Mr. Chair, this is a time that is very difficult, for Canadians to face the truth. It is the settler-culture Canadians who have to face the truths that indigenous-culture Canadians have known for a long time.
I find it very sobering and distressing to realize that in 2009 there was a request from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for $1.5 million to begin the project to find the burial sites of the missing children ripped from their families and never, ever allowed to go home because they had died. We know that it was not this minister's government that turned down that request for $1.5 million, but why have we delayed so long?
What can the minister tell us about why we delayed so long to provide the funds? Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir had to raise the money within that community to start to find the burial mass grave next to the Kamloops former residential school.