44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 21, 2022 02:00PM
Mr. Speaker, kwe. Hello. Bonjour.
Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge that Canada's Parliament is located on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to say a few words today as we gather to debate this important bill. Part of the shameful and racist colonial policy of residential schools was to forcibly remove indigenous children, first nations, Inuit and Métis, from their communities and deny them their families' languages and culture, all while they endured widespread abuse. Many of the children, we know now, did not come home.
The root of many of the inequalities we see today can still be traced back to the loss of culture, identity and family connections, and the abuse perpetrated by the residential school system. The harmful legacy of this system continues to affect survivors, family and indigenous communities to this day. We see it in the high rates of violence, incarceration and suicide, and in the high demand for mental health and addiction services across Canada for indigenous people. We must take action to reverse this legacy.
The creation of the national council of reconciliation, through Bill C-29, would be an important step toward enhancing reconciliation and strengthening the relationship between indigenous people and the Government of Canada, a relationship based on respect and recognition of rights.
As we begin to debate this bill, I would like to step back and look at the bill from a broader historical perspective. Canada had a system of residential schools starting in the 1830s and lasting until the final school closed in 1998. The aim of these residential schools was to kill the Indian in the child.
In the 2000s, survivors of the system organized a class action, bringing light to the abuses suffered in the residential schools. I recall during my time at the Assembly of First Nations, as part of the Assembly of First Nations National Youth Council, witnessing first-hand the leadership of survivors, such as former national chief Phil Fontaine, who was one of the first leaders to courageously share publicly his experience at residential school.
I am also reminded of the late Mi'kmaq advocate Nora Bernard, whose tireless pursuit of justice led to a class action lawsuit on behalf of the survivors in Nova Scotia. It was direct action and courage from indigenous survivors that led to a legal settlement with residential school survivors, the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit representatives, the federal government and church representatives.
In 2008, the resilience of survivors led to Canada making a formal apology to survivors for Canada's role in the residential school system. A very important part of that settlement agreement was the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which had a crucial mandate to inform all Canadians about the truth of what happened in Indian residential schools.
The commission's great work from 2007 to 2015 helped bring the truth of residential schools to light and begin the work of reconciliation among former residential school survivors, their families, their communities and, indeed, all of Canada. During this time, the commissioners conducted interviews and hearings with survivors and their families to document what had happened at these residential schools. Their work was extensive. They hosted seven national events, countless regional and community events across Canada and conducted more than 6,500 interviews, which resulted in the 94 calls to action we now discuss today.
These 94 calls to action laid the groundwork to the further reconciliation between Canadians and indigenous people. It is clear reconciliation might mean different things to different people, but the commission gave us a point to start from. It gave us a way of solidifying a complex set of ideas, bringing them together in a blueprint for addressing systemic racism in this country.
It describes reconciliation as an ongoing individual collective process that “will require commitment from all those affected including First Nations, Inuit and Métis former Indian residential school students, their families, communities, religious entities, former school employees, government and the people of Canada.” This involves all of us, and this journey of reconciliation is one we must take together.
In relation to the bill before us today, calls to action 53 to 56 directly call upon the government to do what the government plans to do with Bill C-29 today, which is to establish a national council for reconciliation.
Among the 94 calls to action, our government has already taken steps along this journey. We have created the first Indigenous Languages Act. We have for the first time an indigenous languages commissioner, and we have passed legislation to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Bill C-15. Next week, we will be celebrating the first anniversary of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. While I am proud of these accomplishments, there is more work that needs to be done. It needs to be done at the federal, provincial and municipal levels. Bill C-29 would ensure that we stay committed to this important work.
Some of the functions of an independent national council for reconciliation would be to develop and implement a multi-year national action plan to advance efforts in reconciliation, conduct research on promising practices that advance efforts for reconciliation, educate the public about indigenous peoples' realities and histories, stimulate dialogue and address all other matters that the independent council determines are necessary to advance reconciliation.
