Mr. Speaker, today is the 73rd anniversary of the Soviet regime's brutal deportation of the Crimean Tatars. On May 18, 1944, Soviet forces ripped Crimean Tatars from their homes. They packed them onto cattle cars and sent them on a long, dark journey to central Asia. Thousands died. It was an attempt to eradicate a small nation from the very face of the earth. In other words, it was genocide.
Today Crimean Tatars face renewed peril at the hands of Vladimir Putin's illegal occupation. Once again they face attacks on their freedom of speech, their faith, and, in many cases, their lives. The same evil ideology is at play in the Soviet regime's attempt to destroy the Crimean Tatars and in modern-day Russia's theft of Crimea from Ukraine.
The Liberal government must do more to stop this Russian aggression.