Bill C-47 (Historical)

Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act

An Act respecting family homes situated on First Nation reserves and matrimonial interests or rights in or to structures and lands situated on those reserves

This enactment provides for the adoption of First Nation laws and the establishment of provisional rules and procedures that apply during a conjugal relationship, when that relationship breaks down or on the death of a spouse or common-law partner, respecting the use, occupation and possession of family homes on First Nation reserves and the division of the value of any interests or rights held by spouses or common-law partners in or to structures and lands on those reserves.

Committees of the House

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her participation in this debate, as her commitment to women's issues is well known. Not only is she an excellent speaker on issues pertaining to women's lives, but she speaks about particulars that we often do not address in the House, such as common sense and basic things like the dignity of human beings and the dignity that is integral to how people want to move forward in their lives. I really appreciate that.

I do have a question for her. She has just mentioned Bill C-47 on matrimonial real property. Something we heard very clearly was that in the end the government developed the legislation without input from aboriginal women and first nations women. In fact, I have heard from the Manitoba region that for the first nations family violence prevention program, the criteria also in the end were developed without participation by the first nations women who had been engaged in that process. They were told that would politicize the program.

I would like her to comment on this pattern we are seeing and on whether she thinks it impacts this issue in particular and women's issues across the board.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that my colleague may not agree with this motion. However, because I am defending the cause of women, of all women, I support this motion. In speaking of matrimonial property and land distribution, we are not just referring to the case of a woman who may be able to remain in her home. The issue is much broader than that.

As I was saying earlier, it is important to strengthen what we already have and what we know aboriginal women need rather than attempting to establish something they do not want and about which they were not consulted.

We know what they want with regard to shelters for battered women. They want them, they want to keep them and maintain them in good condition. They want to have the money to provide the services necessary for individual or group counselling. We know that. We know that is what they want. There are other things we do not know because of insufficient consultation with respect to the process and the other bill my colleague just spoke about.

However, I can assure you that we will be just as diligent with Bill C-47 as we have been with this motion. I am very pleased with this motion and the Bloc supports it wholeheartedly because it meets an essential need of aboriginal women. They have told us that and shown us the proof.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in this House to discuss the motion introduced by my Liberal colleague. As we begin this sort of debate, I am very surprised to hear the members opposite talk about the need for reforms and say that it is the previous government's fault that the situation has not improved more. They remind me of grade school children in the schoolyard, saying, “My Dad can beat your Dad.” Things do not work that way.

The “new government”, as it referred to itself for so long, has now been in power for two and a half years, and it should stop saying that the former government did not do its job. It is time the “new government” did its job. I would be very happy to finally hear the “new government” say that it will do what is needed to make things better, especially for our first nations.

Women's shelters in aboriginal communities have been underfunded for some time now. This is not the first time we have had reports about this. Exhaustive research has been conducted into the situation in aboriginal communities and has shown why we need to change the situation for the better. Johnson Research and Development Co. even submitted a report on July 31, 2006 describing the situation. Company representatives visited aboriginal communities to find out first-hand what people who live in these communities and benefit from programs and services had to say about shelters, or the lack thereof, on their reserves.

The research found that most shelters were underfunded. Unlike shelters for battered women in Quebec, which now receive nearly $500,000 a year, shelters for battered women in aboriginal communities were always underfunded. Unfortunately, the only way to supplement their funding was to apply for project funding. This sounds good in theory, but it takes six months to plan a project and six months to get the funding, which disappears as soon as it is received. As well, there is no recurrent funding to address recurrent problems.

In some aboriginal women's shelters, in many cases, the bedding had not been changed in 10 years. This may seem trivial, but when a woman goes to a shelter, a woman who has been demeaned and beaten, and has little or no resources, it is nice to be able to comfort her by giving her a clean bed, where she can feel comfortable. That is important. The most basic facilities had not been changed or updated. Furthermore, nothing has been done to ensure security, due to lack of funding. Rather than allocating money to security or the alarm systems, the money must be used to pay the people who work in the shelters.

In some shelters, a single person works 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There are not many people in this House who would do such a job for the wages paid. Some residences have even had to close for a while, in order to ensure that they would be able to provide services to the people who would need them later on.

Other shelters have had to stop offering individual, one-on-one counselling, because they did not have the resources or money necessary. So they decided to go with group counselling instead of individual counselling. However, when it comes to spousal abuse, if there is one thing that is crucial, it is counselling and prevention. Such an approach can help these women heal, become more autonomous, find their way and avoid potentially negative relationships.

Entire families have been decimated because shelters could not offer the support they needed. Yet in October 2006, when the economic forum was held in Mashteuiatsh, several of the Conservative ministers in attendance told the aboriginal community that aboriginal women were among their first priorities. Unfortunately, that promise did not materialize into money for aboriginal communities.

We realize that new money has been invested in shelters. Quebec has benefited from that, but it is not enough. They were lagging behind even then, and they were having problems. Yes, the shelters were very grateful to receive that money, but at the same time, they were wondering how they would manage to carry on. What do we have to do to convince the government that safety is a right? These women have the right to safe places where they can get away from the community whenever and for as long as they are not safe at home.

Some women and children have not sought services or help because no help was offered, because there was not enough help available, or because shelter workers no longer had enough energy to meet their needs. It is very difficult to find oneself in situations like that.

Money was transferred to aboriginal communities to keep the shelters operating. In Quebec, a new shelter opened. The government agreed to help with the acquisition of a new house to meet the needs of abused women in the community. But that was not enough. No matter what anyone says or does, we know that 54% of aboriginal women are more likely to be victims of abuse than women living outside of aboriginal communities. That is a very high number. We know that often, the violence these women experience is related to alcoholism or drug abuse. Some have even been strangled. This is not minor violence; this is serious.

The most important thing for these communities is to ensure that those who use the services provided by shelters for abused women are not stigmatized when they leave the shelter. If shelters cannot guarantee their safety, if they cannot apply the necessary rules, if they do not have enough staff to meet their needs, these women will not leave the shelters feeling independent and able to take care of themselves because they will not have been able to heal the damage done to them.

It really is a shame. For years we have been talking about helping aboriginal communities, but in reality we only ever come up with band-aid solutions, as my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue was saying earlier. And yet it is a right. These communities have the right to safety, well being, dignity and respect.

Some might say that, to those of us who live outside all that, who live in comfortable homes and surroundings, this is a quaint matter and nothing really to worry about. If we truly did worry about it, we would make the necessary changes to ensure a different life for aboriginal communities and to secure more resources and money for them to better manage their values and to better respond to their various needs.

