Mr. Speaker, 25 years ago at the Brandenburg Gate in June 1987, President Reagan called on Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”.
Germany was able to reunite as a democracy and showed that Soviet communism was a failed experiment.
Sadly, more than 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there remains a place where a nation and people are divided, where one side enjoys freedom while the other side lives under repression. The demilitarized zone between South and North Korea is the last visible scar of the Cold War. It reminds us how the North Korean regime continues to forcibly stop its population from finding a better life.
The unification of the Koreas will one day become a reality.
Canada calls on North Korea to close this sad chapter in its history and work toward promoting the well-being of its people and stability on the Korean peninsula.