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Results: 1 - 15 of 497
View Niki Ashton Profile
NDP (MB)
Mr. Speaker, Canada has been in mourning since 215 children, victims of Canada's genocide, were found at the Kamloops residential school. First nations are pushing to bring their children home, but the Liberals are nowhere. They are recycling old announcements and expecting first nations to investigate genocide themselves. The current Prime Minister pretends he is a human rights champion globally, but here in Canada he is part of the problem with respect to human rights. When will he drop the empty symbolism, listen to first nations, establish independent oversight and provide adequate support, including bringing in the ICMP as called for by the Pimicikamak Cree Nation?
View Carolyn Bennett Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, all Canadians have been heartbroken since we learned of the remains at the former Kamloops residential school. We are working with all of our partners and this morning we were able to announce $4.88 million for the FSIN to be able to begin its work. The engagements must be indigenous-led, community-based and survivor- and family-centric, as well as culturally sensitive. That is what the community wants and that is what we are here to support.
View Sylvie Bérubé Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, today is National Indigenous Peoples Day, but commemorations are not enough, especially after what happened in Kamloops. This day must be one of action and must focus on respectful nation-to-nation collaboration, in spite of the gravity of residential schools. That is why the Bloc Québécois spoke to the different assemblies representing the first nations and the Inuit.
As a result of these discussions, we are calling on the government to contribute financial resources to identify the locations that may have been the site of the same horrors as in Kamloops. We are calling on the government to push the religious communities that participated in the residential school system to give access to their archives. Furthermore, we are demanding that a monument for residential schools be constructed in Ottawa, in collaboration with the Algonquin nation.
These actions will not erase the generations of violence, inhumanity and shame, but they do represent a step forward. This is what indigenous peoples are recommending and what we must do together.
View Yvonne Jones Profile
Lib. (NL)
View Yvonne Jones Profile
2021-06-21 14:18 [p.8845]
Mr. Speaker, today we honour the rich cultures and traditions of first nations, Inuit and Métis across Canada. We also recognize this National Indigenous Peoples Day is occurring at a time that is very difficult. Many of us are deeply heartbroken learning of the unmarked remains of children at the former residential school near Kamloops.
This National Indigenous History Month is dedicated to the missing children who went to residential school and never came home. It is dedicated to their families and to all residential school survivors.
While today we recognize the historic and ongoing contributions of indigenous people to our country, we also take the time to educate ourselves about the hard truths of our past, acknowledge the ongoing impacts of racist colonial policies and the realities of current systemic racism.
We encourage all Canadians to read or reread the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action, as they are a road map to reconciliation, a road map that is supported by indigenous people, by our government and hopefully by all Canadians.
View Yves-François Blanchet Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I am at at the Maison amérindienne de Mont‑Saint‑Hilaire. There have been discussions among the parties and if you seek it I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:
That the House, recognizing the importance of historical truth in the process of healing grieving families and nations, insist that the government deploy, for the benefit of indigenous communities, the financial resources necessary to carry out every call to action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in order for indigenous communities to have the technical and scientific means and the project management necessary for the identification of sites and the establishment of registers, as well as for historical research and the commemoration of the victims;
That the House ask the government, in consultation with affected indigenous communities, to place the new information that would be collected for the purpose of finding all the missing children under the aegis of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, all under the authority of the indigenous people;
That the House recognize that Ottawa is located on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people and, acting accordingly, affirm that it is urgent that call to action number 82 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, providing for the construction of a national monument to residential schools, be erected in Ottawa and reiterate that it is essential that all recognized national indigenous organizations be involved in the process, as they should; and finally,
That the House ask the federal government to push all religious communities that participated in the residential school system to give access to the relevant archives to researchers, to indigenous communities, and to survivors and their families.
View Yves-François Blanchet Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, there has been consultation between the parties, and I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion.
