Mr. Speaker, regardless of political affiliation and province, business persons, trade unionists, academics, public servants, community activists, athletes, and artists from Atlantic Canada have come together over the past three days in a unified response to the opposition leader's divisive and baseless comments about our region.
Early in the last century Atlantic Canadians sacrificed a north-south Atlantic trade based economy in the interest of building an east-west nation. Since then, whether during war, depression, drought, or providing skilled labour throughout Canada, Atlantic Canadians have been there. We are anything but defeatist.
I join editorialists and civic leaders from across our region and call on the Leader of the Opposition to apologize.