Mr. Speaker, June is National Indigenous History Month, and Canadians must have the courage to put truth before reconciliation as we confront our past.
Canada was just three years old when it waged its first war in the west at the Red River Métis settlement, a peaceful trading and farming village. Then again, in 1885, the government would launch a second war farther in the west at Batoche, resulting in the largest mass execution of indigenous leaders in Canada's history, including those of Louis Riel and Wandering Spirit.
During this time, and as a means to clear the plains, the government would install its most insidious policy: that of the residential schools. A policy from this place, it intended to “kill the Indian in the child”, as stated by then prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald.
These attacks on our children never stopped. From the sixties scoop to today's child and family services and the lack of clean water and housing, let us not repeat the past.