- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Subcommittee on Review of Parliament’s involvement with associations and recognized Interparliamentary groups
Deputy whip of the Bloc Québécois
Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council
- Bloc Québécois
- Manicouagan
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $175,049.14
- Government Page
- May/2/23 10:48:04 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I thank my colleague for her commitment to the cause of indigenous women and girls. I have a question for her.
She mentioned something that I said myself earlier. Last year, we were here talking about the same subject. Despite the fact that we likely think about this every day, I still feel we are not making any progress.
Where would my colleague like us to be at this time next year? Why does she think that so little progress has been made to date?
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- May/2/23 7:46:08 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, when people are experiencing violence, not having a home and not being able to leave keeps them in that cycle of violence. Obviously there has to be more funding and solutions to provide housing for women.
We are talking about women, but I believe my colleague from Winnipeg Centre would agree that this affects the whole community. Children are also affected when they are in crowded living conditions, and every aspect of life is affected. Housing really is a key issue.
The Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs studied this issue and discussed it with the minister. We realized he means well, but at the same time, there was an admission during the committee that the shortfall would never be eliminated. There is already a shortage, and there will be no way to meet growing demand. These populations are very young, and they need safe places to live.
There is not enough money and not enough housing being built. We need concrete measures.
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- May/2/23 7:44:43 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I feel like saying that we have already put all the ideas out there.
We have the recommendations that resulted from the consultations. We listened to all the witnesses who told their stories and gave ideas to the commission. We already have all that information.
Of course, we may run into difficulties, but I think that this is more a matter of will than a matter of means.
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- May/2/23 7:43:03 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, obviously, it is unacceptable when the amounts allocated to resolve these situations are not spent. This is not the only area where we see that happening. It also happened with the indigenous languages commissioner. Money was available, but it was not used.
When I spoke about mechanisms to measure and track progress, that is one example. I know that there are mechanisms here in the House, but we never ask enough questions and we will never be able to follow up enough to eliminate the situations that my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie was talking about.
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- May/2/23 7:40:03 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for the question. Certainly, we all have stories to tell. I cannot say that everyone I have spent time with has wanted to tell these stories. Sometimes it is so painful. We need to respect each person's choice. They might not be able to tell their stories.
I have several, but I have one in particular I heard from a woman. In 2015, I organized a march for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, and a woman came up to me to talk about her sister. She told me that her sister left for the city, let us say Quebec City, roughly 500 kilometres away, and she never came back. Marching is a symbolic action to call for change, but for this woman, just participating in the march helped her to talk about her sister. We did not talk about it as much as we do today. There are also a lot of taboos. She realized that she was not the only one to have gone through this, that there were other cases.
Where I am from, it did not happen in an industrial area. It actually happened in an indigenous community of 5,000, where someone disappeared one day. That was one case, but there are so many more across Quebec and Canada, each under different circumstances. There are places in my riding, 1,000 km away, where children were taken away at the age or one or two and never returned to their communities. There are little girls who have gone away, never to be seen again. People are still mourning these children who never came back to their communities. There are so many stories, so many permutations, but they all boil down to the need for solidarity and concrete action to ensure this never happens again and to enable these people to grieve their loss, if not heal.
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- May/2/23 7:38:51 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I will quite simply say yes. The Indian Act is the epitome of systemic racism. We are talking about segregation. We are talking about denying human rights. This exists, of course, and we need to eliminate it. The first nations, indigenous peoples, the Inuit and the Métis peoples will show us how to do this.
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- May/2/23 7:28:15 p.m.
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Madam Chair, it is with great solidarity with my female colleagues that I rise to speak this evening. Of course I am thinking of my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, my colleague from Nunavut and also my colleague from Edmonton Griesbach.
Today I was thinking about this speaking opportunity, and there are some topics that truly speak to us as human beings. Certainly we are elected members first and foremost. I represent a riding. However, I will never stop thinking about the tragic events all around, most recently in Winnipeg.
Empathy is the foundation of every human being. Even if it is impossible to truly get there, I try to put myself in someone else's shoes, in those of the family and that of my colleagues who are elected. It hurts every time.
