Bill S-3 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Indian Act in response to the Superior Court of Quebec decision in Descheneaux c. Canada (Procureur général)

This enactment amends the Indian Act to provide new entitlements to registration in the Indian Register in response to the decision in Descheneaux c. Canada (Procureur général) that was rendered by the Superior Court of Quebec on August 3, 2015, and to provide that the persons who become so entitled also have the right to have their name entered in a Band List maintained by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. This enactment requires the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs to initiate consultations on issues related to registration and band membership and to conduct reviews on sex-based inequities under the Indian Act, and to report to Parliament on those activities.

Indian Act

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs]

moved the second reading of, and concurrence in, amendments made by the Senate to Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Indian Act (elimination of sex-based inequities in registration).

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill S-3, an act to amend the Indian Act, in response to the Superior Court of Quebec decision in Descheneaux v. Canada.

I want to acknowledge that we are gathered on traditional Algonquin territory.

Today, we pay tribute to the tireless efforts of the women, including Mary Two-Axe Earley, Jeannette Corbiere Lavell, Yvonne Bedard, Sharon McIvor, Senator Sandra Lovelace Nicholas, Senator Dyck, and so many others who have fought to ensure that the descendants of women who lost their status because of sex-based discrimination are treated equally to the male line.

I want to be clear that I stand in solidarity with the indigenous women who have been fighting for gender equality in the Indian Act registration for decades. I hear their pain, the hurt of receiving a letter in which they were told that their marriage would cost them their indigenous status and knowing their descendants would also lose their indigenous identity.

Our government is committed to working with first nations, parliamentarians, impacted individuals, and experts to ensure all sex-based discrimination is eliminated once and for all from registration provisions in the Indian Act.

Bill S-3 was introduced by the government in response to the Descheneaux court decision and is focused on eliminating residual inequities flowing from the historical sex-based discrimination in Indian Act registration.

As members are well aware, this legislation was introduced in the context of a court-imposed deadline to remedy the specific charter breaches found by the Superior Court of Quebec in that case. In recognition of the court-mandated deadlines, the government launched a two-stage approach in response to the Descheneaux decision.

The first stage was focused on passing legislation to remedy sex-based discrimination in Indian Act registration, which violated the charter, whether ruled by a court or not.

The second stage was to occur immediately after the passage of Bill S-3. It was to be a comprehensive and collaborative process with first nations, impacted individuals, and experts on the needed broader reform of Indian Act registration, membership, and citizenship.

This consultation is enshrined in the bill and must commence within six months of royal assent.

I want to thank the Senate for its diligence and willingness to work with the government and across party and caucus lines to strengthen Bill S-3.

The government has worked closely with the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples and many other senators on numerous amendments to the original version of Bill S-3. These amendments have greatly improved this legislation.

For example, the bill now proactively addresses further groups impacted by residual sex-based discrimination, which were identified during the Senate committee hearings by the Indigenous Bar Association.

The bill also now addresses the issue of unstated paternity by enshrining additional procedural protections in law.

As members will recall, there was one amendment proposed by the Senate that the House of Commons did not support. While well intentioned, the scope of the amendment, now commonly known as the “6(1)(a) all the way” amendment, would have focused on other Indian status issues beyond residual sex-based discrimination in registration.

As mentioned, Bill S-3 was introduced in response to the ruling in Descheneaux. Accordingly, the bill seeks to eliminate sex-based inequities in the registration provisions of the Indian Act.

While the government is launching co-designed consultations early next year regarding broader Indian Act registration and membership issues, these matters are outside the scope of the current legislation. Moreover, independent legal experts, including the Indigenous Bar Association, highlighted to the House committee that significant legal ambiguities were created by the way the amendment was drafted. The government also had significant concerns regarding the inadequate time afforded for meaningful consultation with first nations and other impacted parties regarding the practical implications of such an approach within the court-mandated deadline.

Given these legitimate concerns, last June, the House of Commons amended Bill S-3 to remove the “6(1)(a) all the way” amendment. The Senate expressed significant concern that without the “ 6(1)(a) all the way” amendment, or a comparable replacement, Bill S-3 would not eliminate all residual sex-based discrimination from registration provisions in the Indian Act.

Bill S-3, as passed by the House of Commons last spring, remedied all sex-based discrimination in Indian Act registration since the modern Indian registry was created in 1951. Given that the modern Indian registry came into effect in 1951, the current state of the law requires remedies for Indian Act sex-based registration inequities to apply from that date forward. This has become commonly known as the 1951 cut-off and reflects the B.C. Court of Appeal ruling in the McIvor decision. While the 1951 cut-off is specifically referenced in Bill S-3 as a key component of the mandated future consultations, many senators and first nations advocates have argued strongly that amendments specifically dealing with the 1951 cut-off should be included in this bill.

The government acknowledges the understandable and justified scepticism of first nations and parliamentarians about decades of inaction by governments of all political stripes on the 1951 cut-off. We have listened to the arguments put forward by the Senate as well as other indigenous voices and are now proposing to amend Bill S-3 to deal with the 1951 cut-off. The proposed clause would put 6(1) status to all women who lost status through sex-based inequities and to their descendants born prior to 1985.

This includes circumstances prior to 1951. The proposed clause would eliminate sex-based inequities that date back to 1869.

The effect of this clause would be to remove the two-parent rule for the descendants, born between 1869 and 1985, of women who lost status because of sex-based discrimination. The government amendment is also drafted in a way so as to avoid any internal contradictions within the Indian Act, and therefore, would not create any legal ambiguity.

The government believes that in keeping with the scope of Bill S-3, the proposed amendment is the best way to eliminate all remaining sex-based discrimination from registration provisions in the Indian Act.

The Senate passed Bill S-3 with the government's new amendment on November 9.

It is important to note that during the debate in the other place, the new government amendment garnered majority support from all the Senate caucuses and groups. Senators Dyck, Lovelace Nicholas, Sinclair, Christmas, and Patterson were among the many prominent senators from each of the caucuses and groups that publicly supported Bill S-3 with the new government amendment included.

Senator Lillian Dyck said the following in the debate in the other place:

The motion today legislates the intentions of the “6(1)(a) all the way” but in a different manner than the McIvor amendment. The end result is the same and the legislative mechanism proposed can actually be seen as an improvement over the McIvor amendment. If we pass Bill S-3 as amended by today's motion, all of the female sex-based discrimination will be eliminated in the Indian Act.

During his speech, Conservative critic Senator Patterson stated:

I believe that by supporting this message—and it is a bit of an act of faith—we are doing right by indigenous women and their descendants.

Senator Sinclair also spoke in favour of the motion. He stated:

I would like to add my support for this motion and indicate that I intend to vote for it....

The amendments before us, to my relief, leave no legal distinction between indigenous men and women. It brings the act, therefore, into compliance with the Charter.

Both the Assembly of First Nations and the Native Women's Association of Canada also support the amended bill.

An updated democraphic analysis, which was commissioned by the government over the summer, is now public.

The government made this demographic data public in the interest of transparency, but does not believe this to be a reliable way of estimating potential impacts.

These numbers significantly overestimate the number of individuals who would successfully obtain Indian status. The limitations of the current demographic projections, even with the additional independent demographic work, further underscore the need for meaningful consultation on the best possible implementation plan.

The government will continue to work on further refining current demographic estimates and looks forward to the broad-based consultations on Indian Act registration and membership, to begin in early 2018, to assist in this process. The government is committed to ensuring that the removal of the 1951 cut-off is implemented in the right way, in terms of both first nations communities and the individuals who will become entitled to registration.

We have always been clear that significant changes impacting first nations would be done in consultation and partnership. This approach is in keeping with the commitment to a renewed, respectful relationship, based on the recognition of rights, and to implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. That is why while the balance of Bill S-3 will be brought into force immediately after royal assent, the amendment dealing with the 1951 cut-off will be brought into force after the conclusion of co-designed consultations.

These co-designed consultations will be about how to remove the 1951 cut-off, not whether to do it. They will be focused on identifying additional measures or resources required to do this right and on working in partnership to develop a comprehensive implementation plan, to be launched simultaneously.

Some have raised concerns about this approach, but while speaking during the Senate debate, Senator Christmas summarized the realities succinctly:

I believe it’s also essential to recognize that the consultation with First Nation communities that will flow from the bill’s requirements on consultation and reporting back to Parliament reflect the basis of the Principles respecting the Government of Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples, announced in July of 2017.

In doing so:

The Government recognizes that Indigenous self-government and laws are critical to Canada’s future, and that Indigenous perspectives and rights must be incorporated in all aspects of this relationship. In doing so, we will continue the process of decolonization and hasten the end of its legacy wherever it remains in our laws and policies.

During the same debate, Senator Sinclair added:

I want to point out that this bill attempts to reconcile two different constitutional obligations that the government has: One is, of course, to comply with the Charter when it comes to gender discrimination; the other is to comply with its constitutional obligation to consult with indigenous people.....

So while it is with reluctance that I see us delaying the implementation of a Charter right, I can also see the need to do so because of that competing constitutional obligation to consult. And so I am prepared to support this legislation because it enshrines the right.

Bill S-3 also has numerous clauses to provide accountability to Parliament on its implementation and the related consultations. Within five months of royal assent, the bill requires the government to report to Parliament on the design of the consultations and how they are progressing, and a further update to Parliament is required within 12 months of royal assent.

There is also a three-year review clause in the bill, which requires the government to report to Parliament on the provisions of section 6 of the Indian Act enacted by Bill S-3.

The purpose of this review is to confirm that all sex-based inequities under the registration provisions have been eliminated.

If the government fails to pass legislation before December 22 to address the Charter issues outlined in the Descheneaux decision, the sections struck down by the court will be inoperative in Quebec. The practical implication would be that these provisions would then become inoperative within Canada, as the registrar would not be in a position to register people under provisions found to be non-charter compliant.

Ninety per cent of status Indians are registered by the federal government under the provisions that were declared of no force and effect in the Descheneaux decision. These individuals are consequently unable to access the benefits that come with registration.

We cannot lose sight of the thousands of individuals who will not be able to register if the court deadline passes and the provisions noted above become inoperable, or of the up to 35,000 people who will become eligible to register as soon as this bill receives royal assent.

Bill S-3, as amended, would remove all residual sex-based inequities from registration provisions in the Indian Act. As Senator Christmas said during the debate in the other place, “The government did its job—in listening and in acting. Now it is time for all of us to do our job and adopt this amendment without delay.”

I urge all members to support the amended message from the Senate and pass Bill S-3 in its current form.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a bit about the consultation process that is going to deal with the 1951 cut-off the minister has committed to and the process she has put in the legislation.

As members may be aware, the UN declaration was also an amendment in this. We know that first nations communities across the country feel very differently in terms of what they are going to do and how they are going to do it. The minister talked about a charter right, the UN declaration, and the need for a consultation process. I suspect that she is not going to end up with unanimity across this country.

How is the minister actually going to proceed in dealing with that piece she committed to in her speech today?

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

Mr. Speaker, when one co-creates a consultation process, one has the opportunity to co-create what would determine a consensus and how we would move forward together. The kind of consultation already under way is on things like what we do about things such as enfranchisement and adoption. What is really important in consultations with first nations communities is that the numbers are still very broad in terms of the number of people we are talking about. It is going to be very important to communities to explore the kinds of numbers that might affect their communities but also to put in place supports and services for the things they know they will need to address when the pre-1951 cut-off comes into effect.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for her speech on a topic that I, as an aboriginal person, always find difficult to address. It is hard to address a topic like the Indian Act.

As hon. members know, I have always considered the Indian Act to be archaic, colonialist, sexist, and racist. All those adjectives apply in this case.

I would like to know whether the minister believes that the current version of Bill S-3 eliminates all forms of discrimination under the Indian Act. I would like to hear what she has to say about that.

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

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that the bill, in its current form, with the message from the Senate, will eliminate only sex-based discrimination. We still have a long way to go in phase two to deal with other discrimination, such as in enfranchisement and adoption. The Indian Act is a colonial piece of work that discriminated against indigenous people in this country. It is the reason we are working so hard now to try to move more and more communities out from under the Indian Act and into a place where the recognition of rights would be enshrined and where, eventually, citizenship in a first nations community would be determined by the first nations community, and no longer by a registrar of the Government of Canada.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in the course of Bill S-3, the conversations I had with the hon. minister in this place in June and the attempts to remove all vestiges of historic gender-based discrimination have now come to a good place. The new and expanded role of a Senate with independent senators and indeed the role of indigenous senators in the other place, Senator Dyck, Senator Dan Christmas, Senator Murray Sinclair, have helped enormously in bringing about that sober second thought which we used to think the other chamber was capable of providing, particularly from an indigenous perspective.

While I certainly applaud and appreciate that we are taking the bill forward, as amended, to passage, it is time to repeal the Indian Act, and this is the first time I have said that in the House. There is a lot of discussion about how we need to consult with first nations and indigenous people before we repeal it. They did not pass it. It is a vestige of a colonial history and it is inherently discriminatory and racist.

I know the minister has now had the department split in two, but this question is squarely in front of her, and it is a tough one. However, when can we start the conversation about when, not if, we repeal the Indian Act?

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

Mr. Speaker, the Indian Act is hugely disturbing to the government. It really enshrined all the bad policies of the superiority of the settlers into the act, which then discriminated against the first peoples of our country. The kind of consultation required now to understand what replaces the Indian Act is what communities are worried about. How do we reconstitute nations as nations instead of these villages that were created under the Indian Act, in what Lee Maracle called “villagizing” tiny communities and then Canada was able to take the land from in between.

Reconstituting nations and having nations then having self-determination, having self-government, is the direction in which our government is going. We want to see that happen. There has to be an alternative. The fiduciary rights of the Government of Canada to first nations must be codified and we need to have some other thing in place. My job, as my mandate letter says, is to accelerate the progress of communities getting out from under the Indian Act as quickly as they possibly can.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for highlighting the inequity that still exists between men and women in indigenous communities. This week, we have been reflecting on human rights in this place. We have been looking at the gender-based discrimination that has been forced on people by a government.

I am reflecting on this act and thinking that before we touched things, women had a great role in leadership and in the indigenous communities, which we then took away from them. We could have learned a lot more before we took those rights away.

Could the minister reflect on some of those thoughts around the role of women in indigenous communities and the role that women in our community could be learning from indigenous communities?

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

Mr. Speaker, this morning, when I was speaking at the leadership forum with the Native Women's Association, I reflected on the Prime Minister's comments yesterday about what was here before the settlers arrived, the colonizers arrived, even with respect to two-spirited individuals and a place of pride in their communities and the parallel of settlers arriving in our country and not even speaking to the women. Then they enacted an Indian Act, which displaced women out of safety.

With respect to indigenous feminism, we have to ensure, as we build new nations, as they reconstitute themselves, that the role of women and the empowerment of women are part of that reconstitution and decolonizing. It really is about us seeing the voices of indigenous women as being a metric of decolonizing and the need to be working in that direction, not just replicating colonial institutions.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to rise in debate today on Bill S-3, an act to amend the Indian Act on the elimination of sex-based inequities in registration. For anyone who might be paying attention to the debate, it might sound very complex and convoluted, so I will start with a very simple comparison and then perhaps move to the actual process.

The Conservatives intend to support the legislation. However, the government botched it all along the way. Therefore, I will reflect on the many problems that were experienced in getting us to this place.

I had the great privilege in the 1980s to be hired as a nurse for a small band. I had no idea of the issues of status or registration in bands. I was from an urban area and was hired to work in a rural community. Fairly early on in my time there, one of the community health representatives took me to visit some of the elders, and one elder in particular, Maggie. She told me that we were not supposed to visit as she was not an Indian anymore since the government took away her registration, that she was really not part of them but was part of them.

Maggie had been born in the late 1800s. In the early 1900s, she had married someone from a neighbouring community, who happened to be a white man, and she lost her status. In this case, the husband died a few years later. The community knew who the band members were and made special accommodation to ensure they welcomed their elders into the community. However, it was always very difficult for them because of the issues of housing and non-insured health benefits. She did not have those things by virtue of the fact that she had married a white person. We surreptitiously visited her and, as a nurse, I was able to take care of Maggie. She was a real inspiration to me in terms of what she did and how she did it.

In comparison, a gentlemen lived there and he had married someone from the neighbouring community. This had no impact on him. His wife was able to move to the community, they had non-insured health benefits, and his children continued to receive the benefits the community provided. That was an eye-opener. It did not make any sense. For the gentleman who married a woman from another community, there were no changes, yet there were significant changes for Maggie, which impacted her until the day she died. Clearly this was an inequity, and it was identified by many.

The minister talked about Sharon McIvor and so many others who had been advocating for many years for changes and to put in place legislation that would deal with these problems. It seemed simple, but as we went through the process of looking at the legislation and the massive charts in front of us, we came to realize how complicated this whole thing was and the fact that the government was determining who was 6(1)(a) or 6(1)(b). It was an amazingly complex process.

It is close to a year since the bill was first introduced. It was introduced in the Senate, with a looming court deadline that needed to be taken care of. In appreciation of the court deadline, the House of Commons committee, knowing it was introduced in the Senate, said that it would pre-study the bill and bring in some witnesses. We were trying to be co-operative with the Liberals. We knew there was a court deadline and we were trying to get the legislation dealt with in a reasonable way.

We started to have our hearings. One of the first people we had before us was Mr. Descheneaux, and his lawyer. They said that they did not know the legislation was even going to be tabled until they were called as witnesses. This is the plaintiff who won the case. The government responded by tabling legislation without even talking to the plaintiff. It was shocking to committee members to hear the government, which has talked about having consultations and how important it is, had not talked to the plaintiff.

Some other things happened as we were moving the bill through Parliament.

On the first day of testimony, which was November 21, 2016, department officials testified that they were confident the bill would address all sex-based inequities in the Indian Act. I will quote what we were told with respect to that.

I asked the officials this:

First, in terms of your statement...this would eliminate all known sex-based inequities, are you confident that we're not going to be looking at another court case and another piece of legislation coming down the pike? Are you confident that we have...taken care of...[the] issue?

