Mr. Speaker, let me begin by congratulating you on your appointment as our Deputy Speaker. I say to you how much I am going to enjoy working with you knowing that you will preside with a firm and fair hand over the workings of this Chamber. I would also like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to respond to the Speech from the Throne.
I would begin by saying how proud I am of the vision and the commitment to Canadians that we find outlined in the Speech from the Throne. I would like to say how proud I am to be part of a government that has found a way to at once reflect the priorities of Canadians but in a fiscally responsible way. I would like to say how proud I am to be part of a country Canada that is proceeding toward the 21st century with a renewed optimism, with a sense of hope and a sense of direction.
It was only four years ago when we could not say these things, when that hope and that optimism was not part of the Canadian psyche. It behoves us to reflect on how indeed we have come to the point of optimism at which we find ourselves.
I would suggest it has a lot to do with the way in which our government has partnered with Canadians. I think of the work of my colleague the Minister of Finance and his decision to include Canadians in the budgetary process, to have them sit at the table in prebudget consultations to debate the issues that have faced us as we have come to be able to manage our difficult fiscal circumstances.
Engaging Canadians in their governance, including them, has allowed us to make the right decisions and has now brought us to a point where for the first time in 30 years our government can begin to think about the choices that we want to make to build a stronger Canada for the 21st century.
As we have identified the priorities of Canadians, we know indeed that what they want is to be able to continue to live in what is one of the greatest countries in the world, to find ways and means of increasing the democracy that has become renowned around the world.
What are the priorities that Canadians are asking us to address? They want the government to focus on children and youth. They want the government to focus on our health care system, a system that has come to define us as a nation. Canadians want us to understand work and innovation and how changes in work, and knowledge and new technologies are impacting our economy and our relationship with it.
But members can imagine how proud I am as the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development that in the Speech from the Throne we also identify the priorities that Canadians put on aboriginal peoples. Canadians want us to address aboriginal children and youth. They want us to understand aboriginal health and the impact it is having on their communities. Canadians want us to understand the relationship that aboriginal people have with work and innovation.
Canadians understand and 80 percent have told us in a 1996 Angus Reid poll that they want aboriginal issues to be high or medium priority for their federal government. They believe that the status quo, our approach and our relationship with aboriginal people is not good enough and it must change.
Canadians understand when we talk about aboriginal children and youth that the demographics of indigenous communities are such that the populations are growing at twice the rate of non-aboriginal communities. They understand that fully 60 percent of the population in aboriginal communities is under the age of 25.
The circumstances that present themselves to indigenous people are like those that we faced as non-aboriginal Canadians in the fifties and sixties, but the hopes and the dreams that we had in the fifties and sixties are not the hopes and the dreams that aboriginal people have.
When we think about aboriginal health, Canadians know that the suicide rate for young aboriginals is upwards of five times as great as it is for myself and for members. They know that the life expectancy for them is six or seven years less than it is for us. They know that for aboriginal people the incidence of TB and diabetes is two to three times higher than it is for other Canadians and they do not accept this. Canadians believe that we can and must do better.
When we look at work and innovation and consider the circumstances facing indigenous communities, we know that the unemployment levels are upwards of 83 percent. We know that the average income is somewhere around $8,800 and falling. The circumstances are not good and the status quo, our approach is not good enough either.
As I have had the opportunity to cross the country and engage in conversations with other partners, other members of Canadian society who want to be part of a new relationship, I am optimistic about the strategies that our provinces and territories are focusing on. They believe that by supportive methods, encouraging economic development and partnering with aboriginal people we can make progress. They look at the changes they have made for example to their social assistance programs that have reduced the dependency and focused on building trampolines so that Canadians can be partners and participate in the economy. They are saying we need to do the same for aboriginal people.
Provinces and territories are understanding there is a role for them to play as we try to make life better for aboriginal Canadians. The private sector has also been most encouraging.
I think of B.C. Hydro and some of the strategies that the leadership and management of that company are engaging in to encourage a changed relationship, a stronger partnership with aboriginal people.
I think of the BHP mining company. We have diamonds in the north. The company that is opening that new resource understands it can build new resource models, new mining models that recognize that aboriginal people who are there on the land need to have access to the resources and benefit from these new riches that are now going to be part and parcel of this Canada we know and love.
Aboriginal people themselves believe that we need a new relationship. They believe that the structural relationship the federal government has had with them is not good enough. Their commitment to this change is probably no clearer anywhere than in the royal commission's report on aboriginal peoples.
