Thank you, Chair.
I would like to speak to clause 40. I believe it once again misses the point entirely, and it speaks to the deficiency of this bill when clauses like this exist without the commitment to non-legislative measures, which we know are absolutely critical in addressing the decisions that happen after a marital breakup.
I want to read into the record the message from Ms. Ellen Gabriel, who indicated that:
High unemployment rates, lack of sufficient housing, a growing population, dispossession of our lands and resources, the imposition of paternalistic values and processes, outdated funding formulas, poverty, and social ills rooted in colonialism have for generations affected indigenous women's ability to enjoy their fundamental human rights.
The government is indicating this is for the well-being of aboriginal women, a statement that is paternalistic to the maximum, in part, because it misses entirely all of these points that Ms. Gabriel raises, which indicate the socio-economic conditions in which first nations live, the crushing poverty, a poverty that first nations refer to on a regular basis as being third world.
I've been to houses in northern Manitoba where there's black mould on the walls, but people have nowhere to go. I've been to houses where there is no sink in the kitchen because there is no running water. People have to go out in -35 degree weather with a pail to get water from a well. I've been to houses where is no bathroom inside the house. I remember an elder in St. Theresa Point who had diabetes, who had to trudge through the snow to go to the bathroom outside. I've been to communities where they received slop pails from the federal government because after H1N1 it was clearly indicated that water and sewer conditions in the community were unacceptable. To add insult to injury, this federal government sent slop pails into the community.
Madam Chair, what members across, and certainly their government, are steadfastly ignoring are these living conditions, which first nations put up with because they are first nations people. The paternalistic, colonialist approach up to now clearly hasn't worked if you look at the quality of life these people lead.
Unfortunately, instead of changing course, this government has chosen, through clause 40 and through the entirety of Bill S-2, to impose legislation that completely discounts these living conditions—third world living conditions, as many first nations indicate—and seems to profess that this somehow is going to end violence, and is going to end the problematic situations that women face on reserve.
I would point them back to what Ms. Gabriel has indicated and how, through Bill S-2, this government is ignoring the very indicators that lead to the turmoil, that lead to social tension and violence, and to the fact that this government is continuing a paternalistic and colonial approach when it comes to first nations people.