Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-5, which will establish a national day for truth and reconciliation.

No words exist to explain the horror and profound sadness that I felt and I know was felt across the country, very deeply among Inuit in Nunavut and elsewhere in Canada, when the remains of 215 children were discovered in a mass grave on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School last week.

No parent should ever feel the pain that comes from the loss of a child, yet Indigenous parents were forced to suffer it year after year in this country, from the opening of the Mohawk Institute in 1831 to the eventual closing of the Gordon’s Indian Residential School, Canada’s last residential school, in 1996.

It gives me pause to think of the role our predecessors in this chamber might have played to facilitate those horrors, and I’m deeply saddened by the knowledge that this discovery will not be the last.

As Senator Francis acknowledged in his second reading speech, this racist policy was suffered by all Indigenous people across Canada — First Nations, Inuit and Métis. During the almost five decades that I have worked in the North, I have come to know and love many survivors, some of whom are my extended family by marriage. As a resident and a legal aid lawyer, I saw and continue to see first-hand all too often the intergenerational trauma suffered by Inuit as a result of residential schools.

When I was first appointed as the education minister in the Northwest Territories in 1981, there were still residential schools in operation in the N.W.T. It was the intimate knowledge I had of the harms caused by residential schools among my family, friends and clients that led me to lead an initiative to establish a high school program in every community, large and small, throughout the N.W.T. that allowed for the closure of all residential schools in the territory. Those actions were supported by the recommendations of a special committee on education, on which I had also served, that was established in the ninth assembly of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly.

It was as clear to me then as it is now that the removal of children from their families had long-lasting and far-reaching negative impacts on those families and the communities at large.

Following the horrifying discovery in Kamloops, flags were flown at half-mast in Nunavut and for 215 hours at the Nunavut legislature. Territorial MLAs and cabinet ministers, united in their grief, shared stories of collective trauma. Former premier and now Speaker Paul Quassa stated:

As a survivor of residential school myself, I feel profound sorrow for everyone who has been personally impacted by this terrible event.

All of us in this house have family and constituents who are, to this day, grappling with the dark legacy of our country’s history.

We have the duty to do all that we can do to work for justice.

Minister Jeannie Ehaloak stood and said:

I’m a survivor, I was taken with my four siblings. I was just four years old. To my parents, who went from six children to one in a matter of hours, I feel your pain.

To quote from a May 31, 2021, Nunatsiaq News article:

Cathy Towtongie, MLA for Rankin Inlet North-Chesterfield Inlet, said that she cried when she heard the news of the children’s remains.

“This is Canada’s past and there are even more others,” she said.

“When the children were taken, there were no more children visiting around,” she said. “There were no more children laughing and having fun.”

“Our elders changed, everything changed,” she said . . . .

But residential schools were not the only tragedy that Inuit suffered. The stories of loss and grief bring back to the surface other racist and discriminatory practices, such as the removal of TB patients to southern sanatoriums. Many, children and adults alike, never returned home. As at residential schools, they were at times mistreated, abused. If and when they passed, they were too often disposed of with no word sent to their worried loved ones back home.

That’s impacted me personally. In the 1980s, I travelled with my then-wife to a TB sanatorium in Ninette, in southern Manitoba. Like so many others, her mother had been separated from her young family and forced to go south for treatment. A float plane taxied up to the family’s camp and took her mother away when my wife was 10 years old. She never saw her again. They were never told how she died or where she was buried. So on our trip, we searched in rural cemeteries. With the help of a local priest, we finally found her mother’s unmarked grave. It was a very moving experience for both of us. But as those with similar experiences will know, the small feeling of closure that comes with finally knowing does nothing to erase the lifelong hurt that such losses bring.

Now, I have heard the national day for truth and reconciliation compared to Remembrance Day. On that, I would like to comment.

Remembrance Day started as Armistice Day to celebrate the Armistice Agreement that saw an end to World War I on November 11, 1918. According to a fact sheet on the Veterans Affairs website:

From 1921 to 1930, Armistice Day was held on the Monday of the week in which November 11 fell. In 1931, Alan Neill, Member of Parliament for Comox–Alberni, introduced a bill to observe Armistice Day only on November 11. Passed by the House of Commons, the bill also changed the name to “Remembrance Day”. The first Remembrance Day was observed on November 11, 1931.

