Mr. Speaker, June 5 is an important date for democracy in Quebec: in 1832, with Louis-Joseph Papineau as speaker, the Parliament of Lower Canada passed a law stipulating that persons professing Judaism were entitled to the same rights and privileges as other subjects of Her Majesty in the province.
This law, passed 27 years before a similar law in Westminster, is proof that the fight of Lower Canada's patriotes for the political and democratic rights of their people included minorities. Now as then, openness to others, fairness and respect are the guiding values of the Quebec people.
In 1932, Louis Benjamin produced this eloquent testimony:
The centenary of the political emancipation of the Jews in Canada, and it was a French province—which thought it necessary to grant our race its freedom, is an historic event—In all of the British Empire, including the Canada of the day, it was Quebec which set a fine example of wisdom and tolerance. We will always remember Quebec's wonderful gesture.