We know that $56 million has been offered to aboriginal communities. That is not enough. Roughly one million people live on the various territories in Canada, including several people in Quebec. These people live in some 600 different communities that have different values, cultures and concepts. These people also have some very different needs.

For example, they have needs in education and needs for healthier housing and $56 million is not enough to meet all those needs.

Some people in these communities have been forced to leave their homes because they do not have potable water for drinking and preparing food. Again this week, inhabitants of entire communities had to leave their homes because dams were about to burst and possibly cause flooding. We have seen entire destitute communities being moved around without any concern for the changes involved in this type of situation.

We know how trying it can be to go through a fire or a tragedy in our families. It is difficult, but we have a network of people around us; we are equipped for it. However, when this happens in an isolated community that does not have the same resources we do, it is very different.

The bonds established among the members of aboriginal communities are also very important. When people are moved and one group is sent to one place and another group to a different place, those bonds are broken. These people will have to build trust once again and become accustomed to a new place, a new home. That is very difficult.

In addition, women may experience domestic violence or abuse in their daily lives. A woman may not go to a shelter every time she experiences abuse. She may think about it and consider it for a long time before going to a shelter. She knows that once she crosses the threshold of the shelter she will probably be stigmatized because her colleagues, friends and family—the whole world—will know she has gone there because she had problems with her spouse or with her children.

Life is not easy for people in aboriginal communities. I would like most of us to spend one or two weeks in an aboriginal community to experience and truly understand the life they lead and to understand the people based on their surroundings. The saying goes that you cannot understand someone's life unless you walk in their shoes. We cannot understand what life is like for aboriginal people without having lived in their community, without truly understanding what it is like to live in that community.

I have had such an opportunity. I lived in an aboriginal community in northern Ontario, where they live by hunting and fishing, for a few weeks. I saw and understood many things. I was particularly touched by the moral and human values that such communities pass on to their members and to total strangers. I arrived in their community as a stranger and yet they treated me with a great deal of respect.

There are calls for the government to take better care of aboriginal communities and do more for women's shelters in aboriginal communities by investing more money in recurring funding so that they do not need to ask for it every year. We are not asking the government to give handouts to aboriginal peoples. That is just common sense.

The government would have us believe that we need to invest $96 billion over 30 years in the army. If that is common sense, a few billion to help aboriginal communities should also be considered common sense. It is hard to succeed when one is living on crumbs.

These shelters are having to temporarily lay off or fire staff. Often there is a single staff member to welcome, advise and help those who come for assistance. There is no relief staff.

The first to be let go are those who are in charge of security. If someone tries to break into the shelter when the security staff has been let go, everyone inside the shelter can be in danger.

The next to go are the outreach workers and counsellors. That means that staff training and development are eliminated. Staff training is important too. When a person works in a battered women's shelter, it is important to have a good understanding of the problem and the challenges. Staff must have ongoing training to remain up to date.

We, as MPs, ask for ongoing training. We have ongoing training offered by the various parliamentary departments. We receive briefings on new bills or the government's new policies.

It is a bad sign when we cannot even offer training to shelter staff on the new policies created to supposedly help the women in these shelters and the shelters themselves.

They also have to cut services and staffing. As I was saying earlier, they have to switch from individual to group counselling and close shelters from time to time. When shelters close their doors, it becomes very difficult for women to believe that the shelters can help them. They can never be sure. They live in a state of constant worry: how can they be sure that they will not be turned away from the shelters because there is not enough money for them to stay there?

Food is also essential. Anyone looking at me can tell that I like to eat. Liking to eat and being in good shape and good health do not mean quite the same thing in aboriginal communities. People in those communities want to be in good shape and in good health, but it takes so much money and effort just to get food to the community that the only food available in the community is food that weighs next to nothing, like bags of chips, chocolate bars and all kinds of things that are bad for people's health, not things that are good for people's health, like juice, fruit and vegetables. That makes it very hard.

It is very difficult for people in these communities to organize themselves to have a good life when they know that a shelter for battered women within their communities cannot provide adequate services to suffering women. It is very difficult.

Therefore, I wish the government would understand—it is ready to rush through bills such as Bill C-47 and to quickly deal with other bills without doing the groundwork. That work consists of strengthening what already exists and providing the necessary resources to improve the situation in aboriginal communities. The right groundwork needs to be done.

A few years ago, Sisters in Spirit received $5 million to undertake studies and research. We know that this is ending soon and that Sisters in Spirit will no longer have access to this money. I hope that new funding will be available for this organization as well.

The fact that Status of Women Canada reduced its advocacy and research budgets was a huge setback for aboriginal women and communities. Not long ago, I received a letter from Ms. Gabriel saying how important these programs were, as well as how important the court challenges program was. She hopes that these programs will be reinstated.

I hope that the government, in its great wisdom, will see that it is time to stop talking about the former government and will invest the necessary funds so that communities can have the shelters they and the women need, shelters they could benefit from.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am a bit surprised by the parliamentary secretary's position. He definitely was not there yesterday—I know that he was busy here in the House—when the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and top bureaucrats from his department came before the committee.

Today we are talking about violence against women, poverty and many other things. One of the government's problems is that the increase in its spending is capped at two per cent a year, while the population is growing by six to seven per cent a year. That means that problems in aboriginal communities and on reserves are multiplying.

I hate the word “reserve”, but that is exactly what these places are becoming: sites where we stick aboriginals. It is a terrible situation.

Do not try to convince me that Bill C-47 will solve all of the problems, as was suggested here in the House yesterday. It is simply a band-aid solution.

Does the parliamentary secretary not feel it is time to review the two percent cap that has been imposed since 1996? The Liberals are no better with their maximum annual increase of two per cent. Is it not time to review and increase that two per cent cap, or even remove it, so that communities can take charge of their situation and receive a bit more money than usual?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in her speech, the mover of the concurrence motion raised important issues related to violence against women. Although the parliamentary secretary says that we are delaying, we have been debating Bill C-47, which deals with the matrimonial real property rights.

In relation to Bill C-47, Bev Jacobs, the president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, said:

There is nothing in the legislation that addresses the systemic issues of violence many women face that lead to the dissolution of marriages nor is there any money available for implementation.

She goes on to suggest that we need non-legislative measures, not just legislative measures. The member yesterday in his speech on Bill C-47 argued against this and said that we should just pass the bill as is.

There are non-legislative issues related to housing, poverty, governance, access to justice and violence. Therefore, would the member not concede that there are non-legislative initiatives that should be taken to complement the legislative initiatives?

Status of Women

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians]

Mr. Speaker, in relation to this debate today, I, like the member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, am quite surprised that the member for Churchill would bring about a concurrence motion stopping important debate on bills such as Bill C-47, which would extend matrimonial property rights to first nations women on reserve, and the Tsawwassen bill and debate later today.

