A heat-of-the-moment comment made in the Senate is now the subject of an apology from Saskatchewan Liberal Senator Lillian Dyck.
During debate on a private member’s bill to reform, repeal and replace the Indian Act, she accused the author of that bill, Saskatchewan Conservative MP Rob Clarke, of “white man behaviour”.
“I do apologize, I did not mean to insult anyone,” she says.
Dyck and Clarke are both Cree and they both see themselves as champions of defending and promoting the rights of Canada’ Aboriginals — but they don’t see eye-to-eye on everything. Case in point, Clarke’s private member’s bill to get rid of the old Indian Act and replace it with something that is modern and makes the government more accountable to the needs and concerns of Aboriginal people.
Dyck says she got pretty wound up during the Senate debate on December 9 . She says upon reflection, she should not have made the “white man comment”.
“I can see that now, and you know the problem with speaking in the chamber, that was kind of an off-the-cuff remark,” Dyck says. “I was standing up speaking and because I was so exasperated I said that without really thinking that through.”
After she accused Clarke of “white man behavior” she went on to say, “You can be insulted by that if you like”. Dyck wants to put that remark in context.
“When I said, ‘You can be insulted by that if you like’, I was not referring to Mr. Clarke,” Dyck says. “When you get up and speak in the chamber, you are speaking to the other senators. So ‘you’ means ‘you other senators’, the people in the chamber.”
The private member’s bill to change the Indian Act was passed into law on Tuesday night. Under provisions of the legislation, the government will negotiate with First Nations to come up with a better law and report back to the House of Commons for a progress report on a regular basis. The process is expected to be very long.