Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Honourable senators, I rise to speak in support of Senator McPhedran’s amendment to Bill C-29, the national council for reconciliation act.

Colleagues, the term “time immemorial” has been used in many research articles, books and documents; it has been used by First Nations leaders, Elders, knowledge keepers and scholars. In our First Nations ways of being and knowing, it is a tribute to our connection to Creator and in our prayers, in Cree, we say kâkike, kâkike; forever and ever. It is a reminder of our sacred responsibility to the seven generations before us and that these ancestors also had their seven generations before them. It is also a reminder of our responsibility to the generations yet to come, including my grandson’s seven generations.

I now speak to the term “time immemorial” from a Cree perspective. In the book entitled Untuwe Pi Kin He Who We Are: Treaty Elders’ Teachings Volume I, Nisichawayasi Nehetho Nation and Kihche’otthasowewin — the Great Law of the Creator, Elder D’Arcy Linklater shares the great law of the creator from the Nisichawayasi Nehetho perspective. This is comprised of 12 laws of which the fourth states Aski Kanache Pumenikewin, which means that the conduct of a person must be in accordance with the sacred duty to protect N’tuskenan, the land, life, home and spiritual shelter entrusted to us by Kihche’manitou, for our children, michimahch’ohc. That is a different form of time immemorial.

Honourable senators, I spoke yesterday to Elder Claudette Commanda at the installation of the Indigenous Chiropractors Caucus. In her prayers, she said that her ancestors from Kitigan Zibi First Nation have been here since time immemorial and their lands remain unceded today. These are the lands we stand on. The First Nations knowledge of the term “time immemorial” and seven generations is uniquely situated on Turtle Island and keeping the land pristine.

I would like to draw your attention to the April 2019 report by the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal peoples entitled How Did We Get Here? A Concise, Unvarnished Account of the History of the Relationship between Indigenous Peoples and Canada. This report’s section entitled, “From Sovereign Nations to Wards of the State: The Story of First Nations’ Relationship with the Crown” has a subsection entitled “From Time Immemorial: The Life of First Nations Before the Arrival of Settlers,” where it states:

For thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, First Nations lived on their traditional territories, depending on the lands and waters around them for sustenance. First Nations relationships to the land were a central part of their identity, as reflected in the diversity of cultures, laws, languages, ways of life and forms of governance that flourished across the area that is now Canada. . . .

The report continues:

When newcomers first arrived on the shores of Eastern Canada, they brought with them ideas about the land and the Indigenous inhabitants of the country, embodied in the concepts of terra nullius and the doctrine of discovery. . . . As explained by Elder Fred Kelly, the concept of terra nullius allowed ‘a discoverer ... [to] occupy the land by virtue of the fact that there is nobody there other than the animals’; this essentially allowed a discoverer to overlook the presence of Indigenous Peoples who were living on that land. A related concept, the doctrine of discovery ‘held that the discovery of such lands gave the discovering nation immediate sovereignty and all right and title to it.

In contrast, First Nations relied on the land for their sustenance — hunting, fishing or farming to feed their families and communities. For the Cree, land is ‘not about ownership and money.’ Instead, Cree People have a holistic understanding of land reflected in the concept of uski, which ‘includes all living things, such as the animals, plants, the trees, the fish, the rivers, the lakes and...the rocks...[and] also includes our concept of the sky world.’ The Cree view the land as integral to their culture, language and identity, and recognize that humans ‘are only a small part of our environment and...totally dependent on uski for their survival.’

The Government of Canada website, regarding the UNDRIP, or United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, Action Plan, in “Chapter 1: Shared priorities,” states:

As a preliminary note to this Chapter, Canada recognizes that the UN Declaration Act states that “measures to implement the Declaration in Canada must take into account the diversity of Indigenous peoples and, in particular, the diversity of the identities, cultures, languages, customs, practices, rights and legal traditions of First Nations, Inuit and the Métis and of their institutions and governance structures, their relationships to the land and Indigenous knowledge.”