It is surprising that the Liberal Party would bring a concurrence motion in this middle of this, so I feel that on behalf of our government we need to bring forward an important motion. I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Status of Women presented on Monday, February 25, 2008, be concurred in.

I am especially proud to speak to this motion today because we have been trying to get the current government to find solutions to this recurring and difficult issue.

I would like to read part of the report to the House. It states:

It requests that the Minister for the Status of Women and the Minister for Indian Affairs:

--increase recurrent core funding for aboriginal women’s shelters, as is already the case for shelters in Quebec;

--put a stop to the delays in the evaluation of aboriginal women’s shelters, scheduled for March.

I represent the riding of Churchill, which is located in Manitoba, and I have dozens of first nations in my riding that are represented by a number of political organizations, one of which is a northern political organization referred to as MKO, a second political organization called the Southern Chiefs' Organization, and the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.

I mentioned those organizations because a lot of critical work has been done on this issue in conjunction with first nations political organizations and first nations women's councils within those political organizations. This is a key point in this discussion because one of the discussions we are having with the current government is on an issue that is specific to first nations women, which is the issue of matrimonial real property.

Earlier this week, the government introduced Bill C-47 dealing with the issue of matrimonial real property. The reason it is important for Canadians to understand why all three opposition parties want the bill to go to committee for further discussion and to hear from witnesses is that there was a process in place on that bill. The current government engaged in a process with the Assembly of First Nations Women's Council and the Native Women's Association of Canada and, as we all know, the Assembly of First Nations represents first nations all across the country.

I would like to add that it is often inferred that the Assembly of First Nations is a male organization that is made up of men who represent women. However, the Assembly of First Nations and the first nations women's council are very proud of the fact that they have a high representation of women in politics and, in fact, a greater representation of women in politics than here in the House. There are over 120 women chiefs in Canada who feel that their voices are vital and that there is an equitable relationship at that political table.

It would be great if we could work with a government that respects those voices, as we saw in the process for the creation of the matrimonial real property legislation. The government communicated with first nations women and hired a fine representative, Wendy Grant-John, as the ministerial representative to undertake dialogue sessions across this country. It was encouraging because first nations women felt that they were participating in the process, which is what the House called for.

First nations women and aboriginal women across the country have called for development on this matter for 25 years. Since Bill C-31 in the mid-eighties, we have seen that first nations women and aboriginal women in Canada have felt it was critical that their voices be heard on these issues. We cannot have bodies making laws and policies without their input and participation because it will not work. We saw that with Bill C-31 and we see the impact of that today as that case moves to the Supreme Court of Canada.

It is now more than 20 years later and we do not want to be doing that any more. The role of parliamentarians is to represent Canadians and my role, as the member for Churchill, is to represent my constituents and ensure we engage Canadians in a process to responsibly make legislation.

I will go back to the process in which first nations women and aboriginal women across the country were encouraged by the process of developing MRP legislation. A comprehensive report was written by the ministerial representative and it had many recommendations. Lo and behold, the legislation was created without any participation by the Native Women's Association of Canada or the Assembly of First Nations Women's Council. The legislation was introduced and a big press release went out from the federal government but neither of those organizations were informed.

It is discouraging and disappointing that the legislation does not take into account the numerous recommendations that were made. I think that is sort of the fundamental dialogue that has been happening in many of the departments.

Although we were encouraged by the process in the beginning, we could have been looking to other patterns from the federal government that might have indicated to us that we were being too hopeful.

On the issue of Status of Women Canada, it has been very clear from the time the Conservatives took power that there were serious concerns from the opposition parties and from women across this country because one of the initial steps the government took was to cut $5 million from Status of Women Canada. The government referred to that as an effective savings exercise. I think the former president of the treasury board, now the Minister of the Environment, used the crass term “trimming the fat”.

There still are great inequities for all Canadian women. In fact, the women in this caucus have made a commitment to undertake a gender equity study. We want to commit ourselves and continue to put pressure on the government toward women's equity. We know, after decades of discussion around women's issues, that Canadian women still only earn 70% of what men earn in this country.

When I talk about Canadian women, we need to be cognizant of the inequities. We have a gender inequity to begin with. What has happened to aboriginal women in this country has no comparison. Aboriginal women fall far below what non-aboriginal women have in terms of access to services. Myself and many members in this House have talked about the great inequity in services for first nations women.

When we talk about women's issues we need to talk about it in a holistic manner. There is absolutely no other way that we can talk about this issue around family violence, women's shelters and the critical need to deal with these issues. This is not an issue in and of itself. It is about all the root causes. When we talk about the root causes of inequity for Canadian women we need to talk about it for aboriginal women as well.

I have met with aboriginal women in my constituency over the last couple of years to discuss women's issues. Often, people would think that women's issues would deal with gender equity, but what the aboriginal women and first nations women have repeatedly said is that their priority issues are their families.

There is a cumulative effect of policies that have not worked for first nations people. For instance, yesterday we had the aboriginal affairs minister at committee and one of the things we were talking about was child and family services for first nations. This is grossly underfunded compared to services for Canadians, so we have that inequity.

We have education systems for schooling on reserve. The Conservative government tends to use this type of language that would make Canadians think that first nations schools do not follow provincial curricula, as if the tripartite agreements really are the only way in which there can be a relationship with first nations where they are educating their children with similar standards to other Canadians, but that is not so.

All first nations schools have to follow a provincial curriculum and meet provincial standards, yet their per capita funding for their students is significantly less than that for Canadian students. It may range per capita between 50% and 75%. Again, what we are talking about is underfunding for first nations children education, which is K to 12. That is not even post-secondary.

The other area of concern is health services. We have unanimously adopted Jordan's principle in this House. Jordan's principle originated from a family in my home community of Norway House Cree Nation and I am so proud of the family for being able to go public with their story because it was a tragedy.

For those Canadians who do not know, Jordan was a boy who had been born with a rare syndrome and had to be hospitalized for the first couple of years of his life. When the doctors said that Jordan would be able to go home but would require certain services, some medical devices and such, these were services that any other Canadian child would have. Any other child in that same situation would go home and provincial health care would pick up those services. That is normal.

In this case, because the child was residing on reserve, the provincial jurisdiction in Manitoba would not provide those services on reserve. The federal government, through Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and through the First Nations and Inuit Health branch, said that it did not have a responsibility to provide those services.

It developed into an interdepartmental battle, even though first nations are under federal jurisdiction, and there was a jurisdictional battle between the province and the feds. So, when Jordan was ready to go home, there was no jurisdiction that would pick up the cost of his services, which any other Canadian child would have been entitled to. It is what we refer to as universal health care in this country.

