Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to speak today as part of the debate on Bill S‑2.
Before addressing the bill directly, I would like to start by expressing my sincere solidarity with women. The Bloc Québécois also stands in solidarity with them. I mention women specifically because they are the ones who have been experiencing gender discrimination since 1876. As I said, I would like to express our solidarity and tell them that the Bloc Québécois is fully in favour of passing Bill S-2.
That said, although the Bloc Québécois is in favour of passing the bill, it should be noted that Bill S-2, like others before it—I am thinking of Bills S‑3 and C-31—addresses injustices recognized by the Supreme Court, but in an incremental and piecemeal approach. These legislative measures do not really address all the discrimination being experienced by indigenous women and, in this case, their descendants, with regard to the transmission of status.
I will echo the words of the Assembly of First Nations. The second-generation cut-off rule remains a colonial practice and, as such, it is indefensible. It is also arbitrary. The government cannot force a nation to be or not to be what it is. The government cannot tell people that they are indigenous or that they are not. It is not up to the federal government to decide who is a first nations person and who can give or grant status to their children. Simply calling it “granting status” or “giving status” is telling. I think we need to be empathetic when we are talking about Bill S‑2 and anything to do with registration entitlements. I would find it difficult for a government I do not even recognize to dictate what I could pass on to my children, such as my identity, my values, my language and my culture.
That is what is at stake every time we come back to the House. I mentioned two bills earlier. For more than 40 years, we have been coming back to the House to say that we need to fix arbitrary, discriminatory provisions, especially when they impact women.
According to Chief Verreault-Paul, despite Bill S-2, the definition remains a colonial definition of first nations people. That is what is we are tackling. We know it is a huge undertaking. I mentioned that it has been more than 40 years, but we have to vote in favour of this bill, this amended bill even. We know that the bill was introduced in the Senate and that the Senate heard from a lot of witnesses who said that the bill was incomplete and that several amendments had to be made to it. We are ready to do that. Discussions have been held and we can go further to address these discriminatory provisions.
The second-generation cut-off breaks up families over rules that could be abolished. We hope to overcome this. The fact is children are being excluded. This deprives thousands of people of their rightful place in their communities. It jeopardizes, and I will come back to this later, the present and future of communities, their language, and their culture.
We hope that Bill S-2 will help put an end to the government's control over indigenous identity. It may not be the only bill that will achieve this. The government always waits until it is pushed to the brink or cornered before making changes to the Indian Act when it comes to registration entitlements.
What is happening today with Bill S-2 is the same thing that has happened before with other bills, namely Bill S-3 and Bill C-31. There are Supreme Court rulings that call upon the government to amend the act to make the unconstitutional provisions constitutional, but such changes always take a really long time and then that becomes an excuse for failing to take action. First, the government is not taking action when it could be doing so. When I say that nothing has been done for 40 years, I am referring to 1985, but I could just as easily say that nothing has been done since 1876. Second, when the government does decide to implement a bill, it takes a really long time and it does not necessarily allocate the resources needed to implement the bill properly.
I would like to continue by talking about the requests made to the Senate committee by the organization Quebec Native Women, which wanted something to be done about the systemic discrimination against women and children. I believe the first amendment they suggested involves doing away with the second-generation cut-off. We agree with that and that is what we are interested in, although I will not say that it is what interests us the most, all things being equal. In this case, there is discrimination. No form of discrimination is any better than another, but this provision affects a huge number of people.
If we take a closer look, we realize that this is really a strategy. The reason I say that there is an underlying intention behind the act and the bill, that a real assimilation strategy is at work, is because this exclusion denies second-generation children their indigenous identity. If we do the math, as the generations go by, the children who are denied indigenous status will no longer be included in the statistics. Obviously we are talking about people here, but I have to talk in terms of numbers. This is just a roundabout way of extinguishing the indigenous identity of children who should be recognized as indigenous. Once again, the government is deciding for them.
Quebec Native Women obviously wants to point out that women have been the primary victims of this kind of discrimination, especially under the exclusion provisions that no longer recognized a woman as indigenous if she divorced or separated from her husband or was widowed. That has been resolved, but now it is the second generation's turn. Through the various amendments or bills that have been passed, the government has simply put its intention—I say “intention” because I believe that the government knows perfectly well what it is doing—to assimilate first nations people on hold.
We could look at the figures for Canada, but Quebec Native Women pointed out that in Quebec, for example, by 2046, 22,445 children will have been excluded. By 2066, 54,745 children will have been excluded under subsection 6(2). What is more, by 2066, 60% of registrants will be registered under subsection 6(2); 60% is huge. We know that these 60% will no longer be eligible for registration. These children will not be eligible for registration. As the representatives of Quebec Native Women said themselves, this rule functions as a demographic countdown. I am reminded of a young woman who appeared before the indigenous affairs committee and spoke about her daughter. The young woman is indigenous, but her daughter's father is not. Her daugher is therefore of mixed parentage and is not considered indigenous, which is absurd.
We keep talking about provisions, the Supreme Court and systemic discrimination, but this example alone clearly shows that some children are being denied the right to be who they are. I could also have mentioned the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The issue was raised there, and it contravenes two articles of the declaration.
