Debates of April 11th, 2005

Committees of the House

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Calgary North Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what has been put before this House is the report of the standing committee. It represents the consensus that existed at that time among the members of the standing committee. It is a motion which builds in part upon the work of the AFN and the Canadian Bar Association and the reports which they put forward.

It builds as well upon the five days of dedicated time that the standing committee devoted to this issue and considered all of the evidence which the standing committee heard at that time, including the evidence of victims, individuals with experience with the process, the healing foundation, and including participation not only from victims but from their legal counsel. All of that has been put in the mix, including what we heard from the Deputy Prime Minister, who came and spoke to us about this particular program. The result is the motion that was put forward by the standing committee and which is before this House today for debate.

It may be that many of the stakeholders who take part in this issue do not support each and every one of those recommendations. Those recommendations reflect the wisdom of the standing committee put before this House.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think I should get back to the hon. member. First, he is saying that we are debating the contents of the report today which of course is factually incorrect. We are debating the motion to concur in the report. We are not debating what he said we were.

Second, the parliamentary secretary was quite clear in saying that it is not even supported anyway.

Third, and more fundamentally, if the hon. member actually believes what he says, why was he unable to convince even a critical mass of Conservative MPs to make this an order of the day for their opposition day?

Then they say they do not get to choose their own opposition day. I wonder who does choose their opposition day. Is it some lobbyist some place, if it is not them?

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Calgary North Centre, AB]

With all due respect, Mr. Speaker, there is no obligation on the part of any of the opposition parties in the House to dedicate their opposition days to the debating of concurrence motions. It is preposterous to suggest that is what we have to do to concur in a standing committee report. My hon. friend knows better than that.

This is a concurrence motion where the House is being asked to concur in the report of the standing committee. It is before the House in a proper manner for debate and that is why we are here.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Calgary Centre-North should keep up with things and check his facts. It is true that this was a motion that was concurred in committee; however, Liberal members argued against it because it did not have the support of the Assembly of First Nations. In fact, there was another motion, as the member knows full well, by the member for Winnipeg Centre which I think made a lot more sense. The Assembly of First Nations does not like this particular motion. The AFN is the one that is affected and it does not like it for a number of reasons.

It does not like it because the motion recommends terminating the current ADR process. The Assembly of First Nations believes that the ADR processed should be repaired and not terminated.

The motion recommends that the process be handed over to the courts to supervise and enforce. The Assembly of First Nations believes that the first nations must negotiate the settlement with the assistance of the courts if required.

The motion recommends a partial truth commission involving survivors only, whereas the AFN recommends a comprehensive truth commission involving governments and churches.

The motion is silent on a need for an apology. The Assembly of First Nations calls for a full apology.

The motion is silent on the administration of a reconciliation payment. The Assembly of First Nations insists that the administration be through a first nations entity.

The motion is silent on the need for a reconciliation. The Assembly of First Nations sees reconciliation as the rationale for the entire compensation package.

Therefore, the very people that this motion is supposed to be representing, supporting and helping, are not supporting the motion.

Here we are in the House debating something that does not even have the support of Canada's largest and perhaps most influential group of first nations peoples.

The alternative dispute resolution process for victims of sexual and physical abuse at Indian residential schools is unfairly represented in this motion as well. The so-called fact-finding by the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development was undertaken to provoke drama and headlines, not to learn, not to understand, and not to bring realistic solutions for individuals who were harmed as children attending Indian residential schools.

This motion represents the worst of all worlds: uninformed or intentionally misleading political notions built on the hopes of abused aboriginal people in our country.

Former residential school students and their families deserve more than this and we must not let them down. Simple compensation will not make up for the evils we know that happened. Adding up the cost and dividing it by 86,000 people will not fix the problems that we face as parliamentarians, as leaders, and as Canadians.

The most difficult challenge is to accept that there are no easy answers to the various questions raised by this institutional system. No action, be it a program to heal the wounds, a forum on truth and reconciliation or compensation, will successfully close this dark chapter of our history.

For the country and the government, the effects of the Indian residential schools represent an exceptional problem which requires innovative and realistic solutions.

