Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Brampton—Springdale for proposing this motion which is long overdue.
I have listened very carefully to my colleagues on the Conservative benches and also the NDP and Bloc. The consensus seems to be that the government is not willing to support the motion.
As other speakers have mentioned and told the story about this incident, it is a black mark in Canadian history. When I look at the early 1900s, Canadian immigration officials began making provisions to block immigration from United India, which is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, three different countries. They were advised by London to be cautious in their approach because both Canada and India were part of the British Empire and rights of all subjects of the Empire needed to be respected.
Canadian officials nevertheless relied on immigration regulations that had the effect of excluding many prospective Indian immigrants. To be admitted to Canada immigrants were required to come by a continuous journey from their country of birth and each enter with at least $200 cash.
The continuous journey regulation did not mention race or nationality and on the surface seemed fair and applicable to all immigrants. However, it was an open secret that the regulation was intended to be applied primarily to the people from British India.
Other members have mentioned the history. I am not going to go into the history, but I will mention that the Conservative Prime Minister was in Surrey, in my riding on August 6, 2006, where he made a commitment. I will quote what the Prime Minister said at that time:
--the government of Canada acknowledges the Komagata Maru incident and we will soon undertake consultations with the Indo-Canadian community on how best to recognize this sad moment in our history.
In fact, it has been a long two years during which the government has done nothing. Now I see that it is going to oppose the motion. I personally feel that we are hurting the work done by many members of the House, and also many members from the community as mentioned by the member for Brampton—Springdale, people from Mohan Singh Memorial Foundation, people like Sahib Thind and his associates who have worked on this for 10 continuous years.
In fact, they prepared a petition asking for an apology that was filed in the House by one of the Conservative members. All they are looking for is a simple apology from the House. They are not looking for any compensation.
It is the right thing for the government to apologize at this point in time and make all Canadians proud that we care about all communities and that we treat every community equally.
When I look at the ACE agreement that the Liberals introduced in 2005, it was to acknowledge, commemorate and educate about the past injustices done to all communities in one agreement. We cannot cherry pick between one community or the other.
When the current government came in, it cancelled all the funds the Liberals had put in place. The record shows that.
With the immigration bill, Bill C-50, that is what it is doing as well. It is hiding those sweeping immigration changes. The government is trying to go around this and not come up clean.
I would request all members of the House to support the motion of the member for Brampton—Springdale and vote in favour of its passage.