moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should, on an annual basis, proclaim the first Sunday in June “Canadian Forces Day” in recognition of the tremendous contribution by the Canadian Forces, both at home and abroad, in such areas as the defence of Canada, our NATO commitments, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, search and rescue and peacekeeping.
Mr. Speaker, before getting started on this debate I would like to rise on a point of order and seek the unanimous consent of the House to make a couple of minor changes to the motion which I believe would better convey its intent.
I wish to add after the word “proclaim” the phrase “on an annual basis”. This would make it clear that the effort is certainly not intended for one year only but rather would be an annual day of recognition for the forces each and every year.
The second minor change would remove the mention of the UN from the motion because a good deal of the peacekeeping that Canada is currently involved in, especially in the Balkans is outside of the jurisdiction of the UN. Therefore removing that would capture all of the peacekeeping that Canada does.