SASKATOON - A former Saskatchewan MP who sent constituents pamphlets suggesting aboriginals shouldn't get special treatment says he isn't racist and believes in the equality of all people.

Jim Pankiw told the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal on Tuesday that the controversial household pamphlets his office mailed to voters between 2002 and 2004 were actually meant to point out racist government policies.

The three different pamphlets called for the end of hiring quotas, court sentencing provisions, hunting and fishing privileges and tax exemptions for aboriginals. The pamphlets also said treaties should not be valid in modern times.

One pamphlet, titled "Stop Indian Crime," showed a photograph of the Oka protest in Quebec in 1990. The caption under the photo described an aboriginal protester as a terrorist.

But Pankiw argued that he simply believes aboriginals should not get special treatment by the system.

"You can't discriminate in favour of someone without discriminating against someone else. Discrimination is wrong," Pankiw told the tribunal.

"I am an egalitarian. I believe in equality of all people."

Pankiw gave as an example the case of a woman he knows who didn't get into law school because a certain number of seats were set aside for aboriginal students.

"In my opinion, she was discriminated against," he said.

Pankiw, a married father of two girls, now works as a chiropractor in Saskatoon.

He served two terms as a Reform and Canadian Alliance MP in the riding of Saskatoon-Humboldt before he left to sit as an Independent. He lost the 2004 election and was again defeated as a candidate in the Battlefords-Lloydminster riding in 2006.

He also lost a 2003 bid to become mayor of Saskatoon.

Pankiw said he still blames Prime Minister Stephen Harper for ending his political career. He called Harper a "dictator," who didn't like his outspoken views and wouldn't allow him to run again for the Conservative party.

Pankiw said he received a lot of support for his ideas on Parliament Hill.

"I had a lot of people say, `Jim, keep going. You're the only guy willing to take it on the chin for equality."'

He also said he received thousands of responses about his pamphlets, and about 95 per cent were supportive.

But some Canada Post workers picketed his office in protest and refused to deliver the mailings.

Nine people filed officials complaints about the pamphlets, saying they were discriminatory. The Canadian Human Rights Commission referred the matter to the tribunal.

Pankiw fought against the hearing but lost appeals before the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court also refused to hear his case.

He called the complaints "crank, vexatious, mean-spirited personal attacks."

"I can't understand how anyone would be hurt by a message that says we should all be equal. I can't understand that."

John Melenchuk, a Metis construction worker in Saskatoon, filed one of the complaints after his eight-year-old son showed him the Oka pamphlet and asked if he was a terrorist.

"I'm just disgusted by these pamphlets," Melenchuk told the tribunal. "He was using taxpayers' money to print out this type of literature."

The three-member panel is to issue a decision in the case at a later date.