I want to start by saying that I'm joining virtually from Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis nation here in Manitoba.
The Conservatives were very happy to finally be discussing this bill. It's been a long time coming. As we know, former prime minister Stephen Harper officially did the formal apology for residential schools in 2008 and really helped usher in the process and appointed Senator Murray Sinclair as the chair.
Here we are, about 12 or 13 years later, finally discussing number 94 to change our citizenship oath. As Conservatives, we take very seriously the institutions and traditions of Canada. This is a very big deal to us, and we're very happy to be supporting this change and to have the minister here. Thank you, Minister Mendicino, for being with us today.
Before I ask my first question, I want to give a shout-out to my constituent Senator Murray Sinclair, who, as we know, is retiring from the Senate. If you're listening, thank you very much, Senator, for all your work in really changing the course of history for the better for indigenous people.
Minister, I have a couple of questions about the priority level for this for your government. We know it's been about five years in the making. Minister John McCallum, I believe, first started the discussions with an advisory group for this back in 2016. Minister Hussen, following him, introduced the first iteration of this bill, which of course died on the Order Paper in the 2019 election.
Then you got the role. You introduced it, and then, upon the Prime Minister proroguing Parliament, of course, almost an entire year of legislative work got wiped clean. We had to start from scratch in September.
Now here we are, about five months later, finally discussing this at committee. It's been five years, three ministers, three versions of this bill. I would like a commitment from you or some acknowledgement of what the priority level is for you to get this done. I want to hear that you're going to be taking this quite seriously, before perhaps a spring election, to ensure it gets passed. What level of priority is this for you?