Canada recognizes that while some priorities may be shared among First Nations, Inuit and Métis, adopting a distinctions-based approach requires that Canada’s relationships and engagement with First Nations, Inuit and Métis include different approaches or actions and result in different outcomes. . . .

Honourable senators, in legal terms, “time immemorial” originated in English common law, where it referred to a legal concept signifying a period way back in time where there is no recollection of record to prove a custom, right or claim.

In the U.K., a statute of the year 1275 said that the time before King Richard I’s reign or 1189 was declared to be time immemorial.

You will see the difference here between how the two define the word.

Colleagues, much of the remaining information I will share is taken from a book published by the Thompson Rivers University entitled Histories of Indigenous Peoples and Canada, which reads:

Canadians — including many Indigenous people — came to understand Indigenous histories as tangential, small, unimportant, and even a blind alley. This kind of thinking enabled Canadian authorities and citizens to regard Indigenous communities as being “without history,” as in, outside of history. And no one outside of history is going to fare very well . . . We — all of us — are those Canadians invited to engage in the Truth and Reconciliation process. Some truths are unknowable but what we can know, what truths we can distill from the past will be essential to the long hard climb toward reconciliation.

One common form of histories across cultures is that they legitimate a society’s claim to be where it is. . . . For millennia, Indigenous history was maintained by many means —

— including oral history.

Privileging the written word, European and Euro-Canadian historians overwhelmingly disregarded and sometimes disparaged the oral tradition. In New France, British North America, and Canada, the colonialist strategy was more subtle: it simply denied the existence of a historic past [of the First Nations]. Since material records by First Nations were dependent on an interpreter, these skills became less common as alien diseases, warfare and relocation interrupted the connection between the past and its heirs and hence the importance of oral history.

The book continues:

A systematic academic archaeological dig that stretched from the 1880s to the 1950s in Marpole Midden, a traditional village and burial site of enormous importance, pointed to occupation that stretched back at least fifteen hundred years and abandonment sometime in the mid-1700s. . . . The Ottawa Citizen newspaper in 1948 took the view that, whoever they were, the people whose remains constitute the Marpole Midden “. . . were not Indians certainly.” This tendency to deny a history before colonization survives in the practice among some scholars and commentators — still found in some quarters today — to refer to the period before the arrival of Europeans as “pre-historic.” This alleged absence . . . allowed newcomers to write their own history over top of Indigenous Histories . . . Europeans in the early contact period might transcribe Indigenous voices, but that is always filtered through the Europeans’ lens of what is important and how they understood the speaker. For example, they were more likely to journal about beaver pelts than . . . Cree moral debates and Ktunaxa understandings of the past.

Honourable senators, we must ensure that, as educated and civilized champions of the marginalized, we do not continue to place First Nations, Métis and Inuit histories into a monolith, and that we do not adopt legislation that, once again, ignores First Nations histories.

We have to ensure that we do the right thing and continue to accurately place First Nations within Canadian history. What remains problematic is the persistent use of the term “Indigenous”; it remains a form of assimilation.

Colleagues, when Bruce Trigger broadened historical approaches now described as ethno-history, he was able to transform understandings of the pre-, proto- and post-contact history of the Wendat.

At first, Western scholars were astonished that Indigenous knowledge included centuries-old elements. One example included:

The Heiltsuk, a.k.a. Bella Bella, people’s history and their insistence that their direct ancestors lived in their region for many millennia; recent archaeological evidence validates this claim back about fourteen thousand years.

“Vindication” may seem like the right word here, but it has been more like an education. Euro-Canadian society as a whole has been slow to grasp the strength and depth of Indigenous historical knowledge . . . Indigenous societies speak of knowledge keepers, not necessarily knowledge providers. Under no obligation to disclose their historical knowledge, Indigenous peoples nevertheless have the right to demand truthfulness in historical studies —

 — and in this case, truthfulness in legislation.