Ms. Joëlle Montminy stated:

We are confident. With these amendments, we are dealing with all known sex-based inequities in Indian registration. That's not to say there are not other types of inequities that are going to be brought forward by various groups. We do have active litigation on this. It could relate to other...issues.

We know there still are some outstanding issues that perhaps relate to veterans, but we had their guarantee that the sex-based inequities were taken care of.

The next day I spoke with Mr. Descheneaux, and his statement is quite interesting. He was at committee the next day. He said:

...we've never been called or asked which way we saw that stuff....I was thinking that they would come to the band and meet us, and say that they're going to go that way, or they're looking to go this way.

Then we had heard from Chief Rick O'Bomsawin, who stated that the minister's office:

...told us that we were consulted, that they consulted with chiefs last summer. I have not found one chief that they consulted. They've never consulted me, and it was our case. They never even called us.

We knew the Senate was hearing the same issues at that time and was becoming as concerned as we were.

I understand that the staff were blamed. At the Senate aboriginal committee on November 30, the minister said, “My department's failure to directly engage with the plaintiffs was not only unacceptable but embarrassing for me as minister. I have now personally spoken with each of the plaintiffs...”.

I have to remind members that the government came into office with this very firm commitment to always ensure it had proper consultation and engagement. This is the first piece of legislation it has tabled with respect to the indigenous affairs file, with absolutely minimal or almost no consultation.

National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Perry Bellegarde, called on the Liberals to withdraw the legislation, ask the superior court for an extension, and use the time to fix the bill and engage in proper consultation. National Chief Bellegarde stated his team had not had adequate time to undertake a full review of these amendments, and when asked whether or not the consultations had been adequate, he gave a firm answer. That answer of course was no.

The Assembly of First Nations, the AFN Women's Council, the Quebec Native Women's Association, the Canadian Bar Association, and the Indigenous Bar Association, among others, all identified deficiencies with the process and content of the bill.

The minister talked about some of the things my colleague Senator Patterson said. On November 17, he said:

...witnesses described the consultation as lacking. National Chief Perry Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations told us that First Nations impacted by the bill were not properly resourced or given enough time to adequately review the proposed amendments to the Indian Act. We were astonished to find out that the plaintiffs in Descheneaux—the case that forced the writing of this bill—and their counsel were not consulted...

He reiterated some of the same concerns.

With the early introduction, we all tried to move the bill forward. Then we quickly realized the government had utterly failed in doing the consultation it so often says is important, but it had not actually done. Then we had witnesses who showed us design after design. In spite of what the officials said, the bill was not going to fix the inequities we needed to deal with. Again, we had to add some amendments to deal with a number of other issues.

The Senate committee put the bill into abeyance. The minister had to ask for a court extension to do its additional duties, which was to consult. On December 13, the Senate committee sent a letter to the minister, urging her to act on the witnesses' concerns. The minister then withdrew the bill and sought an extension of the court, which was granted until July 3, 2017.

We know the Senate continued to have significant concerns and issues. We voted in the House in June on an amended bill. We sent it back to the Senate, because we knew the court deadline was in the summer. The Senate refused to deal with it, or they rose in the summer before it dealt with the legislation. Again, the minister had to go back to the court to ask for a new deadline. We might see a bit of a pattern here, with deadline after deadline being missed.

Finally, we are at a place where, hopefully, all sides in the House will support moving forward. The Senate has agreed to move forward. In spite of what should have been done a year ago, the people who should have had the process of their registrations started in response to this particular case have been sitting back.

In terms of Bill S-3, many community members have been very patient. On this side of the House, in the official opposition, we have stood up many times for first nations gender equity and rights. Looking at what we have in front of us, it kind of draws me back to the debate around matrimonial real property rights. That was a really important piece of legislation to protect women. Mr. Speaker, I know you were here at the time. You will recall who voted against protection for women on reserve with the matrimonial real property legislation. It was the Liberals.

We are going to be supporting this, but we need to remember the record of the Liberals when it has come to issues around gender equity and first nations. Who was the government that put forward legislation so human rights would apply on reserve? It was the Conservative government at the time. I am really quite proud of our record in terms of moving some of these issues forward in a positive way, and again note that we will be supporting this bill and hopefully finally dealing with this.

In conclusion, the minister has talked very optimistically about her communication and consultation process and reporting back to the House. I am very concerned about the process she is going to undertake and whether the Liberals will ever get to any resolution on this issue, and suspect that we might end up back in the courts again.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one of the questions that remain is the fact that even after the passage of Bill S-3, none of the lady warriors who litigated this issue for some 40 years would be accorded 6(1)(a) status. In fact, they wrote a letter to the minister who spoke before and the Minister of Justice, which states, “Our reading of the motion introduced by Senator Peter Harder in the Senate on November 8, 2017 is that we, and many other indigenous women who are similarly situated, will not be accorded 6(1)a) status when Bill S-3 passes.”

This is squarely equality delayed, and therefore equality denied. I would like my colleague to comment.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it really goes back to the minister indicating that the bill before us was going to deal with all these sex-based inequities, and we are hearing that for some of the people who have been particularly involved, the issue around the 1951 cut-off would mean they are not afforded that same recognition.

Again, we have people who have worked very hard on this issue for many years. The fact that we have received commitments that it has dealt with the sex-based inequities when it actually has not is certainly a problem.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, one of the earliest commitments the Prime Minister has made virtually since the last national election is to establish the nation-to-nation relationship. Part of that we have seen in terms of different types of funding announcements, a higher sense of co-operation, and willingness to see important issues such as the one we are debating today advance significantly. I enjoyed the questions put to the minister and compliment the minister, her department, those who were involved in making this legislation, and the Senate for the fine work they have done on this piece of legislation.

What would the Conservative opposition, the official opposition, like to ultimately see? Does it have very specific amendments it would like to propose at committee stage? My apologies if she has already made reference to that, but are there specific amendments she would like to see?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member should probably know that this is a response to the Senate, and we perceive that it is going to be moving, and at this point, we have a December 22 deadline.

What I would like to see is that when the government says that nothing is more important and it is committing to consultation, that it actually consults. If it has an example of a case like this, where it has legislation that it has to do in response to a court case, we think it would at least talk to the plaintiff before moving forward with introducing and tabling something in the House. The minimum should be that we would have that consultation process.

I would note that the words have been very nice. The right words are being said, however, in actual fact, when the rubber hits the road, when the government is required to do some consultation, it has been quite lacking.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

[Member spoke in Cree]

[Translation]

Mr. Speaker, first of all thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to this issue, which has been very important to me for many years.

I would like to begin by talking about the context in which we are debating changes to the Indian Act, to eliminate all forms of discrimination, especially against indigenous women who have been treated unfairly for many years under this act.

Earlier, I mentioned just how racist, sexist, colonialist, and outdated I think the Indian Act is. That is why I agree with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, who suggested earlier that we should simply get rid of the Indian Act for all these reasons.

I find it rather strange to rise today to speak to an act that we should get rid of. Why? To paraphrase the Prime Minister: because it's 2017. We should have gotten a lot further by now, especially when it comes to policies affecting the first peoples of this country.

In December 2015, after the current government was elected, I was in the room when the Prime Minister promised several things to Canada's chiefs. There were five major items in his speech. One of the promises he made in the 2015 speech to all indigenous leaders in Canada was that the government would review every piece of legislation passed unilaterally by previous governments and get rid of them. I was very pleased with this promise made to Canada's indigenous leaders because it is something I have been thinking about for a very long time.

When I heard the Prime Minister making this promise to all of Canada's chiefs, the first act that sprung to mind was the Indian Act. I believe that it is possible to replace the Indian Act with something else, especially in this era of reconciliation in Canada.

One of the other important promises that this government made to indigenous people was that it would adopt and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In my view, this is the most important promise. Why not accept this framework, which would allow us to move forward?

I will read Article 9 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right to belong to an indigenous community or nation, in accordance with the traditions and customs of the community or nation concerned. No discrimination of any kind may arise from the exercise of such a right.

This is the new framework that must guide our debates on these issues in the House.

I do want to mention that I was pleased to hear the Minister of Justice say last week that the current government would support Bill C-262, which has to do with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I am happy that the government is supporting this bill. This bill addresses the 43rd call to action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which calls upon federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments to fully adopt and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the framework for reconciliation.

We should let this framework that is the UN declaration guide all of our debates involving the rights of indigenous peoples, whether on the Indian Act or other agreements. This is what Bill C-262 proposes, and I am happy to hear that the government will support it. We will see how these issues are debated next Tuesday, during the first hour of debate on Bill C-262.

However, as I pointed out in my question to my colleague, even if the bill is passed, it will not include the three lady warriors who fought against the discrimination perpetuated under the Indian Act for nearly 40 years. I think this is cause for concern.

One part of this bill aims to eliminate all discrimination committed under the authority of the Indian Act. As an indigenous person, I would have a hard time rising in the House to support a bill that does not fully eliminate discrimination. I will never rise in support of a bill that continues to discriminate against this country's first peoples. It will not happen.

As the bill currently stands, there remains entrenched sex-based discrimination in the bill. Ideally, the government would respect the wishes of the parties to the case, as well as stakeholders, in keeping with the current international human rights standards, specifically articles 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9, which I have just read, and article 33 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

We want all gender discrimination to be eliminated from the bill before it is passed by the House of Commons. We also want the liability clause to be removed entirely. I will never take away the right of an individual to sue the government for past wrongs. I will never allow this place to pass legislation that eliminates that right. Therefore, I will be moving amendments to that effect shortly.

We must remain critical of a bill that does not entirely address all discrimination, and also critical of the slow pace of change and the failure by successive governments thus far to ensure that the laws of Canada are consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, since adhering to the declaration would provide a basis for Canada to address all systemic problems within the Indian Act. It is important to do so in this era of reconciliation.

I would like to address the insubstantial nature of what passed the Senate and is poised to be adopted by this chamber. I say this because the government is promising to do only what the courts have ordered. No one should be fooled by the rhetoric into thinking that this bill, as it stands, addresses paragraph 6(1)(a) registration rights for indigenous woman, who have been seeking that status for over 40 years of litigation, namely Jeannette Corbiere Lavell, Sharon McIvor and, most recently, Dr. Lynn Gehl. Beneath the rhetoric, the bill represents an insubstantial aspiration that leaves complete discretion to the government to extend 6(1)(a) to everyone because there is no mechanism for implementation or accountability. In fact, this bill leaves so much to be desired that Sharon McIvor and Dr. Pam Palmater are headed to Washington to make a submission to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to ask them to intervene regarding Bill S-3 to make sure this government addresses all gender discrimination.

Many indigenous women's groups have called attention to the provisions of proposed section 10. With this clause, the government is justifying past discrimination and past violations of human rights. If we truly believe in the rule of law in this place, then this cannot happen. With this clause the government is justifying past injustices, and this should not be tolerated.

The government would continue to discriminate with impunity until it chooses to address it or is forced to address it. In my view, this underscores the sense of colonial entitlement. It undermines the rule of law. The crown has a fiduciary responsibility to first nations. It owes fiduciary duties to the people. It cannot be given impunity for its conduct because that would essentially enable breaches of the law and breaches of potential fairness to many people. With this bill, we are giving it licence to do whatever it wants, without consequence.

I want to quote Lynn Gehl, who says:

Not addressing the 1951 cutoff because the court said that the issue was one of matrilineal lineage versus sex discrimination was wrong.

....I’m of the position that the hierarchy created in 1985 between Indian men and their descendants as they are registered as a 6(1)(a) and Indian women who are only registered as a 6(1)(c) must be abolished if you want to eliminate the sex discrimination and end this process of amending the Indian Act.

In their letter that I referenced earlier, Sharon McIvor, Jeannette Corbiere Lavell, and Lynn Gehl wrote to the ministers and said:

We are writing to request confirmation that when Bill S-3 passes in the House of Commons there will be no change to the current category of Indian status accorded to Sharon McIvor (6 (1)(c)), and Jeannette Corbiere-Lavell (6(1)(c)), and Dr. Lynn Gehl (6(2))....

They continued:

None of us is affected by the 1951 cut-off introduced by Bill C-3 in 2010. Our reading of the motion introduced by Senator Peter Harder in the Senate on November 8, 2017 is that we, and the many Indigenous women who are similarly situated, will not be accorded 6(1)(a) status when Bill S-3 passes.

Again, this is equality delayed and the consequence is equality denied.

I too share the concern about the consultation process. It seems that the government only consults when it is convenient. Yes, I agree with the minister that there is a constitutional obligation to consult indigenous peoples when their rights and interests are affected, but it has to be applied throughout. I do not recall if the indigenous nations affected by the Site C dam, for instance, were ever consulted. In fact, it was to the contrary. They were being intimidated by BC Hydro with lawsuits. That constitutional obligation to consult has to be applied throughout.

In the case of the bill before us, I reiterate that it falls short of settling everything. The bill continues to discriminate. The Indian Act, in fact, is archaic and we need to get rid of it. The no-liability clause, as I mentioned, is a major problem. If we recall, last June I proposed amendments to that effect, which were rejected. If the amendments introduced back in June had been accepted, we would not be here today. We would not be debating this issue anymore. Unfortunately, they were rejected.

Since my time is quickly running out, I will close by saying that it is essential that the House consider the suggestion I just made of getting rid of the Indian Act altogether and giving first nations, Inuit, and Métis the right to decide whether or not to recognize their own members.

I think that is one of the fundamental rights that we successfully negotiated in the United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. It is up to indigenous communities to decide who their members are, something that the Indian Act still does not allow them to do.

I am therefore proposing amendments so that the motion would now read as follows:

That a Message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that, in relation to Bill S-3, An Act to Amend the Indian Act (elimination of sex-based inequities in registration), the House:

1. agrees with amendments 1 to 6, 8 and 9(a) made by the Senate;

2. proposes that amendment 7 be amended by replacing the words “Replace line 3 with the following: 'ly before the day on which this section comes into'” with “Delete clause 10”;

3. proposes that clause 11 of Bill S-3 be amended by adding the following on page 9 after line 33:

“(3) The consultations must be completed within 18 months of the day on which this Act receives Royal Assent.”

4. proposes that amendment 9(b) be amended by replacing “on a day to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council, but that day must be after the day fixed under subsection (1)” with the words “18 months after the date that the order in subsection (1) is made”.

Those are the amendments that I am proposing, and I hope that the House will accept them this time.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Page 791 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice states that:

The motion must relate exclusively to the Senate amendments, and not to other provisions of the bill that are not contemplated by the amendments.

The hon. member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou proposed deleting clause 10 while the Senate is simply proposing a technical amendment.

He also proposed deleting clause 11 while that clause is not contemplated by the Senate amendments.

I regret to inform the hon. member that this amendment is out of order as it exceeds the scope of the Senate amendments that are before the House.

The House resumed consideration of amendments made by the Senate to Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Indian Act (elimination of sex-based inequities in registration).

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Before resuming questions and comments, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, Public Services and Procurement; the hon. member for Vancouver East, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship; the hon. member for Lethbridge, Taxation.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of comments I would like to make and a question. First of all, the member opposite talked about repealing the Indian Act, and it is probably the desire of all of us, at least on this side of the House, to repeal the act, but we also know that we have a fiduciary responsibility and that, in the absence of other legislation, it is not responsible for government to proceed in that way at this time.

However, we are creating a way and a mechanism to get there. That is the broader agenda of what government is engaged in and what the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs has spoken to. In the meantime, we also have a responsibility to honour the rulings of the court. The rulings of the court indicate that we eliminate all sex-based discrimination against women within the Indian Act. That is exactly what we are doing.

In fact, it has been with the tremendous support of the Senate that we are able to get to where we are today. I would like to ask the member a question, because Senator Sinclair has said:

I would like to add my support for this motion and indicate that I intend to vote for it.... The amendments before us, to my relief, leave no legal distinction between indigenous men and women. It brings the act, therefore, into compliance with the Charter.

The member opposite also knows that we have gone beyond the 1951 cut-off amendment in Bill S-3. In fact, we have made amendments in the bill that would include circumstances prior to 1951 and remedy sex-based inequities back to 1869. I ask why the member opposite will not support these amendments in Bill S-3.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague opposite for her important question. I would like to start by responding to her comments.

It is true that we cannot, in 2017, continue to live under the Indian Act. The idea of getting rid of the Indian Act did not come out of the blue. Since 1984, the Indian Act has not applied to the James Bay Cree or to the Naskapi, in northern Quebec. The Cree and the Naskapi negotiated a new law that has been in force since 1984, specifically to get out from under the Indian Act.

The member says rulings of the court must be honoured. That is fine, but so must the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's rulings on indigenous children. Let us not forget that there is a ruling requiring the government to settle the matter, not to mention three other court orders, and maybe a fourth on the way. The member should make sure she remains consistent with what she is saying.

I do agree that it is important to honour court rulings. However, our Constitution establishes the rule of law, which requires us to abide by our Constitution. This means we must also abide by section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, which relates to aboriginal and treaty rights. In my view, the Indian Act does not respect the fundamental rights of this country's first peoples.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, with whom I work on committee quite regularly. He has also been in this place for a long time.

This is a bit of a process question. As I indicated in my remarks, we started this over a year ago. It has been back and forth with the Senate. We certainly tried, in good faith, to move it along for two prior court deadlines.

Has the member ever seen a piece of legislation come before him where the process was so flawed and with so many challenges within the legislation that, in actual fact, it had to go right back to the starting block?

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague asks a very good question.

The short answer is no. However, I know it is always difficult to address such matters here in the House. I have been here for just over six years, and I have never seen a process as flawed as this one, to borrow my colleague's words. I agree with her completely.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with respect and acknowledgement to my colleague and his leadership on this issue, I want to take us back to a year ago.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women was very specific in its criticism of the government. This is a document dated November 18, 2016, from UN CEDAW. It notes that:

the Committee remains concerned about continued discrimination against indigenous women, in particular regarding the transmission of Indian status, preventing them and their descendants from enjoying all the benefits related to such status.

