Bill C-29

National Council for Reconciliation Act

An Act to provide for the establishment of a national council for reconciliation

This enactment provides for the establishment of a national council for reconciliation as an independent, non-political, permanent and Indigenous-led organization whose purpose is to advance reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous peoples.

National Council for Reconciliation Act

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, today I rise to speak to Bill C-29, an act to provide for the establishment of a national council for reconciliation.

What does the word “reconciliation” mean? After nine years of the current government, what we have seen is that it has become a buzzword. Reconciliation is about walking shoulder to shoulder, listening, learning and being open to admitting that wrongs were done.

Bill C-29 is a response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action 53 to 56. I will remind the House that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was founded by our former prime minister, Stephen Harper, in the former Conservative government. Throughout these conversations, there is always finger pointing that goes on, but I would hazard that there is enough blame to go around on all sides.

We have seen, in the last nine years, the government picking winners and losers, pitting first nations against first nations, first nations against non-first nations, Métis against Métis, and Métis against non-Métis. We have seen our Prime Minister thank indigenous protesters who were simply protesting the fact that the boil water advisories in their communities are ongoing. What did he do when he was at his fancy function? He thanked them for their donation. We have seen him cast away the first indigenous female Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould. She spoke truth to power and was cast aside.

We have seen the Prime Minister stand there with his hand on his heart, dabbing away a fake tear with a tissue, saying that this is his most important relationship. However, as we just heard, the government has launched its ninth budget without any mention of reconciliation for indigenous peoples, so members will have to pardon me if I seem a bit skeptical about what the government is planning with Bill C-29.

Over the time of my being elected, whether with my current file on mental health and suicide prevention or my previous files on transportation or fisheries, the government likes to say that it has consulted. However, is it truly consultation and engagement, or is it merely putting a checkmark in a box on a sheet that says what they had to do and complete? True engagement means sitting at the table and fully understanding all sides.

What has brought us to this point? In recent years, we heard about the horrors of the residential school program, but the world is just waking up to what some of us have been hearing for many years. The residential school program was designed to drive the Indian out of the children, and thousands upon thousands of first nations, Inuit and Métis children were taken from their homes and never returned.

Sitting with residential school survivors and listening to their stories is horrible. The start of the ground sonar search in my riding of Cariboo—Prince George was at the former St. Joseph's Mission Residential School in my hometown of Williams Lake. I am on record saying that I grew up just down the road from this school, yet I had no idea of the horrors that were going on at that school.

These were kids that I played with. I know many of them to this day. They are my friends and family. My family is first nations as well. Watching a residential school survivor come to the lands for a ceremony marking the start of the ground sonar search and watching them shake and become so emotional as those memories come flooding back is absolutely heartbreaking.

In nine years of the government, it has only fully implemented 11 of the 94 calls to action, and only eight of the 76 calls that are the federal government's responsibility. Why did it take four years for the Liberals to implement this after the Prime Minister made the announcement about it in 2018? Why are they still not bringing in or listening to all of the indigenous groups that want to be a part of this?

There is the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, an organization that represents over 800 status and non-status, off-reserve, urban indigenous peoples, and the Native Women's Association of Canada, an organization that represents women and children on and off reserve. At committee, our Conservative team, the Bloc and NDP members passed a motion to include these two national organizations. However, when the rubber hit the road, when it came time to make sure they were part of it, our NDP colleagues sided with their Liberal friends and voted to exclude the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, effectively silencing the voices of 800,000 off-reserve indigenous peoples. Why?

Reconciliation is about inclusion. Reconciliation is about recognizing economic prosperity, allowing indigenous individuals and communities to recognize their full potential. It is unbelievable that we are still debating this bill. The fact that this bill is still here, the fact that we are still in the process of debating it after having numerous amendments and speeches, speaks to the government's failure to meaningfully consult and advance this issue.

Now the Liberals are going to stand up and I guarantee that at one point we are going to hear that the bill has been blocked and there have been lots of dilatory motions from this side, but they have the majority. If the Liberals want to push something through, with their NDP colleagues they can push it through.

