Debates of Feb. 14th, 2013

Opposition Motion--Missing Aboriginal Women

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, across Canada we are taking action on violence against aboriginal women and girls by recently launching a call for proposals for projects that address issues on violence and economic security affecting women and girls living in rural and remote communities and small urban centres.

In Quebec, for example, we are taking action on violence against aboriginal women and girls by supporting projects such as Wapikoni Mobile's girls' nights, which directly benefit girls in eight aboriginal communities in the region. In Manitoba, we are taking action on violence against aboriginal women and girls by supporting projects such as reclaiming our power, which decreases violence against aboriginal women by working with 150 young aboriginal women and girls aged 12 to 17, living in Winnipeg's inner city.

We will continue to make women and girls safer.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say the motion is a small step forward but it does not address the urgent need for an independent national public inquiry on missing and murdered aboriginal women, nor is it a framework for action to end violence against women.

I am wondering if my colleague can comment on whether she supports the call for an independent inquiry.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the opposition truly wants to stand up for aboriginal women, the very first thing they should do is support our legislation, Bill S-2, to protect the rights of women and children on reserve. It is shocking that the opposition continues to oppose matrimonial property rights. For more than 25 years, first nation women have been without the legal remedies that are available to other Canadians. Our government is deeply concerned about missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada. That is why I am asking the opposition to support our efforts to stand up for first nation women and children on reserves and give them the same matrimonial rights that we have off reserves.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, indeed we do recognize that this is a small step forward, but the 1996 report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples identified a number of factors that are linked to violence in aboriginal communities, among them systemic discrimination, economic and social deprivation, alcohol substance abuse, intergenerational cycles of violence and getting at the root of these.

The New Democrats have called on the federal government to implement the recommendations of this report. Both the Liberals in the past government and the Conservatives now failed to implement these recommendations. The Assembly of First Nations published a report card ten years after the report, citing that Canada has failed in terms of action on this report.

Where is the action on this report? Will the government take this seriously?

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, here are some things we do take seriously.

We believe strongly in our commitment to protect vulnerable women, including aboriginal women. The Native Women's Association of Canada received $5 million from the federal government for the Sisters in Spirit initiative. After the conclusion of Sisters in Spirit, our government provided $500,000 for the Native Women's Association of Canada for the evidence to action project, which builds on the Sisters in Spirit initiative.

Most recently, the Native Women's Association of Canada received funding approval for $1.8 million over three years for a second evidence to action project. In fact, since fiscal year 2006-07, the Native Women's Association of Canada has received over $26 million from our government.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, may I begin by commending the member for Delta—Richmond East for her support of the establishment of a parliamentary committee. I think she appreciates, from her remarks, the need for such a committee to address the very concerns that she summarized before us, along with the proposals that she shared with us.

On December 5, 2012, the murdered body of 16-year-old Summer Star “CJ” Fowler was found in a ravine near the British Columbian town of Kamloops. The Gitanmaax teenager from Hazelton in northern British Columbia had been visiting friends a few days previously and was just hours away from taking a bus home when she disappeared and was ultimately found murdered in circumstances still under investigation by police. Speaking at a news conference, her father summed up, I would say, what many parents of other disappeared and murdered women have felt but have not always been able to express. He said:

We would just like to stop this violence.... We want some answers and we don't want this case to be another they stick under the rug.

Indeed, CJ Fowler is just one of more than 600 indigenous women and girls who have been murdered or gone missing across Canada over the last several decades.

Government funding for data collection on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls ended in 2010, and I regret noting that this funding was discontinued to a very important organization. In fact, the discontinuance of such funding and for such initiatives, however inadvertent, is itself a rebuke to the very commitment by the government with respect to protecting the rights and needs of victims.

The Native Women's Association of Canada, NWAC, before its funding was terminated, had documented 582 such cases nationally. It is fair to say that, tragically, an additional 40-some cases have happened since then. Many occurred between the 1960s and 1990s. Some 40% occurred after 2000, or about 20 a year. In fact, if women and girls in the general Canadian population had gone missing or had been murdered at the same rate as aboriginal women and girls, this country would have lost 20,000 Canadian women and girls since the late 1960s.

We should appreciate that when we are dealing with these statistics that statistics can sometimes have a numbing effect. We must never forget in speaking of murdered and disappeared aboriginal women that each one of them had a face and an identity, each one of them was part of a family, each one of them was part of a universe. We have to remember that whenever we address this issue.

Therefore, when I am citing the statistics, it is not to abstract the tragedy but simply to identify the human depth of that tragedy. As I said, if the same proportion of murder and disappearance had been happening to white women and girls, we would be speaking of 20,000 women and girls disappeared and murdered. I suspect that the national outrage would have already moved us into establishing what in fact is ultimately the only remedy that will comprehensively address this issue, and that is a national judicial commission of inquiry.

The Province of British Columbia, as we have noted in this debate, has been particularly affected and impacted by this pernicious phenomenon of violence against indigenous women and girls and by the seeming inability of Canadian law enforcement authorities to deal with this phenomenon.

Cutting through the small communities policed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in northern B.C. is the Highway of Tears, a 724-kilometre stretch of road that has become infamous for the dozens of women and girls who have gone missing or have been murdered in its vicinity, hence the name.

