Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise this evening to pursue a question I asked on September 20 on the subject of the ongoing tragic and unacceptable conditions in Kashechewan in James Bay.
While I put the question to the Prime Minister, I also recognized that the Minister of Indigenous Services was working very hard. I recognize and see in her someone who is dedicated and compassionate and I think it is making a difference. It was a big decision for the government to divide what used to be called the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs into two departments. In the one, the hon. minister who had previously held the full portfolio would thereafter be responsible for untangling the issues of treaties and legal entitlements, particularly the long-term question of how to get rid of the Indian Act, a racist piece of legislation. In the other, the previous Minister of Health would become the Minister of Indigenous Services and be responsible for the large task of providing drinking water in every indigenous community, and for dealing with the unacceptable low quality of education provided to indigenous children, and the deep problem of inadequate, mouldy housing that is totally inappropriate for the climate of various indigenous communities. This particular community is one that has suffered for a very long time.
In the week of September 20, the students from Kashechewan came to Ottawa to plead with the federal government for a new school. What struck me forcefully before I asked the question and the reason I decided to ask it of the Prime Minister was that the Minister of Indigenous Services said in the media, “if your community wants to be moved, I will do everything in my power to make it possible.” I asked the Prime Minister whether the government was prepared to support the Minister of Indigenous Services and make it so. The Prime Minister has the ability to make it so. The Minister of Finance has the ability to make it so.
The response by the Prime Minister was not inappropriate. It just did not respond exactly to my question, which is what the late show today is all about. The Prime Minister talked about what the government had already done and stated:
In March 2017, we signed a framework agreement with the Government of Ontario and Kashechewan First Nation to support the health and safety of the community. This work is ongoing and includes an action plan that reflects the community's culture, priorities and options for relocation.
He also mentioned that a feasibility study was under way.
The difficulty is that the community has been left in a flood-prone area that is not their traditional home or territory. They were moved there in 1957. It is interesting that in the colonial process, we first colonize, then bring in the churches and the churches recruit and convert. The group that is now living in Kashechewan happens to have been forcefully moved there because they had been converted by the people of my faith. I happen to be Anglican. It was the Anglican group that was put on the north shoreline of the river despite it being known to be a flood-prone region.
Every year we spend money. It costs millions of dollars to evacuate the community and bring them to a place that is not flooded. It is time to move them to a place that is not flood-prone.