Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in this debate and in the support for the motion by the hon. member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry.
As others have mentioned, this is not the most important issue facing Canada today, but it does recognize that naval traditions are important to people who serve in the navy, who serve our country, those who have served and those who are followers of naval tradition in our country. They are an important group of people. They serve or have served our country. They are fully supportive of this, and we can certainly offer our support today.
However, I wonder why it needs a motion of Parliament to make this change. No doubt there will be unanimous consent. I believe the member or his representatives have consulted with all parties in advance of bringing this motion forward. Surely the Minister of National Defence and the government could do this in the 100th anniversary year of the Canadian navy without a motion of Parliament.
We bring motions to Parliament and get them passed all the time, and the government does not even follow them. Perhaps the member feels his government will not do this unless there is a motion of Parliament to support him. I do not know. I do not want to get into that. We should keep on the high road with respect to the motion.
It is part of naval tradition going back, as I understand from my research, to the time of the Crimean War and the British navy. There may be some dispute about the facts, but my information from a Canadian website, ReadyAyeReady.com, which supports the navy and naval traditions, says that almost all the navies in the world, with the exception of the French and the American, have this naval curl, or 'Elliott's Eye' as it is called, as a part of their naval insignia. Maybe the member has other information, but that is what I have been told.
It was obviously a part of the Canadian navy tradition starting in 1910 when we first had our own navy separate from that of the British navy upon which we relied until then for naval protection.
The Canadian navy has played a very important role through the decades in my province of Newfoundland and Labrador and in the country. The Canadian navy was very active during the second world war.
In the Battle of the Atlantic, the Canadian navy played a tremendous role with convoy duty and also in protecting North American shores because there were torpedoes and U-boat activity in Newfoundland waters during the second world war. Ships were sunk, including a ferry called The Caribou running between North Sydney and Newfoundland. It was sunk by enemy action during the second world war, with great loss of life. The Canadian navy was very important to the defence of Canada and North America.
I think there is a lot of sentiment within the navy for the return of this naval curl as a distinctive mark of its uniform. We fully support that. It is important that this be done by the government this year. I believe there is strong support within the naval community, certainly within the armed forces, to do that.
Some of these traditions of the individual services were lost with unification in 1968. The colours of the uniform have been restored. I think the people in uniform like that. The navy is particularly fond of tradition. I think even the use of the colour blue in naval uniforms goes back, according to my very limited research, to around 55 BC when the Roman navy used the colour blue for its uniform.
It is a very long tradition for the navy to keep certain things that may be symbolic to it and important to it as part of its distinctiveness and the pride it has in its service to its country.
We do support this. The member is doing his job to bring matters before Parliament that are of interest to people. No doubt he was prompted to do that by people in the service who would like to see this happen. It is certainly appropriate for this Parliament to discuss matters of this importance.
There is a lot of time to criticize government policy on the budget, as we did earlier today, and will in the defence committee and other circles. We will certainly take every opportunity to do that.
However, as far as this motion goes, the member has brought up something that is important for us to support. He can count on the support of our caucus in this measure.
I hope, at least this time, the government will follow through on a motion of Parliament because I am sure the motion will be passed.