QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
September 22, 2022
Honourable senators, my question is about the action plan development phase of Bill C-15 implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into law in Canada. During the bill’s passage through Parliament, the action plan time frame was voluntarily reduced by the government on request from three years to two years. This raised some eyebrows and some concerns. Governments don’t usually get things done faster. We have certainly, in our experience, seen lots of evidence of that.
The action plan is vital to the success of this historic bill, and the bill carries a lot of hopes and dreams of many Canadians. Now with less than nine months left until the end of the two-year deadline, if the two-year development time frame proves to be inadequate to get this crucial job done properly, will you and your colleagues do the brave thing and take the extra time to get the job done right?
I want to get this job done right. It involves a lot of work from a number of departments, particularly the lead department, which is the Minister of Justice, with the support of Crown-Indigenous Relations.
As an update, the consultation is ongoing. Funds have been dispersed to communities across the country that are feeding into what will be the action plan. Thankfully, we have the Government of British Columbia, which has had its own experiences, positive and negative, with their own action plan. We are inspired by what we have seen from and coming out of British Columbia. Again, it’s not perfect. It’s something that Minister Lametti is very conscious of in moving forward with, something that is very much unknown territory, and which the government can’t and really shouldn’t control. It requires that work with Indigenous communities, their feedback and putting together something — and I would suggest humbly that we need to take the risk that it will be imperfect, knowing that relationships and action plans need to be perfected over the years.
Time is of the essence, and — I don’t like this expression — perfect is the enemy of good. It doesn’t mean we can’t produce something that is good at the same time. Our eyes are on meeting deadlines. Often we don’t as a government, but it’s something we need to be focused on; otherwise, it won’t get done. But you know, a proper review and an action plan is something that will look at all our legislation and our all bylaws, and there are a lot of them.
Thank you, Mr. Minister.
