Hon. Patti LaBoucane-Benson: Honourable senators, I am once again very happy to be speaking on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg.

I am speaking today at the second reading of Bill C-29, the national council for reconciliation act. The council created by this bill would have a mandate to monitor, evaluate and report on reconciliation efforts federally and throughout Canadian society; highlight and share best practices; engage with Canadians to create a better general understanding of reconciliation and be a catalyst for innovation and action.

First, I want to express my sincere thanks to Senator Audette for sponsoring this legislation and bringing her experience to bear as a former commissioner of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

As she said in her remarks when we received the bill back in December:

. . . this bill is of vital importance. It is a step toward healing and reparation. . . .

. . . Bill C-29 gives us the opportunity to start laying the foundation for the shaputuan, the big tent of the Innus, or to take a step towards our collective responsibility. . . .

I agree that Bill C-29’s significance and potential is part of a landscape of reconciliation-focused bodies and organizations to help make lives better in her Innu territory, in my beloved Treaty 6 territory, here on the lands of the Algonquin and the Anishinaabeg people and for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people throughout Canada.

I also extend my thanks to the other senators who have contributed to the debate on the bill so far, including Senators Dupuis, Patterson, McCallum and Anderson. I have no doubt we all share the goal of making sure that reconciliation isn’t just a word but an accurate description of the way we live, the way we heal and the way we build a future together.

Over the course of our debate, we’ve heard concerns about some of the bill’s specifics, such as the national council for reconciliation’s composition and how it should be funded. These are important questions, senators, and I look forward to delving into them at the Indigenous Peoples Committee.

The main purpose of my remarks today is to address the matter of the bill’s genesis and the consultation and engagement process that preceded its introduction.

A couple of weeks ago, we heard Senator Anderson’s view that the process was deeply flawed, to the point that perhaps we should not advance Bill C-29 beyond second reading, at least for a time.

I have a different view. By the way, Indigenous leaders have been disagreeing with each other since time immemorial, so it should be no surprise that the Indigenous people in the Senate also have different perspectives on important pieces of legislation. I think it’s part of a healthy debate that results in good law.

The way I see it, Bill C-29 is the result of years of Indigenous-led efforts, beginning with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, or TRC. That commission, led by our former colleague the Honourable Murray Sinclair, spent years travelling across Canada, heard from more than 6,500 witnesses — most of whom were survivors of the residential school system — and issued 94 Calls to Action.

Among those are Calls to Action 53 to 56, which advocate for the creation of a national council for reconciliation, with recommendations about how it should be resourced and how different levels of government could interact with it. Certainly, it wouldn’t be enough to go straight from the TRC Call to Action to legislation. An engagement process is required to get us from point A to point B, and I’m about to get to that, but I do think it’s important to keep the context in mind.

The idea of the national council for reconciliation wasn’t dreamed up in a brainstorming session in a boardroom on Wellington Street. It comes from the work of the TRC.

Next, in 2017, the government set up an interim board of First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders to advise the minister on how to begin turning the TRC idea into legislation and, ultimately, into a functioning council. Among the interim board members were people with backgrounds in Indigenous government, like Wilton Littlechild, former grand chief of Treaty 6; in community activism, like long-time Quebec Indigenous activist Édith Cloutier; in economic development, like Clint Davis, an Inuk who was a CEO of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business; and in Indigenous rights law, like Métis lawyer Jean Teillet.

In addition to bringing their own expertise to bear, the interim board created an online mechanism to receive written submissions on how the national council for reconciliation should be set up, and the interim board held a major engagement session in April 2018 with dozens of Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants from across the country with diverse backgrounds, experience and knowledge.

The participants included Melanie Omeniho, President of Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak; Jocelyn Formsma, a board member of the Indigenous Bar Association and CEO of the National Association of Friendship Centres; Maggie Emudluk Sr., President of the Nunavik Landholding Corporations Association; Harold Robinson, a Métis lawyer and mediator with the Canadian Human Rights Commission; Stephen Kakfwi, the former premier of the Northwest Territories and a residential school survivor; and Elder Claudette Commanda, the first Indigenous chancellor at the University of Ottawa.

A few months after that engagement session, later in 2018, the interim board delivered to the minister a report that served as the basis for the bill that is currently before us. That report was shared at the time with the Assembly of First Nations, with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Métis National Council. This past February, senators, it was shared with all of you, along with a summary of the April 2018 engagement session.

