Mr. Speaker, too often governments choose expediency over principle, chasing short-term wins instead of building a just, sustainable future. People and the planet pay the price, as with Canada recognizing Palestine as a state but refusing to use its power to stop the genocide or even allow the entrance of Palestinian Canadians back into the country. They are human beings. They matter.
I remember when my grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, finally let us open the family photo albums. My grandfather had forbidden it. The pain was too great. Page after page, I saw children, cousins, nieces, nephews whose lives were stolen. I grew up without a family because of genocide.
Today I think of Palestinian families facing this devastation, children robbed of futures, parents and grandparents, lonely. Recognition is not enough. We must act now to stop this genocide.