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House Hansard - 64

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 4, 2022 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 64 - May/4/22
Mr. Gérard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC)
  • May/4/22 10:39:58 p.m.
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Madam Chair, as we say in my riding of Louis‑Saint‑Laurent and in Wendake, kwe. Like most of my colleagues here this evening, I am participating in this very important debate about what the government and Canadians must do to address violence against indigenous women and about the measures that are needed to break this despicable, vicious circle for the country and more specifically for indigenous women. These kinds of debates are necessary. My riding is home to the Huron-Wendat community. It always makes me smile to think about how lucky I am, because we cannot choose our family or our birthplace, as everyone knows, but I was very fortunate on both counts. My parents came to Canada in 1958, and in 1962 they moved to what was then known as Château‑d'Eau, which then became Loretteville and is now part of Quebec City. It was less than a mile away from the indigenous community of Wendake. I grew up and still live in Loretteville, so I have some very good, very close Wendat friends. These friends are and will always be lifelong friends. I therefore grew up with an awareness of the first nations. We should all have this awareness of the first nations, but it will never be deep enough. It is not easy to fix 400 years' worth of damage, yet that is the reality of indigenous relations with the federal and provincial governments. It has been 400 years of misunderstandings, of battles, of totally unacceptable domination and, in many cases, that is what we are facing now, in the 21st century. We must understand that we can never do enough to erase, or at the very least lessen, the pain caused over the centuries. The reality is that we must take action but, more importantly, we must reflect and understand what happened. At the start of the 21st century, there was an awareness that dawned. It has always been there in Canada. No matter who held the title of prime minister, there was always a gesture or a thought, sometimes positive, sometimes abhorrent, but there was also a desire to be honest with first nations at times. We must recognize that it was the late Jack Layton, the former leader of the NDP, whose passing we all lament, who took the first concrete step that led to today's recognition of the tragedy of indigenous women who have fallen victim to appalling violence. In the early 2000s, Jack Layton suggested that the Canadian government should formally apologize for the tragedy of residential schools and the crimes that took place there, which led to the totally unacceptable abuse that was most recently condemned by the Holy Father himself. Canada's prime minister at the time, the Right Hon. Stephen Harper, listened to Jack Layton. For the first time in Canada's history, the federal government offered a formal and sincere apology to first nations. It was the first and only time that a grand chief of the Canadian first nations ever addressed the members of the House of Commons, and it happened right here in Ottawa on June 11, 2008. There was an apology, and there was action. The government created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission because there can be no reconciliation without facts and truth. That is why, over a long period of six years, Canadians travelled the country listening to first nations. When I first entered politics as a member of Quebec's National Assembly, I clearly remember being at the meeting in Wendake. It lasted several days, but I was only there for a day. I should maybe have stayed longer. The participants could see and understand the pain these people were carrying. In 2015, the commission released its report, which contained almost 100 recommendations and suggestions. One of them, call to action 41, was for the Canadian government to take action on the tragedy of indigenous women who were beaten, raped, assaulted or killed. We all know what happened next. The government waited two years before coming up with a plan. As I said in my introduction, we can never do enough because fixing 400 years' worth of damage is almost impossible. We have to start by accepting that unfortunate reality.
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