Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for clearly articulating the horrific and shameful history of the Indian residential schools. Clearly, today is a really difficult day for all the survivors and their families who attended Indian residential school.
That is no different for Nuu-chah-nulth people. I am going to share a tweet from Mariah Charleson, vice-president of the tribal council of the Nuu-chah-nulth people, who were impacted and had members sent there. She said, “My father aunties & uncles went to residential school, some to Kamloops Indian Residential School. The truth continues to be revealed. The truth so many of our survivors have lived with. My heart aches. The genocide inflicted by Canada has lasting effects.”
My question to the member is this. In honour of the survivors, we saw the previous bill in the last Parliament tabled by Georgina Jolibois for this very important day, this national day for truth and reconciliation we are talking about today, to be made a statutory holiday to ensure that we reflect on the colonial history and its past and current impacts on indigenous people and indigenous women and girls. What is my colleague going to do to help get this through the Senate, given that the Conservatives in the Senate held the bill up in the last Parliament?