Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, in Hamilton, my own community, we had an organization we called the Strengthening Hamilton's Community initiative. It came out of the fire bombing of a Hindu samaj. I served on that for three and a half years. The wonderful part of that tragedy was the bringing together of so many different communities. But one of the things I've learned is that racism is a learned behaviour and that education is probably the only way or the most significant way of dealing with it.
Mr. Cotler referred to Durban and what happened there. It's one of those sad times, because the interventions that could have taken place.... The report that came out of Durban is, for the most part, reasonable. The activities that took place outside of there were horrendous. I think anybody who pauses to think about things at all would be very troubled by it.
In my area as the human rights critic for the NDP, I'm often visited by delegations from countries in South America. They often talk about the paramilitaries, death squads, and things of that nature. They talk about impunity. When you first started speaking, you might have noticed that I started taking notes right away, because “impunity” is a word you don't usually associate with a democracy. That was very troubling to hear.
I would note that we have a copy of the Universal Periodic Review of India, which has been provided for us. I noticed the size of this. The one done in Canada is five times thicker than this, and yet you have to wonder what the difference is. Why is that happening in that fashion? Is there something systemic happening?
You mentioned, Dr. D'souza, the propaganda machine. I think the implication in your remarks was that this is a government machine. Are we saying that the government is involved with the systemic continuation of the caste system?