Charlie Angus

[Questions Passed as Orders for Return, June 22nd, 2006]

With regard to television programming shown on all standard Canadian private broadcasters: (a) has the government collected cumulative and individual statistics of their percentage of Canadian programming and, if so, (i) what are they, (ii) what are the most recent cumulative and individual statistics on the percentage of Canadian programming shown during primetime, (iii) what are the most recent cumulative and individual statistics on the breakdown of type of Canadian programming that is being shown during and outside of primetime, (iv) what are the most recent statistics on the percentage of Canadian programming that is actually being watched both during and outside of primetime; (b) are private broadcasters receiving government funding for the purposes of promoting Canadian programming and, if so, what are the specifics of this funding; and (c) what is government’s plan for promoting Canadian programming in the future and what specific initiatives are being planned to guarantee a healthy future for Canadian programming by private broadcasters?

[Questions on the Order Paper, June 22nd, 2006]

With regard to the Canadian Heritage program entitled “Encounters with Canada”: (a) when was the initial decision made to cancel the Canadian Unity Council; (b) what factors went into making this decision; (c) when was the decision made to continue funding the program; (d) what factors went into making this decision; (e) under what section of the department is the program now functioning; (f) what changes to the structure or mandate will the program see as a result of the recent transition; (g) will the program be running at its full capacity this year; and (h) what are the details of the commitment to the future of the program in terms of dollars to be spent annually and the number of years the program will be maintained?

[Business of Supply, June 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, that was a powerful question. As I was coming in here today, I was thinking about when I worked in Barriere Lake and the pressures those families faced. There was a case of domestic abuse. That is what happens when 21 people are living on top of each other. The question had been raised about whether there was a safe house for the woman to go to. If there had been any house, or any trailer in Barriere Lake, people would have moved into it with their kids immediately. There has been no support for these people.

My colleague mentioned the horrific number of women who died. When I used to drive into Barriere Lake, I would see a homemade shrine at the edge of Val-d'Or, in memory of a young Algonquin woman who had been sexually assaulted, murdered and left by the side of the road. I do not know if that person was ever caught.

The needs are great for these families. They need proper police services, social services, health and safety and counsellors. The women and children all too often suffer from violence or men suffer from self-destructive violence.

[Business of Supply, June 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, that was a funny question. That question was thrown at us about the signed agreement between the Government of Canada and Kashechewan. I sat there with deputy ministers from all the major departments and watched an agreement being signed between the Government of Canada and the people of Kashechewan. Whether the government wants to accept that or not, it will have to live up to those obligations because there is no going back.

In terms of the issue of a signed agreement with respect to Kelowna, the response is quite simple. If the government believes that was not enough, then it would hold a meeting immediately with all first nation chiefs and tell them what it will to do to honour the spirt that the Crown brought to the table. All we hear now is bantering back and forth. If the government has a better deal than Kelowna, a commitment that will move forward, then it has an obligation to sit down with first nation leaders and hammer out an agreement.

[Business of Supply, June 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand in the House tonight, especially given the fact that it is the Speaker's 55th birthday. As a fellow Scot, I understand how emotive and physical the Scots are, so I could go up and give the Speaker a hug now or maybe he could give me two or three extra minutes in my speech. I will leave it to the hon. Speaker to decide.

We are talking about a government that has come in and ripped up a signed agreement with first nations across the country. It is shameful and it sends a message across first nations communities of a policy of contempt. However, it has to be seen in the light of a longstanding history. Unfortunately, this is what federal governments do. Federal governments sign agreements and make commitments time and time again with first nations and then walk away from them and leave those communities in abject poverty.

I will begin by telling a story because it was this subject and a former Indian affairs minister that inspired me to go into politics.

When I was working for the Algonquin Nation, we had the opportunity to meet the then Indian affairs minister in Rouyn-Noranda. I was with the chiefs at that time. We wanted to come forward with one suggestion, one issue that he would understand and with which we could bring change. The issue concerned a child at our reserve school, the Kiwetin School in Notre-Dame-du-Nord, Quebec, who had extreme special needs. Indian affairs would not pay money for special education for this little child. However, if the school and the community agreed to put that child on a bus and send the child 26 kilometres into Ontario to a non-native school, where the child basically sat strapped to a desk out in the hallway all day with an adult watching him, Indian affairs would pay the full shot.

We thought that was an outrage, that it was so crazy that anyone who saw it would say that it was a waste of money and that it would be fixed. The suggestion was made to the then Indian affairs minister and we said, “Surely to God it makes more sense to put the money for special education dollars into that community at its school so it could not only raise that child properly but the money could be used for other children”. Nothing happened then and nothing happened under the following Indian affairs minister. We will see if anything happens under the present Indian affairs minister.

