Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
Before coming to this place I was the president of the Kitchener-Waterloo multicultural group. With limited financial resources we assisted the settlement of new Canadians, making sure they had a chance to acquire the language, the customs and gave assistance with job searches.
Canadians come from many different parts of the world. It is important to understand that those roots exist and also to utilize them. Canada is a trading nation. One of the reasons why we are successful is because it does not matter which part of the world we are going to trade with, we are going to have Canadians coming from those backgrounds who can open doors that would not be possible otherwise.
By nature, Canadians are very much an inclusive society. The member talked about not reinforcing those heritages. I can only say that is what Canada is.
Also, during the last Parliament when we were facing the issue of the referendum, Canadians, in particular those who were not born in this country, which is one out of six Canadians, were very strong within the province of Quebec on the whole issue of the referendum to make sure that we maintain Canada. They took great offence at Lucien Bouchard's comments saying that the rest of Canada is not a nation, not a people.
In my case, as I mentioned, my wife is of Irish-Scottish background and my daughter is 11 years old. Surely to goodness she is part of a people and that people is Canada.