Honourable senators, changing the wording in the amendment — to reflect the truth — is not about denying the status and authority of the Métis. It was never about excluding.

My intention, and the intention of the amendment before us, is in regard to historical accuracy. Such an amendment is not signalling that Métis are of lesser importance. It is a historical fact that they came later in Canadian society because of the Métis shared biology between a First Nations woman and a European man.

Honourable senators, if we deny historical accuracy, then we are facilitating a harmful illusion of Canada’s history that will ultimately have deleterious impacts on First Nations rights, history and culture.

We must be resolute that we approach our work in giving sober second thought with diligence, and that includes ensuring the legislation we pass is fundamentally accurate.

In the book entitled We All Go Back to the Land: The Who, Why, and How of Land Acknowledgements, author Suzanne Keeptwo states:

Although the Land Acknowledgement is perceived as a relatively new phenomenon, it prompts mainstream Canadians to re-imagine an Inhabited world — a world prior to European settlement, that is unlike any other.

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Therefore, honourable senators, in amendment, I move:

That Bill C-29, as amended, be not now read a third time, but that it be further amended in the preamble, on page 1, by replacing line 1 with the following:

“Whereas, since time immemorial, First Nations and Inuit peo-”.

Thank you.

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-29, An Act to provide for the establishment of a national council for reconciliation. I want to thank Senator Audette for sponsoring the bill and the Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples for being diligent and respectful in their work.

Colleagues, it is impossible to compress into one speech the history of First Nations when looking through the lens of conciliation. The necessity to be selective leads me to concentrate on narrow dimensions of First Nations’ lives, starting with pre-contact, to show their history of independence, and then showing the intentional devolving structure of self-determination of First Nations.

The rippling effects of the trauma and rupture to our lives caused by colonial policies and legislation have served to reinforce and legitimize racist stereotypes about First Nations. Our stories about residential schooling were told to challenge the stories that reinforced the naturalized kind of racism that permeates Canadian society. It is to make ourselves, as parliamentarians, accountable to foster, maintain and build relationships between non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples.

I will conclude with an amendment.

Colleagues, in the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, author Charles C. Mann states:

. . . researchers have made fascinating discoveries about the first fifteen thousand years of American history . .. that fit well in the book’s basic arguments: that Indian societies were bigger than had been previously believed; that they were older and more sophisticated than previously believed; and that they had greater impact on the environment than previously believed.

In the book entitled Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life, author James Daschuk states:

. . . prehistoric populations on the Canadian plains, rather than small, nomadic, band-level societies, were large, sophisticated, “tribally” organized communities made up of as of many as 1,000 individuals working communally to produce “an almost industrial level of resource exploitation.” These large groups provided enough labor to drive herds over large distances and then kill and process them, creating large surpluses of food that were traded (often for corn and other crops) or stockpiled for future use. Food surpluses gave communities time to pursue quests for more than just food, developing formal institutions within them . . . .

During the Little Ice Age between 1275 and 1300 A.D.:

. . . the choices made by communities were the difference between success and oblivion over the long term. In Greenland, rigid adherence to unsustainable European farming practices marked the beginning of the end for Norse settlement, while their indigenous neighbours shifted their subsistence strategies across the arctic, adapting to the harsh conditions and surviving in the long term.

Honourable senators, after 500 years of sustained contact and interaction, First Nation lives and First Nation government relations have been left in a deplorable, human-generated state of disarray and despair. Government policies and legislation deliberately undermined the viability of Aboriginal communities in order to serve the never-ending quest for assimilation of First Nations and the desire for land.

We were never inherently physically weak peoples as history makes us out to be. The impact of the arrival of epidemic diseases was worsened with the newly imposed reserve system.

