[Member spoke in Cree as follows:]
Niwakoma cuntik Tansai Nemeaytane Awapantitok.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, how we have progressed over the course of the summer. We have had time to talk and discuss, or, as we used to say or say now, consult. Taking the time to talk and discuss in the summertime is a very traditional indigenous way of doing things. It is great to see that over the course of this summer, the government has had the conversation about the ideals of justice, because justice in this bill is perhaps the most fundamental element to it.
I think about my family story, about who is Indian and who is not Indian under the law. My grandmother met a fine young man named James Ouellette from Battleford. His family had come from Batoche. They fell in love around 1939. On September 3 they had a son named James Ouellette, but then the war started just a week later and my grandfather signed up and was sent to Europe to fight. He went to England and fought his way through the Dutch lands and into Germany.
This is a story of many indigenous men, but it is also a story about an indigenous woman, for James was what they called at that time a “half-breed” or a Métis person. My grandmother, though, was a status Indian who had the full rights, responsibilities, and disadvantages of being a status Indian. However, because she married my grandfather, she lost her status upon her marriage. She did not know that the great course of events in Europe would ensure that her husband did not return for five years, that he would be away and that she would have to raise their son alone.
My father remembers as young boy having to go into the fields of farmers in the Battleford area to dig up potatoes in the dead of night to steal them so he and his mother could eat, because they had no food or money. He remembers doing this even at the age of four. They could not return home to the reserve at Red Pheasant, because they were not allowed to, for she was not a status Indian and he was called a half-breed.
That is the story of thousands and thousands in this country, and this is what this bill is about. It is about the ideal of justice so that this never happens again, so that someone can always go home to their lands, home to their traditional territory, home to their people, home to their family and community, and not be denied their birthright of who they are, who their people are.
The bill, as it was originally presented, only went so far. What this bill seeks to address has happened throughout Canadian history for 150 years, when people have been denied their rights because they married someone out of love. They were denied their identity and who they were. However, there have been people who have been brave enough in the Senate to continue this fight, senators like Lillian Dyck, Marilou McPhedran, Senator Christmas, Senator Sinclair, Senator Watt, Senator Patterson, Senator Joyal, and Senator Sandra Lovelace. These senators have led the fight to ensure that this discrimination would no longer occur. This is a fight not about today, but a fight about tomorrow. It is about who has status today and thus who will determine who has status tomorrow.
When we go forward with the ideals of a nation-to-nation relationship, as we start to take the Indian Act and dismantle it and try to reform these nations of what constitutes indigenous peoples and an indigenous nation, as we try to take and put together what was broken 139 years ago, it is going to take time. As I said, if someone has status today, they will have status or citizenship in these indigenous nations tomorrow, and so it is very important.
There are many even today who would continue to deny people's right to return. No matter what the bill may do, there will be some communities that will say that if one is not part of a community, then that person has no right to be there.
That is not our tradition. In ages past, people could marry on or into a community. They could become part of a community. There were many occasions when people who were not even Cree or Blackfoot or Anishinaabe could change their nations. They could become something different. They could learn a language and be adopted into a new family.
I was just at the reserve in Battleford region where I had an opportunity to meet meeting not only a Mosquito but a Poundmaker. Poundmaker had been adopted by a Blackfoot chief even though he was Cree, and it was for peaceful purposes. That is a very powerful relationship.
What we did before is not what we do today. Even today, what we do to each other is not always right. We hear stories from near the Montreal territory of people who marry for love and who are not allowed to stay in their community. This was not our way.
In my house I have an adopted daughter. She is not of my blood, but of my heart. She is half first nations from Saskatchewan and half Jamaican. We did not go through the court system to adopt her, but instead used elders, who worked hard to make sure that we did it in a good way, that we did it in a traditional and spiritual way, that it was according to our customs and our customary law. We love her very much. She is not any less of who I am or any less connected to the territory I am from. In fact, I even have a greater responsibility to her.
This is what this legislation is about. This legislation is about the future. It is about how we treat each other as indigenous peoples. I am not sure why it may be decided in this Parliament, which has not always been friendly toward indigenous peoples.
The bill offers us an opportunity to repair the damage of the past, to welcome home those who have been turned way for too long, to welcome home the great returning of people to their traditional territories, to their communities, to their nations, so that we may rebuild the nation that we have, the vision that was laid down before us by leaders like Poundmaker, like Big Bear, like Louis Riel, people who had in their hearts the long-term future of our children.
We are told to think seven generations into the future. Think seven generations from now what the implications will be of what we decide today.
I am very proud of the stance our government is taking. Even though some may say it is not enough, it is certainly a step in the right direction. Maybe it is not just one step; maybe it is a giant leap.
I lay my faith in the hands of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs to accomplish what we have set out to do, to talk during the summer period in the year to come, when indigenous peoples gather across their traditional lands, to do what we call consultation.
I lay my faith in them to make sure that we come up with something that truly represents what seven generations would look back upon and say, “We are proud of the decisions that were made by the parliamentarians of both the Senate and the House of Commons. We are proud of what the government did, of what the opposition did, of what the third opposition did, what all parties did together, that we pushed forward to create a better Canada that was more inclusive but allowed people to reach their full potential.”
[Member spoke in Cree]
[English]