Paul Manly

[Citizenship Act, November 23rd, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I do agree that we need to work as a country with different levels of government to deal with all of these calls to action. However, there are things that the federal government can do right away. One of those things is to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. That is something that I would like to see this government push forward right away. Let us get that legislation dropped ASAP. I have heard it—

[Citizenship Act, November 23rd, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his statement. I am sure that if members of the Bloc Québécois have other ideas that they would like to bring forward on changing the oath of citizenship, they can do that in one of their opposition days.

[Citizenship Act, November 23rd, 2020]

Madam Speaker, it is a very good question. I would like to know myself when the government is going to take the appropriate action. When are we going to move on the rest of these calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? When are we going to deal with the recommendations from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, including a guaranteed livable income? When are we going to move indigenous people out of poverty and deal with our child welfare system?

I think that we need to do these things as soon as possible, and I would invite the hon. member to stand with me when I talk about reparation for the E&N land grant. I know that part of her riding is in that E&N land grant, and that is a historic wrong. It was one of the most corrupt deals in this country, which allowed the coal baron, Robert Dunsmuir, to build castles in Victoria based on the wealth he extracted from first nations territories.

[Citizenship Act, November 23rd, 2020]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour and privilege to speak today on Bill C-8 from the traditional unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw people. I want to acknowledge that the riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith lies within the territories of the Snuneymuxw, the Snaw-naw-as, the Stz'uminus and the Lyackson first nations.

Huy’chka siem.

I would like the thank the hon. member for Sydney—Victoria for sharing this time with me today so that I could speak to this important bill.

Bill C-8 is an act to amend the Citizenship Act. The bill would change the oath of citizenship so that newcomers to Canada, in addition to pledging allegiance to the Queen, will also faithfully observe the laws of Canada, including the Constitution, which recognizes and affirms the aboriginal treaty rights of first nations, Inuit and Métis people.

The Snuneymuxw people, whose territory I am from speaking today, signed a treaty in 1854. This was the 14th and the last of the so-called Douglas treaties, and it was ignored for over 100 years. It was not until the landmark White and Bob Supreme Court case in 1965 that this treaty was finally recognized by the Government of Canada. This historic case marked the beginning of the modern era of treaty and aboriginal rights and title, advocacy and activism across Canada.

I learned about this treaty while working on a film about the Nanaimo River, entitled Voices of the River. In my interviews with Snuneymuxw elder Ellen White and with her grandson Doug White, who was the chief of Snuneymuxw First Nation at the time, they both emphasized the importance of this treaty and the rights and title that it enshrines. Most residents of Nanaimo would have no knowledge of this treaty and what it means. It is a constant struggle for the Snuneymuxw people to have their treaty rights recognized.

This is true for first nations across Canada, as we have seen with the Mi'kmaq fishery in Nova Scotia and the Haudenosaunee dispute in Caledonia, Ontario. We are all treaty people in Canada. We have historical treaties that need to be respected, and for those first nations that have never signed treaties, it is incumbent upon the government to go through the modern-day treaty process in a respectful way.

It is important for newcomers to Canada to understand the indigenous and first nations rights enshrined in the Canadian Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. All Canadians, including new Canadians, need to understand these legal documents. They should understand that if they are not in a region that is covered by a treaty, then they are in a region that has never surrendered and is still legally indigenous territory.

The bill would complete number 94 of the 94 calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That does not mean that the current Parliament has finally gotten to the end of the list and has implemented the previous 93 calls to action, far from it. We have a very poor record of implementing these calls to action. Earlier this year my colleague, the hon. member for Fredericton, presented a scorecard in her speech on this issue. Out of the 52 broader reconciliation recommendations, seven have been completed. Under justice, it is one out of 18; language and culture, one out of five; health, zero; education, zero; and child welfare, zero.

In the first year, five recommendations were completed, and just four since 2016. At the current rate, it will take approximately 38 more years before all of the calls to action are implemented. This is not reconciliation in action.

Call to action number 94 is important, but there are far more urgent calls to action that we need to turn our attention to. Call to action number one calls upon federal, provincial, territorial and aboriginal governments to commit to reducing the number of aboriginal children in care. Right now there are more indigenous children in the child welfare system in this country than there were children in the residential schools at the height of the residential school system. This is an ongoing abuse of human rights and a violation of fundamental social justice.

