SoVote

Mr. Speaker, this petition from a constituent speaks to an issue that many people do not want to speak about: public nudity. The petitioner points out that public nudity was not in itself any form of crime until 1954, and asks the House to repeal section 174 of the Criminal Code to specify that public nudity in and of itself is not indecent or obscene.

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Context: House Hansard - 143 - Dec/7/22

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

Dec/7/22 9:56:37 p.m.
Watch

Madam Chair, it is an honour to rise this evening to take part in this debate on such a serious, sombre and important subject. I am here this evening on the traditional territory of the Kanienkehaka, an area known as Montreal, within the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. In the time I have, reflecting on all the important speeches given tonight, I want to focus on what we were told in the inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and two-spirit people plus. The hon. member from northern Manitoba was just mentioning that, in looking at this debate, we have a question of what we have done in relation to those calls for justice. I am struck by, two and a half years after those calls for justice, how little we actually look at what the inquiry told us to do. However, that was abundantly clear in the inquiry report. The most important thing every single Canadian can do is read that report. We received advice and instructions, while sitting in the Grand Hall in the Museum of History on that crowded June day and receiving this very important report. The commissioner said, “Every Canadian, please read it.” We should take stock. Have we read it? Do we understand what it said? Obviously, the killing of indigenous women and girls continues and accelerates. The recent killings, the charges laid in Manitoba in Winnipeg, and the four women killed in that serial killing remind us, if we did not need reminding before, that we have not responded to the report of the inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. What did they tell us to do? They told us to read the report, accept that this is a genocide and move on to actually implementing the recommendations. I will just refer to a few of those recommendations that we fight for, many of us in this place, every day. One of the recommendations of the inquiry was to bring in a guaranteed livable income to eradicate poverty. The reason so many indigenous women and girls and men are vulnerable to killings and vulnerable to violence is that they are poor. Economic injustice as well as racism are at the heart of why so many indigenous women and girls go missing. The inquiry called for justice and to bring in a guaranteed livable income. It also called for us to end what are called “man camps” by indigenous women and girls. They are large construction projects, usually dedicated to resource extraction, the resource extraction itself violating the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I know it has been controversial and people who work in those industries say, “Don't paint us all as violent criminals”. No, we do not, but we recognize that these large camps full of workers, men who are away from their families and who are subject, themselves, to trauma and addiction, are a condition that leads to the increased vulnerability of indigenous women nearby. That was an inquiry recommendation and we have expanded the man camps instead of ending them. Another key recommendation was that we move to provide supports for indigenous women and girls who have been the victims of violence, including that there be trauma counsellors and that there be assistance to get through the criminal justice system. These are important recommendations. I want to draw our attention to another area where there is no mystery as to how indigenous women and girls were killed. They were killed by the police. Chantel Moore was killed in June 2020. She was a Nuu-chah-nulth woman from Vancouver Island who had recently moved to Edmundston, New Brunswick. There is no question as to how she died. She died at the hands of a police officer on a “wellness” check. In the intersection between mental health responses and police, far too many vulnerable women and indigenous women end up in a morgue. That is not a wellness check and we need to really look at what happened, particularly in the case of Chantel Moore. I will say in the House again that I think she was murdered. The facts point in that direction, and her family waits for answers. We have an obligation in this place not to take note. We have to take action.

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Context: House Hansard - 143 - Dec/7/22

Ms. Elizabeth May

Dec/7/22 10:02:57 p.m.
Watch

Madam Chair, indeed, both of us know family members. We know Chantel's mom and her family and her friends, and we know that this is not being properly investigated, as is the case for many more indigenous women and girls. Sometimes we know who the killer was, but it is brushed over because it was a police officer. Sometimes we do not know, and we can only conclude from the lack of attention to it. I do not want to criticize policing in Manitoba. It was in the span of a year that we now believe that four women were murdered by the same man. We do not know for sure, but we can make educated guesses that had those four murdered young women been white women, we might have seen more warnings, more action to take on the bits of clues and evidence that suggested that the same man had committed all the crimes.

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Context: House Hansard - 143 - Dec/7/22

Ms. Elizabeth May

Dec/7/22 10:05:06 p.m.
Watch

Madam Chair, from the bottom of my heart I want to acknowledge the courage of what the member for Calgary Nose Hill just did. It is all too rare in this place to apologize for words, especially when they were meant, as the hon. member noted, from a good place. However, it is appalling that the landfills remain open. I hear the voices of Morgan's daughter and Marcedes's family and other people, saying, “Look, stop putting garbage there, at least. Let us find a way to find the remains of our loved ones.” We already have the loved ones, the children who were stolen over so many years in the residential school system. Those children are still underground. We have to acknowledge that the grief of families is never resolved through having the remains, but the wound remains far more open when the remains are not available for burial, for respect and to be brought home.

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