Every year I watch and take part in Remembrance Day because my wife's family and some of my distant relatives did serve in the war. I understand world history and the terrible wars that the world has been in. I believe that we have to provide ceremonies and Remembrance Day activities to remember that so that we don't forget. I think we can do the same.
We need the federal government to finish working on the creation of a national monument in Ottawa, so that every September 30 the prime minister, the members of Parliament and the senators can go to this monument that we're going to create. The process had started, and then it got sidelined about a year ago. We can televise this across Canada, and it will force the parents of every child who sees that on TV.... They'll ask, “Mom, Dad, what is that all about? How come you never talked to me about this? I didn't know there were indigenous people. Who are they? What happened to them?”
That's going to create the dialogue, but we need some help. There's supposed to be one national monument created in Ottawa, and then one in each of the provinces and territories. We need to do that.
We also need the minister to finish creating the national council for truth and reconciliation. Aside from the U.N. declaration being adopted by Canada, the creation of a national council for reconciliation is also paramount, because that is the council that is going to take the country to task on an annual basis. Just as the Auditor General does for the accounting of our money, we also need this national council for reconciliation to take the governments, the churches, the provinces, the cities, the towns and the schools across this country to task on a yearly basis on the progress—or lack of it—towards reconciliation.