Evidence of meeting #108 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Catherine Lappe  Assistant Deputy Minister, Child and Family Services Reform, Department of Indigenous Services
Valerie Gideon  Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
Georgina Lloyd  Assistant Deputy Minister, Northern Affairs, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs

6:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal John Aldag

Mr. Carr, I'm sorry but I'm going to interrupt and get you to wrap up. The bells have started. We need to wind up.

6:40 p.m.

Liberal

Ben Carr Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB

Okay, sure.

There can be disagreement, Mr. Chair, of course, about the quality of answers, the satisfaction with answers, but I do think there's a commitment to try to be collegial. Mr. Zimmer may not feel there's collegiality between me and him or other members of the government side, but certainly with other members, I do think that exists, and I just hope we can make an effort to try to have that tone of collegiality continue.

I respect the concerns of my colleague across the way, but I don't see any reason to believe there's an evasion of accountability. It just means, unfortunately, due to what happened today, we have to wait a couple of weeks before we see the ministers again.

6:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal John Aldag

Mr. Battiste, we do need to go now that the bells have started.

6:40 p.m.

Liberal

Jaime Battiste Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS

Mr. Chair, I know we're not going to wrap up all the questions you had for us today, but I wanted to make sure your last few minutes as chair of this committee weren't spent in a bad way.

As a first nations person and as a colleague, I want to end this meeting by thanking you for your contributions as chair. It is a difficult job. It's difficult to chair. There are a lot of emotions. A lot of people are really trying to do their best to move forward on indigenous issues. We all know where we need to get to for reconciliation, but sometimes we disagree on the first steps.

I want to thank you for your time. Thank you for all that you've done and for your role in advancing reconciliation over the past few months not only as a member of this committee, but also as the chair.

Farewell. Have a great trip, and we'll see you in the future.

6:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal John Aldag

Thank you.

With that, I'm sure most people have caught on by now, but this is my last meeting as the chair, so thank you. It's been a pleasure working with everybody. I'm resigning my position as member of Parliament on Monday and returning to British Columbia, so the first order of business on Monday will be the election of a new chair. I wish you well with it. In the meantime, keep up the good work that this committee has done.

Thank you all for your support, even during some challenging meetings.

With that, colleagues, we're adjourned.