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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 Scott Reid Profile
CPC (ON)
Madam Speaker, practice makes perfect.
The motion that is before us today has two parts. The first part says this, and I quote:
That the House agree that section 45 of the Constitution Act, 1982, grants Quebec and the provinces exclusive jurisdiction to amend their respective constitutions...
The second part says, and I quote:
[That the House] acknowledge the will of Quebec to enshrine in its constitution that Quebeckers form a nation, that French is the only official language of Quebec and that it is also the common language of the Quebec nation.
One cannot vote for or against one part of the motion without doing the same for the other part. However, I have very little to say about part two, which asks us to take note of two expressions of what is called the will of Quebec and also to take note of the obviously true fact that French is the common language of the Québécois, which it has been since 1608.
We all deeply and sincerely hope that this foundational fact that French is the lingua franca of the Québécois will continue to be the case for the next 400 years, just as it has been for the past 400 years.
For me, a Quebec nation in which French is not the lingua franca is unthinkable.
Likewise, it is a fact already acknowledged by the House that the Québécois are a nation. Fifteen years ago, the Commons voted for that by a margin of 265 to 16.
That this House recognize that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada.
The words “au sein d'un Canada uni” are absent from today's motion, as one would expect from a motion produced by the Bloc Québécois. Nonetheless, it is true that the motion, as it is worded, is by no means incompatible with a united Canada. It is quite the opposite.
Beyond this, I am not sure there is much to say about the second half of the motion. My interest, as a student of the Constitution, is in responding to the first assertion of the motion, which says, in its English version, “That the House agree that section 45 of the Constitution Act, 1982, grants Quebec and the provinces exclusive jurisdiction to amend their respective constitutions.”
My comments on this subject are primarily intended to sway the views of my anglophone colleagues, and therefore I will be speaking only English as I address this subject.
The wording of section 45 is, “Subject to section 41, the legislature of each province may exclusively make laws amending the constitution of the province.”
Members will notice the internal reference to another part of the Constitution, section 41. This reference is necessary because unlike the constitutions of other federations, like Switzerland or Australia, Canada's Constitution contains multiple amending formula instead of just one. That is to say that different parts of the same Constitution can only be amended using different combinations of legislative instruments from different legislative bodies.
For example, there are some parts of the Constitution that may only be amended if identical resolutions are passed in Parliament and in all 10 provincial legislatures. This amending formula is contained in section 41 of the Constitution Act, 1982, and of course, section 41 is the clause specifically referenced in section 45. I will not mention section 41 except to observe that it was referenced in section 45 to prevent provinces from unilaterally altering the powers of their lieutenant governors.
Other parts of the Constitution, including the Charter of Rights, can be amended only by means of identical resolutions in Parliament and in the legislatures of the seven provinces containing at least 50% of Canada's population. This is colloquially known as the 7/50 amending formula, and it is described in section 38 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
On the other hand, to enact an amendment to the charter designed to place further restrictions on the powers of only a single province, another formula that is found in section 43 of the Constitution Act, 1982, applies. Identical resolutions must be adopted by the legislature of that province alone and by Parliament. It was the use of the section 43 amending formula that in 1993 made it possible to add a new linguistic right to the charter that applied to New Brunswick alone, which was section 16.1 of the charter.
Likewise, section 43 is also the only formula that may be used for either of the two following matters. It states:
(a) any alterations to boundaries between provinces; and
(b) any amendment to any provision that relates to the use of the English or the French language within a province,
The existence of multiple amending formulae for the Constitution of Canada is not new. Section 92(1) of the Constitution Act, 1867 was the predecessor to section 45. It was in force for over a century.
Section 92(1) stated:
...in each province the legislature may exclusively make laws in relation to the amendment from time to time of the Constitution of the province, except as regards the office of Lieutenant-Governor.
The ability of Quebec or of any other province to amend its own Constitution is uncontroversial. The more challenging question is what constitutes a provincial constitution.
In other federations like Switzerland, Australia or the United States, this question would never arise. Each Swiss canton and each American state has its own stand-alone constitution. The constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for example, is the oldest written constitution in the world, dating back to 1780, which makes it a decade older than the constitution of the United States.
In Canada, such tidy, clearly defined provincial constitutions do not exist. In this province, provincial constitutions can take one of three forms, which leads to some surface confusion.
In the three provinces that were created by federal statute, the relevant federal statute is the constitution of the province: the Manitoba Act, the Saskatchewan Act and the Alberta Act, respectively. Despite being acts of the Parliament of Canada, these statutes can, under authority of section 45, be amended only by the provincial legislature. Parliament is constitutionally precluded from being involved.
In the five provinces that existed before Confederation, the pre-existing British statutes under which they had been created are their constitutions. Despite being acts of the Parliament at Westminster, these too can be amended unilaterally by the province under authority of section 45. Again, there is no permitted role for Parliament.
That leaves Quebec and Ontario. Their constitutional situation is summed up by eminent constitutional scholar Professor Peter Hogg in the following words:
The Constitution Act, 1867, which, it will be recalled, created Ontario and Quebec out of the old united province of Canada, contains a set of provisions (ss. 69 to 87) which are essentially the constitutions of those two provinces.
Therefore, sections 69 to 87 are the provisions which could potentially be subject to amendment, using the section 45 amending formula, which is to say that they could be potentially subject to amendment by means of an act of Quebec's national assembly or Ontario's legislature.
It is Professor Hogg's view, and my own as well, that Parliament, once again, is not permitted to play a role in such amendments.
This leaves the question of whether amendments can be made to the Constitution of Quebec or Ontario that involve making any amendment to the Constitution Act, 1867, in which the subject matter falls outside subjects covered in sections 69 to 87, which are sections that deal solely with the functioning of the two provincial legislatures.
In particular, could changes be made such as those proposed in Quebec's Bill 96, which seeks to add two new sections immediately following section 90 of the Constitution Act, 1867? I have several tentative answers to this question.
First, the fact section 90 falls outside of the section 69 to 87 envelope is irrelevant.
Second, this is a matter that is outside the remit of Parliament. We are not decision-makers on this. The courts ultimately will have to decide whether sections 158 of Bill 96, which is the part of the bill in which these two amendments are proposed, is intra vires or ultra vires the section 45 amending formula. We MPs can weigh in on this subject but our views are not binding on anybody.
Third, and this is the last point I will make, and most important, although the motion we are debating today deals with the same subjects as the two contemplated additions to the Constitution Act, 1867 contained in Bill 96, we have not been asked to vote for or against Bill 96. We have been asked to vote on a specific question regarding the section 45 amending formula and a specific statement about what the motion refers to as the will or volonté of the Québécois, as expressed by the national assembly.
On these questions, it seems to me the answer is yes—
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 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 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 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 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 Kristina Michaud Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his remarks. His sincerity truly comes across in his voice. In the current circumstances, that is very much appreciated.
I will ask him a question that I asked my other colleague a bit earlier. I think that the minister is in the best position to answer.
In 2019, $33.8 million was allocated to fund certain calls to action in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. However, when we check the public accounts and main estimates, we see that only $3.2 million was invested.
Can the minister tell us what became of the $30 million that seems not to have been invested at all?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her question.
At this time of national mourning, I do not want to offer excuses for the spending of money that was allocated.
At the same time, these monies did not come from thin air. They were allocated in the 2019 budget to respond to the calls to action, and these amounts have yet to be spent. They may not be enough, but we will continue to invest them in the communities because we know that communities across Canada will ask for research to be done and perhaps even searches if required.
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 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 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 Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, Canadians are still reeling from the discovery of 215 indigenous children at a former residential school in Kamloops. However, while Canadians are reeling from this horror, we cannot ignore the fact that indigenous communities continue to face injustice today. The Prime Minister is fighting indigenous kids in court, and continues to fight residential school survivors in court. As Cindy Blackstock says, “We need to make sure that the injustices stop today.”
Will the Prime Minister commit to stop fighting indigenous kids and residential school survivors in court, yes or no?
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, we have been very clear on this and many other issues in regard to the work we need to do together on reconciliation. Every survivor deserves compensation. We will be there for that. We will work with them and with communities to get there. We also need to fix child and family services. We were the first government to pass legislation to do just that.
We are on the cusp of transformative change. We have been working on it. Over the past years we have made many changes. There is more to do. We will continue to stand with indigenous communities across this country as we do that.
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, the discovery of the remains of 215 indigenous children has shocked the nation. We mourn the loss of those children, but we cannot mourn this loss without acknowledging the fact that indigenous communities continue to suffer injustices today.
Will the Prime Minister commit to stop fighting indigenous kids and residential school survivors in court, yes or no?
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, for the past six years, we have been working with indigenous communities and survivors across the country to heal from these tragedies and build a better present and future for all indigenous peoples.
As for compensation, we have recognized as a government that compensation will be given to residential school survivors. We are currently working on this with the community, in order to determine the correct amounts.
We will continue to be there to support indigenous communities and individuals across the country.
View Rachel Blaney Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, the bodies of 215 precious children were found at a residential school, and indigenous people are asking for justice, not words. However, the government will not stop taking first nations kids to court.
A human rights tribunal found that the government discriminated against first nations kids. It is now a choice. It is time to make it right. The government cannot have it both ways, offering sympathies for a mass grave while continuing to persecute children in court.
When will the government make the right choice and stop fighting first nations children?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, now is in fact the time to stand with the communities that are most deeply affected and support them in their time of grieving.
On the member's question, we have said time and time again that we will compensate first nations children for the discrimination they suffered at the hands of child and family services. We continue on those paths. We continue to work with the three competing court cases to ensure fair compensation to those who have suffered harm.
We will continue on the long path toward transformative change to ensure that no child is apprehended again.
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-05-31 14:27 [p.7620]
Mr. Speaker, 215 indigenous children were found buried at a former residential school in Kamloops. We all mourn the loss of those children, but to honour their lives, we need to move beyond words to action. Right now the Prime Minister is fighting indigenous kids in court. Right now the Prime Minister is fighting survivors of residential schools in court.
Will the Prime Minister move beyond words to actions and stop fighting these kids in court and these survivors in court?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, the government has said time and time again that we will compensate children for the harm that they have suffered. We have acknowledged as much.
This is a time where we perhaps do need to reflect on the course of reconciliation, but this is also a time where we must continue with the communities at the forefront to help their search in the truth. There can be no healing without the truth. We will work with those communities, the surrounding communities and all indigenous communities that are hurting to pursue the truth. There can be no healing without the truth. We will provide resources to help them, to help them in their healing and continue on this path in ensuring that the truth comes out so that we all, all Canadians, all indigenous peoples in Canada can be looked at straight in the eyes and not look—
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-05-31 14:29 [p.7621]
Mr. Speaker, people across the country have been stunned by the discovery of the remains of 215 indigenous children buried at a residential school. We mourn the loss of these children.
However, to honour the lives of these children, we need to move beyond words. Will the Prime Minister pledge to stop fighting indigenous children and residential school survivors in court, yes or no?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, the government has been very clear about this. We will compensate those who were harmed while in the care of child services. There is a time for the government to reflect on reconciliation, but right now, we need to help the communities in question on their path and their search for the truth. The search continues, as we do not know the whole truth. We will support these communities by providing mental health resources. There can be no healing without the truth.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-05-31 15:05 [p.7627]
Mr. Speaker, the discovery of the bodies of 215 first nations children at an old Catholic residential school site has set off shockwaves of grief across this country. It is a dark symbol of the war against first nations children that has gone on from Confederation right up to this day.
The Prime Minister has spent over $9 million on lawyers trying to overturn the human rights tribunal that found his government guilty of systemic discrimination against first nations children, so he can stop with the crocodile tears. It is time to end the war against first nations kids.
When is the Prime Minister going to stop paying the lawyers and start paying the compensation these children deserve and should be getting now?
View Gary Anandasangaree Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate that we are heartbroken by the discovery of the remains of the 215 children in Kamloops. This is a horrific tragedy that has once again deepened the wounds of the survivors of residential schools, their families and indigenous people across Canada.
We have worked with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to develop and maintain the national residential school student death register and to create an online registry of residential school cemeteries. We are also working with communities to develop culturally appropriate approaches to identifying the deceased children, locating burial sites and memorializing those who died.
View Joël Lightbound Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Joël Lightbound Profile
2021-04-23 10:06 [p.6078]
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
I will not talk about this in my speech, but I want to comment briefly on what the Conservative Party member just said. One of the important things we are doing with Bill C-21 is increasing maximum penalties for certain offences, such as trafficking and smuggling. We should all keep that in mind as we study the bill.
That said, I appreciate this opportunity to add my voice to the debate on Bill C-21 at second reading. I believe this is one of the strongest legislative packages ever introduced in this country to combat gun violence. It proposes a wide range of measures to help keep people safe and deliver on the firearm policy commitments we made to Canadians during the last campaign.
These measures are urgently needed, because gun violence remains a tragic reality that too often affects our cities and regions. We only have to look at the Polytechnique tragedy, or what happened four years ago at the Quebec City mosque, in my riding, when a killer entered the mosque and murdered six people, leaving many kids fatherless, and injured several others. We must also remember the massacre that happened more recently in Nova Scotia.
No one should have their life cut short so tragically and senselessly in our country. No one should have to live with the pain of losing a loved one to gun violence. That is why our government made it a top priority to protect Canadians from gun violence, including by regulating their use and strengthening Canada's gun laws.
Last May, we took a significant step forward in protecting Canadians by prohibiting more than 1,500 models of assault-style firearms and their variants, which have too often been used in tragic incidents here in Canada and in the rest of North America. The vast majority of firearm owners are responsible and law-abiding citizens, but these powerful and dangerous firearms that we banned on May 1, 2020, were not designed for legitimate activities such as hunting or sport shooting. Rather, they were designed for use on the battlefield and have no place in our cities, on our streets or in our lives.
Bill C-21 goes even further in protecting Canadians. To finish what we started last May when we banned more than 1,500 models of assault-style firearms and their variants, Bill C-21 proposes to amend the Firearms Act to provide a non-permissive storage option to the owners of firearms prohibited on May 1, 2020. That means an owner could choose to keep their firearms but would not be permitted to use them, sell them, give them to someone else or bequeath them. That is far more restrictive than the grandfathering rules that accompanied previous firearm prohibitions in Canada.
According to these rules, grandfathered owners can buy from and sell to other owners who hold the same grandfathering privileges. Some grandfathered firearms may also be authorized for use at a shooting range. None of that would be allowed with respect to the assault-style firearms prohibited last May. They would have to be stored away safely and kept there under lock and key.
This approach would essentially freeze the market for these firearms, while treating existing owners fairly. Over time, the number of prohibited firearms in Canada would decrease substantially, and they would eventually be eliminated. To accelerate that process, and unlike what was done with past prohibitions, the government also intends to introduce a buyback program as soon as possible. Owners who wish to surrender their firearms for compensation as part of that forthcoming program could certainly do so.
It is impossible to know how many people would take the government up on that offer, but it is highly likely that many owners would take compensation in exchange for their firearms. Those who want to retain their firearms as part of a collection or for sentimental value can do so, but as I was saying, they would not be permitted to bequeath them, transfer them or use them.
Failure to comply with those regulations would also result in criminal prosecution. Any prohibited firearm remaining in someone’s possession would, and this is very important, also need to be registered, including those that were previously classified as non-restricted. Regulators and law enforcement would know exactly who the owners are, and where their assault-style firearms are located.
Moreover, owners who choose to retain possession of these firearms would be required to comply with additional requirements. That includes successfully completing the Canadian restricted firearms safety course and upgrading to a restricted possession and acquisition licence, with all the associated fees that would entail.
The requirements I just mentioned, and the permanent inability to lawfully use or transfer these firearms, for any reason, would essentially make those firearms useless. Logically speaking, all of those things would be major incentives to participate in an eventual buyback program.
Removing these powerful prohibited firearms from society is one of the many goals of this legislation. However, it is also important to immediately remove any firearms from potentially dangerous situations, including situations involving domestic and intimate partner violence, an issue that has been compounded by the pandemic. Sadly, there have been too many such incidents in Quebec over the past year. Beyond domestic violence, there are also other situations where a person may be suicidal or has openly advocated hatred or violence against someone.
