Charlie Angus

[Aboriginal Affairs, May 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, this morning the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development told 13-year-old children from Attawapiskat that building a school for them was not a priority because he simply did not have the money. The children have gone out to the national media and said that they do not believe him.

I would like to ask the minister a simple question. Would he tell the Canadian public the truth, that unlike his predecessors who built schools, he has taken the money from the education budgets for allocations for developing schools and spent the money elsewhere? Would he be at least honest with the Canadian public and tell them that the children of Attawapiskat, like so many other aboriginal children, simply are not a priority for him?

[Telecommunications Act, May 28th, 2008]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-552, An Act to amend the Telecommunications Act (Internet Neutrality).

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today in the House, along with my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas, to present the first bill to deal with the issue of Internet neutrality in Canada.

The bill would ensure fairness for consumers, protect educators and consumers against anti-competitive practices from large telecoms and protect the innovation agenda in Canada.

The Internet has become a critical piece of the social, business and cultural infrastructure of not just Canada, but of the entire world. It has allowed grassroots, democratic organizations to flourish. It has allowed new forms of communication. It has allowed us to start developing a sense of culture through telecommunications.

Of course, with the recent throttling practices by the large telecoms, questions of telecoms setting up speed bumps and electronic toll booths on the Internet, there is certainly a great deal of concern.

The New Democratic Party is very wary about attempts to start using government to intervene in the development of the digital world and new media. However, this is not a question of whether there will be regulation of the Internet. That is going on right now with the giant telecoms. The question is whether or not there will be a scrutiny of such practices.

It is very important that we give CRTC the toolbox it needs to ensure we maintain a fair, open and neutral Internet and one that protects the innovation agenda of Canada.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Points of Order, May 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, during question period, I was speaking of the national campaign for the students of Attawapiskat and when I referred to the 2,000 letters that had been delivered by the students of St. Edmund Campion, 5,000 from Aurora and 1,500 from Clarke Road Secondary School, the member for Kitchener—Conestoga at that time challenged me to table the documents in the House.

The students from St. Edmund Campion drove from Brampton this morning to deliver the 2,000 letters. Since the Conservative Party asked me to table those, I would ask the Conservatives to second this so I can table, with the unanimous consent in the House, as per their request, the 2,000 letters from the students in Brampton fighting for a grade school in Attawapiskat.

I would like my hon. colleagues in the Conservative Party to know that I did follow up. I believe next Monday or Tuesday they are coming from Aurora with 5,000 letters and I will be more than willing to table those then.

I look for the unanimous consent of all parties.

[Aboriginal Affairs, May 27th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I have 2,000 letters from St. Edmund Campion School in Brampton, 5,000 letters from students in Aurora, 1,500 letters from Clarke Road Secondary School, thousands of letters from educators, students and teachers across this country, and they have one simple message. They are ashamed of a government that has the nerve to cry poor when it comes to dealing with the most basic educational needs of first nations children.

What will it take for the minister to end the systematic negligence that has left so many children abandoned to makeshift portables, condemned facilities, and substandard education? And he can take that to YouTube.

[Aboriginal Affairs, May 27th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the children of Attawapiskat are taking the extraordinary step of coming to Ottawa to challenge the minister directly on his decision to abandon any commitment to build a grade school. These are the children who have spent their entire primary lives without a proper school. They are tired of being patient. They are tired of being told to wait and, most of all, they are tired of the broken promises.

They are coming to Ottawa to ask the minister a simple question. What will it take to ensure that he does not abandon the next generation of Attawapiskat children like they have been abandoned?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 26th, 2008]

With respect to the impact that the government’s legislative crime initiatives will have on Canada’s correctional facilities: (a) what studies has the government done to assess the future need for increased inmate capacity; (b) according to studies and assessments done by, or on behalf of, the government, will there be a need for increased inmate capacity in Canada’s correctional system; (c) what plans are in place to have new prisons built in Canada; (d) where are new facilities to be located; (e) are there plans for future correctional facilities that do not have a location finalized at this point; (f) how does the government go about determining where correctional facilities will be located; (g) to what extent is there private sector involvement in the operations of Canada’s correctional facilities; (h) are there Canadian correctional facilities that are fully operated by the private sector and, if so, where and by whom are these facilities operated; and (i) has the government considered, done studies on, had studies commissioned on or consulted with other jurisdictions on expanding the role of the private sector in the operation of Canada’s correctional facilities?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 26th, 2008]