Our Conservative colleagues worked diligently at the committee to improve the bill. Is that not the message we always give? Just let it pass, let it get to committee and we will make it better there. However, again, we have heard that they blocked and left out two important groups.

The Liberals talk about consultation. Does Bill C-29 truly represent the work and consultation they have done? Does it truly represent all the indigenous people, or does it just simply reflect the views of those who are friends of the Liberal government?

We know that recently there are about 113 indigenous groups in Ontario that are taking the federal government to court over boil water advisories. The government talks a good game, but the truth is in its actions. As important as the bill is, it also highlights the failure of the Liberal government to listen to Canadians, to listen meaningfully and to consult with indigenous peoples.

This is, of course, not the first time we have spoken about the Liberals' inability to consult and listen. They always seem to go down the path of just ticking the boxes of the groups that are in agreement with them. They use that as their record of consultation, yet they have left a whole community of indigenous peoples out when it pertains to Bill C-29.

A concern we have is that, time and again, we see these bills that come forth, and they are not perfect, and then the consequences are faced afterwards. We will hear comments from the other side, saying that we should never let perfection get in the way of getting something done.

I have talked about winners and losers with the government. I have talked about my friend Chief Willie Sellars in Williams Lake. He is the chief of his community who, in all senses of the word, is leading by example. He is not waiting for the government to provide handouts. He has done everything to lead his nation and his community to economic prosperity.

Ellis Ross, a provincial MLA in British Columbia, walks the walk. I remember sitting at a presentation with him about 10 years ago, and he said that we do not need all these fancy words and we don't need to listen to an unelected group, the United Nations, with the calls to action. What we need, he said, is the government to get out of the way, to allow us to chart our own path forward.

Is this council going to be just another arm of the minister of the day? These are the questions we have. Will the government even listen to the national council? It has spent the last nine years over-promising and under-delivering on indigenous issues. How many communities still have the boil water advisories? It is unbelievable.

I remember the speeches we did in the House during one of the first emergency debates we had. It was on the suicide epidemic on Attawapiskat First Nation. It was heartbreaking for me to hear the stories we were hearing.

Sadly, I ask if things have gotten better for indigenous peoples in the last nine years under the current government. In 2015, the Prime Minister stood and promised that this was his most important relationship.

It is complex, I will give the Liberals that, but if this was truly the Prime Minister's most important relationship, why have they just announced so much spending in a budget in which we would spend more money servicing our debt than we do on health care? When the books were open, the safe was open, and they were throwing money at everything, yet there was not a mention of indigenous peoples or reconciliation. It is frustrating. What would be measured with this council? What gets measured, gets done.

Conservatives will be supporting this bill because we believe in the premise that we have to have everyone around the table. True reconciliation begins with understanding and, as I said earlier, listening with open hearts, open ears and open eyes. My concern with the government is that this is just here to placate. There is no real meaning or value behind doing this.

It is frustrating, as I already said earlier in my speech, that we are debating this today, when it could have been done previously. It has been nine years.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am getting heckled from the other side, but the government has had nine years to get this done, and now, at the eleventh hour, with the last few shreds of power it has, it is putting this forward. It has taken forever for it to do this.

That being said, as I mentioned, Conservatives will be supporting this bill. We hope that some amendments we put forward will be agreed to. We hope that all indigenous peoples would be included at the table. The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and the Native Women's Association of Canada are two organizations that we feel should be included in this. They should have a say with at least one director at the table.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the empathy from my hon. colleague, but the Conservatives have quite a history. If we talk about their history with reconciliation, I will start with former prime minister Stephen Harper, who said that MMIWG was not on his “radar”.

Tanya Kappo, an indigenous lawyer, wrote, “In a span of a week, the Conservative government confirmed their feelings of indifference, disregard and utter lack of respect for indigenous people.”

If we fast-forward to today, the member for Carleton, the current leader of the Conservative Party, actively fraternizes with residential school denialists. In fact, there is an article entitled “Poilievre delivers speech to a group criticized for residential school 'denialism'”, to which the former national chief of the AFN Archibald said in a media statement, “I condemn any association with denialist views and the deep hurt they cause our survivors and their families”. He has had to apologize in the past for minimizing and denying the impacts of residential schools when he was a minister.

