It’s an honour to have the opportunity to speak to this important and historic motion in the Legislature this morning.

When I was asked if I would like to speak to the motion, I said, of course, yes, but it wasn’t without a little bit of trepidation I have to admit, because both the Minister of Indigenous Affairs and, of course, our friend from Kiiwetinoong are much more well-versed in this issue than I, but are also both much better speakers than I am. So it was with a little bit of trepidation.

As someone who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s in the suburbs of Ottawa, I have to say that I was not exposed to people from our First Nations communities, to the issues that they have faced throughout our history and continue to face. I was not taught about these issues in school like probably most of us, or the education we did receive was from a very specific point of view that did not, I think, even begin to touch the true nature of the issues that our country has very recently started to confront. So it is coming from a very isolated and, admittedly, somewhat ignorant point of view that I try to do my best to learn about the issues that members of our First Nations communities continue to confront and the history they have dealt with, and that history continues to impact their communities to this day. While I am not at all well-versed in those issues and need to do much more work on myself and my own reflections to help move those issues forward, I am familiar with assimilation of a different culture here in Ontario and Canada.

Comme fier francophile et député d’Orléans, je connais les obstacles à la protection de la langue et de la culture minoritaire ici en Ontario.

Members of my own community have had to deal with the challenges and the obstacles of trying to protect their own culture, to protect their kids from assimilation, albeit in a much different form.

Mais la lutte contre l’assimilation, bien que sous une forme différente, est un combat auquel ma propre famille a été confronté, et qu’on a perdu.

My family lost our connection to its francophone heritage and history two or three generations ago, and so we have confronted our own challenge of assimilation and efforts to regain that connection. I’m very hopeful that efforts that the member for Kiiwetinoong and all of us are trying to push forward—this effort today from the government—will be a small step to ensuring that that stops as it relates to our First Nations people and that progress can be made to continue to protect their language and their culture.

Sol, there’s one thing I disagree with, with your statement. Near the end, you said that you will be the only member impacted by this motion today, and I disagree. I think we were all impacted by your speech, and I very much look forward to seeing you here with your mom. I hope you’ll let us know ahead of time so we can all be here. And thank you very much for your work on this.