The committee recommends that [Canada] remove all remaining discriminatory provisions of the Indian Act that affect indigenous women and their descendants, and ensure that indigenous women enjoy the same rights as men to transmit their status to their children and grandchildren.

On June 21, national indigenous day, my colleague moved amendments, and we watched the Liberal government members voting those provisions down, without even seeming to understand that they were in fact voting against full gender equality for indigenous women.

Now here we are again today with the litigants, the three women, Sharon McIvor, Jeannette Corbiere-Lavell, and Lynn Gehl. Some of these women have been fighting this for four decades. They do not support this amendment and this legislation that the government has put before us today.

In what way can this incremental gender equality be accepted for indigenous women, when it is so out of step with the commitments of the government?

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith for her question.

It is a good thing that she reminded us about the decisions by some UN bodies on this issue. I myself worked on these issues at the international level for more than 23 years. Every time such a body issues a report addressing human rights issues, I believe it is important to keep it in mind as we develop legislation in the House. We often forget that we are signatories to a number of international human rights conventions.

I believe that these conventions should guide our legislative process. Under the Constitution, it is assumed that legislation introduced and passed in the House of Commons complies with international law, especially on matters of human rights. I believe that we too often forget this aspect of the question.

I hope that from now on, given that the government seems willing to adopt and implement the United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, this will serve as our framework for all future bills and policies. I believe this to be essential. In this era of reconciliation, we do not have a choice; it is the path we must follow from now on.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill S-3 today, and I will be splitting my time with the member of Parliament for Scarborough—Rouge Park.

The minister, in her address earlier today, gave a tremendous overview of the changes and critical components that make up the amendments in Bill S-3. As members know, since last fall, the government has been working to make these amendments based on the superior court decision of Quebec in the case of Descheneaux and in the last number of months we have worked with the Senate to clarify certain components of the bill and to ensure there were no charter violations and that we could, in fact, go beyond what was being recommended to ensure that we were doing everything we could possibly do at this stage to end any clauses with sex-based inequities within the bill.

Today, I want to thank all of those who did this work in the Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, senators, witnesses, and many others who appeared before the committee. We also appreciate the support and co-operation they gave government to make what we believe are some really significant improvements that we are happy to propose in this bill.

A number of previously unknown groups that were impacted by sex-based inequities were added to the bill and the government has worked with senators to address the issue of unstated paternity by enshrining additional procedural protections in law through Bill S-3. The bill was also amended to require the government to report back to Parliament on a number of occasions and in a number of ways to update parliamentarians and all Canadians on its progress toward broader Indian Act registration and membership reform. All of the amendments were welcomed and supported by the government.

The Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples also added an amendment to Bill S-3, with the intent of implementing what was known as the 6(1)(a) clause or 6(1)(a) all-the-way approach. Basically, the intent of this amendment was to provide entitlement to 6(1)(a) Indian status to all of those who had lost their status back to 1869 and all of their descendants born prior to 1985. This amendment was passed and referred to the House of Commons.

We are amending the bill that has been passed by the Senate in three particular ways: first, we are changing the title of the bill; second, we removed 6(1)(a) all-the-way amendment; and third, a reference to UNDRIP was added to the bill review clause. As members know, UNDRIP was signed onto by this government and members can expect much more detail around our commitment to and implementation of UNDRIP to come in the weeks to follow.

It has been a long process to get here. I know that many have said that we should just repeal the Indian Act. I can guarantee that is a sentiment that has been shared by the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs and our government for a long time. However, we know that our responsibility is really to ensure there is legislation in place in Canada that responds to the needs of indigenous people. Our goal at the end of the day is to ensure that is in place.

In the meantime, we have made significant changes and amendments to this bill. In fact, through this bill, we are ensuring that we will provide status to all women who have lost their status through sex-based discrimination, as well as their descendants born prior to 1985 or after 1985 if their parents married each other prior to that date. This includes circumstances prior to 1951 and, in fact, remedies sex-based inequities going back to 1869.

Should the House of Commons pass the version of Bill S-3 that the Senate passed on November 9, the bill, with the exception of the 1951 cut-off amendment, would be brought into force immediately after receiving royal assent. This is something that has been welcomed by indigenous governments across Canada.

At that time, the second generation cut-off rule would be eliminated for women who lost their status as a result of gender-based inequities and had children between 1951 and 1985, as well as for their descendants who were born during that same period. The additional amendment regarding the 1951 cut-off, which was proposed by the government and is included in the current version of Bill S-3, would be brought into force after further consultations and the co-development of a comprehensive implementation plan to address the impacts of removing the 1951 cut-off.

That seems to be the obstacle that my colleague who spoke previously is having some trouble with. However, this is a responsible and prudent way of proceeding, that the government implement this amendment in a way that would eliminate or mitigate any unintended negativity or consequences for communities and individuals. We have been hearing this from many people, and we know all agree that this needs to be done, but we have to be responsible about how it gets done. We have to ensure that those who are to care for and absorb those extra constituencies within their nations have the ability to provide the services and the care in an appropriate way.

The version of the bill that is before the House today would remedy all residual Indian Act registration inequities flowing from sex-based discrimination. I think that is the important factor. Just as the Senate has supported this motion and has outlined its support in many speeches and comments within the Senate, we do the same on this side of the House within the Government of Canada, because we know it is the right thing to do. It is time for us to really make the drastic changes that indigenous Canada has been asking for and wanting for a very long time. This is just the beginning. There is a lot more work to do, and we can assure members that the government is ready to do that.

We ask that all members support the bill before the House today.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to the same issue that I had asked the minister about, the consultation process and coming to an agreement, because the framework of the UN declaration is embedded in this piece of proposed legislation. I expect there are going to be significant variances of opinions across this country in terms of what to do and how to do it. How is the government going to bring this to a conclusion, respecting both the UN declaration, as it committed to in the legislation, and its commitment to actually come up with something that is going to move it forward?

I think the government has a big challenge ahead, and I would like to know how it will address those two particular issues.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any doubt whatsoever of the sincerity of this government to act upon the inequities and discriminatory factors that exist within the legislation. I also do not think that there is any doubt about this government's consultation practices. We have probably consulted more with people in this country than any other government before us on all decisions that we take. We feel that is a prudent and active way of implementing new legislation, but also to be inclusive and to listen to what others have to say.

This is what Senator Sinclair said in debate, and I want to point this out to the member, because I think it is very important:

I want to point out that this bill attempts to reconcile two different constitutional obligations that the government has: One is, of course, to comply with the Charter when it comes to gender discrimination; the other is to comply with its constitutional obligation to consult with indigenous people...So while it is with reluctance that I see us delaying the implementation of a Charter right, I can also see the need to do so because of that competing constitutional obligation to consult. And so I am prepared to support this legislation because it enshrines the right.

Need I say more?

Canada knows that this is a government that has a practice of consultation. Our decisions are grounded on the views and perspectives of Canadians, and we intend to continue on that path.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the Liberal government is taking such an important and fundamental issue so lightly. It has done what my mother would call a real shoddy job.

I will now quote someone who knows a thing or two about this, Perry Bellegarde, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, who said: “I will say, however, that intended efforts to fix the Indian Act are basically doomed to fail. The essence of the Indian Act is a colonial mindset that can only be tossed aside. It is time to embrace and implement the minimum standards of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples because each First Nation is entitled to discuss with the Crown their vision of transition to move beyond the Indian Act.”

Instead of using some kind of patchwork or band-aid solution, should the Liberal government not meet our international obligations and create a statute based on human rights, rather than a completely outdated and antiquated concept like race?

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, Bill S-3 is sexist, and the Indian Act is sexist and racist. It is a colonialist piece of legislation. We will be the first to admit that. At some point it has to be repealed and replaced.

The Assembly of First Nations has said that it supports passing the current amended version of Bill S-3, which is the bill we are debating today.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill S-3, an act to amend the Indian Act.

This Senate bill is in response to the superior court of Quebec's decision in Descheneaux v. Canada and has undergone several iterations. I am pleased to support this set of amendments, which will effectively eliminate sex discrimination under the Indian Act.

I want to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered here on the traditional unceded lands of the Algonquin peoples.

It is hard to believe that we are having this debate today, in 2017, on sex equality. It is even more disturbing that those making the decision on such a fundamental issue of Indian status for first nations peoples are not members of any first nations communities themselves but are primarily from settler communities. The irony is not lost on me. What is equally absurd is that it has been primarily men making these decisions. Our Indian Act, unfortunately, makes this absurd debate necessary.

The renewed relationship our government seeks to establish with first nations communities on a nation-to-nation basis will untangle first nations peoples from the shackles of colonialism and the Indian Act and will set our country towards a path of true reconciliation.

The Indian Act is deeply rooted in racism and has for generations resulted in uneven and racialized outcomes for our first nations peoples. The Indian Act essentially controls the lives of our first nations peoples. It defines who is and who is not an Indian, where they live, whom they should live with, and so on. It separates first nations peoples from the rest of Canada, physically, through reserves, but also in virtually every aspect of life.

The numbers speak for themselves. I am just going to give some examples. In 2011, 26.2% of first nations people on reserve lived in overcrowded housing, compared to 4% of non-aboriginal people. In education, 39.8% of first nations people do not have high school or a post-secondary degree. Only 12.1% of non-indigenous people do not have a high school diploma or a post-secondary degree. We could go on with life expectancy, suicide, and income.

On virtually every measure available to assess social well-being, Canada's first nations people rank lower in comparison to their settler counterparts. None of the constraints of the Indian Act, however, have been more scrutinized and more painful than the definition of who is and who is not an Indian.

Notably, this Indian Act discriminates against women in a systemic and structural way, leading to inequities in membership and having an effect on their daily lives. Discrimination based on sex has affected the children, grandchildren, and their generations of kin by excluding them under the Indian Act. The amendments to Bill S-3 we are debating today aim to correct that trajectory and ensure that sex discrimination is eliminated from the Indian Act once and for all.

I want to walk members through the history. The issue of sex discrimination has been dealt with by Parliament on several occasions. However, in each round, the amendments made in the House did not go far enough to ensure that sex discrimination was eliminated altogether.

The amendments initially considered under Bill S-3 were in response to a superior court of Quebec decision in Descheneaux v. Canada, rendered in 2015. The Quebec court deemed the provisions of the Indian Act to be in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as it treated grandchildren descended from a status Indian man and a status Indian women differently by providing status to the former and denying it to the latter.

Madam Justice Chantal Masse cautioned the government to ensure that any legislation that stemmed from the decision ought to have an expansive view of the issue of sex-based discrimination under the Indian Act. I would like to quote paragraph 239 of her decision:

When Parliament chooses not to consider the broader implications of judicial decisions by limiting their scope to the bare minimum, a certain abdication of legislative power in favour of the judiciary will likely take place. In such cases, it appears that the holders of legislative power prefer to wait for the courts to rule on a case-by-case basis before acting, and for their judgments to gradually force statutory amendments to finally bring them in line with the Constitution.

After considerable back and forth with the other place, we are here today to eliminate sex-based discrimination in the Indian Act altogether.

During debate this summer, we heard from many witnesses, including women whose lifetime of work advanced the issue of gender equality in the Indian Act. It was a very painful experience for most of them. We also heard from many bands and communities that they alone have the right to define the citizenship of their people. I believe that both seemingly divergent views are not incompatible. Ultimately, first nations people should have the say as to who their citizens are, but in a manner that does not discriminate against one particular gender.

I want to take a couple of minutes to outline previous attempts to remove sex-based discrimination from the Indian Act. The sex-based inequities in the law we are grappling with today have their roots in the patrilineal transfer of Indian status that existed in the Indian Act prior to 1985, and the subsequent imperfect attempts to end discrimination in the act.

With the introduction of the Constitution Act, 1982, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, explicit discrimination in the Indian Act finally had to be changed to comply with section 15 charter rights.

Bill C-31 was introduced to make the Indian Act charter compliant. It unfortunately did not go far enough. In fact, it is Bill C-31, including the introduction of the second generation cut-off and the subsection 6(1) and 6(2) categories of Indian status that inevitably opened new sex-based inequities and the inability of individuals to pass on status to their children and grandchildren. The residual sex-based inequities that remained in the act resulted in a rise in registration-related legal challenges.

One such challenge was launched by Sharon McIvor. Dr. McIvor's case centred on her ability to transfer status to her children. Since Dr. McIvor married a non-Indian, she was only able to transfer section 6(2) status to her son, Mr. Grismer. As Mr. Grismer also married a non-Indian, he was not able to transfer status to his children. However, had Sharon McIvor had a brother who was also married to a non-Indian, prior to 1985 their child would have been entitled to status under 6(1). Because of this discrimination, the B.C. Court of Appeal struck down paragraphs 6(1)(a) and 6(1)(c) of the Indian Act and gave Parliament one year to respond.

Bill C-3 was introduced by the previous Conservative government in response to the McIvor decision. However, the government decided that it would interpret the decision as narrowly as possible and that it would not address other obvious examples of sex-based discrimination in the act.

At the time, Marc Lemay, a former Bloc MP, rightly pointed out, “As we speak, a dozen or so of these complaints are before the courts in various jurisdictions across Canada, including one or two similar cases currently before Quebec courts.” I have no doubt that the cases in Quebec he was referring to were those of Stéphane Descheneaux and Susan and Tammy Yantha.

It only took six years for us to arrive back here again to pass amendments to the Indian Act to address discrimination, which should never have existed, with Bill S-3. Like Bill C-3, Bill S-3 did not initially take an expansive approach to addressing discrimination in the Indian Act. Initially, Bill S-3 addressed only the cases ruled by the Superior Court of Québec: the cousins and siblings issue and the issue of omitted minors.

I can continue to give more examples of where we have failed, but it is very clear that today, as we stand, we have the right balance to ensure that we eliminate sex-based discrimination from the Indian Act once and for all.

There would be a process of consultation that would ensure that people, particularly women, would not have to go to court to assert their rights. It is embedded in the legislation today. The bill would ensure that any discrimination based on sex, dating back to 1869, would be addressed once and for all. This is an important amendment we need to make to the Indian Act.

As my colleagues have previously said, as we walk toward elimination of the Indian Act, this is a necessary evil that will ensure that we do not continue to discriminate on the basis of sex.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it was a little over a year ago, I believe, when my colleague asked us to pre-study Bill S-3 so we could move it forward to make the Supreme Court of Canada deadline, which as we now know, has had to be extended numerous times since.

Mr. Descheneaux came before us at committee and stated that he had no contact with the government. He was the plaintiff in the case, and he had had no contact with the government before it tabled the bill. He was the successful litigant who had brought the case forward.

Can my colleague explain to Mr. Descheneaux why there was such a gap in the process? In spite of the government's commitment to ongoing consultation, it brought forward legislation when it had not even consulted the successful plaintiff.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we would not have even had to deal with Descheneaux had the previous government ensured that the McIvor decision was implemented in an expansive way. The decision in Descheneaux said that we needed to look at an expansive way of defining membership.

Yes, it has taken some time. It has gone back and forth to our learned colleagues in the Senate through a number of iterations. I think we are in the right place right now to pass this and to ensure that no other person has to go through the painful process of litigation to assert their rights because of discrimination based on sex.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I did earlier, I want to highlight that it is unfortunate that the Liberal government is trying to patch up the problem rather than taking a more global approach to the issue.

I would like to quote the current Minister of Justice, who was the regional chief of the BC Assembly of First Nations. In 2010, she said this to the House of Commons standing committee:

What this bill does not do is address other Indian Act gender inequities that go beyond the specific circumstances of Sharon McIvor and Sharon McIvor's grandchildren.

The Liberals criticized the previous government for only addressing a specific case, but they are doing the same thing today.

Is it a habit to say one thing when in opposition and to do the opposite when in government?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is fair to say that there is a comprehensive plan in place by our government to ensure that we reach the point of true reconciliation with our indigenous people. That includes having two very capable ministers whose mandates will ensure that we develop long-term nation-to-nation relationships while addressing the short-term needs and concerns of our indigenous communities. It is a program that is backed by a significant amount of investment.

There is absolutely no question that we have a long way to go. However, with all the efforts made by our government, including our commitment to UNDRIP, I think we are well on that path. This is an issue we can move forward with in a non-partisan way. It is unnecessary to keep going back to the previous divisions among our parties. It is important that we move forward as one to ensure that true reconciliation takes place in Canada.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, listening to the debate reminds me of when Bill C-51 was being passed by the previous government. It was a bill with flawed security legislation, tied into a bundle of legislation, that would take away some rights from Canadians. The NDP and Green parties felt that we should get rid of the legislation altogether, versus determining how we could surgically fix the legislation.

I wonder if the member for Scarborough—Rouge Park could comment on the parallel situation we face here, where throwing out the legislation is not the right answer, but surgically fixing it is.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is deeply flawed legislation. The Indian Act should not exist in our books. It has hurt so many generations of people, and it demonstrates a horrible human rights record for our country. I concur with my other colleagues that the Indian Act needs to go.

In the interim, it is impossible to repeal it without having the proper mechanisms in place to ensure our legal obligations, our international obligations, and our need to implement UNDRIP are met. That will take some time. Until then, the surgical insertion of these amendments is necessary, but we definitely are going toward a path where we need to eliminate the act altogether.

The House resumed from November 29 consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Indian Act (elimination of sex-based inequities in registration).

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to continue debate on a bill from the Senate, Bill S-3, an act to amend the Indian Act with the elimination of sex-based inequities in registration.

Prior to doing so, I would like to translate for those watching at home on CPAC what happened just prior to this debate, in which the House was engaged in a three-hour conversation about the problems facing immigrants to Canada, and the consultants that sometimes prey on them. It was debate on a report that came out of our committee in which there was unanimous support for the recommendations. At the end of that three-hour debate, we watched the Liberals express their opposition to a unanimously accepted report proposing a crackdown on bad immigration consultants, and then force a vote later next week to vote against it. Does anyone watching actually understand the Liberal motivation behind that particular manoeuvre? I am sure that many of my Liberal colleagues cannot explain it, but maybe somebody else out there can.

