Michael McLeod

[Business of Supply, April 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs.

I was a little reluctant to stand up today to speak to this motion. However, I felt it was my responsibility as an indigenous member of Parliament to talk about this very important issue, which has left its mark on our history. It is an issue we would rather move past. However, the issue continues to warrant recognition, and it is part of some very important recommendations that were made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This is number 58 of the 94 recommendations that were brought forward.

We were all very happy to see the inquiry start in 2008. It was an opportunity to document and talk about the history of the residential schools and their impact. The conclusion of that report is also important to note. The commission found that the school system amounted to what was considered cultural genocide. There were many students who attended the different schools across the country over the years. A total of over 150,000 students attended residential schools. It was for a fairly long period of time. It went on for 120 years. Of those 150,000 students, 32,000 were sexually assaulted.

Some of those people were my friends. Some were people I knew, people I grew up with. Almost everyone in my community attended residential school. Everyone from my generation or older attended residential school. Everyone in my family attended residential school. Everyone in my wife's family attended residential school. The residential school experience in the north is still very fresh. It is still very new and talked about, and the impacts are huge.

I belong to the Deh Cho Tribal Council. I am a member of the Fort Providence Métis Council. My community is located on the Mackenzie River. We call it deh cho, which means “big river” in the Dene language.

When the Catholics first came to my area in the 1800s, they settled along the shores of the Great Slave Lake, and my family, the people of the Deh Cho, were concerned. One of my great-grandmothers talked to the men in my community and said that the church could not stay there because it was not a good place to set up a community or a mission. They sent the men to convince the church to move to the present location of Fort Providence. It was fortunate that they did that, because the church would never have survived in the first location where they set up. It was a flood zone, and it was dangerous for ice. It was not a very good hunting spot.

The church moved, and the small population in my community was very excited that the church was going to build a mission, because it was going to help the community and create opportunity for people to work. The first mission was built with many members of my community and surrounding areas. The different clans also had people working on the mission itself. In fact, we had a second mission built in 1930, and we also had a church built. It created enough activity to help people gain some extra money, because everyone was living on hunting, trapping, and gathering.

There was some opportunity created because of the mission. However, I grew up in the community where the residential school was located. The Dene name for our community is Zhahti Kue, which means “the priest's house” or “the priest's community”. We do not like that. We would rather not use that name. We have told people in our neighbouring communities and everybody else that this is not a name we would like to be known for.

We have a graveyard in our community which is still there. We have erected a huge cement marker and on it are all the names of the people who are buried there. People came from all over the north to Fort Providence to attend the mission. There were many young children who passed away. The names on this monument are names of families from all over the Northwest Territories. Some of the people were very young. Some were babies, and some were two or three years old. I do not know the history of why all these people passed away while in the care of the mission, but there were many. We have made it so people from different communities can come and look where some of their family ended up because nobody was shipped home.

It is also important to note that this graveyard was also used by the mission for the priests and nuns who died while there. When they created a new graveyard they took all the nuns and priests out of this graveyard and set up another one, but left everybody else in the old graveyard.

Soon after the mission was built, people started to realize the mission was not going to bring all the benefits and positive things people had expected. We started to hear the horror stories. I grew up listening to horror stories of children being abused while in the mission's care. Those acts were conducted by priests, nuns, and brothers who were part of the mission, part of the Catholic Church. There were really terrible things done to those children. There were children who were sexually abused and children who had bones broken. Children who had issues like bedwetting were grabbed and thrown in tubs of cold water and scrubbed with brooms. There were all kinds of mind games being played. There were children who were not allowed to sit in chairs and had to stand all day. They were only allowed to sit down when the priest was coming. There were all kinds of things going on.

We are seeing the lasting effects. The fallout of residential schools is still very prevalent in our communities. Addictions are something we know are a result of residential schools. That is not the only cause, and there are other causes, but there is the trauma that was inflicted on the aboriginal population. It has really caused a lot of cultural disconnect such as loss of language, culture, and traditional abilities. Some of the hunting and trapping pursuits are no longer happening. We have lost a lot when it comes to pride in our identity. It has resulted in addictions, in suicides, and in many issues that are going to plague us for a long time.

It really embarrassed us, in a way, to have housed a residential school in our community, a community we are very proud of. At the same time, our adults, our elders, were very helpless to stop the abuse. As a young child, I watched the float planes come in and the children would be gathered up. I watched as some of my family and friends cried and begged their parents not to be put on that plane. It really created a lot of hard feelings between the families.

Our Prime Minister has talked to the Pope about an apology. I have real mixed feelings. We need the church to acknowledge there was wrongdoing. We need to acknowledge that the church has a responsibility for what has happened to many of the people who attended residential schools.

It was very disappointing to have the Pope say that the church did not want to apologize. I think that members of the church have to speak up. We would then be able to accept the apology and be ready to move on.

It is my responsibility to speak here today because historically, the people who made the decision to bring in the residential school policy were sitting in these very seats, one of which I now occupy. We want to make change. We have a number of recommendations to bring forward and things that we need to see dealt with. I am hoping that this will be one more that we will be able to put aside and thank the Pope.

[Indigenous Affairs, April 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, our government believes that a sustainably developed resource sector is essential to the success of the Canadian economy. Getting this right requires us to work with indigenous peoples as equal partners through well-defined, predictable processes, like we do through co-management regimes across the north.

Could the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs update this House on the steps taken to ensure co-management is at the forefront of discussions on northern resource development?

[South Slave Arctic Winter Games, March 20th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, I had the pleasure of attending the opening ceremonies of the 2018 South Slave Arctic Winter Games.