Lawsuits against the government filed by more then 11,000 former students still remain. Unless we continue to vigorously implement an alternative dispute resolution approach, it will take forever to move these existing cases through the traditional courts. It will cost much more than what we will spend using other avenues.

The motion would have us believe that the alternative dispute resolution process has sprung from nowhere. How insulting to the many individuals and organizations from across Canada who have put many years into creating a workable and approachable system.

The government's approach has been developed in concert with the input of hundreds of former Indian residential school students and other important stakeholders, such as the churches. The alternative dispute resolution process is the result of listening, not to political whimsies and short term expediencies but to the vital visceral desire to put the past to rest with dignity.

Former students are seeking options to waiting years for the courts and options for validating their experiences. They seek financial support for personal and community healing because of the widespread effect of damaged lives. They seek spiritual support and they seek to have their loved ones with them at a hearing. Together, we are seeking options for cross-examination on details that may have taken place 50 years ago. We all want to avoid isolation from friends and family.

Clearly, our challenge has been and continues to be to find a timely, safe, and effective option for former students to settle their claims. We need a holistic approach, one that facilitates access to justice and that treats former students as humanely as possible.

All Canadians expect their government to be accountable. Former students themselves have called for a credible process to validate their experiences and to educate Canadians about what happened to them. These are complex cases, usually involving many parties. It takes time and resources to appropriately address these claims.

The motion would have us run away from our responsibilities. Resolving the legacy of Indian residential schools must address not just compensation, but the longer term need for healing and for reconciliation. This is all part of the program and the support system. This is all well in progress as we speak.

The motion before the House would have us abandon the alternative dispute resolution process that has been so carefully developed and which continues to be the subject of ongoing refinements. It would have us abandon the some 1,200 former students who have put their faith in this process and whose hearings will take place over the coming months.

We are receiving on average 20 applications to the alternative dispute resolution process each and every week. We cannot abandon these people and this process. Rather, we should be asking why, to date, over 1,400 former students have chosen this process to pursue their Indian residential school claims.

What is the alternative dispute resolution process? What sets it apart from the courts? First, we recognize that we are approaching fragile individuals who have suffered more in one lifetime than we would like to know. They need to be believed. If they have the strength to come forward, the system has to support them. Hearings are private affairs and only the adjudicator can ask questions.

What kind of support is provided to former students, whether they choose the ADR process or litigation? There are crisis lines, mental health workers, traditional support, and travel money to attend a hearing, so that there is a loving family member or friend to lean on.

Former students are encouraged to retain legal counsel to advise them on completing their application and undertaking the process. The government pays legal costs that would otherwise come out of former students' pockets. We know of former students who, despite our efforts, have suffered by telling their stories through the ADR process.

We cannot undo the pain they suffered by examining their past. We all regret the suffering, and health supports are in place and available to offer ongoing support to former students during these times of crisis.

We continue to fine-tune the alternative dispute resolution process. We know that we must look at every possible way to further streamline the process. We know that more can be done and will be done.

This is not enough. We are working with our partners and other stakeholders on further innovation. We asked the Assembly of First Nations for its views and we received solid ideas that are now under active consideration.

We need to open the door to redress for more than the victims of sexual and physical abuse. We are working with the Assembly of First Nations and other partners on an ongoing and regular basis to examine the ways suggested by the Assembly of First Nations report to acknowledge the impacts of Indian residential schools on former students.

The alternative dispute resolution process may not be for everyone. However, it provides a respectful, honourable and more expedient option for former students who suffered sexual and physical abuses and it presents a strong option to using the courts.

This motion before us would have us believe that, based on its first year of operation, the alternative dispute resolution process is a dismal failure and that it and the thousands of people engaged in seeking redress, healing and reconciliation should be abandoned. That is what this motion is saying.

I have strong evidence to the contrary. The Honourable Ted Hughes, chief adjudicator for the alternative dispute resolution process, wrote to me last week and described the performance of the adjudication secretariat. He reports that his adjudicators have delivered 150 decisions and that another 100 files are at the hearing stage. The total value of these decisions now amounts to over $6 million.

Mr. Hughes grants that there may not have been unanimous satisfaction with the ADR hearings process, but he also makes clear that the level of dissatisfaction is nowhere near what the committee would have us believe.

