Madam Speaker, since it is Black History Month and the anti-racism planned consultations are apparently over, I would have thought the Minister of Canadian Heritage would take this opportunity to stand in the House, apologize for his comments and lay out the path forward. The parliamentary secretary acknowledges there is systemic racism, yet the minister said that is not in his vocabulary.
Sadly, this is not the case. Whether it is the housing crisis at Cat Lake or reports of coerced sterilization, the indigenous community is well aware that systemic racism exists. Canada's black community knows it well, too. Today, black Canadians are still stopped far more frequently than other groups of Canadians through the practice of carding. In 2016, former Hamilton city councillor Matthew Green, who will be running for the NDP in Hamilton Centre this fall, was street checked while merely waiting for a bus. Black lives matter and the time for action is now.