44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 29, 2022 10:00AM
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 am very honoured today to rise on behalf of survivors, community members and elders who had to unfortunately live through the traumatic experience of Canada's horrific residential schools.
Today we are talking about an issue that is living in the hearts of children, their parents and their grandparents. Today throughout this debate we heard from the government about the importance of finally tabling this much awaited legislation, legislation for which survivors and their families have been calling for years now.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission travelled across our country, spoke to survivors and families about the importance of finally building an independent body that would be tasked with seeking justice on behalf of indigenous families that are still with us today.
That is the need and goal of the call to action we are speaking of today.
We also heard from the Conservatives. We heard about the need for economic reconciliation. Although much of what they are advocating for ignores the reality and plight of survivors, I do recognize the need to see true economic opportunities for indigenous people, but they must go beyond resource extraction. They must truly need indigenous people and their values, and truly lead to a better outcome for indigenous people led by them through self-determination processes.
This work is real. Right now, people across the country are deciding in their families, with their kids, in public schools and even in churches. They are having discussions with regular everyday folks about what it means when we say “reconciliation”. When I say “reconciliation”, it is important that we understand where I am coming from and where members from indigenous communities are coming from when we use that language. Reconciliation implies there was at some point some kind of conciliation that took place in Canada. It is important to recognize that indigenous people have often found themselves in the back seat of government decision-making.
Something we must avoid at all costs in legislation is the prescriptive use of government control to insist who sits at the table to guide, and maybe in some ways influence, the nature of the independent purpose of the legislation.
Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 is new for some Canadians, but not all Canadians. Some might remember what happened in the late seventies and early eighties as indigenous people across the country organized. They built new organizations. They fought for their voice. They brought their voice into this place to demand justice, that the rights of indigenous people, their inherent and treaty rights, would be protected. We are not far from that moment in our history. Canada is a very young country, but what is needed is truly concrete action rather than words.
This is not only indigenous people saying this, it is Canada's top Auditor General. She stated just last week, “In 2011, at the end of her mandate as auditor general of Canada, Sheila Fraser summed up her impressions of the government's actions after 10 years of audits and related recommendations on First Nations issues with the word 'unacceptable'.” Five years later her predecessor, Michael Ferguson, used the words "beyond unacceptable".
She further said, “We are now into decades of audits of programs and government commitments that have repeatedly failed to effectively serve Canada's Indigenous peoples... It is clear to me that strong words are not driving change.” She has said, “Concrete actions are needed to address these long-standing issues, and government needs to be held accountable.”
Those are not the words of the New Democrats. Those are the words of Canada's Auditor General, by which I stand firmly.
The age of accountability is upon us. Indigenous people are done waiting. Indigenous people are done asking. Indigenous people are now demanding that the government take seriously and earnestly the words of its own Auditor General in echoing the facts of the failures of the government almost 10 years ago. Those words are still being echoed by the Auditor General today. We must do better.
By better, I point to some jarring statistics. Before I do that, I want to mention that when we use numbers in this place, it has to be founded with the earnest understanding that those numbers represent people, real children, people in each and every one of our communities. There is not one MP in the House who does not and is not affected by the policies of this place, in particular the policies directed at indigenous people and, most important, children. Canada's history in the prosecution of children continues still today.
Statistics Canada said that a 2021 census showed that indigenous children accounted for 53.8% of all children in foster care. This has gone up since the 2016 census, which found that 52.2% of children in care under the age of 14 were indigenous.
If I asked the government this question, which I have today, it will simply deflect and say that the provincial governments are responsible. However, that does not stop the advocates, the strong members like former Chief Norma Kassi, who said, “The doors are closed at the Residential Schools but the foster homes are still existing and our children are still being taken away.”
These are real truths, truths that may not be spoken in this place but are spoken across the country every single day, including in the courtrooms. The very honourable Cindy Blackstock, a champion and true warrior for indigenous people, fighting for the most vulnerable children, said:
...the last residential schools closed in 1997. That trauma echoed forward and then these First Nations children and families had fewer public resources to be able to deal with it. But they were often judged by Canadian public who didn’t know any better...And that perpetuated the cycle of racism and the cycle of trauma.
What she is telling us is that members of Parliament must listen earnestly to the fact that if we do not act now, this will continue generation after generation. That is how deep these wounds truly are.
We can think about the mistreatment of indigenous children, not just the residential school period but also in the sixties scoop, of which I am an intergenerational survivor. The sixties scoop was not all that long ago, and it affects families every day. Some family members we never meet. I have never met all my family members. This is not a rare story. This is a common story of many people from coast to coast to coast.
It gets even worse. Many face mistreatment, even now as we speak, such as physical, sexual and spiritual abuse. There are at least 14,100 maltreatment incident investigations for indigenous children, according to the Canadian child welfare research portal's most recent statistics. If we are not talking about the basic principles of justice in this place for the most vulnerable people in our society, what are we truly doing here? There are 14,000 children who are malnourished in Canada and we are talking about who gets to sit on a national board for reconciliation.
