Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 21st, 2024

[Kathy Grant]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bryan May.

I now give the floor for the next six minutes to the committee’s second vice-chair, Mr. Luc Desilets.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank all three guests for being with us.

There was something I found touching during your presentations, Ms. Grant and Mr. Belanger. Mr. Belanger, your name sounds very Quebecois, by the way. What touched me is that you are continuing the work of your parents in a way. That is especially the case for you, Ms. Grant. In your case, Mr. Belanger, you talked about it. It’s really fantastic that you are able to continue this work and talk about it. It really touched me.

Ms. Grant, I have a few questions for you.

Why do you think your father had such a deep need or yearning to do research and make Black veterans’ history known? Where did that come from for him?

[Kathy Grant]

I speak a lot more English than French.

I will speak in English.

My father came up from Barbados to volunteer to fight for Canada in the Second World War. He was in the Canadian Army as well as the Canadian air force. Before he passed away in 2005, he said, “Kathy, I want you to continue my legacy of telling the stories of our Black veterans.” He also told someone by the name of Sarah Onyango to do the same thing. I met her at my dad's funeral. It's been 20 years, and we keep telling the stories, whether it's by engaging with the Department of National Defence or whether it's by engaging with Veterans Affairs to continue the stories.

It's a promise I made to my dad. I'm going to keep doing it, and my children are going to keep doing it as well.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I congratulate you.

Do you think Black soldiers’ and veterans’ history is documented well enough today? You continue to do it, but in general, is it documented well enough?

[Kathy Grant]

I don't know if I'm supposed to put this earpiece on or....

Could you repeat the question?

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Yes, I will repeat my question.

Today, in 2024, is the history of Black soldiers and veterans sufficiently well documented, in your opinion?

[Kathy Grant]

Some people document it well. I know that for No. 2 Construction Battalion, I would say that greater than 70% of the information that's out there and that's published contains misinformation. There are very few people who actually have knowledge in that area. I find that, a lot of times, they're not the ones who are being consulted. There are very few people who actually have that knowledge. I find that a lot of people are copying and pasting information, and they do not have the knowledge.

People are saying that they defused landmines and that they removed men from the battlefield. There are many images out there of American soldiers, not Canadian soldiers. That is done by the media as well as by schools. We're trying to correct that. It's an ongoing process. I know that, with our new website, we will actually have a myths and misinformation page to showcase the information accurately.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

You are doing a lot, but in your opinion, whose responsibility is it to dig, spread the story and highlight the work of Black people? Is it up to Veterans Affairs Canada? Is it up to some other organizations in the private or community sector?

[Kathy Grant]

I would say it's everyone's responsibility to go and do it. I know through our group, Legacy Voices, we work directly with schools, and we encourage schools to share that information with other schools.

Last year, there was an Italian schoolteacher—I think he was with the Oscar Peterson Public School—and we shared the information with him. He got the Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching, from working with No. 2 Construction Battalion information. We went to the Library and Archives Canada, and we were able to share that information with the students. The students were able to create websites for each individual soldier they researched.

I think it's everyone's responsibility. It's a shared responsibility. If we just keep telling people to learn one story and to share it, I think more people will know about it.

Thank you.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Congratulations on that award.

Earlier, you used an expression I had trouble understanding. You talked about unreasonable racism. What did you mean by that?

[Kathy Grant]

If you take a look at the records at Library and Archives Canada, you will see multiple examples. To give you one example, they were recruiting a person in Manitoba. He was a medical student. His name was Hewburn Greenidge. When he went to get examined, the military doctor said to the civilian doctor, “I'm glad that you are examining the nigger.” Those words are right there at Library and Archives Canada. There are multiple examples in there. Some of the language you really can't present in schools. A lot of times you have to shade it out.

Those are some examples. There are at least 10 or 15 examples. When they went to be recruited in Toronto, and they asked if they'd be willing to accept a platoon, not a single group said that they would accept a platoon into their group. They went to about 75 of them. Those records are actually at Library and Archives Canada. They've already been digitized. Some would say that they were a kilted regiment and that they would draw the line when it came to getting Black soldiers, or that if Black soldiers came in, it would prevent white soldiers, or the proper soldiers, from getting in.

Those are some of the examples of racism that we saw. I know that members of the Black community wanted to serve and wanted to get in from the beginning. It was just the restrictions from the commanding officers who said no, but we do have some who went to Ypres and Vimy and whatever. We have examples.

Thank you.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

Now let's go to Ms. Blaney, please, for six minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

The testimony is so interesting to me.

I want to thank you, Mr. Belanger, for your service.

I also want to thank you, Ms. Grant, for carrying on your father's legacy. I really appreciate that commitment and the generational commitment that you've made here.

