Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member for his views on two areas where the Government of Canada has particular responsibilities that cannot be devolved through any other order of government. I am dealing with matters concerning the aboriginal communities and matters dealing with official language minority communities.
First, I will deal with the aboriginal communities and I will couple that with the concept of honour of the Crown by which the government is obliged to consult the aboriginal communities in any way, shape or form in decisions that might affect them. I did attend both sessions of the industry committee. We had one representative from the Inuit community and we asked that person whether or not there had been any consultations from the government vis-à-vis its decision to scrap the mandatory long form census and the answer was obviously no, there had not been any.
Would the member care to comment about the importance of the mandatory long form census and the information it yields to the ability of the Government of Canada to do what is right for our aboriginal communities?