At the conclusion of the anti-Boissonnault attack, there’s only one question that matters: which political party has a plan to tackle the gross injustices Indigenous People have faced since colonization?

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on November 25, 2024.

OTTAWA—Identity politics run amok. How else to explain the resignation of employment minister Randy Boissonnault on Nov. 20?

Boissonnault was forced to step down for claiming that he is a Métis except he has never done so.

By his own admission, he was adopted into a Métis family and raised by them although he has often mentioned the influence of a Cree grandmother.

A prime ministerial statement said Boissonnault “will focus on clearing the allegations made against him.”

Boissonnault was listed as Métis by the Liberal Party Indigenous Peoples’ Commission when they compiled a list of successful Indigenous candidates after the 2015 election.

According to a commission member, an adoption by a Métis family confers Métis status on the child, which is why Boissonnault was so identified.

The Conservative Party has made Boissonnault a clear target. Three members were ejected from the House of Commons last week because of the nature of their personal attacks.

Seven Tories peppered Boissonnault with a dozen questions while Government House Leader Karina Gould tried to set the record straight.

Gould said the company managed by Boissonnault while he was not in politics was never listed as an Indigenous company, and did not receive any contracts from the government.

NDP MP Blake Desjarlais joined the attack, suggesting that Boissonnault should resign as minister because he is making decisions about Indigenous lives without knowing about his own.

Allegedly, Boissonnault’s grandmother is listed as a person with German ancestry, although Boissonnault’s understanding was that she was full Cree.

The bottom line is that this so-called scandal was nothing more than a successful attempt to unseat a minister so popular that he got elected during a Conservative near-sweep of his home province, Alberta.

Boissonnault’s departure leaves the province without a federal minister at the table.

This opens the door to the ministerial elevation of Calgary Liberal MP George Chahal.

Boissonnault’s departure is a huge loss for Indigenous and minority supporters.

He was one of the most well-liked ministers in the government with a reputation for speaking out for the underdog. He is also a self-identified gay man.

Liberal First Nations MP Jaime Battiste defended Boissonnault as an advocate for Indigenous people who never self-identified as Métis.

Battiste characterized the attack as a witch-hunt, and said that the whole issue was blown up to score points. Boisssonnault was a member of the Liberal Indigenous caucus, but there are also supportive men who have been members of the women’s caucus.

Embittered former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould weighed in on the controversy, blaming it all on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and saying “we get to watch white people play ancestry wheel of fortune.”

The wheel of fortune has been anything but. Until Trudeau actually began tackling Indigenous issues with real financial support, the education of on-territory Indigenous children was funded at a level 40 per cent less than the rest of Canada’s children.

The wheel of fortune meant that if you lived in Indigenous territory, you were likely to suffer for years under a boil-water advisory. Trudeau and the Liberal Party fixed that.

As for Indigenous ministers, the Liberal Party actually set up a recruitment system to attract Indigenous candidates. That was how Wilson-Raybould was rewarded with an uncontested nomination in the coveted Vancouver-Granville, B.C., riding in 2014.

Conservatives who succeeded in ousting Boissonnault have zero strategy of their own on reconciliation and the recruitment of Indigenous Members of Parliament.

They are ready to use identity politics to destroy the reputation of someone as earnest and hardworking as Boissonnault.

When Andrew Scheer was leader of the Conservative Party, Indigenous voters in his own riding voted against him because he did not represent the views of Indigenous constituents.

Yet he was frontline in the attack on Boissonnault. According to everyone who follows the issue, Boissonnault’s departure means the loss of a vociferous supporter of reconciliation and minority political engagement.

At the conclusion of the anti-Boissonnault attack, there is only one question that really matters: which political party has a plan to tackle the gross injustices that have been faced by Indigenous People ever since Europeans settlers arrived to overtake their land?

Certainly not the Conservatives, whose slash-and-burn political strategy would turn back the clock on reconciliation, housing, and a huge array of other issues.

