Madam Speaker, today we remember the victims of the Pontian Greek genocide, who were brutally exterminated and oppressed a century ago. The Ottoman Empire carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against its Christian Greek population during the first World War.
A period of horrific violence took place until 1922, during which hundreds of thousands of Greek Pontians were incarcerated, deported, forced into death marches or systematically executed. Sadly, since these acts of intolerance, violence and hate took place, the world must still learn from our past to prevent similar acts from ever taking place again.
On behalf of our Conservative caucus, I join with the Greek community and all Canadians in remembrance of this horrific chapter in human history. We must never again let atrocities like these happen and always speak out against systemic discrimination and injustices.