Thank you for that, Mr. Chair.
I agree with you. While the questions being asked seem like they have very straightforward answers, I know that this very topic that Mr. Genuis has alluded to and asked the minister about over and over is actually being discussed in another committee right now.
The basis of his questions is that the minister should or should not know who is an indigenous person in Canada. With indigeneity, there's no one term or description of who is and who isn't indigenous. It covers Inuit, Métis and first nations. Mr. Genuis, by asking questions that seem as simple as “Is this person indigenous? Should this person pay back money?”, pre-assumes that our minister should be able to determine who is and isn't an indigenous person.
The United Nations, in article 33 of the UNDRIP, makes it clear that it is for the nations to decide who belongs to that nation. The UNDRIP is law in Canada. It's important, when we are looking at implementing the UNDRIP, that we don't expect ministers to break from that and to start making claims and answering questions based on their beliefs, rather than what the law is or what those nations say. That's a very paternal way of looking at it. Our government does its best to ensure that paternalistic thinking in the past isn't reflected today.
While they may seem like non-answers for Mr. Genuis on a very complicated subject, the minister was, in fact, doing what's required under the law, under the UNDRIP and under reconciliation. For anyone to state that she was willingly not answering a question that was straightforward and simple is just disingenuous.
I know that's not the case with my colleague, Lori Idlout, who asked questions and didn't get the answers she would have liked, or who thought that they could have been answered better. I'm not going to say that her questions...or diminish the frustration that she has in that.
However, I felt that Mr. Genuis was definitely way off in terms of trying to make something very straightforward that isn't very straightforward in his privilege motion, which seems to be presumptive in saying that ministers should be able to determine who is and who isn't indigenous and the consequences of their indigeneity when it comes to procurement.
Thank you.