A little earlier, I was talking about the relationship between the federal government, mainly between the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and our communities. The relationship is certainly inadequate. In my opinion, it is the same with Health Canada, which is the other department that has a clear, direct link with our communities. I feel that we have done more than enough to document the deplorable health conditions that our communities face.
That said, I talked about the commissions that we have established. I know this is a trend across the country. Very fortunately, we have people from the communities who know the areas well. They are spending a lot of time looking at ways to respond in our communities. Unfortunately, in a number of cases, we are also behind in prevention. By that, I mean a number of problems like diabetes, which is three times more common than elsewhere. There is also the problem of suicide. Our community is continually called on to respond, but we should also be working on prevention. Unfortunately, resources for that are completely inadequate.
We cannot talk about health without mentioning all the determinants that would allow our communities to have the same standards of health that other Canadians enjoy. These are education, housing and all the other areas of activity in our communities. If we do not attack these other determinants head on, we will always be having to make up ground in comparison to everyone else.
I heard that, two weeks ago, the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development visited the Algonquin community of Kitigan Zibi, about 90 minutes from Ottawa. I applaud that initiative. Once they have seen what is happening on the ground, perhaps people in an institution like the House of Commons will eventually get a better understanding of the situation in our communities. Kitigan Zibi is one example, but there are 600 others in the country that deserve some attention from the Parliament of Canada.
I will finish by saying that a study done by Harvard University found that the more institutions look like us and are run by people from our community, the better their chances of succeeding where governments have failed.