Lieutenant-Colonel Stevenson, Mr. Stewart, and Mrs. McNeill, you honour my father today, and you honour hundreds of thousands of other Canadians. My father was captured in Singapore in 1940. He served in the expedition of the bridge on the River Kwai and came back having lost half his body weight. His appendix was removed by a doctor using only a razor blade, and he contracted every jungle disease you can imagine, but he survived. In honour of him and countless other people, we are all together on this. We all want to honour our veterans.
I am confused. I am a parliamentarian, and I am hearing it's a statutory holiday and it's not a holiday. I heard a good suggestion from you, Lieutenant-Colonel Stevenson, that there could be something parallel to what we see in our Elections Act, which requires employers to give dispensation to people who want to mark an important part of our citizenship, and that is to go and vote.
Mrs. McNeill, I admire you tremendously for your efforts. You named so many legislators you have interacted with, and you have been involved personally in dispatching thousands of letters. You are a wonderful human being and, by the way, you are represented by a wonderful MP. What do you think about this idea to ensure in legislation that employers and others are required to let people go and mark the day, but not confuse us by suggesting that it would lead the provinces to declare a holiday, perhaps because they would also be confused in thinking that this is now a requirement, given this new law?