To respond to these situations, Bill C-21 proposes the creation of red-flag and yellow-flag provisions. These provisions would make it easier for anyone who feels threatened by the presence of a firearm in their home or by an individual who owns a firearm to take action to protect themselves and others.
More specifically, the red-flag regime would allow anyone, not just police, to apply to the courts for an immediate removal of an individual's firearm if they pose a danger.
Similarly, the yellow-flag regime would allow anyone to ask a chief firearms officer to suspend and examine an individual's licence if there are reasonable suspicions that the person is no longer eligible to hold a licence.
I will remind members that these measures build on the amendments made to the Firearms Act in 2019, which establish that a firearms licence applicant's lifetime history of intimate partner violence and online threats are mandatory grounds for consideration in the determination of licence eligibility.
Gun violence continues to be a major problem in our communities. It is important to remember that all firearm tragedies, from the public ones we commemorate to the private ones that occur in the home, create untold sadness and are often preventable. All Canadians deserve to live in a place where they can be safe and secure, and that is the objective of Bill C-21.
As the Prime Minister said, “we need more than thoughts and prayers. We need concrete action.” That is exactly what Bill C-21 proposes: concrete action to stem the tide of gun violence in Canada.
I am very proud to support this bill at second reading, and I hope that my colleagues will do the same so that it can be sent to committee and we can hear what various groups have to say about Bill C-21. For decades now, various civil society groups have been calling for a ban on military-style assault weapons like the one we implemented on May 1, 2020, which will be strengthened by Bill C-21. These weapons were designed for the military and are not appropriate for civilian use. We have seen them used in too many incidents, too many tragedies and too many killings. They were designed for military use and manufactured to be efficient killing machines. They are not used for hunting or sport shooting and have no place in our society because they are too dangerous.
I am proud to be part of a government that, after decades of dithering, finally decided to move forward with prohibiting 1,500 different models of firearms, including the AR-15 and Vz58. This ban essentially froze the market completely as of May 1, 2020, by prohibiting the import, export, use and sale of such weapons.
I would remind the House that the young man who burst into the Quebec City mosque was armed with a Vz58. Thank goodness his gun jammed, but he never should have been in possession of such a weapon in the first place. This is why a ban like the one we proposed on May 1, which is strengthened in Bill C-21, is so important, as are the increased maximum penalties for many trafficking and smuggling offences, and the red-flag and yellow-flag provisions.
I am getting a bit off topic from Bill C-21, but I would also point out the investments we have made to expand our border capacity and dedicate more resources to the community-based organizations working to prevent violence upstream. This is in addition to the resources that have been invested in the RCMP and our law enforcement agencies across the country with programs such as Ontario's guns, gangs and violence reduction strategy.
View Pam Damoff Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join in this important debate, and I am proud to be part of a government that takes action on gun control to keep Canadians safe. In the last Parliament I was able to work on Bill C-71. I am proud of that work, and I am proud to continue that work with Bill C-21.
This legislation would introduce some of the strongest gun control measures ever seen in Canada. It would complete the prohibition of assault-style firearms, it would lay the foundation for a buyback program, and it would take needed action in a number of areas critical to improving public safety, including limiting or prohibiting access to firearms for those who pose a risk to themselves or others, fighting gun smuggling and trafficking by strengthening measures at the border, increasing maximum penalties for certain firearms offences under the Criminal Code, combatting the unlawful use of firearms in diversion to the illicit market, and strengthening the rules for those firearms that are indistinguishable from legitimate ones.
Bill C-21 is good news for the public safety of our communities, our institutions and our most vulnerable citizens. It would also add new tools that could be used toward reducing needless deaths from family violence and suicide. I would like to recognize the work of those who have repeatedly stressed that the focus of action on firearms needs to be on those who die by suicide and are victims of femicide and domestic violence. The Canadian Women's Foundation notes that the presence of firearms in Canadian households is the single greatest risk factor for the lethality of intimate partner violence. In conversation with the Lethbridge YWCA, the group told me every single woman who came to their shelter had been threatened by a partner with a firearm. Over the past five years, nearly 2,500 women had been victimized by partners with a firearm.
My work with local organizations in my riding and across the country has helped to shine a light on the dangers of gun violence. Many women are afraid to report the threats of gun violence they face, or the illegal guns their partners own, and while shelters such as Halton Women's Place provide supports for women while they are at the shelter, women are at their most vulnerable for gun violence once they leave.
Bill C-21 would be the first step in removing guns from the hands of abusive partners, but we must remain committed to engaging and encouraging women to report illegal guns and abusive partners and ensuring they have the support needed. Too often, survivors are without support in the justice system, and this must change.
Our government proposes to invest $85 million to help ensure access to free legal advice and legal representation for survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence, no matter where they live. This investment is good news, but we must also continue to work with women's organizations that help survivors of domestic abuse and gun violence find safety from abusive partners. Intimate partner violence accounts for 28% of all police-reported violent crime in Canada, and that number has risen during the pandemic.
Of 945 intimate-partner homicides that occurred between 2008 and 2018, eight in 10 involved female victims. One woman or girl is killed in Canada every other day on average, according the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability. We have it in our power to help reduce these senseless deaths and this tragic violence. Bill C-21 is not a panacea: It is a tool that we must use, in conjunction with investments like a national gender-based violence strategy, to reduce this hateful violence.
There were 580 individuals, overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly rural, who died by firearm suicide. Dr. Alan Drummond and Dr. Eric Letovsky of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians have been vocal in saying that we must do more. Over 75% of firearm deaths are deaths by suicide. Introducing a mandatory reporting mechanism for doctors to call the police to remove guns from at-risk patients immediately is a recommendation I heard from them, and is worth exploring if it is in federal jurisdiction.
The bill contains key new measures that could limit or prohibit access to firearms for those who pose a threat to themselves or others. Bill C-71 took important steps in that direction with lifetime background checks that take into account intimate partner violence and online behaviour. These provisions must be implemented as soon as possible, but they are still insufficient methods for preventing a dangerous situation from becoming deadly. If someone suspects an individual with access to firearms might pose a danger to themselves or others, authorities only have limited power to intervene. With Bill C-21, we would introduce red- and yellow-flag laws.
A red-flag regime under the Criminal Code would empower both law enforcement and all Canadians, including those organizations that support survivors of abuse, to take action. If someone is aware of a potentially dangerous situation, they would be able to apply to a court to order an immediate temporary weapons prohibition order. There would also be judicial discretion to order the immediate seizure of firearms.
This means that any member of the public, including a family member or caregiver, could take action if there were reasonable grounds to believe that an individual should not have access to firearms. These include online behaviour. A person would also be able to apply to a court for a temporary access limitation order to prevent someone who was subject to a weapons prohibition order from accessing firearms possessed by another individual. The weapons prohibition order could require the individual to surrender to law enforcement the firearms in their possession. It could also be accompanied by a search and seizure order.
In the United States, 19 states and the District of Columbia have enacted extreme risk laws, and these have been effective. A recent study in California details 21 cases in which this law was used in efforts to prevent mass shootings.
Recently, I hosted a round table on Bill C-21 with the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and stakeholders in my community. We heard from representatives of Sheridan College, a local post-secondary institution, who voiced their concerns about how areas of congregate settings such as colleges are vulnerable to mass shootings and gun violence. Bill C-21 is a good step towards protecting our students on campus. Those at the round table expressed some concerns about the need to do more. They talked about the need for judicial education on domestic violence and coercive control if these red-flag laws are to be effective.
I have heard from a number of individuals and organizations that have either lost someone to gun violence or support survivors. They say that these red-flag laws need to be strengthened. I am committed to learning from them, and I am grateful for their future contribution once we start to study this proposed legislation at committee. We will invite advocates with lived experience, and they will bravely tell us about the worst day of their lives and why we need to take stronger action. It is incumbent upon everyone at that committee table to listen with an open heart and hear about what we, as parliamentarians, can do to make sure other families are not faced with the same devastating news that they have lost a loved one due to preventable firearms violence.
These red-flag provisions are one tool that aligns with Canada's strategy to prevent and address gender-based violence. It builds on current federal initiatives, coordinates existing programs and lays the foundation for greater action on this critical issue. The strategy is organized across three pillars: prevention of violence, support for survivors and their families, and promoting responsive legal and justice systems.
Gender-based violence is one of the most pervasive, deadly and deeply rooted human rights violations. The bill before us is paramount to the creation of strong and safe communities for everyone, and we have seen support for these measures.
Jan Reimer, a former Edmonton mayor and now executive director of the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters, said that the legislation proposed is:
...a step in the right direction.... We see women being threatened with a gun. It's one of the major, if not the major, causes of death for women in domestic violence relationships. Better control doesn't take anybody's rights away, but it does protect women's rights to safety.
Bill C-21 is one more tool we can use to prevent gun violence across our country. I look forward to testimony at the public safety committee from advocates who push us to create and strengthen legislation that protects our communities from gun violence. I am proud to support our efforts to keep Canadians safe.
View Jack Harris Profile
NDP (NL)
View Jack Harris Profile
2021-04-23 10:36 [p.6083]
Madam Speaker, I am pleased today to join in the debate in this virtual sitting of the House of Commons on Bill C-21, which is obscurely named an act to amend certain acts and to make certain consequential amendments on firearms.
I first want to say that what New Democrats want is for Canadians to be safer and feel safer. What we do not want is a polarization and a politicization of an issue that should be about public safety. Unfortunately, it deteriorates fairly rapidly into a debate about something else. We understand there are differences of opinion as to how best to make Canadians safer, but we do not want a clash of cultures. This is not a debate about cultures; this is a debate that ought to be focused on public safety.
I sat through two Parliaments before the previous one and heard issues debated regarding gun safety and the long-gun registry and it was not very helpful, frankly, in terms of gun safety and people's safety. We are in a situation now where the banning of assault rifles is one of the two most important measures. This is not about gun culture, hunting, law-abiding citizens or anything like that. We know there are efforts to talk about law-abiding citizens and I agree that most of us are law-abiding citizens, but the reality is that guns are a serious problem in our society. There have been mass shootings and I can go over some of them.
In December of 1989, we are all familiar with the horrendous events at École Polytechnique, where 14 were killed and 14 injured. In August of 1992, there was a massacre at Concordia University and in 1996, in Vernon, B.C. there were nine killed. In January 2017, we know about the Quebec City mosque shooting in Sainte-Foy, with six dead and five injured. Last April, there was the horrendous event in Nova Scotia, where 22 were killed and three injured. We know that these things happen and that they are likely to happen again. If something can be done to reduce the danger of this happening, then we should do it.
The two most important measures that deal with gun violence are the ban on military assault-style weapons and assault weapons with those kinds of capabilities and the empowering of municipalities to restrict or ban handguns within their boundaries. Both measures are ones that New Democrats have long supported and, in the case of the municipal handgun ban, were even the first to advocate. These measures would provide some support and defence against the possibilities that someone, in the case of assault rifles, who may have an obsession, grievance, hatred or some form of mental imbalance or anger associated with that, could cause mass deaths in a very short period of time, causing significant and horrendous death and loss of life of innocent people. As was pointed out, these guns have no use in our civil society. These are military weapons designed to be effective killers of people and New Democrats support the ban of these weapons.
We also want this legislation to receive the largest support possible in the House of Commons and largest level of acceptance by the general public. We know there is significant public support for a ban on assault rifles. A May 2020 poll said that 82% of people support a ban on the possession of assault-style weapons by civilians, 87% of women and 88% of Canadians aged 55-plus support a ban on military assault-style weapons and 87% of Canadians agree that the federal government should increase funding to suppress the smuggling of assault-style guns into Canada. Of course, this is another measure that we have been advocating for for at least a decade, that smuggling enforcement has to be improved considerably.
We heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety say that measures have been taken, but they are very late in coming and they are not even installed properly yet. In fact, going back to 2014, over 1,000 Canada Border Service Agency agents were removed from service and have not been replaced by the government since it has been in power, since 2015. That is something that is seriously deficient in the response that has taken place.
We will have committee hearings. There are serious concerns that have been raised by groups that have been advocating for victims of mass shootings. They have come forward and said that they do not believe that the Liberals are very serious if they are not prepared to put measures in place that take the long-term effect of removing these weapons seriously.
The so-called “grandfather clause” that allows people to keep weapons for potentially 20 to 60 years, despite the fact that they are prohibited weapons, is something that causes people to be concerned about how serious the government is in actually changing things, particularly when we already have a commitment from the Conservative Party to reverse that ban and therefore the lobbyists are encouraging people not to participate in a voluntary buyback program.
The minister's parliamentary secretary and the previous speaker suggested that a study of the New Zealand situation proved that only 40% of guns were actually returned in a voluntary buyback program. I do not believe that is an effective and proper analysis of the facts. The only figure that is based on is a figure put forth, unverified, by the gun lobby suggesting that there were 170,000 assault-style rifles in place. The other evidence shows that as a result of the buyback program, there has been no change in the price on the black market for assault-style weapons and there is no indication that this has not, in fact, been effective in reducing and eliminating further actions of that nature in New Zealand.
In fact, a ban in Australia was very important in effecting change for what happened in 1996, the Port Arthur massacre, that killed 35 people and injured 23. A national firearms ban was put in place and placed tight controls around automatic and semi-automatic weapons. Since then, there has only been one mass shooting since 1996, defined as more than five killed. However, between 1978 and 1996, there were 13 mass shootings in Australia, proving that the ban would be effective.
This is another failure of the government. There are other aspects of this bill, and I think the previous speaker touched on the red flag laws. We need to hear about the effectiveness of them. It looks to me that they can be effective in improving the possibility of getting guns out of the hands of people who may be an immediate danger to themselves or others. That is a very positive thing, but we do need to hear evidence on that because there are some of contrary views as to whether they are proper and able to do an effective job in that.
We have also a need for consultation from these groups. We need to also hear from another group that has a great deal of interest in this legislation and I am speaking here of the airsoft industry. It has come forward after being effectively put out of business by this legislation without any notice, without any consultation and without any alternatives. The failure to consult with other groups in the preparation of this legislation was also evident in this area because there are possibilities of using regulation as a different method of control in the airsoft industry.
For those who do not know, it is akin to the paintball industry. It is called airsoft because it is essentially an air gun that is used in recreational activity. Many of them are replicas of other styles of guns. We have legislation and regulation within the movie industry to allow it to use replica guns in film work with licences and regulations.
There is no reason to believe that regulations could not be developed in consultation with the airsoft industry to allow that industry to continue in a regulated fashion. That is something that may or may not be able to be done with committee hearings. It may be something that ought to be put off for further consultation.
This legislation was brought in after the order in council, very quickly after the Portapique massacre in Nova Scotia last year. We do not think that sufficient consultation was made, with all of the things that are contained in this legislation. We do need to have a closer look at much of what is in this legalisation. There is a lot of detail here.
I would like to hear that the government is prepared to be serious about considering other ways of ensuring that if we are going to have a ban on assault rifles, it is going to be an effective one that would be permanent in nature. It has been suggested, for example, that instead of having a compulsory buyback, if people wish to keep these assault-style rifles because they are collectors and want to have a display and show them to their friends, etc., there are methods of rendering them inoperable. It has been suggested that might be an alternative to the grandfathering clause, which would be quite easily overturned, rendering ineffective the measures that the government has taken.
It is not something that I think ought to be left lingering. We do not control the future, obviously, but to have a measure that provides legislation that lingers for decades but is not effective for that period of time is something we need to avoid.
The bottom line here is that we have legislation that meets the need to ban assault rifles, to make it more difficult to use, to be put into place. We hear as part of the discussion, and we have already heard it here this morning, talk about law-abiding citizens. The law-abiding citizens are people who do not break the law. There are many people who are law-abiding citizens until they are not law-abiding citizens anymore.
The research on gun violence shows that, for example, in the 16 deadliest mass shootings in Europe, and this is five-year-old evidence, between 1987 and 2015, 86% of the victims were shot by a licensed shooter. In at least 29 American mass gun killings since 2007, 139 people were killed by licensed firearm owners. To look back to Canada, of the firearms seized from Canadians who were violent, had threatened violence or were subject to a prohibition order, 43% were registered to licensed gun owners. In New Zealand, another example from far away, half the perpetrators in both non-fatal firearms-related domestic disputes and in gun homicides have been licensed gun owners.
