- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Churchill—Keewatinook Aski
- Manitoba
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Madam Speaker, it is my honour to rise today in support of Bill S-219, an act respecting a national ribbon skirt day.
I want to echo messages shared by NDP colleagues, including the MP for Nunavut, who said in the House that this is an important opportunity to recognize indigenous cultures and the prominence of indigenous women.
I also want to make clear that while we in the NDP support this bill, we are also keen to put forward amendments to further improve it. That is something I will get to in a few moments.
It is important to recognize that ribbon skirts are a symbol of strength, pride and hope. They symbolize a direct connection to Mother Earth and her sacred medicines. Ribbon skirts have become a symbol not just of indigenous women's empowerment but also of the struggle for justice for missing and murdered indigenous women.
I think of the many young women, young indigenous women, first nations and Métis, here across our region in Manitoba who make their own ribbon skirts, who gift ribbon skirts, who sell ribbon skirts and who wear them to ceremonies and to powwows. They wear them as a symbol of pride and, I would say, resilience, but also of reclaiming culture and traditions that were forcibly taken away by colonizers. It is important to recognize the empowering elements of the ribbon skirt symbol and find ways to make sure that it is a formal part of our national narrative.
We also need to be clear that if we are going to talk about reconciliation, yes, we need to be looking at symbols but we also need to go much further than that. As we talk about the importance of female empowerment and indigenous female empowerment, we must also act in concrete ways to support indigenous women across Canada.
I have the honour of representing 41 first nations. I have the honour of working with indigenous women, leaders, activists, advocates, elders, young people and indigenous women who hold up their communities, who hold up a region and who, day in and day out, in the face of immense challenges, do everything they can to keep their communities moving forward.
In order for them to continue to do that work and to do that work effectively to meet the needs in their communities, there is no question that we need a federal government that is willing to step up and support that work. Unfortunately, we do not have that in the current Liberal government.
Let us take one of the biggest crises that indigenous women, indigenous communities and, I would say, Canada faces, that of missing and murdered indigenous women, which truly is a national tragedy.
There is not one community, first nations, Métis or urban, here in our region that has not been devastated by the loss of an indigenous woman or girl. As others have said, it is unconscionable that, in a country as wealthy as Canada, we see on a regular basis notices on social media and in our communities of yet another indigenous woman or girl who is missing or who has been taken.
We know that somewhere between 1,600 and 4,000 indigenous women and girls have been lost in this country in the last 20 years. We also know that this did not just happen. The historic inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women uncovered many of the contributing factors. Thankfully, it also made very clear what we need to be doing to put an end to the tragedy that is missing and murdered indigenous women through their 231 calls to justice.
I want to speak to some of those key areas that we need to be pursuing if we are going to talk about ending violence against indigenous women and empowering indigenous women.
We need to put an end to the housing crisis that exists in first nations and urban centres, which indigenous women face disproportionately. On reserve here in our region, it takes the form of third world housing conditions. I have spoken in the House about women and their families that live in remote first nations here in northern Manitoba, in homes held together, in a way, by tarps in the middle of winter.
I have talked about homes that are overcrowded and mould-infested, homes that are making people sick, and homes that have devastating mental, physical and emotional impacts. We know those impacts are disproportionately felt by women. We also know that housing insecurity can contribute greatly to gender-based violence and can prevent women from leaving abusive relationships, even though they would like to. We need to get serious about dealing with the housing crisis that exists in first nations and indigenous communities across the country, and the Liberal government is not doing that.
We also need to be very clear about the fact that indigenous women face disproportionate levels of poverty. I acknowledge the important work of my colleague, the member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre, who has called for a basic annual income, not only for indigenous women, of course, but for Canadians who are on the margins. However, we know that many indigenous women are disproportionately facing poverty in our communities.
There are many ways that we can empower indigenous women and indigenous communities economically, but right now we are not taking that seriously. I would say the investments that are necessary to create jobs and opportunities in indigenous communities across our region are simply not being taken advantage of, despite the fact that many first nations are very clear about the ideas they would like to bring forward to create jobs and opportunities in their communities.
There are also other areas where the federal government is woefully inadequate in terms of action, such as addressing addictions and the need for treatment and healing supports for indigenous women in indigenous communities. Some time ago, I was in touch with the minister about yet another first nation in the region, God's Lake Narrows, which issued a state of emergency calling for federal action to deal with the addictions crisis and the suicide crisis in its community.
A few weeks before that, I spoke out on behalf of Red Sucker Lake First Nation, which also called a state of emergency because of the suicide crisis it is facing. Red Sucker Lake is a first nation that for some time now, along with other first nations in the Island Lake region, has been calling for a treatment centre that the federal government, while it acknowledged it, has done nothing to make happen.
Red Sucker Lake is also part of the Island Lake region, a region of over 13,000 people, a remote region accessible only by plane throughout the year, that also does not have a hospital, forcing people to go out for relatively basic medical care. Again, we know that reality has a disproportionate impact on women.
