Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on Bill C-251, this piece of legislation.
I want to commend my colleague for having brought it forth. I want to correct a couple of things. First of all, this is now a recognized holiday in the collective agreement. It can float. That is the issue. The point about an extra $50 million to $70 million is totally erroneous. One could counteract by pointing out that if it is worth that much in a collective agreement it could be traded off.
What my colleague is seeking to do is make absolutely certain that it is a holiday on that day. Why is that? It is because of the sacrifice of the soldiers and their families and their supporters. Because of their sacrifice, we want to set this day aside to make absolutely certain that we remember what they contributed to this nation, the freedom that we have today, the greatest gift apart from health that anyone could possibly have. Because of their sacrifice we have one of the finest, if not the finest, nations in the world. We started with a real head start because this is a wonderful country, but when we think of what they have contributed to the very fabric of the nation surely we can set a day aside throughout the nation to remember what they have contributed.
Unfortunately we take what we have for granted. I remember going to church services where the pastor indicated that we take our good health for granted until we start losing it. Then we suddenly we start to remember how important it is.
We take our freedoms for granted. We take the greatness of the country for granted. We take this wonderful, magnificent country of ours too much for granted. We have to stop and reflect, to think, and to say thank you. That is what we want to say. We want to say thank you to our soldiers. We want to say thank you to their families. We want to say thank you to those who supported them. That is what this is all about.
We want to set a day aside to remember the wars, remember the destructiveness of wars, and remember that war should be passé. We want to remember those who died. We want to remember those who were wounded. We want to remember those who came back but who have passed on. We want to make sure that we do not forget their sacrifice, their tremendous contribution to the country, this free country.
My hon. colleague wishes to have this day set aside in memory of the sacrifices made by our soldiers, their families and those who supported them. We want to remember the wars. We want to remember those who died on the battlefields. We want to remember those who were wounded and those who came back, but have since passed on. We want to remember their contribution to our country, to what is probably the most beautiful and perhaps the best country in the world. We want to remember that they gave us a country where we can live in freedom.
That is really all I really wanted to say. This is an important initiative. This is an initiative that we should all be supporting. This is not an initiative that should be somehow shunted aside because of supposed costs. There are no costs. We simply ask that we set a day aside that is consistent throughout Canada so that we can remember those who served.