Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have another chance to speak to this particular issue. When I asked my question in June, the report on the regional health survey from the First Nations Information Governance Centre had just been released. It highlighted the bleak living conditions that are a daily fact for far too many first nations people in Canada. We were told how one in four first nation adults live in overcrowded houses, how half of this population live in homes with mildew and, incredibly, how one in five have been forced to reduce the size of their meals simply because there is not enough food.
When I asked my question, I was told that concrete actions were being taken on a number of issues. This was just a few months after the crisis in Attawapiskat. We saw at that time the government had a parochial view of its responsibility to first nations. The imposition of third party management did nothing to address the housing crisis, just like much of the legislation that is before the House does nothing to address the persistent problems that plague too many first nations.
We have legislation that incompletely addresses drinking and waste water on first nations, legislation that creates a bureaucratic burden for reporting band finances in a format that most people will not even make use of, and legislation that deals with property issues on first nations.
What we have not seen is money and nothing else is going to solve the problems related to housing on first nations or the implications those problems have to overall health, wellness and productivity.
We know that the demographics for first nations are not the same as we see in Canada's non-aboriginal population. First nations communities are, on average, younger and the population is growing as compared to the aging population in the rest of Canada. Government policy has to take this into account but it has not, as we see in the 2008 INAC evaluation report on its housing policy. That report claimed that although housing conditions on first nations were worse than in the rest of Canada, there had been some improvement between 1996 and 2006. It suggested that maintaining the status quo would lead to gradual improvements to housing, which would be great, but it is not happening because the report ignored the growth in population that is going on for those same first nation communities.
Also, the houses on first nations reflect the tight budgets they were built with. The average home built on reserve is habitable only half as long as one off reserve. Poor construction and limited funding for construction and renovations are limiting factors here and show that the answer is not just more housing but better housing as well. In fact, the report showed that almost 40% of first nation adults live in houses that are in need of major repairs. More than two-thirds of first nations adults reported that their household was in need of some type of repair. This compares to one-quarter of the general Canadian population.
Simply put, we need to find a way to help first nations build more houses to address a 20,000 unit shortfall. There is a pressing need to improve the condition of many existing on-reserve houses as well.
There is too much at stake. When will the government finally take this problem seriously and do something that will improve living conditions on first nations?