44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 29, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I have worked really well with my colleague across the way, but he spoke about more spending, and that certainly is not agreed to by Riley Yesno at the Yellowhead Institute, who said:
What does this underfunding
—this is in regard to indigenous people—
and the budget approach more generally mean for those like Indigenous people, who have been consistently underfunded even when the Canadian government has made its largest investments?
I think, chiefly, it means two things:
1. Indigenous people will continue to be insufficiently invested in—left to try and make do with scraps of what is truly necessary to improve well-being;
2. It solidifies what the government values when it comes to Indigenous futures. In the case of Budget 2022, those values revolve around resource development and economic partnerships rather than Indigenous climate action or Indigenous-led self-determination.
I would like to remind the member that all the resources and riches we benefit from in Canada today have been built on the backs of indigenous people and our lands and resources. I know he said the Conservative Party will respect the rights of indigenous communities to guide their own destinies, and I am wondering if he respects the rights of indigenous people who choose not to have their destinies be founded and grounded in an oil and gas industry when the Conservatives consistently—
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Madam Speaker, I have the privilege of working with my hon. colleague on the status of women committee, where we are just completing a study, as was mentioned, on the connection between resource extraction and increased violence against indigenous women and girls. We managed to sit down and talk about some of the hard truths about the history of our country and the ongoing genocide of indigenous women.
She noted the importance of truth telling, and I have always appreciated her openness to hearing truths, even hard truths, in such a respectful way. The committee is all women. One of the things we have spoken about is the importance of representation. The committee should not lose sight of the important voices of women as well as those of our grandmothers. We are speaking a lot about organization and we cannot lose sight of why we are even having this discussion. It is because of the survivors and the sacrifices they made in telling their stories.
Could my hon. colleague reflect on that?
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I mean this respectfully, but I just want to remind members in the House not to use possessive terms like “our indigenous people”, when referring to indigenous people. We are our own people with our own independent rights.
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Madam Speaker, I have such a tremendous amount of respect for my hon. colleague across the way. We did some pretty critical work together in committee to pass Bill C-15.
In saying that, I know that my colleague is very committed to human rights, but one of the frustrations that I have had, particularly as we are talking about this council, is the focus being shifted away from survivors and toward organizations. My second frustration is with this whole history of incremental justice.
With the current Liberal government, according to reports, only 13 out of the 94 calls to action, knowing that not all of them pertain to the federal government, have been responded to. The government still fails to respond adequately to the calls for justice from the national inquiry. I wonder if my colleague agrees with me that true reconciliation is demonstrated through action and not rhetoric.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This is the second time that I have risen in the House today to remind members not to use the words “our natives” or “our indigenous peoples”. We are not owned. We are individuals. We are independent people with our own individual rights as indigenous peoples.
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Madam Speaker, in the debate today I have heard a lot about the importance of some organizations and leaving others out. One thing I have not heard enough of in the House today, which is deeply troubling to me, is about the voices of survivors. I have concerns about that, because their voice needs to be central in this council for reconciliation.
I am wondering if my hon. colleague can assure me that the voices of survivors will be the central voice on this council and not be usurped by all of this political mudslinging that I am hearing in the chamber today.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague, whom I have had the pleasure of working with on the status of women committee. I appreciate working with her tremendously.
One of the observations I have made of the Conservatives' contributions to the debate today is their complete focus on economic reconciliation. I read something from the Yellowhead Institute that basically said the focus, including by the Liberal government, is on things like economic reconciliation.
I do not feel they have demonstrated the same sort of respect for indigenous nations that make other decisions about their lands outside of resource extraction. This goes to free, prior and informed consent regarding how they wish to use their lands. It is one thing to talk about economic reconciliation and respecting indigenous people's rights to make decisions about their own affairs, but I have not seen that demonstrated in practice.
Does my hon. colleague respect nations that choose not to participate in resource extraction on their own lands and territories? Does she support that?
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Mr. Speaker, the member spoke about diversity on the board, such as elders, survivors and those who have been intergenerationally impacted, but that is not what is being reflected in the debate that I have participated in all day. I think we are forgetting why we are here. It is because of the courageous stories, which were told by survivors, that brought forth the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and they are why we are even talking about this bill today.
How will the minister ensure that the voices of survivors and those intergenerationally impacted will not be outshone with all the other discussions that I have listened to in the House today?
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Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to split my time.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Nunavut.
It is an honour to rise today in support of Bill C-29, the national council for reconciliation act. We would not be here today without the stories of survivors who gifted us with stories so that people across Canada could learn the truth about Canada's history, that what happened in residential schools was an act of genocide, something that was acknowledged unanimously in October in the House, a recognition that what happened in these institutions against children was an act of genocide and the experiences of survivors' abuse and abhorrent human rights violations are no longer left up for debate. I want to share that I am so thankful for that. I lift up survivors, descendants and communities every day. Let us not lose sight of this while we debate this bill.
We must not lose sight of this. The voices of survivors must lead the path forward, not organizations and not government bureaucrats, but survivors and their descendants, elders. I am glad that this is reflected in the bill, but I am hoping that this is reflected in the debate we are having in the House as we move forward because we have to remember that we would not be debating this legislation today if it had not been for survivors who courageously shared their stories. We must not lose sight of that. Their voices must never ever be overshadowed, because they are the reason we are discussing how to move forward in a manner that achieves real justice while addressing ongoing injustices that continue to be perpetrated against indigenous peoples.