It is not a panacea to say that we are dealing with law-abiding gun owners and there is no problem, because law-abiding gun owners are being affected by this. In fact, the individual who drove from Manitoba to Rideau Hall last July with a cache of guns had these guns legally. He said he was coming to arrest the Prime Minister, in part because of the gun legislation being brought forward.
We are not talking about one category or another here. We are talking about protecting the public and making the public safer. We are talking about assault-style rifles. One of the prohibited weapons from last year's order in council was held by this individual from Manitoba.
We have to get away from this whole issue of talking about attacking one group of people versus another. The emphasis has to be on public safety. The emphasis has to be on finding a way to ensure that we have the broadest public support possible for the legislation, by focusing specifically on the assault-style rifles and trying to do something about handguns, which are predominantly a city problem, by giving the authority to the municipalities to have some control over that. It may not be perfect, but it is better than what is there now, which is nothing that is actually controlling this.
Yes, there has to be more enforcement. Yes, there has to be a crackdown by the police on activities in cities. We have already heard from some municipalities, like Vancouver and Surrey, that are interested in this. Toronto has spoken favourably about it. These are areas where handguns are a particular problem and a danger to public safety. If this will help, then we should provide the mechanism so that it can be put in place.
Having said all that, I will be interested in comments or questions from my colleagues. I think this legislation is in the right direction, but it needs to be looked at very carefully. We need to make sure that it is actually going to be effective and that it is not going to be an overreach in an area like the airsoft industry, for example, which might be able to be more properly regulated.
View Christine Normandin Profile
BQ (QC)
View Christine Normandin Profile
2021-04-23 12:26 [p.6104]
Madam Speaker, I heard my colleague talking about a red flag regime that would help get guns out of the hands of people who pose a risk.
Would it not be simpler to completely ban the possession of weapons?
In some cases, would the use of this red flag regime not simply trigger someone who is a danger to themselves or others?
View Jack Harris Profile
NDP (NL)
View Jack Harris Profile
2021-04-23 12:26 [p.6104]
Madam Speaker, I am not sure that the hon. member and I are talking about the same thing.
The proposed red-flag legislation indicates an opportunity for a court to have guns or any firearm removed from a particular individual because of the individual's circumstances, which is something the police have access to now, but it would include a friend, neighbour or associate being able to make a similar application.
View Patrick Weiler Profile
Lib. (BC)
Mr. Speaker, today's landmark decision is an important one in the fight against climate change and the most efficient tool in this effort. The Supreme Court affirmed what the Conservative leader's party rejected just this past weekend: Climate change is real and we have to act.
Can the Minister of Environment and Climate Change please update the House on today's decision and our plan to fight climate change?
View Jonathan Wilkinson Profile
Lib. (BC)
Mr. Speaker, that is an important question. Today, the Supreme Court reaffirmed what Canadians have known along: Climate change is real and putting a price on pollution is of concern to Canada as a whole. Only Conservative politicians are disputing the reality and urgency of climate change.
Today's historic decision is a win for the millions of Canadians who believe we must build a prosperous economy that fights climate change, many of whom participated in the court's hearing, such as doctors, economists, cities, labour, indigenous groups and young people. It is a win for the hard-working families who will continue to receive more money in their pockets through the climate action incentive.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-03-11 16:32 [p.4926]
Madam Speaker, I can appreciate the gravity of the debate that has been taking place on this very important piece of legislation. It is nothing new to members, no matter what side of the aisle they are on. Those who have been around for the last four or five years have literally seen hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of debate and discussion when we factor in what has taken place in the Senate and its committees, the hours of debate in second reading and third reading, the committee hearings and the special committee hearings.
An amazing amount of consultation has taken place, in particular, with the current minister responsible for the legislation. I know the parliamentary secretary to this particular ministry has done a phenomenal job in terms of reaching out and explaining the many complicated aspects of this legislation, and comparing it with what had taken place previously.
The issue of medical assistance in dying has been on the floor of the House and in our communities for years. We are in this position now because of a specific superior court ruling from the province of Quebec. I think the deadline is now the end of the month. This is the second or third, and final, extension, as has been made very clear. I believe that we need to have legislation dealing with medical assistance in dying and that it needs to comply with our courts. I very much support the rule of law in our democratic system.
I understand there are extremes on either side of the issue. There are those who, for personal and passionate reasons, believe that we should not have the legislation and those who, for personal and passionate reasons, believe that we have to have the legislation. I have chosen the side of supporting the legislation. I made that determination for a number of reasons. I respect the debates that have taken place over the years. I have seen tears on the floor of the House of Commons as MPs plead their position on MAID, at times with a great deal of passion. It is not easy for many, if not all, members of Parliament to ultimately make that determination.
We have heard from our constituents by email, by Canada Post, by telephone and by public meeting. Many of our constituents are following this issue and want us to make a decision from their viewpoint. What I have often found when speaking to constituents is that they understand why we are in the position we are in today. Some would ultimately not want to see this legislation pass, period. They are prepared to use whatever mechanisms they can. I am referring, in particular, to members of the official opposition. They will take whatever actions they can to prevent the passage of this legislation.
When asking a question of the Minister of Justice earlier, I indicated I had listened to many hours of debate on this issue, and I had posed questions to other members.
Let it be put on the record clearly that I believe there are members within the Conservative caucus who do not want this legislation to pass, period. End of story. As a whole, the Conservative Party has taken the position that it wants to continue debate and has somehow drawn the conclusion that it is inappropriate for the government to move closure. I want to highlight two aspects of that, because I think it is very misleading for the Conservatives to try to give the impression in any way that the Government of Canada has not been listening to Canadians, or is trying to ram through legislation.
First, we are in a minority government. We could not be doing this without the support of a majority of the members sitting in the House of Commons. That means that many opposition members are supporting the need to allow this legislation to come to a vote. I suspect, when it does come to a vote, that some of the Conservatives who voted against allowing it to come to a vote will vote in favour of the legislation, so the Conservatives are using the rules to try to prevent that. It is important to recognize that it is not just the government saying the official opposition is being irresponsible with respect to this legislation.
Second, the Conservatives are saying they want more debate and that is what this is all about. They do not want the government to bring in closure. That is just not true. That is not the case. I do not believe that for a moment. Those who are following the debate need to understand and appreciate that the Conservative Party of Canada was offered not once, not twice, but on three separate occasions the opportunity to continue to debate this issue for hours on the floor of the House of Commons. The Conservatives said no to every opportunity they were provided for additional debate. That clearly demonstrates that the Conservative Party is not interested in having more debate time; rather, it wants to filibuster this legislation. In one sense, the Conservatives would be very happy if we debated this bill every day. If we accommodated their so-called desire, they would criticize us for not having more debate on other government bills.
There is a finite amount of time on the floor of the House of Commons. In my opinion, the Conservative Party continues to abuse the opportunity to allow for healthy debate. With Bill C-7, we are talking about life and death. There are examples I could give that further show what I believe has been a very destructive attitude by the Conservative Party of Canada when it comes to the proceedings in the House.
If it were not for shaming the Conservative Party of Canada, some of the legislation and other things that have taken place in the last 24 hours would not have occurred. If Canadians understood the tactics the Conservative Party is using, I believe they would be outraged.
Today is about life or death and Bill C-7. On other occasions, and I would cite Bill C-14 as an excellent example, there were hours and days of debate. I suspect there were probably more days of debate on Bill C-14 than there were on a budget bill, and more speakers than on a budget bill. Conservatives wanted to talk it out. I believe we finally got it through because they were shamed into doing so.
Bill C-7, as I indicated at the beginning, concerns a complex and deeply personal issue. It is about reducing suffering, among other things. In previous debates on this issue, I have shared with the House my own experiences of the passing of my father at Riverview and of my grandmother in palliative care at St. Boniface Hospital.
In these debates, there has been a great deal of discussion about what else we could do. For example, the importance of hospice care and the issues of long-term care, recognizing the federal government has a role to play in those areas—
View Rob Moore Profile
CPC (NB)
View Rob Moore Profile
2021-03-11 16:57 [p.4929]
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for South Surrey—White Rock.
Madam Speaker, it has been very interesting to hear the Liberal speakers today on this sad day when the Liberals have brought in closure on what is a very important life-or-death amendment from the Senate, and to hear the Liberals spinning their wheels and making up excuses and pretending that past studies on other bills dealing with medical assistance in dying somehow should be taken and counted in support of the huge expansion suggested by the Senate, which has only had a very few hours of consideration in the House before this closure motion today.
For those who are watching, closure by the government means that members of Parliament will not be able to further debate or further study the application of medical assistance in dying to those suffering with mental illness.
It is important to have a bit of context on this because when the Minister of Justice appeared at our justice committee when we were studying this bill, we did not hear from those in the community dealing with suicide prevention and with mental illness because that was not an aspect of the bill. The minister at the time said that there was no consensus in Canada when it comes to mental illness, and there was no consensus among physicians when it comes to mental illness; yet now, a few months later, the Liberals are ramming this through today in a very unfortunate and contemptuous way.
I expect that desperation we hear in the voices of Liberal members is because they are getting the same emails, phone calls and messages that the rest of us are getting. These messages are from those who are fighting for vulnerable people, those who are fighting for people with depression and people suffering from mental illness, saying, “Please do not pass this Senate, and now Liberal government, amendment”.
From the beginning the government has mismanaged this issue. The Liberals say that Bill C-7 was originally aimed at responding to the Quebec Superior Court decision from 2019. Conservatives, at the time, said very clearly that the government should defend its law and should have appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Canada. Instead, the Minister of Justice, who himself voted against Bill C-14 on medical assistance in dying because it did not go far enough, saw this as an opportunity to rapidly expand the medical assistance in dying regime under the cover of responding to that Quebec court decision.
I disagree with the position of the Liberals not to appeal this to the Supreme Court. As the Conservatives said, that would have given Parliament clarity on how to legislate going forward. However, the Liberals took the highly unusual approach of not defending their own legislation. If the Liberals simply wanted to respond to the Quebec court decision, they would and could have done that. They chose not to do that. Instead, today, they are trying to ram through this bill that goes dramatically beyond that. It is very clear that the Liberal government sees the work of Parliament as a nuisance and that anything other than complete acceptance of its legislation must be opposed.
When this bill was first introduced just over a year ago, it was done one week after the government had already asked for its first extension from the Quebec court decision. Therefore, the Liberals were already failing to meet the court deadline that they said was their goal. Then, rather than introduce a bill that simply addressed the Quebec court decision, the Liberals introduced a far more expansive bill that requires a significantly greater amount of scrutiny by Parliament.
Under Bill C-14, the government's original MAID legislation, a legislative review was required five years after the bill received royal assent. That was scheduled to take place last year. This review would have looked at the impacts of Bill C-14 and would have provided insight on how to proceed forward. Let me be clear: Rather than allow Parliament to do that work first, the government decided to expand MAID legislation in Bill C-7. Again, rather than simply responding to the court decision and allowing Parliament to do the work necessary to study this issue, the Liberals overreacted and brought in expansive new legislation.
The government ended up receiving an extension from March 11 to July 11, 2020, and, with the COVID outbreak, Parliament's scrutiny was limited for a number of months. As time ticked toward July 11, it was apparent that yet again the Liberals would not be able to ram their bill through Parliament, and another extension was requested on June 11, this time for December 18, 2020. When Parliament eventually resumed in September 2020, we could have had the opportunity to debate Bill C-7, but of course we were, ironically, prevented from doing so by the Liberals who are now so keen on passing Bill C-7, because they prorogued Parliament, wiping the legislative slate clean. We all know this was done to avoid scrutiny of the WE scandal to protect the Prime Minister and other senior members of cabinet.
Based on the communications over the past couple of days, one would expect that the Liberals may have had a sense of urgency to reintroduce Bill C-7, instead they did not introduce Bill C-7 again in the first week or the second week. It took the Liberals until the third week of Parliament after they prorogued to actually reintroduce Bill C-7.
The Liberals have set themselves up time and time again to miss their own deadlines, and they have set themselves up for failure, but now there is this rapid rush. however, as has been pointed out, this is an entirely new bill that has come back from the Senate because it includes what was explicitly excluded by our House of Commons, which is made up of elected members of Parliament from all across this country. The mental illness component was specifically and deliberately excluded, and now it is being added in.
By including mental illness as a sole underlying condition to be eligible for MAID, the government wants to expand MAID even further in a way that is a complete 180° turn from Bill C-7 as it was introduced a year ago. This is a completely different bill than was originally debated in the House. As the vice-chair of the justice committee, I know we did not seek to hear from experts on this topic because the government's bill explicitly said expanding medical death to those with mental illness was not being considered. Now, at this last stage of the bill, the government is recklessly accepting a dramatic expansion of the bill, an expansion to which the Minister of Justice himself said there was no consensus.
What are people saying on this mental illness issue? It is unfortunate because Canadians are not going to be able to be engaged and participate in this conversation before we vote on the matter tonight. However, for those of us who are listening, the CEO of the Mental Health Association sounded alarm bells in an article urging all members of Parliament to please vote against the Senate amendments. Her point in the article is that MAID should not be broadened to those with mental illness until at least the health care system adequately responds to mental health needs of Canadians.
She highlights that it is not possible to determine whether any particular case of mental illness represents an advance state of decline and capabilities that cannot be reversed. She concluded her article writing, “We have to cure our ailing mental health system in Canada before we even begin to consider mental illness incurable.”
In a CBC, Dr. Mark Sinyor, a psychiatrist and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto recently wrote, “As a scientist, I have to be open to the possibility that all of the claims advanced by MAID advocates are accurate. But enacting law, one which literally governs life or death decisions, based on a possibility isn't good enough.”
He continued, “In other areas of medicine, thoughtful scientists typically devote whole careers to meticulously studying benefits and harms of treatments before rolling them out. Here, that proven approach has inexplicably been replaced with hand-waving and moralizing.”
We know that it is our job as members of Parliament to study these things and hear about them at committee from experts, those that are directly impacted, before passing new legislation. We heard this week at a press conference from Wayne Wegner. He told his story of struggling with mental illness. Wayne had a series of difficulties in life that led him to a very dark place, and he urged members of Parliament to please vote against this legislation.
In conclusion, this is not how we should be operating. We should not be dealing with closure today. We should be listening to persons with disabilities and persons suffering from mental illness issues and their advocates. We should all do our jobs as members of Parliament and listen first before we act. That is our duty.
View Monique Pauzé Profile
BQ (QC)
View Monique Pauzé Profile
2021-02-25 17:28 [p.4578]
Mr. Speaker, introducing a bill is always an important moment in the life of a legislator, and so is the time when that bill is debated.
I therefore commend the member for Lakeland, and I want to explain to her why the Bloc Québécois will not be supporting her bill. In environmental policy, there is a basic principle known as the polluter pays principle.
According to this principle, to which the Bloc Québécois subscribes, it is up to businesses to assume the costs of environmental damage related to their operations. The provisions of the member for Lakeland's Bill C-221 fail to respect that basic principle. The very principle of granting a tax credit in an attempt to force companies to assume their responsibilities would mean funding an industry that is harmful to the environment rather than funding the energy transition. We agree with the hon. member that it is not up to Alberta taxpayers to pay the full cost of shutting down orphaned wells, but nor is it up to Quebec, the provinces and territories. This is the perfect opportunity to recognize the merit of the polluter pays principle and to implement it as rigorously as possible. Until the shift to clean energy is completed so that Canada can move away from fossil fuels, which we hope happens as quickly as possible, governments will have to strengthen their environmental policies and come up with effective ways to hold resource companies accountable.
Two years ago, the Supreme Court upheld the polluter pays principle in the Redwater Energy case by overturning a ruling from Alberta's highest court holding that repaying the creditor bank of the bankrupt company should take precedence over cleaning up abandoned sites. The Supreme Court disagreed and said that the priority is the cleanup, that decontaminating the environment takes precedence over repaying creditors when an oil company goes bankrupt. It even specified that the creditors and fiduciaries claiming to have priority were in fact people who benefited from the company's economic activity and who were, as a result, bound by the same regulatory obligations as the bankrupt company.
