Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pride to speak to this motion on increasing the cadet program in aboriginal communities. I am very excited about the motion. I have a lot of aboriginal people and communities in my riding and I am very supportive of the motion.
I am a bit disappointed at not having more prescription as to what we could do to facilitate the enhancement of cadets in aboriginal communities, but, nevertheless, I am very excited to support the motion. I thank the member for Wetaskiwin for bringing it forward. I also thank my colleague from Labrador for his eloquent speech on the motion and about the experiences in his riding. The member for Wetaskiwin spoke very passionately about how important this was to the people of Hobbema and he showed what a tremendous difference a program for youth could have on a community and the success of the program. It is these types of success stories that parliamentarians should support, try to continue and expand.
Some people do not understand the purpose of the cadet program. It is not a recruitment for the military, although some people inevitably go on to the military. It is a youth responsibility program. It is a chance for youth to work together constructively and learn a lot of skills that are important in life. In particular, they learn leadership skills, teamwork skills, they boost their self-esteem, they have a sense of self-discipline, they can hone their decision making and self-confidence and there is an important physical education component.
All those good qualities that are very important for the education of youth and for youth to have successful lives are great benefits of the cadet program. We are very supportive of the program itself and, in particular, in first nation communities it makes wonderful sense, especially when we can see, from the example of Hobbema, how well it has worked and how excited the young cadets from Hobbema were to be in that program.
I must also congratulate the RCMP officers for their great community service of being involved in and running that program. When a people come from rural Canada or from the north, from Yukon like I do, they see the important role the police play in the community, not just policing, but they are involved in all aspects of the community. They are part of the community and they are wonderful role models. In this particular exercise, the Hobbema Cadet program, the RCMP showed exactly that type of function. Some might say that is not related to why we hired the RCMP, but it is related. It is a point that we on the Liberal side have been making for so long, which is that prevention is the best tool to reduce crime. These positive activities for youth are a great step in that direction.
We all know the saying that idle hands are the devil's playground. When I was a youth, we had after-school programs and summer programs where we could get involved in activities at school. Those programs kept us doing positive and productive things, just as the cadet programs do.
I want to talk about how wonderful the cadet program is in my riding. We have a cadet camp and cadets come from all over Canada in the summer, the air cadets, the sea cadets and the army cadets. They have a wonderful experience. They not only learn all the important lessons of life, which I talked about, but they also get to meet other youth from right across Canada and understand where they come from. I go to a lot of the graduation ceremonies and it is moving to see how sad the cadets are to leave.
I am almost moved to tears sometimes to see very small Inuit children who have come and who have never seen a tree before in their life. They have come to this cadet program and met other Canadians from across the north and from across Canada. They have seen things they would not otherwise have seen.
It is such a positive experience in the lives of youth that I cannot help but promote this motion that I hope leads to more and more cadet camps in the aboriginal communities, as specified in this motion, to give the opportunity to thousands of aboriginal youth across the country to have the same positive experience that many of the youth in Hobbema had.
I also want to talk about another program that is very similar and also very positive, which I am strongly supportive of for the youth of the north, and that is the junior rangers. There is a range of programs in the north. A high percentage of the northern rangers who express our sovereignty across the north and that do our rescue across the north are northern aboriginal peoples who know how to live on the land and who are doing a great service for Canada.
We have been very supportive in our party of the rangers, of creating them, of making them grow and of their having more and more of a presence. There have been some problems in the past about uniforms or equipment, or not getting their remuneration for their supplies or equipment, or getting paid on time or in a way they could actually access it in remote communities where, for instance, there may not be a bank, there may not have been enough of a per diem or not enough of an amount for their equipment.
However, I think we need to all work together and remember that the rangers are a very important part of Canada's armed forces and that they should be treated with the equipment and respect they deserve and need. I think every Canadian is very proud of our northern rangers.
It only makes sense that we would therefore be very supportive of the junior ranger program, led by these rangers and others in communities across the north. Once again, it is a tremendous learning experience on the land and in the skills that are needed in the north to show our presence.
We did have an issue at one time. A community wanted both a junior ranger and a cadet corps but this was not allowed. This was a large enough community that I think it could have easily supported both. I hope that type of policy does not continue and that we can have both types of wonderful youth programs in a community when the community wants it, when the tremendous volunteers who are required to run all these programs are available, interested and are supportive of the programs.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I am very supportive of the motion. There are over 600 aboriginal communities in the country but not that many aboriginal cadet corps at the moment, and there is obviously room for expansion of it.
The wonderful show on CBC done on the Hobbema Cadet Corps shows what can be accomplished. It shows how crime can be reduced by investing in positive activities for our youth and giving them those opportunities in the north and in the south, in aboriginal communities so that they learn these valuable lessons of life. They interact with adults who are volunteers and role models, either RCMP or rangers.
I commend the member for Wetaskiwin for bringing this motion forward and the member for Labrador for his great support and examples of this motion. I certainly encourage everyone in the House to vote to support our youth, to support more activities for youth, to support the junior rangers and to support the army, sea and air cadets.