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House Hansard - 279

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 9, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 279 - Feb/9/24
Mr. Sébastien Lemire (Abitibi—Témiscamingue, BQ)
  • Feb/9/24 10:12:31 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his speech and his work. I feel he is sincere. He said something in his speech that bothered me a bit. He mentioned the summit that took place yesterday, which he himself organized. It was about an issue of critical importance: missing and murdered women and how we approach reconciliation and grief. So many indigenous mothers and fathers are intimately familiar with that kind of grief. However, I witnessed the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples being denied entry into the summit. At a time when we are supposed to be working toward reconciliation, it is deeply disturbing to see the government decide who is indigenous and who is not, especially since statistics show that the murder and disappearance of indigenous women occurs more often in urban areas than on reserves. The government decided to exclude one group because it is part of a group called the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, but refusing to recognize urban indigenous people in the context of a conversation about sharing grief and suffering makes no sense to me, so I have a lot of questions about what happens next. How are we going to achieve reconciliation if certain groups are marginalized like this, especially groups that are grieving?
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