Mr. Speaker, today is Holocaust Memorial Day, a day when we remember the six million Jews and many others who were killed by the Nazis.
Many of my relatives were among the victims. My grandmother, a half-Jew living in Germany at the time, survived but not without suffering the loss of her grandparents, cousins, and many friends.
My relatives could have left Germany earlier, but stayed behind because they did not believe that such unspeakable evil was possible in their civilized society.
As uncomfortable as it may be, the Holocaust forces us to contemplate evil and how we respond to it. We must never be afraid to call evil what it is. When we say, “Never again”, it is time we mean it.
Fighting evil had a cost in World War II and it has a cost today. My grandmother was always grateful that Canada was prepared to pay the cost in her time.
Let us be firm in our resolve when we say, “Never again”.