on both sides of the border had the rights and opportunities as those afforded to most citizens in both countries.
It is important that this House reaffirm its support and commitment to aboriginal human rights and equality under the law. I know that members will indeed want to convey to our native population that they are willing to support a system of justice which is suited to their particular needs and aspirations. It is imperative, however, that the government start to show leadership in creating aboriginal justice initiatives and assist in the development of such a system in consultation with native leaders across the country. We have an opportunity to correct past wrongs and implement necessary changes which will create a better future for the aboriginal peoples of Canada.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak to this motion introduced by my colleague for Winnipeg North Centre which is the adjacent constituency to my riding of Winnipeg North. I thank my colleague from Stormont-Dundas for sharing his time with me.
The motion states:
That this House reaffirm that all persons are equal under the lawand demand that the government (1) promote this fundamental human right for Canada's aboriginal peoples, (2) ensure that our system of justice is more responsive and suitable, (3) pursue alternative
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aboriginal justice initiatives, and (4) in cases of jurisdictional conflict,
that the Government of Canada, in consultation with aboriginal
leaders, ensure the protection of the life, liberty, and security of
aboriginal people who are entitled to the status of Canadian citizens.
This motion sends twin messages from Parliament to the government that the government reaffirm equality under the law and demand that this equality be fulfilled; that the law should recognize no class, colour, creed or origin when it treats citizens and that, moreover, the law should recognize the inherent dignity of all human beings.
This principle is embodied in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Why then do we have to reaffirm it in the motion of today? Because we recognize that there is a threat to, a weakness in and, in some instances, actual failure of our Canadian justice system.
The evidence for this failure has been alluded to by my colleagues who have spoken earlier: the Betty Osborne murder in The Pas, Manitoba, that went unsolved for more than a decade; the J.J. Harper killing in Winnipeg as a consequence of prejudgment by our police department; and the Donald Marshall wrongful imprisonment in Nova Scotia. All these injustices reflect the continuing struggle that native people continually face in our country.
We have all heard of or seen the conditions endured by the great majority of Canada's native people. Most reserves in isolated communities have experienced great difficulties in developing an economy capable of sustaining their growing populations. The results are tragic. We have witnessed for them high levels of unemployment, welfare, violence, suicide and alcoholism.
It appears that political self-determination and economic self-sufficiency for them are almost unreachable goals. We have to understand that aboriginal peoples want their culture, traditions and pride back.
The situation of the First Nations' people has been likened to that of blacks in South Africa. I do not think the analogy is accurate or fair. The fact, however, that it is made at all speaks volumes about this aspect of Canada's international profile.
Let me quote from a letter dated March 28, 1990 from Phil Fontaine of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs to the Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission: He stated:

