Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. member for Algoma--Manitoulin. It strikes me that even though he represents a rural and northern riding and I represent an inner city riding, we have a great deal in common.
The hon. member mentioned he has 32 first nations communities within his riding. He would be interested to know that the riding of Winnipeg Centre has 11,000 first nations people living within the core area of the inner city of Winnipeg.
I would like to ask the hon. member to share some of his views on how the budget impacts the issues facing aboriginal people in both of our ridings. By way of introducing the idea, I point out to him that aboriginal people all across the country had reasonable expectations in this era of budgetary surpluses. As the member pointed out, we have had five balanced budgets and five budgetary surpluses. Therefore, surely this was the time to address some of the historic grievances and injustices facing aboriginal people.
Would he not agree that if we do not act promptly on these issues, we are in danger of creating a permanent underclass in our society and that the issue only compounds from year to year the longer the government puts off dealing realistically with the needs of aboriginal people?
Would the hon. member agree that society moves forward only when we all move forward together? This budget failed to bring along with us the 20% of people who are marginalized, many of whom are the aboriginal people living in his riding and mine.