44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 29, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I listened to the member intently as he literally read calls to action 53 to 56.
My question for the member would simply be as follows. He did refer to the legislation with amendments, so that is fair, but my challenge would be as follows. If we look at the calls to action 53, 55 and 56, the spirit and intent of those calls to action were not met in the original draft of this legislation. Without Conservative amendments proposed at committee, the spirit of those calls to action would have been failed.
I will give an example. Call to action 53 was supposed to be an independent body, and if we read the draft legislation, independence was not met in the sense of governance. The minister had total control over how the board was structured and how the organization was set up. He had total control over the information that was going to be set up in a protocol.
Finally, call to action 55 was about measurables. There were no measurables in this bill until we proposed an amendment. The member referred to call to action 56, where the Prime Minister was to respond, and in the legislation it was the minister—
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Madam Speaker, I want to talk about the timeline in getting the bill to the House.
This process was initiated in December 2017. There was a bunch of work done by an interim board of directors that lasted from January to June 2018. When they completed their work, they issued a report with a number of recommendations. They actually included a draft bill in that report in June 2018. Nothing happened until December 2021, when the minister appointed the new transitional committee.
We agree this is a very important issue, but why did it take three and a half years to take that next step in the process?
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from INAN, the parliamentary secretary, talked a lot about the collaborative work that was done at the committee, and a lot of good work was done there.
In that democratic process at committee, we agreed with a majority of the votes to include a seat at the table for CAP, an organization that represents over 800,000 indigenous people. I am curious about this. Between the democratic work done at committee and coming back to the House, we were surprised this morning with an amendment that would undo that democratic work at committee to include CAP's having a seat at the table. Why now?
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- Nov/29/22 1:52:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we request a recorded division.
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Mr. Speaker, at committee, all parties supported the inclusion of someone on the board of directors of the national council for reconciliation with regard to diversity and various regions. This included the northern regions that were added, the language addition and the survivors of residential schools. Conservatives put forward an amendment to include somebody with expertise on economic reconciliation. We did that because we believe that the solution to eradicating poverty, and with it the social ills that poverty creates, is very important.
I am curious as to why the government chose to vote against having one single voice on this board that would represent economic interests and making sure we strive for the eradication of poverty in indigenous communities.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place and represent the people from Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, and today as I speak to Bill C-29 and the creation of a national council for reconciliation, I suggest to this place that this is a continuation of a journey that all Canadians are to be part of as we create a better future.
Speaking previously, in September, I made it clear that it was important to use a consensus-building approach to improve the legislation. Bill C-29, in its formation, deserved a responsible look at areas where it needed improvement, and I have to admit we have heard much testimony today that this was the work that was done at committee with the help of everybody there.
At second reading I pointed out a few issues that I thought needed to be addressed. I talked about the transparency and independence in the selection process of the board of directors. I talked about some words that seemed purposely vague to avoid accountability. I talked about the lack of any measurable outcomes. I talked about the fact that it took over three years to bring the bill to the House in the first place. Finally, I spoke about how the Prime Minister should be the one responding to the council's annual report, as that was the direction in call to action number 56.
In response to those concerns and the testimony of witnesses, we brought forward reasonable amendments to strengthen Bill C-29, and I am very proud today to report that 17 of the 19 amendments we put forward were passed at committee. It is the job of the official opposition to improve legislation and to make it truly representative of all voices, and that is exactly what we did at that committee.
I must admit, however, that I am a bit disappointed today to realize that the government, and specifically the minister, would not accept the democratic will of the INAN committee on the amendment to add a seat at the table for the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. This is a national indigenous organization that represents over 800,000 urban indigenous people.
A second concern I have coming out of that committee debate is that there was one amendment we proposed that was disappointingly voted down by all the other parties, and that is the one I want to spend a few minutes talking about.
As many of my colleagues have talked about today, we put forward an amendment to add a seat on the board of directors for someone from an indigenous organization that is focused on economic reconciliation. With many options available from the FNFMB, or the First Nations Financial Management Board, NACCA and the CCAB, there are many great organizations doing good work in this sphere, and finding a well-established organization that historically has done great work would have been very easy. It would not have been a barrier to find somebody to sit at that table.