Jordan was two years old and as this battle waged on between departments and between jurisdictions, two years passed and Jordan lost his life. He passed away at a hospital and he never did get to go home because the issue of who would pay for his services was never settled.

It is a tragedy beyond belief in this great country of ours, a country which is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, that this would occur and yet these are issues that first nations families are dealing with on a daily basis.

There are systematic challenges in health because we do not have the same spectrum of health services under first nations and Inuit health grants. We do not have the ability to access provincial health services on reserve. So we are talking about health services. We are talking about chronic underfunding in education for first nations children. We are talking about chronic underfunding for first nations educational infrastructure and we are also talking about chronic underfunding for children and family services.

Last week the Auditor General released a report on the first nations child and family services program. One of the items which the government has been so proud of is that it is working on a new model in Alberta. We have heard about this model now for over two years. One of the things that I thought was really interesting in this report was that the current minister and the previous minister have said publicly that “money is not the solution to the problem”. I am paraphrasing but if the parliamentary secretary is going to insist on the exact wording, I will have that later today.

I found information within the Auditor General's report on the Alberta model. Although on the one hand Conservatives keep insisting that money is not the problem, even though all these systems are underfunded, on the other hand their Alberta model, the operation and prevention components, will have increased in funding by 74% when the new formula is fully implemented.

That is really significant because it says that we do need to look at equitable funding. Absolutely, we need the systems to be effective. When we talk about effective results, we are talking about the lives of children and that is a priority concern for first nations women. That has been inextricable from the discussions on first nations women's issues.

The reason I went into all of this discussion around all of these issues and this dynamic with the current government and the historical impacts that are affecting first nations women and their families is because it is really important.

There are two points. We have a government which has not increased funding on reserve by one penny in the last three budgets. Conservatives talk about the $300 million that they transferred to the provinces for off reserve housing, yet we can get no accounting for that money. In Manitoba that meant $32 million, so again, we have aboriginal women off reserve, on reserve.

Off reserve means we have no accounting for that money. On the issue of housing we have heard the Conservatives talk numerous times about the $300 million they committed to private home ownership on reserve. Again, we have no accounting for that money. We had the departmental officials at our committee yesterday and again no information was forthcoming.

The reason this is all so important is because all of these issues are contributing factors to the whole issue of violence. When people are frustrated, when people are challenged, when people are dealing with the residential school impact, what we refer to as historical trauma, then we are dealing with challenging situations. In my riding I have some communities that are so challenged for housing that they have two dozen people living in one home. They have no health services and no adequate education services.

It becomes an enormous burden on women and families. There is a need to address the issue of shelters at a time when they are so critically underfunded, as well as prevention and supports for families, not only in shelters but for child and family services. It is time the government commits itself to truly do work that will benefit aboriginal women.

[Michael Wernick]

Thank you. I'll try to be very quick and to do justice to your questions.

We don't have any new implementation resources for Bill C-47 or Bill C-21. You'll be able to question us further on that when the bills come forward.

On child and family services, I'd be happy to provide the plan and the response. What the minister said and what we tried to convey was that we went and got new authorities, which will allow us to move into a prevention model. We're arm wrestling over the special allowance. We will be moving forward on the implementation of this prevention approach with as many provinces as we can sign up as they come forward. I'd be happy to put some detail under that and come back, if that's the committee's wish.

On housing, there was money in the area of northern housing, which was discussed earlier, and the First Nations Market Housing Fund, the centrepiece initiative on reserve. That's on top of the A-base funding we provide and that CMHC provides. CMHC is about an equal partner. We do about $130 million and they do about $130 million in terms of on-reserve units. We could provide you with a bit of a progress report on that.

On the policy behind the market housing, you might want to bring in Chief John Beaucage, who is now the chair of the board of trustees of the new fund. It's not an instrument designed to solve all the housing needs on all the reserves. It is designed to deal with those communities where there is income and the possibility of outside borrowing. To the extent that this levers cash dollars to get more housing units, it will take pressure off social housing. It's obviously not going to fit the needs in all communities.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

This race against the clock is always somewhat of a challenge.

I have several questions, but I'm going to start with a number of disparate ones.

Mr. Wernick, is it possible for you to give us a global picture, and probably a more specific picture, of how moneys have been reallocated? I'm particularly interested to know where moneys have been reallocated from education projects to water projects and from other capital projects to operating dollars. We've talked a lot about the movement of moneys. So that's one question.

Second, the Auditor General, in her report, has indicated that the government, through the department, has provided a plan in response to her report. Would it be possible for you to table that plan with the committee? I would be interested in seeing that.

My third question is not connected. We have been dealing with Bill C-47, which is currently in the House. We know that there will be an effort to bring back Bill C-21. Are there additional funds in the budget for the implementation of these bills, or will we be looking again at reassignments of dollars?

My fourth question, which we're not really going to have time to do justice to, is about the whole issue of housing. Clearly, the government has announced twice a $300 million fund for first nations market housing. I wonder if you could tell us why the department has made this a priority. Is there an expectation that this approach will address the existing housing backlog? Will it replace existing housing programs, and what's the implication?

Again, when we talk about Bill C-47, inevitably the issue of housing comes up.

Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured to participate in debate on Bill C-47, which is a proposal to deal with the long outstanding issue around matrimonial property rights on reserves.

All who have participated in the debate have acknowledged that there is a need to finally address a matter that has been left in the lurch since the 1985 Supreme Court decision which ruled that provincial laws regarding division of property after a marriage breakdown did not apply on reserve. That we agree on.

I do not think there is anybody in this chamber who disagrees with the fundamental principle at stake here and the need to advance legislation to fill the vacuum. We all recognize that there must be legislation to ensure proper division of property and assets upon a marriage breakdown, whether the people are living on reserve or off reserve.

That principle we support. The question today is this: does this legislation actually fill the bill? Does it respond adequately to the situation at hand?

I listened very carefully to the member for Charlottetown suggesting that it may not be perfect, but heck, we have to act on something, and it is so long overdue. We have to put in place an interim arrangement and this might be it, he suggests. We will go through committee and we will see, it is suggested, and this is only intended to deal with this one narrow piece so let us get on with it.

However, I cannot separate the whole question of equality of matrimonial property from the issue of equality in general. We cannot simply say that we will deal with one tiny piece and leave everything else in disarray or neglected. We cannot put a little bandage on a situation in the hope that we can stop the hemorrhaging.