The high rate of violence against indigenous women and girls has drawn widespread expressions of concern, not only from national authorities here in Canada but indeed from international authorities, which have repeatedly called upon our country to address the problem. It does no good to our reputation to have international authorities, whether they be the international Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, CEDAW, or others, reminding us of the fact that this issue is still festering and has yet to be properly addressed and redressed.

The failure of law enforcement authorities to deal effectively with the problem of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada is regrettably just one element of a dysfunctional relationship between Canadian authorities, Canadian police and indigenous communities.

The report tabled yesterday by Human Rights Watch addresses the relationship between the RCMP and indigenous women and girls in northern B.C. It documents not only how indigenous women and girls are underprotected by the police but how some of the missing women and girls, and indigenous women and girls, generally speaking, were, regrettably, objects of instances of outright police abuse. We have to constantly appreciate that we have not only a national but an international obligation owing with respect to the protection of indigenous women and girls from violence.

The report further documents the shortcomings of available oversight mechanisms designed to provide accountability for police misconduct. The report documents how the prevailing mechanisms are part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

In ten towns across the north, Human Rights Watch documented RCMP violations of the rights of indigenous women and girls. These included young girls pepper-sprayed and tasered, a 12-year-old girl attacked by a police dog, a 70-year-old punched repeatedly by an officer who had been called to help her, women strip-searched by male officers and women injured due to excessive force used during arrest. The whole is set forth in the report.

Human Rights Watch also heard disturbing allegations of rape and sexual assault by RCMP officers. I use the term “allegations”, because that is how it is so characterized. They include allegations by a woman who described how in July 2012, police officers took her outside of town, raped her and threatened to kill her if she told anyone.

Accordingly, Human Rights Watch strongly urges the establishment of an independent, civilian-led investigation of these allegations with the aim of achieving criminal accountability for the alleged crimes. Only an independent civilian investigation, with the proper oversight mechanism for accountability, can bring about the necessary application of the rule of law.

Regrettably, for many indigenous women and girls interviewed for the report by Human Rights Watch, abuses and other indignities visited on them by police have come to be seen by them as defining their overall relationship with law enforcement authorities. At times, as the report documents, the physical abuse of these women was accompanied by verbal, racist or sexist abuse. Indeed, concerns about police harassment appear to have led some women, including respected community leaders, to limit their time in public places where they might come into contact with police officers.

The situations documented in this report, such as a girl restrained with handcuffs tight enough to break her skin, detainees who had food thrown at them in their cells and a detainee whose need for medical treatment was ignored, raise serious concerns about the tactics used by some police in the policing of indigenous communities in B.C. and about the regard police have for the well-being and dignity of indigenous women and girls. Moreover, incidents of police abuse of indigenous women and girls are compounded by the widely perceived failure of the police to protect women and girls from violence, generally speaking. Not surprisingly, indigenous women and girls report having little faith that police forces responsible for mistreatment and abuse can offer them protection when they face violence in the wider community. As a community service provider told Human Rights Watch and as set forth in the report:

The most apparent thing to me is the lack of safety women feel. A lot of women, especially First Nations women we see, never feel safe approaching the RCMP because of the injustices they’ve experienced…The system is really failing women.

One aspect of this is the apparent apathy of police toward the disappearance and murders of indigenous women and girls that has been such a persistent, and, regrettably, well-publicized stain on Canada's human rights record. Less well publicized, but equally pernicious, have been the shortcomings of the police in their response to domestic violence. Admittedly, the RCMP have instituted progressive policies addressing violence in domestic relationships, generally speaking, but it appears that the police do not apply these policies consistently when policing in indigenous communities.

According to survivors of domestic violence and the community service providers who work with them, indigenous women and girls often do not get the protection afforded by these policies afforded to women generally. Women who call the police for help may find themselves blamed for the abuse, are at times shamed for alcohol or substance use and risk arrest for actions taken in self-defence. Similarly, as the report again showed, despite policies requiring active investigation of all reports of missing persons, some family members and service providers who had made calls to police to report missing persons have said that the police failed to promptly investigate these reports. Accordingly, when indigenous women and girls experience abuse at the hands of the police or when the police fail to provide adequate protection, women and girls end up having limited recourse.

The Minister of Public Safety and others have suggested that a complaint can be lodged with the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, but the process is time-consuming, and the investigation of the complaint will likely fall to the RCMP itself or to an external police force. What seems to have been ignored in the making of this recommendation, which I take it was made in good faith, and it leaps out of the report of Human Rights Watch throughout its reading, is the fear of retaliation by the police that runs high in the north and the apparent lack of genuine accountability for police abuse. This only adds to long-standing tensions between the police and indigenous communities.

The title of the report, “Those Who Take Us Away” is a literal translation of the word for “police” in Carrier, for example, the language of a number of indigenous communities in northern B.C.

The Independent Investigations Office also recommended as a mechanism a recently established provincial mechanism, in British Columbia, for civilian investigation of police misconduct. It does, admittedly, show some promise. However, most complaints will end up falling outside the office's mandate, which is limited to incidents involving death or certain serious bodily injuries. The exclusion of rape and sexual abuse from this definition represents an unacceptable omission on the part of the provincial legislature. It sends a message that somehow these sexual assaults of aboriginal women are not important enough to be investigated.

