Mr. Speaker, I rise today with great pleasure to support my colleague from Sackville--Musquodoboit Valley--Eastern Shore in this very important initiative. We need to take every opportunity to renew the pride of Canadians in some of our institutions, in our citizenship and in our parliamentary processes. At the very core of this pride, we need to point to the tremendous contributions made by those men and women in past world conflicts in defending the principles of democracy and freedom that we now enjoy.
Increasingly Canadians are taking for granted the privileges we have of living in a democratic country, privileges for which there was a very high price. Some of those men and women paid the ultimate price of losing their lives overseas, many sustained permanent injury, both emotional and physical, and families lost members in conflict defending the principles of democratic freedom and liberty.
However today as we pull back from honouring, supporting and recognizing these contributions, we live in an age where we see declining voter participation in every election. What is most upsetting to see is that first time voter turnout has been reduced significantly in almost every election in recent years. Canadians have the sacred privilege of participating in the electoral process and electing individuals to represent their views in this hallowed place, the House of Commons. We have seen a decline in that level of participation.
This type of initiative would help strengthen the recognition across Canada of the contributions of these brave men and women, our veterans, and perhaps would help remind Canadians why it is important not just to be patriotic on November 11 but to vigilant every day of the year, and on election days for us to participate as informed and interested citizenry. This would help. I would argue further that we need to see provincially a greater focus across Canada on educating young Canadians on our history and on the importance of citizenry involvement and participation. This certainly would help.
In my view it is unacceptable that on Remembrance Day we have a hodgepodge of policies on a day when Canadians ought to be united on one thing, and that is the sacrifices made by our fore-parents in protecting our freedoms and that the benefits which have grown from those sacrifices are felt by every Canadian in every province of Canada. As such we need to see an approach that recognizes this sacrifice from coast to coast.
I would also argue that we need to do more on an ongoing basis to make Canadians aware of our history. In so many ways if Canadians are not more aware of our shared history, we have less to bind us together in moving forward. One thing which we need to take into account, particularly at a time now when Canadian men and women are again involved in conflict on foreign lands and in recognizing the contributions made by Canadian peacekeepers over the last 30 years particularly, is the respect earned by our peacekeepers around the world.
One thing we do very well as a country is help provide a greater level of stability in security and safety for people in other countries around the world in which there are not the great levels of freedom and liberty that we take for granted in Canada.
I would argue that if Canadians were more aware of how well our peacekeepers are regarded around the world, it would become a rallying cry from a unity perspective because clearly one of the casualties of a divided Canada would be our ability to participate as fully as we do now with our peacekeepers in distant lands.
Therefore it is not just Canadians who have a vested interest in a strong united Canada but it is people who live around the world. Whether it is in Cyprus, Afghanistan or the mid-east in general or in the former Yugoslavia, people in those distant lands depend as much as we do on a strong and united Canada to continue its vigilance and ensure that in this 21st century as we move forward that we will see a greater level of peace and harmony than we perhaps saw in the 20th century.
We have always punched above our weight as a country. Canadian participation in military efforts on behalf of freedom and liberty has always been disproportionate to our actual military resources and indeed our population.
I would hope that one result of strengthening our commitment to Remembrance Day would be to remind every Canadian why military funding is so important. I know this ought not to be a partisan issue, but I would be remiss not to mention the fact that under this government we have seen a dramatic reduction in the commitment to our Canadian military, both in terms of equipment and also in quality of life issues in terms of pay and housing.
Recognizing and strengthening our commitment to Remembrance Day could also have the benefit of strengthening the commitment of individual Canadians to hold the feet of the government to the fire by demanding that this government and future governments do more from a resource perspective to ensure that our men and women who so valiantly represent the values that we treasure as Canadians will have the resources required to do the job and that the military will not be asked constantly to do more with less. This increased level of pressure on the current government and future federal governments to do more to assist our military from a resources perspective would ensure that these proud Canadians could continue to represent Canadian values proudly and protect the rights and freedoms around the world which we take for granted here at home.
