Mr. Speaker, there are two points around the member's question. One point under the issue of schools is that we constantly hear about the money being shifted out of schools that are already on the books in order to deal with other emergencies. I mentioned the fact that we have 39 schools with roughly $300,000. We have heard the government bragging about the surplus that is emerging in this fiscal year. That surplus could have built those schools many, many times over. Again, it is about political will and setting priorities. I would argue that education should always be a priority.
With regard to Bill C-21, the member is absolutely correct. The New Democrats and the opposition parties proposed amendments. If only the bill had had the appropriate consultation, as outlined in article 18 in the UN declaration. It is the Crown's responsibility to consult. If that appropriate consultation had happened in advance, the opposition parties would not have had to spend so many months gathering input from coast to coast to coast in order to make sure that the bill would not be a deeply flawed bill.
We have seen other pieces of legislation such as the voter identification bill, for example, that were rushed through this House, and then we have had to go back and try to fix the problems. Instead, the opposition parties, in my view quite responsibly, were hearing from witnesses to make sure amendments could be proposed that would fix the flawed bill.