Bill C-91 (Historical)

Indigenous Languages Act

An Act respecting Indigenous languages

This enactment provides, among other things, that
(a) the Government of Canada recognizes that the rights of Indigenous peoples recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 include rights related to Indigenous languages;
(b) the Minister of Canadian Heritage may enter into different types of agreements or arrangements in respect of Indigenous languages with Indigenous governments or other Indigenous governing bodies or Indigenous organizations, taking into account the unique circumstances and needs of Indigenous groups, communities and peoples; and
(c) federal institutions may cause documents to be translated into an Indigenous language or provide interpretation services to facilitate the use of an Indigenous language.
The enactment also establishes the Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages and sets out its composition. The Office’s mandate and powers, duties and functions include
(a) supporting the efforts of Indigenous peoples to reclaim, revitalize, maintain and strengthen Indigenous languages;
(b) promoting public awareness of, among other things, the richness and diversity of Indigenous languages;
(c) undertaking research or studies in respect of the provision of funding for the purposes of supporting Indigenous languages and in respect of the use of Indigenous languages in Canada;
(d) providing services, including mediation or other culturally appropriate services, to facilitate the resolution of disputes; and
(e) submitting to the Minister of Canadian Heritage an annual report on, among other things, the use and vitality of Indigenous languages in Canada and the adequacy of funding provided by the Government of Canada for initiatives related to Indigenous languages.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for joining us today for this important discussion and for being part of this study. I thank all of you for your testimony.

So far what has struck me is that each of the opening remarks really touched on the coordination aspect of the programs from the federal government.

Dr. Lukaniec, you mentioned the lack of a positive impact from the Indigenous Languages Act. You mentioned the need for language rights and passing some amendments to sort of beef that up.

I find this very interesting for a number of reasons and very concerning for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that we've seen a lot of reports from the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Auditor General recently pertaining to Indigenous Services and how, over the last number of years, there have been a lot of resources and dollars allocated but not necessarily a commensurate increase in the results. I think that's a major gap we're experiencing that we're seeing across the country. Each of you pointed that out, and quite rightly so.

With that in mind, in thinking about the results and the outcomes that we obviously need to be striving toward, Dr. Lukaniec, I'll come back to you again, since you started off. You mentioned the need to pass some amendments for the Indigenous Languages Act in order to strengthen it. I'm wondering if you could speak in more detail to some of those specific amendments.

[Dr. Megan Lukaniec, Linguist, Huron-Wendat Nation Council]

Thank you very much.

Kwe aweti'.

My name is Dr. Megan Lukaniec. I'm a member of the Huron-Wendat Nation situated in Wendake, Quebec. I am a linguist for our nation.

I am honoured to be here to discuss the Indigenous Languages Act, and the impacts of that act on our community and our language.

Our language, called Wendat, became dormant over a century ago, but since 2007, we have been reawakening our language through the careful analysis of archival documentation.

As of right now, for our nation, there has been no positive impact of the passing of the Indigenous Languages Act. No funding model has changed, this funding was and still is project-based. Furthermore, we have not been contacted by or in communication with the office of the commissioner of indigenous languages.

The only change that we have experienced with the passing of this act is an increase of service work. We have been called upon to participate in numerous consultations sessions, both prior to and after the act. Despite many of the important and insightful comments that I have heard in these sessions since 2018, I have not seen any of these changes implemented thus far.

I humbly present three recommendations to this committee.

The first recommendation is to pass amendments to this act since it has no teeth and is more or less symbolic. I'll give you an example of that. Paragraph 5(d) reads that the purpose of the act is to “establish measures to facilitate the provision of adequate, sustainable and long-term funding”, but that's actually not the same as committing to provide adequate, sustainable and long-term funding.

Right now, that means that this funding is dependent on the goodwill of the federal government in power. It is also very non-committal in terms of language rights. We need a commitment that we have the right to educate our youth in our language, and it's especially important here in Quebec with the passing of Bill 96. These rights are mentioned, but they are not explicitly stated in the act.

I also would point you to the legal brief of Karihwakè:ron Tim Thompson of Yellowhead Institute, who provides some thoughtful critique of that.

My second recommendation for this is to change the funding model. Get rid of short-term project funding and its associated problematic measures.

Prior to funding from Canadian Heritage, we actually had a five-year grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It was a partnership between our nation and Université Laval. We had exponential growth during that period of time since, for the first time, we could plan our activities for five years rather than a single year or even two. We could also modify the project activities to fit our actual needs, which often change from the needs that we estimate at the time of submitting a grant application.

Since we started depending on funding from Canadian Heritage, that was roughly in 2012, our language work has really stagnated. We are stuck on a roller coaster of a grant cycle, and in some ways I believe that this funding has actually set us back rather than moved us forward over the past decade.

The application processing delays are inexcusably long. We once waited 11 months from the time of submission to the time of acceptance of the grant, and of course the deadlines don't change necessarily. You have to ask for extensions. There's also very little flexibility in changing the project activities or the timelines, and there's no recognition of how their delays impact us in our work and in our language planning.

The bigger reality is that we don't want to do projects. The work that we're doing in our community to revitalize our language is not a project. It shouldn't need to be packaged into something new and shiny each grant cycle, with deliverables that need to be sent to Canadian Heritage after the fact.

Instead, we really hope that the federal government could fund full operating budgets for a period of at least five years to reawaken and revitalize our languages, and not projects with deliverables that are counted according to metrics designed by someone else.

My third recommendation for you is to increase the funding to at least match what is provided to official languages. Dr. Onowa McIvor talks about this very issue in her 2013 article. She says, “it takes greater resources to rebuild something than it does to destroy it.” With amounts of up to $300,000 per year, the funding we receive now is more of a token of support than actual support.

We know that our languages are not being funded at the same level as English and French. We're being told as much during these consultation sessions when we are being asked to provide criteria that will be used to choose amongst the best grant applications. Please don't make us compete against one another for essential funding that is needed to support our languages.

We need this funding to undo the harm the federal government and its other colluding agents have caused to our language. We would like to have at least the same as if not more than what is provided to English and French, because it does cost more to rebuild.

