Mr. Speaker, my question tonight is a follow-up one to one I asked the Prime Minister on February 19, regarding the Prime Minister's broken promise to compensate the survivors of the Ile-a-la-Crosse boarding school. I had asked the Prime Minister the question, but he refused to answer. I hope perhaps the parliamentary secretary can be helpful.
I was happy that the minister acted in response to my statement on October 30, 2006, regarding the Primrose Lake Air Weapons Range agreement and then honoured the agreement. I hope this type of cooperation can occur again.
Here is what the Prime Minister promised in a campaign radio ad that ran for a week before the January 23, 2006, federal election, “Under a Conservative government, we will address issues important to aboriginal people. We'll ensure aboriginal war veterans are properly recognized. We'll provide full compensation for residential school survivors, including those who attended the Ile-a-la-Crosse school”.
Unfortunately, not only did the Prime Minister break his promise to aboriginal veterans by quietly ignoring it, his broken promise to compensate survivors of the Ile-a-la-Crosse boarding school is heartless in the way that it was not honoured.
Let us review the facts.
First, in December 2005, the former minister responsible for the residential school negotiation stated that the boarding school did not qualify because the agreement only covered federally funded schools.
Second, on December 7, 2005, the former Conservative member of Parliament in response to the minister stated, “the Conservatives won’t make that same distinction if they’re elected to power”. He went on to say that the Conservatives would give the $10,000 base and $3,000 per year compensation to the boarding school survivors. This clearly established that the Conservatives knew at that time about the agreement's limitations.
Third, to further demonstrate the former member of Parliament and the minister knew the school did not qualify, I present the following. The former MP stated that he and the current Indian affairs minister co-wrote the residential school agreement. If they did indeed co-write the settlement, they would have known that the Ile-a-la-Crosse boarding school did not qualify.
Now I go back to the promise. Remember, the Prime Minister said, “We'll provide full compensation”. On November 28, 2006, I asked the minister if his government intended to keep its promise to the Ile-a-la-Crosse boarding school survivors. He responded, no, because the school did not qualify.
Then, on January 19, the minister stated in a CBC interview:
—[t]he full knowledge of facts that we have today, confirm that the school doesn’t qualify....The ad takes a different assumption that was in error and that’s unfortunate but when one knows the facts of the school, it simply doesn’t qualify under the agreement, and...that full knowledge wasn’t available at the time that the ad was run.
I repeat the minister said, “that full knowledge wasn't available at the time the ad was run”. Not only was full knowledge available, the Conservatives had all the facts, as I have demonstrated. They knew the school did not qualify, as demonstrated by my presentations, but despite that they still made the promise and ran that ad until January 23.
The minister's claim “that full knowledge wasn't available” is misleading to Canadians and, in particular, to those Métis survivors. He is either completely incompetent or he is being deceitful.
To review this, the Conservatives knew the Ile-a-la-Crosse boarding school did not qualify. They promised compensation anyway, a full month and a half after knowing the school did not qualify. They broke that promise. They then proceeded to cover everything up.
If this is not a scandal, I do not know what is. This is an issue of trust. The minister wilfully made statements that he knew were not true.
If there is new information that perhaps the parliamentary secretary can shed on his web of deceit and shadowy conduct, please indulge me.