Jean Crowder

[Business of Supply, May 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Sault Ste. Marie.

I want to begin by acknowledging the member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River for bringing this important motion before the House. With the long, sad and tragic history and the unimaginable consequences for survivors, their families and the communities, it is long past the time for the House and the government to issue an apology for the survivors of residential schools.

I also want to acknowledge and thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for his tireless work on the file on residential schools. He has been a tireless advocate and defender and champion of ensuring there was an adequate agreement on residential schools that moved in a timely fashion.

The one thing we do know is that residential schools were not just about the survivors. It was also about their families and their communities. In a book called Journeying forward: Dreaming First Nations' independence by Patricia Monture-Angus, she talks about the reality of residential schools and talks about it in a way that is respectful, to use the words of people who were involved. She says:

What would you do if you were a child being removed from your parents' arms? Would you scream, “Mom, help! Mom, help!”? What would you do if you saw your parents standing there helplessly? Would you feel, “They should have stopped them from taking me”? What would you feel if you had arrived in that big building where there were people speaking a funny language and when you spoke the language you knew, you were hit and told to speak in that strange language? What if your culture taught that your hair was part of your spirit, and the strange people cut off your hair...?

She goes on to talk about the fact that, just as these children were abused in innumerable ways in residential schools, when people came back to their communities it had a long-lasting impact on their families. She says:

In my opinion, there has been enough written that focuses on the specific harms, often cataloguing the crimes, inflicted on First Nations children. This very narrow focus operates to conceal the outcomes and impacts those schools have had on our families and communities. My point is not to minimize the harms done to individuals but to make clearly the point that these crimes are just a small portion of the actual impact. One of the things that needs to be considered is the simple fact that we did survive the genocidal educational attempts of Canadian authorities.

Those are very strong words but it is important to talk about what happened to children in those schools. The RCAP report eloquently lays out the challenges that were faced by first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples across this country for so many decades. In Volume 1 of the RCAP report, under “Looking Forward Looking Back, Chapter 10 -- Residential Schools”, it lays out the litany of not only physical neglect, but emotional and spiritual neglect as well.

The RCAP report states that there were:

--systemic problems, particularly the lack of financial resources, the persistence of those problems and the unrelieved neglect of the children can be explained only in the context of another deficit — the lack of moral resources, the abrogation of parental responsibility. The avalanche of reports on the condition of children — hungry, malnourished, ill-clothed, dying of tuberculosis, overworked — failed to move either the churches or successive governments past the point of intention and on to concerted and effective remedial action.

The remedial action was not only around righting the wrongs and ensuring the children were well cared for and returned to their parents so that culture and language could survive but also around the sexual and physical abuse that many of those children suffered. Part of the remedy must be an apology.

In the section entitled “Discipline and Abuse”, the report goes on to state:

The basic premise of resocialization, of the great transformation from 'savage' to 'civilized', was violent. “To kill the Indian in the child”, the department aimed at severing the artery of culture that ran between generations and was the profound connection between parent and child sustaining family and community.

Finally, part of what is before the House today is a need for a profound apology by members of the House and certainly from the government.

The report concludes by stating:

Rather than attempting to close the door on the past, looking only to the future of communities, the terrible facts of the residential school system must be made a part of a new sense of what Canada has been and will continue to be for as long as that record is not officially recognized and repudiated. Only by such an act of recognition and repudiation can a start be made on a very different future. Canada and Canadians must realize that they need to consider changing their society so that they can discover ways of living in harmony with the original people of the land

I would argue that until we have a heartfelt apology from the very root of our being, first nations, Métis and Inuit people cannot get on with claiming their space as the original inhabitants of this land.

As well, we talk often about first nations, but it is very important that we also talk about Métis and Inuit peoples as well, because they were also a part of the residential school system. The RCAP report talks about how the things that happened in the south also happened in the northern part of this country. The RCAP report states:

In the north, as in the south in the days before integration, the government with its church partners presumed to stand in the place of the children's parents, taking children into residential schools so they could “face the future in a realistic manner”--that being “as true Canadian citizens”. Unfortunately, the record of this national presumption, whether traced in the north or the south cannot be drawn as a “circle of civilized conditions”.

I would suggest that there is not one member in this House who would willingly give up his or her children to live in the conditions that first nations, Métis and Inuit children lived in.

