- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Timmins—James Bay
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 62%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,227.44
- Government Page
- May/24/24 12:06:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Mushkegowuk Cree region is ground zero for underfunded and systemically racist federal health policy. Through it all, the Weeneebayko Health Authority has worked hard to establish quality health care and proper facilities, yet at the 11th hour, the Minister of Indigenous Services walked away on her commitment to build a proper hospital. On Monday, national, regional and provincial leaders on health and indigenous rights will be coming to Ottawa to hold the government to account.
They want to know this: Why did the minister break her word to the people of James Bay?
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- Apr/16/24 3:49:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, certainly New Democrats support investments in pharmacare. We support the national dental care plan, which is bitterly opposed by the lobbyists in the Conservative ranks.
We have to look at larger issues of health care. I want to speak about indigenous health care, particularly children's health care. The government has spent millions of dollars fighting against the implementation of Jordan's principle at the Human Rights Tribunal, yet we still see, time after time, the government refusing to pay in a timely manner for children who need treatment in all manner of areas. We have therapists who simply cannot keep the lights on because the federal government refuses to pay.
Does the member not understand that these are obligations that were ordered by the Human Rights Tribunal, and that if we are going to provide health care, it has to be done in a timely manner for the vulnerable indigenous children covered under Jordan's principle?
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Mr. Speaker, when we talk about the structural violence that was committed against indigenous identity, indigenous language and indigenous families, we also have to talk about the resistance to defend that identity. That is why I think this is so important, and I thank my colleague for his speech. We have to be rooted in the history of this country and what happened.
I will talk about Beaverhouse. Beaverhouse is a community between the Algonquins of Timiskaming and Abitibiwinni and the Ojibway Matachewan, yet it was ignored by the federal government, which said it was not a real band. For 100 years, it had no legal rights. It had no legal rights to represent itself and no legal rights to defend its families. When the sixties scoop came, they went after communities like Beaverhouse to trash and destroy them.
Chief Marcia Brown Martel led the legal battle to bring the children home. It changed Canadian law because this little community stood up. It was only last year that Beaverhouse was finally recognized as a band. It had been on its land since time immemorial.
Colonialism destroyed and attacked communities in different ways, but to repair the damage, which is our obligation, is going to take a multi-faceted approach. What does my hon. colleague think about the need to address the individual impacts that were felt by various communities and various nations by the colonial system across this country?
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Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. Saying that the Conservatives are going to support indigenous self-determination is something I like, but I will give an example. Timiskaming First Nation is set-up as 110,000 acres between the Blanche River in Ontario and the Des Quinze river in Quebec. It was then arbitrarily cut apart with illegal land surrender after illegal land surrender until it was down to about 4,500 acres in between the municipalities.
The traditional land rights in Ontario continue to be ignored, so how would the Conservatives say to the people of Timiskaming First Nation that they would make sure their land rights, amidst an endless sea of stolen land, would be respected for the community's development?
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Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest. The term “enfranchisement” meant the destruction of indigenous identity. To be enfranchised meant someone's inability to leave the reserve, the inability to vote, the inability to marry whom one loved, and even the inability to fight to defend Canada, because the Canadian government, in the First World War, did not want to allow indigenous soldiers because it did not want to recognize them as citizens with rights. We have a long way to go in dealing with the destruction that was done.
I appreciate my hon. colleague for bringing this bill forward, although this bill has been sitting on the back burner for some time now. The issue goes back to the fact that, at the end of the day, those who are trying to re-establish their rights are still going through the department of Indian affairs. That is what it was before and that is what I still call it. It is a department that is underfunded and that does not take this issue seriously. It is bureaucratic red tape.
My hon. colleague says that indigenous identity must be dealt with by indigenous people. When are we actually going to see a bill that is about nation to nation, that is about empowering the nation to make decisions about environmental protection and growth, and that is about who their band members are? We are still going through the department of Indian affairs. It is still a colonial system and a broken system.
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- Jun/19/23 2:54:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Attawapiskat is in a humanitarian crisis that has become worse year by year under the Liberal government. With overcrowded homes and unsafe drinking water, no matter what Attiwapiskat does to try to get ahead, it cannot, because it does not even have a proper land base to build houses.
