Mr. Speaker, while I support the idea of my colleague from the Liberal Party, the chair of the environment committee, that this issue be sent back to committee and that we move a fulsome motion to accurately reflect the plan of Assembly of First Nations, he does a disservice to the debate by trying to soft sell how bad the current system is.
Any objective observer would concede that the current system is a catastrophic failure. The government is spending millions of dollars trying to paint victims as liars. What we are proposing is a lump sum compensation package where eligibility should be based on the fact that a person was there.
If someone was a student or a prisoner in one of these residential schools, in my view that person is eligible for compensation. I do not care how many times a person was touched or by whom. I do not care how big the stick was with which the person was beaten. I am not going to make people relive the horror of abuse they went through. Compensation should be based on the fact that a person was a student in one of those horrible institutions. To hear my colleague soft sell it does a disservice to the whole debate.
I am here to suggest that we should be voting against the motion for concurrence put forward by the Conservatives. The member and I agree on that point, but we certainly do not say that the status quo is in any way acceptable.
What we should move forward with is a three part recommendation that mirrors the report of the Assembly of First Nations, which calls for: first, lump sum blanket compensation to all victims so the $1.7 billion, which the Canadian people set aside for compensation, goes into the pockets of the victims; second, a full apology from the Prime Minister of Canada in the House of Commons to acknowledge this stain on our Canadian history; and third, a comprehensive truth and reconciliation process not just for the survivors to come forward to tell their stories but for both sides of this shameful piece of our history to begin healing. This would mean non-aboriginal Canadians, the churches and the government agents who put in place these horror stories.
Would my colleague, the chair of the environment committee, agree with me that the status quo is an abysmal failure and that what is necessary are the three steps I just outlined, as proposed by the Assembly of First Nations and the experts who wrote this report?