Madam Speaker, I do not think the spectrum for providing supports and cross-cultural awareness could be wide enough.
During the early 1990s when I was an MLA, the Manitoba Intercultural Council provided a report on combatting racism. One of its recommendations said that cross-cultural awareness is best achieved through education in the broader sense. I still believe that today.
The member asks what the federal government's role is. I believe it is to demonstrate national leadership on the issue. We do that through the actions we take. For example, we proposed this particular piece of legislation and appointed a minister of diversity.
There are different things we can do that will have an impact, whether it is on the military, civil servants or the judicial system. In fact, there are all sorts of things the government can do, and it is important to take these into consideration for legislation. In addition to legislation, we should also be looking at monetary ways of doing things and working with other jurisdictions and appealing to them.
Health care is an excellent example. We had an incident in the Province of Manitoba when I was an MLA a number of years ago. An indigenous person who was sitting in an emergency room was deceased for hours. I cannot recall the exact number of hours, but I believe it was 20 hours or so. He sat in an emergency room for hours and no one noticed he had passed away.
It is there, it is real and it would be nice to see it dealt with.