Mr. Speaker, I will try to do better in the future.
It is an honour to stand and reply to the Speech from the Throne. I want to come at it from a direction emphasizing the family.
The cornerstone of society in our great country of more than 31 million people is the family. I believe that government has been chipping away at this cornerstone and has fostered an environment where family and our society are eroded almost beyond repair.
It is in the family that we learn love. We do not hear that word in here very often. We hear the word tolerance but I would suggest that the family is there not to teach tolerance but in fact to teach love. Love goes far beyond a simple tolerance stature. One cannot be accused of not being tolerant as long as one has learned the essence of love.
Love by its very nature gives. It gives respect and it demands and commands respect. We would suggest that a family must be in place in order for our society to learn the very basic societal skill of love.
In the family we also learn respect: first, self-respect; second, respect for others; and then, as we learn self-respect and respect for others, we gradually, hopefully, will also learn respect for the law, the order and the structure contained within society.
The family becomes an extremely important building block. We say that so glibly so often and yet I think we find ourselves failing at the point of seeing that family strengthened. The throne speech actually contains precious little hope for Canadian families. What will we tell Canadian families when they ask what leadership the Liberal government is taking on behalf of families?
The government does not even seem to understand the need or the importance of the family. It does not even understand what marriage is or what the family is. The government has given little leadership to encourage the establishment of strong families.
A number of years ago the words were recorded that in North America certain groups devised a plan whereby they would begin to destroy the family, that they would see that the family unit was wiped out as it was then known until it was totally destroyed.