Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in this debate.
It really is not a prebudget 1999 debate. It really is a prebudget year 2000 debate. I think we all know that the budget for this year is pretty well carved in stone, as it were. We really should be directing the government toward what the government should be doing in its budget for the year 2000. Governments need a lot of time to prepare the budget. I think eight to ten months is the normal timeframe that this government works on in preparing its budget.
There are two issues I would like the government to address in the course of this year in preparation for next year.
One pertains to charities. I think I am well known as someone who has advocated very strongly that the government should reform the charitable sector, should create rules of transparency, should create better corporate governance and also should redefine what charities are.
I draw attention to a supreme court ruling which came down just this past week. It called upon the government no longer to rely on the courts to define what a charity is, but to bring the matter before parliament and before all Canadians to look at the whole issue of the not for profit sector. I am confident that the government has taken this issue very seriously. I am aware through my own contacts that various government departments are working on this issue.
The new issue I would like to bring before the House has to do with the government's relationship to the aboriginals and the fact that we are spending a lot of money on trying to help the aboriginals in all parts of the country. There seems to be a problem. We still have a widespread indication of poverty and hardship among aboriginals both on reserve and off reserve.
I sit on the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. The Assembly of First Nations came before the committee in April this past year. It made the observation in its report that the average income of aboriginals was about $14,000 and the average income of non-aboriginal Canadians was around $24,000. The assembly actually made an error which it later corrected in correspondence and noted that the average income of Canadians was actually $20,000.
I took it upon myself, as sometimes is my wont, to examine these figures in greater depth. I set the Library of Parliament on the problem. I wanted to know not just what the average income of aboriginals versus non-aboriginals was, but the average real economic benefit of society that is accruing to both groups of Canadians.
I do not find it very comfortable to actually look at any group of Canadians based on racial background, but we have this problem in this particular instance where the aboriginals are defined separately in the Constitution and they receive separate treatment by the Government of Canada in many respects. That makes this question one which we should and can address.
Let me give a few of the figures. The first figures I have are the average incomes. The document which the Assembly of First Nations quoted from is a report produced by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in 1991 or 1992. It deals with per capita incomes of aboriginals and non-aboriginal Canadians as of 1990.
An interesting aside is that one of the things the report notes is that between 1985 and 1990 the income of aboriginal persons rose from $10,000 to $14,000. The precise figures are $10,833 to $14,198. It is interesting to note that this is an increase over that period of some 31.1%, whereas over the same period the incomes of non-aboriginal Canadians only rose by 6.9% to $20,264. There are two figures, $14,198 average income per year per capita for aboriginals and $20,264 a year per capita for all Canadians including aboriginals.
I have something else here which is part of the Library of Parliament study which it did at my request. It contains Statistics Canada data and various data from other very good sources. It points out that as of 1992-93 total federal government spending on aboriginals was $6 billion and some change. The provincial and territorial spending was $5 billion. This totals $11.628 billion.
This is all very well and good but this chart I have before me averages it out to show that per capita spending on aboriginals both on reserve and off reserve in 1992-93 was $15,714. Members should hold this figure in their minds because this chart also did the same work to determine how much is spent on all Canadians during the same period. When we talk about spending we are talking about education, income transfers, housing, health care and social services, everything a government does for its people.
The average for all Canadians from the federal and provincial governments is $10,026 per year per capita. Just to repeat what I said, all governments spend an average of $15,714 per year for aboriginals and all governments spend an average of $10,026 per Canadian.
In order to get a picture of the real situation with our aboriginals and with the spending of all governments on aboriginals, we add the figure for spending on aboriginals and all Canadians to the figure for income of aboriginals and all Canadians. The wealth we derive from society is what we can earn with our own labour and what we receive in the form of social services from the government.
When we add up those figures we find that the total per capita economic benefit per aboriginal is $29,912. The total per capita spending for all Canadians is $30,290, a difference of only $378. Something is terribly wrong. For some reason the total economic benefit going out to all aboriginals and to all Canadians is within $378. Yet we have problems all across the country on and off reserves with widespread poverty and people living in social conditions that are an embarrassment to the rest of the world. Canada has difficulty holding its head high when we speak of how we treat our aboriginals.
I hope the government is listening. The problem revolves around not how much money we are spending in terms of benefit or how much income the aboriginals are getting per person. What is wrong is that somewhere there is a major glitch. The $11 billion as of 1993 from this government and the provincial governments is not getting to the people effectively. It revolves around issues of accountability and re-examining the entire structure of how we fund the aboriginal community both on and off reserve.
We have here one of the most crucial and most difficult problems that affects Canadians and that every Canadian should worry about. I hope the government will look at my figures and consider what it should do.