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Results: 1 - 30 of 128
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?
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