- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Timmins—James Bay
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 63%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,227.44
- Government Page
- Feb/15/24 12:14:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if people are not elected and cannot be fired, it does not just give them a sense of infallibility; it gives them a sense of absolute arrogance, because they can do whatever they want, for better or worse for Canadians.
I was certainly appalled. I had the honour to sit in for my colleague for Nanaimo—Ladysmith for one of the meetings, and I was super careful asking questions, even for the people with whom I did not agree. I wanted to get this right. However, I felt this sense of lazy arrogance. Senator Kutcher so much as said that they had already agreed they would not hear all the witnesses, that they had already agreed they would just push ahead. The Senate blew this. It did not do the due diligence. Senators were not even interested in hearing the witnesses. We should never have been put in a situation to let that lot make a decision as profound as this.
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Madam Speaker, I have been trying to listen to my hon. colleague, and all I have been hearing is this juvenile intimidation from the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan—
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- Dec/4/23 5:54:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, certainly over the last six weeks, we watched a toxic gong show from the Conservatives, who did not allow witnesses to come forward. The minister was going to come, but they did not want him. Instead, it was like watching European soccer players rolling around on the pitch. I mean no offence to European soccer players; at least they get a goal in once in a while.
I would ask the member about the way she has misrepresented all of these issues. Last year, there were 133 witnesses and 120 hours of hearings on clean energy. At no point did any of those witnesses allege some kind of conspiracy, yet the member is going public and using very loaded language about a globalist agenda. I would like to know whether the language for a “globalist agenda” came from her or whether it came from her leader's office? That needs to be explained—
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- Dec/4/23 4:33:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to apologize to Luke and Steve. For a year and a half, there was nobody from the Conservatives speaking for workers. They were not interested in hearing workers. Now, we are hearing about Luke—
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- Dec/4/23 4:14:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have had over 133 witnesses and 120 hours of hearings on the issue of the energy transition. The Conservatives had nothing to say to any energy worker.
When we brought the Canadian Labour Congress, the Conservatives shut them down. When the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers came, the Conservatives shut them down. When the carpenters union came to speak, they shut them down. When the International Trade Union Confederation came, they shut them down. When the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs came, they shut them down. It was New Democrats who brought representatives from the coal transition. The Conservatives had no interest at all in hearing from workers.
This legislation is about workers having a seat at the table, and the Conservatives have turned to gong-show gibberish politics to stop workers from having a seat at the table. I want to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks the Conservatives have fallen down the rabbit hole of conspiracy in their attempts to stop workers from having a seat in a discussion about their future.
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- Dec/1/23 10:36:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, over the last year, with respect to issues regarding the energy transition that is happening, we heard from 130 witnesses over 120 hours of hearings. There have been 45,000 job losses in the oil patch, with 1,500 this year and many more coming. When workers came to talk about the right that they should have to be at the table, the Conservatives shut them down every single time. They shut down Unifor, the Canadian Labour Congress, the IBEW and the Carpenters Union. When we brought the coal workers, who have experience in the transition that happened in Alberta, there was not a single question from any Alberta member, yet they sat there and bragged about their muscle cars from the 1970s; let us talk about entitlement and boomer disconnect. As our planet is burning and our workers have been begging for and demanding a right to sit at the table, the Conservatives are playing these games.
What has it been like for my colleague to have to watch such toxic, juvenile, immature behaviour undermining the right of workers to be heard in the energy transition that is happening?
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- Jun/13/23 9:41:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not really sure what the question is, but I know that if we were making it possible to participate from outside of Canada, the Senate, which lives in Mexico for most of the year, would love it and would probably have most of the Senate hearings on the Mexican Riviera.
That is the best I can answer, but I cannot speak for the Senate.