As author James William Daschuk wrote:

The most significant factor under human control was the failure of the Canadian government to meet its treaty obligations and its decision to use food as a means to control the Indian population to meet its development agenda rather than as a response to a humanitarian crisis. . . . To the hungry indigenous population, this meant that officials quickly turned the food crisis into a means to control them to facilitate construction of the railway and opening of the country to agrarian settlement. . . . The Dakota, who did not depend on the bison and were not signatories to the treaties, were able to maintain relatively good conditions in their communities. This is evidence that the emerging TB epidemic was not an organic phenomenon but the outcome of prolonged malnutrition and failure of the dominion to meet its treaty commitments.

. . . By 1883, reports of tainted food and reserve deaths were common. In addition, government regulations that kept the distribution of provisions on reserves to a minimum required to sustain life exacerbated the TB problem and led to provisions rotting in storehouses even as the reserve population suffered from malnutrition. . . .

. . . With the infrastructure in place for large-scale settlement and the establishment of agrarian capitalism, the well-being of indigenous people in the west largely disappeared from the public agenda. Bands considered to have been hostile during the insurrection of 1885 were punished. Their food rations were cut off, and their weapons and horses were confiscated. Reserves became centres of incarceration as the infamous “pass system” was imposed to control movements of the treaty population. . . .

. . . Establishment of the residential school system, now widely recognized as a national disgrace, ensconced TB infection, malnutrition, and abuse in an institutional setting that endured for most of the twentieth century. . . . It is for all Canadians to recognize the collective burden imposed on its indigenous population by the state as it opened the country to our immigrant ancestors to recast the land to suit the needs of the global economy in the late nineteenth century.

The first physical sign of a substandard institutional system is the increase in sickness and illness of a population. Health as a measure of human experience cannot be considered in isolation from the social, political and economic forces that shape the experiences of First Nations through colonization and colonialism.

Colleagues, the colossal denial of human rights and centuries‑long assault were for the purpose of obtaining First Nations’ lands. In the book Seeing Red, by Mark Cronlund Anderson and Carmen L. Robertson, the authors state:

The idea that Aboriginals desired to cede their lands, imperialism notwithstanding, clearly makes no sense at all unless one embraces a colonial ideology that endorses imperial land theft. Why would anyone freely give up huge regions of traditional territory in return for a degraded status on small areas of marginal land? . . .

Honourable senators, the majority of stories — 92% to 96% of stories — in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC, are based on the stories of First Nations from effects of the history above. We must acknowledge that the experiences of Inuit and Métis are different from First Nations, and therefore their solutions and the acts of reconciliation required will be different. The stories of trauma experienced by the Métis, the Sixties Scoop survivors, children in care, non-status Indians and those off-reserve remain largely unknown. They also require unique solutions and acts of reconciliation.

Yet Canada continues to conflate all of the Indigenous peoples into one heavily stereotyped monolith. There are numerous traps in discussing Aboriginal peoples as if they were a relatively homogeneous entity with a common set of problems, with a uniform set of solutions. The pan-Indigenous approach championed by Bill C-29 has the ability to do a disservice to all Indigenous peoples. We shall see the outcome.

Colleagues, context is critical in legislation. We are responsible for asking ourselves, as parliamentarians, if we are going to be complacent in undertaking reconciliation for Métis and Inuit peoples through the same lens as that of First Nations.

In the book Unequal Relations: A Critical Introduction to Race, Ethnic, and Aboriginal Dynamics in Canada by Augie Fleras, the author states:

The term “aboriginal” itself refers to the first or original or Indigenous occupants of this country. This status as first among equals provides First Nations with the credentials to press claims against the Canadian state for entitlement on the basis of inherent jurisdiction . . . . The term “first” can also be used in less flattering ways. Aboriginal peoples are “first” in those social areas that count least (unemployment, under-education, suicide, and morbidity rates) but last in realms that matter most. . . . They are also “first” in terms of total publicity — much of it reflecting a popular view of aboriginal peoples as “problem people” who “have problems” or “create problems” that cost or provoke. Some of this media exposure is sympathetic, but much reflects degrees of indifference or ignorance. Most coverage is inadequate to provide anything but a fleeting glimpse into changing realities. The circulation of misinformation is unfortunate.

