Mr. Speaker, on June 5, 1944, just 55 years ago, millions of Europeans in occupied countries who were anxiously listening to the BBC, as they did every evening, heard, as I did, despite the jamming by the Germans, a mysterious phrase that translated roughly as: The drawn out sobs of fall's violins soothe my heart with their monotonous languor.
The next day they understood. Deliverance was at hand. The landing had just begun. The mysterious coded message was a warning to the French resistance.
That day 20,000 Canadians and Quebecers launched an attack on Juno beach and 359 of them died for the liberation of Europe. Let us never forget.
Today, obviously on a smaller scale, the same countries have again mobilized to liberate another people from an occupation they oppose; the Kosovars.
Let us be proud to belong to the free world, to the western world, which knows how to mobilize not just to defend its own freedom, but the freedom of others, even when its own material interest is not threatened.