The government calls the land of the Mushkegowuk Cree Crown land. It is treaty land, and the people of Attiwapiskat have a right to develop the land for their people.
What steps will the indigenous affairs minister take to work with Attiwapiskat on building a livable community that offers hope to the young?
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Mr. Speaker, I have only ever heard the Conservatives talk about oil and gas whenever they talk about indigenous. However, the Liberals are telling us about all these great projects that are going to create capital.
In Fort Albany right now, people are flying home today from weeks of being put up in hotels and community centres, because the dikes broke on the Albany River due to failed basic infrastructure, putting them at risk. We are working with the Mennonite Central Committee and True North Aid to get food hampers in. That is the reality on the ground in the communities I represent: underfunded infrastructure and having to beg to get food in, because the government has failed in its fundamental obligation to keep communities safe.
I would ask my hon. colleague: How is it possible for these communities to take economic control of their lands when they have been left in such dire straits of infrastructure poverty and a lack of an ability to control their lives?
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- Mar/21/23 11:41:07 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we certainly need to have a fair playing field, and one of them is the rights of indigenous people to participate in resource development and the right to say no.
We cannot have armed gangs, threats and intimidation, like we saw with the horrific allegations against Hudbay Minerals in Guatemala. There has to be legal accountability for such measures.
In Canada, for example, the Ring of Fire, could be a massive benefit, economically, but the Neskantaga First Nation, which has gone 28 years without clean drinking water, has not been consulted by anybody on this. This is highly problematic.
We have the opportunity in Canada to create a standard for the development of critical minerals by using high environmental standards, indigenous consent, indigenous support, and we cannot allow that to be weakened. This should be the Canada brand that allows us to meet the challenges of an environmentally sensitive future. We need to be pushing for this.
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- Mar/21/23 11:25:05 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. I come from mining country. Over the years, we have seen the fight to have some of the highest environmental standards, the safest working conditions and workers who are paid good wages for the work they do. However, we know that Canadian companies do not have this reputation in the global south.
In fact, there are a number of Canadian companies that are mythic companies in Canada but have been accused of some horrific human rights violations. I think of the 2016 report by Osgoode Hall Law School, “The Canada Brand”, which identified 44 murders, 403 attacks and 700 cases of targeting of indigenous people in Latin America to pursue Canadian mining interests.
We know the horrific story of what happened to the women in Guatemala and the allegations of rape at Hudbay Minerals. Does my colleague support the ability of survivors of this kind of abuse to take their cases to Canadian courts to hold these companies accountable under Canadian law?
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Mr. Speaker, I am really interested in my hon. colleague's point on roots of inequity because inequities are systemic. They are not accidental. They are built into the system. We can talk about Jordan's principle. I stood with the family of Jordan River Anderson in 2007, and 15 years later, they are still fighting for justice.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague about the fact that we are now seeing that speech pathologists, and those working with indigenous children, are being denied payment for services for Jordan's principle. One can refuse to pay for indigenous children to have service, or one can just ignore the bills. If one just ignores the bills, then indigenous children continue to suffer from what the government has found is willful and reckless discrimination.
Will the member commit to ensuring that, for any child who is eligible for Jordan's principle payments, their therapists, doctors and dentists are going to receive the payment that should be paid out, so these children are not denied service?
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- Feb/28/22 2:15:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, 10 years ago, the Parliament of Canada came together in an extraordinary motion of solidarity by unanimously passing Shannen's dream to end the systemic underfunding of first nation education.
Shannen Koostachin had never seen a real school, but at the age of 13 she stood up to the brutal conditions in her home community of Attawapiskat First Nation and launched the largest youth-driven children's rights movement in Canadian history, forever changing the discussion about indigenous rights in Canada.
Shannen Koostachin never lived long enough to see this historic vote in Parliament or the beautiful school that is in her community. She died in a terrible highway accident at 15, but is now commemorated as one of the 150 most influential women in Canadian history.
If Shannen were here today, she would tell us that the fight is not finished. Yes, we have come a long way but children continue to have their rights denied through underfunding and a broken federal system.
Shannen had a dream that all her little brothers and sisters could go to a comfy school and have their dreams realized. It is our duty to make Shannen's dream a reality for this generation.
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