Mr. Speaker, on the fourth Saturday of every November, Canadians join Ukrainians around the world to remember the Soviet-forced famine and genocide of 1932-33 called the Holodomor.
Joseph Stalin's Communist regime deliberately killed millions of people in Ukraine for being Ukrainian. Stalin wanted to exterminate their language, culture, religion and identity. After he eliminated the clergy, political leaders, academics and farmers, he then weaponized food. To grasp the scale of this genocide in Ukraine, we can imagine stripping bare every grocery store, home, farm, fridge and cupboard across western Canada today and then watching every man, woman and child slowly starve to death. That is the horror millions of Ukrainians endured.
Stalin and his Soviet thugs failed to Russify Ukraine then, and Vladimir Putin and his Russian barbarians will fail in his Russification of Ukraine today. This week, as we remember the victims of the Holodomor, we stand with those fighting for Ukraine's very survival.
May their memories be eternal. Vichnaya pamyat.