Mr. Speaker, as someone who represents an area right along the corridor and highway often referred to as the Highway of Tears, I find the sources of this tragedy often complex and multi-tiered, and the solutions equally so. One of the struggles we have with the Conservatives' approach to this point is that while they have established commissions and inquiries into other things, in particular the missing salmon inquiry in British Columbia on what happened on the Fraser River, there is an inordinate reluctance on their part to get at the truth of the situation here. That is what is needed before progress can be made. They make great fanfare about spending some $10 million or $11 million over four or five years on programs addressing violence against aboriginal women, and they know full well that is a drop in the bucket, considering the needs of 650 aboriginal reserves across the country, to just name one group.
I find it confusing and somewhat perplexing that the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Justice were all present for the debate earlier today, yet the aboriginal affairs minister in particular chose not to speak at all. The responsibility would at least fall to him to make some comment to the families of these missing women and girls, and yet he sat in the House and listened to a few things and left.
I do not think it is too much to say that the pattern of the government's language is that silence will be met with more silence. It should simply address the issue, face to face, with those communities and those families. The government cannot simply say that a crime and order agenda is enough. It needs to do more, and a full public inquiry would be what families are calling for.