Mr. Speaker, I rise to mourn the death of the president of Poland and the 95 other Polish leaders who died in Saturday's tragic airplane crash.
President Kaczynski was a defender of freedom, one of those courageous Poles who took a stand to put an end to half a century of repression and bring down an entire empire.
The shock of this weekend is compounded by the 70th anniversary of the massacre at Katyn, a place of infamy in Polish history, now darkened by this tragedy.
Today, everyone in the House stands in grief and solidarity with the people of Poland and with the Polish Canadian community. We honour the lives of the victims, including some of Poland's most distinguished citizens. We recall with gratitude the immense contribution made by Polish people to our life in Canada and we venerate Poland's unquenchable passion for freedom.