Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her very heartfelt speech. I get the impression that the speech was very much because of her background as a nurse, and it is very much appreciated.
I have to go back to the response by Cindy Blackstock, the head of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, who said that she was very disappointed with the budget. Her statement was, “Children only get one childhood and they can’t wait for a government to treat them equally”.
Have the member and her colleagues rethought the previous position? We obviously want a lot more immediate and direct support for the mental health of the entire aboriginal community whose members are suffering this distress and committing suicide.
We need to look at the root causes. As my colleague raised earlier, one of them is the lack of basic facilities, even for the education of the children. In many cases they have to leave their own home and family to get a basic education.
I am wondering if the member could speak to whether or not, as a result of these mounting crises for aboriginal children in Canada, she and her colleagues have rethought the previous decision to withhold the funding to provide schooling for all aboriginal children in Canada?