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View Rachel Blaney Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, as the number of indigenous children found in unmarked graves in Canada rises, the government is continuing to re-traumatize indigenous families.
A human rights tribunal found that the government discriminated against first nations kids, and instead of making it right, the government keeps fighting these kids in court. This is not a collaborative process. The government is taking indigenous kids to court.
Since the last time I asked the minister about this, the government has been in court for another week, so I will ask this again: When will the government stop fighting first nations kids in court?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, it is important to be clear to all Canadians and Parliament that as part of this process, not a single child has had to testify.
There are competing class actions that require us to look at this process as a whole. We are currently in confidential discussions with parties, and those will remain confidential.
Let me be clear once again that every single first nation child who has been discriminated against by the broken child welfare system will be fairly, justly and equitably compensated.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-18 12:50 [p.8785]
Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a question of privilege for an issue that I think goes beyond merely the procedural wrangling that often happen in the House. It speaks to issues that are confronting us as a nation and very much goes to the heart of what our obligations are as parliamentarians and what we need to do as a nation to address historical wrongs.
As I walked to Parliament Hill this morning, I noticed that the national flag continues to fly at half-mast. It is an extraordinary move that flags across this nation are at half-mast. They are there, of course, to pay respect to the 215 children of the former Catholic residential school in Kamloops whose bodies have been found. We now know about children found in Manitoba, and we know that we will find many other children who never got to go home.
I am sure members took the time to stop at the eternal flame to see the extraordinary outpouring of sadness and respect for the children who have been taken. It shows that Canadians, from all walks of life, are not only shocked and saddened by what has happened to indigenous children, but are looking to these institutions to correct it. The deaths of these children were not accidental. These children died through deliberate policies that were made in the chamber of the House of Commons. The taking of indigenous children from their families was done to destroy indigenous identity in Canada, and it meets the international test of genocide, as the destruction of a people involves the taking of children.
I say this, in leading up to my point of privilege, to encourage my colleagues and citizens to go see the memorial that is at the flame right now. For the indigenous people of this country, these are not historical wrongs, although the government always uses that term. It is a present-day attack through the broken social welfare system, through the taking of children that has continued without pause since Confederation. We have more children in the broken child welfare system today than were ever taken to residential schools.
The background to this, of course, is that in response to the revelations in Kamloops and the shock on the part of Canadians and the demand for action, we brought to the House, on June 7, a motion that was passed unanimously. It reads:
That, given that,
(i) the discovery of the grave of 215 children at Kamloops Indian Residential School has led to an outpouring of grief and anger across Canada,
(ii) the vast majority of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action remain uncompleted, despite the clear path to justice and reconciliation that the Commission provides,
(iii) survivors, families and nations are demanding concrete action to advance real reconciliation, as opposed to just more words and symbolic gestures,
the House call on the government to:
(a) cease its belligerent and litigious approach to justice for Indigenous children by immediately dropping its appeal before the Federal Court in file numbers T-1621-19 (compensation) and T-1559-20 (Jordan's Principle for non-status First Nations kids recognized by their nations) and to recognize the government's legal obligation to fully comply with Canadian Human Rights Tribunal orders in this regard;
(b) agree to sit down with the St. Anne's residential school survivors organization Peetabeck Keway Keykaywin Association to find a just solution to the fact that survivors’ access to justice has been denied as a consequence of the actions of government lawyers in suppressing evidence at the Independent Assessment Process;
(c) accelerate the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action, including by providing immediate funding for further investigation into the deaths and disappearances of children at residential schools in compliance with calls to action 71 to 76;
(d) provide survivors, their families, and their communities with appropriate resources to assist with the emotional, physical, spiritual, mental, and cultural trauma resulting from residential schools; and
(e) within 10 days, table a progress report on actions taken in compliance with paragraphs (a) through (d) of the present motion, and that this report be deemed to have been referred to the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs for consideration upon tabling.
I want to stress the call that within 10 days, we “table a progress report on actions taken in compliance with paragraphs (a) through (d) of the present motion”, which was passed unanimously in the House of Commons, and we refer the report to the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.
Late last night, the Liberal government presented a report at the eleventh hour, but this report in no way addresses the seriousness and specificity of what was laid out in the motion. In fact, it looks like some staffer did a cut-and-paste job and looked some stuff up on Google, and then had the temerity to present it to Parliament. What we see are Liberal electoral claims and claims from the previous budget announcements, but they in no way meet the test of what was laid out in a very serious motion about reconciliation and justice, particularly in the call to end the federal court cases in files T-1621-19 and T-1559-20 and recognize the government's legal obligation to fully comply with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal rulings. The report did not respect the right of members of the House to receive the documents and information needed for us to see whether the government has respected the will of Parliament.
We know that only days after Parliament instructed the Prime Minister to end his belligerent and toxic legal war against indigenous children, he opted instead to instruct the Minister of Indigenous Services and the Attorney General of Canada to return to federal court to try to quash the two federal cases specifically referenced in the motion. Once again, if we look at the memorials for the dead children that have been put up across this country, wherever we look they will show us pictures and stories of the children still being taken today. The Human Rights Tribunal found in 2016 that the government was guilty of systemic discrimination through “wilful and reckless” policies that it knew were harmful to the children. Parliament called on the government to end those court cases and negotiate a just solution.
The motion could not be considered unfair by the government, nor can it say we are not giving it enough time, because we know that the Assembly of First Nations has an offer on the table for the government to get out of court and settle. The government was instructed to do that. The motion was timely, and the issue of the 10 days was important because we knew the government was getting ready to return to federal court. Instead, the government has opted to be held in contempt by the House.
Members should listen to the explanations by the government about why it ignored Parliament. As we know, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Indigenous Services and all the key people on this file did not even bother to show up to vote on the motion. They said they did not vote because they did not want to show contempt for the courts. However, they were more than willing to show contempt for the indigenous people of this country, and they were more than willing to show contempt for Parliament.
If we believe, as a fundamental principle, that it is okay for members of cabinet to absolve themselves of the obligation to respect the will of Parliament and show contempt for Parliament, we are, I think, on very dangerous terrain. We are at a historical moment in this country, and that is why I bring this question to the House with such urgency. I have brought forward questions of privilege in the past about governments doing this or not doing that, but we are talking about the policies that led to the widespread death and damage of generations of indigenous children. The government says these harms are historical, but that has been proven to be untrue. It is ongoing.
What is incredibly cynical is that, in ignoring the order of Parliament, the Minister of Indigenous Services has misled the House time and time again, because we see what is actually in the legal case by the federal government. He claims that it is just trying to clarify jurisdictional questions. No, it is not. It is trying to quash the ruling.
He claims that the tribunal failed to give due consideration to Canada's right to procedural fairness through this process, and that when Canada raised concerns about the lack of procedural fairness, the tribunal stated that any procedural unfairness to Canada is outweighed by the prejudice born by the victims of discrimination.
The minister took that statement, which clearly says that the harms that have been done to children far outweigh the procedural fairness to the government, and is using that to attack the tribunal at federal court.
I raise this because the motion speaks about St. Anne's residential school survivors. In that case, the federal government took the exact opposite position and said that St. Anne's survivors were not entitled to the basic principle of procedural fairness. When it comes to denying basic services and rights to indigenous people, the government flips its argument.
I am getting to the point of the issue of contempt. The House of Commons Procedure and Practice says that while contempt can be hard to define:
The United Kingdom Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege attempted to provide a list of some types of contempt in its 1999 report...[including] without reasonable excuse, refusing to answer a question or provide information or produce papers formally required by the House or a committee [and] without reasonable excuse, disobeying a lawful order of the House or a committee.
Contempt is not limited to specific circumstances. It is intentionally meant to be wide-ranging and to provide the House the ability to determine when that bar has been reached.
In this case, the government has been ordered by Parliament to end its toxic legal war that has cost over $10 million in legal fees, resulted in 19 non-compliance orders and seen obstruction after obstruction. The government has been ordered to end this legal war, and to sit down and negotiate. We know there is a negotiating table waiting for them.
The government has also misled the House continually. Just the other day, the Minister of Indigenous Services claimed that because he has not put a six-year-old on the witness stand technically he is not fighting these children in court. In fact, the government's legal argument rests on the dubious case that because these children were found to have suffered systemic, mass discrimination, which the tribunal refers to as wilful and reckless discrimination, none of them is individually eligible for compensation. How can that be?
The government has also said that there has to be a test. That means that unless these six-year-olds, 12-year-olds and 15-year-olds are brought before a government body to be tested for how much suffering they have endured, the government will fight the tribunal.
The reason that the government was hit with $40,000 of compensation per child has to be understood very clearly. When the ruling came down in 2016 and the Prime Minister said he would not contest the order, he had an opportunity to work with Cindy Blackstock, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, the Assembly of First Nations and other players, and to sit down and negotiate a way to end these harms. Instead, the government did not. It fought, obstructed and continually ran on the principle that it was not accountable for the lives of children. In the end, the tribunal was so frustrated that it gave the maximum penalty of $40,000 per person, per child in this case, because it said it was the worst case of indifference that the Human Rights Tribunal had ever seen. That happened under the Liberal government.
The fact that the government has continued with these actions is contrary to the will of the House and is therefore an affront to the House. It is now up to the House to determine the action that is needed. I say this again, because we are at a historic crossroads. People are looking. Indigenous people are looking to see whether we take this seriously. Canada's argument all along has been that there is no evidence of children having been harmed through systemic, wilful and reckless discrimination. The government says there is no evidence that children have been harmed.
We know that we lose a child every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday in those broken systems. We lose three children a week, and no one over there seems to even notice.
Now the government has clarified that it has changed after all this losing, time and time again. My God, the government has had more failures than a Ford Pinto when it comes to fighting indigenous kids in court. It has lost every single decision.
This is not the first time the government has failed to comply with a motion on this exact issue. On December 13, 2019, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby raised a question of privilege alleging the government had not complied with a motion I had presented that was adopted unanimously in the House. It called on the government to abide by a decision made by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal on compensation for residential school survivors. In his Speaker's ruling of January 27, 2020, which was the Speaker's very first ruling, he said:
For a motion to constitute an order of the House, it would have to pertain to those matters where the House, acting alone, possesses the power to compel an action. This is true, for example, when the House sends for persons, papers or records, or when it regulates its own internal proceedings. Only in such circumstances will the Chair determine whether disregard for the order in question constitutes a prima facie case of contempt.
We were unsuccessful at that time, but today's case is substantially different because the motion put forward was a substantive debatable motion placed on the Order Paper, and that motion was subject to a recorded division. Therefore, it carries more weight because of the unanimous consent that was expressed in 2019. In this case it was clearly the will of the House that a document be produced and referred to the appropriate standing committee, and that this document was specific to the issues related to the court cases and whether the government was going to respect the will of the House.
Earlier this week, I will remind members, the government was found to have breached privilege on some issues that are very pertinent to this. The official opposition house leader argued this week that, in a May 2019 report on the power to send for papers, the United Kingdom House of Commons procedure committee concluded, at paragraph 16:
The power of the House of Commons to require the production of papers is in theory absolute. It is binding on Ministers, and its exercise has consistently been complied with by the Government.
The Speaker was very wise on ruling on that matter. He stated:
While they are not being challenged, it is still worth recalling that, at the heart of the parliamentary system, and firmly anchored in our Constitution, there are rights and privileges that are indispensable to the performance of members' duties.
For this, we need to receive the documents that treat matters as urgent as the lives of indigenous children and the issue of the finding of systemic discrimination with seriousness and respect.
I am going to conclude, but I want to mention two children: Jolynn Winter and Chantel Fox. They were 12 years old and died on Wapekeka First Nation, and I keep their photos with me in my office. The people of Wapekeka begged the government during the Human Rights Tribunal to get help to children in Wapekeka. The government claimed that it was its right to decide whether these children got services, and these two 12-year-old children died. They were loved and they are mourned, like so many other children who have died. The government was found guilty by the Human Rights Tribunal, in one of many non-compliance orders, of being complicit in their deaths and for its attitude that it is not accountable to the Human Rights Tribunal.
Parliament, in paying tribute to the deaths of those children and the other children who suffered, has called on the government to change track, and it is refusing. The vote was a vote for reconciliation. It was a vote for recognizing the role that this institution played in policies that deliberately attempted to destroy children and destroy indigenous people. It was a vote that told the government these issues are not historic wrongs, but ongoing policies that have caused, and continue to cause, serious damage to the indigenous families of this nation. From the residential schools to the sixties scoop, the millennial scoop and the children being taken today, there is an unbroken line of intent, damage and systemic abuse.
I urge members that we are standing at a historic moment of reckoning. Now I would like to quote the member for Nunavut, who just spoke this week, and I will finish on this. She said:
This place was built on the oppression of indigenous peoples.... Our history is stained with...the blood of children, youth, adults and elders. It is time to face the scales of justice.
On one side we have a mountain of suffering, and whenever the government gives us a grain of sand of support, it seems to think the trauma from our past has been rectified and that somehow it deserves a pat on the back. However, it will take a mountain of support to even begin the healing process. As long as these halls echo with empty promises instead of real action, I will not belong here.
I urge the Speaker, in his role representing Parliament and all our members, to hold the government to account for its contempt, its breach of privilege and its ongoing attack on the indigenous families and children of this nation.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-18 13:11 [p.8788]
I will take under advisement the words of the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay, take this into consideration and get back to the House in due course.
I see the hon. member for Saint-Jean is rising.
View Christine Normandin Profile
BQ (QC)
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Speaker, I wanted to offer comment with respect to the question of privilege from the member for Timmins—James Bay.
With the hon. member for Carleton about to rise, is now the appropriate time to do that?
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-16 14:46 [p.8527]
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has defied Parliament and went back to court this week to try to quash the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruling. His argument is that his government is the party that was been wronged, not the thousands of indigenous children whose lives were destroyed in that system from “wilful and reckless” discrimination.
It is also false to claim that these are historic wrongs. This is happening today. We are losing an indigenous child every three days, and yet the Prime Minister would rather fight children in court.
When he is going to stop his toxic legal war against first nations children?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, it is important for all Canadians and, indeed, this entire House to know that there is not a single indigenous child who has been asked to testify as part of this process and as part of the class actions, and it is our aim to keep it so. Any first nations child who has been discriminated by the broken child welfare system will get fair, just and equitable compensation. We will move forward on that as precipitously as possible as well as effect systemic transformation so this does not occur again.
View Lindsay Mathyssen Profile
NDP (ON)
View Lindsay Mathyssen Profile
2021-06-16 16:17 [p.8539]
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-311, An Act respecting early learning and child care.
She said: Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for seconding this bill and for her work on this file.
There is an affordability crisis in child care across the country. Families are struggling to find child care spaces and get on wait lists before their children are even born. Costs are unaffordable in many cities and parents are forced to make impossible choices between delaying their return to work or paying huge amounts for the child care that they need. Liberals have promised an affordable universal child care program for 28 years without action, and women, taking on much of the care work, have been disproportionately impacted by their delay.
Budget 2021 has made several promises and is finally moving forward with establishing a child care program. However, there is still a lack of critical details. I am tabling this bill today to establish the core principles of a universal child care program, one that is based on accountability, quality, universality and accessibility, and to establish the standards needed to meet these principles.
I am calling on the government to work with us in moving child care forward. It is too important not to get right.
View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)

Question No. 681--
Mr. Gary Vidal:
With regard to the government's statistics on graduation rates of First Nations high school students: (a) what were the graduation rates of First Nations students who attended high school on reserve, broken down by province and year for each of the past five years; and (b) what were the graduation rates of First Nations students who attended high school off reserve, broken down by province and year for each of the past five years?
Response
Ms. Pam Damoff (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, ISC does not report on high school graduation rates of first nations students who attended high school on or off reserve, broken down by province and year.
The department does, however, report in its Departmental Results Report, DRR, on national secondary school graduation rates for first nations students ordinarily resident on reserve who are funded by ISC. Here are the links to the DRRs for 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20: 2017-18 DRR: www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1538147955169/1538148052804; 2018-19 DRR: www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1562155507149/1562155526338; 2019-20 DRR: www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1603722062425/1603722082047.

Question No. 683--
Mr. Gary Vidal:
With regard to the government’s consultation process on Bill C-15, An Act respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: what are the details of all consultations the government conducted with individuals from First Nations, Metis Settlements, or Inuit communities prior to tabling the bill, including, for each consultation, the (i) type of meeting (in person, Zoom conference, etc.), (ii) names and titles of attendees, including who they represented, if applicable, (iii) date, (iv) location?
Response
Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, the Department of Justice, with the support of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, has published a “What We Learned” report that is responsive to Q-683. The report can be found at www.justice.gc.ca/eng/declaration/wwl-cna/index.html. As described in the report, a series of engagement sessions were held with first nations, Inuit and Métis leaders, modern treaty signatories, regional indigenous organizations, indigenous women’s organizations and indigenous youth. These meetings were held virtually over the Zoom conference platform, largely between September 30 and November 6, 2020. The list of indigenous partners and groups that participated is also presented in the report.

Question No. 693--
Mr. Alex Ruff:
With regard to the Universal Broadband Fund (UBF) program: (a) why was the Southwestern Integrated Fibre Technology (SWIFT) 2.0 proposed project denied funding to the UBF program; (b) which of the government’s objectives did the proposed SWIFT 2.0 fail to meet; and (c) with SWIFT projects being a solution to address competition issues in Southwestern Ontario between Internet Service Providers (ISPs), how can SWIFT be a partner in achieving the government’s goal of having 98 per cent of Canadians access high speed internet?