The member wants to talk about nine years; I want to talk about before the last nine years. I am not saying the government is doing a good job, but it is pretty rich for the Conservatives, when their leader actively fraternizes with residential school denialists, to talk about how they care about indigenous people.

Will my hon. colleague acknowledge the level of denialism that his party—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I am hearing side conversations about the opportunity the Speaker allows members to speak. I want to indicate to those individuals that I look at the room to see how many members are standing up for questions and comments, and I base the decision on how much time to allow each member to speak on that. I would remind members that I am paying attention to the time, and I will actively indicate when it is time to end the question and when it is time to answer the question.

The hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George has the floor.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is disappointing to hear the comments from our colleague down the way.

I always say that those in glass houses should not throw rocks, and I would say that it was our former prime minister, Stephen Harper, who started the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

However, I have never seen a prime minister be more indignant on one hand, and stand here whenever the cameras are on to say that this is his most important relationship, but then absolutely turn away and shun our first indigenous female attorney general, a person who is a dear and close friend of mine. I have seen, over the last nine years, the damage the Prime Minister has done within indigenous communities, pitting indigenous community against indigenous community, and pitting indigenous community against non-indigenous community. I have seen the Prime Minister smirk and smile when hearing the plight of those in our gallery, or in our House, talking about their communities and the indigenous peoples within the communities they are a part of.

I will remind my colleague that this is the government that is in power. This is a government that made a tremendous amount of promises over the last nine years and has failed at every step. This is a Prime Minister who thanked indigenous protesters who were simply protesting the fact that they do not have potable water in their communities and have to boil—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I will give the hon. member the same amount of time that I gave to the hon. member asking the question. We need to go to other questions as there are other members who are rising.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member's speech with interest.

I would, first of all, say that it is encouraging to hear that the Conservatives are considering supporting this legislation, given that they did not support the passage of the UN declaration act. Having heard that from this member and other members in the Conservative Party, would the member commit to allowing the bill to carry on the voices today so that we do not have to wait another week to vote on it?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague knows full well that this is a discussion for House leadership and not one that I can speak to.

It is disappointing, as this is a minister of the Crown and minister of this file asking the question, that it has taken the Liberals four years to get to this point. However, she is one that I have a great deal of respect for in the work that we did on 988 and on the mental health of Canadians, but she has stumbled into this file and has stumbled along the way, likely because of the leadership, or lack thereof, of her Prime Minister.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague for the empathy and goodwill toward indigenous people that were so evident in his speech. I think it is important to do the work required to move closer to reconciliation. We learned that he is going to vote in favour of Bill C‑29, which can only be a positive thing.

Obviously, the Conservatives are not the government. They are the opposition. However, there are things they could do right now to help with reconciliation. Not so long ago, for example, their leader held a big celebration of the well-known John A. Macdonald, who created residential schools, had Louis Riel hanged and came up with a strategy to cause famine among indigenous peoples.

Does my colleague think that celebrations like this are appropriate against a backdrop of reconciliation?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting that we get these questions from the Bloc and others talking about the past when we are looking forward to the future. We are here today to talk about a bill, Bill C-29, which we all agree is important and needed. Unfortunately, we have parties who just want to continue to point fingers. They are doing everything to try to take a very non-partisan piece of legislation and turn it into a partisan hit job.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Madam Speaker, I really do appreciate the words from my colleague from northern British Columbia. I know that he represents a number of first nations and Métis in his riding, and he does a fantastic job bringing their voices here to Ottawa. We saw that reflected in his speech.

My question to him revolves around this piece of legislation, and I am speaking about those living off of first nations who represent status, non-status and Métis. I am specifically speaking to the fact that the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples has been left off of the founding table, despite representing a large number of indigenous people living off reserve. That would then dictate the path going forward. That is something we advocated strongly for at committee. Unfortunately, the government did not listen, so I would like to get his comments on that.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, we know that there is a very large community of indigenous youth, status and non-status youth, living off reserve and within the urban centres, as well as families who live off reserve. Our family is one of them.

