44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 12, 2024 11:00AM
- Feb/12/24 12:45:48 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-7
Madam Speaker, in the question previous to that of the member, the government was accused of being too slow. Now my New Democratic friend is saying that we were too quick when it came to Bill C-7. In saying that we did not do enough background work, he implied that we were too quick.
The Government of Canada, when we look at the broader picture of the Supreme Court decision back in 2015, brought forward very difficult legislation. As has been demonstrated, it was not perfect legislation. Given the very nature of it, one would be naive to think there was never going to be a need to make changes. That is why standing committees were mandated to meet on the legislation. It was because it was the first time we had substantive legislation of this nature.
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- Feb/12/24 4:43:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and talk about such an important piece of legislation. It is not the first time I have had the opportunity to debate the legislation. We have seen a great deal of effort by the current ministers and parliamentary secretaries, and those who held these positions previously. I believe they have followed the lead of the Prime Minister of Canada.
Even before he was Prime Minister and we sat on the opposition benches, when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report was presented with all 94 calls to action, he made it very clear, before any other political party or leader, that we recognized the injustices that have been done and that it was important that we get behind and support all 94 calls to action. From day one, that has been the approach by the leader of the Liberal Party. Back then, we felt it was very important. I stood in my place while I was in the third party to talk about murdered and missing indigenous women and girls and said that we needed a public inquiry.
In late 2015, we saw a change in government and there was an affirmation of a commitment that the Prime Minister talked about while he was the leader of the Liberal Party, as the third party. The Prime Minister and the government, with its different ministries, have worked diligently and followed indigenous leadership on a wide spectrum of issues. As a direct result of that, we have seen many calls to action implemented. This is not the first time I have stood in my place to talk about legislation that is rooted in the calls to action that the government has brought forward.
The member for Winnipeg Centre referred to children. I take a lot of pride, in the area I represent, in being a strong advocate. I work with people like Cindy Woodhouse and Sharon Redsky, and many others to deal with an issue that is so very important. I can understand and appreciate its importance to indigenous leaders, and that is one of the reasons we brought in the legislation regarding children.
The member for Winnipeg Centre has to be careful when she makes accusations about me carrying out my responsibilities as a parliamentary secretary with regard to legislative suggestions that are outside of the scope. That is what the member was referring to when she referred to my comments to another member. It is somewhat unfortunate because I have been very diligent on this issue as it is an important issue to my constituents also.
When I think of reconciliation, this is a significant step forward, but it is not the first step, nor will it be the last. When we look at the holistic approach of the calls to action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, many of us follow, in a very real and tangible way, what indigenous leaders are telling us, and we are acting where we can. We have seen things, such as the statutory holiday, brought in under this government.
We have seen the opportunity enhanced significantly due to the leadership of indigenous people in regard to children, in the form of legislation. We have seen the reinforcement of things such as language, as part of heritage, brought in.
In fact, if we look at the 94 calls to action, when we look at the total number, we are probably talking somewhere in the neighbourhood of just above 80%, where the federal government has the entire scope or shares responsibility. On a vast majority of those, either significant progress has been made or they are done.
Some might try to paint a dark cloud over the calls to action. I would suggest that those members who paint that dark cloud need to take a look at what other previous governments have done, to show some contrast—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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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.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise to address the House on Bill C-29. My understanding of the schedule today is that I have about 12 minutes and then we will continue when we next come back to the bill. I know some members are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to ask questions or make comments, but they will sadly need to wait until this bill is next up for consideration.
It has been a pleasure for me to listen to many of the interesting and insightful speeches that have been given by my colleagues. There might have been a few less interesting and insightful speeches given, but I will not name any names.
I wanted to, first of all, identify some of the key aspects of this bill and then drill into a few specific areas around reconciliation. Bill C-29, for those just joining us, deals with the creation of a national council for reconciliation. This is a body that was called for in the calls to action associated with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and it now seeks to, through legislation, give life to that specific recommendation by creating a council that would be responsible for, in various fora, providing advice and recommendations around reconciliation. This specifically responds to calls to action 53 through 56.
I would just note out of interest that we do seem to see a number of these legislative proposals from the government for the creation of advisory councils or bodies that would be representative of some community of concern and provide advice to the government on specific issues. What I always look for in these kinds of proposals is whether these advisory bodies would have the capacity to authentically represent the people they are supposed to represent or whether these advisory bodies are subject to such a level of control by the government that they would be more limited in being able to be representative or operate independently.
I can think of a similar case of the creation of an advisory body on child care, where the government said it was going to create a child care advisory body. In every case, the impulse of the government is to say it is going to create this consultative advisory body that will be an important stakeholder that will inform it of situations on the ground, but then to, at the same time, create a system in which the power of creation of appointment, and maybe in some cases in an ongoing way and in other cases just in the first instance, is by a minister. This obviously creates challenges for that body to be authentically representative or to challenge the government with an alternative conception of how to proceed in a policy area that may be different from what the government is proposing.
