Mr. Speaker, I have worked with the parliamentary secretary in different capacities, when he was the parliamentary secretary to the minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, then multiculturalism, and now in his current capacity. I look forward to continuing to work with him to advance different causes that are important for all of our communities.
On the question around linguistic and cultural recognition particularly for indigenous children and families, absolutely I would support that. This is Canada's shame in history, with the residential school history, with the sixties scoop, where the interests of the child and the interests of indigenous peoples, the Inuit and Métis were not taken into consideration at all. In fact, if anything, Canada's history has been to try to decimate, really to exercise genocide toward those communities. In this bill, there is one small piece and it is a welcome component, but I hope we do not stop there because there is much work to be done to walk the path of reconciliation, given the impact of colonialism and the intergenerational impacts.
I just want to make a quick comment with respect to the issue around child poverty. Ed Broadbent brought forward his motion back in 1989 and this House was supposed to have acted on that by the year 2000. It is now 18 years later since that goal and we still do not have a national strategy against child poverty. It is time for us to act.