Mr. Speaker, with greatest respect to the member, there are so many things he said that are just not true. I was here for the parliamentary secretary's speech. I asked her a question. The argument she rests on is this supposed ICC process, without appreciating the fact that every member of the European Union is also a signatory to the International Criminal Court and they have all had no problem agreeing, through the European parliament, to recognize this as a genocide. This is not a process that any other country seems to feel is absolutely required before declaring this a genocide. This is a process that the Liberal government has created as cover because it does not want to call it a genocide for whatever reason.
The previous prime minister did call this a genocide. A motion in the House was not necessary because it was well understood and repeatedly communicated by the Canadian government. When we took power, I remember repeatedly asking members of the government questions about whether it recognized this as a genocide. This was during the debate we had about involvement in Daesh. We earlier sought a unanimous consent motion, and now we have this opposition day motion today.
We repeatedly raised this issue when we were in government and now in this Parliament, and I think the record will show that. Why are we pushing this issue? Why does this matter? Why do words matter? Words matter and words are important. That is why we take the denial of genocide in other cases so seriously because recognizing the reality of genocide is how we respond to them. It is the first necessary step to respond to them. It is why it is so important to the Yazidi community that we recognize genocide because it understands that is a necessary step to condemning genocide there and everywhere. It is a necessary part of the response that we use words correctly.