Christine Moore

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, that has nothing to do with the issue at hand, but since the hon. member asked, I will tell her.

I served from 2002 to 2006. It was toward the end of the Liberal's run after a decade of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. I can say that there was massive disinvestment in the armed forces. We regularly ran into problems such as finding boots in the right size.

Training was done with pathetic equipment. It was totally ridiculous. Training was not adapted to the new combat reality.

I am listening to the Liberal members talking, but I experienced the end of the Liberal reign when they were rather callous about the equipment and appropriate training.

In my opinion, mistakes were made in the funding of our armed forces in the past. We must move forward. I cannot say who in particular made the most mistakes.

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy that I never served with the member opposite.

I am not the one who said those things. It was the Prime Minister. He is the one who said that veterans were asking for more than the government could give. Those are his words. He said them on camera.

Why can I not say that he disrespected veterans, when he was caught on video doing so at a town hall? I did not force him to say that. The Prime Minister said it. He has to take responsibility for what he said, which was not respectful to veterans.

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, one is not being respectful if one breaks one's promises. If the Prime Minister did not intend to do what he said he was going to do, then he should simply not have said it. It is simple. He simply should not have looked people in the eye and lied as he promised to do something that he was not going to do. He is not even trying right now. That is the problem. It is disrespectful. If the Liberals are not going to do what they said they were going to, then they simply should not have said they would do it in the first place. That way they would not create false expectations.

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on this subject.

I had the opportunity to serve in the Canadian Armed Forces from 2002 to 2006. I then chose to serve my country in another way by becoming a member of Parliament, but I will always remember what I did. I will also remember the friends I made, the conversations we had, and their daily struggles. Even though I am now an MP, I am still close to them because the experience we shared in the armed forces is hard to explain to people who have not gone through it. If we take the time to listen to veterans and understand their reality, we can put forward measures that really work for them.

I would like to talk about some of the symbols of the armed forces because we sometimes forget what they signify. One of the symbols people tend to associate with the military is identification tags. Few people really know what they mean. Soldiers' names and serial numbers are stamped on dog tags because there is a risk they could die in an explosion or under other circumstances in which a plastic identification card would be destroyed.

The person's religion is also stamped on the tag because things can happen very fast and religious rites sometimes have to be administered before death. If a soldier cannot tell anyone what faith they belong to, that information can be found on the tag. Finally, the tag includes the person's blood type because there is not always time to test for that when an urgent transfusion is needed.

Mr. Speaker, do you know of many jobs where the worker needs to wear a metal tag so they can be identified in case they die in an explosion, since a plastic ID card would be destroyed?

Are there any other jobs where the worker's blood type has to be engraved on their identification tag in case they are seriously injured and need a blood transfusion in a combat situation?

Are there any other jobs where the worker's religious affiliation has to be engraved on their identification tag so their wishes can be honoured in case they die?

I do not know of any other job where people voluntarily expose themselves to so many dangers. Death is not the only danger. There is also the possibility of losing a part of themselves. When a soldier goes out on the battlefield, they know that they will never be the same. They know that what they are going to experience and learn will change them for life. When they joined the forces, some people were well aware that their mental health could be affected. However, they believed that it was important to have people doing this job. It takes people who are capable of handling what comes with the job. Not everyone can handle it, but it is absolutely essential to have people who are prepared to defend themselves.

If these people had not fought, we would not have the society and the rights we have today, and we would not have been protected as we were. I could not have raised my children the way I have been doing. I might not even have been born. Given how much our soldiers are affected, we have no choice but to recognize the value of what they do for our society.

The Prime Minister made a clear, specific promise that members of the military would no longer have to fight the government. The Prime Minister himself said this. It was in the Liberals' election platform; they said it themselves. However, now they are telling veterans that they are asking for more than we can give them. This response is completely unacceptable.

Veterans have given more than they felt capable of giving. Some of them never thought they were capable of doing certain things and yet they managed to do them for this country. They fought for freedom. They gave more than they were able to give, and the government is refusing to give them what they deserve.

I have seen veterans walking around with binders filled to the brim with such papers as military records and correspondence. Is it normal for veterans to need four or five two-inch binders to carry their military records just to get the compensation they are entitled to? These people learned how to fight. I am sure that most of them, even if they left the armed forces 20 years ago, would still be able to disassemble and reassemble a weapon, blindfolded, in less than five minutes. However, they are now being told to do something they have never been trained for. They are being told that they are going to fight the government, and that they will go crazy trying to figure out how we can fail so badly at taking care of people. They will be left to wait in limbo for months before they know what is going on, and they will not be able to move forward.

