Mr. Speaker, I am in favour of the motion, as you know, being the seconder of the motion.
I think it’s important to realize that the political history as we’ve seen around the world in dealing with indigenous rights is now coming to the forefront of international law and also dealing with the constitutional rights of indigenous people.
I think in regard to Canada, under section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, a lot of these rights that are in the UN declaration are already entrenched in the Canadian Constitution, which identifies First Nations as a distinct group in Canada and recognizes their rights under their land claim agreement in regard to their ability and through self-government agreements to govern themselves.
The Canadian government.... The part that’s hard to understand is that they were involved in regard to the UN declaration committee for 20 years of drafting this resolution and developing it. Then when it came to the vote, they basically voted against it.
I think, as Canadians and as the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, we’re the first Legislative Assembly in Canada to basically recognize aboriginal people’s rights by way of establishing the statutory holiday of June 21st in
regard to Aboriginal Day.
I think, as a government that represents some 50 per cent of our population who are aboriginal people, we realize the importance of working together to resolve a lot of these outstanding issues, regardless if it’s residential schools or unsettled land claims or self-government agreements, and also of recognizing treaty rights that basically flow from Treaty 11 or in regard to Treaty 8, which are in the Northwest Territories and came into force in the 1800s and 1921.
I think it’s important that we, as the Legislative Assembly, direct this government and the Government of Canada to reconsider. I think the United Nations…. From the number of people that have supported this declaration by way of 144 countries, this shows that the international community is behind this declaration and also with the decision, as my colleague Mr.
Menicoche
mentioned, that Australia, through their election, made a public apology to the First Nations people and now are in the process of reassessing their decision to endorse the declaration.
That’s what we’re asking the Government of Canada to do — reconsider their decision in light of what the rest of the world is telling us. But more importantly, through support of this resolution in this Chamber, it shows the rest of Canada that we do support indigenous people’s rights and support indigenous people’s ability to move forward in light of the geographical and cultural differences we have in Canada.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting the motion.