Returning to the bill, because this has been some time in coming, I want to first acknowledge the incredible and heroic work of my colleague from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. I do not use the word “heroic” often or lightly. However my colleague, for much of his life, being a first nations person by his very birthright but more so by his decision and inclination, has tirelessly fought for the rights of indigenous peoples in this country, in Quebec, at the United Nations, and around the world. He is one of the leading voices in this country speaking about the rights, the responsibilities of the government, the tragedy, the multitude of errors, and the racist legislation and policies that have emanated from this exact place, this room, for generations against the first peoples of this country.

My colleague has been determined. He has been incredibly articulate, and it is his opinion, along with those of the people who first brought this case, upon which I will rely this afternoon, in terms of my concerns for this bill, Bill S-3.

Not only my colleague from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou is opposed to this legislation. So are the proponents, the lady warriors who litigated this case for four decades, who remain opposed to this legislation. Their letter to the Minister of Justice states that:

Our reading of the motion introduced by Senator Peter Harder in the Senate on November 8, 2017 is that we, and the many Indigenous women who are similarly situated, will not be accorded 6(1)(a) status when Bill S-3 passes.

I will get into what “accorded 6(1)(a) status” means, but suffice it to say that the intention of this bill to remedy a racist and sexist policy of the federal Government of Canada will not be carried out in full by the passage of this legislation. Nor has the consultation, which was promised by this government in arriving here today, been done. The minister herself admitted embarrassment and shame at the lack of consultation that she and her government promised and failed to do.

We can understand why it would be difficult for first nations peoples, having had many experiences of their hopes being raised and false promises being made, to return back to the same old saga again, where the federal government in Ottawa says it will get things right and talk to them to make sure they are right, and the next thing the government does is nothing. The government did not talk to the first nations, include them, or bring in their wisdom. Rather, at the eleventh hour in this case, the government brought forward a piece of legislation and admitted it did not consult anybody, admitted it was bad, but said we are out of time and we need to pass the bill now, and it will do the trick.

It is not going to fix the problem, in whole. That is according to the people who first litigated the case. I trust them more than anybody else.

Let us start with first principles, the Indian Act, a colonial, racist piece of legislation that was created at the founding of this country, which the Prime Minister himself admits is colonial, racist, and sexist in design. That is what we are amending here today.

We are amending a racist piece of legislation, a sexist piece of legislation, a colonial piece of legislation to make it slightly better, not entirely better, not even better for all of the women and their descendants who are affected by its sexism, but just for some of them and only going back to 1951. People who were affected prior to 1951 and their descendants are not touched by Bill S-3 at all. They will not be deemed into new status. They will not be deemed to be aboriginal, when they are.

Only a federal government that says it believes in nation-to-nation dialogue, only a federal government that says that self-determination is important but then when it comes down to the question of who one is, what identity one is, remains in control of that decision and says that Ottawa knows best, that it will decide who are and who are not first nations, which is a continuation here in this bill.

Let us walk back, because it is important how we arrived here. It was not some great government benevolence that said this terrible piece of legislation discriminates against first nations women, which it did and does. Let us find out how.

There are two classifications for status. Through the course of this discussion I am loath to use the word, but the word is applied in law, and this is the word we have to use, because we are talking about the Indian Act. Indian status is described in the “Indian” Act. This name and this word was applied by Europeans to the first peoples here because they thought they were in India, because they thought that when they left Europe and arrived on our shores, they were in India. They were looking for the secret passage to India to enable the spice trade and other things that Europeans at the time were interested in, 350 to 400 years ago.

In 2017, we still use the term in our legislation to describe the first nations people of this country as Indians. Imagine how offensive this is to first nations people listening to this debate, the first nations people who continue to live under the Indian Act in the prescription of basic government services that the rest of the country enjoys without the racist terminology being applied.

Imagine if non-first nations Canadians had legislation using racist terminology to describe them, like immigrants from my home country of Ireland and all the racist epithets that were used against my people for years. If that were written into law and I went to apply for medical or dental or education benefits, I would have to apply under a terminology of law that was inherently racist against my people. We continue with this public secret. We continue to walk with this and say that we have evolved and acts like this will make it better.

When we ask the government if it wants to do nation-to-nation relationships, if it wants to do reconciliation, that when it listens to the current chief of the Assembly of First Nations say time and time again that the Indian Act is a colonial, race-based piece of legislation that we must end, that we need an exit strategy, as he calls it, the government replies by saying “there go the first nations leaders and the NDP again saying to get rid of the legislation”. Of course we should get rid of the legislation.

Who else would survive under this legislation happily? What other ethnic group, particularly a group that was here first, since time immemorial, would happily live under legislation that was inherently racist in its design, in its application, and in its use? Would Polish Canadians happily suffer under that? Would Canadians from Caribbean communities happily suffer under racist legislation in name and application?

Under the Indian Act, section 6(1) determines that if both parents are of first nations status, the child will be first nations. Section 6(2) says that if one person has status and has a child by another person who is not first nations, that child will only continue to be first nations if the male parent was first nations, but if it was a first nations woman who had a child with a non-first nations man, that child is no longer first nations. That is what we are attempting to address today.

This was true up until the 1970s and 1980s. Children of first nation parentage were denied their status under the law because their mom had the audacity to choose who would be her partner. A woman in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s had to make a decision. If she fell in love with someone who happened to be non-native and had children with that person, her children could never be first nation. They could not be a member of their local first nation in voting. They could not be a member of their local first nation in celebration. They could not be a member of their local first nation in terms of government programs that were applied to them and their parents. This is sexism, if one's progeny are determined by whether one is a woman or a man. It is discriminatory.

However, it was not the government that decided to make a change, but the courts. In this case, the Quebec Superior Court said to the Government of Canada in 2015, all those many years ago, this is discriminatory. This is against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of Canada where we cannot discriminate against someone based on their sex. It took until 2015 for this to be resolved in court. However, it was not resolved. All the court can do is say that this part of the law is wrong, that it infringes on the rights of Canadians, and that it must be struck down and replaced with something, which happened in August 2015.

What did the then federal government do under former Prime Minister Harper? He appealed and said that he disagreed with the court's findings. He disagreed with the idea that we cannot make a determination about someone in this country based on their sex, disagreed that it is unconstitutional, and said he would appeal it. We were going to spend more taxpayer money, and hundreds of millions have been spent over the years fighting aboriginal rights and title in court, to fight for the principle, according to the former government, that the children of first nation people should be first nation or not depending on the sex of the parent.

The Quebec court said that we must change the law, Canada appealed under the former government, and then a new government came in and dropped the appeal. The courts do not care which party is running the Government of Canada, and it uses the term “crown”. These terms come back from our past. We are a colonial offshoot. The court said that the crown must remedy this and had 18 months to do so. It seems reasonable to me to have 18 months to consult with people, and if changes would be made to the Indian Act, they could be made in the most fulsome and proper way possible. It may be a good idea, in those 18 months, if the government of the day consulted with the women who first brought forward the case 40 years ago and who are still active.

However, 17 months later, with a month to go, the government pops up with Bill S-3. Amazingly, as the Liberals brought forward this legislation, they were challenged on it, because any fixes to this act are important, particularly to the people who might be affected. When the minister in charge of this was first commenting on it, this is what she said:

The Government is also exploring various opportunities and approaches for engagement with First Nations and other Indigenous groups on necessary legislative changes, and more information on this will be forthcoming

That sounds good: we are going to consult. However, a year later at committee she is asked how the consultations went. Here is what she said:

My department's failure to directly engage with the plaintiffs was not only unacceptable but embarrassing for me as minister.

There was a promise that they were going to consult to fix this, but a year later, the Liberals are embarrassed and call it unacceptable. To my mind, “unacceptable” means that one does not accept something. However, clearly it is acceptable, because here is the legislation.

Imagine the personal sacrifice of the plaintiffs, the women who fought for this over four decades. For 40 years, without money and political support, they fought for a principle, for the right not to be treated unfairly under a racist piece of legislation. The government did not bother to talk to the women who were involved, but those women have come forward and said, as I noted at the start of my speech with, that Bill S-3 did not remedy the problem they had first fought for in court.

What is going to happen with this legislation? I suspect that the Liberals will vote for it. It will get challenged and go back to court. It will start at the lower court, work its way up, probably to the Quebec Superior Court or the Supreme Court, with the government of the day spending more taxpayer dollars challenging its version of events, that this change should only go back to 1951, that that is good enough and we should accept it. We are going to repeat the errors of history.

I recall the apology to first nations in this place on behalf of the Government of Canada by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It is important to remember that with any of the apologies, even the one recently to the LGBTQ community, it is not the Prime Minister himself who is making the apology; it is the Government of Canada. It is the Parliament of Canada expressing regret and begging forgiveness in some cases for the mistakes made by previous governments, whatever their political stripe. It really does not matter who was in charge at the time.

The apology for the residential school travesty was warmly accepted by first nations people in the riding I represent in northwestern British Columbia. Despite years of oppression and oppressive legislation, there was an opening of the hearts of the people whom I represent, to say that in the face of all the harm done to them over the many years, they understood that the government now recognized that it was wrong, and they accepted our apology. I thought that was true until the government at the time that had made the apology cancelled the Aboriginal Healing Foundation two months later, which had been established to help the survivors of residential schools deal with the trauma of residential schools. What does an apology mean if one's next act is to continue the same thing one was apologizing for?

I was recently in a remarkable community in my riding, a place called Bella Coola. The Heiltsuk people have lived in Bella Coola forever. It is an incredible valley. It has glaciers and mountains and a massive river that is causing all sorts of concerns given climate change. The Heiltsuk had been living there and growing an incredible culture. On the way to the local school with the local chief councillor and another councillor, there was this beautiful plaque with a great first nation symbol on the front and beside it, many names. The names are of all the residential school survivors from that community, all of the children who were taken from their parents over decades. Their names are enshrined in the wall to remind the children who were not taken from their parents of what happened before.

The chief councillor went to the wall, pointed to his own name, and said he was taken when he was five. He pointed to the name right above his and said it was his mother's name, who was taken when she was six. He said he only found out that she had even been to a residential school when this plaque was unveiled. I asked what he meant, and he said she never talked about it and the community never talked about it. The shame was so incredibly great that only during the ceremony honouring the victims did he find out that his mom had been through the same horror he had been through. I asked when he had told his kids that, and he said it was when he was 53, when he was right enough to be able to talk to them. It is hard to understand of impact of it, as a father, of having my kids taken by another culture and government and then beaten, raped, and oppressed. The emotions are powerful.

When we look at opportunities like this to do away with the continued practice of racists and oppressive legislation, the bare minimum of decency requires that we talk to the people who have been oppressed. The bare minimum of intelligence is to use the wisdom and understanding of those most affected. Bill S-3 does not do that. The government chose not to do that. It admits embarrassment and shame now, but it is not good enough. If it is going to do something and wants to rebuild a relationship, then it should do it. It should do it with integrity and not keep issuing apologies and continuing to do things that it will have to apologize for again in the future. First nations deserve better. This country deserves better.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his contribution to this debate. I know that he, like many of us in this House, wishes that we were standing here today to repeal the Indian Act, and not just amending it. We all know the flawed legislation that this country has had for dealing with its indigenous people over many years.

One of the challenges for a government is that just repealing this act in the absence of other legislation would be very difficult. I know the member likes to talk about this being an issue of great government benevolence, but realistically court case after court case in this country occurred without the government acting, with the entire legislation being ignored.

What we are doing is correcting sex-based inequities with this legislation. We would ask the members to support the work of our government, to work with us on this difficult road that we are on to ensure that all rights of indigenous people are taken into consideration.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, to be clear, any insinuation that the New Democrats are not willing, with full heart and mind, to work with the government to correct the terrible atrocities that have been committed in the past is incorrect.

What my colleague just said is not true. This legislation seeks to set a limit on correcting the sex-based discrimination of 1951. She shakes her head no, but it is true. The women who advocated for this case, the warrior ladies, have said that if it is passed in its current form, it will not apply to them. It will not apply to their circumstances. That should give the government some pause.

Is the government going to suggest to us that it knows better than the women who have been fighting this case for 40 years, that Ottawa knows best rather than the women who have experienced and had to live with this racist legislation? Now, ministers of the crown are going to sit here and say they are wrong. Government did not consult with them, which the minister admitted, to her embarrassment. The government did not consult and it should have. She is embarrassed. Government did not consult. It wrote the legislation. It got it wrong, and the women are pointing it out.

For anyone to sit on that side of the House and say these women are wrong, I would dearly invite them to a conversation with these brave ladies who have fought so hard for basic, fundamental justice.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have addressed this topic before.

I talked about an old car that is well worn out but that needs a wheel bearing. Should the new wheel bearing be put in a really old car, or should one just go to town and buy a new car? That is really what it feels like this. The member addressed that at the beginning of his speech.

One of the other things I noticed about this piece of legislation is the unique circumstances of its passage. For example, messages were sent from this place to the other place, and then back again. I am a new member and this is the first Parliament I have participated in, and I know that the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley has been around here longer than I have.

Could the member comment on the process of the passage of this bill, and if it is unique from his perspective?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I do not claim any great expertise in parliamentary history as to where and when bills originate from and what the problems are.

I will say this. There seems to have been a growing trend, particularly in the last Parliament, of clear government legislation being written and sent from the Senate. The legislation is drafted by the government, not by the Senate.

I do not know the intricacies of this particular bill and, as the member said, of the messages back and forth. When a government needs to bring forward legislation, no government should want to pat itself on the back and say “Look how wonderful we are”, when the Superior Court in Quebec demanded that it draft the legislation.

The idea of bills coming through the Senate seems to me, as a democrat, a problem. The government is pretending to originate its legislation with unelected and fundamentally unaccountable legislators, the senators. They are not elected by anyone. They cannot be fired by anyone, really. As it turns out, that it is very hard to do.

It is the House's duty, the government's duty, to author legislation for which it is responsible, not to pass the buck to the Senate and have it do it for the government.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member talked about everything coming from Ottawa, Ottawa knowing best, and the paternalism that exists with that. I have the Mohawks of the Bay of the Quinte in my riding. They have expressed deep concern around this bill in that they want to choose who the members of their community are going to be. They are very concerned that Ottawa is once again becoming paternalistic in trying to throw the doors wide open to include all members.

I would caution the member not to take this too far. We do need communities to define who their members are going to be, and to have them directly involved in every step of the way in the bill, as it is worded, taking the time over the next number of years to ensure we get this right so the communities themselves are setting those priorities.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I take my friend at his word, and the notion of nation-to-nation implies a certain respect and capacity for self-determination. The self-determination of identity must be the most basic form of self-determination we have. My friend identifies himself as a sovereign person, not for me to impose on him who I think he is. In his community that is also true, but that is not true for first nations people. The Department of Indian Affairs has done that since the inception of our country, to say who is first nations and who is not. If their mother got together with a non-native guy, not only are they not first nations, but anyone who descends from them is not as well. It does not matter if they are raised in the community, speak the language, enrich themselves with that deep culture, it does not matter, Ottawa will determine it. That continues today.

This legislation goes back part of the way but stops in the 50s. As for those affected before that and descended from those people, Ottawa will continue to determine they are not first nations, regardless of who they think they are and who they know themselves to be.

The ability to define who we are, individually and within our communities, lies at the heart of this. Our friend used the broken car analogy. The Indian Act is so much worse than that. South Africa came here to study the reserve system when it was looking to establish apartheid in South Africa. It is not a coincidence, it is a disgrace, and it should highlight for us how bad and inherently rooted this is in this institution. In order to get it out it is going to take at the least the amount of effort that was put in to oppress first nations people for so many decades.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to give the member an example from Vancouver Island that is even more egregious. We have 13 nations that make up the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, along with Ditidaht and the Hupacasath. Their cousins, Wakashan speakers, are Makah in Washington State, and when a woman married someone who was a non-status Indian in Canada, but was a Wakashan speaker in the United States, their cousins, they lost their status. The same is true in my riding of the Coast Salish people from the Songhees, Esquimalt, Scia’new, and the South nations. They have cousins living on the other side of the border. They are not literally cousins, but language families. If a woman married into those nations, she lost her status in Canada, whereas a man did not. It does not even have to be a non-native. It was a non-status person.

We have people who are very concerned, but I have to differ with the other member. All the people I have talked to in these nations have said we should change the law and they will make those decisions themselves.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, there are a lot of conversations that go around the issue that ask when first nations are going to get their stuff together. My answer back to those folks is, “How about we work our side of the hyphen first between native and non-native relations”. When we still enforce racist, colonial, sexist legislation it is a bit rich for us to turn to first nations people and ask, “What's your problem exactly and why can't you figure it out?”

The cases he raised are similar in my part of the world because the Haida, for example, were the Haida, then suddenly, Russia sold Alaska. They dropped down a division and the Haida of Canada became Canadians and the Haida of Hydaburg became Americans. If they married one way or another they were under threat of losing who they were as a person. How ridiculous and ignorant is that? If we want to fix this, let us fix it, but let us fix it right.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments we have heard in regard to the importance of Bill S-3. When the Prime Minister was leader of the third party a number of years ago, he made it very clear in terms of trying to establish a relationship of respect. The idea of it being nation-to-nation is something the Prime Minister embodied. He made it part of what members of this government caucus and my Liberal colleagues have also embraced, recognizing the many historic tragedies and wrongs that have been put upon people who really did not deserve it.

To that extent, we have before us legislation that looks at making a significant change and making sure there is a higher sense of equality. There is the broader issue that needs to be addressed and that is talking about the relationship and the need for us to move forward.

I represent Winnipeg North and I have the honour and privilege of representing many people of indigenous background. I am very proud of that fact. I like to think that one of the strong characteristics of Winnipeg North is the very high sense of indigenous heritage we see when we drive down many of our community streets. I suspect that we have a high percentage of volunteerism coming out of the indigenous community.

