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Results: 46 - 60 of 632
View Greg McLean Profile
CPC (AB)
View Greg McLean Profile
2021-06-03 11:23 [p.7874]
Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me thank my colleagues in the New Democratic Party for bringing forward this motion during a week when so many of us here in Ottawa have been gutted by what we have seen. I really thank the member for Timmins—James Bay for bringing forward all the information and his personal experiences, especially around mass graves. There were 215 bodies in mass graves in Canada. Who would have thought that would be part of our history now. It is something that we do need to address.
What we are talking about here are the legal cases that the government continues to kick down the road. My experience with legalists in government is they continue to delay justice. When are we going to get to the point where we recognize that there is a settlement at the end and justice delayed is justice denied.
When will the parliamentary secretary's government allow these people to have that justice?
View Pam Damoff Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talked about, as we all have, the shock of the discovery of these 215 wee souls at Kamloops. I would remind the hon. member that it was the Conservative government that refused to provide $1.5 million to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to carry out this work. When I speak to my colleagues who are indigenous, they are not surprised by this discovery at all. This is something that they have known about for a very long time.
This government is committed to working with indigenous communities and indigenous peoples, and ensuring that we are able to identify and memorialize the children in a process led by these communities.
View Caroline Desbiens Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank our colleague for her presentation.
What concerns Quebeckers is that federal funding is not always directed where it is needed the most. In this case, for example, the search was paid for by British Columbia, not the federal government—
View Caroline Desbiens Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, I thank our colleague for her presentation.
Quebeckers and Canadians are concerned because the government did not directly fund the search that led to the discovery of these 215 innocent children. It was actually British Columbia that undertook the search.
We are wondering whether the government really plans to fund and support the provinces and Quebec for future searches.
View Pam Damoff Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, that is actually incorrect. The federal government did provide funding to Kamloops for the search for these bodies, these children. We have $27 million available to distribute to communities if they wish to carry out a similar process. As I mentioned earlier in the House, near my community of Oakville North—Burlington, Six Nations of the Grand River has already asked the federal government for support.
We are committed to supporting communities in the process that they wish to move forward on. However, what the member said is incorrect, the federal government actually did provide the funding to Kamloops for the search for the graves.
View Dan Albas Profile
CPC (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member of Parliament for Chilliwack—Hope.
I will first take a moment to share a few words on behalf of the citizens of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. We are collectively shocked, saddened and outraged at the discovery of an unmarked gravesite for 215 children at the former indigenous residential school in Kamloops. This discovery is difficult to put into words and I would ask that we all think of the Tk'emlúps First Nation that made this deeply disturbing discovery.
I would also ask that we think of the many families in indigenous communities throughout our region that had children at the Kamloops residential school, many of whom did not return. I will take a moment to read into the record some of the comments from indigenous chiefs in British Columbia, as I believe their comments must be heard.
I made some brief remarks about Chief Harvey McLeod from the Upper Nicola Band in my region in the take-note debate, but I will read his comments in full. He stated:
We always knew that this was happening there, but it was in our own minds, we had no proof other than our own experience. We hear really horrific stories about what happened and dealing with our people that had passed on, and what they were forced to do, to bury them. And it wasn’t the grown-ups, it was the babies.
So much hurt and pain came out in a matter of seconds. Just felt for our families that all went there. We have a large number of people from this community (Upper Nicola) that went to school there. We all have different experiences but a lot of hurt and pain and shame and anger leaving there.
I went back to the two years that I attended. I know that there were incidents happening there because I went through a lot of experiences myself. I know people that just disappeared, and we assumed that they ran away and got away and are at home somewhere, but never did see them again.
We as communities and leadership will find the best way of doing this and taking care of our people. We want to all be on the same page when it comes to having the ceremony to bring our people home.
It’s going to take a lot of strength to walk with our people while they remember the hurt and pain from that school. And it will be so much better when we’re all united, working together to ensure we’re there for our citizens.
