Bill C-8 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's call to action number 94)

This enactment amends the Citizenship Act to include, in the Oath or Affirmation of Citizenship, a solemn promise to respect the Aboriginal and treaty rights of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, in order to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s call to action number 94.

Extension of Sitting Hours and Conduct of Extended Proceedings

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, you are doing good work in the chair today. Thanks again.

Here we go again. I honestly do not know what to say after hearing the parliamentary secretary to the leader of the government in this chamber. As I said in my question to him, what I heard was a lot of justification with little accountability on why the Liberals are introducing what I would deem a draconian motion, Motion No. 11, today, when there really is no need to do so. There is nothing under this coalition with the NDP, even up to the point and in advance of the coalition being announced, that the Liberals have not been able to put forward as part of their legislative agenda.

So far, of the 18 bills that have been introduced, eight have received royal assent. There is no question that there may be some other outstanding pieces of legislation that the government wants to put forward, but there is no reason why it cannot do that in the time specified in the Standing Orders and the schedule that was agreed to by my predecessor and the other House leaders last year.

The Standing Orders talk about the possibility of extending hours. We have seen that. I have been here for six and a half years, certainly not as long as my hon. colleague from Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, who has been here for 21 years and I believe is the dean of our caucus. She has seen it all, through government and now through opposition. There has never been an example like this, at least in the history of this Parliament, and I suspect in the history of legislatures across the country in all of the provinces and territories, where on April 28 we are debating a motion that gives the government ultimate power to extend hours at this particular point of this parliamentary session.

I am going to talk later on about the consequences of that, because I think there are significant consequences to the administration of this place, to the lives and the health, mental and physical health, of those who work in this place, but what I want to focus on initially is why we are at this point, a point that I believe we certainly do not need to be at.

I have heard from the government House leader and the parliamentary secretary that they are focusing on Bill C-8 as one of the reasons why they are proposing this ham-fisted Motion No. 11. The reality on Bill C-8 is that, as I said earlier, it was only introduced on December 15. It received second reading in February, went to committee in March and came back to the House at report stage. There were some other issues of debate that were required as a result of its coming out of committee. In fact, I recall having a conversation with you, Mr. Speaker, about Bill C-8 at report stage and that you expressed some concerns, not in your current role as Speaker, but in your role as a member of the Bloc Québécois. Those concerns were certainly moving through the process.

Within that timeline specifically on Bill C-8, there are some important measures, measures that have already been implemented, such as purchasing rapid tests. The government has the authorities, when it issues a ways and means motion, to accelerate the spending within the piece of legislation. When we look back, we have had four weeks where we have been off. I am sure we all agree to that timeline. This is effectively a mismanagement of the legislative agenda as to why Bill C-8 has not been put forward.

As I said in my question to the parliamentary secretary, and this is important to understand because Liberals have been accusing us, the opposition, of obstructing this piece of legislation, it was on April 4 that the government put a notice of time allocation on the Notice Paper. That was the week of the budget. The budget was introduced on April 7. The motion was not moved.

When I asked the government House leader why he did not move the motion, the reason he gave me was that the NDP did not want to move that motion. How are we obstructing that? If the Liberals' coalition partners did not want to move a notice of time allocation, then their issue on Bill C-8 is not with the opposition but with their coalition partners, because they did not want to move the motion. If the parliamentary secretary wants to, he can confirm that with the government House leader. Hopefully he gets the truth, but that was the basis of the conversation that we had. In fact, it was brought up at the House leaders' meeting the next day.

The government suggests, specifically on Bill C-8, that somehow we are obstructing the passage of that piece of legislation. Yes, we had some people who wanted to speak to it when it came out of committee, because there were important issues. However, I would suggest, respectfully, that it was the Liberals' coalition partners who prevented the notice of time allocation from being moved, which, as I said, was introduced on April 4. We could have been dealing with this at third stage even back before the budget in that first week.

We certainly share those concerns, particularly from an agriculture standpoint as it relates to the carbon tax rebate and taxes. I know there are teachers who are waiting for that bill. It is not lost on me, and it should not be lost on anybody in the House, that it is the Liberals and their NDP coalition partners who are stopping this.

The other thing that is concerning, and I know the member brought this up as well, is the issue of medical assistance in dying and the extension within this motion on medical assistance in dying, which would push it to October 17. There was a requirement for a legislative review to be held on this bill. We went to an election in September. We were reconvened around November. However, it was not until the end of March, in the timeline that is required for this legislative review, that the government even started talking about the Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying and the requirement for this legislative review. In fact, this review was required to be done legislatively by May, so we had discussions.

I understand my colleague from the Bloc and I understand as well that there are very serious issues with medical assistance in dying that are required to be looked at, but with regard to the legislative review that was to be done in May, we actually agreed, as the opposition, to extend the timeline by another six weeks. It was not our fault that the government delayed the legislative review. It pushed it off until March, and then we agreed to go beyond the extension. Initially, I was a little concerned about it, but we do not control the legislative agenda in this place. It is not the opposition's job to sit here and determine what is going to happen in this place. It is the government's job. When we were in government, we determined the legislative agenda that was to occur in this place.

The Liberals' failure, not just on Bill C-8 but on medical assistance in dying and the required legislative review and the timeline related to that, is their fault. It is completely on them, and that is why we agreed. I respected the concern of the Bloc House leader, and I know there are very deep and personal issues within the Bloc caucus on the issue of medical assistance in dying. That is why we agreed to extend the timeline by another six weeks and to provide the committee with what we believe was an appropriate amount of time, six weeks extra, to deal with this.