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The Canadian Government is perceived internationally, as a strong advocate of Human Rights, as is the case with its high profile role in support of the Black struggle for independence in South Africa. It is often a source of financial support to Third World Countries. It speaks out against Human Rights abuse in other countries. Through these gestures, Canada has gained a strong international reputation as a staunch defender of human rights. This is in sharp contrast domestically with its relationship with First Nations people.
That is the assessment by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.
Even the United Nations Human Rights Commission has examined the allegations of treaty violations in Canada. How can we respond to such a situation? One way is to re-examine certain aspects of these relations. For example, the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs is just beginning a review of the government's comprehensive claims policy. Yet this review alone is not enough. This policy is only one aspect of the complex relationship between Canada and some native peoples. Many government services to native people are not even addressed by these claims; Metis and non-status Indians are not even addressed by that policy. There is considerable disillusion with the claims themselves. For example, the Cree of northern Quebec are arguing that the claim they negotiated should be declared null and void due to non-compliance by the federal government.
Let me quote from the 1988 report of the Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. He said:
Surely, one supposes, in a country like Canada, it is not possible that an entire group of people should, in the 1990s, be so remote from sharing in the benefits that others take for granted. Surely, with all the money and effort that are lavished on the problem, it ought to be amenable to solution. Once again, however, the unpleasant fact of the matter is that it has not been, and that it still shows only rudimentary signs of being resolved.
The time for piecemeal approaches to such a complex situation of the first peoples of our country has passed. In fact, when you look at the 1990 report, Unfinished Agenda for all Canadians in the 1990s, of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, it has addressed 30 issues, from land claims to literacy.
The time has come for the Government of Canada to establish a national royal commission on aboriginal peoples, to consolidate all previous reports on this issue, to examine the remaining relevant issues on a broader
perspective, and to offer realistic solutions-to correct the tragic and the continuing tragic situations for our aboriginal people.
About a year ago, I put on the Order Paper a resolution to this effect. Of course, it has not yet had a chance to be put forward for debate. I thought I should seize this opportunity to speak about the need to establish a royal commission on this issue. This has been echoed by the major media, like The Globe and Mail, in our country. This royal commission should examine all aspects of the relationship between the Government of Canada and the native peoples of this land. It should recognize the many strengths of native communities and successes of government policy as well as the weaknesses and failures. It should look to the future as well as acknowledge the past and, above all, it should hear the thoughts and aspirations of the native peoples themselves.
In 1987, on the occasion of the visit to Canada of His Holiness Pope Paul II, a headline in the Toronto Star, September 21, 1987, read: "Let Canada be a model to the world for the rights of native people", and he continued, "For a just and equitable degree of self-governing, with the land base and adequate resources necessary for the development of a viable economy for present and future generations". He called on Canada to ensure the basic aboriginal rights, including self-government.
My former leader, the Right Hon. John Turner, as quoted in the Toronto Star the following day stated:
MPs should act on the Pope's message by amending the Meech
Lake accord to include regularly scheduled constitutional
conferences on native self-determination.
"Aboriginal peoples cannot wait indefinitely".
The royal commission can serve as an instrument for national self re-examination, reconciliation and unity. It could serve as a tool for achieving consensus, to raise the profile of the issues to the Canadian consciousness and thereby achieve the desired changes. This royal commission may well serve as the milestone in the rebirth of native peoples in Canada, as a cornerstone of new relationships between the aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples of our country.
In conclusion, I would like to quote briefly from the report of the Standing Committee of our Parliament in March this year, An Unfinished Agenda for all Canadians in the 1990s which stated:
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The circle of Confederation will not be complete until the social, the
economic and political marginalization of Canada's aboriginal people
is reversed.
The report of the Canadian Human Rights Commission indicated that a national Royal commission could play a useful role in achieving consensus without being used as an excuse for delaying important practical developments.
In the years ahead, our success in forging a new association between the aboriginal and the non-aboriginal Canadians will be the prime nature of our commitment to equality and our skill in nation building and, at the very end, we can relive the message of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 200 years ago: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights". Let us make our native people equal with all Canadians.


