Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 16th, 2020

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you.

I see that the history of residential schools and education will play an important role.

I will now turn to Mr. Kakfwi.

You said September 30 should not be a holiday, but a day to honour and remember. The day will no doubt be used for the right purpose, but I would like to know what should be done to honour residential school survivors and raise awareness among not only indigenous youth, but also the population as a whole. This national day was established, yes, but how will it be used meaningfully?

[Stephen Kakfwi]

Thank you.

These terms are a bit legal, I guess. If a legal definition of “holiday” constitutes a day set aside in Canada to do something special, then we have to hang on to the word “holiday”. I just don't like the connotation of it in layman's terms. It should be a memorial day, a day to commemorate, a day to remember, not a day to stay home, put our feet up and watch TV. That was the point I was making.

September 30 should be set aside if a legal term, a parliamentary term, is to make it another holiday along with the list of the others, and we should go with that. I'm just saying I don't want people to think, “We have another holiday. That's great.”

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Webstad, I would be remiss if I let this short period of questions end without thanking you for everything you have done on this issue.

You said something I think is very important—if your story was not taught or passed on, it could happen again. That is absolutely true.

You already have the tools to educate people on the history of residential schools, and I hope you use them to reach the widest possible audience. I urge you to make sure that education is available not just to young indigenous people, but also to all young Canadians and Quebeckers—who need to know the history of residential schools and indigenous history overall.

I actually don't have a question for you. I just want to thank you and say that if you ever have trouble getting your message out to provincial ministries of education, you can count on us. We will definitely be there to lend a helping hand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Champoux.

Now we go to Ms. McPherson for six minutes, please.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to echo my colleagues to thank all of our guests who are joining us today. This has been wonderful, and it is such an honour.

To hear Ms. Webstad speak about feeling nervous and uncomfortable presenting is unbelievable. It's such an honour to have you here, Ms. Webstad. Thank you so much for sharing with us.

I have some questions for you, but I think I'm going to first ask a question of Mr. Saganash, somebody who is a survivor of residential schools as well.

I want to talk to you to follow up on what my colleague MP Champoux talked about. While I believe that the day of reconciliation is a vital step, it seems like a relatively simple piece of legislation. I'm wondering what, from your perspective, you would like to see us move on among those calls for action that would require a bit more effort, a little bit more time.

You spoke of the 16 calls for action implicated by UNDRIP. Perhaps you could talk about those things you'd really like to see the government move on next among those 94 calls.

[Romeo Saganash]

Thank you for that question, Heather. I think it's an important one.

Above and beyond what we are intending to achieve with this piece of legislation, Bill C-5, the other important piece still missing, in my view, is the legislation on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that would implement calls to action 43 and 44 in particular.

Bill C-262, which died in the Senate, as I mentioned, was perhaps the most important piece of legislation that the Parliament of Canada had considered to that point. I think we need to renew the effort to adopt legislation to implement those calls to action, 43 and 44 in particular.

The United Nations has considered the rights of indigenous peoples as human rights for the past three decades. I recall that when we voted on Bill C-262 in the previous parliament, there were still members of that parliament who voted against Bill C-262, thereby voting against the very fundamental human rights of the first peoples of this country. I still remember that, and I cannot grasp how, in 2020, in one of the richest countries in the world, we can still have members of Parliament voting against human rights. It's just beyond me.

I think that bill needs to be adopted in this present parliament. I know these are difficult times right now—trying times, at this moment—but if we want to move forward on the path of reconciliation, I think that fully adopting and implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples will be a huge step.

B.C. has done it, and the sky hasn't fallen. I think that's the path we need to choose, moving forward.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you so much.

It is certainly a deep stain on this country that we have not been able to pass the legislation yet. Thank you, and of course MP Jolibois, for all the work you've done on this.

I'm a mother, and on September 30 my children and I wear our orange shirts. I'm also a teacher by training, so I'm very interested in some of the comments I've heard so far concerning how we ensure that students learn that this is part of our curriculum, part of our classes.

Maybe I'll start by asking Ms. Webstad this question.

I wanted to show a book I have been reading, which I read to classes and which is also written partly in Cree, called Stolen Words. Knowing that this is so important, and knowing that resources have been developed that we can implement around the country and that we can use this day as one of the moments for doing so, how do you see us working through the fact that the education curriculum is mandated within provinces, and that not all provinces are going to be as open to this discussion as others?

Ms. Webstad, could you comment on that? Then I may pass the question over to Ms. Scott as well.

[Phyllis Webstad]

From 2013, when Orange Shirt Day first started, I've noticed that it's getting better, and it will continue to get better. By “better”, I mean teachers are more aware.

In 2013 and especially in 2014, I would get emails from teachers across Canada wanting to know: “How do I teach this? What do I do? Where do I go? What do I need? What do I need to know? What if I do it wrong?” I didn't have answers for them.

I have in my files a kit that I would send to teachers. I'm not a teacher. My education is accounting and bookkeeping. I'm used to being in my corner doing my books, so I just gathered stuff. One of the big ones was Manitoba. I would share the link to the Manitoba resources for teachers to look at.

Across Canada it's getting better and better. More provinces are having curriculum and developing curriculum. Whenever we hear about it, we post it on our web page. Now my response to emails is to please check our resources on our page. Also, I encourage any teachers who have curriculum and are willing to share it to post it on our page.

