Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last Thursday I commented on the history of victimization of women of aboriginal decent. Men have been victims of racial hatred, too. Today I wish to talk about the role that Canadian institutions have played in perpetuating that victimization process.
I had to laugh out loud, Mr. Speaker, when I heard about the Right Honourable Joe Clark's November 28th comments to the First Nations' leadership, when he tried to say that violence has not been part of the Canadian tradition. Mr. Speaker, violence against aboriginal people has been part of the Canadian experience right from the first moment Europeans set foot on this land. It was part of the Canadian tradition when the Beothuks were slaughtered in Newfoundland, and later when the government took up arms against native people during the Riel Rebellion, the Duck Lake confrontation, and most recently, Oka.
And these are just low points from Canada's own shameful past. If you consider the history of race relations throughout the Americas, you can find evidence of the mistreatment of native people from the time of Christopher Columbus right up to the tragedy at Wounded Knee. It continues today, with human rights abuses and land theft in many nations of Central and South America.
No, Mr. Speaker, Joe Clark was wrong. There has been a history of violent manipulation and victimization of Amerindian peoples throughout the years of our contact with non-native cultures. And we have tasted the bitter victimization in the North, too, Mr. Speaker. It was present in the corporal punishment endured by aboriginal children in the residential school system. It is present in our current system of justice. Many things must be wrong with any system that spends half a million dollars to conclude that it is all right for a judge to say that rape is different when it happens to northern women from when it happens to dainty southern Canadian co-eds.
I am heartened by a recent report of the Law Reform Commission of Canada which proposes a system of justice based on aboriginal traditions...