I would like to mention some words from Ellis Ross, now an MLA for Skeena and a former chief councillor for the Haisla Nation. He stated, “Here goes; normally I’d do a live video but i doubt I could hold it together for this topic/the kids found buried at a Kamloops residential school/This is reliving the trauma for survivors and is shocking for their family members and non-aboriginals alike.” “I’d like to say that you will come to terms with it or the feeling goes away but it doesn’t, not now anyway mainly because this is still fresh in the minds of survivors. It hasn’t gone away for me when i came to understand it in 2004.” “To be clear, i was sad and angry when i learned the truth because my parents wouldn’t talk about it, just in bits and pieces. I learned to live with it and used it for motivation to build a better future and 'break the cycle' (well known term with FNs).” “17 years ago, I understood what happened overall; i decided to help fix issues of today instead of my revenge ideas. This Kamloops school story brought it all back to the day i sat in our archives and broke down. Repatriation will be traumatizing but needed.”
Those are powerful words. I was deeply moved to hear them, as I am certain many members in this place are also.
So many local indigenous communities were impacted and traumatized by these institutions because that is what they were. They were not schools like members and I went to. I cannot think of a worse situation for a parent: their children being taken way from them, only to never return home. Did they run away? I cannot imagine how it would feel to not know for so many years, until one day their worst nightmare comes along when they hear about these graves. Learning of these graves only raises more questions, and they are troubling questions. In this place, we must do everything we can to help find answers to those questions and to help bring accountability to indigenous families, including those who attended the schools. I say “attended”, but in reality, it was more like they were incarcerated in those schools.
Today's opposition motion from the NDP is but our first steps in helping to provide some answers in what I expect will be a long journey.
It is important we must also consider that reconciliation will mean different things to different people. We must also recognize this because we cannot, we must not, allow the usual Ottawa one-size-fits-all approach to finding true reconciliation. It is not “first nation”; it is “first nations”. Each nation is unique and special, and it is time Ottawa started to recognize that. It is not unlike the institution in Kamloops. It and others like it were first created as a one-size-fits-all approach from Ottawa. Let us finally take a new approach that works in partnership with indigenous communities.
On that note, I will now comment on this opposition day motion.
We must be careful in this place to avoid making the mistakes of the past, and I appreciate how this motion is well intentioned. However, at least for many first nations in my community, community members are still in shock. Many are holding meetings and there are a great many discussions under way.
My point is that I have not been directly contacted by one of the first nations in my riding for guidance on this, and I highly doubt many other members have either, yet here we are with a motion deciding what we think we must do to help indigenous communities after such a traumatic and horrific discovery. Again, I appreciate the motivation of the opposition and I believe the NDP is sincere, but it has to be pointed out that we are moving on a motion without proper direction from those we are trying to help. Some would rightfully call this an Ottawa-knows-best approach. In my view, at some point we must recognize that this approach has not served our country well over the years.
I do not often agree with the Prime Minister, but recently he made a comment that I believe we should all be mindful of. His comment was:
If it were only done by ministers, if it were only done by Ottawa, to solve these challenges, it might have been done long ago, but it would have been done wrong. You cannot move forward on true reconciliation unless it is done in partnership with Indigenous communities, leaders, and individuals.
It would be very easy to play politics with this issue. It would be said that the current government has had five years to take action and that the ministers responsible have failed. The current government could say that the former government failed in 2009. We could go on and on, and eventually we would go back to 1969, when this institution in Kamloops was first taken over by the federal government of the day and ask why it did not close it then. Why was it not closed until 1978? Politicizing this issue will not provide the leadership that we, as parliamentarians, need to provide.
I believe I have made my point that we should all be concerned when we are here passing a motion without direction from indigenous communities, precisely as we are doing here. I would also add that I have heard the Prime Minister explain the reasons why his government believes the court action this opposition day motion proposes to cease is necessary.
The Prime Minister has argued that he believes it will ultimately produce a fairer outcome for the victims and their families. I do not know if the Prime Minister will continue to make that same argument. Often we rely on the courts to provide fair and equitable outcomes for challenging cases, more so when politics may interfere with that process. However, I also note that it is easy to dismiss the court actions as being a “belligerent and litigious approach to justice”, as it says in the motion, precisely as the fourth party has done here.
As I recall, it took the Prime Minister several minutes to explain why his government supported the court action and why it believed, at least at the time, that it would provide a fairer outcome. In politics, it is often said that when one is explaining, one is losing.
