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May/4/22 10:47:48 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I want to commend my colleague. He worked in Montreal for several years, which means he speaks impeccable French. I thank him. He is an inspiration to us all. I think he has once again put his finger on a situation that does not have an easy solution when it comes to the first nations. There are communities like Wendake back home that are literally embedded in an urban city like Quebec City. However, there are other so‑called remote communities, although I find it pejorative to call them remote, as though we were at the centre and people who are not at the centre are remote. As far as I know, the remoteness is just as far as the centre. People who live in so-called remote areas could say that the people living downtown are remote. They would all be correct to say so. The reality is that if we want to provide proper and appropriate services to first nations, we must consider the fact that these communities are not located in urban centres. We must provide services to ensure that the assistance we want to offer is made available appropriately and promptly in light of the daily reality of these first nations.

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The Deputy Chair

May/4/22 10:49:06 p.m.
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We have just enough time for a brief question. The hon. member for Manicouagan.

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Mrs. Marilène Gill (Manicouagan, BQ)

May/4/22 10:49:09 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I would just like to ask my colleague from Louis‑Saint‑Laurent about his expectations for the outcome of the take-note debate on the issue before us tonight.

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Mr. Gérard Deltell

May/4/22 10:49:21 p.m.
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Madam Chair, although it has unfortunately taken 400 years for us to engage in this reflection, let us hope that concrete action will be taken in the years to come with the support and co-operation of first nations. It is not up to people like me, the son of an immigrant, to say what is good for first nations. Instead we should be listening to what first nations want and what they want to do, and then we should provide the support required so that we can all look ahead to a bright future.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

May/4/22 10:49:55 p.m.
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Madam Chair, it is an honour to rise today toward the end of the debate. We have some time left and some more speakers, but I think this take-note debate has been one of sincerity and has been heartfelt. I think we have seen some real change in the way we are able to discuss things in this place and to accept the inquiry. I remember when the inquiry came out: it was not quite three years ago. When the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and two-spirited inquiry first said that this was a genocide, there was a great deal of response in the media as if that might not be the case. It has been stated by members on all sides of the House today without question. That gives a sense that we have made progress in understanding the scope, scale and gravity of the issue. I want to start by acknowledging that we are here on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe peoples. I want to also acknowledge the territory that I am honoured to represent here in Parliament: My riding name of Saanich—Gulf Islands is a corrupted English pronunciation of W̱SÁNEĆ, the W̱SÁNEĆ nation of the Coast Salish peoples. I am deeply indebted to the peoples of our territory. I want to also begin by saying that I will be splitting my time with the honourable and terrific member of Parliament for Edmonton Griesbach. There is a lot that has been said. With the time remaining for me it would be hard to add a great deal more, but in preparing for this and whenever I think about the inquiry, I do not want to talk about statistics. I just want to say, as a settler culture woman, recognizing the privilege of the colour of my skin, that I am so lucky. I have a bunch of great women friends, but it is only my indigenous women friends who say things casually like, “I was left for dead in a dumpster”. I hardly know any close indigenous women friends who have not had the experience of losing close family members, particularly in the downtown east side in Vancouver. That statement, “I was left for dead in a dumpster,” was actually in the context of sitting in a circle after this report came out in Victoria with a woman who I thought I knew really well. Her anglicized name is Rose Henry. She goes by the Tsilhqot’in name now of Grandma Losah. I had no idea that my friend Rose, as a kid, had been left for dead in a dumpster after being beaten and abused. These experiences are not statistics. These are our friends, our mothers, our aunties and our children. The levels of abuse and casual violence against indigenous women and girls is appalling and a human rights abuse. We have not responded with the urgency that we must. We went for years, as I am sure colleagues will remember, demanding that we get an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. We got the inquiry. We got the recommendations, but women and girls are still going missing on a routine basis. Indigenous women and girls are still marginalized and at risk, and we have 231 calls for justice to make that not the case anymore. In the time remaining for me, I want to emphasize a few of them that stand out. Call for justice 4.5, which I have mentioned tonight in questions and comments, is a call for a guaranteed livable income that will end the marginalization and take women and girls from being in a position of great risk to being safer by the security of having enough money to not be in poverty. It is pretty straightforward. We also know from this inquiry that women who have gone missing are quite often, through their marginalized economic status, forced to hitchhike. They do not own cars. They are not going to be getting safe and affordable ground transportation because there is none. Our ground transportation system in this country is worse than that in most developing countries: Members should think about that. This report came out before Greyhound withdrew service right across Canada. I talk to my Nuu-chah-nulth friends, particularly Chief Judith Sayers of the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation. She has been a prominent supporter of a local bus company called Wilson's bus lines that has been trying to stay afloat and trying to connect services. The government needs to acknowledge that we need VIA Rail to work for the marginalized. We also need to address the huge threat of wellness checks in which indigenous women and girls die. A wellness check should not result in an inquiry and a coroner's report. This also needs urgent attention.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

