44th Parl. 1st Sess.

October 20, 2023 10:00AM

Context: House Hansard - 236 - Oct/20/23

Oct/20/23 10:29:25 a.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-38

Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues for that support. I think they will find that my friend from northern Saskatchewan has some very insightful and important remarks to share. Despite his allegiance to the Roughriders football team, he is quite a stand-up individual, so I look forward to hearing what he has to say. Of course, this is a very important piece of legislation, as I mentioned. It is an honour for me to rise today to speak to it, representing the riding of Kenora in northwestern Ontario, which covers three treaty territories, treaties 3, 5 and 9, as well as the Métis homeland, and it includes 42 first nations. As has been mentioned in the previous remarks and in questions and comments, this legislation would truly help set out a series of fixes. However, it is much more than a simple patchwork and just those fixes. To me, it is about self-determination, and that is obviously a very important aspect of what we are talking about when it comes to reconciliation. It is giving more control and autonomy to first nations and first nations individuals themselves. Before I get back to the substance of this bill, I want to highlight a key proposal that our Conservative leader has been championing when it comes to self-determination: a first nations resource charge that would, in essence, allow first nations to directly collect revenues from projects on their lands rather than seeing those revenues go to Ottawa and filter back down through a bloated bureaucracy. It is a simple, common-sense approach to ensure that first nations have greater control over projects on their land and a greater portion of the direct revenues. This is one way we will support self-determination. Our consultations on this are ongoing, and I look forward to being able to say more about it in the near future. I share that because, of course, it is one aspect of self-determination in this bill also, as the bill highlights and addresses four key issues in the Indian Act. This bill would ensure that individuals with a family history of enfranchisement, which is having to give up Indian status, would be entitled to registration under the act. They could then pass on that entitlement in the same way as others. Individuals would be allowed to deregister from the Indian register if they chose to do so via an application for removal, without the repercussions of enfranchisement. As well, an addition would be made to section 11 of the act that would allow married women to return to their natal band if they obtained status and were registered to their spouse's band before April 1985. The last of the four key points that the bill addresses is to change a lot of outdated and discriminatory language. We have heard some of that language here today. I do not wish to repeat it, but it is something that we are all happy to see being addressed and being removed from the legislation. This is, of course, part of a series of changes in recent history. We can go back to 1985, which is relatively recent. That was when the process started to remove some of the gender-based discrimination, particularly pertaining to status women who married a non-status men and were involuntarily enfranchised. That is what got the ball rolling in this process. We have heard comments in the chamber about the patchwork and the fact that we have not been able to move forward on addressing all these issues as quickly as we would like to, and I share those concerns. Although this bill is certainly a great help, and we are happy to see it move forward, as the member for Fredericton mentioned, it was tabled in December 2022. On this side of the House, we certainly would have liked to see this move forward much more quickly. It has been almost a year. The bill also has many gaps in it, with more things that will have to be addressed at future dates. Considering that the government sat on the bill for close to a year, I think that would have been a great time to work on some of those other aspects concurrently. We could be much further along at this point. It is a concerning trend. We have heard from the governing Liberal Party itself that its members are also concerned about this trend of the government not prioritizing indigenous-led pieces of legislation pertaining to indigenous peoples, and I just want to urge the government to make it a priority instead of table-dropping at the last moment. The Prime Minister has said that there is no relationship more important to his government than that with indigenous peoples, but I think the actions speak louder than words. The fact that it has taken so long to make such relatively simple and straightforward changes is definitely a cause for concern, so I would like to urge my colleagues on the other side to move these pieces of legislation forward much more quickly. Further to the fact that it has been so long, we have seen the need for unanimous consent motions in order to get things through at the last second, and we have been trying to work in good faith to get as many of these things through as quickly as possible. However, we recognize a need for debate and a need for proper scrutiny and consultation on a number of these pieces of legislation. With the rushed process we have from the government, I do not feel we have that time for the proper consultation. That is not the only concern. It is not just from the legislative point of view that the government seems to be too slow to react. We see issues on things such as status card processing times. It is taking far too long for many people to be able to actually receive their card and have access to the rights they are entitled to, so again I am happy to see this moving forward. The bill would impact 3,500 individuals, and I hope that all those individuals are able to access their status cards and their rights as quickly as possible. Again, I would like to urge the government to put the resources that are necessary toward that, cut through the bureaucracy and ensure there are ways we can get that done more quickly. I was thankful my colleagues chose for me to split my time, but now with great respect to my colleague, I wish I had a bit more, because there is so much to get into when it comes to the piece of legislation before us. However, I think it is important to remember the discriminatory and racist history behind this and the reasons it is so important we move forward on this quickly. Enfranchisement was truly not voluntary. Even in the cases where it was “voluntary”, it was done so that people could avoid having to send their kids to residential schools, so they were able to participate more fully in Canadian society, obtain the right to vote and obtain land and financial compensation. It was a number of things. This is a process that has been forced on indigenous peoples throughout our history, and I am pleased to see the bill moving forward. We need to move it forward much more quickly on the government's side. Our party here in the official opposition stands ready to work and ready to get the bill to committee. If there are any changes that need to be made, we will ensure we have those fixes. We will hear from grassroots, first nations and indigenous peoples across the country and get it to the finish line. I want to urge my colleagues on the other side to work with us, so we can get it done.

1332 words

Hear!
Rabble!
add
star_border
share

SoVote

House Hansard - 236