Garnett Genuis

[Commissioner for Modern Treaty Implementation Act, October 7th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, as we have seen for the last 10 years, the approach of the Liberals is to not address the issues. Conservatives have a plan and a vision that support strong indigenous nations that are developing economically, that control their own resources and that control their own futures. That is why our party is proud to have a growing presence among and representation from indigenous leaders who are excited about our agenda.

[Commissioner for Modern Treaty Implementation Act, October 7th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, it was about a year ago now that I was on a road trip across the country, mainly focused on meeting with people in different places on this indigenous procurement issue.

I had a chance to meet with the folks he mentioned in his riding, as well as with Winnipeg's Indigenous Chamber of Commerce and a number of educational institutions in western Canada.

This was a great opportunity to talk to people outside the national capital about the real impacts of various government policies in this regard. The economic reconciliation agenda is very important to indigenous peoples across this country. They want to see government policies that support economic development, prosperity and opportunity. Part of that issue is addressing the underlying economic challenges facing this country as a whole. If we are able to address those problems, we will all be better off, as well as if we clear up some of the abuses and problems in these programs that are supposed to benefit indigenous people but do not.

[Commissioner for Modern Treaty Implementation Act, October 7th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, those are great points from my colleague.

What happened with the former member for Edmonton Centre, the Liberal minister who pretended to be indigenous and was not, is part of a pattern of elite people in positions of privilege who say they are trying to help those who are disadvantaged. They then seek to fraudulently appropriate for themselves benefits that were supposed to be set aside for those disadvantaged communities.

It is really disgraceful, but it is what has happened under the Liberal indigenous procurement program. On the one hand, the government is saying it is setting aside benefits for indigenous peoples, and on the other hand, non-indigenous people connected to the government have appropriated those benefits for themselves, from taxpayers. This is what happened in that high-profile case.

That is not the only case. The Liberal indigenous procurement scandal is much larger than just that instance. We have had multiple instances of specific cases coming forward. We know the numbers overall. We are hearing from indigenous leadership that a majority of contracts under this program have gone to shell companies.

[Commissioner for Modern Treaty Implementation Act, October 7th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I agree that there are problems with Bill C-5. We are a responsible opposition. We tried to improve this situation.

However, the fundamental problem is that we need to improve the system for assessing projects. The Liberals created major obstacles that prevented projects from moving forward. Then they said that they wanted to introduce a bill to create special and unique circumstances for certain major projects.

We hope to be able to move a few more projects forward. However, at the end of the day, the system set out in Bill C-5 is not the solution. We need to put a new system in place that is clear, simple and fair to reduce barriers and allow projects to move forward.

[Commissioner for Modern Treaty Implementation Act, October 7th, 2025]

Zero. Wow.

Mr. Speaker, I want to recognize that the member was willing, in his comments, to highlight the importance of modern treaties, even though recognizing their importance is probably not in his partisan interest. We have five negotiated by the Conservatives and zero negotiated by the Liberal government.

The point is that we did not need a commissioner to get it done. We did not need an extra layer of bureaucracy to get it done; we just got it done.

[Commissioner for Modern Treaty Implementation Act, October 7th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for, perhaps unintentionally, recognizing the good work done by the previous government, that of former prime minister Stephen Harper.

The member said he believes that modern treaties are important and provide value. He will then appreciate the fact that five modern treaties were negotiated under former prime minister Stephen Harper.

I wonder if members could help me. How many modern treaties were negotiated under Justin Trudeau?

[Commissioner for Modern Treaty Implementation Act, October 7th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, a member is asking that I name the individual involved. There were at least two individuals involved, and it is fair to say both of them were named Randy.

The tragic and disgraceful case of the former Liberal minister from Edmonton Centre is notable, but it is also not the only case. The AFN told the government operations committee that, in its view, a majority of companies benefiting from this set-aside were actually shell companies. This explains well the virtue signalling over substance we see from the government when it comes to these issues.