Mr. Hughes goes on to say:

I sincerely believe that the measure of satisfaction with which the efforts of the Adjudicators are being met far exceeds the negativism that the Committee's Report projects. I have no doubt that the 'positives' of which I speak will continue to grow as we deliver the 1,000 decisions expected of us in the current fiscal year.

This process is not failing. It is not perfect either. That is why we are in active discussions with the Assembly of First Nations and our other partners to take a serious look at how our approach might be improved or supplemented.

We are not cowering in the face of criticism. We are not prepared to be hijacked by wavering political interests. Most important, this government is not prepared to turn tail and abandon thousands of former students and all the work done to date.

Also, we fear neither change nor improvement. We are honouring our commitments and accepting our responsibilities. We are dealing with the consequences of our actions and will continue working with our critics to find the best solutions possible for the thousands of former Indian residential school students.

I challenge all members of Parliament to examine carefully their own thinking on this motion. I challenge them to understand that undoing the wrongs of a century cannot be achieved overnight. I challenge them not to abandon the aboriginal victims of abuse and our responsibilities to them and to all Canadians.

[Jeremy Harrison, Conservative, Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member a question regarding the supposed efficiency of this program.

On the ADR itself we have information showing that $125 million has been spent. Less than a million dollars has gone to actually compensating survivors. We have information showing that for Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada only $1 goes to compensation for every $4 spent on administration.

For this program, even if it were running as well as the government has wanted it to from the beginning, half of the budgeted cost goes to administration. How can this possibly be seen as an efficient program? Maybe it should not surprise us. This is from the party that brought us the gun registry and the sponsorship scandal. Perhaps the hon. member would comment on that.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the member wants me to comment on the gun registry, which is actually demonstrating very clearly that it does have a significant effect on gun homicides and suicides in Canada. In fact, law enforcement officers are making about 2,000 inquiries a day on the gun registry system. These are front line officers who obviously know what they are doing and they are getting some value out of it.

However, I am sure the member for Desnethé--Missinippi--Churchill River really wanted me to comment on the residential schools issue and the alternative dispute resolution process. The member has raised a valid point. I know that he has been engaged with this file.

The reality is that in starting up a program like this we had to define the parameters. We had to work with first nations people. Staff had to be brought in. Lawyers had to be engaged. Program people had to be set up. A program like this cannot take off from a flying start. We cannot tell a department or a group of people that we are going to do something today so they need to start reviewing the files tomorrow.

The criteria had to be established. What would the process be? How could it be made understandable to people in terms of their culture? They might have a different way of thinking about this type of thing.

There was some lead time. I would like to characterize it this way. We look at the chart, which starts off slowly, but then once the infrastructure and the mechanisms are in place it starts to take off in a sort of exponential way.

Just comparing the numbers from the outset gives an artificial view of what is actually happening. As the Honourable Ted Hughes said, they are starting to deal with these claims in a very expeditious way and there is a lot of interest in the process.

I would just ask the member to give it a chance. If he were to ask the same question next year and there had been no significant progress and the expenditure on claims had not started to move against the infrastructure costs and the staff costs, I think he would have a valid point, but I would submit that it is too early in the process right now.

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Calgary North Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, to follow up on that very question, it would seem to me that the best way to judge whether the program has been successful or not is to judge the amount of money which has been spent on this so-called government department in the last four years and determine what percentage of that money went to the claimants and what percentage went to the bureaucracy.

The problem I have with the explanation given by my hon. friend, which is that we need to wait because the program is starting to bear fruit, is that the numbers actually support the contrary conclusion. If we compare the government's fiscal expenditures with the amount of money spent in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004, the amount of money that goes to bureaucracy is actually increasing, not decreasing.

We are not reaching the point where there are any efficiencies. In those four years, the amount of money going to victims actually decreased from 30¢ on the dollar to 20¢ on the dollar. We are actually getting less output from the system, not more.

Let my give my hon. friend a comparison. In 1988 this country dealt with the circumstances involving the Japanese Canadian experience. An agreement was signed offering redress for injustice during and after the second world war. That entire program, which was administered by a Conservative government, opened and closed in five years. Within one year the government processed 17,500 applications. Over 65% of the applications were processed and closed within the first 12 months.

