Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are standing here today on unceded Algonquin territory.
I want to begin my speech by expressing our support for a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women. In fact, this very call was a key component of my private member's motion, Motion No. 444, a national action plan to end violence against women, a motion that was unfortunately voted down by the Conservative government a few short weeks ago.
It is clear to us in the NDP that an inquiry must be part of comprehensive action. Time and time again, indigenous peoples have been told that they have to choose between basic services and the respect of their rights or some other impossible choice, that it is always one way or another. That is simply not the case.
When the current government does speak of violence against women, it is within that frame. It is always presented as though survivors of violence and families of murdered and missing indigenous women cannot have both action and an inquiry.
Sadly, that narrow perspective does not respond to what indigenous women, indigenous communities, and indigenous leaders are calling for.
Over the last few years, I have met with women and men across Canada, in urban centres, rural communities, first nation communities, and Métis communities. We met to discuss the need for an national action plan to end violence against women. I heard time and time again that an inquiry and a national action plan are imperative.
My colleagues and I, in the NDP, have listened. As a response to the calls for action, the leader of our party pledged to begin an inquiry within the first 100 days of an NDP government. New Democrats have a long history of standing in this House, echoing the calls for justice and calling for a national inquiry. As I noted, my motion called for an inquiry explicitly as part of a national action plan.
We do need comprehensive action, however, because we need to address the root causes of violence. We need to recognize that a national action plan and a national inquiry are two sides of the same coin. The intentions and the principles involved in both complement each other. An inquiry is an opportunity for families to find justice and for root causes to be understood. Action is needed immediately to address the high rates of violence indigenous women experience.
I would like to quote the words of Leah Gazan, a member of Wood Mountain Lakota Nation, who works with the faculty of education at the University of Winnipeg, who powerfully stated, “This is not an either-or discussion”. She said it requires investments when dealing with the level of crisis noted by international organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations. The government needs to stop playing games by not including communities in the discussion. We need action now and an inquiry now.
A national action plan focused upon the high rates of violence against indigenous women would include the restoration of community-led programming that has been de-funded and would lead to better support for programs that have been cut.
It would include investments in housing. We know that the impacts of cuts to housing initiatives are visible in communities across the country. Many women living on reserve live in third-world conditions. These conditions of poverty contribute to social breakdown and conflict and, at the end of the day, women have nowhere to go.
We know that very few indigenous communities have access to women's shelters in their own community, which is something that must also be addressed as part of a national comprehensive action plan. In fact, 70% of northern and remote communities do not have safe houses or emergency shelters. That means that communities have fewer public spaces for women to be safe and fewer places for women to go to access support and resources to deal with the trauma they face.
I would like to quote the words of Dawn Harvard, the interim president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, who said:
We must work together—Aboriginal Peoples and all levels Governments to put in place measures that protect Aboriginal women and girls. Anything less is a denial of our basic human rights. The provinces and territories and Aboriginal Peoples have all supported the call for a national public inquiry and now we need to work together, along with the Federal Government to implement a comprehensive, national framework of action to end violence!
We know that Canada has been called out for decades by indigenous peoples and leaders, and in these last few years the calls have only been getting louder, even from the international community. In a report released March 6, CEDAW concluded that Canada's ongoing failure to address the extreme violence against indigenous women and girls constitutes a grave violation of their human rights. This investigation concluded that Canada has a disproportionately high rate of missing and murdered indigenous women, that there is a lack of interest on the part of the government in investigating the cases of missing and murdered indigenous women, that the structural issues within Canada's criminal justice system have gone unaddressed, and that, fundamentally, the government's refusal to deal with root causes of violence against indigenous women is a violation of their human rights.
Indigenous women and the families of missing and murdered indigenous women do not need an inquiry to relive the trauma they face. Indigenous peoples deserve an inquiry to bring long-awaited justice. Canada needs an inquiry to bring to light the state's own complicity in the long history of violence against indigenous women. An inquiry is an opportunity to expose the dark to the light and to bring us all onto a path of reconciliation.
I do want to note that one of the key recommendations put forward by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission last week was to include a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women.
On May 6, the government voted against enshrining the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into Canadian law. On May 27, the government voted against my motion for a national action plan to end violence against women. It was a motion that intended to address core contributing elements and implement a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. Both of these pieces of legislation were opportunities to do the right thing, to put principles ahead of politics, and to make a difference.
I would like to quote my colleague the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. In his contribution and his speech in the emergency debate on missing and murdered indigenous women in the fall of 2014, he said:
The violence that is perpetrated against indigenous women is the same violence against the environment today and the same violence that assaulted parents and grandparents in residential schools.
As parliamentarians, part of our work is to decide how to allocate resources to achieve social and economic goals, and it seems to me that ending violence against women and putting an end to the national epidemic that is missing and murdered indigenous women is a primary goal. Reducing violence and preventing the disappearance or murder of more women and girls should have been the goal of the current and past governments.
We need to recognize that it is rooted in the trauma of residential schools, day schools, the sixties scoop, and ongoing assimilationist policies. Institutional colonialism attempted to devalue indigenous women, strip away their humanity, and silence their voices. We must recognize that ongoing cycles of poverty in first nations and in urban indigenous communities only serve to compound the trauma.
While the government let $1.1 billion go unspent, programs working to support families and survivors of violence have been ended because of funding cuts. Organizations like NWAC, Pauktuutit, and the many grassroots organizations that made prevention programs part of their work saw their funding decreased.
The government may talk about action, but on the ground there is not much to show for it. In fact, we argue that the government is not just not part of the solution, but it is part of the problem.
An inquiry is necessary, and my New Democratic colleagues and I know that it should not come at the expense of real action. It is not a choice. We do not have to accept either-or. Ending violence against indigenous women is a priority for the NDP, and it requires comprehensive action.
We will not stop until no indigenous woman, no woman, is missing or murdered ever again.
