Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary raised a number of issues in his question. In terms of asking me whether I thought the previous Liberal government had fulfilled its obligations, obviously not, or I would not be raising these issues. However, I think it is incumbent upon the current government to also be aware of its obligations.
With regard to the comments around the budget, I was specifically raising issues with regard to first nations communities, the reason being that there still is a great deal of concern that aboriginal communities have not had the attention that is required around pandemic preparedness.
I am going to refer back to resolution 66 from the Special Chiefs Assembly of the Assembly of First Nations. I will not read for members the details of it, but they certainly are calling for an immediate infusion of funding for first nations communities around testing, around the need to fund technical coordination and assistance, and around the need to ensure for public health safety that aboriginal communities are included with provincial and territorial governments in discussions around coordination. It is a very complex matter.
What is critical, I think, is that any time we talk about a pandemic we need to ensure that aboriginal peoples are included at the table in those discussions so there is that coordinated approach, so it does take into account rural and remote communities. This is a critical issue.
I can see that the Speaker is signalling that I am going to run out of time, but let me say briefly that when we are talking about jurisdictional issues, I think we need to put those jurisdictional issues to the side and really talk about the health, well-being and welfare of Canadians.