Thank you very much.
It's great to have you gentlemen before us. I will echo what my Liberal colleague said at the beginning, and I'd have to make an addendum to it-. You probably do represent a cross-section of the most credible Italian organizations in the country, except the Dante Club in Timmins isn't here, so I want to put that on the record, because they've been representing our community since the war, and many of those families were involved at the time of internment.
My colleague asked what there is to apologize for. It wasn't just internment. They were subject to physical harassment. We had militia going through the streets pulling people out of their homes, beating them up. That's a historical fact. People were fired from their jobs. The time has come, so let's get it done.
Now, that being said, I have to admit, and you have probably figured this out, I'm just a mangia-cake from northern Ontario, so I don't know all the groups. I'm trying to work out the problem with this bill. I read the bill. It seems fairly straightforward. My Conservative colleague read a statement from Brian Mulroney, and I think that's great, we're all done. But then they start saying this is divisive and this is an attempt to divide the community. Then I see unanimity here.
So I want to make sure everybody here is on the same page.
Mr. Sciascia, you wrote a letter on March 31 to Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, and you said: “Your plan of action announced...under the Community Historical Recognition Program has no legitimacy and simply does not make any sense.”
You went on further to explain your attempts to have this issue addressed through the years:
Unfortunately, after years of negotiations the Government chose to cancel the ACE Agreement and replaced it with a new program .... For all of the above we submit that by-passing the legitimate community organizations who have been negotiating with the Government in good faith is simply misguided and unacceptable. We sincerely hope, Mr. Kenney, that you legitimize the process by dealing with those who represent the community and have been working for over 20 years on the issue of internment. In default thereof, we will have no other alternative than to urge the NCIC to mobilize our community from coast to coast and take all the necessary measures to denounce this unacceptable program proposed by the CHRP.
Clearly, those are strong words. Do we have unanimity?