Response
Ms. Gudie Hutchings (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, in response to (a), since 2015, the Government of Canada has made $6.2 billion available for rural and remote Internet infrastructure to help ensure all Canadians have access to fast and reliable Internet, no matter where they live. With the proposed budget 2021, the now $2.75-billion universal broadband fund, UBF, will help the government achieve its goal of connecting 98% of Canadians to broadband by 2026 and all Canadians by 2030.
The UBF is an application-based program and therefore requires that a project application be submitted in order to receive funding. The Government of Canada cannot provide the level of detail requested on any particular applicant under the universal broadband fund without disclosing proprietary third party information provided in confidence, and treated confidentially by the applicant. The program received a number of applications for southwestern Ontario, and announcements of successful projects under the rapid response stream are already under way. These projects can be found on the universal broadband website: https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/139.nsf/eng/00021.html. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada is still finalizing its assessment of rapid response stream applications and has begun assessing applications received under the “core” UBF. More announcements are forthcoming.
In response to (b), the Government of Canada and Southwestern Integrated Fibre Technology, SWIFT, share the same objectives of connecting rural and remote Canadians to the broadband Internet they need. Through the building Canada fund’s small communities fund, the federal and provincial governments are each contributing $63.7 million to SWIFT for a $209-million project, to install 3,095 kilometres of fibre, targeting 50,000 households and businesses by 2024. The Government of Canada recognizes the important role that SWIFT and other partners will play in closing the digital divide in Ontario.
In response to (c), connectivity is a shared responsibility. While the Government of Canada is playing a leadership role by providing funding, it is imperative that all orders of government across Canada, as well as the private sector, Internet service providers and other stakeholders, lend support and resources to close the broadband gap and achieve the targets set out in Canada's connectivity strategy. The Government of Canada recognizes that a flexible and collaborative approach is important in engaging with provinces, territories and other partners to help achieve our goal of universal connectivity. SWIFT has already been an important leader and partner in this effort.

Question No. 695--
Mrs. Stephanie Kusie:
With regard to the government’s decision to ban all pleasure craft in the Canadian Arctic Waters and cruise vessels in all Canadian waters until February 28, 2022: (a) why was the length of the ban not contingent upon vaccination levels of Canadians or related to vaccination requirements for those on-board the vessels; and (b) what role did the low level of Canadians vaccinated in January and February of 2021, due to the government’s inability to secure enough vaccines fast enough, have on the decision to extend the ban for an entire extra year?
Response
Hon. Omar Alghabra (Minister of Transport, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, to minimize the introduction and spread of the COVID-19 virus in the marine mode, Transport Canada has chosen interim orders as the instrument of choice. In developing its interim orders, Transport Canada has worked in close collaboration with the Public Health Agency of Canada and consulted broadly with other levels of government, health officials, transportation industry stakeholders, provincial and territorial governments and indigenous and Inuit peoples. Transport Canada developed these interim orders taking into consideration the health situation throughout the country at the time and advice provided by public health experts. One of the primary reasons interim orders were used is that they enable the Minister of Transport to apply appropriate temporary measures while retaining the ability to rescind the prohibitions if it is determined that the pandemic has substantially improved and that the prohibitions are no longer needed. To inform any such decision, Transport Canada will continue to work with the Public Health Agency of Canada and local health authorities to monitor and assess the situation.

Question No. 698--
Mrs. Tamara Jansen:
With regard to the Canada-British Columbia Early Learning and Child Care Agreement and the $10 per day Child Care Prototype Site Evaluation: (a) when did the Government of British Columbia share the results of this evaluation with the Government of Canada; (b) what were the findings of the evaluation; (c) what were the recommendations; (d) how can the public access the full report, including the website address where the report may be downloaded from; and (e) what were the specific findings of the evaluation regarding the feasibility of $10 per day childcare?
Response
Mr. Adam Vaughan (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development (Housing), Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada is committed to providing Canadian families with access to high-quality, affordable, flexible and inclusive child care. Budget 2021 has committed up to $30 billion over five years, with $8.3 billion every year, permanently, to build a high-quality, affordable, and accessible early learning and child care system across Canada. This funding will work towards cutting child care fees by 50% on average by the end of 2022, and achieving $10/day child care on average by 2026.
In response to (a), the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development contracted R.A. Malatest & Associates Ltd. to conduct an evaluation and analysis of the British Columbia universal child care prototype sites or $10-per-day child care pilot. This evaluation was funded by the provincial government. ESDC was not provided with an official copy of the report prior to its release.
In response to (b), (c), (d), and (e), the full report is publicly available on the Government of British Columbia’s website.

Question No. 703--
Mr. Alex Ruff:
With regard to the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Operation HONOUR Tracking and Analysis System (OPHTAS) 2020's annual incident tracking report: (a) when was this report completed; (b) why was this report not published and released on the government’s website in the summer of 2020, in a similar timeline with the previous year’s reports; (c) who made the decision not to publish the document in the summer of 2020; (d) on what date was the Minister of National Defense or his office informed that the document would not be published in the summer of 2020, in line with the schedule of the previous years; (e) if the report has since been published, on what specific website is the document located; and (f) how is the OPHTAS report data fused with other department of National Defence or CAF reports, including the annual CAF Provost Marshall report, the Judge Advocate General Annual report, the Director General Integrated Conflict and Complaint Management annual report, and the Sexual Misconduct Response Centre annual report, in order to provide a consolidated view of sexual misconduct in the CAF?
Response
Ms. Anita Vandenbeld (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, there is no room in the Canadian Armed Forces or the Department of National Defence for sexism, misogyny, racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, discrimination, harassment, or any other conduct that prevents the institution from being a truly welcoming and inclusive organization.
National Defence understands that a culture change within the Canadian Armed Forces is required to remove a culture of toxic behaviour and to create an environment where everyone is respected and valued, and can feel safe to contribute to the best of their ability.
To this end, the Minister of National Defence has appointed the Hon. Louise Arbour to lead an independent external comprehensive review of the culture and practices of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence. This review will provide recommendations aimed at addressing systemic issues and creating lasting culture change within the organization.
Additionally, the acting chief of the defence staff has appointed Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignan to the newly created position of chief of professional conduct and culture, to lead efforts to promote culture change across the defence team, including the enhancement and consolidation of National Defence’s sexual misconduct tracking mechanisms. This will identify areas that require focused attention, and ensure that all reported incidents are addressed appropriately in a timely manner.
Through these actions, National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces will move to eliminate harmful attitudes and beliefs that have enabled misconduct and will create an environment where all feel welcome.
In response to part (a), the report was not finalized.
In response to part (b), challenges and delays caused by COVID-19 forced National Defence to adjust the development, approach, and timelines to the 2020 report’s data release.
In response to part (c), the normal release schedule for the annual Operation Honour sexual misconduct incident report is in the fall, using data pulled in the late spring from the Operation Honour tracking and analysis system, OPHTAS. The impact of the COVID-19 restrictions through the spring and fall of 2020 delayed the completion and release of the report.
Due to the delays in the process, the previous approach of relying on data gathered in the spring was considered no longer sufficient to provide an up-to-date overview of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Given the unexpected challenges and delays, the acting chief of the defence staff made the decision to combine the 2020 and 2021 reports.
In response to part (d), as there is no legislative requirement to release this report, revised timelines were not communicated formally to the Minister of National Defence.
In response to part (e), National Defence remains committed to openness and transparency, and will re-establish a regular reporting cycle for sexual misconduct incident data.
National Defence anticipates the release of the 2021 report in the fall of 2021, which will provide a comprehensive overview using data from April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2021.
In response to part (f), several organizations within National Defence, such as the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, the Judge Advocate General, the director general of integrated conflict and complaint management, and the sexual misconduct response centre, have databases that are designed to support their mandates. These databases may capture certain data related to sexual misconduct incidents, such as information on investigations, charges laid, and trials. This information is made available in these organizations’ annual reports.
The Operation Honour tracking and analysis system, OPHTAS, is the only database dedicated to tracking all sexual misconduct incidents reported through the chain of command. While there may be an intersection of sexual misconduct data in OPTHAS and other departmental databases, these databases are currently not linked, and a direct comparison of the information held within each cannot be made.
National Defence is working to integrate all databases that record data related to sexual misconduct. This project will help achieve a more consolidated picture of sexual misconduct data, while respecting the legal privacy and confidentiality requirements of the various databases.

Question No. 705--
Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan:
With regard to the processing of parents and grandparents applications in the 2020 intake by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada: (a) how many interest to sponsor forms were received; (b) how many of the interest to sponsor forms received were duplicates; (c) how many individuals have received invitations to apply; (d) how many applications have been (i) submitted, (ii) approved, (iii) refused, (iv) processed; and (e) what is the current processing time?
Response
Hon. Marco Mendicino (Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, in response to (a), 209,174 interest to sponsor forms were received.
In response to (b), 5,961 of the interest to sponsor forms received were duplicates.
In response to (c), IRCC can confirm that the department sent out more invitations to apply, ITAs, than the target in order to come close to receiving 10,000 complete applications for the 2020 year.
In response to (d)(i), IRCC can confirm that enough applications were submitted to reach the annual cap of 10,000 complete applications for 2020.
IRCC cannot publicly release the number of ITAs that were sent for the 2020 parents and grandparents, PGP, process, as the data figures reveal a technique, which is applicable to paragraph 16(1)(b) under the ATIP act, which could compromise future ITA PGP processes.
In response to (d)(ii), (d)(iii) and (d)(iv), zero applications have been approved, refused, or processed, as processing from the 2020 cohort has not started. IRCC cannot release the figure for how many applications have been submitted for PGP 2020, as, at this point in time, completeness checks have not been completed.
In response to (e), the current processing times for permanent residence applications for the parents and grandparents category from April 2020 to March 31, 2021 is 28 months.

Question No. 715--
Mrs. Shannon Stubbs:
With regard to the implementation of Orders in Council entitled “Minimizing the Risk of Exposure to COVID-19 in Canada Order (Prohibition of Entry into Canada from any Country Other Than the United States)” and Minimizing the Risk of Exposure to COVID-19 in Canada Order (Mandatory Isolation): (a) what specific direction was given to border agents regarding new and modified Order in Council provisions directly from the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness or his staff; (b) what procedure was followed ensuring the Orders in Council’s proper enforcement by Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) agents; and (c) what specific direction was given to CBSA agents regarding non-application – requirement to quarantine, specifically for persons who must enter Canada regularly to go to their normal place of employment or to return from their normal place of employment in the United States?
Response
Mr. Joël Lightbound (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, with regard to part (a), the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA, works in close co-operation with the Public Health Agency of Canada, PHAC, to implement and operationalize the travel restrictions and public health measures at the port of entry. The measures that have been implemented are layered, and together, aim to reduce the risk of the importation and transmission of COVID-19 and new variants of concern of the virus related to international travel.
The regulatory framework that has been developed to minimize the risk of exposure to COVID-19 at the border is complex. At time of seeking entry, the CBSA officers are required to consider various facts and make multiple decisions related to a single traveller.
While the border services officers, BSOs, are focusing on the eligibility to enter under an order, as well as their public health requirements, they are also assessing all relevant obligations under other acts or regulations including their admissibility under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
The CBSA has issued a number of operational bulletins, shift briefing bullets, annexes and job aids to support officers in the decision-making process. As the orders in council, OICs have evolved over time, so has the guidance issued to frontline officers.
All guidance is point in time and is updated on an ongoing basis as more clarity is required, or where there are changes to the OICs. The CBSA and PHAC regularly consult on interpretations of restrictions and public health measures and collaborate on adjustments and improvements where issues have been identified.
With regard to part (b), every day, BSOs make over 35,000 decisions across the country and those decisions are made based on all laws and information made available to the BSO at the time of entry. To facilitate decision-making, the CBSA provides support to frontline BSOs through operational guideline bulletins, 24-7 live support access and regular case reviews. In addition, the CBSA conducts detailed technical briefings prior to the implementation of new or amended OICs to support the accurate implementation of new provisions and ensure clarity for frontline employees. The CBSA has also established a process to monitor decisions made by BSOs as they relate to the application of OICs for essential service providers and will continue to make adjustments or review the CBSA operational guidance to BSOs, as required. If the CBSA discovers that an incorrect assessment has been made at the border, it works with PHAC to rectify the situation.
With regard to part (c), the operational guidance referenced in the response to part (a) of this Order Paper question includes passages specific to cross-border workers and how specific public health requirements within the OICs may apply in these circumstances.
More specifically, in those instances, when assessing whether an exemption may apply, BSOs have been instructed to remain mindful of the following points. The traveller must be able to demonstrate that their purpose of crossing was specific to attending their normal place of employment. “Regular” is typically interpreted to mean daily or weekly, but a person able to establish a regular pattern of travel for this purpose could qualify. This exemption applies to persons who must cross the border regularly to go to their normal place of employment on either side of the Canada-U.S. border. There may be some circumstances where travel to another country could qualify, e.g., weekly or biweekly travel required. Those who are looking to establish that they must cross regularly must demonstrate to an officer that they will be crossing on a regular basis going forward when being processed. If the cross-border work involves medical care for persons over age 65, i.e., nurses, home care specialists, pharmacists etc., an individual request outlining the precautionary public health measures intended for interaction with this older age group must be submitted for determination of the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada.
Officers are trained to reach a decision on the basis of the entirety of the information made available to them over the course of an interaction with a traveller. As such, information and circumstances beyond the items listed above will be considered by BSOs when determining a traveller’s admissibility to Canada, as well as in relation to any applicable exemptions from public health requirements.
Furthermore, in an effort to assist cross-border workers who by virtue of their employment are required to enter Canada regularly, the CBSA has also published guidelines on its website.

Question No. 720--
Mr. Dan Albas:
With regard to the Greener Homes initiative that was announced in the Fall Economic Statement, but is still not available for applications and has had a message on its website to come back in the coming weeks for months: (a) when will the program launch; (b) how will the retroactivity be implemented; (c) what will happen to people who believed they were eligible, but due to the lack of application information were denied; and (d) why was there such a major delay in opening this program?
Response
Mr. Marc Serré (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, with regard to part (a), the Canada greener homes grant initiative, announced in the fall economic statement, launched on May 27, 2021.
With regard to part (b), to be eligible for retroactive payment, homeowners must document their retrofit journey and are asked to keep copies of all invoices both for the EnerGuide home evaluation and for their retrofit work. The home energy adviser will take before and after photos. Homeowners can access the online portal to register and submit this information for reimbursement, provided the retrofit measures undertaken are on the list of eligible measures.
With regard to part (c), to be eligible for reimbursement, participants in the Canada greener homes grant initiative must obtain an EnerGuide home evaluation before the retrofit and then a post-retrofit evaluation once retrofit work is completed. Call centre operators and program officers are available to help homeowners navigate the program’s eligibility requirements. Should the homeowner not be eligible for reimbursement under the Canada greener homes grant initiative, program officers can assist in identifying other federal, provincial/territorial, municipal and/or regional programs for which the homeowner may be eligible.
With regard to part (d), in the fall economic statement, the government committed to launching the Canada greener homes grant initiative during the spring of 2021. Government officials have been working in an expeditious manner since this announcement and the Canada greener homes grant initiative launched during the spring of 2021 as announced.

Question No. 721--
Mr. Dan Albas:
With regard to the $2.3 billion over five years announced in Budget 2021 for conservation: (a) when will the ‘thousands of jobs’ be created; (b) where will the 1 million square kilometers of land be located; (c) has all the land been located; (d) have lands under provincial jurisdiction been identified and have provincial governments agreed; (e) what is the cost breakdowns for funds earmarked for partnerships with indigenous peoples; and (f) what is the total cost breakdown for how exactly this money will be spent?
Response
Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson (Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, with regard to part (a), millions of jobs rely on nature, including those in farming, fishing, forestry and tourism. Investment in conservation, therefore, is also an economic opportunity.
Over the course of the next five years, the work announced in budget 2021 will generate jobs in nature conservation and management for Canadians. Arising out of partnerships with provincial and territorial jurisdictions and indigenous governments, organizations and/or communities, these jobs will be distributed across all regions of Canada, including in rural and remote areas and indigenous communities.
With regard to parts (b), (c) and (d), the government is currently working to finalize a concrete and ambitious approach that would achieve protection of 25% of land and oceans by 2025, and set the stage for 30% by 2030. While not all of the specific locations are yet identified, we continue to engage with provinces and territories, indigenous organizations, foundations, the private sector and non-profit conservation organizations to get their views on how it can work together to achieve these ambitious targets. Specific efforts are ongoing and we will continue to work with provinces and territories to find mutually beneficial approaches to conserving land and addressing species at risk and biodiversity loss.
The government is aware of specific landscapes and waterscapes that have been included in provincial, territorial and municipal land use planning, and other protected areas systems plans including the Natural Areas Systems Plan in Newfoundland and Labrador, the Plan Nord in Quebec, the Peel Watershed Land Use Plan in the Yukon, the Living Legacy protected areas plan in Ontario, and Nova Scotia’s Parks and Protected Areas Plan, among others.
Parks Canada will continue work to complete negotiations with provincial and indigenous governments for the establishment of two new national park reserves in the South Okanagan-Similkameen, British Columbia, and in the coastal barrier islands of the Sandhills, Hog Island area, Prince Edward Island, and to identify and assess additional national parks with an emphasis on unrepresented regions and natural areas of importance to indigenous communities.
With regard to part (e), we are not yet in a position to share the cost breakdown for how the money will be spent until such time as program details of the funding are finalized and approved by Treasury Board, including funds earmarked for the indigenous guardians program and other indigenous partnerships.
