Gary Anandasangaree

[The Budget, February 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things I find difficult to address is the issue of infrastructure within indigenous communities. In Canada today, in 2018, we are talking about not having a single community with a boil water advisory. Unfortunately, there are a lot of gaps in a lot of areas, including housing where we are behind.

This budget and previous budgets are attempts to close the gap, but we still have a long to go. I agree with my friend that we will have to get there, but there is still a long way to go. However, these are very important foundational pieces.

[The Budget, February 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we can look at deficits in a number of ways. I look at this as a social deficit that we have had in our country for a number of years. In fact, if we look at the OECD statistics, Canada ranks sixth with respect to social indicators. If we superimpose that with our indigenous population, that rank goes to a staggering and embarrassing 63rd on the list. We are trying to address in part that social deficit with this budget and previous budgets.

With respect to the fiscal deficit my friend talks about, we are walking toward the downward trajectory with respect to the debt to GDP ratio. We are on a very responsible track that balances social needs with economic reality. We have one of the most robust economies in the G7 right now. We have the lowest unemployment rate in 40 years. We have created 600,000 jobs since taking office.

We are on the right track toward addressing social and economic deficits.

[The Budget, February 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today to speak about our vision put forward by our Minister of Finance for budget 2018, equality and growth. I want to first acknowledge that we are gathered here on the traditional unceded lands of the Algonquin people. I want to take this opportunity as well to tell our colleague from Scarborough Centre and her husband Salman Zahid and her boys that we are praying for her recovery and that we are confident that she will be back here very soon.

I want to thank the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister and our cabinet for their diligent and hard work in getting this budget out earlier this year than in previous years. There is so much in the budget I am unable to cover many of the aspects I want to cover, but I will focus on a number of key areas.

About six years ago, I had the chance to sit down with the member for Papineau at that time, who was running for leader of the Liberal Party, and we had a very important conversation about the concept of rights. We talked about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and what that means. As part of the conversation, the aspiring leader at that time said that if the 20th century was about defining rights, the 21st century is about giving life to those rights.

As members know, this is the 70th year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and we have the 36th year of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We did a fairly good job in defining what those rights were and in fact I would even argue that we are in the process of defining them even further in these last few years, but we have seldom given life to those rights. By giving life, I mean giving substantive fiscal support in order to fulfill those rights. That is exactly what I believe our government has been doing since taking office in 2015, and that is probably the best way I can sum up where we are going.

The two programs that we have seen already, initially in budget 2015 and in our fall economic statement, relate to the Canada child benefit and the Canada workers benefit. They both have profound implications for my riding of Scarborough—Rouge Park. I will give a glimpse of the benefit that the Canada child benefit has for my riding. Last July alone, we had $5.754 million given to our families in Scarborough—Rouge Park. It is in fact $78 million in total last year, which is an astounding number. This benefits families directly in their ability to support their children, to be able to send them to hockey and soccer, to buy food, to buy clothes, and so on. For working people, our policies helped 300,000 Canadian children get out of poverty and that is a very impressive number. The Canada workers benefit has been a very important game-changer. It allows low-income earners while they work to be able to get out of poverty. This budget supports getting 70,000 people out of poverty. Those two benefits are important foundational measures that our government has done.

Let me address three major components of this budget.

First, with respect to women, in 2018 our government recognizes the importance of addressing the issues of gender equality and that it is not only a right but it makes absolute economic sense. We have heard the saying that a country cannot expect to reach its full potential with just half of its population, and that is more true now than ever.

Over the past 40 years, we have increased the participation of women, but they have accounted for only one-third of the economic growth within our country. Canada's women are among the world's most educated. They on average, however, only earn 87¢ on the dollar. This is why we are putting gender at the heart of decision-making in budget 2018. We are working to support women and girls and close the wage gap, policies that will boost economic growth for all Canadians. In budget 2018, we have chosen to lead by example, increasing transparency through pay equity legislation that will ensure all women in federally regulated sectors receive equal pay for work of equal value.

The new “use it or lose it” parental benefits, which provide an additional five weeks of EI parental benefits for primarily men, will again be a very important aspect of our budget.

These benefits will encourage the second parent to share more of the work of raising children and provide greater flexibility for women to return to work sooner, if they so choose.

