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View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-18 12:44
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Question No. 733--
Mr. Gord Johns:
With regard to the court cases Ahousaht Indian Band and Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), 2008 BCSC 1494; Ahousaht Indian Band and Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), 2011 BCCA 237; Ahousaht Indian Band and Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), (29 March 2012) SCC File No. 34387; Ahousaht Indian Band and Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), 2013 BCCA 300; Ahousaht Indian Band and Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), (30 January 2012) SCC File No. 34387; Ahousaht Indian Band and Nation v. Canada (Attorney General Trial decision (Garson J.) – 2009 BCSC 1494; BC Supreme Court Docket No. S033335; the Supreme Court of Canada’s file number 34387; Ahousaht Indian Band and Nation v. Canada (Attorney General) 2021 BCCA 155; and all related cases: what are, including information from the Attorney General of Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, and Environment and Climate Change Canada, for each case, the (i) total amount spent by the Crown between January 1, 2006, and April 30, 2021, (ii) total amount, adjusted for inflation, (iii) total spent by the Crown by category (travel, salary, supplies, etc.), (iv) total amount spent in each fiscal year from 2005 to 2021, (v) total payment that has been, or is projected to be paid by the Crown, and an explanation as to how this figure was calculated, (vi) date by which it will be or is projected to be paid by the Crown?
Response
Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, with respect to the legal costs incurred by the government in relation to the various Ahousaht Indian Band and Nation v. Canada (Attorney General) matters identified in the question, at the British Columbia Supreme Court, court file number S033335, British Columbia Court of Appeal, court file number CA037704, Supreme Court of Canada, court file number 34387, and all related cases, to the extent that the information that has been requested is or may be protected by any legal privileges, including solicitor-client privilege, the federal Crown asserts those privileges. In this case, it has only waived solicitor-client privilege, and only to the extent of revealing the total legal costs, as defined below.
The total legal costs, actual and notional costs, associated with the Ahousaht Indian Band and Nation v. Canada (Attorney General) matters referenced above, including at the British Columbia Supreme Court, court file number S033335, British Columbia Court of Appeal, court file number CA037704, and Supreme Court of Canada, and any related cases, between January 1, 2006, and April 30, 2021, amount to approximately $19.6 million. This amount covers the costs associated with the numerous procedures that have been filed in these various matters over a period of 15 years. The services targeted here are litigation services as well as litigation support services. Department of Justice lawyers, notaries and paralegals are salaried public servants and therefore no legal fees are incurred for their services. A “notional amount” can, however, be provided to account for the legal services they provide. The notional amount is calculated by multiplying the total hours recorded in the responsive files for the relevant period by the applicable approved internal legal services hourly rates. Actual costs represent file-related legal disbursements and legal agent fees, as the case may be. The total amount mentioned in this response is based on information contained in Department of Justice systems, as of May 5, 2021.
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View James Bezan Profile
CPC (MB)
View James Bezan Profile
2021-06-17 10:36 [p.8636]
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Mr. Speaker, I hope this is the final time I will have to address the House virtually. I look forward to being in Ottawa next week and hope very much that we will be back to normal sessions come the fall.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
I just have to say that this is a rare measure that we are requesting of all members of the House of Commons to censure the Minister of National Defence. The last time anyone was censured in the House was back in 2002, and it has come to this point, because the Minister of National Defence has refused to do the honourable thing and resign, and the Prime Minister has refused to do the right thing and fire the Minister of National Defence. Essentially, that leaves it up to us in the House of Commons to censure the minister going forward, until the voters of Vancouver South have an opportunity to express their displeasure in the upcoming federal election.
I also just want to say to the Speaker, who has stepped into the chair, knowing that he has announced that he will not be running in the next federal election, how much I have appreciated his strength in the chair and his friendship over the years as we served together. I wish him all the best in his future endeavours, enjoying more time with his family.