The author continues:

The complex and difficult issues associated with the reconstruction process should never be underestimated. Aboriginal demands are organized around the principle of nationhood rather than social integration, and there is much to be gained by seeing Indigenous efforts toward reconstitution of the elements of their nationality through restoration of aboriginal communities and cultural values as well as self-determination and territorial reappropriation . . . .

As noted by Dave Courchene, a former president of the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood, in 1970:

One hundred years of submission and servitude, of protectionism and paternalism have created psychological barriers for Indian people that are far more difficult to break down and conquer than the problems of economic and social poverty. . . .

Honourable senators, in conclusion, I would like to raise that there is an inaccuracy in the preamble of this bill that we would do well to rectify. Specifically, the opening line states:

Whereas, since time immemorial, Indigenous peoples have thrived on and managed and governed their Indigenous lands . . . .

We know that a pan-Indigenous approach to this wording implies that all three are incorporated into this statement. In reality, it was only the First Nations and Inuit peoples who have lived on these lands since time immemorial, since Métis were conceived between First Nations women and European men.

We can’t start this bill off with an untruth. As such, I am requesting that we correct this inaccuracy by changing the term “Indigenous peoples” to more accurately state, “First Nations and Inuit peoples.”

Senator McCallum: We are not leaving anyone out unintentionally. That is the reality.

I disagree with the word “Indigenous.” This country has moved from using “Aboriginal” to now using “Indigenous,” and that includes all the groups.

When I look at the history of how First Nations people were targeted — as were the Inuit people — they were specifically and persistently targeted by legislation to bring them down, and that has to be taken into account. It was all about the land. The country needs to know. We hear “time immemorial,” and when I use that term, that is from the Cree term. There is a Cree word for “time immemorial.” Can you comment on that?

Senator McCallum: I have spoken to Métis people, and I met with the Manitoba Métis Federation this morning. I have spoken to them about this amendment; they agreed with it. I said to them, “First Nations women are the matriarch of the Métis Nation because without them, and without the people who came over — the French, and the British — there would have been no Métis Nation.”

How can you say, Senator LaBoucane-Benson, that there were three groups here, when the Europeans hadn’t come, and there were only the First Nations? First Nations includes all the tribes that were here. It’s the original peoples — it is just that we can’t come up with one term. In Cree, we call ourselves nêhiyawak, but they didn’t take that into consideration — it’s human beings.

That’s why it is very important. This is truth and reconciliation. The truth is there were only First Nations and Inuit peoples when people landed here. Can you comment on that?

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: I wanted to say that the three, especially the AFN — I know for certain — are not rights holders. They represent rights holders, but they aren’t themselves.

I have heard of CAP before. They were a really great organization at one time, and then it fell into disarray. I know because I worked and I heard what happened there. That is why I asked them the questions in the committee. I asked them the questions and asked them to send the answers by the end of that week. They never sent the answers, and those are critical.

I became concerned that they weren’t doing the work they are saying they do and they’re not representing the people they say they do. If they were doing such great work — and we keep hearing that, but with this group of CAP, I have not heard one example of great work. I have tried to be fair to them. I have told them four times that I would like this information, and they never came back with it. That makes me suspicious.

When you say there’s respect for past contributions, yes, we have that, but we need to respect what is happening now. My sense is that there is very little being done.

Yes, this bill is extremely important, and we need to base it on truth. We have not received truth from CAP. We understand NWAC; we worked extensively with them on Bill C-69, working with Indigenous women across the country, so I know how hard they work.

You can’t say there’s symmetry or it’s not fair. I look at who does the work. I will support those.

