Mr. Speaker, I have a brief question and a comment first.
If my memory is right and if history is right, the bill or the order in council that prohibited the Komagata Maru from landing, resulting in all those people not only losing their lives but being treated in such a terrible manner as their ship docked in the harbour, was passed in Parliament. It was an official government action.
It is my belief that the Prime Minister going out to speak at an event and making a pronouncement was a political speech. Whenever we have apologized for the wrongs that we have done to others, as history shows, it has been done through an apology in this House.
My question to my hon. colleague is this: if the government is willing to acknowledge out on a stage that what Canada did was a historical wrong, why will it not apologize in here and let us close this chapter so that truth and reconciliation can proceed?