When we look at this motion, we have to look at the litany of misleading comments made by the Minister of National Defence over his tenure since 2015. I think all of us are all too familiar with the travesty of the wrongful accusations and the decision by the minister to go on a witch hunt to stop the procurement of the Asterix for the Royal Canadian Navy, and how he threw retired Vice-Admiral Mark Norman under the bus. We know that through 2017 and into 2018, this escalated to a ridiculous level and ended up in the courts. The case, of course, was thrown out by the judge, because there just was not any evidence for it. It was an unnecessary attack on the honourable service and great reputation of a strong military leader, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.
However, we have to go back to the very beginning of the minister's tenure and look at what happened with his politically motivated withdrawal of our CF-18s from the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The minister was over there meeting with the Government of Iraq, as well as Kurdish officials in Erbil, and he told CBC on December 21, 2015, that he had not had one discussion about withdrawing our CF-18s from the fight. However, an access to information request on the record of a wire message in reference to the Minister of National Defence's meeting with the Iraqi minister of defence on December 20, 2015, just the day before he made that statement, says, “the Iraqi Minister of Defence was clearly focused on Canada's decision to withdraw its CF18 fighter jets from the coalition air strikes, asking [our Minister of National Defence] to reconsider this decision on numerous occasions”. That was the very first step in the minister's very misleading comments to the media and to Canadians.
We should not be surprised, because we also know that the minister, back in July 2015 when he was running to be a member of Parliament for the first time, claimed on a local B.C. program, Conversations That Matter, that he was the architect of Operation Medusa in Afghanistan. He reiterated that in April 2017, when he was at a conference in New Delhi on conflict prevention and peace keeping in a changing world. He again said that he was the architect of Operation Medusa.
Of course, he was a major back then and had numerous members in the command chain above him who were making the decisions, and there is no doubt that he provided great input and intelligence into how Operation Medusa was conducted, but to claim that he was more than the team is something that is not well regarded within the Canadian Armed Forces or by veterans across this country, and the minister had to apologize.
We also saw the minister take a shot at me back in 2017 over the cuts to tax-free allowances for forces members serving in Operation Impact while stationed in Kuwait at Camp Arifjan at that time. He claimed that it was the Conservative government that had taken away the tax-free allowance. I was able to get up on a question of privilege to point out that the initial assessments were made under the current Liberal government, and those cuts were made by this minister to hardship pay that was in effect back in 2014-15. Again, there was a finding that he misled the House.
Now, the most egregious of all of this, and the one that is really rocking our Canadian Armed Forces right now, is, of course, the crisis of sexual misconduct. I will point out and ask the question: What do the Somalia affair, the decade of darkness and the crisis of sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces today have in common? It all comes down to weak Liberal leadership.
We know that when the news broke that retired General Jonathan Vance, the former chief of the defence staff, had issues of sexual misconduct raised in March 2018, the Minister of National Defence said at committee on February 19 of this year that he was “as shocked as everyone else at the allegations that were made public two weeks ago”. He was surprised to learn about these allegations, but then at the defence committee on March 3, 2021, the former ombudsman for national defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, Gary Walbourne, said at committee that “I personally met with [the minister] to address an allegation of inappropriate sexual behaviour within the senior ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces, specifically, against the chief of the defence staff, and to discuss my concerns about this allegation. This meeting happened on March 1, 2018.” That was three years before the story became news, when the minister was briefed by Gary Walbourne.
Gary Walbourne went on to say at committee that:
I did tell the minister what the allegation was. I reached into my pocket to show him the evidence I was holding, and he pushed back from the table and said, “No.” I don't think we exchanged another word.
The minister refused the evidence, and we know that, at the defence committee on March 12, 2021, he then admitted that, “I did meet with Mr. Walbourne”. The ombudsman brought up the concerns, but “He did not give me any details”, is what the minister was claiming. Yet, if we look at all of the information that flowed between the minister's chief of staff, Zita Astravas at the time, up into the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office on March 2, 2018, it all talked about this being a matter of sexual misconduct, which they actually described as “sexual harassment”. Elder Marques, Michael Wernick and Katie Telford, the chief of staff to the Prime Minister, all knew that this was an issue of sexual misconduct.