So, colleagues, Remembrance Day was established at a time when the collective consciousness was acutely attuned to the atrocities of war. Every Canadian had suffered some loss, and Canadians are continually reminded, year after year, of the ultimate sacrifice made by many tens of thousands of Canadians in war to date.

Why do I bring this up? Because of what Senator Francis said in his second reading speech. He said, and it’s been also said by others today, “Education matters.” I agree wholeheartedly. This national day that is being set aside to honour the Indigenous lives lost at residential schools cannot be one celebrated by “some” Canadians. Like on Remembrance Day, we must ensure that all Canadians take the time to pause and reflect, as this bill envisions.

To get there, we need to ensure that there are broad, consistent and well-resourced educational materials made available from coast to coast to coast. We will need to do more and put in more effort in the first few years, as we’ve heard today in Committee of the Whole, to make all Canadians aware of the truth — not only the truths we have shared in this chamber but of all the truths being shared by brave survivors throughout the country, described so thoroughly and compellingly in the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Despite an official apology by former Prime Minister Harper in 2009 and his establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and despite the release of the TRC report and its Calls to Action in 2015, I believe it took the tragic discovery in Kamloops recently to really awaken many Canadians to the realities of our country’s dark legacy.

We all know and acknowledge there is work to be done with respect to education on the realities faced by Indigenous peoples in Canada.

I must admit, honourable senators — and I’m the critic for this bill — that it is hard for me to hear about the hundreds of millions of dollars that will go to providing federal employees a paid day off. I think about the ongoing commitment that we have heard today, that would cost $388.9 million per annum for this holiday when you count the costs for federal public servants and federally regulated agencies. I think about how that money could drastically change life for Nunavummiut and Indigenous peoples nationally. What could long-term, dedicated and stable funding mean: for food security; for closing the infrastructure gap, which is huge; for finally ending boil-water advisories; and for dealing with acute housing shortfalls in Indigenous communities?

May I mention once again the acute housing crisis in Nunavut, which has been studied by a committee of this Senate. This government could only find $25 million in its recent multi-billion dollar budget for housing in Nunavut. Comparatively, how much will be spent on education?

To put my concerns into perspective, as we heard today, only $60 million was spent on Indigenous language protection and revitalization from 2019 to 2021.

It would be an insult to my family members, to my friends and to the memories of those survivors whom I have lost along the way, if this day were to become yet another paid day at the cottage for federal workers. It needs to truly be a day of remembrance and learning.

It should also be said that learning cannot be confined to one day alone. We should ensure that learning opportunities are consistently offered throughout the year. I know there’s always more to learn and always room to grow. I support the establishment of a national day for truth and reconciliation, but I want to ensure that the spirit and intent of this day are never lost and are consistently honoured.

Honourable senators, I want to leave you today with the words of an Inuit elder, Mr. Piita Irniq, who has long been a champion in identifying and supporting many Inuit who struggle with the trauma of residential schools. I asked his permission to share these words with you today, which he recently shared on his social media.

As the critic of this bill for the official opposition, I believe I’m given the last word in date by convention. Given that this bill will create a national day to commemorate survivors, I feel it is only fitting that I give that last word to a survivor.

Mr. Irniq says:

I was kidnapped by a Roman Catholic priest, in broad daylight, right in front of my parents! We were at our summer camp near Naujaat, a tiny settlement on the west coast of Hudson’s Bay, getting ready to walk to inland for our annual caribou hunt.

It was in 1958. I was 11 years old, and I was to attend Sir Joseph Bernier Federal Day School in Igluligaarjuk — Chesterfield Inlet — for the first time.

Little did my parents or I know that this was the beginning of leaving behind my culture, language, Inuit Spirituality and the practice of Shamanism for which we used for healing, special relationship among us Inuit, with animals, land, our past and the future. We were to be assimilated into the Qablunaaq world, to think like a European.

The losses we experienced were to be permanent. The impact on all of us — my family, my friends and many of us who are now seen to be leaders of our people — was traumatic. Many of us have spent our lives trying, in many different ways, to bring “meaning” back into lives that were emptied of the ideas, beliefs and relationships that for thousands of years brought meaning and purpose to Inuit. Some have turned to this modern religion called Christianity. Others, like me, are convinced that recovering the culture we lost is essential to giving direction not only to ourselves but also to future generations.

Honourable senators, thank you. Qujannamik.

Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

(Motion agreed to and bill read third time and passed.)