Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak today to Bill C-50, the budget implementation act, and outline some of the reasons that New Democrats will be opposing the legislation.
On any number of fronts, the bill fails to provide for working and middle class families, but I want to address specifically first nations, Métis, and Inuit. On these fronts, it fails to provide adequate housing, safe drinking water systems, education and, unfortunately, the list does go on.
I want to put this into some context. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, in its alternative federal budget document, did a very good job analyzing some of the challenges facing first nations, Métis and Inuit. In its document, it talks about the fact that government figures confirm that first nations received approximately $6 billion from the federal government in 2006-07. This funding was for all services, services that other Canadians receive from all three levels of government, which would include the federal and the municipal governments.
It goes on to say that the 2% annual increase in first nations' budgets is less than one-third of the average 6.6% increase that most Canadians will enjoy through Canada health and social transfers in each of the next five years. When adjusted for inflation and population growth, the total budget for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada decreased by 3.5% between 1999 and 2004. As a result of the 2% cap, it is estimated that the accumulated shortfall through 2007-08 is $774 million. This has an impact on all aspects of first nations, Métis and Inuit, whether it is their ability to join the labour force, to live in clean housing or to access clean drinking water.
There are on reserve and off reserve Inuit in the north. When we talk about off reserve, I want to touch briefly on the plight of Indian friendship centres. The friendship centres have been chronically underfunded for any number of years and yet we know they deliver a vital and important service in urban communities where there are large numbers of first nations, Métis and Inuit.
In my riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan, we have two very good friendship centres, Hiiye'yu Lelum and Tillicum Haus. Both of those friendship centres have been forced into the kind of fundraising that we would not expect of any other organization delivering services. I would agree that it is important to look for partners but these organizations have such limited core funding that they are always lurching from funding crisis to funding crisis, despite the very good services they deliver in their communities.
I want to talk briefly about the funding and the fact that the budget implementation act does include funding for child protection services. However, in the alternative federal budget it states that the current funding formula drastically underfunds services that support families and allow them to care for their children safely in their homes and communities. As a result, for first nations the removal of children from their homes and communities is often the only option considered, not the last option.
I have spoken to this House before about least disruptive measures and how we actually pay for foster care off reserve at prices that, if we were to put that money into the on reserve community for least disruptive measures, we would actually close the gap around education, housing and the poverty that is a daily living condition in many first nations communities.
The alternative federal budget estimates that rather than the $43 million over two years that this bill would put in place, $388 million should be allocated over three years. The sad reality is that the Assembly of First Nations and other partners have had to take this complaint about the chronic underfunding for child protection services in this country to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
In December, this House stood and supported unanimously my private member's motion on Jordan's Principle. I do not want to repeat all of the stories but Jordan was a little boy from Norway House Cree Nation who died in the hospital. He had spent four years in a hospital and two of those years were because of a jurisdictional dispute between the federal and provincial governments.
In a recently released report called “Reaching for the Top: A Report by the Advisor on Healthy Children and Youth”, a recommendation was made that when there is a jurisdictional dispute between the federal and provincial governments that the federal government step forward and demonstrate some leadership and pay first. It has mechanisms to recover those payments once those jurisdictional disputes are completed.
We simply should approach this from a child-centred approach and say that children come first in this country and we will put the resources where they are needed.
The Norway House Cree Nation, where Jordan lived and where his parents gave him up to foster care in order to get him care, there are 37 children right now with complex medical needs. The parents of these children may also need to surrender their children to the provincial foster care system in order to get their children's needs met. This is happening because of a funding problem from the federal government perspective.
I will now touch briefly on the issue of violence against women. British Columbia has a highway called the Highway of Tears that runs between Prince George and Prince Rupert. From 1989 to 2006, nine young women either disappeared or were murdered on that highway and all but one of them were first nations women.
Working with community partners, the provincial government has stepped forward and funded some forums and a number of key recommendations came out of them.
However, once again the federal government has failed to demonstrate leadership when it comes to aboriginal women and violence. There have been many pleas for the federal government to step forward and help with the funding of some coordinator positions in Prince Rupert and Prince George. People are calling for a highway transportation feasibility study that would look at community safety. They are also asking for funding for some of the important recommendations that came out of the community forums.
We have wide documentation on violence against aboriginals and the federal government could step forward and support some of the initiatives that communities have put forward.
I now want to turn to education. Article 15 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states:
Indigenous peoples have the right to the dignity and diversity of their cultures, traditions, histories and aspirations which shall be appropriately reflected in education and public information.
Sadly, the federal government has failed to support a number of articles in the UN declaration and, in fact, actively lobbied not to support the declaration. It is playing out right now in first nations education across Canada.
Many people in this House will be familiar with the Attawapiskat situation where the community is resorting to tools like YouTube to get its message out across this country. Attawapiskat is not the only school in this country that is suffering. The parliamentary library did some research for us and found that 39 schools were currently on the list for construction or renovation projects, and those were only the ones that we could identify. The parliamentary library estimated that it would cost $350,833,000 to construct or renovate these 39 schools.
We have seen surplus after surplus and yet we continue to have schools to which not one of us would send our children. Reports have shown many safety hazards with respect to these schools, such as doors not closing properly, mould, and roofs in danger of collapsing from heavy snow, and yet we still cannot get the kind of movement that is required from the federal government. A school in northern Saskatchewan burned down in 2004 and still has not been replaced.
This is not just a problem in Attawapiskat. Unfortunately, because of the lack of transparency within the government, we have not been able to get a complete list of all the schools on the list so we could let Canadians from coast to coast to coast know how many first nations and Inuit children are unable to access the kind of education that we say is a fundamental human right in this country.
We often try to present ourselves as champions of human rights and yet we have citizens in this country who do not have access to the things that we think are fundamental human rights.
I would encourage members of the House to oppose this bill unless it can be amended to include some of these important measures that would ensure the quality of life for first nations, Inuit and Métis is equal to that of other Canadians.