Hon. Sharon Carstairs:

Honourable senators, I am quite am prepared to leave this standing in the name of Senator Andreychuk, but I would like to put a few words on the record today with respect to this inquiry.

I rise to speak to this inquiry, and I thank Senator Oliver for introducing this inquiry to the Senate and Senator Poy for her contribution. I concur that there is still much that needs to be done to ensure equality of all Canadians, but it is important to reflect on the many changes that have occurred in our nation just in my lifetime.

Like Senators Mercer, Moore and Cowan and perhaps others, I grew up in Halifax. I lived, from the time I was the born until the time I was 16, on the north side of Quinpool Road in Halifax, and my colleague, Senator Cowan, lived on a street on the other side of Quinpool Road, but we did not go to the same school. He walked with his friends up the south side of Quinpool Road, to his Protestant school. I walked up the other side of Quinpool Road with my friends, to the Catholic school. He went to the YMCA. I was not allowed there because it was considered a Protestant organization. We only became friends when we found ourselves in the same class at Dalhousie University, studying political science together.

Although some children in this country still go to religious schools, many of the barriers that existed in those days have thankfully disappeared. However, now there appears to be little tolerance between Catholics and Protestants and those of the Muslim faith. It is unfortunate that the lessons we learned in being able to work together as Protestants and Catholics have not spread to our being able to live in harmony with those of the Muslim faith.

At the same time that I was in university, there were still quotas in many professional schools in this country with respect to those of the Jewish faith. Those quotas no longer exist, but we still hear all too often about activities of an anti-Semitic nature. All of us the recognize that there are far too few Aboriginal Canadians graduating from high schools and then attending post-secondary institutions.

In Halifax and Toronto, where there is a significant number of Black Canadians, we still see far too few of them graduating from high school and going on to post-secondary education. In my years of school in Halifax, from grades 1 to 11 — we went to university after grade 11 in those days — I do not remember attending school with a single Black child, despite the fact that Halifax at that point had the highest percentage of Black people compared to any city in Canada. I do not remember going to school with any child from a visible minority community.

Today, in most of our schools, this country sees faces of many colours, and it is always a delight to me to speak in schools in which there are so many colours represented by the children in those classes. Yet, far too many Black children in Canada are not succeeding in school; they are not graduating.

Today, I no longer live in Nova Scotia. I have been privileged since 1977 to live in Manitoba, and my concerns with respect to pluralism and racism focus primarily on our Aboriginal people who, in my view, do not have equality of opportunity in this country. They do not have equality of opportunity to education, to health care, to employment and to basic justice.

An Aboriginal child taken into care in my province does not have the same access to the same programming or even to the same dollars spent as a non-Aboriginal child. On average, an Aboriginal child living on a reserve in this country and in my province gets $2,000 a year less spent on their education than a child who lives off-reserve.

In my province of Manitoba, 71 per cent of the inmates in the jails are Aboriginal. Many of them suffer from FAE and FAS. You heard about that a just few minutes ago. FAE and FAS we know are caused by the abuse of alcohol while these inmates were in utero. They had no choice about this abuse. This occurred to them while they were in the wombs of their mothers, yet they do not receive treatment, either before they have gotten into difficulty with the law or, tragically, even after they have had difficulty with the law. We also know that many of them lack economic opportunity, and the commission of crime and the lack of economic opportunity are easily correlated.

We know that diabetes and tuberculosis are far more prevalent among our Aboriginal people and that HIV/AIDS is growing rapidly in these communities. We also know that our Aboriginal people, particularly the young people, have a disproportionate rate of suicide.

Aboriginal people on reserve are the direct responsibility of the federal government, yet successive governments of all political stripes have failed to ensure the equality rights of these Canadians.

I had hoped that the Kelowna Accord, signed by the federal government and all provinces and territories, would have been a huge step forward towards these equality rights. Regrettably, that accord has not moved forward and the result is that our Aboriginal people, Canada's First People, lag behind. Until we accept our fiduciary responsibility to these, our First Peoples, we will fail to ensure equality for all Canadians. I challenge this and any future government to obliterate what I believe to be Canada's national shame.

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