Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for sharing his time. I am somewhat reluctant to take this space today, because this was a spot intended for my very good friend, the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, who is delayed. He and my friend from Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River have been championing this process for, in some cases, many years. We are going to be robbed of the wisdom of my friend from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. I will make a poor replacement, but I will do my best to talk about this incredibly important opportunity, perhaps a historic opportunity, for us in the House of Commons to be on the right side of history for once.
This place we occupy has been the symbol of the country, the good and the bad. Decisions made in this Parliament have deeply affected indigenous peoples for many generations, too often to their great cultural, spiritual and economic detriment. We have an opportunity to do something good. It is not going to solve everything. It is going to be an answer to some important things.
I will read from article 13 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It states:
Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons.
Section 2 of article 13 is important to this debate, because the House adopted this UN declaration. It says:
States shall take effective measures to ensure that this right is protected and also to ensure that indigenous peoples can understand and be understood in political, legal and administrative proceedings, where necessary through the provision of interpretation or by other appropriate means.
This is that place. If we are going to honour the House of Commons passing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was also pushed forward by my friend from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, then we have to act.
Many of us have heard the Prime Minister and many politicians talk about reconciliation. In the place I come from and represent in northwestern British Columbia, the first question people often ask is what that means. “Don't tell me, show me.” Reconciliation can be defined in many ways and is often ill-defined or not defined at all. I believe in demonstrating what it might be.
I spoke to my Conservative colleague earlier about what one small aspect of privilege is. As a non-indigenous, English-speaking person, I can move about the world and perform my duties to the best of my ability in my mother tongue, without hesitation or pause, to express my thoughts and feelings to the best of my ability. There is no barrier between me and that expression, whereas so many people do not have that privilege. Indigenous people, in particular, have had that ability supplanted, oppressed and taken away categorically and systemically by the state. That is one of the facets of colonialism.
People can brace at that word and say it is ancient history. The fact is that this country, Canada, which we so love, will remain incomplete in its aspirations until we are able to address some of the fundamental errors we made.
These are long struggles. These are struggles that bridge generations. In our lifetime, we witness languages move from threatened to endangered to extinct, and we somehow believe that we bear no responsibility for this.
Arguments are put forward as we discuss this small but important change in how the people's House, this House of Commons, conducts its business. We hear resistance. We hear reasons bordering on excuses: there are technical challenges in accommodating the three or four speakers who might use those interpretation services; there are cost concerns for a federal government that spends north of $330 billion a year; or we would not want to deprive some community of its interpreter, as if providing interpretation work for indigenous speakers would somehow hurt indigenous interpreters. It is ridiculous.
We need to not be looking for excuses to say no but understand and compel ourselves to say yes to this report and yes to the change in the House of Commons.
I have an incomplete list here, but in northwestern British Columbia I have had the privilege of hearing Haida, Tsimshian, Gitksan, Nisga'a, Wet’suwet’en, Tahltan, Tlingit, Carrier, Heiltsuk and Nuxalk spoken at what we would call parliaments, when the people gather, when the people feast, when the people celebrate and honour those they seek to hold up, and when people are doing business in the northwest of British Columbia. At those feast halls, parliament is held for the Haida, the Tsimshian, the Nisga'a and on down the list.
I should have started my speech with something I have never said in this House.
[Member spoke in Wet’suwet’en]
[English]
I should have said that for people to listen to me here today. My family and I occupy Wet’suwet’en territory. Our house is in Wet’suwet’en territory, and I am a nedo, or a white guy, who happens to live alongside many friends of the Wet’suwet’en nation. They have welcomed me and my family in ways I cannot properly express without getting even more emotional than this debate feels to me already here today.
However, the generosity I have witnessed in trying to bridge the gap between non-Wet’suwet’en and Wet’suwet’en has been breathtaking in its scope and in people's determination to treat me as a resident of the territory and accept me as a representative of the Crown, this place, in Wet’suwet’en and other territories. This generosity, considering all the terrible things people who stood in my place in generations past did to indigenous peoples, is humbling and remarkable.
Certainly on the west coast, but also in other places, we hear politicians begin their speeches by saying that they are pleased to be here on unceded territory. Sometimes I am in the audience and wondering what that actually means. Is it just a phrase that gets put into a speech for politicians to say and then move on to say the things they were going to say anyway? Is it that when we recognize unceded territory we recognize something more? We say that these territories were not ceded, that the imposition of a colonial legal language and morality system has never been recognized or accepted, and that we require indigenous people to move through these systems in order to achieve basic rights, meaning and title, and to fight year after year against various iterations of the government, of the Crown, at the Supreme Court?
Recently, I heard a story that is important, from a former colleague who was here during the repatriation of our Constitution here in Canada, done by former prime minister Trudeau. There were negotiations with the NDP, of which Ed Broadbent was the leader at the time. We had, in principle, accepted the Constitution as it was written. Unfortunately for Mr. Broadbent, but fortunately for us, his caucus resisted. This is the plight of being the NDP leader sometimes, I suppose.
There were certain sections that the caucus at that time, in the early eighties, insisted be included. One was for the rights of women to be declared in the Constitution, and the other was section 35. Mr. Broadbent had to go back to Mr. Trudeau and say those rights needed to be included.
There was clear resistance from this institution to including section 35, regarding indigenous rights and title, in our Constitution, which includes things like language in the rights that people bear.
What are we talking about here today? We are talking about the rights of indigenous people to stand in this place and express themselves without the barrier of having to move through somebody else's language. We are talking about their right to move and express themselves through their language. We have the ability to do this.
For those who say it is too technical or there might be costs we cannot even imagine, I say this should have been done generations ago. Let us be on the right side of history. Let us not allow these things to stand in our way, because we can do this.
This Parliament in 2018 can make this small but important expression to people, not just to indigenous people but to non-indigenous Canadians, to say that this is what the people's House looks like and this is what the people's House sounds like. If it does not move in this direction, Canada cannot be the country it hopes and professes to be.
