Point of order.

I thought a fair bit about what I was going to talk about today, and I did some research with the legislative library. I think I’m going to start with this: Today, we have an opportunity to actually have a watershed moment here in Queen’s Park.

I asked the legislative library to do some research on this, and it appears that there has not been a piece of legislation passed in Ontario’s history that recognizes an Indigenous individual. They did find a motion, they did find another private member’s bill that was introduced back in 2008. Tom Longboat Day was introduced at first reading but never made it to second reading, and then in 2010, a motion was put forward to declare April 18 Tom Longboat Day. That motion passed but was never enacted. So if this passes third reading today and we get royal assent, it would be the first time in Ontario’s history that we would have a piece of legislation named after an Indigenous individual, to honour an Indigenous individual. I point that out because Ontario has a long history, and we’ve never done something like this.

What the purpose of this bill is—it’s twofold: It’s to promote the idea of volunteering, it’s to promote the idea of citizenship and the act of giving back. And secondly, it gives us an opportunity to talk about an injustice that we’ve had in Canada for a number of years. During the First and Second World Wars, more than 7,000 Indigenous individuals and an unknown number of Métis and Inuit individuals voluntarily joined the armed forces.

What was interesting about it when we were doing the research on this is that First Nation individuals were not eligible to be conscripted. The reason for it, and this seems so very foreign in 2024: If you were born a First Nation person, you were not considered a Canadian citizen—not until the mid-1960s. Think about that for a moment: Canada existed, Canada was formed in 1867. From 1867 until the 1960s, if you were one of the First Peoples of this country, you were not considered Canadian, and you were exempt from conscription. That probably wasn’t a bad thing—that you were exempt from conscription—but the reality is, more than 7,000 voluntarily joined the Armed Forces, voluntarily went overseas to fight for what we believe was the freedoms that we enjoyed here in Canada, and yet those freedoms were not extended to those very same individuals who were volunteering.

We checked with the federal government on this. We couldn’t get an exact number, but it was known that some of those soldiers who went overseas, some of those individuals who voluntarily joined the Armed Forces to fight for us were stripped of their status as Indians because they had been off-reserve for more than four years. When you think about that—they stepped up and voluntarily joined the Armed Forces to fight for Canada overseas, and what did Canada do? They stripped them of their status as an Indian, and in some cases, they didn’t have citizenship afterward. So they were no longer a First Nation individual, they were no longer Indigenous—no longer considered an Indian, and they weren’t considered a Canadian. Yet they had stepped up and gone overseas to fight.

I think that’s one of those injustices that we need to remind people of; I talked about it in second reading. This bill has come forward a couple of times now, and in both of the second readings that we’ve done on it, I talked about the fact that I grew up near Deseronto and I had a number of friends who were from the Tyendinaga First Nations reserve, and I didn’t know this story. And I think that someone like myself, who grew up that close to a reserve, who had that many friends who were Indigenous and never heard these stories—how would someone who wasn’t close to a First Nation, how would someone who didn’t have friends who were Indigenous know anything about it? The reality is, they wouldn’t. Yes, it was a dark time in Canadian history, but it is worth reminding people so that we don’t repeat that history.

Part of the reason that we’ve named this bill after Murray Whetung is, Murray is somebody who volunteered to join the Armed Forces. Murray was born in 1921. He joined the Canadian army on August 8, 1942, just before his 21st birthday, so as a 20-year-old, he stepped up. What was interesting about that was, as a Curve Lake First Nation member—100% of the eligible males from Curve Lake volunteered to join the Armed Forces to fight the Second World War; the entire male population stepped forward and went overseas.

Murray is not someone who lost his status when he came back—he actually came back to Canada twice during service. There’s an interesting story—if there’s time, I’ll tell it—about one of his trips back.

When the war was over and Murray came back, he wasn’t allowed to wear his medals. He had been awarded the 1939-45 Star, the France and Germany Star, the Defence Medal, the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal, the War Medal for 1939-45, as well as the general service award. He wasn’t allowed to wear the medals when he first came back. He wasn’t allowed to wear his uniform when he first came back. He wasn’t allowed to go into the Canadian Legion when he first came back. Yet he voluntarily went overseas to fight.

He was on a ship that was supposed to be part of the D-Day invasion, and the night before the invasion occurred, that ship was torpedoed by an airplane and it damaged the rudder. So he didn’t get over to Juno Beach until day three of D-Day, although he was scheduled to be part of the D-Day invasion. We’ve all seen historical footage of that and the carnage that occurred on that day, so he was probably spared because his ship was torpedoed.

He was a signalman. His job was to make sure that the communication lines from the front line to the command stayed intact. Murray talked about how most of the time they were doing their work under the cover of darkness. They’d set up a tent over the lines so that you wouldn’t see the light—because there were German snipers out there whose sole purpose was to shoot the signalmen so that they couldn’t have the signal, they couldn’t have information flowing from the front lines back to the command on it. He did put his life on the line pretty much every day when he was out there doing it.

When he came back to Curve Lake, Murray continued to volunteer; he continued to give back to his community. It was well known that if you were doing any kind of a community event and you needed people there to help set up, you needed people to volunteer to have it run, Murray was one of those guys who was always there for it. Yet, as a veteran coming back, he couldn’t go to the Legion. He couldn’t wear his medals. He couldn’t wear his uniform. He was mistreated that way. But he was just a happy-go-lucky guy who felt it was important to give back, who felt it was important to do the right thing because it was the right thing to do, and he instilled that in his family.

He was one of 13 brothers and sisters. All of his brothers joined the Armed Forces because they felt that that was something they should do. They all gave back. Many of his kids served on Curve Lake—Grand Council. His granddaughter was former chief—or was the chief in Curve Lake. He instilled in his family that desire, that need, to give back.

What this award will do for us, if it passes, is give us the opportunity to inspire young cadets to give back to their community, to volunteer for the sake of volunteering. It will give us an opportunity to tell that story of that injustice, but to tell it in a way that turns it into something positive. Although so many of those First Nation veterans were mistreated, they continued to give back. They continued to see that service, above all, was very important and to make sure that their community was a better place for it. If we can instill that in those youth, in those cadets, we can have a generation of young people growing up with the idea that part of their job of being a resident of this province, of being a resident of this country, is to try to make the place better for others. I think that’s a very positive message. I think that’s a great message to give.

In today’s world, there are so many times when our heroes let us down. We idealize different people for different reasons. We hold up sports athletes as something that they should or shouldn’t be, that we should aspire to. We hold actors to that. And we find with all of them—it doesn’t matter who—that they have flaws.

What we don’t do enough of, in my opinion, is celebrate the everyday hero, who doesn’t look for the accolades, who doesn’t look for the praise, who doesn’t do it for the money; who does it because it’s the right thing to do, who stands up and says, “I will make a difference in my community,” because that’s what we should do.

That’s what this bill will do, as it will celebrate one of those everyday heroes. And it will be the first time in Ontario’s history that we will have passed a piece of legislation to honour an Indigenous veteran. It’s long overdue.