With respect to budgets at the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) from 2003-2004 to 2007-2008: (a) what amount was budgeted to be spent by each provincial and territorial department in each fiscal year; (b) what amount of the total budgeted funds were returned to Treasury Board as unspent; (c) what incentives do provincial sections within INAC have to lower their spending below budgeted amounts; (d) how many INAC personnel received financial bonuses for their work in each fiscal year; (e) what were the amounts of each of these bonuses; and (f) what was the total amount spent by INAC on bonuses in each province and territory for each fiscal year?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 26th, 2008]

With respect to on-reserve educational facilities for First Nations in Canada: (a) what requests for capital building expenditure funding for the purposes of acquiring, building, expanding, improving or replacing educational facilities have been made from April 2000 to present; (b) which of these requests have been granted by the government and why; (c) which of these requests were denied and why; (d) what funds have been committed by the government for capital building expenditure for the purposes of acquiring, building, expanding, improving or replacing educational facilities on-reserve in each fiscal year from 2000-2001 to 2008-2009; (e) what projects are currently under way; (f) in each year since 2000, what projects have been delayed or postponed, and, if any, what were the justifications for and lengths of these delays; (g) what projects are slated to begin work in the 2008-2009 fiscal year; (h) what portion of the total cost of these projects is being funded by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) through capital building infrastructure; (i) how many projects included additional money from a First Nation to complete the construction or for the equipping of an educational facility; (j) what projects are slated to begin work beyond the 2008-2009 fiscal year; (k) how many communities with projects identified by INAC as priority capital projects have had letters of approval issued to them; (l) since 2000, what amounts from the “Community Infrastructure” line item have been reallocated either within INAC or to other government departments; (m) why was $109 million removed from the line item “Community Infrastructure” in the INAC Performance Report for the period ending March 31, 2007; (n) how has this reallocation of funds affected on-reserve educational facilities; and (o) how was this $109 million otherwise spent by the government?

[Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement Act, May 16th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague because she has seen the conditions in these communities.

I find the discussion in the House sometimes absurd when I hear people ask how we can make innovation happen on first nations reserves and how will they be able to start buying property.

Two first nation communities in my area do not even have schools. Not only are there no schools, but there is no plan for any schools. They are just not considered a priority. Attawapiskat has no school. Kashechewan has no school. Neighbouring Fort Severn has no school. Communities negotiate and meet with the government and fill out reports and do studies and do further studies when requested by Indian affairs bureaucrats. They go through all these hoops just so their kids can be in a safe environment. At the end of the day at the absolute arbitrary whim of the Indian affairs minister, a plan for a school could be cancelled. How can this be done in a country like Canada?

There is no standard for education in our first nations communities, not even an obligation to meet basic standards. Provincial jurisdictions have standards for education. They have to meet certain basic obligations in terms of special education, funding and class size. One minister can support a plan for a school and the next minister can come along and decide there is no need to build schools for young native kids and spend the money on something else. That is appalling.

What is more appalling is that the communities have absolutely no voice. They are not asked. They are not part of any consultation about how moneys should be spent. They do everything they can to play by the rules laid out by the government of the day and by the Indian Act, and yet at the whim of a particular Indian affairs minister the kids will be helped, or the money will be sent back to Treasury Board, or something completely different will be done.

There is a sense of hopelessness in the communities. They just want to get to first base. They actually want to get out of fourth world conditions and into third world conditions and some day get into second world conditions. This is the debate we need to be having in Parliament as opposed to discussions on how we can start moving toward an innovation agenda within these communities.

[Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement Act, May 16th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's discussion on this treaty. He had talked about the problems with the Indian Act. I certainly think that what we have seen in our region is a problem with Indian affairs and the inability of communities to get the most basic levels of support, basic levels of health care, and basic levels of infrastructure.

In our region, in the isolated James Bay coast lands 100 years ago we had the Hudson's Bay factor, then we had the Indian agent, and now we have the DIAND bureaucrat. I am not really sure if at any point it is a different person or not because of the continual heavy hand of interference on the most basic of things.

The member mentioned health care. In some of my communities, Kashechewan and Attawapiskat, we have 20% to 25% of the people who simply do not have health cards. The provincial Government of Ontario does not bother to go up the James Bay coast. It will not go up there and provide health cards. The problem is when people have to be medevaced out, the cost on the regional health units is considered a debt because many of these families are not covered provincially. They turn to the federally run health unit. Health Canada says that the James Bay authority is not doing proper medical service because it is running up a debt. The debt is actually servicing the people.

These people are falling through the cracks. When we meet with Health Canada officials, they say to talk to the province. When we meet with the provincial officials, they say talk to Health Canada. We see third world conditions in these communities time after time.

I would like to hear the hon. member's suggestion. What do we need to do? Do we need to eradicate Indian affairs and replace it with a simpler structure? What do we need to do to ensure that these communities are actually getting the same level of service or even a bare minimum of service which they are being denied?