Thank you very much, parliamentary committee members.
Mr. Chair, the gentleman has asked a very important question, and I think he has a very important point, that just for the sake of having a national holiday....
I believe that the Assembly of First Nations would want this to be a very meaningful way for all of Canada, including indigenous people, to really understand the impacts of the residential schools and the other policies that had effects on their lives personally and their communities. The history of this—that as aboriginal people we were subjected to these types of policies—needs to be told in a careful, gentle, healing way. There were a lot of things that were forbidden to us to speak about and to even know about them in the education of history in our schools and institutions. It should be for families to know that a nation of people was subjected to these policies in the Indian Act and under the residential schools and many other policies and legislation, and to know that the first time the aboriginal people were recognized was in 1960, when they were allowed to vote in the Canadian system.
It would be fruitful to have the Assembly of First Nations, along with other people, come together as a task team and to make this a meaningful way. We need to have this discussion with our Canadian brothers and sisters and have the history. Just like we commemorate November 11, when we all put aside our differences and honour the people who fought for us, who gave us this freedom and sacrificed their lives, we are doing this with the residential schools. Our parents gave up their children to the schools and the churches, and they sacrificed, and the impact is very devastating, but we are a forgiving nation, and we want the Canadian people to understand that, as aboriginal people, this is what really happened to us.