SPEAKING NOTES FOR
CONGRESS OF ABORIGINAL PEOPLES
NATIONAL CHIEF PATRICK BRAZEAU
To The
HOUSE OF COMMONS STANDING COMMITTEE
ON
ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS AND NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT
BILL C-292 - AN ACT TO IMPLEMENT THE KELOWNA ACCORD
Ottawa - November 23, 2006
Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for allowing me to appear before you and your colleagues to discuss Bill C-292.
To begin with, I want you and your colleagues to know that I am a vigorous proponent of meaningful debate in respect of bringing about real improvements to Aboriginal quality of life in this country. I hope my remarks will serve to inform you as you deliberate this proposed legislation.
As I am certain many honourable members may have questions to ask, and comments to make, I will keep my remarks brief.
Mr. Chairman, introduced in the last moments of the last days of the last government, it is important to look at the Kelowna Accord for what it is, and for what it is not.
The First Ministers Meeting in Kelowna, held almost exactly one year ago, was the culmination of a process that began in April 2004 through the convening of the Canada-Aboriginal Peoples Roundtable process.
This undertaking was a significant one, and an effort that sought to avoid the prescriptive, “made-in-Ottawa” approach to Aboriginal affairs which has virtually ensured the failure of previous attempts at dealing with the reform of Canada’s Aboriginal affairs.
A new approach was called for – one that promised collaboration, cooperation and accommodation.
I cannot sit before this committee and say that our organization did not welcome this news at the time. In our view, there is no more noble an aspiration than to commit to ending Aboriginal poverty. There can be no better goal than to ensure that all of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples are able to stake their share in our nation’s abundant prosperity.
We all have an obligation to provide hope for our youth and the next generation of Aboriginal peoples to come. Given this, we must end the rhetoric and act now.
On the basis of this promised partnership with the Government of the day, and with the full hope that the Congress and its member communities would be equal participants in this historic undertaking, we set forth on an
18-month process that promised to yield results for a generation.
Thus, at least at the outset, what Kelowna was to CAP was an offer of inclusion and accommodation, and a pursuit that aimed to rise above partisan politics, both at the Parliamentary level and across the Aboriginal horizon in conjunction with the five national Aboriginal organizations.
CAP also viewed the Roundtable process and the First Ministers Meeting as an opportunity for outreach and education – to both politicians and officials alike, providing them with the facts around the off-reserve, non-status and Métis realities in respect of Canada’s Aboriginal affairs.
The numbers around this constituency are very telling, and I’d like to share them with you today, as I have been doing for months now, and will be continuing to do so with other Parliamentarians, with senior officials across the bureaucracy, and with members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
Government of Canada census data indicates that 79% of Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples live off-reserves; Of the Status Indian population, 51% live off-reserve.
Yet, despite these figures, out of the over $9 billion spent yearly by the federal government on Aboriginal programming and services, for every $8 dollars spent on-reserve, only $1 dollar is spent off-reserve.
Surely, the Canada-Aboriginal Peoples Roundtable process would have addressed this? Certainly, the investments which were to have flowed from the Kelowna commitments would have reflected this obvious demographic reality?
The answer to both questions is sadly, “no”.
In fact, 90% of the so-called funding commitments were to benefit primarily on-reserve peoples. What Kelowna sought to do was to throw more money at a system that has failed First Nations people for 130 years.
The fact remains that the needs and aspirations of communities serving off-reserve, non-status, and Métis peoples outside of the so-called homelands, are equally legitimate and deserving of the same degree of attention and accommodation.
For poverty, sickness and despair know no geography, and needs knows no distinction. Unlike the rights of First Nations people which end at the reserve borders, suffering is indeed portable.
In my view, Kelowna provided false hope for grassroots people – real people, in real need – while enriching organizations and the Aboriginal elite.
We trust, Mr. Chairman, and Honorable members, that you will agree that building real and sustainable hope for a generation, requires more than partisan politics.
We ask this since, based on this evidence, it is clear that the Kelowna process was not about inclusion. It was not about recognition and accommodation.
It was about considering hundreds of thousands of people, including myself, who don’t live on these small tracts of land called reserves, as less important than others who do.
We learned of the Kelowna commitments the same way members of the Press did -- through a news release issued at the conclusion of the news conference held at the closing of the First Minister’s Meeting.
We believe that the current government has made its position on the Kelowna investments well known. They support the objectives of the commitments, but like us, they see the need for a more concerted strategy and plan in respect of their resourcing and delivery to ensure that no one is left behind.
We are asking the current government to move at this time and provide real, practical, tangible results to better the lives of Aboriginal peoples.
We believe that Canada’s Aboriginal peoples need to hear more fully the specific steps the new government intends on taking, and the resource commitments they are prepared to offer our country’s first peoples, in order to bring the goal of eradicating poverty to life.
In the meantime, our people await real hope, and the relief that only real change can bring to improve their lives.
Specifically, it is our counsel to this committee that you determine, with certainty, how the proposed $5.1 billion in funding would be disbursed across the Provinces and Territories; The extent to which such investments would be allocated on- and off-reserve; And, what measures would be taken to ensure that national Aboriginal organizations have the necessary capacity to assist in their delivery?
Further, and perhaps even more fundamental, is the need to ensure that appropriate report card mechanisms are in place, to ensure accountability, responsibility and transparency in their use by Provinces, Territories and national Aboriginal organizations.
Accountability is essential in our crusade to eradicate poverty. Public funds fuel this crusade. Canadians both need to -- and deserve to -- know whether we are making real progress or if changes in approach are required in order to ensure success.
Over the past year, I have met with many of you, from all political stripes and from across this land, in an effort to ensure that we share an understanding of the challenges with which our peoples are faced.
Our aim has been and remains to engender debate, provoke sincere, bi-partisan discussion and hopefully through this, bring about meaningful and sustainable progress.
I hope that this Committee, in its study of this proposed Bill, will send a message to Aboriginal peoples from sea to sea to sea, that Parliament speaks for all those in Canada who seek a share of its boundless prosperity; and that similarly, this Parliament chooses hope through inclusion and accommodation, over partisanship and politics on the backs of this country’s most disadvantaged.
In closing, I’d like to offer for debate, three potential solutions that I believe will make a real difference in the quality of life for Canada’s Aboriginal peoples:
1) Eliminate the Indian Act, and replace it with Nation-recognition legislation;
2) Address the issue of jurisdiction and responsibility for Canada’s Aboriginal peoples; And:
3) Introduce measures to ensure greater accountability, responsibility and transparency by Aboriginal organizations and Band Councils to those whom they represent.
Meegwetch, Merci, Thank you.
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For further information, please contact:
Al Fleming
Director
Public Affairs
613-747-6022 (office)
613-867-8696 (mobile)
al@abo-peoples.org