We have also taken an ambitious step to make Status of Women Canada an official department, with additional funding of $169 million. This move will support our plan to introduce GBA+ legislation to make gender budgeting a permanent part of the federal budget-making process.

The women's entrepreneurship strategy will be coordinated nationally through an approach that will allow women to move up in the marketplace. The expansive program will include $33 million in funding for southern Ontario to support women entrepreneurs through the Federal Economic Development Agency of Southern Ontario.

This is just the beginning.

I want to address an issue that the House has dealt with a number of times and I have spoken on over the past two and a half years, and that is with respect to indigenous issues.

Recently, the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou introduced UNDRIP, legislation to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into Canadian law. It was augmented by a historic change in attitude and framing of the relationship between indigenous peoples and Canada by the recent announcement of our Prime Minister to move toward a recognition of a rights-based approach.

Our support this year for indigenous issues is in addition to the $11.8 billion that were part of the previous two budgets. In particular, this year we are setting aside $337 million for establishing a new fiscal relationship that will strengthen first nations institutions and community capacity to develop a self-government approach.

The department of indigenous affairs will get an additional $4 billion to address issues such as boil water advisories, first nations child welfare systems, and so on. This is a very important part of our move toward reconciliation, which is long overdue.

Foreign aid is a very important aspect of Canada's footprint in the world. We are known as one of the most humanitarian countries in the world. This past January, I had the opportunity to visit two important areas, where our aid has gone to support a number of initiatives. First I was in Sri Lanka and then Bangladesh to visit the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar.

Sri Lanka has just ended a 26-year war, has 90,000 Tamil women headed households, and there is a lack of opportunities for women to be in public spaces and offices. Our feminist approach toward foreign aid will assist in ensuring we are able to address some of those systemic barriers for women to take part in public offices.

Similarly, the situation in the Rohingya refugee camps is devastating. Women are the most affected by it. There were $37.5 million that came there from our government last year.

I hope the $2 billion historic investment we are making over the next five years toward foreign aid will support additional funding that will go toward women, not only in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, but to other areas where we can have transformational change in societies.

Budget 2018 is about equality and growth, and this is exactly what we are doing. We are reinforcing what the Prime Minister had said, which is to give life to the rights that we have acknowledged exist in our country through the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and elsewhere.

Over the next several years, our budget will ensure we build a more just and equitable society in Canada and around the world.

[Sri Lanka, February 27th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, during my visit to Sri Lanka in January, I met with many Tamil mothers whose loved ones surrendered to the Sri Lankan army during the last weeks of the war. These mothers and other family members are on a quest for answers and in desperate search to find their truth. Their stories are heart-wrenching. They have protested for over a year in the sweltering heat and dust, in makeshift tents on main roads in the north and east of the island. The Sri Lankan government has failed to give even the simplest of demands from the mothers, including a call to release the names of the missing persons. As Canadians, we hear their call for truth and justice.

Today, at the United Nations Human Rights Council, our Minister of Foreign Affairs called on the Sri Lankan government to undertake a process of accountability that will have the confidence of the victims of this war, including the families of the disappeared. We stand in solidarity with those who are seeking justice and accountability in Sri Lanka, and with the heroic mothers who continue to inspire and motivate us.

[Petitions, February 27th, 2018]

Second, Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition from Open Doors Canada. It is a petition that calls on the government to work with the UN to ensure equal rights protection for Christians and other minority groups in Syria.

[Petitions, February 27th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to present two petitions from my constituents.

The first petition is from the West Hill United Church first nations study group. This petition contains 240 signatures and calls upon our government to correct many historically rooted injustices of indigenous communities, most notably overcrowded housing, long-term boil water advisories, funding shortfalls in child welfare, as well as the high prevalence of suicide in first nations communities.

[Black History Month, February 6th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, as we celebrate Black History Month and the achievements of black Canadians, we must reflect on the enormous work that lies ahead.

Our Prime Minister acknowledged the need to address anti-black racism and discrimination, an issue that has systematically limited generations of black Canadians in reaching their fullest potential. This is, in part, why our government signed on to the International Decade for People of African Descent.

