Canada has pledged almost $6 billion in a landmark deal with aboriginal communities to help lift them from the poverty and disease that has
plagued their neglected reserves for more than a century.
The agreement commits federal funding over the next decade for widespread improvements in housing, health care, education and economic development.
It will help nearly one million aboriginal people of the North American nation, namely Indian tribes known as First Nations and Inuits, the aboriginal Canadians of the north-eastern
and Arctic territories.
Prime Minister Paul Martin and the premiers of Canada's 13 provinces and territories announced the agreement after a two-day summit with five native organisations.
"Aboriginal Canadians have no desire for more rhetoric; they have needs and those needs demand attention. It's as simple as that," said the prime minister, after the conclusion of the two-day
summit.
"We all know that there are serious problems in too many aboriginal communities and it's heartbreaking to hear the stories of lost promise."
Canada's native reserves are dramatically short of housing and safe drinking water, their high school graduation rate is just over half the national average, and life expectancy for Indians is five to seven years lower than for non-aboriginals.
The infant mortality rate is 20 per cent higher among First Nations, suicide rates are threefold and teen pregnancies are nine times higher than the national average.
Earlier in the week, the Canadian government proposed another $2.3 billion in payments for aboriginal victims of sexual and psychological abuse during forced Christian schooling.