Mr. Speaker, on Holocaust Remembrance Day we reaffirm our pledge never to forget.
Today I rise to ask the government to honour its commitment to Holocaust-era property restitution and compensation. When Nazis occupied central and eastern Europe, residents were subject to widespread property confiscation, much of which was never returned to its rightful owners. To this day, these victims remain uncompensated. Appropriate compensation would afford survivors of the Holocaust who have already endured the unfathomable some security and relief in their later years.
Over 40,000 Holocaust survivors have settled in Canada. We are home to the third-largest concentration of survivors in the world. Canada must uphold the Ottawa Protocol on Combating Anti-Semitism and the Terezin Declaration.
The past cannot be changed, but that does not absolve us of our responsibilities to survivors today. It would be fitting for our government to renew its commitment to Holocaust-era property restitution as but the smallest measure of justice for survivors' unthinkable losses.