Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour for me to rise this afternoon to speak to Bill C‑10.
It is also an honour to stop, especially given the content of the legislation, to recognize that we are all on the unceded territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin nation. To them, we say meegwetch. We recognize in this country, and it is quite a stunning thing when one starts diving into it, how many nations and language groups there are, how many peoples whose lands we live on without noticing or thinking about the thousands of years they stewarded Turtle Island, took care of and, in many cases, welcomed and protected European settlers and allowed them to survive. I say that today because it is critical that we not just recognize the need for reconciliation on the one statutory day per year that this Parliament created a couple of years ago, which we observed on September 30. It was once known as Orange Shirt Day because of Phyllis Webstad's story, which breaks our heart, of the wonderful orange shirt that her grandmother bought for her being taken away; she never saw it again.
On that day, I know my colleagues on all sides of this House went to events in their own ridings. Many of them were here in Ottawa for the event that took place on Parliament Hill, which was very moving. If we have said it once, we have said it a million times: Reconciliation is not just one day a year; it is how we conduct ourselves, what we do and how we show that we understand the project of reconciliation.
The project of reconciliation is truly a whole-of-society project, with indigenous peoples and members of settler cultures, like the vast majority of members here.
It just about breaks my heart to have heard most of the debate in this place today as Bill C-10 comes forward. People who have been watching, any of the viewing audience, I just want to tell them that there is a story here that they are not hearing. It is likely some later-day insomniac watching CPAC.
Yes, it has taken a long time to negotiate the modern treaties. Yes, we now have 26 modern treaties, and that represents an enormous effort of the comprehensive nature of the modern treaties. In 2003, just to give a sense of history, that is obviously 22 years ago, a group called the Land Claims Agreements Coalition came together. It recognized that it was different from the treaties that took place back in the 1700s, 1800s and into the early part of this century. They recognized that modern land claim treaties were different, and they came together despite the fact that we are talking about vastly different language groups and experiences on the land and relationships with the land. They were groups as different as the Carcross/Tagish First Nation; the Council of Yukon First Nations; the Gwich’in Tribal Council, way up on the border with Alaska, where the Gwich'in need and rely on the porcupine and caribou for their sustenance, just as the Tsawwassen First Nation's modern treaty relies on the salmon and a different ecosystem altogether, with a completely different language group; and significantly, of course, the Nunavut Tunngavik, which represents an enormous chunk of Canadian territory.
Just to give a sense of what it means to have a modern treaties coalition, that work is not done by just some kind of stakeholder group; they are people who have come together, chiefs from nations that are as vastly different as if the people of my riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands sat down with folks from downtown Toronto to decide what our priorities would be for grocery shopping for a potluck. We're different people from different places. It is a tribute to these first nations and peoples that they came together and formed this modern Land Claims Agreements Coalition.
The coalition is co-chaired by an extraordinarily gifted group of dedicated people. One current co-chair, Jeremy Tunraluk, is the president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., which has a huge land base. The other co-chair is the president of the Nisga'a Lisims Government, Eva Clayton. They work together. They came to Ottawa this week, and I met with many of the people who were in the leadership of the modern treaties agreements, the Land Claims Agreements Coalition.
What they came together to tell us about was how long they have worked to achieve what Bill C-10 proposes. How long have they worked for that? They worked, first, to get their land claims agreements put together, to have modern treaties established and to have them accepted by the Crown. Then, over a 20-year period, they consulted about how we were going to enact this and make it happen. These first nations, Métis and Inuit people, over a 20-year period, decided that what would work would be to have an independent auditing function embodied in the commissioner for modern treaty implementation.
This is something first nations, Métis and Inuit people decided, and they have been working to try to get the government to act upon it. They felt they were finally making progress on October 10, 2024, when Bill C-77, an act respecting the commissioner for modern treaty implementation, was tabled in this place.
I am not going to go back, because one thing that has been consistent through the day-to-day across the aisle is one party pointing at the other and saying it is the other's fault that nothing has happened so far. I am not going to go there, but I do remember why Bill C-77 did not get past first reading. We were rather stuck for a while. I am not going to discuss who was to blame for that, but Bill C-77 died on the Order Paper on January 6.
We are talking about what the peoples and the nations are asking us to do. If we are serious about reconciliation, then we must live up to the promise of 20 years of consultation in which the Government of Canada, under at least a few different prime ministers, said it would get this thing done and it would bring in, as a legislative priority, a commissioner of modern treaty implementation. It was a tool that was codeveloped over decades. It was brought forward for first reading almost a year ago now.
Bill C-77 died on the Order Paper when the House was prorogued by former prime minister Justin Trudeau, along with 25 other bills that died that day, and it has come back to us now. It was tabled for first reading on September 25, almost a full year after it started as Bill C-77, and it is now back word for word as Bill C-10.
There are the first nations and the leadership from the Land Claims Agreements Coalition, as well as all the different partners, such as the Déline Government and the First Nation of Nacho Nyak Dun. I mentioned some of the first nations, such as the Kluane First Nation, the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation, the Toquaht Nation and the Teslin Tlingit Council. To all these people, if they have been watching Parliament today, all I can do is tell them how very sorry I am, because the last thing they expected to see was settler culture people saying that this is just a waste of time and that this will be a Liberal appointee.
This must be a commissioner who has the trust and faith of the indigenous people of this country and of the modern land claims agreements, the modern treaties. The peoples who entered into these modern treaties are saying, “If you're not serious about reconciliation, you might as well tell us now, because we've been patient.” What we were asked to do directly by the people in these land claims modern treaties is to pass Bill C-10 and to pass it quickly, as it does not need amendments.
I beg my colleagues on all sides of the House to take this small step for reconciliation. I ask them to pass the bill quickly and to not make it a political football. I ask them to be proud of themselves when they look in the mirror, so they can say they did their part to make up for the horrors of abuse. This is what we do: We pass Bill C-10.