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- Oct/24/22 3:06:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, they were popping corks in the minister's office when the Supreme Court announced it would not reopen the St. Anne's residential school file, but this issue is not going away. The justice department suppressed 10,000 pages of police evidence of rape, abuse and torture of children in that awful institution, then lied in the hearings and spent millions on lawyers all the way to the Supreme Court. There is no reconciliation in Canada without justice for St. Anne's.
Will the minister stand up and tell us he will meet with the survivors and establish a credible mediation process?
Look at me when I am talking to you about these St. Anne's survivors.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Oct/21/22 1:08:31 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Madam Speaker, as always, it is a great honour to rise in this House on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay. Today I am particularly thinking about the Cree communities in upper James Bay, Attawapiskat, Fort Albany, Peawanuck, Kashechewan, Moosonee and Moose Factory, plus the people who have been spread across Canada, all of whom connect back to a horrific institution called St. Anne's residential school.
It is important, as we talk about the act to amend the Judges Act to reflect on one of the darker decisions of the Supreme Court, its refusal to look at the miscarriage of justice that was committed against the children at St. Anne's, giving no reason or explanation. When we talk about amending the Judges Act, I think of a great parliamentarian, Rona Ambrose, who spoke up about the need for judges to get basic and legal education in dealing with sexual assault, because we have seen a number of really bad decisions, which have been referenced here. However, it is also important that our judiciary understands the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the obligations of Canada, and that includes the courts, to address issues in terms of the equity and rights of indigenous peoples.
If we look at the cases of St. Anne's residential school, it is clear that any indigenous person looking at this would wonder how it is possible to get justice in Canada. It is not a complex issue. I will talk about a really powerful woman, Evelyn Korkmaz, who suffered horrific sexual violence as a child at St. Anne's, and the collusion of the Grey Nuns, who covered it up.
When she went to the hearings to tell her story, the first thing the adjudicator told her was that he was a proud member of the Knights of Columbus. They were there to adjudicate crimes against the Catholic Church and the first thing she was told by the adjudicator was that he was a member of the Knights of Columbus. Then he told her he knew the nuns of St. Anne's, that he knew that order and that they were good women. She said she knew right then that she was not going to be believed.
In any other court process, that case would have been thrown out, but not in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. One of the reasons the adjudicator did not believe Evelyn Korkmaz's story of the horrific sexual violence was that the other defendant in the case, Canada, had the legal obligation in the hearings to prepare the evidence. The adjudicator looked at the evidence supplied by the Department of Justice Canada and it said one line: that there were no known incidents of sexual abuse at Fort Albany Indian residential school. What was not told to the adjudicator was that the justice department had 10,000 pages of police testimony and witness names of rape, torture, violence and forced abortions on children in that evil institution.
I think of this man who goes by the name of H-15019. He suffered horrific sexual violence. He went into the hearings to expose Father Lavoie and the justice department lawyers said he was not believable because Father Lavoie was not in the institution when the man claimed he was. As proof, they presented a two-page person-of-interest report, which was their legal obligation, on all the known potential perpetrators. A two-page person-of-interest report said Father Lavoie was not there. What the justice department was sitting on were 2,472 pages on a sick evil man who, through four decades, raped multiple generations of children.
The case of H-15019 was thrown out, and when they tried to have his case reopened, the justice department and the federal government forced this case to the B.C. superior court, even though this happened in Ontario. Why would they do that? They did that because they knew that the survivors did not have the money to go to the B.C. superior court. How could anyone claim that this was a just process? What happened in that case was that, after the justice department decided to suppress the evidence, it shut the hearings down and denied justice. This is not a very complex issue.
Multiple legal battles went on for 10 years and, finally, Parliament called on the government to settle with the St. Anne's survivors. The former minister sent, on March 18, 2021, a request to have the cases of St. Anne's reviewed. We thought, finally, there would be justice. That is all the survivors wanted. They wanted to review what had happened with the suppression of evidence.
