Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General definitely plays a very important role. However, I do have some concerns when we talk about accountability.
Accountability goes in two ways. For example, in the 1970s there was a diesel fuel spill in Attawapiskat, a community of 2,000 people in my riding. A family I know very well has been living on top of that spill. The woman has had three miscarriages. One of the children is developmentally delayed, we believe. The former Liberal government denied and denied. Study after study was done to establish whether there was a problem.
The school was contaminated and has since been condemned. No efforts were made by Indian affairs to move those students out. It was considered perfectly fine and acceptable for Cree children to go to school in a condemned environment. I was a school board trustee in Timmins and if there had been any problems in one of our schools, that school would have been shut down that weekend and fixed.
Here we are over six years later since the former Indian affairs minister Robert Nault came into that village and said the department would work with them toward a new school. There still is no new school. Nothing has been done. The community has actually gone to the banks themselves to get funds to build their own school because of the inaction of Indian affairs, year after year.
First nations have received capital study after capital study, interim report after interim report. Bureaucrats build these files on their desks. Communities are in debt, basically coming up with the infrastructure plans. What is needed is will. We never saw will on the James Bay until communities were crumbling in terrible deficits.
Yes, accountability goes both ways.