Mr. Speaker, speaking for the nation is the role of the federal government. Obviously right now we feel that it is sadly failing in that capacity. There is no demonstrated leadership from the federal government right now and that is a big part of the problem.
In speaking to the first comment made by my hon. colleague, I would have to go back to the comments I made in my intervention. When we break from basic democratic principles and values, when we wander away from the principle of the equality of all citizens before the law, regardless of how good our intentions are, regardless of how noble our motives are, we are creating the environment that leads to the kind of conflict and confrontation that we see today.
Human nature is universal. Human nature has been with us as long as there have been human beings. It is universal and it does not change. We have learned over a period of 10,000 years that with basic democratic institutions we can arrange society in a way that we can move forward in peace and harmony. When we start to undermine those basic core principles and values we get the kind of results that we see today on the east coast of Canada.