Debates of June 1st, 2021

Residential Schools

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have spent the last few days reaching out to folks in my community. So many survivors and descendants of survivors have been re-traumatized. They have broken down and are struggling to deal with pain and grief.

One of the people I communicated with was Steven Crowchild, an incredible leader and human being, who told me about his friend who lived with her mother. She was going to put a teddy bear and orange shirt on the front steps to honour the babies who were lost. Her mother, who was a residential school survivor, was triggered and was fearful. She thought that having that orange shirt would get them attacked in their own home.

There is a legacy of genocide that still lives on today in the cycles of addiction and loss. The Canadian government still chooses to underfund children, fight children in court, fight residential school survivors and so many other examples of ongoing injustice.

Is this horrendous history and are our current failures a genocide? Will the member call this what it is? Will he call this a genocide?

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, the definition of genocide has, since its outset, been debated on many stages at the world level. When I look at the terminology and when I look at the boxes that define genocide, I think we check all almost every box. I certainly will not hesitate to say that this was genocide. We still have a long way to go.

My focus is not to debate whether it was genocide, however. It is time to move forward. It is not time to have more hearings. It is not time to set up more panels. It is not time to discuss whether this clearly fits in that box of genocide. It is time to move forward. It is time to take action. We have to start moving and get all the TRC recommendations done. We have to work on reducing the socio-economic gap between indigenous people and other Canadians. We have to work at eliminating the systemic racism.

There is a lot of work to be done. I have been waiting for a long time to get this going. We have some momentum now, and I want to see it keep going.

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

Mr. Speaker, I begin by acknowledging that I am on the territory of W̱SÁNEĆ people and I speak in SENĆOŦEN and raise my hands to you.

[Member spoke in SENĆOŦEN]

[English]

I particularly raise my hands today to one of my dearest friends, a constituent who is also my MLA. I am not using my words tonight. I am using his words. Adam Olsen is a member of Tsartlip First Nation. He spoke these words yesterday in the British Columbia legislature:

We know that if these children were not indigenous but rather European that we would not have been slow to act.... Deep down, we know that in our society it's just a fact.... Some children matter less.

We know underneath the shiny, happy facade of Canada...there lurks a grotesque and shameful past. For 30 years, my relatives have been sharing their experiences from these despicable institutions. For 30 years, their stories have been hushed. Our relatives have been told that [Canada and] Canadians...don't want to hear their stories. They have been told to stop lying. They've been told to stop embellishing.

There was a statement from this institution that noted the unimaginable proportions of this tragedy. This is an incredibly unfortunate characterization of the situation that we carry. For Indigenous People, the story is not shocking, nor is it unimaginable. This is the trauma our families have carried for generations....

As we continue to grapple with missing and murdered indigenous women and children, hanging red dresses in recognition of our current reality, what is uncovered in Kamloops [reminds us] that this storyline is not new. It has been in the imagination—indeed in the nightmares—of our relatives for the past 130 years. It is the terror that our ancestors have lived with.

The only reason to call it unimaginable would be because these institutions, these Crown governments...and the people that populated these chambers in the past either haven't been listening to our stories or they've cared less. It is a reality in our country that some children have mattered less. These are both terrible considerations.

There is nothing to imagine for those who have been paying attention. Our Elders and our families have been sharing the grim details of their experiences in residential schools for decades. That is the record of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

You don't have to imagine it. You just have to believe it and care enough to act with the urgency that you would if it was your child that didn't return home from school. It's your kids going to school, not coming home, not being there when their parents are there to pick them up....

Duncan Campbell Scott, deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1932, is often associated with saying, “Kill the Indian, save the man”....

Residential schools were a critical tool in the process of “kill the Indian,” in Scott's words. Deliberately breaking up families by forcing children to residential schools was a tool to expedite the process of dispossessing Indigenous Peoples of their lands and resources....

There have always been stories in our families of our relatives that didn't come home, the children that died and were buried there with little or no notification to the families....

I wish I could say that indigenous children are no longer forcibly removed from their communities. However, I can't. I wish I could say that indigenous people were not dramatically overrepresented in fatalities at the hands of police, the criminal justice system, homelessness, suicide, addictions and drug poisoning, all statistics you don't want to be overrepresented in....

We must stop referring to what we know like we didn't know it. We must stop pretending it was better than it was. We must stop acting like we came by this wealth through honest means because we did not. This land and the resources this Crown government depends on came from the dispossession of indigenous people. For decades, this provincial government [and I will insert federal] has benefited from the lands and resources that were secured through residential schools and other disgraceful policies.

