Mr. Speaker, I feel honoured and blessed to have shared the conversation with my friends from Manitoba and Quebec, with their words of wisdom, hope and encouragement, and the specific things that we as parliamentarians must do. The region I represent in northern British Columbia has, unfortunately, seen its own episodes of severe loss and tragedy. In Hazelton, in the northwest, there was a suicide attempt every few days for almost a full year, particularly by young people. If any members of Parliament have had the opportunity to sit with the families, they will know that it is impossible to imagine that we do not have the power and intelligence to do more.
My specific question for my friend is this. There has been a lot of talk and, as she said, a lot of offers of hope, praise, and encouragement, but one specific thing that the government could do, beyond just words, through a budgetary measure or the support of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, is offer actual concrete actions that young people, in particular, living in first nations communities could cling to. They could hear it in this debate tonight and understand that this is a Parliament that is starting to understand and does not repeat the errors of past governments.
As the past prime minister said, the great thing about Canada is it has no colonial history. That ignorance has to take a step back; and the acknowledgement of reality, our history, and the actions we need to take are what Parliament and this country desperately need.