Editor's Note Mr. Ouellette, a 38-year-old Cree, references Attawapiskat. Last month the Canadian parliament held an emergency debate on Aboriginal suicides after 11 people, nine of them minors, attempted suicide in one weekend in Attawapiskat, a remote community of 2,000 in northern Ontario.
The
following is excerpted from the speech delivered by Robert Falcon Ouellette MP
(Winnipeg Centre Liberal) on Monday May 2.
Robert
Falcon Ouellette MP
"[Bill C-14] is taking us down a path that is very
dangerous, and we do not know where it ends."
Madam
Speaker, a report in The
Globe and Mail on April 24, 2016, says 13-year-old Sheridan Hookimaw
killed herself on the banks of the river that winds through Attawapiskat. The
sickly girl had been flown out for weekly medical appointments. She wanted to
end her pain, and in the process, she set off a chain reaction not only in her
community but in communities right across this country, which we are still
dealing with today.
This
debate strikes at the very heart of the meaning of life, it strikes at the heart
of bureaucracy, and it strikes at the heart of how we care for the most
vulnerable in our society. I have been told over and over again that this
situation is different, that there is no connection.
In
the indigenous world view, everything is interconnected. It is holistic, meaning
that when a change is made in one place, the impact will be felt elsewhere, and
the two cannot be separated. In the western world view, often we
compartmentalize things. We believe that we can play, that we can control
certain situations, that we can effect change here and not see change in other
places. Above all, we have come to believe ourselves able to predict and control
all, to control the future. This does not mean, though, that we should not take
action.
The
impact of this bill on people in Toronto may be very different than on the
people in Nunavik or Attawapiskat. Our role as parliamentarians is to place
ourselves in the moccasins of others, to place ourselves outside of our own
experiences, to see the world through another cosmology and other world view,
and to see the impact that our decisions may have on others.
We
are making profound changes in concepts surrounding life, which cannot be undone
in the future. In the indigenous tradition and philosophy, we are required to
think seven generations into the future. If I am wrong and there is no
connection between Attawapiskat and physician-assisted dying or suicide, if the
average person does not see a connection and communities do not see a greater
stress, then I will gladly say I was wrong; but if there is an impact, which is
caused by the valorization of suicide, then what? …
We
make laws often for the average person, but the impact is felt most by those who
are on the margins of society.
Even
though we have the Gladue rulings in our justice system and cases where we are
supposed to take into consideration someone's upbringing, someone's past,
unfortunately, those are not reflected in our justice system. Therefore, how can
we be assured that the changes we are making today in the House will not have an
equally detrimental impact on others?
My
earliest memory, one of my strongest memories, is as a little six-year-old boy.
My mother had just lost a house. We were in tough economic times in Calgary,
Alberta, and she could no longer support us. She was a single mom, and she went
off on the road looking for work. She decided at one point she could no longer
raise me or my little brother by herself and she needed help, so she went to her
ex-husband, my father. My father was a residential school survivor, an
alcoholic, and a member of gangs. We knew all these things.
We
knew he had a terrible temper. We were told this as young children, and we were
very scared as children. We were dropped off at his place, with his parents, my
grandmother and grandfather, and we were very upset. …
I
remember climbing a tree in the back yard and wrapping a rope around my neck at
the age of six. This is a true story. People often think it cannot be true, but
this happens in our country, like the case of the 13-year-old girl in
Attawapiskat.
I
wrapped that rope around my neck and thought,"Should I jump off into this
universe, which is before me?" It was in that back yard that somehow I made
the decision to climb down out of that tree and unwind that rope from around my
neck.
If
in my life I had seen, or I had known, that my grandmother had somehow used
physician-assisted dying or physician-assisted suicide, or others in my family
had completed the irreparable act, then it would have made it much more
difficult for me to continue.
We
might not think the impact will be there, but we do not know. We assume we know
these things. We are deciding the future of a few for the end of a few. …
This
debate is about life itself. Indigenous people never knew of suicide. It was
unheard of in indigenous communities. Yet it now continues to plague our
communities, and the spirit of suicide seems to always be there.
Life
is not easy. It is about struggle, about fighting for another day. If indigenous
peoples had committed suicide, then we would not be here today for all the
trials and tribulations we have faced.
I
participate in one of the high ceremonies of the indigenous custom and tradition
of the Plains Cree. It is called the sundance. It is a four-day ceremony, and
for three days and three nights, no food or water shall pass my lips. I pierce
my body to sacrifice myself for others, in prayer for them. I do this not for
myself, not to ask for something for myself, but for others.
In
the sundance, in the sundance lodge, my Sundance Chief David Blacksmith talks
about the spirit of suicide, how it is coming to take our young and is starting
to take our old people, how it is affecting our society, how it is destroying
our sense of community, and I have to listen to it. I have to be moved by the
words he brings, because the people surrounding me in the sundance have all been
affected by it.
We
are placing ourselves now outside of nature. Nature itself is hard, to strive,
to struggle, to see another day. It is a struggle that is noble. Now placing the
tasks in the hands of the state removes us from nature, telling the state that
it will now be the one who will be enabling us to do these things; someone else
will be deciding, bureaucracy will now be deciding.. . . .
From
an indigenous perspective, I look at this bill and I cannot support it, because
it leads to a place where I do not believe we are looking out for the interests
of all people within our society. It is not allowing us to fully comprehend the
needs of everyone who makes up Canadian societies, but really, it is taking us
down a path that is very dangerous, and we do not know where it
ends.
Let
us be very careful in this House, and take the time that is necessary as we make
our decisions.