Mr. Speaker,I move that the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and Status of Persons with Disabilities, presented on Thursday, June 12, be concurred in.
I ask the government to concur with the motion. The committee on disabilities presented an excellent report. I recognize that it was done prior to the summer recess but I think it is extremely important for the government to address the issues in the report.
The chair of the committee, as well as others, did an excellent job. The report is entitled “Building a Brighter Future for Urban Aboriginal Children”. There is no question that throughout the nation the aboriginal population, both on and off reserve, has suffered severely under the actions or inactions of this government and past governments.
It is troublesome enough for the aboriginal population as a whole but people with disabilities suffer even more as a result of services not being available and as a result of the conditions of poverty within the first nation population.
The government has had a habit of doing a lot of talking on how it will improve things throughout the country on a number of different issues. We had at one time the royal commission on aboriginal peoples. The government has ignored its report for years and now we have another report and the government is not taking any action yet is willing to do something as horrendous as invoking time allocation, or the possibility of time allocation, on other reports or issues.
It is not acceptable that excellent reports and work is done to address the issues and the government ignores the reports. I want to draw attention to this report and the comments that have been made.
I will read a few of the excellent recommendations to remind the government that its has to make an effort to follow through on the recommendations of the report.
Recommendation one states:
Building on the present Urban Aboriginal Strategy, and recognizingthe federal government’s commitment to Aboriginal children, the Subcommittee recommends that:
the federal government should identify a government department to take responsibility for providing policy and organizational coordination among all federal departments with programs forAboriginal people (both on and off reserve) in order to better collaborate with provincial/territorial governments and, where appropriate, municipalities;
Aboriginal organizations, both political and those representing Aboriginal service-providers, be invited to take a proactive participatory role in such an initiative; and
a key output of this initiative be the creation of an integrated federal policy and program framework for the development of young Aboriginal children, both on and off reserve, from the prenatal period to age twelve.
I will talk a bit about that recommendation and draw attention to the fact that the committee has recognized the need to identify one department to accept responsibility. I want to emphasize the importance of that.
What we have seen over the course of the last couple of decades is the government sort of working on a “let's divide and conquer” kind of approach to providing services and funding for first nation groups.
Therefore we separated health and put it under the Minister of Health and that will be the aboriginal and Inuit health centre. What we have seen happening is one minister looking after the health side so the others kind of say that they are not responsible for it, that it is under the other minister. What did we end up with? We ended up with the abuse of dollars in the first nations health branch by the deputy minister and the wasting of dollars that should have been there to support first nations health programs.
Then we have another department that will deal with some aspect of the funding through the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. From the perspective of the Metis people, we have another minister looking at that aspect of it. There is a breakdown with everyone saying that they are not responsible for one aspect.
Because of this, there has been a misuse of dollars, not by the aboriginal peoples but by the government departments. It is crucially important that one department accept responsibility for providing these programs so we can do a much better job of providing services for first nations people.
The report from the committee dealt specifically with the status of persons with disabilities. I am aware of a program that took place within my riding. It was done in conjunction with the province, the OASIS agency and the health branch. It was an excellent program. I personally knew numerous people who worked within this program. They already had started, among those groups, to provide a program to assist people within the first nations communities with disabilities which provided the extra supports for the family members and made them aware of what was available. The program was absolutely excellent.
What happened was it only had limited funding. They tried to get more funding but what did the governments do? It was a divide and conquer approach. The governments said that they were not really sure the program worked. We were in the communities, we knew the people and we saw the work they did with those families. The families said that it had been great to have someone there to help them. They said that it was hard when they had children who needed help 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is tough enough in an urban centre like Ottawa to look after a child under those conditions, imagine what it is like when the nearest health facility is 100 kilometres away. Providing the additional respite for the parent is not right there. It makes the job that much tougher to do.
I saw the program operating at the ground level and it was a fantastic program. First nations people were involved with providing the assistance, which was being done in conjunction with the OASIS agency, the child and family services agency. What happened was there was no funding and no program.
When a report then comes out saying that we need to provide those services, it is just unconscionable. I saw the program in place and it worked great. However because of this government's funding approaches, it did not survive. It is time the government put its money where its mouth is instead of in the pockets of certain people. It needs to put in place programs and support so we can provide those programs.
Recommendation two from the committee states:
The Subcommittee recommends that all federal government departments with programs for urban Aboriginal families and children ensure that urban Aboriginal service-providers are consulted in program development, implementation and evaluation.
Once again, it sounds great. The government has said time and time again on numerous issues that it would work along with aboriginal people and first nations people and that it would listen to them. Part of the consultation process and part of the listening process is following through with some of what is heard. It is not to say that they should go ahead and talk but the government will not do anything because it comes from the people and they really do not know. That is the way this government and governments before have approached their work with first nations people, aboriginal people, the Metis, the group as a whole, and it is not acceptable. There is a need to work with them and listen to what they have to say.
