Mr. Speaker, I have been grappling with the issue of reconciliation. One of the things I am increasingly coming to conclude is that reconciliation is very difficult for an individual who is the subject of this experience, someone who has gone through residential schools. It will be virtually impossible for those people to ever forget what happened to them in their lifetime. If they were victims of a war or war crimes, they will never forget. We cannot forcefully have people reconcile just for the sake of the term reconciliation.
Reconciliation needs to be genuine. It needs to be backed up by an actual acceptance of what happened by the perpetrator. In this case, it is really an acknowledgement. It is to say that this happened. There is overwhelming evidence, and I do not think it is really an evidentiary issue, to suggest that what happened is true. It is about taking ownership of it and saying that we are sorry for what happened. It allows the institution to move on and it allows all of us to look at other ways we can elaborate and work on this journey toward reconciliation.