However, the lack of support for this amendment, it should be pointed out, came at the expense of not listening to multiple witnesses who clearly voiced their approval for the inclusion of an economic lens as part of this board. We did not advocate for that to be the only voice; it would have been only one voice at the table. To ignore these voices discredits the very process of reconciliation.
I have observed, over the last few years, Liberal and NDP MPs aggressively challenging indigenous leaders who have appeared as witnesses at the INAN committee to advocate for economic reconciliation. I often find myself questioning why. Why is there an aversion to even having this discussion? Something does not add up. What is it that they dislike about indigenous people being the masters of their own destiny? What is it that they dislike about the creation of a healthy, strong and vibrant community through prosperity? What is it that they dislike about using own-source revenue from true partnerships that address long-standing social issues? What is it that they dislike about leaving behind the destructive grip of poverty to offer hope and opportunity for future generations?
The sad answer is that they are more interested in political power and control. By imposing their own views rather than listening to indigenous voices, they create the same environment that indigenous people have lived under in this country for far too long.
It is time for a fundamental change to that approach. In fact, for those who are listening and watching closely, the change has already begun on the ground. Economic reconciliation plays such an important role in the overall discussion. Let me begin by sharing a few stories from my own riding in northern Saskatchewan.
As I returned home this September for this year's National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, I spent time at Pelican Lake First Nation with Chief Peter Bill. As we arrived in the community, I was greeted by Chief Bill, a member of the RCMP and two of Pelican Lake's own community safety officers. With first nations policing being a very important topic the day after the tragedy at James Smith Cree Nation, I asked how their newly established community safety officer program was going. Chief Bill was happy to report to me that the community now has six full-time employees and its own fully equipped vehicles, and that they were in the process of hiring more officers. The RCMP officer explained to me how helpful the program had been in achieving safety in their community.
How did Pelican Lake first nation pay for this community safety officer program? They paid with their own sourced revenue. They invested profits to assist in the overall health and safety of their community instead of waiting for years for government and bureaucrats to plan and meet, develop frameworks, do benefit assessments and feasibility studies, or use the signing of MOUs for photo ops.
Later that day, I was at Flying Dust First Nation. After the formal speeches were done, we all left the hall and participated in a walk of solidarity with residential school survivors. On that walk, if I looked one way I could see a hockey rink that was built a few years ago and just beside that was their brand new 6,000-square foot sporting goods store and facility called “Snipe and Celly Sports Excellence”. If I looked the other way, out by the highway there was the brand new Petro-Canada gas station.
This was a visual reminder of what my friend Vice Chief Richard Derocher had mentioned earlier in the speeches when he spoke positively about reconciliation. He shared his wish that, when people were either visiting or driving through our communities, they would not be able to recognize when they were leaving Flying Dust First Nation and entering Meadow Lake or vice versa. How does that happen? It is by generating prosperity through economic development, which is something that Flying Dust First Nation and the Meadow Lake Tribal Council have a proud history of doing.
In northern Saskatchewan, there are many examples of these success stories. Whether it be Athabasca Basin Development group, the Des Nedhe Group of English River, Pinehouse Business North, Kitsaki Management Limited Partnership from Lac la Ronge, Sakitawak Development Corporation from the Métis village of Île-à-la-Crosse or the Peter Ballantyne Group of Companies, each is creating prosperity and capacity through the ownership and development of business opportunities. These opportunities give their people employment and a sense of pride.
These are groups on the ground that have already started the change. Their approach is the new way forward. It is their stories that the national council for reconciliation should also be reporting, along with many other things, and sharing with all Canadians.
Often Conservatives are labelled as only caring about the economy. Maybe that is our own fault because we do not explain the why. Let me try to do that. One of those community safety officers of Pelican Lake I talked about is named Dalton. I had the privilege of coaching Dalton when he played AA midget hockey in Meadow Lake. He was a sturdy, dependable defenceman who understood his role. He never missed a practice or a game. He was a player whom any coach would love to have on his team.