If we are speaking about infrastructure, a clear way to empower indigenous women is to make sure that they have access to the services and the kind of infrastructure that many take for granted outside of indigenous communities: proper schools, post-secondary opportunities closer to home, proper hospitals and health centres that can provide the services that are required.
Looking beyond that, I would say tracking with the reality, many first nations are disproportionately now impacted by climate change, further isolating first nations, rendering crisis situations more and more serious. I have worked with first nations that have been rocked by wildfires and flooding, clear results of the climate emergency that we are facing. These are communities that have little capacity, if any, to deal with the climate crisis. As research has pointed out, this has a disproportionate impact on indigenous women as well.
It is clear that the federal government needs to move beyond symbols and commit to action when it comes to reconciliation and empowering indigenous women.
I briefly want to share that we are keen to make amendments indicating that indigenous women not be put in a generalized category and recognizing that first nations, Métis and Inuit women have different ways of affirming each other's strength. Also very importantly, this bill needs to include indigenous persons whose identities are outside the gender binary and who choose to symbolize the importance of wearing ribbon skirts. Inclusion and creating a safe space for gender discussions for indigenous peoples must be a priority, and I point to the work of Dr. Alex Wilson, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan, who has devoted her career to understanding two-spirit identity.
There is much work to be done to recognize the strength of indigenous women, but certainly concrete action is necessary to truly respect indigenous women and empower them as they are pursuing—
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- Nov/24/22 4:21:07 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I just want to recognize that, for those of us who represent rural and northern areas, the ability for people to access the justice system remotely, as well other systems, is a very serious matter. I wonder if the Conservatives agree that Canadians living in remote and rural areas should have the same access to serving on a jury remotely, as urban Canadians do, to make jury selection.
How important is it, in the member's view, to make access to jury selection as fair as possible, particularly for rural and remote communities?
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Mr. Speaker, York Factory First Nation has lost its lifeline, its ferry, for longer than expected. The community is now isolated and needs immediate assistance. It also needs an all-weather road. Climate change is already wreaking havoc here, as the ground-breaking report from the Canadian Climate Institute indicates. Urgent federal action is needed now across our north, including by building all-weather roads.
My bill, Bill C-245, supports this work. Will the Liberals invest in all-weather road access for York Factory and support my bill to invest in our communities that are on the front lines of climate change?
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- Jun/9/22 3:06:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Poplar River First Nation, which has no all-weather road, depends on a barge in the summer to bring in essential goods and on the fishery as their economic engine. The engine on this barge literally blew up, leaving the community stranded. The first nation has declared a state of emergency. It has called for immediate help from all levels of government. Poplar River needs help now.
Will the Minister of Indigenous Services meet with the chief as soon as possible and provide the immediate assistance that the community, including fishers, is asking for now?
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- Mar/21/22 5:42:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, almost two-thirds of the children living in northern Manitoba live in poverty, the highest number in the country. For them there is never enough. There is not enough food. There is not enough housing, and there is not enough medical care. There are communities such as Shamattawa, which in the last couple of years has dealt with a lack of clean drinking water, a COVID outbreak, a tuberculosis outbreak and an acute lack of housing. There are few communities in the country that better represent our collective failure as a country than Shamattawa does.
There is a stain of settler colonialism and an uncaring government that leaves people and communities like these to die. Garden Hill, York Factory, Tataskweyak Cree Nation and Red Sucker Lake are all communities, just from our part of the country alone, that the government has turned its back on. They are communities that do not know week to week whether the water they depend upon will be clean enough to drink or bathe in, whether there will be access to the medical care they need in their community if a loved one gets sick. These are communities that, during the H1N1 pandemic, were sent body bags and, during the COVID pandemic, were sent tents in the middle of winter.
For isolated communities like these, how can we ever talk about affordability when people's basic needs are not being met? These are communities that do not have enough doctors. These are communities that have a third world housing crisis. We are talking about 12, 15 or 20 people living in a home that is often infested with mould and inadequate for our climate. Fundamentally, these are communities that successive Liberal and Conservative governments will not stand up for, and it is everywhere.
In my hometown of Thompson, we see the struggle every day. It is a working class town that has lost most of its good jobs. They were sold off by successive Liberal and Conservative governments. People are worried they cannot make their rent or pay for their medication. People are out of work and they cannot make ends meet. These are people who have seen government rely on platitudes rather than supports they desperately need.
This is repeated in communities across the country. The ever-increasing concentration of wealth with the one percent while more and more are lost and struggling. It is a rigged system and the government shows its true colours every day.
The Liberals will say that we are all in this together to a family who just lost their job and cannot afford to fix the broken fridge, but they will actually give $12 million to Loblaws to buy new fridges. The government said that nurses and grocery store clerks were the real heroes of the pandemic, but they never got disaster pay, while wealthy CEOs used the wage subsidy to fund their bonuses. The Liberal government does not care about struggling people. It just plays that role on TV.