When it comes to the Métis peoples, there have been lengthy discussions around the inclusion of Métis people. In fact, the current Prime Minister made a promise to take action around the Ile a la Crosse school. I have a number of letters here, which I of course will not read because it would take far more than the 10 minutes allotted, but I want to read just one for members. It says:

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

During the election campaign, while [I was] listening to the MBC radio station, your Conservative Party advertisement stated that if your party was elected and formed the government that you would include the Boarding School at Ile a la Crosse in...the compensation package dealing with the Indian Residential School Survivors.

I am from the village of Buffalo Narrows, Saskatchewan, and attended the Ile a la Crosse Boarding School for 10 years....

Therefore, although we absolutely need this apology, we also need action on other matters facing Métis people, Inuit people and first nations people in this country to ensure that we make an attempt to right some of these wrongs. Certainly one of them would be recognition of schools such as Ile a la Crosse and Timber Bay for the Métis peoples.

In the context of the schools, I did hear the minister get up and say that the government would support an apology by the House, but we also feel that it would be important to have the Prime Minister apologize as a representative of the sitting government, although I am not optimistic, given the minister's quote in the Globe and Mail from March 27, when he said:

I've said quite clearly that the residential school chapter of our history is one that was a difficult chapter. Many things happened that we need to close the door on as part of Canadian history, but fundamentally, the underlying objective had been to try and provide an education to aboriginal children and I think the circumstances are completely different from Maher Arar or also from the Chinese head tax.

Whether it was an attempt at assimilation or an attempt at genocide, or a misguided attempt to educate people in a way that the people of the day would not have imagined educating their own children, surely Canadians owe an apology to first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples in this country.

As well as looking at the issues around the need for an apology, we also need to take a look at the additional supports that are required in order for first nations, Métis and Inuit communities to truly heal. I would argue that we need to ensure funds are in place for such things as the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, which supports that healing in communities. We know that many communities have moved on and have healing programs in place that are truly helping communities recover, but we must continue to work with first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples to develop and design programs that meet communities' needs to have that healing truly take place.

In conclusion, I encourage each and every member of this House to support this motion and call on the House to issue that apology quickly.

[Electoral Reform, April 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the important motion put forward by the member for Vancouver Island North. I am hopeful that all members will see their way clear to supporting the motion.

Motion No. 262 calls for the continuation of the work previously done by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in the 38th Parliament. It specifically calls on the House to make further recommendations on strengthening and modernizing the democratic and electoral systems and that we set up a special committee to hear from Canadians on what is important in terms of electoral reform.

The member for Vancouver Island North and a former member of this House, Mr. Ed Broadbent, have done considerable work in trying to bring this important issue around proportional representation before the House and Canadians. Mr. Broadbent said it far more eloquently than I could ever say it. In his speech at Queen's University on March 2005, he gave reasons why electoral reform was so necessary. He said:

The truth is that the most seriously flawed component of our democratic society is our profoundly undemocratic electoral system. We have impartial courts and the rule of law, a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a vigorous independent civil society and an independent press, but our electoral system is an outdated, non-representative, conflict-prone, gender discriminating, regionally divisive mess, bestowed to us from a pre-democratic era.

A number of points have been covered quite well about why we need proportional representation and electoral reform in this country but I will focus on one particular area, the under-representation of women in the House.

Equal Voice has done a good job of outlining the importance of electing more women and outlining the dismal state of affairs in Canada's Parliament. On its website, it says that once a leader, Canada, with just 64 women in Parliament, 20.8% of MPs, now ranks 47th in the world in terms of women's representation in the national legislature. Canada is far behind countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Portugal. Canada's international rankings in terms of women's representation has been falling. In 2002, Canada was 34th in the world and we have dropped to 47th. Our international standing is declining with every federal election.

Not a single country in the world has delivered more women to its national Parliament without undertaking action to make it happen. The under-representation of women in the national Parliament is not a problem that will fix itself, which is where the issue around proportional representation comes in. In countries that have looked at proportional representation, they have been able to increase the representation of women, visible minorities and aboriginal peoples in their Parliament. This is why it is such an urgent matter that we must consider.

When Equal Voice was doing the analysis on women in federal politics, it looked at political party representation. In this current sitting of the House, 64 of the 308 members who are women, the NDP has 41%, which is the highest percentage of any party, down to a dismal 11% for the Conservatives. This under-representation impacts on the kinds of policies and legislation that the House develops.

