Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Yesterday, during debate on Bill C-4, the member for Trinity—Spadina said, in reference to the passengers of the SS St. Louis, in 1939, “They came without a lot of documentation and arrived on the shore of Halifax and Canada sent them away”.
This is an attempt to revise historical fact, as the passengers on the St. Louis had full documentation, including passports issued by the government of Nazi Germany stamped with a large j on them, plus entry visas for Cuba. However, Cuba turned them away due to the j on their passports.
The member for Trinity—Spadina owes the House, Holocaust survivors and the memory of the six million an apology for these unfounded spurious remarks.
What the minister is proposing in Bill C-4 is a process to determine whether undocumented people arriving on Canadian shores are bona fide refugees or not.
The 300 men and 650 women and children on the SS St. Louis were turned away, not because of lack of documentation, but because their documentation identified them as Jews.
As a child of a Holocaust survivor, I am appalled at her attempt to revise history and denigrate the memory of those who perished in the gas chambers at Auschwitz and the memory of the six million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis to the boatloads of migrants recently arriving on Canadian shores with no or questionable documentation.
I call on the member for Trinity—Spadina to stand in her place today and take this opportunity to apologize.