If the government says it wants to have an independent body advising it that is going to be championing specific issues such as child care, reconciliation and some other issue and yet it is going to choose the people on that body, then to what extent is that body able to be a meaningful check on what the government is doing? This is an important area of caution in general. I would hope to see, and suspect the framers of the calls to action were more thinking of, a council for reconciliation that could provide that check on government.
I note the legislation, Bill C-29, does identify certain organizations that should be represented on the council. The problem with that is if the minister is still choosing the individual, that there must be someone from this group and someone from this group, or if the minister exercises a greater degree of discretion for a majority of those individuals, again that creates some obvious problems. It is something we need to be cautious about.
I note as well, as my colleagues have, there was no representation for the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. Members have pointed out in questions and comments it is possible the council might choose someone, in replacing a position, with an affiliation with the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, but it is also possible it might not. The fact that there are protections for the inclusion of specific voices and not for the inclusion of the voice that represents indigenous people living off reserve is a problem as well, and one that Conservatives have highlighted.
We have also spoken about economic reconciliation, and I will come to that. However, I want to add to the conversation with some reflections on diversity in procurement and on the inclusion of indigenous businesses in procurement. This is something that has been on my mind and the minds of many members today, of course, with the release of the explosive arrive scam report from the Auditor General. This report contains a variety of findings that I know we have had an opportunity to discuss and will have more opportunity to discuss in the House. Basically, the Auditor General found multiple levels of incompetence and corruption in government procurement associated with the procurement of the arrive scam app, with $60 million spent, but no certainty about how much money was actually spent; a complete lack of documentation and tracking; a two-person company that was hired, with no IT experience, to do an IT application; and on and on. Why in the world was this company hired? Who made this decision? We are still asking these questions.
However, the Auditor General's report builds on work that was done by the procurement ombudsman, who identified aspects in the procurement system that are loaded towards insiders. This is important for the discussion that I want to have in the context of the bill before us, which is diversity and inclusion in the context of procurement.
For a long time, there have been asks from indigenous business owners. I have also met with leaders in the Black business community and representatives of other communities, who are saying that they want to see more inclusion of businesses from their community in the procurement system. Governments have talked about this. They have set targets, which they have not always achieved. There has been discussion about whether we should set quotas or targets, how we should do this, and all of that.
However, if we look at the existing system, and this was revealed through the procurement ombudsman's report, we have a situation where there is actually strong protection in place for incumbent businesses. Therefore, we had a situation with GC Strategies, which is not what we think of as an incumbent business. It is not massive; it is a two-person company with lots of close connections with government. It gets the work, it subcontracts and it makes a lot of money in the process. There are a lot of problems there. However, we have this incumbent business with close relationships to the government. Then we find out that GC Strategies sat down with the government to discuss what the terms of the contract were going to be. Therefore, this company has a significant advantage, because it is sitting down with people in government that it has a relationship with, and it says, “We think you should ask for these specifications in the contract.” I think that process is effectively rigged.
The government then puts requirements in, where it says, “You have to have a certain amount of experience of having procured with the government.” This is a structure that advantages existing incumbent businesses with a lot of privilege. If a company is part of a historically disadvantaged community, such as an indigenous business owner or a business owner from another community who does not have the same privilege of access or incumbency in the existing system, then it is disadvantaged. It is not a matter of saying that people who may not have the best product should be advantaged. No, it is actually saying that, if we took out the protections for insiders who are not providing a good product, which is clear in the case of ArriveCAN, then we would probably see more diversity in procurement. If we had a more open, democratic, accessible procurement process where we were not protecting incumbent bidders, I think we would see more indigenous-owned and minority-owned businesses being able to engage in the procurement process.
When we talk about this issue of economic reconciliation, providing jobs and opportunity for people of diverse backgrounds, one easy way to do that is, to coin a phrase, to remove the gatekeepers. We can break down the systems in place that are preventing people who are in a situation where they may not have generational money, privilege or access to government, but who have good ideas and who have started their own businesses, from being able to access government procurement.
Part of economic reconciliation is to authentically democratize procurement to allow the opportunity for more businesses in Canada that have not sold to the Government of Canada before to nonetheless pitch their product as the best product. The other thing we heard from the procurement ombudsman is that they actually had a system for disadvantaging those who present low prices. It is crazy. People who did not ask for enough money when they were selling their product to the government got cut out.
One can imagine how, for someone who has not sold to the government before, but who says that they know what they are doing, that they can build this app, that they have a great product and that they are going to charge less to try to get the business, to still make a decent return but to try to charge less, with the existing system that the government has put forward, that new entrant, who might be trying to pitch at a lower price, is actually disadvantaged in the evaluation system purely because of the low price he has charged.
We want to create jobs and opportunity for all Canadians. Part of how we do that is by removing the gatekeepers that prevent authentic diversity and inclusion in our procurement system.
I might be on the verge of being done. When I come back, I will have more to say about economic reconciliation, jobs and opportunity for indigenous Canadians and how Conservatives will remove the gatekeepers to help make that happen.
I know that there is some discussion of a possible UC motion to allow me to speak more, but I think I will save the surprise for when I come back.
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