At its annual general meeting in 2004, Fair Vote Canada made a presentation on “Reaching Women About Proportional Representation”. Its presentation was entitled, “The Electoral Glass Ceiling” and it says:

An elite consensus -- that 20 to 25 per cent representation of women is 'good enough' -- provides the solid underpinnings of the electoral glass ceiling for women.

Given those kinds of numbers and the trends in Canada, it goes on to say:

One hundred and seventeen years...is how long it will take for women to achieve equity in the Canadian House of Commons.

THAT'S 4 GENERATIONS.

At the rate we are going...it won't be until our great, great granddaughters are women that we'll have 50/50 in the House.

IT WILL BE IN 2118.

Given the fact that women represent over 50% of the population, I would argue that having only 20% sitting in the House is just not acceptable.

Fair Vote Canada talks about why it is important. It says that:

The absence of women from structures of governance inevitably means that national, regional and local priorities— i.e. how resources are allocated—are typically defined without meaningful input from women, whose life experience gives them a different awareness of the community’s needs, concerns and interests from that of men.

Why does proportional representation work? Fair Vote Canada states:

What studies of proportional representation reveal, however, is that it sufficiently alters the political structure to enable women to transcend the 'winner-takes-all' competition for votes one now witnesses in Canada.

Changing a country's electoral system often represents a far more realistic goal to work towards than dramatically changing the culture's view of women.

I would argue that if we had more women in the House that when employment insurance reform happened in 1995, we would not have seen women disproportionately impacted by the changes in that legislation. Women are now far less likely to quality for employment insurance under those rules and regulations. I would argue that we would have the national child care system. Instead, we have a family allowance system that does not remotely meet the needs of women and families in looking after their children.

There are any number of other pieces of legislation that disproportionately impact women. We do not even conduct an adequate gender based analysis on our budget process to determine how it affects women and men differently. If we had more women in the House, surely we would have policies and legislation that more reflected the needs of women and children and their families in this country.

An organization called Safer Futures looks at safety in communities and the fact that as communities are made safer for women and children they are also made safer for everybody. If we had more women in federal, provincial and municipal politics, we would be developing programs and policies that reflect the reality of women's lives.

In a newspaper recently was a stunning picture of the premiers and the representatives from the territories but none were woman. We need to change the face of politics so women feel it is an appropriate place for them. Besides looking at proportional representation, electoral reform must look at the larger issue of how we conduct ourselves as parliamentarians.

Mr. Broadbent not only talked about conduct in this House but also about the fact that we need to change many systems. In a speech that he gave to the NDP breakthrough conference in October 2005, he outlined a number of extremely important elements in electoral reform. I will not go through all of them but there are a couple that are really important.

He said that reforms were badly needed. He said that wherever we can, we must put an end to backroom wheeling and dealing in politics. He was referring to floor crossing. These days one never knows exactly which member will be sitting on which side of the House. We would argue that any member who chooses not to sit for the party that he or she was elected to represent should either sit as an independent or go back to the electorate for a vote to determine that the new party is actually the party the constituents supported.

Mr. Broadbent also said that election dates should be fixed. We know there is a bill that attempts to fix election dates in Canada. This would prevent governments from calling elections whenever its numbers took a bounce in the polls. In a minority government, there is still the option for governments to fall if there is a vote of confidence before the House.

Mr. Broadbent went on to talk about the need for democratic reform for our outmoded first past the post electoral system. He talked about 90% of the world's democracies, including Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland and Wales having abandoned or significantly modified the pre-democratic British system that still prevails in Ottawa.

I would urge all members of the House to support this important motion so we can ensure that when Canadians vote that every vote truly does count.

[Business of Supply, April 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly think that what the member has raised is an issue and people do not trust the Conservatives in terms of what they are saying about this mission.

However, if we are saying the mission is wrong now, why would we continue to ask our troops to stay there until 2009? Although I certainly respect the member's comments around not trusting that the Conservatives will fulfill their commitment to withdraw the troops in 2009, I just cannot see us continuing with this mission when we do not believe that counter-insurgency is the route to go.

[Business of Supply, April 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, we absolutely condemn acts of torture and acts of violence.