Mr. Jean-Guy Hudon (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, we have 15 minutes left. I therefore would like to ask the unanimous consent of the House for sharing my speaking time with my colleague here behind me, who would like to speak to the same subject. If you agree, I will take four or five minutes.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Jean-Guy Hudon: I want to thank the House for its understanding at this tragic moment.
First of all, I would like to join the entire community on the Akwesasne reserve in offering my sincere condolences to the family of Matthew Pyke who died this morning. When I say family, I am aware that on reserves, the meaning of the word family differs from my own because it also includes Grand Chief Mike Mitchell with whom I often had the honour and the privilege of working, and I realize how deeply affected they must be at this moment on the reserve.
Mr. Speaker, this morning's casualty occurred in my riding. I should explain that the Akwesasne Indian Reserve is divided into three parts: one part is in Quebec, in my riding; one part is in the riding of my colleague from Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, and the third part is in the United States. I cannot remain unmoved by these events, because I have often acted to defend the rights of people who asked for help on the
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reserve, and I think it is often brought home more strikingly when we have tragic events such as those occurring today.
From my riding of Beauharnois-Salaberry, if I want to visit people in the reserve that is located in my riding, I have to go through the United States and come back via Ontario to finally get there. Mr. Speaker, there are personal problems and physical problems on the reserve. There are physical problems that once solved could probably help us deal with the human problems, because considering what is happening along the border, we could probably have organized an effective patrol if we had a land link that would have allowed us to go directly from our side to the territory that is on the Canadian side of the border.
Mr. Speaker, at the end of March, I found it very moving-my colleague from Glengarry-Prescott-Russell was also invited but he could not attend that morning-when I went to St. Lawrence College in Cornwall where a program was launched in which the federal government invested about $600,000, which came from the budgets of the Department of Employment and Immigration and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. I am referring to the Mohawk Law and Security Program. I saw about thirty students who said they were ready to continue their education and were in fact taking courses in communications, defence, law, American law and Canadian law. I saw a chief, Mike Mitchell, and at the time it surprised me to see a chief who was broken, not morally, but a man who was getting a lot of threats and who told me that morning, in public: This may be my last public appearance as chief.
Fortunately, he changed his mind, but this man is now under terrific pressure and is receiving a lot of threats.
I think Chief Mike Mitchell, like Jean-Guy Hudon or anyone else in this House, has a right to want to live in peace and develop his community on the basis of principles he holds dear, principles that run very deep among the first inhabitants of this riding.
Do I have the right to intervene, Mr. Speaker? I certainly do. And I have that right because these are people from my riding, people whom I have never denied assistance, whom I have never turned down. Personally, I think this is a tragedy, and I would urge the departments to co-ordinate their operations and especially to show our U.S. neighbours that there are problems in this

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respect and that we must find a solution. What is happening to Mike Mitchell, to the people in my community and to those in the riding of Glengarry- Prescott-Russell is probably due to the fact that government authorities cannot agree on what to do and are afraid to intervene.
The other day I had an unfortunate experience because people wanted to establish a nuclear waste site right near the Canada-U.S. border. I intervened, and people said: "You know, you don't put a nuclear waste site in a national park. But it isn't dangerous. You don't put it in a reserve. It isn't dangerous".
It's funny how careful people are when a reserve is concerned, when we should intervene, we are excessively prudent, and when a chief like Mike Mitchell asks for help, we may be in less of a hurry to do so because there is the human factor. And there are some very serious examples of this at work right now.
I strongly urge this government and this House to intervene as quickly as possible and explain to our neighbours to the south that any intervention should be co-ordinated, effective and respect the values dear to our friends living on the reserve, and ensure that these people will be able to live and prosper within their own territory.
Mr. Speaker, I yield immediately to my colleague who certainly has a few things to add on the subject.