I'm not sure if that answered your question—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

[Phyllis Webstad]

—but that's been what I've been doing personally and—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I will say that I will share that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm out of time, aren't I?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Do you want to finish that thought, Ms. McPherson?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I was just going to just let you know that in Alberta—and I know you probably are aware—there is a proposal to take residential school education out of our curriculum, so I will make sure that I share your resources as widely as I can to educators in the province.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, folks.

We have to move on to the next question.

Mr. Shields, you have five minutes, please.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

I'll be sharing my time with MP Aitchison.

To the premier of the Northwest Territories, I've had the privilege of going to your assembly building. It wasn't designed in the way we did ours, with the two sort of separated; it's in a circle. I have an idea that you probably were involved in setting that up.

You referenced call to action number 80 in the building of relationships. As I look at your comments about “a holiday”, you know, if I thought all federal employees were out building relationships on that day, that might be a great idea; but I think we have a problem here.

How would you go about saying, “Okay, federal employees, how do we build relationships?” You refer to that, and I know from your background that it's probably what you really strongly work at.

[Stephen Kakfwi]

In the Northwest Territories, there are 40,000 people, and we split about a third of a million square miles. Originally we were one and a half million square miles, and then we divided and created Nunavut.

The country is diverse, and we operate on a consensus system. Most elected leaders know what it takes to reach an agreement. That gives us a good footing to accommodate each other's interests and show the kind of respect and dialogue that it takes to make this a home for everybody.

In the north here, one of the things we do, for instance, is we orient teachers. Every fall new teachers come into the north. Before they disperse into the communities, they spend at least two days getting oriented. I'm one of the speakers who gets invited to speak to them about who I am, where my people are, some of the history I have and my experiences in residential school.

They then go into the communities already knowing a little bit about the history we have had, and it changes everything about what we do. Then they are truly interested in learning more.

The curriculum right now is being changed to add many more videos, books and testimonials from residential school survivors.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

I would agree that maybe that's what our federal employees should be doing on September 30. There should be more of a structured approach for our federal employees, rather than, as you suggested, sitting at home watching TV. Unless we do that and unless there's a structured move, I don't think we're going to do number 80 that you're talking about in building relationships.

[Stephen Kakfwi]

Every year I watch and take part in Remembrance Day because my wife's family and some of my distant relatives did serve in the war. I understand world history and the terrible wars that the world has been in. I believe that we have to provide ceremonies and Remembrance Day activities to remember that so that we don't forget. I think we can do the same.

We need the federal government to finish working on the creation of a national monument in Ottawa, so that every September 30 the prime minister, the members of Parliament and the senators can go to this monument that we're going to create. The process had started, and then it got sidelined about a year ago. We can televise this across Canada, and it will force the parents of every child who sees that on TV.... They'll ask, “Mom, Dad, what is that all about? How come you never talked to me about this? I didn't know there were indigenous people. Who are they? What happened to them?”

That's going to create the dialogue, but we need some help. There's supposed to be one national monument created in Ottawa, and then one in each of the provinces and territories. We need to do that.

We also need the minister to finish creating the national council for truth and reconciliation. Aside from the U.N. declaration being adopted by Canada, the creation of a national council for reconciliation is also paramount, because that is the council that is going to take the country to task on an annual basis. Just as the Auditor General does for the accounting of our money, we also need this national council for reconciliation to take the governments, the churches, the provinces, the cities, the towns and the schools across this country to task on a yearly basis on the progress—or lack of it—towards reconciliation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I apologize. I hate to interrupt, but I only have 20 seconds for Mr. Aitchison.

If you have a quick question, sir, please go ahead, but I have to make this very quick.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I have a lot of questions, but there's not enough time, so maybe what I'll do.... We have contact information for each of these remarkable witnesses, and I need to learn more. I want to thank you so much for what you said to us today.

Ms. Webstad, I just recently purchased a whole bunch of books for all of the elementary schools in my riding on International Day of the Girl. I think I'm going to buy one of your books for every single school in my riding as well. I'd like to talk to you about doing an event virtually, maybe, where we give those books out.

I'm really quite moved by what I've heard today. I'll need to talk to you more, away from this constrained format.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Aitchison. At the risk of sounding like a biased chair, well said.

Now we're going to Mr. Housefather for five minutes, please.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much to this distinguished and wonderful panel of witnesses. Mr. Saganash, it's great to see you again. It's great to hear from the others.

The stories you told were incredibly moving. Like all of my colleagues from all parties, I'm full of contrition for the residential school experience that so many indigenous people in this country experienced. There's no way of absolutely making amends, but one way of doing it is making sure that all Canadians—especially when survivors are gone—know the history of this day and why we have caused it to happen.

That doesn't mean that there's not much more work to be done in terms of police brutality against indigenous people, the overincarceration rates of indigenous people, implementing the rest of the recommendations of this report and implementing treaties as we should.

I'm going to stick to the bill itself, but just understand that in the framework of my questions on the bill, I'm not saying that there's not so many other things we still need to do.

I would like to ask each of the witnesses to let me know if there any amendments to this bill that you think should be made by this committee.

I'd like to start with Ms. Scott. Are there any amendments to the bill that your association sees as necessary?

[Stephanie Scott]

Upon review, we didn't have any further comments or changes to the bill moving forward. We hope that it passes and receives royal assent.