By comparison, this program, which is now into its fourth year, has spent $275 million, plus the healing foundation money, and has resolved less than 2% of the cases. How is that a success and why should we wait?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is not unlike the Conservative Party's approach to the Gomery inquiry. Every day there is a new bit of information, so those members jump on it.

The Conservatives are not really interested, but we are in this for the long haul. They cannot pull out statistics from one year or another. We all know that it takes time to validate these claims.

I am absolutely amazed that the members of the Conservative Party would suggest that all people need to do is fill in a claim form and send it to Ottawa, where it will just be validated and a cheque will be sent to them. This is the same party that stands up in the House day in and day out looking for accountability and good financial management systems, but on the other hand it says to just send in a claim form.

The problem we have is that a lot of these cases go back many years, so some of the people who allegedly committed these terrible things are not around. The Assembly of First Nations has proposed that we forget all that and just say that the fact a person was at a residential school qualifies the person, period, and we would just pay the person a lump sum. I must say that the government is looking into it, but the problem might be that it is just so exorbitantly expensive. I do not know. The government is working with the Assembly of First Nations on it.

There is another problem I raised at committee, which the others did not really deal with. We know there are many members of the first nations who went to residential schools and had a very positive experience. What are we going to do? Are we going to cut them a cheque as well? Admittedly there might not be tons of these people around, but there are some who speak quite highly of their experience at residential schools.

Rather than doing what the Conservative Party always does, which is just pick out a statistic here and there, I say to stay in this for the long haul, be concerned about the first nations people and listen to the Assembly of First Nations.

[An hon. member]

How about taking some responsibility?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

The Assembly of First Nations does not support this motion. Surely that is enough.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

That last part was very difficult for me to hear, so we will assume that everything was okay and the vocabulary was fine.

We are still in questions and comments. The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague, the member for Calgary Centre-North, asked a very straightforward and direct question based on the fact that a very few per cent of claims have been settled. The administrative costs are at somewhere between 70% and 80%, just enormous. He is looking for some answers.

The hon. member opposite got up and tried to somehow relate this to the sponsorship program, which is surprising, to say the least, and then went on to say that it was the Conservatives, it was the opposition.

My question is quite simple. Based on the facts and based on the gut-wrenching testimony we heard at committee, which was that people have been trying for a long time to get any type of satisfaction and have been told that they do not qualify or that the abuse was acceptable abuse at that time and in those days, when is this government going to stand up and take one ounce of responsibility for some of these wrongdoings? When is it going to show an ounce of humility and admit that it made a mistake, that something is not working?

Why does the government always want to pretend that it has this divine right and everything it does is right? It is incredible that the member has the gall to stand in this House and try to suggest this is somehow like the sponsorship program.

I ask the member to show some humility. I ask the member to show an ounce of responsibility and show our first nations people some respect. Let us start fixing these problems instead of trying to blame everyone else.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I guess the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands was wandering through the crocuses blooming this weekend and forgot to read or study the fact that this motion is not supported by the Assembly of First Nations.

If he had actually listened to what I had to say, he would have heard that I acknowledge and the government acknowledges that we need to do more work on the alternative dispute resolution process. We need to streamline it. That is precisely why this government asked the Assembly of First Nations to review it and come back with a set of recommendations. That is why the motion proposed by the NDP at committee made some sense to us.

This motion does not have the support of the Assembly of First Nations, for the reasons I rattled off. Perhaps the member did not hear that.

I find it astounding that the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands would talk about humility. I am not sure that he is the person who would teach this House or Canadians a lot about that.

Nonetheless, this is a serious matter. The government is seized with it. We acknowledge that work has to be done to improve this process. That is precisely what we are doing. When the member wanders through the crocuses next weekend, I think he should read some of the literature on these motions as they are presented to the House.

[Bernard Cleary, Bloc, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I must admit that I was dumbfounded by the last remarks of the Liberal member. I have never heard remarks as serious and fabricated in response to a question.

