Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the House passed a motion to confer honorary Canadian citizenship on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi for her self-sacrifice, commitment to democracy and for refusing to capitulate to a corrupt dictatorship.
She has been denied the opportunity to lead her people even though she convincingly won the election in 1990. Now the people of Burma are running the gauntlet of beatings, arrests and killings by the dictatorship. What is next? More violence, anarchy or civil war?
One thing is obvious: If people are denied the right to peacefully and democratically choose their government, they will march in the streets. If they are denied the right to march in the streets, violence will follow. If protests are violently suppressed, anarchy or civil war will follow.
There are brave people in Burma and I salute those who accept the dangers of challenging the gun-toting goons of the dictatorship to claim their democratic rights. The people's voice cannot be silenced, it will eventually be heard.