We actually also committed to having the committee sit more than what was regularly scheduled. That would have required moving resources from other committees to this committee, but we were committed to allowing that extended timeline to June 23, which all of us, including me and our party, agreed to.

Again, that is the government's prerogative. We do not control the administration of this place. We do not control committees. We do not control virtual sittings. We do not control translation. We do not control the administrative staff, nor do we control the clerks. It is all the government. We committed, in extending that deadline, to work and to be available during that timeline if extra sittings of the committee on medical assistance in dying were required. We committed to get the job done, yet here we are.

We are seeing now in this motion an extension to October 17. There had been discussions among the parties to extend it, and on behalf of our party, I said “no”. There had to have been unanimous consent, because we had already agreed to extend it by six weeks to June 23. Again, the government wasted time putting the committee in place. It took from the time we started sitting in November to the time it finally got around to talking about it in March, which it did so it would meet the requirements of the legislative timeline.

The other thing the government did was call an election last September. The House could have still been sitting. We were only 18 months into that session of Parliament. We could have still kept going. The Liberals could have dealt with medical assistance in dying, or they could have dealt with other bills, such as Bill C-8, within that timeline, but they chose not to. How is that our fault? How are we obstructing Parliament? How are we stepping in the way of the government's legislative agenda, when its members, time and time again, fail to implement whatever is on their legislative agenda and fail to use the time and resources of the House in a manner that would allow them to get their job done?

That was the issue with medical assistance in dying. That is what happened, in case anyone is wondering why we are seeing that timeline in this motion. I understand, as I said earlier, that it was important to my colleague, the House leader of the Bloc, and to those within the Bloc, to see the October 17 deadline extended beyond what we had all agreed to. Although I am disappointed by that, I certainly understand, based on my discussions with my colleague in the Bloc, why that is important to them.

I do not think we have to put it in an omnibus motion in order to do that. We could have had further discussions, but I guess this was a way of handing some sort of opportunity to the Bloc to understand this motion, and that is okay. I get that those things happen, because as I said, I realize how important this issue is to the Bloc. I know the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons wanted an explanation, and I just gave him one. We had all agreed to extend that deadline, and we did not see the reason, especially given the fact that we were willing to work with the committee to extend the hours.

There was some talk that, during the break in May, that week after Victoria Day, we would have eight-hour sittings. I spoke to our shadow minister about that, and it was an impossibility. It would have been eight hours a day sitting in committee dealing with medical assistance in dying when many of those resources could have been moved from other sources to deal with the medical assistance dying committee while the House is sitting. That could have been done, but we thought that eight hours a day of sitting in that break week in May was an unreasonable request, and I think it was, because there were members on our side who had made plans with their families during that week, and because it is Victoria Day weekend here in Ontario, so some plans were already made.

We certainly could have worked together, but we are actually seeing a pattern of this type of activity happen. Members will recall Motion No. 6, which the government introduced at one point. This is very different than that, because at the time there was strong consensus, agreement and alignment among the opposition parties. The Conservative Party, the Bloc and the NDP were in opposition to Motion No. 6, and we fought that vigorously.

However, because there was that alignment, the government eventually did back down from that motion, at least some of the more destructive pieces of that motion. This is different.

Motion No. 11 is different because I suspect the Liberals have the support of the NDP. Of course, the government has thrown a few nuggets to the NDP. We have seen that all that is required for NDP's support in this unholy alliance and collusion, is just need to be thrown a few little nuggets and they will leap, because the Liberal Party effectively has the NDP in its hip pocket, to implement these types of motions. It is quite concerning.

There are extremely concerning aspects of this that really play into a pattern of what I would call a democratic decline in this country. We have seen this pattern over and over. We saw it with Motion No. 6, as I said earlier. In fact, one of the first pieces of legislation introduced after the COVID crisis hit in March 2020 was an absolutely draconian piece of legislation from the government, and I am glad all oppositions fought it. Even the NDP fought it at that time because they had not yet formed this unholy alliance, but it fought this draconian piece of legislation, which would have given the government massive powers and massive overreach to suspend the activities of Parliament and tax Canadians without the approval of Parliament.

Can members imagine a government thinking it could take that on and actually affect that within a democracy like Canada. When I speak about this democratic decline, there are numerous examples over the course of not just during COVID but also prior to that, even with Motion No. 6, where we have seen the government really overreach and overextend its powers and controls over this place, diminishing not just democracy but also our institutions. It is diminishing faith in our institutions and the respect that people have for our institutions, separating our institutions in a way that keeps them away from government politicization and government influence, yet the government continues to do that. The government is certainly doing this with Motion No. 11.

I want to go through and talk about some of the more concerning parts of the motion. It does not just concern me as a parliamentarian seeing this diminishing of democracy happen in this country. There are examples, much like in some of the countries in eastern Europe where we are seeing it on a scale that is being measured, of the decline of democracy in this country. There are measurements, and I will speak about that in a few minutes.

I would suggest that Motion No. 11 adds to that decline in democracy. When we go through the motion, we see some of the things that the government has proposed. The motion reads:

On the day of the adoption of this order, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12 a.m., that until Thursday, June 23, 2022, a minister of the Crown may, with the agreement of the House leader of another recognized party, rise from his or her seat at any time during a sitting, but no later than 6:30 p.m., and request that the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the current sitting or a subsequent sitting be 12:00 a.m....

Now let us think about what that means. A minister of the Crown, and it does not have to be the House leader, although the House leader is classified as a minister, but a minister could go to another party at 6:29 p.m. and say, “We want to extend the hours, will you agree with us?”

