44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 16, 2024 11:00AM
- Sep/16/24 6:04:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I genuinely wish I could repay some of the kind words the member said, but I do not really understand the argument he is making. We are debating this bill on the first day. My understanding is that this is the first day the bill is being debated. I am using my rights as a member, the rights that flow from my status as a member of Parliament, to make arguments about the bill, to highlight that the central change proposed by the bill is not one I agree with and to state the reasons why.
He asks why I do not just vote for it then. No. If I have made arguments that he has acknowledged are substantive and serious arguments about why the bill has significant problems, it would be fairly natural that I would vote against it. In terms of the timing of the debate, I do not know how many members want to speak. I wanted to speak. There may be others.
As he may be hinting at, yes, there are some provisions of this bill that I agree with. I agree with the adoption provisions, for example, which I would be happy to speak about more if there is an opportunity. However, the issue of the unlimited passing of citizenship on from generation to generation for people living outside of Canada is, I think, problematic.
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- Sep/16/24 7:35:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to be back in the chamber. I have been on a sort of pseudo-maternity leave, working in my community for the last year, approximately. It is really an honour to be back amongst all the colleagues and to be debating very important issues, as we are this evening.
I would like to thank the member for Nunavut for bringing this important issue forward. I thank her very sincerely for that. On the comment made by one of her NDP colleagues that perhaps, a number of years ago, this would not have been something that a Speaker would have approved for debate, I think that we are making progress.
In the last number of decades, in particular the last number of years, we are seeing progress in debating the issues that matter to all Canadians, and notably First Nations, Inuit and Métis Canadians. Hopefully, we will see more of that important debate in the chamber.
The issue at hand, of course, as already discussed, is that six first nations individuals had their lives cut short in the last number of weeks, in fact, in only 11 days, with interactions with police. It is absolutely devastating to read those kinds of headlines. I cannot imagine what it would be like for the families right now, families in those communities, headline after headline of lives being cut short by these interactions, notably between folks and police in our communities who we want people to trust and to feel safe calling. It is a very serious matter, and I am glad to see that the House is taking it very seriously.
I am not from a first nations community. I am from a rural farming community in Manitoba. I had a two-parent household, a stable income and a safe community. I was quite sheltered and privileged in many ways, growing up in a safe little bubble with a lot of income security, like many Canadians in suburban Canada and in rural Canada. Unfortunately, though, as I grew up and learned a bit more about the world outside of my small little bubble, l learned that not everybody has the opportunities that I had. Not everybody comes from middle-class neighbourhood and not everybody comes from a two-parent household. There are a lot of families that experience parents with addictions or who have been incarcerated, or those who have experienced domestic violence or sexual assault at a very young age in many cases. Unfortunately, out of all the crime stats in the country, those who are victimized are massively over-represented in first nations communities, in Inuit communities and in the Métis community as well.
I think that as a legislator, although I do not represent any first nations, I have endeavoured to educate myself and to take opportunities to learn more about what the day-to-day life is like in many of these communities, facing extreme poverty, unemployment, addictions and violence. We have seen the victimization of many people and the serious consequences that women, and especially children, are facing in this regard.
When we read headlines like this, day after day, about first nations people's lives cut short by those whom, as a community and as a country, we are supposed to trust, I can understand the fear, frustration and anger that many in that community are facing right now. I would like to extend my sincere apologies to them, as a member of Parliament, as a person of privilege. What they are going through must be horrific, and I cannot imagine what that is like. My heart goes out to them.
Frankly, aside from those six cases, there have been dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, over the years, particularly in the last 150 years, of mistreatment by various government officials, policing officials, of people from first nations, Inuit and Métis communities. It was not okay then; it is not okay today.
I think in my lifetime, certainly, we have made a lot of progress. I will give an example from when I was in high school. It was not too long ago, but it is getting up in years of how long ago that was. There was not really a curriculum established at all. Although Manitoba has very large first nations, Métis and Inuit communities, particularly first nations and Métis, as well as Inuit a little more up north, there was not a curriculum really established to my knowledge, or at least to my exposure, of learning about that history, particularly from an indigenous perspective, so it was fairly limited. However, I did have an excellent English teacher who wanted to share what other people outside of our little small-town bubble experienced.
In fact, the very first time I heard that life could be very different and that people might be treated very differently by law enforcement or others based on their background, their race or their culture, it was, in fact, about Helen Betty Osborne. She was a young woman in the 1970s, up in The Pas, Manitoba, who was murdered. Her case, if I can paraphrase it, was not taken seriously at all by police. It was significantly bungled, to say the very least. It was concluded in many ways that it was because she was an indigenous woman. It was not taken seriously. Procedures were not followed. Even just basic procedures in the 1970s, which we have improved at large since then, were not adequately followed, and she was not given the dignity that other people may have been given, who were not indigenous and who may have been found as she was. She had been stripped naked, and she had been stabbed dozens of times with a screwdriver. I believe there was a sexual assault element that was found there.
