Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Vancouver East.
It is an honour to rise again in the House as part of a much bigger NDP team, now the official opposition. I would like to begin by thanking the people of northern Manitoba who have sent me back to Ottawa to fight for them. I would like to thank people from Sakgeeng to Churchill, from Berens River to Pukatawagan, from The Pas, Flin Flon and Thompson, people from first nations, Métis communities, urban centres and communities all across the north, people who were all part of sending a strong message that they wanted Ottawa to work with them.
People in northern Manitoba recognize that a lot of wealth comes from our area. It comes from the north, from our industries, from traditional territories, from people's hard work. However, we in the north also know that we do not see a federal government that works with us to give back. This is yet another federal budget that fails to give back to our north.
With this budget, the government is ignoring first nations and the real struggles they face day to day.
First nations in northern Manitoba face some of the most appalling living conditions in our country. My question is this. Where is the removal of the 2% cap for which first nations have been asking for years? Where is the funding for housing? Not only was there no increase, but there was a reduction when compared to commitments made in previous years. Where is the funding for water and sewer investments?
The Island Lake First Nations have been asking for a federal commitment to water and sewer services as a way of preventing some of the most severe health challenges they face year after year. Yet when I visited Garden Hill First Nation just two months ago, people showed me the latest response of the federal government to their call of action: a big blue water bin and a small grey pail with a seat on it. This is the kind of dignity that Canada's first peoples have been shown by the federal government.
As we sit here today, Tadoule Lake, one of the northern-most communities in Manitoba, is struggling, given the breakdown in water and sewer services in their community. Children have been forced to not attend school on a regular basis. These are the basic needs of first nations in my constituency and this is the reflection of the federal government's neglect of first nations people and the third world conditions in which they live.
Where is the investment in education and post-secondary student sponsorship? Gods Lake Narrows, Gods River and Oxford House have been calling on the need for federal investment, to work with them in building new schools, to meet the demands of an increasingly young population in their communities. Aboriginal people are among the youngest people in Canada. Why is the government failing to invest in their future?
When it comes to urban aboriginal people, the budget shows no commitment to working with urban aboriginal peoples and showing the necessary long-term support for critical services, as provided by the aboriginal friendship centres. The government continues to fail first nations and Métis people in northern Manitoba and across Canada.
With this budget, the government is ignoring Canadian workers. There are corporate tax giveaways to big profitable corporations, but no action to keep jobs here at home. My home community of Thompson is having a fight for its life with a foreign-owned mining company, Vale, whose purchase of Inco was allowed by the federal government. Instead of keeping the wealth of our resources in our hands, the government approved a $1 billion loan to Vale, the very company that is taking hundreds of jobs away from Manitoba. The government has essentially assisted and given money to Vale to shift jobs away from our province.
Young people working in the refinery and the smelter in Thompson are very worried about their future and that of their young families. People nearing retirement are worried they will be left out in the cold. An entire community that has helped build the wealth of a corporation and a country stands to lose the very wealth that comes from the resources on which we stand.
Where is the commitment to stand by workers in our communities? Where is the government's plan to allow Canadian people, and not foreign companies, to benefit from our resources?
With this budget, the government is taking the west for granted. I stand here as a voice from western Canada, speaking out for the thousands of people who are saying no to the government's plan to dismantle the Canadian Wheat Board.
Why is this government showing such contempt for the democratic rights of farmers to choose? Where is this government's concern for the livelihoods of prairie people and prairie communities?
In our part of the west, the loss of the Canadian Wheat Board would mean the loss of the port of Churchill that depends on CWB shipments. This government is supporting the loss of that port and the livelihoods of people in Churchill, along the bay line and across the north, in addition to ignoring the wishes of farmers across western Canada.
This government is also ignoring the west through its extreme cuts to Western Economic Diversification Canada, a cut of 54.4% to its budget. Our regions have a constant need for diversification in economic development. Yet the rural regions of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia are being left out in the cold when it comes to the cooperation they need from the federal government in order to diversify. What will these cuts translate into? There will be fewer businesses opening up, fewer services emerging and more young people leaving our communities, communities that are struggling to survive. Is this truly the government's vision for western Canada?
With this budget the government is ignoring the number one priority of so many Canadians, the priority of health care. People across northern Manitoba and across Canada do not have the most basic care from a family doctor. In fact, five million Canadians do not have a family doctor, that first line of support when they face health challenges.
I remember going door to door throughout the election, even during the last parliament, in communities such as Flin Flon and hearing in house after house people express to me their anxiety, their worry, that they did not have a family doctor. I heard the stories of northerners about family doctors who came into their communities for one year, or maybe two years if they were lucky, and then leave, leaving their patients to hang, leaving families to worry, leaving people less healthy at the end of the day.
When we look at the leadership that we need to see from the federal government in working with our provinces, in working with our regional health authorities and in working with our first nations in aboriginal communities across the north, what we see is deflection and a real lack of vision when it comes to supporting the universal public health care that Canadians are so proud of.
In closing, we in the official opposition are sending the message that the federal government has a duty to stand up for the priorities of all Canadians, from housing to education and health care and for maintaining and creating quality jobs based on our controlling our resources and our livelihoods. Canadians are looking to a federal government to stand up for them.
However, what we see today in the budget is the continuation of a record of failure in standing up for them. Instead, the federal government is looking at the big corporations and at friends who are already doing quite well at the expense of looking at what first nations, Métis, northern people and people across our country are looking for.
What northerners and Canadians have to count on, though, is an official opposition that will fight for them, that will fight for the dignity and social justice that every Canadian deserves.