Anita Neville

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 2nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in three separate cases the Supreme Court of Canada was clear that the federal government had a duty to consult with first nations. Despite these rulings, the government has refused to conduct meaningful consultations. It imposes arbitrary deadlines that prevent real discussions from taking place: Bill C-2; Bill C-44; Bill C-45; nationhood; and now only seven days for consensus building on matrimonial real property.

Why does the government insist on taking such a father knows best attitude?

[University of Manitoba, February 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate my alma mater, the University of Manitoba, on its 130th anniversary.

Established on February 28, 1877, the University of Manitoba was western Canada's first university. Since then, the university has grown into one of Canada's largest medical-doctoral research-intensive universities. It offers 82 programs to its 27,000-plus students and has trained most of Manitoba's professional workforce.

University of Manitoba alumni include Rhodes scholars, champion athletes, political, business and community leaders, world-class researchers and academic experts.

The university serves as the research engine for Manitoba, bringing in $139.6 million in sponsored research income last year, ranking it number 12 out of the top 50 research universities in the country. The University of Manitoba's researchers are internationally recognized research leaders in the natural sciences, engineering, health sciences and the humanities.

I ask all members to please join me in wishing the university a happy 130th anniversary.

[February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am very sorry that the member opposite chose not to make a comment about the city of Winnipeg and the insult to the residents of the city of Winnipeg that was put forward by both the parliamentary secretary and the President of the Treasury Board.

I am also sorry that when he lists the litany of innovations that his government is doing he does not talk about the issues of prevention. He does not talk about the fact that since the beginning of November nobody has responded to Macdonald Youth Services that serves the young people who are on the streets of Winnipeg.

I would like to read into the record a quote from a Winnipeg journalist who said: “Stroking the irrational fear about a crime is political strategy more than anything else and anecdotes are the best way of spreading panic. You don't need to prove anything; you just point out that there is a crime and let everyone's imagination do the rest. It's gotten to the point that the only way to counter what the diatribists are saying is to deny the very existence of crime. Once you acknowledge you can't do that, you've played right into their hands”.

[February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, you may recall that on February 8, in a late show similar to this, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board characterized the streets in the city of Winnipeg as being full of gangs, guns and thugs.

The next day in the House I had the opportunity to ask the President of the Treasury Board whether he too shared this opinion and in fact he acknowledged that it was his view of Winnipeg, and spoke about my alleged softness on crime.

I am here to ask some questions of the representative of the Treasury Board who is here tonight. I would say that the scope of his comments go beyond normal political discourse. As you and I both know, Mr. Speaker, they truly only serve to hurt the city of Winnipeg in both a business and economic sense, and create a false impression about the safety of Winnipegers. For partisan political gain I would say that he has abdicated his responsibility as an ambassador for the city.

I would ask him this question. Does he expect the Liberal Party to support bad legislation when he introduces bad legislation, and then chooses to call us soft on crime because we will not support bad legislation?

I ask the President of the Treasury Board, if he was serious about crime prevention, would he accept the numerous studies that say building more prisons does not prevent crime?

I ask the President of the Treasury Board, would he acknowledge that in the United States, which has very much a tough on crime approach, there are over 600 people for every 100,000 incarcerated, whereas here in Canada we have about 107 for every 100,000 incarcerated?

Why would the President of the Treasury Board choose not to showcase the many positive features of the city of Winnipeg? Again, as you and I both know, Mr. Speaker, it has accessible education, a vibrant cultural community, good opportunities for economic growth, and affordable housing, just to name a few.

I ask the President of the Treasury Board, is he aware of the comments of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce when it said, “When Winnipeg is singled out like this, it does nothing good. It just makes it tougher for us to market the city as a place to live and do business in”?

I ask the President of the Treasury Board, is he aware of the comments of the police spokesperson, Sergeant Kelly Dennison, about the comments on guns, gangs and thugs where the sergeant indicated that they were off the mark. He in fact said, “But to empower the criminal element in our city by claiming they rule the streets is crazy—they're criminals”.

I raise these questions and say to the President of the Treasury Board that in terms of his characterization of the city of Winnipeg, it was irresponsible. It was wrong. Winnipeg is an urban centre. It is no different than any other urban centre that has its share of crime and to paint the city that he is supposed to be an advocate for is absolutely the wrong thing to do.