In conclusion, it's been almost four years since the act has passed. We have been waiting patiently. We are still without any adequate, sustainable, recurring and long-term funding for our language. The current funding amounts and current funding model are both unacceptable and will not permit us to effect real change in our community in terms of language revitalization.

We are now coming up against a funding gap since we had a two-year grant from Canadian Heritage that will end on March 31. There are no other funding calls that are available despite the fact we were told that these new funding models would come into effect in the spring of last year, in 2022.

I implore you to act fast because we're doing all we can on our end to sustain and nourish our language, but we really need the federal government to commit itself to help us rebuild from the damage they caused our language. We need this financial support, and we need it now.

That is all.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I was asking this question because I believe that, two Parliaments ago, there was an indigenous languages bill passed. The applicability of this law with respect to other obligations of Parliament is important to recognize, when new language regarding indigenous languages is included in this bill.

Thank you.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank Ms. Kublu and Chief Tremblay for being at this committee meeting. What they said about land was very interesting.

I should have started by wishing you a happy International Decade of Indigenous Languages.

The committee's goal is to study how the government can support language revitalization. The Indigenous Languages Act, Bill C‑91, was passed in 2019, but time is running out. Just over the past 30 years, Ms. Kublu has seen knowledge of Inuktitut and the number of Inuktitut speakers decline. In theory, the act is supposed to be implemented over five years, but action must be taken. Even Mr. Tremblay said there's hardly anyone left under 60 who speaks his language, so revitalization has to happen through community initiatives. This shows us just how important it is to take significant measures now even though the act was passed in 2019. Ms. Kublu and Chief Tremblay talked both directly and indirectly about immersion.

Now back to the land issue. In my riding on the North Shore, we have the Innu first nation, whose language is very much alive. Having read the Innu-French dictionary, I learned that a lot of the terms have to do with the land and practices upon the land, so I certainly understand the importance of language.

I have two questions for each of you. Please answer as you see fit.

Do you think that, since 2015, or since the Indigenous Languages Act was passed in 2019, the government has stepped up with financial support for indigenous languages?

Let's start with that first question, and then I will ask the second one.

[Gerry Guillet, Director of Education, Athabasca Denesuline Education Authority]

Thank you very much, honourable Chairman.

Good morning, honourable members. I'm Gerry Guillet, director of education and CEO for the Athabasca Denesuline Education Authority of northern Saskatchewan. Our authority is very young in its establishment. We were first organized and have been operating since August 2019. In establishing our authority to represent the far northern isolated communities of Fond Du Lac, Black Lake and Hatchet Lake first nations, we deliver educational programming for the schools. We have four schools of 1,300 students.

The Dene language, culture and land-based programming are an important part of our authority. It is our first strategic plan in improving the language abilities of our students. The remoteness of our communities creates many challenges for the authority, and we had to house our education centre in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. We can only reach our communities via air travel. One community has an all-season road, which is a 14-hour drive to the south in Prince Albert. Having said that, our land-based culture and language programs are our first priority in the strategic plan of our authority.

We have many aspects to our programming that are vital, including literacy and numeracy. However, given the culture where our students are not using their language at a significant level, certainly one of our major attempts is to improve and provide more language opportunities.

It is important to note that 75% of the staff in the schools in our communities are local and only 60% of them are able to speak the Dene language. We are planning that we would like to instill in our schools Dene immersion programming. We come across many challenges in that aspect, certainly, with the lack of resources in the Dene language. Our elders in our communities are very strong within their language, their culture and their faith dimension.

We certainly feel that the government's Indigenous Languages Act is one that we'd look at in terms of formulating all our strategies as we want to plan initiatives and activities for restoring and maintaining the fluency in our Dene language.

Our attempts to create technological tools and educational materials, including audio and video recordings, have met many challenges. We have not been able, as a new authority, to access the funds that are required for us to realize those visions, goals and aspects for our children and our community members within our communities.

Our coordinator, who is very fluent in the Dene language, has done a tremendous amount of work in the three years of our existence to improve significantly the ability of our teachers and our programs in our schools to include the Dene language in all the instructional materials as much as possible.

In the daily life of our students in the classrooms, our Dene language is spoken almost as much as the English language, despite the fact that we follow provincial curricula, all in English. Dene certainly is a language that is used throughout our schools and in our communities.

What we are asking for at this opportunity is the funding that our authority desperately needs in order to revitalize the language of our Dene people. It is being lost at a significant rate, and it is our goal to revitalize our language within our culture of our Dene people.

We have not realized any significant funding increase to date in order for us to move forward in translating many of the resources available in English into the Dene language, so that our immersion programs have the resources for our teachers to teach the language at a significant level.

I take this opportunity to express to the committee that our organization is a model. Although we are only three years old, we have established an organization founded on children coming first. Our board of directors is very determined. They hold their children, first and foremost, in their hearts and their deliberations.

All of our programming and initiatives are directed toward our children. In particular, our language is sacred to them, which we desperately want to revitalize. Our children need to learn more of their language, their land base and their culture. We are attempting to do that in revitalizing the language aspect within our communities and, in particular, within our schools. To initiate any kind of immersion program in Dene, we lack many of the resources to enable that vision to move forward.

It is my intent, Mr. Chairman and honourable members, to present to you today a challenge that the Athabasca Denesuline Education Authority faces in revitalizing our language, certainly according to Bill C-91, the Indigenous Languages Act. We are really looking at having more opportunity within the funding regime so that we can address those issues for our communities and our people.

I thank you for that.

National Council for Reconciliation Act

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to contribute to the debate on Bill C-29 at third reading.

This is quite critical legislation and I will start with some preparatory comments. Our government is committed wholeheartedly to pursuing all avenues possible in the advancement of reconciliation in this country. It goes without saying that when we speak about reconciliation, a cornerstone of this concept is the idea about accountability, that the government, the country, needs to be held accountable for historical wrongs that have been perpetrated against indigenous peoples for literally centuries on this land.

Residents in my riding of Parkdale—High Park in Toronto have spoken to me regularly over the past seven years about the importance of reconciliation, the need to advance it and to address the TRC calls to actions. I am very pleased to note that the TRC calls to action, five of them in particular, are really at the heart of this legislation.

