Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be participating in this important debate with my colleagues this morning on a motion to designate an emancipation day. I would like to congratulate the member for Richmond Hill and thank him for moving this important motion, which gives us all an opportunity to discuss and debate not only recognition of Black history in Canada and Quebec, but also the history of slavery.
Typically, and with good reason, discussions about the enslavement of people of African descent focus on the United States, where the widespread use of Black slaves on cotton plantations and in other economic sectors left its mark on our collective psyche. It involved the cruel and violent exploitation of tens of thousands of people, who were ripped from Africa and the Caribbean and crammed onto ships under appalling conditions to go work in the United States. That is why there is such a strong association between slavery and the United States.
We tend to forget that we have our own history of slavery, a history that has left its mark on Quebec and Canada too. I think that the motion moved by my colleague from Richmond Hill gives us an opportunity today to remember certain facts and take a closer look at that history. Over the years, we have, in a way, erased that part of our history, as though it never existed or did not really have anything to do with Canadians, only with our neighbours to the south. Slavery in Canada may not have been practised as pervasively or with the same intensity, but it existed. It was allowed, it was legal, it was public, it was open. Human beings could be owned, sold, traded or treated as spoils of war. I think we need to be aware of that so we can do the right thing now.
Before getting into the history of Quebec and Canada more specifically, I would like to remind my colleagues of a basic phenomenon that can lead a person to commit enslavement or even genocide. It is a mental and intellectual process called dehumanization. It is when a group of human beings are stripped of their humanity and described as being other, inferior, more animal than human, or even vermin. We saw that with the anti-Semitism of 1930s Europe, when such comparisons were made about Jews. We have seen that in Quebec as well.
When a segment of the population is described by the colour of their skin, their religion, their gender or their sexual orientation and called by names that essentially deny their personhood, this dehumanization opens the door to viewing them as property, meaning slaves, or as people to get rid of. This in turn opens the door to genocide, such as the Shoah, the Armenian genocide and the events that occurred in Rwanda and Ukraine. It is also what we are currently seeing with the Rohingya in Myanmar. We must be aware of dehumanization and look out for cases where a segment of the population is being described and generalized as less than human, leaving them open to attack. It is a practice that is still used a lot by the extreme right. Let us all be aware of that. We must fight against dehumanization, the process that opens the door to abuse and anti-humanist or disrespectful acts.
In New France, slavery was introduced with colonization. It was not imposed or instituted afterwards. Although no slave ships stopped at Quebec City, Montreal or Halifax, there were slaves in New France from the outset, and the use of slaves continued under British rule.
It is important to know that the first slaves in New France were indigenous people from the Pawnee Nation, later known as the Panis, who were captured and sold. Throughout history, there were thousands of Black slaves, but the first slaves were indigenous, and the majority of slaves in New France were always indigenous. I believe it is important to remember that.
At the peak of slavery in New France or under British rule, a total of approximately 4,200 slaves were being used on our land, including about 2,700 indigenous slaves. It was a very cheap source of labour because they were not paid, but whereas slaves in the United States were used in labour-intensive economic sectors, such as cotton plantations in the southern states, slaves in Canada were generally used as household servants. They tended to work in homes rather than in the fields.
We are told that the first non-indigenous slave was a child from either Madagascar or Guinea, who was brought here in 1629 and went by the name Olivier Le Jeune. He was the first slave to be recorded in New France. Later, in 1689, Louis XIV authorized the importation of slaves into New France, and the purchase and possession of slaves became legal in 1709.
In 1760, the conquest of New France and its transformation into a British colony changed very little about how slaves were owned and used. Article 47 of the Articles of Capitulation clearly states that the same rules continue to apply in relation to the possession, trade and sale of slaves. Later, the Imperial Statute of 1790 explicitly authorized United Empire loyalists fleeing the newly independent American territories for Canada to bring their Black slaves, furniture, utensils and clothing, all duty free. Between 2,000 and 3,000 Black slaves came to Canada with those Loyalists.
Canada has a long history of slavery, with the last notice of a slave sale in New Brunswick dating back to 1816, and the last sale of a slave in Quebec taking place on September 14, 1799, at the end of the 18th century. It involved the sale of a nine-year-old boy. I want to remind the House that slavery is deeply embedded in our history. Unfortunately, we do not talk about it very much, but it has always been with us. There are many people among us today who are descended from indigenous or Black slaves. This emancipation day is extremely important, and I am so proud to say, on behalf of myself, the people of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie and the NDP, that I support this motion, which is essential to our future. If we do not remember our past, we run the risk of repeating the same mistakes. I therefore congratulate my colleague from Richmond Hill.