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: 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]

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Food as reconciliation.

Harry S. Truman said, “In the long view, no nation is any healthier than its children or more prosperous than its farmers . . . .”

Honourable senators, I rise today in support of Bill S-227, which seeks to establish food day in Canada.

I would like to thank Senator Black for his continued and committed advocacy toward the land, soil safety and the agriculture community on Turtle Island.

Farming has always been and continues to be a key part in the solution toward producing nutritious and free-range food for Canadians. My interest in farming has a personal connection. My mentor and surrogate father, Dr. Robert Glenn, was a farmer around the Russell area in the Interlake region of Manitoba.

One day, when he was in his late seventies, he was talking to me about his farm while we were in the dental clinic. I asked him:

Dr. Glenn, why do you continue to do this hard work that starts at four or five in the morning and continues late into the night without so much as a guaranteed income when the season is over?

He answered, “It’s in the blood, my girl.” At that moment, my profound respect for farmers and the hard, tireless — and many times unappreciated and thankless — work that they do was born.

Farming, as I understand it now, is land-based education. Like Indigenous knowledge, there is knowledge and wisdom garnered in this setting that you will never learn from a textbook while sitting in a classroom.

Honourable senators, it is a little-known fact that one of the most significant contributions that America’s Indigenous peoples have made is in agricultural farming. Many foods, such as chocolate, potatoes, corn and tomatoes, are native to the Americas, and were initially cultivated or domesticated by Indigenous farmers.

The three sisters — corn, beans and squash — were typically grown together by Indigenous farmers. Going back to the earliest days of first contact, settlers frequently relied on Indigenous people’s knowledge of food and the land to survive in this foreign terrain.

As is stated in The Canadian Encyclopedia’s submission on First Nations, it says, in part, that during the 1600s Indigenous technology and knowledge of hunting, trapping, guiding, food and disease proved crucial to the survival of Europeans and early colonial economy and society.

Without the sharing of their knowledge and bounty, including Indigenous food preparation techniques such as harvesting wild rice in the fall and maple syrup in the spring, Europeans would not have survived, let alone thrived.

Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson at the Manitoba Museum, in her book A Brief History of Indigenous Agriculture, stated:

After Europeans arrived in the Americas, crops from the “Old World” (e.g. wheat, barley, oats) were brought here while American crop plants were transported to Africa, Asia and Europe; this process was known as the Columbian Exchange.

However, colleagues, it should be acknowledged that despite their contributions in this field, Indigenous peoples have a complicated and misunderstood history regarding farming in Canada.

In the book entitled, Lost Harvests, Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy, well-known author Sarah Carter stated:

The Indian farmer has been accorded an insignificant role in Canadian prairie history. Although the Plains Indians were among the earliest and largest of groups to attempt farming west of the Red River Settlement, immigrants from Europe and the older provinces of Canada are routinely credited with the pioneering efforts to farm the prairies. Not only were the Indians excluded from histories of the sodbusters, but they were not even recognized as having the capability to farm.

She continues:

. . . the Plains Cree were anxious to acquire the skills and tools that would allow them to farm but that eventually they gave up agriculture because of restrictive government regulations including the permit system, the subdivision of reserves, and the ban on the use of machinery.

Colleagues, the reason Indigenous farmers were not as successful as their settler counterparts was, as Sarah Carter states:

. . . not that the Indians’ culture limited their capacity for farming, but that along with environmental setbacks, Indian farmers were subject to regulations that denied them the technological and financial opportunities to form a strong agricultural base.

The author frames this issue concisely when she writes:

The prevailing view that the Indians of western Canada failed to adapt to agriculture because of their cultural traditions is in need of revision . . . .

Those who stress that the fundamental problem was that Indians were culturally or temperamentally resistant to becoming farmers have ignored or downplayed economic, legal, social, and climatic factors. Reserve agriculturalists were subject to the same adversities and misfortunes as their white neighbours were, but they were also subject to government policies that tended to aggravate rather than ameliorate a situation that was dismal for all farmers.

Honourable senators, I have given a very brief history on food and agriculture as it relates to Indigenous peoples. This includes their willingness to share their food production insights and provide sustenance to earlier settlers, Indigenous people’s capability, ingenuity and willingness to thrive in the farming arena, and the many barriers that existed beginning in those early days, which were insurmountable forces working against Indigenous success in this realm.