I move:
That the House, recognizing the importance of historical truth in the process of healing grieving families and nations, insist that the government deploy, for the benefit of indigenous communities, the financial resources necessary to carry out every call to action in the truth and reconciliation Commission in order for indigenous communities to have the technical and scientific means and the project management necessary for the identification of sites and the establishment of registers, as well as for historical research and the commemoration of the victims;
That the House ask the government, in consultation with affected indigenous communities, to place the new information that would be collected for the purpose of finding all the missing children under the aegis of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, all under the authority of the indigenous people;
That the House recognize that Ottawa is located on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people and, acting accordingly, affirm that it is urgent that call to action number 82 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, providing for the construction of a national monument to residential schools, be erected in Ottawa and reiterate that it is essential that all recognized national indigenous organizations be involved in the process, as they should; and finally,
That the House ask the federal government to push all religious communities that participated in the residential school system to give access to the relevant archives to researchers, to indigenous communities, and to survivors and their families.
View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)
All those opposed to the hon. member moving the motion will please say nay.
The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-22 0:46 [p.8929]
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and privilege to rise again tonight to speak to Bill C-10. It is always an honour to speak from the unceded traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation, and to serve the community of Nanaimo—Ladysmith within the traditional territory of the Snaw-naw-as, Snuneymuxw, Stz'uminus and Lyackson First Nations. Hych'ka Siem. It is National Aboriginal Peoples Day today, a day to celebrate the rich cultural heritage, the languages, the governance structure and the traditions of the indigenous people of Canada.
I spoke to many organizations about this bill. As an independent party called the Greens, we do not have the same ability to question witnesses in committee, so I held my own meetings and asked my own questions. One of the meetings I had was with APTN and indigenous producers. I want to talk tonight about the importance of indigenous voices in our broadcasting system. If we left this content up to the United States, our views of indigenous people would continue to be the Disneyfied view seen in Pocahontas and spaghetti westerns. It is really important that indigenous voices are heard.
In the early 1990s, my father found a letter written by a woman in 1898 named Elizabeth Shaw. She wrote a scathing 18-page letter about the residential school system and the abuses that were happening at the Port Simpson school. We made a documentary film about her and a number of indigenous people were involved with it.
Afterward, indigenous people told me about some of the other experiences they had and they wanted to make films as well. I said that it was not really for me to tell their story. That is what they should be doing and I helped facilitate it. I worked with a lot of indigenous producers, young people and older people. These people were interested in getting into media production, and I facilitated training and mentorship so they could tell their stories.
What came out of that? I worked with a young guy, Don Claxton. I worked with his sister Dana Claxton as well, who is an indigenous artist, and played music with their sister, Kim Soo Goodtrack. They had an idea for a show. That was in the late 1990s and, lo and behold, APTN, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, was born. We produced a pilot for the first preschool show on APTN. I worked with them, a whole bunch of first nations and an indigenous technical crew, who we trained, to create 64 episodes of a show called Wakanheja.
The idea behind CanCon is to hear these important indigenous voices. We need to make sure that the independent producers creating Canadian content have access to the Canada Media Fund when they are producing for social media streamers like Netflix and others, rather than just for the Canadian broadcasters, because that is where a lot of this production is going.
I heard a lot of discussion about freedom of expression and that some YouTubers have to go down because Canadian content goes up, that somebody has to go down because somebody is going up. I do not know how many times I heard that at committee during filibusters. A Conservative member gave a great example of somebody they know who does coupon clipping and gives how-tos, and that is great. I looked at the top 100 Canadian YouTube producers and there were people doing nails, gaming commentators and spoof videos. There was lots of content that could be produced anywhere. People knew it was Canadian because they would drop an “eh”, say “get 'er done” or say “about” wrong, but that is not what the idea behind CanCon is all about.
This commercial content drives advertising dollars, and that is what the commercial Internet giants are all about: selling advertising. That is what the algorithms are designed to do. What is important in CanCon is indigenous voices, stories from Canada's north, Canadian documentaries, stories of new Canadians and emerging Canadian musicians. These are the programs that need to be discoverable, and that is what discoverability is about. It is about learning about each other and about Canadian stories, not being inundated by American culture or the dominant culture.
I missed my late show tonight. I want to talk about a Canadian story that needs to be shared and understood. In recent decades, Canadians have learned more and more about our former government's attempt to commit cultural genocide, to commit genocide, to wipe out indigenous cultures through the residential school system. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has reported extensively and provided a path forward with 94 calls to action.
What most Canadians are unaware of is a parallel set of institutions, the racially segregated Indian hospital system operated by the federal government between the 1940s and 1970s, and those hospitals have their own horror stories. I first heard about the Nanaimo Indian Hospital about 15 years ago, and many people in my community have no idea it ever existed.
