Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. I do not know him well. He seems like a nice fellow. I assume he understands, because he said he does, the impacts that residential schools had on aboriginal people and continue to have to this day.
I am speaking in part out of the frustration of the people I know who have been involved in the Aboriginal Healing Foundation's work in the northwestern area of British Columbia, who I represent. They have been involved in the six programs that are in existence that have now lost their funding and their capacity to do the community-based work that has been seen as so crucial. It smacks of a certain hypocrisy of the government and a tragic sense of cynicism to say that a report that was sitting on a minister's desk for months, a report that we now know says the Aboriginal Healing Foundation worked and worked well, was released the day after the budget. It was done by Indian Affairs itself, saying how wonderfully this community-based system worked, a family-based system, delivered by first nations for first nations and that it was helping the healing process. The cynicism to cut that program in the budget and then release a report the next day that says what a fantastic program this was smacks of a hypocrisy to the first nations communities that I represent and all across this country. The apology was meant to be followed up by action. That is what we asked the Prime Minister for when we all sat in this place and listened to the residential school apology.
First nations people, despite many generations of broken promises, took the chance and said they would give the Prime Minister the time, saying maybe he would follow up on this action and deliver and support aboriginal healing in this country.
Now we find out that all of these programs are being cut, programs that were working, and the government is saying that it is very interested in this healing process and wants to support it. The way the government can support it is to continue the funding.
To the last point about the so-called time of restraint, the government found $250,000 to send to an asbestos lobby in Quebec to promote asbestos exports to other countries, while ripping it out of the walls of this place. That is $250,000 that could be much better spent on aboriginal healing at a—