This is certainly no way to convince me to support him in what he is proposing. The member attended the committee meetings. He heard as well as I and the other members did all that was said against the current process. He heard from individuals, seniors and aboriginal organizations that this process should be completely changed. Every stakeholder without exception, government officials excluded, found that the approach did not make any sense and that it was imperative to bring in changes as soon as possible, so that seniors who were in residential schools in their youth can receive what they are owed and were promised.

It is my understanding that this government's preferred approach or strategy is to drag any investigation out, so that—as was the case with the veterans—those concerned disappear and die before having obtained what they wanted.

The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness came to the committee. We told her all that happened and conveyed to her all the criticism from the public, but she just kept repeating that there was no problem, that all was well, and that we should let her continue operating the same way, that spending would increase but that the money for these poor people would never be there.

The committee unanimously decided this would be what we would be tabling, and that is what we are doing today. I resent this attempt at convincing us to drop this motion or to oppose it, when we, in the committee, have already voted for it.

As you no doubt know, Mr. Speaker, what this motion states is consistent with our study and our decision. The committee considered the written and oral evidence presented.

Former students of residential schools met with us and explained that there were major problems that needed to be resolved in order for the process to work. Witnesses included the hon.Ted Hughes, Chief Adjudicator of Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada; the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and Minister Responsible for Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada; Mario Dion, Deputy Minister Responsible for Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada; and the Canadian Bar Association. The committee took particular note, in formulating the recommendations below, of the written and oral evidence of the former students and the representatives of former students and survivors’ organizations regarding their personal experiences in the residential schools and in the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada alternative dispute resolution process.

The witnesses were compelling for their candour and integrity about their experience as inmates in the residential school system and fair, frank and persuasive on matters of public policy.

The committee came to the inescapable conclusion that the alternative dispute resolution process is an excessively costly and inappropriately applied failure, for which the minister and her officials are unable to raise a convincing defence.

Specifically the ADR process is a failure becauseit is strikingly disconnected from the so-called pilot projects that preceded it. It is failing to provide impartial and even-handed due process. It is not attracting former students to apply in credible numbers. It provides grossly inadequate compensation when, grudgingly, it does so. It excludes too many of the some 87,000 remaining former students from eligibility. It is proceeding too slowly, allowing too many former students to die uncompensated. It is an arbitrary administrative solution that is vulnerable to political whim.

Many former students do not trust the process. There is no satisfactory evidence in the numbers that the program is working.

The committee took note of the consistency of the former students, the AFN and the CBA on five points. First, the necessity of compensation for those former students who are able to establish a cause of action and a lawful entitlement to compensation process. Second, the necessity of keeping the compensation referred to above separate and apart from compensation for sexual and severe physical abuse. Third, the absolute necessity for a settlement process that includes direct negotiations with the former students and the vigorous protection of their legal rights during the negotiations. Fourth, the wisdom of a court-approved, court-supervised settlement that is transparent, is arrived at in a neutral manner and cannot be tampered with politically. Fifth and last, the necessity of a settlement that is comprehensive and final and relieves the government of future liability.

The committee took note of three recommendations by former students and their groups:the need for continued financial support of healing processes, with a greater degree of local direction and personal self-direction on how that healing is to be achieved;the need for a respectful national forum and the urgency for prompt compensation, reconciliation and healing because former students are elderly and on average some 30 to 50 die each week uncompensated and bearing the grief of their experience to the grave.

The reconciliation payment should start with a base amount for any time spent at a school—for example, $10,000—and add an amount for each year at a school—for example $3,000.

The committee regrets the manner with which the government has administered the Indian Residential Schools Claims program and recommends that the government give consideration to the advisability of government taking the following steps. First, the government should take all the actions recommended hereafter on an urgent basis, with consideration for the frailty and short life expectancy of the former students.

Second, the government should improve the Indian Residential Schools Resolutions Canada Alternative Dispute Resolutions Process. It should also engage in court-supervised negotiations with former students. It should ensure that the courts have full and final discretion with respect to limitations on legal fees.The government should expedite the settlement of other claims involving aggravated circumstances.

In order to ensure that former students have the opportunity to tell their stories to all Canadians in a process characterized by dignity and respect, the government should cause a national truth and reconciliation process to take place in a forum.The government should also ask the Auditor General to conduct an audit of the Indian Residential Schools Canada Dispute Resolution Process from its creation to its winding down.Finally, the government should respond publicly in writing to the Assembly of First Nations report.