As I have stated, I believe the intention of the fourth party is to be sincere here. It means well, and in balance, I am keenly aware that in Canada we have literally created an indigenous law legal industry. It has been going on for decades. The lawyers certainly will profit from it. Many of the indigenous communities, in my riding at least, have not. Ultimately, it is about the people, the victims, the survivors and their families, and that is whom I am focused on.
I am prepared to support this opposition day motion. There are some cautions I have, which I have shared, but in balance, against inaction we must act, and this opposition day motion takes steps in that direction. I will be supporting it as a result.
View Mark Strahl Profile
CPC (BC)
View Mark Strahl Profile
2021-06-03 11:45 [p.7878]
Mr. Speaker, I will begin today by acknowledging that I am speaking from the traditional Stó:lo territory. On behalf of the people of Chilliwack—Hope, I want to acknowledge the suffering and trauma that the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the residential school in Kamloops has brought to residential school survivors in our community. We stand with them during this difficult time and are committed to doing the hard work necessary to bring about true reconciliation in our community and across the country. I want to thank the Stó:lo communities and their leaders for being so willing to partner with people in Chilliwack—Hope and the surrounding areas to build toward true reconciliation. They truly are leaders in our country in this regard.
I want to speak about the motion today and what I appreciate about it. There are parts of it, as has been referenced by some of my colleagues, that I am less enthusiastic about than others, but overall this is a rather comprehensive call to action. That is exactly what my constituents are demanding in light of the revelation from Kamloops. They want action. They do not want any more words. They do not want any more commitments. They want to see us move forward together. That is what this motion calls for, and that is why we will be supporting it.
I think about some of the language. We do not know what to say, so we say things like “We are shocked.” Quite frankly, as parliamentarians, we should not be. There is an entire volume of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report, volume 4, entitled “Missing Children and Unmarked Burials”. It is 266 pages long. The release of that volume itself should have shocked Canadians when it was tabled in 2015. The exceedingly high number of student deaths relative to the non-indigenous population, the lack of notification to families when a student passed away, the purposeful decision to refuse to send bodies home to their families due to the cost to be borne by the federal government, the desire for Christian burial rights to be performed on deceased children over traditional indigenous burial rights, all of this was documented and reported on. It has been in public, in media reports, for 100 years, but Canadians did not want to hear it and did not want to believe it. Thanks to these revelations from Kamloops, Canadians now believe it and are demanding action.
Residential school survivors told us this had happened. Families who never saw their children again after they were abducted and taken to residential school told us this had happened. We heard, but we did not listen. We believe them now.
I think this is a watershed moment for Canada. It is a moment when the knowledge has moved from a fact of our history to a feeling that compels us to act. However, we have had this feeling before, and we cannot let this moment slip through our fingers again. Momentum for change and action was lost between the historic apology that took place on the floor of the House of Commons in 2008 and the issuing of the final Truth and Reconciliation Commission report in 2015. More momentum has been lost between the issuing of that report and now. We cannot let this moment pass without seizing upon it and taking real, meaningful and immediate action.
For many Canadians, this is the first time they have meaningfully engaged on this issue. They may have heard about it briefly in school, but perhaps it did not resonate with them at that time. They did not have their own kids at the time and could not relate to it. They were not shocked by it; it was simply something that happened to a past generation. However, as we have seen this week, that has changed. When change happens to people, when they go from knowing a fact to having something touch their heart, it can have a profound and positive impact.
For me, the moment I began to grasp what had happened in the residential school system and the multi-generational impact it had on indigenous people who lived in and around my own community of Chilliwack came when I bought a copy of a book written by a respected local indigenous leader, Ernie Crey.
His book is entitled, Stolen from Our Embrace: The Abduction of First Nations Children and the Restoration of Aboriginal Communities. It was first published in 1997 and predates the historic apology to former students of Indian residential schools by more than 10 years.
I read it in the time period between the apology and the report of the TRC, and it completely changed the way I thought about Canada's relationship with indigenous people. It opened my eyes and my heart to the fact that this had not only impacted the survivors but their children and their children's children. It made me understand intergenerational trauma, which has devastating impacts to this day.