Therefore, as the minister continues to dodge this and refuses to do the honourable thing and resign, and as long as the Prime Minister continues to back this inept behaviour by the Minister of National Defence and refuses to fire him, it falls upon us as the House of Commons to censure this minister since he has consistently and repeatedly misled the House.
I call upon all members of the House of Commons in all parties to censure this minister for his continued casual relationship with the truth.
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View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I take no pleasure in rising in the House today. First, I must mention that the Minister of National Defence and I have something in common: We each served honourably in the Canadian Forces for over twenty years. We both rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and commanded infantry units. These are the things we have in common. The minister served our country particularly well in the various missions he participated in around the world. I thank him for his service.
However, on October 19, 2015, in the federal election, we chose two different paths. I chose to run as a Conservative Party candidate, while the Minister of National Defence chose to run for the Liberal Party.
Let me remind members what the Liberal Party represents for the Canadian Forces. Let us recall the 10 years of darkness of the Chrétien era, marked by the purchase of used submarines and the cancellation of helicopter contracts, a time when our soldiers did not even have combat boots. That is the path and the party that the minister chose.
From that day on, he and I were no longer soldiers. We were now former military members who had become members of Parliament in the House of Commons, a political office. That is when the minister's problems began.
The first step was in 2015. During the election campaign, a tragedy struck hearts around the world. The body of a little boy washed up on a beach in Italy. He was a Syrian refugee trying to flee Syria, which was under the grip of ISIS. Many refugees were seeking asylum. The Liberals opened up many new spots, and we were all for that. We needed to do something to help those refugees.
However, our country was also engaged in combat. Our armed forces and our air force were in Iraq and Syria fighting the enemy, ISIS. What did this government decide to do when it took office? It pulled our CF-18s out of the bombing campaign against ISIS. It stopped fighting the enemy, the enemy that caused the little boy to wash up on the beach and the Syrian refugees to flee in search of asylum. We could never understand that.
When we say that the minister is hiding the truth or misleading Canadians, we are talking about decisions. When we questioned him at length about the reasons behind the decision to pull our CF-18s out, the minister said that Iraq had agreed to it. Later, in an interview with an Iraqi minister, we learned that that was not true. Iraq was very disappointed with Canada's decision.
The next step was a pivotal point in the career of a very talented military member, Vice-Admiral Norman, who was commander of the Royal Canadian Navy at the time. When he heard that the incoming Liberal government wanted to cancel the Asterix contract that had been awarded by the Conservative government, that was the last straw. Vice-Admiral Norman, a man who worked for his troops, the men and women of the Royal Canadian Navy, knew full well that the Conservative government decision to award the Asterix contract to Davie shipyard was the best solution to fix the problems in the navy.
We knew that the first decision of the Prime Minister and cabinet was to do everything in their power to cancel that contract. Vice-Admiral Norman did everything he could to prevent that from happening, and he paid the political price with his career. All he wanted to do was give the Royal Canadian Navy the tools it needed to do its job properly.
What did the Minister of National Defence do to ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces were operating effectively around the world? That is the duty of a defence minister. It is about ensuring that his troops have the necessary tools to do their job. Instead, the minister contributed to the problem. He helped ensure that Vice-Admiral Norman became persona non grata. He ended up facing serious charges and the RCMP landed on his doorstep. It is appalling.
This man was expected to be the next chief of the defence staff. He was going to be the commander of the Canadian Armed Forces. Instead, he was forced to retire. The government made sure of that by paying Vice-Admiral Norman's legal costs, which remain secret, so that he would just retire and stay quiet and so the whole thing would go away.
Is that the leadership we expect from a minister? Do we expect the minister to always say yes to the Prime Minister's nefarious decisions? A minister must be able to stand up and say that something will not work, that we cannot do that. However, the minister said nothing.
In 2018, the Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman went to the office of the Minister of National Defence to tell him that there was a problem with the chief of the defence staff, General Vance. What did the minister do? He told the ombudsman that he did not want to know about it. The ombudsman was completely taken aback.
The Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman told the minister that a victim had made allegations of sexual misconduct against the chief of the defence staff and that these allegations were not about 30-year-old incidents or incidents involving one too many beers, but were rather very serious allegations about recent incidents. What did the minister do? He did nothing. We learned about this three years later. We just learned about it.