Education is an important part of the work we need to do moving forward. In my previous role as a treaty education lead in Nova Scotia, I presented many times on reconciliation, and it was only then did I realize that most Canadians were not getting the entire history of Canada. Truth and Reconciliation commissioner Murray Sinclair, who is also a former senator, said it best when he pointed out, “While Indigenous children were being mistreated in residential schools being told they were heathens, savages and pagans and inferior people — that same message was being delivered in the public schools of this country.”
All levels of government and the Canadian public have a responsibility to educate and create awareness of our shared history, not only the things we are proud of as Canadians, but also the dark chapters in our history. We must do so by taking steps to decolonize our structures and education system and putting an emphasis on indigenous knowledge and indigenous voices. When we listen to indigenous voices and knowledge to work hand in hand with our indigenous partners, we create better, more inclusive legislation. That is why this proposed legislation has been led, at every step of the way, by indigenous voices.
From the interim board to the transitional committee, legislation has been led by indigenous leaders, such as former commissioner Dr. Wilton Littlechild, who was an integral part of the interim board, and the work he is currently doing gives continuity to the valuable work that had been done already. I will emphasize that this bill responds to the voices of indigenous leaders who worked closely with survivors, families and communities affected by residential schools. They led a process to build the resources and the space to try to heal, as well as build understanding between indigenous people and other Canadians.
The Government of Canada has respected that process and looks forward to advancing this bill with members' support. In doing so, we are directly responding to TRC calls to action 53 to 56 and the recommendations of the interim board and transitional committee.
In this important historical context, I call on all members of Parliament to join me in supporting this important bill and continuing to advance reconciliation.
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Mr. Speaker, as always, the member knows I am open to all kinds of suggestions from all parties on how we can improve this bill.
I want to be clear on call to action 56. It requires the Prime Minister to respond to the national council for reconciliation's state of aboriginal peoples. It is important to realize that, as we are in the process of determining how to move forward with this council and those calls to action, the only part the Prime Minister could only respond to is what we have placed before it and what we are currently trying to do. It is kind of putting the horse before the cart.
I would encourage members to bring this up at the INAN committee, where we hope to strengthen this bill and make sure it serves the purposes for all Canadians.
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Mr. Speaker, a lot of that good work is continuing. It is what we are focused on. Bill C-29 is really focused on the calls to action that were determined by survivors all across the country, and we owe a responsibility to those survivors, my family members included, who have called upon the government to do a certain amount of things. This is what the truth and reconciliation calls to action were about. It was about hearing from those survivors about what they wanted to see from our government and putting it in the format of the 94 calls to action.
We have plenty of work to do on all facets of indigenous issues across this country, but one of the things that we must keep in mind when we are talking about the truth and reconciliation calls to action is that these are directly from the survivors, and there are thousands of them across this country. This is what they have called for from us, and this is what we have committed to enacting.
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Mr. Speaker, it is important that we do everything that we can, as a government, to implement the calls to action. Call to action number three talks about the full implementation of Jordan's principle. Our government knows that it has been, for generations, underfunding a lot of areas for indigenous communities. Jordan's principle is one of those.
That is why I was really happy to see, in January, an agreement in principle that our government has worked out with the Assembly of First Nations. It is a historical $40 billion to ensure that we are not only compensating those who have suffered in Jordan's principle, but also fixing the system that has been broken for much of our time.
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Mr. Speaker, I realize the Conservatives are very passionate about seeing call to action 56 implemented.
I am wondering if he could speak to me about any of the other calls to action he would like us and his new leader to fast-track so we can prepare to move forward in a faster way to get these calls to action done.
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Madam Speaker, I realize that the member was cut off in the delivery of her speech. I wonder if she would want to conclude with some thoughts and if she could direct her thoughts to the portions of the TRC calls to action around education that she supports. Does she think that the education that we currently have is satisfactory in terms of what Canadians are learning about indigenous history?
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