What my constituents and people around the country have told me is that we need to ensure we are doing everything in our power as a government and as a Parliament to remedy the wrongs that were inflicted upon generations of indigenous people, particularly indigenous children who, through the residential schools program, were robbed of their families, their culture, oftentimes their language and, indeed, their history.

Going back seven years to 2015 before we came into power as government, we campaigned on a platform that called for a renewed relationship with indigenous peoples, one that would be based on the recognition of rights based on respect, co-operation and partnership. An important cornerstone of any nation-to-nation relationship as it is being advanced is basic respect for the autonomy and self-determination of the various indigenous peoples that we engage with, being first nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. This is important on the international stage, but it is also important right here in Canada.

The reconciliation process that I am speaking of has to be guided by the active participation and leadership of indigenous peoples. I will digress for a moment. We had an example of that in the legislation I was privileged to work on, which, if memory serves, was either Bill C-91 or Bill C-92 two Parliaments ago. However, the important piece is not the number of the bill that we advanced at the time, but the indigenous languages legislation that we advanced and passed in this Parliament, which is now firmly part of Canadian law.

In that context, we co-developed the legislation in that spirit of reconciliation, in terms of giving full participation and leadership in the development role to indigenous communities, first nations, Inuit and Métis. That is an important aspect of reconciliation and how it manifests, but so too is this bill. With this bill, we would put in place institutional mechanisms that are called for in the TRC calls to action for indigenous peoples, so they can hold Canada and the Canadian government to account for meeting goals on the path toward reconciliation.

What is Bill C-29 about? It is called “an act to provide for the establishment of a national council for reconciliation” and, like the indigenous languages bill that I was privileged to work on two Parliaments ago, it has been driven by the active participation of first nations, Inuit and Métis communities, organizations and individuals right across the country. What it would do is establish a permanent, indigenous-led, independent council with a mandate to monitor and support the progress of reconciliation in this country, including progress toward the full implementation of the TRC calls to action.

Let us talk about those calls to action. I mentioned them at the outset of my comments. The calls to action call on the government to create a non-partisan body that would hold the Government of Canada to account on the journey toward reconciliation. Specifically, calls to action 53 and 54 call for the establishment of this national council for reconciliation and for permanence of funding, which is very critical. We need to not only create the body, but adequately resource it.

Call to action 55 calls on the government to provide relevant information to the council in support of its mandate, providing it with the tools so it can execute its functions. Call to action 56 calls on the government to publish an annual report in response to the national council's annual report covering what the government is doing in terms of advancing reconciliation, another key component.

I will digress for a moment. I know there were some very useful amendments proposed at the committee stage, which I believe were universally adopted and it was unanimous coming out of committee. One of the components was for the government's response to be led by the Prime Minister himself, which is really critical in terms of emphasizing the prioritization and importance of this issue about advancing reconciliation. It is critical to not underestimate the impact that this kind of council will have on fostering the type of relationship with indigenous peoples I mentioned at the outset of my comments.

Through the annual response report, Canada would be consistently required to account for progress being made and also progress that has not yet been made, including identifying challenges, hurdles and obstacles.

It would be the people most impacted by such policies, the first nations, Inuit and Métis people on this land, who would have the power and wield that power to hold the government of the day to account.

That is really important. This is not about partisanship. This is not about what the Liberal government will be held to account for. This is what any government in the country would be held to account to do, going forward, with respect to advancing reconciliation, which is very critical in terms of such a pressing matter.

It is clearly only the beginning of some of the work we need to be doing. We know that, in Ontario, in my province, the median income of an indigenous household is 80% of that of a non-indigenous household. We know that the life expectancy of an indigenous person is over nine years shorter than a non-indigenous person on this land.

We know that while fewer than 5% of Canadians are indigenous, indigenous women represent over half of the inmate population in federal penitentiaries. We know that when we account for male participants, while indigenous men represent 5% of the population, they represent 30% of the prison population. Those are really chilling statistics.

I can say, parenthetically, that TRC call to action 55 has several subcategories. Two of the subcategories, and I will just cite from them, talk about the council ensuring that it reports on the progress on “reducing the rate of criminal victimization of Aboriginal people” as well as, in call to action 55, subsection vii, “Progress on reducing the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in the justice and correctional systems.”

I think one important facet of what the council will be doing, and also how the government will be responding, is highlighting some of the initiatives we have already started to take.

I am very pleased to say that, about two weeks ago, we secured passage and royal assent of Bill C-5. The bill addresses mandatory minimum penalties in the country, which have been in place for far too long, and how those mandatory minimum penalties served to take low-risk, first-time offenders and overly incarcerate them, disproportionately impacting indigenous men and Black men in Canada.

That is an important facet, in terms of how we advance this fight for reconciliation and how we advance some of these terms that are specifically itemized in the calls to action. That is exactly the type of thing I would like to see reported on by the council and included in the responses by the Canadian government, as to what further steps we can take to cure such instances, such as overrepresentation.

There are lasting effects. All of these statistics I have been citing demonstrate the lasting effects of the intergenerational trauma in Canada that has been inflicted upon first nations, Inuit and Métis communities. They are the result of enduring systemic discrimination and systemic racism in this country. That is critical to underline. It should be an issue that is really incontrovertible in the chamber.

We cannot begin to address such serious issues until we put into law a mechanism for holding the government of the day accountable, consistently accountable, for the actions, both past and present, and for what we are doing to remedy these historical injustices.

I was quite pleased to see this bill get the support of all parties at second reading. I am very confident that, hopefully, it will get support, once again, of all of the parties in the chamber.

I note, again, some of the important amendments that were made. I mentioned one of them right at the start of my comments. Other useful amendments presented by a multi-party group at committee included having elders and residential school survivors and their descendants populate the board of directors for this council. That would be a really critical feature.

I will say, somewhat subjectively, that I was quite pleased to see the fact that the importance of revitalizing, restoring and ensuring the non-extinction of indigenous languages also forms part of the amendments that were suggested by the committee, something we have wholeheartedly adopted already in Parliament.

As I mentioned earlier, the response to the annual report will be led by the Prime Minister himself.