I remember sitting there that day hearing his response and thinking that if that was as good as it got then we needed other people to run. I made the decision that day to run for politics because I never wanted to sit in front of first nation communities that were facing such a need and the special education funding for their children had to be blown off like that.

Across my region we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of treaty 9. The first question people in my community ask is: What is there to celebrate? What is there to celebrate in Peawanuck where 50,000 barrels of PCB contamination are sitting on the shores of the Winisk River, left by the Department of National Defence?

We have had government after government talk about maintaining and protecting sovereignty in the far north but not one of them will come back and admit their responsibility for the damage they have done on those lands. I have met with the families whose children and elders are suffering from the effects of that PCB contamination that flows into the river and into their communities.

When I asked the present Liberal House leader, when he was the defence minister, to work with us, he could not run fast enough from that obligation. When I hear him talk about how the Government of Canada does not walk away from signed obligations, that is what it has been doing and it does it year after year.

Let us look to Kashechewan. I do not want to get into the evacuations or the terrible housing conditions, but I will talk about the deaths of three people in my community between January and today: Ricardo Wesley, Jamie Goodwyn and 4-year-old Trianna Martin. Trianna died in a house fire with 21 people. The other two men died in a makeshift jail cell that looked like a crack house. That jail cell would not have been allowed in any community in this country and yet it was considered good enough for the Nishnawbe-Aski police to risk their lives and the lives of the people they brought in.

When those two men burned to death, we said that this was not the way things should be in the 21st century. Things have to be better. We said that there had to be basic standards. Members can ask the people in that community if there is something to celebrate after 100 years.

We can talk about the health authority in James Bay where some of the top rated efforts to do telehealth, teleophthalmology, dialysis and telemammography are all facing being cut because the former government, and it is being followed up by this government, allowed the deficit in that community hospital to rise year after year because it would not fund first nation health anywhere near the levels of non-native health funding.

Ask me if there are two countries in Canada and I will say yes.There is a country that sets a certain standard for health and then says to the rest of the first nations that it is not there for them.

I hear a lot about how we had the blueprint for change, the dialogue for change, the road map for it and the round table for it. When a person lives in Martin Falls or Pikangikum, a person does not have any round table with which to discuss anything. They have their INAC bureaucrats. A hundred years ago they had the Hudson's Bay factor. Fifty years ago they had the Indian agents. Now they have the INAC bureaucrats. People can talk all they want about a blueprint for it. It means nothing in these communities because they are put in a box and they are not let out.

I will refer now to the latest piece of bizarre news that I heard. The Liberal leadership candidate from Kings--Hants said his plan for improving life on first nations was:

Innovative tax incentives can attract private capital from both within Canada and abroad to help aboriginal businesses...We all know that countries around the world have found that low tax environments attract private sector capital. I would use the Departments of International Trade and Industry to attract private international capital to these dynamic aboriginal industrial parks.

I did economic development on first nations. It is a crock for that member to stand up and pretend that this is the solution for first nations. Let me explain how development happens on a first nations community. We will go back to Peawanuck.

Peawanuck is an isolated community with a diesel generator. Every year Indian Affairs would pay $600,000 to subsidize the heavy cost. Then about five years ago, Indian Affairs said that it would not subsidize it any more, that the band would begin to collect from the people.

The band took it over, the families started to rapidly go into debt and the community started to put its capital dollars into running the fuel generator. It put its development dollars into running the fuel generator and it was not enough. The community was going under. It knew if it went below a certain level, it would be put into third party management.

The community said to Indian Affairs that it would not continue to run the generator. It said that $600,000 that the department used to give it helped, but it could not do it any more. The community was going bankrupt so it returned it to Indian Affairs.

Indian Affairs hired a third party manager. Guess what Indian Affairs paid that third party manager? It was $600,000. The $600,000 that used to subsidize the community was now being paid to a third party manager. On top of that, it was taking another $300,000 to subsidize that. We are now looking at almost $1 million a year.

The third party manager's job is to get the money from the families for the rates of hydro. What are the rates of hydro? We are talking about one of these dynamic aboriginal industrial zones to which the member for Kings—Hants is going to attract international capital. How do we attract international capital when people are paying 18¢ a kilowatt hour? That is three times higher than the provincial standard?

What happened then? The band members said they could not pay that amount, that they could not even turn their our lights on for that amount. Indian Affairs set it at 200 kilowatt hours. They knew that was not possible.

I have been in that community in January. I have seen families with their lights off. These families tell me that they run the hot water once a day to keep the lines flushed out and they still pay $500 and $600 a month. With INAC setting the acceptable rates for the lower end of kilowatt hours, which is 16¢ a kilowatt hour, the families went into such high levels of debt that they were now carrying $2,000 and $3,000 a month debt, which they could not pay off.

Last week I spent my day trying to stop 30% to 40% of that community having their hydro power cut off. That is not only happening in Peawanuck. It is happening in Martin Falls and in communities across this country.

