Mr. Speaker, at the Toronto conference three weeks ago, all of the aboriginal leaders, with the exception of the Native Council of Canada, made arguments in principle that all the aboriginal people across Canada support Quebec in its aspirations to protect itself as a distinct society, and that it should be given proper recognition and resources and capacity to endure what is very much an English-dominated northern hemisphere.
The argument went on to suggest that because of the principles that moved aboriginal people to support Quebec, they should give the aboriginal people of Canada the same type of support in that they, too, are a very distinct people and that this should be reflected in the Constitution.
The controversy erupted on this issue because of the wording. It was felt that Quebec has claimed ownership to those two words, "distinct society," in the Constitution of Canada. Distinct society is reserved for Quebec. Quebecers were very insistent that that should apply only to Quebec, and if aboriginal people should seek recognition, I guess, of their own distinctness, as Zeebeedee Nungak said, then we should look for our own words.
The original intent, at least for many of us there, was just to line up in the media to get the message across to Canadians that the very reasons why there would be a move to support Quebec in its fight to survive and to promote its identity, were that the same types of principles should move them to support aboriginal people as well.
From there, I think all of us sort of separated company. Some of the leaders said that they did not want to get into a fight with Quebec. They did not want to distract from the main issue, which was to get constitutional recognition of the inherent right to self-government in the Constitution. They felt, for instance, in section 35 of the Constitution that recognizes aboriginal rights and treaty rights, that if the inherent right to self-government was inserted in there that it would be very, very, very strongly implicit that aboriginal people are, in fact, distinct in the Constitution, and that it would only be a secondary reserve support to put another line somewhere in the Constitution, in the Canada clause, for instance, to say that aboriginal people are also distinct.
I think people felt that the word "distinct," particularly "society," is not one that should be used for aboriginal people. We are not societies; we are nations and first peoples. That is, basically, where we ended up.
As a participant, my own comment at that time was that I am not hung up on wording. I did not think we all were. It is something that is going to be resolved at the upcoming talks. At the meetings next Monday and Tuesday, the Ministers have agreed to meet, only because we found the federal government somewhat lacking in enthusiasm to call aboriginal Ministers together in the wake of the Oka crisis, and in the absence of any forum for us, as territorial and provincial leaders, to have discussions about how to address aboriginal issues. We did not want to get into a situation where we were communicating by mail. There were court cases that were coming up, and we thought we should share those, at least on an informal level. We should talk about the big feud that we all have about how clear we can get it, for instance, in claims agreements, about what the responsibilities of the federal government are. Especially in the areas of costs, as opposed to provincial and territorial governments, and the delivery of programs and services, to see how we can all brag or be ashamed of ourselves about how poorly we are doing in those areas.
So those were the original reasons for the agenda. Ontario took the lead in calling for it. As a government, we hosted an official meeting here last summer that was preparing the way for this Ministers' meeting that is going to happen next week. The federal government and Quebec will not be attending, but everybody else will be there. Thank you.