That being said, this bill would do more than place obligations on the government. It would compel the government to continuously hold a mirror to itself, to urge us to never stop striving to do the best job we can vis-à-vis reconciliation. It would urge us to take ownership of the wrongdoings of the past and of the challenges of the present, and to work toward a commitment to do better going forward.

I think this type of honesty and accountability has been long sought after, and Bill C-29 is a step in the right direction.

I commend the bill and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same and ensure its passage.

Motions in amendment

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-29, an act to provide for the establishment of a national council for truth and reconciliation. I want to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered on the traditional unceded lands of the Algonquin peoples.

At the outset, I want to acknowledge the incredible work of many of my colleagues from different parties, including the member for Sydney—Victoria, who is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, the member for Northwest Territories, the member for Nunavut, the member for Winnipeg Centre, the member for Edmonton Griesbach and others, who, over the many years we have been here, have been inspirational in their work and advocacy as we make sure that as a government, we move forward on reconciliation.

Reconciliation is multi-layered, is often complex and is an issue that will take generations to achieve in Canada. Canada has gone through 154 years of colonialism and deeply rooted legislation that often disempowered and displaced first nations, Inuit and Métis across Canada. We have gone from having over 90 indigenous languages to only a handful being spoken today. We have seen the horrific results of residential schools and the intergenerational trauma they have created, and the lasting effects of the hurt and loss. We saw this with the unmarked graves, starting last year, and I suspect we will see it again and again as we unpack this deeply hurtful issue over the next few years. Parliament recently acknowledged what happened with residential schools as genocide, and that, too, is a very important aspect of moving forward and speaking truth to power.

As we look at establishing the national council for reconciliation, it is important to look at history. In 2015, when we took office, the commissioners of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presented their findings, with 94 calls to action. That was in December 2015. They outlined the bare minimum that needs to be done in order for our path to reconciliation to move forward.

Since then, we have seen a number of different initiatives, including the report of the MMIWG, the missing and murdered women and girls report, and the calls to justice, as well as several other very important findings, including the unmarked graves. These things put additional responsibilities on the government and on all Canadians to address.

The 94 calls to action are an all-encompassing set of guidelines for the federal government, provincial governments and in some cases municipal governments, as well as organizations, particularly national indigenous organizations, and all Canadians. It is important to recognize that reconciliation is not a journey that can just be undertaken by Canada as a government. It needs to be an all-of-Canada effort that includes all stakeholders.

When we talk about reconciliation, oftentimes we talk about what Canada is prepared to do, but it really comes down to how much trust and confidence indigenous people can have in this process. What we have seen in the last seven years is that while we have moved ahead on a number of very important initiatives, we have often seen this relationship be two steps forward and one step back because there is a lot of unpacking to do. As we approach and encounter these issues, it is important that as a government we double down and recommit to working harder to ensure we move forward on this process.

It is an imperfect process. It is an imperfect set of ideas that often may need reflection, and in that I am pleased to share with the House some of my experiences over the past seven years working across party lines with the members opposite.

I do want to start off with our work on Bill C-262, which was a private member's bill brought forward by my friend Romeo Saganash. It essentially called for the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and I was fortunate to work with Mr. Saganash over the couple of years he was actively advocating for Bill C-262. We travelled a fair bit in our committee work and spoke to many individuals: young people, elders, band councils and indigenous organization members. The enormous support the bill had across Canada with indigenous people was remarkable. However, we saw that the same level of commitment was not here in Parliament.

Over time, sadly, Bill C-262 did not pass, but we were able to get Bill C-15 through Parliament in 2021, and basically it is calls to action 43 and 44, and it was able to pass. The second part of UNDRIP is the implementation of a national action plan, and our department is working very hard with indigenous partners and national indigenous organizations, as well as rights holders and many others, to make sure we have an action plan that can really address a review of laws and move us forward on this path.

One of the things that has really humbled me is the work we have done on indigenous languages. There is an act, Bill C-91, which was passed in 2019, and it was a critical moment in Canada because, when we talk about language, it is so fundamental to all of us. Often, I look at the passion with which my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois address the issue of bilingualism and language, and the passion with which many of my colleagues on this side speak to the need to protect the French language.

I think it is so critical to ensure that linguistic minorities are protected across Canada, but often missing in that conversation is the need to protect and save the many indigenous languages that existed prior to Confederation. In many ways, those languages are in their last stages. Medically speaking, they are on life support because we have so many languages that are at a point of being lost permanently.

I know the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London spoke about Oneida Nation on the Thames, and that is one of the groups we met during the development of Bill C-91. It was devastating to see that only a handful of people were able to speak that language, which shows how important it is that Bill C-91 is there. As well, we, along with the support of the New Democratic Party, repealed mandatory minimum penalties just last week, and we implemented the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

These are some measures that speak to the work that has been done, but there is a lot more to do, and I believe the national council would be a very important tool for us to measure objectively what work we need to do. It would measure and report back to the House, as well as to Canadians, on the need to fill in the gaps and to make sure we fulfill all the commitments in the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

I look forward to questions and comments from my friends, and I thank them for this opportunity to speak.

[Marjolaine Tshernish, General Manager, Institut Tshakapesh]

[Witness speaks in Innu.]

[English]

Thank you for this invitation to contribute to the process that confirms the great importance of dialogue prior to implementing major projects for the benefit of the greatest number, including members of the First Nations of Quebec.

I am an Innu from the community of Mani-Utenam on the north shore of the province of Quebec. I am the general manager of the Institut Tshakapesh, an organization that has been in existence for almost 45 years.

Giving an Indigenous nation the right to speak is an appropriate and respectful way of recognizing it as a nation. In the case of Bill C‑29, this means recognition of its mother tongue and the language spoken in its region, its contextual environment, its geographic context, and its specific needs.

Often, the Innu nation of Quebec, which has French as its second language spoken, does not recognize itself in the way relations between the federal government and anglophone Indigenous people. It sometimes feels excluded from the major discussions. As a result, we feel powerless to act within those discussions. Today, I want to thank you for inviting us.

This linguistic specificity must now be taken into consideration. It may have very significant consequences for our communities, in particular socioeconomic consequences.