There is one in particular. Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata is an organization that has done so much for first nations and Métis over the years, advancing many different causes. We want to address some of those needs. I have spoken in the House on many occasions dealing with indigenous issues. I have consistently said that we should be encouraging government and all members to enable strong indigenous leadership and supporting that in whatever way we can. The first nations communities' acceptance of us as a whole should never be underestimated in terms of its importance and contributes to who we are as a nation today.

Earlier I had the opportunity to talk about immigration and I said we are a country of immigrants. We all know first nations and Inuit were not immigrants. They were the individuals who had been farming and using this beautiful land that we call Canada as home for thousands of years. Through time, we came to this land and through many different initiatives, communities have built it up to become a wonderful and many would argue the best country in the world. Having said that, we need to recognize our first nations, Inuit, and Métis for the fine work that has been done and will continue to be done. We need to demonstrate respect. Through the Prime Minister's commitment that this is priority issue, we want to further this nation-to-nation relationship. That is fantastic to see.

We have a government that has taken tangible action also. We have given historic amounts of money to attempt to address many of the issues. I was so impressed when the Prime Minister made the announcement that we were going to split the department into two, where our former minister of health would now be responsible for indigenous services. I think that was exceptionally well received. If we look at the need and desire of indigenous people to become more independent, and the need to have a better understanding of the realities taking place in their daily lives, it is of critical importance that we act in a more expeditious way. Therefore, designating a minister who is responsible for looking at those services is a positive and wonderful step forward. We have seen a government that has not only talked passionately about the importance of education but has also invested in education for indigenous people. I believe we need to equate education with opportunities. We know if we invest in education, that individuals will grow because of that education, whether elementary, secondary, or post-secondary, and it will provide more opportunities in the future. There are many wonderful initiatives that the government has already taken.

I take it my time is running out. I look forward to continuing my comments at the end of question period.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member will have 13 minutes the next time this matter is before the House after question period.

The House resumed consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Indian Act (elimination of sex-based inequities in registration).

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has 13 minutes remaining.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, prior to Standing Order 31 being read, I was well engaged in talking about a very important issue for the Government of Canada as we try to advance Bill S-3 through the House of Commons. We continue to move forward in a very tangible way dealing with a nation-to-nation responsibility, as our Prime Minister has very clearly indicated, dealing with a new, genuine relationship between the national government and first nations, Métis, and Inuit.

In many ways, we are talking about the issue of gender equality and trying to see more of that within the legislation of the Indian Act. We have had many people provide comment on the act. I would be challenged to find members who stand in their place and say that the Indian Act is a good piece of law. The drive to change it, many would say to replace in its entirety or get rid of, is in order.

As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs clearly indicated, we have to have something in its place. As we work toward that, there are many other things that we can do.

I want to pick up on what the Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women said today in question period when he was asked a question in regard to empowering and advancing indigenous women through government programs. He made it very clear that the government is pleased to announce $5 million that will go toward projects to empower indigenous women to be leaders in their communities in order to address issues that affect them or that hinder their advancement.

I started my speech by saying how important it is to recognize and deal with indigenous issues, this legislation being one of them, but it goes beyond legislation. We need to look at financial ways or alternative ways. That talks about the whole concept of consultations, working with our partners, working at that nation-to-nation level and seeing what else we can come up with. This was a significant commitment.

In Winnipeg North, I have had opportunity to encourage at least one organization to look at this announcement and see if there is room in Winnipeg North and even beyond its borders where we could tap into some of that $5 million. There are many different impediments that prevent women, in particular indigenous women, from being able to access certain things that we might take for granted.

I am very happy to hear this announcement. It complements what the government is hoping to achieve. I want to highlight some important messaging the government is hoping to communicate to people with respect to the bill. We understand that it is all about ensuring that sex-based discrimination is eliminated from the registration under the Indian Act.

I always find it amazing that here we are in 2017, and with the support and encouragement of our courts, we have legislation recognizing that aspect, but we also have what many people refer to as a strong feminist Prime Minister with a very proactive minister responsible for indigenous affairs and the department that ultimately recognize that this is an issue that does need to be dealt with. I am very glad that within Bill S-3 we will be doing just that.

The bill would also remedy all known sex-based discrimination in the Indian Act. Again, these are things that, given it is 2017, we would not think would still be within the legislation. It needs to be moved forward, at least until we have that more comprehensive, holistic approach with respect to the Indian Act, or at least until we have been able to fill that void that would be created by getting rid of the Indian Act.

It would also seek to amend the legislation to remedy sex-based inequities that existed. It sets it just prior to Confederation, 1869 all the way up to 1951. The amendment, as passed by the Senate, would remove all sex-based inequities from the registration provisions in the act. My colleague from the New Democratic Party spoke at length on that issue. I agree with the member across the way at times, and this is one of those times.

It is hard to imagine how we could justify these inequities. We know we could never justify it in 2017, but there was a time there was gender discrimination to the degree that a male from a reserve could have a child with a non-native woman and there was never any question of the heritage or entitlements of that child. Contrast that with a female, and the heritage of the child would have been questioned if she had chosen to marry someone who was not indigenous. I think most Canadians would recognize just how unfair that is. Even back then, we had very strong feminists who no doubt would have recognized that sense of unjust legislation. I am surprised that it is still in legislation today. That is one of the reasons members should seriously look at the legislation. I understand that we will be voting the legislation through, hopefully before the end of next Monday.

We recognize the government amendment was passed by the Senate as the best way to achieve the stated goal of getting rid of the sex-based inequities. We will be launching consultations early next year that will look at a broader range of the Indian Act registration and membership issues. That is really important. I sat for many years in the opposition benches, and we had legislation that impacted our indigenous communities. I would often talk about the importance of consultations. There is always room for improvement. Even under our administration, we can always strive to be better at working with people to ensure we are consulting in a very thorough fashion.

I have found there is no shortage of ideas related to issues such as we are talking about today. I often have individuals come by my local restaurant, which I go to every Saturday from 10 to 2. I will not say which restaurant, but I am committed to going so constituents know they can visit me to share their thoughts and ideas.

In the last number of months I have had a half dozen or more individuals talk to me about the United Nations or Bill C-262, proposed by one of our NDP colleagues and has been advanced for debate in the chamber. I have received postcards on it. I have had phone call discussions. Even in group meetings, there is always a great detail of interest in having that dialogue. I can only imagine in the macro picture the degree to which we need to be sensitive to the need for consultations.

On that note, I would like to extend my recognition and congratulations to both the minister of indigenous affairs and the parliamentary secretary to indigenous affairs. They have done an outstanding job in working with indigenous community members and the leadership, ensuring the government is moving on what are some absolutely critical issues going forward.

As a general rule, we will see more legislation and budgetary measures. A good example of that was the recent announcement of the housing strategy. It was a historic announcement in the House by the minister responsible for housing.

It was commented that despite this wonderful plan to provide housing for literally hundreds of Canadians into the future, there was still a very important component that needed to be expanded upon, and that is the indigenous factor. We need to work with indigenous leaders to ensure housing and housing standards are also put on the table.

Today, many would see this as long overdue legislation. In a good part, they are right. It is long overdue, but it will pass through. I do not want people to think, whether it is from the remarks by the Prime Minister or others with respect to this important relationship, that this is all we will do. There is other legislation. There are budgetary measures. There is a very high sense of willingness to co-operate, to continue to develop, and promote that nation-to-nation relationship.

The House resumed consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Indian Act (elimination of sex-based inequities in registration).

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech with great interest. He talked about the importance of a nation-to-nation relationship and consultation.

I would like the member to talk about the consultation process with the Premier of the Northwest Territories. He was given a 45-minute warning of an announcement of a moratorium on offshore drilling, where $3.2 billion of investment flows out of the territories. Could he also talk about what the Liberals did when they announced the ban on tankers, which crippled a number of first nation communities with respect to their opportunity to have economic development and opportunities?

The hon. member spent 20 minutes talking about the importance of consultation and how the Liberals would have a consultation process with Bill S-3. If that process is anything like their consultation process with the moratorium, or with the tanker pipe ban where they have absolutely destroyed first nations' communities and their opportunities, then he needs to justify how the process is anything but a sham.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat disappointed with the question. The member was in the House when Stephen Harper was the prime minister. I am very much aware of the lack of consultation with indigenous communities.

It was nice that there was a formal apology, but with that formal apology came a higher expectation with respect to the relationship between the Government of Canada and first nations. Even before our Prime Minister assumed the office, when he was the leader of the Liberal Party, which had third party status, he often referred to the importance of indigenous issues and the nation-to-nation relationship. A big part of nation-to-nation relationship means that the government and first nations need to work together and consult.

The member made reference to a specific issue. I indicated in my speech that there was always room for improvement and we could always do better. We will strive to do just that.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government has committed to reconciliation, to a nation-to-nation relationship, to implementing UNDRIP, to implementing all of the truth and reconciliation calls for action, and to work differently. I want to see the government doing that sooner rather than later.

For decades, indigenous people have been asking for new, more honourable legislation. Why did the government not put its time, effort, skills, and expertise toward drafting substantial legislation that would get rid of all discrimination? Why tinker with a flawed bill? If the government is moving into something different, then why not bring forward legislation that will be transformative, that will really give an indication that the things I mentioned earlier are the way the government is going to work now and into the future?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there are so many things the government could be doing. Once everything is all said and done, I believe we will have it right.

There will be a legislative component and a budgetary component to this as we move forward. Significant consultation has to be done with indigenous people, in particular, the leadership, to ensure we make significant progress over the coming years. We should strive for that.

We need to recognize that it took many decades for today's issues to get there.

I can give the House a specific example of a big issue for me personally, and that is foster care. I am really concerned about the number of children who have been apprehended and are living in foster care.

I suspect many different issues are raised with the ministry. It is very complicated to have to work with a wide variety of stakeholders. We look toward indigenous leaders to enable good, solid government decisions, nation-to-nation building. We cannot say here is the plan and let us implement it today. This will take a number of years to fix and it needs to evolve. It has taken decades to get where we are today. It will take a number of years to get it right. We are moving forward, and we should recognize that. However, we still can strive to do so much more.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development]

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to a question that was asked during question period on the consultative process. Could my hon. colleague speak to why these consultations and building a comprehensive plan for this legislation are particularly important, especially when we are looking to build and strengthen a nation-to-nation relationship, moving past a colonial approach to how we work with our indigenous partners?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, working and consulting allow for individuals to build bridges. An example is Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata from Winnipeg, which is an organization that literally helps hundreds of indigenous women. We had the recent $5 million announcement to assist in helping women to advance themselves, hopefully taking down barriers. Establishing those contacts allows us to hopefully empower, or request or suggest that these available monies are tapped into and are used to the benefit of indigenous people.

When we talk about consultation, yes it is really important. I like to highlight that when we think of consultations, we should think of the building of bridges between nations that takes place and how we can have a positive impact. If we recognize that, we will have more people addressing those very important problems in our communities and ultimately advancing.

I will give a final plug to my example of child care, something I take very personally. I want to see more done on that file.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, earlier in his responses, the member for Winnipeg North talked a bit about nation to nation. I submitted an Order Paper question asking the government what it meant when it said nation to nation. I received a response back, saying that it did not know what it meant. That is what the government sent me back. Therefore, could the member outline what he thinks nation to nation is?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier, when I sat in opposition, I saw the Stephen Harper government. When I think of nation to nation, I think of a great deal more respect, a great deal more co-operation, and two levels of government that can sit at a table and work through problems so all people who call Canada their home can be better off.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill S-3. I will be sharing my time with the member for Peace River—Westlock.

When I was chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, we did a number of studies, in particular on gender equality. Gender equality is built on many pillars, but essentially, its aim is to ensure that men and women are treated equally in all aspects.

Correcting an irregularity like the one raised in this bill is a simple and obvious way to move towards real gender equality. I am proud to support Bill S-3 and I appreciate having the opportunity to speak in favour of this legislation here today. An individual's status should not be based on their sex. It is a question of history and culture, and righting this wrong is a logical step.

I am very happy to talk about Bill S-3. For those who are not familiar with this bill, it amends the Indian Act. It seeks to remedy gender inequality for those born after 1951.

The changes to the act, specifically, are to replace the long title; to delete from the bill a clause that has been quite controversial, and there has certainly been some discussion about the “6(1)(a) all the way” clause today; and to add the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to the list of documents the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs has to consider during promised forthcoming consultation on those issues. Those are really the changes to the bill.

I am definitely in support of gender equality. I talked about my experience on the status of women committee. I would also mention that I have two non-status Métis daughters. Gender equality, when it comes to status, is very important. I am glad to see that this bill would take steps in that direction.

If we think about the record of the party I represent, we did a lot of things when it came to gender equality for first nations women. You may recall the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, which was brought forward to address differences in the way women were treated with respect to matrimonial property over men.

It is notable that the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs actually voted against that measure. I see that there is a change of tune now on the other side when it comes to gender equality.

In addition to that, we re-introduced legislation to guarantee people living on reserve the same protection other Canadians enjoy under the Human Rights Act. That was another thing the Conservative Party was proud to bring in. We also addressed, under Bill C-3, the Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act, in 2010, the McIvor v. Canada case to allow eligible grandchildren of women who lost their status as a result of marrying a non-Indian man to be entitled to registration.

Members can see that the party has a history of taking steps to try to restore gender equality in our first nations and Inuit societies.

With that, I am certainly glad to see this bill moving along. That said, I would be remiss if I did not talk about how botched this legislation already is. It is bad enough that the Supreme Court had to order the government to do something, but to then have to get two court extensions shows a lack of planning and a lack of an ability to execute.

I noted that there were lots of struggles on the way to getting this bill here. It does not seem that it is just this bill. It seems that the government has great difficulty executing any number of things when it comes to first nations people.

We know that there was a big push to spend $8.4 billion to eliminate the problem of not having clean water in first nations communities across the country. We see now 120 more boil water advisories than we had at the beginning, and we are two years into it. It really shows a lack of ability to execute.

The other example would be the murdered and missing aboriginal women effort. I have quite a number of things to say about that one. First of all, in almost two years, 20 people have resigned or been fired from that initiative.

The government talks about its nation-to-nation relationship and that it is going to consult broadly and everything else. Here is an example of a consultation where it has talked to very few victims. The Liberals have spent a huge amount of money, and it is two years up the road.

There has been a lot of press on this issue saying that people are dissatisfied: there is no plan, there is no schedule, there are inadequate computers and Internet access, there are limited aftercare plans for the family members who are trying to participate, there was an eight-month delay in opening offices, and there was a four-month delay in hiring staff. There is a whole shopping list of things that are wrong with the murdered and missing aboriginal women inquiry. It does not inspire confidence that the government will be able to execute properly in the go forward.

The Liberals need to not be all talk and no action. They need to learn how to execute and actually say the things they mean and then follow up and do the things they need to do.

If we want to talk about examples of places where the Liberals say they want a nation-to-nation relationship but then do not actually follow through, we can look at a number of examples. We see, for example, that the courts said that indigenous children were being discriminated against with respect to welfare, yet the government was ordered to pay $150 million and dragged its feet on that. How can they have a nation-to-nation relationship when they will not even do what the courts are ordering them to do to give restitution to children? It is ridiculous.

We can talk about the oral health of indigenous people. We see that the government would rather spend $110,000 fighting in court than pay $6,000 for dental work for an indigenous child. That again does not say to indigenous people that the government wants a nation-to-nation relationship. It is pretty much hypocrisy.

I am concerned about Bill S-3. I see that it is well intentioned, but in the execution of it, it could become problematic. There were amendments in the Senate, and I am glad to see that some of them were taken along, because that does not always happen. A lot of times, when the Senate has brought amendments, they are refused here. That is a total waste of the taxpayers' money in terms of the Senate, because if the Senate is doing all this work to bring amendments, and they are rejected here, it seems a little pointless.

The fact that there are so many Senate bills coming forward is also a bit problematic. We have a limited amount of time in the House, and the government is running on promises that it is having trouble keeping, but there are a lot of promises, and it is getting late in the mandate to start delivering on some of those things. Every one of the Senate bills disrupts the agenda of the day.

Although I am in favour of Bill S-3, and certainly of gender equality and the restoration of that to first nations people, I wanted to point out a few of those things I see.

In closing, I would like to reiterate my support for this bill. While the Liberal government seems to be incapable of keeping a single election promise, I am pleased that at least it appears to support this effort to achieve gender equality with respect to the transmission of Indian status.

I would again like to thank my colleagues across party lines for their efforts today, as well as the Senate for the hard work it has accomplished since the beginning of the study. The Liberal government has already managed to extend the deadline twice, but the court appears to have no intention of extending it a third time.

It is time to pass this legislation in order to solve a problem that the government seems to be avoiding.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments made by my colleague, and I want to highlight something I thought she talked about quite well. In fact, on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network this morning, we were asked the same thing. It is two years into the mandate of the Liberal government, and we were asked for a letter grade on how the government was doing with respect to its commitments to indigenous people in Canada. I said I would give it an A-plus for talk but a C-minus for action.

Bill S-3 is one example of a piece of legislation that has been botched from the very beginning. We are a year from when it was first introduced in the Senate. The government has had to have the deadlines extended twice by the courts, and of course, we are now up against a timeframe. We found many flaws in this legislation when it first came for pre-study at committee.

I would invite more comment on the current government's execution on the issues that it speaks so well about but really fails to execute on.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, certainly the broken promises that have come out of the Liberal government are unbelievable. I will list a few to remind members. There was going to be a $10-billion deficit. Now it is $20 billion. They were going to budget within the mandate. No. There was home mail delivery. No. There was electoral reform and the last election under first past the post. No. It goes on and on.

First, when we look at the promises that were made and the mandate trackers and promise trackers that are on the web, they show that the government really does not do a good job of keeping its promises. Second, even though the murdered and missing aboriginal effort is well intentioned, and I talked about the people who had been fired, we are two years into it and nothing is happening. There have been very few people interviewed, and there are a lot of complaints from the indigenous folks.

It is the same thing with the water initiative. The water initiative is great, and with the $8.4 billion, we should solve that. As an engineer who was in construction for 32 years, if I had been given that project, in two years we would be making progress, not having 120 more boil water advisories.

