Madam Speaker, I would like to see a big headline in the newspaper, as early as tomorrow, reading “Canada fulfills its obligations”. In this case it is an obligation. Abraham Lincoln once said that nobody has the right to do the wrong thing. What the government is doing now is the wrong thing.
This can be changed by regulation. It does not require legislation.
Everyone in the House should know that many of these widows will be standing teary-eyed on November 11 at the site of the memorial knowing that they have been thoroughly discriminated against by this government. During the two minutes of silence, in which we are supposed to honour our veterans, their minds will go back to the government that brought dishonour upon widows who served this country equally as their husbands did who bore arms to go overseas.
We cannot wait and wait. We must move now before November 11 of this year. I plead with the government not to carry on this discrimination further, bring this to floor and announce this change so that it will be effective, as I have said previously in the House many times, by November 11. Let us pay tribute to our war widows. Let us not ignore them or discriminate against them.