It is important to understand that these people have been trained to react to situations quickly and adapt plans and strategies accordingly. Now they are being forced to wait for months before finding out what is going to happen. During that time, they cannot make a plan. Waiting alone is intolerable, especially for people who are used to taking action, reacting to situations, and devising alternate strategies. They are being subjected to endless delays.

We keep hearing about ridiculous situations. For example, a veteran whose leg was amputated was asked if he is still injured. Legs do not grow back. Is there any need to ask a veteran with an amputated limb to confirm that the limb is still amputated because it has been three years since anyone checked in? This kind of thing happens all the time, and it is ridiculous. We need to put an end to this excessive red tape. We need a more human approach at Veterans Affairs.

The government's treatment of veterans is not about funding; it is about behaviour. When the government talks about how much money was invested in a given year, it is not really talking about actions taken or how veterans are being treated. When the government gets stuck on numbers, does that do anything to help veterans? No. When people's files are thousands of pages thick and they are about to lose their homes and Veterans Affairs is making them wait, that is not respectful.

We should take a different approach from the very beginning and ask veterans what we can do to help them. We need to be much more proactive and show them the same respect they showed when they were asked to go into battle and they agreed, asking merely what they could do to help their country and promising to do their very best. The government, meanwhile, is doing the exact opposite. I am outraged that Veterans Affairs is questioning the connection between a back injury suffered by a soldier with 30 years of experience in the infantry and military service. That individual spent most of his life, 30 years, walking around with 80 pounds of equipment on his back, not counting his weapons and ammunition, and then the department has the nerve to claim that his injury has nothing to do with his military service. What is wrong with this picture?

We need to refocus the debate. The Prime Minister made some promises and he has an obligation to keep them. His promises are not just about the numbers. This is about the government's attitude towards veterans.

We need to examine how we act towards veterans, how we treat them, and how we respect them by addressing their problems. Once we change that, we can really move things forward for our veterans.

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know if today's debate is about the promise the government has made to veterans or if it is about what has been done badly in the last 50 years by different governments? Are we looking for action for the future? Are we looking at the promises a government has made, or are we looking at everything that has gone badly in the last 50 years and not looking to the future for our veterans?

[Doris Nolet, February 7th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, a number of brave women are working hard every day across the country to break the glass ceiling in male-dominated fields that still, in 2018, are not welcoming to women.

Fortunately, we have determined and inspiring women like Doris Nolet, of Normétal. She is barely five feet tall, and she knew she wanted to be a firefighter back in 1986. She had to wait until 2004 to be accepted to her city's fire department.

Today, thanks to her determination and perseverance, Doris Nolet is the new fire chief of the 21 volunteer firefighters in Normétal. This is a source of pride and quite an achievement, if you consider that fewer than 3% of Canadian firefighters are women.

Volunteer firefighters are needed to keep our communities safe, and the staffing shortage could be resolved in part by bringing in female firefighters and better legislative protection for all of these volunteers.

Congratulations and thank you, Doris, for showing young girls that they can become firefighters and fire chiefs.

[Business of Supply, February 6th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, would it have been helpful for the commissioner to have had the authority to require the direct repayment of the expenses and to levy fines in the case of an inappropriate or illegal act?

[Business of Supply, February 6th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I find it funny to hear Liberal members say that this is not an important issue.

It is important to understand that the issue is not just about the vacations on the Aga Khan’s island. The issue is whether the Prime Minister has good judgment. There have been several incidents, particularly the cash for access fundraisers, the visit of the Aga Khan, and several bills where the government ignored what it had campaigned on. The number of incidents that have people convinced that the Prime Minister lacks judgment keeps on growing. This is particularly concerning.

I would like to know if my colleague thinks that determining whether the Prime Minister has good judgment is an important issue. When I hear him say that there is not enough money for veterans, I have serious doubts about his judgment. Unfortunately, some people in my riding, perhaps even some who wanted to vote for the Liberal Party, are wondering what is going on.

Does my colleague also think that this is a much larger issue than the vacations on the Aga Khan’s island? Does he think that the Prime Minister’s ability to exercise judgment and the trust that Canadians place in the Prime Minister to do his job are a part of it?

[Anishinabek Nation Education Agreement Act, December 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real honour for me to rise and speak to this bill, because I was born in Anishinabek territory, I grew up there, and I am now raising my children there. It is part of my life.

Too often, we forget that indigenous territories do not match up with the borders that we drew. The territories were not established based on the borders. They were established based on waterways and means of communication. Many nations share an ancestral territory that often spans two Canadian provinces. We cannot lose sight of this.

This is why we need to recognize the history of Anishinabek communities and of all indigenous communities.

