Statement made on 21 March 2007 by Senator Joan Fraser
Hon. Joan Fraser:
My question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. By my count, which may be slightly off, but only slightly, Monday's budget calls for spending of less than $180 million a year over the next couple of years, and some dribbles after that, on Aboriginal matters. I compare that with the
Kelowna accord, wherein an average of $1 billion a year would have been expended, starting this year, over the next five years. Yesterday, the Leader of the Government in the Senate told this chamber, yet again — as indeed the Minister of Public Works has just done
sotto voce — that the
Kelowna accord was just a press release.
I do not know why people on the government side persist in refusing to accept reality, which is that the Kelowna accord was a real accord, negotiated over 18 months, signed on to by every provincial and territorial government, the federal government and the Aboriginal peoples, and that the money for it was booked. Although the Leader of the Government in the Senate has never wished to table documents that would confirm that, those documents do exist.
The government's references to the Kelowna accord tend to belittle it. Not only do they suggest that the accord was a press release, they also suggest that it was not worth it anyway.
The Leader of the Government in the Senate may not like hearing laudatory remarks about the Kelowna accord from this side, but I was interested to read in today's Toronto Star the report of a comment by someone else:
We've existed for 140 years and we have this shameful situation that exists today . . . and why? Very simple. We stole their land. We drove the Indians, the Inuit, the natives off their land. I support it (the Kelowna accord) absolutely.
Those comments were made on national television on Sunday night by the Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney.
In the light of this frank and accurate statement by former Prime Minister Mulroney, will the government consider changing its position?
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