Yes, it is happening in Winnipeg, but it can happen anywhere. As a classic playwright once said, “I consider nothing human alien to me”. This affects us all. I am the member of Parliament for Manicouagan, a riding that is not Nunavut or Winnipeg, but it is large. There is natural resource extraction. There are women who are stuck in situations of poverty, isolation and lack of resources. Basically, these are very difficult situations, so we also have our own missing women, women who left their homes one day and were never seen again. Some of them are still missing.
I would like to begin by expressing my full solidarity, as a woman, as an elected member and as the Bloc Québécois indigenous affairs critic. This is not unrelated to my own past experience, since I worked as a coordinator for the Regroupement des femmes de la Côte-Nord, which is also in my riding. I have worked in shelters for abused women where I have seen the reality on the ground, although I have never witnessed this violence first-hand.
I often speak about my children. One does not necessarily need to have children to be compassionate. However, when we make decisions and take positions as elected officials, the fact that we are parents makes us question things and consider issues with our children in mind.
I have two sons and a daughter. I remember that I talked about my daughter in the House last year. When my daughter was very young, I told myself that her life would be harder because of violence against women. My daughter is not indigenous. In theory, it is less likely that she will experience this violence, but she does still run that risk.
I wonder if, since giving that speech last year, things have really changed for indigenous women, who are four times more likely than non-indigenous women to be impacted by such violence. I would like to say that things have changed, but I have to say that I do not see it in general and given everything that has been accomplished.
Actually, my colleague from Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis was just talking about what gets accomplished in committee. It is true that important work gets done in the House. This afternoon, a motion was moved that proves it, but at the same time, Parliament is a sort of bubble. There are positions and wishes that are expressed, but it all remains theoretical once again. These are not meaningful actions.
I have been wondering how we can measure what we are doing right now, what has been done since the report was tabled and even before that. We can do something before the report is tabled. We know that something is happening. We know that many women are killed or disappear when they should not have been killed or disappeared. What do we do? What tools do we have to find out?
It is quite broad. I am not saying we can find out exactly, but it feels like we need some tools. There is talk of the 231 recommendations. I will name two huge pieces. This involves both colonization and the entire issue of the patriarchy, as someone else has already noted.
Those are daunting issues. They are huge. How are we able to say that what we are doing as elected officials is really having an impact?
We can see that funding was invested in various programs, for example, and more investments were made this year. We need to look at how those investments will really address the root of the problem. Will it make a difference? Is it really a practical solution? I do not think we are doing that. Perhaps we need to think about that.
I was talking about the ability to measure. I do not like to talk about units of measurement for this type of subject, but I think that, as human beings, we always have to be able to measure what we are trying to do to see whether improvements have been made or whether we are failing to meet our objective. That is huge, but we need to have this overall view to figure out where we can provide more assistance.
I was pleased to see that the motion by my colleague from Winnipeg Centre mentioned an alert. For me, that is a concrete example where we can see a real, measurable impact on the ground. I am grateful for that. That is not exactly the word I am looking for, but I do appreciate it. At the same time, it is interesting that that comes from the indigenous community itself.
I am the Bloc Québécois critic for this file, however I am not indigenous. Earlier my colleague from Edmonton Griesbach talked about consultations. Yes, we must always consult the people involved. We must always ask what first nations and indigenous people would like and what can be done. Here we have some examples. I say this quite humbly because I am not an indigenous person. I found it interesting that my colleague from Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis used the word “humility”, a word I often use. Consultation is needed. Once again, it must not end with the tabling of a report. We must continue to have relationships with all the first nations, organizations and women's organizations to go even further.
I talked about money. I talked about one-size-fits-all measures, but there also needs to be flexibility, perhaps through a number of smaller measures. It would be impossible to come up with one big measure that will solve everything, so we need to take baby steps, although perhaps we can pick up the pace, with measures like the alert.
As my colleague from Nunavut stated earlier, there are no roads in certain regions. There may not necessarily be a police force. Women are on their own. Their families are nearby. The individual who may be violent is part of their immediate circle. These are very complex situations requiring many measures that are truly adapted to and appropriate for each situation.
