Mr. Speaker, thank you very much and happy birthday. I would like to take the time that is available to me in this debate to talk more about the Kelowna accord.
The Kelowna accord only came about at the time of the health ministers meeting in September 2004 when provincial and territorial governments agreed to a first ministers meeting on aboriginal issues. This process started in April 2004 when the aboriginal people round table was called.
Seventy-five aboriginal organizations in Canada, about 500 people, spent an entire day discussing the challenges facing first nations, Métis and Inuit Canadians. The difference in that instance, I believe, was the fact that the Prime Minister realized perhaps for the first time that the solutions would have to be collaborative. In the past, well intentioned people made decisions on behalf of first nations, Métis and Inuit Canadians and generally speaking, those initiatives were unsuccessful by their very nature because they were imposed rather than collaborative solutions.
I was at that meeting as the minister of infrastructure and housing. We met all day and came up with six areas that needed further study in terms of real solutions to the problems. It was a collective decision by all assembled. Those areas were health, education, housing, economic development, accountability and negotiations. At the time the Prime Minister said that this was the first step and from then on, first nations, Métis and Inuit Canadians would have a place at the table.
Not long after that, in September 2004, a first ministers meeting on health was scheduled and the aboriginal community stepped up understandably and asked about its seat at the table. This meeting on the question of health included federal, provincial and territorial governments as well as aboriginal leaders. It was at that time that the decision was taken to have a first ministers meeting in the following year which ended up being Kelowna. That was really the first time the aboriginal community and the federal, provincial and territorial governments met altogether.
Over the course of the winter, following the health meeting in September, workshops took place and meetings were held in terms of the community working together with the federal government. At this point it was still bilateral. I was quite encouraged by these meetings. Critics were there from other parties. We were seriously engaged in dialogue.
I remember in Calgary that spring the present Minister of Indian Affairs participating in the negotiations as part of the process that brought us to these reports. There are a large number of reports as a result of all the exercise on these six subject areas. However, it became apparent that notwithstanding the fiduciary responsibility of the federal government, if it was going to deal with those six issues, it would have to engage the provinces and territories in a meaningful way.
In March a meeting of aboriginal affairs ministers was held in advance of the final policy retreat that was part of the original process. This was bilateral between the federal government and aboriginal organizations.
I remember clearly the provincial aboriginal affairs ministers saying they would like to have their governments involved, but a serious financial investment would have to be made. Even if the ministers wanted to do something, their premiers, their finance ministers, and their intergovernmental affairs ministers would not buy it because they would believe the federal government was trying to off-load. That is when I began, as the minister responsible, to seek from my government both the policy agreements that were necessary to make this work and the funding arrangements that I will speak of in a minute.
On May 31 the process that started with the round table reached the first phase of completion and that was the policy retreat that was originally intended.
Five agreements were signed between the Government of Canada and the five national aboriginal organizations. That was intended to be bilateral. The provinces were aware because of the meeting we had in March and we scheduled a second aboriginal affairs meeting for Ottawa on June 21 to discuss the policy retreat that we had just completed in preparation for Kelowna.
At that meeting on January 21 we added a couple of items to the agenda. Everyone was encouraged, but once again the Government of Canada received a loud and clear message that this was not going to work unless the federal government made the kind of investments that were necessary and if it did, the provincial and territorial governments would in fact be involved in areas where they would have to be like education, health, housing, economic development and so on.
That process caused me and four of my colleagues to go forward to cabinet seeking policy decisions from the government and funding decisions that supported those policy decisions, and that happened all through the summer and fall leading to Kelowna. By the time we actually got to Kelowna the funding had been secured against the means and uses ledger that was available to the government as we accounted on a monthly basis.
The funding was secure. The Minister of Finance had said that, the Prime Minister had said that, and the finance officials appearing before the aboriginal affairs committee said the same thing. That was done. The policy framework was established and agreed to and signed off by the five national organizations twice; once on policy in May earlier that year and once in Kelowna, we signed five agreements over again.
The only trilateral agreement that was signed that day was signed with British Columbia. That was intentional and deliberate. We were then going forward with an agreement that everyone understood. I have the quotes of all of the premiers, territorial leaders and the aboriginal organizations themselves.
There can be no question what happened over a period of 18 months in this instance. I am sure there will be members who will get up and speak of the fact that we were the government for 13 years. No one in Canada really believes that this problem was one that was created even in our lifetime. The problems we are talking about here are hundreds of years old and repeated governments are responsible for the conditions that we all recognize exist.
I really believe that the difference in this instance was simply an honest desire to come up with a shared collaborative solution. It takes time. It takes more time than people wish to give, given the terrible situation, but the community wanted to be in on the solution and they were.
As a result that is the reason why there is such investment in the arrangement. People like my colleague from Nunavut talk about the fact that this is as much about the relationship as anything. That is why to turn our back on it at this point, as a country, would be a major mistake by virtue of the fact that what it would say to the community is that nothing has changed. The reality is, it is a wonderful opportunity. The community has an overwhelming consensus.
We will be able to identify individual people who do not like the arrangement, that is for sure, but there is an enormous consensus within the community. The people who were in Kelowna could see that. The statements that were made by the leaders that day and the statements that were made by the premiers that day all suggested that this was an important moment in the relationship and in terms of improving the living conditions of Métis, first nations and Inuit Canadians.
They stepped up. The Government of Canada stepped up by making the policy changes it requested and made the investments that were necessary to support those changes. The provinces and territorial governments stepped up for the first time to say, yes, they will work with the aboriginal people on education, they will work with them on housing, and they will collaborate in a way that is perhaps very new in terms of the relationship on this file in Canada. All of those things converged.
I think we have an opportunity to do the right thing by first nations, Métis and Inuit Canadians and I call upon the Government of Canada to consider the motion that was put by my colleague and do the right thing.
