Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in my hon. colleagues call for action for children. The only question I would have for her is this.
We already have the standards. Canada is a signatory to the rights of the child convention, just as every other country in the world is. Yet Canada has systematically ignored the rights of the child convention, systematically ignored the basic needs of children on isolated first nation communities and has left children in negligent systemic abuse decade after decade. This is not just the present government. This is going back over the course of the last century.
We see a court case before us now where the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society is challenging the government on the systemic apartheid that exists when it comes to child welfare, where first nations children are given much lower funding than children in provincial systems. It is the same in education. Yet instead of working with the children, we see the government opposing them and undermining them using spin doctors.
Yesterday the United Nations hammered Canada for its failure to live up to the rights of the child convention, as a direct result of the voices of first nation children who had to go all the way to Geneva to plead their case.
Therefore, I ask my hon. colleague this. Why does she think it is that our children are having to go to Europe to ask that Canada represent the rights of children, while the government continues to stand in their way and refuses to act?