Other than Government of Canada employees, everyone who testified condemned the ineffectiveness of the alternative dispute resolution process. The only thing the government succeeded in doing was implementing an ineffective and very costly structure.

After all this criticism, the minister appeared before the committee to say that there was no problem and that everything was going extremely well. What a joke.

Here is what the aboriginals want: first, a lump-sum payment for former students; second, an apology; third, an Amerindian agency to administer the payment of funds to former students; and fourth, a commitment to reconciliation.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent, for whom I have a fairly quick question.

In fact, the Assembly of First Nations does not accept the motion presented in the House today. Does that not bother the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent?

[Bernard Cleary, Bloc, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, every effort has been made to have it bother me. The Liberal Party has put on all sorts of pressure to have it bother me. Everyone has tried to set us against one another.

This morning, I met counsel for the AFN to explain to them why I, as an MP and an aboriginal, considered it important to have Parliament vote in favour of today's motion, thus forcing the government to take it into account.

So much effort has gone into getting me to reject this motion that I no longer believe the intervenors who really wanted us to give up and then wander around with vague promises that would never be kept.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the speech by my colleague from the Bloc Québécois, which was better than any I have heard to date, clearly outlined the true wishes of first nations and he pointed to three key points that would satisfy him.

His first point was that all students at residential schools be provided with blanket universal compensation without being questioned on whether they had been abused. We assume they were abused because they were deprived of family development for a decade.

His second point was that he would only be satisfied with a formal apology from the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. That is a key element.

In his third point he identified a truth and reconciliation process so that both sides could heal.

Does my friend from the Bloc Québécois recognize that the motion put forward by the Conservative Party does not contain those elements? However we do have an opportunity to move forward with a motion that would include all three of those components. Would he prefer to support a motion that had the three elements that we cite as primary?

[Bernard Cleary, Bloc, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will always be in favour of the ideal. No doubt about that. It would have been ideal if all of that had been included.

However, as I think we can come back to this later, and it is my intention to do so in order to include the elements mentioned, it was more important for me—and the matter was considered seriously—to have Parliament vote in favour of some settlement for the whole issue of residential schools than to include everything in the initial considerations.

My personal choice was to have a vote on this motion, to set out what the government must do and what it promised to do and to have us work together in committee to complete the file.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I seldom attend meetings of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, but, fortunately, I was there when this particular topic was discussed.

When one of our colleagues from the Conservative Party spoke, I found that this colleague was very conservative regarding the cost of administering this program. He talked about $1 for every $4. But the fact is that, at that meeting, it was demonstrated that every $1 paid in compensation costs $35.

Every day, I am surprised by the demagoguery of the governing party, which, against the will of Parliament, has always stubbornly defied Parliament and acted contrary to promises and agreements made with the other parties in this House. Take Mirabel and EI for example. On the whole, the amount of blustering before the House of Commons is increasing.

In this respect, I wonder—and my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent can confirm that this is what was said at committee—if it would not have been better, from the start, to put the money in the hands of an administration that is familiar with the problems experienced in the residential schools and those experienced even today by the Innu, who are sent thousands of miles away to pursue an education. The same is true for other aboriginal people, whether Cree, Naskapi or Algonquin. They are sent thousands of miles away from home. That is almost like living in an orphanage: they are at the mercy of strangers; they lose their customs and language; they are taught other religions than their own, and it is mandatory.

On this, I will ask my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent if, really, the best would not have been to establish an aboriginal committee to administer a program designed to compensate aboriginal people.

[Bernard Cleary, Bloc, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that, given the right opportunity, the Assembly of First Nations will succeed in playing that role because, ultimately, the first nations are familiar with this issue.

Obviously, they have to be given a real opportunity to make a decision, instead of simply being consulted. If that happens, it is clear they will achieve the results that the Bloc member is hoping for.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, by way of starting, I am pleased that this issue is before the House of Commons where I believe it properly belongs. I believe the terrible legacy of Canada's Indian residential schools is our greatest shame as a nation. There has never been an injustice on this scale or of this magnitude in the country.