Canada has important responsibilities in this regard. Indeed, protections with respect to violence against women have been developed by federal and provincial governments, which have made attempts to address the murders and disappearances of indigenous women through studies, task forces and limited funding initiatives. Reference to these has been made by those on the government side speaking to this issue. However, and this is the important point, the persistence of the ongoing violence against murdered and disappeared aboriginal women indicates a need for a deeper, more comprehensive and more coordinated set of interventions to address what is, in effect, a systemic problem. Again, I quote from one of the researchers, as cited in the report. It states:

The lack of a reliable, independent mechanism to investigate allegations of police misconduct is unfair to everyone involved. It is unfair to the officers who serve honorably. It is unfair to the northern communities that deserve to have confidence in their police forces. And it is especially unfair to the indigenous women and girls, whose safety is at stake.

As well, the United Nations human rights bodies have criticized Canada for what they have characterized as an inadequate government response to the violence against indigenous women and girls.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women announced in December 2011 that it was opening an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada. In 2008, the committee called on the government “to examine the reasons for the failure to investigate the cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women and to take the necessary steps to remedy the deficiencies in the system”.

While the government has taken some steps to address the murders and disappearances, and we have heard about those steps today, and those steps are welcomed by members in the House, the persistence and perniciousness of the violence indicates the need for a series of comprehensive responses.

What I propose to do at this point is close my remarks by referring to some of these comprehensive responses. The motion calls for, and all sides of the House are supporting, a parliamentary committee of inquiry. The optimal action would be for the government to establish a national judicial commission of inquiry into the murders and disappearances of indigenous women and girls, before the end of 2013. It should ensure that the terms of reference are developed with leadership from the affected communities. It should include an examination of the historical and current relationship between police and aboriginal women and girls, including the incidence of police misconduct, and the systemic socio-economic marginalization of indigenous women and girls that not only predisposes them to high levels of violence but that creates an alarming sense of fear on their behalf.

The creation of such a judicial commission of inquiry would address, importantly, on a symbolic and psychological level, as well as on a substantive level, the serious, pernicious and persistent violence and the fear that has developed over decades because of a failure to protect and a failure to deal with it.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear from the member for Mount Royal whom, I believe, is one of the great legal minds we have in the House today.

I would like to make a comment and ask him a very specific question about his speech and about this motion in particular. I know that he used to be the justice minister in a Liberal government. We also know that this has been an on-going problem for at least 10 years. The government could have already addressed this problem. Unfortunately, at this stage we are still just debating a motion.

Families are calling for a far-reaching, national, independent public inquiry into this matter. As a lawyer, can the member for Mount Royal explain the difference between this request for a national public inquiry, which is being called for almost unanimously from coast to coast, and the special parliamentary committee proposed by the motion?

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his very important question concerning the difference between a parliamentary committee and a national judicial inquiry.

The first difference is very important and has to do with powers. A judicial inquiry would have powers that a parliamentary committee would not. That is the first difference.

Second, I believe that a judicial inquiry would also have more of the resources that are needed for this type of inquiry with respect to witnesses, research, recommendations and so on.

Third, as I said, a national judicial inquiry is symbolic. It would not only sound the alarm about the situation, but it would also show aboriginal communities that we are taking their request seriously and making it a priority.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague, who is a staunch defender of human rights. I would like to make use of his great legal mind, as my colleague pointed out.

Does he think that the fundamental problem with the situation regarding aboriginal women is primarily a matter of lack of understanding or profiling? There is a lack of understanding. In fact, law enforcement agencies do not use the same approach when dealing with aboriginal communities. There is a flagrant lack of resources in aboriginal communities. In some communities there is virtually no security, no resources.

I understand the need for a commission of inquiry, but the fundamental problem is the lack of resources. I support the creation of an inquiry committee. However, what kinds of resources does the government need to give the communities and law enforcement officers to ensure that these inquiries are held? It is not simply a matter of creating a commission of inquiry, since crimes are committed every day.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is correct. The issue of violence against aboriginal women and children is just part of a much larger issue, which is the issue of discrimination and how the discrimination manifests itself, on the part of not only police authorities, but also federal and provincial governments.

If we want to tackle this problem, we must first consider where this discrimination comes from, which is also related to the issue of resources.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to underline the fact that it is very gratifying that the Conservative Party members have joined in on the motion from the Liberal Party, as well the official opposition, the Green Party and, I suspect, the Bloc, to move to a parliamentary inquiry. However, the larger issue, particularly in the context of the Human Rights Watch, which my hon. colleague outline so clearly, is deeply troubling. If the very women, young and old, who are most vulnerable in areas like northern British Columbia are afraid of the RCMP, then the response of the Prime Minister, “Tell those people who are afraid to report the crimes and we will deal with them”, is not only inadequate, it is insensitive to the challenge.

Could a parliamentary inquiry possible get to these issues, or must we move to an arm's-length citizen inquiry, such as Human Rights Watch has described?

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague, but I am not sure they are incompatible. We can have a parliamentary inquiry and we can have a civilian oversight mechanism with regard to the police practices, both as to the matter of protection and as to the matter of police abuse, because they are interconnected. That is what causes both the alarm among the aboriginal women and girls, not only the lack of protection but the abuse along with the lack of protection.

Therefore, it may be that, along with a parliamentary committee of inquiry or growing out of it, we will have to establish, nonetheless, this independent civilian oversight mechanism, as Human Rights Watch has recommended.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that my colleague from Mount Royal really does understand this issue very well. He has clearly shown that and is demonstrating a need for this.

As my other colleagues have pointed out, he was the minister of justice. Back in 1996, government statistics showed that aboriginal women were five times more likely to die as a result of violence than any other group of women.

I have two questions for the member.