Dalton took those attributes and applied them to his first career choice to become a power engineer. He was supported in that choice by his mom and dad, and he would have had many options going forward in where he wanted to work, but something inside of him called him home to Pelican Lake. It was an opportunity to go home to get trained as a community safety officer and to be a leader in his own community, to be a driver of change and to set the example for the next generation.
I could not have been prouder of Dalton as I watched young kids come to him in his uniform and ask if he had any more tattoos. They felt comfortable around him. He provided them a sense of safety. He is a quality young man who is providing leadership within his community because the opportunity was there to take. That is the why. That is the outcome of economic reconciliation.
Conservatives promote and believe in economic reconciliation because it is the solution to eradicating poverty and with it the social ills that poverty creates. By putting control back in the hands of indigenous people, they get to begin to manage prosperity instead of poverty, and they get to take concrete steps toward healing through self-determination.
To conclude, I am proud of the work that our team did in making Bill C-29 a better version than when it originally came to the House in June. Many concerns that we expressed at second reading were addressed and have been improved. That is how we follow up words with action.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know if my hon. colleague was listening to my story about Dalton, the young man of Pelican Lake, but do members know what? That was not from the extraction of any oil and gas. Their businesses are from the forestry business in northern Saskatchewan.
I can tell members 20 other stories of communities in northern Saskatchewan that are not only about extraction. It is about opportunity that gives those young people hope for a better future.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from the Bloc and I do work a lot together on the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs. I hope I got the context of the question accurate in the translation.
Some of the things we did to improve the bill that we worked together on, which I believe was the crux of her question, was that we definitely improved some of the accountability measures within the act.
We heard the minister speak earlier about better governance, where, with regard to some of the authority that was granted to the minister in the original draft of the bill, we actually shared that responsibility with council members so that governance was better. It was not just in the hands of the minister.
That included the appointment process. That included many other things. For example, there was a number of areas in the bill where the language was very questionable in the requirement to create the protocol to provide information to the council so that it could do its great work.
Those are a couple of examples of the things we did to take away some of the fluffy and vague language to make this bill stronger, so that there would be greater accountability of the government to the council.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know if this member has an abridged version, but I will try.
I am just going to briefly summarize a couple of the things that we improved in the bill. The first was accountability, through the governance model that was there.
The second thing we improved was to remove some questionable language, which was vague and left room for wiggle space. We want to improve accountability, and we removed some of that language to make the government more accountable to the national council for reconciliation.
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Mr. Speaker, that is one of the frustrations that we sometimes talk about in our circles, this gap between words and actions. We see that often. We can talk about the Auditor General report that was released this week.
Every time we ask a question of the government, the response is, “Look how much we have spent on this. We must have fixed it”, but the Auditor General said that the government is good at measuring outputs but not as good at measuring outcomes. Our party is about outcomes.
To the hon. member's specific example, I think the other thing that we always have to be aware of with those projects is that we have to respect the right of people along the way. It is their right to say yes and their right to say no, and we want to respect both of those.
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Mr. Speaker, it has been a pleasure to work with my colleague from the Bloc at committee. We did get a lot of good work done.
My question is very simple. Bill C-29 originally came to the House without any concrete measurables, without anything to measure. We talked a lot about the fact that if we want to measure accountability, we must set some targets that determine success from failure.
Call to action 55 included a number of those quantifiable measurable items. Why does the member believe those measurable goals were excluded in the first place?
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Madam Speaker, there was an amendment made that shortened the total time frame from approximately 11 months to five months for the council to present its annual report and for the Prime Minister to respond to that report.
Would she like to speak about how that raises the sense of urgency in this process? Does she think that is important?
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Madam Speaker, just to follow up on the last question for the member, I note the time frame of the progress. It started in December 2017 with the Prime Minister announcing that he was going to pursue this national council for reconciliation. From January to June 2018, the interim board of directors did the work it needed to do and reported, and had 20 very solid recommendations. It actually included in those recommendations a draft bill that could have been put forward in 2018. We then waited three and a half years for the minister to appoint, in the next step, the transitional committee members.
Why does the member think there was a lack of urgency for three and a half years while this just sat in limbo?
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