Mr. Speaker, I usually say it is an honour to stand in the House and speak to certain bills, but today I am ashamed. I am ashamed to stand here and speak to a bill that is so offensive to Canada's aboriginal people. It is pretty unbelievable, and today of all days, the day before National Aboriginal Day.
Tomorrow the government will send its representatives out to wish aboriginal people a happy National Aboriginal Day instead of saying that they are there to work with aboriginal people, instead of saying they want to listen to aboriginal people, instead of saying that not only will they work with them but they will refrain from playing the nasty, dirty politics of division that this very legislation is all about.
I will take it one step further. Let us flip Bill C-27 around. Maybe we should be talking about a federal government fiscal transparency act. What would it look like with that crew? Would we talk about the F-35s and how that was bungled? Would we talk about the orange juice that cost $16 in London? Would we talk about the helicopters that have flown ministers around? Would we talk about the Senate appointments, the kickbacks, the breaks for friends who have given the Conservatives money?
That is what we are talking about. We are talking about a government that is so eager to change the channel and play the politics of division with some of the most marginalized people in our country instead of looking at its own complete disrespect for, frankly, legislation that governs this place and also the ethics that the Conservatives seem to be following.
If we talk about an accountability act when it comes to the Conservative government, then let us talk about aboriginal people and how the government has broken that accountability time and time again.
Some years ago the Conservatives apologized to first nations when it came to the residential school tragedy. Some months after that they cut the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, the only decentralized program so successful that it was a world model. It provided cultural healing for aboriginal people across the country. Report after report and accolade after accolade indicated how important it was. However, the government cared so little about its own commitment to residential school survivors that it got rid of that program.
How about the deadline that is approaching on the IAP? The IAP, as many aboriginal people know, is the application people, those who were abused so badly in residential schools, have made that requires to go to another level. Where is the accountability when so few supports have been put in place to support the healing of those people who are applying for the IAP? Where is the work that needs to be done to talk to people like those in my own constituency, in places like Tadoule Lake and Lac Brochet? People of the generation who were abused at residential school do not speak English in the way that may be needed in this process. They need the support for translation and for healing. It is nowhere to be found.
Let us talk about health and how out of the 33 first nations that I represent only 1 of them with a community of 6,000 has a hospital.
Let us talk about the fact that I represent four communities in Island Lake. Over 10,000 people do not have running water, that in Canada in 2012. These communities were among the hardest hit with H1N1. Many health professionals said that it had nothing to do with some sort of genetic predisposition. It had to do with the fact that people did not have running water.
Let us talk about education and the lack of accountability we see in the government in funding first nations education. Aboriginal children, because they are aboriginal, are systematically underfunded because of who they are. They receive less than half in some cases of what provinces will pay for that same aboriginal child to study off reserve. We know that means generation after generation are being left with the legacy of inadequate support and failure when it comes to the federal government.
We could talk about the mould in schools. We could talk about trailers. We could talk about the fastest growing population in Canada having a government that not only is not there to support them, but with a bill like this, insults them.
Let us talk about housing, third world living conditions. I represent communities that have a waiting list of 500 houses, not 5, not 50, but 500.
Let us talk about the way the government has lost its accountability when it comes to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Many people came together and said it is right for Canada to show leadership, to stand up for aboriginal people at the United Nations, to maybe join other countries that are leaders around the world when it comes to working with their aboriginal people. After months of pushing and prodding, and I am proud that our party was at the forefront of saying Canada should do this, yes, the government signed the declaration. It boasted about it, but it has broken the commitments it has made every step of the way.
Most recently, where it is most apparent, is in Bill C-38. The national chief came to the committee and said, “Where is the duty to consult?” By eliminating all of the legislation, the environmental legislation, the lack of protection for fish habitat, the first nations treaty right to fishing is at risk and first nations territorial lands are at risk.
Bill C-38 also proposed changes to employment insurance that would have a disproportionate impact on aboriginal people. Where is the accountability there, when so many aboriginal communities depend entirely on seasonal work? This is not a question of moving on where there is something else.
The Conservatives know very well because they know the statistics and have tried to prevent the rest of us from seeing them. They know that people will turn to provincial welfare. People will turn to the increased social turmoil that unfortunately government after government, and this government is right along with them, not only turns a blind eye to, but frankly encourages. This kind of societal breakdown is unfortunately the legacy of government after government, and this government is no different.
The bill is absurd. It is offensive and it speaks to the government's approach. We have heard about the backward policy of the Conservatives when it comes to refugees and the comment that “Canadians want this”, as though refugees who come to Canada are not Canadian.
Aboriginal people were the first Canadians. The bill seeks to divide people and to pit people against each other and their communities. It seeks to change the channel from the government's failure to live up to its fiduciary obligation, not “it would be great if it did”, but a fiduciary obligation, an understanding that there is a commitment in the Constitution to first nations.
The Conservatives loves to talk about the War of 1812. Let us talk about who allowed us to build a country like Canada. It was first nations people, aboriginal people. In their relationship with the crown, aboriginal people have always been at the other side with an attitude of respect and an attitude of co-operation and they have only been spat in the face. They have been subjected to third world living conditions in a country as wealthy as ours, followed with legislation like this.
I have a prediction here. I am sure I will be digging this quote out in the next few days. The government has its press releases and robocalls ready to go. There are issues around the robocalls. However, the Conservatives have their lines about what side they are on and what side everybody else is on.
Canadians see through this. Canadians are increasingly sick and tired, and frankly disgusted, with the politics of division, these games the Conservatives seek to play with people in our own country, pitting us one against the other. Somehow because we are of this background, we have to have an issue with aboriginal people in aboriginal communities. It is not like that.
I am proud to come from a part of the country and to represent a part of the country where people know that we have to work together, where people know that the legacy of residential schools and of colonialism impacts all of us. People know that it would be nice to have a federal government that stood on the side of eradicating the third world conditions people in Canada face.
I wish I could say there was a good chance of that prediction not becoming true, but I have seen it before. I saw it in the last election.
The government brought up a private member's bill, which again speaks to its two-sided approach. The government says that just one member brought it up so it is not where the government is at. It is a similar story with the private member's Motion No. 312, which seeks to reopen the abortion debate. We hear all sorts of stories from the government. On this one, there is no hiding the fact that the government has been behind it all the way. We might be able to say that for Motion No. 312 too. I certainly would.
After its commitments to sit down with the first nations gathering in January to continue that conversation, the government's wish is to leave this Parliament as one of its lasting legacies one of the most offensive, absurd bills that seeks nothing more than to divide Canadians, to pit Canadians against each other, and most importantly, to pit people against aboriginal people.
This is not fitting of our Canada. This is not in line with the kinds of values that we seek to realize. I am proud to be part of a party that has been at the forefront of standing with aboriginal people: first nations, Métis and Inuit. I am proud to belong to a party that so many people in my part of the country see as the party that has stood for them. I know that is the case among so many aboriginal people across the country. Many of them are looking to us tonight and will be looking to us tomorrow on National Aboriginal Day, to hear that we are willing to work with them; willing to respect our Constitution, the historical framework that is based on a relationship of respect between the crown and first nations; and that we are willing to say that we can build a better Canada.
I say these words, thinking about the elders who have supported me on a personal level, about the leaders who support their communities, about the young people who are looking to us to show leadership. They are not seeing this from the government, but that is another sign of where the government is at.
I am proud to be part of a party that believes that our Canada means working with aboriginal people every step of the way, that our Canada is one in which third world conditions for anyone, including for aboriginal people, will not be tolerated and that our Canada lives on this side of the House and will continue to live on as we fight for it.
[Member spoke in aboriginal language]