First, why did he not act earlier and take concrete steps in order to save the hundreds of women who have gone missing and been murdered since?

Second, I was on the status of women of committee when we studied violence against aboriginal women. Sadly, that report is completely ineffective. My fear is the committee that would be established would lead to nothing but another report exactly like that. Therefore, why are we not calling for an inquiry?

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

On that last point, Mr. Speaker, I will just reiterate again. At the end of the day, what we really need is a national inquiry. I even said that not only is a commission required, but a judicial commission of inquiry is required.

The member properly asked what occurred during my stewardship as minister of justice and I am proud and happy to respond to that.

First, I stated throughout the time that I was minister of justice that aboriginal justice was a priority for me and it was on our justice agenda. It was also a priority at our federal, provincial, territorial annual meetings. The issue of murdered and missing aboriginal women was something I discussed then with representatives from the aboriginal community and recommended then that which I recommend now.

Second, and I do not want to take much time on this, I articulated then what I called the seven Rs of aboriginal justice, which began with recognition of aboriginal peoples as the original inhabitants of our country, respect for their distinctive constitutional and legal status and redress for past wrongs. I included these wrongs that needed to be redressed. I addressed the overrepresentation of aboriginal people in the criminal justice system, and we forget about this. It is an astonishing statistic. Whereas aboriginal people are some 4% of the population of our country, one of every three women inmates in the country is an aboriginal woman. We have to tackle both that overrepresentation and the under-representation of aboriginal people as judges, law enforcement authorities and the like.

On that point, one of the Rs I mentioned was the need for responsiveness. We needed to be responsive to the concerns of aboriginal people, to their alarms, to their anxieties, including constitutionally responsive, so when we engaged in certain initiatives, we had to be responsive to the duty to consult, which was a constitutional duty, which we did not take into account as well. With respect to the government of which I was a part, we did not always take that duty to consult into account. Although if we look at the record during the two years that we were there, we did seek to make it a priority on the government's agenda, not just on the justice agenda, to make this the legacy issue, as former prime minister Paul Martin put it at the time for our government.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan.

The motion before us is an important one. I would like to thank the member for St. Paul's for moving it. I must point out that the issue it raises is not a new one for us. The fate of missing and murdered aboriginal women across Canada has been on the national agenda for over 10 years.

We had heard horror stories, and we have heard them again this morning. Yet the federal government stubbornly refuses to do anything to get to the bottom of this.

However, let us put that aside for just a moment and let us focus on one number, 600. That is the estimated number of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada. They are 600 daughters, sisters, mothers, nieces, cousins, friends and neighbours. These women are not faceless. These women are not nameless. They are part of us, part of our families and part of our communities. The thought that in Canada, a country that prides itself on being a fair, a loving and compassionate society, that we would see something like this happen, and continue to happen, is, quite frankly, disturbing.

That thought is even more striking when we are faced with a government that does not miss a chance to call itself the only party of law and order in this land. The Conservatives are the party of double-bunking and mandatory sentencing, the party of climbing aboriginal incarceration rates, the party of funding cuts to rehabilitation programs that work. The Conservatives never miss a chance to wag their fingers at the opposition, while crowing that they alone are on the side of victims. Yet it is the same government that eliminated funding to the Sisters In Spirit program in 2010.

Some of the members opposite will react to these facts by calling me biased, an enemy or even a socialist, as they often do, but I want everyone to know that I am the son of a Cree woman, the brother of five Cree sisters who raised me, and the father of two Quebec Cree daughters who make me proud every day.

What I have to say today does not come from my party or my opponents. It comes from my conviction that we must fight for justice in this country.

I want to be very clear on that point. I am the son of a Cree woman, the brother of five Cree sisters who raised me, and the father of two Cree and Québécoise daughters who make me proud every day

When coming into this chamber today, it is not my party, my opponents or anything else that dictates my thoughts on this; it is my belief in standing up for what is right in this country.

All my life, I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by strong women, like the 600 women we are talking about today. I cannot imagine the pain it would cause me if one of the women who holds an important place in my life were to experience the same fate as the 600 missing and murdered women we are talking about today.

I know that I am not the only one in the House who feels this way. We are all parents, brothers, sisters or cousins, and we all have people we love in our lives. You do not have to be an aboriginal to understand the pain that these 600 families are feeling. I strongly believe that, despite our political differences, each and every one of us wants to put an end to this terrible situation in Canada.

Let us be clear. This terrible situation is still ongoing. The numbers are continuing to rise rather than drop. The danger is still there. An inquiry could help us to see how to make our cities safer for everyone.

The dangers we are seeing are also evolving. Over the past months we have seen the Idle No More movement activate more and more aboriginal people to speak out about their rights and their culture. It is a renaissance that has great potential to improve this land for the better. While this movement has seen great support from both aboriginals and the public at large, there are still some in our society who strongly oppose what Idle No More stands for. Sadly, some of those opponents have resorted to thuggish tactics that have no place in Canadian society today.

For instance, in late December, news broke about a case in Thunder Bay where an aboriginal woman who was simply walking down the street was abducted and sexually assaulted by two men. News reports on the case noted that while she was being assaulted by these two men, they said, “you Indians deserve to lose your treaty rights”. They also reportedly said that they would strike again.