They need just one party, one recognized House leader, to agree. I wonder who that would be. I know that the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader said that I could agree to that, but there are certain provisions in this motion that I could never agree to, so why would I agree at 6:29 p.m. to extend the sitting of the House.

The government House leader or a minister of the Crown will walk over to his coalition buddy in the NDP and say, “Look, we are not moving forward on things quick enough.” It would not be up for open, vigorous debate, or for oversight or scrutiny, which is what this place is designed to do. Instead, we can sit here, and they can walk over and talk to their NDP buddy to say “Look, we want to extend the hours until midnight.” I will tell members what is most concerning about that, but the least of it is the impact the lack of planning would have on families in this place.

Here is the scenario: The House is set to adjourn at 6:30 p.m. At 6:29 p.m., the two of them are in cahoots, and they say that they want to extend the sitting until midnight. What does that do to families? What does that do to MPs who perhaps have plans? It is one thing to do it during the normal, set schedule in the Standing Orders, but it is another thing to start doing it on April 28, which is today, because this would take effect if this motion passes.

What does it do to the administration of this place? What does it do to the clerks? They work hard, and they know they have to work hard, but one minute before the House is set to rise, the government and its buddies in the NDP can say that they want to keep everybody here. They would want to keep the clerks here, the administration here and the pages here.

Have people not been through enough throughout the course of this crisis? We have had to go through the extensions of the long hours in this place, the uncertainty and the impact on mental health, on families and on people's lives, yet one minute before the House is scheduled to rise, they can suddenly extend it until midnight, and they can do that every single night if they want to.

How is that fair? How is that fair to a mom who works here who has kids at home who she needs to get home to, or to a father who works here who has kids at home who he needs to get home to? How about a husband and wife who work together, the partners and spouses who work in this place, having to work those long hours because the government is mismanaging its agenda and is not using its time effectively in this House?

What about the mental health impacts this would have? What about the drivers? What about the security guards? They will effectively be given a one-minute notice that they have to stick around this place. Come on. How ridiculous is that? The government can do it, as I said earlier, from the point this motion passes right through until June 23, or earlier if they decide that they are going to adjourn the House.

Of course, another part of the motion is talking about proceedings on any opposition motion. So, when it is government business, it is okay, we will extend the House, but not on opposition motion days. These are very valuable supply days that we get. The official opposition gets five days in the supply period, the Bloc Québécois gets one and the NDP, I believe, gets one as well.

However, on those days, we would rise at the appropriate time. There would not be any opportunity for us to extend beyond the normal sitting time, but there would be for government legislation. Perhaps we have an issue that is important to Canadians. Perhaps it is a geopolitical issue, financial issue or an issue affecting the health of Canadians that we want to bring forward and get consensus on in the House. We would not have an opportunity to extend beyond the normal sitting time, but the government, with a one-minute notice and the help of its coalition buddies in the NDP, could extend the sitting time of the House every single day, including Friday.

On Friday, we do the business of this place for this country and the House adjourns at 2:30 p.m. However, at 2:29 p.m., the two parties can get together and say that we will be extending until midnight.

We can talk about the impact that this can have on families and the family unit, and the impact on the mental health and physical health of those who work to support this place. This includes MPs, many of whom make travel plans on Fridays so they can go home to their constituencies. When they go home to their constituencies, they are going out to events on Saturday and sometimes on Sunday, then working their way back here to Parliament by getting back on an airplane. Now the Liberals are suggesting that members of Parliament have to cancel their travel plans on a whim because they are not good at dealing with their legislative agenda and the schedule of the House, and they are going to keep us here until midnight on Friday.

I have sat here for six and a half years and have heard the NDP talk about a family-friendly environment in this place, about attracting more women to Parliament and about making sure that the lives of the people who work here and the lives of MPs are balanced so they can spend time with their families and can spend time in their constituencies. However, if this motion passes today, the Liberals will push to extend the timelines to midnight every single day that the House is sitting with a one-minute notice, just one minute, including on Fridays. I have no problem working Fridays. It is part of my job as the opposition House leader to be here on Fridays. However, I think it is absolutely unreasonable for anyone to expect, with one-minute notice, all of the administration, all of the support staff and the interpreters who work in this place to be here until midnight every single day, when the House starts at 10 o'clock in the morning, because the government mismanages its legislative agenda.

I have not even touched on the interpreters. At the Board of Internal Economy, we have been hearing about the impact that these virtual or hybrid sittings are having on our interpreters. We have seen an increase in injuries. Reports have been published that note a marked increase in the physical injury impact that this hybrid setting has been having on our interpreters. I have also talked about some of the other people who are going to be impacted by this. If the government is that concerned about the health and wellness of the people who work here, including the interpreters, why would it even suggest extending until midnight every single day? It is because of its failure to impose its legislative agenda within the timelines that have been prescribed in the Standing Orders.

This is also going to have an impact on committees, which I am going to touch on a bit later. This will have an impact on the ability of the committees to do their work because of the shuffling of resources that will be required. It stands to reason that if we are going to go to midnight, we will have to take something away from somewhere, and the important work that is being done by committees will suffer. Maybe that is the intent. Maybe that is what the government wants. Maybe it wants to take that work away from committees so it can further avoid accountability and transparency and we can further see the democratic decline that is happening in this country.