Between 2016 and 2019, in only three years, there were 28 bankruptcies involving 10,000 sites in Alberta for a total value of $335 million. Over the same period, the Orphan Well Association's inventory grew by 300%. This NGO, also known as OWA, claims to be independent, funded primarily by the industry and under the regulatory authority of the Alberta Energy Regulator. Is that really the case? Let us continue. Its mandate is to close wells, plants and pipelines who are no longer under the responsibility of financially solvent owners in order to protect the public and the environment and to eliminate the potential threat posed by these unfunded liabilities.
If the industry properly funded the OWA to really repair the environmental damage caused by failed companies, would we still be talking about even more taxpayer dollars being funnelled to the fossil fuels industry? The federal funding that the member for Winnipeg North spoke of earlier, the $1.7 billion announced last spring to clean up and close orphaned wells, is taxpayer money. Albertans also fund, through loans, the restoration of hundreds of wells—more taxpayer dollars. What about guaranteed federal loans with public money from all across the country? Even more taxpayer dollars.
The tax credit proposed in Bill C-221 will not prevent the inevitable decline of the fossil fuel sector, especially not for the qualifying corporations the bill identifies. The explosion in the number of sites that the OWA is now responsible for clearly illustrates this reality. It is in the economic interest of the western provinces to diversify. Even the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, says that demand for oil will plateau and will not grow much in the next 25 years, while renewable energy is already growing and will continue to grow even faster over the same period. In this context, we must approach the problem of bankruptcies head-on and make sure that governments reform and tighten their criteria for how companies finance the end of their facilities' life.
Forcing society at large to pay for the environmental costs of an industry that not only degrades the surrounding environment, but puts communities at risk and compromises our climate future, is neither fair nor legitimate.
For public funds spent on closing wells to be considered an investment, such expenditures would need to be made in the wider context of a comprehensive energy transition plan. If such a plan were implemented, making an investment to restore the environment around the wells would be considered a measure to ensure a fair transition. It would have the dual benefit of protecting the environment and supporting energy sector workers during the necessary transition.
However, as a stand-alone bill, Bill C-221 is a tax incentive to support the development of business models and an industry that are making no attempt to mitigate the impact of the environmental degradation for which it is responsible. Any financial support provided to manage the environmental risks that continuously result from the fossil fuel industry must be attached to restrictive environmental regulations, as well as other preventive measures, in order to avoid endlessly exacerbating the situation and the problem.
There is one good program called area-based closures, where well operators work together to minimize the cost of restoring sites. It is a good program and a step in the right direction, but participation is voluntary.
We need to do more to protect the environment and our health and to address the climate emergency. One thing is for sure: Well operators must take note of the Supreme Court decision I mentioned earlier. Provincial governments, for their part, must create regulatory tools tied to taxation laws to enforce the Supreme Court decision.
In the Supreme Court Redwater case, the appellant, the Alberta Energy Regulator, estimated the province's oil and gas liability at $30 billion or more. These massive costs, which are a relatively conservative estimate, are over and above the ever-increasing costs of greenhouse gas emissions, the impact on human health and the destruction of natural environments in the province.
A multi-level governmental review of the fossil fuel regulatory environment, which would empower governments to hold those benefiting from the resource responsible, is decades overdue. The orphan well problem, which is not addressed in Bill C-221, is real, it is current, and it is definitely connected to that.
In conclusion, the Orphan Well Association, or OWA, has had expanded powers since the spring of 2020, powers that were granted in the middle of a pandemic under two amendments adopted to its enabling legislation by the Government of Alberta. According to published information, these powers affect three areas: the role that the OWA plays in promoting the closure of sites; the role it plays in ensuring that oil and gas sites are not abandoned prematurely; and increased financial control to manage sites that may eventually be abandoned, as well as those under its control.
These wells are being kept in good working order, but why? To what end? Essentially, the OWA can now buy up sites before they are abandoned, which helps the company. Then it will clean up the defective sites, which did not used to happen, meaning the industry is relieved of its responsibility yet again. That is the direction that the Alberta government would like to move in with the OWA, which now works in service of the companies.
The Bloc Québécois has already indicated that it is prepared to stand with workers and families in western Canada, but efforts need to be made to break the Canadian economy's dependence on fossil fuels. We have proposed concrete measures in favour of a recovery plan, but we are still waiting for the government's green recovery strategy.
Without a comprehensive strategy, Bill C-221 is just a glorified subsidy for the fossil fuel industry. The Bloc Québécois's position is clear: We are against any subsidy for that sector. The pandemic must not be used as an excuse to make the public pay the high price of environmental damage.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-02-23 11:26 [p.4422]
Madam Speaker, I do not want to keep members in suspense for too long. The Bloc Québécois will support the government's motion, and I will explain why.
I would like to tell all my colleagues that we need to work across party lines on these sensitive issues and find a way to move forward.
I remind my colleagues that Quebec's end-of-life legislation has often been cited as an example, not only because it is a good system, but also because of the way all members of the Quebec National Assembly worked together to create that system. Quebec's act came into force in 2015. The Select Committee on Dying with Dignity was created in 2009. The legislation was passed in 2014 and assented to in June 2014. This means that there was a process that ultimately involved debate. The Quebec National Assembly was able to consider all the differences and find common ground, which served as the foundation for the act. At the end of the process there were very few people against the act. There was broad consensus on this piece of legislation, both in the National Assembly and among Quebeckers.
In Ottawa, members have always taken action in response to court rulings. The amendments that need to be made to the Criminal Code in order to incorporate all of these sensitive issues are related to a court ruling. In this case, the legislators finally need to take action because the law has been deemed unconstitutional and found to violate fundamental rights.
According to Baudouin and Carter, Bill C-14 deprives people of the right to life. For example, it was depriving Ms. Carter, Ms. Gladu, Mr. Truchon and Ms. Taylor of their right to life because they were being forced to shorten their lives. That is not a trivial matter. It is serious.
My Conservative colleagues are saying that we need to protect human dignity and life. I completely agree, but it is important that we not create the opposite effect of what we claim to defend through government paternalism. Vulnerable people are capable of defending and exercising their rights.
However, it is rather appalling to see that, since Bill C-14 was introduced and since a decision was rendered in Carter, we have placed on the shoulders of vulnerable people, people with irreversible diseases, people who are enduring unbearable suffering, the burden of defending their case before the court in order to get access to medical assistance in dying.
Why are we agreeing to vote in favour of the motion? We are doing so because we need to make progress in a debate like this.
I have said this before and I will come back to it again later. Even though we said that we agree with the underlying principles of Bill C-7, we would have liked for the bill to go a little further. However, we still need to recognize that Bill C-7 responds to situations like those of Ms. Gladu, Mr. Truchon and Ms. Parker.
Bill C-7 also makes it possible for people in the terminal phase of life—I am not talking about the terminal stage of an illness when death is not foreseeable—to avoid waiting the mandatory 10 days with two witnesses before finally proceeding. Many people with cancer go through a long process. Even in the most aggressive cases, it takes a few months. People wait until the last minute to proceed because nobody wants to die. Everyone wants to wait until the last minute and push the limits of what they can tolerate. Once they reach that limit, these people want help.
Once in the terminal phase of life, a person who had been receiving palliative care at home may be taken to the hospital urgently, where health workers will note their rapidly deteriorating condition. Consider a person who, for the past two years, six months or three months, has always told their therapists that they want medical assistance in dying because they do not want to suffer. This person has been receiving palliative care and medication at home, but their condition is deteriorating. Why should they have to wait 10 days for access to medical assistance in dying in the terminal phase of life when the process of dying has begun and is irreversible? Bill C-7 covers this situation and offers this option. That is a step in the right direction.
There are of course other sensitive issues to be addressed, such as mental illness as the sole underlying medical condition. In my remarks last December, I had the opportunity to say that, as a parliamentarian and legislator, I did not have the expertise to reach a decision on that point. I think it is wise that the motion implies two things and that an independent panel of experts is being set up. The panel will have to look at the recommended protocols, guidelines and safeguards for MAID requests from patients with mental illness as their only condition.
Earlier, my Conservative colleague was talking about the requirement to have safeguards that protect the individual and help prevent abuse. Our Conservative colleagues would have us believe that we are in some sort of house of horrors, as though the health care system itself were inherently evil, and we need to protect persons with disabilities because our prejudices about these individuals might cause health care professionals to give up, as though people are going to be coerced and euthanized without their consent. I find it very difficult to understand that kind of rhetoric.
A similar independent panel of experts was set up in Quebec and a report was prepared. I think we should carry on with this work to get a clearer picture. Not only will the panel of experts deal with this issue, but there will also be something else we have been asking for for a long time and that is the creation of a review committee for the entire body of work. Bill C-7 could have included amendments to C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, which could have led to a new review of the legislation in two, three or four years. In just 30 days a special joint committee will study the issues of mature minors, advance requests, mental illness, palliative care in Canada and the protection of Canadians with disabilities.
Whether or not an election is triggered and there ends up being a change in government this committee is enshrined in law and will begin sitting in 30 days. It will work for a year before tabling its recommendations. We may reach a consensus or hold discussions for at least 12 months, which the court-imposed deadlines did not allow Parliament to do in relation to Bill C-7 and its previous version, Bill C-14. I think it is necessary.
To come back to the social acceptance of Bill C-7, I would point out to my Conservative colleagues that an average of 80% of people across the country approve it, from 88% in Quebec to 77% in Alberta. I think moving forward is a reasonable compromise. If in 24 months MAID is made available to people with mental illness, this deadline will help determine the necessary safeguards to make practitioners comfortable with this as well. In fact, we need to hear their point of view on this.
On the issue of advance requests for medical assistance in dying, I find it timely that the committee will start sitting in 30 days and that its members will work hard across party lines for the benefit of people who are suffering, like Sarah Demontigny. We will not forget these people, and we will establish a process to ensure that the advance requests they are drafting today will apply once our work is done. That is my hope.
Without making assumptions about the results of our efforts, I think we can come up with something better than the amendment proposed by the Senate if we have meaningful discussions and hear from witnesses. This would make it possible for Quebec, which is responsible for implementing this practice of advance requests, to properly regulate it. We could identify how to best amend the Criminal Code to allow for this.
I spoke about the legal aspect, but I will now come back to the fundamental principles. We are in the process of reaching a compromise because reason dictates that we must move forward. Bill C-7 represented a step in the right direction with the official commitment of an expert panel on mental health. I think it would be a good idea that the special committee I mentioned be a joint committee. This would ensure that everyone is doing the same work and hearing the same witnesses at the same time to eventually arrive at a conclusion, rather than having a game of ping pong between the two chambers—one of which is outdated, in our opinion. Let us rally together.
We are doing this for those who are suffering, who have waited too long and who, today, have hope that we will finally complete this work. I believe that the government's motion represents the light at the end of the tunnel for these people, because there is a deadline and we will get there if we all act in good faith and without partisanship.
Bill C-7 already contains fundamental principles, which I will repeat. First, death—my death, just like my life—belongs to me. Why did I say that and why did I say earlier that the Conservatives are practising government paternalism?
I said those things because my own death is a very personal thing, and the state must not tell me what to do or make decisions for me. The state should be creating a framework to protect my decisions. I do not think people should be pressured or forced to go into palliative care until their last breath or to request medical assistance in dying.
During any clinical study, the patient is the standard. When someone who is ill has determined their own limit of what is tolerable, we need to listen to what they are telling us and what comes out of their suffering. This allows us to provide support.
I find it very disturbing that in the debate on medical assistance in dying, MAID and palliative care are always pitted against each other, but in reality, it is a continuum and they complement each other. Later in my speech I will define the notion of human dignity.
Who would not want to receive palliative care before dying from a serious degenerative disease that causes intolerable suffering? We all want relief; no one wants to suffer.
When it comes to end-of-life care, the least you can give someone is palliative care. Unfortunately, for the past 50 years, palliative care has not been the only answer for everyone, unless one is ideologically committed and determined to prove it. At that point, someone comes to the patient's bedside and imposes some religious or other ideology. No, that is not it.
We are in a process where it is imperative that we consider that palliative care can be successful even when a patient's request for MAID emerges. Why? Because the patient is at peace and ready to let go. In fact, I hope all my colleagues are at peace and able to let go when the time comes. This could also be an example of very good palliative care. Palliative care is about support when someone is dying, the easing of suffering and psychological support. It is possible that some will die after suffering until the end, but it is also possible that some are ready to let go. That is when they can be supported.
It is not up to the family or the state to make decisions on behalf of the dying patient or the person suffering from a serious and irreversible condition causing intolerable suffering. The underlying principle of Bill C-7 puts into perspective what is enshrined in law for every human being, namely self-determination.
The law guarantees everyone the right to self-determination. Why take this right away from me at the most intimate moment of my life, meaning my death? Why should the state be allowed to take away my right to self-determination in my decision to suffer until I die in palliative care or to seek MAID? It would be utterly absurd for the state to assume that power.
The state must provide us a framework to be able to do this. I often hear members talk about human dignity. Human dignity implies that we must absolutely—
View Jamie Schmale Profile
CPC (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-15, an act respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This is a bill that has had seven iterations since 2008. Right from the beginning, Conservatives have seen the value in UNDRIP as an aspirational document that provides guiding principles toward reconciliation. We also recognize that many of the articles of UNDRIP are supportable. However, the impact of free, prior and informed consent and its impact on the cultural, social and economic development of indigenous peoples remains unclear. This is not coming as a surprise to the government. Conservatives have been clear from day one that this needed clarification. The fact that the government in its legislation has failed to clarify free, prior and informed consent yet again indicates it simply does not care about the implications that this bill would have for indigenous and non-indigenous communities.
Let me be clear. Conservatives support indigenous communities and their rights. We support the process of reconciliation with Canada's indigenous people, including the importance of education, economic development, and employment and training opportunities. We supported the Indigenous Languages Act and legislation relating to indigenous child welfare. We support many of UNDRIP's articles, but what we oppose is the government's lack of due diligence in putting forward legislation without reaching a common understanding of how free, prior and informed consent will be interpreted. We also do not think that enough consultation has been done with indigenous communities. This is something that has been echoed across the country, in fact. This will lead to uncertainty and could potentially undermine trust if expectations are not met, which could in turn set back reconciliation.
The government will say not to worry, and that this will be sorted out later. We have heard this many times. In fact, this is exactly what the justice minister told the Assembly of First Nations recently, but when it comes to taking action that will impact the lives of indigenous peoples, such as ending long-term boil water advisories, the Liberals have consistently failed to keep their promises. The Liberal government has a track record of saying it will sort it out later and then never delivering, so how can we trust them this time to do anything differently? That is why we have to worry with the Liberal government. We have to worry that the undefined statement of free, prior and informed consent could be interpreted as a de facto veto right, and thus have profound detrimental effects not only for a variety of industries across Canada, but for indigenous communities as well. National Chief Perry Bellegarde stated on May 12, 2016, that free, prior and informed consent “very simply is the right to say yes, and the right to say no”.
What if two or more indigenous communities want different things? The exact impacts on workers across regions and industries are unknown. The impacts on indigenous entrepreneurs are unknown. However, with the uncertainty created by the Liberals around the interpretation of free, prior and informed consent, the cost to communities, labour unions, indigenous businesses, and provincial and territorial governments could be astronomical. If existing laws and regulations could be superseded by implementing UNDRIP, the regulatory burden on industries could increase and deter business in Canada. This uncertainty hurts both prospective development and indigenous communities. There is a lack of clarity regarding how UNDRIP will work with Canadian jurisprudence and within each level of government. Everyone has a different interpretation. The only people who stand to benefit from a lack of clarity or a lack of definition are lawyers.
During a December 3, 2020, briefing for parliamentarians, representatives from the Department of Justice stated that Bill C-15 respects Canadian jurisprudence, while officials from Natural Resources Canada stated that the bill does not create requirements for industry, but for government. Which representatives were correct? We know from the Wet'suwet'en dispute that many indigenous Canadians believe the government and all industries operating in British Columbia, where a bill similar to Bill C-15 was passed, are bound by UNDRIP. In this case, hereditary chiefs maintained that they had not given their free, prior and informed consent for the pipeline. This was despite the proponent entering into agreements with all elected chiefs and councils along the approved route.