I'm so grateful for the incredible public response to this tragedy facing our relatives in Kamloops and the Interior. I'm grateful for the demands from our family and friends and neighbours...ensuring government responds as if it were our child that didn't come home from school.

This is indeed a heavy burden, but it's one we can all make lighter if we carry it together. HÍSW̱ḴE SIÁM.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I understand there has been some discussion and that because of the way time has gone tonight, some members who prepared speeches may not have a chance to give them. I think you will find a desire among all parties for us to extend the take-note debate by 15 minutes to accommodate those members.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

We cannot ask for unanimous consent. However, if it is okay with members, the two members left can make their statements without any questions. We will go over our time, but if that is acceptable, members will be able to get their thoughts out and we can go from there.

The hon. member for Saint-Jean.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on the same point of order.

We have spoken with the upcoming speakers and they have agreed to forgo the period for questions and comments after their speech if the others will as well.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. I am not sure if my name is on the list, but when I was looking to speak earlier in the evening, the slots had all been filled. If we are going to add time, I would like the opportunity to speak to the motion.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

This is very heavy for all of us and not easy to deal with. I think it is only fair that we allow the hon. member for Labrador to speak. We will be here for a little extra time tonight, but what we will do is hear from the next two members and add the hon. member for Labrador. Had she made it into the slots, she probably would have been in the next one.

It is an important topic, and this is the decision I am making. Hopefully everyone is in accord with it.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Manicouagan.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am at a loss for words once again this evening. I cannot express how much it pains me to talk about residential schools.

It pains me as a mother, because I think of all those who lost their children. I think of all of the families and nations that carry the heavy burden of the past. It pains me to think that for decades and centuries, in British North America and then Canada, there were attempts to literally erase the peoples who had lived here for thousands of years.

It pains me to think of all of those men, women and children, dead or alive, who had to suffer to allow for Canada's plans to expand its dominion from coast to coast, engaging in a cultural genocide to kill the Indian in the child, which resulted in killing the child in the Indian.

However, it pains me even more to know that, over the course of my years here in Parliament, I have been asking myself the following question: Why do we keep talking about these horrors year after year without ever making any progress?

I must admit, I cannot even imagine how painful and frustrating it must be for the families of the victims of residential schools and for the communities themselves, while we, here in the House, entered politics to change things. We are not seeing things change, and neither are they. Things are not changing quickly enough.

I know that today, at this time, this is a solemn moment, and we do not want to politicize the matter before us, and rightly so. However, for things to move forward, it is my duty, as a member of the opposition, to ask the right questions.

Let us first establish some facts.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has counted 3,200 residential school students who died. Today, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation estimates that number to be closer to 4,118. Even so, the most recent evidence suggests that these numbers could be much higher and might soon reach 6,000 dead.

This morning, in an article published in The Globe and Mail, former senator and Truth and Reconciliation commissioner Murray Sinclair estimated that the number could be higher still, suggesting that up to 15,000 children could have died in the residential schools.

Six years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report was released, it seems that the more we know, the less we know. What happened to bring us to this point?

Obviously, we need to shine a light on this, including on the financial role of the federal government and the degree of collaboration between the church and the federal government. As we know, Canada funded the religious orders that ran the residential schools with a per-child allowance.

When the allowance was suspended, did the government keep a record of the children who had died? How is it that the federal government subsidized their education without knowing that information? Did the church keep records on the children in order to collect those subsidies?

We need to take a closer look at these issues. They need to be addressed urgently because families need to know. It is an essential condition for them to grieve and to heal.

In closing, we also need to shed light on addressing the commission's calls to action 72 to 78. Of the $33.8 million allocated in budget 2019, $27.1 million still remains to be spent. We need to shed light on the past. We also need to shed light on this. Our duty to remember is at stake here, as well as our duty to honour indigenous peoples.

My heart goes out to the communities in Kamloops and all the communities on the north coast of Quebec and Canada.

[Member spoke in Innu]

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great sorrow and a heavy heart that I rise this evening to speak to the tragic discovery that was made in Kamloops, British Columbia. My thoughts go out to all these children who, instead of having a happy life running in the fields, are now lying in those fields in silence and darkness. My thoughts go out to the families. My thoughts go out to all the indigenous nations. They have my sympathies.

People across Canada and Quebec have cried, and understandably so, over the fate of these children who died in despicable conditions far from home, far from their mothers, far from their families and far from their nations.

This discovery should not have happened. This should not have been a discovery because the facts we are being confronted with are not unknown. We have known them since at least the tabling of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Would we rather say that we should know these facts? However, memories are faulty. We forget. Forgetting speaks volumes about how the memory was perceived. It speaks volumes about the way the ugliness of the past contrasts with the whitewashed version we prefer to see.

