SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 280

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 12, 2024 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 280 - Feb/12/24
Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP)
Mr. Speaker, it is such an honour to rise today to talk about Bill C-29. I want to let the House know that the NDP wants the bill to pass. I am always very honoured to work with my good colleague, the member for Nunavut. She has put a lot of effort in to amend the legislation to make it much stronger. If we want to reconcile in this country, we must focus on children and families. I say that because I want to go back to why we have to have these discussions in the House to begin with; it is for the country to try to reconcile, as was affirmed in the Haida Nation case, the sovereignty of indigenous people with the assumed sovereignty of the Crown. I share that because it was an assumed sovereignty that began a violent genocide of indigenous people in Canada, which began with the dispossession of lands and led to the dispossession and kidnapping of our children and taking them off to resident schools, where they experienced all kinds of abuses. It is important to note that, as we sit here in the House debating the bill before us, there are more kids now in the child welfare system than there were at the height of residential schools. We will not reconcile in this country until all governments make a concerted effort to bring our kids home. However, I worked on the legislation in committee making amendments, and that does not happen in real time, even though in the last session the Liberal government passed Bill C-15. I would like to read article 5 of Bill C-15, under the title “Consistency”. It says, “The Government of Canada must, in consultation and cooperation with Indigenous peoples, take all measures necessary to ensure that the laws of Canada are consistent with the Declaration.” I share that because at every turn on matters impacting children, the Liberal government continues to not support the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous people to make decisions about our own children. I will give an example: The national child care strategy, until the NDP amendment, did not support the inclusion of honouring the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples to make decisions on matters impacting our children. Why is this significant? First, it is because the government is now obliged to ensure that all legislation is compatible with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Second, it is because one of the most serious violations that has reverberated in our communities and has had lasting impacts is when they robbed us of our children and shipped them off to residential schools. I have said in speeches before that, as a mother, I cannot even imagine the pain that reverberated in our communities when those communities fell silent each September when they stole our children, many of whom never returned home. I share that because every day, even now, there is a growing movement of residential school denialism, where survivors and descendants have to confirm the fact that genocide did occur in residential schools and that many of our children did not in fact return home but are buried around schools around the country. What school needs a graveyard? What school is built with a graveyard attached? There was nothing about the residential schools that was about education. I say that because although the government talks a good game of reconciliation, and although it passed Bill C-15 in the last Parliament, it is one thing to pass a bill but another thing to change colonial behaviour, a tradition of colonial violence in this place. That includes something I had to experience today, having the member for Winnipeg North lecture me about the dark cloud I place on this place when I talk about the ongoing genocide of indigenous women and girls, and when I complain about the fact that the government has not moved fast enough around the crisis of murdered and missing indigenous women and girls.
681 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border