What if two or more indigenous communities want different things? Even within the same community, what if there is conflict between what the elected band council and hereditary chiefs want? Whose free, prior and informed consent trumps whose? Government officials appear to believe that the Indian Act and therefore elected chiefs would take precedence, but then why did the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations enter into an agreement with hereditary chiefs and ignore the elected chiefs of the Wet'suwet'en? There is not enough clarity.
There are many more examples.
Article 3 states:
Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
How does that work, regarding Supreme Court decisions such as Marshall I and Marshall II, which state there are limitations on economic rights subject to definition by the responsible minister and the Badger test?
Article 19 states:
States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.
How does that work with the October 11, 2018, Supreme Court decision, which clearly states that the duty to consult does not extend to the legislative drafting phase?
Further, article 28.1 states:
Indigenous peoples have the right to redress, by means that can include restitution or, when this is not possible, just, fair and equitable compensation, for the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used, and which have been confiscated, taken, occupied, used or damaged without their free, prior and informed consent.
What does that mean for the City of Ottawa, for example?
Furthermore, it should be noted that the Supreme Court established in 1901 that it does not need to be bound by previous decisions, meaning it could subsequently choose to revise certain decisions once UNDRIP is affirmed as a tool for interpreting Canadian laws, including the Canadian Constitution.
Another important question is that of how land claims and modern treaties will be affected by UNDRIP. Currently, for example, article 4 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement lays out a division of powers within the territory. It includes a political accord granting powers, such as in other provinces and territories, to a public government and creating space and decisions that would affect the socio-cultural development of Inuit for input from the beneficiary organization. However, the lack of a clear definition of free, prior and informed consent may lead to the reopening of that land claim, as is already happening in Nunavut.
ITK president Natan Obed stated on December 3, 2020, in an interview with a news agency that “There are many things that the land claims are silent on.” Since devolution has not occurred, these discussions can still happen between Canada and Nunavut Inuit.
Is it possible that modern treaties and established land claims across the country may move to reopen negotiations to reclaim rights groups feel they may have given up in exchange for self-government?
In its December 2008 resolution, the AFN specifically states that the relationship between first nations and the Crown has been, and must continue to be, governed by international law. It added that treaties concluded with European powers are international treaties created for the purpose of co-existence rather than submission to the overall jurisdiction of colonial governments, and that the Canadian government has at no point been able to provide proof that first nations have expressly and of their own free will renounced their sovereign attributes. This statement clearly suggests an unwillingness to accept Canadian jurisprudence as the ultimate authority, calling into question how discrepancies between Supreme Court rulings and UNDRIP articles would be resolved. That is of critical importance.
Clause 5 of the bill states:
The Government of Canada must, in consultation and cooperation with Indigenous peoples, take all measures necessary to ensure that the laws of Canada are consistent with the Declaration.
Not some laws, but the laws of Canada: not just federal, but provincial and municipal as well. Has the government consulted with the provinces and municipalities?
On November 27, six provincial ministers of indigenous affairs sent a joint letter to the government to share their concerns with this legislation. That included Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec. They were concerned that they were only given six weeks to review the legislation and about the impact it will have on the laws and regulations in their provinces. The letter states:
...delay is necessary both to allow for appropriate engagement with provinces, territories, and Indigenous partners on the draft of the bill, and to allow time for Canada to fully and meaningfully consider and address the legitimate...concerns that we have already raised about the draft bill in its current form.
The letter goes on to say:
A hasty adoption of ambiguous legislation that could fundamentally change Confederation without the benefit of the widespread and necessary national and provincial consultation and consensus not only risks undermining reconciliation, but will create uncertainty and litigation and risk promoting deeper and broader divisions within our country.
The list goes on.
The lack of clarity in this bill could have sweeping implications. The purpose of legislation is to make the law clear. As I said earlier, this bill fails to do that. The Liberal government has failed to do the real work necessary to make good on its promise to implement UNDRIP. Instead, it has presented a bill that is woefully incomplete because all it wants to do is check a box, but this bill is nowhere near a promise kept. It is yet another in a long line of the Liberal government's broken promises to indigenous communities.
On December 17, the National Coalition of Chiefs wrote to the Prime Minister, expressing its concern:
While the affirmation of Indigenous rights is always welcome, there are implications to this legislation, as currently drafted, that is likely to have negative impacts on the many Indigenous communities that rely on resource development as a source of jobs, business contracts and own source revenues. I do not want to see symbolic gestures of reconciliation come at the expense of food on the table for Indigenous peoples.
That is worth repeating: The legislation “is likely to have negative impacts on many Indigenous communities". How is that keeping with reconciliation?
Industry stakeholders are generally supportive. Like Conservatives, they share an understanding of the aspirational spirit of UNDRIP and the need for renewed nation-to-nation discussions on the path to reconciliation. However, they also share concerns, similar to those of Conservatives and many indigenous communities, that before Bill C-15 is passed, the government must clarify free, prior and informed consent. They are seeking clarity and want to ensure they understand the rules, but most concerning is the lack of consultation on Bill C-15 with indigenous communities.
The National Coalition of Chiefs expressed concern, stating:
...the lack of consultation is a flag for Indigenous leaders and communities across Canada. While the NCC was able to meet once with the Minister of Justice, there was an understanding that we would meet further to discuss our issues and concerns. The current comment period is far too short for us to consult with our representatives of Parliament.
Legislation of this magnitude only warranted one meeting.
On February 3, the elders of Saddle Lake Cree Nation wrote to the Prime Minister. They expressed deep concerns and indicated that they fully disapprove of Bill C-15 and the process that has been followed to date by the Government of Canada. This is because the government had not made any attempts to meet with them, or to provide adequate time and opportunity to consult.
The Liberal government has repeatedly demonstrated its inability, or perhaps just its unwillingness, to properly consult, let alone come to any agreements on the definition of “indigenous rights”. It is this uncertainty in the ability and willingness of the government to really deliver on Bill C-15 that has so many worried. Leaving interpretation to the courts over the ensuing years will lead to uncertainties that will have enormous implications for Canada.
While the Conservative Party supports the goals and aspirations of UNDRIP, we are concerned the government is going ahead with legislation, enshrining it into Canadian law, before we have developed a common understanding of what concepts such as free, prior and informed consent actually mean. There is currently a lack of consensus in the legal community. Without a common understanding, we risk creating uncertainty and misunderstanding in the future. That would mean letting indigenous Canadians and their communities down yet again.
Conservatives believe that the path to reconciliation lies in taking meaningful action to improve the lives of indigenous peoples and ensuring that they are able to fully participate in Canada's economy. We are concerned that a lack of clarity and common understanding about key concepts in the bill could have unpredictable and far-reaching effects that could undermine reconciliation in the long term.
Without a clear definition of free, prior and informed consent, there are several outstanding and troubling questions left unanswered. Whose consent must be sought when it is clear that consent has to be given? Could an unelected individual or group undermine the will of elected indigenous representatives or invalidate the decision of an indigenous-led process, an institution, or a public government?
I appreciate that the government feels that free, prior and informed consent does not mean a veto. The National Post reported the justice minister saying, “The word veto does not exist in the document”. In that same article, David Chartrand, the national spokesperson for the Métis National Council said, “We made it very clear, this is not a veto, we’re not out to kill industry”.
Why not then include a definition of free, prior and informed consent in this document? Why not spell it out for all Canadians that it does not mean a veto? If this process is about providing clarity for indigenous communities, non-indigenous communities and industry, let us start with some clarity around Bill C-15.
When it comes to taking practical actions that will impact the daily lives of indigenous peoples, such as ending long-term boil water advisories, the Liberals have, unfortunately, failed to keep their promises. I feel that Bill C-15 may be just another failed promise.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-01-26 14:46 [p.3545]
Mr. Speaker, this is the fifth anniversary of the historic Human Rights Tribunal ruling that ordered the Liberal government to end its systemic discrimination against first nations children, yet the Prime Minister's obstruction has resulted in eight non-compliance orders and over $8 million in legal fees. The cost has been paid in children's lives, children such as Chantel Fox, Jolynn Winter and Jenna Roundskye.
When will the Prime Minister just call off his lawyers, do the right thing for first nations children and end his systemic discrimination against their rights?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, while today is the fifth anniversary of the CHRT order on the inequalities and overrepresentation of indigenous children in care that spanned decades, we have been clear that our goal is a comprehensive, fair and equitable compensation for those impacted by the historic inequities in first nations child welfare.
Let me be equally clear in saying that currently Canada is facing three competing lawsuits that purport largely to represent the same group of plaintiffs, and we welcome the appointment of a mediator to navigate this process. I would also take the a moment to highlight the termination this week of birth alerts in Saskatchewan.
View Rachel Blaney Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Indigenous Services recently stated that his government does not recognize the jurisdiction of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal on expanding Jordan's principle. He wants consultation instead. Is the minister for real? We are talking about children who have no access to health care supports for the basic and urgent care they need. This is about care for children.
I am asking the minister to not take first nations children to court again. I am asking for reconciliation and action, not words. I ask the minister to please drop the legal action now.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I would highlight for the member opposite that Indigenous Services Canada has provided 800,000 supports since 2016 in implementing these orders. The appeal of the particular order that the member is referencing will in no way prejudice indigenous children.
We will implement every single aspect of that order, regardless of the outcome. It is part of the competing three lawsuits that this government is facing, purporting to affect the same group of plaintiffs. We welcome the appointment of the mediator to navigate through this process.
View Brenda Shanahan Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, Bill C-7, which amends the Canadian framework for medical assistance in dying, is the result of a detailed consultation process involving over 300,000 Canadians, including health care professionals, people with disabilities and caregivers. The deadline set by the courts to pass Bill C-7 is quickly approaching.
Can the minister explain why it is so important to all Canadians for the government to meet the deadline set by the Quebec Superior Court?
View David Lametti Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Châteauguay—Lacolle for her question and her great wisdom.
We need to meet the court's deadline to avoid prolonging the unnecessary suffering of Canadians like Audrey Parker, who chose to move up the date of her death to be sure that she would have the choice, or Jean Truchon, who had the courage to fight for his rights just before he died.
I am the justice minister, but I am first and foremost a member from Quebec. Respecting Quebec means respecting the will of its courts. I thank all members for finally allowing Bill C-7 to move forward so that we could meet the court's deadline.
It is our duty to Ms. Parker, Mr. Truchon and all Canadians who are suffering greatly.
View Arnold Viersen Profile
CPC (AB)
View Arnold Viersen Profile
2020-12-09 16:46 [p.3231]
Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to rise again to speak on the bill.
I want to recognize that we have come a long with the bill. At every turn, we have had the disability community step up and be the voice that we needed to hear on this particular bill.
The Senate, the other place, has started a pre-study and has heard from over 85 witnesses. While they brought varying perspectives from across the country, all of them were opposed to the bill and asked that the government go back to the drawing board and come up with a bill that would protect the interests of all Canadians, particularly the interests of disabled Canadians.
As we have seen in the news today, the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River has said that he cannot, in good conscience, support the bill, and I know that there are other members. The minister responsible for disability inclusion, when she was in the other place giving testimony, said that she was concerned, and that she was hearing from the disability community about safeguards and how this will affect those folks who live with disabilities. We know that we are on the side of the angels with this one. We know that we are working to protect the vulnerable.
We heard extensive testimony from Mr. Foley, who gave compelling testimony from his hospital bed. He stated that he had been informed several times of the fact that he was eligible for MAID. This was not something he requested. He wanted to live, and that was something that he definitely was not requesting. Yet, it was being suggested to him that he was eligible for it. This is not something that is happening somewhere else, it is happening right here in Canada.
We want to ensure that folks who live with disabilities in this country are included in our society, feel included in this society and in no way feel that they are a burden to our society. Therefore, we need to ensure that those Canadians are offered the same rights and freedoms as all Canadians and not given a separate stream.
In the case of an able-bodied Canadian on their worst day thinking that it all should end, they are offered suicide prevention techniques. Canadian society has worked very hard to ensure that suicide prevention is something we value. It is well funded. There are hotlines across the country and 24-hour counselling services available. As a Canadian, I am proud that we have a suicide prevention regime in this country that is effective. It is one that all of us can be proud of.
However, with the bill before us, we see a change in direction. We see two classes of Canadian citizens. There are the able-bodied Canadians, who are offered suicide prevention on their worst day, and there are the disabled, who are then eligible for MAID. Now, I am not saying that in every case one would be offered that, but it changes the sentiment.
My friend Taylor has cerebral palsy. She lives her life independently, but she lives in a wheelchair. I have had the opportunity of helping her out with her wheelchair, which gets very dirty in the winter, especially around Ottawa with the salt and slush everywhere. Once a year, in the spring, I bug Taylor and say, “Taylor, it's time to wash that wheelchair of yours”. I'll load it in my van and haul it over to the car wash. It is a motorized wheelchair, and we pressure wash it and get it looking nice and clean again.
However, Taylor got a cold two winters ago, shortly after the MAID legislation was introduced. After a few days of not feeling well, the batteries on her wheelchair were dwindling and she was struggling with life in general. She went to the hospital, and she was asked if she needed oxygen, would she like to have it.
She asked herself what they meant by asking if she needs oxygen, would she like oxygen. She needs oxygen to live, so if she needs oxygen, by all means give her oxygen. That is the sentiment that many folks living with disabilities are concerned about. That is the experience of my friend Taylor, and that is the experience of Mr. Foley and many of the advocates who we heard from over the last few months.
The Liberals have been in a self-made rush to pass this legislation. The member for Timmins—James Bay, who spoke before me, asked why the bill is here when it was a junior court in Quebec that struck down this law. Why was there no appeal of this?
Most Canadians do not consider this, and our parliamentary system is not as delineated as the American system, but in Canada our executive branch lives inside of the legislative branch. Sometimes this leads to a feeling that the government and the legislature are one and the same. That is not the case. The legislature passes the legislation and the executive, the cabinet, is called to enact that legislation. They do sit in here, and they are also members of the legislative body, but they are to do the bidding of the legislature.
What is frustrating about this situation is that the ink was barely dry on the original euthanasia regime in this country when the court struck it down. The executive branch, rather than appealing that and abiding by the wishes of this place, of the entire legislature, chose not to appeal. While that was a legal decision for them to make, and they were able to make that decision, given the fact that they are to do the wishes of this place, it would seem to me that they should have appealed that decision just on the basis that this was the law that was passed in this place recently.
It was hard work. I remember it took a while to get the first bill through, and we worked to get the balance right. I remember specifically the health minister at the time and the justice minister at the time stood up repeatedly, while members from their own party were saying this did not go far enough, and they continually held the line and repeated, “We got the balance right”.
I remember at the time pointing out that I thought we were at the top of a fairly steep, slippery slope. Little did I know that we would be here four years later. We are picking up speed on the slope, no doubt.
The minister says that we have to abide by this self-imposed deadline to some degree. There is some frustration around that as well because of the fact that for 24 days in this Parliament we did not have the opportunity to have a debate because Parliament was prorogued. That was not the Conservatives' tactics. It was definitely not the Conservatives' tactic to prorogue Parliament. That was the Liberals.
The other thing that is really frustrating about prorogation is that the bill then dies and comes back. They had already heard from the disabilities community before prorogation that the bill was incomplete, that it did not have protections in it and that it did not do what it was saying it was going to do. The Liberals had the opportunity to fix the bill during the time of prorogation.
They had the opportunity to fix the bill and to make amendments to it. They could have saved face. They could have made these changes on their own over the time of prorogation, but they chose not to. They chose to reintroduce the same bill, and here we are. There were 85 witnesses in the Senate, and all of them are opposed to the bill. The bill should be sent back. We need a new one that recognizes the needs of disabled Canadians.
View Randall Garrison Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Parkdale—High Park for his speech today and for his diligent work on Bill C-7.
