Mr. Speaker, I want to go over something my colleague just said about the commitment of Liberal governments, starting with Prime Minister Trudeau, and moving to Mr. Chrétien in the 1970s, when he was the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, as it was called at the time, and wrote a white paper on the need for self-determination and self-government for aboriginal peoples. It is no secret that when he came in as prime minister in 1993 that was one of the things he set as a priority. He immediately brought in steps to try to create the infrastructure to improve land claims and to fast-forward them.
It was not only that, but in British Columbia, in my province, where for 100 years aboriginal people have been trying to get land claims established and could not, Mr. Chrétien managed to convince the then Government of British Columbia to start moving forward with land claims. It was fast-forwarded. It was moving very well, and things were happening. Fast-forwarding land claims was an important part of dealing with aboriginal concerns, the ability to give them the autonomy they needed to make decisions about themselves and to govern themselves.
Prime Minister Martin then came in and picked it up. He signed the Kelowna accord with every province in this country being in agreement and treated the aboriginal people as an equal part of government at that table. The Kelowna accord would have devolved responsibility for health, education and housing to aboriginal peoples.
However, we saw what happened. The Conservative government came in 2006, and the Kelowna accord was gone. It was dead in the water. In fact, we now see that the same Prime Minister Paul Martin, no longer in Parliament, is spending his personal fortune to try to move education forward, knowing this is part of the way for aboriginal people to move forward and become autonomous.
I heard some of my colleagues across the way talking about aboriginal women, etcetera, but the point is that the government does not consult with aboriginal peoples. If it consulted with aboriginal peoples, it would understand the cultural differences. This imposition of what we, as non-aboriginal people, think is best for aboriginal people continues even today in this Conservative government's rhetoric.
Thirty years ago, the Canadian Medical Association recognized the link between aboriginal self-government and self-determination and the high rates of disease in aboriginal communities. As president of the British Columbia Medical Association, I ensured that the Council on Health Promotion started something called the aboriginal health committee. We brought in an unusual thing for a medical association. We brought in aboriginal leaders to be part of that community, to talk about self-determination and self-governance, so we could move forward and change those terrible health statistics for aboriginal people.
However, here we are today. We are still seeing high incidences of homelessness and disease in Inuit communities. Diabetes is three times that of our national average, and obesity rates are approximately 40% on reserve. The life expectancy for first nations men is 10 years below non-aboriginal men, and that of aboriginal women is 7 years below that of non-aboriginal women.
We see suicide rates that are 7 times the national average for first nations communities, and 11 times higher for Inuit communities. Infant mortality rates are 1.5 times higher than the national average. HIV-AIDS infections are 3.6 times higher than the non-aboriginal populations. Tuberculosis is 35 times higher on reserve, and 185 times higher, in Nunavut specifically.
In spite of all this, and in spite of the rhetoric we hear from this government, we have seen, in 2011, 2012 and 2013, incremental decreases in budgets going to first nations and Inuit health, infrastructure programs and to mental health. Maternal and child health programs were cut. Suicide prevention programs were cuts.
The Liberals created a healing fund. We did so when we were in government. It was shown by the Department of Indian Affairs, and by everyone who audited, that it was working really well. It was the aboriginal healing fund.
The Prime Minister made a wonderful apology in the House and cut that fund that was actually helping aboriginal people.
The government also walked away from the Northern Dimension Partnership, which is made up of 11 Arctic countries to look at the health of the peoples of the north.
At a time when Canada is chairing the Arctic Council, the Conservatives walked away from this, which saved them $50,000 a year, while the same Prime Minister, who apologized nicely in the House, spent $500,000 to transport his imperial limousines to India.
The same Prime Minister, again I refer to all the wonderful talk and the apologies in the House, has stalled on land claims. The land claims, which were moving forward, at least in my province of British Columbia, very well under a Liberal government, have now stalled completely.
When I chaired the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, I visited Labrador and I heard of the violence that women faced there. Face to face they spoke to the fact that when they were trying to escape violence, they had nowhere to go.
When my colleague from St. Paul's talked about shelters, she was not talking about shelters as a permanent thing. Everyone who understands violence knows there has to be a safe place to go. There are no shelters for aboriginal women across the country and if there are, there may be five.
When our committee travelled across the country, we heard that more and more children were taken away from their parents when they tried to flee violence and were put into non-aboriginal homes. In fact, we heard the statistics from provincial governments that more aboriginal children were being taken away from their parents today than were in the residential school era.
Conservative members shut down the report when they won a majority government in the 2011 election. It was the first time that all four political parties agreed on what that recommendation should be. Since then, we have seen nothing further being done on violence against aboriginal women, those on reserve, off reserve and in society at large, yet we hear a lot of rhetoric.
This motion is an appropriate one. We agree with the motion because it is time to stop the rhetoric. It is time to stop listening to all the wondrous phrases that come from across the aisle, the Prime Minister's beautiful apology, everyone berating people on this side of the House who, as a Liberal government, moved significantly forward on this issue.
It is time to stop the rhetoric and it is time to get action going. I do not think we will see it from the Conservatives because they are too busy congratulating themselves on their little pieces of rhetoric than actually intending to do anything.