Those are typical of the government's great ideals and all the talk that goes on but the poor execution.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, what is ironic about all of this is that the member opposite said that if we gave the Conservatives those initiatives and that time, they would have all of that fixed, yet they had 10 years and fixed absolutely nothing. If I had the time, I could go on with the litany of things they failed to even attempt to fix.

What we are doing today is remedying sex-based inequities in the Indian Act going back to 1869. The government opposite, over the 10-year period it was here, had four court cases demanding that the Government of Canada take action on fixing these inequities within the Indian Act, and it failed to do so.

I would like to ask the member this question. Why is it that your government failed so terribly in responding to indigenous people in this country and continued to govern under an act that was flawed, racist, and discriminatory against indigenous women in this country and did absolutely zero about it?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I want to remind hon. members to put their questions through the Speaker and not directly. I am sure the member did not mean my government.

The hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the party did not have the benefit of having me for the past decade, but I am here now. We cannot change the past. We can only change the future. With that said, I am happy to talk about the record of the Conservative Party with respect to indigenous rights.

Let us not forget that we brought forward the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, a measure to restore gender equality in the way matrimonial property was treated, which most of the Liberals voted against.

We also gave people living on reserve the same protections other Canadians enjoy as part of the Canadian Human Rights Act. We also brought forward Bill C-3, the Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act, allowing eligible grandchildren of women who had lost their status as a result of marrying non-Indian men to be entitled to registration.

I think our record is clear. We were moving in a positive and good direction, and now that I am on board, it is even better.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that was a great speech by my colleague from Sarnia—Lambton. I know she is always a very passionate speaker and I very much appreciated her speech.

I am proud to stand today to speak about this as well. The title of this bill, the elimination of sex-based inequities in the Indian Act, is a bit of a misnomer. It should probably read say that it is an attempt to get rid of them. That is what we are dealing with today. This particular bill had a very tumultuous passage through the parliamentary system of Canada. It started out in the Senate, came to the House, and went back to the Senate. There have been messages sent back and forth. There have been extensions given by the courts. This bill has been interesting to follow. Even very experienced members are saying it is an interesting way of trying to pass a bill. There is no doubt about that.

One of the roles, and I would say the role, of the Government of Canada is to ensure that there is justice. I am all in favour of limited government, but the role of the government is justice. In this particular case, that is what we are looking at. We need to ensure that justice is done. The government is trying to walk a fine line when it comes to this bill. It is saying it cannot eliminate all of the gender-based discrimination without imposing some sort of band membership on first nations. That continues to be a problem.

Ms. Catherine Twinn, who lives in my riding, is the wife of former senator Walter Twinn, and her step-daughter, Deborah, has neither status nor band membership. This bill would do nothing to rectify Deborah's situation. Deborah Serafinchon is her full name. She has DNA evidence proving that she is the daughter of Walter Twinn, the former chief of the Sawridge First Nation, and she is unable to get status, let alone band membership. When we deal with this particular bill, it would be great to get rid of all of the gender-based inequities. However, when Deborah was at committee, she noted that she was Indian enough to be discriminated against, but not Indian enough to get status. That is how she put it, and it went viral on Facebook. I know that for sure.

In the case of this particular bill, we are dealing with the truth of the situation, and just this situation. What this comes down to is that the courts dictated to the government that it bring forward this legislation. The one thing it failed to take into consideration is whether individual bands are under the same rules as the Government of Canada. We like to talk about their nation-to-nation relationships, self-determination, and all kinds of things, but the fundamental question is whether bands are under the same requirements as the Government of Canada to comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At committee, that is what Deborah said, that even if she were to get status, her band may not allow her membership. She said we need to ensure that, on the basis of her DNA evidence, she could get status and band membership. We are looking to the government for some sort of mechanism within Bill S-3, some sort of appeal process or due process, that individual band members can use to ensure that they get their status, if they are entitled to it, as well as band membership, if they are entitled to it.

This is the discussion the current government is not interested in having. The Liberals do not want to talk about it. In fact, the member for Bay of Quinte likes to talk more often about how we must give status to all first nations who are entitled to status. We must be careful that we do not annoy particular bands who want to limit their band lists. This is going to be the cut and thrust of this particular bill.

Deborah has been consistent in saying that Bill S-3 would not solve her problems, because it would not give her status and band membership. Therefore, she is continuing to call on the government to fix Bill S-3 so that she can get her status, and eventually her band membership. To some degree, the truth of the situation is what is most pertinent to this. She has DNA evidence that she is the daughter of Walter Twinn, a renowned chief from the Sawridge band, a former senator in fact. She has proof of that, and yet she is unable, through any system that we currently have, to get status, even though her father has status. She is also unable to get band membership, even though her father was the chief of the band for a very long time.

This is the truth of the situation, and yet we have no system whatsoever, including the changes that would be made by Bill S-3, of an appeals process in order to be able to say to the Government of Canada, “Please help me in my search for justice and help me to stand up to ensure that I get status and band membership without taking my band to court”. Deborah is a woman of very limited means. She does not have any high-priced lawyers at her disposal. She has only DNA evidence. She is unable to hire a lawyer to take this to court. She is prepared to take it to court, but she clearly does not have the funds to do that. Why can there not be a system of appeals, a system of due process, something that she can appeal to to ask why she cannot have status and band membership. That is what Deborah is looking for, in particular, when it comes to Bill S-3. That is what she said when she came to the committee, and we are looking for that too.

All of that said, one of the very interesting things about this is that the Liberal government continues to say that it will hold consultations, consultations, consultations. The Liberals say they will implement phase one of Bill S-3 and then consult on how to implement the other phases of the bill.

I just want to talk a bit about consultations. It very much seems that when the current government members want to delay something, when they want to postpone something, and when they want to push something off that they do not want to deal with, they say they are going to consult and get back on it. Someone who should be consulted on this would be Deborah, for example. She is perhaps an anomaly but still someone who would definitely be impacted by Bill S-3. Has she been consulted? No, there has been no contact whatsoever. She had to come to committee on her own accord. She had to reach out to me and ask to get to committee. That has been the only consultation she has had.

We can look to other examples as well. We see the imposition of a drilling moratorium in northern Canada without any consultation. When the government wants to do something, it can do something very quickly and it does not seem to really need to do a consultation about it. When Bill S-3 first came to committee, we had the very people who had taken the government to court to force the bill to come into place, and they said they were not even consulted and that the first time they saw the bill was the time we also first saw it. The first time they were consulted was when we asked them to come to committee to hear them.

I do not have any confidence that the current government knows how to manage anything. I will be supporting this particular bill from this point forward, but there is still a great deal of work that needs to be done, and I look forward to the Liberals doing something, although I am not confident they can manage this whatsoever.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member has heard the NDP amendments to the bill. We brought them forward because we believe that the government has been dragging its heels on something that is fundamentally important to eliminating the discrimination that exists right now in the Indian Act, and to eliminating the colonialism that we find in the current government's approach. To improve the situation, we brought forward the amendments, but it is very clear that the government is not willing to make the important move of finalizing the legislation. There are a lot of holes. All that the Liberals have committed to is further consultations.

Does the member believe it is important for the government to act, rather than to repair only some of the issues that are in the act and not address others, and then hold out on a faint promise that some day it will act on the other clauses?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member asked if it is imperative that the government act. One of my great critiques of the Liberal government is that it says a lot of nice things. It says the most amazing things, has crafted the words and made it just right. It has the terms just right, including, for example, that we will have a renewed nation-to-nation relationship. However, that is the extent of it. It recites nice words, such as that it is going to put a tanker ban on the west coast. Those are nice words, but the desired result is never achieved by the government.

Another example is the marijuana legislation. The government is saying it will keep marijuana out of the hands of children, but is going to legalize it at the same time. Again, it says really nice things, reciting what it is going to do, but never achieving it. This is because it is incapable of managing anything. That is what this comes down to.

Canadians have given the Liberals the keys to the car of Canada, who are unable to figure out how to start it. They are unable to put gas in the tank and get it going. That is what this is all about. This particular bill, Bill S-3, comes right back to that. They say they are going to fix gender-based inequities in the Indian Act and come out with this piece of legislation that says really nice things, but it would not give Deborah in my riding any satisfaction whatsoever.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the member's questioning the integrity of other members of the House and of whether or not they would deliver on their promises.

In respect of the bill before us, does he intend to support the bill?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, at the very end of my speech, I said I am prepared to support the bill.

The whole point of my speech was that a particular constituent of mine would not be helped whatsoever by this bill, even though her scenario is essentially the same one we are being told this bill would fix. Even though she has DNA evidence proving she is the daughter of a prominent chief from the Sawridge First Nation, she is unable to get status let alone band membership. That is the issue I am raising with this particular bill.

I am happy to support the bill. I believe that if someone is first nation, they should have status. There is no doubt about that. I am fairly frustrated by the fact that we are here in Ottawa discussing this, but I know it is important to many people. My own heritage is something I value, and I know first nations people need status to be considered part of their particular cultural and social groups.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg Centre.

I am pleased to stand today on Bill S-3, and I would like to acknowledge first and foremost that I do so on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people.

The government has always been clear that it is committed to removing all sex-based discrimination from registration provisions of the Indian Act. With the government amendment, which was passed by the Senate, Bill S-3 would remove all sex-based inequities from the registration provisions of the act.

The government is also committed to doing this in a way that is the right way, and therefore it will be launching broad-based consultations next year on Indian Act registration and membership reform. This will include extensive consultations on identifying any unintended consequences of the 1951 cut-off amendment and working in partnership to develop solutions to eliminate or mitigate any concerns by first nation people.

While the balance of the bill would be brought into force immediately, the proposed clause regarding the 1951 cut-off would be brought into force after those consultations and once a comprehensive plan to address the identified issues is developed in partnership so that it can be implemented simultaneously.

Senator Christmas, a senator of Mi'kmaq heritage from Nova Scotia, summarized the issue during his speech in the other place on November 8. He said:

...throughout the consultation that is to occur, the government will need to be attendant to the voices of these communities. There will be a myriad of factors impacting the communities flowing from the numbers of those who will receive status dealing with issues going beyond the matter of gender.

I recall the last time efforts were made to address gender discrimination of the Indian Act in 1985. I can tell you with absolute certainty that my community experienced confusion, felt concern and had a great deal of questions about the process and its impacts, both short term and long term.

It’s a complicated matter for First Nation bands. It will take time, cooperation and assistance in enhancing capacity to make the significant transition both manageable and sustainable. Effective consultation in this regard is critical. The government needs to be certain it’s prepared to go before our First Nation band councils to explain this bill’s provisions to leadership, to band members and to those who will ultimately receive status as a consequence of the bill’s passage.

The government is absolutely committed to dealing with all sex-based discrimination in the Indian Act registration, including circumstances that date before 1951. By convention, a government does not put into any act or law any provision it does not intend in good faith to implement, and so, this amendment is a clear and unequivocal statement of the government's commitment to remove the 1951 cut-off. Consultations will be focused on identifying additional measures or resources required to do this right and working in partnership to develop a comprehensive plan, which can be implemented simultaneously.

Senator Sinclair, chair of the Indian residential school Truth and Reconciliation Commission, noted in his speech in the other place on November 8 that:

I want to point out that this bill attempts to reconcile two different constitutional obligations that the government has: One is, of course, to comply with the Charter when it comes to gender discrimination; the other is to comply with its constitutional obligation to consult with indigenous people.

He went on to say later in his speech:

So while it is with reluctance that I see us delaying the implementation of a Charter right, I can also see the need to do so because of that competing constitutional obligation to consult. And so I am prepared to support this legislation because it enshrines the right.

In a way, it enshrines both rights: the right to be consulted and, of course, their charter rights that one should not be discriminated against on the basis of gender.

Given the government's commitment to co-designing consultations with first nations, it will not accept the addition of a specific coming into force date to the proposed 1951 cut-off clause. It would be counterproductive to the nation-to-nation relationship.

Senator Christmas also said in the Senate on November 8:

For those who might suggest the lack of a firm date for coming-into-force provisions is a weakness or flaw in this undertaking, I would assert otherwise. The reporting-to-Parliament provisions in the bill more than adequately deal with this, in my mind.

I believe it’s also essential to recognize that the consultation with First Nation communities that will flow from the bill’s requirements on consultation and reporting back to Parliament reflect the basis of the Principles respecting the Government of Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples announced in July of 2017.

The bill contains numerous clauses holding the government accountable to Parliament regarding the implementation of this legislation.

Bill S-3 requires consultations on implementation of the clause in question, as well as broader Indian Act registration and membership reform, to commence within six months of royal assent. I understand these consultations are expected to commence early in 2018, and the co-design of these consultations with first nations is already under way.

Within five months of royal assent, the government is required to report to Parliament on the design of the consultations and how they are progressing, and provide a further update to Parliament within 12 months of royal assent.

There is also a three-year review clause in the bill. Parliament will have numerous enshrined opportunities to hold the government to account on its progress toward removing the 1951 cut-off.

In terms of how long consultations will take, the government will not prejudge the co-design process but is committed to working with its partners to move forward in an expeditious manner.

If we do not have legislation passed before December 22, which addresses the Descheneaux decision, the sections struck down by the court will be inoperative in Quebec. Based on the most recent extension decision of the Court of Appeal of Quebec, it is unlikely the courts will grant a further extension. The registrar has stated she would not be in a position to register people under provisions found to be non-charter compliant in Quebec, and would also not register individuals under those provisions in the rest of Canada. Ninety percent of status Indians are registered under the provisions struck down by the Descheneaux decision. We must not lose sight of the thousands of individuals who will not be able to register if the court deadline passes and the provisions noted above become inoperable.

I urge members of the House to support Bill S-3. I am glad to hear that members of the opposition are in support of it in the form that was referred to the House by the Senate.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know my hon. colleague started off by talking about the consultations that will be taking place for the next phases of this bill. I was wondering about the principle behind these consultations. It seems that, if the government wants to drag its feet on something, if it is trying to delay something or prevent it from happening, it goes into consultations. However, if it is adamant about getting something done, if it wants to make a big, flashy announcement in New York, for example, it has no problem making these announcements with zero consultation. I am referencing in particular the northern drilling ban, for which the premiers of both Nunavut and Northwest Territories were given less than 45 minutes' notice that the announcement was coming down. Then, when the government discovered that, lo and behold, it had forgotten to do the consultation on that announcement, it said that it had made the announcement and would now do the consultations.

Therefore, I am wondering if the member could outline for us the principles behind the government's desire to do consultations, and whether it is just a stalling tactic.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I hear the member and his concerns regarding that. However, when I look at the legislation and our honest, good-faith efforts to consult with indigenous people to ensure respect not only for their charter rights but also for the manner and process by which their charter rights are invoked and protected, for the manner by which people have been registered into their bands, and for any unintended consequences that may result from those changes in registration, I feel the government is moving in the right direction.

The Senate amendments, which have the support of Senator Sinclair as well as Senator Christmas, give me great comfort that this is going in the right way.

However, I understand that, if there is a delay in the process, it will affect thousands of individuals who have a right to be registered. This is why I am also so pleased to see that there are defined timelines in the legislation for when Parliament is to be told what is happening, and that there will be metrics in place to make sure the bill is reviewed at five months, six months, 12 months, and three years. That gives me great confidence.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague quoted Senator Christmas, who said that the government will need to pay close attention to indigenous communities. I wanted to ask the hon. member about the importance of consulting, how that process needs to be done efficiently and effectively, and how we can make great efforts after the consultations to ensure that we have proper policies put forward.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to remember that the very design of the consultation process needs to be done in connection with indigenous people. That is why the process itself is co-designed. Without this, I think people would rightly feel that the process was being dictated, that people's views were not appropriately being taken into account, and that a true nation-to-nation relationship did not exist. Therefore, the co-design is a very important feature.

What comes into the co-design is not for me to decide. It is something that first nations people and the government will negotiate. I look forward to seeing a robust process that allows voices to be heard, all possible implementation issues and unintended consequences to be vetted, and then a strong process that respects everyone's charter rights to be implemented as soon as possible, so that indigenous people can be registered without sex and gender discrimination.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am hoping that the representative of the Liberal government can square his government's commitment to hear all voices with the fact that last week the Liberal majority at the indigenous affairs committee blocked a motion to hear from Privy Council Office witnesses on how they are handling money for the murdered and missing indigenous women's inquiry. Then today, in the status of women committee, we learned that INAC has declined our request to participate in the status of women committee study on indigenous women's experiences in the justice system. Can you please reconcile those hypocrisies?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I remind hon. members to direct their questions through the Speaker and not directly to other members of Parliament.

The hon. member for St. John's East.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that all committees are masters of their own domain and can determine whether, how, or when they will receive witnesses, but I am confident that the process being proposed under this legislation would allow indigenous communities and the government to work together to co-design a process that would allow people, on whom both groups agree, to take part in the process and to be heard so that good decisions can be made. Obviously, it would not be up to the committee, INAC, or any other. It is going to be something that is decided between first nations and the government.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

[Member spoke in Cree as follows:]

Niwakoma cuntik Tansai Nemeaytane Awapantitok.

[English]

Mr. Speaker, how we have progressed over the course of the summer. We have had time to talk and discuss, or, as we used to say or say now, consult. Taking the time to talk and discuss in the summertime is a very traditional indigenous way of doing things. It is great to see that over the course of this summer, the government has had the conversation about the ideals of justice, because justice in this bill is perhaps the most fundamental element to it.

I think about my family story, about who is Indian and who is not Indian under the law. My grandmother met a fine young man named James Ouellette from Battleford. His family had come from Batoche. They fell in love around 1939. On September 3 they had a son named James Ouellette, but then the war started just a week later and my grandfather signed up and was sent to Europe to fight. He went to England and fought his way through the Dutch lands and into Germany.

This is a story of many indigenous men, but it is also a story about an indigenous woman, for James was what they called at that time a “half-breed” or a Métis person. My grandmother, though, was a status Indian who had the full rights, responsibilities, and disadvantages of being a status Indian. However, because she married my grandfather, she lost her status upon her marriage. She did not know that the great course of events in Europe would ensure that her husband did not return for five years, that he would be away and that she would have to raise their son alone.

