Government’s failure on First Nations is ‘beyond belief,’ Paul Martin says

Conservative policies will send more aboriginal kids to jail than to school, former prime minister Paul Martin charged.

The Liberal party stalwart and ex long-time finance minister called it an “act of discrimination” that the federal government killed the Kelowna Accord — a shortchanging of aboriginal youth that has fuelled high illiteracy and drop-out rates.

“The fact that the federal Conservative government walked away from Kelowna, walked away from providing the same funding for aboriginal education as is provided for non-aboriginal education, is nothing but an act of discrimination against the youngest and the fastest growing segment of our population,” Martin said after speaking to a convention session with the Aboriginal Peoples’ Commission.

Delivering a blistering attack against the Harper Conservatives for abdicating its responsibilities on health and aboriginal funding, Martin called it “fundamentally beyond belief” that the government was not aware of the problems plaguing First Nations such as Attawapiskat. He also accused the Conservatives of fudging numbers, misleading the Canadian public and pointing fingers of blame instead of fixing the roots of the “tragedy.”

Ex-PM links Attawapiskat crisis to failed Kelowna accord

Former prime minister Paul Martin says the housing crisis in the First Nations community of Attawapiskat exemplifies the problems his abandoned Kelowna agreement on aboriginal quality of life was meant to address.

“The Kelowna accord was set up to deal with this very issue,” he said Tuesday in an interview with CBC News. “As well as with education, clean water, accountability and health care.”

In November 2005, Martin, the premiers and aboriginal leaders met in Kelowna, B.C., for the First Ministers Conference on Aboriginal Affairs. The meeting resulted in a five-year, $5-billion plan to improve the lives of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.

But within days, Martin’s minority Liberal government was defeated, triggering an election won by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.

“Unfortunately, the government simply walked away from agreements that had been made with the First Nations and aboriginal leadership and all of the provinces and territories. And they confiscated the $5 billion that the government set aside for it, and that was really most unfortunate. We lost five or six years,” said Martin.