As I indicated previously, there was a program in my own riding that was working. It involved the service provider, the OASIS agency, and the people from those communities. They would say what was good and what did not work and they tried to sort out what was best in order to provide services to the people in the communities. Once again, there was a lot of talk but nothing happening.
Recommendation three states:
We recommend that steps be taken to build a pilot project around services for children in the Urban Aboriginal Strategy pilot projects.
Recognizing that pilot projects are community driven, we urge the Privy Council Office to engage representatives of children’s services to preliminary meetings in cities where the pilot projects have not yet been defined. These would include, among others, Child and Family services, early childhood development services, and schools.
Acknowledging the difficulties confronted by many urban Aboriginal parents in moving between areas of federal and provincial jurisdiction, we further recommend that the evaluation of the Urban Aboriginal Strategy pilot projects include indicators of increased collaboration on jurisdiction and resourcing issues related to programming and funding for children with complex needs, such as children with disabilities and children with emotional and/or medical needs. We also recommend that evaluation of the pilot projects examine to what extent the funding results in concrete, meaningful outcomes for urban Aboriginal families.
The Subcommittee has heard about the importance of ensuring that collaborative projects remain community-based and work toward outcomes defined by communities. We would therefore urge the Privy Council Office to ensure that community partners in the Urban Aboriginal Strategy pilot projects play a key role in defining the strategy and outcomes upon which the pilot projects will be evaluated.
The Subcommittee urges the Privy Council Office to work with its federal government partners to adopt, at a national level, the collaborative practices between federal government departments which might emerge from the pilot projects.
Again I go back to the project in my riding. It had first nation providers involved in it. The bottom line was the government did not listen. Once again, this report has excellent recommendations. It is no surprise that the government has not concurred with the report. From what I have seen in action and the reality of it all is that it will not listen. It is only a bunch of talk.
Quite frankly, it is not acceptable that dollars are spent time and time again. Efforts are made by members in the House. I think we will all acknowledge that so often the government and the opposition parties in the House do not really work together. We do not always have unanimous reports that come from committees with excellent recommendations. The chair and the vice chair are from the governing side, and the government totally ignores what comes out of the recommendations.
When a report comes out of committee that is this good, it is extremely upsetting that it is ignored. It is not a surprise any more but I think it is important that we keep this in the minds of Canadians that good work does comes out Parliament and committees. The bottom line is none of it will ever succeed if the government does not follow through on the recommendations. All it becomes is a bunch of paper, a waste of taxpayer dollars and a very disheartening experience for those involved as well as for the people that it is intended to support.
Recommendation four states:
The Subcommittee reiterates the recommendation in the First Nations Child and Family Services Joint National Policy Review that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND) funding formulas to First Nations Child and Family Services (FNCFS) agencies be reconsidered in order to recognize the importance of preventative services, alternative programs, and least disruptive/intrusive measures for children at risk. It is further recommended that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development seek funding to support such programming as part of agency funding.
Once again we are dealing with the issue of what needs to happen. We need to identify a particular provider of the service and ensure that there is stable funding. The government is not willing to put that action in place.
It is crucial that first nations have the stabilized funding. It is disappointing that this happens, especially when it hits home to those most vulnerable. We have persons in poverty and with disabilities. Families are trying to keep their disabled children at home. What happens is the family is on edge at the end of the funding. That happened with the project with which I dealt.
People came to me and asked what they could do. They said that it was a great program. I tried to figure out why it was cancelled. I contacted various agencies. The bottom line was people said that the program did not work, yet it had not involved those people who were in the program. It totally ignored them. That is what happens when there is no stabilized funding.
Every time before a federal election, government members go to the people and tell them that they have a deal for them. They tell first nations people that they will ensure they get a certain amount of money. They tell them that there is Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, that they will follow through and make it work. They tell them that they will give first nations millions of dollars for that program, that school and that airport.
After the election, the government does not follow through on its commitments and we have first nations people in cities and in their communities on their reserves still living in the same conditions because the government has wasted dollar after dollar.
It is very real. We have the disabled people in those communities, children who cannot leave their wheelchairs, cannot feed themselves and have to have care 24 hours a day, seven days a week and no programs in their communities to support them. Why? Because the government talks a lot but it does not follow through on committee reports such as this one which is an excellent committee report.
I ask the House and the government to put everything else aside right now and deal with an issue that is extremely important, one that will benefit some Canadians, that will make a difference in the lives of Canadians and that will ensure that we do the job we are supposed to do by providing services to people in the country.