Since we live in eastern Canada and our spoken language, other than our mother tongue, is French, it is important that we be taken into account in allocating certain seats reserved for Indigenous people in Canada. It is important to allow members of First Nations who use French to have a place in major political discussions. As well, the documentation has to exist in that language so that these nations are able to speak freely in the official language in which they are fluent.

I also wanted to remind you that when Bill C‑91 concerning Indigenous languages was announced, the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Métis National Council participated in drafting it.

I note that there was no joint drafting in the case of Bill C‑29. An interim committee was appointed by the ministers. I do not doubt the quality of the work done, but I must point out that we received no information in the regions. When Bill C‑91 was drafted, we received information in the regions. We were informed even before the bill was announced and throughout the process until it was passed.

In this case, however, were it not for the member for Manicouagan, Marilène Gill, I would not have been made aware of the existence of Bill C‑29.

Obviously, we are pleased with the initiative that establishes a national council for reconciliation, which responds to calls to action 53 to 55 issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

I particularly want to make recommendations relating to the composition of the board of directors, specifically for adding another organization. There are the transitional committee and the office of the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, but it would be wise to add the Assembly of First Nations or another organization so that more people would be able to choose the directors.

The francophone region of Quebec should also be represented on the board of directors so that we are able to receive information in our region.

It is also important that one third of the Indigenous directors be candidates who acknowledge the existence of systemic racism. This is very important going forward, for the work of the National Council for Reconciliation.

We must make sure there is equitable representation of men and women on the board of directors and that it includes elders and former residential school students or children of residential school survivors. It is important that this sensitivity be reflected in the work of the National Council for Reconciliation.

We must also make sure that the directors do not have a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest with the National Council for Reconciliation.

When the National Council for Reconciliation is created, it will be important to make sure that it has all the resources at the start that it needs in order to fully do its work, to perform its mandate. Even today, we are not hearing anything about the members of the transitional committee created last year. That is probably because they do not have the resources they need to perform their mandate. They are invisible. So it is important for the National Council for Reconciliation to be operational quickly, for it to be visible and accessible, and for it to be possible to see the work it is doing.

I would like to make one comment on accountability. I have seen that all levels of government, that is, the federal government, the provinces and the First Nations, had to provide data, at its request, to the National Council of Reconciliation so it could submit reports on the progress being made towards reconciliation. It is therefore essential that the Council have access to that data, which it be from the provincial or federal government or from the First Nations band councils. The data in question in the bill is under federal or provincial jurisdiction, or under the jurisdiction of a First Nations nation or band council.

I don't know whether I have any time left.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you for that very important question.

As Minister of Official Languages, I wanted to be sure I did nothing to undermine Bill C‑91, which was introduced to protect indigenous languages and has now become law. You can see very clearly at a number of places in Bill C‑13 that we would be doing nothing to undermine indigenous languages. We recognize that we have 70 indigenous languages in Canada, and we want to be sure they can thrive too.

I had the good fortune to meet the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages, Ronald E. Ignace, and we had a very constructive conversation. We agreed to meet again because we want to work together. If there's anything that we can pass on to him, advice or details on the work the Commissioner of Official Languages is doing, or if he wants to learn from our experience or draw on our strategies, we're prepared to work with him. He left with a clear understanding of our approach, and it was a very good meeting.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I would qualify your earlier question. There are a great number that are under way currently. The legislation under Bill C-91 and Bill C-92, the immigration notes, currently the movement on the national recognition date, as well as UNDRIP, which your party opposed, are all key to transforming the relationship.

I think one of them is trust. Certainly you mentioned money, but you put forward a false dichotomy. Obviously, we want to see progress from the money, but we have to be relentless in our investments. This is about closing socio-economic gaps. The record shows that has moved. It's about closing the financial gap in education and in all the other investments in infrastructure and housing investments. These are all things that have happened and we want to continue on those.

Opposition Motion—Action Toward Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, let me start by congratulating you on your 10-year anniversary in that chair as Deputy Speaker and your distinguished service as a parliamentarian in this chamber, respected by every one of your 337 colleagues.

I want to speak today about something that is critically important, not just now but all of the time, that has come to the forefront given this opposition day motion that we are discussing, and that is the events at Kamloops in terms of the shocking discovery of the mass grave of 215 children who belonged to the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation.

After hearing about it on the radio, and the sheer magnitude, my first reaction was simply one of horror, and I had to explain to my kids why I was reacting the way that I was.

My second response was as someone who came to this chamber as a lawyer who has some experience with international law, particularly with Rwanda at the UN war crimes tribunal. I thought of how we usually associate mass graves with foreign conflicts and not with Canada. Then I started to think of what we have done vis-à-vis indigenous people of this land and how sometimes it is not much different in terms of the overt assimilation that we have propagated against them, and when the declared policy of the government at the time was to “take the Indian out of the child”.

I also reacted as a parliamentarian who has not been in this chamber as long as you, Mr. Speaker, but for six years now, who feels like he has gathered some understanding of the situation. I had gone through the calls to action, but I was still shocked and surprised. However, we do not have to dig too far to realize that there were a lot of people who were not surprised, and a lot of those people are indigenous people of this land, particularly elders.

This led me to the question of how we value knowledge and recognize its legitimacy, and how this Eurocentric idea has been passed down that unless something is reduced to writing or photographic or video evidence, it probably did not happen. This is a bias that we bring to the table that we have to acknowledge. I thank a constituent of mine who wrote to me about the issue of Canadians, including Canadian parliamentarians, who need to learn to embrace oral histories as legitimate histories so that we can truly come to terms with the magnitude of what we are dealing with.

I also reacted as a father, as I mentioned, when I heard the news that morning on CBC Radio while my children were eating cereal in front of me. My boys are very dear to me. I mean, everyone's children are dear to them. My wife, Suchita, and I are raising two young boys, Zakir and Nitin, and we try and do right by them. However, it one thing for me to imagine my children being removed from my home against my will, but it is another thing entirely to imagine them never returned to me and to never know their whereabouts, which is exactly what has transpired over and over again with indigenous families of this land. This is the true tragedy that needs to be dealt with and understood, and it needs to be accounted for, which can only start with a very strong, historical, educational exercise.