Mr. Willie Littlechild (Wetaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise in the House today to speak to the motion of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.
In the last few months that I have been in the House, I have had the privilege of serving on the justice committee and also on the aboriginal affairs committee. In view of what is happening in the last few months with respect to the justice inquiries that have been held, I think it is particularly timely today to be talking on this issue.
The fundamental freedoms of our aboriginal peoples, and other members of Canadian society, are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The charter clearly identifies and guarantees basic human rights, and provides a means of redress to the courts
should these rights be denied or infringed by governments.
Among the rights enshrined by the charter that may be considered of particular importance to our native peoples are the right to worship in a manner, place and time that one chooses, and the freedom to pursue activities and goals in association with others.
Another key protection enshrined in the charter is the right to be equal before and under the law and the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination on any ground, including race, national or ethnic origin, and colour.
Moreover, the equality guarantee in the charter is expressly phrased so as not to preclude laws or programs designed to favour individuals or groups who may be at a disadvantage in society. Such laws or programs could, of course, include native people and numerous government programs are structured to provide affirmative action for aboriginal peoples.
The charter has also been successfully employed to protect the livelihood of native people who rely on hunting as a way of life. For example, in the Chief case, a mandatory five-year prohibition on possession of firearms for conviction of a weapons offence was held by the Yukon Territory Court of Appeal to be cruel and unusual punishment, contrary to the charter, in the case of aboriginal people. The court recognized that the effect of the mandatory prohibition on possession of firearms for an aboriginal person who relied on trapping could result in the deprivation of that person's livelihood and lifestyle. Accordingly, in light of the totally debilitating effect that the prescribed punishment would have had on the aboriginal accused, the court altered the sentence.
Mention must also be made of Section 25 of the Charter, which specifically protects aboriginal concerns. This section makes clear that no other provision of the Charter can be used in a way that will interfere with any special rights that the native people have now or may acquire.
For example, any new benefits aboriginal people may gain from a settlement of land claims would not run afoul of the general equality rights as set out in the Charter. As well, Section 35 of the Constitution Act 1982, states that the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are recognized and affirmed.
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Both of these sections were possible only after very considerable work by aboriginal people like those of the Four Nations of Hobbema. These provisions, and others, were written into the Canadian Constitution specifically at their request and of other native organizations. Representatives of these groups argued forcibly for recognition that would help their people preserve their culture and identity, customs, traditions, languages and treaty rights.
Rights without any means of redress would be empty, so the Charter provides that any person whose rights or freedoms have been infringed or denied may obtain a remedy from the courts. The federal government, recognizing that without financial assistance, deserving individuals or groups may not be able to challenge federal legislation or practices in the courts, has established a special fund to assist litigation of important equality issues. The Court Challenges Program has a budget for litigation and legal research, plus administration funds over five years, and is administered by a private non-profit organization. To date native groups have benefited from this fund.
In summation, I think it should be clear that the Charter offers protection to aboriginal groups. These groups have used the Charter to challenge government policies and to enforce native rights. This is the way it should be. The Charter is a document that we, as Canadians, should be proud of. It reflects our heritage as a just society, as well as our continued respect for fundamental human values.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being awfully close to 6 o'clock, it is my duty to inform the House that pursuant to Standing Order 81(17) proceedings on the motion have expired.
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MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed Bill S-15, an act to amend the Act of incorporation of Desjardins Mutual Life Assurance Company to which the concurrence of this House is desired.
Adjournment Debate



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 is deemed to have been moved.

Philip Edmonston: Mr. Speaker, I rose in the House some time ago to protest the cuts affecting women's centres. I put a number of questions to the Secretary of State, and I am not very satisfied with the answers, because it seems that whenever we ask him why he cut subsidies for women's centres, he always says he increased the subsidies. Actually, it seems we have a communications problem and I will explain why.
First of all, we know that in some programs, money is always available for women to set up certain projects. We are not challenging the funding for various projects but the way women's centres are being attached by cutting core funding, in other words, money for ongoing activities. This is a very serious problem because when groups such as women's centres, consumer associations or any other non-profit association have ongoing activities and funding is cut for those activities, the government is actually controlling these organizations, Mr. Speaker.
Personally, as a former president of an association that was often obliged to ask the government for subsidies, I was often in a situation where governments said: Listen, we can't give you the money for hydro and rent and basic needs, but we can give you all kinds of subsidies for small projects. All kinds of small projects. Meaning that we, the government, can give you the money for any project we are willing to approve.
I imagine that in the case of a women's centre, this has a destabilizing and even destructive impact because you spend all your time trying to get subsidies for various projects. This means you have keep justifying the fact that you need money. You are leading a hand-to-mouth existence. And the people you hire will only be there for the duration of the project. Imagine, Mr. Speaker, if you, as Speaker of the House, were given a contract for three months. Would you have agreed to be here for just three months? Of course not. I think that, like any reasonable