I want to return to this question of timing that we have been kicking around in the questions here today. I have to say that COVID was partially responsible for the delay, but certainly the Liberal government's prorogation was a bigger cause for the delay in dealing with the bill.
I would ask the hon. member to return to the question he touched on a moment ago, which is this: What are the consequences for Quebec and for the rest of the country if we do not meet this deadline in Quebec, because Bill C-7 does provide some safeguards to implement the court decision?
View Arif Virani Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Arif Virani Profile
2020-12-04 10:23 [p.2960]
Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question and, again, I thank the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke for his contributions at committee and throughout this Parliament.
The consequences of not meeting the court-imposed deadline of December 18, in effect, would be that rather than a statute being the law of the land in Quebec, we would have the Truchon decision being the law of the land in Quebec, which means that there would be no safeguards whatsoever for those persons who are not at the end of life, whose death is not reasonably foreseeable, from accessing MAID.
If all parliamentarians agree, all 338 of us, that some safeguards are required, notwithstanding the disputes about safeguards, I would urge Canadians, as represented by these parliamentarians, to work expeditiously to ensure that safeguards are in place for persons who are not at the end of life but seek to avail themselves of medical assistance in dying.
View Randall Garrison Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Shefford for bringing the individual situations of the plaintiffs in the Truchon case before the House again and for recognizing their bravery.
My question has to do with the unfortunate line I have heard in public, and even from some members of the official opposition, that somehow we have no obligation in Parliament to meet the deadline imposed by the decision of Madam Justice Beaudoin in the Truchon case. Not meeting that deadline would have serious consequences in Quebec.
I would like to hear the hon. member's comments on the question of the importance of meeting the court deadline.
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
2020-11-27 10:50 [p.2612]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.
Indeed, the Superior Court of Quebec ordered federal and provincial legislation to be changed. That was supposed to be done before March 11, 2020. An extended deadline was granted by Justice Christine Baudouin and the deadline was pushed to December 18. I think there will be problems if we do not meet the December 18 deadline. That is why we must all move forward together and meet this deadline to avoid the problems that will come up if we do not comply with Justice Baudouin's order.
View Gérard Deltell Profile
CPC (QC)
View Gérard Deltell Profile
2020-11-27 11:19 [p.2617]
Madam Speaker, the murderer who killed six Canadians at the Quebec City mosque four years ago had his sentence reduced from 40 years to 25 years. The Quebec Court of Appeal rendered that decision yesterday. The court found the law allowing for consecutive sentences unconstitutional.
That law was passed by the previous Conservative government and has been upheld by the current Liberal government for the past five years. This law is a Canadian law. We fervently hope the Attorney General of Quebec will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
What does the government think?
View Arif Virani Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Arif Virani Profile
2020-11-27 11:19 [p.2617]
Madam Speaker, I rise today as the parliamentary secretary, but also a Muslim Canadian member of this chamber. This decision will rekindle a great deal of hurt and anger among those who were affected by this terrible crime, including people like me in this chamber, as well the victims, their families, their friends, and people in Quebec and across the country.
Important questions are raised by this judgement, and we are going to examine this judgement fully. Our thoughts remain with the families and with the survivors. We have stood with them throughout, and we will continue to support them through this awful tragedy.
View Rachel Blaney Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Speaker, this week the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordered the government to apply Jordan's Principle to non-status first nations children living off reserve who are recognized by their community.
The Liberal government has already received nine non-compliance orders from the tribunal regarding the racist treatment of indigenous children in care. Will the minister please commit today to not appealing this decision? Will the government do this, or will it continue to fight indigenous kids in court?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Speaker, we welcome the order of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. I would note for the member opposite that our department is currently reviewing and revising what was said in the order, but we are looking forward to the implementation of this definition, which expands the definition of first nations children. It is so important for closing the socio-economic gap between non-indigenous and indigenous children.
I would note for the member opposite that, since 2016, we have provided 750,000 supports, and behind every support is an indigenous child, as well as budget investments of $1.2 billion in 2019 to close that gap as we continue to implement the order.
View Dave Epp Profile
CPC (ON)
View Dave Epp Profile
2020-10-19 13:54 [p.855]
Madam Speaker, I wish to thank my hon. colleague for his perspective on this issue. Indeed, I want to thank all of the members from both sides of the aisle who have shared on this deeply important topic.
My concern, and the member raised it, as did several of the previous speakers, is about the concerns expressed by the most vulnerable in our society, the disabled. They wrote, one month after the Truchon decision, to the Attorney General, 72 groups of them, pleading that this case be appealed to the Supreme Court for several reasons, that would buy time for a proper consultation process as part of the review, and that their voices would be further heard.
Could my hon. colleague please comment on why this process has been chosen superior over the voices and wishes of 72 representatives of the disabled community?
View Lloyd Longfield Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Lloyd Longfield Profile
2020-10-19 13:55 [p.855]
Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Chatham-Kent—Leamington, where we also have family members. As we have these discussions, we do see the cross-ties across Canada as we look at these issues.
The disability community is involved with the consultation process and will continue to be involved. We are reacting to the Superior Court ruling from Quebec, where we do need to look at some amendments. When we can get those in place, we will do the further review of Bill C-14, which will include the broader issues the member has mentioned.
View Elizabeth May Profile
GP (BC)
View Elizabeth May Profile
2020-10-19 18:36 [p.894]
Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the last question has brought us to the issue of urgency and why this is pressing.
We had this bill before us in the spring, before we adjourned and before COVID-19 took over our parliamentary process. We now have the process, for which I am grateful to all parties, that allows us to debate controversial legislation, to have votes at a distance, to respect the threat of COVID-19 and to protect public health.
When debating this bill before we adjourned, I was getting emails in the House from one of my best friends, who was dying of ALS. She asked me if there was any chance we would make changes to the bill for advance directives in time to help her. I deeply regret that we were unable to get this bill passed last spring, when my friend, Angela Rickman, could have benefited from access to medical assistance in dying. She died in a situation of suffering that would have been her wish to avoid. Now, as we debate this, a member of my own family is wondering whether we can get this bill through quickly enough so that they are not put in the impossible situation that Audrey Parker found herself in. I will reflect further on Audrey Parker later.
There is urgency, whether driven by courts or by compassion. We know as legislators, as our friend from Beaches—East York just commented a few speeches ago, that we have, at this point, repeatedly passed legislation that did not meet the judicial thresholds and frameworks that have been set before us in order to ensure that the legislation we pass on medical assistance in dying meets previous court decisions. I know everybody is deeply affected by their own constituents, their own personal experiences and their frameworks of religious traditions or lack thereof, but I hope we all come to this with open hearts, recognizing that this is a crucially important issue, one that I hope our Parliament will handle better than we have in the past. Let us make sure we pass legislation that does meet the constitutional requirements that have been put before us, if for no other reason than making sure we do not have to continually return to improve our legislation. Ensuring it meets the bar that was set for us by our courts has to be paramount.
I happen to come from a constituency where, overwhelmingly, constituents have wanted to see medical assistance in dying legalized for many years. My colleagues in the chamber and watching remotely will remember the name Sue Rodriguez. Sue Rodriguez was a resident in my constituency, in North Saanich. Her first effort, which was, of course, the case she brought forward, was the first time the Supreme Court of Canada ruled, by a very narrow margin, that medical assistance in dying would not be allowed in Canada. That was back in 1993, and it was by a vote of five to four that the Supreme Court denied her final wish. She was able to access illegal assistance from a doctor who remains unknown, but God bless him, and she achieved medical assistance in her own death in February 1994. It was not a situation we would want any of our loved ones to find themselves in, unable to find the help legally and choosing to find someone willing to help otherwise.
The next set of cases, of course, bring us to more recent cases, the ones we talk about in Parliament today, and particularly the one that brought us to Bill C-14 in the previous Parliament, brought forward after the 2015 election. The names of the ministers who were involved have been referenced several times: the hon. member for Vancouver Granville and, of course, the former minister of health, Jane Philpott.
I lamented then, in this place, that the Carter decision of the Supreme Court of Canada was not being respected fully in the legislation that we were debating. I was able, in clause by clause consideration at committee, to bring forward amendments, which were rejected there, to do away with the requirement that someone be capable and competent on the day of the procedure to confirm their desire for medical assistance in dying.
It is that requirement that drove Audrey Parker to have to get medical assistance in dying before the moment she really wanted to, for fear that she would be unable to provide that consent through the vagaries of the disease or the pain-killing drugs. We know Audrey Parker's story. It was related to us today earlier by the current member for Markham—Stouffville and by the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, who knows the Audrey Parker story well.
She died November 1, 2018, nearly two years ago, saying that this Parliament had let her down through the requirement that she be competent the day of the procedure to confirm that it was, indeed, her wish. This was impractical. Even as we worked in Parliament on Bill C-14, we knew from the language in the Carter decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that this was a violation of patients' constitutional rights.
When the bill got to the Senate, I was very pleased that the amendments I put forward in clause by clause, which had been rejected in the House, were taken up and approved by the Senate. However, as we will recall, when the bill came back from the Senate, the government rejected the amendments to deal with ensuring that people would have access to medical assistance in dying and to deny patients access to an advance directive. Predictably, here we are.
As many of us argued in Parliament in the first round of debates on Bill C-14 on medical assistance in dying, we were not, as a Parliament, passing legislation that was likely to survive a court challenge. There was not much prescience or crystal ball-gazing to know it. We knew it if we read our legislation and compared it to the reasoning in the Carter decision. Here we are now with a new decision, the Truchon decision from the Quebec Superior Court, and we are going back to amend the legislation.
What we are doing, of course, is making sure that people in a situation where they do face a terminal illness and their doctors know that they cannot survive this illness will be able to access an advance directive. Again this was the Carter decision. The Carter decision was full square about facing irremediable suffering and accessing medical assistance in dying. Clearly in this legislation, we have said mental illness is not going to be covered, that mental health issues will not be considered an illness that can be considered irremediable in the context of this legislation. We will very likely have to come back and revisit that.
Certainly, as this legislation goes forward from this vote at second reading to committee, I hope we will find a way to amend the legislation to remove the 90-day timeline around assessing someone's irremediable state of suffering. I support what the member for Beaches—East York has said on this. It does not appear at all to be a humane decision or within what the courts have already told us to insist on that 90-day period.
There are some things that have been argued today in this House that I want to draw attention to because I would hate for Canadians to think that this bill was as cavalier as some would have us believe. Some have said that this bill would allow for “death on demand”. That was one phrase used by one hon. colleague. It's important to know that the bill says quite the contrary.
One of my friends in the House said this bill does not make any effort to allow someone to change their mind the day of the procedure. I urge colleagues to look at subclause (3.1)(d). It is very clear. They should also look at subclauses (3.2), (3.4) and (3.5). Throughout the bill, there are many points at which it is very clear that people have the ability to say, and doctors have the requirement to verify that people have the ability, even on an advance directive, to subsequently change their minds. That is a very clear set of provisions in the legislation, as I said, particularly under subclause (3). To clarify again, in subclause (3.1)(d), it is very clear that one has to ensure that people have been informed that they may, at any time and in any manner, withdraw their request. That is the context throughout this bill.
I know my time is at an end. I just want to say that I support this bill and I hope we pass it as quickly as possible. People are suffering and they want us to act.
View Michael Cooper Profile
CPC (AB)
View Michael Cooper Profile
2020-10-09 10:35 [p.792]
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on Bill C-7, an act to amend the Criminal Code respecting medical assistance in dying.
At the outset, I will say that the subject of medical assistance in dying is perhaps one of the most complex issues that could come before Parliament. Profound moral, legal and ethical questions are raised. Medical assistance in dying raises questions of individual autonomy, the need to respect the sanctity of life and the need to protect vulnerable persons, among other considerations.
It is no wonder that Canadians have such profound, deeply held and diverse views on this subject matter. After all, when we are talking about physician-assisted dying, we are talking about issues that literally concern life and death. When we, as parliamentarians, give consideration to an appropriate framework that provides safeguards, we must do so with regard to the fact that we are talking about a procedure that, when carried out, is irreversible. The patient dies. It is indeed a weighty subject of profound importance.
I am certainly informed of the complexity of the issue through my experience of having, in the last Parliament, served as the vice-chair of the Special Joint Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying. This committee was tasked with reviewing the Carter decision of the Supreme Court, which struck down the blanket Criminal Code prohibition and tasked Parliament and the committee with putting forward recommendations for a legislative response. I then sat on the justice committee, which studied Bill C-14, the government's legislative response. In that regard, I am in the unique position of having been through the process from start to finish, from the study of the Carter decision of the special joint committee through to the passage of Bill C-14 in June 2016.
The bill before us purportedly responds to the Truchon decision of the Superior Court of Quebec, which struck down an important component of Bill C-14, namely, that in order to qualify for medical assistance in dying, one's death must be reasonably foreseeable. When the Truchon decision was issued in September 2019, we on this side of the House in the official opposition called on the Attorney General to do the right thing and appeal the decision. We did this for a number of reasons.
To begin with, it is the responsibility of the Attorney General to uphold laws passed by Parliament. The law passed by Parliament was Bill C-14. I would note that the law had been passed a mere three years prior to the issuance of the Truchon decision. It was passed after a comprehensive review of the Carter decision and a comprehensive review of possibilities for a legislative framework. Therefore, in the end, Bill C-14 was a carefully thought-out and debated piece of legislation. One would think that in the face of that, the minister would have appealed the decision.
In addition to that, when one, having respect for this place and the laws passed by Parliament, actually looks at the Truchon decision and the reasoning of Madam Justice Baudouin, it should be all the more apparent the need to appeal the decision. Madam Justice Baudouin, in concluding that the reasonable foreseeability criterion contravened section 7 and section 15 of the charter, was driven, arguably, by a restrictive interpretation of the purpose of the law. Indeed, Madam Justice Baudouin reached her conclusion by singularly focusing on one objective of the law, namely, to protect vulnerable persons from being induced in a moment of weakness to ending their life.
However, that was not the only objective of the legislation. When one looks at the preamble of Bill C-7, it expressly provides for other objectives, including the sanctity of life, the dignity of the elderly and disabled, and suicide prevention, yet the judge in Truchon focused exclusively on only one of those objectives.
What Parliament sought to do in providing for a reasonably foreseeable criterion was to respond to what the Supreme Court called upon Parliament to do, namely, to strike a balance between individual autonomy and the need to respect vulnerable persons.
The Attorney General, moments ago, stood in this place and said that the government chose not to appeal the decision because it agreed with the substance of the decision. That is quite interesting because only four years ago, three years before the minister decided not to appeal the decision, ministers on that side of the House emphasized how critical the reasonably foreseeable criterion is to provide and ensure effective safeguards to protect the most vulnerable.
To that end I would quote the former health minister, Jane Philpott, who, on June 16, 2016 stated:
We are concerned with the Senate's recommendation for the removal of the clause that recommends that this be considered only in the face of natural death being reasonably foreseeable because of the fact that people with mental illness, among others, would not be adequately protected.
Then there are the comments of the then attorney general, the hon. member for Vancouver Granville, who introduced Bill C-14 and stated:
There are other compelling reasons for there to be a requirement that the person's natural death be reasonably foreseeable. First, it provides a fair way to restrict eligibility without making assisted dying available to almost everyone. Second, restricting eligibility in this way is necessary to protect the vulnerable.
In the face of those objectives, it is quite a departure and quite convenient for the minister to say that he was going to effectively abdicate his responsibility as attorney general to uphold the laws passed by Parliament by allowing a single decision of a single lower court judge in one province of this country to stand. The Attorney General acknowledged, and we should make no mistake about it, that the effect of Truchon and its codification, by way of this piece of legislation, significantly transforms the medical assistance in dying framework in Canada.
At the time of the Carter decision and when this House, four short years ago, debated Bill C-14, medical assistance in dying was thought to be an exception to the rule, not the rule. It was thought to be appropriate in certain circumstances in an end-of-life context, where one who was suffering intolerably could, upon providing clear consent, hasten their death.
With this legislation, it would now be appropriate to terminate human life even in the absence of a terminal illness and even in circumstances where the suffering is medically manageable. That is a radical transformation, and it creates a number of complexities around issues of suffering that might be psychological or existential and outside of an end-of-life context. When one removes the reasonably foreseeable criterion, all that is left is that one must have a serious disease, illness or disability, be in state of decline, and be suffering physically or psychologically as a result.