I challenge the government to go far beyond rhetoric, far beyond tabling legislation, but I agree with the fact that I need to use this opportunity to echo that more must be done. This is barely the first step to ensuring the government truly does what must be done.
We know these children will continue to need our support. They will continue to need indigenous people. They will continue to need their language. They will continue to need access to land. That is critical to our people's rebuilding.
I want to thank my hon. colleagues for debating this very serious topic. I hope we can unite the House, not just for the principles of fairness found within this legislation but toward justice for indigenous people, not just today but every single day in the House. That is my hope.
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Madam Speaker, it is important that we thank the survivors, the important members of indigenous governments and the grassroots leaders, but in some ways it is also important to give a shout-out to the children who are enduring this pain every single day and relying on parliamentarians in the House to provide the kind of justice that not only indigenous children but all children deserve in this country. When we talk about not being political with respect to these issues, it is important that we also understand that there is far more to do to ensure that these children get the justice and the kind of compensation they deserve for this treatment.
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- Nov/29/22 2:10:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last week was the start of commemorating 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. The campaign strives to eliminate all types of gender-based violence through education and through action.
Ending gender-based violence and intimate partner violence in our communities will take all of us. It does not occur in a vacuum, but rather in a society that condones and encourages it. Change is possible when we take collective responsibility. It takes courage for women to come forward, but it is not reasonable to expect survivors to be the only ones to lead the change.
We need more male allies, so I ask men to stand up to help break this cycle and question complicity within the systems of violence. As silence is one form of complicity, men must speak up when they hear oppressive language or comments. From amplifying the voices of survivors to supporting women's organizations, we can all act to empower survivors, reduce and prevent violence against women and girls, and protect women's rights.
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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, it is precisely this type of commission that will allow us to make sure we are focused on survivors and their families.
It is not lost on anyone that the vast composition of the House is non-indigenous. We sometimes superimpose our own views of what we think is good or not good for indigenous peoples. Having a commission like that to remind us, particularly in the wake of the last year and a half of discoveries in and around unmarked graves, will be an opportunity and a catalyst to keep reminding the House of the importance of putting survivors and families first, knowing that this is trauma that has passed on from generation to generation.
There are still survivors who are speaking for the first time, courageously. There are also people who are courageously choosing not to speak out about their experiences. We need to honour them and their silence as well. This is a very difficult time still for communities and will be for some time. However, having an institution like this, which will be able to radiate across Canada, will be key in keeping survivors and their families front and centre in this ongoing national tragedy.
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Mr. Speaker, I think the committee has a duty to adhere to calls to action 53 to 56. The Prime Minister will report on reconciliation every year.
Certainly, let us talk about the tragic story of residential schools. As my colleagues from the NDP and the Bloc Québécois have said, it will be very important to continue to focus on the survivors and their families, and the traumatic legacy that continues to affect indigenous communities across Canada to this day. A council will allow us to reach out nationally across the country, to raise these issues and to keep highlighting the importance of responding to calls to action 53 to 56.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a critique of what I have been hearing today.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission went all across this country hearing from survivors. We heard about the abuses. We heard about the mental, physical and sexual abuses. We heard about the addictions. We heard about the need for mental health resources. We are hearing about communities trying to establish their connection with their language.
However, the Conservatives seem to think that instead of listening to the survivors and the 94 calls to action of what they have laid out as a blueprint moving forward, what we really need is for indigenous people to adopt more of a capitalist approach to how they do things moving forward. If they just had a little more money in their pockets, they would not worry about the loss of their language and the abuse their parents or grandparents had to go through.
I am trying to figure out where the Conservatives are. Do they not feel that is a little paternalistic? Instead of talking about the 94 actions that are actually within the calls to action, they keep talking about the term “economic reconciliation”, which is nowhere in the calls to action by survivors.
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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 am really glad the member opposite mentioned the survivors. We should never lose sight of the survivors when we are looking at Bill C-29. I think about so many of the survivors who have come to me in my community and said that what we really need to move forward are healing centres and healing for their communities. They have given me the example of wanting the trauma to stop with them.
I am wondering if the member opposite could speak to some of the people in her riding or in her nation who have inspired her in this journey of reconciliation. Could she talk a bit about the need for us to continue the journey of healing and investing in healing in indigenous communities and urban communities across Canada?
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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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Uqaqtittiji, the member's question is an important one.
Based on the composition and the nominating bodies, it is very important to make sure that we always keep in mind who this reconciliation council is for. It is to make sure that survivors are heard and that elders are heard. We know for a fact that indigenous individuals are the ones who have suffered the most. It is those people we need to honour and make sure their voices are prevalent in the work of the council for reconciliation.
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