The indigenous guardians program is a good example. Building upon the work initiated in budget 2017, which allocated $25 million over five years for an indigenous guardians program, budget 2021 provides additional resources to continue supporting indigenous peoples in opportunities to exercise responsibility in stewardship of their traditional lands, waters and ice, including preventing priority species at imminent risk of disappearing. The indigenous guardians program supports indigenous rights and responsibilities in protecting and conserving ecosystems, developing and maintaining sustainable economies, and continuing the profound connections between Canadian landscape and indigenous culture.
Once these final allocations are confirmed, ECCC and Parks Canada will work in partnership with indigenous governance bodies to allocate resources and identify particular projects moving forward.
With regard to part (f), we are not yet in a position to share the cost breakdown for how the money will be spent until such time as program details of the funding are finalized and approved by Treasury Board.

Question No. 723--
Mr. Brad Vis:
With regard to the commitment on page 305 of Budget 2021 to implement a “Tax on Unproductive Use of Canadian Housing by Foreign Non-resident Owners”: (a) how many internal memos, presentations, or other similar type of documents were created by the government or hired consultants on this proposed tax; (b) of the documents in (a), what are their titles and when were they dated; (c) in which internal documents and when was it “estimated that this measure will increase federal revenues by $700 million over four years”; (d) what methodology was used to establish the $700 million figure in (c); (d) on what date will the promised consultation paper for stakeholders be released and to which stakeholders will it be distributed; and (e) how many days is the stakeholder consultation period scheduled to take place and on what date will it (i) begin, (ii) conclude?
Response
Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, budget 2021 announced the government’s intention to implement a national, annual 1% tax on the value of non-resident, non-Canadian owned residential real estate that is considered to be vacant or underused, effective January 1, 2022. The government indicated that it will release a consultation paper in the coming months to provide stakeholders with an opportunity to comment on the parameters of the proposed tax. The government also indicated that, moving forward, it intends to work closely with provinces, territories and municipalities.
With regard to part (a), one internal memo was prepared by the department in relation to the proposal announced in budget 2021.
With regard to part (b), the title of the memo referred to in part (a) was “Tax on Underused Housing” and was dated in 2021.
With regard to part (c), the fiscal impact of the proposal was estimated when planning for budget 2021 and was presented in internal budget documents.
With regard to part (d), the fiscal impact was calculated by applying a 1% tax on the estimated value of non-resident, non-Canadian owned residential real estate considered to be vacant or underused. The value of the proposed tax base was estimated using Statistics Canada data on foreign-owned properties and residential property values, as well as information on British Columbia’s speculation and vacancy tax.
With regard to part (e), the date of the release of a backgrounder has not yet been determined. However, budget 2021 indicated that the document would be released in the coming months.
With regard to part (f), while the length of the consultation period has not been established, it would not be uncommon for consultations on proposals such as these to be open for public comment for 60 days.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-14 14:49 [p.8337]
Mr. Speaker, it is ironic that, on the morning the Prime Minister defied Parliament and went back to court to try to quash the human rights tribunal ruling that found him guilty of systemic discrimination against indigenous kids, we learned more about the medical catastrophe facing children in Kashechewan, where are now 144 children and babies suffering from COVID.
They begged the government for help, and all they got was a band-aid. If the government spent less time fighting indigenous kids in court, it could have been focused on keeping indigenous children safe and healthy. When is the Prime Minister going to end his toxic legal war against indigenous children in this country?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, perhaps, since the member opposite asked two question, I can give the House the update on the very concerning situation in Kashechewan. Indeed, the outbreak is among the children, who are not unimmunized. The situation, sadly, will get worse before it gets better. I have been speaking to Chief Friday over the course of the weekend and assured him we will be there for him.
The House would, indeed, appreciate knowing, as well, that 15 Canadian Rangers have been mobilized in Kashechewan and six additional nurses have been deployed, for a total of 15. We are actively assessing and reassessing as the days go on, but we will be there for the people of Kashechewan.
View Marilène Gill Profile
BQ (QC)
View Marilène Gill Profile
2021-06-14 14:57 [p.8339]
Mr. Speaker, led by the government, all the parties just passed a bill to designate the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a day to commemorate the indigenous children who were ripped from their families and sent to residential schools. Meanwhile, just this morning, the government was in court fighting indigenous children who were also ripped from their families and sent to foster homes. This is the height of hypocrisy.
Will the government immediate terminate its legal action again indigenous children?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I want to be very clear once again.
The Prime Minister, myself and all of Canada have sent a very clear message that any first nations child who has suffered the consequences of discrimination in the child welfare system, which is broken, will be compensated fairly and equitably.
View Marilène Gill Profile
BQ (QC)
View Marilène Gill Profile
2021-06-14 14:58 [p.8339]
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal are in court fighting indigenous children who were ripped from their families in 2005.
I would remind members that the Liberals were also the party in power in 2005. Fifteen years later, this is still before the courts.
I encourage the Prime Minister to do a favour to whoever is prime minister 15 years from now. Will he terminate this legal action? Will he spare the future prime minister from having to apologize for a despicable decision that the current Prime Minister could reverse right now?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I could spend all my time talking about what this government has done since coming to power in 2015, the billions of dollars it has invested in reforming a broken system, but I would like to set my colleague straight. She should realize that, in this case, the compensation order was handed down two months ago. We are challenging its proportionality, not the source of the discrimination.
We are committed to compensating these children in a fair and equitable manner, and that is what we will do.
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-06-09 14:31 [p.8154]
Mr. Speaker, the discovery of the remains of 215 indigenous children devastated people across the country. The indigenous community is calling for justice and action.
The Prime Minister continues to fight indigenous kids in court, despite the fact that the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that these children were victims of discrimination. Will the Prime Minister continue to fight indigenous kids in court on Monday, yes or no?
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Justin Trudeau Profile
2021-06-09 14:31 [p.8154]
Mr. Speaker, that is simply not true. We are not fighting indigenous children in court.
On the contrary, we have recognized that indigenous children and young adults who have been abused in the child welfare system in recent years deserve to be compensated. That is why we are working with indigenous communities to establish fair amounts for compensation. We will always work hand in hand on the path of reconciliation. That is what indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians expect.
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-06-09 14:32 [p.8154]
Mr. Speaker, that is very troubling as a response because this Monday indigenous kids are going to be showing up at court, their representatives, and the Canadian government, directed by the Prime Minister, is going to be there to continue fighting against them. It is about this Monday. It is not a distant thing in the future. It is this Monday that I am talking about, where in fact the Canadian government, under direction of the Prime Minister, will be fighting these kids.
Despite all of Parliament saying the government should stop, will it stop fighting these kids in court and, instead, walk the path of reconciliation?
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Justin Trudeau Profile
2021-06-09 14:32 [p.8154]
Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that on an issue as important as reconciliation the NDP continues to try to make political points and twist rhetoric.
We are not fighting indigenous kids in court. This government has committed to compensate the young people who went through child and family services.
We recognize the trauma and the pain inflicted upon them, and that is why not only are we working with indigenous communities and leadership on just compensation, but we have also brought in significant reforms to child and family services to keep indigenous communities in control of their kids at risk.
View Lindsay Mathyssen Profile
NDP (ON)
View Lindsay Mathyssen Profile
2021-06-09 19:18 [p.8185]
Madam Speaker, before I begin to discuss Motion No. 58, I need to briefly speak about the incredible loss that the people of London have suffered. An act of terror that occurred a few days ago took the lives of Salman, Yumna, Talat Afzaal and Madiha Salman and left Fayez recovering in hospital.
The heartbreak in our community is palpable, and that grief will take a long time to heal. It reminds me that every time I rise in this place I must keep the people I fight for in London—Fanshawe at the heart of what I say and what I do, the people who sent me here to bring their concerns forward, to deliberate on legislation and policies, to make sure those decisions will care for, treat fairly and improve their lives and, in fact, the lives of all people living in Canada. It must be beyond words that we work here in the House. Actions, after all, speak louder than those words.
To move the discussion on to the motion here today, one of those policies that can have a positive impact on the people in my riding is gender-based analysis plus. This analytical process, which provides an assessment method of systemic inequality as well as a means to assess how diverse groups of women, men and gender-diverse people may experience policies, programs and initiatives, is something the NDP supports fully.
The “plus” in GBA+ acknowledges the substantial differences, the multiple characteristics and intersections that contribute to who we are. GBA+ considers many other identity factors, such as race, ethnicity, religion, age and mental or physical disability and how the interaction between these factors influences the way we might experience government policies. New Democrats believe this, too, is a key part of the necessary analysis the government and all of its departments must apply.
In 2015, when the government committed to applying GBA+, including by mandating the minister of status of women to ensure that government policy, legislation and regulations are sensitive to the different impacts that decisions can have on men and women, we too were supportive.
Today, of course, we support the private member's motion, Motion No. 58.
I sit as a member of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. We have spent the last few months studying sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces. We have heard clearly that the forces exist in a toxic culture and that without proper supports in place and without directly addressing the significant cultural issues within the military, many people will not want to enlist and retention will continue to be an issue.
In March 2021, Lieutenant-Colonel Eleanor Taylor, the deputy commander of 36 Canadian Brigade Group and a distinguished veteran of combat in Afghanistan, publicly resigned, saying in a Facebook post, “I am sickened by ongoing investigations of sexual misconduct among our key leaders. Unfortunately, I am not surprised. I am also certain that the scope of the problem has yet to be exposed. Throughout my career, I have observed insidious and inappropriate use of power for sexual exploitation.” That is an incredibly powerful statement.
We heard testimony at the status of women committee from several witnesses that in fact one cannot apply a GBA+ lens onto the military in this country because the culture of toxic masculinity is so pervasive that it is not taken seriously.
Christine Wood, chief of strategic engagement at It's Just 700, a volunteer-run organization that provides confidential peer support and information to members of the Canadian military who are survivors of work-related sexual trauma, appeared before our committee in April. When asked about GBA+ for programs to help military members, she said, “It's still...at that point where we talk about GBA+. It doesn't start with GBA+. Everyone kind of checks it as a box at the end of their design.” Ms. Wood also said, “I feel like women have never had a level playing field in the forces; we were mandated to be included.”
In 2016, the Office of the Auditor General published a report, “Canadian Armed Forces Recruitment and Retention”. The Auditor General said:
We found that although the Canadian Armed Forces had established a goal for the representation of women among its ranks, it set this overall goal with no specific targets by occupation. We also found that despite the fact that achieving this goal depends heavily on increased recruiting, the Canadian Armed Forces had not implemented any special employment equity measures. The goal was 25 percent during the audit period; meanwhile, women represented 14 percent of the Regular Force.
In 2019, the Canadian Armed Forces told the Standing Committee on the Status of Women that, as of February, women accounted for 15.7% of the Canadian Armed Forces workforce. Not only is the Canadian Armed Forces, with mandated targets on retention, not meeting its goals, but for those who are recruited, the toxic environment they are surrounded by creates trauma and forces women and people from many other backgrounds, abilities, sexual identities and orientation to be victimized, often repeatedly.
My concern in all of this, and the questions we must ask here are: Will the motion bring much-needed change to the armed forces? Will it push the government, the military or the Department of National Defence to do anything differently or to go further to implement GBA+ in retention and recruitment within the department or within our military? Will it actually help to create a healthy environment for the people recruited, or will we continue to see the exodus of those who gave up years serving their country and defending others because they can no longer deal with the violence, ridicule and trauma they face, and because they have to defend themselves as a matter of survival instead?
I believe that too often the Liberal government says what it knows people want to hear, but then it breaks promises and does not take the real action necessary to make a difference. I believe the government is too often concerned with only checking the box. This motion cannot serve as only checking a box. There are things the government must do here today, and even though it has already had six years, it could create real and substantive change. I have received so many emails and calls, and I have heard too many stories, from people impacted by this toxic culture not to act.
As I said earlier, New Democrats support this motion because we support a GBA+ approach to meeting recruitment and retention targets for underrepresented groups. The supports CAF members need go far beyond this motion, and despite the many additional reports and reviews the government may call for, it could act immediately.
The government could create a special program within the Canadian Armed Forces in the recruitment of women and underrepresented groups as recommended by the Auditor General in 2016. It could strengthen the federal Employment Equity Act to attach employment equity measures to all Canadian Armed Forces recruitment and retention programs. It could introduce legislation to establish a military ombudsman as a permanent and independent officer of Parliament. It could create an independent centre of accountability for sexual assault and harassment, entirely outside of the forces. It would be responsible for receiving reports of inappropriate sexual conduct and for preventing it, as well as for coordinating and monitoring training and victim support, monitoring accountability and research, and acting as a central authority for the collection of data.
The government could ensure that parents who are members of the Canadian Armed Forces have access to affordable child care services that meet their needs. It could create an inclusive, safe and respectful workplace for all members of the Canadian Armed Forces, and it could provide mandatory, comprehensive trauma-informed survivor-centred sexual misconduct training for members at all levels, including senior leadership, delivered by experts regularly and applied with a GBA+ lens.
The government could also reverse the decisions it has already made when it comes to the privatization of military services, as these have negative impacts on all members. It could stop outsourcing service contracts to private companies at military bases, which costs the government millions of dollars more than if it were to provide full-time unionized jobs. It could reinvest these millions of dollars by bringing federal public service jobs back to DND and into the Canadian Forces to provide services such as upgrading inferior housing, training personnel and developing genuine efforts to tackle systemic racism, discrimination and sexual harassment within the forces.
The government could reinvest this money to purchase equipment designed for women. It could implement the recommendations of not only the Deschamps report, but also those of the PSAC report released last November, entitled, “In the interest of safety and security:?The case for ending the privatization of Department of National Defence services.”
In conclusion, this motion is a drop in the bucket of what is actually required for substantive change in the Armed Forces. The Canadian government has a long way to go to ensure gender equality, and the enforcement of GBA+ must not only be considered a box to check. This motion cannot simply pay lip service to the incredible people who depend upon us to create responsible policies and legislation. The government must work harder to do what is truly necessary.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-07 14:28 [p.8018]
Mr. Speaker, let us talk about the Prime Minister's record on first nations children.
He was found guilty of “wilful and reckless” discrimination against indigenous kids. He has ignored 19 non-compliance orders and spent over $9 million on lawyers, yet this weekend he was saying he was not in court fighting any first nations kids. In reality, his lawyers are arguing that children who suffered reckless discrimination are not eligible for any compensation whatsoever. That is their argument. Children have died on the current government's watch.
When is the Prime Minister going to end his toxic legal war against indigenous kids?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, let me be crystal clear. Children who have suffered discrimination at the hands of the first nations child welfare system will receive fair, equitable and just compensation.
An hon. member: You are making that up.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister has said time and time again, and as this government has said time and time again, we want to be crystal clear.
Every first nations child who has suffered discrimination at the hands of the failed child welfare system will receive just, fair and equitable compensation.
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
2021-06-04 13:40 [p.7987]
Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-234. Since my colleague from Joliette already announced it in a previous speech, it will come as no surprise when I say that the Bloc Québécois will vote against Bill C-234. We have serious doubts about the effectiveness of such a bill and feel it would only push people to spend more on security systems that would not actually make them safer.
This bill seeks to amend the Income Tax Act to create a non-refundable tax credit for individuals who purchase a home security system. It would grant a credit of up to $5,000 for the total of all amounts spent on home security. This includes the acquisition, installation, maintenance and monitoring of a security system installed in an individual's home. The eligible home includes any structure that is separate from the house, such as a garage or even a barn. The credit could be used every year. However, in cases where more than one member of the household claims it, the maximum amount eligible would be $5,000.
In my speech, I will approach this bill from three angles. First I will explain why we believe this money could be put to much better use. I will then talk about the issue of rising crime, which we discussed at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Finally, I will propose some solutions to address this problem.
First of all, we oppose Bill C-234 because we believe that the money that would be spent to subsidize the purchase of such systems would be much better spent on provincial police, indigenous police and the RCMP. First nations police services are in dire need of resources, and the government needs to start by funding them properly to help remote communities. Just this week, actually, when I was filling in at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, we were discussing the problem of lack of resources at the RCMP.
Bill C-234, introduced by the member for Prince Albert, from the Conservative Party, says that rural crime is increasing at a higher rate than urban crime. It attributes this to the fact that rural areas are sometimes not as well served by law enforcement, which apparently leads some residents to install security systems, such as cameras or alarms. If the police already have a hard time responding, what is the point of investing in an alarm system?
Clearly, the police response would be too slow to prevent the crime anyway. I myself live in what would be considered a rural area, and I have sometimes come across this problem and this reality. The member even acknowledged that his bill will not fix the problem. The Bloc Québécois is not indifferent to this concern, of course, and neither am I, after hearing testimony at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. However, why not invest more in the RCMP and in provincial police forces by transferring that money to Quebec, the provinces and the territories?
This type of tax credit encourages people to spend money on systems that are not likely to prevent crime. The preamble to Bill C-234 nevertheless tries to justify the relevance of this bill by stating:
Whereas the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, in its Thirty-third Report of the 42nd Parliament, recognized that crime in rural areas is of growing concern to rural residents across the country; Whereas the Committee heard that while crime in rural areas is more acute in western Canada, eastern provinces are also experiencing high crime rates in rural areas; And whereas the committee heard from witnesses of incidents related to property crimes, such as break-ins, thefts and, in some cases, violent assaults, including sexual violence and violence towards women;
I will repeat that Bill C-234 will merely push people to spend money on goods and services that will only give them a false sense of security.
Indigenous communities are sorely lacking in resources and are often poorly served by police forces. Money spent by this bill would be much better spent on security in first nations communities, which are asking that this become an essential service. According to Jerel Swamp, the vice-president of the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association, indigenous police services work with limited resources. What we did realize at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women is that indigenous women are often the most affected by security issues. It is difficult to understand why indigenous police services are the only ones in Canada that are not deemed an essential service.
