Mr. Speaker, I want to indicate that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski.
First of all in this debate, we need to try to understand where we come from as a country. We need to reflect on where this country comes from and on the basis it was founded almost 150 years ago.
When I came out of a residential school, I set out on a mission to bring us back together. I set out on a mission to reconcile with the people who put me away for 10 years. They had incarcerated me culturally, linguistically, and politically. When I came out of there, I wanted to make sure that this would not happen to any indigenous children in this country anymore.
The historical and contemporary situation in Canada includes many long-standing injustices. In a broad context, members may remember that the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recounts that “No segment of our research aroused more outrage and shame than the story of residential schools”.
The royal commission went on to describe the incredible damage done to indigenous peoples in this country. There was a loss of life, denigration of culture, destruction of self-respect, destruction of self-esteem, rupture of families, and the impact of these traumas on succeeding generations.
The assimilation policies of the Canadian government involved the forced transfer of large populations of young aboriginal Canadians. Such government acts also had the aim and effect of depriving aboriginal peoples of their integrity as distinct peoples and of their cultural values and identities.
I recall in 2005, the former federal justice minister Irwin Cotler said that the decision to house young Canadians in residential schools was the single most harmful, disgraceful, and racist act in our history.
Therefore, it is useful to consider the broader context of how we came to what we are discussing today and the policies relating to aboriginal peoples. For instance, from 1927 to 1951, it was an offence under the Indian Act for Indians to raise funds or retain a lawyer for purposes of their land claims. That is shameful. This discriminatory policy contributed to the further dispossession of aboriginal peoples' lands and resources, and today, as we see, their dependency.
Indigenous peoples had their integrity, security, and well-being undermined. Indigenous peoples in Canada were persecuted on the basis of their culture.
As members probably know, and as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre pointed out, I have the good fortune of being from the James Bay area in Quebec, where we signed Canada's first modern treaty in 1975. When people talk about indigenous issues here in the House, they often say that these issues are so complicated that they are almost afraid to go anywhere near them. I have been hearing these kinds of comments for nearly five years now.
I know, however, that when the will to address these issues is there, we are capable of great political and legal imagination. I have no doubt about that. I have seen it and experienced it first hand in my part of northern Quebec.
I have participated in this debate from the very beginning, and I have listened to all the speeches. It is important to remember, in looking for a solution, there is no lack of precedents in our history. We need only think of the James Bay Cree, in northern Quebec, as members opposite pointed out. There are solutions. However, there must be respect for indigenous peoples, and we must recognize their most fundamental rights. That is what is missing most of the time.
I was also involved in the process that led to the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the United Nations General Assembly. This process lasted 23 years and I was involved from start to finish. This document contains provisions that inform the issues we have been discussing for several hours.
Article 21.1 pertains to health services. Article 21.2 is another example. Article 24.2 concerns the possibility of indigenous peoples controlling the programs that we are discussing here today. Article 43 is key. It states that the rights recognized in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples constitute the minimum standards for the survival, dignity, and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the country. That must be the basis for our work.
The Prime Minister made a commitment to work with indigenous people to implement the principles and goals of the declaration as well as to adopt it. I asked the question twice this evening. People talk about implementing the principles and goals of the declaration, but the members on the other side of the House never once said anything about passing legislation to adopt it. I find that unfortunate, but the private member's bill I plan to introduce will fix that. I hope to have the support of the members opposite when I introduce it.
I want to assure the House once again of my full co-operation in this process. I have had many years of experience, 35 years, in dealing with these issues, and I am prepared to contribute to this process.
I want to quote the highest court in 2012 in the case of Ipeelee. The court said:
...courts must take judicial notice of such matters as the history of colonialism, displacement, and residential schools and how that history continues to translate into lower educational attainment, lower incomes, higher unemployment, higher rates of substance abuse and suicide...
Genuine reconciliation cannot be successful as long as colonialism is perpetuated. I said over the weekend that true reconciliation is not possible in the absence of justice. We need to remember that.
Finally, I spoke briefly about my mission when I came out of residential school. We know that South Africa also had its own process of truth and reconciliation. I will quote Nelson Mandela on how he described his own transformation during 27 years in prison:
It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed...[for all have been] robbed of their humanity.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both.
That is our mission today. That is our mission for the next couple of years. Let us hope that we walk on that same path.