Mr. Speaker, today Canada pauses to remember the Holocaust.
In part we pause that the six million who died will not be forgotten. In part we pause to honour the righteous gentiles who risked their own lives that others might be saved. But mostly we remember so that the words “never again” will have real meaning.
It has been 60 years since the Shoah, but in those six decades “never again” has become “again and again”. The Holocaust, which should have been the genocide to end all genocides, the atrocity which would teach humanity at last to be civilized, has been forgotten by governments in other corners of the world, or else it has taught them another, much more sinister lesson.
The murder by governments of people due to their national, ethnic, racial, or religious group membership continues. Sometimes the world finds it convenient to look away, as Canada looked away when the Jewish refugees aboard the ship St. Louis arrived off our shores in 1939 and were turned back to Europe.
There have been times in our past when this nation has not done its duty. Therefore, let us say, never again.