I have another example from the Rama police service in Ontario, which does not have money to fund forensic and crime investigation units or to provide aid to victims. This is essential in cases of sexual assault.
In its throne speech, the federal government committed to accelerating the implementation of a legal framework to recognize first nations policing as an essential service. It promised to take action on this shortly after the 2019 election. These promises were renewed after indigenous protests against the Coastal GasLink pipeline in British Columbia. Those indigenous peoples are still waiting for royal assent.
Again according to Mr. Swamp, Public Safety Canada currently funds services through the first nations policing program, but the funding received is inadequate to provide the services the communities require.
The federal promise to make first nations policing services an essential service is a step in the right direction. Our departments, Public Safety, have said that passing legislation to make indigenous policing an essential service will require developing a better funding framework.
The first nations policing program was created in 1991 to provide funding for agreements between the federal government, the provincial or territorial governments, and first nations and Inuit communities to provide policing services to these communities. The federal government contributes 52% of the funding for the first nations policing program, with the remainder coming from the provincial and territorial governments. The program provides policing services to nearly 60% of first nations and Inuit communities.
In 2018-19, the Department of Public Safety spent more than $146 million through that program to support 1,322 police officer positions in over 450 first nations and Inuit communities. According to Mr. Swamp, however, the funding is inconsistent and always allocated for the short term. This makes planning difficult and creates a lack of predictability. Even so, the police chief believes that these services are effective in investigating violent crimes using their limited resources.
Second, as part of its study on women living in rural communities, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women addressed the issue of crime, not only in urban settings, but also in rural areas.
Some of the other potential solutions proposed by witnesses in committee include a suggestion that the government transfer operational funding, on an ongoing basis, to Quebec, the provinces and the territories for the community-based shelters and halfway houses that help women affected by violence. Another suggestion was that more money be sent to Quebec and the provinces to help survivors of violence.
Some recommended better training on the realities women face, in particular for the RCMP, to help stamp out bias and teach officers how to respond to the trauma these women may have experienced. Others said that we need to work on lifting women out of poverty by, for example, getting them better access to the job market by supporting universal child care services.
Speaking of universal child care, I want to point out that the government must give Quebec the right to opt out of the federal program, with full compensation, since Quebec already has its own program, which has been proven to lift many women out of poverty.
I am calling for the government to take a feminist and economic approach to this crisis that recognizes that the programs are often poorly suited to women entrepreneurs.
Third, we also need to work on prevention by enhancing social programs that improve our health care system, particularly in the area of mental health. There is no magic solution for that. It will take more resources, financial resources in particular. It is absolutely essential that the government increase health transfers significantly, permanently and unconditionally so that they cover up to 35% of health care system costs. That would enable us to take care of our people.
In closing, I believe, as does my colleague from Joliette, that the fight against crime begins with the fight against poverty. We need to work proactively to improve the situation and to ensure greater equality of opportunity. That is a value that is important for Quebeckers. The end justifies the means. If we help people stay out of a vulnerable position where they have no food and live in unsafe, inadequate housing conditions, then we will be helping to reduce opportunities for crime. We have a duty to act.
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-06-03 10:25 [p.7866]
moved:
That, given that,
(i) the discovery of the grave of 215 children at Kamloops Indian Residential School has led to an outpouring of grief and anger across Canada,
(ii) the vast majority of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action remain uncompleted, despite the clear path to justice and reconciliation that the Commission provides,
(iii) survivors, families and nations are demanding concrete action to advance real reconciliation, as opposed to just more words and symbolic gestures,
the House call on the government to:
(a) cease its belligerent and litigious approach to justice for Indigenous children by immediately dropping its appeal before the Federal Court in file numbers T-1621-19 (compensation) and T-1559-20 (Jordan's Principle for non-status First Nations kids recognized by their nations) and to recognize the government's legal obligation to fully comply with Canadian Human Rights Tribunal orders in this regard;
(b) agree to sit down with the St. Anne's residential school survivors organization Peetabeck Keway Keykaywin Association to find a just solution to the fact that survivors’ access to justice has been denied as a consequence of the actions of government lawyers in suppressing evidence at the Independent Assessment Process;
(c) accelerate the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action, including by providing immediate funding for further investigation into the deaths and disappearances of children at residential schools in compliance with calls to action 71 to 76;
(d) provide survivors, their families, and their communities with appropriate resources to assist with the emotional, physical, spiritual, mental, and cultural trauma resulting from residential schools; and
(e) within 10 days, table a progress report on actions taken in compliance with paragraphs (a) through (d) of the present motion, and that this report be deemed to have been referred to the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs for consideration upon tabling.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.
I come to the House from the unceded territories of the Algonquin nation. I rise today to present our opposition day motion in this House to call on the Liberal government to do the work that it has delayed for so long.
The discovery at a former residential school in Kamloops was shocking and horrifying. It was a moment when Canadians, people across this country, came together and looked in horror at what Canada has done, and is continuing to do, to indigenous people. When 215 little kids, indigenous children, were found buried at that school, Canadians were shocked. They were shocked because this was clearly not a school. This was clearly not a place of education. This was an institution designed, clearly, to eliminate indigenous people.
In this moment, Canadians across the country have participated in memorials, placing children's shoes at various places, to reflect on what this means. What does it mean that 215 children were buried without letting their families know, that these children were stripped from their parents, stripped of their language, their identity, their sense of self, taken to an institution and then killed there? What does this leave in terms of a legacy? What does this mean about Canada? What does this mean about our country?
People are asking these questions. People are wondering how it is possible that this could happen to little kids, how this could happen to children. People are now demanding more than just condolences. The broad consensus among people is that it is not good enough for the Liberal government to just express sadness and grieving. This is an opportunity, a moment that demands action and justice. The only response to this horrific discovery is a commitment to justice today.
What I find incredibly hypocritical and, more important than me, what indigenous people and people across Canada find hypocritical is that on the one hand we have a Prime Minister who could stand in this House and at a press conference and say that he is sorry or express condolences about this horrific discovery, but in the very same breath be ordering lawyers to fight indigenous kids in court.
It is not just fighting these kids in court. These kids were the subject matter of a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal hearing, and that tribunal made very clear orders on the government, stating that they were clearly unjustly denied equal funding, and that there needs to be a remedy. The government is not just fighting indigenous kids in court; it is fighting a human rights tribunal decision that states that these kids deserve equal funding.
How hypocritical is it? How flagrant is this denial of justice, when on the one hand the Prime Minister and the Liberal government claim to care about indigenous kids who lost their lives in a residential school and in the same breath are fighting them in court? On top of that, this very same Prime Minister and the Liberal government are fighting residential school survivors in court.
People ask the questions, “What can we do? What can we do to move forward on reconciliation? What can we do to move forward to achieve justice for indigenous people?” One very concrete, clear step would be for the government to stop fighting indigenous people in court. That is a concrete step that it could take right now.
What has become very clear is that symbolic gestures are not good enough. We need concrete action.
I rise in the House to ask the Liberal government to do the work it has put off for far too long.
The discovery of 215 children buried at the site of the Kamloops residential school shocked the country. Families, indigenous communities and people all over the country are mourning the loss of these children.
This discovery is further proof of genocidal acts in Canada. Residential schools were designed to kill indigenous people, to kill the Indian in the child, and to take away their language, culture, traditions and, ultimately, their lives.
The survivors, families and nations demand that beyond the symbolic gestures, concrete measures be taken to move toward meaningful reconciliation.
What happened and what is happening to indigenous people can be described by no other word than one of the harshest: It is a genocide. It is clear. All of the elements of a genocide are present. The actions taken by the Canadian government have been designed to destroy a people, to eliminate a people.
In light of this discovery, in light of this clear decision by Canada to eliminate a people, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission lays out a path to justice, a real path to justice, a path that the Prime Minister committed to implementing entirely. Six years of Liberal government, six years of the Prime Minister being in power, and only a fraction of those 94 calls to action have been implemented. That is simply wrong.
We know that the government is delaying, because we see the difference in action, in priority, when the Liberals care about something. When they want something to happen, they move quickly. We saw the government move incredibly quickly, incredibly fast to deliver financial backing for banks at the beginning of this pandemic right away. There was no question, no hesitation. Massive sums of money were used to back up banks immediately without any hesitation. Where was that same commitment to indigenous people?
Commitments were made by the Prime Minister in 2015, and six years later, a fraction of those calls to action were implemented. On top of that, what people find very cynical is that while in 2019 a promise was made to ensure that any indigenous community that needed financial support for closure, to search for additional burial sites, would receive funding, two years later, nothing happened until this horrible discovery, and then the government decided to act. While it is important to act, it makes people feel very cynical about a government that makes a promise two years ago and does nothing until it is pressured by this horrific discovery.
I want to lay out, in my remaining minute and a half, what we are asking for. We are asking for the government to take concrete steps, not symbolic gestures, real steps: end the legal battles against children who are simply entitled to basic human rights and dignity, end the legal battles against survivors of residential schools, put in place an accelerated plan to deliver action on all 94 calls to action. We want to see priority given to those. We want to see supports for people who are survivors of residential schools and their communities. We want to see a progress report tabled within 10 days to see that the government is actually following up.
What we saw in Kamloops, which has shocked this entire country and left people reeling, is something that should be a moment for us to take action. It is not enough to lower the flags at half-mast. It is not enough to express condolences when the government has the power to act. In this case, action means justice for indigenous people. We have laid out the course for immediate action to walk that path.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I thank the leader of the NDP for bringing forward this motion today so we can have a very important discussion about a very important topic.
Admittedly, I do not know the intricacies of the legal dispute that is going on. I am not aware of what those are exactly. I note that the member did not reference them in his speech. I would like to understand what the legal challenge is that the member is essentially asking to be dropped. I am wondering if he could inform the House.
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-06-03 10:36 [p.7868]
Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, one of the pre-eminent reputable bodies in this country, lays out a path for what human rights are and how those decisions are made.
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal made a number of decisions that clearly stated that Canada was not equally funding indigenous children and that the government should comply with the ruling of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Instead of complying with that order, the Liberal government and this Prime Minister are fighting those kids, those who were denied equal funding, in court.
There is currently a court date set in two weeks. The Prime Minister has given orders to the government lawyers to fight these children in court. We are asking the Prime Minister to call off those lawyers and stop fighting those kids in court.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-03 10:41 [p.7868]
Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to be here representing the people of Timmins—James Bay, which is in Treaty 9 territory.
I am also devastated to be here in the wake of the discovery of the hidden graves. Canada as a nation was stunned by the discovery, but indigenous communities were not surprised. The trauma and grief that exist in these communities are the result of systemic policies that destroyed indigenous families and children in Canada. It is a genocidal policy, and it must change.
Mass graves are something we think about when we hear of Iraq, Yugoslavia or the so-called bloodlands of eastern Europe, but we have our mass graves here in Canada, the result of the war to destroy the indigenous people. It is not a historic grievance. The government will always tell us about historic wrongs. We are talking about the unbroken line that goes on to today.
I think, coming from the Catholic faith that I grew up in, of the fact that these children were buried without dignity or names. They were not statistics; they were children. They were loved, and they deserved better from this country.
I think of John Kioki, age 14, who never came home. His family still asks me where their uncle is. Where is he? Michel Matinas, age 11, never came home, as well as Michael Sutherland, age 13. The Oblates, who ran Kamloops residential school, also ran St. Anne's residential school, and they told the RCMP that the boys went missing. People know better; they know those boys are buried out there.
I think of Charlie Hunter, age 13. The church would not send his body home. The government would not send his body home. For 37 years, his beautiful family struggled to get Charlie home, and the Canadian people, in one week, raised the money necessary to get Charlie home. It was a beautiful thing. That is what we are calling for. We have to bring the children home.
More recently, Kanina Sue Turtle was 15. Amy Owen was 13. Courtney Scott from Fort Albany first nation was 16. Tammy Keeash, age 17, died in the broken, underfunded child welfare system. Jolynn Winter was 12. Chantel Fox was 12. The government was found culpable in their deaths at the human rights tribunal because it refuses to fund Jordan's principle.
We are not talking about technical matters. We are talking about the lives of children. These children have died under the watch of the government, and children have died year after year.
We lose a child every three days across this country to the broken welfare system. They die on a Monday. They die on a Wednesday. They die on a Saturday, and nobody at the provincial or federal level notices or gives a damn, but the families notice. There is the unbroken line in this war that takes us from the bodies at Kamloops residential school to the children who are being taken from their homes today, and who disappear into the gulag of hopelessness.
Members really have to talk to people who have been through this system that exists today. It will show them just how horrific it is. We are talking about systemic discrimination, systemic underfunding and the destruction of indigenous families. There is nothing theoretical here; this is lived in the lifeblood of families.
We are here today to say we have to stop the talk and start walking the walk, so we are asking for a couple of key things. The Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations has led a toxic legal war against the survivors of St. Anne's residential school. She has spent over $3 million fighting survivors, who could not even pay their own bus fare to come down to the hearings. What were these hearing about? They were about the fact that government lawyers suppressed the evidence of the torture, rape and killing of children at St. Anne's residential school, and the government does not want to give these survivors justice.
Here are a few other names.
Father Jules Leguerrier is being defended by this government. When the government was supposed to give over the legal documents about the crimes of Father Jules Leguerrier, it presented a one-page person of interest report, which went to the hearings, and people's cases were thrown out. We know that Department of Justice lawyers were sitting on a person of interest report that was 3,191 pages long, and they suppressed that evidence.
The Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations needs to explain why she is defending the legacy of Father Leguerrier and not standing up for survivors such as Maria Sackanay or Edmund Metatawabin.
Father Arthur Lavoie was a notorious criminal pedophile. The government supplied the court hearings a person of interest report that was two pages long, suppressing all the dirt and evil that man did by sitting on a document of police evidence and witness testimony that was 2,472 pages long. I thank the OPP for the incredible work it did in identifying these perpetrators, but that minister is defending him today. For the Sister Anna Wesley person of interest report, they suppressed 6,804 pages.
I encourage people to read the minister's latest request for direction, or RFD, that she brought to court fighting the St. Anne's survivors. In it, she accuses Murray Sinclair, who led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, of making her look bad, literally, because Murray Sinclair raised concerns about how the government suppressed evidence and had the St. Anne's cases thrown out.
The minister said, through her lawyers, that because Murray Sinclair told the public what was going on, he had “eroded public trust”. She also said that he had harmed survivors. That minister has no business being here. She has to leave that seat. She has lied to the people of Canada, and it cannot go on.
Let us talk about the court case of Cindy Blackstock. There were 19 non-compliance orders, and this could have been settled a long time ago when the hearings came down. The Human Rights Tribunal finally ordered the maximum compensation because it saw, and put in its findings, that this government was showing a willful and reckless disregard for the lives of the children, but the government would not negotiate and the government would not find a solution. The tribunal said that this was the worst case scenario it had seen, and it had 19 rulings against this government.
The Minister of Indigenous Services said that it would be “lazy intellectually” for him to end the court case. I am amazed at those words: “lazy intellectually”. Is that the kind of lazy that happened when poor Devon Freeman ran away from his group home outside of Hamilton? He hung from a tree for six months right across the road, and nobody went to find him. Nobody went to find this boy. That is a kind of systemic laziness, yet the minister said that he would be lazy if he ended the systemic discrimination, the willful and reckless, worst-case scenario denial of basic rights.
This is not historic discrimination. This is an ongoing and willful attack. Canada has recognized that it is not the innocent nation it thought it was. Canada has recognized that we have to do right. This is the moment, and it is up to this government to show that it is willing to do right.
It has been three years since the House called on the Catholic Church to join us on the path of reconciliation, but it is still refusing. It is still refusing to turn over the documents and refusing to pay the money it is supposed to. The Pope is still not complying with the call to apologize because of the Catholic bishops in this country who are blocking him. We know that right now the Catholic Church is not playing its part in dealing with these crimes.
However, our role in the House is to say to this federal government that it and Canada are complicit in the crimes. It has to end. We are calling on this Prime Minister to end the legal battle against the children and to respect the ruling of the Human Rights Tribunal, which is not optional. Being found guilty of systemic discrimination is not something to opt in or out of; it is a finding and a ruling to which the government must respond.
We call on the minister of Crown services to stop her toxic war with the survivors of St. Anne's. She has never, ever called the survivors. She has never offered to sit down. They do not want big money; they want justice. They want her to admit that a wrong was done.
We need to end the toxic legal wars. We have to do it for the 215 children and for all the children we lose every third day in our country.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-03 10:56 [p.7871]
Mr. Speaker, I would ask my hon. colleague this. Is she aware that her government has spent over $9 million fighting Cindy Blackstock in court? It spent over $3 million going after the survivors of St. Anne's. I would think that money would be much better spent on reconciliation and building a better nation rather than being spent on lawyers and destroying the reputation of the Prime Minister. These actions are corrosive.
I ask my hon. colleague if the Liberals are going to support us. Will she ask the Prime Minister to, no matter what, stop the legal battle that will happen in the coming weeks and call the lawyers off? What is the value of a child's life? The government says 40,000 that it is not willing to pay. It destroyed the lives of these children. What is it going to pay?
View Dan Vandal Profile
Lib. (MB)
Mr. Speaker, on the question of reconciliation, we have been clear that the overrepresentation of indigenous kids in care is a sad and dark part of our shared history that we must address.
Let me be very clear. Our government will provide comprehensive, fair and equitable compensation to all those impacted by the historic inequities in first nations and indigenous child welfare.
