Hon. Michèle Audette: Colleagues, I am honoured, excited and, of course, a little bit nervous to rise today to give my maiden speech in reply to the Speech from the Throne.

First, I would like to acknowledge the Anishinaabe nation and, of course, thank the Anishinaabe people for welcoming me on their territory and enabling me to continue my journey. Kitchi meegwetch.

I would also like to thank everyone who directly or indirectly helped make my childhood dream of becoming a senator come true. It has been a long time coming. At the time, this dream was fuelled by my anger and rage and a desire to change discriminatory laws. Now that the dream has become a reality, I see it as an opportunity to speak for those whose voices go unheard and to help them be part of a vibrant Canada.

I cannot name everyone or every important person who helped me achieve this dream, but please know that you are dear to me. I sincerely thank you.

I also want to say a very special thank you to two people, my mother and father. Thank you for your patience. Thank you also for your courage and your unwavering support. You have helped me all along the way.

My mother, Evelyne, is a great Innu woman — small, but great — and my father is the most beautiful Quebecer, obviously. It is also said in certain stories of the first peoples, that I was a little star in the sky and that I chose my parents. I swear that I do not regret it; I am proud of my choice.

My arrival in the land of the Atiku, the caribou, was not without its challenges. I was born in Labrador, after stopping a train travelling from Sept-Îles to Schefferville. A helicopter came to pick up my mother in the middle of this vast land. She was taken to Labrador. She told me that she already knew that I would be a handful. At such an early age, on that very train, I experienced segregation. Yes, up until 1989, there was a car for white people and a car for the “savages.” That was the word used in those days, of course.

As the apple does not fall far from the tree, I joined Quebec Native Women as its president in 1998. I’ve continued the work of my mother, Evelyne, to defend the interests of First Nations women. My mother is also one of the co-founders of Quebec Native Women. She is supported by gentle warriors; they have come together to stand up for their rights, which were taken away from them by discriminatory laws, and to work on improving the living conditions of women and their families.

On the one hand, I’ve had to deal with segregation, and on the other hand I am criticized for being half Quebecer. Why should I have to choose? Why not bring together my Innu and Quebec sides and harness these rich woven identities I’ve been blessed with?

As Samian, an Anishinaabe artist I strongly encourage you to listen to, so eloquently said, “Growing up mixed in a world divided, I didn’t choose sides, and on fusion I decided.”

As a beader, I say that I chose to bead them together. Beading is a source of healing for me. Every bead represents a light and has its very own soul.

Today I will leave some beads for all of you. I sincerely hope you pick them up and that, together, we can reassemble or assemble them into a just, fair society that values every individual’s diversity, language, culture, values and histories.

You may recall that on November 22, a date forever etched in my heart and in my memory, I stood before you with my Innu moccasins to remind me of my relationship to the land, to keep me connected to Mother Earth and, most importantly, to remind me where I come from.

I also wore a ribbon skirt, which was a gift from my daughter-in-law, for a march in honour of our sister Joyce Echaquan. This was also another reminder of my duty to remember. On my sweater I wore a beautiful beaded medallion depicting the women of spirit, our missing and murdered sisters, with a nukum holding our Senate pin. Her heart showed an openness to change, to ensure that the voices of marginalized and vulnerable people could be heard and resonate from coast to coast to coast. My medallion reflects my priorities of self-determination, justice and education. It was imperative for me to arrive here with my symbols, which are as important to me as the symbols we see in this chamber. They are a way for me to redefine our relationship, a relationship based on knowledge, recognition, healing and reconciliation.

There is a growing awakening, and people are beginning to react as unmarked graves are being found, confirming the presence of tiny lights, tiny human beings. All this is starting to hit home for people, as you can imagine. We will be forced to bear witness to these truths many times, perhaps too many times.

I want to commend all of those people, 10,500 of them, who dared to share their truth and allowed their pearls, their stories, to be translated into calls for justice, calls for action and, of course, recommendations. I will list three inquiries that have been conducted since 1991: the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and, of course, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, known as MMIWG.

All of these extensive reports have yielded over 10,000 pages of content and over 1,000 recommendations, calls to action and calls for justice.

Clearly, for someone standing in my moccasins, recommendations are no longer an option. We now need legal imperatives, accountability. What mechanisms are in place for monitoring and implementing these things? What are the steps to be taken and what progress has been made?