I just remember, as a 14- or 15-year-old, it really made an impression on me. Following that, I endeavoured to take indigenous studies courses in my undergrad degree, both at McGill and, in particular, at the University of Manitoba, which has the largest native studies program in the country. It was quite enlightening to learn about and to have the opportunity to go to school to have those resources to learn more about this. I am very thankful for that.
I got my start in politics 10 years ago this October. Just as I was getting started, and I think it was honestly within the first week or two, 14-year-old Tina Fontaine, an indigenous child, was found wrapped in, I believe, a blanket or a mattress of some kind and tossed in the Red River, which runs straight through Winnipeg. Unfortunately, she is not the only indigenous woman who has been found in the river. In fact, there are organizations that dredge the river just to see if they can find any of their missing women.
I had just started in provincial politics. I was a political staffer. That was my introduction to politics in Manitoba, this horrific case of a young woman who had gone through the system and had a lot of challenges presented in her life. Again, she was 14, a complete child, barely having experienced anything in life, and she was just so horrifically treated at the end, with no dignity provided to her. That also had a very strong impression on me at the time, in my introduction to politics, as well as the importance of good public policy and following through when announcements are made and things like that. I did want to mention that as well.
A few months after that, a very lengthy report came out about Phoenix Sinclair, who, in the early 2000s, was killed. She was a five-year-old girl in a first nations community. She was murdered by, unfortunately, her mother and her mother's partner at the time. She was abused, malnourished, mistreated and kept in the basement on a cold floor. The partner had shot her with a BB gun. There was just such a horrific timeline of failures of the institutions, for example, child and family services, that were supposed to follow her case, protect this child and ensure that her case was closely followed, whether she was in a community family, her own family or a foster family.
Social workers were tasked with that, and procedures were not followed. They were neglected. In fact, the family was able to hide that their daughter had died and had been thrown in a landfill for quite some time before child and family services found out. It has been mentioned in the House during this debate already, but would a child of a different race have been treated that way?
Was it just treated in the sense that it was another case? Was it almost neglectful, not respectful, not dignified? She was the most beautiful little girl, if we look at pictures of her. I am a new mom, so talking about children is a bit challenging. Those things had a real impact on me as well.
I am sorry to talk all about myself, but I did want to establish that I cannot possibly understand the challenges that many first nations, children in particular, and women and others, go through, seeing headlines where their family members are not coming home because of interactions with people that we are all supposed to be able to trust. I have had some impactful experiences and exposure to some of these things and have done my best to pursue learning more about them and what can be done about them.
Beyond the stories, we know that the facts are very cold and frightening, particularly for indigenous women and indigenous children, as I mentioned. Indigenous people are disproportionately the victims of violence in this country. For example:
...approximately 4 in 10 Indigenous people...were sexually or physically assaulted by an adult before the age of 15, and nearly two-thirds...experienced at least one sexual or physical assault after the age of 15.... For the period of 2015 to 2020, the rate of homicides involving an Indigenous victim...was six times higher than the rate of homicides involving non-Indigenous victims....
Almost six in 10 indigenous women have experienced physical assault, while almost half, 46%, of indigenous women have experienced sexual assault. Indigenous women make up approximately 16% of all female homicide victims and 11% of missing women, yet indigenous people as a whole only make up 4.3% of the population.
Regardless of which party we are and what time we have been in government, throughout the 150 years, there have obviously been failures of public policy at an extraordinary degree.
Various governments have tried to bring forward policies to help, but I do very much feel that governments still approach any partnership with indigenous people very paternalistically rather than what was originally supposed to be in treaty. Under a number of agreements over the past centuries, it was supposed to be an equal partnership at the table. That has never been borne out.
We still see governments across the country, at all levels, have a paternalistic approach, telling them what they will impose on them to help all of their problems, rather than, as has already been discussed in this debate, an indigenous-led or, at the very least, an equal partnership at the table of how these issues can be solved. I want to see in my lifetime the next generation of indigenous children thrive and grow up safely. I want to see the stats completely change, but I do not have that lived experience, so how am I supposed to know how to design a program to help fix this problem? I need to ensure that there is equal representation at the table and that indigenous leadership is primary.
I appreciate much of the debate so far. I think there has been some quite good ideas put forward, but overall, crime in this country is on the rise. We know that very well. We have talked about that at length as well. We are seeing gun crime up nearly 100%. In Winnipeg alone, gun crime is up 177%. I believe that was the stat I read this morning in question period. When we see any of these crime stats, and they are getting really bad over the last nine years under the current Liberal government, and unfortunately the NDP has supported many of the policies that we believe have contributed to these crime increases, they are horrific. They impact real people in Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary. However, often when we look at those numbers, what we are not extrapolating is that they are even worse in first nations and northern and remote communities where policing is minimal and where first nations policing is very underfunded.