In response to the understandable fears that this case raised, students at the first nation Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School were all given personal safety alarms. Yes, I said personal safety alarms. Imagine having to carry an alarm just to go to school safely. Now imagine being the parents of those children sending their loved ones hundreds of kilometres away from home just to get a high school education, knowing that a measure like that is deemed necessary in a country like Canada. I do not think that any member in this House believes that is right, yet here we are debating whether we should be investigating the root causes of this phenomenon.

There are other cases near Sault Ste. Marie of reports of an Idle No More organizer receiving death threats. The organizer received a package at the home of her sister with a letter inside saying, “You are a dead piece of...”, and I will not say the word in this honourable chamber, but it continued with, “A good Indian is a dead Indian. Stay away from the Sault”.

That was what she received for standing up for her rights.

These people that I just mentioned, much like many of the 600 victims we are speaking about today, were simply quietly going about their business. They are working hard to get an education and improve their community. However, they face many difficulties similar to those experienced by the 600 victims we are talking about here.

This proves that the problem has not yet been resolved and that something must be done. We owe it to them and to future generations to get to the bottom of this problem and to take the necessary steps to rid our society of it.

To conclude, I had the chance this morning to meet with some of the families of Sisters in Spirit. I stand here this afternoon deeply troubled, profoundly disturbed, and I must admit, emotionally challenged, but like the women I met this morning, this afternoon I will stand strong until we bring justice to them.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate the comments of the member. They bring a great deal to the debate we are having today, in many different ways. There is always a certain percentage who have the wrong attitude, but Canadians as a whole are very much a tolerant, loving society who, if they were to look at what we are debating today, would want to see all political parties come together to bring some justice to this issue and to be there for the many victims over the years.

To what degree does the member believe it is important that the parliamentary inquiry go outside of Ottawa, so that we could go to some of the many communities that have been so dramatically impacted over the years because of these missing women and young girls, so that they have an avenue to express their thoughts and feelings as to what is taking place?

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg North for his question.

We need to get to the bottom of this issue. It has been going on for far too long.

I will respond to his question, but I want to first say that since we have the opportunity to debate this issue, it is important to remember how long it is has been going on. I could give many examples that go back a long way. For example, there was an incident in the early 1970s, in the James Bay territory, in northern Quebec.

Hydroelectric development in northern Quebec brought with it violence against aboriginal women. The country's first victims of violence against aboriginal women, in the early 1970s, were two young Cree girls who were found dead at the side of the James Bay highway. They had been raped.

We need to go outside this place and listen to the people. Is the tool being proposed here the best, most comprehensive one? I do not know. It needs to be examined in detail. One thing is certain: we support the request for an independent judicial inquiry. That is what was proposed earlier, and that is what the families are asking for.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if my colleague will consider this a question or a comment. The Conservative government is despicably hypocritical.

Three Conservative members are asking the RCMP to investigate three abortions as homicides, yet 600 women have been kidnapped, murdered and raped and not one of those three members dares to rise in the House today to ask questions. It is disgusting and unacceptable.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard that heartfelt appeal loud and clear.

It certainly is disturbing to see that they have one attitude in the case of some people and the opposite attitude in the case of others. That is too bad because that is not what justice means to me. That is not what it means to most people.

Justice means dealing with all injustices, whether perpetrated on blacks, Asians, whites or aboriginals.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou for sharing his time with me, and also for reminding the House that we are not just talking about numbers or statistics. We are talking about something that has touched people's lives for decades now. We are talking about mothers, fathers, brothers, aunts, uncles and children. One of the things that the Native Women's Association of Canada has talked about is the intergenerational trauma that results due to losing a mother, an auntie or a daughter, and how that continues to play out in people's lives. It is very important for us in the House to put that human element, to put that face, on this issue.

I also want to acknowledge the member for St. Paul's for bringing forward the motion. It is timely in light of the report prepared by Human Rights Watch called, “Those Who Take Us Away”. I am going to touch on that report in a few moments.

Before I begin to speak about some of my points, I want to refer to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, article 44, which states, “All the rights and freedoms recognized herein are equally guaranteed to male and female indigenous individuals”. The article is not specifically referring to violence against aboriginal women, but it reminds us that in this country we have committed to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and one of those commitments is that indigenous women in this country will be treated equally, which means that they should have equal access to the justice system. Sometimes people have a misunderstanding of the disparity between how aboriginal women and children are treated versus how non-aboriginal women and children are treated, so we must look at that disparity and move toward equality.

In my early days I was the critic for Status of Women, back in 2004-05, and I have been the aboriginal critic for most of the time since 2006. I would like to be able to say that over the nine years I have been doing this job I have seen an improvement in how first nations, Inuit and Métis women and children are treated, but sadly that is not the case.

A couple of years ago I had the great privilege to meet with some parents from Saskatchewan, whose beautiful young daughter had gone missing. They were on the Hill because they wanted to talk to members of Parliament about the fact that they could not get the police to take seriously that their beautiful daughter had gone missing. She was a mother, a student and a hard worker, all of the things that make many of us very proud of our children. The response by police to the parents' plea was stereotypical, that she was running away from home, that there must have been some abuse and that there was a story involved. They did not pay the same kind of attention to this family's pain. Later they eventually discovered the body of the young woman, but what the parents had to go through in order to get the justice system to pay attention was painful to observe. They came here with a video of their beautiful daughter and asked people to look at who this beautiful young woman was.