However, if we read the report, the request for direction sent by the federal government, it did not ask the courts to review this to get justice for children whose rape and torture had been suppressed. It did this because it said that people speaking up about St. Anne's was making the government look bad. It is right there in its request for direction. Do we know who it blamed for making the government look bad? It blamed former senator Murray Sinclair, because he said that there cannot be reconciliation without justice for St. Anne's, as well as Dr. Pamela Palmater, who raised issues about what happened at St. Anne's.
Edmund Metatawabin, the survivor of the abuse, who speaks for the survivors, his name is in the government request for directions, saying that he is making the government look bad for the abuse that he suffered. Interestingly, of course, I am in there for about 30-some pages, but I do not mind that.
However, Osgoode law professor Jennifer Leitch was named by the government as making them look bad because she wrote, “The government’s non-disclosure raises significant concerns about the scope of the information available to the adjudicators; the claimants’ abilities to establish abuse allegations and the scope of the compensation.” A professor of law said that this is a flawed process.
The instructions given to Justice Pitfield to look at this excluded many of the horrific cases and he was directed that he was not to talk to the survivors. What kind of justice system is that? He examined 427 cases and he came back in his preliminary and he said that 81, at least, had a serious need for re-examination. That is 20% of those cases falsely adjudicated.
However, in the final report, he said, no, it was just 10, student on student, with no blame to clergy, no blame to staff, no blame to government and no involvement with survivors. Of course, the survivors took this to the Supreme Court.
When I talked to the survivors yesterday about the fact that the Supreme Court would not hear their case, they said that they were not surprised because this was a never a fair fight. They went with pro bono lawyers. There were days where they could not afford their own bus fare to get to the hearings, yet Canada spent millions of dollars on lawyers to shut this down. It was never a fair fight.
This is why I refer to this when we are talking about Bill C-9. I am not questioning the wisdom of the Supreme Court. I am questioning the lack of understanding of the obligation, in this time, to understand the obligations under truth and reconciliation to say that we have a higher level of justice to attain here.
One of the fundamental arguments of the government was that the survivors were not entitled to procedural fairness. Procedural fairness has been ruled by the Supreme Court as a fundamental right. What it meant was that the fact that they did not bother to supply any evidence and they lied in hearings, that was okay, because the survivors were not entitled to the basic principle of procedural fairness. If we look at the evidence that the government brought forward as to why procedural fairness was not a right, they put it under sealing orders so that people could not see it. What is this, Soviet-style justice?
Phil Fontaine, who signed the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, wrote that they would never have signed this agreement if they were giving away fundamental legal rights under this process, which would give them fewer rights than they would get in court. Of course, Canada ridiculed Mr. Fontaine's response and said that this issue of procedural fairness was completely irrelevant.
It is completely relevant.
On this day, the day after the Supreme Court has shrugged and said that, whatever happened at St. Anne's, whatever happened with judges who misread the reports because they were lied to by the justice department, whatever is said about perpetrators of horrific abuse, and we have many of their names, such as Bishop Leguerrier and Arthur Lavoie, those men got away, and the survivors are still living with injustice. They deserve better in this country.
They never asked for huge compensation. They asked the government to sit down and recognize that what was done to them was one of the most horrific, evil acts ever committed against innocent children. Those innocent children have had their legal rights undermined time and time again by a system that wanted to shut this process down.
If we are talking about amending the Judges Act, we have to look at what happened at St. Anne's and why there was no understanding on the judge's part of the need to hold this government and the justice department of Canada to account.
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Madam Speaker, as we discuss this bill, survivors of St. Anne's residential school are going to the Supreme Court over the fact that the government has spent close to $4 million fighting against their rights, and over the fact that for some of the most horrific child abuse, rape and torture cases in Canadian history, the evidence was suppressed by the justice department of Canada and officials lied in the hearings.
How can the Liberal government claim that reconciliation is possible when the survivors of St. Anne's residential school have to go to the Supreme Court to get basic legal rights over the fact that their testimonies were not properly adjudicated because the government suppressed evidence to protect predator priests, nuns and brothers at that horrific institution?
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