Mr. Speaker, today I join members from Treaty 5 territory, the territory of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, from my home in Thompson. I would like to share my time with my colleague for North Island—Powell River.
Today I rise along with my NDP colleagues to call for immediate action by Canada for justice in memory of the 215 children found in a mass grave at the Kamloops Indian Residential School on the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc territory, and in memory of the countless other indigenous children who were victims of Canada's genocide against indigenous peoples.
The news of the shocking reality of the abuse and murder of these 215 children has shaken our country to its core. People are in shock. People are mourning. People are asking how this could have happened and how such unspeakable cruelty, horrific violence and abuse and deliberate, culpable negligence could have been part of an official state policy. It was a state policy of genocide. First nations in our region have been grieving. Survivors, their children and their grandchildren have been reliving unspeakable trauma. They are sad and they are angry.
A couple of days ago I received a call from Eunice, a respected elder from Tataskweyak Cree Nation. She is a survivor. I asked her at the beginning how she was doing. She told me she was sad and that she was angry. In residential school, “they taught us not to cry”, she said, but she wanted to. Eunice was clear, as a survivor, that there must be action for current and future generations. Every single survivor I have heard from has been clear. Their children and grandchildren have been clear. There must be action.
Today, we in the NDP are standing in solidarity with first nations, survivors and intergenerational survivors, and calling for truth, action and justice. Pimicikamak Cree Nation has called on the Prime Minister to fund the search of the site of the residential school that was imposed on them for decades. They are certain more bodies of children will be found. They want to bring them home. York Factory First Nation has called on the federal government to protect each of the sites for proper investigation, ceremony and commemoration. They have said that burial sites must be found, school records must be available and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls must be fulfilled.
Every single first nation in our region is clear: There must be action and there must be truth.
There has not been truth for indigenous peoples in Canada. The truth starts with making it clear that Canada's treatment of indigenous peoples is genocide. The genocide of indigenous people was a deliberate state policy of colonialism and ethnic cleansing. Let us be clear that the Government of Canada had an agenda to intentionally take over the lands of indigenous peoples to exploit them for profit. This included a policy of deliberately starving people off the land and killing their leaders, and a policy that seized children from their parents and communities and placed them in church-run institutions that devalued their way of life, their culture and their lives.
The story of Canada is rooted in genocide. The discovery of a mass grave of 215 children is further confirmation of that genocide: a genocide that is ongoing. There must be truth.
It starts with calling residential schools what they were: detention centres, prisons and, all too often, torture chambers. There was physical, sexual and emotional abuse perpetrated by staff, including clergy. The abuse was sanctioned by the state and was known about, but too often covered up. There were 215 deaths at a school that had only 50 recorded. There are hundreds, if not thousands, more children unaccounted for across this country. The victims were as young as three years old. Many of them died with no official records of death, their remains not even treated with dignity. They were buried in unmarked mass graves with no consideration of returning them home to their loved ones.
This was not in a far-away country. This is Canada. This is a system that was in place until the 1990s.
Let us be clear. These were not just unfortunate coincidences or incidents, or the actions of a few. What occurred was part of deliberate state policy. It did not just happen; it was a system designed this way.
There must be action. Two days ago in Parliament we had a chance to talk about the 215 children found at the Kamloops residential school. Instead of action from the government, we heard more words. The Prime Minister stated that Canada failed indigenous peoples. The Minister of Indigenous Services told us to speak to our kids, because they know what happened. This is not acceptable. This is gaslighting, as though Canada is not the one responsible, as though its current government does not have a direct responsibility for this genocide.
To the Prime Minister I say this is a genocide against indigenous peoples.
The irony is that we in Canada lecture the world on human rights, peace and justice, but we ignore the brutal history of colonialism and the vile racism and white supremacy at its root. We lecture the world while we gloss over, even deny, the genocide against indigenous peoples here at home. We talk about reconciliation, but we do not mean it. We ignore the truth.
We still defend the people and the systems that upheld colonialism and genocide as state policy. Let us be clear. What happened to indigenous children, generation after generation, was a policy rooted in colonialism that was administered with unspeakable cruelty and inhumanity. If people are not part of the solution, they are part of the problem.
The world is watching. It is time for Canada to say the truth, to uncover the truth. It is time to state clearly that racism, colonialism and genocide are part of our history and our current day-to-day reality. It is time to commit to nothing less than decolonization.
It is time for actions, not words. It starts with justice for the children and working with indigenous communities to uncover every single site that children were abducted to, and to find them and bring them home. Let us treat this for what it was: crimes against children and indigenous people that should and must include the laying of criminal charges. Let us also stop using the court system to fight against indigenous children and people.
Let us ensure that the government pays its reparations for the incalculable damage and horror that this genocide has caused. Let us also not forget the many dimensions of this colonial system, both the historic legacy and current reality, and that there are first nations, to this day, that still do not have clean drinking water and adequate housing, that live in abject poverty and that have second-rate health care services, underfunded education, a lack of social services and a lack of recreation. In 2021, we still have states of emergency because children are taking their own lives because they feel hopeless.
In the memory of these children, in the memory of and in honouring all survivors, their children and grandchildren, there must be justice. As a mother of two children who are three, the age of the youngest victim in Kamloops, I cannot imagine what their mothers went through and what those children went through. In their names, there must be justice.
The colonialism and genocide that have caused and continue to cause immense suffering for indigenous peoples must stop. We must hear them when they say that they are here, that they are not going anywhere and that the history of the colonizers and their view of the world are not what stick. Colonialism is doomed to fail. Indigenous peoples deserve respect, deserve justice and deserve clear recognition of this being called what it is: a genocide.
Every child matters. The 215 indigenous children who died at the Kamloops residential school mattered. The indigenous children who died at residential schools across Canada mattered. We will not forget them. In their memory, we must and we will achieve justice and decolonization for indigenous peoples, for Canada.
