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Results: 61 - 69 of 69
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Madam Chair, tonight I will be sharing my time with the member for Kenora.
Normally, whether in person or virtually, I would talk about what an honour it is to rise in the House and speak on a topic. However, tonight it is not easy to speak on the horrific discovery of 215 children found buried at a former residential school in Kamloops, as the reality is indescribable.
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 today. All Canadians must stop and reflect on what the truth is of our history as a country.
For far too long, Canada has ignored our own collective secrets hidden within the history of this country. The recent news from Kamloops brings that reality to the surface. When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 2008, one of the outcomes of that process was the need to deal with the very first aspect: the truth. There is an old adage that the truth hurts. It unfortunately rang very true these past few days.
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to spend some time with two vice-chiefs of the Meadow Lake Tribal Council: Vice-Chief Lawrence McIntyre and Vice-Chief Richard Derocher, both residential school survivors. In fact, Vice-Chief Lawrence McIntyre is a third-generation residential school survivor.
We had a long conversation about many topics and issues that are happening in Northern Saskatchewan, in my riding and across our country. A story that Vice-Chief Derocher shared with us that day resonated with me at the time, and with the events of this past week, I have continued to reflect upon it.
He told of how Orange Shirt Day has been an important educational tool for people to learn about the residential school system. He explained how one of the best ways to combat racism is through education, and that when we come together and see and treat each other as people, we recognize that our similarities far outweigh our differences.
Vice-Chief Derocher then told a story about how he happened to be in Saskatoon on Orange Shirt Day last September. As he made his way about the city that afternoon, he said it brought tears to his eyes as he saw people all around on the streets, walking on the sidewalks and going in and out of stores and buildings, wearing the colour orange. What he saw that day was a collective recognition of a wrong. It was a powerful statement that we are beginning to see movement in the right direction.
I also thought of the Vice-Chief's story last week when I heard about the online comments directed toward Ethan Bear. As an avid hockey fan, it was disheartening for me to see a young man who is a role model for so many young people have to endure what he did in the aftermath of the Edmonton Oilers' playoff loss. It is sad that there are still people in this world who resort to such bitterness and cruelty.
However, I could not help but notice it was also an opportunity for voices of support, of the majority, to come out in waves and drown out the voices of the uneducated. We can all take inspiration from the strength of character and the class that Ethan showed in his response to dealing with a situation he did not deserve. As a former hockey coach, I would take a team full of Ethan Bears.
These stories highlight the need for more and continued education on the truth: It is a truth that all Canadians must collectively share until we get this right. We may be moving in the right direction at times, but a more concerted effort is needed.
Yesterday, the leader of the official opposition sent a letter to the Prime Minister with recommendations that need urgent action. The first is to develop a comprehensive plan to implement TRC calls to action 71 through 76 by July 1, 2021. The second is to fund investigations at all former residential schools in Canada where unmarked graves may exist, including the site where 215 children have already been discovered. Third is to ensure that proper resources are allocated for communities to reinter, commemorate and honour any individuals discovered through this investigation according to the wishes of their families. Finally, fourth is to develop a detailed and thorough set of resources to educate Canadians of all ages on the tragic history of residential schools.
Let me end by saying that the truth is not easy. It requires courage and vulnerability. For those of us who have been tasked with an opportunity for leadership, it will take some humility and a desire to change an approach that has not been good enough.
Partisanship, by its very nature, is in direct opposition to the meaning of reconciliation. Canada needs us to be better.
View Eric Melillo Profile
CPC (ON)
View Eric Melillo Profile
2021-06-01 21:09 [p.7801]
Madam Chair, my apologies for that.
As I was saying, many of these children who were victims of abuse fled the schools and died alone as they tried desperately to get back to their parents. Many know the story of Chanie Wenjack, a young Ojibway boy from Martin Falls who, at the age of 12, attempted to escape from a residential school in Kenora. He tragically succumbed to the conditions and died in his attempt to get back home.
The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation states that over 70 indigenous youth died while at residential schools in the Kenora area. We also know that many families were treated with contempt in their time of grief. Parents of these young victims were routinely denied information about how their children died and were not able to reclaim their bodies to say a proper goodbye.
For the reasons I have highlighted and many others, residential school survivors and their descendants continue to live with the trauma of their experiences. Canada's Parliament needs to show our commitment to reconciliation. As I understand it, the government is currently deliberating on what next steps should be taken.
Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition respectfully submitted recommendations for some of the actions the government could take to assist communities in this time of sorrow. We recommend developing a comprehensive plan to implement TRC calls to action 71 to 76 by July 1; funding the investigation at all former residential schools in Canada where unmarked graves may exist, including the site in Kamloops; ensuring that proper resources are allocated for communities to reinter, commemorate and honour any individuals discovered, according to their wishes; and developing a detailed set of resources to educate Canadians of all ages on the tragic history of residential schools.
I note that the aspect of education is one that I believe is greatly important. I am the youngest member of Parliament, and I am likely one of the few who did learn a bit about residential schools during my education. However, it was not until I was nearing the end of high school that I truly began to learn some of the horrors and some of the true history that had gone on.
I remember feeling a sense of shame and a sense of embarrassment, for lack of a better word, that even though so many of these horrific incidents occurred just down the street from where I lived and grew up, I had no idea about them until I was nearing the end of high school. That is completely unacceptable, and I believe that is why we need to continue to have a stronger focus on education for all Canadians, especially young Canadians.
I know my time is drawing to a close, so I will just say that it is my hope that the government gives sincere consideration to the proposals that our party has outlined. I look forward to seeing what other actions it may take. It is tremendously important that all of us in this chamber work together on this issue and work across partisan lines.
View Marilène Gill Profile
BQ (QC)
View Marilène Gill Profile
2021-06-01 22:17 [p.7811]
Mr. Speaker, I am at a loss for words once again this evening. I cannot express how much it pains me to talk about residential schools.
It pains me as a mother, because I think of all those who lost their children. I think of all of the families and nations that carry the heavy burden of the past. It pains me to think that for decades and centuries, in British North America and then Canada, there were attempts to literally erase the peoples who had lived here for thousands of years.
It pains me to think of all of those men, women and children, dead or alive, who had to suffer to allow for Canada's plans to expand its dominion from coast to coast, engaging in a cultural genocide to kill the Indian in the child, which resulted in killing the child in the Indian.
However, it pains me even more to know that, over the course of my years here in Parliament, I have been asking myself the following question: Why do we keep talking about these horrors year after year without ever making any progress?
I must admit, I cannot even imagine how painful and frustrating it must be for the families of the victims of residential schools and for the communities themselves, while we, here in the House, entered politics to change things. We are not seeing things change, and neither are they. Things are not changing quickly enough.
I know that today, at this time, this is a solemn moment, and we do not want to politicize the matter before us, and rightly so. However, for things to move forward, it is my duty, as a member of the opposition, to ask the right questions.
Let us first establish some facts.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has counted 3,200 residential school students who died. Today, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation estimates that number to be closer to 4,118. Even so, the most recent evidence suggests that these numbers could be much higher and might soon reach 6,000 dead.
This morning, in an article published in The Globe and Mail, former senator and Truth and Reconciliation commissioner Murray Sinclair estimated that the number could be higher still, suggesting that up to 15,000 children could have died in the residential schools.
Six years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report was released, it seems that the more we know, the less we know. What happened to bring us to this point?
Obviously, we need to shine a light on this, including on the financial role of the federal government and the degree of collaboration between the church and the federal government. As we know, Canada funded the religious orders that ran the residential schools with a per-child allowance.
When the allowance was suspended, did the government keep a record of the children who had died? How is it that the federal government subsidized their education without knowing that information? Did the church keep records on the children in order to collect those subsidies?
We need to take a closer look at these issues. They need to be addressed urgently because families need to know. It is an essential condition for them to grieve and to heal.
In closing, we also need to shed light on addressing the commission's calls to action 72 to 78. Of the $33.8 million allocated in budget 2019, $27.1 million still remains to be spent. We need to shed light on the past. We also need to shed light on this. Our duty to remember is at stake here, as well as our duty to honour indigenous peoples.
My heart goes out to the communities in Kamloops and all the communities on the north coast of Quebec and Canada.
[Member spoke in Innu]
View Sylvie Bérubé Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, it is with great sorrow and a heavy heart that I rise this evening to speak to the tragic discovery that was made in Kamloops, British Columbia. My thoughts go out to all these children who, instead of having a happy life running in the fields, are now lying in those fields in silence and darkness. My thoughts go out to the families. My thoughts go out to all the indigenous nations. They have my sympathies.
People across Canada and Quebec have cried, and understandably so, over the fate of these children who died in despicable conditions far from home, far from their mothers, far from their families and far from their nations.