When I talk to local leaders from first nations and urban indigenous communities in my riding, they tell me the same thing: Children are being apprehended by provincial child welfare agencies, and it is not because the parents have neglected to provide their children with love, care or attention. The majority of child welfare apprehensions are a direct result of poverty and inadequate housing. The Government of Canada could deal with this immediately with a poverty reduction strategy and rapid housing program for first nations and urban indigenous populations.

The missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry recommendations called for a guaranteed livable income to ensure no Canadian needs to live in poverty. A guaranteed livable income would remove the bias inherent in our social welfare programs and would be a step toward ending systemic racism in this country. Indigenous people are overrepresented in our prison system and in our homeless population. This is also a direct result of poverty and the disproportionate number of children pulled from their families and communities by the child welfare system.

We have a long way to go toward true reconciliation with indigenous people in Canada. Under the reconciliation section of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action, the first call to action, number 43, calls upon federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments to fully adopt and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the framework for reconciliation. This is important and we need to get this done right away. Why are we not debating this right now?

It is a national shame indigenous communities have boil water advisories that go on for years and even decades, that indigenous communities deal with serious and persistent poverty, that indigenous people are overrepresented in our criminal justice system and in our homeless population, that we have such high levels of suicide among indigenous youth and that health outcomes for indigenous people are comparable to those of residents of low-income countries.

It is an international black eye for Canadians that we have encroaching developments and industrial projects forced upon indigenous communities after sham consultations and then have those developments and projects rammed through with enforcement actions by highly armed militarized police forces.

We need economic reconciliation to improve the conditions for economic development and economic sovereignty for first nations. The connection to land is key to the culture of indigenous people in Canada, but as colonizers we have broken that link. The reserve system forced indigenous people off the land and took away those key connections to their culture. Industrialization has destroyed many traditional territories with resource extraction, including excessive logging, mining and oil and gas production, destroying biodiversity and leaving behind toxic messes.

In my riding of Nanaimo Ladysmith, the traditional lands of the Hul'qumi’num-speaking people were stolen out from under them with the E&N land grant 150 years ago. Coal baron and B.C. cabinet minister Robert Dunsmuir was given 8,000 square kilometres of land, or 20% of Vancouver Island, to build the E&N railway from Esquimalt to Nanaimo as part of the deal for B.C. to join Confederation. This corrupt deal and historic wrong need to be corrected. We cannot celebrate 150 years of B.C. joining Confederation next year without reparation for this theft. Reconciliation must be more than words, it must include reparation for historic wrongs.

There is a long list of things we need to do to make things right in our relationship with first nations, Inuit and Métis people in this country. If this is indeed our most important relationship, as the Prime Minister has often repeated, then let us get on with it.

I have had the honour and privilege of working with many newcomers to Canada and I know they are keen to be good citizens and become part of our communities. Many of the newcomers arrive from difficult situations and have faced war, poverty, environmental degradation and human rights abuses. Once they learn about our history and fully understand the circumstances many indigenous people live with in Canada, these newcomers are shocked.

Bill C-8 is an acknowledgement of the responsibilities of all Canadians, including new Canadians. It is an important piece of legislation. The Green Party supports this legislation. We support all the calls to action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we support the recommendations of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry and we support the full implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

I hope to debate much more legislation implementing urgent calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation report soon. I hope this happens in the very near future.

[Petitions, November 20th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, today is National Child Day in Canada and World Children's Day internationally, so it is an honour and privilege to present e-petition 2667, which has 2,454 signatures.

The petitioners note that Canada's foreign policy indicates a priority commitment to the protection of the rights of children around the world. They note that the Secretary-General of the United Nations released his report on children who were in conflict on June 20, 2019. It reiterated that the UN special representatives called upon Israel to uphold international juvenile justice standards as well as to cease the use of administrative detention for children and end all forms of ill treatment in detention and to cease any attempted recruitment of detained children as informants. They note that Israel has the distinction of being the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections.

The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to ensure the human rights of Palestinian children are protected by instructing a special envoy to promote, monitor and report on the human rights situation of Palestinian children living in the occupied Palestinian territory and Gaza.

[Marine Transportation, November 19th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, the oceans protection plan's national anchorage strategy has been in place for three years and the problem has only gotten worse. Environmental and cost considerations should be enough motivation to fix this situation. It is not acceptable to wait for another collision, the beaching of a vessel or a fuel spill to take action.

The solutions exist and will improve environmental conditions, reduce disruptions to communities and lower greenhouse gas emissions. Implementing solutions will also result in more money in the pockets of prairie grain farmers. It is time for Transport Canada to mandate efficiencies at the Port of Vancouver.

