Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to the motion moved by my NDP colleague, the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay, whose riding is next to Abitibi—Témiscamingue.
Our ridings share a border, but that border is meaningless to the indigenous communities, in the sense that it was imposed on them and that their ancestral lands lie on both sides of the border. For example, the Timiskaming First Nation ancestral territory is in my riding, but it spills into my colleague's riding of Timmins—James Bay because these borders were established long after these territories were.
This motion calls on the government to comply with the historic ruling of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordering the end of discrimination against indigenous children. We are calling on the government to immediately reinvest an additional $155 million for the delivery of child welfare that has been identified as the shortfall this year alone. We are also calling on the government to establish a funding plan for future years that will end the systemic shortfalls in first nations child welfare.
Furthermore, we want the government to implement the full definition of Jordan's principle as outlined in a resolution passed by the House on December 12, 2007. The government must fully comply with all orders made by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and commit to stop fighting indigenous families in court who are seeking access to services covered by the federal government. Paragraph (d) of the motion calls on the government to make public all pertinent documents related to the overhaul of child welfare and the implementation of Jordan's principle.
Jordan's principle gives priority to the child's interests and is named after Jordan River Anderson, a Cree child from Norway House, in Manitoba. He was born with complex medical needs and unnecessarily spent more than two years in hospital because the Province of Manitoba and the federal government could not agree on who should pay for his home care. Jordan passed away in hospital when he was five and was never able to spend a single day at home, even though that would have been possible with appropriate home care.
Unfortunately, payment disputes between federal and provincial governments over services to first nations children are all too common. First nations children are often kept waiting for services they desperately need or denied services available to other children in the areas of education, health, day care, recreation, culture, and language.
Anyone who tries to understand the federal government's logic is in for a surprise. The list of prescription drugs and treatments eligible for reimbursement is not the same for all groups of people under federal responsibility. The government does not reimburse veterans, serving military personnel, and members of first nations for the same drug list.
It is the same government in all cases, and Health Canada is in charge of approving all prescription drugs available for sale in Canada, but the list of drugs eligible for reimbursement depends on a person's status.
I have had several conversations with the doctor in Malartic who is in charge of public health. He told me how confusing prescribing drugs to aboriginal people can be because they are covered for fewer drugs than whites. It is a discriminatory administrative nightmare that causes doctors a lot of problems.
In many cases they prescribe treatments that might work, but that are not ideal in a given situation. Patients do not get the best possible treatment, and people have to deal with red tape.
According to Jordan's principle, the government that has first contact pays for the services and seeks reimbursement later so that children are not trapped in a bureaucratic quagmire involving different levels of government. That makes sense.
Patients should not have to fight these battles back and forth, especially when we are talking about patients who are pre-school aged children. These battles often go on and on between the various governmental jurisdictions.
It just makes sense to ask that medical services be paid, to ensure that patients receive care as quickly as possible when they need it. The fight to determine who ultimately pays for it, and who reimburses whom, can happen after the fact. It makes no sense to force patients to wait, least of all indigenous children, to determine who is going to pay the bill and whether the cost of treatment will be reimbursed or not, especially when it would be reimbursed in all other cases. It makes no sense.
We are also talking about children who are often critically ill. If treatment is delayed because of red tape, the patient's condition could deteriorate and treatment could wind up being a lot more expensive later, because care could unfortunately become more complicated as time goes on. We could mention antibiotic resistance, for example. Treatment must not be delayed, because the patient's condition could become more complicated, especially if the patient, in this case a child, gets a nosocomial or hospital-acquired infection, because he or she had to wait too long for treatment .
This red tape war against children and parents has to stop. We cannot keep taking people to court for treatments that often cost less than the lawyers' fees. This happens all the time.
People fight tooth and nail in court to get out of paying for treatment only to end up losing because the ruling simply makes no sense, especially when we consider that non-indigenous children are reimbursed for the same treatments by their province and the lawyer fees cost more than the treatment. It makes no sense. It is wasting a dollar to save a quarter.
Nobody is saving money. Most of the time, people's cases are found to be without merit, because these treatments are not experimental. This is pediatric care offered to non-aboriginal children in most hospitals. When it comes to care provided to children, one must be consistent and ensure that aboriginal children receive the same care as non-aboriginal children.
There are five Algonquin communities in my riding of Abitibi—Témiscamingue, which is on Anishnabe land. Some are having a really tough time. In Pikogan, the Abitibiwinnik live near a major centre and have access to services in the town of Amos.
However, some communities in Témiscamingue are very remote. For example, Winneway, which is home to the Long Point First Nation, is about a one-hour drive from hospital if the road conditions are good. If a child from this community needed an ambulance, they could wait a long time and it would be difficult to receive care.
This community is so remote that it does not even have a school. Plans are in the works. Children are currently driven to another village to a school that had been closed. There were some cases of teenagers who were cutting themselves because they were in a school without windows. The quality of food is not always the best because there are no grocery stores in the village. There is only one small corner store that mainly sells frozen foods to be baked because these foods keep longer and do not spoil before they are purchased.
These people face serious challenges with respect to health, and I believe that it is unfair for these children to be penalized because of the federal government's approach, which unfortunately has become a bad practice.
I am out of time and look forward to my colleagues' questions.