The government has chosen to leave out the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, an organization that represents over 800,000 status and non-status indigenous peoples, as well as the Native Women's Association of Canada, an organization that represents women and children on and off reserve. That is par for the course. We have seen time and time again with the government that it has chosen to pick winners and losers. They have done the same with Bill C-29, and it is disappointing.

The House resumed consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-29, An Act to provide for the establishment of a national council for reconciliation.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate Bill C-29, an act to provide for the establishment of a national council for reconciliation. If enacted, this would ensure a non-partisan, arm's-length organization that would hold the government of the day to its commitments to reconciliation. This is needed, because the government shows less of a commitment to reconciliation every year. Let us look at the Liberal record.

Last year, not one Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendation was implemented. Out of the 94 calls to action, only 13 have been accomplished. The government promised to end long-term boil water advisories more than three years ago, but there is still no end in sight. This year is looking even worse.

What has happened with the government’s most important relationship, we might ask? We can just look at this past week. The Minister of Finance could not even bring herself to utter the word “indigenous” or “reconciliation” in her speech introducing the budget. However, given her rhetoric over the last year, why would she?

Indigenous peoples spent months hearing the government threaten sunsetting and cuts to the services that they and their communities rely on. Programs, services and grants that people rely on were threatened, including Jordan’s principle and dealing with the harmful legacy of residential schools. It took NDP pressure to reverse many of those cuts.

This is how low the bar is set with the government, opposing cuts in the face of a $350-billion infrastructure gap. Instead of proposing a wealth tax or an excess profit tax on people such as Mirko Bibic, Galen Weston or Arthur Irving, the government consciously chose to spend less than 1% of what is needed to end the housing crisis on first nations.

Despite all their bluster, big oil does not need to beg the government for handouts. Galen Weston certainly does not. Bell gets all the money it needs to give away in fat bonuses and shareholder dividends while laying off thousands of workers. However, first nations are treated as an afterthought in this budget. It really boggles the mind.

The government recently co-authored a report that made clear how badly federal governments, whether Liberal or Conservative, have just fundamentally failed first nations. If one doubled the number of homes in first nations communities, the report said, there would still not be enough to meet the housing demand. Upon releasing the report with the AFN, the Liberals decided to completely ignore it.

The Liberals know that they will not hit the 2030 goal to end the housing crisis for first nations. Their department officials have admitted as much, but the Liberal MPs will not admit it, nor will the ministers responsible or the Prime Minister.

Communities such as the ones here in northern Manitoba live this reality every day. They know it well. That is why Grand Chief Cathy Merrick said, in response to this budget, that it will be a cold day in hell before the infrastructure gap facing first nations is ended. That is why the AFN National Chief Woodhouse Nepinak is calling for a first ministers meeting this year to discuss a path forward on reconciliation, because the government is just not getting the work done.

Let us be honest about what a $350-billion infrastructure gap looks like. There is Shamattawa First Nation, where the housing crisis is so bad, the community has had to deal with tuberculosis outbreaks. In fact, here in northern Manitoba, over the last number of years, we have had higher rates of tuberculosis than have some parts of sub-Saharan Africa. There is Tataskweyak Cree Nation, where the government so fundamentally failed in delivering clean water that it had to fight the first nation in court.

There is Pimicikamak Cree Nation, which has a 2,000-family wait-list for homes. There is also the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, which has a 700-family wait-list for homes.

There is Wasagamack, one of the most isolated communities in the country. It is still waiting for the federal government to step up and work with the community and the province to build a desperately needed airport.

Communities on the east side of Manitoba, on the east side of Lake Winnipeg, are paying the price for climate change. They have no choice but to rely on ice roads, which are increasingly unreliable because of the shortened winter season. They have made it clear to the federal government that they need all-weather roads but the federal government has made no commitment to working with them to help build the roads.

There is the Island Lake region, where the population is similar to that of my hometown of Thompson. Thousands of people live in the region; they still do not have a hospital or an all-weather road.