May/4/22 10:55:05 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I have great respect for the member, but since she has brought us into a debate about the universal basic income, which I see as entailing a variety of different policy questions from the specific issue of combatting violence, I wonder if the member can share whether there is any data at all to suggest that somehow we are going to see a drop in violence associated with the particular implementation of this policy instrument. Would we not be better off addressing causes of poverty, as in providing the specific support that people who are in vulnerable situations need, rather than providing simply a guarantee that anybody who falls below a certain level automatically starts getting paid by the government? Does the member believe that we could finance this by cutting other social programs, or does she believe we could afford this on top of the existing social programs we are providing?

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Ms. Elizabeth May

May/4/22 10:56:04 p.m.
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Madam Chair, as I was calling out the calls for justice from the inquiry report, I will read it: 4.5 We call upon all governments to establish a guaranteed annual livable income for all Canadians, including indigenous peoples, to meet all their social and economic needs. I could go into this at great length. We have a poverty caucus in this place made up of members of Parliament and people from the other place. We have had expert testimony for years. I recommend to the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan a great book by the great Progressive Conservative Hugh Segal: Bootstraps Need Boots.

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Ms. Lori Idlout (Nunavut, NDP)

May/4/22 10:56:46 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, I think the hon. member's speech was great. It has been interesting to sit here during this debate and hear all the empathy and understanding that apparently seems to be quite common about the realities and experiences of first nations, Métis and Inuit. Unfortunately, we are not hearing a lot of calls for accountability. I wonder this. Can the hon. member, with her long experience as a member of Parliament, share some examples of how accountability could be ensured, and to make sure we are seeing, with regard to the crisis of the murdered and missing indigenous women and diverse gendered people too, accountability from that perspective? Qujannamiik.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

May/4/22 10:57:33 p.m.
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Madam Chair, that reminds me of something that the great journalist Warner Troyer once said, which was that politicians are basically like single-celled organisms, susceptible only to heat, pressure and pain. We need more heat, more pressure and some more pain to make those who have the power to make these changes, make the changes.

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Ms. Andréanne Larouche (Shefford, BQ)

May/4/22 10:57:58 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I thank my hon. colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands for her speech. We are nearing the end of the take-note debate. I agree with my colleague from Manicouagan. I too have a problem with the term “take-note”. There are 231 calls for justice, 231 ways to take action so that no more women or girls are murdered or go missing. I wonder if my colleague could comment on the fact that we are having a take-note debate when there are 231 calls for justice, for action.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

May/4/22 10:58:38 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I thank my hon. colleague from Shefford. She is right. We are here, at this late hour, when there are over 200 calls for justice. We all understand what needs to be done, and yet we are having a take-note debate, which is not enough.

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Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP)

May/4/22 10:59:10 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I know that my granny went to residential school in Lejac from the age of four to 16. Unfortunately, when she was 16, the nuns arranged for a marriage for her and she was married to a 50-year-old white man. When he passed away not too long after, of course, she was rejected by the family and lost her status and was not able to go home. When I think about the history of Canada and how unsafe it makes indigenous women and girls, I am wondering this. Could the member talk about how this history continues to repeat itself?

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Ms. Elizabeth May

May/4/22 10:59:47 p.m.
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Madam Chair, these stories just break our hearts. History repeats itself because we do not take it on board as a situation. We would not tolerate this if, throughout society, at the same proportion of the population, women with my colour of skin were going missing at the same rate as indigenous women. We have to face facts. History repeats itself because racism remains systemic.

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Mr. Blake Desjarlais (Edmonton Griesbach, NDP)