Again, we only have to look to the Canadian government's current role in what is happening with prisoners that we are turning over and the allegations of torture that are currently under way.

What we have to do is work with partners in Afghanistan, with other NATO countries that are supporting redevelopment and reconstruction, in looking for ways that we can work toward that long-lasting peace and security.

[Business of Supply, April 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the New Democrats have always called for a responsible withdrawal. That does not mean we get up tomorrow morning at eight o'clock and say that the troops are out by the end of the day. What we have talked about is working with our partners in Afghanistan to ensure that the Canadian mission changes from one of counter-insurgency to one of redevelopment and reconciliation.

We clearly believe that Canada has a responsibility and a role in Afghanistan. Given the fact that we have been in there now for a number of years, we cannot just abandon the Afghani people, but we are strongly opposed to a counter-insurgency mission. Instead, we want to see Canadian dollars and Canadian troops focused on redevelopment and reconstruction that will actually lead to ongoing peace and security in the long run.

[Business of Supply, April 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Vancouver East.

I am, with some chagrin and some sadness, speaking to the motion before the House today. The difficulty that faces us in this motion is the fact that we have had two debates within the space of a little over a week around the mission in Afghanistan. I think the fact that we have had two debates within a week reflects, not only that the House is deeply divided but also that the Canadian public is deeply divided.

That goes back to the time when we had a vote in the House to extend the Afghanistan mission to 2009. The deep division in the House is reflected by the fact that the vote passed by merely four votes. It is that kind of division that continues to be reflected in the hearts and minds of people in the House and certainly Canadians at large.

I am proud that New Democrats had the courage to stand up and present this motion before the House today. I want to read some important points in the motion because they are fundamental to why we are standing and asking for the responsible withdrawal of the Canadian troops. The points read:

(1) all members of this House, whatever their disagreements about the mission in Afghanistan, support the courageous men and women of the Canadian Forces;

(2) the government has admitted that the situation in Afghanistan cannot be won militarily;

(3) the current counter-insurgency mission is not the right mission for Canada;

(4) the government has neither defined what 'victory' would be, nor developed an exit strategy from this counter-insurgency mission;....

I want to touch on the first point. I think I can speak, certainly on behalf of all New Democrats but I am sure all members of the House, that we absolutely support the men and women in Afghanistan.

Like many other members of the House, I too come from a military family. My father was a career soldier. He was a proud member of the military and proudly served his country from coast to coast to coast. I have firsthand understanding of what it is like to be a member of a military family and I have deep understanding of the sacrifices and the commitment that our military families make.

I speak with a great deal of confidence when I say that New Democrats absolutely support the men and women who are serving in Afghanistan and our hearts go out to the families of the men and women who have given their lives on this mission.

Because this is such a deep emotional issue, it is important that we talk about the facts as we understand them and know them. New Democrats expect that when Canadians ask men and women to serve in a mission like this that there are some clear questions that we need to answer. We not only need to answer them for the Canadian public but we also need to answer them for the men and women who are serving for us.

The member for New Westminster—Coquitlam has, on a number of occasions, put these questions to the House. In a speech earlier, she said:

I said then that any time we put the lives of Canadians in harm's way, we have a duty to determine clearly a number of points and those were: is this mission really necessary; is it a mission that can succeed, has it a good chance of success; and are we doing everything possible to ensure the safety and the well-being of our soldiers?

When we ask men and women to serve our country, we must be able to answer those questions unequivocally for them. If we cannot answer those questions, I would wonder why we were sending them off to missions where, as we have seen, they end up giving their lives.

It is not just parliamentarians who have been asking these questions. These questions have also been asked by many groups across the country. One of the groups is a peace group in British Columbia called BCVoice which put out a newsletter in 2006. This is from a citizen's perspective and not a parliamentarian's perspective. The newsletter reads:

Our job as Canadian citizens is to find the answer to the simple, large, policy question: WHY?

The article is entitled, “Why Afghanistan?”

The article goes on to state:

What are they in Afghanistan for? I was asked a number of times. Is it worth the lives of friends and colleagues?

I think those are questions that we must be able to answer.

Further on in the article it states:

We have spent over $4 billion or 68% of all our international missions since the fall of 2001 on Afghanistan.

We are there because our leaders make bad policy.

Kipling had the answer. If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.

