Mr. Speaker, as we look at this and reflect on what happened, many members have raised the issue of the treatment of young children as they came here and what happened to them, based on the circumstances they faced in their home countries before they left.
As a young boy, I travelled to this country with my parents in 1963. It was a land we did not know and a place where we had no relatives or friends. I think back to those days of being a youngster. I was the eldest of a brother, two sisters and a subsequent brother who was born here. I felt lonely when I came here, but I had my parents, my brother and my two sisters.
I think of what it must have felt like for those very young children. As I described earlier, there was a little one who had a steamer trunk and those tiny shoes. I think about the sort of feelings that little one must have had, as those children travelled all those miles. In those days, they would have travelled by sea. They did not fly over the great ocean like I did, on what was then the 707 Boeing jetliner, which was the largest in the world. It seemed like a celebration.
Yet when I arrived on these shores, I felt lonely for my grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, extended family and friends with whom I had grown up as a child. In my heart, I knew I would probably never see them again. However, thanks to technology and the way certain circumstances unfolded, I did get to see my grandparents and some closer relatives again, but I did not see many others. My great grandfather was alive when I left. I was able to see him one more time before he died at the ripe old age of 94. It left a great hole in my life and indeed a hole in my heart.
For those youngsters who never saw their families again for the rest of their lives, and many did not, knowing they had family must have left big holes in their hearts. They would have remembered the families they had left, even if they were taken away from their home country by family. They travelled such great distances in the early part of the 20th century, knowing for certain they would never see them again. Perhaps they were in untoward circumstances, not to lay the blame today.
I thank the member for bringing the motion forward. The organizations really had great intentions. Unfortunately, the reality did not meet the intentions in a lot of cases. Again, let us celebrate the place where those were met with welcoming families, as the leader of the Bloc said earlier about his grandfather. He was with a family who was joyous to receive him and welcomed him into its home. The family helped him flourish and nourished him, not only from a physical perspective, but from a spiritual one and in a holistic way so he grew to be the man that the leader of the Bloc understood as his grandfather, a great human being. Yet he still did not want to talk about those days and the great piece of them gone missing.
We talked about the 12% of Canadians derived from the stock of those home children. The dilemma is that it is a huge piece of this society, but it is a huge story left untold because of the unnecessary shame they felt. Those youngsters should never have felt shame. They should have simply moved on and said that their stories were important and should be continued.
Therefore, I thank the member and congratulate him. I will surely stand in my place for that.