However, compensation alone—
View Pam Damoff Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, to begin, I would like to acknowledge that I am speaking today from the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, from my home in the riding of Oakville North—Burlington.
One week ago today, I was shocked and saddened to learn of the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops residential school. I was outraged that these children were stolen and never able to return home to the families and communities that loved them.
The tragedy of Canada's residential school system was born from colonialism and systemic racism. We acknowledge the lasting and damaging impact of residential schools. It is very important to learn about and remember the past. The history of residential schools was not taught when I was a student. Reflecting on this, it is because Canada did not think it was doing anything wrong. One hundred and fifty thousand indigenous children were ripped from their parents' arms and sent to residential schools. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission documented the deaths of more than 6,000 indigenous children as a result of residential schools. The true figure could be much higher, and Canada did not think it was doing anything wrong.
I want to share some of the details of the Kamloops residential school, so that we know and remember the truth of this wicked institution. It opened on May 19, 1890. It was situated on the Kamloops Indian Reserve No. 1 close to town. In the late 1940s and 1950s, the school was thought to be the largest residential school in Canada. The Kamloops school was one of at least 22 residential schools in British Columbia mandated by the federal government and run by various religious orders. Attendance at the school became mandatory for indigenous children in the 1920s, but many parents resisted the laws and tried to hide their children from Indian agents. Children at the school came from all over British Columbia.
On Tuesday, the Minister of Indigenous Services read out loud in the House the names of some of the children known to have died at the Kamloops residential school so that they would not be forgotten. It is of the utmost importance that we learn more details about what happened to the children at the Kamloops school. It is something we owe to the families, as learning the truth of this tragedy is necessary for closure and to further healing and reconciliation. Families deserve to lay their children to rest. We need truth before reconciliation, and there is still much work on this shared road.
Every single person in Canada has an obligation to work toward reconciliation and decolonizing Canada. We must do this together. Our government is committed to continuing to take action to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance reconciliation across Canada. This government is committed to supporting survivors and their families, as well as communities, to locate and memorialize children who tragically died because of residential schools.
The policy of forcing children into these types of schools was meant to break family and community bonds. Children who attended the schools were not allowed to speak their indigenous languages or express their culture: In fact, the system was designed to erase indigenous culture. The impact has lasted for generations, leading to a breakdown of indigenous communities and families and alienating younger generations from cultural traditions, resulting in deep pain and intergenerational trauma.
We have offered our support in collaboration with the B.C. First Nations Health Authority to respond to needs over the coming weeks and months. We also know that communities across the country will need supports, and we are committed to working with indigenous leaders to be there in partnership with them.
I invite and urge all survivors and family members to call the National Indian Residential School Survivors Crisis Line if they need support. This line has been set up to provide emotional and crisis referral services to former residential school students. It is available 24 hours a day at 1-866-925-4419.
All indigenous peoples can access the Hope for Wellness Help Line. They can chat with a counsellor on its website at www.hopeforwellness.ca, or by phoning 1-855-242-3310.
The Indian residential schools resolution health support program offers access to elders, traditional healers and other community-based cultural supports. It also offers emotional supports, professional mental health counselling and help with the cost of transportation to access services. These services are available to eligible individuals regardless of their indigenous status or where they live.
We recognize that there will be an ongoing need for access to mental wellness supports and services relating to childhood and intergenerational trauma.
Former students of Indian residential schools and their family members can also count on the support of more than 60 mental wellness community-led teams that provide culturally safe mental health services and clinical supports to 344 first nations and Inuit communities.
We are working in close partnership with the Government of Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated to respond to the mental wellness needs of Inuit in the territory. Through this partnership, the government is contributing $224.5 million over 10 years through the Nunavut wellness agreement for community wellness initiatives.
In 2020-21, $19.9 million in funding is being allocated to the Government of Nunavut and community organizations for mental wellness teams and other mental wellness services. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Canada is providing additional support so indigenous communities can adapt and expand mental wellness services.
We recently proposed to provide $597.6 million over three years for a distinctions-based mental health and wellness strategy with first nations, Inuit and the Métis Nation that includes continuing supports for former residential school students and their families. This will build on existing strengths, help address gaps and be responsive to current, emerging and future needs.
Wellness is not just about our mental and physical health, it is also about the vitality of our communities. To this end, we are working with indigenous leadership and communities on the implementation of the act respecting first nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families, which affirms and recognizes indigenous peoples’ jurisdiction over child and family services to reduce the number of indigenous children in care.
This will put in place what indigenous peoples across this country have been asking of governments for decades: that their jurisdiction over child and family services be affirmed so that they can decide what is best for their children and their families. It also establishes national principles such as the best interests of the child, cultural continuity and substantive equality.
As of last month, there are 29 indigenous governing bodies that represent 67 indigenous groups and communities that have given notice to Indigenous Services Canada that they will exercise their inherent right to jurisdiction under the act.
Through my role as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services, I have participated in discussions with some of these indigenous communities that are engaged in coordination agreement tables. Each table is unique and may require a different plan of action, including capacity-building, new programming or whatever the community decides is needed. We are also working with provincial and territorial leadership to ensure smooth transition. These conversations have demonstrated to me the essential nature of this work.
Our government is committed to continuing this process, which is why budget 2021 proposes to provide $73.6 million over four years to support the implementation of the act. This funding will allow us to recognize our shared goal of increasing the number of communities exercising jurisdiction in relation to child and family services and decreasing the number of children in care.
In addition to our commitment to mental health and child and family services, we are not wavering from our pledge to provide fair and equitable compensation for first nations children who were removed from their homes, families and communities. We will compensate survivors and will work to ensure that no child ever has to go through this treatment again. We are committed to providing indigenous children with access to necessary supports and services at home, in their communities and with their families.
I will close by saying the tragic discovery in Kamloops is a reminder of why the work of truth and reconciliation is vital for our country.
View Louise Charbonneau Profile
BQ (QC)
View Louise Charbonneau Profile
2021-06-03 11:43 [p.7877]
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his sensitivity with respect to this tragedy.
As a mother and grandmother, I can imagine the immeasurable grief of these children's parents, and I want to extend my most sincere condolences to the nation affected and the indigenous people of Quebec and Canada. The Bloc Québécois will support the NDP motion.
Does my colleague believe that the government should abandon the legal action against indigenous children and apply the Jordan principle?
View Dan Albas Profile
CPC (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear that the Bloc member and her party will be supporting the fourth party's motion today, because I do believe the motivations are good.
When it comes to the individual cases, I would say that quasi-judicial bodies like tribunals are made for specific purposes. I was quite surprised to see that it originally ruled that it would hear this case. That being said, it is independent, but, like all independent quasi-judicial tribunals, there is an appeal process. What I have heard from the government is that it is its intention to compensate. If the process is taking too long, and I believe it is, then we must ask those questions. We need to compensate people fairly and equitably, so I hope that the government will take this opportunity of today's motion to make it clear how we will proceed moving forward.
View Alexandre Boulerice Profile
NDP (QC)
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his well-researched speech. He is obviously extremely familiar with the matter and genuinely concerned about the key issue raised by the discovery that shocked us all this week.
He touched on several important points, including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action and the amounts needed to investigate in order to learn more. Does he not also think that we should stop spending public money on lawyers to challenge Canadian Human Rights Tribunal orders concerning indigenous children in Federal Court?
View Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. In examining this file, it becomes evident that it contains a rather large contradiction. In fact, the amounts spent on litigation almost equal the amounts that were truly invested in reconciliation, which is quite troubling. I agree with the statement of the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
2021-06-03 12:14 [p.7882]
Madam Speaker, yesterday marked the end of the public hearings regarding the tragic death of Joyce Echaquan on September 28. We anxiously await the coroner's report.
Yesterday, thousands of people gathered in Trois-Rivières to demand justice so that this never happens again. The Atikamekw of Manawan, Wemotaci and Opitciwan, other first nations and white people all gathered to say “never again”.
The chief of the Atikamekw Council of Manawan, Paul-Émile Ottawa, said, “Without that video [taken by Joyce Echaquan], her death would have been considered just one of many. She is dead because people wanted her to die. She is dead because people did her wrong, but justice will be done. Justice will prevail.”
Joyce Echaquan's husband, Carol Dubé said, “This is just the beginning. I want changes to be made, and I am hopeful that they will be.”
As politicians, we have a duty to show solidarity and an obligation to get results. On that subject, at the same gathering yesterday, Ghislain Picard, chief of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador, stated, “Many people think that things are not going fast enough and that it is too easy for governments to offload responsibility onto future governments, which is unfortunately the case. I think that today's gathering, which coincides with the end of the coroner's hearing, is the right time to remind the government of that.”
We have an obligation to get results. Yes, we need to acknowledge injustice and racism. Yes, we must condemn injustice and racism, but what we really need to do is to take concrete action, adopt policies to make sure that all this stops and that things change. That is our job, and we have an obligation to get results. That begins with changing the old, racist Indian Act. Even the name is racist. It starts by really implementing the recommendations in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's final report.
The discovery of the remains of 215 children on the site of the former residential school in Kamloops leaves me speechless. It is a horror story. It is so tragic that I cannot find words for it. In all humility, I share the pain of the grieving families. In all humility, I would like to offer my sincerest condolences to the Secwépemc nation and to all indigenous peoples in Quebec and Canada, joined in mourning and suffering.
Like many people, I also fear that the discovery of these 215 small victims is only the beginning of a long series of unspeakable tragedies. This new tragedy reveals Canada's sad history, the history of residential schools, in operation for more than a century, from 1892 to 1996. The residential school system was the cornerstone of the assimilationist regime imposed on first nations.
More than 150,000 children were torn from their families, their friends, their community. They were forced to attend these institutions and to forget their language, their culture and their identity. They were made to feel ashamed of what they were. In anthropology, this is referred to as ethnocide or cultural genocide, which means to eradicate a people. The ultimate aim of the residential schools was to kill the Indian in the child. Once taken from their homes and made vulnerable, the children were subjected to violence, sexual assault and murder. How many gratuitous, criminal and unpunished killings took place in these schools?
Canada has a duty to remember what happened. Canada's history is dark and sad. Its history is one of imperialism and colonialism, a legacy of the British Empire. The hands of the father of Confederation, Sir John A. Macdonald, are soiled by injustice and racism. Compelled by a desire for the never-ending accumulation of profit and capital, the British Empire and Canada crushed the first peoples and rode roughshod over their rights so they could get their hands on the first people's lands and resources. That was the world view behind the creation of residential schools and the ensuing horror. That was the philosophy that enabled Canada to view the first peoples as an underclass of humanity and their misery and everything that was done to them as unimportant.
Canada has trivialized the disappearance and murder of indigenous women, girls and children. A member of the Atikamekw of Manawan community told me a story. For years and years, the community superintendent was usually a retired soldier who created a climate of terror.
An Atikamekw man refused to allow a large forestry company to cut down trees on his family land. The superintendent falsely diagnosed him with tuberculosis and forced him to go to a sanatorium for two years. When he returned to the community, his land had been cleared and he had contracted tuberculosis
So much trauma leaves scars and breeds mistrust.
To make itself feel better about pillaging resources, Canada reduced the first nations to a sub-class of humans, making the abuse seem more acceptable. All of this was done with the complicity of the church, one in particular I am especially ashamed of. The church believed it was spreading a message of love, but by aligning with imperialism they brought in hatred, horror and sadness, all in the name of “civilizing” the indigenous peoples. It is disgusting.
Unfortunately, there is nothing new about all this horror. This was and is the modus operandi of empires around the world, whether in Africa, Asia, Oceania or the Americas. Every empire has its own way of destroying minority peoples and cultures to expand its dominance. Canada is no exception. The history of Canada could have been a history of respect, collaboration and sharing among the various peoples. Instead it was a history of struggle, and the first nations were the primary victims.
They suffered unspeakable harm. The injustice persists to this day. The situation of first nations is proof of that. I am thinking about Joyce. I am calling for justice. I am thinking about all the communities that still do not have access to clean drinking water, and where there is still no equality in services to indigenous peoples and other Canadians. The injustice persists. Unfortunately, it is still downplayed, because the concept of subclass has been inculcated in our society for so long that it is still alive and well. We need to end this historically unacceptable prejudice. It has to stop.
The road to reconciliation will be a long and difficult one, but we as politicians have a key role to play today. We need to act now to effect change. Six years have passed since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presented its recommendations. We still have not done anything. The federal government is quick to make speeches and express its intentions, but is slow to take concrete action to really change the situation.
In closing, I would like once again acknowledge all the pain felt by the grieving families. In all humility, I share in it and once again offer my sincerest condolences to the Secwépemc nation as well as to all first nations people.
My political party is obviously in favour of every item in the motion. The federal government needs to immediately drop its legal case against indigenous children and apply Jordan's principle across the board.
This is a reasonable proposal with a view to reaching an amicable settlement. It is appalling that the government is spending millions of dollars in legal fees to avoid compensating the victims of St. Anne's residential school. My party is urging the government to act quickly to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action 71 to 78.
As the commission indicated in its report, “assisting families to learn the fate of children who died in residential schools; locating unmarked graves; and maintaining, protecting, and commemorating residential school cemeteries are vital to healing and reconciliation.”
As the commission pointed out, it is all the more urgent to implement these calls to action because, as time passes, cemeteries are disappearing bit by bit, and the survivors who are able to testify to their experience are getting older and still have no idea of what happened to their brothers, sisters and other relatives.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recently declared that it is essential that Canada address the issue. Obviously, the victims and survivors and their families and communities are entitled to the resources they need to help them overcome the emotional, physical, spiritual, material and cultural trauma inflicted by the residential schools.
Lastly, it is imperative that there be an appropriate and timely follow-up of the progress of the implementation of the commission's calls to action in order to ensure true justice, and to see that indigenous people are no longer discriminated against and that Joyce Echaquan obtains justice.
View Alexandre Boulerice Profile
NDP (QC)
Madam Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.
My colleague will share his opinion on the important motion that my party moved today. The motion has to do with a tragic event in history, and we hope that this grim discovery will mark the last chapter in this tragedy. The remains of 215 children were discovered in Kamloops, near a former residential school. These missing boys and girls were robbed of their lives.
I have to admit that I was stunned by this discovery, as were most Quebeckers, Canadians and people around the world who read about or saw this sad story on the news. I was particularly touched by the gestures made by our fellow citizens, who placed children's shoes on the steps of some public buildings. In my opinion, that is a good way to demonstrate that those who lost their lives were human beings. They were not just a statistic. They were individuals who suffered a shocking injustice. The families endured terrible suffering because of the secrecy surrounding these disappearances, and they are still suffering today. There was a very high mortality rate in residential schools.
I would like to come back to the principle of residential schools.
In my opinion, this topic was not talked about enough in school. We were sometimes taught an idealized view of the relationship with first nations and trade with first nations. It seems as though the issue of residential schools, which were run by the Catholic Church, was glossed over because no one wanted to talk about it. However, we have a collective and historic responsibility with regard to the harm that was done to these people.
The former Kamloops residential school was one of 139 residential schools that existed in Canada for a century. Earlier, one of my colleagues pointed out that an estimated 150,000 children were ripped from their families and placed in these institutions.
I cannot imagine going about my life in a neighbourhood or a village and seeing whites and priests literally swoop in and steal all the children. It was mass kidnapping. It was cultural genocide. It is proof of deeply rooted colonialism and racism toward first nations.
I cannot imagine my children and my neighbours' children being taken away. In this case, literally every child in the village was taken away. From one day to the next, they were just gone. The goal was to kill the Indian in the child, to separate children from their roots, their culture, their language and their spirituality. The authorities tried to turn these children into carbon copies of the white settlers and Christians who ran the institutions. It was an indescribable horror. The former Kamloops residential school may just be the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately. All levels of government are going to have to work really hard and really fast to get to the bottom of what happened. We have to know what happened so that families can find closure once and for all and grieve. That is crucial.
Earlier, I said that this tragedy had attracted worldwide attention. As a matter of fact, this week, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights asked the federal government and the governments of every province and territory to take steps to initiate an investigation, carry out the necessary searches and protect documentation. If any documents are damaged, destroyed or lost, we will not be able to get to the bottom of this tragedy.
Today, everyone agrees that we need more than words. Concrete gestures need to be made. For too long now, the federal government has been either denying this problem, looking the other way or dragging its feet, which we have seen it do a lot in recent years. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission wrapped up six years ago. Of the 94 recommendations that the commission made, only 10 have been implemented. There is still an enormous amount of work ahead to take the measures that need to be taken.
I mentioned this earlier, but we as New Democrats and progressives find it extremely unfortunate, hurtful and offensive when the federal government says one thing and does the opposite. On the one hand, it is saying all the right things, expressing sorrow and apologizing, and those are all great, because they are a good first step. On the other hand, the federal government is paying lawyers to represent it in Federal Court to challenge rulings by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal dealing with the rights of indigenous children and compensation for victims of residential schools.
It is not spending small amounts. For all of its legal challenges in Federal Court, the federal government has spent a total of $9.4 million so far to dispute compensation for residential school victims and rights violations caused by the underfunding of indigenous child welfare services. It is crazy. In the St. Anne's residential school case alone, the federal government has paid lawyers $3 million to challenge the rights of residential school victims.
We believe this absolutely must change. Once again, we are faced with the sad evidence of this colonialism and systemic racism, with the discovery of these 215 children's bodies buried in secret. It is proof that the dehumanization of first nations and indigenous peoples continues, and we all have a duty to work together for reconciliation, a better agreement and better mutual understanding.