One of the report’s recommendations was that an Indigenous-led transitional committee be established to conduct more targeted, technical engagements and review the draft legal framework to be developed by the government. Essentially, the first body — the interim board — made conceptual recommendations in advance and crafted an initial working draft of the bill, while the purpose of the second body — the transitional committee — was to do the more technical, detailed work of reviewing legislative language as the text got firmed up.

The transitional committee was appointed in January 2021, with some members carried over from the interim board as well as some new appointees. Earlier this year, the Senate had the opportunity to receive a briefing from several of them: Edith Cloutier, whom I mentioned earlier; Rosemary Cooper of Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada; Mitch Case of the Métis Nation of Ontario; and Mike DeGagné, the former president of Nipissing University, Yukon University and the former CEO of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.

The transitional committee submitted its final report to the minister in March 2022. Then, the minister discussed the bill with the leaders of the Assembly of First Nations, or AFN, Métis National Council, or MNC, and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, or ITK, in early May. Bill C-29 was introduced in late June.

So that was the process that got us from the idea’s inception by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC, through to introduction last spring. There is more consultation to come, as required by subsection 13(2) of the bill, which says:

. . . the Council must consult with a variety of persons with relevant knowledge, expertise or experience, including elders, survivors of the discriminatory and assimilationist policies of the Government of Canada and Indigenous law practitioners.

The government has deliberately avoided being overly prescriptive about the details of how the council will operate, leaving considerable room for the council itself to engage further with individuals and organizations as it develops its methods and procedures and determines its areas of focus. Still, it is certainly legitimate to believe that consultations thus far should have been more extensive, that a wider net should have been cast or that more or different people should have been involved in more or different ways.

I do not, however, accept that the process I have described can be dismissed as “unserious.” On the contrary, this bill is the result of a lot of work done by impressive, credible, eminent Indigenous peoples — First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples with capacity. These are Indigenous leaders with considerable experience and expertise. We owe them the respect of sending this bill to committee, inviting them to testify and engaging conscientiously with the product of their work.

Speaking of respect, the sponsor of Bill C-29 in our chamber is also an impressive, credible, eminent Indigenous leader who’s not exactly a novice on the subject of engagement with Indigenous people and organizations. That doesn’t mean we all have to agree with Senator Audette or vote the way she would like us to — although I’m sure she would like us to — but I hope it means that our collective approach to this bill will be studious, thoughtful and devoid of derision.

It’s also important to remember that we are not Bill C-29’s first point of contact with the Parliament of Canada. A couple weeks ago, Senator Tannas raised the example of the old Bill S-3, which the Senate held at committee for several months in 2016 and 2017 while the government conducted additional consultations. But that was a bill introduced in our chamber before the members of the other place had a chance to weigh in.

In this instance, we’re talking about legislation that has already been considered and adopted by our colleagues up the street. Their Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee held eight meetings on it last fall. They heard from 38 witnesses, made several amendments and MPs from all parties ultimately gave this legislation their unanimous support, including First Nations, Inuit and Métis members of Parliament Lori Idlout from Nunavut, Michael McLeod from the Northwest Territories, Jaime Battiste from Nova Scotia, Marc Dalton from B.C., Leah Gazan from Winnipeg and Blake Desjarlais — my friend — from Edmonton.

That doesn’t mean we’re obligated to set aside any concerns we might have — absolutely not; it’s quite the opposite. It’s our turn now to subject this legislation to senatorial scrutiny. But when the people’s elected representatives have completed an extensive study and sent us a bill that they all believe is worthy of support, our job — at minimum — is to get it to committee and conduct our own extensive study.

We will undoubtedly hear testimony at committee from the bill’s architects and supporters, as well as from people who have been making criticisms and asking questions about it. I’m keen to hear from all such witnesses and to ask them questions of my own, including about the consultation process. I am also eager to analyze Bill C-29 in detail with the benefit of their input.

Committee study will be a further opportunity for Indigenous voices to be heard, for differing viewpoints to be considered and for senators to determine if there are ways in which the legislation can be improved. That is at the core of the Senate’s institutional role, which is to serve as a complementary chamber in this bill’s legislative journey.

I’m under no illusions that a single bill can achieve reconciliation. But in the last few years, we’ve had the opportunity to support bills about Indigenous languages, child welfare and land management; bills addressing overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system; bills implementing self-governance agreements; and, of course, Bill C-15 regarding the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

In my view, Bill C-29 is an important element in this series of legislative measures, with many more to come.

Once again, I thank Senator Audette for sponsoring the bill, and I thank all senators who have participated in this debate. Even when we disagree about particular legislative measures, I know we share the ultimate goal of meaningful, impactful reconciliation.

In that spirit, I hope committee study of Bill C-29 can begin soon.

Hiy hiy.