There was a situation in my riding a couple of years ago. A 19-year-old first nation girl was murdered. Before the murderer was apprehended, everyone was fearful. All of the young girls in the community were afraid to go out without someone with them. Everyone could see the repercussions of that playing out throughout the community. I am proud to say that in Cowichan, where I live, the first nation and non-first nation communities came together. There were gatherings and marches to let the community know that they were going to stand with each other, but that does not happen in every community.

We only have to look at what happened with the Pickton farm and the subsequent Oppal inquiry. During the inquiry, it was highlighted over and over again that many of the Pickton victims were first nation or aboriginal women and that the justice system failed them time after time. Even in the Oppal inquiry the voices of families, friends and other organizations who supported the families and victims were shut out.

If we are going to move forward, if we are eventually going to have some sort of judicial inquiry, it is very important that those terms of reference are set so that victims and their families are included and are provided resources to be able to engage. If we do not hear from victims and their families, and about that intergenerational trauma, I do not see how we will ever get to the heart of this problem.

Back in 2004-05, the status of women committee was hearing testimony, not into violence against aboriginal women but some other issues around women's organizations. One woman came before the committee and said that there has been report after report on some of these issues. She said that in her office because they cannot afford to get the furniture repaired, she has a broken table and uses a stack of reports to prop up the table. That is how much use and how much attention those reports were given by the governments of the day who commissioned them.

In that context, I am just going to talk briefly about the number of reports that have come forward in Canada that highlight the fact that aboriginal women and children are murdered at a higher rate. The violence is well-documented and yet successive governments have continuously failed to act.

In 1996, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples identified a number of factors that are linked to violence in aboriginal communities, including systemic discrimination against aboriginal peoples, economic and social deprivation, alcohol and substance abuse, the intergenerational cycle of violence, the breakdown of healthy family life resulting from residential school upbringing, racism against aboriginal peoples, the impact of colonization on traditional values and culture, and overcrowded and substandard housing.

In 2004 and again in 2008, Amnesty International released reports on the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women. Amnesty called on Canada to form a national action plan to address violence against women. The 2004 report did result in some funding going to the Native Women's Association of Canada to start building a database to document the murdered and missing women because, of course, if we do not have the numbers, and these are more than numbers, then it is very difficult to develop a policy or an action plan.

Now what we are seeing is that the Native Women's Association of Canada no longer has the funding to continue on with that work, and the Department of Justice is not going be collecting disaggregated data. Once again we will not have a good handle on exactly how many aboriginal women are murdered or missing every year.

In 2006, in response to the high number of aboriginal women who were murdered or who disappeared along B.C.'s Highway 16, dubbed the Highway of Tears, the aboriginal communities convened a symposium. Part of the task force asked for all levels of government to work together, and identified poverty as one of the leading contributors to the violence that was being experienced by aboriginal women and children.

In 2004, and not for the first time, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women recognized the critical situation of aboriginal women in Canada, and recommended that Canada develop a specific and integrated plan for addressing the particular concerns affecting aboriginal women, both on and off reserve, including poverty, poor health, inadequate housing, low school completion rates, low employment rates and low income.

It goes on and on. There are so many different reports and documents that have demonstrated that there is a serious problem in this country, and yet the government's continuing indifference to working with families and other organizations, such as the Native Women's Association of Canada, is very troubling.

We have the motion before the House, and I understand that all parties are going to support the motion. I would hope that not only is the motion supported but that some of the recommendations in the report, “Those Who Take Us Away”, would be implemented more quickly, for example, an independent civil oversight of the RCMP so that victims of violence are able to go to someone they can actually trust. They do not trust the RCMP. There are many good police officers out there, but there are too many cases where women and their children do not feel safe enough to take that information forward. They may come from small communities. They may feel they are too isolated. They may feel they are going to be targeted.

I encourage all members to support the motion, but I truly hope that we act before this committee comes to the end of its mandate.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speeches by the last two members. I sincerely thank the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou for his comments, as well as the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, for whom I have great respect.

I have been on two committees in this 41st Parliament, one of them that has basically done no good work and one that approved unanimously my recommendation on co-operatives and ended up doing good work. However, initially, the government wanted total control of the proceedings and the work of this committee.

I would hope that my colleagues who are going to support the motion when we vote on it will also carry that same spirit into the workings of the committee. I am wondering if the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan shares my concern. If she does, would she care to express that so that everyone here can take notice that this is a serious matter that we cannot play political games with?

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. A novel concept would be to work with the family members to develop the terms of reference for the committee. That would raise it above a partisan political level and would actually put the work that the committee needs to do front and centre. The family members of victims and organizations, such as the Native Women's Association, could perhaps help determine which communities would be useful for the committee to go and visit, what other kinds of reports it might want to look at and what kinds of witnesses it might want to hear from. That would be a useful way to remove it from the partisan sphere.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this has been an afternoon of some very moving and heartfelt speeches on what can only be called a major crisis in this country. It is a crisis into which we on our side, along with many in first nation and aboriginal communities, have been calling for a public inquiry. As members have noted, the motion before the House today falls quite short of that.

Does my hon. colleague feel that this is not the step that would get us where we need to be in Canada? As she has rightly pointed out, we have the studies. It is time for action. I would like the member to comment on this reality, this time for action.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, over the last several years any number of native women's organizations have continued to call for other measures that would help address violence against aboriginal women and children, such as adequate housing and education, legal support when there is domestic violence, making sure that police are well-trained with respect to domestic violence and ensuring that women have safe houses. Most reserves do not have safe transitional housing when women are forced to leave their homes. There are a whole lot of other measures out there that should not wait for a national inquiry or committee. They are well-documented. We need to take some immediate steps to do the things that are going to make a difference for aboriginal women and children.