I suppose it would not hurt to get the bill to committee so we can hear from the various informed players in our society today just how badly the bill meets the requirements, just how much off the mark it really is, and just how little the consultation that did happen was reflected in the bill itself.

I will read again for members the words of the minister responsible for the legislation, who said, as he did just yesterday, that “laws are much more likely to succeed when drafted with the input of the people who would be affected by them”. I agree. The problem with this bill is that the government chose to ignore the bulk of the evidence that was presented to it, as well as the majority of the suggestions that were made and that should have been included in the legislation.

Therefore, the government is masquerading today. It is pretending that it has consulted, that it has addressed the vast array of interests and concerns in this area, and that here all of it is in the bill.

That is far from the truth. We only have to look at some of the key players. Let us go right to the Assembly of First Nations, a broad governing body of the first nations in this country. Obviously it was consulted. The minister would like to pretend that its input was included in the bill, but that is not what Phil Fontaine says.

Phil Fontaine makes it very clear, in fact, that the consultation took place, but the suggestions that were made are not reflected in the bill. I want to quote from his letter of April 8, in which he says:

--the fact that direction provided through this dialogue does not appear reflected in the tabled Bill, leaves us to conclude that the dialogue was of limited value in promoting and implementing a reconciliation approach regarding First Nations aboriginal and treaty rights and Crown sovereignty.

Where is all this input from the community that the Conservatives are talking about? There is something strangely amiss in this place when the minister stands in the House and says that this bill was based on what the aboriginal people wanted and yet those people who were consulted say it is not there.

The same is reflected in material produced for all members of Parliament from the Native Women's Association of Canada which wrote as recently as yesterday that the association held extensive meetings with aboriginal women across Canada to identify solutions to the complex issues comprising the matrimonial real property problem. NWAC believes that the voices of these aboriginal women and the solutions they develop must be respected and included in the government's approach. This has not happened. I hope members are listening. The Native Women's Association of Canada says that this has not happened. Instead, the government has turned the processes that preceded the introduction of this bill into a farce by failing to include the elements that aboriginal women identified as important to them.

I hope that the members on the government benches are not making disparaging remarks about the Native Women's Association of Canada or the Assembly of First Nations. I hope that they are listening to the fact that these voices, these well-established organizations, these reputable organizations in our country today, feel that their concerns are not reflected, are not included in this bill. That is important. It goes back to what the minister himself said yesterday, that the best legislation around is that which reflects the feelings of the people it affects.

If this bill does not do that, we have to change it. We cannot simply let it go on and say that this is it. We cannot do as the member for Charlottetown said, that this is an interim measure, we will have some consultations and then we will get on with it. No. We have to fix the problem. If we are going to send it to committee, we have to do it on a real basis, on a substantive basis, and the government has to indicate it is prepared to accept the amendments and changes that the groups want.

Clearly, we have touched a sore point. The members on the Conservative benches are starting to heckle. I guess I am getting under their skin. I hope so.

There is no point in trying to deal with an issue that is so important and which has been neglected for so long in a half-hearted way. We have to do it in a comprehensive way, with the voices of those people who are affected, who say that this legislation in fact still allows the minister to strike down first nations laws regarding matrimonial interests. This legislation neglects to consider the welfare of children. This legislation, which has been a priority for first nations women since 1985, however, puts the value or the importance, the priority of individual rights ahead of collective rights, which is so paramount to how we deal with issues pertaining to first nations communities on reserves.

We need to send it back. We need to rewrite the bill. If we do it at committee, great. There is no problem with that. However, we cannot also neglect the social and economic context in which we find ourselves today.

I know that others in this House have said that yes, they know about all those problems with housing, water, health, child welfare, suicide, but they cannot all be dealt with in this piece of legislation. Then I ask, when can we deal with them? When will this government finally deal with the neglect in its own areas of jurisdiction, like child welfare on reserves? Why does it not act when there are independent reports such as Judge Guy's in Manitoba as a result of teenage suicides on reserves? Why does it not act after hearing from the Auditor General repeatedly, as we just heard this past week, about the situation with respect to aboriginal children and teenagers on reserves?

The evidence is in. There is a connection between neglect of people and worth of an individual, an entitlement to property when a family is in trouble or a marriage breaks down. There are connections to be made.

We all know that marriages sometimes break down because of socio-economic issues. Are we in this place not interested in trying to protect and preserve the family and the institution of marriage? Are we not interested in providing for equal access to property upon a dissolution of a marriage, which means looking at the inadequacy of the resources on the reserve in the first place?

What is the point of dividing up property and suggesting that one person in that marriage should leave the matrimonial home and find on the reserve another home that does not exist? What is the point in acting if we cannot find a way to deal with the violence against women which seems to be no longer on the government's agenda? What about the missing women and stolen sisters in this land? Did we not learn anything this past weekend when women marched in the streets of cities right across the country about the absence of programs to help missing women and to respond to situations facing women in domestic disputes?

In Winnipeg alone, women were marching the streets, responding to messages from people like Bev Jacobs of the Native Women's Association of Canada, from Gloria Enns, who is with the Dufferin Avenue women's drop-in, from Kim Pate, the executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, and from Jackie Traverse, who is an artist and part of the whole movement to address the situation of missing women. Where is the government? Where is the response?

Is that not important in terms of matrimonial property and division of assets? Is it not important to look at the situation facing women and children?

As we speak, a campaign is being organized around the whole question of family violence in aboriginal communities. It is called the Awareness Campaign Against Family Violence. It flows from the recent documentation of the Auditor General and other reports showing in fact that the underfunding of services is an important issue when we are dealing with the issues before us today. They talk about the existence of a discriminatory bias that aboriginal families are undergoing whereby an alarming rate of children are apprehended to be placed in non-aboriginal families everywhere in this country. We learn that the quasi total amount allocated by the government in Ottawa for child care and family services is directed to child placements. Crumbs are allocated to prevention.

We cannot simply carve off a piece of the issues at hand and say we are going to fix this without even consulting or including the advice of those affected.

We have two problems with the bill that have to be fixed at committee. One, the bill on its own in terms of the division of matrimonial property on reserves is flawed. Two, the government's approach is flawed when it comes to dealing with the situation facing aboriginal people on reserves.

The government has failed to live up to the responsibilities under the Constitution for which it has responsibility. It is in dereliction of duty when it comes to responding to issues facing children and teenagers on reserves. It is in dereliction of duty when it comes to responding to violence facing women on reserves. The government has shown dereliction of duty in terms of its commitment to ensure proper health and social services for all people within its jurisdiction. There is no shortage of material to make this case.

