Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed that speech. There were parts that I thought were particularly good. The admonitions to all of us in the House to fight inequality and discrimination are well taken and I think she will find widespread support on all sides of the House for those kinds of sentiments.
Many of us who sit at this end of the House come from a region of Canada that was deliberately populated by an immigration program that brought a lot of immigrants into Canada at a specific time. Therefore there is a lot of support for an immigration program and a wide acceptance of a large variety and degree of different backgrounds. I applaud those sentiments and I think they are well taken.
I particularly liked the comments about no special status. There is a large degree of support in western Canada and in my riding for the idea that there is no special status, that all people are Canadians regardless of their race, colour, language or background. That concept has wide acceptance.
What I would caution the minister about is how we fight inequality and discrimination. She should use with much caution this idea of an affirmative action plan. In Ontario Premier Rae tried to move into a realm where he was going to force something on to people they felt was unacceptable and he had to back down. The reason is that people want to be treated equally, not with special status.
That is my caution to the minister. I would ask her to comment on the idea that affirmative action sometimes does not bring about the result that I know she is trying to achieve.