Mr. Speaker, today is 15 days after the last breath was pressed out of George Floyd while a police officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes. In empathy for his family and all who are suffering, I ask this House to show compassion and join me in nine seconds of silence.

Mr. Speaker, as I speak, Yellowknifers march down our main streets to declare unequivocally that Black lives matter. I struggle with my absence, and I struggle that it will be mistaken as silence, the silence of complicity. This world suffers two pandemics simultaneously: COVID-19 and racism. Black people have suffered from both disproportionately. COVID arrived on this continent 101 days ago and racism centuries ago. Both persist, both are insidious, both are a disease, and both require our ears and our action. Racism uses the colour of someone's skin to strip them of their unique individuality and to herd them into a group of stereotypes where personhood is extinguished. This lack of understand and personal relationship breeds fear and mutual isolation. Racism is woven tightly into the fabric of our society with the threads of white privilege.

Thirty-two years ago, Peggy McIntosh wrote an article unpacking the invisible knapsack of privileges that white people have learned to take for granted, not because they don't know poverty or haven't struggled but because they have unquestioned access to power and resources systemically denied to people of colour. Last year, Cory Collins wrote about the power unconsciously enjoyed and consciously perpetuated by white society, both as a weightless knapsack full of opportunity and a weapon brandished to preserve it. He mentioned three exclusive powers: the power of normalcy, that white is the normal against what everyone else is judged; the power of benefit of the doubt, where white people are granted individual potential, the ability to survive mistakes and given compassion when struck by hardship; and three, the power of accumulated power, this is the inheritance of law, policy, and wealth that continue to compound to the advantage of white people.

Mr. Speaker, while people of colour have spent lifetimes enduring racism, privilege has afforded white people the choice to stand up. The anger fear resentment, and frustration we see stems from a lifetime of standing up out of survival. People of colour have run lifetimes of marathons while the rest of us show up wondering why everyone else seems to tired when we have barely begun to run and some don't even have their shoes on yet. Fifteen days ago, as he died, George Floyd begged for his mama. Today, he is being buried next to her. Yellowknife's Inemesit Graham said, "As long as we're the only ones screaming, our voices will be drowned out. We need the majority to be just as angry, to be just as aware and to stand up for us."

Mr. Speaker, today, as George Floyd is laid to rest, I call on all those who have benefited from white privilege to reflect on that privilege, to imagine what your life would be like if you weren't considered normal, given the benefit of the doubt, and able to enjoy accumulated power, then make a vow to stand up for the change we need so that we can live in a society where all people are valued equally for their unique attributes and their humanity. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.