Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all the individuals who spoke today in favour of the motion. I know I have great support from all the people who spoke.
I would be remiss if I did not include for the official record a couple of individuals who are sitting in the House today, my colleague from Winnipeg Centre and my colleague from the Alliance Party from Surrey North whose fathers were also part of the liberation of Holland. The father of my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, Lieutenant Jack Martin, was part of the liberation of Holland and the father of my colleague from Surrey North, Corporal Ernie Cadman, was in Apeldoorn during the liberation and ended up marrying a Dutch girl. As I always say, if people are not Dutch, they are not much, so he is half much.
I rise to ask the House to make this motion votable. I understand the role of the committee when it makes a particular bill or motion non-votable. It goes before six of my colleagues in committee and they decide yes or no. In this case they said no but I remind the House that what the committee said no to was the original wording of the motion. That has now been tossed out.
We now have a new reworded motion with the generous help of the heritage committee, the heritage department and the Government of Canada. They helped me rewrite this motion to make it more palatable, more accessible to the House of Commons and hopefully votable. We are not debating the original motion. We are debating the one the reworded motion which the House unanimously agreed to debate. In fact, the department of the Minister of Canadian Heritage was gracious enough to help me rewrite this motion.
Again, I thank all members who spoke on behalf of our brave men and women in our military, past and present, our civilian workers attached to the military, past and present, and all Canadians across the country who support our military men and women in their efforts to spread democracy around the world, as well as peace and freedom. At this time I seek unanimous consent of the House to make this motion a votable item.