There is the issue of “pretendians” and identity theft. That was the basis. Who is CAP? They still have not said who they are. There is not a CAP organization in Manitoba. I don’t know anyone whom they represent, and that is why if we say this is truth and reconciliation, then let’s base it on truth. Not one person here has said what they’ve done.

I just wanted to put that out there. I don’t have anything against them. If they had told me what they did, who their membership was, and what they had accomplished, I would support them, but I can’t.

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Thank you for your speech. I have asked CAP four times these questions, and they have not answered them. Perhaps they gave you the answers. I asked them: Who are your members? How do you verify their indigeneity? How are the elections carried out? What percentage of membership is in each province? They’re saying that their membership is 850,000. When I challenged them in committee, they reduced it to 600,000.

How do you practise reconciliation without land or language? When they called me last week, I said that I would not speak to them unless they answered these questions, and they haven’t to date.

So that causes me great concern.

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: As a former student of a residential school, I want to correct something.

Senator McCallum: Okay. I’ll ask a question.

[Translation]

Senator McCallum: Yes.

Senator McCallum: I heard for the third time people saying that there was extensive consultation done with residential school survivors. As a former student who went through an eight-hour day to do my story, you cannot consult when we are in the midst of darkness and just starting to sift through experience. Don’t you think that testifying publicly about painful personal memories and having it relegated to consultation is hurtful and does injury to former students? Thank you.

[Translation]

Senator McCallum: I’m not a regular member of the Indigenous Peoples Committee. I didn’t receive any mail. I did go out and ask those representing missing and murdered women. They said they come to our meetings, but they haven’t done anything. I have gone to Sixties Scoop; they don’t represent them. I have asked people in Manitoba, “What do you know about CAP?” and I have not heard anything.

Maybe other members received information, but I didn’t. I did talk with two of the administrators, and they’ve never provided information to me. Thank you.

Senator McCallum: I worked extensively with organizations, even before I became a senator. I have worked with the Native Women’s Association of Canada, or NWAC, with the National Association of Friendship Centres and other groups, and they have been great allies and advocates. I have asked groups of women in the past week — healing groups — if CAP has advocated for them, and each group said no. I have never worked with CAP in the 30 years that I have worked with Indigenous people.

Can you tell me why you say that because NWAC is there, CAP should be there, when NWAC has done such great work? Thank you.

Senator McCallum: Thank you for the question. No, I’m not aware of that. I did look into it, and, at one point, they were included. I saw this when I looked at the final report, and then they were removed at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs. I don’t know what the reason for that was, but that is something that needs to be addressed in the committee.

When it goes to committee, I urge that this issue is not rushed through — we need at least two or three weeks of discussion because there are about 10 people that I will ask to present. Canadians need to know what the issues are behind this bill, and we need to do it justice. Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Dalphond, for Senator Anderson, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator McPhedran, seconded by the Honourable Senator White, for the second reading of Bill S-201, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Regulation Adapting the Canada Elections Act for the Purposes of a Referendum (voting age).

(On motion of Senator Tannas, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Wallin, seconded by the Honourable Senator Tannas, for the second reading of Bill S-248, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying).

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-29, An Act to provide for the establishment of a national council for reconciliation. This is not a simple bill as some believe. A statement was made by a member of the transitional committee advising the reconciliation council for parliamentarians to take off their political caps when considering this bill. This was an ignorant remark and silencing tactic showing how little some Indigenous peoples understand what has happened to their own.

Reconciliation is not the simple act of removing a cap or passing legislation. When you are born already trapped in the Indian Act, you are not wearing a cap; you are a political entity. The oppressive systems of the act reshaped our identities, communities, lives and spirits, and that violence still lives within us as First Nations. Understanding and unbraiding the complex racist colonial systems that were involved in the making of the Canadian state is a lifelong process. As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC, stated:

The Survivors acted with courage and determination. We should do no less. It is time to commit to a process of reconciliation. . . .

The Senate has the responsibility to ensure that this process is doable and that it is transformative.