In 2018, during his tenure, the minister chose to hide the information. It gets worse. When the Conservatives were in power, they commissioned a report from Justice Marie Deschamps. She presented her report in 2015, in which she described attitude problems and sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces. What did the Minister of National Defence do with that report? Absolutely nothing.
The full report contained 10 recommendations that the minister could have implemented. He had access to all of the resources and tools he needed to protect women in the Canadian Armed Forces. He could have instituted a process to streamline complaints. That was not done, and we do not know why. We are asking questions, but we will never know.
Why were Justice Deschamps' recommendations never implemented? Was it because, again, the report had been commissioned by the Conservatives? Was it because people did not want these recommendations to be implemented? Was it because people did not want anyone to know? We have no idea.
When all these problems are added together, the situation looks very serious. The Canadian Armed Forces are in turmoil. The head of the armed forces, the former chief of defence staff, is under investigation. The new chief of defence staff, who was in the position for one month, is under investigation. Generals are stepping down. Discipline and sound operations management within the Canadian Forces are evaporating. The soldiers and officers have no one to lead them. What is going on?
On top of that, there is the case of Major-General Dany Fortin, a man I have known for a long time, a great soldier. He was put in charge of Canada's vaccine rollout, and he did an outstanding job. However, a complaint was filed against him. We do not know when or where it came from. Major-General Fortin was not informed of it. The decision was made to push him aside. The story went public, and he ended up getting all sorts of negative attention from the media, the public and the government without knowing what was happening or why. Today, this man is being forced to take legal action against the government and the Prime Minister to defend his reputation. Is that any way to treat the best members of the Canadian Armed Forces?
Major-General Dany Fortin was brought in, in a public way, to help the country get out of the COVID-19 crisis, and how was he treated? He was not informed or even given a chance to explain a situation that may not even be true. We do not know. That is how the defence minister and this government operate, and that is why we can no longer trust the Minister of National Defence.
I would like to remind the House that this has nothing to do with the soldier that the minister used to be. He served his country with distinction. However, he became a member of Parliament and a minister on October 19, 2015, and it has been a catastrophe ever since.
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View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, that does not answer my question. What is the real reason? We do not know.
I have another question. This minister oversaw the wrongful indictment and unconscionable dismissal of Vice-Admiral Norman. When Norman stood up to defend Davie's construction of the MV Asterix, the minister did the Prime Minister's bidding rather than think of the best interests of the Royal Canadian Navy.
That is absurd. Can the minister tell us the real reason for the accusations made against Vice-Admiral Norman?
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View Harjit S. Sajjan Profile
Lib. (BC)
View Harjit S. Sajjan Profile
2021-06-17 14:34 [p.8672]
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Mr. Speaker, talk about supporting the navy. The previous government allowed our two joint supply ships to be lost. We lost that capability. When it came to the interim supply ship, I supported this work. Our government approved it, got it done, but more importantly, we put the money into the defence policy so we can buy two brand new joint supply ships, and they are being built right now as we speak. Plus, we are also equipping the navy with the Arctic and offshore patrol ships, six of them, and 15 surface combatants, because we put the money there to serve our troops.
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View Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Profile
BQ (QC)
View Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Profile
2021-06-17 18:01 [p.8701]
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Madam Speaker, as I was saying, in our democracy, Parliament seldom has to have such a serious debate on the failures of one of its members. We must not, under any circumstances, take this situation lightly.
Recent and not-so-recent events are forcing us to question how well one of our own is performing his ministerial duties. There is no denying that we are finding many faults with the Minister of National Defence, who must answer to the citizens we represent in Ottawa.
Before formulating my opinion, I want to make one thing clear: The minister is not the only one accountable. There is also the Prime Minister. He is the one who appointed the Minister of National Defence and signed his mandate letter.
In my opinion, tonight's debate is inextricably tied to the Prime Minister's judgment and his ability to spring into action when duty calls. Unfortunately, the fact that we are debating this in the House means there is a problem, a breach of our trust in the government on a specific subject.