Mr. Speaker, you will know that I have tried to seek consent from you to have an emergency debate on the question of adequate protection for aboriginal children on reserves. That flowed from the fact that the discrepancy between what the provincial government in Manitoba pays for children in welfare off reserve is so much richer, appropriate and responsible in comparison to the allocation of resources provided by the federal government for children on reserve, children in trouble on reserve, which is under the federal government's jurisdiction.

When will the government actually live up to its responsibilities and take seriously the needs of aboriginal people? That is the real question of the hour, because kids are dying. Suicides are happening every day. We only have to refer to what is happening in Shamattawa, Manitoba, and see the number of suicides that are mounting each and every day.

This is the opportunity when we can address the issues facing women, children and families on reserves, to give them the right to be treated as equal citizens in this country, to be given respect and to be treated with dignity and equality.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in the current context of Bill C-47, we know that laws currently exist in Quebec and the provinces and territories of Canada on matrimonial property that recognize the general principle of equality between spouses. These laws govern spousal rights during the marriage and in the case of marital breakdown. They help define the personal and real matrimonial property of the spouses. They also allow for a system of mandatory rights and protections when it comes to matrimonial property and, in the event of a marital breakdown, the establishment of legal presumption in the equal division of matrimonial property. The laws also include various protection measures for each spouse, for example, in the case of the sale of the family home, where the signature of both spouses would be required.

Nonetheless, between Quebec and the provinces and territories of Canada, there are a few differences when it comes to common law relationships, same sex relationships, rights in the event of the death of a spouse and issues involving family violence.

These laws also apply to first nations spouses off reserve, but do not apply in the same way to people living on reserves administered by the Indian Act, mainly in terms of matrimonial real property, cases of family violence and marital breakdown.

The Indian Act provides for a land management regime that includes a system for making individual allotments of reserve lands to members of the band for whom the reserve has been set aside, but it is silent on the question of matrimonial property interests. It does not provide for a law-making power on the part of first nations in regard to matrimonial property, real or personal.

Bill C-47 concerns family homes situated on first nations reserves and matrimonial interests or rights in or to structures and lands situated on those reserves. It seeks to close the existing legal gap to ensure respect for basic and matrimonial rights and to offer recourse during a conjugal relationship, when that relationship breaks down or on the death of a spouse.

Basically, the bill seeks to balance individual and collective rights, to clarify the inalienability of reserve lands, and to provide greater certainty to spouses and common-law partners on reserves with respect to family homes and other matrimonial interests or rights.

Bill C-47 would set out provisional federal rules as well as provisions for the enactment of first nation laws. The federal rules would be a provisional measure, but would account for the reality that some first nations may not develop their own laws to address matrimonial interests or rights. The bill would enable communities to develop their own laws. Each first nation would be subject to the provisional federal rules set out in the bill until they adopt their own laws, with the exception of those that already have laws about matrimonial real property.

The proposed bill would be subject to the Charter. It would also be subject to the Canadian Human Rights Act insofar as its provisions fall within the scope of that act.

Not all off-reserve matrimonial real property remedies can be replicated on reserves. Given the collective nature of the reserve land regime, land on reserves cannot be owned outright, and the rights to possession differ between band members and non-members. For greater accuracy, the proposed act therefore refers to “interests or rights regarding family homes on reserves and other matrimonial interests or rights,” rather than “matrimonial real property” which, off reserves, refers to both land and structures.

The bill also proposes some provisions related to separation due to family violence.

I think all my colleagues here will agree that despite all the work that went into this bill, the government has still displayed a vindictive and know-it-all attitude when it once again failed to consult women or the Native Women's Association. Yet again, it managed to forget to resolve major flaws.

This week's visit from the president of the Quebec Native Women's Association, Ms. Gabriel, made this very clear.

The proposed act respecting family homes situated on first nations reserves and matrimonial interests or rights in or to structures and lands situated on those reserves would fix a major shortcoming in the current legislation.

Although the Bloc acknowledges this, and knows that we must act quickly, for the good of women and first nations communities, we think that the government has failed in its duties in some areas.

I would like to show my colleagues, here in this House, how the government did not fulfill its commitments. I would also like to explain what the Bloc Québécois proposes to fix the major shortcomings not only in this bill, but also in the entire process surrounding the bill.

To back up my comments about how the current government has not fulfilled its commitments in developing this bill, I would like to go back in time to discuss a political accord that was signed in 2005. As we all know, in order to get into power, the Conservatives ran a campaign based on demonstrating transparency and respecting commitments.

The past few months have shown us that this party does not seem to be any better than its predecessors. Allow me to quote some of its members: “It is our duty as elected members to ensure that the public can continue to have confidence in us. We must demonstrate integrity and consistency in our decisions.”

The process leading up to Bill C-47 runs counter to an important agreement signed between the Assembly of First Nations and the Government of Canada in 2005. I will read an excerpt from this political accord of May 31, 2005, an accord we have been referring to since Bill C-44 was introduced in 2006:

No longer will [the government] develop policies first and discuss them with [the members of the first nations] later. This principle of collaboration will be the cornerstone of our new relationship.

It also says:

The minister and the Assembly of First Nations commit to undertake discussions:

on processes to enhance the involvement of the Assembly of First Nations, mandated by the Chiefs in Assembly, in the development of federal policies which focus on, or have a significant specific impact on the First Nations—

The purpose of the accord was to enhance cooperation between the Assembly of First Nations and this government on the development of federal policies on first nations. Can someone please explain to me why that very Assembly of First Nations, the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador, Quebec Native Women Inc. and the Native Women's Association of Canada are against this bill?

In the process of drafting this bill, it seems clear that an important aspect of communication was forgotten. We can all agree that in a discussion, two parties meet to share ideas. Consultations were indeed held with a whole host of groups representing first nations and with first nations women's groups, since this bill primarily concerns women.

However, it seems that if Indian and Northern Affairs Canada did indeed listen to the first nations representatives, it did not take into account or did not put enough stock in what they said. I do not think the government representatives acted in bad faith, but the spirit of the 2005 accord, where the cooperation and involvement of the first nations should have prevailed in the drafting of this bill, was not respected.

It would therefore make no sense to go ahead with second reading of this bill. That is why the Bloc is asking the House to refer Bill C-47 to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development so that the committee can amend the bill to make it acceptable to first nations communities.

The Bloc Québécois firmly believes that the first nations have an inherent right to self-government, and it will ensure that that right is not undermined by the implementation of this bill. However, we also believe that such a bill can fill gaps in the current regulations while communities develop their own law on family homes.

Bill C-47 could be passed once it has been studied and amended by the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, this time in collaboration with designated first nations representatives.

At this point, I would like to give some more concrete examples of the reasons why the Bloc Québécois is asking that this bill be referred to committee.

