Mr Speaker, yesterday’s anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz is iconic in the struggle against anti-Semitism. Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of the shooting at the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec, equally iconic of our opposition to Islamophobia. The two hatreds are two sides of the same coin.
Therefore, yesterday it was appropriate to say “never again” on behalf of all victims of anti-religious hatred, regardless of their faith. Likewise, tomorrow the best way to show solidarity with Canada’s Muslims is to pledge ourselves to oppose anti-religious violence, regardless of the target.
To deprive the simplistic ideologies of group identity and group hatred of oxygen, we must never, even in the name of sympathy, single out the victim groups as the existential “other”. They are us. Yesterday, there was a sense that we were all Jews. Tomorrow, there will be a sense that we are all Muslims. Every day, we are all family.