The bill we have in front of us was a long time in coming. In 1995 the Anishinabek Nation chiefs, in assembly, mandated the restoration of educational jurisdiction with the Union of Ontario Indians to lead the self-government negotiations with Canada to restore jurisdiction over education.

The Anishinabek people have been working on this issue for more than 20 years, day after day, to gain control of their education system. It has involved about 90 members of the community since the negotiations began. It was supported by many elders, many of whom will not see the agreement put in place. This agreement reflected the vision of a number of Anishinabek members that pushed forward to regain control over the education of young children and teenagers.

It is important to remember what the bill is designed for. Chief Shining Turtle of Whitefish River First Nation explained:

The AES is designed by Anishinabek for Anishinabek and strives to ensure a quality of life based on the highest standards of Anishinaabe intellectual and holistic knowledge that supports the preservation and on-going development of the Anishinaabe. The AES will make positive advances in the development of culturally relevant curriculum and educational programs that support the Anishinabek student success and well-being.

The Anishinabek Nation Education Agreement (AES) is a concrete step on the path to self-determination and self-governance. Our hope is that your government will continue making foundational changes to laws, policies, and operational practices based on the recognition of rights to advance self-determination and self-government.

The AES sets the stage for the Participating First Nations to develop culturally relevant and community-tailored education programs for the benefit of the Anishinabek students today, tomorrow, and for generations to come. We need to set the stage and realize our vision of the AES.

This is important because at times we do not realize how broad education is. We often think of language as the first thing to be implemented. However, I am sure that the language of the Anishinabek is not taught in school. We must realize that this language is threatened and disappearing daily. There are a number of people in Anishinabek communities who are fighting to keep it alive, and striving to educate children and youth in their own language. It is an important part of education.

Language is so important. It makes a community come alive. This bill will certainly help the language be passed on. However, education is a much broader issue. It affects many other subjects, including the arts. Young people will have the opportunity to learn traditional arts, indigenous art, and Anishinabek art in their schools, which they could not do if we still had school boards that were not run by the communities. They would become responsible for education.

The young kids would learn art, but maybe they would also be able to learn music, the drums, and the traditional music of Anishinabek Nation. Instead of just teaching music as usual in the schools, they would able to really show their kids what music means for this nation. I think that is really great.

We would also be able to teach geography in a different way. The kids would be able to learn which nation was on which land, instead of just learning the geography that we learn after colonization.

There are a number of things that, by just giving back the power to the Anishinabek of their own education, would be improved in our schools. The way of thinking in school would be much different. I had the chance to go to an opening of a school in my riding of an Anishinabek first nation, the Long Point First Nation. Just the way the school was built is totally different from what we have seen before, because we gave the power back to those communities to think about what they want, and what they want to see in terms of education.

There are a number of other things that could be different. There are a number of other notions that I think Anishinabek kids want to learn. They want to learn about traditional plants, when we are talking about ecology, and what they can eat, and what nature can give to them. There is knowledge that is traditional, that the elders have, and they would be able to pass that on to those little kids.

With this agreement, I think it would achieve good experiences. Those experiences would be able to translate to other schools, for example, to Anishinabek schools in the province of Quebec. A lot of them are in my riding. Those experiences would be able to expand to other Anishinabek nations that are not in the agreement.

That is why we have to consider that with that agreement, every Anishinabek community would win something although they are not all part of the agreement, because they are not situated in Ontario, I think they would win something from this agreement. This agreement is supposed to take place, if everything is going well in the House, on April 1. Next school year, this would be ready. The kids would have control of their education, with the elders and the other members of their communities.

It would be those communities that would empower themselves, and that would be there for the children. We have to remember how difficult it is for kids on the reservation. A number of kids drop out of school. It is really difficult. There is a high rate of teen pregnancy. It is not easy.

Having an agreement like this, there is a good chance that more and more kids would finish school and graduate from high school, because the school would have something for them. There is also a good chance that young girls would find a way to manage their pregnancies and becoming mothers, while continuing their studies.

First nations control of first nations education is basic. It is a way of reconciliation. It is a way of self-determination for people who were here a long time before us.

Through this path of reconciliation, I hope that every kid will be able to learn about his past, how the Anishinabek Nation has evolved over time. They will be able to learn what was sad in their history, but also what makes them a great nation, a strong nation that has resisted a number of threats for many years. They will learn that they can be proud.

[Anishinabek Nation Education Agreement Act, December 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the groundwork for this agreement was laid 22 years ago in 1995. Given the work the minister has done on this agreement, I would like to know whether she now has a plan to finalize such agreements faster and to ensure that other communities have access to an approach that enables them to achieve self-government faster and more efficiently.