44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 30, 2022 02:00PM
Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I believe it is exceptionally clear in our Standing Orders that accusing someone of lying is absolutely inappropriate, and that is exactly what the member for Kingston and the Islands just finished doing in a heckle.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Lakeland.
This is a critically important bill. Despite the heated exchange that just happened, I think all members of the House can agree that this is an important bill and that seeing more reconciliation going forward is positive for our country and for our relationship with indigenous peoples from coast to coast to coast. It is something that I have been very fortunate in my riding and my community to see first-hand.
Through my experience growing up in Fort McMurray, I have had the opportunity to get to see what reconciliation looks like first-hand. Many of the industrial partners in my region and specifically a lot of the oil and gas partners, big bad oil and gas, have been working with indigenous communities throughout my region for over 40 years and providing economic reconciliation in some of the most profound and meaningful ways.
I thought this was normal. I thought this was just what everyone did, because this is what I grew up with. I did not know there was something other than this. In Fort McMurray, it is really cool and I would welcome members opposite to come and visit. They could see what reconciliation actually looks like by coming to Fort McMurray and seeing first-hand what economic reconciliation means.
The members opposite, and specifically the member for Winnipeg North, were bragging about how this bill addresses four calls to action. The member is actually correct. It does address four calls to action, but only because of the absolutely spectacular work of my Conservative colleagues who brought in amendments to correct three of the four calls to action to make sure the bill actually addressed the calls to action. The bill that was presented by the Liberals failed to actually meet the calls to action initially. It failed to meet three of the four. Luckily, the amendments were accepted.
I would argue that every amendment that was put forward by the Conservatives on this bill was exceptionally reasonable and meaningful and based on testimony. I am disappointed to see that while we put forward 19 amendments and 16 of them are in this final version of the bill, there are three missing. One is very near and dear to my heart. It is economic reconciliation. This is something that the government sometimes fails to acknowledge exists. It fails to acknowledge the importance of economic reconciliation.
When we were talking about this piece of legislation, I had some conversations with my colleagues. I said that someone I would really like to have appear as a witness before the committee was the CEO of the Athabasca Tribal Council that represents treaty 8 first nations in northeastern Alberta. The CEO is a woman by the name of Karla Buffalo, who has become a friend and an adviser to me. She is wise well beyond her years. In her written brief, she said:
We believe strongly in the need for authentic and action-oriented reconciliation. In our traditional territory, in Treaty 8, the First Nations are leaders in the advancement of economic reconciliation at a remarkable pace. Our focus is not just on fiscal sovereignty but also on cultural revitalization and fostering strong and thriving communities and Indigenous people. We are here to encourage a collaborative process with all Nations, respecting their individual sovereignty and self-governance.
I read that into the record because it is exceptionally powerful. This is about actions, not words. This is about making sure we are actually advancing and knowing what we are here to do.
I have been exceptionally fortunate in my time as an elected official serving the people of northeastern Alberta to have had the opportunity to interact one on one with many elders and with many indigenous leaders throughout my region and learn directly from them what reconciliation actually means. One of the people whom I had one-on-one conversations with was Dr. Willie Littlechild.
Dr. Willie Littlechild was part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He worked tirelessly on that. He is such a strong voice for indigenous people and reconciliation. He often says that it is not reconciliation, but it should be “reconcili-action”. It needs to be action-based. That is so critically important.
While this bill is great and I will support it, it could be better. It could have been substantially better had the government been willing to understand that economic reconciliation is a way of putting action into reconciliation. It is not the only way of getting there, but it is a way we should be looking at, that we should be looking to try to find paths through. It is important.
The government could stand to learn, if it were willing to humble itself and come up to northeastern Alberta and meet with the chiefs themselves, meet one on one and hear what economic reconciliation has meant for their first nations. If members came up to Fort McMurray, they would see big coach buses that take people to and from work every single day. On the side of those coach buses, it says “Fort McMurray First Nation Group of Companies”.
One would be hard pressed to find a company in town that has not made a significant and meaningful partnership with an indigenous community or partnership. We have some of the most successful indigenous businesses in the entire country that are based out of my hometown of Fort McMurray or the first nations that are in our backyards.
This is the piece the government has failed to recognize the importance of in this piece of legislation. I am not bringing this up by way of pointing fingers, but because this is what expert witnesses brought up. This is what elders in my region brought forward. This is what the CEO of the tribal council that represents the five first nations in my region brought up. This is something they brought forward as a suggestion and a recommendation to the committee.
