Mr. Speaker, I, along with a full delegation of Canadians, recently visited Normandy, France, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day. I had the honour of standing on Juno Beach with some of the heroes who stormed that beach on June 6, 1944. They were the heroes who saved the world.
Those brave young Canadians who stormed the beaches of Normandy 80 years ago were the greatest generation. One of those heroes was 102-year-old Charles Davis of Windsor, Ontario, who arrived in Normandy on D-Day plus four and was part of the campaign inland as Canadians and our allies liberated Normandy from the Nazi invaders.
Canada is home to many such heroes, heroes who endured conditions unimaginable to most of us. They are heroes like Samuel Sharpe, then a Conservative member of Parliament who rose up a battalion from his riding and led them in Europe during the First World War. They are heroes like Lloyd Hamilton, a Métis soldier who once acted to save 80 Korean children from an orphanage during the Korean War. They are heroes like Nicole Langlois, who was part of the first deployment of female soldiers in a frontline role. They are heroes like Rick Mohr, whose surviving family was the first to receive a Memorial Cross awarded to a Persian Gulf veteran related to illness linked to his service. They are heroes like Jess Larochelle, whose courage while severely wounded in Afghanistan saved many of his fellow soldiers. Although awarded the Star of Military Valour, Jess tragically left us last year before ever seeing his government recognize him with the Victoria Cross that many feel he deserved.
They are heroes like the 66,000 Canadians who laid down their lives during the First World War. They are heroes like the 44,000 who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Second World War, the 516 who gave their lives in Korea and the 158 Canadian Armed Forces members who lost their lives in Afghanistan.
Let us never forget that these are not just numbers or statistics. They represent real people who laid down their lives for our freedoms. They were young men and women who had hopes and dreams that will forever go unrealized.
They did it for all of us, so that we could continue to live in freedom. They did it voluntarily, in the ultimate act of courage and sacrifice. It is a debt we can never repay.
In much the same way, there is never enough that we can do or say to thank those who served the country and came back forever changed. Whether their injuries are physical or psychological, they leave deep scars, often having a lasting impact on their relationships, on their families and on their futures. We owe it to them to ensure that what they fought for is never taken for granted.
We pay tribute to their loyal service and sacrifice. It is a great honour for me to be here today to express to them, on behalf of the leader of the official opposition, all common-sense Conservatives and all Canadians, our gratitude, our admiration and our deep respect, and to promise them that we will always be there for them, as they have been there for us.
My wife Carmen and I recently welcomed our little baby daughter Jade into the world, and when I think about the Canada that I want her to grow up in, it is one where we have heroes like Charles, Samuel, Lloyd, Nicole, Rick and Jess defending our freedoms and values. It is the Canada that tens of thousands who made the ultimate sacrifice gave their lives for. It is the one where those heroes and their families get the respect and appreciation they deserve, because the freedom for which they spilled their blood, the democracy for which they suffered and the sovereignty for which they died are not the property of this generation to surrender.
Let us all teach our children, as we will teach Jade, about these heroes and their bravery, about the constant battle of good versus evil, about freedom over tyranny. If we ask those veterans to tell us the single most important thing we could do to repay them, I know they would all say the same thing: to never take for granted that which they fought for, our freedoms.
Please join me and my colleagues, Canada's common-sense Conservatives, in making that commitment today. We pledge to uphold those freedoms. It is how we will honour their memories, thank them for their service and show our respect for their sacrifice. Freedom came at all costs, and at all costs we must ensure it is maintained.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.