In 2013, I was commissioned to produce a film for the Hul'qumi'num Health Hub about cultural safety in the health care system within the Hul'qumi'num speaking areas. Part of that film was to give health professionals an understanding of the history of institutional racism in health care and why indigenous people did not seek help when they needed medical attention.
I interviewed elders who spoke about the trauma they experienced in the Nanaimo Indian Hospital. I heard about painful treatments and I heard about people going into the hospital who were never heard from again. As part of the research for the film, I spoke with researcher Laurie Meijer Drees, who is the co-chair of the First Nations Studies Department at Vancouver Island University. She has documented the oral stories of people who have been in these hospitals, and wrote a book entitled Healing Histories: Stories from Canada's Indian Hospitals.
Of course, not all these stories were bad. Some people went to the hospital sick, were given antibiotics and returned home feeling better, but the horrific legacy of the Indian hospitals was based on treating all indigenous people as wards of the state. Consent for medical treatment only came into being for the general public in the 1960s. However, as wards of the state, indigenous people were not asked to consent for their hospitalization or treatment. The system patronizingly viewed them as lacking the capacity to give consent.
An indigenous person could be arrested by the RCMP for not going to the hospital if instructed to do so by a doctor. That twisted, racist mentality facilitated and led to women being sterilized without giving consent and patients being subject to experiments with medication without their prior knowledge.
These hospitals were underfunded and understaffed. Family members and communities were not updated on loved ones in the hospital. People died, children were shipped off to residential school or adopted out and family members were never informed. Some children were taken to hospital and years later no longer knew who they were, what their real names were or where they came from.
Most of what is known about this dark history comes from oral accounts told to researchers and shared through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but the medical files are locked and researchers have not been granted permission to access them. Apparently the reason given is that those records contain personal information. It is important to protect personal information, however, we do not need to expose personal information to get to the bottom of what happened.
To heal from those past traumas, we need to know the truth. The truth is sealed in those medical records, and it is incumbent upon the government to give researchers and independent adjudicators appropriate clearance, access and analysis of this data to conduct a full independent inquiry. I am looking forward to a first nations producer, an indigenous producer, creating a documentary about this and having members of this place finding this through discoverability on YouTube. These are stories we need to hear. These are the truths we need to hear. We also need to hear about the rich cultural heritage of indigenous people.
Let us talk about censorship. We are worried about censorship. The real concern about censorship is these large corporations. On May 5, red dress day, the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, family, friends and loved ones were posting about their missing loved ones. Thousands of those posts disappeared.
Right here in my community, I know Lisa Marie Young went missing years ago. What happened to all these posts? They were all pulled by Instagram. This is happening with other things like Black Lives Matter, Israel and Palestine, Sheikh Jarrah and SOS Colombia. I heard one of the Conservatives say that their posts were missing, right-wing posts, but this is clearly not Conservative posts.
Freedom of speech is important to me and we need to uphold it, and this bill would do that.
View Gary Anandasangaree Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I want to begin by acknowledging that I am speaking to members from Scarborough—Rouge Park, the traditional lands of many indigenous nations, most recently of the Mississaugas of the Credit. I will be speaking in support of Bill C-30, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 19, 2021.
Before I go deeper into the budget, I want to reflect on the past few weeks. It has been a difficult few weeks for many in our country, and I think it is safe to say that our hearts ache on a number of different fronts.
First and foremost, learning of the graves of 215 children in Kamloops has really opened existing wounds and has shaken us up in a way things have rarely shaken us. This is a moment in time when all of us need to come together and ensure that there is justice, accountability and reflection. There is also a real commitment to ensure that all of the 94 calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report are implemented.
There are sadly going to be other findings along the way, and I think in order for us to have closure, in order for us to truly live up to the past and move forward, we need to support indigenous-led initiatives that will commemorate and remember, and that will ensure that the children are brought home. I send my heartfelt condolences to the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc people and I want to assure them that I, along with my colleagues in the House, will continue to work to support them and others in these efforts.
Just last week, I sadly attended another memorial, in London, Ontario, to pay respects to the Afzaal family. I was joined by members from all parties and leaders from across different levels of government, but most importantly the members of the Muslim community in London.