We have a responsibility to honour the truth of members, families and survivors and to ensure that human rights, health rights, cultural rights, education rights, and the rights to security and justice are respected. I am making it my duty to remind parliamentarians of the importance of implementing and following through on the calls for justice. They are all important, but in my opinion, it is important to focus first on an accountability and transparency mechanism, pursuant to call for justice 1.7 of the NIMMIWG, which called for the establishment of a National Indigenous and Human Rights Ombudsperson.

Reconciliation is practically on the lips of each and every one of us.

In the chamber, on one side we hear about the importance of the First Peoples, the founding languages and reconciliation. On the other side, I sometimes hear people say that everything began with the discoveries and the explorers, their colonial languages, what we call official languages, and with the passage of certain laws that perpetuated harm . . . . So, when the federal government takes major steps in its relationship with the governments of the First Peoples, in some regions we have to deal with disputes, as we do back home in Quebec.

This is the start of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. These languages are part of our strengths, they are the cultural fabric and identity of this vast country. To my mind, Indigenous languages are also official languages. Like thousands of people and like the Inuit people of Inuit Nunangat, I am proud that an Inuk woman, Her Excellency Mary May Simon, was appointed Governor General of Canada.

I will quote the Pauktuuit organization, as follows:

[English]

Having an Inuk Governor General is especially inspiring for our youth. It is also a meaningful step on the journey of reconciliation with Inuit. It also removes stereotypes held towards Indigenous women by mainstream society.

[Translation]

There is no doubt that First Peoples are resilient; we have survived and we are welcoming people.

We invited the people who are my half and your ancestors to come out of their boats. Kapak! Kapak! Quebec! Come out of your boats.

All of this should be taught in every school. Education must play a key role in closing the gap of ignorance and eliminating unconscious bias, racism and discrimination. It is important that we advocate for Joyce’s principle, for Joyce was our great sister, gentle warrior and an Atikamekw mother. I have worked alongside Carol, her spouse, and Diane and Michel, her mother and father, on this principle.

It is shocking to me that in 2020, when medical students, future doctors, were presented with a case study involving an Indigenous man in the ER who was staggering slightly and had some vomit on his shirt, 100% of them consistently diagnosed him as being under the influence of alcohol or drugs. I am sure that these students were not born racist, but their education and the little they know about the First Nations contribute to these unconscious biases. Institutions are making progress on “Inuitizing” — a word you will hear me use a lot — and decolonizing their materials and working towards reconciliation. Nevertheless, I have a dream for the self-determination of the First Peoples, a dream that we will one day have our own university, by and for the First Peoples, in Quebec of course, but why not elsewhere? I dream of a university where our identity, our culture, our languages, our knowledge, our ceremonies, our traditions and our governance structures are honoured and celebrated.

Esteemed colleagues, with respect to reciprocity, I encourage all of us here to systematically reflect on the potential impact that any bills we are drafting or studying may have on the First Peoples. Were they involved in the process? Let’s be proactive and invite them to work with us, together. As I have already said, I am making it my duty to ask you these questions, because this is one of my responsibilities.

Before I wrap up, I will share a little secret — or a big one, actually. Many people know this. When I came here, it was important to me to choose the East Block for these reasons: I wanted to encounter John A. Macdonald, or at least his spirit. I was determined to go looking for him. I can assure you that, when I found him, I was trembling and crying. I looked at his picture and stood there, my hands on the photo. Then I told him that all his attempts at assimilation and destruction had failed. I am here. I am alive. We are here. We are alive.

Despite everything that happened, I agreed to invest my time and energy here, in an institution that passed laws to assimilate and destroy. At the same time, when I listen to you, when I look at you, when I hear you, when I observe you, I can see that your individual and collective intelligence is astounding, and I am sure that, in this great chamber, we will work for the good of our societies as we pursue justice, equity, equality and social justice. I even told Mr. Macdonald that I was ready to forgive him if we could write a new chapter to change everything that happened. Only time will tell.

I also want to chase away the alienation that my mother feels. My mother Evelyne, this beautiful Innu woman, has always felt like a stranger here in her own country. She is reaching out to you, telling you that she is your neighbour and only wants to get to know you. She is my hero.

Tshinashkumitnau, colleagues.