Mr. Speaker, in granting honorary citizenship to Nobel Peace Laureate and imprisoned Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, this House has recognized one of the great personifications of liberty, courage and moral authority in our time, indeed in any time. She is someone whom the Nobel Committee characterized as an outstanding example of the power of the powerless; who endured the assassination of Burmese independence leader General Aung San, her father; who herself survived an assassination attempt in which 100 of her supporters were murdered; who, as the democratically elected leader of Burma, has now spent 4,000 days under house arrest; who symbolizes the long march to freedom of our other honorary citizens; who is a metaphor and message of the heroism of the Burmese people and brutality of the Burmese dictatorship.
For what kind of government arrests a Nobel Peace Laureate and murders and tortures peaceful monks and students?
I trust that one day we will be able to honour Aung San Suu Kyi by welcoming our honorary citizen to Canada as the leader of a democratic and free Burma.