We know that is not being done. A few minutes ago, the member for Joliette cited the tragic death of Joyce Echaquan at the Joliette hospital as evidence that the first nations are enduring discrimination, institutional bias, racism and systemic racism, sometimes at risk to their own lives. It is not just a matter of being negatively perceived or misunderstood, because this affects people's health and sometimes even their life.
Throughout this entire process of reconciliation and dialogue, we have to be consistent and take meaningful action. Under Canadian colonialism, first nations peoples were ignored and hurt, subjected to cultural genocide and shunted off to parks or reserves so they would no longer be seen or heard. Occasional progress is being made, but some communities feel like there are two different worlds that do not get along and ignore each other.
Unfortunately, there is still a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance about the realities of the first nations, who were living here before the arrival of European settlers. Sometimes they are our neighbours, but we do not know much about them, and we do not understand them. I think we need to make an effort to change that.
As a columnist pointed out this week, the news from Kamloops is not really news, sadly. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission told us that nearly 3,000 children may have died in or disappeared from residential schools. Another piece of bad news is that there was a tuberculosis epidemic in 1907. Peter Henderson Bryce, the chief medical officer at the time, noted that the mortality rate in residential schools went from 24% to 42% in three years. One residential school even had a child mortality rate of 76%, higher than the mortality rate of a World War II concentration camp.
We need to conduct searches and uncover the truth. Unfortunately, I fear that we will uncover more unmarked mass graves like the one in Kamloops.
View Alistair MacGregor Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Speaker, I really struggled with trying to find the words to say during today's speech. I will start with an acknowledgement of this moment, the opportunity before the House and its members, and also of the trauma that is being relived right now by survivors and their families with the news this week.
I also want to acknowledge that I am privileged to represent a riding that encompasses the territories of many indigenous people, which include the Stz’uminus, the Penelakut, the Halalt, the Lyackson, the Cowichan, the Malahat, Ditidaht, Pacheedaht and the Lekwungen-speaking Coast Salish people. I know many of them are survivors and send my thoughts out to them for the difficult journey they have in trying to deal with this trauma.
The discovery of unmarked and undocumented graves of 215 children at the Kamloops residential school has reopened so many wounds that have never healed. It has reignited a discussion about the federal government's continued failure to properly address this shameful episode of our country's history and it has highlighted its continued hypocrisy. As Justice Murray Sinclair mentioned when the TRC report was presented, it is a sure thing that more unmarked graves will be found in the future.
Back in February 2015, I took a trip up Vancouver Island to Alert Bay, which is about four hours away from where I live. I went there because I was attending a healing and cleansing ceremony for the St. Michael's residential school on Alert Bay, which is on the traditional territory of the Namgis First Nation. Up until that point, because it was never mentioned during my time in school, I had never really fully grasped the history of the horrors of the residential school system in Canada.
After the healing and cleansing ceremony ended, I saw survivors of St. Michael's approach the building and scream in rage and anguish as they hurled bricks through its windows. I saw them collapse in tears after that huge emotional release. It is then that I finally grasped just what survivors have gone through, when I saw the emotional torrent come from people standing in front of a now empty building and what that building represented to them. That was a very powerful moment for me and it is one that has stuck with me all these years.
Members of Parliament often get comments from people about why residential schools still matter and why indigenous people cannot just get over this episode and move on. This was forced assimilation, a genocide that was inflicted upon an entire people. Indigenous people did not send their children to these schools. Children were forcibly ripped away from their families. They were forced to forget their culture, language and history. They were neglected, abused, both sexually and physically, and they died, often with no notice given to their families. The undocumented and unmarked graves were often a final resting place and that is a testament to how little value was placed on these children's lives, by both the federal government and the Catholic church that ran the schools. It is complete evidence of a system that just did not care. It was a system that sought to hide the brutal results of the way it operated.
The creation of Canada's residential school system was the result of colonial laws, policies and practices that failed to recognize and implement basic human rights. I am a parent of three beautiful girls. I try to comprehend the state arriving on my doorstep one day and forcibly removing them, never being able to see them again. That is a parent's worst nightmare. One does not just get over that.
There are the survivors who returned, and there is the intergenerational trauma that has affected entire communities. There is no indigenous person in Canada who is not in some way affected by this brutal and traumatic event in our history. Let us make that extremely clear from the get-go.
With respect to my Liberal colleagues, I know there are good intentions on the government side. They have made repeated promises to finally do this work, but they have not been fulfilled. We continue to see platitudes and symbolism in response, when it is quite clear we are well past the time for action.
This is a government that has only implemented a fraction of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. I will remind my hon. colleagues that these are not recommendations; they are called “calls to action” for a reason. This is a government that continues to fight a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruling on the systemic discrimination against indigenous children, and that spends millions of dollars fighting residential school survivors in court.
As an example, the federal government is heading toward trial on a class action lawsuit that is seeking reparations for the devastation the residential schools inflicted on first nation cultures, language and communities. The federal government, in its court filings, is denying any legal responsibility. It is saying that the loss of language and culture was an unavoidable implication of children being taught in English or the Christian doctrine.
That is just so beyond the reality of what happened. What was avoidable was the policy of forceably sending these children to schools where they were completely disconnected from their language, culture and history. We have a continued policy of federal government lawyers being completely at odds with where we need to be as a nation if we are to move forward.
Today's debate has made me also think of all of the times Canada has stood on the world stage over the last number of decades and lectured other countries on their human rights record while remaining wilfully ignorant of the rampant abuses in our own backyard. If that is not the most damning example of hypocrisy, I do not know what is. Because this news is now international, I think other countries around the world have every right to call us out on that rampant hypocrisy. When I think of the mass graves of children that are undocumented and unaccounted for, words fail me. We are going to find more of these. That is an unavoidable fact.
When I speak to my constituents about this, the overwhelming response has been a very real sense of frustration. They are tired of the lofty rhetoric, continued commitments and the constant repetition that no relationship is more important than that with indigenous people. If it is, then it is time act like it is. My constituents want to see action.
This pandemic has demonstrated just how quickly governments can move in times of crisis, both in changing policy and delivering assistance. If this is not a time of crisis, if this is not a watershed moment for us to look at ourselves in the mirror and figure out where we actually want to be, I do not know what is. I keep waiting. When are we going to reach that moment when the straw finally breaks the camel's back and we will start to see that movement?
This brings me to today's motion. It sets out not everything we can do, but an initial couple of steps. There are a limited number of options we have as members of the opposition, but one of the tools we have is enforcing House debate on a motion of our choosing and getting an eventual vote on it. I have heard members of other opposition parties indicate they are supporting the motion, but have yet to hear any of the Liberal MPs indicate that they are. I think it would be a very powerful message if this motion passed with the unanimous consent of the House.
In conclusion, I would ask that members of the government vote in favour of this motion. I know it is non-binding, but at least they could signal that they understand the action that needs to be taken. Hopefully, this will lead us to being on the road to the systemic change we must absolutely see.
View Pam Damoff Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, my colleague gave a very heartfelt speech today.
The other night during debate, the member for Northwest Territories said, “It is time to move forward. It is time to take action. We have to start moving and get all the TRC recommendations done.” We all agree with that, and the member mentioned it in his speech.
The TRC had a full section on child welfare, and I know the hon. member was part of the last Parliament when we passed Bill C-92. In 2020, the government allocated $542 million for capacity building and agreement tables to implement Bill C-92. There was additional funding in budget 2021.
I just wonder what the hon. member's thoughts are on the importance of implementing Bill C-92 so that we do not have children being taken out of their communities and away from their families, and on returning the inherent right to indigenous communities to look after their own children and provide—
View Alistair MacGregor Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Speaker, yes, I was in the previous Parliament when we debated that legislation, and I will admit that some of the measures announced in previous budgets were beneficial.
However, if the member were to talk to Dr. Cindy Blackstock about those measures, I think the member would see that she welcomed them, but she says they do not go far enough. We still have a case in which the government has not yet fully complied with the orders of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, and that is a real problem.
Therefore, I would ask the parliamentary secretary to build upon what has been done already and realize that much more is needed to be done. I hope she will find it in her heart, when this motion comes to a vote, to join members of the opposition and present a unanimous voice of the House on this particular motion.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Speaker, today I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Vancouver Centre.
Kwe. Unusakut. Tansi. Hello. Bonjour. I want to acknowledge that I am speaking today from the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.
Indigenous communities, families and friends are hurting. Emotions are high, and the pain is real. For indigenous people, the events this week may not be a surprise. It does not make it less of a shock or less painful. There is not a single community that is not grieving today. The news that came from Kamloops last week has opened up wounds that were not closed, even if people thought they were closed.
Our thoughts and actions at this time must support the communities and families in recovering the truth, so that they could continue to heal. We cannot heal without the truth, as painful as it is. It is on the hearts and minds of all Canadians, and frankly, if it is not, it should be.
Over the past week, people have shared piercing and atrocious anecdotes that really show what kind of places those facilities were, and indeed the testimonials today from members in the House certainly reinforces that. I thank them for their testimonials.
I was reminded by a faith healer friend who I rely heavily upon that, for example, the Mohawk Institute in Six Nations had an orchard and had apples, but the kids could not eat them. They were punished if they did. There were chickens, but the kids could not take the eggs because the eggs were sent to market. The only time they would get one was at Easter. Calling those places schools is to use a euphemism. They were labour camps, and people starved.
I know people are eager to get answers as to what the federal government will do, what we will do nationally and what Canada will do. Let me say this clearly, we will be there for indigenous communities that want to continue the search for the truth.
The reality is that this is something that will be dictated to us by the communities that are affected, as set forth notably in call to action 76 in the body of the Truth and Reconciliation Report. We will be there for communities. We do have to respect the privacy, space and mourning period of those communities that are collecting their thoughts and putting together their protocols as to how to honour these children. They have asked us specifically for that. We will do that, and Canadians must respect that.
Yesterday, the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations announced $27 million in funding to support the ongoing NCTR and to implement calls to action 74 to 76. This will fund support for survivors, their families and communities across Canada to locate and memorialize children who died or went missing while attending residential schools.
We also have to look one another right in the eyes and face the fact that the general public either misunderstands or is ignorant of certain chapters of our history, especially the most painful ones. This truth is hard to bear, particularly for the indigenous communities affected and for the individuals and families who are reliving very painful parts of their own history or that of their parents, cousins, uncles and aunts.
As leaders, politicians and members of Parliament, it is also our role to educate and contribute to that education. In light of what we have learned this week, it is once again clear that many more truths remain to be uncovered. Explanations are needed. Too often, that explanation comes from indigenous peoples themselves. Too often, the job of educating Canadians has fallen to them, and, too often, we do not transmit that knowledge to our children. Fortunately, children are now learning about this in school, and they are telling us the harsh truth about what happened. Placing this burden on indigenous peoples is not fair. It should not be their burden to carry.
I repeat: We will be there for indigenous communities and families. We will support the search for truth and we will implement calls to action 72 to 76, among others, with an initial investment of $27 million. This funding will be distributed according to the priorities and requests of the communities themselves.
The government's role is to financially support communities in their grieving and healing process, as the wounds are still very fresh in this case. The communities will decide themselves whether they want to proceed with more extensive searches or not.
In this particular case, we spoke directly with indigenous leaders in Kamloops and the surrounding communities to offer mental health and security services, because emotions are running high, but we will respect the space they asked us to respect.
Obviously, this is painful for families who may have had uncles, aunts or cousins who disappeared and were never heard from again, but the key point here is that the Government of Canada will be there with the necessary support and funding for the communities that need it.
One of the many things being highlighted and underscored this week, in the midst of the heartache in Kamloops, is that indigenous children belong with their families and communities. Kids belong at home, where they can be with their relatives and elders; where they can learn their nation's culture, language and traditions; and where they can be given back all that was taken from, their parents and their grandparents. Bill C-92 affirms this inherent right. I would note that this basic right is one that the rest of us take for granted.
All of us share the responsibility to ensure this happens. The number of indigenous children who have been taken away in care in recent years far exceeds the number who attended residential schools. That should set in. In 2016, more than 52% of children in foster care in Canada were indigenous, and they account for 7% of the child population. The truth is that for children taken away from their community, their connections to their cultures and traditions were impacted too.
Fixing a broken system requires long-term reforms. The Government of Canada is determined to eliminate and continues to eliminate these discriminatory policies and practices against indigenous children, and we are doing it hand-in-hand with indigenous partners. The Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families, which responds to calls to action, is a new way forward. Indigenous governments and communities have always been empowered to decide what is best for their children, their families and their communities, and the act provides a path for them to fully exercise and lift up that jurisdiction.
As a result of this work, led by indigenous communities, two indigenous laws are now enforced: the Wabaseemoong Independent Nations law in Ontario and the Miyo Pimatisowin Act of the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan. In each of these communities, children will have greater opportunity to grow up immersed in their culture and surrounded by loved ones. They will be welcomed home.
We are moving closer to achieving our shared ultimate goal of reducing the number of indigenous children in care. Systemic reform of the child and family services system is one important step. Compensation for past harms is another.
Since the CHRT issued its first order for Canada to cease its discriminatory practices in 2016, we have been working with first nations leaders and partners to implement the tribunal's orders.
We have the same goal of fair and equitable compensation. Let me be clear that no first nations children will be denied fair and equitable compensation. Children should not be denied the products or services they need because governments cannot agree on who will pay for them. It is why, via Jordan's principle, we have funded approximately $2 billion in services, speech therapy, educational supports, medical equipment, mental health services and so much more. This is transformative and the right thing to do.
The government is not questioning or challenging the notion that first nations children who were removed from their homes, families and communities should be compensated. We are committed to providing first nations children with access to the necessary supports and services, but it is important to obtain clarity on certain limited issues, which is why we brought the judicial review forward. We need to focus on what is really important, ensuring fair and equitable compensation of first nations children affected by the child and family services program and that first nations children have access to the supports they need when they need them.
I would remind the House that there are also two competing class actions that deal essentially with the same group of children. We are, nevertheless, in discussions with the parties to the various cases, but those discussions must remain confidential out of respect.
Finally, no court case can achieve the transformative change that we need to achieve as a country.
As the recent discovery in Kamloops reminds us once again, every child in this country should have the support and services they need to thrive.
Removing a child from their family or community must be an absolute last resort. We need to do the work to change the system and ensure that every person is treated equally and fairly, without prejudice or injustice, and with respect and dignity. It is our responsibility as a government and as Canadians who want to make Canada a better place for everyone.
We cannot change the past, but we can learn from it and find ways to right some historic wrongs, to acknowledge what never should have happened and do everything we can to ensure a better future.
Meegwetch. Nakurmik. Masi cho.
View Taylor Bachrach Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the remarks from the member for Vancouver Centre. Some of what she said concerned me because I believe she was suggesting that it is inappropriate for Parliament to call on the government to take immediate and substantial action in this moment.
She said at one point that we should heed what indigenous people are telling us. The indigenous people who are speaking to me are telling me that the progress on implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action has been far too slow, that the actions of the government have not measured up to what is required.
My question is whether the member will support this motion, which I believe very closely reflects the calls we are hearing from indigenous people that the government should not be fighting indigenous kids in court, that it should be investing far more and taking far more dramatic actions to implement the calls to action. Will she support that motion?
View Hedy Fry Profile
Lib. (BC)
View Hedy Fry Profile
2021-06-03 13:27 [p.7892]
Madam Speaker, I think it is interesting that we just talked about listening and heeding what people were saying. I did not say that. That is not what I said. I did not say that Parliament should not have a say in moving forward.
I do think we have taken a long time, but we have taken the time that we were asked to take as we moved along with every single first nation clearly as they were ready to move forward. We have said that we would do that and we have been doing it.
What I wanted to talk a little about is this. Let us not run off and say we have to do it now, we must do it within a certain period of time, because that means that we are not listening. We are not listening to what indigenous people are telling us about some of the things they need.
The hon. member knows that no one is taking indigenous kids to court. We know that the Human Rights Tribunal made some recommendations that were outside of its scope. That is why we are having a judicial inquiry into this—
View Taylor Bachrach Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Speaker, I am joining the debate today from the unceded lands of the Wet’suwet’en people. It is an honour to be sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg Centre.
Canadians have been shocked to learn the truth that indigenous people have been telling us for a long time. The validation of 215 unmarked burial sites near Kamloops has brought intense grief, despair and pain to indigenous people right across the country. My heart is with them today, especially the survivors of the residential schools that once stood in northwest B.C. at Lejac, Kitimat, Port Simpson and Lower Post. My heart is with them and their families.
I say “once stood”, but in Lower Post, a small village of the Daylu Dena just south of the B.C.-Yukon border, the residential school still stands. In fact, since the 1970s, this community has been forced to use the former residential school as its band office. I went there two winters ago and heard stories of how elders who suffered abuse in that building were forced to walk through its doors again and again to access basic services. Survivor Fred Lutz, who was the deputy chief at the time, took me to the basement and showed me the dark place behind the stairs. It is an image that will stay with me forever.
The Daylu Dena have been calling for the demolition and replacement of that building for years. It was good to hear just recently that in a few short weeks, it will finally be demolished. That is thanks to the leadership of people like Deputy Chief Harlan Schilling, former deputy chief Fred Lutz, their councils and others in their community. A new building will finally be built for the Daylu Dena. It is a long overdue step in the healing process and we have to ask ourselves why it took us so long.
I know a lot of non-indigenous people are feeling sad about the tragic discovery near Kamloops, but what I hear from indigenous people is that having us indulge in our sadness does not make the situation they face any better. What they want us to do, especially those of us in positions of power and influence, is to fight like hell for real action in this moment when people care about something they should have cared about a long time ago. That is where this motion comes from. We must act now.
