moved:
That this House do now adjourn.
Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to note that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing.
I am honoured to stand here in this Parliament on behalf of the people of Northern Manitoba and across Canada. I am honoured to carry our message, their message, a plea to the Prime Minister and the government to save the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
The Aboriginal Healing Foundation is not just an organization. It is not just 134 community projects. It is not just 1,000 community workers. It is not just thousands of survivors, their families and their communities. It is a symbol, a symbol of Canada's commitment to residential school survivors, their families and their communities. It is a symbol of the commitment of first nations, Métis and Inuit toward healing. It is a symbol of the hope that day by day and year by year, the peoples and communities that were subjected to despicable abuse and hardship can move ahead and piece together identities, lives, families and communities.
That is why this debate is about a test. It is a test of Canada's true commitment to first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. It is a test of Canada's historic national apology made in 2008 in this very chamber. It is a test of Canada's commitment to the journey toward truth and reconciliation.
There are many stories of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. There is the report released by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada that indicates the success of the program and the identified need for it to keep going. There are the countless positive evaluations received over the years since its inception 10 years ago.
However, there are also the stories of South Indian Lake, St. Theresa Point, Prince Albert, Edmonton, Clyde River, Charlottetown, Yellowknife, Halifax, Pikogan, Saskatoon, Pangnirtung, Vancouver, Watson Lake and Winnipeg. There is the story of Denise Packo, who spoke of the key language programming offered by the AHF that was crucial for a young person who said that she did not feel Indian because she did not know the language that was stamped out generations ago because of residential schools.
There is the story of Louis Knott and Louisa Monias who told of the value of the camps organized by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation in reconnecting with the land and becoming healthy. There is the story of Mrs. Moose who shared the need for survivors to come together in sharing circles.
There are the communities where the AHF program is the only program that gives young people somewhere to go and provides reconciliation and rehabilitation when they leave the criminal justice system. There are the AHF programs that are in women's shelters, where women can seek shelter from violence and domestic abuse often related to the pain and legacy of abuse from the residential schools.
There is the work of Amanda Lathlin, Jennifer Wood, Brian Cook, Qajaq Robinson, Okalik Ejesiak and Alvin Dixon. Their work has broken the silence of residential school experiences across the country and their impact on future generations.
That is what the Aboriginal Healing Foundation is about: first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples guiding their healing processes in their own communities. To lose that ability to make these decisions is a step back, way back.
As we sit in this chamber, we call on the Prime Minister and the government to think back to the apology of 2008, an apology that took place only less than two years ago. It was an apology that started our country on a journey. It started a new chapter for first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples who suffered through the residential schools. It began a journey of hope that Canada would change its step and work with aboriginal peoples toward healing and reconciliation.
We then saw the commitment to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a historic initiative, bringing aboriginal and non-aboriginal people together. However, the reality is that without the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, that apology and the commitment to reconciliation lose their foundation.
As Ed Azure Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation said, “By cutting off the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, you are cutting off the arms and legs of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission”.
As Jimmy D. Spence, a respected elder, said, “The cut of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation for me makes the National Apology empty”.
Let there be no doubt that the need for healing is not restricted to a focused experience at residential schools. Residential schools caused an impact that we cannot even imagine: the loss of a sense of family; the loss of skills that are related to parenting, raising children; the loss of skills that children who were ripped away from their families into schools where their language, their culture, their identity was beaten out of them; the stamping out of language, something that is so central to the identity of anyone and central for the identity of first nations, Inuit and Métis people; the emergence of violence, violence that has taken over families and communities, violence that in many cases hides the pain, a pain felt by survivors, by their children, by generations that have come after, violence that comes out in the gangs and the criminal activities in communities across the country, violence that comes out in violence toward oneself and the high rate of suicide in first nations, Inuit and Métis communities across the country.
The Aboriginal Healing Foundation seeks to heal from that violence, seeks to engage first nations, Inuit and Métis peoples who face that pain, that violence, that history.
Let us fast-forward to today's generation. I come from a generation that came after residential schools, a generation that has seen the evolution of aboriginal rights, that has seen the results of the fights and the battles fought by aboriginal leaders who are here today, aboriginal peoples who have fought for control over their schools boards, for control over their education, for the creation of their own schools. There are challenges, immense challenges facing the generations that have followed, the underfunding, the inadequate infrastructure, the overcrowding of first nations, Métis and Inuit schools, like we do not see in other places in Canada.
Yet working to overcome these challenges, survivors and the next generation say that they want to move forward. That is why it is not too late for the Prime Minister and his government to stand up for their commitment of the past year and save the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
This is a debate about the future, a generation of people looking toward us and how we will move forward, how first nations, Inuit and Métis people will move forward.
I have appealed directly to the Prime Minister because I watched that apology. I believed him. Many believed him. That apology crossed partisan lines and brought Canadians together. Were those words about the past or were they about the future?
I now want to make it clear that if the Aboriginal Healing Foundation were to be cancelled, if the government does not listen, we will ensure that the message is clear. We will ensure that it is wrong that the Aboriginal Healing Foundation was cut.
Given that commitment, that the initiative by the government, can we not recreate that spirit of the apology? Can we not recreate that spirit that drove the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? Can we not do it by committing to save the Aboriginal Healing Foundation?
The Aboriginal Healing Foundation, after all, is more than 134 projects. It is more than hundreds of communities, thousands of community workers, thousands of elders, survivors and young people. It is a symbol of hope, the hope that the Prime Minister and the government will save the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.