Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Winnipeg who has allowed me to split his time.
It is a privilege to once again rise in the House to speak about the issues that are so important to people across the country and, in particular, to the people I represent. My riding in Skeena, northwestern British Columbia, is made up of more than 30% first nations. Some 23 different nations exist within the boundaries of Skeena—Bulkley Valley, which is an extraordinary representation. The history, culture and pride of those nations is most remarkable.
For Canadians who have come and spent time in my region of the world, one of the first and most striking elements of that visit is the deep and strong history that exists in the ground. For anyone visiting Ottawa and our Museum of Civilization, there is almost an entire wing of that place dedicated to the art and craft of people who come from that region. The Haida, the Nisga'a, the Tsimshian the Heiltsuk are all represented in some of the most incredible expressions of culture that we have seen. It is well established and well known that the people have a strong history of pride, yet that has suffered greatly, since the first contact with Europeans. It has been a slippery, sliding and disastrous slope.
I turn to the negotiations at Kelowna. I, too, was in attendance with the baggage of skepticism, having watched and reviewed the history of our country in the treatment of first nations. I wondered if this was yet another meeting for potentially another photo opportunity for the then prime minister.
The New Democrats stood at that meeting with the current Minister of Indian Affairs and applauded the efforts, as did the minister. We heard his commitment. We heard him say how important the negotiation was for the first nations people. As the member for Winnipeg Centre has said, it is not just because of what is written on the page or the financial commitments. It is to treat with another nation, to go into a trust based negotiation and resolve to change the future and not repeat the mistakes of the past such as residential schools, displacement camps and the grinding poverty, which we see day in and day out with many of our first nations people.
There is a real struggle within the first nations communities to which I speak, particularly for the young people coming up in this generation. They struggle to maintain one foot in the oral traditions, the traditional concept and world view and another foot in the so-called modern western era, to go out and seek higher education and to achieve a certain amount of wealth and status in our world. That struggle is hindered fundamentally because the basic tools of achievement are not available to the vast majority of first nations.
The basic tools are predicated upon those things that we all take for granted in terms of our quality of life. We take for granted the ability to have decent care, basic food and housing. We take for granted the ability to have education for our young people and lifelong learning to improve our lot in life.
If I could only take members to some of the villages and communities I represent. There is no more sobering a moment as one walks through some of these villages that have been there for many centuries, if not millennia. It is sobering to witness first-hand the pride coupled with that grinding poverty and what that psychologically does, in particular, to the next generation coming up.
We met with the first nations leadership when we were at Kelowna. We continued to meet with that leadership. We continue to lend our shoulder to the wheel to put the force necessary behind the initiatives, what few initiatives have come from those governments. The New Democrats have stood, year in, year out, decade in, decade out, with our first nations people, saying that things must improve.
I remember Frank Howard, a former New Democrat and member of Parliament for my riding, who filibustered for three years on every Friday, insisting on the basic right of first nations people to vote. It is a shame that this was going on in the 1950s and 1960s. It is incredible how recent the time is, certainly within the lifetime of many people within the House. New Democrats had to fight for that basic principle for first nations people to attain the simple ability to cast a vote in a federal election.
Recently I was at a National Aboriginal Day celebration in Terrace, B.C. My chest was swollen with pride when I watched the first nations come together and celebrate. There were many dancing groups, and these have grown over the last number of years. This is an excellent sign of a rebirth of culture and reclamation back to things that held people together. In particular, I watched the young people dancing, learning the songs, learning the traditional ways and grounding themselves. There is some possibility of them improving and becoming a generation that is stronger and more able to succeed than the generations before.
The youth will only able to do that if the Government of Canada is willing to sit at the table, in good faith and with honour, which carries a significant meaning and weight within the communities I represent, and negotiate a treaty and principles to allow first nations people to succeed.
The government, during the election, claimed to support Kelowna and the funding. Then immediately afterwards there were contradictory views within its key members. When it arrived in government, it fundamentally broke that promise. This is yet another sad piece of the chain of the legacy of broken commitments to our first nations people, which has gone on too long.
If the issue were not so important and the need not so great, one might choose to lose faith. One might decide to throw one's hands up and say that this seems to be an impossible conundrum. From government to government, regardless of their political stripe, they are consistent in one thing, and that is failing the first nations people of Canada.
The Liberals were wonderful at rolling out programs and making announcements with little substance and less effect. The Liberals talked about teen suicide. There was a community that I intended to visit in my region, but it was hard to get to. I would have to go by float plane. Over the course of six to eight months I tried to get there for meetings. I tried three times but each time there had been a teen suicide in the week prior to my arrival and the community was in mourning. The community was unable to welcome me because a feast was required, people needed to publicly express that mourning and there was no time for politics.
I asked the Liberals to introduce programs to prevent the unbelievable and disgraceful rate of teen suicide within aboriginal communities. I said that all they had to do was use one indicator in their program. If their program was successful, teen suicides would go down. If they measured themselves by that and nothing else, they would have our support. We would have worked with them to achieve that. First nations leaders would have worked with them.
The government of the day refused. I challenge the Conservative government to use numbers and indicators that mean sense, not false promises, not paper tigers of bills that do not achieve results. When the children of a community are killing themselves, hope has abandoned that community to such a fundamental level. The government simply cannot talk about anything else until it re-establishes that hope.
It is hard to impossible for me to return to my communities and express hope based on the direction and course the government has taken. I would like to see some small measures on housing and on water. Provincial ministers across the political spectrum, first nations leaders from across the country, and with the support of at least two opposition parties at the time to move through those negotiations, created that moment. To then have an election and then back away from that moment, hoping that somehow it would be recreated, is beyond the pale. It requires first nations people to have hope, while another insult has been thrown at them.
There is not a community, not a culture within this nation that would do that. We would not accept the conditions first nations people live under for any other identifiable community in our country. There would be rioting in the streets.
However, for some reason the culture from within this place, from within this room, has been so much talk and so little action. I will give the government credit for its decisiveness, but decisively wrong on this file. If the government were to change course and re-establish that faith, it would go a long way to proving itself to be a true government, rather than some reactionary force swinging hard to the political right.
