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Results: 121 - 135 of 280
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
2021-06-01 18:54 [p.7784]
Mr. Chair, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his speech.
Tonight's debate is very emotional. We all feel it.
The hon. member told us that he is a father. As an aunt and status of women critic, my thoughts obviously go out to the mothers of these 215 children. What is sadder still is that we know that this is just the tip of the iceberg. That is what prominent representatives of indigenous communities, including Ghislain Picard and Michèle Audette, have said. In Quebec, more bodies of children who were taken from their mothers could be discovered.
On behalf of all those women who have been harmed, and knowing that indigenous women are still suffering a lot today, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls issued its final report. One of the recommendations in the report was to implement Bill C-15 and sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This is important.
The Leader of the Opposition said that concrete action is required. Ensuring that Bill C-15 moves forward is one such action.
Will his party finally recognize that it is important to sign this international declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples?
View Erin O'Toole Profile
CPC (ON)
View Erin O'Toole Profile
2021-06-01 18:55 [p.7784]
Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for her question.
All first nations issues are important, including economic reconciliation. I read Bill C-15, an act respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Some indigenous people and indigenous leaders from various nations, including some in Quebec, have questions about a small part of this bill.
Today I talked about calls to action 71 to 76. We must make these a priority, for the sake of the grieving families.
Now is not the time to play politics. Now is the time to take action for families and indigenous people across the country. I started studying this issue long before I entered politics because it was important to me. That is why I mentioned my son Jack. It is important to have a serious debate about a serious matter. The residential schools were a national shame.
View Rachel Blaney Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Chair, elders across Canada have been very clear. There can be no healing without justice.
I wonder if the Leader of the Opposition, who has referred to residential schools as a place of higher learning, could answer why, when he was in government as a member of cabinet, their Conservative government denied the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's request of $1.5 million to research mass burial sites.
We know, as the survivors have told us again and again, that there are many children lost, buried without a marked grave, and their families are still searching. That government did not support that $1.5 million, which would have helped us to not be in the position we are in today.
View Erin O'Toole Profile
CPC (ON)
View Erin O'Toole Profile
2021-06-01 18:58 [p.7784]
Mr. Chair, on these occasions it is important for us to not only show support to the families and communities suffering but to also debate and educate Canadians, including the member from the New Democratic Party, on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action, including the ones I am citing today. I would much have preferred for her to talk about partnering on them than be mistaken in her timeline with respect to a request from 2009. I do not think she was in this place. I was not in this place.
I want action. We have a Prime Minister who is very good at announcing things and saying words, but not good at delivering. The first nations on Vancouver Island deserve someone who is going to push for action, not to talk about 2009.
Therefore, I would be happy to work with her leader and her party on moving on calls to action 71 to 76 and, in the process, learning about how the apology, the lawsuit settlement by the last Conservative government, was a step. There are many more steps in the journey of healing required, but we need a much more serious and thoughtful approach from all parties.
View Dan Albas Profile
CPC (BC)
Mr. Chair, I certainly appreciate hearing my leader share the story of Roseann. Hearing that single story was heartbreaking. I can only imagine that the 215 other stories, at very least, would be unimaginable.
I bring up again first nations from my riding. This is Upper Nicola Chief Harvey McLeod. He said:
We always knew that this was happening there, but it was in our own minds, we had no proof other than our own experience. We hear really horrific stories about what happened and dealing with our people that had passed on....
It's going to take a lot of strength to walk with our people while they remember the hurt and pain from that school. And it will be so much better when we're all united, working together to ensure we're there for our citizens.
Could the leader of the official opposition please comment on how to proceed to work together on reconciliation and coming to terms with this great trauma?
View Erin O'Toole Profile
CPC (ON)
View Erin O'Toole Profile
2021-06-01 19:00 [p.7785]
Mr. Chair, that is why I brought the story of Roseann Kiyawasew to the floor of the Commons today. As Chief McLeod from the member's riding highlighted, it is about walking together on a journey of healing.
Roseann's journey to find where her little brother was buried took 70 years. That was 70 years of trauma and pain, feeling that she did not do enough, when it was the federal government that had failed her and her brother. In speaking with Chief Casimir today in Kamloops, and speaking with my colleague, the MP for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, I know this journey is an important one.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action on missing children provide us a map for that journey. That is why I wrote to the Prime Minister yesterday on calls to action 71 to 76. That is why I am disappointed by the Bloc and the NDP. Rather than doing the real work of getting on that journey with Chief McLeod and with indigenous families, we see announcements with no plan, and we see partisanship when there is an opportunity to actually heal. Let us make the journey together.
