44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 7, 2022 02:00PM
- Dec/7/22 7:31:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by acknowledging that the Parliament of Canada is located on the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.
I cannot begin to imagine the pain and anguish that the family and friends of the four women who were found are going through today. I am so sorry for their pain and for their loss.
Winnipeg is where I grew up, and Winnipeg will always be my home. It is where I raised our four children. It is where my three granddaughters are currently living. It is a community very close to my heart. It is my community, and I know that many people in my community in Winnipeg, my city, and for that matter all across Canada, are suffering tonight. My heart goes out to absolutely everyone who is impacted by this horrible, senseless tragedy.
This has to stop. It simply must stop, this hatred and senseless violence. The racism is absolutely brutal. It has no place in Canada.
We all—the federal government, provincial, territorial and municipal governments and, of course, indigenous governments—have a role to play.
I would like to thank the members of the House for their participation in this evening's debate, which is taking place the day after the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
Each and every Canadian has a responsibility to speak out against anti-indigenous racism and misogyny when we witness it. It is going to take every single one of us to stop this senseless violence.
The calls for justice clearly tell us what we need to do. The final report on the national inquiry speaks to the factors that lead to the ongoing tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people. We have a responsibility to address those contributing factors if we hope to make any progress at all.
We need safer neighbourhoods, where indigenous women and girls, gender-diverse people and everyone can live and thrive. Supporting indigenous-led, 24-7 safe spaces, emergency shelters and transition homes is a very important part of the Government of Canada's federal pathway to address violence against indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people.
This October I joined the Minister of Indigenous Services and the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth in support of Velma's House and funding for indigenous women's organizations across Manitoba.
Velma's House is a 24-7 safe space in Manitoba to support victims of sexual exploitation. It was created through the collaboration of community-based organizations serving indigenous women, gender-diverse people and other women at risk of violence and exploitation. It provides extremely important services, including access to traditional medicines and cultural ways of healing, hot meals, hygiene and harm-reduction supplies, as well as extensive support in helping to navigate systems of employment and better housing. It does such incredible work, and I thank its staff for their incredible and tireless efforts.
However, there is still a lot of work to be done. That is why we are making investments to address the factors that contribute to the disappearance and murder of indigenous women, namely in housing, education and fundamental changes that must be made to police interventions in first nations, Inuit and Métis communities.
Precarious housing conditions put indigenous women and girls, as well as 2SLGBTQQIA people, at higher risk of violence. The work we are doing with partners to co-develop the 10-year national first nations housing and related infrastructure strategy is absolutely key to all of this. The Assembly of First Nations chiefs endorses this strategy, and we continue to work with the Assembly of First Nations to advance this.
We are also working directly with Inuit and Métis partners to implement co-developed housing strategies based on their needs and priorities. As we have stated in the House before, federal budgets have invested in indigenous housing every single year that this government has been in power. We work very closely with other federal departments to ensure alignment of our various initiatives and efforts.
We fully recognize that an important contributing factor to addressing this issue is education. The calls for justice call upon all governments to ensure that equitable access to basic rights such as education is recognized as a fundamental means of protecting indigenous and human rights.
Education that is equitably funded and rooted in first nations, Métis and Inuit culture provides indigenous people more choices and more power. Nine regional education agreements have been concluded and signed across this country. The regional education agreements are designed jointly with first nations communities. They reflect the visions and priorities of first nations education systems to provide high-quality, culturally appropriate education for first nations living on reserves.
Another area we are focusing on is indigenous leadership's continuous call for fundamental changes to how police services are delivered in their communities. This includes calls for legislation that recognizes first nations policing as an essential service that must be funded accordingly. We are also investing in support of culturally responsive policing in indigenous communities through the first nations and Inuit policing programs. The money will also be used to expand this program.
To address the overrepresentation of indigenous women in Canada's prisons, Justice Canada is introducing an indigenous justice strategy to address systemic discrimination and the overrepresentation of indigenous people in the justice system.
Another priority is ending racism towards Canada's indigenous people. We must provide real support to indigenous people and communities who have expertise in fighting various forms of racism and discrimination. The strategy recognizes the different experiences of first nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, which lets these peoples express their viewpoints and make decisions about the initiatives that best meet their needs.
These are just a few concrete actions that the government is taking to address the root causes of violence against indigenous women and to correct long-standing systemic inequities. Communities across Canada are also taking action locally.
I recognize that this provides absolutely no relief from the ongoing pain that Canadians are experiencing or the suffering and trauma that the news of these horrible murders brings. There are no quick solutions to resolve the deep-rooted, systemic inequalities and racism that lead to the intimidation, violence and murders of indigenous women and girls. Creating systemwide changes to address this national tragedy is something I know this entire House recognizes must happen for today and for future generations, for my kids and for my grandkids.
I offer my sincere condolences to the families and communities that have lost their loved ones. I am so deeply sorry for their loss.
Meegwetch, qujannamiik, marsi.
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- Dec/7/22 7:43:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult to stand in a debate such as the one we are having this evening and say that we have done enough. Our government has not done enough. Our first budget was in 2016, and I can tell members that we have invested hundreds of billions of dollars of new money in education, health care, child and welfare reform, infrastructure, community safety initiatives and safe spaces, but we still have not done enough.
The pain is ongoing. The tragedy continues. Women and girls are being murdered every week. It has to stop. We need to do better. We need to work in partnership with Métis, first nation and Inuit communities to find solutions. We need to work in partnership with other levels of government to find solutions. Everybody needs to do better.
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- Dec/7/22 7:46:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe I stated in my previous response that our government has not done enough. We need to do more. We need to continue the partnerships with community groups. We need to continue the partnerships with other levels of government, including the City of Winnipeg.
Yes, I will work with the member for Winnipeg Centre. We had a great working relationship when, together with other ministers, we delivered Velma's House, a 24-7 safe space for indigenous women and girls in downtown Winnipeg. I would be pleased to work with the member on finding other solutions to ongoing problems that, unfortunately, have been around too long.
We need to work in partnership to find those solutions, and I would be happy to sit down with the member to work toward solutions.
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- Dec/7/22 7:48:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that good question.
I would like to abolish racism, not just against the first nations, but also against the Inuit and the Métis. I am certainly prepared to sit down with the member to try to find ways to achieve that goal.
As for his question on the Indian Act, I am prepared to sit down with the member, but also with the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations to try to find a way that makes sense in order to work first with the first nations on replacing the Indian Act with something better.
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- Dec/7/22 7:50:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, the systemic violence and racism that we are seeing manifest itself today in the murders of four women has its roots in the colonial values that Canada had at its beginning. Our first Indian Act policy was the civilization of first nations, then the Christianization and ultimately the assimilation, thereby erasing the Indian out of the Indian person, which was clearly a racist policy. However, that was 150 years ago.
Today, there is more that everybody can do, including the federal, provincial, municipal and indigenous governments and the community. We all have a spectre of influence in our lives and in the communities where we live. I think that is what reconciliation is about.
There is more that everybody can do, including institutions, governments and individuals. We must come together to look for solutions. We must call out racism when we see it and hear it. We need to work with indigenous nations, person to person and government to government.
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