This is a beauty. As I said earlier, after 6:30 p.m., with one minute to spare because the House normally adjourns at 6:30 p.m., a member or minister of the government can go to the NDP and say, “We are going to extend.” Here is the impact of that, and it is a joke. It has to be a joke; there is no other way to explain it. The motion states:

the Speaker shall not receive any quorum calls or dilatory motions, and shall only accept a request for unanimous consent after receiving a notice from the House leaders or whips of all recognized parties

That is just on unanimous consent. At least they have included the House leaders of recognized parties on some sort of unanimous consent motion that can be passed. However, what is interesting here is the constitutional obligation to have quorum in this place. What Liberals are saying in this motion is that after 6:30 p.m. there will not be a requirement for quorum.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

June 21, 2021

Mr. Speaker:

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Richard Wagner, Administrator of the Government of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bills listed in the schedule to this letter on the 21st day of June, 2021, at 6:35 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Ian McCowan

Secretary to the Governor General

The schedule indicates the bills assented to were Bill C-210, An Act to amend the Canada Revenue Agency Act (organ and tissue donors); Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's call to action number 94); Bill C-15, An Act respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; Bill C-33, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022; and Bill C-34, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022.

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

Absolutely, Jamie. We have a plan for every one of the calls to action that is a federal responsibility or shared responsibility and, as you know, we're either completed or are well under way with 80% of them.

Obviously, with what's happened just now, with Bill C-5 and Bill C-8, as well as Bill C-15, we are making tremendous progress on the calls to action, and we really do believe that calls to action 72 to 76 are well under way.

Indigenous Affairs

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to correct the report card the member has given. The TRC road map for reconciliation is so important to our government, and in objective reviews, 80% of the 76 calls to action under the sole or shared responsibility of the federal government are completed or well under way. The recent passage of Bill C-5 is an example of concrete progress, as are Bill C-8 and Bill C-15, which are coming soon. This work will require sustained and consistent action to advance Canada's shared journey of healing and reconciliation.

Opposition Motion—Housing Policy

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my hon. colleague.

I could not believe it when I saw the news about the 215 children who were found in Kamloops last week. The government's only response was to dust off Bill C-8 and say that it is taking action for indigenous peoples by adding four words to the Canadian oath of citizenship. Meanwhile, there are still indigenous reserves in northern Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba that do not yet have drinking water and where there are 25 people living in substandard and unheated one-bedroom homes.

Indigenous Affairs

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

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to remind the member that over 80% of the 76 calls to action under the sole or shared responsibility of the federal government are completed or well under way; the recent passage of Bill C-5, as an example, Bill C-8, Bill C-15. This will result in sustained and consistent action to advance Canada's shared journey of healing and reconciliation.

Citizenship Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

It being 7:55 p.m., pursuant to order made on Tuesday, June 1, the motion is deemed adopted and Bill C-8, an act to amend the Citizenship Act regarding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's call to action number 94, is deemed read a third time and passed on division.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)

[Jenica Atwin, Green, Fredericton, NB]

Madam Speaker, I was a bit more cynical about those calls to action, but the more I thought about it, the more I think it is so important to enshrine up front when that important learning is happening about coming to a new country, coming to Canada and what that means. To talk about the original inhabitants right out of the gate leads to what could be a future of reconciliation for all. It is an important step. I do not think we can trivialize it. Bill C-8 is important and I am proud to support it.

[Jenica Atwin, Green, Fredericton, NB]

Madam Speaker, it is important for me today to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-8 from the unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik.

What is a nation, and what does it mean to be a Canadian citizen? Bill C-8 is an act to amend the Citizenship Act. The bill would change the oath of citizenship for newcomers to Canada to include recognition and affirmation of the treaty rights of first nations, Inuit and Métis people.

As I have proudly mentioned many times in this House, before I joined federal politics I was a teacher. When I think about this bill and the oath of citizenship, I think about what it teaches us about who we are and who we want to be.

In my time at Fredericton High School as a cultural transition coordinator for indigenous youth, I helped to run a native education centre. My role was to ensure that students were welcomed, supported, empowered and that they had access to the materials and resources they needed for success, often a tall order in a large institution.

I had the pleasure of working closely with the English as a second language department for newcomer students, who were in the same wing. My goal was to facilitate learning about indigenous culture and heritage with my students, but also with the wider school population and staff. I would create bulletin boards with information; spotlight incredible indigenous leaders, actors, artists, language keepers; visit classes or host professional development seminars.

It was not long before the ESL department requested that I come in and speak with their students, who were very curious about my role. I noticed that the “welcome to Canada” curriculum that the ESL teachers had been given represented indigenous peoples with a totem pole, a teepee and an inukshuk. Beyond these superficial symbolic images, there was no substance, no discussion of rights, of the peace and friendship treaties in our territory, of the different Wabanaki nations on the east coast, no highlight of the 15 communities in New Brunswick, nine Mi’kmaq and six Wolastoqiyik.

We started to hold group potlucks with traditional foods, sometimes in our space and sometimes in theirs. Beyond the cultural exchange, I noticed the bonds that the youth were making with one another and I noticed the pride in being a part of Canada's mosaic. We are strengthened by our diversity and it was beautiful to witness an exercise in community building. These students had more in common than they first believed. Many were subjected to prejudice, discrimination and racism. I also noticed that newcomer students began to open up more about their homelands or refugee experiences. They identified with the history of colonialism they were learning and they were excited by the indigenous cultural resurgence happening in local nations because of the hope it offered.

It is a rare opportunity to connect our desire to welcome newcomers with honesty about the sovereignty of indigenous nations. This is important work that we are undertaking.

