Mr. Speaker, Ramadan is a blessed and revered month for Muslims all over the world. The word sawm, or fasting, is one of the five major pillars of Islam.
Fasting is not just abstaining from eating and drinking from dusk to dawn. It teaches a person the principles of compassion and it indoctrinates patience and selflessness, as through fasting we feel the pains of deprivation but endure them patiently. It creates in a person the real spirit of social belonging, unity, and brotherhood, of equality before God as well as before the law.
We break our fast each night after sundown with an iftar dinner, and I look forward to sharing many iftars with the community and with my parliamentary family as we work hard on the people's business in the days and weeks ahead.
To all Canadian Muslims, I wish them Ramadan kareem and Ramadan mubarak.