This week, the towns of Hay River and Fort Smith will welcome nearly 2,000 athletes to compete in 19 sports, from hockey and gymnastics to dog mushing and arctic sports. The games will also put significant focus on culture and will include Dene drumming, indigenous dancing, and Métis fiddling. With teams from Alaska, Europe, Russia, and five provinces and territories, this is the largest sports and cultural event held in the Arctic.

I would like to recognize the hard work of the organizing committee, the dedication of the volunteers, and the contribution of over $1.1 million from the Government of Canada for ensuring that these games are a success.

I welcome the circumpolar world to the Northwest Territories and wish them the best of luck. Go, Team NWT.

[Indigenous Peoples and Canada's Justice System, February 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments made by my former colleague on the indigenous affairs committee. We talked about a number of issues, and I know she is quite knowledgeable on the issues that are challenging aboriginal people across the country.

I am one of the few MPs who still lives in an aboriginal community. Of the people in my community, 95% are indigenous, so I see these issues every day. Every month, once a month, we will see the court party come in by plane. It is almost a spectator sport, because the community pretty much has to shut down. I live in a small community of 800 people. If there is a callout for 200 jurors, the store has to shut down because all its staff has to show up. The school has to shut down because the teachers have to go. There is a list of people and the docket is so full that sometimes the court party will have to stay two or three days. Normally, the party will not, and it will have to come back, so the court list grows and grows. It is unfortunate because these are people I know. These are people who are related to me. These are my friends. We know the challenges in our communities. We know about the residential school fallout. We know about the addiction problems. We know about the sexual abuse. We know all these things exist, yet we continue to ignore them, and the system stays the same. A royal commission made recommendations 25 years ago that we have pretty much ignored up to now. We need to do more.

I hear from women in my riding who cannot get child support or deal with divorce issues because they cannot manoeuvre in the system we have. How do people in a small aboriginal community out in the middle of the Northwest Territories in a remote situation get access? Over the years things have deteriorated. Support programs have disappeared. Native court worker programs are gone. How do they manoeuvre? They need someone to help them. Now is a good time to start moving forward.

We need a system that allows our elders, who are much respected in our communities, to be part of the process, part of the solution. We need a support system that will deal with some of the people who end up in the correction facilities, the jails.

I heard my colleague say that it is too slow, that we should have done more. Is now a good time to start the reforms to bring changes across the government, which includes justice?

[Arctic Inspiration Prize Winners, February 8th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, Wednesday of last week was a big night for the Northwest Territories here in Ottawa.

I was pleased to attend the Arctic Inspiration Prize ceremony on January 31, where two organizations from my riding were announced as winners.

Dene Heroes Publication, whose project enables indigenous youth to contribute to books about inspiring people in their community, received $100,000.

The grand prize of $1 million was awarded to the Arctic Indigenous Wellness Foundation. Their team is establishing a centre in Yellowknife that will provide traditional healing services to northerners.

I say congratulations to both organizations, and I look forward to their continued success in the years to come.

[Fisheries and Oceans, December 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the Arctic is one of our greatest treasures. As the member for Northwest Territories, I know how precious our coastlines, oceans, and fisheries are for the people of the north and for all Canadians.

As climate change changes our landscapes and ecosystems, we have a responsibility to protect them now more than ever.

Could the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard please update the House on what the government is doing to protect the high seas of the central Arctic Ocean?

[Infrastructure, November 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, last Wednesday, I was thrilled to drive on the new 137 kilometre road connecting Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.

I was joined by the Governor General, the Ministers of Infrastructure and Crown-Indigenous Relations, the GNWT premier and cabinet ministers, and community members to celebrate a project that has been discussed for decades. As a former transportation minister in the Government of the Northwest Territories during the early planning stages, I was especially pleased to be included on this inaugural trip.

Connecting our country from coast to coast to coast has long been a dream of many Canadians. Now that this first link is complete, it is more important than ever to ensure that all northerners are connected to the same services and opportunities available to those in the south.

I congratulate the residents of Tuk, Inuvik, and the entire lnuvialuit region on this very historic day.

[Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, November 1st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, last year I stood in the House to speak about the protection of the Porcupine caribou calving grounds in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Today, I restate these concerns.

This refuge is one of the most fragile ecosystems left on earth. It is also the main calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd, which is fundamental to the culture of the Gwich'in nation of the NWT, Yukon, and Alaska.

The U.S. Senate recently passed a budget resolution that puts these sacred calving grounds at risk. I have written to legislators on both sides of the border as have Gwich'in leaders, who will soon join others in Washington, D.C., to inform legislators of the importance of protecting this pristine area. I hope this message is heard.

I thank the Canadian Embassy in Washington for its work to support the protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

[Yukon Environmental and Socio-Economic Assessment Act, October 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the member raised several points that caught my interest. First was the need for infrastructure to develop our resources in the north. I am from the Northwest Territories. We have three functioning mines and a number of mines on the horizon. Infrastructure is what really decides whether it is a feasible project. I am glad the member has recognized that.

He also recognized that Yukon is looking a different model when it comes to the regulatory process. We in the Northwest Territories take great pride in our regulatory process. In that process, 50% of the members are indigenous, representing aboriginal governments, and it works well. The timelines are shorter. It allows communities to be more involved.

Could the member talk about the regulatory processes that are different? Maybe he should look at this. Would the member commit to studying that model to see if it is a better model than what he has seen in other places?

[Public Safety, October 17th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, indigenous Canadians make up 4% of Canada's population but 25% of the federal prison population. We know that there are historical and systemic issues that have combined to cause this problem, and that is why the government has been focusing on bringing about socio-economic change in collaboration with indigenous communities.

Will the Minister of Public Safety tell us what he is doing to ensure that indigenous people involved in the criminal justice system will receive the support they need to rehabilitate and heal, which ultimately makes Canadian communities safer?