Charlie Angus

[Business of Supply, September 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I was a little surprised when I heard my hon. colleague talking about how the government respects the jurisdiction of the court, when last week the Minister of Justice filed a motion in Ontario Superior Court to overturn a decision by Justice Perell regarding the payment of compensation to a residential school survivor in Spanish, Ontario.

We remember when the Prime Minister made a solemn promise that his government would stop fighting indigenous families and survivors in court, but it has applied the same brass knuckles principle.

Justice Perell of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found what he called a “perverse” misapplication of justice for a boy who was raped by a priest. Nobody argued that, but he could not remember the date he was raped, and Justice Perell ordered compensation.

To have the Minister of Justice, whom I do not hear very often speak on any of the issues under her watch, undermine the Prime Minister and use her authority to challenge an Ontario Superior Court over a payment to a victim of rape in a residential school I find absolutely shocking.

I ask my colleague how that government can say it represents anything decent and different from the last government if the Minister of Justice uses her powers to fight residential school survivors over such horrific acts they were subjected to.

I would like to hear an answer as to why the Liberals are using the courts to fight the survivors.

[Business of Supply, September 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it has been absolutely fascinating. It is like looking at one of those funhouse mirrors. It starts out looking like a coherent picture and then gets more distorted as we look at the record.

The former government had a justice minister, former member Peter MacKay, who had more recalls than the Ford Pinto. He fought and gnashed his teeth at the Supreme Court. The mandatory minimums got struck down. Prostitution got struck down. The Tsilhqot'in First Nation, which it fought all the way, got struck down. Senate reform got struck down. Then there was its attempt to interfere on the nomination for the Quebec seat, Marc Nadon, who was not even technically eligible to sit, and Stephen Harper decided to pick a public fight with a Supreme Court justice.

Therefore, when I hear my hon. colleague say that it is about respect for the institutions, I am a little flabbergasted. I am sure people are having a great laugh at the Tim Hortons back home. However, as a credible line of argument, my friend has to give us a little more to work with.

[Business of Supply, September 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court of Canada appointments process must be transparent and credible. There exists an obligation to ensure regional and official language representation. There is also another very important issue: aboriginal communities' lack of confidence in provincial and federal courts.

How will the government commit to earning aboriginal communities' trust in the Supreme Court?

[Indigenous Affairs, September 21st, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am deeply concerned that the justice minister is going to ground on her obligation on the duty to consult and whether or not she believes the government is running roughshod over aboriginal rights with Site C. Her silence suggests that either she, as the justice minister of Canada, like the Liberal member for Winnipeg Centre, does not agree with her own government or she has changed her mind. Either way, it is her duty, as justice minister, to stand in this House and tell us, if she has done the due diligence, whether or not that Site C dam runs roughshod over aboriginal rights and the duty to consult. It is a simple question.

[Indigenous Affairs, September 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I guess I have to say what it looks like on the ground. We hear all these slogans and numbers, but the reality is that the government is taking the approach of fighting families that are being denied their medical rights. It was the minister who decided she would rather fight a family in court that needed emergency orthodontic treatment. The minister decided it was worth spending three to four times the amount on lawyers than providing the children their medical needs.

This is not a new relationship. This is a very old one. This is the old relationship that has damaged Canada since before Confederation. The fact that the government is not in compliance with the Human Rights Tribunal, that it can say that it will throw money into this program and that program, that is the colonial attitude of Indian affairs and Health Canada. They figure as long as they create some program that will have a sunset in a year or two, they do not have to face the fact that the needs of children are still being denied, on child welfare, on education, and on health. The Human Rights Tribunal says that it is racist, system discrimination. It has to stop.

[Indigenous Affairs, September 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am always proud to rise in the House, but I am certainly not proud to have to talk tonight about the fact that since January 2015, the Government of Canada has been found to be guilty of systemic racist discrimination against indigenous children. It is a black mark on everything this nation stands for, that the current government has continued to deny its obligation to respond. We have now had two compliance orders issued by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that the current government is ignoring.

What does this denial of services, this discrimination, mean?

I think of the seven youth from Thunder Bay who were found dead in the rivers of Thunder Bay when they had to leave home at age 13 to go to school because they did not have schools in their communities. The government sent a bureaucrat to say under oath that the government did not think there were any shortfalls in education for indigenous youth.

