Layton Takes Issue With Prentice Statement

Layton Takes Issue With Prentice Statement

Thursday, August 10, 2006 at 13:09

NDP leader Jack Layton is not impressed with a statement made by Canada’s Indian Affairs minister on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People.

Jim Prentice used yesterday’s occasion to state that the Tories “remain committed to pursuing our efforts towards the protection and promotion of Aboriginal and treaty rights domestically, and to working with other states and Indigenous peoples internationally”.

Layton says that statement doesn’t jive with the Conservative government’s recent vote against the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The UN resolution passed in June by a vote of 30-to-2. Canada and Russia were the only countries to vote against it.

Layton is in Saskatchewan today as part of a summer tour.