There are some people in this House who are younger than I am, which is the tender age of 49, who had the benefit of actually being educated on this. However, I went through every level of school, including post-secondary education and through law school, and never once was I instructed about the history of the residential school legacy in this country, which is quite shocking for a guy who graduated law school in 1998.

I know that people are now getting that education, and that is important. I also know that people are taking steps, and we heard the member for Kings—Hants talk about what was happening in his community in Nova Scotia. In my community of Parkdale—High Park in Toronto, there was a vigil just yesterday about this very issue, which raised awareness, and that is important. I thank my constituent, Eden, for organizing the vigil. She took the reins on doing so, because she felt so strongly about it. I took my oldest son to that event, because I wanted him to be there to understand, to learn, and to see how others were reacting to what we had learned on Friday morning.

It is one thing to read stories, and I do read him stories, particularly the orange shirt story of Phyllis Webstad, the woman who wore that infamous orange shirt, which was removed from her at that residential school. She is also a member of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. However, it is more than just the stories, and I wanted him to get that. It is not just past or distant history, it is still unfolding around us, which is very important, because we should not deem it relegated to the past. It was also important for him and for me to see the turnout, the number of young people who were there, and to hear the demands, and there were many.

There were many directed at the federal government, the government that I represent. There was outrage, shock and horror, but it was important for me to hear the demands. It was important for my son to hear the demands. If I could summarize it, which is difficult to do, but they want justice, accountability and transparency and they want it now, not at some date to be determined in the future.

I hear that sentiment and I very much share that sentiment. I say that in all sincerity in this chamber for those who are watching around the country. In particular ,what I think is most critical is just having a sense that if this happened to the Tk'emlúps First Nation, in Kamloops at that former school, we know that there are 139 sites around this country where it may very well have happened there as well. That forensic investigation, that radar investigation must be done and it must be done immediately.

I know that we have dedicated as a government almost $34 million to address some of the calls to action we have heard extensively about during the course of today's debate. If more money is needed, it must be provided forthwith. That is what I am advocating for.

Others have also said to me just get on with every single one of those calls to action, get it over with now. It has been far too long. I hear that outrage and that sense of urgency. I pause because I know in looking at the calls to action that some of them relate to us at the federal level, us as parliamentarians in the House of Commons. Some of them relate to provincial governments, city governments. Some of them relate to institutions and school boards. Some of them even relate to foreign entities.

I, for one, would be dearly appreciative to see a formal papal apology. That is call to action 58. That is a call to action that the Prime Minister squarely put to the Pope on a visit to the Vatican and that has not yet been acceded to. I think that stands in stark contrast to what we see with other denominations of Christian churches in this country that have formally accepted and apologized for the role that the church played in terms of administering many of these residential schools. That needs to be forthcoming and Canadians are demanding that, rightfully so.

Others I believe have been met at least in part if not fully. I count myself as very privileged to have served in the last Parliament when I was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Heritage. We worked on and co-developed with first nations, Métis and Inuit leaders what became Bill C-91, Canada's first ever Indigenous Languages Act.

I personally count that as one of my most significant learning opportunities as a parliamentarian. It took that lawyer who was not educated about this stuff in law school and it turned him into a parliamentarian who was dealing directly with first nations, Inuit and Métis leaders about the difficulties of not having that connection to one's language and what that does to one's psyche, one's level of mental anxiety, one's connection to one's culture.

We have remedied that. It speaks directly to TRC calls to action 13, 14 and 15. We have also made great strides with respect to indigenous child and welfare legislation. That was Bill C-92 in the last Parliament. The most important piece there is that the norm now based on that legislation is if we must remove a child, then we keep them within their group, within their first nation, among their community and only as an absolute last resort would they be removed.

We have worked on UNDRIP with members of the opposition parties including the NDP. We have worked on Bill C-22, which I count myself privileged to have worked on as parliamentary secretary to the current Minister of Justice. It deals with curing the overrepresentation of indigenous people in this land. Much more remains to be done. I do not discount that and it needs to be done quickly. We need to do that work together.

I welcome this debate. I welcome the discussions we have been having literally all week, not just today about this important topic, because they are critical. I do feel at my core that we will only gather sufficient momentum when all Canadians are talking about this stain on Canada's history and Canada's legacy. That is critical to see. We have seen it over the course of this pandemic where people, non-white and white, people who are racialized or not racialized have taken up the call for addressing systemic racism and systemic discrimination in wake of George Floyd and in this country people like Regis Korchinski-Paquet.

I am seeing that again now. I am seeing that massive outreach now and that is a good thing because it gives us momentum. It gives us the initiative to keep working hard at these issues and to keep focused on these calls to action in addressing the needs of indigenous people, but always in a manner that is led by indigenous people and done on their terms, because gone must be the paternalism where Ottawa dictated to indigenous people the appropriate remedies. We must be listening and responding.

Indigenous Affairs

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Minister of Indigenous Services]

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the member that these calls are for all of Canada and particularly non-indigenous Canadians. The federal government has a very large role to play in this and there are a number of calls to action that we have moved on quite quickly.

I would note the implementation and passage and royal assent of Bill C-91 on indigenous languages, and Bill C-92 on child and family services. These are all transformative documents to fill the inequities that have characterized our relationship as a country.

We will continue to move on today's pathway announced by the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations. It is one that is equally transformable with respect to missing and murdered indigenous women. I would point to the over $2 billion in the budget dedicated to implementing that.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Thank you so much. Thank you for reminding us of the decades of work that have gone into this. This week at the UN permanent forum, for us to be able to thank Wilton Littlechild for all his work.... But there are so many other Canadians and indigenous representatives from Canada, like your family, Jaime. You've lived this your whole live. I don't think we could have a stronger advocate. Thank you for all you do.

Also, in talking about the kind of engagement, I just want to say that we want meaningful engagement, and that means that the excellent Bill C-262 that Romeo Saganash brought forward was evergreened—because the declaration is not—to include two-spirited peoples and to make sure that the definition of the diversity within indigenous communities is not only in the preamble but also in the body of the bill.

