Both of my colleagues were just reflecting on the question about shelters and the sense that there aren't enough services that are there and that we need the communities to design the approaches that are going to work. We need an action plan that brings together thoughtful consideration, and the very best knowledgeable people in the area supporting the safety and security of those most vulnerable in any society.
This should be the measure by which we reflect on ourselves as a country. The fact is this is absolute reality. This is a human rights crisis, as groups like Amnesty have called it. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in part of his reflections after he spent some time speaking with communities across the country, has called for a full national public commission of inquiry.
Absolutely, it links to the wide array of challenges we face, whether it's the acknowledgement of our treaties.... We also recognize that it's been a year since Idle No More really captured the attention of the country. First nations on and off reserve, status and non status, Inuit, and Métis stood shoulder to shoulder with average Canadians who joined our people and said this has to change.
We have unprecedented engagement by our peoples from across the country. We have an unprecedented engagement of young people, and they're incredibly inspiring. They want to see us construct a better present, and a better future.
I do believe that the Idle No More movement was led largely by young people.
In the 1960s and 1970s we had only a dozen or so people in post-secondary education. We now have 30,000 educated indigenous people with post-secondary levels of education.
I do believe that Canada is beginning...through the good work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and their work will continue for another year.
We heard from Dr. Bernice King, the daughter of the late Martin Luther King, when she spoke at a rally of 70,000 people marching in Vancouver, standing shoulder to shoulder, side by side with residential school survivors, compelling the country to understand that this is not the time for lip service; this is the time for life service.
This is a moment at which in my view, as I said at the outset, you as a committee hold in this room incredible responsibilities and opportunities to gravitate to the centre of this, to say to Canada, “We are going to be open an accountable”. We're a first-world country, the third-wealthiest recognized country in the world, and we have a tragedy of just incomprehensible levels that has flowed from decades of oppression and policies like that on residential schools. It's time that, as a country, we just acknowledge this, accept shared responsibility for it, and develop an approach that is rightfully led by the federal government. You, as a national committee, have the opportunity to step directly in and take on that leadership.
We will join you with the work we've been doing. In Winnipeg recently the Aboriginal Affairs ministers' working group along with groups like the Inuit and the Métis agreed that we would work on this. You've just heard the executive director of the National Association of Friendship Centres say they'll do the work.
What we're looking for is leadership from you as a committee.
We see this as also flowing, importantly, from the apology from 2008 by the Prime Minister to my late grandmother and the residential school survivor generations who are still struggling with sharing the stories.
I know this is a struggle for Canada to really reflect on, but it's a moment at which Canada can demonstrate leadership. Indigenous rights are human rights, and for us to shine as a champion of human rights around the world, this work has to happen right here and right now.