Tom Mulcair: Our home on native land

During the past week, two women of character have put their indelible marks on longstanding issues involving First Nations, Inuit and Métis rights.

Leah Gazan, an Indigenous woman and the New Democrat member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre, has proposed the extension of Criminal Code provisions on hate speech to include denialism of the genocide committed in residential schools.

Award-winning singer Jully Black brilliantly changed one word in the Canadian national anthem at last weekend’s NBA All-Star Game, replacing “our home and native land,” with “our home on native land”. Bam! No more arguments about details of land recognition statements: this one will have all the bases covered right from the start at thousands of major events.

Gazan’s proposal, which has not yet been tabled, is legally simple and straightforward. It is also so timely and necessary that Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Marc Miller has said he’s willing to consider it. Miller is highly regarded with a sterling track record during his tenure. His nod could give a real boost to the chances of Gazan’s proposal becoming law.

A 'TIMELY AND NECESSARY' PROPOSAL

Gazan was already acknowledged for her leadership on the issues when she presented a motion in the House of Commons recognizing that the residential school system was a genocide. Her motion was adopted unanimously. An extraordinary admission by legislators from all parties.

I’ve had the great pleasure of knowing Gazan for many years. Unpretentiously strong, she is a gifted communicator. I invited her several times to speak with graduate students at l'Université de Montreal and she left them awestruck. She has a knack for getting to the substance of complex issues and connecting with those who don’t have her lived experience.

On issues of Indigenous history and rights she is truly inspiring. A part of her own complex family history has also left her with an acutely deep sensitivity to genocide issues. Her father, a Dutch Jew, was the only surviving child of his family when he came out of hiding after the war.

Gazan’s partner, former NDP MP Romeo Saganash, has spoken about his family’s own suffering in the residential school system that he attended. His mother was only shown his brother’s grave decades after his death in a residential school. Gazan’s actions honour the memories of their and so many other families.

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Canada’s Criminal Code was recently amended to include the crime of anti-Semitic hate speech in the form of Holocaust denial.

Denying Canada’s genocide, perpetrated by our own governments in the residential school system, should also be proscribed as hate speech in a provision with similar wording.

Anyone who followed the years-long quest by late Ottawa-area Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger to make our national anthem gender neutral realizes that it’s not changed overnight. But thanks to Bélanger’s determination, we now sing “in all of us command” instead of “in all thy sons command.” Positive change is hard to resist.

But it has to start somewhere and with a clear idea. That’s the beauty of Jully’s proposal. It’s simple, it’s easy and it’s impossible to disagree with in good faith, because it’s so profoundly true.

When the Montreal Canadiens, much to the credit of the organization, started making Indigenous land recognition statements prior to games last season, the usual gang of “anti-woke” suspects was up in arms. They tried to nit pick which Nation was there at what epoch. Their real hope was to flush the statement. The Canadiens made some adjustments but have stuck to their statement, a rarity in Quebec.

On the subject of the residential school genocide, the target of denial has often been those who speak out clearly about the deaths of native children. “Lots of children died in that era” is one of the arguments thrown at people who have read the reports, heard the witnesses and know, and affirm, that Indigenous children were indeed killed.

• First-hand accounts from residential school survivors

As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission proved conclusively, there is a huge difference between the mortality rates of First Nation, Inuit and Métis children in residential schools and deaths of children in the general population era for era.

Another typical approach is to take issue based on the historically stated benevolent intention for the schools. As the Commission proved, the real intention of those schools was to “beat the Indian out of the child.”

'THAT"S WHY IT WAS A GENOCIDE"

Maybe we have trouble accepting as true what our own governments did for generations. The time for justification and argument is over. Let’s face the ugly historical fact: Indigenous kids were killed in large numbers in institutions created to destroy their language, culture and identity.

That’s why it was a genocide. Recognized as such, unanimously, by the House of Commons under the leadership of Gazan.

World history tragically includes other genocides, in particular the horror perpetrated by the Ottomans against the Armenians at the height of the First World War. That genocide has been recognized by the Canadian Parliament as well. Hitler famously said on the eve of World War II, in preparing his plans for the Holocaust: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" The world has a collective duty to remember these horrors if we’re to have any hope of avoiding them in the future.

We, as Canadians, have a specific obligation to do everything that we can to acknowledge and atone for what Canada itself has done. Part of that atonement includes putting into Canadian law a prohibition against denial of the residential schools genocide. It won’t necessarily be an easy task in a minority Parliament. Unanimous consent to shorten delays could prove elusive.

IN 2008, POILIEVRE 'SHOWED AN ABJECT LACK OF SENSITIVITY'

On the day, in 2008, when the House of Commons made an historic apology for the suffering and death caused in the residential school system one MP, Pierre Poilievre, showed an abject lack of sensitivity. He said that he wasn't sure Canada was "getting value for all of this money" being spent to compensate former students in that system.

He added that his “view is that we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self-reliance. That's the solution in the long run — more money will not solve it.”

The residential school apology came at the beginning of my career in Ottawa and stands out as one of the most emotional events I’ve ever attended. Stephen Harper deserves full personal credit. The last minute behind the scenes shenanigans by the opposition Liberals to try to scupper the event were shameful and then-NDP leader Jack Layton played a key role in helping the minority Conservatives keep the historic event on track.

Poilievre was forced to issue a complete apology for his statements, but he did make them. Accepting that that apology was sincere is of course the right thing to do. The problem is, he’s still flirting around the edges of the same intolerance.

Just last month Poilievre spoke at a Frontier Centre for Public Policy (FCPP) luncheon in Winnipeg.

It is inconceivable that with the full staffing he enjoys as Leader of the opposition, Poilievre didn’t know of the Centre’s shocking positions on residential schools. One example: it ran radio ads in 2018 that said it was a myth that residential schools robbed Indigenous children of their childhood.

Minister Miller once again had the right words: Poilievre’s “stunt” called into question the authenticity of his 2008 apology.

Rationalizing, Poilievre lamely claimed, “We speak with groups all the time with which we disagree.” Fact is, Poilievre would never accept to speak with a group of Holocaust deniers. His justification rang hollow.

Poilievre must’ve had contact with First Nations youth growing up. Whatever it is in his makeup that leads him to these troublesome, repeat positions about indigenous people and their history is for him to explain.

Canadians, who are exhausted with the incompetence of our current government, would normally be tempted to give his second place Conservatives a chance.

Poilievre seems intent on doing everything he can to convince them not to.

Tom Mulcair was the leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017