We must work together for indigenous Canadians.
View Sébastien Lemire Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Chair, the Leader of the Opposition told my colleague that we should not respond with political arguments, yet that is what he just did by bringing up his plans for the future.
I will ask the question again. We are participating in a debate on the rights of indigenous peoples, which we buried with the residential schools. I will remind members that these rights were buried, and there is nothing more morbid in the current circumstances.
My question is about the rights of indigenous peoples, and it is very simple: Why did the Leader of the Opposition vote against Bill C-15, which would recognize the rights of indigenous peoples?
View Erin O'Toole Profile
CPC (ON)
View Erin O'Toole Profile
2021-06-01 19:02 [p.7785]
Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for his question.
Ironically, I was just talking yesterday with a few indigenous mayors and leaders from Abitibi—Témiscamingue. It was an important conversation for me as a new leader with a new approach as well as extensive experience in the private sector.
There would be many opportunities for economic reconciliation if we had a plan and a serious partnership with indigenous peoples. Thousands of indigenous leaders have reasonable questions about the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I am more familiar with the file than my colleague is, and I am prepared to work for the well-being of indigenous people across the country.
View Yves-François Blanchet Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Chair, I think that kind of attitude needs to be dropped right now. I know this may shock some people, and there are even people in my own entourage who do not like it when I say things like this, but that attitude of thinking that you know better than others and know what is best for them, it is so very white.
We are talking about 215 children buried in an unmarked grave, over a period of nearly a century. The cause of death is unknown, their ages are mere estimates, their names are generally unknown and their parents are also unknown.
That is the tragedy, and it is terrible. Beyond words, Parliaments, upholstered chairs and plush carpeting, that is the tragedy of this kind of attitude, an unbelievably arrogant colonial attitude from people occupying the territory by force and claiming superiority.
I am an anthropologist by training. It can be awesome, and it can be awful. It can be awful because, in an allegedly scientific framework, anthropologists claim to know their subject better than the subject knows themselves. As a result, the anthropologists think they are in a better position to decide matters for the subject than the subject themselves. However, it is a construct, beyond the desire to create a science out of finding differences captivating and enriching, somewhere between the extremes of vile prejudice and naked idealization. True acceptance is the mutual enrichment we gain from our differences. It serves no purpose whatsoever, all these years later, for parents to experience something that should never happen. A parent should never outlive their child. It makes no sense. It goes against the natural order.
Like some other members have mentioned, this past weekend, I too had issues with my children. I have several kids. You are a parent for life, except when your children are taken away. These children were locked away, uprooted, hidden, in order to be acculturated and robbed of their collective identity as members of a nation who have their own perspective and relationship to the Earth and to nature. They do not see it through the lens of appropriation. They do not experience the idea of nation as we do. Rather, they experience it in a relationship that is fundamentally and rightfully different.
Then someone came along and, allegedly without malice, but with immense interest, thought that it would be better to strip children of their identity, erase who they are and, perhaps worst of all, take away their relationship with their parents, under conditions so horrific that a staggering number of them would die before reaching adulthood, very likely from mistreatment and neglect, all in the name of religion, all supposedly for their benefit.
We are still reckoning with this history. Politics will come into it eventually, but today I am still coming to grips with the realization, because this day is forcing us to face facts. Before we can do any political analysis, which in some ways is fairly simple, we must deal with the constant agony of knowing that, by God, we did this.
It is not just 215 children near Kamloops. It is potentially thousands of children, because they came from nations whose land was being appropriated, and the white colonizer despised and envied them at the same time.
After all these years of suspecting this, it is now increasingly clear. We are starting to see the light, or better yet, we know that we could see the light. We can get to the bottom of this. Beyond the commissions, the analyses, the words, the commemorations, or before all that, there needs to be knowledge without complacency. The first step is to acquire that knowledge.
We learned that a technology that is used on construction sites, but is also used quite regularly in archeology and anthropology, helped pinpoint the location of this sad discovery in a rather simple way. It is true that this could be done elsewhere, and it can be done everywhere. There are no pleasant surprises in store, but the pain must not be used as an excuse to spare us from the need to get to the bottom of this matter.