How is it that six years later, so little progress has been made on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 calls to action? I remember when they came out in 2015: It was the year the Liberal government took power with a majority. How is it that by last year, 2020, there had only been significant progress on a quarter of the calls to action? How is it that so few of those calls have actually been completed?
A portion of this motion would require the government to accelerate implementation of the TRC calls to action related to investigating the deaths and disappearances of children at residential schools. We have heard much about that in this debate. The indigenous people I have spoken with over the past week overwhelmingly want the truth. They want to know where the other burial sites are and how many children are there. They want to know where their loved ones are. I was infuriated to learn that in 2009, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission asked the Harper government for $1.5 million to search residential school properties. Shamefully, those funds were denied. What would indigenous communities know today if that money had been granted 12 years ago?
The call to find all the lost children echoes what I have heard from the families of women and girls who have gone missing and have been murdered along the Highway of Tears in northwest B.C. where I live. I have been honoured to work alongside Brenda and Matilda Wilson, whose beloved Ramona was found murdered along Highway 16 near Smithers in 1996. We worked together to get better public transit along that highway, but what they want more than anything is to know the truth about what happened to Ramona. Twenty-five years later, they keep encouraging the RCMP's E-PANA division to continue its investigation and not stop until they finally know what happened. The families whose children were taken from them and never came home want and deserve the truth too, which is why investing resources and expertise in the residential school investigations is vital. “Truth” comes before “reconciliation” for a reason.
The other parts of this motion are important and deserve mention too. St. Anne's Indian Residential School is a long way from where I live in northwest B.C., but its story illustrates clearly the contrast between the government's carefully scripted performative gestures and its relentless denial of basic justice. I will not pretend to know the details of the St. Anne's issue as well as the member for Timmins—James Bay does, but reading about the government's fight against survivors is nothing short of enraging.
How can the federal government explain its department withholding key person-of-interest documents that would have helped justly resolve survivors' claims? How is it that the government continues to spend millions of dollars in its effort to minimize its responsibilities as a result of the Human Rights Tribunal ruling on indigenous kids in care?
In its 2016 ruling, the tribunal was crystal clear that services for indigenous children were being underfunded, and that as a result more kids were being taken away from their families. The government is fighting that ruling in court. It is arguing that because the discrimination was systemic, individuals harmed should not be entitled to compensation. The system that facilitated this harm was designed by people, and those people worked for our government. It is both astounding and infuriating. If this motion passes, I hope the government will obey the will of Parliament and call off its lawyers. The people affected by this discrimination deserve no less.
What both the St. Anne's case and the case involving indigenous child welfare show is that Canada's shameful treatment of indigenous people continues today. As one person said, it is not a chapter in our history: it is the entire plot of the book. The people in this place have the power to change it if we have the courage.
Last weekend, my friend Dolores told me that people were gathering at Lejac. It is located west of Prince George near Fraser Lake, about two hours from where I live, so I hopped in my vehicle and I drove out. Lejac is the site of the former Lejac Residential School, to which so many indigenous kids were taken from communities stretching from Prince George to Hazelton. The former school site is situated on a hill overlooking Fraser Lake. It is part of the territory of the Nadleh people.
On New Year's Day in 1937, four Nadleh boys between eight and nine years old escaped from the Lejac school. Allen Willie, Andrew Paul, Maurice Justin, and Johnny Michael set out to walk seven miles to their Nadleh home. They were found frozen to death on the ice of the lake just a mile short of their destination. It is just one of the hundreds of stories of heartbreaking loss stemming from that place.
As I drove up to the site of the former school last weekend, I was struck by how many people had travelled on short notice to be there together that day to share their collective grief, to drum and dance, to honour the survivors still among them, and to stand in solidarity with the families of the children whose remains were found only a few days earlier. I was struck by their resilience and their strength.
Most of all, I will remember Lheidli T’enneh singer Kym Gouchie calling all the children present into the centre of the circle. She taught them the actions for a kids' song that she wrote. As she sang, they followed along, touching their toes and reaching for the sky and singing out the words, and the instructions got faster and faster and the children's laughter rose. Dozens of indigenous kids laughing and dancing on the exact same ground where that horrible school once stood was an expression of joy in a week with so much pain. I will remember that hopeful sight for a long time and it makes me more determined than ever to fight for the justice that the motion before us represents.
I urge every member in this place to vote for this. After the flags go back up and the news media moves on, let us show indigenous people that we still hear them and are willing to act.
View Leah Gazan Profile
NDP (MB)
View Leah Gazan Profile
2021-06-03 13:47 [p.7895]
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his beautiful speech.
I want to start out today by sending my sincere solidarity to all the survivors, families and communities that were shaken once again by the discovery at the Kamloops residential school, particularly the Tk’emlúps te Secwe´pemc First Nation. I lift them them up today and every day.
The TRC reported that at least 40% to 60% of all children who attended the schools died, and sometimes, as I indicated yesterday, according to Mary-Ellen Kelm, as a result of purposely exposing children to infections such as TB, spreading the disease throughout the school population. Murray Sinclair, who chaired the TRC, has indicated that he believes the death count could be much higher due to the schools' poor burial records, as many as 25,000. These are burial grounds that we know about, but the current government has failed to act to bring our loved ones home.
On calls to action 71 to 76 of the TRC report, former lead commissioner Murray Sinclair has indicated there has been no action. Once again, it was left up to indigenous peoples to find our own loved ones.
These findings have left shockwaves of trauma, grief, hurt and betrayal throughout indigenous nations across the country, as a result of the violent genocide perpetrated against indigenous children and families simply for being who they were, for no other reason than to advance the government's economic agenda, behaviours that continue today. These violent acts were rooted in the violent dispossession of lands, eradicating our cultures and leaving us sometimes sheltered on our very own lands. This included attempting to assimilate our children to get us out of the way, which we are now finding out resulted in the deaths of thousands of children, a genocide.
Here we are again today fighting to get immediate resources and support from the government in order to, at the very least, provide families with closure as a result of this genocide. We are fighting with the federal government to stop fighting first nations kids in court and St. Anne's residential school survivors. This is a government that will not even acknowledge that what it committed and continues to commit against indigenous peoples in Canada is genocide. The hope of achieving some sort of justice and closure is waning.
Former commissioner Murray Sinclair stated:
I can hear not only the pain and the anguish, but also the anger that no one believed the stories they had told. I can also hear their sense that they have lost some hope that maybe those children that hadn't returned might still be found. They now know that may not happen.
These are the sacred lives of children exposed to acts of genocide who never returned home, which was a violent violation of human rights.
Let us not forget the parents. I have spoken before in this House about the countless stories from parents and the heartache they feel each September when their children were robbed once again and taken away to residential schools. There was no more laughter, play or joy. Imagine how their heartache grew when their children never returned home, never to hear the echoes of laughter and play, never to have closure, wondering where their babies were. These were cruel, violent acts of genocide, something the government refuses to acknowledge, continuing to leave it up for debate whether indigenous peoples experienced genocide in residential schools.
In fact, there is a class action lawsuit involving 101 first nations seeking reparations from the federal government for the impact of residential schools, and the federal government continues to deny any legal responsibility. In court filings, the government “admits the schools were meant to 'assimilate' Indigenous people, but denies the federal governments of that era 'sought to destroy the ability…to speak their Indigenous language or to lose the customs or traditions of their culture.'” This is a government that has made genocide denial a norm.
The truth needs to be honoured. The experience of parents needs to be honoured and lifted up. I wish to honour all parents and families today who lost loved ones as a result of genocide. We will fight to bring home their children, their siblings, their cousins, their aunties, their uncles, their sisters and brothers. The number of murdered and missing indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people is reported as a genocide in the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls.
Genocide continues, with no action from the federal government. There was an announcement today of releasing an action plan, but the implementation plan is still to come, with no release date in sight. This is something that Chief Judy Wilson, secretary-treasurer of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, has called “another delay, a tactic, and also delaying the funding resources that families of survivors need now. We have people today going missing and murdered. Things have got to change now.” She went on to state, “Canada’s genocidal legacy is going to continue because there's no change, real leadership, and real commitment. We just get the flowery reconciliation speeches that fall short in action.”
Pam Palmater, a professor from Ryerson University, stated, “That's code for we didn’t come up with a plan”, further noting that “[a] plan that doesn’t have concrete actions, clear timelines, and measurable outcomes is not acceptable”.
There is a growing distrust from indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people across this country, including NWAC, which has lost faith in the federal government and is done with its “toxic, dysfunctional” process. Instead, NWAC is planning to release its own national action plan, which President Lorraine Whitman said is one that “puts families, not politics, first.”
Let us not forget the millennium scoop and the fact that the government continues to break the law, failing to uphold the Human Rights Tribunal ruling to immediately stop racially discriminating against first nations children on reserve.
Canadian hero Cindy Blackstock has affirmed in The Tyee the following:
The federal government has repeatedly failed to adequately compensate 165,000 First Nations children and families whose childhoods—and lives—were stolen through government neglect....
What we know from the tribunal’s uncontested legal findings is that Canada’s non-compliance has been linked to the deaths of some children, harms to other children and unnecessary family separations of thousands of others. So it’s not unlike the types of things that children in residential schools faced. Canada is continuing that behaviour.
She went on to further note, “It reinforces the responsibility that I and everyone else have to make sure the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action are actually implemented. And that the federal government stops fighting against the equity of First Nations, Métis and Inuit children today, and stops fighting residential school survivors in court.”
The residential schools, the sixties scoop, the millennium scoop and MMIWG are a continuation of ongoing genocide. As Murray Sinclair stated in The Globe and Mail in 2018, “We would have been apprehended by the child-welfare system if it had been organized as it is today.”
I am asking all members of the House to support this motion, to listen to calls coming from indigenous peoples across this country and act now.
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-06-03 14:25 [p.7902]
Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that Canada violated the rights of indigenous children. Even so, the Prime Minister is still taking indigenous children to court. Will the Prime Minister support our motion and stop prosecuting indigenous children, yes or no?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, our government and the Prime Minister have been clear. Our goal is comprehensive, fair and equitable compensation to support the healing of those affected by the historical inequity of discriminatory policies governing services to first nations children and families.
We maintain that there remain substantive unresolved questions about the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's jurisdiction. We are committed to this project and to ensuring that all first nations children receive fair and equitable compensation.
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-06-03 14:26 [p.7902]
Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found that Canada discriminated against indigenous children. It also found that it did so willfully and recklessly. Despite that, the Prime Minister continues to fight indigenous kids in court. Indigenous survivors of residential schools are demanding justice, but the Prime Minister is fighting them in court as well.
How could people take the Prime Minister's commitment to reconciliation seriously, when he continues to fight indigenous children and residential school survivors in court?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to be clear with the member opposite, and with all Canadians, that every first nations child who suffered discrimination at the hands of the child and family services system, which is broken, will receive just, fair and equitable compensation.
We maintain that there are substantive unresolved questions on the CHRT jurisdiction. On the other court cases that are outstanding in class actions, we are in discussions with the parties, but those discussions do remain confidential out of respect for the process.
View Yvonne Jones Profile
Lib. (NL)
View Yvonne Jones Profile
2021-06-03 15:34 [p.7913]
Mr. Speaker, I believe congratulations are in order from the sounds of things.
I really appreciate the opportunity to speak today and to say to all members of the House ulaakut. I speak today in representing the indigenous people of Labrador, all Labradorians who live in the lands of the Innu and the Inuit of the region.
Like many before me today, we acknowledge our Parliament is located on the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. I, like many Canadians, am thankful for the freedom we have to speak and for the opportunity to speak to what has been a sad legacy and a dark chapter of residential schools in Canada.
I will be sharing my time today with my colleague, the member for Winnipeg North.
The residential school system is a national tragedy. It was born of colonialism and it was propelled by systemic racism. We can all agree on that. I think all of us are still very shocked and profoundly upset with the news we heard coming out of Kamloops in the last week. Unfortunately, the first nations of Kamloops are alone and, once again, this is evidence of the pain experienced by generations from the legacy of residential schools and the system in which they were entrapped.
Many continue to experience that pain today. I know this very well, because I know my riding and the people I serve. Many of them are victims of residential schools. The pain and hurt of that experience follows them to this day and unfortunately will follow them and their families for generations to come.
Our government is the first in Canadian history to step up and talk openly about reconciliation with indigenous people. We are the first government to establish that reconciliation with indigenous people is a priority for us and for Canada, and Canadians support and embrace this.
I also want to outline that as a government we are deeply committed to advancing reconciliation, the healing of Indian residential school survivors and their families, and providing supports, depending on the wishes of those communities. More specifically, we are deeply committed to supporting survivors, families and communities, and helping to locate and memorialize through ceremony the children who died and went missing.
The first residential schools were open toward the end of the 19th century and never ceased operation until nearly the close of the 20th century, in 1996. That is only about 25 years ago, so it is not ancient history and it is not without its impacts being felt as deeply as they are today.
The darkness and the pain that came with learning the news is not going to cease today, tomorrow or in the days and years ahead. However, I hope someday in our country we will have achieved reconciliation and healing for all those who were deeply harmed and hurt.
The legacy of residential schools continues to this day with indigenous people, as I said, and it is felt in many ways, through poverty, food insecurity, mental illness, physical health and, more commonly and most known, through death by suicide. This is the sad outcome and the legacy that follow residential schools.
For first nations, Inuit and Métis, while they live with this legacy, they also live with the post-traumatic stress and the intergenerational trauma that accompanies it.
What I do know is this. In the riding I represent in Labrador, despite consistent lobbying and advocating, despite good investments that we have made and continue to make, there still needs to be more focus on mental health and on healing. There are still far too many people who are asking for help that they are not getting. There are still far too many people who are reaching out in words and actions to a dead end. We need to focus on that.
If we are really to help in this healing process, it has to start with mental health services. It has to start with providing the supports that people need to function in everyday life. It has to start with ending poverty and closing the gap that exists between indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians. It has to ensure that there is food security, that there is heat security and that opportunities are equal to all kids.
As we talk about the dark chapters and the sad legacy of residential schools, I also fear for the future yet of many indigenous kids in our country, only because I see what transpires before our eyes each and every day still. Far too many kids are still being removed from their communities, cultures, language and the people who love them. While they may be removed to be safe, we need to find ways to keep indigenous kids safe without having them lose everything else that provides value in their lives.
I deal with issues almost on a daily basis in my riding of children who are being sent hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of kilometres away to be fostered in families and homes, which I am sure, in many cases, are loving and supportive. However, I know these children are losing things that are very valuable to them. They are losing the opportunity to grow up in their own culture and to learn their own language. They are losing the opportunity to visit with those they have learned to love and know.
We need to find a better way, and we can only do that when we work with leadership within first nations, Inuit and Métis governments. This has to be a priority for everyone. Indigenous children have to be a priority for everyone. While it is a priority in terms of when we speak and give that commitment, we need to ensure that it translates into real, substantial change on the ground that will ensure the safety of these children, of their mental and physical health, and the overall well-being of these children as well.
When we talk about the legacy of residential schools, we feel each and every day, as we walk with those we know and love, the serious consequences that it has left behind. I know many people have asked that history be erased in some way, but we should never erase history. When it is so bad, so sad, so horrifying, we should never repeat it. For that to happen, we need to fully understand it.
If we are to move toward meaningful reconciliation for indigenous people and non-indigenous people, together moving forward, then we need to have that level of respect. We need to have transparency. We need to have accountability, but we also need to have understanding, a full understanding—
View Jenny Kwan Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jenny Kwan Profile
2021-06-03 16:02 [p.7916]
Mr. Speaker, the member said that he will do whatever he can on the path of reconciliation. There is something that he can do: He can tell his own government to stop taking indigenous kids to court. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found Canada's discrimination to be “wilful and reckless”, in a worst-case scenario, resulting in unnecessary family separations for thousands of children, and serious harm and even death for some others. The tribunal ordered Canada to pay $40,000 to each child. The Prime Minister wants to quash that order.
Will the member tell the Prime Minister that he is wrong, and join the NDP and tell the government to stop taking indigenous children to court?
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-03 16:20 [p.7919]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to add my voice to the voices of those who are congratulating you today. You have always been very generous in allowing me time to speak, so thank you. I would also like to congratulate the hon. member for her dedication and commitment to these issues.
My good friend Bill Yoachim is the executive director of Kw'umut Lelun, which is the delegated aboriginal agency for child, family and community services on Vancouver Island. One thing he reminds me constantly is that the number one reason children are apprehended by the system is poverty and a lack of affordable, adequate housing.
The residential school system is a legacy we are dealing with, but having children in foster care is an outrageous legacy we are dealing with. It is a continuation of this system of apprehending children from their families. About 4.9% of children in this country are aboriginal, but 48% of children in care are aboriginal.
I would like the hon. member to comment on the continuation of this legacy of removing children from their families and their culture and what we should be doing about it.
View Arif Virani Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Arif Virani Profile
2021-06-03 16:55 [p.7924]
Mr. Speaker, let me start by congratulating you on your 10-year anniversary in that chair as Deputy Speaker and your distinguished service as a parliamentarian in this chamber, respected by every one of your 337 colleagues.
I want to speak today about something that is critically important, not just now but all of the time, that has come to the forefront given this opposition day motion that we are discussing, and that is the events at Kamloops in terms of the shocking discovery of the mass grave of 215 children who belonged to the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation.
After hearing about it on the radio, and the sheer magnitude, my first reaction was simply one of horror, and I had to explain to my kids why I was reacting the way that I was.
My second response was as someone who came to this chamber as a lawyer who has some experience with international law, particularly with Rwanda at the UN war crimes tribunal. I thought of how we usually associate mass graves with foreign conflicts and not with Canada. Then I started to think of what we have done vis-à-vis indigenous people of this land and how sometimes it is not much different in terms of the overt assimilation that we have propagated against them, and when the declared policy of the government at the time was to “take the Indian out of the child”.