In conclusion, I will come back to what I said at the beginning. I hope that, in the House, we show what we are doing in theory, but that we can see the concrete applications of the decisions we make. We need to take action and not just by investing money. We really need to see how this can appropriately respond to the calls to action. We are talking about urgent situations. Nothing can be more urgent than people's safety, integrity and lives. For these women and communities, it is their lives that are at stake. Their lives are in danger. For me, there is nothing more urgent than saving human lives.
Clearly, this cannot wait.
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Mr. Speaker, I am entering my eighth year as the MP for Manicouagan. I have seen some great successes over the years, but at times I become cynical. When that happens, I tell myself that it is a question of willingness.
We have seen it many times: Large sums of money are spent, very easily, without any criteria. It is not always clear which numbers go with what. There can be some secrecy there.
There are some real concerns right now. We have concrete demands that everyone agrees on, but nothing is happening. We talk about elders, women and girls, and housing is part of that as well. It is one of the factors that keeps this violence going. Then there is the fact that seniors are facing difficulties and health is an issue.
I totally agree with my colleague. It is a question of willingness. That is perhaps one of the only things I cannot give the government as an opposition member.
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- May/4/22 10:49:09 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I would just like to ask my colleague from Louis‑Saint‑Laurent about his expectations for the outcome of the take-note debate on the issue before us tonight.
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- May/4/22 10:22:28 p.m.
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Madam Chair, we have not been hearing the interpretation for nearly a minute now.
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- May/4/22 8:52:38 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I believe this is an example of exactly what I was trying to illustrate in the the speech I gave earlier.
Once again, I feel like the government is making a commercial about the money it has handed out. When it talks about millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of dollars, it always sounds impressive.
However, I would also like my hon. colleague to tell me about the results. The government always talks about the investments it has made in this and that community, but it never talks about the results. I believe that what members and people want are results.
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- May/4/22 8:23:38 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, my thoughts about the inquiry are the same as my thoughts about the royal commission on another issue in 1996. They consult and consult and consult without ever reinventing the wheel. There is a huge need for consultation here, but it results in precious little action. That is certainly what I am seeing yet again. I may not seem very upset, but I am kind of tired of hearing what amounts to lip service.
I just want to give my colleague an example. Something happened two days ago in my riding. Two bodies were found after the snow melted. Without really thinking about it, my immediate reflex was to wonder whether they were women, children or girls. It is unbelievable, but that was my first thought. It shows how traumatized people are, including me. Obviously, this hit home. This violence is embedded in our collective imagination. We cannot shake it, and it is frightening.
It was two men this time, and I would like to tell the community of Nutashkuan and the people of Natashquan that I stand with them. They know that, but I wanted to say it again.
Talking about building cultural centres does not at all reflect the vision and purpose of tonight's take-note debate.
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- May/4/22 8:21:32 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I am going to talk a little about my experience with housing, not my personal experience, but what I experienced while helping women. Housing really is about safety and security.
I come from a vast riding that covers 350,000 square kilometres. Some people live 1,000 kilometres away from one another, and there are not always roads. Due to the lack of housing, sometimes a woman will “agree” to stay with a violent partner. It is terrible to use that term, because she does not really agree, she just has no other choice. That is just one example.
Imagine being trapped in a very hostile environment and having nowhere else to go. Often these northern communities are very isolated. A woman may choose to stay with her violent partner because she does not have the financial means to leave. She may fear becoming culturally assimilated, because she will have to leave behind her children and all that is familiar.
This woman could be experiencing physical and psychological abuse, but this could also happen outside that home. Therefore, this woman is given a choice but really has no choice. That is why housing is vital for indigenous women and girls.
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- May/4/22 8:19:14 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I have a lot to say about that.
First, the government always has a good reason for the delays. I am being sarcastic, of course. The 2021 election was mentioned. I am pretty sure I was not the one who decided to call the election; the government did, so it only has itself to blame.
Then it talked to us about COVID‑19. Obviously it cannot do two things at once. It shuts down Parliament and then it says there are delays. It is not even funny.
