Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have another opportunity to address this important issue.
As people may know, one of the many challenges remote first nation communities face is substandard health care services. The success and well-being of the community is actually largely dependent on the quality of health care services and how easy it is to access them. Unfortunately, for too many remote and northern first nation communities, the quality and availability of health care services cannot come close to matching those that most Canadians receive.
In these locations, the government has failed the first nations, despite a clear constitutional responsibility to provide health care for those very communities. The problems are straightforward, mostly that nurses are not adequately trained and some communities are isolated from any service at all. In addition to that, building regulations can be completely ignored for many of the nursing stations currently in use.
This spring's Auditor General's report focused on health care in communities like these and brought many problems into focus. According to the report, only one in 45 nurses had been properly trained. In most cases, they do not have the qualifications to provide the most basic of care for these communities, let alone the resources or manpower shortages that only compound the problem. On top of that, nurses are often required to do things outside of their legislative scope of practice.
Health Canada is aware of this and yet nothing has been done to provide appropriate supporting mechanisms for these situations. In one community, two four year olds died because of strep throat-related conditions. Penicillin could have saved them. If they had had access to proper health care facilities, two four year olds could still be alive today.
I understand there is rhetoric on the other side of the House, but this is a serious issue.
Is this the quality of life we want for anyone in Canada? No community should be forced to worry that an entirely preventable and treatable disease can take the lives of its members, but that is the case for too many remote and northern first nations.
There is yet another example of how the Conservative government misses the mark on anything to do with the first nations. It is quick to bring in regulations but slow to invest. However, if we want to help these communities face their challenges over the long term, we need to invest. The government is doing the bare minimum, and it shows.
If the government really wanted to improve the quality of life for the people in first nation communities, it would provide properly trained nurses and take into account the specific needs of each community when allocating nursing staff levels.
In addition to that, the quality of clinic buildings is also a problem. Many buildings were not inspected on time according to Health Canada's 2005 framework for capital planning and management requirements. If they were, most deficiencies related to health and safety requirements or building codes went unaddressed. Of the 30 reviewed deficiencies, only 4 had been taken care of. This disregard for building quality puts patients and nurses on staff at risk and could limit access to health services in remote communities.
The government brags about its balanced budget. Inaction on problems like these is one way this has been done. The budget has been balanced on the backs of those who need it the most. Why are the Conservatives abandoning remote communities?