On the one hand, the Liberals want to trumpet the fact that they are putting forward a target for indigenous procurement. On the other, they allowed well-connected Liberal friends who were not indigenous to pretend to be indigenous in order to access these contracts that were supposed to be set aside for indigenous people. What an utterly disgraceful mockery they have made of, I think, the good intentions of Canadians, who asked their government to try to undertake concrete policies that are going to create jobs and opportunity for indigenous peoples, moving forward with economic reconciliation.

They allow non-indigenous pretenders and shysters to benefit from contract set-asides that were supposed to be for indigenous people. At the government operations committee, we had a whistle-blower come and testify about a situation in which a clearly non-indigenous company, which basically had one indigenous employee, created this structure of a joint venture between this one individual and this larger company to try to make it look as though it was an indigenous joint venture. The indigenous person was clearly taken advantage of in this arrangement, but it allowed the non-indigenous company to access a significant number of government contracts under the guise of being part of an indigenous joint venture.

We had the whistle-blower, a former auditor, come before the government operations committee to testify about what happened in this case. Further, he testified that the government was not interested in hearing his feedback. In fact, he was gradually pushed out from being able to provide this feedback. Because of that, we were able to pass a motion at the government operations committee to further probe this particular case that this former auditor and whistle-blower was bringing to the attention of the committee. We had lined up a number of witnesses to hear from, including the company that was part of this joint venture, as well as giving an opportunity to this indigenous individual, who I think was taken advantage of in this arrangement. We had a plan to have this study, but, of course, the rest is history. The government prorogued Parliament, and then we went straight into an election. The Liberals tried to bury this issue of the Liberal indigenous procurement scandal in the ensuing months.

This is very important, and it is something we need to talk about. My understanding is that we will be hearing from the procurement ombud, as well as from the Auditor General, at some point in the next year about the Liberal indigenous procurement scandal. I certainly look forward to those reports. Unfortunately, I suspect that, as with many of the reports that have been done in the past, we will see the government ignore the results of these reports. It will be up to Canadians to look at the work done by the Auditor General and the procurement ombud and to respond to the fact that the Liberals, while sometimes talking a good game on reconciliation, have actually blocked economic development for indigenous people and allowed a situation in which non-indigenous fraudsters take advantage of these set-asides by taking contracts that were supposed to be set aside for indigenous people.

The Liberals have allowed this to happen. They have, at best, looked the other way in order to make it look as though their indigenous procurement numbers are better than they actually are. Canadians will see these reports and will be able to respond to this.

Meanwhile, the persistence of these scandals underlines just how ridiculous the government's approach is today. We have seen these scandals. They have been investigated. There have been auditors the Liberals have maligned and ignored, whistle-blowers needing to come to committee to talk about abuses of the Liberal indigenous procurement program, and now they are bringing a bill saying they are going to create one more commissioner.

How about they listen to the auditors who have already brought forward problems? How about they prepare to meditate deeply on what will no doubt be a damning report from the procurement ombud and from the Auditor General? How about they engage in a more substantive and serious way with the work of existing officers of Parliament, who are calling them out for corruption and abuse of process? How about, instead of focusing on trying to look good on these issues, the government take seriously the need for substantive policy change to catalyze economic development for indigenous peoples and for all Canadians? How about they focus on the results instead of on trying to continually send signals?

That is all Bill C-10 is. It would create an additional officer, an additional commissioner of Parliament, whom the government would no doubt ignore, instead of focusing on the real issues and the real solutions this country and indigenous people need.

[Commissioner for Modern Treaty Implementation Act, October 7th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to address the House this afternoon and join the debate on Bill C-10. I thank the member for Abbotsford—South Langley, who is covering for me at committee at the moment, for assisting me so that I could be here to address the House on this important legislation.

I want to acknowledge that today, October 7, is the sombre anniversary of the worst instance of anti-Semitic violence since the Holocaust. My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, and I cannot imagine what her response would have been, were she still alive, to the horrific images from that terrorist attack. The violence and the holding of hostages has continued since that day, and I add my voice to the many calling for the release of hostages and for Hamas to lay down its arms. I know that is not the topic of the bill before us, but I did want to mention it given what day it is.

