Mr. Speaker, from listening to some of the conversation today I have some hope that we might get to an anti-poverty strategy that might deal with some of the very difficult circumstances that many of our first nations people live with.
I was in Thunder Bay a little over a week ago and there the face of poverty is obviously aboriginal. Poverty is horrendous and terrible and should not exist in this country.
The United Nations has called on us, because we signed on to covenants, agreements, to address the human rights of all of our people, particularly our aboriginal people. The UN has been particularly scathing in its criticism of us. Today's motion flows from some of that international concern and the leadership that has been shown.
I am really disappointed that the Bloc has indicated that it is not going to support this motion. When the Bloc members get a chance to speak, I would like to ask them why it is that they cannot see that we have been called upon by the international community to live up to some of the covenants on human rights that we have signed. The conditions our aboriginal brothers and sisters live in need to be addressed by the federal government. We need an anti-poverty strategy to, at the very least, deal with that.
How would the member square the circle of the Bloc not supporting this very important motion that has at its very heart the righting of our relationship as a country with our first nations?