Mr. Speaker, certainly on this world freedom day, the day we remember the great Mandela and his walk to freedom, I really believe that in northern communities, there are young people who are the next Mandelas. What Mandela showed is that it is possible to reconcile after years and years of injustice. The word I hear all the time in first nation communities is “reconciliation”. I hear that the treaties will the honoured, that we committed to the treaties for as long as the sun shines, as long the grass grows, and as long as the river flows.
We have a fundamental duty. It is our primary relationship as Canadians, the relationship formed when those treaties were signed. Everything else comes after that.
It has been a broken relationship, but in first nation communities, I hear the word “reconciliation”. I never hear it from government. Never. I have never heard the word “reconciliation”. There is no understanding of what it means. Reconciliation is to come together with respect. I think when we come together with that respect, we will actually be able to start re-understanding how to build a governance structure that is forward-looking and accountable to the communities. Fundamentally, when it comes to education and children, no child in this country should ever be thrust into fourth world conditions in marginalized communities across the far north of Canada.
When we look at Mandela and what he stood for, I think Canada is on the verge today, so we need to take that next step. It is what the world expects of us and what we need to expect of each other.