The Prime Minister had plenty of opportunities to show the leadership that his role calls for, but he did not. The member for Durham's motion is harsh, but the reality is that we are indeed disappointed with the Minister of National Defence. The Bloc Québécois called for the minister's resignation just last month. We are even more sure that that is the only possible course since the most recent shameful episode of his term.
As opposition members, we have a duty to confront the government and its ministers about their actions. That is the essence of ministerial responsibility. It is the essence of our democracy.
The Liberals blame all their failings on systemic problems, yet they are the ones in charge of the system. There is still time to show that there is at least one working system in Canada that the government has full control over. The only possible course is for the minister to step down.
Let us start with some of the less serious criticisms of the minister. First, the minister misled Quebeckers and Canadians over the withdrawal of fighter jets in the fight against ISIS. The minister said that Canada's allies had no problem with the CF‑18s being withdrawn from Operation Impact, shortly after the Liberals came to power in 2015.
According to him and the Liberals, Canada's allies understood and respected Canada's decision to withdraw its CF-18s. That is not true. We expect the things a minister says to be true. We would never have expected him to say something so easily refutable, since a minister can usually count on competent staff to help him avoid embarrassment. The situation was the opposite of what the minister was saying: The Iraqis and our allies were strongly opposed to the withdrawal of our aircraft. The media obtained copies of documents indicating that such was the case.
When confronted with that revelation, the minister alleged in an interview that he had actually wanted Canada to keep its CF-18s there, which says a lot about the liberties the minister takes with the facts when it involves our allies. Sadly, the minister's blunders do not end there.
The government knows as well as I do that many Quebeckers and Canadians are proud of our military capabilities and the people responsible for our success. Many Quebeckers and Canadians respect and recognize the work being done by those risking their lives for us and our freedom. Our fellow citizens are humbled by the accomplishments of our soldiers.
Meanwhile, during a speech in India, the minister said that he was the architect of Operation Medusa in 2006 in Afghanistan. Actually, I should say that he took credit for the work of his colleagues. To give a little bit of background, this operation managed to surround and eliminate up to 700 Taliban fighters who had gathered to launch attacks on allied bases. Canada, the Afghan army and other allied nations managed to defeat the Taliban soldiers. The offensive was led by Canada thanks to many of our military officers.
The men and women who serve Quebec and Canada are very proud of their teamwork. Teamwork is not about playing the hero for the public or showing off at a reception by making self-important boasts.
Operations are not carried out solo, especially not operations like that one. Even de Gaulle, Churchill and MacArthur would never have claimed to be the architects of anything whatsoever. No matter the context, planning an operation depends heavily on intel from troops on the ground and the tactical skills of all kinds of people.
At the time, the minister was involved in planning Operation Medusa, but he was not working alone. Bringing this up again in 2021 seems silly, but it is part of a continuum of untruths and deceit that point to the minister's priority being his own self-interest. But wait, there is more. The minister presided over the indictment and removal of Vice-Admiral Norman. More Quebeckers and Canadians should be familiar with that story. The whole thing is an embarrassment and unworthy of the offices held.
Shortly before the 2015 federal election, the Conservatives announced that they had at long last granted a contract to convert a container ship into an oiler replenishment ship for the Royal Navy. The plan was to build that ship, the Asterix, at the Davie shipyard in Quebec, for once. When the Liberals took office in 2015, the first thing they did was try to cancel the contract in favour of the Irving family.
Scott Brison, the minister's good friend and the former president of the Treasury Board, was very close to the Irving family. He knew them. It is perfectly simple. He tried to derail the contract. I will give Mr. Brison credit for finally backing down once the story hit the media. It is very typical Liberal behaviour. That always seems to be the Liberal approach to decision-making. Do the Toronto Star, Global News, CBC and Radio-Canada know about this? If not, then we will do it. Do they know about this? If so, then we will not do it. That is how the Liberals operate. Sadly, it did not stop there.