We cannot ignore the reason why we are here tonight. It is to discuss Bill C-8 and to expedite its passage into Canadian law. However, this urgency comes from the horrific discovery of the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops residential school. It should not have taken this latest revelation of wrongdoing to prompt action. We have known the impact of residential schools in this country for decades, at least those of us who bothered to listen. The children have pushed the truth to the surface. No one can say they did not know. Newcomers to Canada will have to come to terms with these realizations as well, out of respect to the original inhabitants of this land, the ones who are still here and the ones who never came home.

The oath in call to action 94 is as follows:

I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada including Treaties with Indigenous Peoples, and fulfill my duties as a Canadian citizen.

Upholding this oath requires a further in-depth conversation about colonialism, the British Crown and its role in the atrocities of residential schools and ongoing oppression, about monies and Crown lands held in trust by Her Majesty the Queen on behalf of indigenous peoples.

As for the faithful observation of laws in Canada, including treaties, we have much work to do. Canadians have very little understanding of our treaty relationship. This became painfully obvious during the Mi’kmaq fishery dispute.

While we stand here today to hopefully unanimously pass Bill C-8, implementing call to action 94 from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, call to action 93 has been stalled since June 2018, when the federal government said changes to the information kit for newcomers were close to completion. Can we have an update on this? Can we have a status report on all calls to action? This is what the survivors, those who are descendants of settlers, and certainly newcomers need from the government.

The Liberal government has completed an average of only two TRC calls to action per year since 2015. At this rate, it will take until 2062 to complete all 94. My children will likely have their own children by then. These are steps in the right direction, but I would like to share the reflections of a person from my riding.

This is what they said: “I'm hopeful that people will finally read the recommendations. Maybe finding more human bodies will wake people up to the notion that each of these recommendations addresses a specific concern. The onus should be on our government to explain why they are not adopting specific recommendations versus our current system of applauding them when they pick and choose off the list like it is.”

I appreciate this wisdom. The calls to action represent a package of reforms that create a road map for reconciliation. We must walk that road step by step, recommendation by recommendation. Rather than applause for hand-selecting the 11th and 12th recommendations to enshrine over a six-year period, we need to be seeing status reports on the implementation, demanding more accountability from the government when it falls short, when we all fall short.

I would like to read recommendations 71 to 76 today, as they relate so directly to the lost children in Kamloops and those across the nation who remain invisible. Under “Missing Children and Burial Information”, the calls to action are as follows:

71. We call upon all chief coroners and provincial vital statistics agencies that have not provided to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada their records on the deaths of Aboriginal children in the care of residential school authorities to make these documents available to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

72. We call upon the federal government to allocate sufficient resources to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to allow it to develop and maintain the National Residential School Student Death Register established by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

73. We call upon the federal government to work with churches, Aboriginal communities, and former residential school students to establish and maintain an online registry of residential school cemeteries, including, where possible, plot maps showing the location of deceased residential school children.

74. We call upon the federal government to work with the churches and Aboriginal community leaders to inform the families of children who died at residential schools of the child’s burial location, and to respond to families’ wishes for appropriate commemoration ceremonies and markers, and reburial in home communities where requested.

75. We call upon the federal government to work with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, churches, Aboriginal communities, former residential school students, and current landowners to develop and implement strategies and procedures for the ongoing identification, documentation, maintenance, commemoration, and protection of residential school cemeteries or other sites at which residential school children were buried. This is to include the provision of appropriate memorial ceremonies and commemorative markers to honour the deceased children.

76. We call upon the parties engaged in the work of documenting, maintaining, commemorating, and protecting residential school cemeteries to adopt strategies in accordance with the following principles:

i. The Aboriginal community most affected shall lead the development of such strategies.

ii. Information shall be sought from residential school Survivors and other Knowledge Keepers in the development of such strategies.

iii. Aboriginal protocols shall be respected before any potentially invasive technical inspection and investigation of a cemetery site.

We also need to provide the space to grieve. There was a collective sadness being felt across this country. This is the truth that comes before the reconciliation. We had to come to this point of reckoning to wake up those who were still sleeping. Now that we know, we cannot unknow. Enshrining acknowledgement of indigenous peoples into the newcomer citizenship oath asks us to never forget.

I support Bill C-8 and ask my colleagues in the Senate to agree. Let us get this done.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am dismayed that, despite it being six years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action had been tabled, the Liberal government has been exceedingly slow at implementing even the simplest of the calls to action.

According the CBC Beyond 94 tracker, it remains that there are still only 10 out of 94 TRC recommendations completed as of June 1, 2021. Bill C-8 is emblematic of the pace at which the Liberal government has been moving with reconciliation. The concerning rate at which the government has been addressing the calls to action leads me to question the government’s timeline and commitment to fully implement all the calls to action.

During the five-year anniversary on December 15, 2020, the commissioners of the TRC report issued a joint statement to indicate that the government’s process has been too slow. Former TRC commissioner Ms. Marie Wilson highlighted that revising the citizenship guidebook and updating the oath of citizenship to reflect a more inclusive history of indigenous peoples and recognition of their rights was low-hanging fruit among the TRC recommendations.

Yet, this is the third time it has been introduced. In the years that led up to it, of the official list of organizations consulted provided by IRCC, only four were indigenous organizations and the others were six organizations focusing on immigration, including a couple of Catholic organizations, demonstrating that the imprint of colonialism persists to this day.

While the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs heard from a number of witnesses that the wording could have been improved, they were ultimately in favour of passing it so that we could move on to focusing on some of the more major calls to action. Indeed, the Liberals and Conservatives voted down NDP amendments that would address the concerns raised by adding a recognition of inherent rights of first nations as well as aboriginal title rights in the citizenship oath. This is shameful.

The government cannot say it supports the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which explicitly speaks to free, prior and informed consent. Article 10 states:

Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where possible, with the option of return.

