Mr. Speaker, I know I have a very short time so I will try to be brief. It is very difficult to be brief.
Multiculturalism is about a participatory democracy. The members opposite have consistently used the myths out there in society to defend a position instead of using that which they know to be the truth and the facts from the department itself.
My colleague and I were talking about experiences when we were growing up, experiences that are still happening today, where the teachers would stream whole classrooms of kids into vocational schools because they were Italian, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Polish or what have you. That happened then and it is happening now in Toronto with the Portuguese kids. It is happening with the black children. It is happening everywhere.
Multiculturalism tries to break down those kinds of barriers so that those children have equal access by providing race relations programs and holding discussions in schools to understand the differences, that these children are not inferior in any way. We were not. My whole generation was streamed into vocational schools when we came to this country. Multiculturalism empowered my whole generation and a lot of other Canadians who were of different backgrounds and did not have the ability.
I will tell another story. Earlier today we were talking about Harbourfront. Not long ago, in the late 1980s, a group was putting on a poetry reading. They were choosing the names of poets who were published but not yet well known across Canada. One of the staffers who happened to be of Ukrainian background said: "Oh, there is a really good poet I know in Toronto who is published in his community but not across the country. His name is Pier Giorgio DeCicco". They said: "This is for Canadians, not for foreigners".
The multiculturalism policy is intended to create participatory democracy, to give access, to give equality, to allow Canada to evolve into a strong nation.
We talk about the fact that we are Canadians and we have all these common symbols but it is a bunch of garbage and words because it means bloody nothing when it comes down to the facts and the lives of every Canadian, when it comes to the systemic discrimination that exists in all institutions.
I spent 20 years of my life working in Toronto with multicultural and immigrant groups. Most of that time I spent fighting the invisible discrimination and systemic barriers in the school systems and in social services that people could not access because they were not of Anglo background. To this day in metropolitan Toronto, one still cannot access the majority of the dollars for social programs unless one is from the Anglo community.
This is about participatory democracy, rights, equality and being a Canadian. The members opposite should inform themselves before they speak about myths.