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and intelligent person, you would have sought longer-term employment. At least, I think so.
That is the problem with the cuts to the women's centres. It is demoralizing for the women's centres, as for any group, and it forces them to always ask the governments for money; they are even forced to offer programs or projects that suit the governments but that may not be so suitable for the community or be in tune with its needs.
So, Mr. Speaker, I hope that this time the government will understand me. It will also understand, I hope, why the women are fighting. The 75 women's centres across the country, and especially the 39 women's centres in Quebec, are not just protesting the cuts. It is not just that.
Please do not say that you gave a lot of money yesterday. Yes, you gave some, you made a lot of money available to them for projects. But I am not talking about that.
I am talking about core funding, the grants for ongoing activities.
And now I will ask you to be a little more sensitive to our requests. I am new here in the House of Commons and I always believed that people on both sides, in the government and the opposition, were reasonable.
So I appeal to your reasonableness and if you want proof that what I am saying to you is correct, before concluding, Mr. Speaker, I will quote you an excerpt from a letter by someone who sits for the government, who is even a minister of the government. I am talking about the hon. Minister for International Trade, that great defender of women's rights, that great friend of the member for Hamilton East. He himself said-he even wrote a letter-

I want to say what the minister wrote in English. It is very short, Mr. Speaker, and I will conclude with that because I find it tells the government, from a member of the government, what the position is.
The minister wrote to the Secretary of State complaining about the decision to cut funding for 75 women's centres across the country and asked that every possible effort be made to keep the centres open. He said
specifically: "I can assure you that the women of Newfoundland and Labrador will suffer desperately without these centres and since the cut to core funding for women's centres in Newfoundland is only $240,000 and the national figure amounts to only $1.6 million, it is hard to believe that money is the real issue here".


Ross Belsher: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question. I believe it was on April 10 that he put his question to the Secretary of State. At that time he was referring mainly to the women's centres in his own home province so the answer that I have prepared is more specifically related to his home province than to the total question on which he has elaborated tonight.
In his own home province the Quebec provincial government has committed to improving the social welfare of women in the province and that government must be commended for the action that it has taken.
The budget for women's centres of the provincial Ministry of Health and Social Affairs was more than $800,000 in 1988-89. Last August the Quebec government increased the funding for women's centres to $2.7 million by the end of the 1992 fiscal year.
This is a fine example of a provincial government taking on its responsibilities. That is the point. The core funding for the centres are a provincial responsibility and that is why the minister is working with regard to the project funding. This is a fine example of how a provincial government can work with the federal government during a time of economic restraint to sustain programs that are vital to the health of our country.
The government is well aware of the excellent work carried out in women's centres. Along with the support provided by the Quebec government and other provincial governments through their funding for services, the Department of the Secretary of State is making project funding available to centres that previously had received core funding to carry out education activities.
Project funding can be used to address issues such as family violence, pornography, sexual assault, employment equity and other concerns. Along with provincial funding, the Secretary of State has assured women's

