moved for leave to introduce Bill C-300, an act respecting the establishment and award of a Canadian volunteer service medal and clasp for United Nations peacekeeping to Canadians serving with a United Nations peacekeeping force.
Madam Speaker, as was said, this bill is an act respecting the establishment and award of a Canadian volunteer service medal and clasp for United Nations peacekeeping to Canadians serving with a United Nations peacekeeping force.
This bill is introduced to correct a present oversight. The United Nations now issues medals to Canadians who serve on peacekeeping activities. Some time later, the Governor General declares that United Nations medal to be a Canadian medal.
However, many of our peacekeepers do not accept this as appropriate Canadian recognition, and desire that such service be properly recognized by the award of a purely Canadian volunteer service medal for peacekeeping.
Also included in this bill is the clasp which would provide visual recognition of the great honour that was bestowed on Canada by our peacekeepers when they won the Nobel peace award on September 30, 1988.
This bill would provide for a clasp to be affixed on the medal to indicate the people who earned that award.
All Canadians are justifiably proud of our contribution to peacekeeping and it is most appropriate that we provide pure Canadian recognition of that contribution to our world esteem.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)