When one removes an end-of-life, or reasonably foreseeable, component, that already arguably subjective test becomes a whole lot more subjective, and that has the potential to put vulnerable persons' lives at risk. One can see that with those broad parameters, persons with degenerative disabilities could have their lives terminated, notwithstanding that they may have years, if not decades, to live. That has caused enormous concern in the disability community across Canada.
One month after the Truchon decision was issued, some 72 organizations from across Canada, representing a cross-section of the disability community, wrote to the Attorney General and pleaded with him to appeal the Truchon decision. They did so out of concern that persons with disabilities could be put at risk and have their lives prematurely ended.
The writers of the letter noted that the legislation could arguably contravene article 10 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which provides that persons with disabilities should be treated equally under the law. They note that persons with disabilities could be treated unequally because one could have medical assistance in dying made available to them for no other reason than they happen to be disabled.
It should be noted that the UN rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities sounded the alarm when she said she was, “extremely concerned about the implementation of the legislation on medical assistance in dying from a disability perspective.” From a disability perspective, that plea fell on deaf ears on the part of the Attorney General in terms of his failure to appeal the Truchon decision.
In light of what a significant change this legislation means, it is unfortunate that it has come to this, because appealing the decision would have allowed for time. It would have allowed time for Parliament to take into consideration the significant complexities associated with this change, a mere four years after Parliament had legislated a comprehensive regime, and it would have provided clarity in terms of informing Parliament about the scope of the framework upon which Parliament can legislate.
However, instead of taking the appropriate time to ensure that any legislative change respects the charter, because respecting the charter, including life, means protecting vulnerable persons, we are here with a profoundly significant piece of legislation being rushed. It is being rushed in the face of the expiration of the stay on the declaration of constitutional invalidity, effective this December.
While the Attorney General and the government emphasized the Truchon decision, it must be noted that this legislation goes well beyond the scope of Truchon. It removes important safeguards, including the 10-day reflection period. It removes the requirement that there be two witnesses to confirm that a person made the request of their own free will and that the request reflected their true consent. It provides for a complex advanced consent regime, one of those complex areas when it comes to medical assistance in dying policy, and it does all of this pre-empting what Parliament had determined, called upon and legislated in Bill C-14; namely, a legislative review that was supposed to take place this spring, but is not going ahead.
Now we are in this rushed process, instead of having an opportunity for members of Parliament to come together to hear from expert witnesses, to review the state of the law, to give consideration to the comprehensive reports of the Council of Canadian Academies and to receive diverse feedback on all of these issues. It need not have been this way. It should not have been this way, and it is regrettable that the government has so recklessly put us in this position by rushing through legislation that, arguably, could put vulnerable Canadians at risk and remove critical safeguards.
View Randall Garrison Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Speaker, let me start by saying how much I would rather be in the House today than at home managing a small raise hand function on the screen and our own barking dogs. More seriously, let me say how much I would rather have completed this debate in March when it comes to avoiding or preventing unnecessary suffering.
COVID-19 has required us all to make adjustments. Obviously the adjustments we have to make as parliamentarians pale in comparison to the experience of most Canadians, especially those who have lost loved ones to COVID-19; those who have lost their livelihoods; those who are still struggling to make ends meet, to keep a roof over their head and to put food on the table; and those who are struggling with the pandemic while contending with life-threatening illnesses.
Let me also preface my remarks on Bill C-7 with a few words on why we find Bill C-7 before the House at all. There is a tendency by both the Liberals and Conservatives to emphasize that we are here because of a deadline imposed for changes in medical assistance in dying by the Quebec Superior Court decision in the Truchon case. That is true technically.
However, it obscures the role of the plaintiffs in that case, Jean Truchon and Nicole Gladu, who went to court to contest the provisions of Bill C-14, which they found violated their charter rights by causing or prolonging unnecessary suffering for those at the end of life and for denying individuals autonomy of decision-making over the end of their own lives.
I actually want to thank the plaintiffs today who brought us here, and also to stop for a moment to express my condolences to the family of Mr. Truchon, who left Canada a better place as a result of his attempt to improve the way we deal with medical assistance in dying, when he left us in April.
When it comes to medical assistance in dying, for New Democrats, our priority has always been, and remains, avoiding unnecessary suffering being inflicted on those who are already suffering from terminal illnesses and at the same time avoiding prolonging suffering for their families who have to bear witness to that suffering.
We were glad to see this legislation come forward in February, very promptly for a new government, but we are disappointed that we are here in October, starting over again. Some of this delay was due to COVID-19, but the blame for this delay lays equally at the feet of the Liberals for proroguing the House.
In February, there was recognition by all parties that there were two pieces of work outstanding on medical assistance in dying. First was the need to amend Bill C-7 to conform with the charter as demanded by the Quebec Superior Court ruling in the Truchon case, which found the current law too restrictive. This is the very reason New Democrats voted against Bill C-14 when it originally came before the House.
Even before the court ruling, there were many calling for changes. Those who listened carefully to the terminally ill, their families and practitioners providing the medical assistance knew well the unnecessary suffering that was being inflicted, and continues to be inflicted by our current law.
The second task with regard to medical assistance in dying was to conduct a legislative review of the broader issues around MAID after four years of our experience with it. This is not to be confused with a normal review of the specific legislative changes proposed in Bill C-7. This broader legislative review of the issues arising out of medical assistance in dying was mandated in the original legislation and was supposed to start this June.
Bill C-14 required that the review specifically look at the question of advance requests, requests from mature minors and requests where mental illness is the sole underlying condition, but it was not to be limited to those topics.
I am disappointed that the second task appears to have fallen off the agenda for the Minister of Justice. Early this morning I asked him to commit to starting this broader review in parallel with the examination of the changes in Bill C-7. As I told him then, I put Motion M-51 on the Order Paper today to create a special committee of the House that could conduct this broader review at the same time as the justice committee deals with the urgent changes needed and required because of the court decision and because of the unnecessary suffering inflicted by our current law.
I want to talk about each of these two tasks in more human and practical terms by starting with very personal stories, one for each of these. It is clear to me that the current legislation has some unintended and cruel consequences. These were clearly demonstrated by what happened to a very good friend of mine.
On January 1, 2019, I went to a traditional New Year's levee in one of the communities in my riding. When I arrived, I was not surprised to be greeted enthusiastically by someone I had become close friends with over 10 years involvement in public life together. I was surprised, however, to see her right arm was in a sling.
I am not going to name this friend today because I did not seek formal permission from her family to do so, but I am telling her story today as I trust she would want her unfortunate experience with medical assistance in dying to make a difference.
When I asked my friend what was happening, she recounted how, suddenly and inexplicably, she began having trouble using her arm over the holidays and that she was going to have it checked out as soon as possible. A month later, she began to see other symptoms and she found out that she had an inoperable brain tumour the size of a raisin but growing, growing slowly but growing nonetheless. This was a condition that would prove to be painful, debilitating and terminal.
As her condition rapidly deteriorated, she began to make plans for her end of life. Just four short months after a diagnosis, my partner and I received an invitation to what she was calling a masquerade ball in her honour. My friend was incredibly brave and never lost her sense of humour or her love of life right up to the end.
On that Saturday, she checked herself out of the hospital to celebrate her life with us that night. Rather than, as she joked, allowing us to get together after she was gone and talk about her then, she preferred to see us before and to hear what we had to say before she had to leave. Just days later, we found out she was gone. With her death, we were not only deprived of a larger-than-life member of the local arts community. We were also deprived of a friend whose enthusiasm for life had always been infectious.
Why such a sudden exit? The current law requires that those who have already been assessed and approved for medical assistance in dying be competent when the final moment to receive that assistance comes. Therefore, my friend was forced to depart weeks if not months early because she feared the loss of competence that might result from her brain tumour if she waited too long, and that this loss of competence would prevent her receiving medical assistance in dying and thus inflict weeks or months of suffering on her as the patient but also, more important to her, weeks of suffering on her family and friends who would be forced to witness a prolonged dying.
Bill C-7 would fix this by removing the requirement for final consent for those who are already assessed and approved for medical assistance in dying. This would take away the need to go early in order to avoid the loss of competence that now prevents receiving medical assistance in dying.
The bill would also make the process more straightforward in several other ways. It would do so by taking away the mandatory 10-day waiting period, reducing the number of witnesses required from two to one and expanding who could serve as a witness. These are all things practitioners have told us are unduly restrictive and only end up unnecessarily prolonging suffering.
Right now, I should take a moment to thank four doctors who have been kind enough to share with me their experiences in providing, or not providing in some cases, medical assistance in dying to hundreds of patients. Again, I will not name them today to respect their privacy, but my conversations with these four incredible people have helped me understand how medical assistance in dying operates in real life.
I should mention one other change in Bill C-7 that would have more substantial impacts. That is the removal of the requirement that death be imminent before one can receive medical assistance in dying. Bill C-7 then sets out a more restrictive process than that for those whose death is imminent and where there is more time for assessment and decision-making. However, I should emphasize, Bill C-7 still maintains the high standards set in the original legislation that in order to receive medical assistance in dying patients must have a condition that is incurable, must be in a state of irreversible decline and must face intolerable suffering. This means that Bill C-7 would not open the door for medical assistance in dying quite as wide as some have suggested.
My second story, also very personal, deals with one of the broader issues that the review of MAID was supposed to deal with. This story is my mother's story. My mum passed away just short of five years ago, during the debate on MAID. This is a story I have told before during the debate on the original bill, but one which still lacks resolution.
My mother had always been very clear with my sister and me about her wishes regarding the end of her life. For her, it was simple. She asked us that if she ended up bedridden, unable to shower or feed herself, and did not know who we were, then to please let her go. She suffered from dementia and other underlying conditions that were complicated by a serious fall and, fortunately for her, she was not forced to endure for long those conditions she had feared.
Unfortunately, the kind of advance directive or advance request that my mother had wanted to give is still not allowed under the existing legislation. I know many in my community, and more specifically, many in my own social circles, fear just such an outcome and feel that they should be able to make their own end-of-life wishes known and have them respected, just as they are now when it comes to questions of refusal of medical treatment. I tend to be of the same opinion. However, my discussions with practitioners providing medical assistance in dying have persuaded me that this question is not as simple as it appears on its face. This remains one of the important issues the legislative review of the current legislation can address and is mandated to address by Bill C-14.
As I mentioned earlier, there were other issues that were assigned to this broader review in the original Bill C-14, including requests from mature minors and requests for mental illness as the sole underlying condition, but one concern was missed. Let me take a moment now to address the concerns of disability advocates that, with the removal of the requirement that death be imminent, there will be pressure on the vulnerable in our society to choose medical assistance in dying.
First and foremost, as a society we can and must do better in offering support to people with disabilities. Failure to provide necessary resources to ensure that everyone can enjoy full and equal participation in life is a current and ongoing black mark on all of us. We have only to look at the failure to deliver additional assistance promptly to persons with disabilities during this pandemic to remind ourselves how often we forget about those living with disabilities. However, we should not dismiss the concerns of the disability community about medical assistance in dying out of hand. The legislative review is the place for us to consider seriously the question of whether the existing safeguards preventing pressure on the vulnerable to choose medical assistance in dying are, in fact, sufficient.
Before I conclude, I want to remind members that, as a society, we must do better in the job of end-of-life care. Again, COVID has demonstrated the tragic deficiencies in long-term care in ways I hope we will not ignore.
New Democrats will support the bill and help expedite its passage in order to bring an end to unnecessary suffering and to meet the deadline imposed by the Quebec court in the Truchon decision, but this support has always been predicated on going forward with a larger review without delay.
I have drafted a motion, Motion No. 151, which I have tabled today. I look forward to hearing a positive response from the government on this. We have just heard a positive response from the Bloc, and I am hoping for a positive response from the Conservatives.
Proceeding with Bill C-7 without proceeding with the broader review is only getting half the job done on medical assistance in dying. At the same time, failure to conduct the broader review potentially undermines public support for medical assistance in dying, which, so far, has only continued to grow. In fact, I believe this is one of the most important questions that could ever come before Parliament.
I look forward to the debate on the specific improvements that we can make to Bill C-7, but I urge all of us to consider undertaking the broader review of issues around medical assistance in dying without delay.
View Rob Moore Profile
CPC (NB)
View Rob Moore Profile
2020-10-09 13:46 [p.822]
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Sarnia—Lambton.
It is my pleasure as shadow minister for justice for the official opposition to use this opportunity to speak to the proposed legislation before us. It is important legislation. We have been hearing points from both sides of the House on Bill C-7, which impacts many Canadians. In fact, it impacts us all. This is a piece of legislation that deals with life and death, and there is probably nothing more important that we could be talking about today.
Any time we, as legislators, are asked to review and analyze legislation like this, it is critical that we take the time to get it right, and this is part of the problem. As we have heard many times over the course of the last year, we should not be dealing with this legislation today because the Minister of Justice and this government should have appealed that decision.
This is what was being called for by those in the medical community, those in the disability community and individuals across the country after that decision came out in Quebec. The right thing to do, which is what our party, the Conservative Party, called on the government to do, would have been to appeal that decision.
What we have been left with is a patchwork across our country. We have been left with confusion. We should have had the certainty of an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada on something this important. Instead, the government took the Superior Court of Quebec decision, responded to it and, in my view, went far beyond what was required to respond to that decision. I will discuss some of those things.
The bill was introduced as a response to a Superior Court of Quebec decision made on September 11, 2019. That decision found that the law was too restrictive in the requirement for death to be reasonably foreseeable in order to access medical assistance in dying. At the time, we called upon the government to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court.
As we debate the bill before us, we still do not have the clarity that we could have had if the government had appealed that decision. Rather than defend its own legislation, this government has used this as an opportunity to broaden assistance in dying legislation in this country without doing the fundamental consultation and homework necessary to get an important decision like this right. Even in the previous legislation, Bill C-14, there was to be a mandatory review of assistance in dying legislation and what flowed from it, which was to take place this past summer. This government circumvented all of that with this new legislation.
When the government passed Bill C-14 in the 42nd Parliament, it required this review to be conducted this year. The review was to analyze the state of assistance in dying in Canada in a comprehensive way, and instead of waiting for that, we see with this legislation the government going far beyond what had to be done to respond to the Quebec court decision.
This topic is a very sensitive issue for many in the House who have personal experience with it and, indeed, it is a sensitive issue for many Canadians. We ask that all members on each side of the House be aware of this. While there may be disagreements, we are each here to represent our constituents and arrive at legislation that best protects Canadians.
I have heard directly from many Canadians who are concerned about the lack of protection for conscience rights for health care professionals in both the bill before us and the original MAID legislation. As the government looks to broaden the legislation further, it becomes even more important that the conscience rights of health care professionals are protected. By further expanding medical assistance in dying, the government risks reducing the number of medical professionals willing to take part in this process. It is also important to note that this expanded access could result in a heavy emotional burden on those health care providers, as we head into uncharted territory with the bill.
We, as members of Parliament, cannot appreciate the burden that this has put on health care providers who are working in this system and providing medical assistance in dying.
Further, there are very few protections in place for medical professionals who do not want to participate in the process and may be penalized, as a result, by an employer. This is a point that I raised when Bill C-7 was introduced earlier this year, and it is disappointing to see that it was not corrected in this version of the bill.
This brings me to my next point about standing up for Canadians with disabilities. The 10-day waiting period, which could already be waived in the legislation for extenuating circumstances, has been removed. I heard the chief justice say today that removing the 10-day waiting period was universally accepted in his consultations across the country. I wonder who he has been talking to.
Yesterday I spoke with a group that represents those with disabilities across the country at Inclusion Canada. Those in that group said that they are in favour of maintaining the 10-day waiting period, and their role is to stand up for individuals with disabilities. It is interesting to note that they called on the minister of justice at the time to appeal the decision of the Quebec court. They said that medical assistance in dying must have limits. Individual rights must be balanced with protections, not only for our most vulnerable citizens, but also for society as well.