In Scarborough—Rouge Park, we will mark the occasion by honouring Bev Salmon, a trailblazer and a fierce advocate for the educational and social equity of racialized people. Ms. Salmon became the first black woman to serve as city councillor in North York, and then as metro councillor. She advocated for black history to be included in our curriculum, and served as the first black woman at the Ontario Human Rights Commission. For her exemplary service in our community, Ms. Salmon will receive the Order of Canada. She has fought against racism, inspired a generation of leaders, and made our country a better place.

[United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, February 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on the unceded and unsurrendered land of the Algonquin people to speak to Bill C-262, an act to ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

I want to first thank my dear friend from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou for his leadership in bringing forward Bill C-262. When we travelled together across the country for our work on the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee, we heard a great deal from many indigenous communities and leaders expressing support for the bill, and, in particular, Canada's acceptance of UNDRIP.

I want to thank and acknowledge our indigenous caucus, our Ministers of Justice, Crown-Indigenous Relations, and Indigenous Services, as well as their parliamentary secretaries.

For me, the starting point of this debate is the mere fact that many of our laws are not in line with, or respectful of, or even acknowledge indigenous peoples. As we concluded our 150th anniversary of Confederation, we had the opportunity to take stock of where we are and what this federation means to us. For many of us, Canada is a work in progress and full of paradoxes. Settlers to this land, including me and my family, have benefited from this land, its natural resources, and its laws. These laws have protected me, and in fact have given me safety and refuge. Millions of others, since the 1600s, share this experience.

Concurrently, and in the simplest of terms, these laws continue to limit the rights of our indigenous brothers and sisters, and in many cases continue to oppress them. In fact, the Indian Act, passed in 1876, remains one of the most regressive, racist, and colonial pieces of legislation in Canada's history, and I would dare say in world history. While many advances have taken place in the area of human rights, the regressive legislation and practices that hold our indigenous peoples back, in virtually every barometer of social development, are unacceptable.

On December 10, 2018, we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, yet during the first 35 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, very little progress has taken place relating to indigenous rights in Canada. The Constitution Act, 1982 enshrined section 35 rights for our first nations, Inuit, and Métis people. Asserting these rights over the past 35 years has led to some modest advances through a highly litigious process that has resulted in incremental changes.

Due to the work of so many indigenous leaders from Canada, including Chief Willie Littlechild, our friend from Abitibi—James Bay, and others, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the UN in 2007. Regrettably, the previous government failed to adopt it.

In 2016, our government accepted UNDRIP and, last spring, our Minister of Crown Indigenous Relations, along with many of our colleagues, went to the United Nations in New York on the 10th anniversary of UNDRIP to assert the unconditional support of the Canadian government for the declaration.

These pronouncements have been coupled with the following steps undertaken by our government: one, establishing the working group of ministers on the review of laws and policies and operations practices related to indigenous peoples; two, adopting and publicly releasing the 10 principles respecting the Government of Canada's relationship with indigenous peoples; three, creating three permanent, distinctions-based policy forums with the Assembly of First Nations, ITK, and the Métis National Council and its governing members; four, adopting new strategies for resolving disputes that prioritize negotiation over litigation; five, pursuing environmental assessment and indigenous languages legislative initiatives; and, six, establishing over 50 recognition of rights and self-determination tables.

These have been important and necessary steps toward reshaping how government engages and partners with indigenous peoples. That being said, our commitment to indigenous peoples will not be measured by individual steps taken but rather by a continuous and persistent effort to advancing reconciliation in a way that is transformative. As such, our government intends to build on these initial steps and continue down a path that will see relations shift based on the recognition of indigenous rights and self-determination.

The implementation of the UN declaration is an important part of this work. Bill C-262 calls for consistency between the standards set out in the UN declaration and federal laws, as well as a national action plan and reporting mechanisms to ensure its implementation. This is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's call to action no. 43, which calls upon our government to implement the UN declaration as a framework for reconciliation. Both call on our government to enact measures to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples and to ensure indigenous communities are able to thrive, socially, economically, and culturally. That is what reconciliation means.

As a starting point, our government understands that reconciliation is not possible without recognition. Indeed, recognition must occur before reconciliation can truly begin to manifest itself in the lives of indigenous peoples, and all Canadians, and in their relationships. This is why the fundamental next step is to address the legacy of denial that lies at the heart of federal laws and policies, and to replace it with the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples.

