Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Fredericton.
As has been said by other speakers today, we are on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people. That is historic. That is something more than just a phrase on paper.
I was born on Treaty 1. I was born in the land of the Anishinabe and Swampy Cree in the city now known as Winnipeg, at the forks of the Red River and the Assiniboine River, all the history for thousands of years of indigenous people living in the area that is Treaty 1.
I now live on Treaty 3, in the city of Guelph, which is on the traditional land of the Mississaugas of the Credit and the Anishinabe and is a land of the Dish with One Spoon Covenant. Having peaceful communication and sharing meals together has been practised for millennia in the area where I now live.
It is important to know that it is not just about using words in terms of acknowledging territory, but it is also important to know what territory we are in and what it represented in the past.
The government's commitment to reconciliation really is to bring this renewed relationship forward, the relationship of understanding the people who lived in the areas that we now occupy, sometimes occupying without resolution, looking at recognizing rights, co-operation and partnership and working on the complex relationships that we have now and will have going forward.
Acknowledging call to action number 94 in our oath of citizenship is important today. I have heard members of the House say that this is a minor piece of legislation, that it is just a sleight of hand, that it is just a few words on a page, but there is nothing more important than the oath of citizenship. It really speaks of the land that immigrants are joining and that land having the history of indigenous people as well as the history of the Crown and what that means to us as a country.
My hon. colleague from Sydney—Victoria last week gave a very powerful speech during the midnight emergency debate. He looked at the ongoing protests and acts of civil disobedience. We saw some of that as we were coming into work today. He made the important point that reconciliation is not a destination, that it is a journey.
The 94 calls to action put out by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada are part of that journey, but it is a shared journey. It is a journey involving working on solutions with indigenous people, first nations, Métis and Inuit. Each community will have its own way of interpreting what that journey means.
The 94 calls to action mean working together to change policies and programs in a concerted effort to repair the harm that had been caused over a few hundred years, harm such as residential schools, harm such as the abduction of children in hospitals before they could be united with their parents, things that we are working on today and things that we will be working on tomorrow.
The amendments to Bill C-6 to bring our Citizenship Act in line with call to action number 94 urge us to replace our oath, but it really is what it means to be a Canadian citizen in terms of our relationship with the people who were here before the colonial settlement of Canada.
When I thought of speaking today about the oath of citizenship, I was thinking of the years I have spent working in the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. This institute was founded by former governor general Adrienne Clarkson as an outgoing gift to Canada. It involves bringing people who want to join the Canadian family together, to have conversations with them, to have round table meetings with dignitaries and with people from service organizations in the community, so they can tell us their stories. Why did they choose Canada? How has it been since they arrived here? What are they hoping for their future and for the future of their children?
It is always emotional and poignant. When one sees the pride on the faces of the family members who are joining the Canadian family before taking the citizenship oath, and knows the struggles they have gone through to get to the point of affirming their oath of citizenship, working with the planning committee to figure out how to create a festive atmosphere but also give it the dignity that oaths of citizenship really require is important. This is because citizenship, especially citizenship in Canada, is something that comes with a great value.
When we look at the citizenship language used in the oath right now, what are we talking about changing? It is something very similar to a debate we had a few years ago in the House of making our national anthem more gender-inclusive. It changed “in all our sons command” to “in all of us command”, which leaves open the question of gender definition.
This now opens up the door to reconciliation by including our Constitution, which recognizes and affirms the aboriginal and treaty rights of first nations, Inuit and Métis people. That is precisely the phrase we are asking to be put into our citizenship oath. Personally, I hope this is not going to meet with the type of partisan struggle we had in the Senate and the House around changing words, because words do matter. Our citizenship oath was last amended in 1977, and I think we can all agree that the world has moved on greatly since then.
I attend citizenship ceremonies. We have discussions beforehand, and then go to Riverside Park in Guelph. On July 1, 10,000 people are in the park and 30, or 40 or 45, people stand on a stage and declare their new allegiance to Canada. The Rotary Club organizes Canada Day celebrations and other people from the community are around. The chief of police is always there, as are the mayor and the member of provincial parliament. We celebrate together to say that leadership comes from each individual, and that the responsibility of citizenship is not just with elected officials. In particular, it is the citizens of our country who build our country. We simply serve them.
It is an important day for these new Canadians. Some of them have come back years after to volunteer on the citizenship committee and help other people understand what the journey was for them and where they now are in terms of their citizenship. In March 2019, at a citizenship ceremony at Bishop Macdonell high school, some of the people there were children of people who had become citizens previously. We had 37 community members become Canadian citizens that day, and to watch them wave their flags and officially become Canadian citizens was like watching a game where somebody had just scored a goal. The cheering and support demonstrated really showed the excitement and joy we have when people become Canadians.
It is just so important they also know that Canadian citizenship comes with a history, and the history is not always great. This change we are looking at today is to try to undo some of the previous history that needs to be reconciled. The Citizenship Act is a reflection of the government's commitment to build a fair, diverse and inclusive country. It is also there for the benefit of newcomers for their overall quality of life and to make a good future for their families. However, it is all based on our having mutual respect, and in particular respect for the indigenous people who were here before we were citizens and to include them in the family we have joined.
I will be supporting this motion going forward. I hope we see it go through the House expeditiously, and I hope we can continue to work with the indigenous, Métis and Inuit peoples to build a better Canada in the future.