The Liberals chose to behave like an angry mob: find the whistle blower and take him out. Who better than the good old RCMP to act as the political police and investigate the leak? That is what led to the filing of charges against Vice‑Admiral Mark Norman, who at one time was the second-highest ranking officer in the Canadian Armed Forces under General Vance. Instead of standing up and ending the witch hunt, the minister did what he does best, in other words protect his interests and the interests of the Liberals.
The Minister of Defence, like the current Prime Minister, did not defend Norman when Vance accused him publicly. The minister even supported Vance's decision to suspend Norman in 2017. As I said, that is embarrassing. It happened one year before Norman was formally charged with leaking confidential documents. “When the decision was made, I supported it”, the minister said. The Prime Minister still owes him for that, because he again looked ridiculous.
The numerous documents obtained by Norman's defence team proved that the Liberals were trying to rip up the contract. The government was so embarrassed that Brison resigned from all his roles. Even more embarrassingly, Norman was eventually completely exonerated, but he never got his job back.
The minister is not a team player. How many people have left under his leadership? Five, six, seven or eight people have left, and that cannot continue. Sometimes life gives us subtle signs. Can the minister see these signs? Can the Prime Minister see them? We, the opposition parties, certainly can.
It is also difficult to ignore what happened to former ombudsman Gary Walbourne. Several of my colleagues, who are more eloquent than I am, had the opportunity to speak more specifically about the problem of sexual misconduct in the army. The minister has become known for his failures on this matter.
Nevertheless, I want to come back to it because it ties in with what I was saying earlier in my speech. The Liberals' little clique was not happy with the ombudsman, an extremely important official in the Canadian military. He was dragged through the mud, accused of terrible things and had his funding cut off. The minister was at the centre of the disagreement with Gary Walbourne, who was just trying to do his job. When he approached the minister about setting their differences aside to address an issue more important than their feud, specifically an allegation that General Vance had committed sexual misconduct towards a female soldier, the minister did little if anything.
He did not want to hear about it, so he passed the puck to the Prime Minister's Office. Remember, the Minister of National Defence is the boss of the department. Quite aside from the substance of the case, which is terrible, I am interested in the minister's behaviour. The one time in his career when he could have really been the architect of something, he looked the other way.
He could have spearheaded a complete overhaul of the culture at the Canadian Armed Forces, but instead, we lost three years. The survivors lost three years. Once again, the Minister of National Defence has not demonstrated that he is a team player. Worse still, when the story first broke, he denied it, then admitted it, then pointed the finger at Gary Walbourne's incompetence.
The next step, taken straight out of the Liberal crisis management playbook, is to blame something systemic.
I have my own theory. A problematic culture, a systemic problem, is not an incantation. Something must be done. Waiting to be painted into a corner before deciding to do something is not worthy of the office of minister. That is exactly what we are talking about today, being worthy of the office, being responsible and accountable. The minister is no longer worthy of his office.
The Prime Minister may not see that, but I hope my hon. colleagues do.
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View Mario Beaulieu Profile
BQ (QC)
View Mario Beaulieu Profile
2021-06-15 15:27 [p.8475]
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Mr. Speaker, I will start by saying that I am sharing my time with the member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix.
The Government of Quebec wants to enshrine in its constitution that Quebeckers form a nation, that French is the only official language of Quebec and that it is the common language of the Quebec nation. Why? I believe Camille Laurin said it best in 1977: “By proclaiming French as Quebec's official language and by recognizing the right of all Quebeckers to use French in all facets of their lives, we are turning the language into a national public good, a common good for all Quebeckers, the best way to promote cohesion and dialogue between Quebeckers of different origins. We are giving Quebeckers a way to express their identity to the world.”
Previously, the Gendron commission had recommended that the Government of Quebec make French the shared language of all Quebeckers, a language that, being known by all, could be used as the instrument of communication in situations of contact between francophone and non-francophone Quebeckers. That is what a common language is. The point is not to enable francophones to speak French with each other. The point is to give people who speak different languages a way to communicate with each other and belong to the same public space, nation and people.
As the white paper on Bill 101 explained, that is what we see everywhere else in normal societies, including in Canada, where English is the common language outside of Quebec. In other words, French should be the common language of Quebec, as English is in Canada.