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the member knows full well that the reason we are in the financial situation that we are at this point is because the Liberal government responded to the $42 billion deficit that it had inherited from the Conservative government when we took office. The member knows full well that we would not be in a position to put in a national child care program or the Kelowna program if those actions had not been taken at the time.

I challenge the member to talk about her party's role in destroying and not allowing the child care program and the Kelowna accord to take root, so that low and middle income families and women could benefit from them.

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. This member does not support government subsidies for certain points of view. If the member looks carefully he will see that REAL Women have in fact received grants from Status of Women.

What I am speaking to when I speak to the issue of women is advancing the interests of women. Any groups, whether it is rural women, northern women, urban women, whoever, that have identified an issue that is required to be advanced, researched, lobbied, or taken forward on behalf of women, I would support it, whatever the interest group.

Let me give an example of my own community where we heard a presentation yesterday about the women's health clinic. The women's health clinic is not ideologically driven. The women's health clinic looks at the indicators of poverty as it affects women's health and a major study has been funded by the Status of Women. That program received research. It developed advocacy and much of its findings have been integrated into provincial policy development and I dare say, federal policy development.

The issue is advocating on behalf of the best interests of women wherever they live and whoever they are.

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am choosing to speak primarily to two areas of the motion. I do believe the government has failed to act. The two areas that I will focus on are aboriginal affairs and the Status of Women. During the previous election campaign, the Prime Minister made clear promises to honour the Kelowna accord and the CEDAW declaration, which promotes equality of women. He broke both promises.

As we all know, budget 2006 presented the Conservatives an opportunity send a strong signal to aboriginal communities that they honoured them, celebrated them and valued them. From the outset, they have done nothing but insult the aboriginal people, beginning with their refusal to honour the Kelowna accord. It is clear that the issues surrounding Canada's aboriginal peoples are not of primary concern to the government.

We know Kelowna was an important initiative. It was an initiative that was built on relationships among the Government of Canada, the leadership of first nations and the leadership of the 13 provincial and territorial governments. We had 18 months of consultation and 28 round tables, dealing with issues of housing, water, education, economic development, governance, capacity building, all of which the Prime Minister, in a radio ad during the election campaign, promised to honour. As soon as the time came for him to show that he meant what he said, it was gone.

I have to underline that we all know this money was booked. The Department of Finance confirmed it. The former minister of finance confirmed it. The commitment to aboriginal people is, at best, tepid.

In addition to program cuts, the Conservatives have abandoned the aboriginal procurement policy. They have abandoned, as my colleague said, child care funding for first nations. They have eliminated the first nations' stop smoking program. Aboriginal language funding, which the minister took pains to speak about this morning, has been slashed, and we have heard an outcry from aboriginal leadership across the country.

In my own province the doors of Aboriginal Literacy have been closed and people have been laid off.

Capital projects have been cancelled. Capital projects that have been promised and designated for schools have been eliminated. Just this week I heard of a school in which the walls were caving. The teacher has chosen to have the class at home in the living because the school is not big enough or conducive to education.

We are hearing a lot of rhetoric across the way and we are seeing a lot of inaction, a lot of juggling moneys around to make it look like they are doing something, but not much is happening.

We hear much about how the government is the champion of human rights. This party will not take second place to anybody on human rights. The Conservative government not only opposed the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, but it opposed it. Twenty years of work was done by our aboriginal communities to ensure it had a place at the United Nations and the government chose to lobby against it.

We now hear a great deal about the repeal of section 67 of the Human Rights Act. I want to make it clear I have sympathy for the intent and I support it. However, the government is going about it all wrong. The minister said this morning that the act was introduced 30 years ago and he said that he thought 30 years of consultation was enough. That is an insult to aboriginal peoples.

We know that it is a complicated issue. We know that it deals with the issue of collective rights versus individual rights. We know that it has many ramifications in first nations communities and as I said in question period, we have this attitude of father knows best and we will tell them and they will do it. Aboriginal women from coast to coast to coast do not appreciate this.

I want to speak to the issue of women's programing. As I said at the outset, the Prime Minister, during the election campaign, along with other leaders at the request of women's organizations, signed a pledge that indicated that he would honour the CEDAW declaration to support women's human rights and agreed that Canada had to do more to meet its international obligations on women's equality.

