Mr. Speaker, in addition to his apparent inability to discharge his general duties and responsibilities, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has failed to bring a sensitivity of Canada's First Nations to his department.
Earlier this year Heritage Canada published an otherwise fine publication for youth entitled "The Great Canadian Adventure". It is a trivia game that asks young people questions about Canada and in doing so continues to state as fact that Quebec and Prince Edward Island were discovered by Europeans. This language is no longer appropriate.
At the same time the department has just awarded a half million dollar contract to develop curriculum materials pertaining to aboriginal people in Canada to a Montreal company that has no cultural knowledge or expertise to handle the contract. This is disturbing since the cultural and technical expertise does exist at the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre in Saskatoon, a group that was vying for the contract.
First Nation peoples deserve better from the minister responsible-