My father remembers as young boy having to go into the fields of farmers in the Battleford area to dig up potatoes in the dead of night to steal them so he and his mother could eat, because they had no food or money. He remembers doing this even at the age of four. They could not return home to the reserve at Red Pheasant, because they were not allowed to, for she was not a status Indian and he was called a half-breed.

That is the story of thousands and thousands in this country, and this is what this bill is about. It is about the ideal of justice so that this never happens again, so that someone can always go home to their lands, home to their traditional territory, home to their people, home to their family and community, and not be denied their birthright of who they are, who their people are.

The bill, as it was originally presented, only went so far. What this bill seeks to address has happened throughout Canadian history for 150 years, when people have been denied their rights because they married someone out of love. They were denied their identity and who they were. However, there have been people who have been brave enough in the Senate to continue this fight, senators like Lillian Dyck, Marilou McPhedran, Senator Christmas, Senator Sinclair, Senator Watt, Senator Patterson, Senator Joyal, and Senator Sandra Lovelace. These senators have led the fight to ensure that this discrimination would no longer occur. This is a fight not about today, but a fight about tomorrow. It is about who has status today and thus who will determine who has status tomorrow.

When we go forward with the ideals of a nation-to-nation relationship, as we start to take the Indian Act and dismantle it and try to reform these nations of what constitutes indigenous peoples and an indigenous nation, as we try to take and put together what was broken 139 years ago, it is going to take time. As I said, if someone has status today, they will have status or citizenship in these indigenous nations tomorrow, and so it is very important.

There are many even today who would continue to deny people's right to return. No matter what the bill may do, there will be some communities that will say that if one is not part of a community, then that person has no right to be there.

That is not our tradition. In ages past, people could marry on or into a community. They could become part of a community. There were many occasions when people who were not even Cree or Blackfoot or Anishinaabe could change their nations. They could become something different. They could learn a language and be adopted into a new family.

I was just at the reserve in Battleford region where I had an opportunity to meet meeting not only a Mosquito but a Poundmaker. Poundmaker had been adopted by a Blackfoot chief even though he was Cree, and it was for peaceful purposes. That is a very powerful relationship.

What we did before is not what we do today. Even today, what we do to each other is not always right. We hear stories from near the Montreal territory of people who marry for love and who are not allowed to stay in their community. This was not our way.

In my house I have an adopted daughter. She is not of my blood, but of my heart. She is half first nations from Saskatchewan and half Jamaican. We did not go through the court system to adopt her, but instead used elders, who worked hard to make sure that we did it in a good way, that we did it in a traditional and spiritual way, that it was according to our customs and our customary law. We love her very much. She is not any less of who I am or any less connected to the territory I am from. In fact, I even have a greater responsibility to her.

This is what this legislation is about. This legislation is about the future. It is about how we treat each other as indigenous peoples. I am not sure why it may be decided in this Parliament, which has not always been friendly toward indigenous peoples.

The bill offers us an opportunity to repair the damage of the past, to welcome home those who have been turned way for too long, to welcome home the great returning of people to their traditional territories, to their communities, to their nations, so that we may rebuild the nation that we have, the vision that was laid down before us by leaders like Poundmaker, like Big Bear, like Louis Riel, people who had in their hearts the long-term future of our children.

We are told to think seven generations into the future. Think seven generations from now what the implications will be of what we decide today.

I am very proud of the stance our government is taking. Even though some may say it is not enough, it is certainly a step in the right direction. Maybe it is not just one step; maybe it is a giant leap.

I lay my faith in the hands of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs to accomplish what we have set out to do, to talk during the summer period in the year to come, when indigenous peoples gather across their traditional lands, to do what we call consultation.

I lay my faith in them to make sure that we come up with something that truly represents what seven generations would look back upon and say, “We are proud of the decisions that were made by the parliamentarians of both the Senate and the House of Commons. We are proud of what the government did, of what the opposition did, of what the third opposition did, what all parties did together, that we pushed forward to create a better Canada that was more inclusive but allowed people to reach their full potential.”

[Member spoke in Cree]

[English]

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his great speech and would ask him his opinion of the nature of first nations' existence today, in particular, whether it is the nation-to-nation relationship that everyone continues to talk about. Does he think that is beyond Canada, or does he think first nations do exist underneath the Constitution of Canada and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very interesting question and I will try to answer it as truthfully as I possibly can.

Indigenous sovereignty always existed. These nations existed for a very long period of time. In various groupings, they moved around, semi-nomadically in some cases, using a traditional place because it is much easier to know a territory and always stay within that territory to hunt and engage in other activities.

Also one's spirituality is often related to the land, but we also live in the world today, so as we exist in this world under these laws, we have all come to recognize that indigenous peoples benefit much from the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which are also related to many other international laws like the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man, or Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or even the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

It is not to say they cannot be complementary to each other. The state has to ensure that it does not get in the way of people, so they can craft a life for themselves. Governments should not be about imposing things on people, but creating a framework so that people can be successful and have good interactions with each other, allowing people, nations, and communities to reach their full potential, because if they cannot reach their full potential, there are costs. There are costs to us not only financially, but also emotionally and spiritually, and for all of our relations, including with the land and for who we are.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, it goes without saying the tremendous passion that the member has for promoting indigenous rights and people in Canada. He certainly comes from a long line of advocates of these principles.

The member knows that together we have all worked hard to do what is right in building on reconciliation with indigenous people in Canada. What are his thoughts on the amendments in Bill S-3, and again, most importantly, what is one of the most important pieces we have to continue to work toward to have full reconciliation with indigenous people?

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there are two things that need to occur. As a Canadian society, we are trying to work toward reconciliation, but there are more profound conversations that need to happen among indigenous peoples about what type of nation we would like to have and what it would look like. I do not think we are very advanced in that. We are held up too much in our own constructs or prisons of mind that have been created for us surrounding the Indian Act.

There are too many first nation peoples in this country, and even Métis people, who only see themselves through the prism of the Indian Act. We need to take the time to adequately ask what should we actually be doing? Where do we wish to go and how are we going to get there? It is wonderful that people have extended that hand of nationhood and said they are willing to be partners with us, but we have to be able to grasp that hand.

At this time, we have not done that necessary work, though I do salute the work of the chiefs, the Assembly of First Nations, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, the native women's organizations, NWAC, as well as the Métis National Council, but we are not there yet. There is still work to be done concerning Bill S-3 about what constitutes an indigenous person. As for the Métis, will they now become indigenous under these consultations? These are profound conversations that must be had among first nations and Métis people about what that means. How are they going to work together, because we do not exist in isolation and should not exist opposed to each other?

Tapwe.

[French]

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Regina—Lewvan, Public Services and Procurement; the hon. member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, Taxation; the hon. member for Hochelaga, Indigenous Affairs.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Saskatoon—Grasswood.

I will attempt to build on some of the comments that my colleague just made in his question and answer period.

I think that anyone in this place would be hard pressed to argue that the Indian Act is anything other than deeply flawed. Passed in 1867, among its many flaws is that it is based upon archaic gender systems. Further, it could be argued that the act was, in its design, never meant to be anything more than a way to entrench paternalism and to assimilate first nations while simultaneously reducing the number of people who could claim status.

The Indian Act paternalistically lumped together a diverse population of people and forbade first nation people and communities from expressing their identities through governance and culture. Subsequent amendments to the act made things worse, not better, for first nations by more deeply entrenching colonial practices into law.

Amendments made in 1884 required first nation children to attend residential schools and made it illegal for first nation people to practise religious ceremonies, such as the potlatch. An amendment in 1914 outlawed dancing off-reserve, and in 1925, dancing was outlawed entirely. Amendments to the Act in 1927 made it illegal for first nations people and communities to hire lawyers or bring about land claims against the government without the government's consent.

Putting it mildly, these issues demonstrate a dark past in terms of the actions of legislators and Canadian officials against first nations people.

The 1996 report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples stated that “...Recognition as 'Indian' in Canadian law often had nothing to do with whether a person was actually of Indian ancestry.” Instead “status” was used as a tool of assimilation and cultural destruction. For example, a first nation person could lose status if he or she graduated university, became a Christian minister, or achieved professional designation as a doctor or lawyer.

In 1961, the government finally removed section 112, the so-called “compulsory enfranchisement” section, to end this and other assimilatory practices, but the damage had been done. For nearly a century, first nation people were given an impossible choice: try to live traditionally in spite of the outlawing of many cultural and religious practices, or attempt to interact with non-indigenous society and risk losing status. All of this is in addition to the patriarchal system that the Indian Act imposed.

The patriarchal system of the Indian Act is the crux of our debate today.

Bill S-3 was tabled in response to a Superior Court of Quebec decision, Descheneaux v. Canada and other clearly identified issues. The court found that several aspects of Indian registration under the Indian Act violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, because there were differences between how status was passed down from first nation women compared to first nation men. These provisions were struck down by the courts, and Parliament was given a limited time to pass alternatives. The new deadline to pass legislative changes, after two extensions, is December 22, a date that is quickly approaching.

Aspects of the bill that directly respond to the Descheneaux decision should come into effect upon the bill receiving royal assent. Essentially, these amendments seek to remedy gender inequity in the Indian Act for those born after 1951.

The Liberal government added new amendments to Bill S-3 on November 7. Now embedded in the legislation is a consultation period to discern how to best remedy gender inequity for those born between 1869 and 1951. No date has yet been given of when these consultations will begin or when changes will come into force. There have been two court extensions and three different deadlines to get this passed. I note the court has indicated it has no interest in giving the Liberal government another extension. The clock has run out, and it is unfortunate to see that this was not properly planned to encompass consultations ahead of the passing of the legislation.

In a failed attempt to meet the original court-imposed deadline of February 3, the government engaged in very little consultation prior to tabling. In November 2016, members of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs heard from numerous witnesses that consultation was inadequate, and that indigenous organizations had little time or opportunity to submit their reflections. Additionally, the plaintiffs were not even consulted or contacted in any way by the department or the minister's office. The litigant said that the first time he knew about the bill was when he was called to committee to testify.

Mr. Stéphane Descheneaux said, “we've never been called or asked which way we saw that stuff...I was thinking that they would come to the band and meet us, and say that they're going to go that way, or they're looking to go this way.”

Chief Rick O'Bomsawin said:

[They] told us that we were consulted, that they consulted with chiefs last summer. I have not found one chief that they consulted. They've never consulted me, and it was our case. They never even called us.

This is problematic, and while I agree with the spirit of the bill and its attempts to correct its wrongs, Lord knows that across political stripes and different governments we have tried to correct wrongs. It is clear that the Liberal government needs to own up to the fact that its consultations with first nations on this legislation have been poorly planned. Furthermore, the Indigenous Bar Association testified that the bill was riddled with technical flaws and in no way would do what the title suggested to “eliminate all sex-based inequities in registration.”

After a great deal of pressure from opposition, senators, and indigenous organizations across the country, including the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the Liberals withdrew the legislation from consideration by the Senate aboriginal peoples committee, went back to the court to ask for an extension, and returned the bill to the drawing board. The bill we are debating today is the end result of this process. As I have noted with past examples, there is a real human cost to getting this wrong. That said, the legacy of getting this wrong would have future costs as well.

Lalana Paul, a consultant with the Native Council of Prince Edward Island, says that in the Indian Act, “You see so much sexual discrimination, it's appalling that it's still in there.”

Lisa Cooper, president and chief of the native Council of Prince Edward Island, said, “I have the right to live a traditional and cultural life that I should be able to pass on to my kids.”

Lynn Gehl, a 55-year-old writer whose grandmother belonged to a first nation, fought a 22-year-long legal battle and was finally able to win partial status. However, thanks to the Indian Act, she remained unable to pass her status down to her children. This meant that she was deprived of the chance to vote for her indigenous government and live on land reserves, as well as access to tax breaks and expanded health coverage that she would have otherwise been entitled to receive. She said, “I should be able to pass on my status but I can’t because of gender discrimination.”

Sharon McIvor said that because of the Indian Act, “Aboriginal women and their descendants have been separated from their families and communities, treated as less worthy, less human, less Indian, and not full members of their cultures and communities.”

These stories tell of the deep human impact on first nations of the choices that Canada's legislators make. Given the history of ongoing discrimination, it is imperative that we get this one right.

I know the government has made a commitment to restore relationships with first nations. I could read the list of accomplishments our previous government attempted to do in this regard. However, we need to do better. I have not spoken to this topic very often in the House of Commons, but it is the quiet meetings that I have in my office with chiefs, leaders, and members of first nations communities that really impart to me that all of us in this place need to have a different look at how we approach these relationships. When I look at the process on how the bill has gone back and forth and the consultation process going forward, it is concerning.

Again, I know my colleagues in my party have made it clear that we support the spirit of the bill, and I want to commend the work of my colleague who is the opposition critic in this area. It does build upon previous attempts to clarify and remedy some of the wrongs in this regard. However, I would implore the government members to be clear on what this consultation process means. They need to be transparent with affected members of first nations communities so we can get this relationship thing right.

I want to acknowledge the comments of my colleague from Winnipeg. We are going somewhere. I would like to be going in the right direction. I encourage all members of the House that perhaps we can do a bit better than this.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, it is fair to say that the member was part of the previous government that continued to govern under this very racist and discriminatory legislation, and chose to ignore it even though three court cases at that time said the government needed to amend the Indian Act.

Today we are making those amendments. We would prefer to be repealing the act, but unfortunately, in good prudent governance, we need to replace that with something else. However, there is no reason for us to delay, as former governments did for the last 150 years, making the right changes, changes that will ensure sex-based inequities are eliminated in the act and women are treated fairly.

The member is concerned that it is not going far enough, fast enough. However, for 10 years your government did nothing. There was complete inaction. There were no amendments to the act to correct sex-based gender inequities for that full period of time.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Once again, I want to remind the hon. members to direct their questions through the Chair and not directly to other members.

The hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I find it unfortunate that my colleague, whom I have great respect for, rather than listening to my speech, read a bunch of stuff off her talking point paper. She did not listen to the content of my speech and what I tried to say to her. Since the member has taken a partisan attack here, which I was trying not to do in my speech, I will make three points.

First, the member said that we did nothing. That is just wrong. I am looking the Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act of 2010, a response to McIvor v. Canada. I was so proud to stand in the House of Commons and support the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act of 2013, which gave long overdue rights to first nations women, 25 years overdue.

This is the problem. We stand in here on these topics, and we make them partisan. Then we go out during campaigns and sell these promises that we never follow through on, instead of talking about how we can get this right. It is just disgusting. It is so difficult to stand and talk on these topics, because we have all gotten it wrong. We have all made attempts. We have all tried to do things right, but we continue to fail.

The government stands and points fingers on stuff like this, rather than asking what the consultation process is going to look like, or how we are going to remedy this. Rather than saying we really have not done a super fantastic job on it, it is the “Hey, Stephen Harper” talking point. That is not creating a new relationship with first nations. We all just have to completely reject that and move forward with a different line of thought.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, recognizing that Bill S-3 before us does nothing to remedy gender equality rights for the indigenous women, Sharon McIvor, Jeannette Corbiere Lavell, and Lynn Gehl, collectively, have been fighting this in court for 40 years, as has Chief O'Bomsawin, elected to represent the members of the Descheneaux case. They all oppose this.

Next week Sharon McIvor is going to Washington to address the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and to testify that the time delay in the government's version of Bill S-3, the time delay for the elimination of discrimination against indigenous women, returns us to what we debated on June 21.

This is a flawed bill. I would like to hear my colleague's views on that.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I share my colleague's concerns on how we, as Canada, eventually get this right.

In the interim, we are staring down the barrel of a court deadline that is not going away. We have to pass some legislation, and that is why I stood in this place to say that I agreed with the spirit of the legislation, even with it being an interim measure that is going to keep incrementally moving us forward.

I want to commend the women the member mentioned for their advocacy and their fight in this regard. Without those voices, things do not change.

One of the things I wanted to focus on in my speech was the fact that no date was given on the consultation element, which was added on November 7. During debate today, the government could have provided a lot more information on that. Perhaps that would have remedied some of the concerns of my colleague.

This is not perfect. We need to continue to fix it but, in spirit, it is an incremental step that needs to proceed.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, here we are again, at the 11th hour, attempting to send Bill S-3 back to the Senate for royal assent prior the December 22, 2017, deadline. I guess we would call this “flying by the seat of our pants” legislation. There is a court-imposed deadline, so the government is going to get it done regardless. We have talked about that in the House most of the day.

Bill S-3 was tabled in response to a Superior Court of Quebec decision, Descheneaux v. Canada, in 2015, and other clearly identified issues. The court found that several aspects of Indian registration under the Indian Act violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, because there were differences between how status was passed down from first nation women compared to first nation men. These provisions were struck down, and Parliament was given a limited time to pass an alternative. The new deadline to pass legislative changes, after two extensions, is next month, on December 22. The court has indicated that it has no interest at all, which we have talked about, in giving the Liberal government a third extension.

When Bill S-3 was first brought to the Senate about a year ago, in fact exactly a year ago this month, the government sought to remedy the situation by bringing it back to 1951. However, several independent senators proposed adding what is known as the “6(1)(a) all the way” approach. This amendment would have all Indians registered as 6(1)(a), with equal rights and entitlements regardless of matrilineal or patrilineal descendants, back to 1869. The government, though, rejected those proposals.

After rejecting them on June 21 this year, the Liberal government undertook behind-the-scenes consultations with senators over the summer months to seek consensus around an alternate proposal. The resulting proposed changes were tabled in the Senate earlier this month, on November 7, and would come into force in two stages. The first one we have talked about. The aspects of the bill passed by the House of Commons in June would come into effect by the court-imposed deadline of December 22. Second, newly added clauses, which would extend the proposed remedies for sex-based inequities in the Indian Act back to 1869, would not be enforced until after a consultation process with indigenous peoples on how to proceed. That is the million-dollar question. No date has been given as to when the process would begin or even conclude.