When I asked Minister Miller if he was open to amendments, he assured us that he was. As First Nations’ lawyer Ken Young said, we have one chance to do this right. We need to ensure that it does not negatively impact or interfere with section 35 rights.

Honourable senators, the complexity of Bill C-29 involves the intentional lumping together of different peoples who have been impacted by colonialism in different ways: First Nations, Métis, Inuit and non-status. Some are at different levels of engagement and some are not engaged at all with the federal and provincial governments, and we all have unique, unresolved issues specific to our histories. The Calls to Action are based on the stories of residential school survivors, so how are the people who didn’t attend or aren’t intergenerational residential school descendants going to be able to use the interpretation of reconciliation of this bill as based on the TRC? As Manitoba Métis Federation President David Chartrand said, “The vast majority of the TRC and its recommendations were aimed at reconciliation with First Nations.” As such, First Nations should constitute 50 plus 1 of the committee membership.

In the book entitled Visions of the Heart: Issues Involving Indigenous People in Canada, Joyce Green, in the chapter on enacting reconciliation, writes:

 . . . it is important to note that the Commission’s terms of reference did not include consideration of the many day schools deployed for the same objectives as residential schools, nor did they permit consideration of or compensation of the many Métis and non-status Indian students who were the subjects of the same kinds of abuses and deprivations as were status Indian students.

To include the four Indigenous groups — First Nations, Métis, Inuit and non-status, which includes many Sixties Scoop survivors — in one national council for reconciliation does a disservice to all. As I have said, each has different outstanding issues that have not been resolved by the federal government. All deserve to have their own version of reconciliation that is meaningful and transformative. Pitting one against the other, as we are doing in this bill, is not reconciliation.

Honourable senators, when considering the TRC’s final report, conciliatory efforts are involved in Calls to Action 43 to 94 and will need to be monitored as per clause 7(b) of Bill C-29. Monitoring multiple calls to action is a huge task for one committee that involves disparate groups.

According to the Library of Parliament’s gender-based analysis on this bill:

Other commissions and inquiries, including those covering matters related to diverse groups of Indigenous peoples, have recommended mechanisms to review implementation of their recommendations. For example, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous women and Girls … was mandated to ‘report on the systemic causes of all forms of violence against Indigenous women and girls.’ The National Inquiry published its final report in June 2019, which included 252 Calls for Justice. … However, Bill C-29 does not require the Council to examine the implementation of the National Inquiry’s Calls for Justice.

The complexity of Bill C-29 involves individual and collective reconciliation for those who have been impacted by residential school. The majority will be First Nations. What, then, will reconciliation look like for the different groups of Métis and for the non-status, including the Sixties Scoop survivors? How can the committee determine reconciliation efforts when these varying histories and their effects have not been established?

Honourable senators, the uncertainty surrounding Bill C-29 includes the term “reconciliation” itself. Reconciliation has different meanings for different groups and its lack of definition in the bill will cause problems. In The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Genocide, Indian Residential Schools and the Challenge of Conciliation, by David B. MacDonald, the author states:

. . . reconciliation implies the need to revisit some point in time when relationships between Indigenous peoples and settlers were productive, respectful, and healthy. Where the term reconciliation works better may be among Indigenous peoples, where various aspects of colonialism severely weakened some families and communities, introducing forms of lateral violence and inter-generational trauma, while also disrupting several millennia of interdependent relations with animals, plants, waters, and lands.

For greater clarity, the TRC defined “reconciliation” by stating:

It’s about coming to terms with events of the past in a manner that overcomes conflict and establishes a respectful and healthy relationship among people going forward. It is in the latter context that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has approached the question of reconciliation.

The report continues:

. . . there has to be awareness of the past, acknowledgment of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour.