What did the government do? Taking consultation from one particular group who I will quote from later, REAL Women, it determined that equality seeking organizations in this country have no place any more. Advocacy has no role. It is time just to provide services. It is a noblesse oblige charitable approach to women's issues. Women need the advocacy dollars. They need the support for equality seeking issues.

One of the presenters who appeared before the committee, Shari Graydon, President of the Women's Future Fund in Toronto, said:

John F. Kennedy once noted that things do not happen, they are made to happen. The equality gains that we've achieved in the last century, and there have been many, exemplify this. Governments didn't simply decide to grant women the vote, or declare us persons. Women's advocacy made that happen. Over the past 30 years the member groups of the Women’s Future Fund have also made divorce and sexual assault laws fairer, improved the matrimonial rights of aboriginal women, secured maternity benefits, and fair pay. We lament that the current government doesn't wish to continue funding this work which benefits millions of Canadians.

Again, it is a striking example of how the Prime Minister, seeking election, will choose to do anything to get votes, but really dismisses it when it is time for reality.

I cited REAL Women and we all know it has a direct pipeline into the Prime Minister's Office and the minister's office. Its comments are that the cuts are only offensive to the special interest groups of feminists whose extremist views are not supported by mainstream women. Mainstream women include the YWCA, the University Women's Club, provincial councils of women across the country, and the National Association of Women and the Law. There is a whole host of women's groups that would not like to be categorized as marginal feminist groups and that is who the government chooses to listen to.

We have heard said that there are members opposite who indicate that the court challenges program cut was their favourite cut. How dare they? The court challenges program, which provided an opportunity for women, aboriginal people, and francophone Canadians to challenge inequities, to provide the resources for them to have someone speak for them in the courts, has not only been reduced but absolutely and unequivocally cut.

I will be supporting the opposition motion. I find it reprehensible that government members are choosing only to listen to and govern for that narrow majority who will see them re-elected. Canadians do not want this kind of government. Whether they agree with the government or not, they expect their government to govern for all Canadians. Even Conservative supporters would want the government to govern for all Canadians. What we have is a very narrow casting of policy development and program initiatives.

[Aboriginal Affairs, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the Haida and Taku River cases that the crown has a legal obligation for the duty to consult.

Yesterday, first nations women leaders said that they were as mad as hell with the crown's interference and demanded to be included in the consultations.

This week the member for Portage—Lisgar mocked and dismissed the consultation process.

Will the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development apologize for this insult and the father knows best attitude his government holds toward aboriginal women?

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for her comments, but I have a bit of difficulty on the whole concept of action and words.

We know there have been no additional child care spaces created under the Conservative government. We know that 45% of the female prison population is aboriginal women. We know that violence against aboriginal women is preponderant in society.

We also know that change comes about because research is done, advocacy is undertaken and government policies change. We know that under the Conservative government, the tools for advocacy, the tools to move forward on equality-seeking matters have simply been eliminated for equality-seeking groups.

I also want to indicate that the member opposite cited all that was being done for aboriginal women, such as matrimonial real property, but I am wondering if she is aware of a statement issued yesterday by first nations women which said:

First Nations Women Chiefs and Councillors are mad as hell with Crown government interference in our lives and we're not going to take it anymore.

What real change is happening? To my mind, moneys have been taken away and misinformation is being put out in terms of opportunities to access money. Offices are being closed. We heard yesterday that women cannot access staff in order to put in applications for money. We hear about all of the programs that are being eliminated. I have a real difficulty in hearing about change taking place.

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest and with some incredulity as the minister outlined the efforts of his department to address aboriginal issues.

Let us be clear about this. The issue of the $3.7 billion includes the residential schools agreement, which was negotiated by the previous government and ratified by the Conservative government. It is not part of the regular operating dollars of the Department of Indian Affairs. Therefore, that is misleading to the public and to aboriginal peoples.

The minister speaks with great enthusiasm about his efforts to remedy the wrongs for aboriginal women. While I support very much his interest and commitment to it, I question the manner in which he is going about it. The other night in the House we heard one of his colleagues disparage the whole consultation process. I am curious to know why Bill C-44 was introduced without any consultation process, dealing with the repeal of section 67 of the Human Rights Act.

I am interested in his response to the fact that the Ontario chiefs have withdrawn from the matrimonial real property consultation process. I am interested in how he reconciles his desire for human rights for aboriginal women, without his real willingness to address the issues of housing, child welfare—