Yet we continue to see ongoing violations of this very article. This is a clear example of the ongoing colonialism that persists today.

Let us look at what is happening with the Mi’kmaq fishers. DFO has decided that they cannot fish now even though this is a clear violation of their treaty rights to earn a moderate livelihood. UNDRIP stipulates that indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination, which is what indigenous fishers are trying to do, earn a living, feed their families and, in some cases, work their way out of poverty.

Now, as a result of the failures of the government to live up to its obligations, they are even afraid of violence from non-indigenous fishers. Their property has been burned, they have been threatened and assaulted, and the government has offered no plan to ensure their safety. This is not reconciliation. In fact, this is what systemic racism and discrimination looks like.

Why is the government not doing everything it can to protect the rights and safety of indigenous fishers? Former TRC commissioner Marie Wilson also pointed out that calls to action 53 and 56 call for the creation of a national council for reconciliation. One of its core functions would be to provide oversight and hold the government accountable to the progress on implementing other TRC calls to action.

The fact that these TRC recommendations are missing in action and have not been among the first that were implemented shows a lack of interest by the government in actually implementing these calls to action. It also does not want to be held accountable in an independent, transparent way.

On the five-year anniversary of the TRC report, Murray Sinclair was critical of the slow pace the government has been moving and said:

It is very concerning that the federal government still does not have a tangible plan for how they will work towards implementing the Calls to Action.

This is how the Liberals treat what they say is their most important relationship. The Liberals are abusing the goodwill of indigenous peoples. As they say with a straight face how much they respect indigenous rights, and cry crocodile tears about what indigenous people have always known in light of the findings of the mass grave of indigenous children at the Kamloops residential school site, they continue to take indigenous children to court.

The Liberals cannot claim to honour the spirits of children who died in residential schools while they continue to take indigenous kids to court. The Liberals cannot claim to take their role in reconciliation seriously when they force survivors of residential schools to wage legal battles for recognition and compensation. I am calling for real action, real justice and real reconciliation, not just more words and symbolic gestures. I am calling on the federal government to stop its legal battles against indigenous kids and survivors of residential schools: battles that have cost millions of taxpayer dollars.

In 2020, Dr. Cindy Blackstock stated that the government had spent at least $9 million fighting against first nations children at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. These children do not get a second childhood. As we are sitting here, the government is still fighting survivors of St. Anne's residential school. This cannot be acceptable to anyone who says they want to honour the lives of indigenous children who were ripped away from their loved ones and were subjected to untold abuse and horror. Too many died alone, too many went missing and too many are still suffering from the effects of colonization.

Make no mistake: Genocide was committed against indigenous peoples, and successive Liberal and Conservative governments have continued a genocide against first nations, Métis and Inuit across the country. These are crimes against humanity and it is time for Canada to take full responsibility. I am calling on the Liberals to end their court challenges, to work with survivors, and to ensure that all resources needed are made available to survivors and their communities.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found Canada's discrimination to be “wilful and reckless” and “a worst-case scenario” resulting in unnecessary family separations for thousands of children, and serious harm and even death for other children. These are facts that the government must accept. In addition, the federal government must work with first nations to fund further investigation into the deaths and disappearances of children at residential schools.

The Harper Conservatives denied the TRC the $1.5 million it requested to get an accurate representation of how many unmarked graves there are. The TRC heard from countless witnesses of their existence, but no national effort was made to identify them. This must be addressed.

As stated by Murray Sinclair, retired senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

We know there are lots of sites similar to Kamloops that are going to come to light in the future. We need to begin to prepare ourselves for that. Those that are survivors and intergenerational survivors need to understand that this information is important for all of Canada to understand the magnitude of the truth of this experience.

I am also calling for full funding of the healing resources that survivors need. The federal government must accelerate its progress to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action and announce a timeline and an independent, publicly accountable mechanism for the fulfillment of the calls to action. We cannot continue to say that we support reconciliation without doing real, meaningful work.

To close, the NDP wants to see the TRC recommendation realized. We want to see this bill come to reality, but we also want to see the new citizenship guidebook, which has been in the making for five years, and we have no information of when it will be available. We want the guidebook to also incorporate that history, and clearly outline that genocide has been committed against indigenous peoples and continues to be. Every newcomer needs to know this history and take it to heart. As indicated, this is not an aboriginal issue: It is an issue for all of Canada. It is a Canadian issue and we need to own up to it. We need to—

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's call to action number 94), be read the third time and passed.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will give a two-part answer, as that was a two-part question.

With respect to the first part, obstructing legislation seems to be a much more automatic response for the Liberals than it is for the Bloc Québécois.

That said, with respect to including recognition of the Constitution, we agree that it does exist and we are aware of that. My colleague rightly said that everyone follows the law. Then where is the obligation to include it in the citizenship oath, especially since first nations did not ask for that?

I mentioned at committee that by making that amendment, we would achieve a far greater goal, which is to have the unanimous consent of all parties to pass Bill C-8. I even said in February that it might have made it possible to pass the bill much more quickly. The Bloc Québécois held out this possibility, but no one seized it.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, I was saying that I felt sad and bitter about this bill, which we, the Bloc Québécois members, will soon be voting against. We were going to support it, but we are forced to oppose it. Even today, we are forced to vote against it although we did try to amend it so we could support it.

Why is the Bloc Québécois opposed to this bill, whose commendable intent should be self-evident? What happened to bring us to this point? These are questions that I feel compelled to answer, not only for my colleagues in the House, but also for indigenous peoples across the country and for the sake of history, which I call on today as my witness.

