Maxime Bernier Quotes

You have troubles with violent indigenous movement around the continent. Here, we are putting more power in their hands and creating a nonviolent indigenous society.

The direction is going the right way for respect for aboriginal people in North America, and all we can do is stand up and say, 'Please do it faster.'

It's time to bring dignity, honor, self-reliance, and self-government to people that have been held, not necessarily in bondage, but certainly as supplicants under an Indian Act that is archaic.

I think the Conservative Party has a great story to tell when it comes to relationships with First Nations. I want to be part of the solution-identifying process, talking about, 'What are the practical things that we can achieve that the Conservatives can offer?'

Food sovereignty is an affirmation of who we are as indigenous peoples and a way, one of the most surefooted ways, to restore our relationship with the world around us.

I say: The time has come for my courageous and proud people, after decades of displacement and colonial occupation and ceaseless suffering, to live like other peoples of the earth, free in a sovereign and independent homeland.

And Americans realized that native people are still here, that they have a moral standing, a legal standing.

Solutions will not be found while Indigenous people are treated as victims for whom someone else must find solutions.

The majority of Aboriginals do not want handouts because they realise that welfare is killing them.

I am deeply committed to the cause of Indigenous Australians, and not just because of the Apology, but the big challenges which lie ahead in closing the gap.

There is a perception of the general irrelevance of aboriginal culture….We haven't gone anywhere. We still exist. …. Get the hell out of our lives and give us our land back.

[Tribal] Sovereignty is just a means to an end. The end is healthy, happy and safe communities.

The proper treatment of the original occupants of this land—the Indians is one deserving of careful study. I will favor any course toward them which tends to their civilization and ultimate citizenship.

The Americans are not created by the master of life. … I will ask the master of life to cover over the Americans with earth and the Indians shall return to the Earth.

I would rather die as an Indian than live as a white man.

This is one victory that Canada cannot deny to aboriginal people.

We have to recognize is that the best way to improve the quality of life for First Nations and Indigenous Canadians is through economic development and activity.

You have to look at what the United Nations Declaration of Rights of Indigenous people says which is free and prior informed consent. Now, if you say 'we're going to build a pipeline, what does it take for us as the colonial power of Canada to make you agree?' That's not free, prior and informed consent, that's coercion.

Canada has some very, very dark histories, from internments to turning away the St. Louis and the Komagata Maru, but none is darker than our abject failure to respect rights, the spirit and intent of the original treaties with First Nations, Métis Nation, and Inuit peoples. We have to transform that relationship.

If we had, we would have realised sooner that Indigenous organisations are sometimes not the appropriate channel for programmes to help the stolen generations, because many of them play little part in Indigenous associations.

We must not try to force him to take civilization immediately in its complete form, but under just laws, guaranteeing to Indians equal civil laws, the Indian question, a source of such dishonor to our country and of shame to true patriots, will soon be a thing of the past.

The more I heard, the more I've learned, and the more I saw, the more resolved I became about helping to address the challenges that plague the Native American community.

As it has for America's other indigenous peoples, I believe the United States must fulfill its responsibility to Native Hawaiians.

I am not a magician. I believe that it is the Indians who have got to find out a solution. You cannot expect the British to solve all your problems.

We wish for their own good to give the Indians full participation of the benefits of our free and mild government