Mr. Speaker, I am truly honoured to speak on behalf of my leader and the Liberal Party of Canada as we honour our veterans today in the House of Commons. I want to say at the outset how profoundly I appreciate what veterans have done for Canada in the cause of peace around the world.
As I was preparing my thoughts for today, I was trying to imagine what it must have been like to have served during war. I wondered what it would have been like landing on Juno Beach, or pressing on through the night's skies over occupied Europe, or crossing the North Atlantic in a Corvette during winter wondering if a U-boat was lurking, or fighting at Vimy Ridge or any other Canadian battlefield from Kapyong to Kandahar.
I tried to imagine what it was like to come face to face with the enemy, ready to fight and yet, undoubtedly, worried, to be both brave and human at the same time. I wonder what it was like to be in a fox hole, homesick perhaps, thinking of family, a wife or a sweetheart, or to contemplate what it would have been like to lose a friend on the battlefield and the pain and sadness that would have inflicted on the heart and mind. These are not experiences I would wish to have in my life, but for hundreds of thousands of Canadians this is exactly what they confronted and endured. We, as a country, owe them so much for that.
War and tyranny are awful realities of human history and, sadly, they continue to exist today. Just as war and conflict are realities of the human experience, so are heroism and sacrifice. It is that sacrifice and heroism that brings us here today. None of us here wish to glorify war but we do commit to glorify the men and women who gave themselves for a cause that was greater than themselves.
I am reminded of the wonderful sentiment expressed by John Stuart Mill, who said:
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
That captures the essence of our brave veterans.
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 2011, I urge all Canadians to observe a two minute wave of silence.
I will close with a story from my home province. Two young men, about the same age, were back on the Island for the summer. Each had recently encountered a life-altering experience. One of them had done an extended tour of duty in Afghanistan as a reservist and the other had just completed a rookie season as a defenceman with the Boston Bruins, capped off by winning the Stanley Cup. The hockey player said to the young soldier, “You're a hero”. The soldier looked at the Stanley Cup champion and said, “I'm a hero? You won the Stanley Cup”. The hockey player replied, “I wouldn't have died for it”.