In the same report, when the question was asked, “. . . how, given the history of the residential schools, could Canada be a better place,” survivor Victoria Grant-Boucher said:

I’m telling my story ... for the education of the Canadian general public ... [so that they] can understand what stolen identity is . . . how it affects people, how it affects an individual, how it affects family, how it affects community.... I think the non-Aboriginal person, Canadian, has to understand that a First Nations person has a culture.... And I think that we, as Aboriginal people, have so much to share if you just let us regain that knowledge.... And I also take to heart what Elders talk about ... we have to heal ourselves. We have to heal each other. And for Canada to heal, they have to allow us to heal before we can contribute. That’s what reconciliation means to me.

Allow us to heal before we can contribute — this is a profound statement. Individual healing is required. Collective community healing is required. These are both essential to further conciliation effects at institutional levels which will require different forms of action. Reconciliation will require “. . . real social, political, and economic change.”

Colleagues, when considering the individual healing that needs to occur, we must acknowledge that such healing will be a different journey from person to person, but it will also be markedly different between men and women. As Joyce Green writes in her paper entitled Enacting Reconciliation:

. . . colonialism has been gendered, thus, its effects are experienced differently by men and women, and reconciliation itself must be gendered. The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) writes that “The ongoing violation of Indigenous women through systemic subjugation, marginalization and violence is a legacy of colonialism in Canada . . . .” NWAC notes that Indigenous women have also been subjected to intergenerational “gendered injustices of marginalization, dispossession and violence within their own communities as well as in the larger Canadian society” as a consequence of colonialism and the residential school experience . . . . The truth of this is evident in the numbers of missing and murdered Indigenous women . . . .

Until the issue of gendered violence against women and girls is addressed, there can be no reconciliation.

Honourable senators, we must also reflect on Bill C-29 in light of this chamber’s recent passage of federal legislation to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP. In the book Pathways of Reconciliation, author Sheryl Lightfoot states:

. . . the TRC linked reconciliation and implementation of the UN Declaration so tightly together that it is now simply impossible for one to support the TRC and not support full implementation of the UN Declaration.

She continues:

As a standard-setting tool, the forty-six articles of the UN Declaration are intended to guide state action toward relationships with Indigenous peoples; they are based on justice and serve as a framework of mutual recognition and respect, with the self-determination of Indigenous peoples at its core.

Lightfoot quotes S. James Anaya, former United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, who offered the following suggestions for steps toward UNDRIP implementation:

First, State officials as well as Indigenous leaders should receive training on the Declaration on the related international instruments, and on practical measures to implement the Declaration.

This training must be mandatory for the council’s committee members. Anaya continues:

Additionally, States should engage in comprehensive reviews of their existing legislation and administrative programmes to identify where they may be incompatible with the Declaration. . . . On the basis of such a review, the necessary legal and programmatic reforms should be developed and implemented in consultation with indigenous peoples.

States should be committed to devoting significant human and financial resources to the measures required to implement the Declaration. These resources will typically be required for the demarcation or return of indigenous lands, the development of culturally appropriate educational programmes, support for indigenous self-governance institutions and the many other measures contemplated by the Declaration.

Lightfoot concludes:

As the TRC Summary Report noted, ‘Studying the Declaration with a view to identifying its impacts on current government laws, policy and behaviour would enable Canada to develop a holistic version of reconciliation.’

Colleagues, the TRC rated reconciliation in UNDRIP as being intertwined variables. If we pride ourselves in collectively passing UNDRIP, why do we continue to pass legislation that goes against the principles of UNDRIP, and accordingly against reconciliation itself?

Honourable senators, to have this bill be truly conciliatory, changes must be made to get it there. Under the heading Purpose and Functions, section 7(a) should be amended to say, “develop and implement a multi-year national action plan to advance reconciliation based on the framework of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

There are profound questions surrounding the lack of guaranteed funding. The issues with this bill are large, and the approach it takes is not conducive to reconciliation. I urge you to think about these matters when considering the bill. Kinanâskomitin. Thank you.

[Translation]

Senator McCallum: Yes, please.