Mr. Speaker, today is National Indigenous Peoples Day, but commemorations are not enough, especially after what happened in Kamloops. This day must be one of action and must focus on respectful nation-to-nation collaboration, in spite of the gravity of residential schools. That is why the Bloc Québécois spoke to the different assemblies representing the first nations and the Inuit.
As a result of these discussions, we are calling on the government to contribute financial resources to identify the locations that may have been the site of the same horrors as in Kamloops. We are calling on the government to push the religious communities that participated in the residential school system to give access to their archives. Furthermore, we are demanding that a monument for residential schools be constructed in Ottawa, in collaboration with the Algonquin nation.
These actions will not erase the generations of violence, inhumanity and shame, but they do represent a step forward. This is what indigenous peoples are recommending and what we must do together.