Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question. He is the chair of the committee and welcomed me warmly.
Yes, I agree. I get it; I know what this means. We were going to strike this down. The government needs to act. We need a new provision. That all makes complete sense to me. We need to act. I am in agreement with the member on that point, but here we go. Time me: “(c.2) that person is a child born after September 4, 1951 and before April 17, 1985 of a parent entitled to be registered under section 6(1)(c.1)”. Done, there it is. That is actually all we need to do to make this better.
I am all for an exploratory session on many of the things that need to change about the Indian Act, but if we are going to vote on Bill C-3, why can this piece not be in there to effectively address gender discrimination in the act? It is not onerous. It is not really time consuming. How long did that take me, 30 seconds?
We know what the answer is. I do not understand what is happening. It is to be stubborn and to have one's head in the sand not to see the opportunity to at least do this.
Note that we do not have a motion about section 9. Note that we do not have a motion about addressing the lack of funding that would be necessary to process applications. We do not have motions about those things. Let us have an exploratory process about those things. I do not even know if section 9 would stand up to a charter challenge, to be frank.
We are just talking about one simple tiny passage that could change everything and prevent what would be more injustice for women under the Indian Act and exacerbate the historical injustice they have already faced.