Many of my colleagues are aware that the first nations are an integral part of the human landscape of my riding. I would therefore like to speak from my own experience with various nations.

One of the concerns that aboriginal women's groups have pertains to the lack of housing on reserves, because one of the provisions of this bill deals with obtaining accommodation after a conjugal relationship breaks down.

Having visited a number of aboriginal communities repeatedly, I can state that this concern is certainly justified. How many times have I seen whole families squeezed into cramped quarters? How many times has the message been hammered home to me, during meetings with chiefs, that the biggest challenge in communities is the lack of housing? I have lost count. In addition, in communities such as Eastmain, on James Bay, some families are living in buildings despite mould problems so severe that the buildings need to be reconstructed. When there is not enough housing, it becomes difficult to relocate families for any reason.

From my experience, I also wonder about another aspect of this bill. It establishes procedures, including referral to legal procedures that do not always take into account the cultural reality and the access that these communities—often isolated or impoverished—have to certain information and certain services. There is nothing in the bill regarding how the communities will be able to access information and legal services.

For the Bloc Québécois, it is crucial that these realities can be considered and these questions addressed. That is why we would like to know how the government plans to implement this, and how it intends to allocate funding to ensure that the people in question can benefit from the bill. I would also like to ask the government how much funding is earmarked for the communities in order to prepare for implementing the legislation. Finally, we would like the government to submit to the committee the studies concerning the impact of Bill C-47 on the communities as well as the measures that will be put in place to encourage communities to develop their own laws concerning matrimonial homes.

In closing, given the importance of the issue and the insecurity it causes for people living on reserves, the government must take action immediately. It must allow aboriginal people on reserves to exercise their matrimonial rights to and interests in structures and lands situated on reserves. It must ensure that all its actions and decisions comply with the recommendations of the main aboriginal organizations and those of the standing committees, while still honouring the political accord reached with the first nations in 2005.

I believe it would be possible to amend this bill and address the dissatisfaction expressed by aboriginal groups, for example, issues pertaining to the implementation of the action plan, available resources and access by women to legal processes. We undertake to work closely with the first nations and the government, whose actions will respect the 2005 agreement, in order to amend Bill C-30 and ensure that it is satisfactory. We will do the same for Bill C-47.

However, I must point out that the Bloc Québécois has questions about the government's plans for implementation of this bill. We also wonder about the funding that will be provided to the communities and about the introduction of measures to make the procedures accessible to the population, bearing in mind the information that must be provided to the population and the poverty and the geographic isolation, which could restrict the practical application of this bill.

To summarize, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of Bill C-47 being sent to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development to study the ins and outs and, above all, to hear the testimony of stakeholders.

But first, we wish to know the intentions of the government concerning the possible amendments to Bill C-47 that it would be willing to accept.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my Liberal Party colleague for her presentation on Bill C-47. She is obviously well versed on this subject given that she has sat on the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development for a number of years.

I would also like to point out that she was part of the previous government when an agreement was made with first nations stating that each time legislation concerned them and could change their way of life, the government had to consult them.

In this regard, be it with Bills C-44, C-21, C-30 or C-47, is the current government consulting and respecting this agreement?

[Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-47, the act respecting family homes situated on first nation reserves and matrimonial interests or rights in or to structures and lands situated on those reserves.

Some people who were speaking to this yesterday brought a lot of dimension to the very difficult situation that exists on first nations reserves. This legislation is necessary because at the moment there is no legislation to which people can turn when there is a need for matrimonial real property laws. This is also an issue of human rights for women and children who live on reserve. Really, it is a human rights issue for the families.

The Liberal Party is certainly a great supporter of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and we do support this measure to extend matrimonial real property rights to first nations. While the Liberal opposition supports the intent of the bill, we do not support the unilateral process taken by the federal government to introduce this piece of legislation.

I am going to speak more on matters of governance and capacity building, also in support of why we would like the federal Conservative government to listen to the people and take the road of real partnership and consultation. What we have been trying to say for the last two years as members of the aboriginal community, members of the aboriginal affairs committee and our party is that if we want to see real solutions in our aboriginal communities, there has to be real partnership and collaboration, and that they not be token gestures.

For me, real partnership is going to be based on respect, collaboration, courtesy and compromise. The negotiations would be on the level of diplomacy that I think most of our communities are very good at. All our aboriginal communities are interested in seeing their communities move forward to being healthier and safer for everyone who lives in those communities, whether they are on reserve or off reserve. These are our homes, our lands and areas of great historical connection. These are communities in which we are going to continue to live.

Of course we want to look for solutions that will see healthier communities able to take care of their own and offer solutions. In order to take steps that will move our communities forward, we need to also look at the governance issues. We need to give people an opportunity to be part of the solution, and to offer solutions to issues that are coming before us, in particular for reserves that have been under the rule of a 130-year-old law, the Indian Act.

We know that none of the solutions is going to be quick. History has a way of coming back and making it very difficult for our people to move forward, especially with people who have lived under the Indian Act.

We were reassured when the government came into power and sought the advice of the aboriginal community, especially by appointing Wendy Grant-John to engage in consultations with the people. NWAC was involved. The aboriginal communities were involved. She came back with a report that many people were comfortable with as the basis from which some legislation would come forth. I am sad to say that none of that seems to have made it into Bill C-47.

NWAC and the AFN have put out press releases giving their opinions on Bill C-47, and they have not been complimentary. They feel that all the work they did in helping with the consultation was not taken into consideration. The communities feel that they have been let down. As with the specific claims process, there was praise given to the government for allowing them to be part of the decision making and working with them to produce the act.

We all know that any legislation that comes to this House will not have the support of each and every person out there. However, as a government and having been in government, we feel that we can move forward with a piece of legislation when many people acknowledge that it is a work of collaboration and good consultation. People feel it is one which they can live with and support, given that they will be given a chance to report on it in three to five years, depending on what is in the legislation and that there will be some opportunity to make some improvements to it. Once there is that kind of feedback from the people who are going to be impacted by the legislation, then we know that there is an opportunity that the legislation will actually be implemented and supported by the communities. However, that is not the case with Bill C-47.

I remember when we worked on the First Nations Land Management Act, some bands were quite skeptical that another piece of legislation was dealing with a tiny piece of the Indian Act instead of an overall deletion of the Indian Act.

I have been a member of Parliament for almost 11 years now, and I am proud to say that I am probably the only member of Parliament who has stayed on one committee for the whole term. I have the good fortune of being able to remember how many pieces of legislation have gone through our committee and the number of witnesses that we have heard from all over on the different pieces of legislation that have come before our committee.