We have talked a lot about this bill, but let us talk about what the previous Conservative government did. It had a long history of supporting gender equity for first nation women. The Conservative government introduced the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act in 2013, which offers a balanced and effective solution to a long-standing injustice and legislative gap that affects people living on reserve, particularly women and children. As a result, many of the legal rights and remedies relating to matrimonial interests in the family home that are available off reserve, in the context of a relationship breakdown, death of a spouse or common-law partner, or family violence, are now available to individuals living on reserve.

The former Conservative government also reintroduced legislation to guarantee to people living on reserve the same protections that other Canadians enjoy under the Canadian Human Rights Act, which came into law on June 18, 2008. It also passed Bill C-3, the Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act, in 2010, in response to McIvor v. Canada in 2009. Bill C-3 allowed for the eligible grandchildren, or women who lost status as a result of marrying non-Indian men, to be entitled to registration if they or their siblings were born on or after September 4, 1951.

It should be noted that the Liberals, including the current Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, actually voted against the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act from 2013, which was introduced and passed by the former Conservative government. It should also be noted that the legislation that made the Canadian Human Rights Act apply on reserves was tabled by the Conservatives, and then all parties worked together to pass the legislation.

Essentially, prior to Bill C-3, the Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act of 2010, and the proposed changes in Bill S-3, Indian status was passed down to the next generation from the father but not through the mother. Therefore, if a first nation male had children with a non-first-nation female, his status would be passed down, but not vice versa. That is what we are talking about here today in the House.

I had a call this week from a friend in Saskatchewan. He is from the Cree first nation. He is unequivocally in favour of Bill S-3. He has a status Indian niece who is married to man from Honduras. Not long ago, they celebrated the birth of their first child. My friend said that he is the cutest little Honduran Indian anyone has ever seen. Perhaps with the passage of Bill S-3, that description should change and he would be the cutest little Indian Honduran anyone has ever seen. Would that not be nice? I think that is what we are headed for after December 22.

My friend also had a very good idea that he passed along to me earlier this week. It is regarding the “ 6(1)(a) all the way” approach back to 1869. He suggested giving non-status indigenous people up to 10 years to get their geneology sorted out. That seems like a long time. However, it could be a gradual process. Some people will have their family trees available now, while others will have to dig around and find the right roots and the proof. I think this is a pretty excellent idea he came up with. It would also give the department an opportunity to work through these changes and prepare for the financial implications they would entail.

At this point, it is unknown exactly how many Canadians would become eligible, or would even apply to register, and what the financial implications would be for the Canadian taxpayer. We have no idea whatsoever. It could be 200,000. It could be 400,000. It depends how far back people go in the tree. We need some time to figure this out. I do not know if it would have any implications for roughly one-half of my province's indigenous population.

We, the official opposition, as we have stated all day in the House, support Bill S-3 at second and third readings, because it contains several necessary changes to the Indian Act toward greater gender equality and is the next step beyond the amendments made by the former Conservative government with Bill C-3, back in 2010.

What I do not agree with is this “flying by the seat of their pants” method of legislating by the government. It has had more than enough time to table a good, clean piece of legislation that everyone could get on board with and get passed. Instead, it chose a path it knew would encounter resistance and delays, especially in the Senate.

I do not believe we can please all of the people all of the time, but we as legislators have an obligation to please as many Canadians as possible all of the time. That is our duty, and it really should not be muddied. However, we are going to support Bill S-3. I want to say, on behalf of the people of Saskatchewan, they are excited about the bill and are hoping it passes, and then we can move forward as of December 22.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech and for articulating some of the positives, and of course, some of the concerns about this piece of legislation. The positives are that it responds to the court decision as well as to some additional issues that were identified. However, the concern is that it is not perfect yet. I will be the first to acknowledge that.

Given the court deadline and that decisions profoundly impact communities in terms of their membership, it has been a long haul to get here. I would like the member to speak to the implications of the wait to get it perfect, especially for the people who have been waiting so patiently for so long.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, yes, we have debated this in the House now for a little more than a day. It is good to get this legislation moving. We have talked about it here in the House. We sent it to the Senate. It had to deal with it, and many of the independents did not like the first look at it. Now we are bringing it back here.

We have to move forward. Time is of the essence. We are talking about 1951 onward. Many family trees do not exist before 1951. We know that. There is documentation needed on reserves in the provinces and territories in this country. However, it is a good start that we are moving forward on Bill S-3 now.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, we know that discrimination has existed for a very long time, nearly 150 years under the Indian Act. When I look back and see that these inequities go back to 1869, it is actually shocking. It was nearly 100 years before I was born. Since then, we have not been able to make the corrections that have been needed.

I am very pleased and proud that the government is moving forward at this stage with remedying some of these sex-based inequities. I am happy that the timeframe from 1951 onward will come into effect immediately. I think we all have a responsibility to ensure that those that occurred prior to that period, going back to 1869, are done as soon as possible.

Does the member agree that there needs to be proper and fair consultation with indigenous governments, over as short a period as possible, to get this right and to ensure that all these inequities can be corrected, for the benefit of all indigenous Canadians?

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I think the shorter, the better. We have been dealing with this for a long time.

When I was talking to my friends from Saskatchewan earlier this week, they were talking about needing time to find their family trees. The Internet in northern Saskatchewan, and in fact, in northern Canada, is very poor. A lot of people want to do proper research on their family trees, if we are going to go back to 1869, which is the wish of many of them. I think that is why they wanted a little more of a timeline.

Yes, let us consult right away. Let us get the process moving. This is a good start. We are 85% there. We need to be at 100%, which means shorter consultations. Moving Bill S-3 along would certainly help.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be standing on Algonquin territory.

I will be splitting my time with the member of Parliament for Burnaby South.

After much pressure, Liberals have a new Bill S-3 fix to end legislated discrimination against indigenous women, but only after consultations. This is not supported by the women who have been fighting this inequality in court for 40 years. It shows again that Liberals are not upholding their promise to respect indigenous people and to bring full gender equality.

I do not understand why a government that calls itself a feminist government needs to consult on whether indigenous women should have human rights, because they do. We want the Prime Minister and his government right now to remove all sex discrimination from the Indian Act.

Since its inception, the Indian Act has accorded privilege to male Indians and their descendants and disregarded female Indians as second class. To sum up where we are right now, despite unprecedented government promises of indigenous reconciliation and respect, Liberals are trading off human rights based on budget lines. Indigenous women who have been fighting 40 years in court for gender equality watched in dismay June 21, National Aboriginal Day of all days, as the Liberals gutted reforms that would have made the Indian Act less vile. These were moved by my colleague, the member of Parliament for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou and others.

Canada's laws still say that indigenous people with a university degree, military service, or a white husband lose their Indian status. Would one not think that a government that pledged to a nation-to-nation relationship built on respect would want to remove all of those conditions?

“Indigenous women deserve the equality the charter is intended to ensure and protect”, said litigant Lynn Gehl, and they do. There is much support for the government ending all sex discrimination in the Indian Act. Canada has endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which clarifies state obligations on self-determination, including the right to determine membership. UNDRIP already has application in Canadian law.

Also, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women just a year ago called out the current government for the need to act on this file. It said:

...the Committee remains concerned about continued discrimination against indigenous women, in particular regarding the transmission of Indian status, preventing them and their descendants from enjoying all the benefits related to such status...The Committee recommends that the State party remove all remaining discriminatory provisions of the Indian Act that affect indigenous women and their descendants, and ensure that aboriginal women enjoy the same rights as men to transmit status to their children and grandchildren.

It did not set out a very long timeline or an indeterminate timeline. It did not say consult on it. It said that Canada, to uphold its international commitments on human rights, must remove all gender discriminations against indigenous women.

The government has failed, and it has given the House again a flawed bill.

After 40 years of litigation by indigenous women, many of whom are still alive, and indigenous lawyers who have been fighting alongside them, the government failed to ask them what they thought or have them inform the proposed legislation now before the House.

Here are two indigenous women lawyers, and I am paying attention to their words.

Pam Palmater, chair of Ryerson University's centre for the study of indigenous governance, said:

...this bill does not remedy gender discrimination. ...according to the numbers, it actually will only remedy about 10 percent of the known gender discrimination under the Indian Act, and that, by far, is not a bill that's acceptable.

Another indigenous lawyer, now the Liberal justice minister, was the B.C. regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations. This is what she told the House standing committee in 2010 on Harper's version of Bill S-3:

What this bill does not do is address the other Indian Act gender inequities that go beyond the specific circumstances of Sharon McIvor and Sharon McIvor's grandchildren.

This year, the Ontario Native Women's Association said:

By rejecting the “6(1)(a) All The Way” amendment to Bill S3 the federal government has betrayed its promise to Indigenous women. The amendment would have reinstated our sisters and removed all sex based discrimination from the Indian act.

Three warriors whom we are still informed by, these powerful indigenous women, litigated starting 40 years ago against both Conservative and Liberal governments repeatedly. Jeannette Corbiere Lavell litigated for 40 years and is not helped by Bill S-3. Sharon McIvor, litigant and now defence lawyer, asked why they would consult on whether they can continue to be discriminated against. Lynn Gehl, also a longtime challenger of this discrimination in courts, said that the minister of Indian and Northern Affairs is using consultation as a weapon. That is no way to move forward.

Many indigenous women's groups have called attention to the provisions of clause 10,another flaw identified in Bill S-3. With this clause, the government is justifying past discrimination and past violations of human rights. It acts as an incentive to allow the government to continue to discriminate with impunity until it chooses to address it or is forced to address it. It underscores the sense of colonial entitlement. It undermines the rule of law. The government cannot be given immunity for its conduct.

My colleague the member of Parliament for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou moved two times, at committee and in the House, for the government to remove clause 10 on that basis and the government twice has voted it down.

Some of the up and coming women leaders are Shania Pruden, of Pinaymootang First Nation in Manitoba, and Teanna Ducharme, also known as Ayagadim Majagalee, a Nisga'a woman. They both were part of the daughters of the vote taking their seats in the House just six months ago and they both testified at the status of women committee, strong, powerful, young indigenous women speakers. The late Shannen Koostachin informs the work of the House so often. Helen Knott is a Treaty 8 activist on ending violence against women associated with mega projects such as the Site C dam, which again the government is letting indigenous women down on.

In their names our responsibility as parliamentarians is to say again we cannot afford half measures in this country anymore. Gender equality and first nations respect is the solemn promise of the government and of me and my New Democrat colleagues. We are going to keep working hard to keep those promises.

I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

“a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that, in relation to Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Indian Act (elimination of sex-based inequities in registration), the House:

1. agrees with amendments 1 to 8 and 9(a) made by the Senate;

2. proposes that amendment 9(b) be amended by replacing the words “on a day to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council, but that day must be after the day fixed under subsection (1).” with the words “18 months after the day on which the order referred to in subsection (1) is made.”.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The amendment seems to be in order.

Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her invested interest in what is happening with this bill and, certainly more important, what is happening with sex-based inequities that exist within the Indian Act right now.

I have said before and I will say again in this House that if it were the preference of all of us we would be repealing the act and replacing it with something else. Unfortunately, government has a responsibility to ensure that we are doing proper duty in terms of having a legislative framework and, until we can bring that forward, we are in a situation where we have to make appropriate amendments in as quick and accurate a way as possible to try to rid the act of some of the terrible racial and discriminatory clauses that are enacted upon people. That is basically where we are today in this debate.

In this bill, government would remedy all sex-based inequities that exist in this act going back to 1869. Where the clause would become effective is that from 1951 onward it would be enacted immediately. What the Government of Canada is saying is that it is our full intent and our full commitment to ensure that there is also correction back to 1869, but there is a process that we must engage with first nations governments and with chiefs to ensure that this is done appropriately. The government has also outlined in this bill that it would provide time frames and full and open reports to Parliament.

In the 150 years it has taken us to get to where we are today, surely the member opposite can support the spirit and the intent of what the bill would do to help so many indigenous women in Canada, and be a champion to ensure that this work gets implemented sooner rather than later, so that all of these people who should be captured under the act would be captured in as short a time as possible.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to my colleague, whom I enjoy and appreciate very much, I will say in the strongest way I can that I will not be a champion for incremental equality. That is not the work of parliamentarians.

One hundred and fifty years is absolutely too long.

The member opposite sets up a bit of a red herring. We are not here today talking about repealing the Indian Act. That will be a good day when that is what we are debating. What we are debating is the implementation of repeated court rulings that both the Liberal and Conservative governments have received to remove gender discrimination. The bill we had before us in this House that the current government introduced, that we debated and voted on, on June 21, was a very short stage, just the 1951 cut-off. It did not have the commitment to go backward, and that is what we are pushing for, complete gender equality. It is not something that needs to be consulted on.

The government, having received push-back from the Senate and having had its bill refused, now is back with another half measure. However, it still is not supported by the indigenous women affected, it is not supported by the indigenous women lawyers who have been fighting this all these decades, and neither should we as parliamentarians accept a bill that is a half-hearted measure and incremental equality. We have waited too long for indigenous women to have fairness in our country.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand in this place and speak to such an important issue. I do have to recognize the incredible work my colleagues have done on this, and will continue to do until we repeal the Indian Act and we have full justice and equality in our country, which is sadly lacking.

I would like to explain how I have come to understand the issue we are debating today. I grew up in rural Nova Scotia, in the Annapolis Valley. Through my entire early childhood years, I can never remember much discussion of my indigenous neighbours except to hear about Glooscap's legend and a few other quaint stories, important to local people at times. I really had no context, because in Nova Scotia, like all across our country, there had been great discrimination against first nations Mi’kmaq people from that area.

I remember when I was a kid, I went to a drive-in movie. The sun was just setting, and I was sitting there in the car. I remember looking over and there were kids looking across the drive-in movie fence. I asked my mom who those folks were. She said they lived on the local reserve. Until that time, I had never really realized there were indigenous people living in my community.

We had always had debates about the Acadians, whom the British had pushed off the land. In fact, the land on which my parents' house stood was on Acadian land. We could still see some of the old structure. However, we never had a conversation about the Mi’kmaq. It never really came into the conversations in our household or in our school. It was never taught, except for a few local legends, which were always capitalized on by the colonizers.

It starts to eat away at someone. As a young person, I was not quite sure how to deal with this stuff. However, it was present. I am happy to say that when I was driving along a Nova Scotia highway about six months ago, I started to notice they are naming the reserves on the highway signs. One can actually know, going down the highway, that there is a community there that was never named in the past. That is a very small step toward reconciliation and bringing equality. I am 50 years old. It has taken decades and decades for just that small thing to get done.

I remember the first time I ever said the word “genocide” about indigenous people in Canada. I was a young lecturer at Simon Fraser University, and I was teaching the administration of justice. With my colleague, Paddy Smith, a great mentor of mine, we decided the course had never had a full lecture about aboriginal rights in Canada, so we decided this would be a good time to start.

When one actually starts to research the history of the administration of justice in Canada, one realizes just one lecture, one course, or one degree is not enough, that there need to be entire institutions that look at this sad history.

I remember standing in front of a class of 200 people for the first time saying that Canadians had committed genocide. When I talked about how the Beothuk people were wiped off the face of the earth by our ancestors, it made me realize, with shame, how this whole history had been hidden. At least I can say those first-year students had some sense, somewhere to start, to ask how do we get to reconciliation.

That was probably 15 years ago. I worked on a program and did some research for the Department of Justice looking at on-reserve voting during that period as well.

The amount of damage starts to get overwhelming. Coming from Nova Scotia, where we had the original Europeans coming over, it is reported historically that there was some co-operation there. We went from this co-operation to oppression, to cultural genocide when we think about the residential schools right across the country.

My colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley, earlier today was talking about South Africa coming to look at our reserve systems and saying, “This is how you do it. Let's do it back home.”

Then I come to the House of Commons where all of these decisions were made. People just like us here in the House today put act after act forward, which then went to the Senate. Perhaps it was before Canada had a legislature as well. The British are definitely to blame for this. In the House of Commons, act after act after act reinforced and made worse the terrible treatment of people who I did not even know were my neighbours when I was growing up.

We owe it to our future generations and past generations of those who suffered to do the right thing, and I do not think we are doing the right thing. What I am hearing in this debate is that some administrative inconveniences are stopping us from doing the just thing. That does not seem to balance out, especially after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, especially after we looked at all the damage that was done to our neighbours, to the people we should love as much as we love ourselves. Then we get into a debate like this with a bill that goes back and forth between the other place and here. It sounds like people are saying that the bill is an administrative inconvenience, and that seems to be holding up justice, which does not make any sense to me.

I have a constituent in my riding who is in her seventies. She has been trying for 20 years to get her status. She has hired her own lawyers and has been helped by MPs in Burnaby and elsewhere. She came to my office and said she had tried over and over again to get her status but wants to try once more. We are trying to help her get her status, not for herself but for her future generations. Her husband recently passed away. She is indigenous; he was not. She has had to hide from her culture for so long and really wants to be proud of it, and this seems to be the time to do it. Look at what she has to go through. She has to hire her own lawyers and to go to members of Parliament for help. She has to revisit what her family members went through in the past. This seems totally unnecessary, especially when her male family members do not have to do the same thing.

We can talk about dotting the i's and crossing the t's and all of that kind of stuff, but really, when we get down to people, it does not matter. This should be done right away. It seems to me that this could be done very simply despite all of the administrative inconvenience. All we are doing is amending an act that should have been repealed in the first place.

If one is looking at this from the perspective of someone who has suffered, it must be inconceivable that we are doing this. I am deeply ashamed. We can do much better. It does not make any sense to me that one day we are talking about genocide and the next day we are questioning where a clause must go.

I really hope that after we get through this debate, we can get on with the real work.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to an order made earlier today, all questions on the motion are deemed to have been put and the recorded division is deemed to have been requested and deferred until Monday, December 4, at the ordinary hour of daily adjournment.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from November 30 consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Indian Act (elimination of sex-based inequities in registration), and of the amendment.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, November 30, 2017, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the motion.

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #424

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare the amendment lost.

The next question is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #425

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried.

(Amendments read the second time and concurred in)