When I hear people say that the federal government does not walk away on its responsibilities, it walks away all the time. This is not good enough and it has to change. I look at these communities. Their futures are continually being snuffed out and erased by being kept in these boxes. Young people have no future because they cannot get proper education.

When I hear this kind of talk about fixing it and making changes, well let us make real changes. Let us make these communities sustainable. Let us live up to our commitments. The Kelowna agreement was a start. The government has an obligation not to do what the last government allowed to happen for 13 straight years.

[Mining Industry, June 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is pretty clear the only thing more toothless than our foreign investment review act is the minister when it comes to standing up for Canadian mining and smelting jobs.

Let us paint a picture here. These are national resources and the government is sitting back while they are picked off by some company set up in an unaccountable Swiss canton. Meanwhile the futures of Sudbury, Timmins, Rouyn-Noranda and Bathurst are being traded away like chips in a card game.

When is the minister going to stand up for the rights of our communities and put them ahead of the interests of the financiers, the money-changers and the speculators?

[Questions on the Order Paper, June 16th, 2006]

With regard to the recent General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) negotiations in Geneva: (a) what bilateral, multilateral, and plurilateral proposals, requests and offers was Canada a signatory to; (b) what were the responses to and results of these proposals; (c) what proposals, requests and offers were made to Canada; (d) what were the responses to and results of these proposals; (e) what new agreements have been signed onto by Canada; (f) were changes made to Canada’s policy on the foreign ownership restrictions in telecommunications and audio-visual industries before the conference and, if so, what were they; (g) did consultations take place between the departments of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Industry Canada and Canadian Heritage with respect to these policies; (h) what provisional agreements or agreements in principle were signed by Canada; and (i) when is the next formal negotiation conference planned?

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I share my hon. colleague's frustration that someone is missing from this room, someone who could give us answers on whether this deal is on the up and up or whether this deal should be turned down.

There is someone who is making decisions who is unelected and unaccountable. When he was asked prior to the election if he would consider putting his name forward to represent the people of this country, he said he was too busy. That man was too busy to run for office, but he was not too busy to take the free cash for life lottery from the Prime Minister of Canada to sit in that other chamber.

I believe that the day of accountable electoral reform will come and all of the friends of the two main parties in the Senate will be tossed out with their desks after them. Then we will be able to put something a little more accountable in place.

There is a major issue here for Parliament. When a minister who has control over such important decisions in terms of public spending is unaccountable to Parliament, it raises serious questions.

In light of the fact that there is a minister who is unelected and unaccountable and does not feel the need to show his face anywhere, if we could get all-party consensus, perhaps we could get a large cardboard cut-out of him and wheel it into the House so that we could ask it questions. We would probably get about the same level of answers that we are getting from his lessers right now. If we had a cardboard cut-out of the minister, at least we would know who he is. We would at least be able to put a face to the backroom deals that he is making.

Would my hon. colleague support me in bringing forward a motion to have a cardboard cut-out brought into the House each day for question period?

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, once again I will rise to say how surreal I find this discussion, coming from an area along the James Bay coast where I have 21 people living in houses on the first nations. We cannot make any kind of moves or any first nations development without tender process after tender process, capital study after capital study. It seems the federal government's main job in these communities is to block development, and it is always speaking of accountability.

We are talking about a real estate deal of $30 million that might be flipped to $300 million or $600 million. My God, that money spent on first nations across Canada would turn some of these terrible sinkholes of human misery into livable places. Yet we are gong to spend that on one building. To even talk about the issue is scandalous.

I came back from Kashechewan, just before the flood, for the funeral of four year old Trianna Martin who died in a house fire in a community for which the federal government will not pay any fire service, and it is its responsibility.

Why do we have this demand on all our isolated first nations for tendering processes for the smallest project and a project of this size can go through the system without any tendering at all?

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, representing, as I do, a large northern region with high levels of unemployment, it is hard for me to agree with the principle that 75% of the jobs stay in Ottawa and 25% of the jobs are on the other side of the river when I am looking at regions that have almost no federal presence.

We hear discussions about the kinds of prices we are paying for buildings in the Ottawa region when we could get much better benefit for taxpayers. For example, in the town of Kirkland Lake where we have the veterans affairs building there is room for more government jobs. It is a hardrock mining town and federal jobs play an incredibly important role in that community.

It is the same in downtown Timmins where we fought to maintain a federal presence. It is not just a benefit to the taxpayers. It is a symbol. It is a commitment. It is saying that there is life outside of Babylon here on the Hill, that there is a country out there and that when we are making a commitment to move forward in planning for new federal expenditures, we should be looking at these regions. When the federal government has a presence in those regions, it creates stability and a workforce that is motivated. In my region there is a bilingual workforce.

I would advise the government to sell the building and move workers to Kirkland Lake and Timmins. If it did that it would have a great deal.