The first thing I would like to say to all first nations in Quebec and Canada and to the Métis and the Inuit peoples is that the Bloc Québécois firmly believes that call to action 94, as well as all the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, must be implemented without delay.

However, we cannot support Bill C-8 as it stands now, for two reasons. Reason one is that the bill seems to disregard the fact that the rights of indigenous peoples are not blessings to be bestowed on them by white people. On the contrary, these are inherent rights connected to their very existence as indigenous peoples. The second reason has to do with Quebec's and Canada's turbulent constitutional history.

Too little has been said about the first reason why my party did not support the bill. That reason has to do with the essence of indigenous rights. The Bloc Québécois believes that indigenous peoples have rights that are inherent to their very existence. These rights were not created by a charter, a royal proclamation, an international agreement or a constitutional act. On the contrary, these documents serve only to recognize and confirm these rights.

The ancestral rights predate the arrival of the Europeans and are connected to the activities of indigenous peoples before colonization. These are sui generis rights, in the sense that they are inherent and not granted by the Crown. These ancestral rights were first recognized in the 1973 decision in Calder, and then defined in the Van der Peet decision in 1996.

However, the Crown recognized indigenous land rights in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Sections 25 and 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, grant explicit constitutional recognition of ancestral rights, but do not create the rights themselves. For us, putting that much emphasis on the Canadian Constitution means ignoring the inherent nature of the rights of indigenous peoples.

The second reason is well known, but I want to reiterate it. As it now stands, the bill explicitly refers to the Constitution in the oath of citizenship. I do not think one needs a PhD in history to know how big of a disgrace Quebeckers felt the patriation of the Constitution was. Despite all the successive federalist premiers since 1982, Quebec has never signed the Constitution. Obviously, the Liberals will bring out their old argument about separatists stirring up quarrels of the past to break up our beautiful country. However, are modern-day problems not just problems that went unresolved in the past?

That is why it is worth remembering that, when the Constitution was repatriated in 1982, an event that federalist parties dearly love to celebrate, the draft included an explicit reference to the rights of indigenous peoples. However, during the infamous “night of the long knives”, the federal government and the other nine provinces that abandoned Quebec agreed not only to stab René Lévesque in the back but also to edit out recognition and affirmation of the inherent rights of indigenous peoples. Ottawa was a party to that. That too is part of the history of the Constitution, a living tree whose sap is sometimes poisonous.

As it happened, indigenous militancy and concern that Westminster might reject the proposed Constitution resulted in what is now section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, being put back in. However, constitutional malaise is still very real for Quebec. Members of other parties know that because we have told them.

Despite all this, we tried to amend Bill C-8 to bring it closer to the original citizenship oath of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, because we wanted to support it.

I should point out that the oath proposed in call to action 94 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission made no reference to the Constitution. The study of the bill in committee was not able to convince us that this addition was made at the request of indigenous peoples. On two occasions, when I asked the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship if the addition of the word “Constitution” was an explicit request of first nations, he replied that it was a result of the general process. In short, he never did tell me if this came from the government or from the first nations.

When we questioned witnesses in committee, they all told us that adding a reference to the Constitution was not at all essential to them. To the Bloc Québécois this addition is not only unnecessary, since it departs from the oath proposed by the Commission, but it is insulting, disrespectful and a provocative act toward the Quebec nation. It is a show of bad faith by the Liberal government and the uncontrollable desire of the federalist parties to pursue a process of building a national identity that endlessly repeats this fable of a Canada of rights and freedoms founded on a millennium-old Constitution.

The sudden haste with which the Liberal government rushed to bring Bill C-8 back to the House this week is rather troubling. Let us not forget that this bill was stuck in limbo since February. We are now June. Last week there was the tragic discovery that pained us all. Suddenly the government woke up to study Bill C-8. Sometimes I get the impression that governments simply wait for the right time to impose their will instead of negotiating, a bit like the Prime Minister's father did so well one day in November 1981. On that, I must say that the unanimity of the federalist parties against the Bloc Québécois's proposals was striking. Sometimes when you win, you lose.

Canadians can carry on building their country in their own image, without worrying about Quebec. We ourselves continue to do so, without Canadians, as we see fit. Perhaps it is because we sense that one day our paths will finally separate.

As a final point, even though our suggestions will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears, since that is the government's way, I would still like to propose a solution for a possible path forward that could suit everyone. Why not simply introduce a new bill with language that all parties can agree on? We could then pass that legislation with a simple unanimous consent motion and send it to the other chamber in one fell swoop, as we do here from time to time.

I am making the suggestion, even though I know it will probably fall on deaf ears. At least we tried.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Madam Speaker, to my Bloc colleague, I think it was a summary of what I had illustrated. It has been 2,100 days since the TRC report was released, and it has been 2,100 days of dealing with Bill C-8: call to action 94. As I mentioned, and as the member alluded to, the discovery last week was a wake-up call for millions of Canadians. The families of those impacted are looking for closure and answers.

As Canadians, we are looking for urgent action. We have been calling for exactly his point: In the next couple of weeks, not months or years, let us move forward in making sure that we search every site, and provide closure for every child in this country in an unmarked grave who was mistreated at a residential school and had a terrible ending. Let us provide closure sooner rather than later. Urgency is what Canadians want. We need to do that.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Madam Speaker, 13 years ago next week, the chamber of the House of Commons was filled with tears and a lot of raw emotion. Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued the apology for the treatment that residential school survivors experienced at federally funded schools across the country. It marked a milestone in the healing and reconciliation process for former students.

