Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to follow up on the question I raised in the House approximately a week ago. I asked the minister of Indian affairs about the problems of accountability on reserves and the fact that unfortunately many of the people were extremely destitute. Yet, according to the department's own statement, although everything may not be nice and wonderful it is certainly well under control. I would beg to differ.
Unfortunately our aboriginal people who live on the reserves have living conditions that are absolutely intolerable and would not be tolerated elsewhere in the country. I wonder why the government would continue on that basis.
The minister held up the Alexander First Nation, which happens to be in my riding, as an example of good management that we should look at for other reserves.
In the St. Albert and Sturgeon Gazette on November 19, 1997 the chief executive officer of the band was quoted as saying:
Let me be the first to publicly admit to our membership, the only people we feel we have to answer to, that there are problems. There is need for change and greater accountability.
That was in relationship to an investigation that was being conducted by the St. Albert and Sturgeon Gazette into some people on the reserve who were living in absolutely abominable conditions.
In the St. Albert and Sturgeon Gazette of Wednesday, September 24, 1997 there was an article entitled “Rich man, poor man”. It talked about one member of the reserve, Mr. Ernie Bruno, who was given $1,800 to help build a 289 square foot home. Now a 289 square foot home is not a mansion.
I was actually taking a look at the financial statements which came my way too and I noticed that the auditor had qualified the statement because he had problems with the audit. He stated:
We were unable to obtain sufficient audit evidence to support our documentation.
The rest of the qualifications were contained in there. The statements were of significant length. I was amazed by the amount of money the first nations were paying out in salaries.
For example, under medical, transportation, alcohol and drug abuse, community health representative and van transportation, they paid out $231,000 in salaries against $473,000 in revenues. More than half went on salaries.
How about the social services department? This is the department they run to help people. It has revenues of $672,000 but its salary bill was $121,000. It goes on and on. Economic development salaries were $65,000 against receipts of $240,000. Land management salaries were $65,000 against receipts of $212,000.
If I were given the opportunity I could go on at length in a 20 minute speech about the lack of accountability on this reserve and others reserves across the country.
This is what we talked about in question period. We asked the minister to substantiate that the report was factual and that something needed to be done. I would still like to have a real response by the department to this lack of accountability.
I could go on at great length, but in view of the time I would like to hear the response from the department.