That will take resources, but, honestly, I will say quickly that I do not care. It will definitely take some money, and the first nations will obviously not be asked to pay for it. The federal government needs to pay for that. It will take science, knowledge and the ability to use those technologies, so we will need the help of institutions, research centres and universities. To avoid any temptation, it will inevitably take quick, immediate, strong, unequivocal and lasting action to protect the sites. We have a duty to bring to light the truth.
We need to be aware of the worst parts of history, not so that we can brood about them but so that we can come to accept a profound loss, become aware of a former denial of dignity and remember that every first nation is one that has often been disenfranchised and humiliated. The government purported to be helping them while making them disappear. That was also said of French Canadians back in the day, but we are still here.
Beyond apologizing, what should we do? I do not know. Perhaps even the first nations do not really know yet either.
However, we must not tell them that we know what is good for them. When we talk about Bill C-15, we are talking about their initiative. We must not tell them that we are going to look into this. No. We need to listen. We need to focus on, receive and accept their requests and recommendations.
This morning, I was saying that there is no culture in the world that does not consider its children to be its most precious asset. It is therefore with humility, without self-pity and in the spirit of sincere friendship that we can perhaps admit that this is becoming political, if, and only if, the word “political” is used in its most noble sense, that of serving, taking action and correcting wrongs.
The first nations are kindred nations and friends on the same continent and, let us not forget, on one earth.
View Sébastien Lemire Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague from Beloeil—Chambly for his moving speech, which attests to his sensitivity. Having met with indigenous communities in my region together with my colleague, I can say that he has a great deal of empathy.
As he does not necessarily wish to speak about political actions, I will instead speak of a concept cherished by indigenous peoples, that of restorative justice. What can we do at this time to support the bereavement process in these communities?
View Yves-François Blanchet Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Chair, I thank my esteemed colleague.
Is there justice that is not restorative? Despite all the uncertainty, when wrongdoing is committed, when the tragedy takes place, when the crime is committed, reparation consists of admitting what happened, listening, and mitigating the impact, the pain and the tragedy.
Once again, in this case, reparation does not come from claiming to know better than first nations what is good for them and their children, but comes from what the first nations want.
View Niki Ashton Profile
NDP (MB)
Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the leader of the Bloc Québécois for his truly moving speech. I would like to ask him if he agrees that it is time to recognize that Canada committed a genocide against indigenous peoples.
Does he agree that the federal government must do everything possible to search all grounds of former residential schools across the country, as first nations in my riding and across Canada are calling for? Does he agree that we must reveal the truth about this genocide before we can even think about reconciliation?
View Yves-François Blanchet Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Chair, as I said in my remarks, the first step is of course to acquire knowledge. It seems cold and awful, but that means identifying the sites, analyzing them and using technology to search them virtually. That data will have to be compiled, just like the data on missing and murdered women, to document what happened so we can acknowledge it and reflect on what we did.
The point is not to take responsibility on a daily basis for something that happened years ago, but we do have to at least accept our shared historical responsibility for it. Naturally, resources will have to be deployed and the sites will have to be protected.
As for the notion of genocide, I am wary of getting into a semantic debate over words. I am not afraid of the word “genocide”, and I have no problem saying “cultural genocide” if there is a desire for acculturation. However, I will leave it to first nations to choose the term we should use.
View Gary Anandasangaree Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the leader of the Bloc Québécois for his heartfelt comments this evening.
I would like to ask him about the TRC recommendations. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission gave us 94 calls to action that attribute specific actions, depending on the level of government and toward different civil society organizations.
Would the Bloc support us in ensuring that all these calls to action, which are the purview of the federal government, are passed and that we work together to ensure we are on this path toward reconciliation? Could we count on his support to move forward?
View Yves-François Blanchet Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Chair, I am not sure how to approach this. Am I in a frame of mind to say or hear that, under the circumstances, we would be required to say that there is something now and that we need to do this? No, I am not there. I am still in shock and need to absorb it.
Any recommendation that is sanctioned in a healthy and legitimate way by first nations is worthy of consideration. However, should the government not take a step back, eat humble pie and recognize that there is a major new variable in the picture?
It has just been revealed that there will be thousands of children's bodies discovered after the 14 recommendations. We could end up with 125.
Should we not first humbly acknowledge that and recognize that we may not even have gone far enough in the analysis or recommendations that were made?
Results: 121 - 135 of 280 | Page: 9 of 19

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