One of those former students is Bill Sunday, a member of Akwesasne, which is in my riding of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry. At that time, the grand chief of the council, Chief Tim Thompson, brought seven survivors from the community of Akwesasne to hear the words of the Government of Canada that day. I am thinking of Bill tonight and the number of residents of Akwesasne who, over the course of numerous generations, have faced hardship and discrimination.

What came of the apology at that time was the idea of establishing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. As alluded to in other speeches, its report came out with tangible calls to action back in 2015. To give context, that is six years ago, or 2,100 days that our federal government has had to respond to and enact the change that has been called for.

We are here today with nowhere near the pace and volume of completion and tangible progress that Canadians want us to have. A few more than a handful of calls to action have been marked as completed; others are under way. However, if we were to speak to indigenous Canadians, first nations leadership and any Canadian, they would agree that the pace of change and of enacting reconciliation has not moved in the past six years as fast as it needs to.

On Monday, our leader, the leader of the official opposition, wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, and over the course of the last couple of days, after the advancement of Bill C-5 regarding a day for truth and reconciliation, which is positive, all parties have worked together to advance that legislation. It was one of the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Our leader also wrote in that letter that the legislation we are debating here tonight should come back up, be moved forward, as it will be tonight, and eventually be passed. It will pass with support from our caucus and I believe from all of Parliament.

This is an important measure; do not get me wrong. However, and I say this respectfully, when we look at all the measures we need to do, the tangible, real, meaningful reconciliation is yet to come. There are a lot of big items that we as a Parliament and we as a country need to confront and address in a timely manner.

I want to acknowledge the discussions of another piece of legislation, Bill C-15, which has had many hours of debate here and in committee and is now over in the Senate. I had the honour and privilege of speaking to it, and with my perspective as a young Canadian; as somebody who has a first nations community, Akwesasne, in his riding; and as part of our Conservative caucus, I took a look at the details of the legislation. I want to speak about the opposition to Bill C-15, not because of a lack of support for reconciliation, but to illustrate to Canadians that our work as parliamentarians is far from done and we know that. What I took note of today, as we talked about the motion, is that the work we do here needs to be better.

Let us consider Bill C-15, and a lot of the words and descriptions in it, such as the description of free, prior and informed consent and its definition, or lack thereof. The NDP's opposition day motion today is an important one that I am proud to support. The first few parts of the motion speak to ending litigation in courts, where the government, first nations communities and residential school survivors are spending years and years and millions and millions of dollars, with more and more emotion going from there. That has been exacerbated because we are not taking the time for consultation and the details.

I completely support the idea of UNDRIP and the principles behind it. The details matter on that. I think it is important for Canadians, as the NDP motion said today, as Parliament will be calling on when that vote comes up in the coming days, that we see real, meaningful changes in this country, not more lawsuits, more delays, motions and millions of dollars being spent on lawyers, but rather on frontline differences to first nations communities and indigenous Canadians in every part of this country.

I want to focus some of my time tonight on the fact that we are expediting this legislation with all-party co-operation to move forward, because there are other parts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that need to move forward now, urgently, and Canadians are saying that.

Thinking of the news that every single Canadian has had to take in over the course of the last week, of the discovery of 215 children in unmarked graves at the former Kamloops residential school, I look, from a personal perspective, at my life and my lived experience. I am 33 years old. I have an amazing, loving family that helped raise me. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I received in public education: the teachers, staff and students at Inkerman Public School, Nationview Public School and North Dundas District High School. My family and my experience in public education helped make me who I am today.

I could not imagine being a child torn away from my parents never to see them again, going to a school hundreds of kilometres away and receiving horrific treatment. We have an example that was laid bare before us last week. Children ended up buried in unmarked graves, only recognized recently. These children did not have the opportunities that so many of us were fortunate to have, surrounded by loving and caring parents in an education system and experience that were second to none. To have them deprived of that, to have that ending, is completely unacceptable.

In the letter I referenced, we talk about the work we need to do as a Parliament. We need to address this specific, dark part of our history. I was rightfully corrected after one of my social media posts where I was struggling to come up with the proper thing to say about this news. Somebody said that it is not all history, that there are still residential school survivors here today living the experience each and every day. It is not history to them. It is lived experience that they have to deal with and struggle with each and every day.

I think parliamentarians from all parties in every part of this country will hear that, yes, we need to move forward on Bill C-5. We need to move forward on this piece of legislation and on Bill C-8. We need to fund the investigation of all former residential schools in Canada where unmarked graves may exist, including where the 215 children were already discovered in Kamloops. We need to ensure that proper resources are allocated for reinterment, commemoration and the honour of any individuals discovered at any of those sites, according to the wishes of their family. We also need to develop a detailed, urgent and meaningful way of educating Canadians on the real and lived experiences of those there.

I am going to wrap up my comments tonight by bringing them back to my community in eastern Ontario. As I wrap up, I think of Leona Cook, an elder from Akwesasne. She actually lives on the American side of Akwesasne, but her story goes a long way. She was sent from Massena to western New York in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area to a residential school. This tragedy goes even beyond borders. They took her shoes away when she went to school. Her brothers also went there, but they were placed on a different side of the campus, and she rarely, if ever, saw them.

I watched a video earlier today as I was preparing my remarks, and Leona was in it. She said, “I don't want their apology. I don't want anything from them. I would hope that they learn to treat people better than they treated us. You can't make people be somebody they don't want to be.”

We can take the lessons and the words of Leona Cook, embody them in our work and move forward on major sections of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that will matter to Canadians.

I look forward to the questions and comments and supporting the legislation before us.