I think this is completely appalling and irresponsible of the government. I have to say that it has the opportunity once again to do something, but it keeps offering nothing but red herrings. I hope it will listen to us.
I would also like to go a bit beyond the question. I am talking about my seven years here, but it seems like all we have done in those seven years—I believe my colleague talked about this—is nothing more than communications. We can associate the word “reconciliation” with the Liberals, but I currently have no idea what has been done for reconciliation. We are truly dealing with a PR firm in which the government gets the top role. To me it is all just smoke and mirrors.
Sadly, that is what I have to say this evening. I would like to see something tangible and not just a PR firm possibly focused on vote-buying.
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- May/4/22 8:16:47 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I replied earlier by saying that all the reports and recommendations have been written. They are there, and I am not about to reinvent the wheel. If I did, as a white woman, I would find myself pointing out which of the recommendations are the best.
As a parliamentarian, however, I would really like to see a plan for these recommendations. The government has said that it will fix the issue of indigenous housing by 2030. We can see pretty clearly in the government's own numbers that it is not going to work, and it is not that hard to calculate. It is a simple rule of three. We are not going to get there by 2030. This is the kind of thing we see in the House of Commons.
I want to see a concrete and realistic plan. What I want to hear is that there is a real desire for reconciliation, that steps must be taken and that the government is ready to take them and ready to make proposals. Again, consultation is needed, because reconciliation is not a unilateral process. The plan must therefore include first nations.
It might seem like I am asking for something huge, but it is really just a plan, and I think that anyone who wants to achieve anything needs a plan.
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- May/4/22 8:05:28 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I rise today as a parliamentarian, but also as a woman and as a mother. This is an issue that has impacted my life, so what I have to say is quite personal.
Let me begin by saying that I went into politics because I am a woman, but I asked myself one question during my second pregnancy when I found out the baby was a girl. I remember thinking to myself that it was going to be hard to have a girl in this world. I actually thought having a second son would be easier.
I say this as a woman, a white woman. If I try to picture what that would be like for an indigenous woman, I cannot even imagine what I might have thought at the time. Indeed, this world we live in is, on the whole, still hard.
Just look at the take-note debate we are having this evening. In French, it is called “exploratoire”, but to me that is exactly the wrong thing to call it. We do not need to explore the topic, to take note of it as though it were something new. It is not new.
These reflections began about 15 years ago. My daughter is now 14. Roughly 10 years later, I found myself working as coordinator of the Regroupement des femmes de la Côte-Nord, a group that focuses on advocacy and rights organizations. I also found myself working in shelters and addressing gender equality issues and, a little naively, I organized a march with many people, including indigenous women, of course. I would like to salute my friend Béatrice Picard, from Pessamit, as well as Michèle Audette, whom I invited to the march just before she was appointed commissioner. We marched through the streets with other women, and to me at, that point, it was all very theoretical.
However, women came up to me on those streets and shared their stories with me, stories that often began with something unthinkable and often had no ending, because, as some of my colleagues have mentioned, some of these people are still missing. We do not know what happened to them, and they may never be found. It was a very symbolic march for me, because I was also there with my daughter. I must say that this is very important for the people of our region, but also for the entire population, both in Quebec and in Canada.
Today we are being told that this is a take-note debate and that we are looking at what is happening in committee. I must admit that makes me think of the song “Fatigué”, or tired, by Renaud. There are some topics like this one that we are tired of, not because the topic is unimportant, but because we are still talking about it today. We have to keep talking in the House and bringing up statistics. I do not think we need any more statistics or quotes or commissions to realize that it is time to do something about this.
I have a really hard time with this. Earlier one of my colleagues said that we ask questions in the House when we know we will not get a valid response. We are truly engaging in a soliloquy, a dialogue with ourselves, a monologue in the House.
I know someone who is here this evening in our gallery who has worked hard for the rights of indigenous peoples. He has done a lot, and I would like to acknowledge him. We are talking about legislation, but not implementation. We need to reach the implementation phase.
We often talk about systemic discrimination. In fact, the Indian Act is a prime example. It harms women. We talked about how residential schools are a form of systemic discrimination, institutional discrimination, but they still stemmed from a desire for cultural genocide.