I just want to come back to the establishment of independent civilian investigations into reported incidents of serious police misconduct, including incidents of rape and other sexual assaults, in all jurisdictions. That would signal a true intent to take this problem seriously. It does not need to wait for any of these other measures to be in place. It would signal to aboriginal women and children that their concerns are being heard and that there is a serious desire to make a difference.

With respect to their concerns around safety in terms of reporting incidents, the other side has said they should just bring their complaints forward to the RCMP. If that is the response, nobody is listening. Women are saying they do not feel safe going to the police. Why would they go to the police if they do not feel safe? Civilian investigations would be a good way of signalling to people that there would be a change in how governments behave.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, shortly after I was elected to the Manitoba legislature in 1988, an inquiry was called of a similar nature. It was all about Helen Betty Osborne. A number of years later in the byelection of 2010, when I came to the House of Commons, one of the very first issues raised in the chamber by the former member for Winnipeg South Centre was the 600-plus aboriginal women who have gone missing or were murdered. Virtually from the beginning to today, this has been a very serious issue, which does pose the question of why it is taking so long to resolve.

Listening to the debate, I have found it interesting that people are looking at and commenting on the bigger picture. I want to do something a little different and discuss this from an individual perspective, that of Helen Betty Osborne, on whose case an inquiry was called.

We have been calling for an independent national public inquiry for a number of years already. The motion we will vote on when returning from our break deals with establishing a parliamentary committee to come to grips with the issue. I do not want anyone to think for a moment that that it takes away from the necessity of having a national independent public inquiry. That is really important. Whether it is the Liberal or New Democratic Party, that in essence is what we want to see happen. We also believe that many of the victims' families also want to see that happen.

I have had the opportunity over the years to meet with a wide variety of people who have been touched first-hand by this and others who have tried to follow the issue over the years. There are very hard opinions.

Here I would like to read something from the Manitoba aboriginal justice inquiry conducted back in the early 1990s. It was called shortly after the 1988 provincial election. It is from the Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission, which can be found on a Government of Manitoba website, and deals with the death of Helen Betty Osborne.

I trust that after I finished reading from it, members will get a sense of why I thought it was important to read it into the record here in Ottawa:

Helen Betty Osborne was abducted and brutally murdered near The Pas, Manitoba, early in the morning of November 13, 1971. The high school student, originally from the Norway House Indian Reserve, was 19 years old when she was killed.

Several months later Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers concluded that four young men, Dwayne Archie Johnston, James Robert Paul Houghton, Lee Scott Colgan and Norman Bernard Manger, were involved in the death. Yet it was not until December 1987, more than 16 years later, that one of them, Dwayne Johnston, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Betty Osborne. James Houghton was acquitted. Lee Colgan, having received immunity from prosecution in return for testifying against Houghton and Johnston, went free. Norman Manger was never charged.

These are the facts, as suggested by the evidence:

While walking along Third Street in The Pas on that cold Saturday morning, Betty Osborne was accosted by four men in a car. Houghton, who was driving, stopped the car and Johnston got out, attempting to convince Osborne to go with them to "party." She told them that she did not wish to accompany them. She then was forced into their car and driven away. In the car Osborne was assaulted by Colgan and Johnston as Houghton drove. Johnston ripped at her blouse and Colgan grabbed at her breasts. In spite of her screams and attempts to escape, Osborne was taken to a cabin belonging to Houghton's parents at Clearwater Lake.

At the cabin she was pulled from the car and beaten by Johnston while the others stood watching and drinking wine they had stolen earlier. Osborne continued to struggle and scream and, because her assailants were afraid they might be heard, she was forced back into the car and driven further from town to a pump house next to the lake. While there, some of her clothing was removed by her assailants in the car. At the pump house she was once more taken from the car by one or more of her assailants and the beating continued. Her remaining clothes, those which had not been removed earlier, were taken from her. Wearing only her winter boots, she was viciously beaten, and stabbed, apparently with a screwdriver, more than 50 times. Her face was smashed beyond recognition. The evidence suggests that two people then dragged her body into the bush. Her clothes were hidden. The four men then left, returned to The Pas and went their separate ways.

Her body was discovered the next morning and the RCMP commenced its investigation. Initial police efforts centred on the possibility that Osborne's murderer was one of her friends or was known to them. RCMP officers rounded up her friends and questioned them. They were all Aboriginal. Police had no success in identifying the assailants until they received an anonymous letter in May 1972, implicating Colgan, Houghton and Manger.

The letter was written by Catherine Dick who, it was later discovered, had been told of the murder by Lee Colgan shortly after it took place. Police then seized the Colgan family car, which had been used in the abduction. Examination of the vehicle revealed traces of hair and blood as well as a piece of a brassiere strap.

Shortly after the seizure of the car, an informant told police the fourth man in the car that night was Dwayne Johnston. Attempts to question the suspects were frustrated when the men, on the advice of their lawyer, D’Arcy Bancroft, refused to speak with the police. Repeated attempts and a number of ruses were unsuccessful in breaking through their silence. The police found it impossible to gather sufficient evidence to support a charge of murder against any of the four men believed to have been involved in the murder. By the end of 1972, although rumours were circulating in The Pas as to the identity of those involved in the killing, the investigation had stalled.