I think of the youth who are being denied audiology treatments because the bureaucrats will save money. I think of the children who died in Treaty 9 from basic childhood illnesses because the government would not bother to provide medical care for them.

I think of the mother who said to me that she wanted to know where her babies were at night. They say that a nation cannot be defeated until the hearts of its women are on the ground, and yet in indigenous communities across this country, there are more children being taken away from their parents and their mothers right now than at the height of the residential schools.

We will hear from the government that, yes, they are putting money in, that they are putting a record amount of money into child welfare. The government is $130 million short this year. The Liberals decided they could shortchange the children.

They said they would close that funding gap in education. Not a dime has flowed. Guess what? The school year has started. The Liberals promised $50 million this year for post-secondary education for indigenous children. They broke that promise.

The Liberals say they are going to give a record amount of money based on Jordan's Principle, but they do not tell us that this will not include most children in this country. Here I would mention, for example, the young Cree girl who was denied emergency orthodontic surgery. We asked the government to look into that case, and we found out what the denial rate was. There was a 99% denial rate for indigenous children needing emergency orthodontic surgery. Can someone on that side stand up and tell me that is not systemic racist discrimination?

What I find most shocking is that we have a Prime Minister who has named himself the minister of youth and said that this is the most important relationship in this nation to repair, but he decided that he can shortchange indigenous children this year, next year, and the year after. The Liberals were not going to shortchange the upper middle class when they gave them the tax breaks. That money flowed right away.

We have a government that is continuing to play games with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. It is continuing to play games with Cindy Blackstock.

We have children who are continuing to die. In my region, there were 700-plus suicide attempts in about four communities since 2009. It is because those children are regularly denied access to mental health services. They are regularly denied the ability to get out to get treatment. They are left on their own. What kind of nation thinks it can squander its children?

What is it going to take to have the government admit that it needs to comply with the decisions of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and end this?

The cheapest and simplest of all the promises the Prime Minister makes would be to meet the needs of these children. The Liberals need to do it, and I am asking them to commit to doing that tonight.

[Indigenous Affairs, September 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, what about the silence over there from the justice minister? I remember when she was a passionate defender of indigenous rights against Site C, when she said that it would damage Canada's international reputation and that it ran roughshod over aboriginal title; but now that she has the legal responsibility to protect indigenous rights, she has gone to ground, she is sitting there smiling away. Where is the moral courage?

I would like her to stand up and tell indigenous Canada if she still believes Site C project approvals run roughshod over aboriginal title, yes or no. It is a simple request.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 19th, 2016]

With respect to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement: (a) what is the number of appeals for decisions and what is the rate of success for these appeals, broken down by year and region; (b) how many cases have been re-opened and how many of these have been successful; and (c) with regard to the monitoring and reporting by the government of financial commitments of the Catholic Church, (i) how much of the $29 million in cash donations owed was given to the survivors, (ii) how much of the $25 million dollars that was supposed to be fundraised, was fundraised, and of that money how much was donated to the survivors, (iii) what was the line by line account for the $25 million of in kind donations, (iv) how much of the total compensation owed was not distributed to survivors, as it was considered an expense, legal cost, or administrative fee of the Church, (v) did government lawyers negotiate with other churches in order to waive their legal obligations, and, if so, when did these negotiations occur?

[Indigenous Affairs, September 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the current government has ignored two compliance orders by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to end systemic racist discrimination against indigenous children. That Minister of Health was asked to end the systemic denials of emergency orthodontic surgery that run at denial rates of 99%. Instead, she has decided to spend more money fighting these families in court than the surgeries would cost.

We are talking about a moral and legal obligation to children. Can the minister explain why she would rather spend the money on lawyers than on responding to the emergency needs of indigenous children who are being denied their rights?

[Indigenous Affairs, June 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health has yet to explain why it is okay for her officials to interfere with doctor treatments for indigenous patients. We have a brutal suicide crisis across this country, yet her department routinely denies psychiatric prescriptions for new drugs to deal with depression, anti-psychotic behaviour, and suicide. In fact, the department will force patients to go through two failed trial periods with out-of-date drugs before they will accept the doctor's diagnosis. It is putting people's lives at risk.

Will the minister take responsibility for her office, and end this discriminatory and dangerous practice?