Mr. Speaker, I rise to present two petitions today.
The first petition, I have to say, shocked me when I received it from petitioners. Because February is Black History Month, I was particularly disturbed by this petition, that I do support, which is called “Recognition of Derogatory Geographical Names in Canada”. Believe it or not, there are a number of place names that use the “n” word. I am not going to use it in this context obviously, but there is a [Blank] Rapids, Le Buttereau-du-[blank], Premier rapide [Blank]-Eddy, and so on.
The petitioners ask that the House of Commons recognize that these geographical names must be replaced with names that cease to be racist and prejudicial, and do not reflect Canadian values.