I would like to talk a bit about first nations policing. I think that there is some good stuff that we could do there. I do not have first-hand experience of indigenous policing, but I have spent time with the Bear Clan, which is, I believe, a matriarch-led, established, grassroots community group in Winnipeg. As soon as I got elected, I was able to go door-knocking with them on a -35°C January evening in Winnipeg. It is indigenous-led and indigenous-established. Its members walk through the community and pick up dangerous drug paraphernalia in parks and other places to help protect the kids, but they also hand out scarves and food. The community trusts them, so they ask them for help, ask them for assistance. It is a trusting, respectful and dignified relationship. I think that is really the answer.
When there is a community that establishes what it is working for, what it is leading it and what it wants to see, that is when government can come in and ask how it can stabilize some of its funding. It is not somebody thousands of miles away, in all respect to our public servants in Ottawa, saying what the government is going to do for what Winnipeg needs with respect to funding, along with the bureaucrats, the checklists and the barriers it is going to have to fulfill, and that it is going to need to hire five people just to do the accounting. Rather, it is organisations such as the Bear Clan, which grew up from the grassroots. That is when I think government needs to come in and fund.
Therefore, from the limited perspective that I have, I believe that, if first nations policing, from what I have seen in Winnipeg, follows that same model where it is indigenous community-led and is implementing culturally respectful practices that would support the community, that should be where government is. That is where government should support, not with an Ottawa-implemented approach from thousands of miles away, where we could not possibly understand the challenges. There are even the challenges of just getting adequate food and water, for example, and it is unbelievable to say in Canada in 2024 that some people cannot just turn on the tap and drink the water. However, I am getting a bit off track.
I want to say as well that, in addition to the benefits of my limited knowledge from what I have heard about indigenous policing, it sounds like it could be really great. I know that there have been efforts over the last 20 years to start putting that in. I will get into some of the failures of the Liberal government in that regard. In fact, I will talk about them now in case I do not get to them. I want to get them on the record.
Here are just a few numbers. The Auditor General report just came out in the last little while, and it found some pretty disappointing, we will call them, at best, results for much of the Liberal funding for first nations and Inuit policing programs. Just to give some ballpark numbers for this one program, from 2018 to 2023, there was $930 million spent on first nations and Inuit policing. I do not know if that is enough. I do not know if that is too much. I would have to read more of the information. It might not be nearly enough. From what we have heard, it does not sound like it is, or it may be enough, but how it is being implemented, as I mentioned before, is part of the problem.
In the report, the Auditor General was quite scathing of the government's deliverables on this. Again, there is an announcement that sounds great, yet unfortunately, like so many of its programs, it announces big amounts of money, but like this one, cannot get the money out the door. The Liberals just do not know how to spend it, but it sounds like a great number when they announce it, and that it is going to make a real difference. However, the Auditor General “found that Public Safety Canada did not know whether the First Nations and Inuit Policing Program was achieving most of its key expected results.” Again, this is almost a billion dollars spent in the last number of years by the current Liberal government. The report also “found that the gathering and analyzing of program data were so limited that Public Safety Canada”, under Liberal leadership, “did not have an accurate listing of the signed community...agreements.”
The parliamentary secretary for Public Safety was here, but she has since left. My apologies, I cannot mention that, and I retract it. She gave a robust response that mentioned all the funding, but we are seeing in black and white from the Auditor General of Canada, a non-partisan person charged with holding governments accountable for their program spending, that basically the government has not been following the money. It does not know if the program is successful. It cannot get the money out the door, and it does not even know the agreements that it has signed with first nations communities.
While I appreciate the parliamentary secretary's remarks, it is frustrating to hear the Liberals list ad nauseam all of these things, yet in black and white, there seems to be no accountability beyond announcing the funding. As we have established, these are very critical issues in this country. People have died. As I mentioned, in a number of the statistics, women are disproportionately impacted and children are disproportionately impacted. I do believe that it is a failure to announce this money and raise people's hopes and expectations, because voters do care about these issues, yet fail to deliver.
It has been nine years of this government now. Crime is through the roof in almost every single measure, and it is worse in first nations communities, to say nothing of the drug issues under the Liberals' failed drug policies. They are saying, “Well, we are announcing all this money though. We are doing so great.” However, when in a debate like this tonight in the chamber, apparently they are not. Apparently there is a lot of work to do. If we are going to have indigenous people lead the way on reserves, then some of this money has to be followed. At least the government has to know who it has agreements with. I was pretty shocked to read that one in particular.
I feel like I am ranting a bit, but it does get me going a little to hear people in ivory towers talk about everything they are doing, yet on the ground we are not seeing that delivered, and they are promising it over and over again. In fact, in 2020, the Liberal government promised to bring forward legislation to declare first nations and Inuit police services an essential service. Years go by, but nothing happens. In 2022, the former minister of public safety said that he would “work around the clock” to table legislation by the end of 2022. It is 2024, and there is no legislation. I do take issue with the announcements and the patting on the back when there is no follow through, when the Liberals are not even keeping track if their deliverables are being achieved, yet they are claiming success. I do have a real problem with that.
I was hoping to talk a bit more about crime at large and what, in particular, a number of first nations communities in Saskatchewan and others are calling for. I think there is some really good stuff in there, and I hope to get the opportunity in the question and comment portion of this debate to discuss what first nations people would like to see happen.
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