Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Edmonton--Strathcona for her very good work as the aboriginal affairs critic for the NDP. As she and I have said, it is a very complex file. Part of our challenge as a country is to recognize nation-to-nation status, with first nations and the Government of Canada.
The member asked the question about the profound implications of not providing education. I have told the story many times. My very first official duty as a member of Parliament in 2004, on July 1, was to attend a funeral for a first nations youth who took his own life.
I am blessed to live on the Cowichan people's traditional territories. Many of the elders and other community members work hard to provide education to their young people, so they can take their rightful place in society. However, what we see time after time is a first nations school on reserve, a very good school where they are teaching the Hul’q’umi’num language. The elders are participating in the classroom and they are instilling the cultural values and values of family in their young children. However, they simply do not have the level of funding of the other schools, right next door.
How can that happen? This is not in a rural area, this is on southern Vancouver Island. There are children half a kilometre away, who do not have the same access to funding. How does that happen in this country? I think that is a question we have to ask ourselves.