I also reacted as a parliamentarian who has not been in this chamber as long as you, Mr. Speaker, but for six years now, who feels like he has gathered some understanding of the situation. I had gone through the calls to action, but I was still shocked and surprised. However, we do not have to dig too far to realize that there were a lot of people who were not surprised, and a lot of those people are indigenous people of this land, particularly elders.
This led me to the question of how we value knowledge and recognize its legitimacy, and how this Eurocentric idea has been passed down that unless something is reduced to writing or photographic or video evidence, it probably did not happen. This is a bias that we bring to the table that we have to acknowledge. I thank a constituent of mine who wrote to me about the issue of Canadians, including Canadian parliamentarians, who need to learn to embrace oral histories as legitimate histories so that we can truly come to terms with the magnitude of what we are dealing with.
I also reacted as a father, as I mentioned, when I heard the news that morning on CBC Radio while my children were eating cereal in front of me. My boys are very dear to me. I mean, everyone's children are dear to them. My wife, Suchita, and I are raising two young boys, Zakir and Nitin, and we try and do right by them. However, it one thing for me to imagine my children being removed from my home against my will, but it is another thing entirely to imagine them never returned to me and to never know their whereabouts, which is exactly what has transpired over and over again with indigenous families of this land. This is the true tragedy that needs to be dealt with and understood, and it needs to be accounted for, which can only start with a very strong, historical, educational exercise.
There are some people in this House who are younger than I am, which is the tender age of 49, who had the benefit of actually being educated on this. However, I went through every level of school, including post-secondary education and through law school, and never once was I instructed about the history of the residential school legacy in this country, which is quite shocking for a guy who graduated law school in 1998.
I know that people are now getting that education, and that is important. I also know that people are taking steps, and we heard the member for Kings—Hants talk about what was happening in his community in Nova Scotia. In my community of Parkdale—High Park in Toronto, there was a vigil just yesterday about this very issue, which raised awareness, and that is important. I thank my constituent, Eden, for organizing the vigil. She took the reins on doing so, because she felt so strongly about it. I took my oldest son to that event, because I wanted him to be there to understand, to learn, and to see how others were reacting to what we had learned on Friday morning.
It is one thing to read stories, and I do read him stories, particularly the orange shirt story of Phyllis Webstad, the woman who wore that infamous orange shirt, which was removed from her at that residential school. She is also a member of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. However, it is more than just the stories, and I wanted him to get that. It is not just past or distant history, it is still unfolding around us, which is very important, because we should not deem it relegated to the past. It was also important for him and for me to see the turnout, the number of young people who were there, and to hear the demands, and there were many.
There were many directed at the federal government, the government that I represent. There was outrage, shock and horror, but it was important for me to hear the demands. It was important for my son to hear the demands. If I could summarize it, which is difficult to do, but they want justice, accountability and transparency and they want it now, not at some date to be determined in the future.
I hear that sentiment and I very much share that sentiment. I say that in all sincerity in this chamber for those who are watching around the country. In particular ,what I think is most critical is just having a sense that if this happened to the Tk'emlúps First Nation, in Kamloops at that former school, we know that there are 139 sites around this country where it may very well have happened there as well. That forensic investigation, that radar investigation must be done and it must be done immediately.
I know that we have dedicated as a government almost $34 million to address some of the calls to action we have heard extensively about during the course of today's debate. If more money is needed, it must be provided forthwith. That is what I am advocating for.
Others have also said to me just get on with every single one of those calls to action, get it over with now. It has been far too long. I hear that outrage and that sense of urgency. I pause because I know in looking at the calls to action that some of them relate to us at the federal level, us as parliamentarians in the House of Commons. Some of them relate to provincial governments, city governments. Some of them relate to institutions and school boards. Some of them even relate to foreign entities.
I, for one, would be dearly appreciative to see a formal papal apology. That is call to action 58. That is a call to action that the Prime Minister squarely put to the Pope on a visit to the Vatican and that has not yet been acceded to. I think that stands in stark contrast to what we see with other denominations of Christian churches in this country that have formally accepted and apologized for the role that the church played in terms of administering many of these residential schools. That needs to be forthcoming and Canadians are demanding that, rightfully so.
Others I believe have been met at least in part if not fully. I count myself as very privileged to have served in the last Parliament when I was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Heritage. We worked on and co-developed with first nations, Métis and Inuit leaders what became Bill C-91, Canada's first ever Indigenous Languages Act.
I personally count that as one of my most significant learning opportunities as a parliamentarian. It took that lawyer who was not educated about this stuff in law school and it turned him into a parliamentarian who was dealing directly with first nations, Inuit and Métis leaders about the difficulties of not having that connection to one's language and what that does to one's psyche, one's level of mental anxiety, one's connection to one's culture.
We have remedied that. It speaks directly to TRC calls to action 13, 14 and 15. We have also made great strides with respect to indigenous child and welfare legislation. That was Bill C-92 in the last Parliament. The most important piece there is that the norm now based on that legislation is if we must remove a child, then we keep them within their group, within their first nation, among their community and only as an absolute last resort would they be removed.
We have worked on UNDRIP with members of the opposition parties including the NDP. We have worked on Bill C-22, which I count myself privileged to have worked on as parliamentary secretary to the current Minister of Justice. It deals with curing the overrepresentation of indigenous people in this land. Much more remains to be done. I do not discount that and it needs to be done quickly. We need to do that work together.
I welcome this debate. I welcome the discussions we have been having literally all week, not just today about this important topic, because they are critical. I do feel at my core that we will only gather sufficient momentum when all Canadians are talking about this stain on Canada's history and Canada's legacy. That is critical to see. We have seen it over the course of this pandemic where people, non-white and white, people who are racialized or not racialized have taken up the call for addressing systemic racism and systemic discrimination in wake of George Floyd and in this country people like Regis Korchinski-Paquet.
I am seeing that again now. I am seeing that massive outreach now and that is a good thing because it gives us momentum. It gives us the initiative to keep working hard at these issues and to keep focused on these calls to action in addressing the needs of indigenous people, but always in a manner that is led by indigenous people and done on their terms, because gone must be the paternalism where Ottawa dictated to indigenous people the appropriate remedies. We must be listening and responding.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-03 17:05 [p.7925]
Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague, but I did not hear him speak about what we are going to be voting on.
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found the Liberal government guilty of what it said was willful and reckless systemic discrimination against first nations children. There have been 19 non-compliance orders against the government, including the non-compliance order over the deaths of Jolynn Winter and Chantel Fox, because the government refused to respect Jordan's principle. Children have died because of the government's refusal to act.
I hear momentum from the Liberals. The big momentum is in two weeks. Are they going back to court against Cindy Blackstock and the children or will they respect the will of Parliament, call off their lawyers, sit down and respect the rules and the decision of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal? It is a simple question.
View Arif Virani Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Arif Virani Profile
2021-06-03 17:06 [p.7926]
Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the response is not simple. We believe in compensation and ensuring that all those who have been disadvantaged or discriminated against by the child welfare system are compensated.
The issue with the CHRT decision is about jurisdiction. It is about the size and the scope of the decision. It is also about ensuring there is proportionality between what is merited and meted out to individual claimants. The decision itself purports to provide $40,000 of compensation to every indigenous child, regardless of whether the child spent a week in the child welfare system or up to 20 years. That subverts a basic principle of proportionality that needs to be addressed.
We are not seeking to deprive compensation to first nations children; we are seeking to calibrate it carefully, so that in some cases they may merit more than $40,000-worth of compensation. To show good faith—
View Gord Johns Profile
NDP (BC)
View Gord Johns Profile
2021-06-03 17:12 [p.7927]
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Nunavut.
I am speaking today from my home in the territory of the Nuu-chah-nulth people, just 25 kilometres from the territory of the Coast Salish people and the Qualicum First Nation. There are 10 first nations communities in the riding of Courtenay—Alberni.
Like most members, I have spent the last week listening to the elected and hereditary leadership of these nations and their tribal councils, listening to the words of residential school survivors and to the advice of the elders following the horrific revelations one week ago today on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
I join them all in sending my thoughts, prayers and healing energy to the people of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc nation and all those survivors who attended this institution. I recognize the emotional and spiritual burden of searching for and finding the remains of these unnamed children. I want to thank them all for their courage in doing so.
There were four so-called Indian residential schools in Nuu-chah-nulth territory. Children were removed from their families and kept for 10 months or more each year. Others were sent to other territories, including to Kamloops, more than 500 kilometres away. Brothers were separated from sisters, and they were punished if they dared to speak their mother language.
As Canadians, we have long known this, and about the unspeakable acts of cruelty, physical and sexual abuse inflicted upon the children in these places. We have also known that many of the children did not return. We knew this from their families, from survivors and from the research conducted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As shocking as the revelation of last Thursday was for Canadians, it should not come as a surprise. We heard this. Survivors have always known.
I want to thank the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc nation and the researchers who have carefully led us to these children. I also want to thank the media for its care in routinely publishing the help line for those who are triggered by reports of the findings, because they are.
Chief Greg Louie, of the Ahousaht First Nation told me, “With two residential schools in the Ahousaht territory, many children from other nations attended, many didn't return for 10 months or return at all because of death. The atrocious treatment has caused generations of trauma. Please assist Ahousaht and all nations with appropriate resources to bring closure and healing to our people.”
Chief Louie's words have been echoed by all the leaders with whom I have spoken over the past week. Some have been more blunt, of course, and the time for words has passed. Their people are in pain. They are losing survivors and the children and grandchildren to whom the pain of their trauma has been transferred. They need closure and healing, as Chief Louie says.
Vice president, Mariah Charleson of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council said, “Though Canada’s mandate to assimilate us all failed, the legacy is still alive in each of us. Let’s commit to healing; I believe our land and teachings as Nuu-chah-nulth-aht will be instrumental in this.”
As this motion says, resources are required to support first nations to do the work.
In 1998, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation was established to provide indigenous-led community-based programs for survivors and those who were affected by the intergenerational legacy of these schools. It was cut by the Conservative government in 2010, and closed although in 2014.
Nuu-chah-nulth children were removed from their families by missionaries, beginning in the late 1800s, a practice that continued until the last school in Nuu-chah-nulth territory in 1983 was closed, about 100 years later. The healing foundation and the communities it had funded had just over a decade to do the work of healing. Clearly it was not nearly long enough.
The elected Ha’wiih Council and the hereditary leadership of the Tseshaht First Nation continue to ask the Government of Canada to provide the necessary resources to remove the remaining buildings of the former Alberni Indian Residential School in its territory, and to build a healing and wellness centre for survivors and the generations that have followed and have been impacted by a century of genocidal policies by Canada.
At a community vigil this week, elected Tseshaht councillor Ed Ross gathered the children around me so they could hear his words to me. He had a message to send to Ottawa. He wanted us to fight for this. In the presence of the children he said, “If the government and the church could build a residential school here, they could also build a wellness centre to help our people heal.”
He explained that the community does not want to be known as the place that had a residential school that caused harm. They want it to be a place where they can reclaim their power. Chief waamiiš Watts reminded me that first nations leaders believed the Prime Minister would implement all 94 calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. So far, only 10 have been implemented. Chief Watts said the Prime Minister has not lived up to those commitments and needs to ensure all first nations and indigenous people are provided the necessary resources and information they need to do the important work in their communities to support healing.
Resources for healing were paramount in the direction given to me by first nations leaders, survivors and elders, but the need for accountability was also emphasized. The president of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council, Judith Sayers, said:
It is important that light has been shed on this tragic truth that many have known for so long, that numerous of our loved ones never returned home from residential school... The reality is that the federal and religious institutions may have wanted to silence these innocent children and forget about them, but these children can be silenced no longer.
We cannot expect first nations and indigenous people to resort to GoFundMe pages. There is one in my riding right now to do the work to find and identify the children who have been buried on these sites. It is the government's responsibility to do that work and provide the resources. The tribal council is calling on the government to “work with First Nations to discover the truth around other residential schools using ground-penetrating radar to find any other burial sites. We cannot rest until this is done.”
The government needs to stop fighting first nations in court over their rights, whether these are the children the Human Rights Tribunal has repeatedly ruled are entitled to care or the fishers the courts have said are entitled to catch and sell fish within their territories. The government must call its lawyers off and stop wasting precious resources that could be redirected to reconciling historical wrongs. We are losing the survivors of these residential schools every day. The government must implement the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission without further delay. They are important to healing within families and communities. They carry the truth of what happened in these schools: the source of trauma for their children, grandchildren and children yet to be born.
I want to think about so many who have contributed: Hereditary Chief Maquinna, Chief Racoma, Barney Williams, Chief Moses Martin, Archie Little, Dolly McRae, Clifford Atleo Wickaninnish, and my adopted father from the Fisher River Cree Nation for giving me sound advice and sharing.
This motion is clear. I urge its unanimous approval. The government needs to cease the belligerent and litigious approach to justice for indigenous people immediately, find a just solution for the St. Anne's residential school survivors, accelerate the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action and provide survivors, their families and their communities with appropriate resources to assist with the emotional, physical, spiritual, mental and cultural trauma resulting from these residential schools.
View Gord Johns Profile
NDP (BC)
View Gord Johns Profile
2021-06-03 17:23 [p.7928]
Mr. Speaker, the answer is simple: support the motion and vote in solidarity for the motion. All parliamentarians need to get behind this motion. It directly gives an action to the government to stop litigating against indigenous people.
In my own riding, the government is not just fighting the children, but also the Nuu-chah-nulth. There have been three upper court decisions, and the government has until the middle of June to decide whether it is going to fight them again. The government appeals the Specific Claims Tribunal decisions. It is non-stop. We must stop litigating against indigenous people. We must stop the violence. That is what has to happen.
Members can vote for this motion. I urge them to. I urge them to have courage. We need it and they need it. They need to see that members are truly behind reconciliation. It is time.
View Mumilaaq Qaqqaq Profile
NDP (NU)
View Mumilaaq Qaqqaq Profile
2021-06-03 17:26 [p.7929]
Mr. Speaker, matna. For much of Canada, the 215 children found on the Kamloops residential school grounds was a shocking discovery, but for indigenous peoples this was not a discovery. This was a confirmation of the reality of genocide we have known all along.
I am glad to hear members finally waking up to what indigenous peoples already knew, but many in this chamber clearly have more to discover about the reality of the ongoing colonization of indigenous peoples across Canada. I see this every day in my riding, and I need my colleagues, Canadians and the world to listen.
Recently I spoke with a friend of mine, Nikki Komaksiutiksak. Nikki is originally from Nunavut, but moved to Winnipeg at a very young age with her mother to live with her aunt. Both her mom and her aunt are residential school survivors.
After arriving in her new home, Nikki experienced severe amounts of abuse. Eventually she ran away from home to escape the violence, but police found her and took back to her house. They thought her resistance to going home was because she was a defiant kid, so they pushed her to the front door. Nikki was so terrified of what was on the other side that she tore her clothes off to show the police her injuries. They stared at Nikki, a 13-year-old, with hundreds of whip marks and stab marks all over her body.
The police took her to the hospital, where she stayed for 24 hours, and immediately afterward she was taken to her first group home. She felt incredibly alone. Nikki was never asked what she wanted, how she felt or how she needed help. Because of this, she felt it was better to run away to be with her friends, but again she was caught by the police and put back into the system.
In just two years, Nikki was in 15 group homes. She was always running away, trying to find a sense of normalcy and feeling more and more alone. She went into foster care with her cousin, who was so close to her that they considered one another sisters. Her cousin was murdered in Winnipeg at the age of 17, and still no one has taken responsibility for her death.
Imagine even before graduating high school being tossed from home to home, not often shown love in the way a child needs and not having stability or consistency in day-to-day life.
Nikki attempted to die by suicide many times and eventually was put into a treatment centre. There, she received counselling and therapy for the first time ever. She started to learn new ways of coping and was given tools to start working toward breaking cycles of trauma. From therapy, she was eventually put into a foster home with parents who cared for her and loved her.
While in the foster system, Nikki had three babies of her own and fought to make sure they were never taken away from her. This was not easy, but she fought and she won. She eventually finished grade 12, went to university and got an amazing job where she fights to support Inuit every day at Tunngasugit. She now fosters high-risk teenage girls herself.
The story of Nikki is the story of thousands of Inuit and indigenous children across Canada. Nikki’s strength and resilience mean her children have a bright future. That strength came from her, and from her will to become better.
Colonization is not over: it has a new name. Children are still being separated from their communities. Foster care is the new residential school system. The suicide epidemic is the new form of indigenous genocide.
I come from a community with one of the highest rates of suicide. Throughout my life, I have seen periods of extreme hopelessness in Baker Lake, where there are sometimes three or four suicides in less than two months. These were my friends, teammates and classmates.
I often wondered growing up if things were changing or just getting worse, but the intergenerational trauma of the recent past has created a terrible cycle where death has become normal. For Inuit, suicide is an epidemic. We know in Nunavut that things often are not recorded or investigated correctly. Many families do not get answers. Questionable information is withheld. Questions go unanswered and ignored. Families do not have support in any way, shape or form. Often families are left to clean up the remains of their loved ones.
I have heard stories of people with no heads, of the colours they turn when they hang themselves from the ceiling and of the way it smells when someone passes away. There are often times when children and youth see much of this. However, after all of these traumatic incidents, there are not many mental health resources, let alone culturally relevant mental health resources, available to these children and these families.
Just like suicide and death, losing children to foster care is becoming the norm for Inuit families. This is a direct outcome—
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