I have not had a chance to publicly congratulate the commissioners of that report and I am glad to have the opportunity to do so now. There are different interpretations of the royal commission's report on aboriginal peoples. For me having read it and understood it, the underlying message that comes out of that impressive piece of research and documentation is that there needs to be structural change in our relationship with indigenous people here in Canada.
The commissioners identify that it is no longer acceptable for us to continue in a paternalistic way, to provide only programs that create dependency. They provide for us a model of a new relationship. It is very important. It says we must begin by mutually recognizing the existence of each other. We must add to that a mutual respect for our similarities and our differences. But very much a part of that model are the words responsibility and sharing. The fiduciary responsibility that we have as the crown with aboriginal people must be reflective of responsibility and sharing.
These are very important initiatives. The work of the royal commission can serve to guide us as we flesh out and build a new framework for the relationship.
We are not starting from ground zero. At this point I would like to reflect on some of the very important initiatives that were introduced to this House and in our relationship by the former Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the Hon. Ron Irwin. That minister identified that we did have to change our relationship. One of the most fundamental initiatives he undertook was to push us toward understanding the inherent right to self-government that aboriginal people have.
This belief is founded on an understanding of the treaty relationship, this very sacred relationship that the crown has with First Nations. When people ask me what it means to be Canadian, I can tell them to look to our very beginning, to look to the early days when the British and the French landed on the shores of our country and met the First Nations, the indigenous people.
What was our approach? It was not an approach that took us to war. It was an approach of peace. It was an understanding that through treaties, through a partnership we could all live in this great land and benefit and be productive. That treaty relationship is fundamental because it recognizes that when my ancestors came here there were governments that were working effectively and providing for their people. We agreed to write a treaty.
In understanding that, and in reading the report of the royal commission and in understanding how we are going to make life better for aboriginal Canadians we know they have to have concrete autonomy. We have to return jurisdiction so that as they find solutions for education, as they find solutions for housing, they will be reflective of tradition, of the aboriginal tradition, the beliefs, the attachment to the land.
We have increasing numbers of indications that this approach is working. Not only are we restoring the treaty relationship in provinces like Saskatchewan and Alberta but in provinces like British Columbia where we did not get around to writing treaties we are now writing modern treaties. I look to the Nisga'a agreement and the strategies that are in place there to build a strong relationship between the people of that First Nation and this country Canada. We go to the Yukon where we have indeed signed self-government agreements.
First Nations are joining together in appropriate ways to build communities that are large enough to have the capacity to structure important models of governance that will help build a strong future for their people.
There are other initiatives which were implemented by the government reflective of the structural change. We have to target and improve the capability of aboriginal communities to support themselves. The models we build have to be reflective of that responsibility.
In our new housing strategy that issue of responsibility is clear. In partnership with the CMHC money is available. The aboriginal people make contributions to the development and building of these homes.
We focus on economic development. We recognize that the old model of social assistance, a tool of dependency, is not good enough. The modern tools of economic development are ones which we have to focus on and to ensure that aboriginal people have access to the resources that have made this country great.
I think of the relationship of building strong aboriginal government with a focus on developing the capacity for a transparent and accountable aboriginal government. The importance of this is to ensure that improvement in First Nations communities will be seen, will be tangible and will reflect the needs of the members of those First Nations.
We also have to understand that we need to build a new fiscal relationship structurally different from the one we have now and more reflective of the need for predictable funding in an ocean of fiscal transfers. We have to explore the strategies of own source of revenues and taxation. We have to challenge ourselves to include aboriginal people's access to resources, mining and forestry so they something with which to develop and grow.
I am encouraged by what I see, by the comments and the directions of the leadership of our First Nations and aboriginal people. I am optimistic of the strength of partnerships that we can build between the federal government and the aboriginal people, including other partners such as the provinces, the territories, the private sector and individual Canadians.
I do not believe there has ever been a time such as now for us to find solutions, modern solutions, to a circumstance that none of us is particularly proud of, a history and a relationship that must change.
As the minister I am but a facilitator. I am one partner. Our challenge as members of this House will be to understand the roles that we as individuals can play in bringing our communities together, municipalities with First Nations. We can find strategies that we can share and that will be effective and responsible, knowing that this is the best country to live in not only for non-aboriginal Canadians but for aboriginals as well.
I implore the members of the House to work with me as we identify a new framework, a new capacity to work productively, proactively and strategically together with First Nations leadership, to build a new relationship and a strong future for all Canadians.