Mr. Speaker, I could add to the elimination list, the elimination of the funding to Gay Pride Day. Gay Pride in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver are extremely successful events. Gay Pride Toronto, for example, brings in over one million visitors. The economic spinoff is phenomenal. It promotes tourism. It helps small businesses and hotels in Toronto. It is the same with the ones in Halifax, Ottawa, Montreal, and Vancouver. To deny the funding to Gay Pride Day in Toronto, for example, is totally unjustifiable. But I see a pattern. It is a shutdown, a silencing, a bullying effort. It is a moral statement in some ways that would include, for example, not funding organizations that provide information, counselling or referral services on abortion in developing countries. It is really a way to say that government is not for all people. Government is only for those who agree with a very narrow ideology.
This citizenship guide should be for all new citizens, not typecast to a certain group of people, because those who have homophobic thoughts are the ones especially who need to know that gay bashing is not acceptable, that it is a crime in Canada.