Today, we are debating Bill C-10, a government bill purportedly dealing with issues of justice and reconciliation. The bill would not do that at all, and on that basis, we will be opposing it. I will explain both our opposition to the bill and why I think we should take a different approach.

Bill C-10 would add an additional bureaucratic system around adherence to modern treaties. It proposes to create an additional commissioner of Parliament who would assess and look at the government's response to modern treaties. I suppose the logic of the government here is that the only thing holding the Liberals back from fulfilling their promises is if there was just one more commissioner telling them to do the right thing.

As my colleagues have pointed out, there is always a multiplicity of reports from independent officers or commissioners of Parliament and from civil society highlighting the shortcomings of the government. The government could act on the many recommendations it has received for concretely improving the lives of indigenous peoples, but instead of taking the kind of concrete action that we and many others have proposed, the approach of the government is to say that maybe if we had one more commissioner, it would make all the difference.

I will also comment in response to, I believe, the member for Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, a new member who was making some outrageous claims about the Conservative Party's approach to what happened in residential schools. In fairness, he is a new member, but he could still read the history of what occurred and was said here prior to the time he was elected.

The member maybe does not know, although he could know, that it was Stephen Harper, a previous Conservative prime minister, who apologized officially on behalf of the Government of Canada for what happened in residential schools. It is the Liberal Party that continues to acknowledge, honour and celebrate Liberal prime ministers, in their recent history, who were involved in the opening of residential schools.

Given the efforts of the member to try to make the issue of truth and reconciliation partisan, if he wants to talk about partisan differences when it comes to actions and steps, I am happy to educate him about partisan differences. It was a Conservative government that had the courage, vision and honour to give an apology when previous Liberal governments were unwilling to. We also set up the truth and reconciliation process. Many individuals, of course, were involved, but it was a process that began and took place under a Conservative government.

If the member is unaware of this country's history, I am happy to helpfully add to his knowledge by emphasizing the work that was done by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in that regard. Conservatives believe deeply in the importance of truth and reconciliation, and we are proud to recognize the role Prime Minister Harper played in that. I hope the member will come back during questions and comments to follow up on this point.

To get back to this legislation, this bill proposes to create another bureaucratic position, an officer position, in Parliament that would add to an existing group of oversight bodies that can look at the government's performance on these files. In our judgment, that would add additional bureaucracy when what the government needs to do is take the concrete steps that would improve the lives of indigenous people.

I want to drill into some of the actions that the government could consider that would be more concrete and meaningful. Before speaking in the House, I came from the human resources committee, where we are studying the critical issue of unemployment in this country. Youth unemployment is at 14.5%, and unemployment overall continues to climb. It is now at 7.1%. We are going to see new jobs numbers out this Friday, but we continue to see serious, worsening problems in unemployment, the continuation of a multi-year trend.

We know that unemployment challenges are particularly acute among indigenous Canadians. The Statistics Canada reports on unemployment do not include indigenous people living on reserves, but we know through various metrics that there are persistent challenges with indigenous unemployment in this country.

It is worth noting, as we think about that challenge, that indigenous people are more likely to live in rural and remote areas, proximate to the natural resource sector. While employment in the economy overall is substantially impacted by the kinds of policies that exist in the natural resource sector, employment for indigenous people is disproportionately impacted by policies that relate to natural resource development. This is precisely the testimony we heard this morning at committee: Indigenous people are represented in employment in natural resource development in much higher numbers than they are represented in employment in other sectors.

As Conservatives, we have championed, as part of a larger reconciliation agenda, the importance of economic reconciliation, that is, policies that provide indigenous people with access to employment opportunities. If we want policies that provide access to employment opportunities for indigenous people, they have to include sectors in which indigenous people are more likely to be employed, one of which is, substantially, natural resource development.