The Afzaal family were walking, like most of us have relearned to do over the past 18 months or so. They were going on an evening walk and they were sadly mowed down by a terrorist, by someone who espoused so much hate. I do not even know if I could fathom the level of hate this individual had to do this to this family, but more broadly, to attack us as Canadians. When we see an attack on one individual community or family, it really is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on the values that we espouse.
Sadly, it did not stop there. We know that incidents of Islamophobia have been on the rise exponentially over the past several days. We have seen incidents in Edmonton, as my friend from Edmonton Riverbend just referenced. We have seen daily microaggressions toward many friends, colleagues and others we may have worked with. This is a real moment for us to reflect on the level of hate speech, the level of hate propaganda on social media. We know that incidents of anti-Semitism are on the rise.
This is a moment for us to reflect and make sure that we do better and we collectively work together, that we do not use race and these differences as wedge issues, but rather as issues that we can all come together to fight against as a common good. I sincerely hope that we have turned the page in our Parliament where we can do that. I hope to work across the aisle with my friends opposite to do that.
On a very personal note, I must thank all those colleagues who are not going to be running again in the next election. Most importantly, I want to acknowledge and thank my good friend from Mississauga—Malton, the former minister of innovation, for his extraordinary guidance for me personally and the doors that he opened for me to ensure my success. I want to pay particular respect and thank him and his extraordinary family, Bram, Kirpa, Nanki, Poppa Bains and Momma Bains, for all they have done.
In his speech, he reflected on the issue of identity, on the issue of being Sikh and being able to practise his faith and live day to day as a Sikh with enormous and extraordinary challenges, and yet he has overcome so many and has led us in ways that I do not have time to describe here.
I do want to get to the budget, and I want to talk about something that has been very important for the people of Scarborough. Scarborough region used to be its own municipality prior to amalgamation with the broader city of Toronto. We have a population of roughly 630,000 people. We are represented by six parliamentarians; we call them the Scarborough caucus. We have set out since 2015 to prioritize one singular ask, which is additional support for transit.
The Scarborough region has not had any higher levels of transit built in a generation. The last project, the rapid transit, the LRT, is coming to an end in 2023. It is broken down. It is far past its best-before date, and it is fair to say that it is not serving the people of Scarborough.
In 2015, Scarborough Agincourt was represented by Arnold Chan. We got together and said we absolutely needed to make sure that we built higher orders of transit. At that time, the singular project that was in the pipeline, with almost a 10-year debate behind it, was the Scarborough subway extension. It was initially a three-stop subway. It became a four-stop subway, then a two-stop subway, and finally here we are today and we were recently able to announce a federal investment of $2.25 billion into a three-stop line, which will start construction before the end of the year, and we are hopeful that it will be constructed by 2030. That is the timeline that has been provided.
This is a game-changer. This is very important, and this is an important investment in the people of Scarborough, all the hard-working people. Scarborough had one of the most affected populations during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have had so many issues of riders, essential workers, going downtown in crammed buses and being affected disproportionately to the population. I believe this is a very important investment.
As much as this is important, this is not the end for us. Scarborough as a region will require additional supports in terms of infrastructure, and that is why this budget is so important, as it outlines a mechanism through the permanent public transit funding that would enable places like Scarborough to build. I am looking forward to supporting the construction of the Eglinton East LRT as the next project.
I look forward to the questions and answers today.
View Niki Ashton Profile
NDP (MB)
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been consultations among the parties and if you seek it, I hope that you will find consent for the following motion: That in light of the uncovering of unmarked graves at residential schools, the House call on the government to establish an independent commission with the resources to establish standards and provide oversight in the searches of records, in ground searches and investigations in accordance with the wishes of communities, as well as invite international experts including the International Commission on Missing Persons to work with first nations, Inuit and Métis communities to bring their children home.
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
We would need unanimous consent to pass this motion. Therefore, all those opposed to the hon. member moving the motion will please say nay.
The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.
Some hon. members: Nay.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): There is dissent and therefore it cannot be adopted.
I have two points of order, so I will go to the first one that came up.
The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-18 12:10 [p.8778]
Madam Speaker, I just wanted to clarify. I did not quite hear it, but it was the Liberal Party that turned down the support for indigenous people in finding the bodies—
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)
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