Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the veterans of Canada, particularly the Koncentration Lager Buchenwald Club.
Remembrance Day is not yet a week old and the government has apparently forgotten the sacrifices of Canadian airmen wrongfully imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp during the second world war.
I call on the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Liberal government to turn up the political pressure on Germany to ensure the few remaining veterans of this horrible experience receive their long overdue compensation for the atrocities committed against them at that time.
Now is not the time to weigh trade treaties against what is right and wrong. Of 15 countries affected, 11 have achieved satisfaction from the Germans, 2 have acted unilaterally and the fourteenth, the U.S., is pressing the matter vigorously. Canada is dead last, 15 out of 15, in getting the matter resolved. We must act now.