Mr. Speaker, 100 years ago, in 1917, two ships collided in Halifax harbour. One, the SS Mont-Blanc, was laden with high explosives destined for the western front in France. It caused the largest human-made explosion the world had ever known. Four hundred acres of my hometown were erased from the map while shards of molten iron fell from the sky miles away. Two thousand people were killed and another 9,000 people were injured. Most of us know this as the story of the Halifax explosion.
However, there is another part of the story that we do not tell often enough. It is the part where our community came together after the explosion to rebuild our city. It is the story of our regeneration. In one famous photograph taken mere weeks after the explosion, amidst the devastation can be seen a poster nailed to the boarded-over shop windows. It reads, “We Shall Never Rebuild Halifax Unless Everybody Works.”
We plucky Haligonians did rebuild Halifax. A century later, there is no other place I would rather call home, raise my daughter, or represent in Canada's Parliament.