Madam Speaker, it is an honour to speak to this extremely important bill. The legacy of the relationship between non-aboriginals and aboriginals in our country a pox on our House because what we have done is create an institutionalized welfare state and apartheid in Canada.
We have removed from aboriginal people the basic abilities for a people to take care of themselves. We have removed the democratic rights that any person should have. We have removed control and responsibility from them. We have continued with politically correct initiatives and structures that have done little but harm grassroots aboriginal people in the country.
Diabetes, HIV rates, substance abuse, sexual abuse, infant mortality rates, maternal mortality rates, poverty and suicide rates are all sky high and well above those within non-aboriginal communities. Why is this so?
We would see the same situation if we were to look at other communities where this has taken place, where the checks and balances have been removed, where the ability of people to take care of themselves has been removed, and where the ability to contribute to themselves, their families and their communities has been removed. Whether it is aboriginal people in Australia, Bushmen or Hottentots in South Africa or whether a white living in an urban Canadian setting, if we remove the responsibility and the tools for people to contribute to themselves, their families and communities we get a litany of social problems, the likes of which we are contemplating and dealing with here today.
I used to work in Africa. After my return from that continent I had never seen social conditions that bad until I began to see what was happening on aboriginal reserves. I saw decrepit and destroyed buildings that had “Please kill me” written on their rooftops.
Suicide rates are sky high in an area that is stunningly beautiful, where pristine waters run through the reserve surrounded by mountains. When I did my house calls I saw elderly aboriginal people lying on soiled mattresses in their living rooms, children running around with massive infections on their faces and people lying drunk at 10 o'clock in the morning. Parents were nowhere to be found. Aboriginal leaders were taking money away from the pot to buy new Ski-Doos and trucks for themselves and their friends. Mothers did not have enough money to send their children to school. Some mothers told me that the chief and the band council were taking the money slated for education and buying new trucks and Ski-Doos for themselves and their friends. This was allowed to happen.
When I presented this to the department it said that it could not intervene. When I asked it to intervene, it declined. It said it was a band responsibility. What does one do in situations where band councils, leaders and chiefs have created a system where they run their reserves like private fiefdoms and use the moneys for their own pockets and those of their cronies who keep them in power?
Who speaks for the grassroots aboriginal people? Who speaks for the mother and father who wants to send their child to school and do not have the money for that? Who speaks for the system where the normal democratic controls that ought to be there are gone? That is what we have created.
We want the bill to give the grassroots aboriginal people the same power and tools as we have to control our leaders. They must have the democratic power to control spending, to know how much money is coming in, to know what band council resolutions are all about and to control the leaders within their bands. We cannot allow the status quo to continue. If we were to allow the status quo to continue then we would allow this institutionalized welfare system and apartheid to continue.
Many chiefs and councils are crying foul. They are saying that the government cannot do this. They are crying colonialism. The government is putting up the colonial banner as a way to continue the status quo.
The government must bypass the chiefs, bands and councils. It must talk to the people on the ground away from the prying eyes of their leadership in a free and fair fashion. If it does that, in many cases it will hear true horror stories.
Many bands and chiefs do an admirable job for their people. If we look at those areas, we would see places that are run well, where people have control of the money and spend it properly. The leadership in those cases has used the money properly, has given people power of control and has been transparent and accountable.
The other group we are not talking about is the group of aboriginal people who are off-reserve, those who live in cities often enduring lives of quiet desperation. I live in Victoria. In east Vancouver vast swaths of aboriginal people are unfortunately enduring lives of prostitution, violence and drug abuse. They see absolutely no hope. If we are to help those people, we have to investment in education and health care for them. We also have to give their children better hope.
One thing has always struck me as been shocking and it has broken my heart. When I have gone onto aboriginal reserves, I have seen parents of little children, whose eyes are bright and filled with all the hope in the world, drunk at 10 o'clock in the morning, screaming at them and being abusive to them. We just have to look at the rates of sexual abuse and violence among children and the tragedy that has befallen many of them.
They could do and be whatever they wanted if they were given a chance. If the little aboriginal children were given the same opportunity, hope, possibilities and training, they would do as well or better than any of us but they have to be given the opportunity. It will not happen if the chiefs and councils control all the money and if they are allowed, in many cases, to abuse their power and position at the expense of the people on the ground. We cannot allow it to happen.
The bill must deal with that. We also have to invest in dealing with the terrible HIV rates and fetal alcohol syndrome which are tearing apart these communities. Putting posters in clinics is not the answer. I have seen some of the offers the government has made to deal with this tragedy. I have seen 15 year old and 16 year old girls who were pregnant and who were taking large amounts of alcohol and other drugs. They told me where to go when I told them what potentially could happen to their child. That cannot continue to happen.
We have to take look at other means of dealing with FAS and with diabetes. A can of Coke and a bag of potato chips is not appropriate food for little children. Nor is it appropriate food for adults. Alcoholism and drug abuse would happen to many of us if we were thrust into the same environment of hopelessness without the tools or skills to act.
Many studies have been done across the country, specific studies dealing with specific areas. On some of the reserves on which I worked, excellent work has been done on providing for economic reconstruction plans for those areas, with the people, by the people and for the people. Unfortunately these plans go absolutely no where.
My colleague mentioned the many aboriginal people who wanted to get things done within their communities. However the level of bureaucracy that they had to go through was so difficult, so onerous and time consuming, that their good ideas simply went nowhere. In fact, they were often obstructed by people higher up in the hierarchy. That cannot be allowed to continue. We must have a system that facilitates grassroots aboriginal people and which allows their them to put forward good ideas that would benefit their people.
We as a party would be willing to work with the minister. I would implore the minister to listen to grassroots aboriginal people away from the prying eyes of the chiefs and councils. Listen to what they have to say. They have great ideas and great suggestions. They need help and they need it now.