Thinking back to the women I marched with who knew people who had disappeared, thinking back to the impact of the residential schools and the Indian Act, I can say that there are multiple factors at play, not just one.
I agree with the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, who is full of good intentions. However, when I asked earlier what had been done for women experiencing violence during the COVID-19 crisis, given that we knew violence was on the rise, and why more funding had not been made available when the government had been able to find money for so many other areas, I was told that cultural centres would be built in a few years.
It is interesting. The government cannot do one thing and not do other things; it is complex. We also need cultural centres. When we talk about cultural genocide, we are talking about language and culture. When I hear that in the House, I think we are still overlooking so much.
I mentioned our work in committee, where exactly the same thing goes on, when we bring up all the government's spending, budgets and supplementary budgets. I heard it again earlier, when it was said that $60 million has been allocated to British Columbia, and someone was told that $2 million had been allocated to her riding and that it would be so great. I would like to stay above the fray and say that perhaps what we need is drastic action. That is what the people here in the House tonight are expecting. Quebeckers, and Canadians as well, are probably expecting drastic action.
We were talking about housing recently in committee. We have known for ages that this is one of the key difficulties that indigenous communities are facing. Housing is connected to many things. In any case, it is a basic need.
We keep being told that targets will be met, that it is very difficult to build in the north, and thinking that living there and having a house means that it must be possible to build it. In short, I find that there is a lot of bad faith.
I know that we are constrained by our budgets. However, for me, the government is talking a good game and making it look like it is taking action by sprinkling money around, acknowledging that people have been waiting for a plan for three years, and saying that it will be presented soon. Tonight's take-note debate applies a bit of pressure. I do not think that the government can be taken seriously.
Personally, even if I am not the right person to ask the question, if I told first nations people in my riding, who make up about 15% of the population, to watch tonight's debate, to listen to everything going on in committee and to consider everything we do here concerning indigenous affairs, I believe that they would not be satisfied. I do not think they would be satisfied with the answer I was given earlier.
People are saying that we should not play politics in the House. It is a little hard not to play politics. That is what I heard, but I do not think they would be satisfied. No, they want houses. They want security. They want the same thing everyone does.
What we hear in the House is the same old rhetoric. People are saying that they are doing their best, but they are not doing their best. I call on all members of the House, especially the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and the government, to show that they truly do want reconciliation.
If we want to reconcile with someone, we cannot unilaterally impose terms. That is not how reconciliation works. We must listen to what the other person wants and accommodate their requests. Of course it is hard. Money certainly plays a big part, but I do not think that it is the only factor. I think there are measures that can be taken.
I have been in the House for seven years now, and I certainly would not say or imply that I am naive, because I am not. We come to the House because we want to serve our constituents. We are humble, but we very much want to serve them. I feel as though it is one disappointment after another. I find myself thinking, “my God, they are making things up as they go along”. I see a lot of this. When the government does not have a plan, it makes things up. I am disappointed by what I see.
If there is one thing the government can do tonight and in the weeks and years to come, maybe it can provide some reassurance about that. What I heard tonight from the minister himself is not satisfactory. My daughter is very young right now and tells me she absolutely does not want children, but I really hope we will all have the courage to do the work to ensure that, when she is a woman a few years from now, she will not ask herself the same question that indigenous women ask themselves, about whether they even want daughters because our girls are always in danger and come into this world without benefiting from the same conditions, the same actual rights. Yes, we do have theoretical rights, but we also have the actual reality of our existence to contend with.
I would like every indigenous woman to come into this world knowing they have the same rights and need not fear being assaulted or killed.
I would like the government to take concrete action. I expected nothing less from the minister than bold action, but that is not what we saw this evening.
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- May/4/22 7:33:32 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I thank my colleague for his speech. It is clear that this issue is very important to him.
I heard him bring up COVID‑19 twice in response to my colleagues. I would like to know what has been done. We know that crises have serious repercussions in a lot of areas, most notably in cases of violence against women.
I would like to know what the government did when it found out that this was already impacting women—
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