Mr. Speaker, today is the first day of the holiday of Hanukkah, the festival of lights of freedom, commemorating the foundational rights of freedom of religion, minority rights and human dignity and liberty.
It is also Human Rights Day, commemorating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the affirmation of the inherent dignity of the human person, the equal dignity of all persons and that we are all one human family.
Happily students from Montreal in my own constituency and Ottawa, the Hebrew Academy and Hillel respectively came together to celebrate the convergence of this historic commemoration as the Peace Tower, in an historic first, intoned freedom songs from the Hanukkah festival.
Regrettably we learned today of the deaths of two Palestinian children. Every child, Palestinian or Israeli, Muslim or Jew, is a universe and every death is a human tragedy.
I will close with the words sung by the Hillel schoolchildren today: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war anymore”.