Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House today to speak to Motion No. 207, a motion put forward in this House by the member for Chatham-Kent—Leamington, to designate May 5 as Dutch heritage day.
I was really moved, in particular, by the previous speaker's story of what it took for his mother's side of the family to make its way to Canada and establish a new life in Canada.
The story of my existence is very similar in terms of the struggles of my grandparents to come to Canada. My grandparents, Pierre and Gonnie Gerretsen, were two young newlyweds living in Hilversum, which is about 20 minutes outside Amsterdam, in Holland. They too had great hopes for their lives and what they could accomplish and the family they could have. They owned a small corner store, which I have had the opportunity to visit on a couple of occasions, where they sold various goods to people in the neighbourhood. They had three children: my father, who is the middle child; an older brother, Peter; and a younger sister, Marijke.
Their story really changed a lot during the Second World War. When the Germans finally decided to invade Holland, as the previous speaker mentioned, many Dutch males were taken away from their families to work in factories and fight the war on behalf of the Germans. What ended up happening to my grandfather is that he spent a considerable amount of time, like many Dutch men at that time, hiding from the Germans to make sure that he was not going to be ripped away from his family.
When my grandfather was finally liberated, it was the Canadian soldiers who were liberating Holland. He saw these Canadian soldiers marching through the streets and liberating his country, and I am convinced that it was at that point that he determined that he wanted to move to Canada.
A number of years later, in 1954, my grandparents, who were in their 30s at that time, took their three young children and boarded a boat to go to another part of the world that was not easily accessible at the time. Later in life, I met Joke Gerretsen, who is my father's cousin, who recounted that when they stood on the dock to watch their cousins leave, their mother said that they would never see them again. They left to go to another part of the world in an era when it was not easy to get on an airplane and be in another part of the world. They came here, and after a short period of time, ended up in Kingston.
As the previous speakers have said, the Dutch people have contributed immensely to Canadian culture. I will talk about a couple of personality traits I saw in both my grandfather and my grandmother. In particular, the Dutch were very resourceful people. Having very little money, my grandfather purchased a piece of former prison farmland in the Kingston area that he was going to build a house on. Not having a lot of money to buy the materials to build the house, he went to another site, where they were tearing down other houses to build a shopping centre, and he literally disassembled a house, piece by piece, and used those materials to build the house that is still standing today and that my aunt lives in. It just shows their resourcefulness.
From my experience, the Dutch are also extremely friendly and outgoing. My father, who served a long time in politics, both at the municipal level and later in the provincial legislature, credits the first time he was elected to my grandmother, Gonnie Gerretsen. She had a small hair salon in the basement of their house and would tell the ladies who came to have their hair done that they had better vote for her son John. He credits his first city council win to that.
They also have a reputation, and I think many Dutch people are extremely proud of it, for being a little bit frugal. There is some truth to that. I have witnessed that. I will tell members how it has benefited Canada.
Back in 1984, the Dutch community in Kingston decided it was going to build a not-for-profit seniors home. As a lot of Dutch people were getting to the age of retirement, community members wanted a seniors home, so they built an apartment building they called the Dutch Heritage Villa in Kingston.
To build it, they accessed some money from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. They were so successful at building this home under budget that they tried to return leftover money back to CMHC. One of the things I find so remarkable about that particular project is that even when they built it, with the intention of having retired Dutch seniors move into this home in Kingston, they never planned to have it be exclusively for Dutch heritage. They wanted everybody to live there, anybody who was interested in living with them.
One of the things I found the most impressive about both my grandparents is that as much as they were Dutch, and as much as they knew where their heritage and roots originally began, they were equally proud to be Canadian. My dad tells a great story from 1994, when the World Cup was happening in the United States. There was an exhibition game played in Toronto between Canada and Holland.
My dad took my grandfather to this exhibition game, and my grandfather showed up there with the Dutch flag, ready to support the Dutch team in this World Cup exhibition game. As soon as he walked in and saw the Dutch on one side and the Canadians on the other, my grandfather put down his Dutch flag and said that he would be supporting Canada. He said that he lived in Canada now and this was the team he would be supporting.
This is not just the story of Dutch people moving to Canada. This is the story of Canada. Canada is such a young country, at 151 years old. What makes Canada so unique is that it has had the opportunity to see people come from throughout the world to establish new roots in Canada. Unlike some other parts of the world that have become more of a melting pot, in Canada we encourage people to celebrate those differences and the diversity we have.
Last weekend, I was at an event put on by members of the India-Canada Association of Kingston. They talked about the heritage of India and it being 5,000 years old. A lot happens in 5,000 years. When we think of Canada, which is 151 years old, it is a new country. What ends up happening is that our heritage is those various different places we have come from throughout the world. The reality is that unless we are of indigenous descent, we are all immigrants and have all come here throughout the last 151 years to establish new roots in this country.
I am extremely proud to speak and vote in favour of this motion. It gives me great pride to stand here today and talk about my Dutch heritage, as I know other members have. I look forward to voting on this when it comes before the House next week.