The housing infrastructure gap, which I would call a crisis, is pervasive in first nations here in Manitoba and for many first nations across the country. Communities need housing, elders' care homes, day cares, health centres, water treatment plants and emergency preparedness-related infrastructure. They need to improve existing roads and build new ones so they can fight to survive climate change.

Many of these stories are rooted here in my constituency in northern Manitoba, on the east side of Lake Winnipeg, but we know they are repeated across the country. Indigenous peoples are almost three times more likely to live in a home in need of major repair. More than half of first nations do not have regular access to high-speed Internet, and roughly 15% have none at all.

We need to be honest with ourselves. This is keeping indigenous communities poor, and it is a choice by the federal government. Every time the government looks the other way on a tax loophole, every time we buy fridges for Galen Weston or give billions of dollars to big oil, that is money we are not spending on the people and communities most in need. The sad reality is that the government only steps up when it is court-ordered to do so. In fact, budget 2024 outlined $57 billion in settlement money, as if it were a huge success by the government and not a situation where it fought first nations, Inuit and Métis people every step of the way to deny them justice.

To be honest, it is clear that the government is laying the groundwork for future class-action lawsuits against it. One can only imagine what is coming on the housing front. The Auditor General recently released a report on the housing crisis on reserve, and it came out that Indigenous Services has been using the wrong census data, data from 2001. This has effectively robbed first nations, particularly in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, of the housing dollars they deserve, for up to a quarter of a billion dollars.

Did the Minister of Indigenous Services or the Prime Minister rush to right that wrong, to get that money into the hands of communities that had a right to it? No, when he was asked about it, the Prime Minister instead refused to even entertain the idea that they ever would. That is another example of the government fundamentally failing first nations and one that will likely end in a class-action lawsuit, something it deeply deserves.

In contrast, we have a Conservative Party that never saw a tax break for billionaires it did not love. The last time the leader of the official opposition was in government, the Conservatives gave away $60 billion in corporate tax cuts.

On the day the previous prime minister delivered a public apology to survivors of residential schools, years ago, the current Conservative leader, the leader of the official opposition, said that he was not sure Canada was “getting value for all of this money”. It was money being spent to compensate survivors, and his view was that “we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self-reliance. That's the solution in the long run—more money will not solve it”.

I challenge the leader of the official opposition to come to first nations like the ones I represent, where kids were abused, where kids died and where families are still dealing with the poisonous and destructive legacy of the residential school system. I challenge the leader of the official opposition to look people in the face and to say that Canada is the victim here and that Canada is the one that did not get its value. Shame on him.

However, it is not just him who does not understand the harmful legacy of residential schools. The reality is that we are now approaching three years since Canadians learned what first nations across the country already knew: the existence of mass grave sites near residential schools. However, the government is still not supporting communities with the resources they need to bring their children home.

Communities like Cross Lake and others wanted to work with the International Commission on Missing Persons. The work has already begun. However, before it could move forward, the government ended the contract, and now Cross Lake and other communities are forced to start over; it is justice delayed.

Despite his claims that he wants to support communities, the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations has done virtually nothing to assist first nations that want to work with the ICMP, a global leader when it comes to uncovering mass graves. He has done virtually nothing to assist first nations that desperately want to work to uncover the truth and to bring their children home.

In Sagkeeng First Nation, an employee recently found bones while digging a trench for a water pipe to a church addition. The area was not part of any known cemetery. The community wants to work with the International Commission on Missing Persons. They have asked CIRNAC for support, but have not received any.

People across our north see through the government's empty use of the word “reconciliation”. People across our north want to see action. The NDP will continue to call out the government when it fails indigenous peoples and when it talks a good talk, especially on reconciliation, while refusing to follow through in terms of action. We are proud to support this bill, Bill C-29, but recognize that the monitoring process, or lack thereof, will not create the change indigenous peoples need to see.

Here, in our part of the country, people are clear. Indigenous leaders, elders, youth and advocates are clear that what they need to see is action: an end to third-world living conditions, true change in the face of the climate emergency, and real investment to make life better. They deserve action. They deserve justice, and we should recognize and act on nothing less.