Mr. Speaker, in 1926 a black historian in the United States, Carter G. Woodson, launched Negro History Week, which evolved into Black History Month in 1976, the year of the American bicentennial.
The City of Montreal began officially recognizing Black History Month in 1991, and the House of Commons and National Assembly soon followed suit.
Those public institutions share one objective—to recognize the cultural, economic and political contributions of blacks to our collective wealth. We will never forget that our history has been marked by the dreadful system of slavery, which cost black populations so dearly.
The Bloc Québécois is calling on the federal Parliament to designate August 23 as the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition and to recognize the slave trade as a crime against humanity.