During the last election campaign, the Prime Minister promised to raise income tax on the most profitable big banks and insurance companies. We are still waiting for the Liberals to do that. Canadians expecting their government to stand up for them are still waiting. The reality is that in the six and some years they have been in power, the Liberal plan has made life easier for the wealthiest and largest corporations while everyone else is worse off. Time and time again, people who have so little have had to watch the government cater to those who have so much while people suffer. They are indigenous people, northerners, working people and the poor.
The billionaire class, not just from Canada but from all over the world, benefits from the government's inaction on tax fairness. Canada's reputation is used to advertise to oligarchs around the world, showing how generous Canadian tax laws are to help them develop their tax avoidance schemes. This was demonstrated in the latest report from Transparency International Canada, Canadians for Tax Fairness and Publish What You Pay Canada, which quotes:
Canada is a new player in the world of offshore companies...it has no negative offshore reputation and no association with tax avoidance or evasion. It is by far one of the best neutral jurisdictions, providing offshore benefits without any of the traditional offshore drawbacks.
This is Canada. We got to this point by design, not by accident. Canada's tax laws were left untouched despite a flurry of scandals and leaks from the Panama papers to the Pandora papers and more. These should have been a wake-up call the world over, but the Liberals have not budged. Despite losing tax case after tax case, and despite clear evidence that Canadian laws are not up to the task of dealing with tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax havens, we have yet to see the desperately needed overhaul of the tax system.
What should we expect from the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party who regularly fundraise off the billionaire class? Of the 100 richest families in Canada, each of them worth over $1 billion, 56 of them have contributed to the coffers of one or the other of Canada's ruling parties. Last week's report made it clear that they are getting their money's worth. The capacity of the Canadian tax code leaves the door open for tax dodgers to do as they please. As private companies can be owned anonymously, the shareholders, partners and other beneficiaries can act in darkness, sheltered by Canada from paying their fair share. There is no oversight as financial reporting is not mandatory.
Acting now is a matter of fairness and justice. There needs to be more transparency and disclosure in order to close this gaping tax loophole. These companies that act as fronts for tax havens must be brought to light and made accountable. Beneficiaries must be named. Disclosure must be required, to know on behalf of whom these companies are operating. There must be accountability requirements as well as real enforcement in case of false declarations and non-compliance.
Given that Canada has failed to successfully mount any cases against major tax cheats with its existing laws, and given that Canada is failing at prosecuting major corporate tax cheats despite regularly promising to add to the CRA's capacity to do so, we need to make sure that there is real enforcement of those needed changes to Canada's tax laws. We are not asking for much. Canadians are not asking for much. They are just asking for the Liberal government to live up to its rhetoric rather than continue along the path it always has, which is one of catering to the billionaire class rather than standing up for people.
With respect to big banks, big-box stores, insurance companies and oil companies, I implore my Liberal friends to trust me: These do not need their solidarity. In a time of record profits, they do not need the Liberals' help. A 3% surtax on these industries would still mean record profits and bonuses, but it would be world-altering for communities and people on the margins. They are the ones the government should be helping out. They are the ones who need our solidarity. They are the ones who want and need to see a plan from the government. It is time we stopped standing idly by and refusing to fix the loopholes that allow these companies to take the wage subsidy and, instead of investing it in workers, hand out million-dollar bonuses to those who do not need the money.
We must start taking seriously the issue of tax evasion and bring in a beneficial ownership registry in the upcoming budget to help tackle tax evasion and money laundering in real estate. Approximately $130 billion in illicit funds is laundered each year in Canada, mostly through businesses. This is not surprising, as Canada has some of the least transparent corporate laws in the world.
At a time when the Liberal government is not doing enough to build more affordable housing, billions of dollars in laundered money through home purchases put upward pressure on prices. That is why the government needs to accelerate the adaptation of transparency tools that discourage money laundering by criminals and the wealthy, including a nationwide publicly accessible beneficial ownership registry.
We must start investing in communities' infrastructure needs. Indigenous and northern communities that are at the forefront of the climate crisis need a partner in the federal government. We must use the Canada Infrastructure Bank to prepare communities that need it most to take on the climate crisis. The Infrastructure Bank, with its $35-billion budget, has yet to complete a single infrastructure project almost five years into its existence.
Today, what we are asking is for the government to match its rhetoric with its actions, to stop talking about standing with communities and actually stand with them, to stop being part of the problem and to start being part of the solution.
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- Dec/3/21 11:05:02 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the climate emergency is here. Indigenous and northern communities are already paying the price.
Eighteen first nations and northern communities in our region depend on the ice roads for survival. For a few weeks a year, thousands of indigenous peoples depend on temporary ice roads we call winter roads to bring in fuel, building supplies, water trucks, equipment, bulk food, what they need to survive. These first nations have severe housing crises and a shockingly high cost of living.
Ice roads are a lifeline, but they are disappearing. A warming and unpredictable climate means shorter seasons, and this year is even worse. Communities like the east-side first nations need all-weather roads now. This was in the works under an NDP provincial government, but the Conservatives cancelled, and the federal Liberals could not care less.
This can no longer pass. It is a matter of life and death. It is time the federal government worked with first nations to build an all-weather road system. It is time the federal government gets serious about climate change and stands with indigenous communities—
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