When we speak of recognition and implementation of rights, including historic and modern treaties, we mean what indigenous peoples have always meant by these terms, that rights are inherent, that they are grounded in the reality that indigenous peoples had systems of government and laws, and that they owned and used the lands which make up Canada prior to the arrival of Europeans.

The lack of recognition of rights and the patterns of relations based on denial of these rights have contributed to the unacceptable socio-economic indicators for indigenous peoples that were so starkly outlined by the Minister of Indigenous Services, in January, during the important emergency meeting on first nations, Inuit and Métis nation child and family services among governments, indigenous leaders and experts. These include life expectancy up to 15 years shorter for indigenous peoples than the rest of the population, infant mortality rates that are two to three times higher for first nations and Inuit, overdose deaths in Alberta and B.C. up to three times higher for first nations people, and Inuit tuberculosis rates that are 270 times higher than the rest of the population.

Implementing a framework for the recognition of rights is fundamental to closing the socio-economic gap; alleviating poverty; ending the scourge of youth suicide; building healthier families, communities, and nations; and ensuring that all generations of indigenous children to come will live in ever-increasing conditions of well-being, prosperity, and opportunity.

It is imperative that we, as a country, have a long overdue conversation about the recognition and implementation of indigenous rights, not only because of our constitutional obligation to recognize those rights, but because the social and economic gaps that continue to exist between indigenous and non-indigenous communities are a matter of national shame. Now is the time for action.

Both turning the tide and shifting our laws, policies, and operational practices to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples will require a range of measures, including legislative measures such as those set out in Bill C-262 as well as many more steps to come. This is entirely consistent with article 38 of the UN declaration, which recognizes that implementation requires governments to take a range of appropriate measures, including legislative ones, in consultation and co-operation with indigenous peoples to achieve the ends for this declaration.

For this reason, in addition to supporting Bill C-262, our government will continue to work with indigenous peoples to bring forward further legislative and policy shifts that effect a change to relations based on recognition and implementation of rights.

Indigenous peoples and their leaders and communities must necessarily be a part of effecting this shift. It is important to acknowledge that indigenous peoples have long advocated for the recognition of their rights here in Canada and internationally. Our government's commitment to renewing its relationship with indigenous peoples calls on us to hear and act on those calls at last.

We look forward to continuing our mutual co-operation and partnership. As I have stated, the many actions taken thus far do not represent the completion of our commitment but rather the start of an evolving and continued commitment to true reconciliation.

We are in the midst of an opportunity to build on current efforts, gather momentum, and to accelerate progress towards a better, more effective relationship. As the hon. member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou noted when Bill C-262 was discussed in this place in December, the work required to achieve objectives like reconciliation and the recognition of rights can only be achieved “if we all work together”.

Our government must and will be a leader in these efforts, as well as every first nation, Inuit, and Métis community and organization, and indeed all Canadians, including youth, women, and elders.

We look forward to continuing this important work in collaboration and co-operation with our colleagues, indigenous peoples, and all Canadians.

[International Human Rights Day, December 11th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to mark International Human Rights Day, a day to reflect on the enormous strides we have made in advancing human rights both in Canada and around the world. It is also a day to recommit to ensuring that the principles outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are fulfilled.

This sesquicentennial year, Canadians celebrated the 35th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We have advanced human rights by accepting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; through a historic apology to the LGBTQ2 community for past wrongs; by the introduction of a national housing strategy that looks at housing as a fundamental human right; and by a meeting of federal-provincial-territorial ministers on human rights, the first such gathering in 29 years.

Human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated. As Canadians, we need to strive toward the attainment of human rights for all. It is the greatest legacy we can leave our children.

[United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, December 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend for his lifetime of work on UNDRIP and bringing this forward today in the House. I also want to say what a privilege it is for us to have heard the speech. We are also blessed to be working with the hon. member on the indigenous affairs committee.

One of the things he indicated in his speech was that the bill would get rid of colonialism. I think it is safe to say that this is probably one step further in decolonizing our country, but we still have a long way to go. I want to ask the member if he feels that there is more that needs to be done, apart from this particular bill alone. Does the bill goes far enough to ensure that we implement and are in compliance with the principles of UNDRIP?