....In July 1983 an extensive review of the file was begun by Const. Robert Urbanoski, of the Thompson RCMP detachment. Many of the original informants were reinterviewed. The suspects were contacted again. In June 1985 the RCMP placed an article in the local newspaper, requesting the assistance of the public in solving the murder. The result was that several people came forward to recount comments about the murder made over the years by Colgan and Johnston. It was the disclosure of those remarks that finally led to charges of murder being laid against the two in October 1986.

Again, we have to recall that this incident actually occurred on November 13, 1971. The commission continued:

Before the beginning of their preliminary hearing in March 1987, Lee Colgan was granted immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony. On the strength of Colgan's evidence, Houghton was arrested and charged on July 5, 1987. At the preliminary hearing later that month, both Houghton and Johnston were committed to stand trial. The Attorney General’s department brought the case to trial in December 1987. Sixteen years after the murder, a jury found Johnston guilty of the murder of Betty Osborne. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for 10 years. Houghton was acquitted

Johnston’s appeal of his conviction was dismissed by the Manitoba Court of Appeal on September 14, 1988 and his application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was denied on March 13, 1989.

I want to emphasize this particular point. The commission added:

Many Manitobans asked why it took 16 years to bring people to trial for this brutal murder. It was suggested that many people in the town of The Pas learned the identity of those responsible, some within a very short time after the murder, but chose to do nothing about it. It was suggested that because Osborne was an Aboriginal person, the townspeople considered the murder unimportant. Allegations of racism, neglect and indifference, on the part of the citizens of the town, the police and of the Attorney General’s department, were made.

The trial and its outcome focused public attention on the Osborne case and led to widespread calls for a public inquiry

On April 13, 1988, by Order-in-Council, the provincial government established the Public Inquiry into the Administration of Justice and Aboriginal People. The order was confirmed subsequently by an act of the Legislature, entitled An Act to Establish and Validate the Public Inquiry into the Administration of Justice and Aboriginal People.

That was one of the very first pieces of legislation I had the opportunity to deal with when I was first elected back in 1988.

The commission continued:

The Act which established the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry specifically requires us to look into the circumstances surrounding the investigation into the murder of Helen Betty Osborne. Section 7(b) of the Act provides that the Inquiry and the Commissioners: [I]s and are declared to have the right to investigate into the death of Helen Betty Osborne and all aspects of the laying and prosecution of charges which followed, including whether the right persons were charged, whether the appropriate charges were laid, whether charges should have been laid earlier, whether immunity from prosecution should have been granted to Lee Colgan, whether there exists any evidence of racial prejudice with respect to the investigation of the death of Helen Betty Osborne, whether the acts or omissions of any persons outside the Police Department impaired the investigation and whether the prosecution was properly conducted.

....We heard the majority of the testimony in The Pas between June 19 and August 10, 1989. In addition, we heard two days of testimony in Winnipeg, August 31 and September 18. Through the testimony we were able to examine the murder, the investigation....

Again I want to underline this, the attitudes prevailing in the community, the situation of aboriginal students in The Pas and the relationship between the police and the aboriginal community.

This is one of the primary reasons that I wanted to speak personally to the issue today. I am very grateful that the party has chosen this issue as its opposition day motion. We have selected a very specific motion that answers a cry that has been out there far too long.

I recognize, as I said at the very beginning of my comments, that what is really necessary is a full public and independent inquiry at the national level. If we really want to get a sense of the benefits of having that, all I would suggest we do is to look at the inquiry that took place in the province of Manitoba. Many government polices resulted from of that inquiry that have assisted, albeit not resolved, all of the problems. The inquiry opened the eyes of many and influenced government policy.

As I said at the beginning, what the victims and all Canadians deserve is a full public inquiry. However, this is a step. I was encouraged to hear earlier today that the government would support the motion.

My colleague from Ottawa made reference to the importance that how a committee operated could make a difference. If a committee is too political, the outcome will be very disappointing. If the committee is prepared to put the victims, the many stakeholders, often referenced the sisters, mothers, brothers, fathers and children of victims, first, I would suggest that the government would do well by saying that it is committed not only voting in favour of the resolution, but also to striking the committee in a timely fashion.

One of the things I like about the motion is that it gives a timeline. We want something that is tangible, that comes before the House, before or no later than, February 14 of next year. That does not leave much time and that is why I appeal to the Prime Minister and the government House leader to work with the Liberal Party and New Democratic House leaders to see what we can do to get the committee established, up and running and possibly even do some outreach prior to the formal meetings taking place. There is so much interest and so many individuals who care deeply about this issue, that there is some value in looking at ways in which the committee might be able to function to maximize the results.

I have a fairly decent understanding in terms of the norm in which committees operate in the House of Commons. I am suggest that we think outside of the box on this issue and recognize there is a need to bring other individuals into the process. The first way to address that issue is to enable our House leaders and respective leaders of all three political parties to come up with a strategic time frame in which ultimately we can see the committee up and running and dealing with the issue before us.

If that happens, we will have a report that will have the support of all members of the House. Even in my short time here, I have seen where committees have been very effective and I have seen committees that have not been. That is the reason why I am encouraged by the government accepting the Liberal Party's motion. I am pleased with the support of the New Democrats. I anticipate that the Green Party is in favour of it and I even suspect that the Bloc is. Let us take it to the next level and try to put the victims, families and Canadians first on this issue in an attempt to get some justice that is long overdue.