Strong regulations that ensure peak coordination between exporters and shipping companies are the solution required to address the root causes of the freighter anchorage problem in the southern Gulf Islands.

[Marine Transportation, November 19th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, since being elected to this House a year and a half ago, I have repeatedly asked the transport minister and Transport Canada to address the pollution, noise and environmental damage caused by the interim protocol freighter anchorages in the Southern Gulf Islands.

The minister knows what the problem is. I want to talk about solutions to solve the inefficiencies at the Port of Vancouver. Container shipments from that port are highly efficient. Bulk freighters should be as well. There are busy ports in other countries where this problem is non-existent.

For years, the Port of Newcastle in Australia had the same problem. In 2007, on some days, there were reports of as many as 70 freighters anchored outside the port waiting to load. In June of that year, a ship dragged anchor and ran aground on a popular beach. The public outcry following that incident led to a review of the situation, and the Port of Newcastle no longer has a freighter anchorage problem.

It implemented a vessel arrival system. Ships must contact the port 14 days before they arrive. They can be instructed to slow down in order to match their arrival to their loading time at the port. The Port of Newcastle went from ships being at anchor for an average of 11 days to 64% of ships not anchoring at all. The remaining 36% averaged just three days at anchor.

Rotterdam, the biggest port in Europe, does not have an anchorage problem. It has a just-in-time system. Ships are contacted in advance and instructed to travel at slower speeds to arrive when there is space for them to port. Slower transit times not only reduce greenhouse emissions because the ships burn less bunker fuel, they also lower pollution near the port and populated areas.

Currently, the Port of Vancouver does not mandate contact from ships until they are two days away from the port. By that time, it is too late to change their arrival time. Once a ship with a contract to load goods arrives in Canadian waters, anchorages must be provided.

One piece of the freighter traffic problem is the increase in shipments of U.S. thermal coal through the Port of Vancouver. Washington, Oregon and California refused to expand their coal ports, so U.S. coal companies are shipping through Canada. This needs to end.

Thermal coal is burned to produce electricity. Here in Canada, we are shutting down coal-fired power plants. We recognize they have no place in our energy future. If the government is serious about climate action, it should ban the export of both Canadian and U.S. thermal coal.

Canadian grain shipments from the Port of Vancouver have grown by 6% per year. Inefficiencies in the grain supply and the inability to load grain in rainy weather are resulting in ships sitting at anchor for extended periods. It should interest many members of the House that costs associated with these delays at the Port of Vancouver are partially passed on to Canadian grain farmers. Farmers pay for these inefficiencies through the shipping component of their contracts, which is subtracted from the price of their grain. I hope this will motivate cross-party and cross-country collaboration to lobby the government to mandate improvements at the Port of Vancouver.

The creation of good regulations and policy will drive innovation, as it has in Australia and Europe. There is no legitimate reason why the Port of Vancouver should be so far behind in efficient management of its bulk shipping.

[Broadcasting Act, November 19th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, some of the stories and anecdotes the member shared were familiar to me, as I am somebody who has worked in radio and television.

I agree that the CRTC should be regulating Internet giants and we should be getting them to pay their fair share of taxes in this country. This is Disney, Amazon, Netflix and so on. What the member missed is DZAN, which is taking all of the sports broadcasting revenue that really helps with CanCon in this country. Sports programming is a cash cow for broadcasters and this has all been soaked up by DZAN. It is another company that needs to be taxed properly.

Would the hon. member agree that YouTube and Facebook are indeed publishers rather than platforms and that the information published on their websites by users should be regulated in terms of its content? A lot of misogyny, racism and misinformation is put on these sites. Would the hon. member agree that we should be treating these companies as publishers rather than platforms?

[Broadcasting Act, November 18th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, my question is about the lack of regulation on content that is going onto YouTube and Facebook. We know that a lot of misinformation has been put onto these platforms. There has been racist content and a lot of misogynist content. Would the hon. member like to see regulation on these platforms?

They are not really platforms; they are publishers. Would he like to see them treated as publishers and the content that they publish come under this act?

[Broadcasting Act, November 18th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. minister for bringing forward this legislation. As somebody who has worked in the broadcast industry for years, with first nations producers, television producers and others who have been marginalized by the mainstream media historically, I think it is really important that the bill comes forward.

I am wondering about the CBC. We have heard from Friends of Canadian Broadcasting that it is disappointed the CBC was not included in the bill. I am wondering if there are plans to amend how the government works with the CBC or if there will be budget changes. Is anything coming up that will improve the situation for our national broadcaster?