The book had a profound impact on my personal and professional life. I think that many Canadians, for the first time, have had a similar experience with the news of the bodies in graves in Kamloops, where we have finally seen, we have finally heard and we now know that we need to act. Therefore, how do we respond?
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission did not issue recommendations. It issued calls to action, not calls to talking about taking action at some time in the future. Quite frankly, government is designed to fail on this, and not the Liberal government, not a Conservative government. I am disappointed that some of the questions I have heard so far have tried to score some old political points, saying “You should have done better there” or “It's not our fault.” Today, who cares?
We are talking about 215 bodies that have been discovered in unmarked graves, and some people want to score cheap political points. Shame on them. We need to work together. We need to recognize that government, that the system is designed to fail. It is designed to protect the status quo. In big ways and small, the system of government abhors change, and successive governments have failed to make significant progress in breaking down these barriers.
It is good to have accountability. It is good to take stock of where we come from and where we need to go, but it is necessary, right now, to take real, meaningful and immediate action to take advantage of the spirit of reconciliation that is sweeping across the country.
To that end, the Conservatives have put forward a list of meaningful actions that we believe could assist families and indigenous communities during this time. We are calling on the government to develop a comprehensive plan to implement TRC's calls to action 71 through 76 on missing children and burial information by July 1. The motion we are taking about today says “within 10 days”, which sounds good too. We call on it to fund the investigation at all former residential schools in Canada where unmarked graves may exist, including the site where 215 children have already been discovered; to ensure that proper resources are allocated for communities to reinter, commemorate and honour any individuals discovered through the investigation according to the wishes of their next of kin; and to develop a detailed and thorough set of resources to educate Canadians of all ages on the tragic history of residential schools in Canada.
In addition to that volume 4 on missing children and unmarked burials, there is another volume, volume 6 on reconciliation. It is 288 pages long, and the TRC provided us a road map in that as well. In it, it says:
To the Commission, reconciliation is about establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in this country. In order for that to happen, there has to be awareness of the past acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour.
Who needs to take action? The government needs to take action, and we need to work together to give it direction, which this motion would do. We also need to take individual action. We need to be compelled to learn more, to understand more, to build key relationships, to understand how important keeping one's word is when dealing with indigenous peoples and indigenous leaders. We need to open our hearts and we need to believe survivors, as they told us in this case, about these missing children in unmarked graves.
We all acknowledge the deep sorrow and mourning that all indigenous peoples and survivors of residential schools are experiencing at this time. The legacy of residential schools is a national shame that has had a profound, lasting and damaging impact on indigenous people, culture, heritage and language. This discovery is a sombre reminder that so much more work needs to be done to address the devastating and harmful effects that residential schools had and still have on many survivors and their communities today.
We must work together to ensure we bring our dark history to light, acknowledge it, learn from it and ensure nothing like it ever happens again. This must be done both collectively through government action and individually through our own personal decisions to learn more, educate ourselves and our children—
View Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Joliette.
It is with a great deal of emotion that I address the House today. I first want to extend my deepest and most sincere condolences to all first nations on the discovery of the remains of 215 children buried behind the Kamloops residential school. It believe that is appropriate. As a member of the Huron-Wendat nation, my thoughts are with the people who suffered too much neglect and mistreatment and whose pain I share.
This tragedy is a direct result of the violence of colonialism. In addition to defending many interests that are often self-serving, especially economic interests, the intent of colonialism, at least in the official line, is to civilize those perceived to belong to an inferior race. We can all agree that this is just plain repugnant, and that it is called cultural genocide.
Such atrocities must never happen again. As politicians, we need to offer our condolences, but that is not enough. We need to take action. Unfortunately, it is likely that this discovery is only the first of many. Other bodies may be found, not only at the site of the residential school, where not all areas have been investigated, but also in other Canadian cities. This may be just the tip of the iceberg, and we may find many other mass graves.
In fact, while the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation lists 4,118 deaths, former senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Murray Sinclair estimated that as many as 15,000 children may have died in the residential school system. This is an approximate number, and we need to investigate, because we have a duty to remember. According to an article in The Globe and Mail, however, we do not know the names of about one third of the deceased children, and the cause of death in more than half of all cases was not recorded by the government or the school. This is serious.