I am not suggesting anybody in the House is lying but I am certainly saying that we must provide clear answers to those questions posed by the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam.

A number of other organizations have talked about elements that are very important to examine when we look at this mission and one of them wrote a paper entitled, “Canada and Afghanistan: Considerations for a Parliamentary debate”. This was in March 2006 but I think a couple of these questions are still relevant.

A number of points were made that we must absolutely consider but I will only touch on two of them. One is that expressions of support for Canadians serving in Afghanistan should also include calls for full disclosure on issues related to strategic objectives and the handling of prisoners.

This week we heard many questions about what Canada has done around the handling of prisoners. I believe many Canadians have very serious concerns about Canada's role. It is the government's role, not the role of our military, to provide the direction.

The other points the paper raised were:

The real solution to the crisis is known from lessons learned in other complex humanitarian/security emergencies: restoring human security in Afghanistan will require a rejection of a military-centric counter-insurgency strategy in favour of a long-term commitment to sustained economic, social, political, and security measures that create conditions conducive to human safety and well-being.

It is not just parliamentarians who have these questions. Many organizations and Canadians across this country also have these questions.

Much has been said about the role of women. In a letter dated October 24, 2006, an Afghani Canadian woman by the name of Angela Joya wrote about the issues that are important to women and children. She said:

More Afghans feel less safe and less secure now than they did now under the Taliban. The failure of the central government to provide any services or employment has discredited it in the eyes of all Afghans. As an Afghan woman, I cannot understand how [the Prime Minister] can defend Karzai's government as a democratic one. As one villager noted, democracy to Afghans means food, jobs, clean drinking water and security. The foreign-supported government has failed to provide any of these things.

Further on in her letter she states:

In light of what Afghans face today five years after the invasion in 2001, Canada's involvement in Afghanistan can only be explained as blind and uncritical support for America's “war on terror” -- a view supported by even Canadian military leaders who have recently disclosed that political pressure from the Bush Administration led to the Canadian government's decision to join the current mission. If Canada really wants to provide genuine help with the reconstruction of Afghanistan, we need to bring the troops home now and formulate an independent strategy that keeps interests of ordinary Afghans at heart.

This was from an Afghan woman. Surely one of the lessons that we have learned is that it is important to talk to the people who are most affected by these policies. We have seen that in so many other venues. I would encourage the government to look for ways to talk to the Afghan people and meet the goals around development and reconstruction. I have received numerous other letters from constituents in my riding.

One of the fundamental things we must look at is how we treat veterans when they come home. A recent Macleans article indicated that people who were injured and, after three years, were not deemed fit to return to full combat duty, were medically discharged. I would argue that we need to look for ways to support our veterans and ensure that when they return home, even if they are not fit for full combat duty, that we provide them with employment within the military that meets their capabilities.

I urge all members of the House to support the NDP motion and bring our troops home in a responsible fashion.

[Petitions, April 25th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions, both dealing with the same subject matter. The petitions are primarily signed by people from Vancouver Island.

The petitioners request the Government of Canada to institute programs that reduce the climate change crisis by diminishing fossil fuel dependency, while sponsoring initiatives and incentives to promote less harmful technologies.

[Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, March 29th, 2007]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-422, An Act to amend the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act (members' staff).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce this bill to amend the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act. I want to acknowledge the member for Halifax who has introduced such a bill in the House on a number of other occasions. It is a bill that will allow staff of members of the House of Commons, who serve members in their capacity as member, leader, House leader or whip, to enjoy the benefits, if they so choose, of organizing a union, belonging to a union and enjoying the benefits of collective bargaining. I look forward to speaking further on the bill in the future.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, even the Conservatives' independent blue ribbon panel disputes the $10 billion figure the minister likes to toss out. Enough is enough. The truth must be told. The $10 billion includes millions in lawyers' fees to fight legitimate land claims and every dollar that it takes to run the minister's department.

When will the minister stop misleading Canadians on how much money will actually end up in the hands of first nations people? Why does the Conservative government continue the pattern of discrimination against first nations?

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, first nations are being left behind by the government: no action to close the poverty gap for first nations, the clawback of money to promote and protect indigenous languages and no movement on self-government negotiations. Now the Conservatives are refusing to recognize the wrong-headed damaging policies of past governments.

Why does the minister and the government refuse to apologize to first nations for the cultural destruction brought about by residential schools?