Mr. Speaker, this is the first opportunity I have had to stand in the House. It is a bit of an intimidating experience. I congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, on your appointment and the minister on her new responsibilities.
The appointment as Conservative critic for Indian affairs and northern development is an appointment I take very seriously. I think we should all take a moment to reflect on the responsibilities of a critic.
The responsibility of a critic is not just to jump to their feet every time the government stands, or rather sits; the responsibility of a critic, number one, is to be positive and, number two, to look for defects in what the government is saying. Certainly a critic has an innate responsibility to be responsible in their comments. I am not sure that is always recognized in the House. It is something we would all look forward to seeing a bit more of.
There were a few comments made by the hon. minister about the royal commission on aboriginal peoples. There were many good points brought up by that commission. There were also some negative points. The fact that we are individuals gives us the ability to disagree with certain points and to agree with certain points.
There are a few things the minister referred to which bear reflecting on again.
We have a number of statistics. When we hear the word statistics we quite often lose sight of the fact that those statistics involve people, men, women and children. They are not just numbers in somebody's book. We are dealing with human lives and futures.
When they understand that they are dealing with over 600 First Nations' communities, that there are a lot of pressing problems, that there is rampant child poverty, that 30 percent of the aboriginal community is under the age of 15 years, as politicians, if they do not understand anything else about that, they will understand that many of them will vote in the next election. There is a long journey.
There are a couple of points we should not forget. We have to proceed on this and we have to proceed together. We have to keep the principles of accountability and transparency, which were mentioned in the throne speech.
We can do three things. We can stagnate. We can continue to do what we have done. We can stand still and not move forward or we can move forward together.