We have heard a lot of people say that Quebec was already recognized as a nation in 2006 and that the matter is settled, but it is not settled at all. Making French the only official and common language is not merely theoretical. It implies tangible measures and actions. It is the essential condition to ensure the future of French and to make it the language of integration and inclusion of newcomers.
The federal government, which, need I remind the House, is the government of the anglophone majority, has dismantled Camille Laurin's and René Lévesque's Charter of the French Language through its financing of court challenges, through its spending power, through a Constitution and through a multiculturalist charter that was imposed upon the Quebec people in 1982 because it is a minority in Canada.
The 1982 Constitution has never been signed by any Quebec government. Since the Official Languages Act 51 years ago, and before that, I can hardly talk about how much discrimination there was against francophones. The Liberal government at the time decided that Quebeckers were not part of the francophone minority and that only the anglophone minority in Quebec needed to be protected. This means that every year since then, tens and hundreds of millions of dollars have been used to anglicize municipal and Quebec public services, to over-fund English-only organizations, lobby groups and institutions.
The federal government began funding legal challenges to Bill 101 in 1978, and beginning in 1982, Alliance Quebec's legal guerrilla warfare was carried out under a Constitution that had been imposed on a minority Quebec to weaken the Charter of the French Language.
Naturally, for the francophone and Acadian communities, this was better than the overtly “ethnocidal” system that existed prior to that. However, the institutional bilingualism imposed by the Official Languages Act does not work. French-language services outside Quebec are largely deficient, even where numbers supposedly justify them.
With each census, the rate of francophone assimilation increases despite the fighting spirit of the francophone and Acadian communities. While the Quebec government is working to make French the official and common language of all citizens of all origins in Quebec, the federal government is doing the opposite. Specifically, it is telling newcomers that there is not one, but two official languages, and that they can use the language of their choice.
In Quebec, all this federal interference against French, the official and common language, is precipitating the decline in French.
A few months ago, the Liberal government suddenly recognized that French was in decline. According to Quebec, it was about time because French had been in decline for at least 30 years and the decline is only accelerating. It is not tied to immigration, but to the anglicization of allophones and, increasingly, francophones.
In the Speech from the Throne, the government recognized that Quebeckers are part of the francophone minority in Canada and North America. It is hard to believe that they did not know that. That has been the case since 1841. That is when the Act of Union was imposed to keep francophones in the minority.
The Minister of Official Languages made some nice speeches. She said that the Liberals will now defend French in Quebec. In the meantime, even within the federal public service in Quebec, the right to work in French is constantly being violated.
For example, a few weeks ago, the vice-president of the Quebec region of the Public Service Alliance of Canada told the Standing Committee on Official Languages that “systemic discrimination is deeply rooted in the federal government. It is taken for granted that English comes first and French second.”
While Quebec is rallying and its government is introducing a bill to acknowledge a national language, federal services offered in French continue to decline, no matter what the Minister of Official Languages says. We see examples of that nearly every day. Last week, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, a federal institution based in Montreal, was at the Federal Court of Appeal fighting hard to avoid complying with the right to work in French in Quebec for a public servant named André Dionne. The office has the backing of Canadian National, or CN, a Crown corporation, which is advocating for the right to work exclusively in English in areas not designated as bilingual, such as Toronto, but that right would take precedence over the right to work in French in Quebec.
Here is another example. The Prime Minister's Office recently violated the Official Languages Act by providing the Standing Committee on Health with thousands of pages of unilingual English documents on its handling of the pandemic. The Liberals agree that French is an official language, but they are against the Bloc Québécois bill requiring sufficient knowledge of French as a condition of citizenship in Quebec.
Today, the Minister of Official Languages introduced her bill with great fanfare. She told us that the Liberals will recognize French as an official language of Quebec. Kudos for that, but she does not specify how. The issue is not whether French is an official language, because it has been for a long time. The issue is whether it is recognized as the only official and common language of Quebec. However, this is not the case.