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Adjournment Debate
centres that they will be eligible for funding for the administrative costs related to the project activities.
So, Mr. Speaker, the Government of Quebec has recognized the absolute necessity of having strong women's centres in that province. I hasten to add that Manitoba has also shown provincial leadership in this area. There are four women's centres in that province and each receives approximately $115,000 of annual funding from the provincial government.
This government is living up to its fiscal responsibilities, not only for Canadians today but for the future generations as well. Financial responsibility does not mean that essential services must disappear. With the co-operation of the provinces all of us, as a nation, can work together to ensure that women's centres are able to continue to play their important role in Canadian society.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, on March 26 I asked the Minister of the Environment to explain why this government has failed to involve itself in the fight to eradicate aquatic milfoil weed in the interior lakes of southern British Columbia. I did not get a very satisfactory answer at that point, Mr. Speaker, and that is why I am back here at this time.
The Eurasian milfoil weed, scientifically called Myri-phyuum Spicatum, is a very rapidly growing aquatic weed species that has infested many of the lakes and rivers in the interior of the province of B.C. It is because of its growth rate and its ability to actually regenerate when it has been fragmented, for example, by boat propellers, that it has proliferated to such an extent and has choked off many recreational areas and now, in fact, threatens to invade many of our salmon bearing streams and rivers.
I will read a very brief excerpt from the October 1989 edition of the British Columbia Report. It says:
The province's latest battle with milfoil has forced its small army of milfoil combatants into retreat and has prompted local governments in the Shuswap area to admit defeat. All this despite a -campaign to stomp out the proliferate water weed. Ttvo regional districts and the provincial government were involved in the fight, but even their best efforts weren't enough to root out the spindly foe.
This uncontrolled growth of the milfoil weed poses a serious environmental threat as well as a serious economic threat. The Okanagan and the Shuswap Lakes watersheds rely very heavily on clean lakes for their tourism industry. The overgrowth of this particular weed is already costing the local tourist industry in the Okanagan and Shuswap area valuable business as tourists go elsewhere rather than deal with the clogged propellers and the beaches that have been strewn with rotting weeds.
In 1985 tourists brought over $287 million to the Okanagan region and spent about 80 per cent of their time on the beaches. Recent market studies have shown that a growing number of these tourists are in fact going elsewhere, having become very concerned because of the deteriorating quality of the lakes.
Swimming, boating and fishing certainly are not the only things that are affected by the proliferation of this weed. The thick weed carpet acts as a filter and traps garbage and sediment which settles on the lake bottom and interferes with normal water flows and the ecological balance of those lakes.
Despite their years of effort, the North Okanagan Regional District, as well as the Columbia Shuswap Regional District, have been fighting essentially a losing battle with this nuisance weed.
At this point nature has, at least for now, conquered man in the Shuswap and she holds the upper hand in the South Okanagan where the weed has virtually taken over the Okanagan River. It has threatened Kokanee salmon and is running rampant in Vaseaux Lake near Oliver where it first appeared in 1981.
In Shuswap Lake to the north there is great concern that commercial houseboats may in fact be carrying the weed into nearby lakes and rivers. In Woods Lake, Kalamalka Lake, Skaha Lake and Okanagan Lake, all throughout the interior, thousands of hectares of waterfront have been spoiled with the growth of this weed.
In 1989 a survey of Shuswap Lake showed a 20 per cent increase in the weed growth from the previous year, even with the control efforts, with new infestations appearing on Seymour Arm and right in the main body of Shuswap Lake.

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The regional districts and the provincial governments are losing ground in the milfoil battle. The Columbia-Shuswap Regional District has recently passed a resolution requesting federal assistance in this battle to control this aquatic weed species. I think I can safely say that the resolution has the full support of the North Okanagan Regional District as well as the Okanagan Basin Water Water Board and local councils.
The fact of the matter is that the time has come for federal involvement in this environmental and economic crisis. The 1987 federal water policy, I might remind you, commits this government to a co-operative approach to water management problems with the various provinces. The policy emphasizes an integrated approach to water management that can only be construed as a direct involvement in such environmental issues in concert with the provinces and the regions of those provinces.
The Minister of the Environment, while expressing interest in the milfoil problem when I brought it up on March 26, was characteristically vague in what action he would take. In talking to the minister after the debate in the Chamber here, he indicated that after his Green Plan was announced he would like his advisers to meet with me on that very issue. Well that was over a month ago and I am still waiting.
I would like to ask the minister's representative who is going to be answering shortly whether the Minister of the Environment at this time, or in the immediate future, will meet with myself and my colleagues, the hon. member for Kamloops and the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt. All three of our ridings are directly involved with this very critical issue. Would he meet with us as a delegation to discuss specifically what actions he and his ministry are prepared to take regarding this very, very serious environmental concern that essentially affects the entire interior portion of British Columbia?