In spite of a national consensus that there should be compensation and reconciliation, the overwhelming majority of the money set aside to compensate victims so they can get on with their lives is being burned up in legal fees and bureaucracy. There is some confusion over the figures. Some say by a factor of 4:1 that more money is spent on bureaucracy than compensation. Some say that it is 35:1. All we need to know is that the money is not going into the pockets of the victims so they can rebuild their lives.

I wish all members could have heard some of the testimony in our committee.

I intend to share my time, Mr. Speaker, with my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan.

I cannot get out of my mind one elder who came as a witness to the committee. She was an 88-year-old woman named Flora Merrick. She ran away from her residential school when she was nine years old to attend her mother's funeral. When she was caught, she was beaten black and blue and locked in a room for two weeks.

I will not dwell on how horrific this is and the state of fear in which these children lived, except to point out that when she filed a claim under the ADR process for a $3,500 maximum, the government spent $30,000 to oppose that claim, to call her a liar. Then when she was awarded $1,500 as a settlement, the government appealed it. It is going to spend another $30,000 to appeal this lousy $1,500 settlement for Flora Merrick. This is truly outrageous. If Canadians could hear this, I think they would be standing with us today calling for a just reconciliation and compensation program for the Indian residential school victims.

I cannot support the motion for concurrence put forward by my colleague from the Conservative Party. I believe the report of the committee, which he has moved concurrence in, fails to grasp the necessary elements of reform for this compensation program.

The standing committee had put in front of it a motion by myself, which essentially was that the Assembly of First Nations' recommended action to solve the Indian residential school situation. That motion contains three elements that I believe are necessary for us to begin to move forward.

One is fair and reasonable compensation in an expedited process, which is blanket lump sum compensation. In other words, no more wasting money trying to prove these victims are lying. This money should go into their pockets.

Eligibility for compensation should be based on the fact that someone was there. We accept that being torn from the bosom of one's family for 10 years in a row and denied one's culture and language in itself is abusive. We do not need to know how many times one was sexually abused or what size the stick was with which that a person was beaten. Those details do not matter because being forced to retell those stories re-victimizes the victims. Enough is enough. We should put the money that was set aside for compensation into the hands of the victims. This would be the first element and it is lacking in the motion put forward by my colleague from Calgary today.

The second element is a full public apology by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. Aboriginal people will settle for nothing else. They want an apology. They remind the House of Commons that the government of the day made a formal apology to Japanese Canadians. It has made formal apologies to other victims for reprehensible things former governments did.

As I started by saying, in this case there is no greater injustice in the history of Canada than the history of the Indian residential schools. We want and they want the Prime Minister of Canada to stand in the House of Commons and admit that what was done was wrong. This is not included in the motion we are debating today, as put forward by my colleague from the Conservative Party.

The third element that must be a part of any package to reform the Indian residential school situation is a truth and reconciliation process so that even though the compensation would be lump sum and universal, there would be an opportunity for people's stories to be told so both sides could begin to heal. I do not mean just the victims telling their stories. The churches want to tell their stories. The government wants to tell its stories. Non-aboriginal people who feel sick to their stomachs about this situation want their feelings to be heard. That is the path toward healing and toward true reconciliation. This element is absent in the motion my colleague from the Conservative Party would ask us to vote in favour of today.

I urge my colleagues in the House of Commons to vote down this motion because those other elements which I have raised are within grasp. The motion that I put forward in the standing committee, I now have information that it has the support of the government, of the ruling party. We can get all those three key elements in a motion adopted by the House of Commons. That is why the Assembly of First Nations, the elected leadership of first nations around the country, is asking us as members of Parliament to vote against the motion put forward by the Conservatives today, to stay strong and to keep fighting for a new resolution with the key elements we have identified here today.

I believe we owe it to this issue to do it right and to do it right the first time. This is simply an interim measure. I compliment my colleague from the Conservative Party for what he did at the committee. When it was clear my motion did not have support, he moved another motion which kept the issue alive and it brought the issue into the House of Commons where it properly belongs. However, let us not settle for half of the loaf when the whole loaf is available to us.