This is an exciting time and it helps that the reference to the UN declaration is now in eight of our bills in Canada, including Bill C-91 and Bill C-92. The intent and the commitments in the UN declaration are now part of Canadian law. This will serve to help people understand better what section 35 rights mean, and that indigenous rights and treaty rights are not debatable. They exist, and they will continue to flourish with the understanding of all Canadians.

Broadcasting Act

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr Speaker, it is my pleasure to address the House today from my riding in Toronto on this important piece of legislation. Bill C-10 is a crucial initiative that will bring the radio, television and telecommunications sector into the 21st century.

As we have previously heard in the speeches from many of my colleagues, the last major reform of the Broadcasting Act occurred in 1991. All of us have witnessed an incredible shift in the radio, television and telecommunications sector since that time. Back then the Internet was not even in its infancy: It was the purview exclusively of the U.S. military. I did not even obtain my first email address until about 1994, if memory serves correctly, when I was in my last year at McGill. It is incredible to think that an act drafted around basic radio and television technology, circa 1991, is still regulating the sector today.

Today, as parliamentarians, we are taking an important step forward in modernizing broadcasting regulation in Canada. Nowadays, we know that this sector has remarkably flourished and represents a unique opportunity to access culture. Many platforms have emerged, including Netflix, Disney+, YouTube and Spotify. These provide opportunities to share Canadian culture and content all around the world, also while consuming cultural content here at home that comes from several different countries.

However, online broadcasting services are currently not subjected to the same regulations as traditional broadcasting services. This bill would fix that basic inequality. Canadians greatly benefit from accessing foreign productions, but it is also essential to support our Canadian producers and creators, especially now during a pandemic, when showcasing Canadian content and telling Canadian stories is so critical to the well-being of all of us. This is something that we as a government have always sought to do since coming to power in 2015, by funding our national broadcaster the CBC, and by increasing funding to the Canada Council for the Arts as well as to Telefilm Canada.

However, one issue has remained a stubborn obstacle. How do we support Canadian content in an era when the methods for broadcasting are shifting massively, from radio and TV to online? Bill C-10 would fill this void by providing the CRTC with modern regulatory tools.

Canadians are increasingly using online platforms to access cultural content. For instance, it is estimated that 62% of Canadian households currently use Netflix. This dramatic shift has resulted in an increase of approximately 90% in online video revenues per year for the past two years. Meanwhile, conventional broadcasters have experienced a steady revenue loss of 1.8% per year for the past five years. These alarming statistics clearly demonstrate that the CRTC's regulatory framework needs to be adapted immediately to better support Canadian content producers in order to level the playing field.

Implementing the changes in Bill C-10 would quickly produce clear and concrete impacts. Let me give an example. By creating a new category of broadcasting under the online broadcasting category, Bill C-10 could lead to increasing contributions to Canadian music and stories by as much as $830 million by 2023. This is excellent news for our Canadian cultural sector.

Let me speak about diversity. In addition to levelling the playing field between the traditional broadcasting services and the web giants, by ensuring that web giants contribute to the creation, production and distribution of Canadian stories and music, this bill would also reflect where Canadian society is in 2020. The new regulatory framework outlined in Bill C-10 is focused on building a more inclusive cultural sector as part of the larger goal of building a more inclusive Canada.

Supporting diversity and inclusion is essential, and that it is exactly what Bill C-10 would do. Anglophones, francophones, racialized Canadians and Canadians of diverse ethnicities, socio-economic statuses, abilities, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions all deserve to be represented in our cultural sector. I cannot stop myself from thinking about all the kids out there, including my own brown-skinned South Asian children, who are watching shows and dreaming of their future. They have to know that their dreams can come true and they can achieve everything that they want. Seeing people who look like them in the shows that they watch is undoubtedly important. I know this as a parent. I know this as a racialized parliamentarian.

We know that representation is a key step to reaching better inclusion of marginalized groups. The logic that applied when we decided to put Viola Desmond on the $10 bill to ensure that all Canadians, including Black Canadians, could see themselves represented in our institutions, also applies here in the cultural sector. The more Canadians who can see themselves reflected in our cultural sector, be they religious or racial minorities or others, the better we are as a nation.

I want to also highlight the importance of improved support for indigenous cultures in our broadcasting sector. During the last Parliament, I was privileged to be asked by the Prime Minister to serve as the parliamentary secretary to the then minister of heritage. In that role at that time, I had the chance to work on co-developing with first nations, Inuit and Métis leaders Canada's first ever Indigenous Languages Act. The work I did on Bill C-91 in the last Parliament deeply shaped my own understanding of the need to protect indigenous cultures and languages in order to empower first nations, Inuit and Métis people on Turtle Island.

By including concrete measures in this bill to better reflect indigenous cultures in Canada, Bill C-10 will contribute to that work of the revitalization of indigenous languages by ensuring that indigenous children have access to cultural content in their languages. Let me emphasize that Bill C-10 would have a real impact on the preservation and revitalization of indigenous languages and cultures, which is fundamental to reconciliation.

I am also pleased to see that the broadcasting system will be adapted to the needs of persons with disabilities. There is a lot of work ahead of us in order to build a more inclusive Canada for people living with disabilities. Ensuring that programming on TV, radio and online is accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities is a step in the right direction.

When I speak about my riding of Parkdale—High Park, I know that promoting arts and culture is a very important issue not only for my riding, but indeed for all Canadians. I want to highlight, for example, that just last week Warren P. Sonoda was elected president of the Director's Guild of Canada. I had the opportunity to work with Warren on important roles when I was the parliamentary secretary to the minister of heritage. I am thrilled to see what he will accomplish while holding that position. I want to credit the work by outgoing former DGC president, Tim Southam.

My riding of Parkdale—High Park is known for many people like Warren and Tim. It is known for great artists, wonderful creators and important film and TV producers. I am speaking for example of Dave Forget, currently on the national executive team for the Director's Guild, having previously worked for 14 years at Telefilm. He has spent most of his life working in the film industry, and I am proud to call him a constituent.