Progress is slow, which is one of the reasons that I keenly support implementing call to action 53 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to establish a national council for reconciliation through the establishment of federal legislation. Call to action 53 calls on the government to establish the council as an “independent, national, oversight body” that will monitor, evaluate and report to Parliament on the progress that is being made with regard to reconciliation.
The accountability mechanisms that have the potential to be provided by the council are crucial, because we know that without sufficient accountability, progress implementing the calls to actions has been unacceptably slow. Since the calls to action were released in 2015, only about 13 of the 94 have been implemented. For a government that has repeatedly identified reconciliation and the new relationship with indigenous people as a top priority, this is simply not good enough. One wonders if this legislation was introduced seven years ago whether we would be further along completing all of the calls to action.
Nevertheless, the fact that we are close to this bill becoming law is an important step forward. Enshrining this legislation into Canadian law is critical. Having this council act as a watchdog to ensure the effect of advancement of reconciliation is crucial and will make it more difficult for the government and all MPs to lose focus on the implementation of the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
However, here is the reality. Monitoring is not enough. We need the government to do the work and put significant investments behind concrete acts of reconciliation, and there is so much more work that needs to be done. I have often said that we cannot have true reconciliation in the absence of justice. Across this country, indigenous peoples are denied justice each and every day in painful and humiliating ways.
We have a housing crisis that can only be described as dire. According to the 2021 census data, one in six indigenous people live in crowded housing unsuitable for the number of people who live there. To put this into perspective, that means indigenous people are almost twice as likely to live in crowded housing compared to non-indigenous people. This is shameful.
While I acknowledge that budget 2022 made new investments in indigenous housing, it does not come close to meeting the unmet needs in indigenous communities, in spite of the Conservatives' claim today of record spending on indigenous peoples. According to the AFN, $44 billion over 10 years would be required to meet current needs on first nations' communities. Budget 2022 allocates $2.4 billion over five years to address gaps in on-reserve housing.
We are also facing what the Prime Minister himself has acknowledged as a genocide against indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people. My own city of Winnipeg was described as “ground zero” for the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls by the former minister of crown-indigenous relations, yet since the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls issued its final report and calls for justice in 2019, we have not seen this ongoing genocide addressed with anything close to the level of respect and urgency required.
For example, in budget 2022, the Liberal government put in zero new dollars to help put an end to this crisis of violence. Worse yet, it was shocking to learn that hardly any of the federal government's $724.1-million violence prevention strategy, first announced in 2021, has been spent. Not a single new shelter has been built nor a single new unit of transitional housing.
While I do want to acknowledge the federal government’s recent announcement in my riding of $6.9 million to support the expansion of Velma’s House, which will operate as a low-barrier, 24-7 safe space in Winnipeg Centre, there are still so many indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people who do not have a safe place to go to in their community.
We also continue to see resource extraction projects imposed on indigenous communities without their free, prior and informed consent. An egregious example of this took place almost two years ago on Wet'suwet'en territory, where land defenders, women, were met with police dogs and snipers, and the RCMP used an axe and a chainsaw to cut down the door of a tiny house where two unarmed indigenous women were inside. This is the exact opposite of what reconciliation looks like.
I have become quite concerned about the Conservatives hyper focus on economic reconciliation with their history of opposing the right of free prior and informed consent, which is enshrined in Canadian law and articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Indigenous peoples have a right to make decisions free of intimidation, and to be informed about all aspects of projects prior to development occurring. This cannot happen down the barrel of a gun. It also is not acceptable to state that communities that choose to build economies outside of the resource extraction sector have no desire to improve their local economy. On these and so many other issues, including the overrepresentation of indigenous peoples in the criminal justice and child welfare systems, and the fact that 27 communities still have boil water advisories, so much work must be done to overturn colonial policies and practices that are preventing us from achieving real reconciliation.
I am hoping that this legislation will help. I want to acknowledge the work of my wonderful colleague and MP for Nunavut in helping to strengthen this legislation at committee. We will be accompanied by a renewed focus from the government on what the Prime Minister has described as the “most important” relationship in Canada. I am confident that the council will do its job in ensuring that the government is accountable for progress being made on implementing the calls to action, but the onus is on the government to respond to accountability with real action.
To all the survivors who share their stories, to all survivors who did not tell their stories, I lift them up. May the bill assist in delivering them the justice that has been denied for far too long.
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Mr. Speaker, I will take this opportunity to mention my wonderful partner, Romeo Saganash, who is a residential school survivor and has spent his life fighting to achieve that reconciliation. I think, when we are looking at this, and certainly having the privilege of being blessed with such a good partner, the truth and reconciliation is based on the stories of survivors.
They set the path forward. Those are the stories. Now the government has to respond to those stories with action. It needs to stop stalling, and I am hoping the oversight that would be provided by this council would allow survivors, such as my beautiful partner, Romeo, to get the justice that is long overdue.
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Mr. Speaker, with the passing of Bill C-15 in the last session, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is mentioned 15 times in the bill, and the TRC calls for UNDRIP to be used as the framework for reconciliation.
We have a framework. We just have to follow that framework. That was a declaration that was produced after decades. It was over 23 years of work. We have the tools. We have the frameworks. We just need the political will to do the right thing.
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Mr. Speaker, as a long-time educator and an educator who taught in the area of indigenous education, I am happy to answer these questions. We have several examples of first nations' control of first nations' education across the country, including in Manitoba with the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre. For the James Bay Cree, it has been a few decades that they have been developing their own curricula and taking control of the education of their children.
I think this is central, particularly with the history of educational systems and how things, under the guise of educational systems, were used to perpetrate genocide against our kids. For first nations, Inuit and Métis, control of education is critical and the path forward.
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