Madam Speaker, June is National Indigenous History Month.
This year, the theme can be no other. It is heart-wrenching. It is about the children. Children like the 215 whose remains were found buried anonymously, without respect and without compassion at the residential school in Kamloops; children torn from their families, culture and land; children who were mistreated and whose identity, pride and dignity were taken away; children who had to endure residential schools for almost two centuries of racism; children like the missing and murdered girls for whom justice still has not been done two years to the day after the final report of the national inquiry was released.
We owe it to these children to ensure that National Indigenous History Month is not just a commemoration. We owe them respect, justice, equality and reconciliation, nation to nation. It is our duty.