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House Hansard - 265

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 11, 2023 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 265 - Dec/11/23
Mr. Kelly McCauley (Edmonton West, CPC)
  • Dec/11/23 9:24:31 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Elgin—Middlesex—London. I want to spend my time in tonight's debate talking especially about the Auditor General's report “Emergency Management in First Nations Communities”, which came out last year. I have been involved in public accounts off and on for the eight years I have been in this place, and I have seen some eye-wateringly incompetent services or performances by the government. It is almost as if the various ministers are in competition to see who can be the most inept. There have been several contenders for the award. The Auditor General did a housing study in which it was discovered that the government did not even know whom it was housing, how many people it was housing or how many housing units were getting built, despite billions of dollars being spent, with Infrastructure Canada blaming CMHC for the failures, and vice versa, literally. However, not to worry; executives at Infrastructure Canada and CMHC all still got full bonuses despite the failure. Veterans Affairs was spending money on new programs to alleviate the wait-lists, with no ability to track whether the backlogs had improved or not. Here is a spoiler alert: They had not improved, and had actually gotten worse every year since 2015. However, not to worry; executives all received performance bonuses. The CRA ignored the Auditor General's warnings about over $27 billion of ineligible funding going out to corporations that should not have received the money. One would think that, with so many incompetent departments, perhaps the CRA or another organization would come out as the winner. However, not to worry; along came Indigenous Services and said it would take the gold medal. The report is specifically about the emergency management of first nations communities, probably the very worst Auditor General's report I have read, period. The department happily spent three and a half times more on responding to crises than on preventive measures. It spent about $646 million responding to emergencies, but only $182 million on preparing for emergencies or on adaptation. Former auditor general Sheila Fraser, when reviewing this issue long ago, said the situation was “unacceptable”. Years later, Michael Ferguson did the same audit on the same issue, and said it was “beyond unacceptable”. Years after that, current Auditor General Hogan now says that we are decades into the failure to serve indigenous people. Her exact words are, “words are not driving change”. This is a problem we see with the government; it is big on announcements but zero on delivery. For the needed infrastructure for first nations, the dedicated fund's annual amount is $12 million. There are 112 identified projects that are not funded yet, such as fixing dams, dikes and flood plains. I am sure the government will say not to worry; it is getting to them. Over two-thirds of them are over five years old, and 4% of them are over a decade old. Only $291 million is required to address all 112 projects. To put it in perspective, in the last two years alone, the government has paid $88 million directly to Tesla to subsidize wealthy people to buy electric cars, but $12 million a year is dedicated for infrastructure in first nations communities. We need actions, not words. We need a change of government for this.
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