“Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague and friend on his excellent speech. He clearly knows his subject well. He is passionate about it. We learn a lot from him. I think he paints a clear picture of the challenges and everything that needs to be done. He was referring to the last Parliament and traced all of this back some 40 years. I would like to go back about 10 years instead. At the time, I was the Bloc Québécois finance critic. During discussions about our budget requests with then minister of finance, Bill Morneau, I asked him to address the issue of access to safe drinking water in all first nations communities across Canada. He assured me that this was in line with their priorities, and that if we were committed to it, his government would resolve the situation. When I reviewed his budget, I could see that the money was there. However, at the end of the year, when I looked at the lapsed appropriations, the money was still there; it had not been spent, and nothing had been resolved. How is it that, 10 years later, even though the government has announced the necessary funding and expressed its willingness to take action, the issue still has not been resolved?”
Statement grade
A
The average of Signal, Relevance, Respect and Clarity.
Average 93 / 100
A score under 50 is red. Choose a measurement to see where it lost points and why; choose it again to clear.
This view breaks the statement into its steps and names what each one does.
Mr. Speaker, Procedure · 24 wordsI also want to point out that I am speaking on behalf of my colleague from Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan and the indigenous communities in her riding.ProcedurePositioning · 7 wordsIn this context, my colleague is right.PositioningClaims · 88 wordsThat is what the Auditor General’s many reports have shown, year after year, indeed decade after decade.1One of the first things that fascinated me when I arrived in the House of Commons was this tendency to congratulate ourselves on a budget, to pat ourselves on the back for being so generous, yet a year later, balanced budgets often end up resting on funds that were never spent, effectively at the expense of first nations.All the while, they continue to be promised tens of billions of dollars.Reasoning · 62 wordsWhy is that money not being spent?It is because local expertise is not being taken into account.Expertise on the ground is not being developed.The government is not respecting the expertise of band councils.The government thinks that all it needs to do is put money in a budget and everything will be fixed, but that is not the case.Claims · 14 wordsThe same is true for housing.The same is true for so many files.Partly on pointThe ask · 14 wordsThe government needs to develop the expertise of first nations in a respectful manner.