Policies from the Liberal government that have blocked at every turn the natural resource sector make it more difficult for indigenous people to find employment. Polices from the Liberal government that block natural resource development disproportionately affect indigenous people seeking employment. That is a reality. Some in the government, for ideological reasons, may say that it is worth it and is a price they are willing to pay, but I think they should acknowledge the disproportionate, negative impact of their anti-energy policies on indigenous people.

What we also heard just a few minutes ago at the human resources committee on the issue of resource development was an acknowledgement from experts that the tone and aesthetic from the Prime Minister's Office may have changed around the discussion of resources, but the substance has not changed. Although we hear words and sounds that are supposed to give the impression of more interest in resource development, the reality is that the policies have not changed. Energy companies looking to create jobs and opportunity here in Canada are asking for the necessary policy and regulatory changes that would unleash economic development and allow for the creation of additional economic opportunities for indigenous people, but the government has not only refused to make those changes but outright opposed them.

One obvious concrete example is the incredible economic opportunities that would be associated with the development of pipeline infrastructure connecting Alberta with export opportunities in northern B.C. We have seen instances of indigenous nations not only supporting but coming forward as proponents of these kinds of projects. They see the opportunities that would emerge from these kinds of developments.

However, the Liberals have persisted in their support for anti-energy Bill C-48, which prohibits exports of energy resources from B.C.'s north coast. Let us acknowledge an obvious reality that some people would like to pretend is not there but clearly is. There are ships off B.C.'s north coast that are carrying energy products; they are just not Canadian ships. There is an abundance of traffic in that region carrying products that could be exported from Canada.

There is no legal way of keeping trade in energy from being in that part of the ocean. It is just a question of whether Canada will benefit economically from the export of our resources, whether we will allow indigenous people who want to be part of those projects to benefit and whether the government will continue to keep its head in the sand and ignore these economic realities. Some of us are hearing from time to time about ostriches. There are certainly people in this House who have their heads in the sand when it comes to these realities of energy development, and they are the ones across the aisle.

The other thing I want to underline when it comes to measures that would improve the quality of life for indigenous peoples is that the government really needs to clean up the mess it has created in the indigenous procurement program. In the last Parliament, we saw the very directly prosecuted issue of the Liberal indigenous procurement scandal.

This is the way the scandal has worked. The government put in place a target for indigenous procurement. It said that it wanted 5% of government procurement to come from indigenous businesses. There are existing organizations supporting and recognizing indigenous businesses, and there are a number of lists and entities outside of government connected with indigenous entities that are working on maintaining lists of indigenous businesses and providing supports to them. The government chose, instead of effectively engaging with external organizations on indigenous business identification, that it would create its own list of indigenous businesses, and it turned out that some businesses listed as indigenous businesses by the Liberal government were not on the indigenous business lists of any external organization.

If the Liberals say that a particular business is an indigenous business and no indigenous entity outside of government says it is an indigenous business, I would suggest there might be some red flags there. Hypothetically, if one of those businesses was owned by a minister of the Crown who was not indigenous, that would also be a red flag.

[Petitions, October 7th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, the last petition I will table highlights the severe challenges faced by the Hazara people in Afghanistan. The Hazaras have faces multiple genocides and waves of persecution as an often religious and certainly ethnic minority in Afghanistan. Their condition is very threatened under the Taliban at present.

The petitioners draw the attention of the House to the sacrifice and investment of Canadians in building up Afghanistan and the collaborations that existed, during Canada's presence there, with many people from the Hazara community. The petitioners want to see the Government of Canada recognize past acts of genocide against the Hazara people and to designate September 25 as Hazara genocide memorial day.

[Petitions, October 7th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, the next petition also deals with the issue of euthanasia. In particular, it highlights concerns from the disability community that proposals for the expansion of euthanasia and the existing track 2 system really undermine the experience of people with disabilities when they access the health care system and that offering medical assistance in dying as a solution for disability or chronic illness reduces incentives to improve treatment and care for people with those conditions.

The petitioners want to see the House protect all Canadians whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable by prohibiting medical assistance in dying for those whose prognosis for natural death is more than six months.