Mr. Speaker, I rise today to condemn in the strongest possible terms the racist, anti-Semitic outbursts of Mahathir Mohamad, the prime minister of Malaysia.
It is easy to dismiss these remarks as the ravings of a madman, but he is a head of state with status and influence, and as such his racist lies incite hatred and violence and give licence to too many others who share his warped world views.
Anti-Semitism is the most virulent and enduring form of hatred the world has ever known and within living memory this hatred has manifested itself into the most shameful event in human history, the Holocaust.
On this day when Parliament has agreed to establish Yom Ha'Shoah, as Holocaust Memorial Day, I call upon our Prime Minister to publicly denounce Mahathir Mohamad and to state clearly that we consider his shameful racist comments a hate crime on an international level.