Let us not put in place a problematic resolution and motion when we can put in a motion that leads toward healing. One of the elements of the motion we have before us today is problematic in that it calls for simply abolishing the alternative dispute resolution system. Our point, and the point of the Assembly of First Nations, is we want to correct the alternative dispute resolution system, not abolish it. What about all those people who are halfway through the system now, who are 80 and 90 years old, who have been waiting for years for justice? We cannot just cut that program off willy-nilly with nothing to substitute for it. I urge colleagues to keep that in mind.

The motion put forward by the Conservatives recommends that the process be handed over to the courts to supervise and enforce. There should be some judicial oversight, but we do not want to put it strictly into the hands of the lawyers, some of whom are charging a 30% contingency fee for all settlements. That is a mistake. Oversight, yes, but handing it over strictly to that outside third party is wrong.

I urge colleagues here today that when this comes to a vote, to vote against it and vote in favour of a package that more accurately reflects what the leadership of first nations is asking us to do. That is the way to move forward to heal this historic injustice.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his position he has taken in the House on the motion introduced by the hon. member from the Conservative Party.

However, I want to understand one thing. It seems to me that, in life, we have to take small steps and I think that the Conservative Party's motion, which has been supported by the Bloc Québécois, was a small step in the right direction. It seems that the hon. member wants to leap too far and too fast.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but does he not believe that it would be better to start with one step in the right direction as suggested by the Conservatives and supported by the Bloc?

I am asking him this question because, in my riding, there are people who suffered terribly in an Indian residential school in Saint-Marc, near Amos. They have been waiting for years for even the slightest hint of a resolution. Many of these aboriginals, who are Algonquin Anishinabes, have died and yet the waiting and the delays continue. So it seemed to me that the Conservative Party's motion, seconded by the Bloc Québécois, was very interesting and a step in the right direction. I want to ask the following question: does the member not believe we should take the first step in the right direction, even if it means following up later with the proposal by the hon. member?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, if I honestly believed that the motion put forward by the Conservative Party would expedite settlements or even act as a stepping stone to a lasting resolve I would support it but I actually do not believe that.

Now that we have had time to carefully read the motion crafted by my colleague from the Conservative Party, it is actually a step backward. I am very concerned that some of the language in it is detrimental to the entire issue.

I would much prefer to adopt the report of the Assembly of First Nations, which was crafted by experts in the field, that went beyond first nations people. These experts included university professors, a former judge, a professor of law from the University of Quebec and people with backgrounds in human rights. Fifteen or 20 people crafted the proposal on how we move forward in the compensation for abuses at residential schools. That is the model we should be implementing.

My fear is that if we were to adopt the motion put forward by the Conservative Party today we would be one step further away from this satisfactory resolve, which is in fact the motion that I put forward at the committee. If we vote down the Conservative Party's motion, tomorrow morning we can begin debate at the Indian affairs committee and finish the motion I started, which is this book. That would bring us toward a resolve. It has expedited plans where people will get money in their pocket more quickly.

I do not believe the motion put forward by the Tories does that.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg Centre is absolutely right. The motion on the floor today is actually counterproductive. It does not have the support of the Assembly of First Nations for the reasons that I enunciated earlier. For example, the motion says that the courts should take it over, whereas the Assembly of First Nations wants first nations people to be involved. First Nations people want to see a much stronger approach to reconciliation and healing.

I have a question for the member for Winnipeg Centre concerning one thing that concerns me. The scenario I worry about is that people might take the attitude that since the motion is on the floor of the House today we should all support it. We would then rush back to committee, deal with the motion by the member for Winnipeg Centre and then we would end up with two motions. In my mind, that does not seem to be very productive.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my fear is that by passing the motion put to us today, we would actually be lowering the likelihood that we would get around to the full comprehensive reformation package that needs to be put forward at the committee. I am fearful that we may jeopardize the bigger picture by going for this lesser picture.

I point out that the motion put forward today by my hon. colleague is long on preamble and very short on the actual recommendations. It says all the right things in the preamble about how frustrated we are with the status quo but when it comes to the actual recommendations to change the practice it falls short of what the leadership of first nations, the churches, the NGOs and other human rights advocates across the country are asking us to do in their report, the one I suggest the House of Commons should adopt.