I also want to add that one of my Senate colleagues, Michèle Audette, spoke at committee during the study of Bill S‑2 and said that the government was making it harder for first nations people to pass on their identity than for other Canadians to pass on citizenship. We can see that there is already a double standard. Indigenous people cannot pass on citizenship in the same way as other Canadian citizens.
I will now talk about transferring authority over first nation membership to first nations. This is the same type of thing. This is another thing that is being called for by Quebec Native Women. As we know, the government has authority over first nations registration, but first nations are asking for that authority to be transferred to them so that they can decide who belongs to their band or community.
This request makes perfect sense to me. We are talking about identity and citizenship. It makes no sense to me for one nation to be responsible for deciding who belongs to another nation. This is something that all stakeholders are calling for, including the Assembly of First Nations and the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador.
This registration rule applies to all communities, except for those covered by section 10, which enables some first nations to use customary law. It basically applies to all first nations in Canada. Once again, I would like to remind the House about the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Government of Canada is once again violating article 33 by not giving first nations this authority. This is a clear, direct and overt violation of the right to self-determination. We hope that this authority will be transferred to first nations.
Another issue raised by Quebec Native Women is the right to end the obligation to provide the father's name. Since 1985, if the mother does not identify the father, the department assumes that the child is not eligible for registration. This means that the repercussions affect mothers of unrecognized children covered by subsection 6(2).
Once again, we must refer to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. My colleague Michèle Audette testified about this in committee. Unfortunately, women and girls have suffered a great deal of violence and trauma as a result of these exclusion clauses, which have torn women away from their families and communities. I am talking about women, but this also happened to boys and men. It was decided overnight that they were no longer indigenous, that they no longer had any rights. They were deprived of their culture. They were deprived of their families. They were deprived of their language. They were asked to leave their communities.
Forcing women to identify a child's father does much the same thing. Once again, it was decided that certain children no longer had the right to be indigenous. We are asking that women no longer be required to identify the father.
I mentioned violence, but I could have said rape. Let us call it what it is. Cases of rape occur, and sometimes it is best not to identify the man for safety reasons. In some situations, unfortunately, the father's name is not even known. In any case, for women who are victims of violence, this is a violation of their charter right to security and dignity.
Another issue that was the subject of much debate, and that may also be debated in the House, was the whole question of officially recognizing and redressing the harm caused by the Indian Act. Each reform, whether it is Bill C-31 or Bill S-3, introduced a provision that excluded any possibility of compensation for victims of discrimination, and the same is true of Bill S-2. For women, the impact is much the same: loss of status, exclusion from the community, denial of socio-cultural rights, intergenerational trauma. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples calls for effective redress. Victims are entitled to redress under article 8, paragraph (2)(d).
Quebec Native Women is also asking for an official apology. They want redress, but the government needs to apologize for having systematically discriminated against indigenous women and indigenous peoples since time immemorial and into the present day. As I said, we cannot delude ourselves. Despite everything, whether Bill S-2 is amended or not, systemic discrimination continues to exist.
Before I wrap up, I would like to make a final point because I have a concern that I raised earlier today when I talked about the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs. The committee is currently conducting a study that talks about eligibility for registration, but more broadly than Bill S-2 does. I bring this up today, but obviously, the bill has not yet been referred to the committee for study. The fact remains that there is a lot of talk about consultation. There is talk of going on a cross-Canada tour to see if everyone agrees and if there are any other provisions that could be addressed.
Knowing that the bill is expected to come to us soon, I am concerned, as are all members of the committee. There is a deadline. The Supreme Court says that the matter must be resolved by April 26. Time is already short, but now we are hearing about possible consultations. I am afraid that will take too long. I think we also need to be clear, because all the stakeholders have called on us to take action on this. The situation is urgent. I spoke earlier about the year 2046 and then 2066. We see that rights are being extinguished among children, which means that indigenous communities themselves are being threatened. Considering how long consultation and implementation will take, these communities are truly at risk.
Obviously, there is the issue of the government's intentions. Does the government really want to move forward quickly? It can hold more consultations later. No problem there. It can move forward gradually, not too fast, but little by little. That is what it has been doing from the start anyway. First, we should pass the bill with the amendments proposed by the Senate. Then we can go on our tour. Furthermore, we know that thousands of people are still waiting to register. In terms of delays in the department's service standards, thousands of people have not obtained their status within the prescribed time limits. The situation could snowball. More resources are badly needed to address this situation, and more resources are needed for first nations too. The community is about to grow, but services and funding for first nations are already falling short of the mark. This will have to be done properly.
In closing, I would once again like to quote Chief Verreault-Paul and Quebec Native Women. I am using their words as my own. Representatives from Quebec Native Women said the following:
It is only by integrating [the Senate's amendments and their] amendments and providing communities with necessary resources that Canada will be able to definitively end legal assimilation policies and respect its commitments regarding human rights and reconciliation.
Chief Verreault-Paul said that first nations people have the inherent right to define their own people. He urged all members of Parliament to join forces to dismantle the colonial scaffolding of the Indian Act.
To conclude, I would say that the Bloc Québécois obviously agrees with putting an end to all of the federal government's systemic colonial practices, because we alone must decide our own identity.
