Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to lend support to the Ukrainian-Canadian community in my riding, which has expressed its shock and outrage to me regarding the recent statement issued by the Liberal Party celebrating the Soviet Victory Day in Ukraine.
This holiday was created by the Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev, but it was certainly not celebrated by Ukrainians, as the end of World War II set off the Soviet reign of terror and domination.
The Soviets tried to crush Ukrainian culture, historical memory and aspirations of self-determination and subjected Ukrainians to starvation, mass arrest, execution and deportation to the Gulag. This was certainly no victory.
I ask that my parliamentary colleagues join me in demanding that the leader of the Liberal Party apologize for his party's deeply insensitive statement, which is still online. I call on the Liberal critic for multiculturalism to apologize for his profoundly ignorant comments in the House yesterday, referring to Ukraine as “the Ukraine” as if it were a Russian province.