When the First Nations Land Management Act came in, there was some skepticism, but after it was implemented and people started to see the benefits for their own bands, they were very open to trying it out. It was voluntary, but more people were applying to go into that regime than the act was capable of taking on. If we do that type of work with the communities and try to help them in their capacity building and in their own governance, I think we will see more success with legislation being put forth that concerns aboriginal people in this country. Because there was cooperation and less conflict, people were open to suggestions. That is what we want to see with legislation that comes forth. We want people to feel that they can contribute, try something out and see whether it will work for their communities.

We do not want to see intimidation. We do not want to see heavy-handed approaches, which is how a lot of decisions were made in the past, especially in the 1960s and even before that, where someone in Ottawa made decisions and told the community what would have to be done. We had no say in any of that. It does not produce good governance or cooperation from the people. It alienates everyone who might have wanted to cooperate to make his or her community a better place to live.

I am sure most Canadians know now that most of the land in our communities are communally owned. I know we are not bound by the Indian Act in Nunavut, but our land is community owned. We have to always take this into consideration when we make any legislation that deals with how one disposes of property, homes or, in this case, matrimonial real property.

Because of these special situations, we need to have an understanding of what solutions will work. This is why it is so important to have the members of a community behind any legislation that will affect their lives.

We know violence affects many homes, whether they are aboriginal communities or not. Unless we have programs to help people, we will not see a lessening of that. Having strictly legal measures to deal with this issue is not the answer. There has to be non-legislative measures also alongside legal measures. That was a very strong point put forth by NWAC, the National Women's Association of Canada. Not only do we need the legal measures and the law that people can go to for assistance, but we also need the measures in the community that will help women usually and children in these cases.

As I said, when I started this debate, we very much support seeing legislation that will help these communities, but how we go about it is fundamental in whether it will be accepted and implemented to the extent that it could help people more if there were more collaboration with the community.

We live in a day and age now where we want to solve more conflicts in the world peacefully and by involving the very people who are in the conflict. We cannot just go in, take over and decide this is the way things should be done. That certainly does not exclude our aboriginal communities. This is what we want to see. We are not saying that there should not be legislation to help families, especially the women and children, but we want to do it in a way that will work.

We are beyond the days of someone saying that they know best how to deal with our communities. It is very sad that we cannot take an opportunity like this to work with the people and have them help Parliament to address the very issues that sometimes end up putting a lot of children in care and our aboriginal people in jail. I do not think families get a real chance to stay together and work things out.

When these children go into care, or some other facility, or jail, it creates another breakdown where one loses their language or their culture, and it is very difficult to heal from that. We cannot keep inflicting damages on communities when we are still trying to recover from mistakes made in the past, such as residential schools, community relocations, people who lost their status and were reinstated, but with no resources for a smooth implementation. We cannot expect communities to move forward in a healthy and safe way when they do not have the capacity to deal with other social situations.

If we do not take into consideration the fact that we have to give the bands the ability to work together with different levels of government, then surely the legislation will fail in the key point, and that is to help women and children live safer and healthier lives.

We all want that. I do not think anyone here will argue that we all have the same goal, but it is how we do it. I cannot emphasize enough that we have to do things the right way with collaboration from the people, with solutions from grassroots. Surely we should know by now that the way we have done things in the past does not work.

I want to see the legislation in committee so we can hear from different witnesses, good experts in this matter, and hopefully see amendments that will improve it.

Committee work is all about that. It is about trying to improve the legislation that comes before us. In the past at committee our experience has shown that the government takes these as attacks, not opportunities to improve legislation. As parliamentarians, our job, as we sit in these chairs inside this chamber, is to provide the best laws and policies we can for our country, to improve it and make it a better country.

Canada is the best country in the world to live. I have seen that as I have travelled a few times internationally. We have a lot to offer, but we also have a lot to learn. The fact that we are open to different ideas and ways of doing things gives a lot of hope to Canadians. They have seen actual changes happen in committee as a result of our listening to witnesses.

We cannot please everyone and come up with the perfect piece of legislation, but at the end of the day, if we all work together, we can come up with legislation with which everyone can live. In a country as diverse as we are, to produce legislation that a lot of people can actually support is a great accomplishment.

I look forward to seeing the legislation in committee. I look forward to hearing from different witnesses. Hopefully we can improve it and make it legislation that communities will be proud to implement.

All those bands will welcome the opportunity to have this type of legislation to work with on their reserves. I do not think we will hear people say that they do not support some kind of legislation, or some kind of rule, or tools or capacity building that will make their reserves healthier and safer communities for their women and children.

When the legislation goes to committee, I strongly urge the government to be open to witnesses and to amendments. No one is arguing that this is not the time for the legislation. It is how we do it, how we implement it and whether we put the resources with it to ensure the communities can work with it in a positive way.

The House resumed from May 13 consideration of the motion that Bill C-47, An Act respecting family homes situated on First Nation reserves and matrimonial interests or rights in or to structures and lands situated on those reserves, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

We will leave some time for the minister.

Minister, you have been in government now for a few months, even one or two years. I am extremely disappointed. I would like you to explain three things to me.

To begin with, the community infrastructure programs are being reduced from $1,265,276 000 to $1,031,544 000. This is serious business. It amounts to $230 million being cut. I want to know what will go by the wayside. I need all the details: where are the cuts going to be made?

The social development budget is going up from $1,400,481 000 to $1,451,851,000. That is a marginal increase of $51-million. Where will this extra money be spent?

Moreover, the budget for education is being increased $1,667,197,000 to $1,719,351,000, a slight increase of merely $53 million.

As you will recall, Minister—in case you do not remember, I am reminding you—I asked you questions on March 5^th about whether there would be investments in the education of young people.

Why are there no computers in the schools? In schools on a reserve just one kilometre from a school for white children, there is no library and there are no computers. Why has no one paid any attention to that? I would like a detailed answer.

You told me, and I quote you with respect:

It may well be—and it's my hope—that as we move ahead, whether it's with Quebec [...] those arrangements will become mutual [...] or something else to put children first.

I do not see that in the budget, Minister. I do not see that you are going to be putting children in Aboriginal communities first. I do not want you to tell me about situations off reserve. The current problems are really on reserve, in Aboriginal communities.

I do not see anything in 2008-09 that will improve the situation in Aboriginal communities. I have looked long and hard and studied every word, but there is nothing there.

The real insult, Minister, is that spending increases today are still capped at 2% per year, whereas Aboriginal communities need an increase of 13% per year. Why is that cap still in place?

Minister, you can have all of my remaining time, but I can assure you that it will be hard to convince me, especially since you are asking us to pass Bill C-47. I have to admit that this is a problem for me.