One of the most important foundations of our Canadian society and identity is that we are a caring, compassionate country. For those with disabilities, their experience now is that they are told, often bluntly, that they would be better off dead. The Foley case in London, Ontario, is one example of this. This decision, if it remains unquestioned, will simply erode provincial health responsibilities for expert clinical care and social support for people who are fragile.
The Minister of Justice would also be familiar with a letter written to him on October 4, 2019, which was signed by over 70 organizations that stand up for Canadians with disabilities from coast to coast to coast. They wrote that they found the decision by the Superior Court of Quebec to be very concerning. One of the reasons for this concern was that the decision failed to respect Parliament's authority to balance the interests of the individuals with the interests of society, effectively limiting Parliament's capacity to pursue social targets, such as substantive equality and inclusion.
They describe the decision as a dangerous precedent, writing, “The Supreme Court must weigh in on this flawed analysis. The decision will entrench stereotypes and exacerbate stigma further for Canadians with disabilities.” The letter continues, and I agree, “[We] must avoid sending a message that having a disability is a fate worse than death.... Canada must appeal the decision to prevent additional stereotyping”. The letter concluded by urging the government to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
Again, the letter was signed by over 70 organizations, including the Council for Canadians with Disabilities, the Canadian Association for Community Living, Disability Law Centre, People First of Canada and the Canadian Mental Health Association. I mention this because it underscores how we need to get this legislation right.
Last November, the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association and the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians issued a call to action due to ongoing confusion in the general public regarding hospice, palliative care and MAID. Quite frankly, palliative care focuses on improving the quality of life and symptoms through a person-centred approach for those living with life-threatening conditions.
The federal government should be looking for ways to improve further palliative care across Canada, as was committed to many times by the government. In their call to action, the groups I mentioned state, “Less than 30% of Canadians have access to high quality hospice palliative care, yet more than 90% of all deaths in Canada would benefit from it.”
I want to stress my previous point that this is an important issue for many Canadians. On matters of literal life or death, we need to take our responsibilities as legislators—
View Chris Bittle Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chris Bittle Profile
2020-10-09 14:16 [p.826]
Madam Speaker, before I begin, I would like to state that I am splitting my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg North.
We have a serious issue before us, the issue of Bill C-7. It has been an excellent debate so far and an excellent opportunity for members on all sides to talk about this issue because it goes to our morality and to our own conscience, and we are hearing from all sides about this. I want to say that we got it wrong with the last piece of legislation; we got it wrong with Bill C-14. I want to commend the Attorney General for coming forward with Bill C-7.
I would also like to recognize a few members who were vocal advocates, working on the justice committee with Murray Rankin at the time; the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands; my friend, the hon. member for Don Valley West and many other members of the Liberal caucus who tried to advance medical assistance in dying so that it would be constitutional.
I am here today to speak in support of Bill C-7, which proposes amendments to medical assistance in dying legislation. Members are aware that the Superior Court of Quebec found the eligibility criterion of reasonably foreseeable natural death from the Criminal Code made legislation to be unconstitutional. The court delayed the effect of the ruling to allow both the federal and Quebec legislatures to respond. The government has agreed with this basic principle of this decision and is now proposing to amend the Criminal Code.
Bill C-7 proposes to repeal the requirement that natural death be reasonably foreseeable. It would create two sets of safeguards: one for those whose death is reasonably foreseeable and another for everyone else. Some of the existing safeguards for those who are dying would be relaxed, and for everyone else there would be a different set of safeguards based on the current ones with some additions and clarifications.
Bill C-7 proposes to continue to use the expression, “reasonably foreseeable” natural death, but as an element that determines which set of safeguards to use and not to use it as an eligibility criterion, which was the issue in the Truchon case.
The proposal to distinguish MAID requests on the basis of whether a person's death is reasonably foreseeable is consistent with the view that MAID for people whose death is reasonably foreseeable presents less risk and complexity than other circumstances, and that the assessment of requests should be tailored to these different types of cases. Having a reasonably foreseeable natural death would also be a critical element for another proposed amendment in the bill. Currently, the MAID law requires the practitioner to give the patient the opportunity to withdraw consent or to affirm their consent just before MAID is provided.
This requirement for final consent is a safeguard; however, it has also caused some MAID patients to choose to end their lives earlier for fear of losing their capacity to provide final consent and, sadly, for some to be denied MAID entirely after losing capacity. I would also like to point out that others chose to decrease their intake of painkillers prior to MAID being provided, to ensure they retained capacity to consent, which leads to an increase in suffering.
BillC-7 would allow for a possible waiver of requirement for final consent for individuals whose death is reasonably foreseeable but where there are fewest risks and complexities in providing MAID to a person who is no longer able to consent. Permitting this proposed waiver of final consent would respond to scenarios like that of Audrey Parker of Nova Scotia, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer that had spread to her brain leaving her uncertain as to how long she would have the capacity to consent. Because she feared losing capacity before her preferred date to receive MAID, she scheduled MAID and ended her life earlier than she wanted. She openly expressed how she felt unfairly forced by the limitations of the MAID law to schedule MAID sooner than preferred and called for amendments to the Criminal Code so that others like her would not be denied the freedom to choose their preferred date to receive medical assistance in dying.
I would recommend that all members listen to the speech in the previous session from the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. I believe Audrey Parker was a constituent of his. He powerfully used her own words to show us where we went wrong, the impacts our failures in the previous legislation had led to, and the impacts on her life. We owe it to people like Audrey Parker, who have been assessed and approved for MAID, to respect their need for freedom in making end-of-life choices. As a compassionate society, we know we can do better to support these individuals. These amendments seek to do just that.
Waiving final consent is, however, an ethically complex question. This is because it involves MAID being administered to a person who is no longer able to consent, or to withdraw the consent they previously gave. Bill C-7 proposes a new approach for patients whose death is reasonably foreseeable, who are assessed and approved for MAID when they have the capacity, and who make very specific arrangements with their practitioner in which they give consent in advance to MAID being administered on a specific day, even if they have lost capacity by that day.
I fully support permitting advance consent for this group of individuals, but at the same time, I note that certain protections must be in place. Specifically, if on the specified day for MAID, the patient has lost their capacity and they nonetheless actively show signs of resistance to the MAID procedure, or behave in a way that indicates a refusal, the practitioner must not follow through on the procedure.
Medical practitioners at the round table expressed concerns in relation to the emotional burden that could arise from such situations, for them and for family members. They talked of possible disagreement with family members on whether to end the life of a person who appears to resist the procedure. A similar situation led to the prosecution of a MAID provider in the Netherlands and made headlines around the world. That situation is what we wish to avoid here in Canada.
That is why Bill C-7 proposes an additional provision that states that signs of resistance from the patient would make the advanced consent invalid on the specific day and going forward. While an incapable person could no longer withdraw their consent from a legal perspective, given their track record and decision-making capacity, it is proposed that MAID not be permitted under this circumstance. The approach provides much needed clarity for practitioners and family members that MAID be prohibited if the patient is resisting. The bill would also make it clear that an anticipated reflexive response, like flinching when the needle is inserted, does not count as resistance.
It is important to be clear, however, that this amendment is not about advance requests. Advance requests for MAID refer to a situation in which a person puts in writing they would want to receive MAID at some later date when they are not able to consent to it, if circumstances arise that they predict would cause them unbearable suffering.
In this situation, a person is not asking for MAID now. Instead, they are putting in writing that they want it at a later date on the basis of anticipated suffering that has not yet happened. The most likely scenario would involve people who are diagnosed with conditions that could lead to dementia, such as Alzheimer's. These people would want to have a plan in place if their worst fears should come to pass.
Bill C-7 does not propose to allow MAID on the basis of advance requests. MAID in these circumstances would be extremely complex, would avoid ethical challenges and would require more time to consider such measures. In speaking to the Attorney General, I voiced my concern that we need to spend more time considering these measures. I hope that the issue will be studied during further upcoming parliamentary review of the MAID legislation.
Taking more time to study advance requests is consistent with the approach of the Government of Quebec, which is also moving forward to hold public consultations on the issue so that all of its dimensions can be better understood.
MAID is one of the most sensitive and challenging social issues we are currently faced with. Recognizing how deeply personal this issue is to so many people, and to so many members of this place, the government has listened carefully to the diverse opinions of Canadians and has considered the expertise shared by experts, MAID providers and other experts in the development of this important piece of legislation. Bill C-7 responds to the Superior Court of Quebec ruling, but it also achieves balance that respects personal autonomy, while protecting the vulnerable as well as equity rights for all Canadians.
For these reasons, I call on all members to support the bill.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge my presence today on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people.
I would like to say a few words on the current social climate in Canada. Right now is a moment when Canadians are recognizing that there is unfairness built into our systems. These systems have always been unfair toward indigenous people.
I look to my colleagues in the House to reflect on why injustice toward indigenous people still happens and how we can move forward in the short, medium and long term. I know that in my capacity as Minister of Indigenous Services, I face those questions every day, as does my ministry. These are difficult and uncomfortable conversations, but important ones to have.
With that, I welcome this opportunity to provide the House with an update on our continuing effort to confront the evolving COVID-19 pandemic. I can assure members that the top priority of the Government of Canada during this time remains the safety and physical and mental health of all Canadians and indigenous people living in Canada.
As of June 16, Indigenous Services Canada is aware of 255 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in first nations. Of those, 210 individuals are considered to have recovered.
Indigenous Services Canada continues to work closely with communities to identify a surge in health infrastructure needs, supporting efforts to screen, triage and isolate individuals in the event of a possible COVID-19 outbreak. We will continue to work closely with communities and partners to coordinate resources and keep people and communities safe.
To date, the Government of Canada has provided indigenous peoples and northern communities with approximately $1.5 billion in funding to successfully fight COVID-19.
A large portion of this funding is found in the supplementary estimates (A), 2020-21. These estimates include more than $280 million to support health measures provided by Indigenous Services Canada in first nation and Inuit communities.
This is essential funding that will be used primarily to provide first nation and Inuit communities with the following: the services of additional health care providers; personal protective equipment; health infrastructure, in particular the repurposing of existing community spaces or the purchase of mobile structures to support isolation, assessment and shelter measures; and prevention and infection control measures at the community level.
In addition, these estimates reflect $305 million for the distinctions-based indigenous community support fund. Of this amount, $215 million was dedicated to first nations, $45 million to Inuit and $30 million to Métis nation communities, plus $15 million in proposal-based funding for first nations off reserve and urban indigenous organizations and communities.
An additional $75 million was also sought for organizations supporting first nations individuals off reserve and Inuit and Métis living in urban areas, as well as $10 million in funding for emergency, family violence prevention, shelters on reserve and in the Yukon.
As part of our COVID-19 response, we are also providing $270 million to respond to financial pressures on income assistance for essential living expenses due to COVID-19.
In addition to funding for our COVID-19 response, these estimates include funding to ensure that first nations children and families receive the services they need and to which they are entitled. We have committed $468.2 million to maintain the first nations child and family services program, which brings the program's total annual budget to $1.7 billion.
This includes support to implement the decisions by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal issued before September 2019 and connected to the complaint by first nations child and family services regarding child and family services and Jordan's principle; coverage of expected maintenance costs for service providers; operating costs for the new agencies; response to pressure from provincial agreements; and implementation of a reserve fund to ensure that money is available should the actual numbers call for reimbursement.
The Government of Canada is committed to implementing Jordan's principle and ensuring that first nations children have access to the products, services and support they need in the areas of health, social services and education.
The Government of Canada is committed to implementing Jordan's principle and is taking action to ensure that first nations children receive the products, services and support they need in health, social services and education. The supplementary estimates also include $230 million to respond to the year-long financial pressures arising from the implementation of Jordan's principle.
Every year since its implementation, Jordan's principle has led to a significant increase in the number of approved applications submitted by individuals and groups. As a result, associated spending has increased significantly.
Since 2016, the Government of Canada has adopted an interim approach to Jordan's principle that has allowed it to inject more than $1 billion to meet the needs of first nations children. We are determined to continue to meet those needs and work to keep our promise on implementing the principle.
To further safeguard food security in the north, our government has committed up to $25 million to support temporary enhancements to nutrition north Canada in these estimates. This funding will help ensure nutrition north Canada fulfills its mandate to improve access to healthy food through additional education and subsidies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We have also invested up to $72.6 million to address urgent health care and social support needs in the territories in response to COVID-19, with $18.4 million allocated to Yukon, $23.4 million to the Northwest Territories and $30.8 million to Nunavut. In addition, we have provided up to $17.3 million to enable the continuation of northern air services to support essential resupply and medical services in the north. We do recognize the essential role that a focused and reliable air network plays in enabling the movement of essential goods and services to respond to the pandemic. Funding has already been disbursed for the urgent health care and social support needs in the territories in response to COVID-19 and to enable the continuation of northern air service supporting essential resupply and medical services in the north.
We have also committed to a needs-based funding approach that involves $23.4 million in Vote 10 grants and contributions, including $9.9 million to support research and higher education in Canada's north; $6 million to support planning activities of the Government of the Northwest Territories, for the proposed Taltson hydroelectricity expansion project; $6 million to respond to the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and $1.5 million toward indigenous consultation and capacity support activities.
I thank members for the opportunity to speak about this crucial and important work. Meegwetch, nakurmiik, mahsi cho.
View Anju Dhillon Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, in 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal determined that the Government of Canada's approach to services for first nations children was discriminatory. One way we are addressing this is through the full implementation of Jordan's principle.
Can the Minister of Indigenous Services please tell the House more about how new funding committed to Jordan's principle through these supplementary estimates will support its continued implementation?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, indeed, members will note that over $20 million are in the supplementary estimates that reflect the attribution of funds to fulfill this most important principle to closing the gap and ensuring equity for first nations children. The budgetary expenses are now at over $600 million.
Over and above, and more important than the number, we are speaking about children and the supports they need. I have been able to go into many communities, obviously prior to COVID-19 outbreak, and see some of the incredible work that is being done. That work continues. On equity, we are still working excessively hard to reach that by making those crucial investments. It is something we will continue to do year over year.
We have seen that increase particularly during COVID as to the needs and fulfilling Jordan's principle most notably. These investments help. Behind everyone is a child and it is very important to highlight that as we look at these large but crucial budgetary numbers in ensuring we are who we think we are in Canada.
View Leah Gazan Profile
NDP (MB)
View Leah Gazan Profile
2020-03-11 14:47 [p.1933]
Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked the Minister of Indigenous Services when his government would stop breaking the law and honour the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruling to immediately stop discriminating against first nations children. This was followed by 10 seconds of silence and then story time. The same silence was heard about a plan for COVID-19 on reserves.
When will the minister follow the rule of law, honour the tribunal ruling and stop discriminating against first nations children?
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Justin Trudeau Profile
2020-03-11 14:48 [p.1933]
Mr. Speaker, we strongly agree that we must compensate indigenous children harmed by past government policies. It must be done in a way that is both fair and timely to further healing.
We have worked closely with the parties and found consensus on a number of key areas. We have demonstrated our commitment to addressing longstanding child and family service needs of first nations, Inuit and Métis children.
We will continue working with our partners to ensure indigenous children are supported and cared for in the right way, with connection to community and culture.
View Rob Morrison Profile
CPC (BC)
View Rob Morrison Profile
2020-02-24 14:08 [p.1425]
Mr. Speaker, I am standing today, proud to be representing the great people of Kootenay—Columbia, and honoured they have put their trust in me to represent them.
This weekend I was bombarded with comments from individuals who were upset about the illegal blockades. They were having a difficult time understanding why an illegal blockade was not dismantled immediately. A Supreme Court order is not a guideline. The crisis we are in is a result of a weak government demonstrating a real lack of leadership.
The rule of law is clear: If an illegal blockade is set up, then law enforcement agencies must respond. The RCMP in British Columbia are under contract with the province. The officer in charge of the RCMP there reports directly to the commissioner, who reports directly to the public safety minister.
Obviously, there is no clear direction for our law enforcement agencies. I know I speak for the silent majority across Canada when I say there is no excuse for the government not to have responded immediately to shut down the illegal blockades. The present crisis facing all Canadians is 100% due to our weak government demonstrating a lack of leadership.
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