Pierre Poilievre’s carbon-tax election isn’t happening. Instead of focusing on character assassination, why doesn’t he work on specific positive issues to get things done?

That could actually make Indigenous lives better.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Last week’s announcement fulfilled a Liberal promise to lift the ban on gay blood donations, but it was also designed to drive a further wedge inside the Conservative Party, especially as it related to leadership front-runner Pierre Poilievre.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 2, 2022.

OTTAWA—Full equality moved one step closer in Canada last week when the federal government finally lifted the ban on gay blood donations.

While the announcement was made by the prime minister, several gay colleagues were there to back him up.

The Liberals had promised to remove the ban when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was first elected back in 2015. Because the ban had not been lifted, a discrimination case was slowly making its way through the courts that might have provoked a judicial overturning of the prohibition.

That case claimed that the federal government had no right to impose a ban via Health Canada because the Canadian Blood Services Agency was an independent body. As such, it enjoyed an arm’s length position which meant it should not be subject to federal government interference.

In the case of the Trudeau announcement, the prime minister defended the lengthy delay in delivering on the promise by saying the government needed to fund scientific research to affirm the political promise.

But there is no doubt the announcement was political in nature. The ban removal will cover all Canadians except for those who live in Quebec. Quebec gay donors will still be prohibited but the prime minister said he was confident that Héma-Québec would likely decide to move in the same direction.

Cabinet ministers Seamus O’Regan and Randy Boissonnault and Liberal MP Rob Oliphant were among those commenting on the decision.

Boissonnault is the first openly gay Member of Parliament from Alberta, and he eked out a narrow victory against Conservative incumbent James Cumming in a downtown Edmonton riding.

Unlike some Conservative colleagues, Cumming voted against a Tory party’s motion to ban abortion and voted in favour of criminalizing conversion therapy so both men shared similar views.

In the last election, even in British Columbia, social Conservatives were defeated in almost every urban centre. The defeat of those members stalled the momentum of the Conservative party and left the door open for the Liberals to win another, albeit minority, election.

Last week’s announcement fulfilled a Liberal promise but it was also designed to drive a further wedge inside the Conservative Party, especially as it related to leadership front-runner Pierre Poilievre.

Poilievre is no friend of the gay community. One of his first actions as a Member of Parliament was to oppose public health-care funding for people who are undergoing gender reassignment. Poilievre wanted to defund surgery for transgender individuals seeking to change their sex. He went so far as to falsely claim that the reassignment medical procedure does not require surgery.

Back in 2008, Poilievre was the youngest Member of Parliament. In more recent times, he has been focused more on pocketbook issues as an appeal to the young. The bitcoin and blockchain references that he sprinkles in his speeches are designed to appeal to young people even as they miff economists and traditional bankers.

But those same young people are also in favour of non-binary and transgender decision-making.

Poilievre’s colleague in the race, Leslyn Lewis, is recruiting more social conservatives who will be pushing their anti-abortion and pro-conversion perspectives in public policy.

For Poilievre to be embraced by the mainstream, he needs to go mainstream. That involves repudiating positions he has taken in the past that discriminate against the LGBTQ community.

Like any other Canadian, a gay or lesbian voter does not necessarily make their electoral decision strictly on a single issue, even if it affects their own sexuality.

They, too, are interested in tax policy, social issues, and many other elements of governance that are assessed during an election by every voter.

But in a multi-party system, a voter shift of three or four per cent can actually change the face of government.

So, when a health announcement on blood is made, it is just as much a move for the next election as it was for the past one.

Fulfilling the promise on ending gay blood bans was important for the Liberals. With the New Democrats involved in a governance agreement, the Grits believe they have a chance to court a larger swath on the left in the next election.

But in several years of government, enemies are made, and the sunny ways of 2015 have given way to clouds on the Trudeau horizon.

In the next race, it will be crucial to solidify minority votes because Tories will bleed votes from disgruntled former Liberals on the right who fear the fiscal bottom line.

Every LGBTQ vote will count.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.