Mr. Speaker, as we have this debate about the Kelowna accord, we all bring different kinds of experiences and stories from our own provinces and across the country.
My first and probably most serious concern about the Kelowna accord, or the support that is planned for aboriginal people, Inuit and Métis is that it be extremely focused and that it have agreed upon goals between aboriginal people, Métis and Inuit about the progress that is being made.
We have heard stories about aboriginal communities where there has been economic success, but we have also heard stories of other places where it has greatly reduced. I think of two towns in British Columbia, one about which many stories have been told in the House today and at other times, and one where violence in general has dropped, graduation rates have gone up, sexual abuse of children has gone down, and learning of their first language has gone up. Why? Because it is economically successful and that leads to those other things.
The dollars that are going to go into those communities have to be focused. I understand that we want and need to focus everywhere, but without economic success in a community, none of those other things will happen with either the speed or the efficacy that we would like to see. They also need to happen in a modally coherent way where it is done in the way the community wants it done. These are not our communities. These are communities that belong to the Métis, Inuit and aboriginal people.
When I look at census data, I see that more babies in aboriginal communities suffocate because of the use of family beds. Aboriginal people believe in the “family bed”, where babies sleep with other people. A lot of the deaths are tied to alcohol use where somebody has rolled over on the baby and the baby suffocated. Does that mean that somebody loves their baby less? Of course not. It means they do not have the supports that we are talking about here, but they have to get there.
We have to know if the supports are working. We have to have agreed upon goals and ways of measuring whether they are successful. In other instances when resources have gone into communities, it has not been modally coherent. It has not been comfortable for the aboriginal communities. We have spent a lot of money, and while it has been well intentioned, we are almost totally unable to measure the success.
As the question asked by the opposition about the money for the community--