Additionally, professor Chris Romeike in my riding did the cinematography on the recent movie The Inconvenient Indian, which was based on Thomas King's bestseller. It explores the cultural colonization of indigenous peoples in North America and was deemed by the producers of TIFF as the one must-see film at TIFF this year.

I want to congratulate so many people: Paul Barkin, Mary Young Leckie, John Turner, David Makin, Alain Zweig, Jasmin Mozaffari and Ali Kazimi, for all of their important and award-winning work and contributions to the film and TV sectors. Ferne Downey, who was mentioned in the context of the previous speech, is my constituent. She was previously the head of ACTRA and is now the head of the International Federation of Actors.

I could keep going much longer, but I will mention one last person: Jeff Churchill, of Jitterbug Boy, an original footwear company in my riding whose shoes are being made for a variety of shows such as the upcoming Batman film. What is important about that last reference is that when we support the Canadian cultural centre, we are also supporting all of the derivative economic benefits that come from supporting film, TV and our content creators. That is what Bill C-10 will enable us to do by better funding the sector and levelling that playing field. This is a critical piece of legislation.

We know that financial support for Canadian content will decline as the revenues of traditional radio and television broadcasters continue to decrease. Bill C-10 is the first step in aiming to fully modernize the broadcasting system in Canada to ensure that both traditional and online broadcasting contribute to the Canadian broadcasting system. Our Canadian producers deserve to be operating in a fair situation where the rules are equal for everyone. Allowing the CRTC more powers to modernize the regulatory framework is important, by imposing more regulations on online broadcasters, as is simultaneously ensuring the regulatory independence of the CRTC.

In conclusion, as I have outlined, Bill C-10 is about ensuring fair and equitable treatment between traditional and online broadcasters. It is about better representation of Canadian society in our cultural sector. I am incredibly proud of our Canadian cultural sector, and in particular the role it is playing in buoying Canadian spirits and easing Canadian anxieties during the COVID-19 pandemic. I know that with the right tools, our Canadian creators will continue to keep producing terrific Canadian content for years to come. Bill C-10 is one of the tools we need to maintain our support for Canadian creators. The work of passing it should not be a partisan issue, nor should it be delayed. We cannot afford to wait 30 more years before modernizing the act. The time to act is now.

Citizenship Act

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Madam Speaker, I would like to acknowledge that I am speaking from the traditional homeland of the Dene, Métis and Inuvialuit of the Northwest Territories.

I am of Métis descent. I am a member of the Dehcho First Nations. We are known as the “big river” people. I believe I am the only sitting member who attended the residential school program, or the hostel program as we knew it.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak in support of the government’s bill that would revise the oath of citizenship. It continues our government’s important work to walk the shared path of reconciliation and the implementation of the TRC's calls to action.

I would like to point to a number of key legislative initiatives that address calls to action and advance reconciliation.

Bill C-91, the Indigenous Languages Act, received royal assent in June 2019. This act supports the Government of Canada’s efforts to reclaim, revitalize, strengthen and maintain indigenous languages in Canada. The act was developed to address calls to action numbers 13, 14 and 15; elements of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP; and the Government of Canada’s commitment to a renewed relationship with indigenous people based on the recognition of rights, respect, co-operation and partnership.

That same month, in June 2019, royal assent was given to Bill C-92, an act respecting first nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families. It came into force on January 1, 2020. This act was codeveloped as part of Canada’s efforts to reform indigenous child and family services, which included implementing call to action number 4. It affirms the rights of first nations, Inuit, and Métis to exercise jurisdiction over child and family services and establishes national principles such as the best interests of the child, cultural continuity and substantive equality, which help guide the provision of indigenous child and family services.

The act was the result of extensive engagement with first nations, Inuit and Métis, treaty nations, self-governing first nations, provincial and territorial governments, and those with lived experience, including elders, youth and women. It reaffirms the government’s commitment to advancing self-determination and eliminating existing disparities between indigenous and non-indigenous children and youth.

The act also lays out flexible pathways for indigenous governing bodies to exercise jurisdiction over child and family services at a pace they choose. Through the act’s legislative framework, they can move forward with their own service delivery models and laws and choose their own solutions for their children and families. It ensures indigenous children are cared for in the right way, with connections to their communities, cultures and languages. Furthermore, since January 1, 2020, every service provider, province or territory delivering child and family services to indigenous children and families will need to follow the minimum standards found in the act.

Bill C-5, an act to amend the Bills of Exchange Act, the Interpretation Act and the Canada Labour Code regarding a national day for truth and reconciliation, was introduced by the Minister of Canadian Heritage on September 29, 2020. If passed, this bill will be an important step in responding to call to action number 80 by establishing the national day for truth and reconciliation on September 30 as a statutory holiday for federally regulated workers. This national day would honour survivors, their families and communities. It would also remind the public of the tragic and painful history and legacy of residential schools that remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.

The Government of Canada continues to work closely with partners to address the remaining calls to action.

In June 2019, the government received the final report from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, entitled “Reclaiming Power and Place”. It responded to call to action number 41, which called for the launch of a public inquiry into the disproportionate victimization of indigenous women and girls.

Furthermore, the Government of Canada is committed to gender equality and reconciliation with indigenous peoples, and has eliminated all the remaining sex-based inequalities in the Indian Act registration provisions, which go back to its inception 150 years ago. We committed to eliminating all sex-based discrimination in the Indian Act registration, and we delivered on that promise.

Bringing Bill S-3 into force also responds to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls calls to justice and provides justice to women and their descendants, who fought for these changes for decades. We will continue with partners and other levels of government to respond to the findings of the national inquiry and to this national tragedy.

In closing, I reiterate that the government is determined to address the historical, colonial racism and injustice of yesterday, just as we are determined to root out and expose the racism of today. As Canadians have seen all too clearly during this difficult time, racism, both systemic and social, continues to be all too prevalent in our country. It must not and cannot be tolerated, for that, too, is part of the healing process, just as this bill is part of the healing process.

This bill represents progress on the shared path to healing and reconciliation. It responds to concerns expressed in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It points the way to a more inclusive Canada. Moreover, by amending the oath of citizenship, it represents greater awareness and answers call to action 94.

I am pleased to offer my full support of the bill before us.