Mr. Speaker, I will not modify my remarks one iota. The term “cultural genocide” is entirely appropriate. In fact, cultural genocide is a systematic pulverization of a people's culture. It is a methodology frankly.
Those who study these things can point out that there are deliberate steps to be taken. They can tell people what to do if they are trying to stamp out a people's culture. Missionaries are sent in first and their religion is undermined. Their language is outlawed. Their cultural celebrations and their dances et cetera are banned. Systematic and deliberate things can be done when the motive is cultural genocide. Everything to do with the Indian residential schools matches that prerequisite list word for word.
I have heard some people say, even in the course of this debate, that many people did get a decent education at these residential schools, that not everyone was physically and sexually abused. I am the first to admit that. But let me also say that being torn from the bosom of one's family against one's will year after year does constitute abuse in and of itself. That is where the loss of language and culture should be compensated.
I cannot forget a story told to me by Matthew Coon Come, the former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. On his first day at a residential school, he and his little brother, who was six years old, were sent into the showers. They had never seen a shower before and when the water was turned on they though it was marvellous. It was fantastic. His little brother asked if he should wash between his toes. A priest swooped into the room and beat him with a stick for speaking in his own language.
They were not allowed to speak Cree at that school. On their first day they were beaten while standing naked in a shower, something they had never seen before. Imagine their fear. If that was not a deliberate attempt at stamping out language and culture, it was a graphic illustration, and it is important that we recognize it today.