Colleagues, I would now like to touch on the issue of food security and its reliance on a healthy environment and biodiversity.

In the book Saving Farmland: The Fight for Real Food, the author quotes Vandana Shiva when she describes the rights of nature:

The Earth’s living systems and human communities face multiple crises of climate change, mass species extinction, rampant deforestation, desertification, collapse of fisheries, toxic contamination with tragic consequences for all life. Under the current system of law, Nature is considered an object, a property, giving the property owner the right to destroy ecosystems for financial gain. The Rights of Nature legal doctrine recognizes that ecosystems and plant and animal species cannot simply be objects of property but entities that have the inherent right to exist. People, communities and authorities have the responsibility to guarantee those rights on behalf of Nature. These laws are consistent with indigenous people’s concepts of natural law and original instructions as well as the understanding that humans are a part of Nature and only one strand in the web of life.

Colleagues, it is understood and accepted now that the health of our surrounding natural environment has direct and profound impacts on our own health. The loss of diversity, whether culturally, biologically or environmentally that continues to occur in Canada, has been detrimental to our food supply and production.

When these fundamental supply chains become compromised, we suffer a severance in our connection to the land as well as to the animals that are integral to a healthy and thriving biodiversity.

It should also be noted that food security can often take different forms for different segments of our population. Considering the traditional, land-based lifestyle that many Indigenous peoples still live and strive to uphold, it will come as no surprise that Indigenous peoples face a greater threat of food insecurity. This is explained in an article entitled The History of Food in Canada Is the History of Colonialism from the online publication The Walrus, which states:

In a large city, food choices are horizontal, like a buffet, each option available independently of the others. In many Indigenous food systems, the menu is much more vertical, like a Jenga tower, in which many pieces support the entire structure; removing one element can topple everything. Within this food system, an animal like seal is not just a source of protein but also of fuel, clothing, tools, and commerce — all of it devastated in 2009, when the European Union, prompted by environmental activists, banned the import of seal products.

Colleagues, the reality and importance of the seal is but one example to show the intricacies and the intersectionality that biodiversity has on the overall well-being of countless Indigenous peoples across Canada.

Senators, many Canadians feel that our food systems are secure so long as the grocery stores are full, often showing indifference as to where and how these stores come by their product. However, it is critical that we ask ourselves: What is our relationship with food? It is to our benefit that we question things such as how has the wheat been grown or the meat been raised? Is it organic or free-range? Is it local? Is there genetic engineering involved?

To best support our local businesses and especially our local farmers, it is important to ask such questions. Supporting and understanding local businesses helps us to appreciate and respect that nutritious food is not to be taken for granted. It is the result of the marriage between a healthy biodiversity and those individuals who nurture and cultivate it.

Colleagues, the preamble to Bill S-227 states:

. . . the people of Canada will benefit from a food day in Canada to celebrate local food as one of the most elemental characteristics of all of the cultures that populate this nation . . . .

This is an important feature of this bill. Celebrating with and through food is an inherent act shared by First Nations and other Canadians. We often do this through feasts, which have always been a time of gathering, celebrating, sharing, laughter and joy.

With food at its heart, people come together to share stories, to listen, to learn and to heal. In this way, the celebration of food contributes to building relationships and bridging differences. It also underscores the importance of working together, whether it is harvesting, hunting or gathering. Food is always a conduit to find time to bring us together and to share our humanness.

Honourable senators, the importance of food is obvious, but the concept of celebrating and commemorating its past, present and future in Canada is a valuable initiative. I want to acknowledge all farmers across Canada for the massive undertaking of their work, all small local businesses across the country who make available local produce, goods and food and all chefs across the country, whether they are in our homes or restaurants for the part they play in resourcing local foods.

In closing, colleagues, I would like to quote Frances Moore Lappé when she wrote:

The point of commons care is to prevent harm before it occurs. And means learning to “think like an eco‑system” . . . .

We come to see natural treasures no longer as merely divisible property but as gifts protected by boundaries we create and honor, knowing that all life depends on their integrity.

Kinanâskomitin. Thank you.