The report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended erecting commemorative monuments in Ottawa and other capital cities to honour the memory of residential school survivors, as well as that of children lost to their families and communities. These monuments would honour both those who were lucky enough to survive and those who were not, and yet the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage said in December 2020 that no subsidies had yet been awarded for the construction of a national monument in the national capital region.
There has been just as little follow through on the other recommendations. That is why we support the NDP's motion before us today. It is urgent and absolutely necessary that we accelerate the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action, in particular by providing immediate funding for more in-depth investigations into the deaths and disappearance of children in residential schools.
The commission's report clearly indicates that “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.” In other words, first we must know, understand, verify and investigate.
The issue is becoming increasingly urgent, since cemeteries are disappearing bit by bit, and many survivors still have no idea what happened to their loved ones. Since no one lives forever and we all eventually die, these people could pass away without ever learning the truth.
This investigation, which is absolutely necessary if we are to finally salve the open wound, requires funding. The discovery in Kamloops was financed mainly by British Columbia and not by the federal fund specifically earmarked for the purpose. The 2019 budget set aside $33.8 million over three years to fund the various actions recommended by the commission. That was a promising announcement, to be sure.
According to Global News, $27.1 million of the $33.8 million that was allocated was never spent. That is practically the whole amount. Since 2013, Ottawa has spent $3.2 million fighting a group of survivors from the St. Anne's residential school in Northern Ontario in court, which is almost as much money as it has spent on reconciliation efforts.
As members know, setting aside funds in the budget is only a statement of intent, as the allocation must also be included in a budget implementation act. The current government's 2019 budget, tabled during the last Parliament, set aside $33.8 million over three years. If we look at the Public Accounts of Canada for 2019-20, however, we can see that, although $5 million was spent on the national day for truth and reconciliation, there is not a single trace of any spending to implement the calls for action. There is nothing in the main estimates for 2019-20, 2020-21 or 2021-22. The amounts promised in 2019 were not even budgeted. What happened to that money? Why was it not released? We need an explanation. Was it an oversight? A stealth budget cut? I think that our first nations brothers and sisters have a right to know.
Just recently, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services and the Prime Minister reiterated that they were committed to implementing all of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. They brought up the $33.8 million announced in the 2019 budget. Now, though, they have to actually budget that money. Reminding us that they announced it is fine, but now they must follow through and get things done.
The proposal to accelerate the implementation of the calls for action that was included in the motion tabled by our NDP colleagues has our support. My colleagues in the Bloc Québécois and I urge the government to act quickly. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recently declared that it is essential that Canada do this work. Now we need to take the necessary steps. It is crucial.
View Pam Damoff Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I am getting really frustrated by the members of the Bloc who continue to repeat in the House that the federal government did not provide funding to the search that was done in Kamloops. The fact is that the community applied for and received a heritage grant of $40,000 to conduct this search.
Will the hon. member and his party acknowledge this funding and stop accusing the federal government of not providing funds to conduct the important search that was done?
View Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, what frustrates me is to witness so much denial. Also being a member of the Huron-Wendat nation, and having dug deeper and deeper into this issue, I must say that it is a legacy that has become important to me over the years.
However, the more I dig, the more I realize that there have been historic injustices and iniquities. We have a duty to remember. I am hearing denial and I am hearing about $40,000 that could have been put toward this discovery. I beg the House's forgiveness, but I want to address the comparison between $33.8 million budgeted over three years, and $40,000.
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 thank my colleague from Joliette for his excellent speech.
Is he hopeful that this week's disturbing tragedy, or revelation, could speed things up?
He spoke about the contradiction in fighting residential school victims' claims for compensation and failing to make much progress on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action.
Does he think that there will be a “before Kamloops” and an “after Kamloops”?
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
2021-06-03 12:25 [p.7883]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his question. There must be a “before” and an “after”. Things cannot stay the same.
Since the report was presented six years ago, we have heard lots of talk but no real action. As my colleague pointed out, the government is still fighting these people in court. That must change. We must move from words to action.
The remains of those 215 little children are proof of an unthinkable atrocity and horror. Things cannot stay the same. They must change.
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.
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