Mr. Speaker, in this season when we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, many of our fellow Canadians who wear the uniform must spend Christmas in conflict far away from loved ones.
However, the spirit of Christmas is also the spirit of hope, the spirit that inspired the Christmas truce of 1914 that covered as much as two-thirds of the British-German front in World War I, when thousands of soldiers on both sides, told to hate, loathe and kill, laid down their weapons, left their trenches, extended the hand of friendship and exchanged greetings and gifts and sang songs of goodwill toward men. It grew out of no single initiative, but sprang up in each place spontaneously and independently.
That truce remains a symbol of hope that the world some day “shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”.
Let us remember that the spirit of Christmas is the spirit of peace.