Madam Speaker, I am very honoured to rise in this House for this extremely important discussion, and I want to thank my hon. colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke for the excellent work he has done on this. These are very difficult questions, and I am glad I was not the point person to have to do the heavy lifting. My colleague and I may not always agree on all the points, but I respect his incredible integrity.
I point out he comes from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, which is the classic way that English people have misrepresented the first nation languages. It is worth pointing out, because one thing that really struck me as a concern in Bill C-7 was the fact that we are dealing with a Quebec court decision that came very shortly after we brought in legislation the first time.
One thing I found with the previous government, and definitely with the current government, is the fact that if there was a first nations case, they would appeal. In fact, I do not ever remember the government not appealing a court decision about a first nation. However, with this ruling we had to rewrite the law of the land. I understand we are on a deadline, but it would have been reasonable, given the complexity of the issue, for us to seek clarification from the courts to make sure the courts had interpreted this properly and then brought it back to us. It is something I find concerning.
I am again going to do a bit of a comparison, which is a standard form of parliamentary debate, between two options. One option is the issue of Bill C-7 and the other option is, say, a first nations issue. Let us say it is that of the St. Anne's residential school survivors. The government has just admitted it spent $3.2 million in court fees fighting against the rights of people who have suffered some of the most horrific abuses ever recorded in Canada, such as child rape, forced abortions on children and torture done for the kicks of the staff at St. Anne's, who were electrocuting children.
This is all documented. In fact, it was documented in 10,000 to 12,000 pages of police evidence gathered by the excellent work of the OPP and brought to court. The federal government obtained all that evidence, and under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, it was obligated to do two things as the defendant. It was obligated to prepare a list of the history of abuse that happened in the residential schools, and then obligated to present all the evidence.
In the case of St. Anne's, the government decided to lie and said there was no history of abuse at St. Anne's residential school. It also said there were no records showing any abuse. Meanwhile, it was sitting on 10,000 pages of police and witness testimony that named some of the most powerful church people in the land. Father Arthur Lavoie, Bishop Leguerrier and Bishop Belleau were all named, along with all manner of other abusers.
This was really important because this started under a previous government, when Peter MacKay was the justice minister and Bernard Valcourt was here. I know members are going to wonder how this relates to the issue here. Under Bill C-7, some of the Conservatives are talking about a fear of creating two tracks of justice: a set of justice for one set of citizens and a lower set of justice for other people.
I am not convinced of the Conservatives' arguments on Bill C-7, although I have thought a lot about whether they have actually met the test of creating two tiers of justice. Anyone could look at Canada for two examples of injustice. We could look at, say, middle-class white people in St. Paul's, Toronto. What is their standard of justice and receiving justice in the courts compared with that of any indigenous person in the country? I think we would all agree that we certainly have two tiers of justice.
We had that with St. Anne's. When I approached former minister Valcourt about the documents, he said he had no obligation to turn over documents, when he did. This set the really ugly issue in motion. When the Liberal government came in, we thought it would fix this and it did not. In fact, it hunkered down.
The government paid $3.2 million, under the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, to go after the survivors of St. Anne's, who had their cases thrown out because the government lawyers lied in hearings. At the bottom of the Order Paper question, it says the Government of Canada prefers negotiation to settle these. I would agree.
In fact, on November 26, in a Timmins Today article, Christina Tricomi, from the minister's department, said, “The Government of Canada remains committed to negotiating a resolution outside of the courts”. Of course we would expect this to be the government's position, but that is not true. In fact, I have a letter here dated October 15, 2020, from the law firm of Dionne Schulze, asking the government to sit down and negotiate a solution. The government said no; it would meet them in court.
Elders Without Borders, representing Edmund Metatawabin, Evelyn Korkmaz and other St. Anne's survivors, asked the government to sit down and finally end this. The government lawyers said no; they would meet them in court. Also, on December 1, 2020, lawyers from Dionne Schulze wrote to Catherine Coughlan at the justice minister's office asking her to please go to the case management settlement so they could talk about finding a solution.
To go back to Bill C-7, we are talking about two standards of justice. One of the standards of justice in the country is that lawyers are legally obligated under their professional conduct rules to find a way out. It is a lawyer's ethical duty to “compromise or settle a dispute whenever it is possible to do so on a reasonable basis, and...discourage the client from commencing or continuing useless legal proceedings.”
How useless are these legal proceedings?
In Ontario's Superior Court, where the government continues to lose against St. Anne's, the attorney general for Doug Ford's government came forward to support the survivors of St. Anne's, while the minister, who represents the riding of Toronto—St. Paul's, sent her lawyers to fight them. The Ontario attorney general agreed that these were cruel and unusual tactics. Under their professional obligations, lawyers are called to find a solution, and we had the survivors asking for solutions.
I remember talking to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and begging her to meet with the survivors and end this vicious, vindictive campaign again them, and she met with them. I was there as the survivors cried. The survivors said they just want to settle and meet with the government, and the minister promised this. The next day, they were back in court.
Angela Shisheesh, a powerful survivor, addressed this. I will quote her, and I am not making this up. On APTN, June 18, 2018, she said, “She lied to me, literally. She lied to me. It hurts. It’s just another abuse”. This is about the survivors of St. Anne's and the abuse they have seen under the current government. They talk about the re-abuse they have suffered in having to come forward to talk about the horrific crimes they suffered and in being told by lawyers that they are making it up and there is no evidence.
I go back to Bill C-7 and the Truchon decision. The government seems to have gone further than the Truchon decision, so let us do a comparison. Let us talk about St. Anne's.
Under the obligations that were ordered on January 14, 2014, the government had to bring forward the person of interest reports on the perpetrators of the child crimes. It was obligated to do that. It was ordered again in January 2015 to do that and it refused. The Government of Canada decided to protect the perpetrators.
What does that mean? For Father Arthur Lavoie, the government provided a two-page report, when in fact it was sitting on 2,472 pages of crimes against children. It had a case thrown out, case H-15019. The subject was a victim of horrific child rape, and the government decided to fight this survivor all the way from Ontario hearings to the B.C. Superior Court to shut down his right to just get justice. The only crime he committed was being an indigenous child.
When we talked to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, she said she would make it right and call Edmund Metatawabin, the leader. The only time she ever called him was to force him to testify on the stand for her lawyers. This man is a Governor General's award winner. When we talk in Bill C-7 about two tracks of justice, I ask if anyone can imagine a Governor General's award winner from downtown Toronto being hauled to court by the minister and forced to testify over the fact that he spoke up against horrific child abuse, rape, electric torture and the abuse of children at St. Anne's that still hangs out like a dark cloud.
I know members are asking why we are talking about comparisons on a bill like this on a day like this. It is because once—
