Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my honoured colleague, I worked with the Algonquin Nation in Quebec under the Liberal government. I can tell members that what I am hearing now sounds more like fiction than the historical record. If on the very first day their cabinet met and said that they would be judged by their legacy to first nations and then they waited until a week before the election to suddenly come up with their deathbed conversion, the intervening 13 years was a big, long dry period.
I say to my hon. colleague that they had the opportunity. They failed. In fact, let us not just blame the Martin government. This goes back to the 20th century. Who was there, year after year, as the situation got worse and worse? It was the Liberal government.
I love deathbed confessions. I know they are sincere, but let us not pretend that it is anything other than that.