May/4/22 11:00:22 p.m.
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Madam Chair, today I want to acknowledge all my colleagues. Each and every one of them here today is participating in what has been a very difficult conversation for indigenous people not just here, but across the country. I want them to do more than sympathize, but to honestly ask themselves what it would be like without their mothers, what would it be like without their sisters, or what would it be like without their grandmothers. Every indigenous family in this country knows that pain, but I do not want to talk about the pain. We talked an awful lot today about the pain indigenous people have suffered, but I want to remind members that with this pain it was not the current government or any government in the country that kept us alive: it was indigenous women. Indigenous women kept our nations alive, and they still do today. That is precisely the reason the government, and every government in Canadian history, has persisted to ensure this problem is not addressed. By evidence of what has occurred thus far, is the fact that our indigenous women continue to go missing. How can we say to the contrary? I want to talk about the remarkable women in my life who have made a contribution to my presence here today. They are really the only reason I am here. Indigenous women have fought for our nations. They fought for every single child, and one woman who comes to my mind in particular is my mother. Her name is Grace Desjarlais. She is the sister of a woman named Brenda, who was taken through the sixties scoop. The sixties scoop, the residential schools system and every government policy to date has not consulted indigenous women; however, they expect their labour. When Brenda, my biological mother, was working as a sex worker after aging out of the terrible foster care system that this country still has, she fought. She had an option presented to her. She said she could have given up and gone down the road that so many of our sisters do, but she fought and she stayed alive. She was able to live to the age of 42: a feat that many indigenous women do not get the opportunity to do in this country. She asked her sister, a woman she barely knew, to do something courageous. She asked her to take her son and to save him from a system that would kill him. That was me. Women came together from my community and said “no”. We took a challenge against the court, and I was one of the very few children not apprehended even though the first person I met in this world was a social worker and an RCMP officer. The people who would save me were indigenous women. This is a holistic issue, my friends. When we support indigenous women, they will continue to save lives. They will save our nations. I know this because I have seen it. I am here because of it. There has been no government program, no government policy and no government that has done this work for us. When I see the work of the calls to action, the calls to justice, I see mothers, aunties and kokums who did everything they could to make sure that the government listens. Today, I hope this debate goes much further than just words. To every government member here today, I want them to imagine what it would be like not to have mothers, grandmothers or sisters and then ask themselves whether it is worth waiting and whether the government has succeeded. That is the one thing I hope they take from this debate.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

May/4/22 11:05:04 p.m.
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Madam Chair, hearing members in the House speak about their parents reminds us of how imminent some of the things are that we hear about: As younger members, they feel further away, yet they are not so far away. They are within living memory of so many people still alive: parents and members of the House. I want to ask the member a question with respect to the dialogue that has happened between his party and the Liberals around the confidence and supply agreement. I think it is a fair question to ask. There have been many criticisms from the NDP of the government approach with respect to aspects of this issue. At the same time, there was no mention in that confidence and supply agreement of specific commitments around indigenous issues. I wonder if the member could share some of his thinking around that. Are the NDP going to be pushing for other things in addition to what is in that agreement?

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Mr. Blake Desjarlais

May/4/22 11:06:06 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I thank my colleague for the question, and I understand it to be one of political importance, considering where we are today. However, I would ask the member how one would go about doing the work that he proposes with a process and a system that are so entrenched in a deeply colonial, deeply harmful and deeply problematic system. What I mean to say is that this place, the building we are in right now and the governance system that we have are not conducive to the justice indigenous people deserve or need. There is no confidence and supply agreement that can fix this issue. What needs to be fixed is Canadians. Canadians need to understand that they are part of this problem and that we need a cultural shift. There is no confidence and supply agreement that can fix this issue. It requires that individuals and communities, including the member and his own family, understand their place in this country.

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Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP)

May/4/22 11:07:12 p.m.
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Madam Chair, it is such a privilege and honour to listen to my very wise colleague. We share a common history, a history of family impacted by the child welfare system. Would my colleague agree with me that one of the areas we need to focus on is ensuring that kids aging out of care age into a home and supports rather than on the street?

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Mr. Blake Desjarlais

May/4/22 11:07:50 p.m.
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Madam Chair, my hon. colleague from Winnipeg Centre is a champion, and I do not have to tell anyone in this House how important the work she does is. I know many members who have aged out. What we mean by “aged out” is that our system here in Canada provides the kick-boot treatment to young indigenous children in particular. When they hit the age of 18, they get tossed out on the street, just like my mom. She fought, by herself, to get to where she was. However, many indigenous people, particularly indigenous children who age out of the system, need far more than that. I have a biological sister, the oldest of my family, whom I have never met. The only phone call I ever got was the phone call to tell me she passed away. That is the level of support we have in this country for families. I was told that she died and had a funeral, and no one was there. Members can imagine how that makes me feel. The supports that we have to date are zero. Anything beyond this is critical. I believe that supporting indigenous women, as I said in my statement, is the path, because they save communities, they save lives and they saved me.

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Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

May/4/22 11:09:09 p.m.
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Madam Chair, hearing the member for Edmonton Griesbach reminds me tonight, as always, how lucky we are to have him in this place. He was talking about accountability that he was looking for from the governing party. With the time remaining, would he like to share more in terms of the accountability he is looking for?

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Mr. Blake Desjarlais

May/4/22 11:09:28 p.m.
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Madam Chair, accountability is a process of understanding the harm, the pain and the true impact of what has happened to indigenous people in this country. It means digging deep into one's own family history and understanding that not everyone in this House has good ancestors. We all inherit something. My family inherited a significant amount of pain. Many other people, particularly the people who benefited most from this country, continue to benefit. They are some of the largest oligarch benefactors still today. We need justice. We need to tax them, and they need to pay their fair share.

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