Ross Belsher: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member opposite for clearly stating the problem in our British Columbia lake system. I am quite familiar with it because it is my home province as well.
He quite correctly stated that we did put a water policy out in 1987 which stated that the federal government would co-operate with provincial governments in co-operative management of water resources. He knows, too, that under the Constitution Act, the provinces exercise direct control over many aspects of water management. As the overview to the federal water policy states, the federal government intends to work in conjunction with the provinces and territories to encourage the provision of safe and sufficient water supplies for Canadians in areas of federal and shared responsibilities.
The federal government policy incorporates two main goals. The first is to protect and enhance the quality of the water resource. This means that the federal government will work to anticipate and prevent contamination of Canadian water supplies by harmful substances introduced through pollution and to encourage the restoration of waters that are already contaminated. We are realizing this goal by developing and, as in the case of the British Columbia, implementing such programs as joint water monitoring agreements. The second goal is to promote the wise and efficient management and use of water, meaning that new ground rules must be established that respect the value of water to all sectors of society and to the environment.
The infestation of which the member opposite speaks in the interior of British Columbia lakes by Eurasian water milfoil as with lakes in other parts of Canada, has been of concern since the early 1970s. The federal government has devoted considerable time, effort and money to try and solve the problems generated by this weed. Its propogation is not brought about by increased water pollution or the deterioration of water quality, but by the aggressive way it grows once it enters a lake. The problems caused by this weed are primarily related to recreation and tourism, to aesthetics and to access to swimming beaches, rather than to the quality of the water itself.
The responsibility for actual weed control operations rests with provincial and local governments. There are existing cost-shared programs for aquatic weed control between the B.C. Ministry of Environment and local authorities such as the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District and the Okanagan Basin Water Board. This mechanism-
May 1, 1990


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: They don't have enough money to do the job.


Ross Belsher: I hear the hon. member. Everybody wants more money and the federal government is not what you would call flush with money.
I think that what is taking place has been working quite well as far as the money goes. Relief is provided at the highest priority for the recreational areas.
The federal government continues to play an important role in both liaison and technology transfer with the province of British Columbia by its participation on the federal-provincial B.C. Aquatic Weed Advisory Committee. As well as Environment Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is also active on that committee. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has funded and undertaken research studies in Cultus Lake, B.C.-which is in my riding-to assess the value of Eurasian milfoil as habitat for juvenile fish. By contrast, the effect that infestations of this weed have on fish habitat is not yet known.
The infestation in the lakes of the interior of British Columbia by Eurasian milfoil, as with the lakes in other parts of Canada, has been of real concern and continues to be of real concern.


PEARSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me this opportunity this afternoon to seek clarification from the Minister of Transport with respect to a question I asked him some weeks ago in this House.
On April 2 I questioned the minister about the inefficient and unsafe conditions at Pearson International Airport. More specifically, asked about the relationship between the statements he had made in several instances to this House and how they did not confirm the report of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board that was issued on the date that the Canadian Aviation Safety Board was disbanded.
The question was not a difficult one. It dealt with several of those recommendations. I asked the minister specifically what he intended to do with respect to the 48 recommendations that were made by the Canadian Aviation Safety Board that date and what type of timeframe the minister was proposing with respect to
Adjournment Debate
their implementation. I asked that mainly because some of the recommendations of the very thorough, in depth study made by the safety board required some immediate implementation.
What I received was, in essence, almost no reply. I would almost think that the minister did not not want to reply because of the very unsafe and inefficient conditions that exist at Pearson International Airport at the present time.
The questions I asked were confirmed by the report to which I have been referring. Simply, why was there, in the year just ended, a 66 per cent increase in the number of near-misses in the southern Ontario airspace from the previous year? That is a pretty simple question. Why are we having more near-misses in the airspace around Pearson today than we had a year ago?
What is really happening at Pearson Airport with respect to the efficiency of that airport? Why is there such a slowdown in the operations and services they are providing?
More important, we have heard in this House on many instances reference to the air traffic controllers. Why is the morale among the air traffic controllers at Pearson International Airport so low? What is happening with those people in that position of such great responsibility? Why are they not more enthused about doing the job? Thank goodness they are dedicated people in that profession who have mainly the safety of the travelling public as their goal.
Why do different departments, airside and groundside, not appear to operate co-operatively and effectively in the administration of the Pearson Airport?
The Speaker of the House and I were both in Pearson airport. He was coming from Vancouver and I was coming from Thunder Bay and we were both sitting in the airport waiting for the plane to Ottawa when there was a security breach and one of the alarms went off. The question I asked, which has still not been answered, and which I will continue to ask in this House, is why it took 15 and a half minutes for the RCMP to respond to that breach of security at Canada's largest airport. When they did respond they could not give any logical reason, and I explored it in full detail, why it took them 15 and a half minutes to respond.