The members opposite like to talk about the calls to action and how they have done a great job. I heard the member say that 80% have been started or are in progress. I would love to see his stats on this, because everything I have been able to find shows a much lower number of calls to action that have been started or are in progress.
I was looking at a website earlier today, www.indigenouswatchdog.org. It compares the findings of where it thinks the government is, where the government thinks it is, and then where CBC thinks the government is when it comes to progress on reconciliation. The numbers are not as flattering, by any stretch of the imagination, as the member for Winnipeg North would have us believe.
This is something that is critical. We cannot just gloss over these pieces. There is a reason it is called truth and reconciliation, and not just reconciliation alone. There have been absolute horrors that have been committed in the past by governments of Canada, for years upon years, and somehow glossing over that something has been done that has not been done is not a way of making things better.
We need to be brutally honest about where we are and recognize that we can always do better. If someone thinks that somehow this is perfect and we have this 100% right, they are missing the forest for the trees, because the whole point of truth and reconciliation is learning where we have made mistakes and doing our best to go forward, knowing we are not always going to be perfect. It is about progress; it is about positive progress forward.
This is a piece that the government is very good about, patting itself on the back and celebrating all of its successes, but it has not provided the action required.
While the bill, in general, is a good thing, it has taken far too long to get to this chamber. It has taken far too long for us to get to this place, because the government has failed to put any importance on this.
I would urge all my colleagues to vote for this, but I would also urge any future parliamentarians who are looking at this and reading this speech in their preparation to look at putting in economic reconciliation when they are looking to update this bill, because it is critically important and it is missing.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not need the member for Kingston and the Islands to mansplain how to google to me. I do not think it is appropriate in any capacity for him to think he is doing me some kind of service by thinking I am not perhaps intelligent enough to figure out how to do a simple Internet search for information. I am more than capable of doing it. I would suggest that is something every single woman in the House is capable of figuring out, so I take a significant amount of offence at that, because I do not need someone talking down to me as if I am an absolute—
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Mr. Speaker, I think the answer and that point of order demonstrate the fact that the member does not believe that those in this chamber are capable of doing a basic Google search, and I think that is absolutely shameful. People in my riding do not trust the current government when it comes to a lot of what it has done. The Auditor General's report was pretty scathing on its actions when it comes to disaster recovery, and that is something that is near and dear to my heart coming from Fort McMurray—Cold Lake. I am sorry, but I am not going to take any advice from that member.
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Mr. Speaker, of course I think it is absolutely unfortunate the government made a promise during its election campaign and has woefully failed to deliver on it, which was to provide the Canada mental health transfer that would do so much to help all Canadians. It would do a lot to help indigenous people on and off reserves in Métis settlements and communities all across this country, and would make a meaningful difference.
Yesterday in committee I pressed the government on this issue over the fact that people are going to the emergency rooms because they have no other option for many mental health crises. I think that is absolutely shameful and would love to see that fixed.
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Madam Speaker, based on my count, we are at 16 people in the chamber, which is well below quorum. I would like to call a point of order on quorum.
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Madam Speaker, I have appreciated listening to the various speeches on this subject, and as someone who is very proudly an Albertan, which is part of this area, I think it is commendable in the effort, but the follow-through and the actual bill fail to meet the mark.
One thing I have heard exceptionally clearly from my constituents, and it does not matter whether they are from far north in Fort Chipewyan, down south in Cold Lake or anywhere in between, is that they do not believe an “Ottawa knows best” approach is correct. One of the major problems with the piece of legislation as proposed is that it would impact only Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, yet we heard, when it came before committee, that Saskatchewan's and Manitoba's governments do not support it. They do not want to see it go forward. They do not believe it is in the best interests of their provinces, and I can speak with pretty decent certainty, being an Albertan, that the Alberta government is definitely not keen when the federal government puts its part on provincial jurisdiction.
Therefore, something critically important to highlight is that while the bill has good intentions, good intentions pave the way to a lot of places, and not all of them are good. I would suggest the bill does not meet the mark and is not good enough. It is not going to serve the Prairies in a positive way, and I would urge everyone that, if they think what they are doing is helping the Prairies, they are part of a paternalistic structure that is telling the Prairies it knows best and those provinces do not know the best thing for their own area, because those provinces have made it exceptionally clear they do not support the bill.
Something the government needs to do a better job of is listening to provincial governments when they tell it that enough is enough, and acting on that. That is not something we have seen—
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