This discovery should not have happened. This should not have been a discovery because the facts we are being confronted with are not unknown. We have known them since at least the tabling of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Would we rather say that we should know these facts? However, memories are faulty. We forget. Forgetting speaks volumes about how the memory was perceived. It speaks volumes about the way the ugliness of the past contrasts with the whitewashed version we prefer to see.
The history of residential schools is one of horror, and last week's tragic discovery should be a reminder, a reminder that we must take action. We cannot change the past, but we can remember, document, interpret, archive and commemorate it.
This is essential work if we want to progress toward reconciliation. We need to do this work to achieve true healing. If we do not do this work, families that want to find out what happened to those who died will never be able to. Even if it hurts, indigenous families and nations need to know. To get to the historical truth and do what is right for indigenous peoples, we have to shine a light on the past. Like it or not, the Kamloops discovery will not be the only one. There have to be more.
Six years ago, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission formulated many calls to action to ensure that we do not lose sight of the past. The recommendations that come to mind are 71 to 78. The sorrow we all feel right now must serve as a reminder that we need to implement them faster, and that responsibility rests first and foremost with the government. The time to act is now.
[Member spoke in Inuktitut]
View Leah Gazan Profile
NDP (MB)
View Leah Gazan Profile
2021-05-31 14:45 [p.7623]
Mr. Speaker, once again residential school survivors, families and nations are mourning with the news of 215 children found buried in a mass grave at Kamloops Indian Residential School. In response to this tragedy, the UBC Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre is calling on the federal government to make immediate investments to assist nations in locating children who never returned home.
When will the government get serious about implementing the TRC calls to action, including numbers 73 and 75, and bring our children home?
View Gary Anandasangaree Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, we are heartbroken at the discovery of the remains of the 215 children in Kamloops. This is a horrific tragedy that has once again deepened the wounds of survivors of residential schools, of their families and of indigenous people across Canada. We have been working with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to develop and maintain the national residential schools student death register and to create an online registry of residential school cemeteries.
We are also currently engaging with indigenous communities impacted by residential schools on how best to implement calls to action 72 to 76 and invest the $33.8 million—
View Mumilaaq Qaqqaq Profile
NDP (NU)
View Mumilaaq Qaqqaq Profile
2021-05-31 14:46 [p.7624]
Mr. Speaker, the federal government and churches ripped children away from their homes, put them into residential schools and kept their bodies. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission lays out a clear path to doing the right thing, yet the current federal government has stayed at a standstill.
There were three-year-old babies in the ground. How many more are there? When will the federal government implement calls to action 71 through 76? Our children's bodies deserve to come home.
View Gary Anandasangaree Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I certainly share in the grief that my friend for Nunavut has outlined. This is a national tragedy. It is one that our government has been working for the past six years to rectify. We are fully committed to implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action, all 94 of them, but most notably calls to action 72 to 76. We are also investing $33.8 million through budget 2019 in order to engage with the indigenous communities impacted by residential schools on how best to implement these calls. We look forward to working with everyone on this—
View John Barlow Profile
CPC (AB)
View John Barlow Profile
2020-12-02 18:29 [p.2843]
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Beaches—East York for tabling the bill and reworking what he previously tabled. This is something, as Conservatives, we are open to discussing.
I do not think there is any question with anybody in the House that the opioid crisis is going to be the number one health issue this country faces in the years to come. Even when COVID is resolved, hopefully when vaccines become available to Canadians in the new year, the ramifications and implications of this pandemic and the impact it has had on Canadians is going to be long-lasting.
We have seen the opioid crisis explode to proportions I do not think any of us could have ever predicted. I look at my own province of Alberta, where the opioid overdose deaths from January to June tripled from the first quarter to the second quarter of last year. The implications of COVID and the resulting growth in the opioid crisis is a challenge that all of us as parliamentarians have to understand. We have to start addressing this with real solutions and real partnerships between the various different levels of government. This is not a partisan issue. All of us in the House want to find a way to help Canadians in their recovery.
We had a doctor from B.C. appear at the Standing Committee on Health on Monday. She talked about the opioid crisis in B.C., and B.C. is now seeing record levels of opioid overdose deaths. B.C. was certainly the epicentre of this crisis, but as my colleague from Atlantic Canada just said, we have seen this spread from one part of the country to the next. There is no segment of our population that is immune to the impacts of the opioid crisis.
I applaud my colleague for bringing this forward and taking the focus off legalizing illicit drugs. I agree with him that this is not what the bill is about. Bill C-236 is not about legalizing or decriminalizing illicit drugs. It is about putting a focus on treatment and recovery. Unfortunately, there are some things missing from this private member's bill that I think could be strengthened. If we get this to committee, I hope my colleague is open to some amendments and we can work together to strengthen the bill.