May 1, 1990
Adjournment Debate
I am trying to ask the Minister of Transport, through you Mr. Speaker and through the House, for the benefit of all Canadians who use our airspaces, why these conditions are allowed to exist at Pearson International Airport.
In essence those are the questions I would like my friend across to answer this afternoon. I know that we are under some time restraints. If I could get some assurance that those questions would be answered this afternoon, I would be prepared to sit down right now and rely on his answers. Let me conclude and give him the opportunity to answer those questions. I hope he will take all of the time that is still available to me and the time that is available to him to respond.
I am not catching him off guard. My hon. friend was at a transport committee meeting with me just a short while ago and I told him I was going to use some comparisons as I was asking this question this afternoon. As he said to the previous speaker, he is from the Province of British Columbia. We know that the airport in Vancouver is perhaps one of the most efficient airports in the whole of Canada and it faces much the same problems as Pearson faces on a day-to-day basis. It has almost as many flights. In fact, propeller driven aircraft and helicopters at Vancouver airport far exceed those at Pearson.
For the benefit of all Canadians who use these airports, why do we not adopt at Pearson the good management philosophies that we are using at the Vancouver airport in his province? That is fairly simple and it would solve the problems that we are experiencing at Pearson.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity of asking those questions.


Ross Belsher: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman opposite makes it all sound so very simple. I wish it were. However, the member opposite has a continuing interest in what is happening at Pearson airport because he has a vital interest in air safety and air traffic in Ontario.
The report that he talked about, the Canadian Aviation Safety Board's report on air traffic, which did make 48 recommendations for improving the Canadian system,
should not be interpreted as 48 deficiencies within the system at Lester B. Pearson International Airport.
As mentioned, the recommendations made by the CASB pertain to the entire system, some of which are related to technology now in the research and development stage, while others require international agreement and participation in the area providing control over the high seas.
The CASB recommendations can be implemented quickly. Indeed, the majority already have been. I can assure the hon. member that all recommendations have been given the utmost attention.
As part of that, as an ongoing procedure, the minister did put together a task force on aviation matters. In fact, it was such an important matter that my colleague, the Minister of Transport, established a task force in order to seek the expertise of the private sector, the industry and the government. The aim of that task force was to ensure that we have the right resources and that they are used in the right way in order to meet the changing needs of the future.
Speaking more specifically of Toronto, as we all know, Toronto is our busiest airport in Canada. The air traffic controllers have a difficult job which they do well. As the member knows very well, we are working to improve the situation at Toronto. We have hired former American controllers. We have increased the number of training seats available. There has been a cap on airline movements per hour at Toronto which will not be removed until the minister is satisfied that traffic can be handled safely and efficiently.
I can assure the hon. member that Toronto is still being actively studied to make sure that it is able to fill its role in the airline and transportation industiy of this country.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The motion that the House do now adjourn is deemed to have been adopted. The House therefore stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.28 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, May 2, 1990