Debates of Nov. 26th, 1998

Senator Selection Act

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the order is dropped from the order paper.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to follow up on a question concerning the Shamattawa First Nation which I asked in the House on November 5.

Shamattawa is facing horrific social problems. There have been over 120 suicide attempts since 1992 and 80% of the first nation's youth are addicted to solvents. This level of solvent abuse and the personal and social consequences of it represents a health and humanitarian crisis that cannot be ignored.

Current efforts to deal with this problem have proven to be inadequate. The poverty that has led to these problems is a long term issue that desperately needs to be properly addressed. Addiction treatment is not available in most first nations, including Shamattawa, so addicts have to leave their homes to get treatment. They are then returned to their communities, back into the poverty and desperation that caused their problem in the first place, without support. There is a desperate need to improve social conditions in remote first nations and to provide ongoing support for recovering addicts when they return to their communities.

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recognized this problem and the need for long term solutions. It called for healing centres in troubled communities like Shamattawa to provide the ongoing support that recovering addicts need to keep from relapsing.

Over two months ago the chief of Shamattawa personally delivered a proposal for a healing centre to the minister of Indian affairs. The lack of response from the minister prompted my November 5 question asking why the government was ignoring the appeals of the Shamattawa First Nation. The answer I received was the sort of empty, evasive reply we on this side of the House have become all too used to.

The parliamentary secretary said that the government is concerned about the level of poverty, in particular in the community of Shamattawa, and that it is very aware of the problems in the first nation. He said that the government was working diligently on these problems. This is all very easy to say, but the people of Shamattawa have yet to see the benefits of this concern and diligence. While the government ponders what it can do about this crisis, in Shamattawa children as young as four are becoming addicted to solvents and homeless people are being left outside to freeze.

Six days ago Indian affairs officials in Winnipeg met with the chief of Shamattawa and would not commit to any help whatsoever. While this meeting was going on there was another solvent related death in Shamattawa. A teenage boy, high on solvents, shot and killed another boy.

The proposal for a healing centre in Shamattawa would cost the government less than $1 million. Recently we heard that the government is giving $10 million to alleviate the poverty being suffered in northern Russia. I am not against foreign aid, but Shamattawa has asked for less than one-tenth of what Russia got and received nothing.

There are many remote first nations with social problems as desperate as those of Shamattawa. It is criminal that in a country of Canada's wealth such conditions are allowed to persist. All that is needed is a relatively small amount of aid.

Will the government now commit itself to administering meaningful aid to to Shamattawa First Nation and to other northern communities at the earliest possible opportunity?

[David Iftody, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the hon. member for Churchill on behalf of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development concerning the urgent social problems at the Shamattawa First Nation.

Again the government is very concerned and deeply disturbed about the conditions facing the Shamattawa First Nation and is taking action. We have been meeting with the Shamattawa First Nation over the past few months to formulate long term solutions to improve life for residents of this community.

At the most recent meeting of November 20, officials from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Health Canada met with the chief of the Shamattawa First Nation and Grand Chief Francis Flett whom I know personally of the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak. They discussed ways to improve conditions for youth in the community to address the high rates of solvent abuse and suicide.

One proposed solution is for the first nation to build an arena and recreation facility that would address these social problems and combat boredom among youth. The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is pleased to commit $400,000 toward the construction of this complex, and the first nation anticipates starting construction in the spring.

The department has also identified $33,000 to assist first nations in the development of their own long term human resource strategy. This strategy will target education and employment opportunities for youth, giving them more opportunities for a brighter future. We did not stop there or our efforts will not stop there.

In the 1996-97 budget for the Shamattawa First Nation, in addition to the regular capital outlays for such things as housing which affects the social conditions and the psychological conditions of the people on reserves, we have committed $2.86 million to housing, which will provide 33 additional houses for the Shamattawa community, and $4.73 million to a water treatment facility.

To conclude, we are working very diligently in this regard. I thank the hon. member for her questions. We are working on these very serious problems in a number of communities across Canada with the aboriginal leadership. We want to resolve them as much as the hon. member for Churchill does.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6.33 p.m.)