Mr. Speaker, in recent days, letters from students of Mr. Mitchell Bubulj's grade 11 genocide and crimes against humanity class at Silverthorn Collegiate Institute have been arriving at my office. These students are part of a groundbreaking course studying genocide, established by the Toronto District School Board.
The students are profoundly moved by the horror and scale of man's inhumanity toward other human beings: the Holocaust, the Holodomor, Rwanda, and today Darfur.
Braden Page wrote, “every month 5,000 lives are lost in Darfur”. Alicia Rogers noted, “the genocide in Darfur in relation to Ontario...would be like wiping out all of Toronto...so please help”.
The Toronto District School Board is to be congratulated for establishing this course. Mr. Bubulj is to be congratulated for implementing it at Silverthorn.
We often repeat the phrase “never again”. High school students from Toronto are asking their members of Parliament, when will we mean it?