Thank you, Madam Speaker and honourable Members. Madam Speaker, except for the natives who sold Manhattan Island for $26 in glass beads, our people are some of the smartest, most resourceful and environmentally conscious people in the world. We have adapted to the most inhospitable climate and conditions in the world. I do not blame my ancestors for wanting to trade with the Europeans for things that would make their lives easier in this harsh land. If the white man wanted ten muskrat pelts for a tin pot, it seemed like a good deal at the time.
Madam Speaker, my message to this House, and to the media, is to please not give too much credence to the position of the Native Animal Brotherhood of Guelph, Ontario, an organization that I think has lost touch with most of their identity and does not speak for a majority of aboriginal people in Canada. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
---Applause