The history of residential schools is one of horror, and last week's tragic discovery should be a reminder, a reminder that we must take action. We cannot change the past, but we can remember, document, interpret, archive and commemorate it.

This is essential work if we want to progress toward reconciliation. We need to do this work to achieve true healing. If we do not do this work, families that want to find out what happened to those who died will never be able to. Even if it hurts, indigenous families and nations need to know. To get to the historical truth and do what is right for indigenous peoples, we have to shine a light on the past. Like it or not, the Kamloops discovery will not be the only one. There have to be more.

Six years ago, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission formulated many calls to action to ensure that we do not lose sight of the past. The recommendations that come to mind are 71 to 78. The sorrow we all feel right now must serve as a reminder that we need to implement them faster, and that responsibility rests first and foremost with the government. The time to act is now.

[Member spoke in Inuktitut]

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues in the House of Commons this evening for the opportunity to speak to this motion.

As a proud Inuk woman of Labrador, the daughter of a mother of residential school, when we hear these stories through generations, we are always reminded, each and every day, of the trauma that they have endured and of the legacy that it has left behind.

What we are dealing with today is a horrible reality. It is a horrible reality of our past that has been uncovered. It has been revealed and unearthed that in Kamloops, 215 innocent children lie in a mass grave. This is not only devastating; it is heartbreaking. It is an act against humanity. On that, I think we all agree. It is an act against children who had no voice. They were alone. They were scared. They were silenced. They were isolated. They were robbed of life, and they were buried with the same horror that they endured in society.

Yesterday, I stood in my riding next to two very strong moms, Jodie Ashini and Thea Penashue of the Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation, along with Chief Eugene Hart, surrounded by so many children, so many moms and so many dads. I stood surrounded by survivors and victims of residential schools, surrounded by love and affection for each other, and surrounded by tears, so many tears.

On behalf of all of them, on behalf of all the people of Labrador, I want to extend our love and support to those many families who are suffering this evening in this country, those many indigenous families who are feeling the loss, the void and the heartache of what has happened.

I think we can all agree on several things, and that is there is much work to do in advancing not just the rights of indigenous people in this country, but also upholding the rights of innocent indigenous children as well. We have talked so much about the harm that has been caused by the legacies of residential schools and the trauma that comes with it. However, we also know that, as we sit here this evening and we speak, indigenous people still face racism. We still face unacceptable injustices, which are happening in many of our communities across the country.

I know that, one by one, we have pledged our support to make a difference. We have pledged to ensure that we can restore the language and culture, that we can restore, once again, the proud legacy of indigenous people. It is a long road, and one that has to be shaped and led by indigenous people themselves.

Like every ill act, there has to be accountability. I am sure that many share my belief that more accountability needs to come to bear. I really believe that the Catholic Church has yet to redeem itself, in any way, in recognizing what has happened at the hands of their institutions. That is unacceptable.

While we pledge our support that, as the Government of Canada, we will continue to move forward to bridge that gap for indigenous people in this country, we need to do it with the support of all parliamentarians of all provinces and all territories. That means that when we have legislation such as UNDRIP, we have to be able to stand up and support it. That is part of reconciliation in this country. That is part of bridging that gap with indigenous people.

Every day I wake up not knowing what I am going to hear next. I woke up today in a very small populated riding to find out two very young beautiful people died by suicide last night, in my riding. One was first nations and one was Inuit. This has to stop. The healing is not happening in the way it should be. It is happening, but it is slow. How do we get it to move faster? How do we bridge that gap more?

How do we ensure that every child has the opportunity to wake up in a warm home with a full belly? That is where we need to focus. It is as basic as those things in many cases.

Reconciliation with indigenous people and recognizing that every child does matter is not difficult. It really is not, but we need to do it faster. We need to move at a more rapid rate than we have.

That includes us as a government, but it includes indigenous leadership as well. It includes all of us working together to make sure these things happen. These are times of critical advancement for indigenous people. Let us not lose this. Let us not bury this so we have to wait 10 more years for this to become a priority in the country.

I am so proud of what our government has done to help indigenous people. I have seen more indigenous children get support in my riding in the last five years than I have seen in the 15 years before. I have seen more houses built in communities across my riding for indigenous families than I have seen in 15 years before.

I have seen more investments into food banks, into social support. We have revamped the social welfare system and the child welfare system in this country to support indigenous communities and indigenous people, but there is still a lot more to do, a lot more to do.

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

It being 10:30 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 53.1, the committee will now rise.

(Government Business No. 6 reported)

Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.)