First, Ms. Grant, we did have an indigenous veteran come to our committee early on in the study who spoke about having a space that is just for indigenous veterans to come together, to talk about their experiences, to share and to have VAC participate to learn more about what's happening within that community in terms of everything—the history and what the veterans are actually experiencing.

Do you think that would make sense for the Black veteran community as well? It would be a space where they could come together, share together and talk together, one where VAC could sort of learn from that how to better provide service. After what you just testified to, around clarifying history and correcting it when other sources are putting out incorrect information, that could be part of it as well.

[Kathy Grant]

I know that last year Veterans Affairs had an opportunity where they were getting the testimonies from what they called the BIPOC group—I hate that term—and then lumped together the Black veterans and the brown veterans. They said, no, they have their own separate stories to tell.

Veterans Affairs Canada then actually went out and had different sessions. They had members of the Black veterans community go and talk about and share what their experience was with Veterans Affairs. I think that was a very positive step. It was just recent. I haven't read any of the reports that came out of that, but many of the Black veterans we spoke to said they were very appreciative of that. They had found that sometimes, when they went to Veterans Affairs, they were not taken seriously. I think there's hope and there's promise happening going forward. I think as they share their stories and their experiences, things will change because they'll say what they need to make things better for them.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Something that's a little more regular, maybe, would be even more helpful to continue to bring those groups together. Having different people participate would just really educate VAC as to what those realities are.

[Kathy Grant]

I think individual groups know what their experience is. They don't want anybody else to go and tell their story. It belongs to them. This is their experience.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Belanger, I want to come back to you. You talked about the remote nature of a lot of the communities. We've heard from a lot of especially indigenous communities that, because they're so far away, it can be challenging to access service.

Mr. Bouvier, you talked about having culturally appropriate supports and services for people who are coming back.

Perhaps I could ask both of you to talk about the challenges of belonging to remote communities and accessing services and what would be culturally appropriate.

[John Belanger]

I refer back to the young lady who asked me this when she came up to Beauval. Back then, Louis Roy had to walk three days just to enlist. Well, it's a long way off the grid where I'm talking about. It's not off the grid now, because there are highways all the way there now.

The Legion is utilized by Veterans Affairs to bring information forward. We don't have a Legion. The closest Legion for us is two and a half hours away. We can't access it. It's difficult. We would need somebody to go to, as an example. Right now, even me, I can't go to a Legion. I have to drive there. It's two and a half hours to get there. If they don't have the information through Veteran Affairs, it takes a long time.

It was a huge disconnect when I got out of the service. I was hurt in the service. I did my thing through Veteran Affairs and, because of where I was living at the time, there were huge issues getting the services that I needed.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mervin, I know you talked a little bit about language in trying to get some of those things back together and about providing supports that are culturally and linguistically appropriate. I'm just wondering if you could talk about what those gaps are and what you're trying to do to address that.

[Mervin Bouvier]

The language and cultural barriers sometimes affect a lot of our people who live in our communities. We live in about 18 communities on the northwest side. A lot of the time, people don't know the cultural side of people and how they are. They have a different way of presenting themselves in the cultural component and the language. You know, the code talkers were the ones who saved the war in World War II, I think, when Germany was fighting in World War II.

It didn't come back. That language didn't come back for us to find our identity. Instead, modern society kept going. It didn't give us that way of understanding our own language. Some of us continued on, and we have that barrier.

The main thing is to have workshops, services and programs within our culture and within our language and make people understand that's where the barrier is a lot of the time. Distribute programs, because we don't have anything in the cultural component. It's always on a modern component. We need to make sure that it's delivered so it's cultural and modern so that we both understand each other and come to the table at the same level.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Blaney.

Now we're going to have two interventions of four minutes each.

I invite my friend Fraser Tolmie for four minutes, please.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

I'm glad you're my friend.

Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today.

Ms. Grant, thank you for listening to your father, for respecting, sharing and being able to remember the past to honour him.

To our guests who have served, thank you for your service.

I know my colleague Ms. Wagantall mentioned Saskatchewan. Since I'm from Moose Jaw, it's great that we outnumber Ontario here. We're grateful for your presence, and that's why we're mentioning it.

Ms. Grant, my uncle was from Jamaica. When I was growing up, Black and white...it was just my family. It wasn't until you experienced some of the comments that are made by outside people.... It's somewhat disgusting, in my opinion. I'm grateful that you're here to be able to share.

One of the things that we as Canadians have prided ourselves on is the underground railway. What you're sharing with us today in your testimony is that we may have prided ourselves on the underground railway, but afterwards there's some work to be done.

I'd like to touch a little bit on what you were sharing with regard to the American media and what you were saying about how the portrayal of Black people in the Canadian military isn't exactly what it is in our own hearts and minds. What are you doing to combat that and expose what really happened?