I have to chime in on the comment my colleague made about Conservative provincial governments not supporting recovery and treatment for these addictions. Premier Jason Kenney in Alberta named Jason Luan the minister of mental health and addictions, one of the first provincial governments in Canadian history to have a minister in cabinet dedicated to mental health and addictions. It has funded more than 4,000 new treatment beds in the province of Alberta alone. This is not a Conservative conspiracy in which we do not believe in treatment and recovery. My colleague is way off the mark on that.
As I said, I do not think this is a partisan issue in any way. Every government across the country at every level is struggling to find ways to deal with this with limited resources. One of the problems with my colleague's private member's bill is that it really lacks teeth and accountability.
The bill really highlights what is already happening in many jurisdictions across Canada with most police forces. The Liberal government put out a directive in 2016 asking police forces not to charge and go to the court system for simple possession, and many police forces across the country are following up on that directive. Many officers, if they are pulling someone over with a minimal amount of drugs, are not charging them and not putting them through the legal system. Therefore, what the bill does is try to formalize what is already informal across the country.
The bill does not put enough emphasis, teeth or accountability on the recovery aspect. One of the keys to the bill is that a police officer would have the discretion to allow a person who has not been charged yet to choose between two streams. The officer could take the person to a recovery centre to get treatment, but it would have to be at that person's discretion. If the person refuses, then it would be the end of the discussion. They can still potentially be charged, but there is no accountability or no mandatory option to go to recovery.
I am hoping that my colleague will be open to that amendment so that there would be some teeth and accountability in the bill, which would put the focus on a mandatory recovery and treatment element when it comes to dealing with opioid addiction.
I agree with him that this is a mental health issue, and as I said at the beginning of my speech, I think this is the biggest mental health issue this country has or will ever face. We have to find a solution or put some resources into it. I know my colleague also mentioned the position of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. He is right that the association does support decriminalization of illicit drugs, but with a caveat that he failed to mention.
The caveat is that there have to be resources in provinces for recovery, and in their report they say that does not exist at this time. Therefore, they really do not support decriminalization of all illicit drugs, which, again, the bill does not do, but I think it highlights that the focus needs to be on the recovery aspect, which is missing from the bill. I know my colleague has tried to step back from going all the way to decriminalization and tried to bring this to something that all of us in the House can work on as a starting point, but it still lacks some of those elements that we would like to see. As I said, in reality a lot of these things are already being done by police officers.
The other element that I hope my colleague would be open to is not about the mandatory recovery but about when an officer is having that interaction with a person. They can take notes of how many times they have had this discussion and offered a recovery option to that person, but that is not admissible, should it ever go to court. For example, if I have pulled Joe Smith over and have had this discussion with Joe Smith on multiple occasions, and on multiple occasions I have offered Joe Smith two options, to take it to the criminal justice system or to go to recovery, again the onus is on Joe Smith. If he says no, then that option is no longer viable.
However, I could have had that discussion with Joe Smith 17,000 times and there is no chance for that, but if that element was admissible, should he ever have to go through the justice system, we could say that we have had this discussion on many occasions and we have offered him the opportunity to go to recovery and he has refused over and over again. Therefore, the only option would be a criminal justice pathway. I think that needs to be an element in there.
The other aspect to this is that these drugs are dangerous. There is no question. They are killing Canadians from every walk of life, and I know many of us in the House have had personal relations or experiences with this. I know in my riding I had one first nations community that had 18 fentanyl overdose deaths in one month. I have had too many friends and acquaintances who have lost loved ones, including me: a friend I played senior hockey with for many years. I do not want to have those conversations anymore. There has to be a way to get through this, but there have to be consequences.
I understand that when someone is caught with an amount of drugs that is just for their possession, we can look at the mental health and addiction recovery, but there have to be harsh consequences for those who are peddling these drugs, the dealers who are killing those Canadians. We also have to ensure that there are hard consequences and enough resources to CBSA to ensure that we are not having these drugs, specifically fentanyl, imported into our country. With COVID, we are seeing limitations on travel, but now we are seeing an increase in poison and toxins put into these drugs here at home. There have to be consequences.
In conclusion, I am hoping my colleague will be open to amendments and having this discussion, but as this sits now it will be difficult for us to support without some of those accountability elements and the teeth to ensure focus on a mandatory element to recovery and rehabilitation.
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