Quebec wants to be solely responsible for linguistic planning in its territory. The Minister of Official Languages says no to Quebec. In fact, Bill C‑32 likely weakens Quebec's bill by blocking the application of Bill 101 to federally regulated businesses in Quebec. The Liberals say that they will protect the right to work in French in these businesses, but that is not at all the same as making French the common language of the workplace.
The Prime Minister said that he is going to support the addition to the Constitution proposed in Bill 96, but he added that it will not have any legal consequences. It is a bit like the motion that was moved in 2006 to recognize the Quebec nation within a united Canada. It comes back to what the member for Mount Royal said earlier: he agrees as long as it does not change anything. When we ask the Liberals whether the government will fund the court challenges that will arise from this addition to the Constitution, they simply do not answer.
In summary, the Liberals talk a good game, but when it comes time to take action, they do not really do anything. The Liberal government is using an old strategy that is already well known. It is recognizing the decline of French and saying that it is going to take action. That is the same old strategy the Liberals used with their election promises, the same old strategy they have been using for a very long time.
Our national poet, Félix Leclerc, summed it up very well in one of his famous songs. He said, and I quote:On the eve of the electionHe called you his son.But, of course, by the next dayHe had forgotten your name.
Long live a free, French Quebec.
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View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-08 14:27 [p.8105]
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Mr. Speaker, the toxic legal battle with the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations against the survivors of St. Anne's Indian Residential School has been a stain on the promise to reconciliation. It is time to do the right thing.
Yesterday Parliament ordered the minister to cease and to desist, and to sit down and negotiate a just settlement with the St. Anne's survivors who come from a horrific institution of torture and pain. Even the Liberal backbenchers are calling on her to act.
I have seen the letter that the survivors sent the minister this morning saying that they are ready to meet. Will she call the St. Anne's survivors and agree to work in good faith to finally put this matter to rest?
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View Carolyn Bennett Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Carolyn Bennett Profile
2021-06-08 14:28 [p.8105]
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Mr. Speaker, the mistreatment of indigenous children, including those who attended St. Anne's Indian Residential School, is indeed a tragic and shameful part of Canada's history.
To restore the confidence, rebuild trust and maintain the integrity of the process, the court has ordered an independent third party review of St. Anne's claimants to determine if additional compensation is owing to the survivors. The court has designated Justice Ian Pitfield to conduct the independent review, and steps are under way for that process. Canada will fund additional health support measures for all the survivors throughout the review.
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View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-08 15:09 [p.8113]
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Mr. Speaker, I believe there have been consultations with other parties and if you seek it, I hope you will find unanimous consent for the following motion: That, in light of the horrific discovery at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, the House reiterate the call it made in the motion adopted on May 1, 2018, and (a) invite Pope Francis to participate in this journey with Canadians by responding to call to action 58 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report and issue a former papal apology for the role of the Canadian Catholic Church in the establishment, operations and abuses of the residential schools; (b) call on the Canadian Catholic Church to live up to its moral obligation and the spirit of the 2006 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement and resume the best efforts to raise the full amount of the agreed-upon funds; and (c) call upon the Catholic entities that were involved in the running of the residential schools to make a consistent and sustained effort to turn over the relevant documents when called upon by survivors of residential schools, their families and scholars working to understand the full scope and horrors of the residential school system, in the interests of truth and reconciliation.
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View Alexandre Boulerice Profile
NDP (QC)
View Alexandre Boulerice Profile
2021-06-07 14:27 [p.8018]
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Mr. Speaker, 215 is the number of voices forever silenced. That number, 215, now represents the innocence lost to savage, racist acts. Sadly, these 215 victims are just the start. We are only beginning to understand the magnitude of the gaping wounds caused by genocidal acts in Canada.
The Prime Minister can no longer talk his way out of this. If he truly understands the suffering of indigenous peoples, he must stop taking residential school survivors to court. Will he vote for or against our motion today?
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, we support many aspects of the motion, but measures relating to legal matters are complex. Issues around jurisdiction and privacy require broad collaboration with first nations and cannot be resolved unilaterally.
As our government stated, individuals affected by historical inequities in first nations child welfare will receive fair and equitable compensation.
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View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-06-03 10:25 [p.7866]
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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.
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