Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to inform the House that the General Assembly of the United Nations has declared 2004 the international year to commemorate the struggle against slavery and its abolition.
Mr. Speaker, 2004 marks the 170th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Canada. It was in Canada, over 200 years ago, that the first anti-slavery legislation in the British empire.
We can be proud of the fact that slavery is now prohibited. Unfortunately, more than 25 million people around the world are still suffering today because of illegal slavery. As we commemorate today the formal abolition of slavery in the 19th century, let us not forget those still victims of it.